REIGN: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (21 page)

~
28
~

“Honey, I feel like there’s something wrong,” Reign said, tipping his
half-empty glass back and forth on the bar. His anger at her had long
dissipated, replaced by more sadness than he felt could possibly be held inside
one human.

“Sure. You miss ‘
er
. That’s what’s wrong,”
Honey said, keeping herself busy by wiping down the counter. She’d wiped that
thing a million times in her life behind that bar, and it always needed more
wiping. She sighed.
Some day off,
she
thought again.

After a few drinks with Endo, which had helped her think through the
details of what she knew and what she felt about the stranger, she’d been an
unhappy witness to Gabriella’s departure. Feeling the call of duty, knowing
that Reign needed her but wouldn’t come to her unless she was pouring his
drinks, she sent home the girl who’d been covering her shift and donned her
old, dirty apron.

“No, something else. I just…I just feel it,” Reign said, and his voice
sounded defeated. Honey’s heart went out to him. She bit her lip, keeping her
face away from his. He might look at her and see what she was thinking. What
she knew. He didn’t need to know anything about it; it would only make things
worse, and more dangerous. Better he thought she was flying high and free all
the way to Mexico.

“Leave the intuitions to me,
babycakes
,”
Honey said. She wished Reign would just get properly drunk, have himself a good
bawl, and wake up feeling fresh and new and ready to fuck some other girl. Lord
knew there were enough of them hanging around. But Honey had seen their
goodbye; she knew that it was going to take more than a few half-assed
performances by the ladies of Ditcher’s Valley to rid Reign of the pain in his
heart. Poor kid.

“You think she’ll be okay?” Reign asked, his voice not quite hopeful
but at least not as pathetic as it had been sounding.

“I got a feeling she’ll be just fine. Now drink up. The faster you get
drunk, the faster you get to forgetting her,” Honey said, really, really
wishing that Reign would give up the ghost and start taking shots like all the
other men did when some girl ran off on them. The less space he had in his mind
for rational thought, the better off he’d be.

“I don’t feel like drinking, and I don’t feel like forgetting,” he
said sourly, shoving his glass towards her. She caught it one-handed and
sighed.

“Ok, fine. You
wanna
remember her. So
remember her. Tell me what you’re
gonna
miss, I’m all
ears,” Honey said, stretching her hands out and looking straight at him. Their
eyes met and it took everything in her not to flinch. She didn’t want to lie to
Reign. She hated lying to her boys. But if she told him what she
really
felt, he’d likely do something
damned stupid, and it’d be her fault. She needed Reign’s blood on her hands
like she needed her ex-husband back.

“I don’t know. I don’t
wanna
talk about it,
either,” Reign said, his head slumping. Honey was relieved that she didn’t have
to put on that “everything’s okay” face anymore, but she also worried about the
soon-to-be President. He didn’t look good at all.

“You don’t
wanna
drink about it, you don’t
wanna
talk about it, what do you
wanna
do about it?”

“I
wanna
…shit, Honey, I don’t know. Maybe
I’ll go for a little ride,” Reign said.

“Maybe that’s a good idea,” Honey agreed, shaking her head and
resuming her endless bar-wiping. “But keep your mind on the road. You remember
what happened to Bull.”

“How could I forget?” Reign said. It was too easy to lose yourself in
thoughts and get yourself killed; that’s what had happened to Bull. Reign
didn’t plan on ending up like that poor sap.

Honey watched as Reign got up from the bar, moving as though his whole
body was made of lead. She wished she could take the weight off his shoulders,
but there was nothing she could do, and she knew it. She could only hope that
he’d leave what ailed him on the road. And that with Gabriella gone, there
wouldn’t be any worries about the mysterious man or her cop husband or any
other trouble she could have dragged in.

Reign let the door swing shut behind him and looked up at the
star-filled night. He remembered a similar night, only a day ago, when he’d
made Gabriella buck and come for him, then held her on the cooling sands. Only
a day ago, but it seemed like a lifetime.

He cursed the memory. He cursed her husband, for driving her into
Reign’s arms and then driving her away. He cursed her, for bewitching him and
then leaving. He cursed the night that seemed so cold and empty without her
voluptuous warmth at his side. He curse the club, for keeping him from
following her. He cursed Honey for not convincing her to stay. And he cursed
himself for falling in the first place, for letting himself slip just long
enough to get hurt worse than any physical beating he’d endured growing up.

With a roar and a screech, his tires turned the dust and he was gone,
riding into the empty night, wanting to feel as empty as the miles and miles
before him. Empty, at least, didn’t hurt.

~
29
~

“Are you really sure you need it?”

“That’s none of your business is it, partner? We agreed on this long
before I handed you your wife on a silver platter. You don’t want to be the
sort of man who goes back on his promises, do you?”

“What if I paid you more?”

“Well, for one thing, it’d help if you paid me the rest of what you
owed me at all. And if you
wanna
give me a nice bonus
for doing such a stellar job, I won’t say no. But we agreed on that toe, and
I’m taking that toe,” Silas said, his eyes glinting with annoyance.

He did not like the way his client was looking from his shivering,
gagged wife to Silas and back again. Gabriella had finally stopped screaming
through the dirty rag that stuffed her throat; her eyes, wide and wild, were
glued on Jeremy.

As well they should have been; in a twist of irony that anyone could
admire, the man she feared most had suddenly become the only thing between her
being the proud owner of ten toes and losing one of her little
piggies
. But, really, nothing Jeremy could do would save
her or her toes; Silas needed one, and he always got what he needed, one way or
another. He clicked the razor-sharp shears in his hand idly.

“C’mon, I don’t know what weird fetish you have but…”

“And it’s none of your business what weird fetish I have. I’m taking
one of those toes, and you can’t stop me,” Silas said, growing weary of the
conversation, which had already taken up too much of his time. He stepped
forward to Gabriella, who let out another strangled shriek.

Jeremy stared at his wife as Silas grew closer to her; she was shaking
her head wildly, her eyes pleading with him, begging him to help. Her swollen
eyes, black and blue and steadily looking worse. He’d done that to her. He
could remember doing it. He could remember what it felt like. It had felt so
good. Now he felt…almost guilty.

All those other times, he’d been right to hit her. She’d deserved it.
She’d deserved it this time, too. But maybe he’d gone a little bit overboard.
It looked like her nose was broken, and two huge cuts on her face would need
stitches. Not that she’d get them. Not professional stitches, anyway. He
couldn’t exactly take her to a hospital. But he wasn’t altogether inept with a
needle and thread, and he figured he could make do as well as any ER scrub.

The shears glinted in the sad, dusty light of the shack. Gabriella was
kicking her bound feet uselessly, hopelessly. Her eyes never left Jeremy’s. He
closed his eyes, but he could still see them in his vision, calling to him,
begging him to stand up and, for once in his life, take care of his woman.
Because she
was
his woman. His. And
no one else’s.

And that meant that Jeremy could do whatever he wanted to her, but no
other man should lay a hand on her. Not in friendship, not in love, and not in
violence. It was
wrong
for him to let
Silas do that to her. Determined, and putting on his best Colorado PD face, he
stepped behind Silas and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“You better listen to me now, buddy,” Jeremy growled. This Silas dude
seemed
tough, but how tough could he
actually be? And it wasn’t like Jeremy needed him anymore; Silas had handed
Gabriella back to her rightful owner, that was all. He’d get his money. Jeremy
thought of it as a reward for finding an errant puppy. That was the extent of
what Silas was owed, and Jeremy was going to enforce it. Just like he enforced
law on the streets and obedience in his home.

Silas felt the cop’s hand settle on his shoulder. Something in his
chest bubbled up, grew twice its size, threatened to burst. He did
not
like being touched. Not from behind
like that. And he did not like being called buddy, especially not in a tone of
voice like that.

Silas made a snap decision. He rarely made such decisions, but when he
did he trusted the instinct. Turning on his heel, he felt the satisfying crunch
of metal on flesh, heard the sound of meat being ripped, saw Jeremy’s eyes like
two broken saucers before him. Silas forced the shears, lodged deep into the
cop’s abdomen, to open up, spreading the hole until it gaped like the mouth of
hell.

Jeremy’s lips opened in a soundless cry, his hands falling to his gut.
Silas withdrew the shears, now bloodied and needing a cleaning. That was a shame.
Hot, red blood began to spread across Jeremy’s shirt, right in the center, his
stomach ripped open, pain dancing through him like a fevered ballerina. He’d
never known such pain.

Blackness flooded his eyes, and his head spun, began to detach from his
shoulders. It was as though he could look down and see himself, his hands
desperately but uselessly clutching his open flesh as if he could hold the
wound closed even as his blood poured from him, dripping onto the ground. He
saw Gabriella, her eyes closed, tears streaking clear paths across her bloodied
face as she fell to the side and heaved with sobs. Silas before him, looking
idly down at the shears, then back up at Jeremy expectantly. Waiting for him to
fall down, pass out, and die.

Jeremy didn’t want to give him the pleasure, but he had no choice.
First, he crumpled to his knees, now staring up at the devil who’d did this to
him, hating the feeling of kneeling before Silas almost as much as he hated the
feeling of his life leaving his body. He didn’t want to die like this, in this
submissive pose, like he was about to lick his boots.

Perhaps this is what you deserve though,
Jeremy’s mind flickered, the thought completely
blindsiding him. He crumpled next onto his hands, then onto the floor, where
his blood pooled around him, filling the room with the smell of metal. He
didn’t have many thoughts after that. The room spun, then disappeared, and then
everything disappeared, even his thoughts. Life pulsed through him once, twice,
three times…and then stopped. As suddenly as his life had begun, it was over.

Silas shook his head, looking around for a rag to wipe his shears on.
The body count was rising. He hated cleaning up after killings. He briefly
considered getting rid of the chick now, before she could cause any trouble.
Mostly just because it’s easier to dispose of two bodies at once than one body
twice.

But he figured it would be more helpful to have her alive in case of
emergency. If none of his other little gifts to Reign would compel him to come
save his damsel, her voice just might. He didn’t worry about the other half of
the money Jeremy owed him. He’d search the wallet, take what he found. He’d
make out like a bandit regardless. This was better, anyhow. He never fully
trusted the cop to keep his trap shut to his buddies on the force.

Gabriella stared at her husband’s lifeless body, unable to breathe or
swallow or do anything. He had been her last hope. Now she was locked up with
this maniac who wanted to cut off her toes.
And
kill me, too,
she thought, her mind growing hazy the more she looked at
Jeremy, his hands, once so full of violent energy, now limp and shapeless,
blood pooling around and between his fingers.

My husband is dead,
she thought from somewhere far off.
I’m finally safe.

Silas didn’t see it, but as Gabriella fell away into her own mind,
passing from consciousness to unconsciousness like a ghost passing through a
wall, she was laughing.