Honor Unraveled (29 page)

“You did not.”

“I knew where you were at all times.”

Ivy shook her head. “I thought I was doing an excellent job of stalking you. I really thought I was getting the better of you.”

“I know. And you laughed every time a paintball hit me.”

“Did it hurt? I shouldn’t have been so gleeful.”

“I’d give anything to hear you laugh like that again.” His arms tightened around her. “You used to laugh like that. When we were in school. I can remember it so clearly.” She felt him kiss her head. “So, Iv, no more dating other guys?”

Panic froze her jaw. She had to force the words from her mouth. “I have one more.” One more. A few more days to get things straight in her mind. Her heart already knew what she wanted; she just had to figure out how to rein in her terror.
 

He sighed. “Okay.” Pulling away from her, he rolled to his back.
 

It was a long, long time before she let sleep take her.

* * *

Kit didn’t sleep. He lay awake, his hands folded beneath his head as he stared up at the stars. He couldn’t take much more. When he and Ivy were together, they were amazing. But always, the fear and reservation crept back into her mind.
 

“I have one more.”
One more date. One last hurdle. One last time to watch her give herself to another man.

When was he ever going to be enough? Just himself? Just his heart?

He sat up, pushing free of the sleeping bag. He rested his arms on his bent knees. He’d never been enough. He hadn’t been enough to keep his mom from her drugs. He hadn’t been worthy enough for his dad to see him as a son. And he wasn’t man enough or worthy enough for Ivy, the only woman he could ever see himself with.

And fuck that shit.

She had one more date. And then it was decision time. He was in or out, whatever she chose. He was fucking done with maybe.

Worried his restlessness would wake Ivy, Kit got up and got dressed. He was tying his boots when he heard the motorcycles. Riders were over by the ghost town, a couple of hills away. He looked over to his camp, where Ivy was sleeping. The fire had dimmed to mere embers. He poured water over it, then packed up their camp—just in case they needed to make a quick exit.

He didn’t wake Ivy. He wanted to check out what was happening. He geared up with a Kevlar vest, strapped his weapon to his leg, and grabbed a pair of night-vision goggles. With one last look at Ivy, he put his comm equipment on and jogged the distance between their camp and the last hill overlooking the town.

“Kit, come in. Kit, do you copy?”
Greer growled into his ear.

“I’m here.”

“Been trying to reach you.”

“Copy that. What’s up?”

“What’s your twenty?”

“I’m on BLM land, four clicks from Blade’s property line. Why?”

“Max checked in. The WKB are on the move, heading in your direction.”

“Yeah. I got eyes on them.”

“Max said they have Amir and are moving him to a safe location. The guys are en route.”

“Blade with them?”

“Affirmative.”
 

“Tell him they’re at the old ghost town.”

“Copy that,”
Blade answered.
“I have your Jeep’s location. We’re headed toward you.”

“Take a wide arc to the south. And don’t come in until I tell you to. Ivy needs to dress.” Kit jogged back to camp. He knelt next to Ivy. Touching her shoulder, he gave her a gentle shake. “Iv—you need to wake up.”

She startled awake, leaning up on her elbow. “Kit?” She looked around. It was still dark. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to get back to the house.” He handed her her clothes, then held up the top sleeping bag, protecting her from curious eyes of the guys.

Ivy pulled her shirt on, then pulled her jeans on and knelt to fasten the zipper.
 

“The sleeping bag wasn’t necessary, Kit. We weren’t looking,”
Val complained via their comm units.

Kit gritted his teeth. When Ivy was putting her sneakers on, he turned his mic on. “It’s clear. You can come in now.”

“What’s going on?” Ivy asked, frowning up at him. “You broke camp already.”

Kit rolled up the last sleeping bag, then he tackled the self-inflating pads. He wanted to get her out of there fast. “The WKB have moved into the ghost town. Angel is going to take you back to the house.”

The guys stepped silently out of the shadows. They were covered head to foot in black and were in full-on mission mode, so no warm fuzzies from them. Which hit Ivy wrong.
 

“Let’s go, Ivy.” Angel stepped forward and took her arm.

She yanked herself free and faced Kit. “Wait. Kit. Tell me you’re going to be okay.”

He tossed the sleeping bags and pads in the back seat of the Jeep, then looked at her as they stood next to the Jeep. She was truly afraid for him. He reached a hand up and cupped the back of her head. “I’ll be fine. Nothing big’s happening tonight. Please. Go home with Angel.” He pulled her toward him and kissed her forehead. She fisted his T-shirt, tightening it around his waist. He reached around her and opened the passenger side door for her. “Go home. Stay at the house, Iv.” Kit tapped the side of the car and stepped back, but made the mistake of looking at her before Angel pulled away. The moonlight spilled over her, illuminating the fear in her face. Fear for him. God, he hoped that meant she was close to surrendering.

“I have one more,”
she’d said. One last date with another guy.
 

He would survive that challenge. He knew how to win a fight. And this was one battle he wasn’t going to lose.

* * *

Max leaned against a splintery support beam in front of an old storefront. Under other circumstances, the old ghost town would have piqued his interest. He might have climbed through the buildings and wondered about the long-gone people who’d made it their home. Rotten luck that the highway had come through so far south early in the last century.
 

Two Harleys screamed past him, kicking up a thick cloud of fine dust as the two hang-arounds representing each region raced toward a little bottle of beer. They were having a challenge to see which of them could get—and drink—the most beers before crashing. If they fell or missed after a couple of attempts, another hang-around took their place. The guy nearest Max captured the beer this time. He spun his bike around at the far end of the little town and roared back through, guzzling the beer.
 

This thrilled the rest of the gangbangers, who held up lanterns and shouted the contestants on. Two full patch members were running bets on their riders. The bastards were going to get themselves killed. When that happened, Max would be goddamned if he didn’t leave their bloody, mangled bodies to water the sagebrush and feed the scavengers.

Feeling the weight of someone’s gaze, Max looked over. Amir Hadad stood in front of him. He wore the club’s cuts—with patches—and slim designer jeans over a pair of crispy new cowboy boots. Here Max was worried about the fucktards riding to their deaths when the real threat stood among the bystanders, his eyes gleaming, a viper among men.
 

“You are not a fan of such displays?” Amir asked him, his voice soft and lyrical with its Middle Eastern accent.

The bikes came back by, drowning out their conversation. Max waited for them to pass. “What pisses me off is you wearing patches you didn’t earn.”

“This vest was given to me by your leader. It was a gift. Do you not think I have done enough for your tribe to have earned it?”

“We’re not a tribe. We’re a motorcycle club. And whether you’ve earned it remains to be seen. You’ve set two factions against each other. A ballsy move, ’cause these guys are blood loyal to each other, not an outsider.”

“What do I care if there is a war? In fact, let there be one. I will partner with only the strongest: the survivors.”

The bikers passed by again. Max waited for them to move on. “This isn’t the Hindu Kush. We do things differently here. You need to up your game.”

“Men are the same in all countries. As are warriors. Are you not interested in the riches I offer your people?”

Max laughed. “Talk’s cheap, Amir. Let’s just say I have to see it to believe it.”

The tenor of the gathering changed. Max’s gaze threaded through the crowd. What caused the shift in energy? The bikers had quit racing. The gamblers were settling up. The old saloon on this side of the road had warm lantern light glowing inside. More people had arrived, including the women who hung with the guys, offering sex for drugs.
 

The girls were over-thin, wearing short skirts, leather halter tops, knee-high black boots. Dark makeup ringed their eyes. Tattoos covered various parts of their arms and upper bodies, the markings not so much artistic as designating ownership. The lipstick they wore was so dark a red, it looked black in the shadowy light. They were a freakish mash-up of Malibu beach babes and zombie wenches.
 

One of them separated from the crowd and came over to drape herself over him, stepping so close that his leg was between hers. She leaned into him. He looked at her, trying to see the woman beneath the weird thing she’d turned herself into. She smiled at him, showing teeth that were still white. She wasn’t the skin and bones the other girls were. Probably a recent addict.

“You’re with me tonight,” she purred, following her comment up with a tentative stroke across his crotch.
 

He looked over at Amir, saw him looking the girl over, his gaze fixed on her ass.
 

“I don’t think so, sweetheart.”

“C’mon, Mad Dog. You know I’m the best here.”

“I don’t have any drugs and I don’t want sex tonight. So not interested.”

She rubbed his crotch, which dutifully heated up. “That’s not what your body says.”

He pulled her hand away. “Take a hike.”

She reached an arm up around his neck. Turning her head away from the crowd, she whispered in his ear, “Pete ordered me to be with you. Let me hang with you tonight. Please. I don’t like pissing him off.”

A chill swept down Max’s back. There were echoes of another woman in the way she looked at him, the way she held him. He’d taken a freelance job a few years back when he’d first climbed into WKB hell. A father had come to him, begging him to get his daughter out of the club. The man was a relative of a neighbor who’d seen him wearing his patches. He’d gotten the girl out, detoxed her, and delivered her to her father, only to hear she’d gone back in a few months later and OD’d. It fucking sucked.
 

“I know you like pain. I can deal,” she whispered.
 

Max gritted his teeth. “That’s one thing in your favor, then.”

“Please.”

He fisted her hair and kissed her. Her mouth was surprisingly fresh for a girl half dead. He wrapped an arm around her neck and turned her toward the boardwalk. More club members were arriving, joining the crush, filling the road between the dilapidated buildings. The election was going to be held in a couple of days. The mood ran high among the bikers. The club had moved over here because the Easterners wanted neutral ground. And Pete wanted Amir tucked away from the prying eyes of the cops.
 

Several kegs had been tapped. Beers were being handed around. Veins were being opened. Heroin was being offered, thanks to Amir’s generosity. And everything that could be smoked was. As Max watched, one of the bikers pulled a girl away from her conversation with a few of the others, bent her over a railing, fumbled with his pants, then pushed himself into her and started pumping, in the middle of the crowd. The zombie Barbie he was pounding didn’t fight, didn’t cry, just stared with a vacuous gaze at the others who watched. Max wondered if she even knew what was happening.

She wasn’t the only female being used in the crowd.
 

The girl at his side stopped walking as she stared at the coupling. If he hadn’t had his arm around her shoulders, he would have missed the tremble that vibrated through her.

“Forget it.” He moved on through the crowd, trying to keep her from fixating on what was happening around them. “What’s your name, honey?”

“Rena.”

“Why’d you come to the club, Rena?”

She looked up at him and frowned, then stopped walking. Straightening her shoulders and setting her jaw, she glared up at him. “I’m going to do what’s expected of me.”

For the second time that night, she caused a chill to ripple over his skin as Greer’s visit popped into his mind.
“She was forced to do what she did. Said it was a tithe her parents owed King when she came of age.”
 

Was she the same girl Greer was talking about? If not, how many like her were there? And had King figured out who he was working for and sent her to off him?

“Your parents are okay with what you’re doing?”

“There’s a cost for our freedoms. It’s understood.”

“So, I ask again, why are you here?”