Love's Hope (The Unknowns Motorcycle Club Book 2) (7 page)

“What the fuck is going on?” the man said.

“Not your business,” Alex called, looking to the ground so the man wouldn’t have a clear description.

“This is a place of business,” the man said.
The graveyard shift,
Alex said.
Of course. Shit.

“Then get back to your business,” Alex called out.

“I will, as soon as I call the police. Better get a good running start, buddy.”

“This does not concern you,” Alex screamed to him, looking to the ground so the guy couldn’t get a straight look at his face.

“Last chance,” the man said. “I’m calling the police.”

Shit,
Alex thought, nearly pulling the trigger anyway.

Alex leaned down into Marco’s face, so close that their noses were touching. “You better give that nosy asshole a
big
hug,” Alex said. “He just saved your life.”

He then withdrew the gun from Marco’s mouth and clubbed him over the head with it. When Marco was on the ground, he looked back to the man on the stairs and saw that he was running back inside.

“Great,” Alex said.

He looked to his bike and saw that even if it would crank again (which was questionable), there was no way it would steer properly. He then considered the partially wrecked car that had nearly killed him but that was no good, either. He’d stick out like a sore thumb on the streets, and that was
not
something he needed — especially if the employee that had just interrupted him really was going to call the cops.

With no other option, Alex ran for the far edge of the parking lot where another lot joined it. Behind this one, there was a row of dumpsters and a chain link fence. On the other side of the fence, a small strip of grass led to what looked like a salvage yard of sorts. Beyond that, there was a fence and the welcoming lights of the city. It was one hell of an obstacle course, but it was better than walking down the street for a man that would likely have the police looking for him within a matter of seconds.

Alex ran along the dumpsters and scaled the fence. If the warehouse had any security guards, Alex never heard from them at all. He was over the fence and running across the salvage yard towards the lights of the city unobstructed. Being unfamiliar with the city did not bother him at all. Most larger cities were laid out the same way, the streets widening out and separating a bit further form one another as the downtown district faded away into the distance. He was able to find his way around easily enough, keeping his eyes and ears peeled for any sign of the police as he moved through the dark.

As he ran, he wondered if Jameson was in the back of an ambulance yet. And beyond that, he wondered how Amanda was. He thought about calling her, but remembered that he had left his phone with Jameson.

He came to the small wooden fence at the end of the salvage yard and climbed it with a boost from an old battered hood from an old abandoned work truck. When he hit the other side, he found himself in the parking lot of an abandoned retail store of some kind. Across from this was a two-way street. He followed this street for two blocks, looking for any landmarks that clue him to where he was.

As he walked, he got his first real break of the night. A city bus was parked along the side of the street, taking on two passengers. Alex rushed forward and got there just in time. He dropped his fare into the box at the front of the bus and took a seat in the back. He put his head down, making sure no one could get a clear look at him just in case things got bad.

As he bus started moving forward, Alex heard the sound of police sirens in the distance.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It took him a little over forty minutes to make it from the bus stop to the hospital. It had required the use of a cab which he didn’t mind as he used cash, and the driver was not the type to strike up conversation. When the cab dropped him off in front of the emergency room, it was 4:10 in the morning. He was tired, he was a little frightened, and there was a hatred for Marco swarming in him that intensified all of that.

He’d heard distant sirens on two more occasions, but here at the hospital, there was nothing. He didn’t dare want to make the foolish assumption that he was in the clear, but he felt pretty confident. There was no way the employee at the warehouse had clearly seen his face, and he had taken such a roundabout way to get back onto the streets that he was fairly certain no one had seen him within two miles of the warehouse immediately after the altercation with Marco and Larry.

Because of this, he walked into the hospital without the precautions of lowering his head or seeming rude by not speaking with anyone. He walked to the front desk just off of the emergency room exit to ask where he might go to check on someone that had just been admitted. As was usually the case with hospitals, it took him forever to get straight answers, and he ended up having to sit in the waiting room for half an hour.

In that time, he downed two cups of terrible coffee from the machine down the hall. He also found a relic of a payphone hiding in the far corner of the hallway that spanned off of the waiting room but he didn’t have a single bit of change on him—and even if he did, he didn’t know Amanda’s number by heart.

He spent that half an hour trying to find out how he had managed to get in the middle of such a complex situation… a situation that went somewhere beyond the realm of coincidence and into something much stranger. He was now mortal enemies with a man that was not only being hunted down by the leader of the Unknowns, but also the man that had pulled the trigger and killed Amanda’s husband.

Alex was not a religious man, nor did he give much thought or credence to things like fate, but this was too much to ignore; it seemed that he and Amanda had been destined to meet, their lives linked by a single murder and the man behind the gun. Of course, it had been Jameson that had ordered the hit, so that pinned some of the responsibility on him as well.

And here he was in the middle of it all. He felt that he
had
to come clean with Amanda. She mourned her husband long enough, and if he could help her find closure, then he felt he owed her that much. As for Jameson… well, he was unpredictable. If he were to tell Jameson the entire story, there was no telling how he might act.

These thoughts were bumping through his mind when a frazzled-looking nurse came into the waiting room and headed directly for him. She apparently noticed how exhausted he was and perhaps noticed some of the remaining dust from the broken pallet on his jacket. She stayed a good two feet away from him as she approached.

“Are you Mr. Dunning?”

“Yes. Alex.”

“Okay. And you’re here for an update on Jameson Cane?”

“I am. I was also hoping to speak with him.”

“He’s actually been asking to speak with you,” she said.

“Good,” Alex said. “Is he okay?”

“He lost a lot of blood, but the doctors are confident that he’s going to pull through.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, because he was shot, we can’t let him speak to anyone else until the police have questioned him, but there is an officer upstairs right now, about to go in with him. Once that’s done and the doctors check in on him, we’ll notify you right away.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

The nurse gave him a final skeptical look and then turned away. Alex watched her go, disappointed. There was no way in hell he was going to stick around here if there were cops present. He knew how this worked. If a cop saw someone going in to speak with Jameson, they’d likely question him, too. It was bad enough that the nurse had known his name—but he had no choice. He’d had to give the woman at the desk his name, and he also wondered if Jameson had also been forced into a similar position.

Not wanting to stick out too badly, Alex waited another two minutes before getting up and walking back outside through the sliding doors. He walked slowly around the hospital’s front parking lot and found the bus stop on the corner. He sat down and when he allowed himself to relax against the bench, the weight of his exhaustion caught up with him. There was one other person on the bench, waiting for the bus. They were asleep, their head cocked to the side and resting awkwardly on their shoulder.

Not a bad idea,
Alex thought.
I can just shut my eyes for a few seconds and rest…

When he opened them twenty minutes later, it was to the sound of the brakes on a city bus as it pulled up to the bus stop. He got on slowly and took a seat. He watched the hospital roll away in the distance as the bus wound his way through the dark streets and back towards the center of town.

Fifteen minutes later, Alex started to see streets that looked familiar. He realized then that he was only seven or eight blocks away from Amanda’s house. He got off at the next stop and walked his way back towards Amanda’s, terrified by the fact that he was going to have to tell her about what he was involved in and that he knew who killed her husband.

The question was…how honest did he need to be? While he had not been involved, Jameson had. So the club he had been in had in some way been responsible for Stephen’s murder.

Once that came out, would he keep going? Would he tell her all of the secrets from his past — even the one that had set him on the course to live the life that the Unknowns had given him? Would he tell her about what he had done that he sometimes had nightmares about?

If he could get out the news about the Tulsa job, he thought he just might go that far — if she didn’t kick him to the curb first.

It was all just so messed up.

When he came to Amanda’s street, it was 4:45. He walked like a man still half asleep, making his way up her stairs and unlocking the door with the spare key she had shown him yesterday, hidden beneath a small decorative flowerpot. When he stepped inside, the house was still dark, and it broke his heart to realize that it was the closest thing to feeling “at home” that he had felt in a very long time.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

He tried to be as quiet as he could when he entered the bedroom. He was hoping that he could sneak in a shower without waking Amanda. He was sore from the fight with Marco and Larry, his head still ringing a bit and his sides aching. More than anything, he just wanted to get the events of the night off of him.

Within two steps of the bedroom, Amanda stirred at slowly sat up. “Hey,” she said sleepily. “You’re back.”

“I’m back,” he confirmed.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

He almost gave the most blatant lie possible and nearly said
yes.
Instead, he shrugged in the darkness. “It could have gone worse. I need a shower. I’ll tell you all about it when I get out. That okay?”

“Sure,” she said, laying back down on her pillow and watching him as he walked into the bathroom.

He left the door open, not wanting her to think that he was hiding anything from her. He undressed and stepped into the shower. The hot water soaked into him, and he instantly started to feel the tension slip away, the steam working its magic. He washed his hair, being careful when his hand ran over the slight bump on the right side of his head, just behind his ear, where the pallet had struck him. He felt a small cut there, but it was certainly nothing too serious.

He stayed in the shower for fifteen minutes, hoping it would invigorate him and allow him to stay awake for a few more hours. He was afraid that if he didn’t get the story out to Amanda right away, he’d lose his nerve. Even just the thought of telling her was making his stomach feel off-kilter.

He finally stepped out of the shower and dried himself off. He wrapped the towel around his waist and went into the bedroom where he opened his duffel bag and took out the last set of new clothes that he had.
I have to figure out this living situation,
he thought.
All of my clothes are a few states away in a truck that I’m racking up a fee on with every hour that passes.

Of course, part of him wondered if his living situation might be rectified after he told Amanda everything. He might be headed back to Chicago for his things sooner than he thought. He had no idea how he would get there, though; his bike was still behind the warehouse, mostly wrecked. He then wondered if there was any evidence on the bike that would pin him to the events of the night. He was sure Marco and Larry would stay quiet because they stood to get in just as much trouble if they breathed a word of what was going on.

He sat on the edge of the bed with his underwear in hand, getting ready to dress himself. Just as he lifted his leg to put it into his underwear, he felt Amanda come up behind him. Her hands found his shoulders, and she started to massage him. Her touch was amazing enough, but her fingers showed the skills of having giving a few massages in her time. He instantly relaxed at her touch and let her work her magic.

“So you’re okay?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you have to beat anyone up?” she asked. He knew she was asking as a joke, so he did everything he could to make his answer sound serious but not snappy.

“Yeah.”

“Was it bad?” She asked, her fingers still at work. He wasn’t sure, but did she look slightly
proud
about his answer? He wondered then, for the first time, if a small part of her was excited about the darker side of him.

“It could have been a lot worse.”

“Did you get hurt?”

“Just a bump on the head and a few shots to the sides. Nothing broken, though.”

She responded by rubbing lower on his shoulders, grazing her hands along his upper back. They then came around to the front of him, caressing his biceps and then trailing over his chest. One hand came up to stroke the side of his face, her thumb extending to brush his bottom lip. She then pressed herself against his bare back, and he was reminded that she was naked. He felt her breasts pressed firmly against him as her embrace from behind him tightened around his chest.

“Amanda,” he said, literally forcing himself to get the word out, not wanting to stop what she clearly had in mind. “I have to—”

But then her mouth was on the back of his neck, and he knew that his chance was gone. There was no way he could resist her now. He felt her lips on his bare skin, and a shiver went racing down his back. He tilted his head back, and her kisses ran along the edge of his jaw. He shifted slightly, allowing their mouths to meet. She kissed him from behind, now on her knees and with her arms still wrapped around him.

The kiss was slow and passionate, but was causing his sides to ache. He turned slightly, and when he did, she pushed him lightly, indicating that she wanted him to get off of the bed. He did so and stood before her with the towel still around his waist.

She looked up to him with glorious intent in her eyes, and the words Alex had planned to speak turned to nothing but the ash of memory. She reached out to him, running her hands along his abs. Her eyes left his face and then started trailing his body. She let out a sigh of satisfaction as she took him in. He did the same, reveling in the way her naked body seemed to stand out on the sheets. Her hair was falling slightly into her face, her nipples were erect, and he could see the slightest little signs of gooseflesh running along her arms.

Her hands traveled down his chest, and she kissed him just above the navel. As she applied the kiss, her hands found the place where he had tucked the towel in, holding it to his waist. She gave a small pull, and the towel fell free. He stood before her completely naked, his sex directly in front of her. She gave him a quick smile and then took him into her hand where she then teased him. Soon, her kisses fell lower and took the place of her hand.

His sense of exhaustion was suddenly obliterated as he looked down and watched her at work. He did not move or say a single word; he let her have her way until he felt himself reaching the point of no return. He gently pulled her up and laid her back on the bed. He gave himself a moment to let his nerves calm down, running his hands and a series of kisses along her side, from her neck to the underside of her breast. He then reached down and cupped her sex, applying just enough pressure to tease.

This is absolutely wrong,
he told himself.
You have to tell her now. If you don’t, what you are doing right now is taking advantage…

He shut that out. It was easy; he had been doing it for years, killing off logic and emotion for what was in front him. Anything he wanted, he took. He had always done it.

He struggled with all of this as she lay before him, and he hated himself. He
loathed
himself.

When he had full control of himself, he entered her slowly, and they spent the morning joined together, writhing and crying out against one another as the sun came up outside and barely spilled through the blinds in the bedroom.

When they were done, they lay together motionlessly and fell asleep tangled into one another. The last thought on Alex’s mind as sleep claimed him was that he had only dodged a bullet. He would have to tell her everything when they woke up.

He was sure that the thought alone would keep him from sleeping, but he drifted off without much trouble, secured by the rhythm of Amanda’s breathing next to him.