Thief: Devil's Own MC (19 page)

I knew that I’d be sentenced and then be transferred to prison. I imagined orange jumpsuits, women with tangled hair staring at me and licking their lips. I shuddered when I imagined living in a concrete box with no freedom to go outside, no freedom to do as I pleased. No good food. Not even good-bad food, like cheeseburgers.

And no Blake. The last realization made me want to cry harder than ever. I couldn’t imagine being without him, being without his touch, his love, those heart-melting smiles. I shivered as I thought about his hands caressing me and running over my body, tugging at my nipples and making every nerve sing with pleasure. I loved the way he held me, loved the way he made me feel like I was the only woman in the world. Thinking that I’d never get to do that again was the worst thought that I’d ever had. It suddenly occurred to me that I’d be totally okay, even if I lost everything, as long as I still had Blake. But I wouldn’t still have him. Not a snowball’s chance in hell. I knew that if the cops even caught wind of Blake’s involvement, he’d be going to prison, too. Maybe for even longer than I was going. I knew that Roger would greedily give the cops as much intel on Blake as he could; I knew he wanted to punish Blake for holding him back.

Blake
. I couldn’t get my mind away from him. As I closed my eyes tightly against the sun of the real world, I imagined Blake picking me up and carrying me to bed. I knew how tight his muscles would be as he held me in the air, teasing me with the joke of dropping me to the floor. But I knew he wouldn’t drop me, he’d set me down gently and spread my legs with his rough fingers. My lower belly tingled as I imagined him leaning over me and trailing his mouth wetly down my body. Panic and desire mingled together inside of me to create a powerfully arousing feeling; it was the hottest and most desperate I’d ever felt in my life. But I knew that I wouldn’t be sated with ordinary sex, or making love. No, Blake would have to fuck me until I was raw and crying. I wanted to be soaked in sweat—a mixture of mine and his—and begging for him to come so it would be over. Afterwards, I knew that he’d help me shower and take me back to bed to fall asleep. It would be perfect.

Then I remembered our fight, and the tears came back. We hadn’t parted on good terms. I’d basically decided never to speak with him again. It was more than I thought I could handle, and it was more than I thought he could give me. But funnily enough, now I didn’t even care. I didn’t care how many fights he’d been in, or how many times he’d gone to prison. All I wanted was him and his love, forever and ever. I wished so deeply that I could tell him how I felt, that I could reveal how sorry I was. I hated that I’d acted so arrogant and high and mighty. If I could take the whole thing back, I would in an instant.

And then maybe you wouldn’t be here
, I realized. Slinking down far into the seat, I realized that if I hadn’t stormed out of Blake’s in a fit of rage, I wouldn’t have been around for Roger to nab me. Instead, he would have had to go through my big tough boyfriend.
Boyfriend
. Just thinking about Blake as my boyfriend, my protector, felt good. If I concentrated on it for long enough, I was almost able to forget how fucking miserable the rest of me felt. But in truth, that was how I’d thought of him all along. That was why I’d been so upset when he told me that he’d had fun beating people up. It was like I was holding him to such a high standard, that I wasn’t even allowing myself to accept how much I liked him. But obviously I did. And now that was over. There was no more “me and Blake.” There was only me, in prison, and Blake, probably in prison.

Suddenly I prayed for him to be gone. I wanted him to go away and save himself. If he couldn’t save me, at least he could do that. The last thing I wanted was to ruin his life. If he went away, it would be for a long time. He’d lose his place in the MC, he’d lose his job, and he’d lose all semblance of autonomy and freedom. I prayed that he’d be smart enough to save his own skin, no matter what he felt for me.
I won’t be mad at you,
I thought.
Just be smart enough to help yourself out of this jam!

“Baby, ain’t you excited?” Roger turned to me and grinned. “Ain’t you pleased! Look at that bag back there! You’re gonna be getting some of that,” he said. I closed my eyes and looked out the window.

“Just fucking take me home, please,” I said. I could hear my voice about to break. “Please, Roger. Please take me home.”

“Oh, no,” Roger said. He wagged a finger in front of my face. “We ain’t done, yet,” he said. “There’s one other thing I have to take care of first.”

I glared at him. “What’s that?”

Roger threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, you’ll see,” he said, snickering. “You’ll see, baby.”

Chapter Twenty Seven

Blake

My phone was buzzing in my pocket and I pulled my bike over to the side of the road. It was Tinder’s. A bad feeling flashed through my stomach but I answered anyway.

“Hello?” It was hard to hear with all of the highway noise in the background. “Hello?”

“Hey, Blake,” I heard the other security guard say. “Hey, man, there’s been a robbery.”

My heart sank.
Sarah
.
I’m sorry. I was too late
. “Okay,” I said. “What do you need? Do you need me to come in?”

“Yeah, do you mind?”

“I’ll be there soon,” I said shortly. Getting back on my bike, I pointed it towards Tinder’s and sped as fast as I could. All I could think about was Sarah. Why had she done it? Why hadn’t she just fucking called me? A horrible thought ran through my head: what if Roger was keeping her prisoner so she couldn’t reach out to anyone? The idea was too horrible to comprehend. Gritting my teeth, I pushed my bike faster and faster until the shopping center came into sight. It was partially a relief and partially something I was dreading. I didn’t want to be confronted with evidence about Sarah, but it was about to happen anyway.

Fuck
, I thought.
Why do things like this always have to happen?

The security guard wasn’t happy to see me. “Hey,” he said shortly. “Thanks for coming out. Do you want to see the footage?”

I nodded. “I’d better,” I told him. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” the guard said. “I don’t know how they managed to do it. I was outside the whole time, and I didn’t see anything.”

I rolled my eyes. “I should have come in today,” I said after a beat. “I knew something bad was going to happen.”

The other guard looked at me with his eyes narrowed. “Wait, you knew? How come you didn’t say anything?”

“It was an expression,” I said gruffly. “I was joking.”

The guard led me wordlessly inside the store. The place was crawling with cops. Aside from a case being opened towards the back of the store, I couldn’t see that anything was missing.

“Sir, were you present at the time of the robbery?” One of the cops walked up to me and took out his notepad. “Can I collect a statement from you?”

“I just work here,” I told him. “I had nothing to do with it. I got a call telling me there had been a robbery and I wanted to come down here to check it out.”

The cop nodded, as if I’d just given him something valuable. He scribbled something down on the notepad and nodded again. “Thanks,” he said. “Can I get your name?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s Blake Ward,” I said, glancing around. “Do you know how bad the robbery is? It doesn’t look like they took very much.”

“The safe is cleaned out,” the cop said. He gave a low whistle through his teeth. “I know, I couldn’t believe it either,” he said. “But I guess they worked pretty fast.”

In the back of the store, one of the sales associates was crying. She was a cute girl, young, with red hair that made me think of Sarah. She looked up at me and burst into a new wave of fresh sobs.

“It’s all my fault,” she cried. “I was helping them! Then Jared told me that I had to go take my lunch break! I was mad because I thought they were going to get an engagement ring, and I really wanted the commission!”

“Oh, fuck,” I said. “Do you have the security tapes? Can I watch?”

The girl stood up and scurried off to a cabinet. She returned with a tape. “There’s a TV in the break room,” she said. “Come with me.”

Some of the cops were sitting in front of the television, smoking cigarettes. When they saw the girl was carrying the tape, they tried to shoo me out of the room.

“No, guys, I work here,” I explained. “I’m a security guard. I was off today, but I got a call informing me of the robbery.”

The cops shot suspicious looks at each other. “Fine, stay,” one of them said after a beat. “Anything you can share with us, the better,” he told me. “So pay close attention.”

I closed my eyes and thought briefly. I knew that I had to help Sarah, but that it would probably wind up risking my own safety, especially if I got in a fight with Roger. And after finding out all that he was capable of, I wasn’t sure that I’d be ready to let him go down without a fight. Plus, he was obviously insane. I couldn’t believe that he’d be willing to just let everything go. After all, he’d tricked Sarah into helping him somehow. I still couldn’t believe that she’d done it! I was angry with her for not calling me and reaching out; it was as if our fight from the other night had vanished. Angrily, I balled my hands into fists at my sides.

“Go ahead and play the tape,” I said.

The girl wiped tears away from her eyes and stuck the tape into the VCR. It whirred for a minute, making the cops look anxious, but eventually a grainy black-and-white window showed up. There were four cameras in the store, each pointed in a different direction. In one camera, I watched as the girl sped up the tape to just before noon.

“They came in around eleven thirty,” she said softly. “I always go to lunch at noon, but it was such a slow day that I figured I could help them.”

“It’s fine,” one of the officers said gruffly. “Keep playing the tape.”

The girl hit play and I leaned in close. Sarah, looking fabulous and a little nervous, walked into the store with Roger. He reached out and took her hand just as they opened the door. The security guard didn’t even look twice. With fury, I watched as Roger slid his hand down Sarah’s back and groped her ass. Rage filled me and my fists got tighter at my sides.

“They’re really enjoying themselves,” one of the cops said. He snickered. “Maybe this is how they like to role-play.”

“Shut up,” one of the other cops muttered. “This guy’s a sick fuck. He looks like someone who’s been wanted for over a year now.”

I rolled my eyes. “And you couldn’t keep a closer eye on him than that?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” one of the cops said snidely. “Shut up so I can pay attention.”

The video didn’t have sound, but we all watched as Roger kissed Sarah, shoving his tongue into her mouth. I could tell by the way her body was tense and nervous that she wasn’t enjoying it, and I burned with hot rage. I’d wanted to hurt Roger before, but now I wanted to tear him limb from limb. Watching him exploit Sarah in the grossest manner possible brought an animalistic side out of me that I hadn’t felt in months. This was war.

“That little couple’s really being hot with each other,” the cop said. “This is a pretty fuckin’ unusual case.” The rest of them snickered and I had to shut my eyes to avoid looking. I knew that if I had to watch Roger molest my Sarah for another second, I’d fly into a rage and break everything—and everyone—in the room. Finally, I opened my eyes and watched Roger and Sarah chatting with the female associate. She pulled out a tray of rings from the shelf and Sarah tried on one.

“They said they were engaged,” the girl said in a shaky voice. “She kept calling him Roger. And he kept talking about how he’d finally settled down with her. He kept calling her a little minx, whatever that is. It was kind of weird,” she admitted. Her forehead creased. “And they both flirted with me. He asked if I had a boyfriend and told me that if they weren’t getting married, they’d wanna take me home with them.” She sniffled. “It sounds so gross now, I feel so stupid!” she wailed. “I had no idea what they were up to, I thought they were really in love!”

One of the cops eyed her darkly. “Definitely some kind of weird sexualization,” he said. “Maybe kind of a sex crime later, maybe this couple commits a robbery and then gets off to it afterwards.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious that woman is frightened,” I said, trying to make my voice plain. “I think it’s clear she’s coerced, or not there because of her own free will.”

“She looks pretty excited to me,” one of the cops mentioned. “Check out that grin on her face!” He pointed to the screen. “She’s totally getting into it,” he said, making a note on his pad.

Panic clanged through my body and I shook my head. I was careful to protect Sarah, but I didn’t want to give away too much information. It was only a matter of time before the other sales associate recognized her, and then the cops would realize that I’d been working before when she came in alone. I knew that I had to be subtle, but also work as quickly as I could.

“She’s definitely faking it,” I said. “Look at her arm and how she keeps twitching. She keeps making all of these unconscious little gestures, you know, like how people act when they’re lying. Look, she keeps touching her chin!” I said, pointing to the screen. One of the cops hit
pause
. “She’s definitely uncomfortable,” I added. “Only liars touch their chin. And they don’t look you in the eye either, they always look slightly above your head.”

“She was looking at me funny,” the girl broke in. “I wanted to ask her if there was something wrong with my hair.”

“See,” I said, pointing to the girl. “She saw it. That woman was obviously dragged to the store against her will.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” the girl said, scrunching up her nose. “She did seem like she wanted to be here.”

“We’ll decide that,” the first cop said, breaking in. He glared at me. “I think you’ve seen enough,” he said. “Time for you to go.”

I got up from the table and sighed. I really had my work cut out for me, but I was going to act fast.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Sarah

“Where are we going? Are you still taking me home?” My voice was shaky and I looked at Roger. He was driving the familiar roads back to my apartment, and I felt myself shiver in fear. He’d said that he’d take me home after one more errand, but we were heading in the direction of my apartment. Traffic had been slow and sluggish, and I could feel Roger’s anxiety growing with every passing moment. I knew that the cops had to be at Tinder’s by now, checking out what had happened. When I thought about the security cameras in every corner of the store, I cringed. They were going to know it was me. Hell, they might
already
know that it was me.

“Where do you think?” His tone was nasty and snarky. All traces of the happy, joking Roger seemed to have faded immediately. “Someplace where we can be alone,” he hissed. “You’re stupider than I thought if you haven’t figured that out by now.”

With a sinking feeling, I realized that he was taking me back to my own apartment. “Roger, you shouldn’t go to my place,” I said in a shaky voice. “Come on, please? I don’t want the cops to find us.”

“They won’t if you keep your goddamn little mouth shut!” Roger roared. He reached across the seat and slapped me hard just as we pulled away from a traffic light. The couple in the next car looked on with horror and I slunk down in my seat, burning bright red with embarrassment. “Besides,” he added, looking at me, “you were fuckin’ begging me to go home a few minutes ago! What happened to that?”

I didn’t say anything. Roger sped up and got off the highway, navigating the back roads and cursing under his breath whenever he thought someone was following us. He drove faster and faster and I felt the nausea build in my body. If he made a sharp turn, I really thought that I’d throw up.