“Sit down, Rebel,” the leader ordered.
I looked behind me to see a basic wooden chair.
There were a couple more scattered around but that was the extent of the décor of the one room cabin, unless you counted the fact it had a sink, a small fridge, and a narrow two-burner stove.
I did not sit down.
I also didn’t ask why they locked this joint when there was nothing to steal, unless someone was emotionally attached to that scary, dusty stove.
I looked back to the leader and declared, “Let me share how this is gonna go. You’re gonna say a lot of stuff. I’m not gonna agree. Yadda, yadda, yadda. A lot of time wasted. We’ll part ways. I’ll do my thing. And like it is now, it’ll be none of your business. The end. So, let’s save a lot of time with you just letting me go and then you can run off and tell Hank and Eddie I was a good girl and listened.”
He got close while I was talking and stayed close after I finished.
So close, I lost track of what I was saying because I could smell him again.
And was again reminded how tall he was.
I was kinda tall, so him being so much taller than me meant he was tall.
It got worse when I noticed he’d taken off his glasses.
He had clear, light-blue eyes. Crystal clear. It was like staring into two shining gemstones.
Holy Mother of God.
“Sit down, Rebel,” he said quietly.
I felt it prudent to retreat from those eyes, so I took a step back, two, my leg hit chair and I sat.
One of the other bikers skidded a chair toward him, he caught it and set it facing me, close, almost where our knees might brush but not quite, and he sat.
I was right. Our knees didn’t brush.
I found this disappointing.
The others fanned around and stayed standing.
Okay, I had to admit, even though I felt in no danger since I knew Eddie (or Jimmy, or outside chance, Hank) was behind this and they might be ticked at me, but they liked me, the biker circle was intimidating.
“My name is Rush Allen,” the leader of the pack said.
“Well, you already know my name, so consider us introduced,” I returned.
He nodded once. “We need to talk about what you’re doing with Benito Valenzuela.”
“This is where we disagree, Mr. Allen.”
He leaned forward, his leather creaking, putting his elbows to his knees, and he tipped his dark head back.
This was a bad position. His legs were spread, his faded jeans tight on his knees, I could see their formation, and like everything about him, it was sexy. Especially them leading into thick thighs. More on the especially with his long-fingered, rough, veined hands. And adding to all that, with the arch of his neck, the column of his muscled throat was exposed above the collar of his cream thermal, and if his hair demanded your fingers buried in it, his throat demanded your lips trailing down it.
I wouldn’t allow myself to let my eyes roam to his package. If it was as good as the rest, shit might go south for me . . . fast.
Man, I was in trouble.
“I know about Diane,” he said softly.
My gaze shot from his throat to those crystal eyes, and my breath lodged in my chest because of his tone.
It was beautiful, full of warmth and sadness and understanding.
So much of all that, if he’d been there when Diane had died, and he’d cooed to me in that voice (perhaps while he held me in his arms and I smelled leather and tang), maybe things would have been different. Maybe I wouldn’t have let that fire ignite in my belly. Maybe I wouldn’t have fanned those flames until it was an inferno that had built out of even my control.
I straightened my spine.
“You need to pull back so you don’t become Diane, Rebel,” he advised.
“Benito Valenzuela didn’t kill my friend,” I informed him.
“You don’t know who did that,” he informed me.
“I do know. And it was not Benito Valenzuela.”
“You think it was Arthur Lannigan.”
I leaned toward him. “No. I know it was Arthur Lannigan.”
“Let Hank and Eddie prove that,” he urged.
Oh yeah.
He knew Hank and Eddie.
Shit.
“They have.” (Uh, mostly.) “They just can’t find him.”
“And you think you can.”
“I know I can.”
“By playing Valenzuela and Harrietta Turnbull to get to him?”
“By doing whatever I have to do.”
“So you get dead, your neck snapped like Diane’s, what’s Diesel gonna do?”
I abruptly leaned back in my chair.
Damn Eddie Chavez.
He gave this guy everything.
“Diesel and Maddox and Molly,” he went on. “They’ll lose their shit. Even sweet Molly. Get caught up in all this crap. And then one, two or all of them are taken out. You good with that?”
“They don’t know anything about this,” I snapped.
“They will, you get your neck broken or your throat slit.”
I looked to the side, right into a pair of attractive green eyes owned by one of the other bikers.
He looked alert, but also concerned.
The concern was sweet.
Shit, Chaos boys were sweet.
How was that even possible?
I turned my attention to the dirty, rough, wood-planked floor.
“Rebel,” Rush Allen called.
I did not lift my eyes to him.
It didn’t matter to him.
He kept talking.
“I get it. I get what you had with Diane. With Diane and Amy and Paul. I’m tight with my dad. He’s a great dad. A good man. I’m tight with my sister. She’s the best little sister a guy can have. My mom dug me, but she hated my sister, my father, treated them like trash. I had to watch that, getting her affection and watching her abuse the two most important people in my life. I was torn. Until she took it too far and I wasn’t torn anymore, and now I don’t have a mom. I don’t fully understand how it would be not to have something with either of my parents. I do understand having issues with a parent. And I understand having a sister and loving that sister but wanting a brother.”
I caught his arm swinging out in my line of sight before he continued.
“So I found brothers. You didn’t have a sister. You found a sister and with her came two parents who got you. Who loved you. Who filled the spaces your parents didn’t fill. And then your sister got hurt, which hurt them, and you want to do something about it.”
Well, one could say something about all of that.
It sucked he didn’t know me even a little bit, but he still had me figured out.
“I don’t get this part of it, but I could twist it and see how it is,” he went on. “Your dad and brother, both racists. Both bigots. Both so narrow minded, they’re practically blind. Which means both of them are assholes. Your mother toeing their line. I’m a biker. It’s in my blood, but even if I wasn’t born to it, I got it so deep in me I figure I’d be that anyway. I had people around me who didn’t get it, that’d cut deep. You’re creative. You got that as part of your soul. And I bet they didn’t get that. I bet the way they are, who they are, how they are, they didn’t get that part of you at all.”
Yeah.
He totally had me figured out.
I pulled my shit together, blanked my face, turned my head and stared him in the eyes.
But I said nothing.
“It was worse, though, wasn’t it?” he asked.
I still said nothing.
“Your other brother’s bi.”
I clenched my teeth.
“You knew it, probably even before he came out to you about it,” he carried on.
I glared at him.
How did he know all of this?
Even Hank and Eddie didn’t know all of this and I told them everything (well, obviously not everything, but most of it).
“You lost Diane,” he said quietly. “You had to witness Amy and Paul losing Diane. Then things blew up with your folks and Diesel and his partners when he finally came out to them and you lost your family. Not a big loss, but your heart doesn’t know that, does it? You took your brother’s back, and they’re done with him but because you took his back, they’re also done with you. Two big blows, Rebel. Two big losses. Tough.”