Sweet Revenge (Sinners MC Book 1), page 20
“Me too, brother.”
Bear’s gaze intensified again. “You sure you’re ready for what’s about to happen?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Positive. It’s been a long time coming.”
“True,” he admitted. “But you’re going to be faced with a tough decision if shit blows up while we’re there. Maybe even if it doesn’t.”
“Not goin’ to lie, I have no idea what I’ll do if things go to shit when we’re there or what I’ll want to do when I’m standing in front of the both of them, but I do know I need to do it and I need to have the choice.”
“And you will, brother. I’ll make damn sure of it.” He once again lifted his hand and grasped my shoulder, squeezing tightly. “Whatever you decide, we got your back.”
“I know that.”
And I did.
Bear was right; I was always standing with one foot out the door, ready to run when they found out who I was and where I came from. Always waiting for and expecting the rejection because who the fuck would want a Widow in their club. The thing I’d learned lately and what I wish I would’ve realized years ago, was that I might have been born a Widow, but in my heart, I’d always been a Sinner.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
MAGGIE
“When do you go?” I ran my hand along his naked chest with my head tucked in tight against his shoulder.
His fingers played with the ends of my hair, the same way they had been since we crawled into bed together. “Friday night.”
I swallowed hard, my anxiety about the whole situation starting to weigh on me. Friday was only two days away, and what they were going to do was dangerous. “You sure your father hasn’t told the whole club?”
His hand lifted when he inhaled deeply and exhaled. “What are you afraid of, Maggie?”
I ran my finger along the Sinners tattoo on his chest. It was an exact copy of the one on his vest, wings of an eagle spread out wide like they were taking flight. When I asked him why he and Bear chose that, he said they both agreed they were beginning their own journey, and to do that, they would need to fly in a whole new direction but the destination of freedom remained the same. I’d liked that. It wasn’t grim or aggressive; it was simple and unique, which described them perfectly. When they decided to rebuild this club, they did away with everything that represented the old mentality and darkness it once housed. It was obvious to me and everyone else, I’d imagine, how much time and thought they’d put into everything they were creating.
I was just afraid that one man could give the order to end them all permanently.
“I’m afraid that you won’t come back to me.” I admitted softly.
He turned his body to lay on his side and shifted me so we were facing each other. “I’m coming back.”
“You can’t promise that.”
He ran his palm down my side and laid it against my hip. “Maggie, do you really think I’d do anything to lose what you and I have?”
I laid my hand against the side of his neck. “It may not be your decision.”
“He’s a coward.” His eyes intensified as he spoke. “My father. He’s not going to share this with the whole club, only a few because he knows the shit they would lay on him for letting me best him all those years ago.” He squeezed my hip gently. “Baby, trust me, he wants this done as quietly as I do.”
“But he thinks he’s taking you back to Colorado. What if he just shoots you?” I asked, panic lacing my tone.
He slowly skimmed his hand along my side, moving it until it rested against my ribs. “He won’t do that until he has the flash drive. I’m still holding all the cards, and he knows that. No matter what shit he’s trying to sell, he knows I still have him by the balls. He won’t sacrifice himself for anything, including his beloved fucking club.” I dropped my hand to his shoulder when he wrapped his around the side of my neck. “I know him, Maggie. I watched him for years, and I paid attention to every move he made. We have a plan, and it’s a good one. As long as we stick to the plan, we’ll all come home Friday night.” He leaned in and brushed his lips against mine. “You have to trust me.”
“I do,” I whispered against his lips before pulling back. “But I don’t trust him or Snake. I watched Snake do some pretty terrible things, and he lied all the time. I don’t think you can predict what either of them will do or who they’ve told.”
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “I can’t promise you that they haven’t told the other members of the Widows; I can only tell you what I think. I also can’t promise you that there won’t be retribution from the remaining Widows if everything goes as planned.” He tangled his hand in my hair. “But I can promise you that I’ll do everything in my power to come back to you so we can start our life together.”
I pursed my lips, my mind going a hundred miles an hour as different thoughts of what could go wrong played out like a video in my head. “What about Snap?”
“They leave tomorrow for the rally in Houston. The Widows from all around go there, and they have for years. It’s why my father wanted to do it this weekend. His clubhouse in Colorado would be empty for the most part. He could take me back, make me suffer, and then kill me without anyone in the club ever knowing I was there.”
My eyes widened. “He told you that?”
He chuckled softly. “No, baby, he didn’t say that, but I know it’s true. He told them he forced me out because of shit I was doing, but it was all a lie. He doesn’t want them to know. He’s proven that over and over again by his actions. He screwed up and rather than take responsibility for it, he bided his time, knowing he’d have his chance to end me eventually.”
“But he won’t,” I responded sternly. “Right? He won’t.”
He smiled and leaned in close, his intoxicating scent surrounding me. “No, he won’t.”
His smile faded, and he turned his head to look back over his shoulder, obviously annoyed by something. I lifted my head to see over his shoulder and laughed out loud when I saw Luna curled up in a ball right behind his head.
I rolled my lips together, trying to stifle the laughter, but it was too hard. “She loves you.”
He arched his eyebrow. “I keep telling you we need to sleep in my room so this shit doesn’t keep happening.”
“And I told you”—I poked him in the chest—“that I don’t like leaving them alone all night.”
He sighed. “They’re cats, baby. What do you think’s gonna happen through the night?”
“Luna is a little clumsy, you know that. What if she falls when she’s jumping from something?”
His eyes widened. “A little clumsy?” I shoved him in the shoulder when he continued talking. “She never lands on her feet. Isn’t that a thing with cats, that they land on their feet?”
I tried not to grin, but he was right. She always landed but hardly ever on her feet. Hopefully, she was still learning. “What if she gets hurt, and we’re not here?”
He sighed again but louder this time. “Fine. We’ll sleep here, but when we finally get our own place, we’re closing the damn door at night so we have some time without cats climbing on our heads.”
I giggled, remembering last night when Gunner woke up with Luna lying completely stretched out across his neck. He gently moved her, but he looked pretty annoyed.
“We can talk about it when it happens.”
He snorted. “I’m never gonna win this one, am I?”
I lifted my head from the pillow and pressed my lips to his, deepening the kiss when I felt his tongue run across the seam of my lips. He kissed me hungrily, like it was the first time every time, but it’d been like that from the beginning. For both of us. It was as if we couldn’t get enough of each other or be close enough to each other. I never even wanted share a bed with Snake, but with Gunner, I usually found myself lying across him in the morning. He never seemed to mind, though, and usually I’d wake with his hand shoved down the back of my panties. Why the hell I found that so sexy, I’d never understand, and I decided not to give it too much thought and just let myself enjoy it.
I pulled back and looked into his heated eyes. “Do you really care if you win?”
He grinned and wrapped his hand in my hair, pulling my mouth back to his. “I don’t even remember what we were talking about.”
I laughed against his mouth, but that laugh turned to a moan when he deepened the kiss again. He shifted so I was on top and pulled his mouth from mine, laying his head back against the pillow. I dropped my legs to either side of his hips and pressed down, letting his hard length drag against my slit. He was always hard. I was starting to doubt it ever went down, but I wasn’t complaining. I’d found myself initiating more and more, finally understanding what everyone was always talking about when it came to sex. I never knew what I was missing. Now that I did, I wanted to make up for lost time, and Gunner was all too happy to accommodate me.
I pushed up until I was sitting and rested my hands on his chest, giggling when Luna jumped off the bed, probably annoyed that she was being disturbed. He put his hands behind his head and wiggled his eyebrows, making me laugh harder. “Am I doing all the work?”
He shrugged. “Thought maybe you were in the mood to play.”
He was right, I was. How the hell he knew that was beyond me too. It was like he had a line of sight straight into my mind, or maybe what he said earlier was true and he was just a great observer. No matter what, he always knew what I wanted, and sometimes, it seemed he did before I did.
I laid my forearms on his chest and leaned down, putting my face close to his. “How do you know me so well?”
“Been watching you over the last year, baby, whether you realized it or not, and I got to know you pretty well.”
I dropped my head, remembering the last year and all its ups and downs, but more than anything, I remembered Gunner. He was always around, always patient, always understanding, and I didn’t realize it because I was so stuck in my own misery that I couldn’t see anything beyond that.
I could now, though, and it was beautiful.
The most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me.
I lifted my head and looked deep into his eyes. “I wish I had got off Snake’s bike that day on the street, just like I wanted to. I wish I hadn’t been so scared of everything because that day, something inside me knew if I walked to you, I’d have the life I’d never allowed myself to hope for.”
While I was talking, he lifted his hands from behind his head and laid them on my hips, squeezing them when I finished. “If I had known what that bastard was doing to you, I would’ve grabbed you that day on the street.”
“You couldn’t know.”
“I didn’t.” His eyes blazed with intensity. “Until Luke talked about you, and we connected the dots.” His hands moved to lay on my thighs. “What you don’t know is that after we connected those fucking dots, I had a plan to get you out of that life, but you beat me to it by walking into my clubhouse.”
I smiled sadly. “Bear tried to convince me to leave Snake. He said Luke and you guys would protect me, but I was too scared.”
He ran his hands over my thighs. “I know, baby. Fuck, you were too scared to even talk to anyone except Bear for those few months, but I knew I wasn’t going to let him hurt you anymore. I just needed to get you from him in the smartest way I could so nobody got hurt, especially you.”
“The day I was discharged from the hospital, and you guys tricked me into going to Hanks for a meeting, I knew something felt different, but I didn’t understand it.” I ran my finger over the defined muscles in his stomach. “I was so angry that day. I thought I was trading one prison for another.” Tears filled my eyes, and I didn’t try to stop them. “I had no idea what a beautiful life I was walking into.”
He sat up quickly and put both of his hands on the sides of my face, lowering his until he could look right into my eyes. “I love you, Maggie.”
I smiled a watery smile when he used his thumbs to brush away the tears on my cheeks. “I love you, Ryker.”
He smiled and laid his lips on mine, this time pulling me down and kissing me slowly. He ran his hands lazily over my back like we had all the time in the world.
And we did.
For tonight, at least.
CHAPTER THIRTY
GUNNER
“We clear on the plan?” Bear asked from the back seat of the SUV.
I looked out the side window toward the Widow’s clubhouse and felt my gut tighten. If this shit didn’t go as planned, we may not walk back out. We were parked by the curb opposite the wide parking lot leading up to the door of the clubhouse. A few bikes were parked right by the entrance, as well as one parked on the very far end of the lot, but other than that, the place looked deserted. I wasn’t buying it.
“Something feels off,” I murmured.
“We’re prepared,” Pop reminded us. “Tank watched them drive in this morning. There’s only one way in and one way out. No other vehicles came and went in the past twenty-four hours.”
“Snap gone?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“They all go?”
“Just like they always do,” Pop confirmed. “The place should be empty except for our visitors.”
“And whoever they brought.”
Pop ignored that and continued. “Tank and Bull are around back. Plus a few of the older prospects, including Skinner, who’s proven ready to be a fully patched member. Me and Ritz are the only ones going in the front.” He glanced out the front window at Ritz who was still straddling his bike and smoking a cigarette, looking completely at ease. Except if you knew him, like I did, and then you’d notice the hard set of his jaw. “They think the club turned. I had Bull and Ritz on speaker with me for the last call. You were there; it was believable.”
“Better get going.” Bear advised.
“Yep.” Pop threw open his door and pushed out before slamming the door behind him. We watched Ritz slowly dismount and throw his unfinished cigarette to the ground, crushing it with his heavy black boot before falling into step beside Pop.
I watched them walk across the parking lot and repeated, “Something feels off.”
“We thought of everything.”
“Never think of everything when my father’s involved.”
“We need to end this.” Bear said.
“We still doing it for the right reasons?” I asked the question that had been nagging me recently.
Bear’s head jerked in my direction. “You having second thoughts, brother?”
I shook my head. “About my father, no. About the message this sends to the club we’re trying to build, maybe.”
“We knew even having the idea for a peaceful club would come with its challenges. The Widows are the challenge, always have been.”
“I don’t want to be him.” I admitted.
“Then don’t be.” Bear replied easily.
If only it were that simple.
“Here we go,” Bear said, and my head snapped back toward the window to watch Pop and Ritz make their way back across the parking lot toward us.
Bear held up handcuffs, and I turned so he could snap them onto my wrists. He handed me a second pair and turned so I could snap them on his. They looked real, but they weren’t. They had a quick release button Skinner designed so we could just tug our wrists and be free. We just needed it to look real while we walked in. Becs had done our makeup to look like our bruises from the beating the Sinners supposedly delivered were still there, but healing.
Bear was right; we’d thought of everything.
My mind knew that.
My gut was screaming that we hadn’t.
“What are the fucking chances they shoot us when we walk in?” Bear asked from beside me.
“They won’t. They want us as trophies to take back. They want to hand out the punishment. Shooting us would be way too easy.”
What no one except the few of us here today knew was that Pike was laying up on the hill behind the clubhouse with a clear shot through a small back window he’d scoped out. According to Cam, he was the best sniper, and I knew the story of him taking out his own enemy while that enemy was surrounded by FBI agents. He never hit an agent, but he hit his enemy in the back of the head with one shot.
Bear called him and told him the plan, and Pike offered up his services with the promise not to tell his best friend Cam or the Dimarco family that had essentially adopted him after he lost his own. He proved his friendship and his loyalty to both Bear and the whole fucking club with one offer.
We would never forget it.
The back door beside me opened abruptly, and at almost the same moment, Bear’s did as well. Pop grabbed my arm. “Can’t talk, they’re watching, and will know we’re chatting.”
“How many?” Bear asked as we were yanked from our seats.
Ritz lowered his head and pushed Bear around the back of the vehicle, only whispering the answer when he rounded the back to stand beside me and Pop. “Three inside. Have a feeling there are more outside.”
“Fuck.” I cursed softly.
Pop wrapped his hand around my bicep, and both men walked us toward the building.
“Head down,” Pop muttered without really moving his mouth. “Can’t read your expression if they can’t see it.”
He had a point, and both Bear and I lowered our heads slowly. It also showed our submission, which was exactly what we needed to portray to get in that building still breathing.
“See you on the other side, brothers, wherever the fuck that may be.” Ritz muttered, and I closed my eyes briefly. We had no idea how this was going to end and who of us wouldn’t be going home, at least not the way we came.
Pop yanked open the clubhouse door and shoved me in ahead of him, yanking my body to a stop in the middle of the room. I kept my head down but felt Bear shoved in beside me.
“Well, well, old man, you weren’t lying.” A shiver ran down my spine when my father’s voice echoed through the almost empty room. “Part of me still believed you might be.”
