Dark Fall (Back Down Devil MC #3)(39)

“In a different club?”

“Dead.” Erik made a gun with his fingers and pretended to pull the trigger against his temple.

“Oh.”

“Sorry, babe. It’s not some rockstar fantasy around here. Look from the outside and it might seem cool and shit, but live this life and you get what life really is. Everyday I look in the mirror I see the shit I’ve gone through. I get asked all the time about my face. People stare. People judge. It f*cking pisses me off because I have no one to retaliate against for the scars. Yet.”

Kaity lifted one of her hands and touched the scars. “It doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Yeah, I picked up on that. Why?”

“We all have scars, Erik. Some are hidden, some aren’t. Who cares?”

“I do,” Erik said. “How’s that for a f*cking answer?”

Kaity kept her hand at his face. “What about Shay? Are you angry with him?”

“Why would I be?” Erik asked. “This is our life. Our world. Sometimes we take a bullet, sometimes we take a bomb. You damn near got yourself killed almost taking a bullet for the club.”

“That bullet was for you,” Kaity said.

Erik turned his head. He had to look away. Kaity had gone from some woman who needed a ride, and would maybe be a decent f*ck, to someone who dug into him and pushed him like no one else. Now Erik held her in his bed, tears in her eyes, and he actually wanted to hear what she had to say. He wanted to help her.





eighteen.



Kaity ran her hand down Erik’s face and didn’t stop until she touched his shoulder. The muscle was like steel. It made her squirm in her panties, feeling uncomfortable because of how turned on and wet she was. Yet it felt like they were having a moment, or maybe they weren’t. Kaity didn’t know what to do or what to think about this.

“That’s all there is to it,” Erik said. “We hired a guy to help us and that guy ended up kidnapped. And now two of his fingers have been delivered to us.”

“You didn’t get the guy?”

Erik shook his head. “It was another set up. We tracked the car down and it was some older guy's house. He was stabbed.”

“Is he dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

Kaity swallowed hard. She hung her head and tears filled her eyes again. There was so much death and violence, yet Kaity didn’t want to leave. In the comfort of Erik’s arms, the death, the violence, the never knowing what waited, didn't seem all that bad.

“I need to know about you,” Erik said. “Right now.”

Kaity squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. Of course one of the nightmares would cause this to happen. Usually she would wake up in the backseat of her car and comfort herself. Now she had someone else to comfort her.

Erik touched her chin and forced her to look at him.

“Open your f*cking eyes,” Erik whispered. “I need to know everything. Who is Brad? Are you in trouble?”

Kaity opened her eyes and a stray tear escaped. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Convince me.”

“He’s dead,” Kaity said.

Erik nodded. “That’s pretty convincing. Who is he?”

“I didn’t work for him,” Kaity said, “but I helped. That’s important to know.”

“Why?”

“Because Brad was a detective.”

The entire mood in the room shifted. The comforting, warm feeling was suddenly gone. Erik leaned back and put his hands to Kaity’s shoulders, keeping her at length.

“Say that again,” Erik said.

“No.”

“You were an informant?”

“I don’t know.”

“Better yet, you were a rat?”

“I helped,” Kaity said. “Because I needed money. It was something I enjoyed… or at least I thought I did.”

“Why?”

“Because Brad promised me a good life.”

“A job or his cock?”

“Sometimes both,” Kaity said. “Sometimes just one. I don’t know.”

“You f*cking stuck your nose in business that wasn’t yours.”

“It was serious stuff. Drugs. Murder. Abuse. That kind of stuff.”

“You weren’t on the payroll?”

“No. They were all back door deals.”

“How did you meet this guy?”

“I travel a lot,” Kaity said. “Okay? I’m always on the run. I think for myself. But I can’t get away from myself. One night I was sitting in my car and two cars pulled up near me. Next thing I knew, there was a tied up woman being exchanged and I found myself getting involved. I pretended to be drunk and stumbled around the scene after I called the police. Guess who I met then?”

“Yeah, I can f*cking guess,” Erik said.

“Brad offered to pay me on the side to get involved. I enjoyed the work. It made me feel like I had a purpose. He told me that if I did just one more thing… he would pull me from being undercover and give me an actual position. Full pay, benefits, recognition. All that bullshit.”

“When did you first f*ck him?”

“After someone I got close to was killed,” Kaity admitted. “There was a young woman who was hooked on drugs. I tried to save her and had her convinced to get into rehab. So the night of the big bust, we were supposed to save her. Her dealer shot and killed her, fingering her as a rat.”