Never Love An Outlaw (Deadly Pistols MC #1)(142)

Click.

The thunk echoed loudly. I tested the handle and almost jumped up and shouted with joy when I felt it slide all the way, forcing the door to give way and creak open. There was no time for celebration.

I grabbed Christa and led her out, dragging her toward the back exit as quickly as I could. Running into one evil faced bastard could ruin us, but I'd done my part. Everything came down to luck now, and I prayed as we stepped outside, working our way around the huge garages, toward the gate.

If there was a separate exit that wasn't fenced off, I didn't know it. I had to work fast on what little I knew about this place. Christa groaned a few times when I tried to make her move faster, but she handled it better than I expected – better than a woman who'd just been damaged should.

I thought the lights on the clubhouse were motion detectors, but they never came on. Luck smiled at us in the darkness, urging us closer, straight toward the manual switch embedded in cement several feet away from the big gate. This one was more primitive than what the Devils had at their place – I'd watched men simply tap the big button on several occasions. There was no code to exit.

It was my turn to do the same. Christa stood in front of the bars, just like I told her, staring at me in the darkness as I tapped the dirty plastic key.

The gate chugged open.

She hit the pavement as soon as the gate gave her enough room. Joy pulsed through me watching her survival instinct kick in, the hellish urge to run like nothing else. I stood there stupidly for a couple seconds, and then it was my turn. I ran toward the open gate and slowed when I saw my shadow.

What the hell was it doing there in the night? Crap!

The floodlights were on. I got two steps outside before I heard boots thundering behind me. Christa was halfway across the road. She looked back and screamed, right as several men tackled me to the ground.

“Go! Don't f*cking stop!” I yelled. “Keep going! Keep –“

A brute hand grabbed the back of my head and slammed me into the pavement, face first. I tasted blood and I couldn't speak. I looked up, seeing headlights. A vehicle was slowing next to Christa and I thought it was them.

But the man inside driving looked like Rabid. Someone screamed go, go, go before the gunshots exploded over my head.

The truck took off, roaring into the night. She was gone . I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or horrified, but I'd done my job. Christa escaped.

I closed my eyes and let them lay into me. I didn't bother wasting energy fighting as they held my arms and legs, carrying me inside like a sick animal. I closed my eyes just as the gate growled shut in the distance. Before I opened them, the stink of the clubhouse interior hit me again.

“You're dead now, bitch. Dead! Do you f*cking understand?” A man roared in my face and pushed his cruel fingers around my chin.

It hurt. But I didn't look at him until they hurled me back inside the room. I crashed right into the chair where Christa had been, rolling over my tender new bruises until the wall stopped me.

The door slammed shut like a tomb. I felt for my wallet and the lockpick I'd shoved into my pocket on the way out with Christa. It was gone in the mess. The *s holding me were as sloppy as they were savage. Even they wouldn't f*ck up twice.

It didn't bother me that it was gone. If I still had it, they'd never leave that door unattended again. Not before somebody on one side or the other was dead.

The killer who screamed in my face was probably right. The relief I expected from helping Christa refused to relax my chest, replaced with another sadness.

I didn't care about dying if that was the price of helping her go free. But when I thought about how Jackie or Brass would react to my dead body if they saw it, the pain drove deep, a new dagger I had no way to pull out.

God! God damn it.

If only I hadn't frozen, if I'd been a few seconds faster...

The crappy room finally felt like a prison for the first time. The realization bit harsh, bitter, and merciless, gnawing on my head and my heart.

There was no getting out of this. No peace until death. If they killed me quicker and easier than Christa – and I knew they wouldn't – Brass would burn. So would my poor sister.

Yes, I'd saved the teacher. But now I'd damned myself and everybody stupid enough to ever love me.





X: Nuclear (Brass)


Hours Earlier

“Hold him down, dammit! Just don't break his f*cking wrists.”

The whole world went red the instant Shelly told me what happened over the phone. I flipped my shit at the Devils' clubhouse, hopped in my truck, and tried to plow right through their gate. The bastards caught up to me when I wouldn't tell them why I was ready to go, why I had to blow town right that f*cking instant.

Missy. My Missy.

My woman, losing her f*cking mind and heading to Redding alone. Scared. Determined. And definitely no match for Fang, the f*ck I swore I'd kill with my own bare hands.

He was gonna die, that much was sure, long before we even headed up to Devils' territory. But now the only question was whether I'd get my hands on his fat neck before he seriously f*cked up my old lady.

It took all three senior officers in their club to drag me back inside. I was about to ram my truck right through their f*cking gate, but they were quick. Shot out my tires and ran to my door, ripping it open, pulling me out, throwing me to the ground.