Released (Devil's Blaze MC #3)(27)

When the door closes behind her, my eyes go to my watch and I don’t move as I start counting down the time. With each minute that passes, my heart kicks up in speed. At nine minutes, Katie and I look at each other and nod.

“Okay, girls. Let’s kick some ass and take some names,” Katie tells them.

We cock our weapons and nod at each other. I know we’re both nervous as hell and I’m second-guessing myself like crazy. I figure Katie is, too.

The only bright side to all of this is that I snuck into Skull’s office last night and started looking around his desk. He didn’t leave anything out, but there was a locked drawer. Skull hasn’t met this side of me, the side that grew up with a need to learn so I could defend. I picked the lock in no time and found their plans. They had surveillance of the cabin. They planned to enter through the back mudroom. There was a window with a torn screen. I had decided to go first and secure the room before the other girls enter. That way when we go into war we’ll be unified, with Louise being our surprise. And it will be a war. Matthew might be stupid, but he’s evil. Pure evil, all the way through.

We wait at the back of the house. It’s about three minutes before the other two show up. I go in first. Since having Gabby and living life on the run, I’ve lost so much weight it makes getting into the small window pretty easy. I can’t hear anything from the other rooms, but the main living room and kitchen are down a hall, so that’s not a big surprise. I keep the door closed and go back to helping pull the others through. Everyone slips in easily, but it takes me and Candy to pull Katie through.

“Your ass was not made for this window,” I joke quietly.

“No, but Hunter likes a little cushion for the pushing, so I’m keeping it,” she whispers and grins. “Besides, I got a feeling I’m going to be glad for the extra padding tonight if he finds out about this.”

“Let’s hope they don’t. I love everything about Briar, but when he’s mad, I feel it for weeks.”

I don’t respond. There’s not much I can add to this conversation and it’s probably best we don’t talk like a bunch of nervous idiots. I crack the door open and, when I see nothing, open it a little wider. I look at the girls and all signs of the joking we shared a little bit ago are gone.

It’s show time.

I want to ask if they’re sure they want to do this, but it’s too late for that. Louise is out there and, everything else aside, we cannot leave her here with these men. It’s too late to turn back.

Please, God, let us pull this off.





“I don’t want you here,” I tell Torch like a damn kid. I sound childish even to my own ears, but I’m tired of him asking why I’m so f*cking quiet.

“Why the hell not?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand that you’re pushing your club away when you need us the most.”

“The thing I need the most is to be left the f*ck alone. Estúpido,” I grumble under my breath but loud enough so he can hear me. We’re in the truck driving in Tennessee. My nerves are shot. I feel this sense of f*cking doom, and I feel like I’m just driving around waiting for a damned shoe to drop on my head.

“That’s the last thing you need. You need to get out of your head. You’ve been holding yourself apart from us for far too f*cking long. Shit, most of us didn’t even know you were sticking your dick in the doctor.”

“It’s not your business to know where I stick my polla.”

“Maybe not, but if I had known, I would have told you to steer away from the damn piranha.”

My hands clench the armrest at his words. “What do you have against her?” I’m already wishing she wasn’t around for Beth to see. The last thing I want to do is talk about this shit.

“Can’t put my finger on it, but she’s just… calculating. She set her sights on you from the beginning. We all saw it,” Torch says while driving, looking over at me briefly as he talks.

“I chased her,” I argue, hating myself for it now, but admitting it.

“Bullshit in July, you did. She spotted you at Dragon’s funeral. All the boys talked about how she made sure to sit in your line of sight and kept smiling at you, so shy-like. At first we thought it was cute, but the more you get to know the good doctor, she doesn’t seem shy at all, does she?”

“You and the men are f*cking busybodies. If you honestly thought she was making a play, why didn’t you say something before now?”

“Like I said, until she started coming to the club every couple of days, we didn’t know you were f*cking her, so it didn’t matter.”

Ironically, I haven’t been f*cking her since she started coming to the club. She’s only been around to help keep Pistol alive. I’m not confessing that, though. I don’t know if it’s worse they think I got taken for a ride or if they know that I haven’t touched a woman in over a year, not since the moment I knew Beth was alive. I haven’t even had an interest in any woman. Fuck, the only time my dick seems to react is with Beth. The most action I’ve had in a year came last night when I was whacking off to a memory of the f*cking kiss I shared with her.

I turn the radio up to drown him out, but just a little since Gabby is sleeping in the back. I turn to watch her. Mi hija. Her dark hair and skin look so much like me, but she has a softness about her that is all her mother. And those eyes… I once vowed as a child to have a woman with blue eyes. I was stupid. It’s gray. The color of the blue sky and white clouds as they roll above—dusky gray. That’s the color that claims your soul. Now, I have two women in my life with those eyes. Can I manage to keep them both?