Rough Justice (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #1)(52)

“I’m sorry.” Axle babbled as Zane and Cade pulled him out of his chair. “I meant to have it covered, but the guy in my local shop was booked solid. He said he could do it next week.”

“Lucky for you, I’m in a good mood.” Jagger finished his beer and thumped the bottle on the table. “I’ll just remove it for you myself. There’s a room in the basement of the new clubhouse. No windows. Nice and quiet. You can choose … fire or acid. No one will hear you scream.”





TWELVE

Members are responsible for their own property. This includes chicks.

“So, how’d she take it?” Zane stretched out in his chair in the “reserved” corner of Riders Bar and tipped back his beer bottle.

They’d spent a night and a day extracting information from their prisoner. Finally, after burning away Axle’s tattoo with a blowtorch, they’d dropped him off at a local hospital, and adjourned to the bar for a little celebration. Cade had promised to join them when he finished shaking down some locals who didn’t think they needed Sinner protection. And Sparky had one more bike to finish up before he was done for the day.

“What?” Jagger drummed his thumb on the table. He hadn’t seen Arianne since leaving her in Sparky’s shop yesterday, and although he needed this drink after dealing with Axle, he wanted to talk to her, try to smooth things out. In retrospect, he might have been a bit insensitive with regard to her past, but when she’d made it clear that despite what they’d shared together, she was still planning to leave Conundrum, his possessive instinct had risen to the fore, and all he could think was No.

“Claiming her as a blood price.”

“Not so good.” Jagger took a sip of whiskey, grimacing at what was clearly a watered-down inferior brand.

Zane smirked. “I can imagine. What are you gonna do?”

“Keep her.”

“You can’t keep a woman like that.” Zane brushed back his hair. He alternated growing it long with shaving it all off. Right now it was as long as Jagger had ever seen it, straight, and edging past his shoulders.

“She’ll stay if she wants to stay and go if she wants to go.” He lifted a casual shoulder. “Nothing you can do to stop her, short of tying her up.”

Or locking her up.

Jagger gripped the glass. He’d meant it when he told her she wouldn’t be leaving Conundrum. But he hadn’t realized until this moment just how far he would go to keep her or how important she’d become in his life. Hell. It made no sense. He barely knew her. They’d never had anything close to a normal date. They’d f*cked once, and although he’d never wanted a woman so bad or come so hard in his life, it was, as she’d said, just sex, without the kind of intimacy on which a lasting bond could be built.

So why did it feel like something more? And why did he want it to be? He had created the perfect situation: The biker world would now see her as property of the Sinners. The Sinners knew she belonged to him. He could keep her without exposing her to the risk of being the old lady of the president. She wouldn’t suffer the way Christel had suffered, or become a target.

She would be his.

“If that’s what it takes.” He spoke with a conviction he didn’t feel. Wouldn’t it be better to prove he could protect her? Convince, rather than force her to stay?

“You’re f*cked, man.” Zane leaned back in his chair and propped his foot up on the table brace. “She’s got you by the balls. Only woman I’ve ever met who is worthy of you is the only woman who doesn’t want what you have to offer.” He chuckled and gestured to the dance floor, which was packed with biker chicks. “Any one of those women would fall over herself to be the old lady of the president of the Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club. You could take any one of them home with you right now, and she’d be on her f*cking knees begging to please you. But that Vexy chick you just claimed—”

Jagger bristled. “Arianne.”

“Arianne. Vexy. Whatever.” Zane gave a curt laugh. “My guess is she’s sitting at Sparky’s, plotting a way to escape—if she’s not gone already. And I gotta respect that. She doesn’t play games or lead a man on. She doesn’t twist a man’s nuts while she’s stabbing him in the back, or sleep with the first dick that walks in the door—”

“Zane.”

“There’s no deceit in her. You’re not gonna love her all your days only to have her betray you, rip out your heart, and stomp it on the f*cking ground. She’s not gonna tell you she loves you and that she’s gonna wait for you forever, and then the minute you’re gone, she’s f*cking anything that—”

Jagger cut him off mid rant. “What’s riding your ass?”

Zane took a long swig of his beer. “Nothin’.”

He almost pushed. Zane had never shared this much about what happened in the years they’d been apart. He’d always suspected Zane had been burned by a woman, but now he wondered if the answer lay closer to home.

“She’s not at Sparky’s,” he said, not wanting to risk Zane shutting him out. “She texted this afternoon and asked if she could go shoot stick with her friend Dawn. Since we had Axle and she belongs to us now, I let her go, but I sent Wheels and T-Rex with them.”