Loving Me, Trusting You(22)

I move forward and pause only when Will turns and levels his 9mm on my chest, pursing my lips and barely blinking when Gaine steps up beside me, a gun held out in front of him. Didn't even know he had it to be honest with you. I'm not used to scuffles like this. Triple M pretty much stays on the sidelines. We have minor brawls, fist fights, maybe a swinging baseball bat here and there, but nothing that requires firepower. Can't say that I like it much.

I examine Kelley's metal, a sleek piece of silver that doesn't mean much to me. I'm a bike girl, not a gun girl. You'd think the two interests would go hand in hand, but trust me, there's a difference.

“Now, I'm not here to start shit with y'all. I simply want an answer to my question.” I spit at the floor and bark out a laugh, letting my eyes slide surreptitiously around the room. I want to know how many of his people are here and where they're at and what they're up to. I doubt Austin expected anything to happen to us during a two minute walk across the street. I didn't hear any bikes pull into town last night, so I'm guessing the whole MC isn't here, probably just a few guys. That puts things in our favor. If we're not back in ten, I'm sure half of Triple M will be down here at Austin's behest. I know he wouldn't let anything happen to his precious little Amy Cross. Speaking of which, I glance over my shoulder and find her with a can of pepper spray in hand, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. She looks pissed.

“Where's Christy?” she asks, bringing my mind back around to her friend. Oh, f*ck. This could be bad, really bad. I swing my gaze back around to Will Walker as he rises from the stool with a grunt, leather creaking as he stretches his arms above his head and gives us a crooked toothed smile. Hillbilly f*ck with ugly ass teeth. God, I sure would like to see those yellow monstrosities lying chipped and ruined on the splintery wood floor. I clench my fingers around the metal and lick my lips.

“Your friend is fine,” Will says with a wink, and I notice that Gaine stiffens, finger tightening like it's having a muscle spasm, going stiff as a board. I know he knows about my past. In a night of blind idiocy, I spilled everything to him. Maybe not the best choice I ever made, but what's done is done. Gaine knows more than anyone else about what I went through back then and vengeance is burning in his blood. Thing is, this vengeance is mine for the taking. “She's just hangin' in the back with some of my boys.” My body goes cold then, straight from molten to ice. The transition is so quick that it makes me dizzy, and I almost sway on my feet. Only Gaine's solidness beside me keeps me still. Why the f*ck is that, I wonder?

“You touch her and you can forget shit, Walker. I will cut off your nuts and feed 'em to you, one misshapen, sterile, inbred bite at a time. And then I'll move onto your dick. You don't even want to know what sort of creative ideas I have for that useless piece of hypocrisy.” Will just laughs and shakes his head, secure in his fallacies and his stupidity, his ignorance and all the horrible misogynistic bull that's floating around this community. Biker bitches don't mean shit, not to him, not to a lot of people.

I start to wonder if I was put on this earth to prove them wrong.

“Beck, you okay back there?” I ask, voice neutral, calm. I won't give anything away. Don't have to. Sometimes, when other people think less of you, it's best to let 'em. Then, when it's time to come in and kick their ass, they won't see it coming. El día que se muere, la tierra va a llorar lágrimas de alegría.

Will doesn't think women are worth a damn, so he doesn't think they're a threat to be reckoned with.

“All good back here, lady cakes,” he says, and I smile.

Two steps forward, elbow cocked back, and then I slam the tire iron against the side of Will's face. He doesn't scream, doesn't cry out, just drops to the floor like a sack of f*cking potatoes. Shouts ring out from behind the door to the back room where I stumbled upon Austin f*cking Amy for the first time. What a momentous occasion that was. I didn't think anything of it then. I just thought she was another random f*ck, a girl that would disappear into a history of blurry faces. I wonder sometimes if the most important events in life are cloaked in obscurity on purpose, just to screw with us.

Gaine doesn't hesitate in firing back, one handed mind you which is pretty damn impressive. His other arm comes out and snakes around my waist, pulling me tight against his hot body, the pulsing thrum of energy he carries around with him always. I was immune to it, or at least I thought I was. Until now. Now, even in a hail of gunfire, I feel like I'm bent over the fire, heating back up and rising like steam. That coldness fades away in a split second, retreating back to whence it came, and then I'm just hot and angry again. And compared to that strange coldness, it's a f*cking blessing.

“What the f*ck were you thinking, Mireya Sawyer?” he says and he sounds like a New Yorker again. He's been surrounded by viscous, Southern drawls since he was sixteen, so it's rubbed off on him pretty heavily, but like me, when he gets stressed, it's back to resting on his laurels. I've got Castilian, and he's got Upstate New York. What a pair we make.

“Screw you, Kelley,” I say, even as we drop to the floor in a flurry of activity. Vaguely, I remember Amy and feel a surge of panic in my chest. I try to check for her, but Gaine's yanking me behind a table and holding me tight against him while the room quiets down and an eerie silence descends. I don't see Beck or Amy, but I pray to God that she's alright. If I were to get her killed, Austin would never forgive me. I would never forgive me. I might not like the girl, but I feel responsible towards her somehow. Maybe it's some latent mothering bullshit or something? I don't know. I just don't want her to get killed by a bunch of rapists with guns.