Loving Me, Trusting You(49)

The motorcycles roll to a stop near my bike and idle there while I speak to the operator. I don't give her my name, even though she asks, just the address of the hotel.

“I don't know what happened to her, but it doesn't look good. You'd best be on your way quick.” I hang up the phone and slip my jacket off my shoulders, pausing before I lay it across her body. If I leave it here, I'm putting everybody at risk. Regretfully, I pull back and ready my gun. If it comes down to it, really comes down to it, I'd like to take a few of those *s out before I go. I check the cylinder real quick and then sit back to wait.

“Gaine?” It's Austin's voice, just barely audible over the growling of his engine. “Where the f*ck are you at?” I keep my revolver out, just in case. I mean, it doesn't take a Goddamn genius to figure out that this was a trap of some sort. Or a warning. We're running on borrowed time here.

I move out of the bushes to find Kimmi and Austin waiting for me. When they spot me, they both lower their weapons and breathe sighs of relief.

“What the hell are you doing in there?” Kimmi snarls, looking around like she expects to be ambushed at any moment. Scary thing is, I don't think she's overreacting. Sometime soon, somebody, whether biker or cop, is going to pull around that corner. “And who the f*ck is that?”

I move forward and straddle my bike with a sigh and a regretful glance. I hate to leave the woman here, but I have no other choice. It's time to move on or get caught. I leave my helmet on the back of my bike and put my weapon away, keeping it in easy reach, just in case.

“That,” I tell them as I close my fists over the handlebars. “Is a girl who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I think about Mireya and how she'd feel if she knew. A girl who was, presumably, beaten and raped by the same men that attacked her. A girl who ended up on their radar because of us. I can't tell her. Hell, I can't tell Beck either. This is something that Austin, Kimmi, and I are going to have to keep to ourselves.

“Should I be worried?” Austin asks from behind me. It's hard to know how to respond to that question.

“If you mean, is this a trap of some sort? I don't know. Maybe more of a message than anything else, but I'll tell you this. We better get the hell out of here before it's too late. An ambulance is on its way.” I turn and glance over my shoulder, catch a glimpse of Austin's face. Whether he and Kimmi were successful at the bank or not doesn't matter right now. If the cops come and find this girl while we're still at the hotel, we are up shit creek without a paddle. “And I'm sorry,” I add before either of them get a chance to say anything. The apology's not just for them, but for the girl, too. Leaving her alone in the grass feels like a betrayal of my soul, but I've already put Triple M in enough danger as it is. It's time to go, before Mireya finds out and something else snaps inside of her.

“Alright then,” Austin says with a sigh. He sounds tired already, and it's only his first week on the job. If we end up in an all out war, with our girls on one end and strangers on the other, all suffering over some dumb piece of shit like Tray Walker, the man's going to die from the stress. I hope this shit ends. Soon. I wonder briefly what might happen if I took matters into my own hands? “Let's rally the troops and light up the night.” He tries to smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes. “That vacation we needed before is a necessity now. Let's cool our heels in the surf while we wait for this crap to die down. In a few weeks, we'll head to the West Coast where nobody's heard of Bested by Crows and this shit is buried in the dust behind us.”

He revs up his bike and starts up the hill with Kimmi following close behind. She doesn't say anything, but I can see in her face as she passes that she's nervous. Not good.

I sigh and follow after them, doing my best to believe that it'll be as easy as Austin says to escape this without anyone else getting hurt. My mind goes right back to Mireya again. I know that on some level, she believes this is all her fault, that her past is chasing after her with a vengeance. I've got to get her out of this before she's pushed to the breaking point, twisted and broken beyond all recognition. Whatever's going on inside her head right now is leaving her vulnerable and open, in a place that won't be able to withstand another backlash of pain. Healing is great, but it leaves fresh patches in your soul where hurt can climb deeper if you let it. It's my job to make sure that doesn't happen. I think about her face today, when her chains were wrapped around Mack's neck, and I wonder, was that hesitation I saw boiling behind all of that rage?





“Okay, kitty cats, time to go,” Austin says as he pushes into the room with a frown on his scarred lips. Amy lights up the moment he walks in the door, and me, I feel nothing. Maybe I should be glad she came in and took him off the menu. It's giving me a chance to focus, to move onto other things. Like Gaine Kelley. I frown and wait for him to walk in next. He doesn't. My heart starts to pound as I throw the book aside, forgetting the glee I felt when I pounded through the story in just a few quick hours. Either the book was short or I'm not as dumb as I thought. Anyway, it doesn't matter. When I finished reading it, I felt … better. Now I just feel anxious and short of breath. What the hell?

Amy stands up, but Austin doesn't approach her, just starts grabbing bags and tossing them over his shoulder. The plan was to leave early in the morning, but I didn't expect we'd be going this early. Something's wrong. Amy notices, too, pausing awkwardly at the end of the bed like she expected some sort of nice to see you kiss or whatnot. I try not to roll my eyes. The fear in my gut won't let me anyway.