Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC #5)(36)
Sax allowed the downtrodden Tobiah to peel off before he did. He’d ride chase. Slayer could shoot at anyone who tried to follow them, though none did.
“That’s kind of idiotic,” Slayer said in Sax’s ear as they drove off at a sedate speed. Never in a million years did Sax think he’d be riding down a country road with Santiago Slayer’s hands clasping his waist. That’s what this f*cking world has come to. Slayer was calm now, as though he’d worked through his love-fueled rage, and everything was out of his system now. “He registered that little helicopter online and then took it to a shootout with thugs?”
“Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?” Sax raged. He wasn’t sure which stunt was stupider, Tobiah’s online secretarial skills, or Slayer’s grand performance in Tormenta’s parking lot.
All Sax knew at that moment was that he’d have to rethink his entire approach. And Tormenta wasn’t going to be staying at this particular hideaway one more night.
CHAPTER NINE
BEATRIX
For the second time in my life, I was learning a great lesson. Love can urge us to a place of shelter and security.
I used to find this safety only in my faith, at the abbey. My spiritual director trained me to discern, think, and pray—to pray my way out of the pain caused by the only man I’d ever loved. After many years of following and obeying my calling, I thought I’d found some semblance of security. No one would come up the mountain in Boulder to my safe place and hurt me ever, ever again.
Now that I was falling in love again, I was terrified. The sort of man Sax was, in particular, scared the bejesus out of me. The first man, Baldy Avery—just his name was like a sword through my gut—was also a biker. Fresh out of my junior year in high school, he took me by storm—ruined me, devastated me. That explains my attraction to my old sweetbutt friends in The Bare Bones. It was my type, my spirit, the things I desired in life. Danger, excitement, thrills. The opposite of life in the abbey, now that I think on it.
Not only was Sax a biker, he was an itinerant biker. The two things that terrified me most on the planet. He was a nomadic bad boy, the worst sort of star to hitch your wagon to. Was I doomed forever to make the stupidest, most damaging choices in men? That’s one of the reasons the convent had been my safe haven. I was safe from being forced to make asinine, life-altering decisions like this. Things were much safer up there in more ways than one.
While Sax was gone on his urgent mission to track down Tormenta, there was a monthly fish fry at The Citadel. This was an ordinary thing with brother clubs such as the Assassins of Youth and the Baal’s Minions, and we certainly weren’t going to cancel it thanks to Tony Tormenta. The mood was subdued after the death of Brenda and there was a little shrine to her set up inside the hangar. A ceramic cholo, toy motorcycles, photos of Brenda, pieces of her jewelry. The heavy scent of Tuzigoot’s deep-fried battered catfish swirled around us as we gazed at the remainders of Brenda’s short, happy, turmoil-filled life. Was this all life boiled down to? I silently said a few prayers, because I hadn’t given up everything to do with my former faith.
I’d been to many fish fries, and this time they just posted a few more guards around the mesa, the access road. The band played outside on a stage, not nearly as good missing their lead guitarist, Roman Serpico, still off on honeymoon. I hoped he didn’t find out what was going on. If he came to avenge his father’s death, he could ruin whatever plan Sax had going. And bliss was so difficult to come by these days. Roman should be allowed to enjoy his little slice of heaven before returning to this hell.
“I’m so sorry about the circumstances of this party,” Harte said to Cassie and me. I’d seen the bartender pour him a tequila and orange juice, unusual for such a clean liver as Harte. “I don’t know what the f*ck has been going on around here lately, but it’s got to stop.”
Cassie stroked Harte’s leather-clad arm. She had improved much more than anyone had expected, although her face, a patchwork of red lines, was still too tender and raw to have the plastic surgery she needed. “Don’t worry about it, Harte. It’s hardly your fault. I blame Leo for continuing to do business with that motherf*cking Tormenta. I’m praying Sax is wherever right now, putting an end to him.”
Setting his drink on a speaker, Harte fumbled with an unlit cigarette. We were outside in the vast parking lot that faded out into a revetment area where they used to park airplanes and jets. It was easy to see for miles in every direction, one of the advantages of the location. “I just have a terrible feeling I might’ve somehow contributed to it.”
I thought I knew what Harte might be about to say. “You mean that you told Leo about our bounty.”
Harte reluctantly looked up at me from beneath a curtain of shimmering, squiggly ginger locks. “Yeah,” he said shortly, then looked back at his cig. “I stupidly trusted my father. I’m starting to have serious, grave doubts about him. The way he’s running this club, the choices he makes.”
That was a serious admission, especially to divulge to sweetbutts, who normally had no business knowing anything about inner club doings. I felt that Harte seemed closer to us, that he didn’t feel part of the club—that in a way his palling around with his club brothers was more of a charade than an expression of his innermost feelings. He seemed to feel he could be more himself around us. That was why he’d been the only one to come running when Cassie was slashed.