This did not sound good.
Like, at all.
“You mean, overthrow Dad?” I asked, my voice shaky.
“I don’t know what it means,” Shy answered. “I do know your brother is no fool either. I can tell by the way he’s taking his shit as a recruit that the Club means somethin’ to him and, gotta say, Tab, that shocked the shit outta me. If I had this as my legacy, I turned eighteen, I’d be workin’ toward my cut. He jumped on board when he was twenty-five. But there’s no denyin’ he’s all in. Dog and Brick are in Grand Junction, Hop and me have Tack’s ear and he shares. Which is somethin’ you don’t do. As far as you’re concerned, you don’t know this. You gotta watch it play out just like everybody. You don’t intervene. You don’t have words with either of them. They’re your dad and brother but bottom line, it’s Club business, Tabby, and you know what that means.”
I did.
I also knew not long after the business went down with Lee Nightingale and the boys had Shy’s back, Shy approached Dad to ask if his offer to be lieutenant was still open. Dad shared he was holding the position for Shy until he was ready for it, no one else was even a consideration. This meant Shy was in the inner sanctum, an elevated position within the Club and, at his age, that was huge.
Therefore, as his woman and with his position in the Club, I had to stand by his side.
This meant not getting into his face about Club business.
So I simply stated. “Shy, I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“You wouldn’t ’cause you’re a daughter and a sister. What you aren’t is a son or a Chaos brother. They might not see eye to eye but your brother loves his father, he respects him and, when he earns his cut, they’ll add a different relationship to that. We all don’t get along all the time. There’s friction, differences of opinion, politics, even clashes. But there’s always the brotherhood and we all know it. That will never die.”
Well, at least there was that.
I backtracked, my eyes moving to his bandage then back to his face.
“How big is this problem with the porn guy?” I asked quietly, and I got what I expected.
“That’s not somethin’ you worry about.”
This was something, as his woman and him my man with a bandage on his neck, I had to get in his face about.
“Wrong, Shy,” I whispered.
He dipped his face close. “Your bitch is a mess. She hit bottom but, stuff she’s into, that won’t mean a thing. She might be shaken up and get her shit sorted but she might not. It isn’t cool she called you, dragged you and, because of you, Chaos into her mess, but this was going to happen, it just came sooner. You were dragged in, now you know. But that’s all you know and you don’t worry.”
“That’s impossible,” I informed him.
“If you think this Club hasn’t weathered worse storms than this guy, you’re wrong.”
This was not welcome information.
“Shy, you got shot and you’re okay but—”
His head moved, his mouth touched mine and when he lifted his head, his thumb slid to my lips. “Tab, baby, after what you lost, do you think for a second I’d do anything, your father would do anything, to make you lose me?”
This made me feel slightly better, because I didn’t think that, not for a second, but that didn’t mean I didn’t repeat, even with his thumb still on my lips, “Shy, darlin’, you got shot.”
“A nick,” he clarified.
“But—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“But, Shy—”
His thumb pressed against my lips lightly.
“Tabitha, I’m not leaving you.”
I held my silence and his eyes.
Then I lifted a hand, curled it around his wrist, pulled his hand away and whispered, “You better not.”
He grinned and whispered back, “You’re stuck with me.”
God, I hoped so.
I took in an unsteady breath.
Then I told him, “Sorry my ex–best friend got you nicked by a bullet.”
His grin turned into a smile. “Shit happens.”
It was kind of forced but I grinned back.
He pulled against my hold so his hand could come back, his thumb gliding along my lips as his eyes watched. His smile was gone when his gaze again met mine.
“Always and forever, baby, you’re stuck with me.”
I drew in a deep breath that miraculously was calming and I nodded.
Shy studied me then dipped his head, brushed his lips against mine, and then rolled to his back, taking me with him, tucking me to his side.
“Wiped, sugar,” he muttered. “Rest with me.”
“Okay,” I muttered back, snuggling closer, knowing, after as much caffeine as I consumed, all that had happened and all that I’d learned, I wouldn’t sleep a wink.
I was right. I felt Shy relax under me, his breath even out, his arm around my waist going heavy.
I stared at his tee, the pendants resting at his throat, my mind bouncing from thought to thought, not any of them happy.
Then it bounced and landed on, You’re stuck with me.
My lips curved into a smile.
Then I relaxed into my man, my breath evened out, my weight against him going heavy, pressed deep into his side, wrapped around him, in sleep proving something he was missing in his sleep but that was okay since he already knew.
He was stuck with me too.
Chapter Twenty-One
All In
Shy felt the vibe, he opened his eyes and felt Tabby’s weight pressed against him.
Carefully, he curled up, kissed the top of her hair, then slid out from under her sleeping body. Finding his feet by the side of the bed, he watched his girl adjust, curl into his pillow, never losing sleep.
He wanted to pull her hair away from her face so he could see it, feel the softness run through his fingers, but he didn’t want to chance waking her. So he left her in his bed and moved from the room.
When he hit the common room, he saw most of his brothers were congregated around the bar. Hop was sitting on a stool, Tack standing close to him.
Shy approached and when he got close Tack asked, “She doin’ okay?”
“Sleepin’,” Shy answered.
“She’s doin’ okay,” Tack muttered.
“She’ll be out awhile, but I still wanna have this shit done and get back to her before she wakes up,” Shy went on.
Tack jerked up his chin, Hop slid off the stool, and they moved out to their bikes, Tack on his phone.
They waited until Tack finished his calls before they started up and roared out, Tack in the lead, Hop and Shy riding side by side behind him.
Tack and his lieutenants arrived at the rendezvous point first. They were off their bikes and waiting when the first vehicle pulled up.
An unmarked cop car carrying Mitch Lawson and Brock Lucas, both detectives with the DPD. Both tight with Tack due to complicated history, this history complicated because it had to do with women and, in Lawson’s case, kids.
Shy watched the men exit the car and approach and it wasn’t lost on Shy that both men, even behind shades, clocked the bandage at his neck.
Lawson looked to Tack. “Word is, last night, you bought yourself a problem.”
“My daughter’s best friend got herself a habit. No supplier is a good one with that habit but she still managed to pick the worst,” Tack confirmed.
Lucas tipped his head to Shy. “She learn a lesson?”
“We’ll see,” Tack muttered as a gray Camaro made its approach and all eyes turned to watch Hawk Delgado park and fold out of his vehicle. His right-hand man, Jorge, folded himself out of the passenger side.
Unlike Lawson and Lucas, as he moved to them, Delgado’s face was not assessing. He was pissed.
When he stopped at the group, eyes locked to Tack, he stated, “After the meet, we have words.”
“Not a big fan of collateral damage,” Tack returned, h
is way of saying there would be no words after the meet. He did what he did and Hawk had to deal.
“You needed that girl, you saw Elvira there, you knew we were working a job, all you had to do was call me,” Hawk shot back.
“Do not shit me,” Tack bit out. “You’re workin’ a job, it’s about the job, and your job was not about that girl. Fifty-fifty chance you’d let that girl swing and her time was up. She means somethin’ to my daughter. I had to move and I didn’t have the option of takin’ any of the limited time I had to negotiate with you.”
Shy watched Hawk’s mouth get tight which meant he conceded the point.
“Right,” Lucas cut in to change the subject before the mood deteriorated further. “It’s not a secret Chaos has been havin’ problems with Benito for a while. It’s also not a secret DPD has always had problems with him since he’s a piece-of-shit scumbag. What was a secret until last night was that Delgado’s got somethin’ workin’ with this and it was blown. Now Benito’s gonna be more determined to carve into Chaos territory, and Hawk’s out there, seein’ as they’ve probably already traced Elvira to his operation.” Lucas trained his shades on Delgado. “Not to mention, Malik is all kinds of pissed because Elvira was made before you did whatever you’re gettin’ paid to do, you didn’t discuss her involvement with him, and she’s now seriously vulnerable.”
“She’s got protection and part of that is sleepin’ with a cop,” Delgado returned. “The rest of it is me.”
This was formidable. They all knew that.
But so was Benito. They all knew that too.
“Now we know the lay of the land,” Lawson pointed out. “We also know that the time has come to put an end to Benito’s operation.”
“That time came about two years ago,” Hop threw out.
“Not gonna argue that,” Lucas stated. “But that didn’t happen and I think it hasn’t escaped anybody that this shit was simmering. Now the situation is all kinds of hot.”
“Extreme,” Tack agreed, then declared, “War.”
“Chaos and Delgado,” Shy added, looking at Hawk. “I think, man, Benito’s more pissed at you, and he’s a weasel. Have a mind to your back.”
“I always do,” Delgado replied.
“Then have a mind to everything,” Shy went on. “Weasels are slick motherfuckers who can go underground. He might not come at your back. He might dig up from underneath.”
“Not tellin’ me somethin’ I don’t know,” Delgado said.
“What he’s tellin’ you that you don’t know is this is now a team effort,” Tack announced. “That’s why we called this meeting. You’re a target. Elvira’s a target. Chaos is a target. Benito’s an anything-goes man, so right now it is all eyes, all ears, all hands, all firepower…” Tack looked to Lucas and Lawson and finished, “… all in.”
Shy looked through the men and was not surprised when not one said anything.
Tacit agreement.
Lucas and Lawson might be cops, but their bond with Tack was such that it wasn’t just about taking down a drug-dealing porn producer. With Chaos in Benito’s sights, it was more.
Delgado and Tack were always butting heads, but Tack took Delgado’s woman’s back during an intense situation, which meant he also took Delgado’s. In return, Delgado took Tack’s back when things got extreme with Cherry. Shit like that didn’t go down without ties forming. Ties that bind.
Thus, with no further words, the meeting ended. Jorge and Delgado moved to the Camaro, Lucas and Lawson angled into the unmarked cop car.
The three brothers watched them leave, and when they lost sight, they moved to huddle.
“Rush is not gonna be happy about this shit,” Hop noted, and Tack sighed.
“Already isn’t. We had words,” Tack told them. “He thinks we should lay it on Lucas and Lawson and back off. I told him that’s not gonna happen. He knows this is gonna get messy. Says it proves his point.”
“He’s wrong,” Shy remarked, and Tack looked at him, nodding once.
“He is,” Tack muttered then, “He’ll see.” He lifted a hand, curled it around the back of his neck, looked into the distance and finished, “We’ll all see.”
They would. That message was made clear last night.
Take Natalie, declare war.
They took Natalie.
They had war.
Now it was only deciding who would strike first.
“Need to get back to Tab,” Shy murmured, Tack dropped his hand and looked at Shy.
“Right,” he replied then Shy watched him draw in another breath before he stated, “She’s mine, but I get she’s yours in a way I don’t have anymore. Respect, but I’m askin’ you to carry the burden and let her breathe easy.”
“She’s yours, Tack, which means she’s not dumb. That bitch called her direct.” Shy lifted a hand to indicate the bandage on his neck. “Last night was not lost on her. She knows we bought trouble.”
“I get that, brother. I’m not sayin’ that. I’m sayin’, you carry the burden and let her breathe easy. Are you getting me?”
Shy held his gaze before he nodded.
Tack drew in another breath, this one he didn’t hide that, when he let it out, it was relieved.
“Lanie,” Hop muttered, bringing the matter back to hand that they needed to get back to their women.
Tack turned and nodded to Hop.
“Right,” he repeated. “Later, brothers. Have a mind, it’s early, he won’t move this quick, but watch your backs.”
Shy nodded. Hop did too.
They swung on their bikes and roared off to get to their women.
* * *
Tack
Tack Allen watched his brothers go.
He didn’t move as he did. He didn’t move for long minutes after they disappeared.
He stood there knowing.
Tyra, Tabby, Lanie, Sheila, the entire family.
Benito Valenzuela was hardcore cracked. Void. Empty. No emotion. No loyalty. No nothing.
Empty of everything but greed.
A man who felt nothing but greed, he gave you only one option for leverage.
But he had many.
“Fuck,” Tack whispered, closed his eyes, felt the pit weigh heavy in his gut and opened his eyes.
It wasn’t over.
It was never fucking over.
“Fuck,” he repeated, moved to his bike, swung his leg over and roared off to get to his woman.
* * *
Shy
Shy opened the door to his room in the Compound, stepped through, and stopped dead at what he saw.
Tabby was sitting cross-legged in his bed wearing his T-shirt. Her head was bowed and she was staring at her phone, her profile a mask of disbelief.
He closed the door behind him, calling, “Tabby?”
Slowly, her head turned his way, the disbelief in her face cleared, her beautiful blue eyes started shining just as her perfect rosy lips started curling up.
Then her body started shaking.
That was when he heard her giggles.
Shy froze at the sight.
There she was, his girl, after a night like last night, sitting in his bed in his room… laughing.
Oh yeah.
That was his girl.
On this thought, through her laughter, she forced out, “Shy, darlin’, I just got off the phone with Ty-Ty…” She trailed off shaking her head, giggling some more but before he could prompt her, she continued, “She just gave me the latest scoop on Lanie and Hop and, honey, you… would not… believe.”
She then told him what he wouldn’t believe and, in telling, proved she didn’t know Hop all that well.
Because Shy believed it.
Every word.
Epilogue
Start Now
Two weeks later…
I swung off Shy’s bike, my eyes to the view.
Denver was lit up, sprawling left to right but beyond, nothing but darkness.
All of it beautiful. r />
I moved to the edge of the mountain road, my cheeks stinging from the cold that whipped them as I rode up to elevation with Shy, me where I belonged.
On the back of my man’s bike.
I felt him move in behind me. He wrapped his arms around my chest, then I felt his lips against the top of my hair.
“What’s on my girl’s mind?” he asked quietly.
He so knew me.
“Natalie,” I replied, lifting my hands and curling my fingers around his forearms.
My friend had fallen off the wagon, not that she ever really got on.
It didn’t take long.
It also broke my heart.
After that, I broke ties. It killed, but I couldn’t save her so I had to save my peace of mind. The problem with that was, it wasn’t working.
I felt his lips leave my hair but his jaw replaced them.
We stared at the view silently.
I broke our silence.
“You gave her a chance, she blew it. Went out and scored. You cut her loose and now, I don’t know.” My hands gripped his arms tight. “Shy, I don’t know and as ticked as I am at her, I’m worried.”
I felt him heave a breath, his chest expanding, pressing into my back.
“You know what I know?” he asked.
“What do you know?” I asked back.
“I know you can spend your energy and head space worryin’, and a bitch who was minutes away from being force fed pussy goes out and scores is not worth it.”