Outlaw's Vow: Grizzlies MC Romance(46)

What kind of illegal cargo had they held one time? Guns? Ammo? Drugs?

The club had been involved in selling and smuggling all sorts of stuff over the years. Now, the chickens had come home to roost, and they wouldn't stop until they'd pecked out the eyeballs of everyone I ever loved.

I couldn't believe how dumb and stubborn I'd been. Jesus, how absolutely fucked in the head daddy had been to think this was a good idea, drawing the Chinese here to stab them in the back and gain – what, exactly?

I didn't even know. I regretted walking away from Asphalt in the park.

Not just because I missed his love, his touch, the way he faced down the world to keep me safe...I regretted it because Wormwood might be alive right now if I'd only told him the truth.

He wouldn't have let this fly. He'd have called up his brothers in California the second he found out, brought them up here, and they'd crash right through the walls of this dirty warehouse.

They could've wiped out the Chinese before they killed another Tacoma man wearing the Grizzlies patch. They could've –

Fuck it. What was the use?

All of this would've-could've thinking wouldn't save me.

I let my train of thought derail because it wasn't happening, however bad I hoped it might. If Asphalt didn't just decide to throw up his strong hands and walk away from all this, he'd have hit the nearest bar after everything that went down between us.

And I couldn't blame him one bit.

It started as a sham marriage, but I'd wanted to open up so badly. I should've told him everything, like I'd started to before he interrogated me, beginning with how badly I'd wanted us to be real.

But I'd lied to him instead. I'd taken on this stupid obligation to my father's club, all on a dirty secret daddy had kept from even me, and now I just might pay for it with my life.



No clue how I slept, but I did.

A day or two passed in that dirty, dark container. Pulling down my pants and carefully pissing in the bucket was humiliating enough. So was having to thank the bastards who came to feed me stale crackers a couple times a day.

They wouldn't turn them over, or the fresh bottles of water that came with them, until I said thank you.

And I did, pretending I didn't understand the vicious comments they made in Chinese between their laughter.

Bitch thinks so much of herself, doesn't she?

Let's bring her down. Zee won't notice. There's nobody back here – bet she sucks like a starving village whore.

Hell, maybe the boss'll let us fuck her in front of daddy if the shithead keeps us waiting. Still no secrets. How many we got to kill to loosen up his lips? Maybe if we hold her down, fuck her instead, let him hear her screams...

Bitch is too polite. We'll play a game. First time she spits in our face and doesn't thank us for keeping her alive, we'll teach her a fucking lesson.

I learned to smile real big and say thank you each and every time. Thank God, there weren't very many of them.

They only came twice a day. Somehow, I walked on just enough eggshells to stop them from pushing me back inside the storage unit and closing the door behind them, leaving me alone with their dirty mafia cocks and savage threats.

I ate and drank to stay alive. Same reason I covered my ears every evening – or what I thought was evening – when I heard distant voices, screams, howls drowning in the unmistakable gurgle of human blood.

They were still torturing daddy and the brothers. Killing them.

I wondered who was left.

Jack-O? Line? Herc?

These men understood the risks of playing the outlaw game better than anyone. But nobody deserved to die with their hands bound while a bastard behind them slashed their throat.

So weak, so cowardly, and so fucking brutal.

I cried for them all. I prayed for my own miserable life, and daddy's too, not caring about the fact that he'd put us here.

I swore that if, by some crazy miracle, I ever got out of here alive, I'd find Asphalt. Any way I could. Next time I grabbed him, and I wouldn't let go.

I'd be the best old lady I could be to the only man who'd ever been completely straight with me, the man I knew I'd been born to meet.

God, please, just one more chance. Don't take my love, my life, before I can confess it.

Mom had always been more faithful than me. It hadn't saved her from dying once the cancer ate her up, no, but it had eased her pain.

I was about to learn that sometimes when you pray hard enough, when nothing gets lost in translation, and luck is on your side, heave and hell both answer at once.





VIII: Uncaged (Asphalt)


Forty Hours Earlier

I needed a stiff goddamned drink after that shit in the park.

I was still in shock, squeezing the bars of my bike as it rattled down the road so hard I let the force shake me numb.

Didn't understand how the fuck she'd done it, but she had.

My baby girl fucked away everything. Showed me she didn't really give a shit, that she wasn't my babe after all, that she put her old man's dangerous games ahead of common sense.