“He’s going to start a war,” she then said. “He said he’s going to burn down the bar first tonight.”

He gripped her tighter. “Why did he tell you that?”

“Because he wanted me to come with him before it happened. He wanted to put me in one of their hideouts. Of course he trusted me enough not to tell you this…” Her words trailed away. He watched her with sadness. It wouldn’t have been easy at all selling Jaxon out like this.

“Please be careful,” she begged him, voice breaking. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Just take care of yourself.”

She shouldn’t be worried about him. Remy was good at dodging death and putting the fuckers into the ground. They didn’t call him Reaper for nothing. He was more than capable of stopping this kind of retaliation and defending his club.

“You don’t have anything to be worried about, Birdy,” he reassured her.

He kissed her again, and she held him tighter to him as she tenderly stroked his lips. Her love for him was leaking right out of her and it wrenched his heart again. For a moment, she couldn’t stop herself. She hugged him so hard and kissed him so deep, he felt drugged by the intensity of it.

“I gotta sort this thing out,” he murmured to her, brushing his nose against hers. “I’ll be back sometime tonight. Stay in the room and keep the door locked. Just in case. Okay?”

She nodded her head. “Okay.”

He kissed her hand and got up, drinking her beauty in one last time before he walked out of the room. Now that he was away from her his anger resurfaced. How could they fucking think they could start a war? Where had this even come from? The Scorpions were dumber than he thought. All that talk from Fritz was starting to make sense. They had to end this shit once and for all. These fuckers had uprooted into their neighbourhood and now enough was enough.

He barged into the surveillance room and laid down the actions for tonight. Then they unloaded a damning amount of guns from the artillery room and climbed on their bikes, each carrying a duffel bag on their back.

“Stop drinkin’ yourself to death,” he scolded Fritz on his way out. “So fuckin’ sick and tired of you being a useless asshole when we need you. Lay off the fuckin’ booze tonight and keep guard. The slightest noise and you call me.”

Sober Fritz was a man that you could depend on. Drunk Fritz was a useless piece of shit that deserved a beating. At the moment, he was in between, so the bastard needed to lay off the alcohol for one goddamn night.

“What do you intend on doin’ to Jaxon?” Prez asked Remy before he climbed on his bike. “Because that’s the real problem here – not the Scorpions.”

“That douchebag dug his own grave,” Remy replied. “For now we wait and see how the night goes and if he will actually be stupid enough to set fire to our shit.”

“So you trust your girl’s word?”

“You saw the tape yourself, Manny.”

Prez nodded. “Yeah, well, I had my doubts. Good to know she ain’t sellin’ you out.”

Remy owed her big for doubting her, too. He’d be forever indebted to her and he had a lifetime to make up for it. But now he had to sort the douche out and, to his surprise, he didn’t know what he was going to do about it. If it were up to him, he’d kill him. Removing him from the picture would smoothen out a lot of complications in his life. Forever he’d been in that man’s shadow.

The reasonable Remy didn’t want to cause more heartbreak to Sara. It was one thing to walk away from someone she loved. How would she react if he’d been killed in the hands of the man she chose to be with now?

That was a predicament he didn’t want to experience.

Eighteen

I sat at the edge of the bed and watched the clock on the night stand tick by. Wait for it… Wait for it…

Exactly forty five minutes after Remy left, I stood up and paced the room. I was a ball of nerves. At one point I stopped, bent down and tried to control my breathing. I was hyperventilating. It has to be done…

I steeled myself and stood up straight. Then I went to my drawer and pulled out a pair of my jeans. I dug into its pocket and withdrew the one weapon I’d taken from the bunker the first night I’d been there. The switch blade. During that lonely night, I’d opened the box again and concealed it in the pocket of one of my jeans. At the time I did it because I was still uncertain of Remy, and now I was glad I had something to fall back on in case I had to really fight for my life.

I put it into my pocket and stared at the door, telling myself to move my legs. “You gotta do this,” I whispered, hoping that saying it out loud would help somehow. “Just get it done.”

In a heartbeat, I moved to the door and opened it. Peering down the empty hallway, I resolved to just get this done as fast as possible. It was late at night. The women were in their rooms, and they wouldn’t know come morning.

I hurried down the stairs and then cautiously made my way to the surveillance room. I stopped in front of the room and put my ear against it. I couldn’t hear him. Fuck, why couldn’t I hear him? This might blow up in my face before it even began. I backed away from the door. This was out of my hands now.

Entering the main room, I searched the tables. I stilled when I saw it, exactly where he said it was going to be! I looked around the room; Fritz was passed out on the couch and there were two cats rolling on the rug beneath him. Had it ever been so silent before? It was like the calm before the storm. Every Jackal was out guarding the bar, waiting for the strike to come, and here I was, in the core of their home, protecting something of my own: my heart.

I was acting purely on adrenaline. I walked to the table and grabbed the gun at the end. So far, he was right. Now this next bit was going to be tricky. Heart pounding, I eased up to Fritz. Fuck, he needed to be coherent for this. He needed to be awake, goddammit!

You still have the opportunity to back out of this, I told myself. Yeah, fucking unlikely. The second I had seen him, I was a goner.

“Do you or do you not, Sara?!”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off immediately. “Because if you do, you need to let me talk first. There are cameras all over the place. I can’t just walk you out of here. There’s too much risk and I don’t want to fuck this up. They can’t hear us now because the alarms are going, so listen carefully. If you want this, you shake your head. If you don’t, then make no movement at all. Now, do you want this?”

He’d plotted this to perfection. Those blue eyes roamed my face, seeking an immediate answer. This was dangerous. This was going to result in something worse than I feared.

But those fucking blue eyes! The way they looked at me; the way his mouth was parted open, as if any second I would crush him. I stared down at his outstretched hand and slowly shook my head.

Relief flooded his eyes, but he seemed to be intentionally concealing it. He dropped his hand down.

“That’s good,” he said on a sigh. “Now this is what you’re going to do.”

I pressed the gun against Fritz’s temple. “Get up,” I barked out. My voice surprised me. It was smooth and hard, no hesitation whatsoever.

His eyes opened. Not as drunk as I thought, thank fuck.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, startled by me.

“You’re going to get up right the fuck now,” I demanded.

God, he stunk. I held my breath and waited for him to move. He slowly sat up, his dark long hair splayed out all around him. He looked at the gun and then at me. Then he shook his head. “What the fuck is all this?”

“This is me telling you to get the fuck up or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!” God, I was loving this no nonsense shit. I felt damn good. Powerful even.

He slowly stood up, wobbling a little bit on his way. Then he rubbed his hand against his beard and shook his head again in anger. “What do you want?”

“You’re going to take me out of here. Grab your car keys, your gate card and let’s go.”

Looking me in the eyes he replied, “Remy’s going to kill you for this.”

Fuck. I didn’t want to hear his name. That might weaken me.

With a cloudy look on his face, he looked around and scratched his head. Fucking useless, this guy.

“On the table!” I hissed, pointing to the table with my free hand.

He shot me a venomous look before bending over and grabbing the keys.

“Now the card.”

“Card’s in the surveillance room, dumb one.”

“Then get moving!”

With my gun still aimed at his head, he walked with ease to the room. You wouldn’t have thought there was a gun pointed at him by how nonchalant he was. I held my breath with worry when he opened the door.

“GHWAWO!” Oh, thank every baby kitten in the universe. Barge was passed out cold, head against the table.

Fritz grabbed the card next to Barge’s fat arm.

“Good,” I said. “Now move.”

He obeyed and we walked back into the main room. Not many more steps to go, I told myself. Just keep going—

“What the fuck?” I nearly jumped out of my skin. Rita was standing in front of the bar in the middle of rummaging through her purse. Shit. Shit. Shit. She went all kinds of red at the scene in front of her. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I’d be real quiet,” Fritz told her. “Girl’s got a gun, Rita.”

Rita slammed her purse on the bar counter and faced me. “You conniving little bitch! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m walking out of here,” I snapped at her. “Now shut your face up–”

“Like hell you will!” Oh, shit. She was going to go hysterical in a manner of seconds. And if the bitch went hysterical, others might hear her. And if the others heard her…I aimed the gun at her and then at Fritz. What the fuck was I meant to do about this?

“You shut up now or I’ll blow your head off!” I lamely threatened.

She looked right through me. “You’re a dumb bitch. This is going to kill my brother, and all for what? A hick Scorpion that kisses club bitches behind your back?”

I froze and the gun in my hands wavered. “What the hell did you just say?”

She didn’t respond. She just glared daggers at my head. Club bitches? What club bitches?

Then it hit me. You gotta be fucking kidding me. This bitch frequented the clubs in the city. Did she…

“It was you?” The disbelief was stifling for me. I blinked hard, and then took a deep breath. “The text? How…?”

She eyed me carefully. The threat of a bullet in her pretty little face seemed real to her after that sudden admittance, though I knew I’d never have actually done it.

“You talk right now, you little bitch!” I took a step closer to her so that the gun was right in her face.

Now she was sweating up a storm. “Remy followed you around forever and you were with the hick. It wasn’t hard following him around either. I wanted to speed the process up so he could come back home.”

“Why?” What was it with the Martinez family ruining people’s lives?! Was it in their fucking genes?

“Because I wanted him to fuck you and move on already. He’s obsessed with you. Has been obsessed the second his life fell apart, and you made it easier somehow.” Her face softened as her fear shone. She must have always known more than anybody else the extent of her brother’s obsession. “This is going to kill him, Sara, which makes what you’re doing so fucking wrong–”

“Don’t lecture me about wrong!”

“You’re going to fucking ruin him and he won’t be the same–”

I turned to Fritz. “Tie her up!” I demanded.

His eyes nearly popped out of his head. “What?”

“Either you tie her up or you punch her in the face right the fuck now!” I pierced Fritz with a cold blooded look.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She backed away from Fritz who looked apologetic approaching her.

“I can’t risk everyone else’s life in case you scream and this bitch here starts shooting everyone up,” he said to her.            

“Just tie me up, Fritz! I won’t scream! Fritz? Don’t even think–”

He swung at her.

Oh, my God.

Did he just… Did he just punch her? I didn’t actually think he’d do it! What the fuck? I gaped at him in shock as he caught her before she fell to the ground. Did she even deserve that?

This isn’t a time to question you morals, Sara. Right.

I’d expected him to rest her on the couch or… something, but Fritz settled her on the hard concrete floor as if she was a bag of potatoes. I guess he didn’t think highly of her either. She wasn’t going to be out for long, so I continued to usher him to the entrance doors.

“Your ass is so fucking grass, it’s not even fuckin’ funny, dumb one,” he muttered. “You still got a chance to get out of this. I’d stop right now if I were you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I cursed, but it came out quieter than I’d have liked. I held the gun tighter in my hands. He was right. I really could have stopped right then and there and fixed this mess up. I could have declared insanity after the shoot-out. Could have convinced Remy I was petrified and wanted to get away from a dangerous place. I could have.

I didn’t.

We stepped out into the darkness. Not even the spotlights were on. This really was perfectly orchestrated. I followed Fritz to one of the pick-up trucks parked beside the almost empty bike section. My stomach dropped when I looked at Remy’s empty parking spot. This was going to be the last time I would be standing here.