Hitting the ground is always a surprise when you're in a fight. Your field of focus shrinks and the only thing you see is your target. You always start out swinging, but everything becomes slick with blood and the fight quickly deteriorates into a slow-motion ice skating compet.i.tion. If you have the better balance, you win. Often you end up hitting the ground, hard.

But Krista didn't lose her balance, I smashed into her. I wasn't ready, she wasn't ready, we just collided. I should have tried to cushion her fall, but I didn't. I just didn't have time to think, only to act. She ended up flat on the pavement, and I landed on top of her soft body, smelling her shampoo.

"Get off of me!"

I rolled off, but still kept my hand on her. I needed to keep her away from the a.s.shole she was preparing to kill. She wasn't just trying to punch the guy, I could see it in her face. She was out for blood, lots of it.

It looked like Robby, her a.s.shole ex. But he was moving quick and I only saw his back as he hauled a.s.s out of the parking lot. Skeeter ran after him and they both disappeared out the gate.

As soon as she stood, she tried to take off. I wasn't sure what was going on, but Krista was losing her s.h.i.t all over this a.s.shole on a public street. No matter what happened, this wouldn't end well. I threw an arm around the front of her waist and hauled her up against me.

"What happened?" I asked. I tried to stroke her hair, but she fought me. Fingernails in my hands, kicking at my shins. I just held her against me and let her thrash.

She tried to twist around in my grip. No way I was letting go of her. She was p.i.s.sed enough that she didn't care who she hurt right now. She wasn't going to do any damage, but she would feel bad that she lashed out when the red haze cleared.

"Let me go. I'm gonna kill that f.u.c.king a.s.shole."

I asked twice more and got the same answer. Skeeter was still chasing after the guy, so I did the only thing I could think of.

I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder, and brought her up to my room.

"Put me down!" She kicked the entire way up the stairs. But after she nearly hit her head on a sprinkler pipe, she stopped trying to fight me.

I set her on the edge of the mattress and stood by the door while she fumed. Not at all how I envisioned our first encounter in my bed.

"I just...he took it all..." She was sputtering and unable to even finish a sentence.

"Skeeter's going after him. What happened?"

She hopped up and started to pace, frustrated, like a grown-up Becky. "It's between me and Robby."

She stood directly in front of me. So close I could just bend down and kiss her angry, pouting mouth. Just a little closer.

"Get out of my way," she said as she tried to move past me.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "No."

She tried to shove at my chest, but I grabbed her by the wrists.

"You need to calm down, Krista. You're d.a.m.n lucky that a.s.shole decided to run and not fight. From the punches I saw, you've never been in a fight your entire life. Your ex isn't a good guy. Don't think he's gonna pull any punches because you're a woman or the mother of his kid. So until you calm down, I can't let you outside for your own good. Skeeter will get him and we can talk to him together, okay? Whatever is wrong, we can fix it. Just tell me what happened."

"It's none of your f.u.c.king business! Now let me out!" she shouted. "Don't you dare talk to me like there's an us. Don't you say 'we' and 'together.'" She tapped on my chest. "I will work things out with my ex on my own. You don't give a s.h.i.t about me so don't f.u.c.king pretend that you do. Remember what you told Skeeter? 'I've had my fill'? Yeah, well, so have I. Get out of my f.u.c.king way, I don't need your help, and I sure as h.e.l.l don't need you using me for free s.e.x."

She was sobbing now. Her words came out in between gulps.

"I didn't use you for free s.e.x." I tried to put my arms around her, but she placed her hands flat on my chest and pushed me away. "You lied to me."

I just kept repeating that sentence in my head. She was the one who lied. Right? I'd said that line to myself about Tina for so long, I wasn't sure if it was true for Krista. Had she really lied to me? Was I getting them confused?

Krista pulled back and glared at me. She shook her head, her eyes bright with tears. "I never lied to you. I thought you knew. You stood on my porch and told me that you knew what it was like to be a woman in a motorcycle club. You said you knew and I started to fall in love with you." She shook her head. "I thought you cared about me and not about what's between my f.u.c.king legs. I thought you wanted me because I'm a decent, honest, caring person. Now, even after how f.u.c.ked up everything has become between us, I still want to hear you tell me you love me."

I dropped her wrists and we stared at each other. f.u.c.k. She wanted me to say something, declare my love. Maybe I did love her, but the image of her splayed out on the bed for Russ still screamed through my head. I rubbed my day-old beard.

As much as I wanted to keep her safe and away from Robby, keeping her here in my room was only going to push her away. I just couldn't give her what she wanted.

She grabbed for the door. On her way out, she turned.

"The worst part is I thought you loved me too."

She didn't wait, and slammed the door.

She f.u.c.king loved me. Me.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Colt I wanted this f.u.c.ker. I was gonna serve him to Krista on a silver plate. Let her b.i.t.c.h him out for whatever he had done to her. It was the least I could do for a woman who loved me.

If he was part of a larger group of people stealing from the club, and that group involved Krista, I needed to know. It might rip my f.u.c.king heart out, but I needed to know.

I caught up with Skeeter out in the parking lot. "You get him?

Skeeter shook his head. "Naw, he's slippery. Hopped into a pickup. But there's a guy in town who knows all the meth heads. We can start there."

Skeeter and I drove across town to track him down. It was late afternoon, and I hoped Skeeter's guy knew where Robby was. Running a meth head to ground was ten times harder once the sun set. They were either high as a kite or harder to find in the dark.

We stopped at a broken-down trailer where the moss was so d.a.m.n thick, gra.s.s was growing on the roof. It had a little yard, but the gra.s.s was long and wet from the pounding rain, and hardly charming.

The distinct smell of cat p.i.s.s could mean only one thing: meth lab. Cook house, kitchen, lab, whatever they called it, this place was dangerous. One little spark and the whole thing would go up.

Skeeter rapped on the door with three hard bangs. The guy who answered had a sheen of sweat and was wearing nothing but tighty-whities. They were more of a gray than a white, but at least he was wearing them. He had to be cooking meth.

"We're looking for Robby," Skeeter explained.

"Meth head, brown hair." I figured the guy knew who Robby was, but I just wanted to make sure to jog his memory.

The chef looked me up and down as if he was trying to gauge whether or not I could be trusted. To help him form a more positive opinion, I dug fifty bucks out of my wallet.

Having nowhere to stash the money, the guy just crumpled it up in his fist. "He's crashing on Fourteenth Street at Mara's house. She's always got room for one more."

We turned to leave when the chef interrupted us. "Why did you all come ask me? You could just ask that one guy in your club. He and Robby are real tight."

I stopped dead. Robby was real tight with someone in our club?

"What did you say?"

I crossed the lawn back to the guy. There was no reason for a member of the Kings to be real close with Robby, unless they were either moonlighting as a dealer behind the club's back, or a user.

The guy crossed his arms. "Yeah, the big tall guy, huge beard."

Skeeter and I looked at each other. Only one brother fit that description, so we said the name together. "Bear."

I flipped the cook another fifty. "You ever seen a woman with them? Blonde?"

The cook shook his head. "Nope, just the guy in the vest. Like his." He pointed to Skeeter.

A huge guy with a beard and Kings vest could only be one person. Maybe if we shook Robby's a.s.shole tree hard enough, Bear would fall out. This really wasn't my preferred outcome, though. It would mean that Krista had a very close connection to Bear.

Skeeter and I headed back to our bikes. "This is f.u.c.ked," he said. "If Robby and Bear are involved, do you think Krista is involved too? She's the only link between the two of them."

I buckled my helmet and turned to Skeeter. "Krista was surprised by Robby's visit today." Then I realized how it was all going down. "He p.i.s.sed off Krista, somehow. She was out for blood. Robby would never have shown up to the clubhouse looking for her. He was looking for someone else. I'm thinking Robby needed to talk to Bear and that Krista knows nothing."

Skeeter looked thoughtful. "That's a whole bunch of gut reaction and not much facts." He shook his head. "You gonna make that judgment call?"

I rolled my eyes. "You gotta problem with my f.u.c.king judgment?" I asked. Skeeter was a good guy, but sometimes he got on my last nerve.

"Well, there's three members of your own club who did time because of your bad judgment call. You really need me to point that out?" he asked.

I groaned. f.u.c.king Tina. It always came back to her. "So that story has made it pretty far north?"

"Far enough." Skeeter shrugged. "Tell me about it. I wanna hear what went down."

I glared at him, but gave him a quick rundown.

"Tina and I were living together. I woke up to a f.u.c.king raid on my house by the DEA. They searched everything, but all they found were two unregistered handguns."

Skeeter frowned. "That's it? They really threw the book at you for two unregistered guns. Seems odd. You p.i.s.s off the judge?"

"Yes." It was time to come clean. This was the part I hated admitting to. "They were trying to get the Horde on conspiracy charges. The judge had to throw out most of their evidence because Tina was sleeping with the DEA agent, but I couldn't shake the two smaller weapons charges. So the d.a.m.n judge gave me as much time as he could."

Skeeter thought for a minute. "So, your club is p.i.s.sed and the Storm Kings are your punishment. Glad to know they see us as brothers."

f.u.c.k. That wasn't what I meant.

"No, that's not what's going down." I had to stop that rumor before anyone else heard it. I needed the Kings to patch over. If they didn't, I was screwed. "The Kings are my last chance. I gotta get this right or I'm out. If I f.u.c.k up something this important, I'm gonna be out of the club." I buckled my helmet. "So let's go find Robby and make sure I'm right."

Our destination was another trailer, but this one was in the middle of town, crammed into a neighborhood of more trailers. The little rickety staircase that led up to the side door didn't look like it was going to support much weight, so Skeeter stayed on the gravel while I banged on the door.

I pounded on the trailer door and yelled, "Robby, open up!"

The plywood door opened and a woman stood in the doorway.

"If you're lookin' for Robby, you're late." She shrugged and lit a cigarette. "I kicked his a.s.s out yesterday. He didn't pay no rent." She smiled and ran her fingers along the top of her breast. One of her teeth was missing. "But if you're lookin' to sell, we might be able to work something out."

Living in a s.h.i.t hole like this, she had no money to buy drugs. She was willing to make a deal. She was a meth wh.o.r.e.

It felt like someone punched me in the stomach. This could easily be Krista. Now, she was healthy and respected, but it wouldn't take much for her to slide into what this woman had become.

Skeeter punched me in the arm. "Hey, wake up. He's running!"

A clatter came from the back of the house and we could clearly see Robby darting between two abandoned, rusted-out vehicles.

I vaulted over the railing and landed hard. My feet slipped on the soggy ground and I fell on my side. Covered on one side in mud, I managed to stand and looked for Robby. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was still trying to get his pants. .h.i.tched up enough to get a full run when Skeeter and I caught up to him. I motioned Skeeter to the side, and together we herded Robby toward an ancient hatchback. The idiot fell for the trap and we closed in.

I yanked the gun that was holstered in the small of my back. I rammed it against the side of Robby's head. "What did you do to Krista?" I demanded.

"Nothing, man, I ain't done nothing to her," Robby whined, a line of snot dangled from his nose.

I pressed deeper into his temple. "Try again," I ground out. "She tried to punch you. She doesn't do that unless she's angry. What did you do?"

"How do you know? She p.i.s.sed at you?"

I punched his stomach and he made a satisfying hissing noise as he listed to one side. He'd f.u.c.king hit home. Yeah, she was p.i.s.sed at me, but I wasn't about to tell this a.s.shole. I moved the barrel of the gun to the back of his neck. Rested it right on one of his vertebrae.

"Then tell us what you were doing at the clubhouse, if you weren't paying your ex a visit." I pressed hard into the bone.

"I didn't know she was there. Thought she only worked nights." Robby started to shake. "Look, just let me work s.h.i.t out with Krista on my own, okay? This ain't nothing you need to trouble with."

Robby was lying. It might not be about Krista, but he was lying, and I wanted the truth. I was sick of lies, half-truths and misunderstandings. Sick of not knowing the whole d.a.m.n story.

"You feel where this gun is, against your neck?" I tapped the barrel to make my point. "That's the spot where your spinal cord is the most vulnerable. One shot and you won't die, but you'll want to. You know why? 'Cause you'll be paralyzed. Your arms, your legs, even your d.i.c.k, they'll all be f.u.c.king limp. You wanna spend the rest of your life s.h.i.tting all over yourself?"

Robby shook his head. Now we were getting somewhere.

"Tell me all of it. Why were you at the club? Who were you looking for?"

Robby's shakes turned into a vibration. His teeth were rattling so loud, I could hear them. "Aw, man, I was looking for Bear. I was making my last payment. I'm gonna pay Krista back, I swear. Soon as I get my lab up and running, I'll make mad cash and I'll pay her back and everything."

"Tell me about Bear," I commanded.

"He fronted me some bills, man." Robby shrugged. "Used it to get me a nice little cooker."

I rolled my eyes. Nice. Bear was loaning out club cash to meth heads. f.u.c.king a.s.shole. "Is there anyone else involved? Anyone else from the club?" I shifted a little farther up his neck, right into the soft spot just below his head.

"I dunno, man. Bear gives me money and he's the dude I pay. There ain't no one else." He held up his hand. "Swear."

Jackpot.

"Bear loans you money?"

Robby's head bobbed up and down. "He loans out cash to a lot of guys. You know, like investments? I ain't the only one who owes him cash, okay? I could give you names."