I have to take a chance. I park out of sight of the road. Pull the gate open outward. Crouch. Wait.

  I start to think I must have missed them and they’re gone. Then I hear an engine.

  The van swings up around the last bend. Accelerates when the driver sees the gate open. The gate is ten feet of rusty iron. I throw it closed and dive out of the way, fast.

  When the van hits the gate, ten feet of iron clangs and vibrates. It makes a weird, tortured tune in the air as it bounces back, shaking. Fast enough to shake the air. A wave that I feel rippling across my face. The van lurches. It’s still moving forward but two wheels are up in the air. They’re almost through the gate and turning. The two wheels slam down. The other side lifts. The van slews. Then it rolls.

  The van slides off the road, onto its side. Nose down. I only saw one man in the front seats. It didn’t look like Grease. That means he was in the back. With Carlie.

  I have a 9mm inside my jacket.

  The driver’s door is wedged to the ground. Nobody is getting out of that. There’s a door in the upward facing side of the van, double doors at the back, as well as the passenger door at the front.

  The back doors are the nearest point. If I climb onto the back and try to open the door, I’ll be a sitting target. I have to wait. Not knowing if she’s hurt is grinding me up.

  Chapter Twenty

  Her

  AFTER THE SHOCK, THE van rings like a rusty bell. It lurches. Rolls. There’s a sickening weightless feeling, like a horrible theme-park ride. The van turns, tumbling like dice. Scraping and twisting sounds, then a crunching, crackling thud.

  My back slams into the back of the driver’s seat.

  The van is lying on the driver’s side and pointed down. I’m squatting in the corner, one foot on the side, the other on the floor, my back against the seat. I’m shaken. Dazed and disoriented.

  Grease looks around. Grabs my shirt. His eyes blaze, savage and murderous. He pulls out a long silver automatic pistol.

  The van shakes again and the handle of the back door rattles. Grease lets off two, three shots at the door. Something heavy falls outside.

  Grease’s eyes narrow. He shakes his head. Something slips against the outside. Above us, by the side door. Grease fires again. Another three shots. While he’s shooting, Yevgeni’s voice comes from near the side door. Right where Grease is aiming the gun. He fires twice more.

  I feel like he blew holes in me as he grins.

  The back doors swing open. I’m baffled. But I remember him doing that trick with his voice. My eyes take a few moments to adjust to the light flooding in. Yevgeni’s nowhere to be seen, though.

  Grease pulls me by my neck. Drags me in front of him. Close. Pushes me toward the door. He has the gun jammed against my temple.

  “C’mon, Russian boy. Tovarich. You know I’ll blow her away without a second thought.” He’s pushing me and I’m about to climb out. He holds me back I feel his breath on my neck. “Let’s see him first,” he hisses.

  “You know you only have one more bullet in that clip. Or is it out?” Yevgeni’s voice comes from outside, to the left.

  Grease laughs. “Shall we test that theory?” There’s an awful click. I feel the echo in the van like stabs in my skin as he pulls the hammer back. My eyes are screwed tight shut. I’m shaking from my stomach. My knees tremble. I can’t stop them.

  “Show yourself, Russian,” Grease spits the words.

  From the right of the van, Yevgeni steps sideways into view. His hands are raised. He has a gun in his right. Pointed up.

  Grease orders him, “Put the gun down. Slowly.” Bending from the knees, Yevgeni lowers the gun into the grass. “Now step back.” Grease shoves me out ahead of him. He still stays close behind. I’ve gone through fear. Now I’m angry.

  I kick backward. Grease holds me at arm’s length. I kick back again. Pushing violently on my neck, Grease throws me to the side, on the ground. As I tumble, I see glimpses from the corner of my eye.

  Grease lifts the gun. Points it at Yevgeni. Tilts his head calmly to the side. Aims.

  Yevgeni ducks and spins. Then Grease collapses forward.

  A red arc of blood gushes from the side of his neck where the dull silver star juts out. He pitches forward. Yevgeni kicks the gun out of his hand as he runs to me.

  He pulls me up, draws me to him. Holds me close. His arms wrap around me. He cups my head in one hand. Holds my back with the other arm. His steady voice tells me, “It’s all right. It’s okay.” And I believe him. His breath, the rise and fall of his chest, his strength, his warmth, most of all the care, his protection lets me know it’s true, it’s all right.

  “You’re okay. I’ve got you.” That moment, I feel more cared for, more prized and treasured than I ever did. Ever, in my life. Now, finally, the rush of emotion feels like strength. I stretch my arms around him. Hug and hold him.

  He’s mine. My protector. Even if he’s only mine for this moment, there will never be another moment like it. My Yevgeni.

  “Are you banged up?” He holds my shoulders, looks in my face. “Did you get hurt in the crash?”

  “I don’t know,” I feel myself smiling. “I haven’t stopped to check.” He’s looking me up and down. All over. I like the feel of his eyes on me. I tell him, “Nothing fell off, far as I can tell.”

  “No,” he says, “Most of you is still there.” I fill up as he looks in my eyes, “All the beautiful parts seem to be intact. And I think that’s all of you.”

  I’m going to reach forward and kiss him. I take a breath. Look in his eyes. Let my eyelids close and open my lips.

  My head is yanked back. I’m pulled by my hair. Off my feet. I shriek and yell. I’m dragged backward. My heels race and scrape. Useless. I grab at the hand in my hair. Uncle Mike turns. Still holding my hair. With the other hand, he lays the long, cold blade of a machete against my cheek.

  “You first, or her, Russian?” He barks. “At this point,” he snarls, “I don’t know that I really care.”

  Yevgeni’s hands are aloft. Again. I hate to see what I’ve brought him to. And I’m crying.

  “Come on, Russian.” He points with the blade. Indicates a spot a foot or so in front of me. “Forward. Slowly. Then drop to your knees.”

  Very slowly, hands still raised, Yevgeni takes one step. Then another.

  Grease’s voice comes from out of the wood behind us. Off to one side. “Easy, Mike.”

  Uncle Mike’s head snaps to the side. Grease’s voice again. “No rush. Right?” Behind and to my right, now “Let’s have some fun.”

  Mike’s head snaps around to see. Yevgeni’s arm stretches out. A small, one-shot pistol spits fire from his hand. A dark red patch widens in the middle of Mike’s ear.

  His hand drops out of my hair as he slumps to the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Him

  WE’RE BACK ON THE Iron Hogs’ clubhouse deck. A group from Bannon’s and the Covington chapter are riding up to meet with the Iron Hogs’ Club Council. There’s going to be some comeback because Grease was a senior officer of Hellroad.

  The clubs consider the business he was doing with the girls to be running a sideshow. They’d probably get over that, but he didn’t think to ask permission, to warn them, or to cut either of the clubs in on the operation.

  If Iron Hogs are implicated, some feathers will need to be smoothed over.

  Moses is riding out here with them to formally identify Grease, collect his personal effects and arrange to take his body. I’m waiting for him. There are things I need to know.

  Like whether it was Grease who shot my brother in the back under the Clay Wade Bailey bridge. And if any of Hellroad were involved.

  Instinct told me from the start that Grease knew something about my brother’s death. I want to know if he was the killer, or if there’s someone else I still need to find. There is another loose end to that story, too. I want that cleared up.

  I spoke with the police already at the site of the crash, outside the compound. There was plenty of evidence to support my account of what happened. Carlie’s description will have told them the same thing. They seemed to have been satisfied when they left.

  And there is Carlie. Looking serene, considering what she’s been through.

  Wherever she goes, chaos erupts around her. She can’t help it, though. It’s not her fault. She’s a spark. Men seem to burst into flames on sight of her.

  Through it all, she stays calm somehow. That’s some strength.

  Still, I can’t resist teasing her a little. “Seems I can’t leave you alone for a minute without something blowing up around you.”

  “Seems not, Russian Bear.” She chews her lip. Picks up her beer glass. “How am I ever going to be able to live without your protection?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Raising her beer she says,

  “I hope you have a good life, Russian bear.”

  “You, too. Little fireball.”

  “I should thank you for all the trouble you got me out of.”

  I shrug. “Can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. Most of it.” The spark in her eyes lights me up again. “There is one other thing,” I tell her.

  “Oh?” She’s looking at me across the top of the beer glass. I don’t know why that turns me on. The way she acts disinterested? Not the shaft of sunlight, making an amber shine that sets a honey glow on her face. Not the dark sparkle in her eye. Maybe just knowing and accepting, at last.

  “I’m going to need you to have my babies.”

  She splutters. Beer sprays. She laughs and chokes. Holds the beer out at arm’s length. Buries half her face in the crook of her other elbow. “What?” Then, “Babies? Plural?”

  “All of them. Starting as soon as possible.”

  “Oh. How many babies were you thinking of?”

  “How many do you think you can manage?”

  “You’re asking me? I get a say in this?”

  “A consult. Maybe.” Then I have an idea. “I want to check in the room. Make sure we didn’t leave anything behind.”

  “I’ll help you look.”

  She walks into the room ahead of me.

  I follow her in and close the door behind me. I remind her, “We both were pretty determined that we weren’t going to fuck.”

  She turns. Slow. How can a woman look so fantastic in an ordinary pair of jeans and a shirt?

  Looking in my eye, she says, “But then we did.”

  “It was terrible.” I nod.

  “Awful.” Her eyebrow rises and her head shakes.

  “So we shouldn’t do it again.”

  “No.” she moves back. “What about the babies?”

  “Oh. Yes. The babies.”

  “You wouldn’t do that with someone you didn’t love.”

  “No.” I step toward her. Breathe her scents. Feel her warmth on the front of my body. “You wouldn’t either.”

  “No.”

  She leans back. Against the bed. She says, “So?”

  “So.” I tell her, “I love you.”

  “Really?”

  “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

  “No?”

  “No. Apart from I love you. It means that.”

  “Really?”

  “All of you. Everything about you, little fireball.”

  “Show me.”

  I know what she wants. It scares me a little. But in a really good way. Not scared because I’m afraid. Scared because it’s a moment. My life will change. I will change. Forever. In just a moment. When I take her.

  And I know how she wants it to be. She wants to be sure of me. To know that I need her. I need her so much I can’t hold back. I have to have all of her, be on her, in her. All of her.

  “You need to know what happens when you flounce around, teasing a man. A real man.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, I’m going to fuck you.” I take hold of her face. I hold her chin. My hand is on her throat.

  She trembles. Her eyes gleam and widen. Her lips peel slowly apart.

  My voice is thick. Gravelly. “I’m going to fuck you so deep and so hard. I’ll break you in two.” Her breath is hot and damp. Her chin tilts up. “Split you wide.”

  I kiss her. Holding her face. Holding her body. Holding her breasts. Pulling her to me. Lifting her by her ass.

  I breathe her. Sealing us by our mouths. Our breaths rise together. Rise and swell. A song. An ancient call. A need.

  I’m hauling her clothes off. Trying not to let my mouth leave hers. Not until I have all of her flesh. Bare. Open.

  My hands stroke up her thighs. Down her stomach. I let her open my shirt. Her nipples scrape on my stomach. She slides off my jacket. Slips my shirt off.

  I spread her thighs. Push her back onto the bed. She undoes my belt, opens my jeans. My cock, stretching my shorts out the top of my open jeans, pumps and stiffens as her hands slip in my pants and grab my ass. My thighs clench. Harden and tingle.

  My body, hard, pumping, leans into her soft flesh. Her breasts squeeze and crush against me. Cupping, holding and squeezing. I bend my head to taste. Suck. Her back arches and she stretches as I move my mouth down to her pussy.

  Her juices flow. I suck. Lick. Pull and plunge. She grips my head as her body arcs and thrashes. Her fingers claw in my hair. The mattress shakes as her feet beat. She lifts her feet. Beats her heels on my shoulders.

  When she cries out, I suck harder. Lick deeper. She gushes again. The taste of her inflames me.

  I flip her over. Pull her up on her knees. She claws at the covers as my cock stretches her. Slides, deep into her. Reams her. Hot and hard. Her soft folds squeeze and pull on me. I ram deeper. Harder. Higher.

  Pulling her ass higher I stretch to angle deeper. Her voice is wet and pleads as my underside scrapes at the top of her opening. My balls slap on her mound.

  She shouts and groans. I grip. Tighter.

  When I drive into her, her petals flatten against my groin. I slam higher. I need more.

  She’s clenching, teetering up to a plateau. I grip her hips and ram in. Faster. She bursts and comes. I stay with the rhythm as she shakes. Shouts. Shimmers and shivers.

  As soon as she begins to subside, I lift her.

  “Oh, god,” she groans, “What the fuck, Yevgeni?”

  I set her with her hands to the wall. Spread her feet wide. Her knees bend. Then they buckle as I push my cock back into her flower. I pull her ass back. Hammer harder. I tip my hips. I still want to saw higher into her.

  She gasps as I lift her leg. Scissor her wide. Her calf is almost up to my shoulder. Move myself in so I’m as deep as I can get. She shakes and moans, incoherent as I take her another crest.

  When she climaxes, I pull her hips and her ass closer. Hug her near. Hold her breasts. Her face. Love every part of her.

 

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