Chapter Twenty-Three

Cullen

I’d been having a dream. In it, I was somewhere far away from Aveline Bay, and I felt happy. It was just me and Grace, her naked body pressed up against me. It was nothing but warm, perfect paradise. The sun was shining on our faces and we had no cares in the world. Everything was so damn good.

“Cullen,” her sweet voice whispered playfully in my ear, rousing me. “Cullen.”

I rolled over and took her in my arms, drawing her soft lips against mine, but instead of kissing me, she said, louder, more urgently, “Cullen!”

I woke with a start to see Grace over me in the darkness, her eyes wide as moons. Her hair was wet and she was dressed. Moonlight slashed through the window. It couldn’t have been morning yet. I tried to sit up. “What time is it?”

“After two.” Her voice trembled, and her hands shook. She was holding something in her hands. A crumpled dollar bill. “I think they’re here.”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Who?”

“Who’s here?”

“I was thirsty so I went outside to get some water from the vending machine.”

“You went outside?” My voice rose.

“Well, yes. You said . . .”

Damn, I should have told her that going outside, at this hour of the night, anyone could have grabbed her. She had no idea what kind of chance she’d been taking. The Fury were everywhere, and their numbers had always been larger than ours. I’d been playing it too safe when I told her I wasn’t worried. “Forget what I said,” I told her, as suddenly, it hit me.

It was after two. And I was supposed to meet the rest of the Cobras at midnight.

I’d abandoned my club. I swung my head around the room, looking for my phone. I found it on the night stand and lifted it up, checking my messages.

The screen was on fire. More than twenty different messages from the guys, all versions of “where the fuck are you?”

Grace had started pacing frantically, chewing on a fingernail. I stood up and got in her path, dragging her hand from her mouth. “All right. What did you see?”

“I heard it. A whole bunch of motorcycles. Out by the main building.”

I dropped her hand to look for my clothes. She brought it right back up to her mouth and started chewing. She’d piled my clothing on the dresser. I tossed aside the towel and shimmied into my jeans, looking for my weapon. “Gun?”

She motioned to the drawer. I opened it and slid my gun into my waistband, while I scanned the rest of the space around me. The closet was filled with the basics, Grace’s luggage and crap for Ella, extra pillows, room to hang clothes. I moved things around and said, “Do me a favor. Get Ella and hide in here.”

“Why? You think . . .”

“I just think you’ll be safer in there. It’s probably nothing. Just some passing bikers,” I said, even though I doubted it.

She moved into the living room, quietly scooped Ella into her arms and ran back into the bedroom, moving past me, into the closed space. I leaned down and kissed the worried wrinkle on her forehead. “Hey. No problem. It’ll be fine.”

She nodded and pulled Ella to her chest, then sank down to the floor of the closet as I closed the door. Taking my phone, I jabbed in a text to Hart: What’s going on?

I went to the sliding glass door and peered out, but all it did was provide a view of the high-walled courtyard. Everything looked fine out there. What I couldn’t see was the outside the bungalow. There were no windows facing the front of the resort. A second later, I saw a text from Hart: Yo. Where you at?

I answered: Long story. What’s going on now?

I watched the three dots, indicating he was typing back, all the while dragging my eyes up to the front door. This could all be a mistake. The Fury were having a party. They hadn’t seen us leave town. The Vanderbilt was just off the Pacific Coast Highway, a nice ride. What Grace heard outside could’ve just been a bunch of bikers out for a nighttime joyride.

Hart came back with: We waited until 12:30 and then Nix made the call that we should go on without you. But it was a front. We got there and the Fury had cleared out.

My body tensed. I thumbed in, Vanderbilt Resort as a loud banging shook the front door. I reached back for my piece, then pressed SEND and pocketed my phone, cocking my gun. If Hart was the genius he said he was, he’d figure it out if I didn’t respond. I pointed the barrel right at the door, taking a step forward.

“Yeah?” I called. “Who is it?”

“Cullen, buddy!” a voice said. For fuck’s sake. Bruiser, the VP of the Fury. “It’s your old friend. Let us in.”

Bruiser and I went way back. He was about forty-five and as crass an asshole as you could imagine, plus he was dumb as a stump. It was a miracle he’d made it to VP in the first place. I’d had run-ins with him about half a dozen times over the years, and during the last one, he’d nearly killed his girlfriend trying to run me down on his bike in a parking lot. She’d been hopping on the back of his bike and he’d gunned it, coming after me. A Fury through and through; all they ever did was think about themselves.

“What the fuck do you want?” I called out.

I could sense that smug smile on his fat-ass face. “I think you know.”

I raked my hand through my hair, feeling the raised S-shape of the stitching Drake had given me. “No, I don’t. How about you tell me? How the hell’d you find me, anyway? Can’t a man get out of town for a weekend?”

“Well, Cullen. You know how much interest we take in you.” He let out a loud, gravelly laugh. “While all your minions were preparing to break up our party, we were watching you. We’ve got friends all over, keeping tabs on you and that tasty slut of yours. By the way, why weren’t you with your club? That tasty little whore of yours too good to pass up?”

I threw my head to the ceiling and let out a sigh. Fuck. It’d be a good half-hour before Hart and the guys got over here. “What do you want?”

“Oh, we’ve got a lot to talk about. But it’ll be a lot easier if you open the door and we do it face to face.”

Hell fucking no. Not with my girls here. I for sure as hell didn’t want to see Bruiser’s ugly mug in the same place as them. “Over my dead body.”

“You want us to knock the door down? Don’t think we’re just going to go away quietly. Especially now.” A pause. Under the door, I could see shadows of movement. “We just want to talk, Cullen. So you can make this easy, or you can make it hard. Up to you.”

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, then looked toward the bedroom. I closed the door tight and sucked in a breath. I would not let those assholes take one step closer to Grace and Ella, if I had to lie down and die to stop them. “I’ll come outside.”

I edged to the door, looking through the peephole to see the already nasty, unshaven face of Bruiser, his ruddy, puffy, scarred mug distorted even more through the fisheye glass. There were two other guys there I didn’t know, young fresh faces, probably new recruits. Biding my time, I slowly pulled off the chain and unlocked the door.

Before I could pull it open, they barged in, slamming into my forehead, and the men tried to grab me. I skirted away before they could get a hand on me.

“Stay right there, fuckers,” I said, poking the barrel of the gun into Bruiser’s fat face. I grinned as they backed up, holding their hands up in surrender. I knew they’d try some shit like this. “Back the fuck up.”

They started to, each of them grinning like this was fun for them. “Easy,” Bruiser said. “Like I told you, we just want to talk.”

“And I’m not really in the mood. Not after today. In fact, the last thing I want to do is talk to you assholes.”

Bruiser smiled, baring yellow teeth. “Aw. That’s not very friendly, Cullen.”

“You know what’s not very friendly? A fucking bomb,” I snapped. “You’re lucky I don’t blow your fucking head off right now.”

He shook his head and tsked at me. “We needed to show you that what happened at the office park will not be forgotten. You took out five of our men.”

“Noted. Now get the fuck out of here.”

He smirked at his two new guys, like can you believe this shit? They’d clearly already been brainwashed with the Fury Kool-Aid. “Maybe if you’d given us what we asked for, we wouldn’t have had to resort to drastic measures.”

“For the last time,” I growled, “our business doesn’t belong to you, and we’re not giving it up.”

Bruiser stared at me, fists clenched, his face turning even more scarlet.

“I’ve had enough of this walk down memory lane.” I motioned to his two dumb bodyguards. “I’ll give you ten seconds to tell me what this is about, or else you better leave me alone. You two, get the hell out.”

Bruiser stared me down for a long while before nodding at them.

They turned to leave.

I looked at Bruiser as they retreated, closing the door behind them. He stared down the barrel of my gun, pointed right at his ruddy, asshole face, my trigger finger getting itchy as I thought of the shit they’d pulled earlier that day.

I wasn’t sure I could wait ten seconds.

“So? I’m listening. Talk.”