Bree

Standing, I walk behind the bar and pour myself a drink. “It started the day after I got back. Notes slid under the door, or on my windshield. An airhorn going off an hour or so after I’d go to bed. Dead animals outside the fence line where I secure Ragnar.”

I stop to pour more amber fluid into my glass. “The police just kept saying it was teenagers. The Sheriff met with me the morning after a dead rabbit was hung to the fence. He promised more patrols past here, but then the rocks were hurled through my windows last night and yes, most things that have happened seem so juvenile but I just think, feel, that this is more than a couple teenagers.”

“Why didn’t you say anything, Bree?” Rusty quietly asks.

“Because, you’d tell them.” I shrug.

“Get out.” Flint growls. The three of us look around startled. “You two, get the fuck out of here now.” He clarifies, indicating Rusty and Vice.

Nodding his head, Rusty signals to Vice and they head back to the stairs that lead up to my place. After we hear the door close; Flint storms around the bar to me.

Without a moment to prepare, his lips crash down on mine. As passionate as our kisses have always been, that isn’t the first emotion that sweeps through me this time. 

This time his kiss makes me feel safe. Desperate for this lifeline, I hungrily return it; threading my arms around his neck to keep him close.

The shooting happened so quickly that I never felt unsafe, as odd as it sounds. But this stalking has kept me on edge every moment of the last couple weeks. I thought I could handle it but his kiss is more than just his feelings for me, it’s an unspoken guarantee of safety. A guarantee offered and accepted.

He pulls back just as suddenly as he started.

“This between us? It isn’t just fucking, Bree.” Flint’s voice is still filled with rage over finding out what I’ve been living with. “Look at me. Tell me you understand that.” He grips the back of my neck to ensure I maintain eye contact with him.

“I wanted to talk when I got back and settled, but then you said those things!” I whisper a lame defense, knowing it hardly matters now.

“I screwed up, Doll; I was pissed and I screwed up. But you understand now, don’t you?” He has shifted his hands to cup my face. “Please?”

“I love you, too, Flint.” My words bring his lips back down to mine. He lifts me so I’m sitting on top of the cooler with him in between my legs.

I reach for his belt, but he quickly stops me. “We’ll finish this later.” He whispers his promise in my ear. “Come on now, the bar will be open soon and there’s a trap to set, Doll.” He winks down at me.

Flint

Holding tight to Bree’s hand, I tug her upstairs to her apartment. Vice and Rusty look surprised at our arrival. I haven’t had my woman in a month, no way I’m settling for a quickie.

“Vice, I need you to grab the probies and some of the more experienced guys. See who’s around the clubhouse. Gonna need guards on the perimeter until we catch this asshole. Now, tell me which businesses have been having problems and what Jasper’s been doing.” I grab a beer from the fridge, knowing having anything stronger wouldn’t be smart right now.

Vice quickly rattles off the places that have been hit lately, more vandalism than anything else; but the events have been escalating as they continue. Most start off as minor annoyances that managers shrugged off, the only difference being that most of the locations were more centrally located in town. Where the deputies could easily increase their presence.

The other thing Vice and Jasper didn’t put together, because I don’t fucking report to them; is that I own a share of each business that has been vandalized. Including, of course, Rusty’s.

“Fuck.” I growl. “Give me a minute.” I scroll through my phone, finding my lawyer’s number.

“Jessop here.” He answers quickly. “Flint! Hey, I missed seeing you on the rid…”

“Yeah, not now.” I cut him off. “Those investments I made earlier this year. I need you to get on the phone and see if there have been any issues down there.”

“Issues? I haven’t heard anything from the management company…” He starts.

“No, looking for small time shit. Like a broken window here or there, stolen hangers from the cleaners; annoying crap – not high crimes.” I let him know what to look for and am met with dead silence.

“You still with me?” I ask after a moment. “You hear anything?”

“I did. My office, I mean. Maybe just over a month ago? There was a broken window but it didn’t seem like anything was missing or disturbed.” He informs me. “I had the Sheriff send his team through. They didn’t find anything. Then my assistant was going to audit the files but she had a vacation on the books, she’s just back now.”

“Check my file and call me back,” I reply, staring straight at Bree; trying to calm myself. Jessup handled every investment I ever made, here and down in Utah.

I hear Gunner lumbering up the steps as I’m hanging up with the lawyer. Bree crosses to open the door; not bothering to identify the person on the stairs, as Gunner’s the only one who could make that much noise.

“Emma’s gonna call you tonight, Pretty Lady. Ragnar was on his best behavior, didn’t take him a moment to go belly up before he went to curl up on the floor next to the crib thingy where the babies were sleeping.” Gunner gives Bree a quick squeeze before looking to Vice and me.

“I better head down and get ready to open,” Rusty interjects before Gunner can say anything else. Best he stay out of this business from here on out, anyway.

“Lawyer’s office was hit,” I start as Rusty closes the door. “Nothing obvious, but everything that’s been hit? I have a piece of.”

Vice whistles.

“Why? And why now?” Gunner asks.

“Doesn’t make sense, I’ve been low key for a while now.” I pause. “Except, there were a lot of legit businesses that needed some cash after we took out the Spiders…”

“The Spiders? What’s that?” Bree cuts in. Vice looks like he forgot she was in the room.

“It was an MC. A few hours South of here.” Gunner answers her.

“Was.” Bree doesn’t ask. She’s a bit too streetwise for that.

“That crease along Jasper’s skull?” I start. “That was them. Emma was right next to him and it could’ve been her. I cut whores out a long time ago, I had two girls before my boy came along; not that that matters, that kinda shit didn’t sit right with me.

“They weren’t only running them, but when they really decided to target us? They sent their whores who had VDs our way, to infect us.”

Bree’s face has gone starched white as she registers my words; her eyes quickly flicking between Gunner and me.

“And after the Spiders became a “was”? Did you…” She looks to me.

“A large donation was given to the clinic in our town and theirs; to help treat women. What they did disgusted us all and we all pitched in.” Gunner speaks up and Vice’s head is nodding along.

She reaches out to grasp his shoulder. “Thank you. Your grandmother would be…” Bree’s eyes flip over to Vice, uncertain of what to say in front of him so she just finishes her sentence with a shrug. He squeezes her arm in understanding.

And I can’t wait another moment, so I cross the room and hold her to me again. While my life was spent outside the law, hers was always within its nice, safe boundaries. She crossed those without any reservation when the love of her life was taken. But I believe, that even before that, Bree had a pretty good understanding that real life is gray, not black or white.

That sometimes, doing the right thing can make you the bad guy. Or woman, in her case.

And Goddamn, I may not be the love of her life, but I know she’s the love of my life. I swear to myself I’ll not envy the love she still carries for her husband, that I’ll help her treasure her memories; because he was smart enough to see her for the amazing creature she is, and he loved her stubborn, sarcastic ass, just like I do.

Bree

Flint is holding me, staring down at me like he’s just figured something out. I lean into his arms, needing the comfort I’ve missed for so long; yet somehow the way he’s holding me now has changed.

It’s no longer like he wants to possess me, but, I don’t know, more like he needs me more than anything in the world.

I try not to give into the insecure part of myself. The part I’ve tried to bury over and over again, I fight the part of myself that has always wanted to run from anyone who wanted to hold me. Instead of giving into my fear, I do what I’ve only done one other time in my life. I hold on.

“This is my home,” I say, looking between the three bikers. “What will these assholes do next?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Gunner starts. “You’re packing a bag and moving to Flint’s.”

“Should have just fucking stayed there,” Flint mumbles and Vice laughs.

“Yeah, that’s a great idea.” I shoot back. “Cause if they broke into your lawyer’s office they’ll know where your house is anyway.”

“No,” Flint speaks up. “I only use a PO Box address with him. But still, we were all staying there; so I want you to move to the clubhouse and I’m gonna have a Probie or two camped out here. Vice, get one inside, one outside. Nothing obvious. They come in with the drinking crowd and shift around.”

Flint finishes giving his orders before he looks into my eyes again.

“You’re getting out of here, it isn’t safe.” He says, knowing I’m going to argue.

“It’s my home, I’m not leaving,” I state.

“I need you to be safe.”

“I have a gun,” I look to Gunner for help. “I can handle my own shit.”

“They butchered a rabbit and threatened to skin Ragn…” He starts before my wail cuts him off.

“You said he’d be safe where you took him! You said to trust you!” I storm towards him, ready to take on a giant.

He catches my wrists and Flint’s arm slips around my waist, pulling me back against his body.

“How about we bring you to Jasper and Emma’s?” Flint whispers in my ear. “We’ll get probies out there to protect you and deal with this. I thought of having you be very well protected bait here, but really, Doll; I want you and Ragnar safe. I know you can’t lose him.”

“Let me get some things.” I concede. Because the thought of losing Ragnar is too painful to stand.

“Um, Bree?” Vice finally speaks up. “That handgun you’re going to bring with you? You registered it in this state, right?”

“Yep, all up to date.” I wink at him and see Gunner’s smirk out of the corner of my eye.