Chapter Twenty-Three
Lucky was gone. Just…gone.
No goodbye party from the club. No send off or well wishing. Hell, according to the buzz, he hadn’t told anyone besides Rebel that he was leaving. Patching over to the Crystal Rock, Arizona chapter as they’d discussed. Except she’d been left behind.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Hell, Rebel flat out predicted Lucky wouldn’t stick around. But she hadn’t been prepared for the shock she’d feel when he was really gone.
His departure was a hope killer. The teeny tiny shred of hope she’d been clinging to with both hands, the chance that somehow everything would work out and she’d be rescued from a life with Savage, vanished along with Lucky.
What kept her sane in the week since Rebel turned her life upside down was a tunnel vision focus on devising a plan to speak with Lucky. Agreeing to Rebel and Savage’s plan was a mistake. What she should have done was run to Lucky, spill the beans, and beg him to run away with her. They could be in a bungalow on a deserted beach in some part of the world where Rebel couldn’t find them. At the time of the ultimatum, her brain had frozen with fear for Lucky’s life, and she could barely remember what city she was in, let alone conjure up the brain power to develop a plan.
Rebel scared her into believing there was no corner of the earth she could hide where he couldn’t find her, and over the past week she’d gone back and forth believing and not believing the truth in his words. Did he have that power? Based on his behavior this week, she was starting to believe he did.
Kori had spent the last week in hell. Rebel’s single-minded drive to keep her under lock and key was proving very successful. He’d spewed some bullshit to a few prospects about her being on the radar of the club her mom married into. Put on quite the show, convincing a few club members of the danger she was in.
Now, a prospect sat outside Rebel’s house when she was there. Someone from the MC drove her wherever she needed to go, and a club member wasted his day hanging out in the parking lot of the medical complex she’d started working in. All under the guise of protection.
Please, what a crock. It was straight up captivity. She was never alone. Never had an opportunity to speak to someone who might give her Lucky’s cell number. Not that she knew who to trust. Was anyone else in on Rebel and Savage’s plan?
Rebel was no dummy. Her mind was constantly spinning, looking for a way out of her newfound prison. He knew she’d take the first opportunity she had to get away.
Her heart was not into her new job, but at least it gave her a solid eight hours a day away from the club.
“How’s it going today, Kori?” Donna slid into an empty seat behind the reception window.
“Hey, Donna.” Kori forced her lips to turn up in a friendly smile. What had to be her hundredth of the day. “Things are going very well. Dr. Kovach’s last patient just left, and I was going to grab some lunch.”
“Sounds good. Before you run off, I just wanted to say thank you. Gosh, Kori, you’ve been here only three days and I swear it’s like you’ve worked here for years. I can’t tell you how amazing it is that you’ve picked up on everything so fast. You’re a rock star.”
The warmth of pride bloomed in Kori’s chest. It was a welcome sensation after a week of dark depression. “Thanks for the kind words, Donna. I’ve loved the last few days here. Everyone couldn’t be more welcoming and willing to answer my questions, dumb as they may be.” All true, except keeping her head in the game had been near impossible.
“None of your questions have been even close to dumb. Trust me. You didn’t ask what the left and right buttons on the mouse do, so you’re lightyears above the last hire.”
Laughter bubbled out. Another welcome feeling she’d not experienced since the day Lucky asked her to move in. “I can see how that would be concerning.”
Donna snorted. “You have no idea. Well, I won’t keep you from your lunch. Just wanted to let you know you’re doing a fantastic job.”
Kori logged off the computer, grabbed her purse out of the bottom desk drawer, and stood. “Thank you for saying so. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“See ya.”
As Donna turned her back and walked toward her small office, Kori used the land line to call for a taxi. She had no identification and fifteen dollars in cash she’d pilfered from Rebel. It wouldn’t get her far, but it would work for today. She rattled off the address of the building next door and disconnected the call. Three minutes. It’d be a hustle, but she should make it there just as the cab was pulling up.
The two medical office buildings were connected by an above ground walkway connecting the third floors. Her plan was risky, but the only thing she could think of to slip past her guard dog. She just needed a little time. An hour alone where she couldn’t feel the club’s presence breathing down her neck and could think with a clear head.
Picking up the pace, she made her way across the walkway and down a stairwell that opened up outside, near the entrance to the adjacent building. With each step she took, her heart pounded faster and her breathing accelerated. Consequences would be dire if she was caught.
Sunlight accosted her as she pushed the heavy door open and stepped outside. A brown taxi was just pulling up to the curb. Perfect timing. Across the parking lot, a No Prisoners prospect leaned against his bike, thumbing through his phone, completely oblivious to her plan.
The moment she slipped into the vehicle and closed the door, a small measure of relief evaporated some of the tension she’d been wearing like a cloak. Freedom. If only for a short while.
“Where to, ma’am?” the driver asked, a middle aged Hispanic man with a picture of a smiling family on his dash.
“Montgomery Apartment Complex, please.”
“That’s not far from here at all. We’ll be there in five minutes.”
Midday traffic was light and true to his word, he rolled up outside the building within five minutes.
“Thank you,” she said as she stepped outside the car. The driver agreed to return in forty-five minutes which would get her back to the office just at the end of her hour lunch break.
The key to Lucky’s apartment seared her leg through her pants pocket. She’d been aware of its presence all day, just mocking her. Sure, she could get into his building, but he wouldn’t be there. Word around the clubhouse was that he’d left just about all his belongings and maintained the lease on the apartment. Could that mean he was coming back?
No. It meant he couldn’t stand to be in the presence of anything she’d touched. It meant he’d abandoned all aspects of his life here in Vegas. Kori rubbed a hand over her chest. Suddenly it was a bit difficult to draw in a full breath.
She trudged up the stairs to the second floor and stood outside Lucky’s door, key in hand. And then, her muscles seized. What seemed like such a good idea moments ago, now seemed more like a masochistic move. “Oh for crying out loud, just open the damn door,” she muttered.
Her limbs obeyed the command and she entered the apartment. “Holy shit.” Disaster was too mild a word for the state of the apartment. From the number of empty or smashed bottles strewn around, the broken coffee table, and the fist size hole in the wall, it appeared Lucky’d spent the majority of the past week bombed and taking his aggression out on his innocent possessions.
Guilt hit her like a fist to the stomach. The past few days, she’d been so absorbed, wallowing in her own misery, she hadn’t given much thought to Lucky’s grief, beyond the fact that he’d split.
All because of her. Because there was a very good chance that in the heat of the moment she made the wrong decision. The tears came on fast and furious, streaming down her face and landing on the floor like she was somehow anointing the wreckage.
Careful not to crunch over too much of the rubble, Kori tiptoed around chunks of glass and made her way to Lucky’s bedroom. The bed was rumpled and clothes were strewn about, but nothing was broken and no bottles resided in the room. In fact, on closer inspection, the room looked exactly as it had when she’d left Lucky’s home eight days ago after agreeing to move in with him.
He hadn’t been in there since.
Kori wiped her nose, set the alarm on the nightstand for thirty minutes and climbed into Lucky’s bed. She drew the covers over herself and imagined the cold sheets were the warmth and strength of Lucky’s arms instead. The sheets smelled of him, and still held a faint aroma of sex. It was the last straw.
Huge, choking sobs tore through her, disrupting the quiet and ruining any plans for a peaceful hour. Kori gave into the sorrow, buried her head in the pillow and let the tears come.
When the alarm went off, she rolled to a sitting position. Time for tears had ended.
Now it was time to put on her big girl panties, figure out a way to avoid marrying Savage, keep Lucky and herself alive, and make Rebel and Savage pay for their actions.
No problem…