Piper
“Pack a bag, darlin’.”
I look up as Vanni comes back into the room. He’s been out in the hall talking to Logan for what’s felt like an age, and now he’s back, issuing orders, and I feel every kind of fear there is start to sweep over me. “Where are we going?”
“The clubhouse. I’m putting us on lockdown.”
“Lockdown?”
“Your daddy’s men are moving in, Piper, so we need to start making this shit happen, OK? Go pack a bag. Now.”
I almost run into the bedroom, grab a handful of clothes and toiletries and shove them into a holdall, pulling on my boots before I head back out to Vanni.
“Good girl.”
He looks at me, and once again he senses the silent fear I’m quite obviously expressing here.
“This is just a precaution, Piper. ‘Cause we don’t need nothing else getting in the way of this job, this – you are my priority now, nothing else. Keeping you safe is all I care about, any other shit, I don’t need it. So we put our club on lockdown, and we concentrate on nothing but ending this game your daddy started.”
I’m tired of feeling scared. I’m tired of feeling weak and vulnerable and the only thing I want is for this to be over. The only thing…?
“Come here.”
I throw my bag down on the floor and step into Vanni’s arms, feeling safe the second he wraps them around me, I didn’t feel safe in Logan’s arms. Not today. Today I felt afraid, terrified, because I knew the reason why I felt that way. I knew, and then I lied to him, and he thinks… No. I was right. I had to do that. I had to lie. For his sake as well as mine.
“You eating properly?”
Vanni’s question pulls me back to the here and now and I look at him, and I smile, he needs to see me smile. “Yes, and quit with the fussing, it doesn’t suit you.”
“I just want to look after you, Piper. That’s what a good husband should do, look after his wife.”
I stop myself from telling him I don’t need looking after, because I probably do, right now. I need that eye kept on me, I need Vanni to stick around, to stop myself from – I need Vanni, to stick around.
“And you’re a good husband, OK?”
“Good?”
He raises an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twists up into a smirk, and I can’t help but laugh. Yeah. Maybe everything could be all right, if I let him take control; if I stop trying to fuck it up. If I can keep my betrayal hidden.
“The best.” I kiss him, my fingers gently brushing his rough jaw line. “And I’m done stroking your ego, biker boy. Let’s go. I can’t wait to spend all that time cooped up with Della and her band of biker bitches all trying to push me out.”
“She gives you shit you give her twice as much back, baby. You got my permission on that one.”
I look at him, and he shoots me the widest grin, and I kiss him again as he lifts me up and slams me back against the wall.
“You got my permission for this, soldier?”
“I don’t need it, baby girl.”
I look into his eyes, wrapping my legs tight around him, the air around us filled with tension; hidden secrets and a dark possibility that he might not be able to keep all those promises he made me. But I can’t think like that, I have to trust him. I have to, and I have to put Logan Sandero to the back of my mind, once and for all.
“No. No, you don’t.”
I close my eyes and slide my fingers into his hair, and I lose myself in this man and his messed-up, twisted world. It’s the only one I know now. The only one I have. And it really isn’t all that different to the one he’s trying to save me from…
Logan
“What the fuck…?”
“I thought there was less chance of you ignoring me if I saw you face-to-face.”
“Get the fuck off my property, Reba.”
“Logan, please, I really need your help…”
“How the hell did you get my address?”
I swear, I am gonna hunt down the pricks who thought it was OK to give out my private information to anyone who fucking asks.
“I wouldn’t have come if this wasn’t important, please…”
I shut the door, I’m not doing this, she isn’t doing this. But she’s not giving up, she hammers hard against the door I’ve just slammed in her face, Jesus! Crazy fucking bitch… She’s not giving me a choice here.
“Just give me five minutes, Logan. Just five minutes. Please.”
I step aside to let her in, even though every fiber of my being is telling me it’s the wrong thing to do.
“You know what the worst of this is, Reba?”
She looks at me, her wide gray eyes almost ridiculously innocent.
“You never even said sorry. When you called me the other day; when you stood there just now, on my doorstep, asking for my help, you never said sorry, for everything you did. Everything you put me through.”
“I am sorry.”
“I don’t think you are. I think you’ve kidded yourself that after all this time I’ll have forgiven you, forgotten how it felt to have you throw every fucking thing we ever had right back in my face because you wanted to try something different…”
“It wasn’t like that…”
“What was it like, huh? For you? You were OK with just walking away, from our life? For what? How long did it last, Reba? You and him? Was he your forever man, your soul mate…?”
“Two months, Logan. It lasted two months, then he went back to his wife.”
I can’t stop the almost hysterical laugh from escaping, the irony’s too fucking much now. “Jesus… You got yourself a big old dose of karma right there, darlin’.”
She leans back against the wall and slides her hands into the pockets of her jeans, dropping her gaze to the floor.
“I made a mistake.”
“Too late, Reba. You’re too late with the regret, too late with the fucking guilt.”
She slowly looks back up at me, and there’s a hardness engrained in her face now that wasn’t there before. Has life dealt her a shit hand as a way of punishing her for crapping all over what we could’ve had? Do I really believe all that karma bullshit, in reality?
“I came back, to try and talk to you, but your brother told me you’d joined up, been posted to the middle east… I tried, Logan.”
“It was still too late, Reba. The second you let him stick his dick inside you it was too late. We were done.”
“We could’ve worked through it…”
I shake my head and walk away, into the kitchen, I need a drink. “What do you want, Reba? ‘Cause I really gotta be somewhere.”
“And now you’re in a biker gang, right?”
She follows me into the kitchen, leaning against the doorpost as she watches me pour myself a whiskey. And I don’t answer her, I don’t need to. I’m wearing my cut, it’s fucking obvious I’m in a biker gang.
“The Death Knights…”
I down the whiskey in one and turn around to face her. “What do you want, Reba?”
“I loved you, Logan, I need you to know that. I still love you…”
I let out a low chuckle, dropping my head, shaking it slowly, she’s unbelievable. “Yeah. You need to go now.”
“And whatever you might think of me – whatever I did to you, please, please believe that I never meant to hurt you.”
I raise my gaze and my eyes meet hers, and I’m trying so hard to keep mine cold and hard but she’s standing there, right in front of me, after all these years, and she’s just as beautiful as she was back then. More so. That dark hair that falls around her shoulders, those wide eyes and full lips, she drove me crazy, once. I can’t let her do that again. I can’t. I’m not that man anymore, remember? I’m not him. “Begging really doesn’t suit you, Reba.” I have to remember what she did, the way she could just walk away from us in the way that she did, like we’d never mattered. Like we’d never grown up together, shared a life before we’d even realized we were in love. I couldn’t do that, not even for a second. But she found it so fucking easy.
“I just need you to listen to me, Logan. Please.”
I lean back against the counter and cross my arms against my chest, she needs to know there’s a barrier here, she isn’t getting too close.
“I got married, a few years ago.”
“Congratulations.”
She doesn’t miss the deadpan sarcasm that accompanies that one word, but the puppy-dog eyes and the fake hurt expression aren’t working with me.
“He’s a little older than me, but he promised to look after me, you know? And I needed looking after. You were gone, I’d just thrown our life away…”
I can’t deal with her talking like this, it’s messing with my already fucked up head.
“I was lost. I didn’t know what to do, where to turn, I knew I’d been stupid… And then I met him. I’d got myself a job in New York, working as a dancer in a club downtown, it paid OK money. And I guess it provided me with the distraction I needed…”
“This story got a point, Reba? Only, like I said, I’ve really gotta be somewhere, and I don’t have time to stand here and listen to your shit.”
“I didn’t realize he had anything to do with the club, I thought he was just another one of the many sad, leering assholes who used to frequent that place, night after night. But he was more important than that. His company looked after the club…”
I frown. “Looked after?”
“He was no saint. He was involved in all kinds of shady shit but – there was something about him. And he paid me so much attention, made me all kinds of promises. He got me out of that club, turned me into a different woman, made me feel special, important… I just needed something, Logan. And for a while it was good, I had everything I ever wanted…”
I let that derisive chuckle escape again, I can’t believe she’s telling me this shit, that she’s standing here, trying to gain my sympathy, like she never broke my fucking heart, never ripped my soul to shreds.
“I’m sorry, Logan…”
“Just get to the point, Reba, I’m wasting time here.”
She briefly drops her gaze before she looks back up at me, and this time her eyes have taken on an element of sadness, but there’s also something else in there – fear? Yeah. She’s scared of something.
“For a while I loved being his wife, loved the attention and the status being married to a man like him afforded me. Until the true man he really was started to show itself. The other women, the way he’d control me, lash out if I didn’t obey every fucking order he gave me; the sick, depraved way he’d make me… He did things, Logan. Real bad things. And I know – I know he raped a girl. The daughter of his own boss…”
My stomach suddenly lurches so quickly I can barely keep the nausea at bay.
“What’s his name, Reba? Your husband. What’s his name?”
She looks right at me, swallowing hard before she finally answers my question. “Marco. Marco Vierra.”
“Jesus fucking Christ…”
This isn’t happening, this isn’t fucking happening.
“Logan?” Her expression’s one of confusion now, understandably so, given my obvious reaction to that name. “Do you – do you know him? Do you know Marco?”
“I know who he is… Listen, Reba, what the hell have you come here for? What is it, exactly, you want from me? ‘Cause that man you’re married to, I’m guessing you know who he is, right? You know he works for Frankie Cabbetto?”
She nods slowly, wrapping her arms around herself.
“So, why are you telling me all this? What do you need me for? Why the hell are you here?”
“I want him dead, Logan.”
This time the laugh that pours out of me is verging on maniacal. Is she freakin’ kidding me?
“It’s the only way I can escape him, the only way I can escape that life…”
“No, darlin’, you’re wrong. You can’t escape that life. You stepped over that threshold, and you can’t go back, you know that.”
She frowns, her beautiful face clouded with confusion.
“Where does he think you are, right now?”
“He doesn’t care where I am, he isn’t home. He’s doing something for Frankie.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Her frown deepens. “You know? How? I mean…?”
“The girl, the one you knew he raped. What happened to her?”
“Piper. Frankie Cabbetto’s daughter, she… Marco was supposed to be watching her, but somehow she – she drugged his brandy, managed to escape, and now – now Frankie…”
She drops her gaze again, her whole body sagging but I’m still struggling to feel any sympathy for a woman who broke me so bad.
“Frankie wants Piper dead. ‘Cause of something she overheard. Something Frankie and your asshole of a husband were planning.”
“How the fuck do you know all this?”
“Piper’s here, Reba. She’s here.”
Her eyes widen, she’s finding it hard to believe this crazy shit, but it’s happening, it’s fucking real.
“Shit, Logan…”
“You can’t go back there, Reba.”
“I have to. If they realize… If anyone finds out what I’m doing… what I’ve already done…”
“You can’t go back there.”
I’ve gone from wanting her to disappear to needing to keep her safe, Jesus, maybe Piper’s right. Maybe I really am a good guy, but I don’t have time to analyze my own actions here. There’s another layer of shit just been added to the already growing pile of crap we got going on.
“Where am I gonna go?” she whispers, and when I look at her now all I see is that beautiful girl I fell in love with at school. That innocent, pretty kid who made me believe in fairytales and happy endings, all the shit I don’t believe in anymore.
“You’re coming with me. My club, we’re putting our compound on lockdown, making it safe while we finish this job…”
“Job? Logan, I don’t understand…”
“We’re taking on the Cabbetto family, Reba.”
“What?”
“Piper, when she ran she ended up in Vegas, met a man who promised to protect her. That man is Vanni Colletti. He runs the Death Knights, it’s his club, and believe me, he’s not a man you mess with. And that promise he made Piper? To protect her? He’s keeping it, ‘cause she isn’t just any girl to Vanni. She’s his wife now. She married that man – the man who runs this club – she married him, and he’s vowed to take your husband out, to end his life, to keep Piper’s safe.”
“You think she’ll ever be safe again?”
“Do you think you will? I mean, you came to me because you wanted my help to kill Vierra, am I right?”
She nods, and drops her gaze once more.
“You really thought it’d be that simple? All those years, living with a man like Vierra, living within the confines of the Cabbetto family with all its fucked up shit, you really thought all you had to do was end your husband’s life and you’d be free?”
“I don’t know…”
“We end his life and we start a war, Reba, that we do know. ‘Cause we’re not naïve enough to think that’ll be an end to it all. We’re gonna send out a message, one that Frankie Cabbetto needs to receive, but we know that what we’re about to do – it isn’t gonna end anything.”
“So, what’re you saying, Logan?”
“I’m saying, once this is done we need to make you disappear. Get you a new identity, move you somewhere safer, somewhere you can start again, start a whole new life, again. And get it right this time.”
“And what about you? What are you gonna do? Stay here and fight a war you don’t know you can win? Do you know what the Cabbetto family is capable of?”
“Reba, believe me, honey, this club of mine, we don’t just piss about riding bikes and collecting tattoos. Come on.”
I take her hand and drag her toward the door, we need to get to the clubhouse. Vanni needs to know about this, and Piper – I don’t know what the relationship between her and Reba was, but I guess I’m about to find out.