SOPHIA
Rebel just sits there, a tiny wrinkle in between his brows the form of an expression on his face. His eyes somehow look even colder than they normally do, which is saying something. “This wasn’t us,” he tells me. He stares grimly at the television for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw and throat working, and then gives a small shake of his head. “This was a fucking punishment.” He lifts his phone to his ear—I didn’t even realize he had it in his hand—and then starts speaking into it. “You still there, man?”
I sink slowly to sit on the edge of the bed next to him, not sure if I should pretend not to be listening. If I should be sitting so close to him. If I should put some clothes on. I don’t know what I should be doing. All I know is the news has this story on repeat and for all the world it looks like Rebel and his boys have been out murdering people for fun in Hollywood.
“Yeah. I know,” Rebel says. I can almost hear his teeth grinding. “She obviously didn’t take our refusal as well as I’d hoped. Now she’s gone after her DEA agent and had him killed. And she’s pinning it on us publicly, just to fucking spite us.”
There’s talk on the other end of the phone, but all I hear is my heart beating in my ears. The television’s quiet now, but they keep cycling through the same three or four images: a woman running out of the supermarket, dropping a plastic bag on the ground as she staggers away from the madness ensuing inside. A cashier holding up his hands, walking backward. Three men, pushing each other outside, arguing. And then a close-up of one of their leather jackets, complete with grinning skull and double drawn pistols, Widow Makers at the top, New Mexico underneath.
“She’ll be expecting that,” Rebel says, getting to his feet. “We can’t afford to retaliate right now. We need to account for every single member of the club for the past—no, I know none of us did this. Fuck’s sake, Cade. But the cops, they’re gonna be all over this. They’re gonna wanna know where everyone was.” He starts to pace, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. I was struck by a wave of horror when I first saw what he was watching as I came out of the shower, but now, watching him, I know his club is innocent. I just have no clue what the hell’s going on.
Rebel makes eye contact with me as he paces, and I don’t know what to do. I should maybe look away, give him a little privacy or something, but I’m too confused to do that. So I just look back at him, my heart in my throat, waiting for him to say something that I actually might understand. He stops in front of me, facing me, eyes still boring into my skin, and I feel a little lightheaded. “Burn everything we have on the Desolladors. Bury the guns. Burn the weed. Make our house safe,” he says into the phone. “The cops are on their way.”
The cops are on their way to the compound. I’m suddenly torn between laughing and crying. The cops, showing up at the compound? If I’d been a little more stubborn, they would have found me there, locked away in a room inside their clubhouse, still plotting a way to escape. I could have been home free.
Rebel slides his cell phone into his pocket and crouches down in front of me, the flashing images behind him on the television casting a blue light around his head, throwing his features into relief. He exhales and places his hands on my bare knees. “Soph?”
This feels like the first time, the first time I’ve ever been looked at properly in my entire life. Those pale, icy eyes of his almost burn my skin as he studies me.
“Yeah?”
“I need a stiff drink,” he says. “I can only have one if you swear you’re not gonna try and do something fucking stupid.”
He’s asking for my word that I won’t try to escape if he has a drink? He doesn’t need to do that. He could handcuff me to the bed or something and get as drunk as he liked without having to worry about me, but…he’s asking me if he can trust me instead. Absolutely crazy. I nod, trying to keep myself from appearing a little too over-enthusiastic. If he doubts me, he will cuff me. And after being restrained so frequently of late, I really don’t feel like trying to sleep with my wrists pinned up over my head. “It’s fine. I’ll behave,” I tell him.
“Thank you.” He stands, heading for the discolored, yellowing Bakelite phone that sits on the bedside table in between our two beds. He picks it up and stabs one button—must be 0 for reception. “Hey, Alex. Need some whiskey. What you got?” He frowns, but then says, “That’ll do. Bring it over?”
He puts the phone down. He doesn’t move for a moment, his back to me, his shoulders barely hitching up and down with his breath. Then he tips forward, taking hold of the phone cable, and rips it out of the wall.
Turns out he doesn’t trust me enough to leave it plugged in. Definitely smart on his part, but crappy luck for me. He picks up the entire phone and carries it to the door just as someone starts to knock on it. I don’t even see who it is. No words are spoken. Rebel shoves the phone through the gap in the door and then takes hold of a bottle of liquor, pulling his arm back through the gap, and then the door is closed again. Whoever was on the other side must be used to this kind of behavior; he leaves without a single comment.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I ask.
Rebel’s head snaps up, like he’d forgotten I was even here. “Was that part of our deal? Am I supposed to apprise you of everything that happens in my club now?”
“From the look on your face, this didn’t happen inside your club, asshole. Why do you have to be so fucking rude, anyway? I’m scared. You want to keep me calm. The smartest thing you can do is explain what I just saw on the TV, why you’re tearing into that bottle like it’s your last goddamn lifeline.” He really is tearing at it. He can’t seem to keep still long enough to focus and open the plastic seal properly. I can tell he’s growing more and more tense by the second just from looking at him. I hold out my hand, taking the bottle from him as he passes me. He doesn’t stop me. He’s too busy staring at the floor as he paces back and forth, opening and closing his hands into fists.
I catch my nail under the plastic seal on the bottle, opening it easily, and I twist the screw cap, wincing at the burning smell that immediately hits my nose. Rebel picks up the television remote and throws it as hard as he can against the wall.
“Fuuuck!”
My heart starts slamming underneath my ribcage. I thought it earlier, that despite how he looks, I didn’t think Rebel was really a violent man. Now I can see it, though. I can see how he would be absolutely crazy if the situation required it of him. He blows hard, his breath rushing in and out of his lungs so forcefully I can hear him panting. He storms toward the door and then changes his mind, heading back toward the bathroom. Flexing his hands again, it’s as though he’s itching for something else to throw.
“Rebel?” He doesn’t seem to hear me. “Rebel.”
He stops pacing. Stares at me. “What?” he growls.
“You’re starting to scare me.” I don’t know what I hope to accomplish by telling him that, but it’s as though I’ve just struck him across the face. The man who was throwing things and ripping phones out of walls , on the brink of a nuclear explosion, is suddenly gone. He lets out one final, rage-filled exhalation, and by the time he’s run out of breath, he’s calm. He leans back against the wall, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Fuck. Sorry, Soph.” He takes a moment, fingers digging into his hair, and then he slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor. “There’s a woman. A crazy fucking head case of a woman, who is sorely pissed at me, and this is her way of getting back at me.” He jerks his thumb at the TV, shaking his head. “She wanted me to kill this DEA guy. I told her I didn’t want the club involved in anything remotely to do with the DEA, so she’s gone and killed the fucker and made it look like it was us anyway. To teach me a lesson.”
I bridge my knees, still clutching hold of the bottle of…of Lagavulin? It stinks like nothing else. Rebel watches me tuck the towel up underneath me so that I’m not flashing him, a wan smile lifting up one corner of his mouth. He looks like he’s at a loss. “What does it mean, then? Will the cops come arrest you for this?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
“And you’ll go to jail?” I thought I’d rejoice a little more at that prospect, but the past few hours…I don’t know. Maybe I’m changing my mind about him. God, I’m not turning into one of those Stockholm bitches. I refuse. Seriously unhealthy stuff right there. But, from what he’s told me, I can see that Rebel’s reasoning behind trying to get me to help him is honorable. He’s just really not gone about it the right way.
“I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been with you the whole time that shooting was taking place. You could always tell the cops we were holed up in here all day.”
“And why would the police believe I was hiding out in a motel room with the head of a motorcycle gang, when I’ve clearly been reported as a missing person back in Seattle by now?”
Rebel leans forward, forearms resting on his knees, his eyes flashing with less worry now and more…something else. Something that makes my skin feel strange, like it’s glowing. “Young women run away and lock themselves in motel rooms with hot bikers all the time, sugar. I’d be happy to show you what activities they might engage in to pass the time. And we’re not a motorcycle gang. We’re a club.”
My cheeks are on fire. I know exactly what he’s referring to, of course. He’s suggesting we have sex, and that is not going to happen. “You swore you wouldn’t rape me,” I say, using the hand I’m holding the whiskey in to point at him accusingly. He takes the bottle from me and raises it to his lips, eyes locked on me the whole time. He drinks, swallows, inhales sharply, and then grins.
“I didn’t say anything about anyone being forced into anything, sugar. I’m talking about consensual participation.”
“And why the hell would I consent to participate with you in anything like that? I have a boyfriend, y’know.”
“I did not know that,” he says, shifting forward a little. Closer. Within reaching distance now. He takes another drink from the bottle, pressing his full lips to the beveled rim of the bottle, still watching me. Still making me feel very strange, indeed. He holds up the bottle to me, offering me a drink. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
“Matt.” I take the bottle from Rebel, not sure I want to drink from it. I do though; I need something to take the edge of the unexpected tension from this situation. The alcohol that chases over my tongue and down my throat is liquid napalm, setting small fires one after the other as it roars through my body. I gasp, barely able to catch my breath.
Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about Matt a lot. What the hell would he make of this situation right now? Would he be wondering why the hell I haven’t put any clothes on yet? A bolt of hot embarrassment washes through me, putting out the whiskey fire. Handing the bottle back, I get to my feet. “I should get dressed.”
“Why bother? We’ll be going to bed soon, anyway, right?” The way he says that—going to be bed soon—is full of innuendo. I hear his meaning clear as day: we’ll be going to bed together soon, anyway.
“What are you doing, Rebel? A second ago you were freaking out about a shooting that your motorcycle club is being framed for, and now all you seem to care about is flirting with me.” I tighten the towel around me, suddenly aware that there’s very little material between my naked body and his hands. “Shouldn’t you be thinking of a way to exonerate yourself and your club?”
Rebel shrugs. He gently takes the whiskey from me with one hand. With the other hand, he slowly traces his fingertips across the bridge of my foot, making me jump. I’d take a step back, but the bed is right behind me, blocking my way. Rebel softly runs up hand up over my foot and loops his fingers around my ankle. His thumb moves in small, careful circles over the swell of bone there, a soft, barely there contact that sends shivers of burning heat sparking upward, firing all over my body. “I think better when I’m distracted,” he says, his voice a low rumble in his chest.
I stagger sideways, almost losing my footing. “I’m not gonna be some cheap distraction for you, asshole. I’m not just some hole you can stick your dick into ’cause I’m here and it’s convenient.”
“And what if I told you I wanted to have sex with you because I like you? Would that make a difference?”
“You don’t like me.”
“Of course I do.”
I turn my back on him, heat welling everywhere all over my body. “Did you bring something else for me to wear, or should I just put my jeans and T-shirt back on again?”
Rebel slowly gets to his feet, his chest brushing against my bare shoulder blades as he steps in between the two beds and unzips the bag he brought with him. I have to hold my breath. He rustles around in the bag and then throws something over my shoulder: another oversized T-shirt. I hold it up, and this time it doesn’t say, It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself. It says, Widow Makers MC, New Mexico and underneath, Club President. I spin around, holding it up in the air. “I can’t wear this.”
Rebel smirks, pulling his own plain black shirt over his head. He starts speaking somewhere between fully clothed and half-naked, his face hidden by his shirt, but I know he’s laughing. I can hear it in his voice. “And why not?”
“Because…because I don’t want anything to do with your club. I sure as hell don’t want your damn logo plastered all over me while I’m sleeping. I won’t willingly give you the free advertising.”
Rebel looks around, holding up his hands. “Who you advertising to, sugar? Ain’t no one here but you and me. Besides, that’s not how we roll, anyway. You see anyone outside our compound walls wearing that patch, you tell me straight up. That’s against club policy.”
“Cade.”
“What?”
“Cade was wearing a hoody with this on the back of it the day I met him. In that alleyway in Seattle.”
Rebel starts pulling the drawers open on the nightstand, searching for something. “That was different,” he says. “That was an exceptional situation.”
“Why?”
“Because he was acting on my behalf. He was there looking for my uncle. And he knew what he was gonna have to do if he found Ryan dead. He was going to have to declare war. Gotta be wearing official colors to do that.” He lifts out a large notepad in the bottom drawer, apparently having found what he was looking for. He points it at me, lifting one eyebrow. “Now put on the damn shirt.”
“Urgh, fine!” I wrestle the shirt over my head, doing my best not to drop the towel as I do so. It feels like he’s won, somehow, which is pathetic. We haven’t bet anything. He and I are not at war, not really. But wearing his club shirt makes me feel like I’m his property, and that doesn’t feel good. The material comes down to my mid-thigh, plenty long enough to preserve my modesty, but I still feel vulnerable all the same.
Rebel’s looking mighty pleased with himself when I turn around. “Do not look at me like that,” I tell him.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to fucking eat me.”
“And what if I do?”
“Just…stop!” I throw my wet towel at him, aiming for his smug, smug face. He catches it out of the air and tosses it onto the ground by the door.
“You’re not helping matters,” he says, his head tilted to one side. “You’re really sexy when you’re angry.”
I lift up my right hand and flip him off. "There. You think that’s sexy?"
"Yeah. I do actually." He smiles even wider. I think he's going to come for me, then. I imagine how it would play out: him prowling forward, sharp eyes pinning me to the spot. Him reaching up underneath the T-shirt he's given me to wear. His fingers searching for the most sensitive of places between my legs. My hands pushing him away, but my body craving more. This is fucked.
This. Is. Fucked.
Rebel rubs his hand over his jaw, lifting one eyebrow at me. It appears my imagination is misguided; he doesn’t come for me after all. He turns around and starts tacking pieces of paper that he tears from the notepad onto the wall. God knows where he found the tacks. And god knows why I’m feeling slightly disappointed.
"What are you doing?"
"Something to occupy my mind while I problem solve. You're welcome to help." He pulls a sharpie out of his back pocket and begins to write. I stand there, mouth open, watching him as he scrawls what essentially equates to hieroglyphs on the papers he's pinned to the wall.
I angle my head, hoping that a different perspective will give what he's written some meaning. It's pointless, though. The mathematic equation—I'm smart enough to know that's what it is, at least—makes absolutely no sense. "What is that?" I ask.
"This," Rebel says, tapping his pen on the paper, "is a proof sketch for the prime number theorem, using big O notation. I'm gonna use this to try and solve Legendre's Conjecture.”
“How long will that take?”
Rebel, shirtless, absolutely covered in tattoos…Rebel, the leader of a motorcycle club, the man who refuses to let me go home to my family, shrugs. “I don’t know. Been working on it since I left college. I could prove the conjecture tomorrow. I might never prove it.”
“You’ve been working on this for years?”
He gives me a broad, reckless kind of smile. The kind of smile that makes women’s insides twist. “Only eight. My old professor’s been working on it for over fifty.” Turning around again, he starts scribbling at the paper, leaving a wake of marks and symbols behind him that are liable to give me a headache just looking at them. I’m beginning to feel really rather foolish. He’s obviously way smarter than I gave him credit for. Way smarter than me, and I accused him of never even finishing high school.
Oh god. He definitely did finish high school because he was just talking about finishing college eight years ago. I feel rather triumphant when I realize this gives me insight into a little tidbit about himself that he wouldn’t share with me earlier. I sit down on the edge of the bed, his bed, clutching one of his pillows to my chest like a shield. “Twenty-nine.”
Rebel glances over his shoulder at me, a bemused expression on his face. “Twenty-nine is not the correct answer.” He carries on scribbling, the muscles in his forearm, his tricep and bicep, across his shoulder blades and down his back all shifting beautifully underneath his skin. “It’s not forty-two, either. Might have worked in Hitchhikers but this is slightly more complicated.”
“Your age,” I say. “You’re twenty-nine. You finished college eight years ago, which means you’re twenty-nine.”
He doesn’t seem even remotely fazed that I’ve worked this out. “Am I?”
“Yes.”
“And what if I went on a gap year to Europe with an ex-girlfriend in between high school and college? What if I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to major in and switched out courses halfway through?”
“Did you do either of those things?”
“Nope.” I can hear him grinning, even though he doesn’t turn to look at me. He doesn’t take his eyes off the paper in front of him and the ever-increasing spider web of mathematical figures. “Hand me that whiskey?” he asks, holding out his hand behind him. I pass him the bottle, wondering how alcohol is possibly the answer right now.
“Seems to me coffee would be more appropriate. I don’t think you’re gonna solve a super old math problem if you’re wasted.”
“Solving this problem isn’t the point. Solving my DEA/Maria Rosa problem is the point. I just have get my brain working. And since you won’t have sex with me, this is the next best thing.”
I can’t help but laugh. “You think you use your brain when you’re having sex?”
Rebel’s pen freezes on the paper. He turns, then, towering over me, my face level with his belt buckle. It’s as though I can literally feel the heat rolling off his body. He’s intimidating and overwhelming, his presence a powerful force to be reckoned with. “Oh, Sophia. I use my brain. Every time I sleep with a woman, I’m using my head to figure out what she likes. How she likes it. What I can do to have her screaming my name until her throat’s raw.” He takes a step closer, his perfect fucking abs pretty much filling my eye line. He knows how he looks. He knows how perfect all of him is. “I’m also thinking up ways for my partner in crime to make me happy, too. How she can defer to me, hand herself over to me, let me use her body for my own pleasure.” Gently brushing a wet strand of my hair from my face, Rebel makes a low humming sound. It sends shivers through me, making me feel shame for the first time in my life. I shouldn’t be reacting this way to him. I just told myself I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for my captor, and yet right now…
It’s so fitting that he just referred to his sexual conquests as his partners in crime; I get the feeling sex with Rebel really would be criminal. “If the guys you’ve been sleeping with haven’t been using every single part of their bodies when they’re fucking you, Sophia, including their heads, then they haven’t been doing it right.” He takes a drink from the whiskey bottle, and then he offers it to me. “Is Matthew the boyfriend not a very good lover, Soph?”
“That is seriously none of your business.”
“What you mean to say is, you’re a virgin.”
I feel like my face is on fire. “I am not a virgin!”
Rebel’s expression hardens a little, almost imperceptibly, but I catch it. “Didn’t Hector check you?”
“Yes, he did. And he wanted me gone, so he told Raphael I was a virgin. He said he couldn’t afford the attention I’d bring with me.” I shiver at the memory of Hector’s fingers inside me. That disgusting look on his face. Suddenly, I feel very sick. I snatch the bottle from him and drink. I drink deep, lighting up from the inside out as the explosive alcohol tears through me. Surprisingly, the burn dulls down after the first few mouthfuls. Rebel folds his arms across his chest, watching me swallow once, twice, three more times. I let my eyes drift a little, catching brief flashes of the ink that marks his skin. A skull sits over his ribcage, crowned in thorns, flocked by birds. A banner runs through the design, and on it, the text: Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned. Two full sleeves, bursting with color, scroll down his arms. The designs are filled with dragons and water lilies, Japanese designs mostly. The lines of them are harsh and dark, but they’re beautiful. On his chest, more birds—two swallows perching on top of the handles of two crossed guns, their barrels pointed downward. In the center of the design, a heart, bright red and bleeding. Live For Something runs along the top of the ink. Or Die For Nothing is written in cursive underneath. As he lifts his left arm, leaning against the wall, I see something else that catches my attention: Arabic script tracing up the inside of his bicep, leading toward his heart.
“You getting a good look there, sugar?” Rebel asks. Amusement colors his tone, to the point where I feel like kicking myself for being busted checking him out. And I was checking him out. I’ve seen Matt naked a thousand times, but I’ve never felt this intrigued by his body. Not even the first time we had sex. Our bodies just came together without any fireworks, whereas right now I feel like it’s the fourth of July inside my head and I haven’t even touched this guy. I resent that he can produce such a reaction from me. It makes me feel weak.
“Just looking for the prison tattoos,” I snap.
“Haven’t been to prison. Sorry to disappoint. Been arrested enough times, but they’ve never been able to pin anything bad enough on me to warrant jail time.”
“Until now.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe so.” He doesn’t seem to like me pointing that out. His shoulders are tense when he returns his attention back to his unsolvable mathematical squiggles. I drink more whiskey, trying not to feel anything. Not panic or terror or hope. Or the faint glimmer of interest I seem to be showing in this man, who I should fear with every bone in my body.
Now that I have the opportunity to look properly without him mocking me, I check out the ink on his back. I anticipate it to be the Widow Makers’ patch, but yet again I’m surprised. The ink Rebel has tattooed into his back has absolutely nothing to do with the Widow Makers, as far as I can tell. It’s a depiction of the Virgin Mary, hands clasped in prayer, head bowed low. She’s not what I would have expected from a man like Rebel. She’s beautiful.
And she’s weeping.