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“Rumor is, he’s holed up in some armpit town south of the border.”
Across the table, Celt watched with silent intrigue.
“What has your father to do with all this?” I asked although I could guess. The image on the wanted poster was a photocopied sketch, but it was uncanny how much the guy in it looked like Wilde. Wilde finished off his coffee and slammed the cup back on the table, turning his whole body to glare at me with ice in his eyes and a muscle moving in his strong jaw. When he spoke, his voice sounded low, slow, and murderous. “He’s the asshole who popped my mother, though he managed to wangle his way out of that one. fuck knows what he’s wanted for now. Could be anything. Cops have been on his back for fucking years. AX3 wanted me outta the way so they used this asshole’s wanted picture to their advantage. They deliberately changed it to look more like me so that if I was ever caught by the cops, I’d be the one pulled in. Fuck knows what their plans were after the cops figured out I wasn’t the man they were looking for. I guess they thought the cops would bang me up long enough for them to take over my club. Diablo.”
Long enough? He’d been at my home longer than it would take for the cops to figure out they had the wrong person. If the AX3 was going to try anything, they’d certainly have had plenty of chance in the last couple of weeks. My stomach dropped like it was suddenly lined with lead. He’d stayed in The Ridge because of me. He hadn’t phoned his club because Celt had taken his phone. If anything had happened to his club, it would be our fault. No wonder he looked like he was close to losing his shit. It was only a wonder he’d not lost it before now.
I looked over to Celt to see if he’d come to the same conclusion as me.
“Tell us about the AX3,” he said, looking straight at Wilde and not giving anything away. Fuck, I wanted to kick him under the table. Really fucking hard.
Wilde seethed, his eyebrows furrowing and relaxing and his nostrils flaring with each inhale.
At length, he released a long breath and faced forward again. “Paola Soto has her thugs from the AX3 tracking me because I called your compatriots on them and she didn’t like it. And that bitch that came to town last night with the fucked up purple eyes? She is sure as shit on her payroll.”
I swirled the coffee in my mug. “Celt’s compatriots?”
“The cops.”
Celt sighed. “That might be the case, but I’ve got county on my back. Someone knows you are in The Ridge, and not the whore from last night. This has been brewing for days and if I don’t bring you in, they are going to start digging. We all know what a can of fucking worms that’s going to uncover.”
Wilde’s fists curled so hard, his knuckles whitened. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but I beat him to it.
“Wilde already said he’s leaving,” I ground out, and the words felt like a hot iron poker searing through my gut. “Let him go.”
“Bou, you know what’s at stake here as much as I do,” my brother hissed back.
“Let him go, Celt.” I shot a hurried look to the counter to see if Margo was listening, but she’d disappeared into the kitchen. We were totally alone. “If you don’t, I’ll call fucking county myself and turn myself in for Luke’s murder.”
30
Wilde
Regrets are a bitch. After I had left that mice infested trailer at eleven, I never looked back. I didn’t allow myself regret. My life, my rules. Getting close to anyone had never been on my fucking agenda. Cain, the old man who took me in, taught me that lesson well enough. He’d been one icy motherfucker to everyone. I had been no exception, though he’d hand-picked me to take over his ops. When I look back and retrace that path down by the river toward school, I think he chose me before I’d walked into his warehouse. He taught the ins and outs of dealing, and I’d coldly carried on his business after he’d been taken to ground.
The man had one life lesson. He’d pound a fist to his chest and said, “Iron trap, Wilde. Giving two fucks about people? Trying to protect them? That shit’ll get you—and them—killed.”
I considered the truth in Cain’s advice. The old man had taken the bullet meant for me when the cops raided the warehouse. I’d seen so many of the men in the club get soft when they got serious about some bitch. Fucking Mikey, one of my best hitmen and damn good with computers, signed up for a goddamn desk-job after getting hitched and having a kid. He might as well have been taken to ground. I had no place in that kind of life. Just didn’t belong.
But fuck me now if I wasn’t ready to do anything Bou wanted after what she just did for me. No one, not Cain, not even Angel would talk about putting themselves away for me, and I wouldn’t ask them to. I’d fucking die before letting my brothers get put away for me, and now as I looked in amazement at Bou, I knew I felt the same about her.
The monster inside screamed—Mine!
She sipped on her coffee, challenging Celt to call her with her eyes. She looked completely unaware of the maelstrom she’d caused inside me. Maybe it was a bluff, but even so, she’d just made leaving a whole fucking lot harder.
Celt didn’t try to stop us from leaving after breakfast, although it was the most tense meal I’d ever eaten. We were so quiet, I could hear every chew. I didn’t think Celt would stop us. He loved Bou too much to try her. Still I felt his eyes boring into my back as we pulled out onto the road. I leaned forward and inhaled her scent as we pulled up to the shop next to Doc’s van. Inside, I sat in her tiny living room on her even tinier couch while Doc lectured me about the risks of taking the cast off too early. If it didn’t heal right, he’d have to break it and reset it.
That was something I’d have to deal with if, or when, it happened. Right now, business called, and since the cast was the only thing stopping me from completing that business, I needed it gone. I leveled my gaze at Doc. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, but I don’t fucking care, Doc. Get it off or I’m hacking it off myself.”
To Doc’s credit, he didn’t utter another word but went to work. When it was off, Doc sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” He handed me a stiff leg brace. “Wear this for another three weeks. It’s a specialized removable brace that will allow you more movement than a standard cast. Because of that, you need to be a hell of a lot more careful. I’m going to tell you that you shouldn’t ride until your leg heals, but I know you are going to do whatever the hell you want no matter what I say. Just don’t push it, Wilde, and if your leg starts hurting so much that you need more pills to numb it, that’s when you know you’ve gone it too far.
“Thanks, Doc.”
After he left, I gathered my shit while Bou stood by. She watched me in perfect silence, her arms folded over her chest. She seethed. Sparks in her glare seared into my skin, but I paid them no attention. I had to look away if I was going to be able to make it out of the door. I knew I was a complete shit. I’d come, put her in danger, fucked her senseless, and made her feel things for me that I didn’t deserve. Now I was leaving her.
Roughly, possessively, I pulled her against my body, my dick getting all sorts of confused. I plunged my hand into her hair and lifted her face and her mouth to mine. Our lips molded together. She met my every move with equal passion, and her hands grabbed onto me, holding tight around my waist. In that kiss, I wanted nothing more than to own her, to say all the shit I couldn’t force out through my lips, to tell her that I was fucking coming back for her. But I didn’t know if I would be able. Pretend-time was over. Peace and safety, gone.
Back to reality motherfucker!
