AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The words “Switch loves Stella” scrawled across the wall in the garage had been what did me in. Gutted me. And there was no taking back what I said to him that day. It was the reason he left and never came back. Fuck off. Such a simple phrase to cause so much destruction.
Water splashed against my face as I tried to erase the look on his face from my mind. Like I’d ever be able to forget how his lips thinned and the depths of his cinnamon eyes swam with pain. It was his eyes. They got me every time.
Blotting my face with a paper towel, I resolved to get my shit together. To leave the past where it belonged, in the past. One day the memories wouldn’t be so sharp, cutting me to the quick. One day I’d forget.
At least that was the lie I’d tell myself so I could put one high-heeled foot in front of the other. Time to take this shit show to the bar.
The door swung out, and I walked into a solid wall of muscle. At first, I thought it was Jules coming to check on me, but the shadows playing across his face were all wrong. Lightssunk into the ceiling above us made him look like he had a halo suspended above his springy gold hair.
A glint of metal caught my eye right before I felt the prick against the side of my neck. Son of a bitch. My limbs were already growing heavy as he eased me closer to his chest, my eyes searching for help over his shoulder. Jules stood not two feet away, but I could tell something was wrong even before I saw the blade cutting into his neck.
The four of us were the only ones in the hallway. Aside from the throbbing pulse of the base, it was oddly quiet. Where was the security Antonio hired for the night? If I was their primary aim, why weren’t they storming down the hall to kill these two assholes who had gotten the drop on Jules?
My vision was growing fuzzy around the edges as the realization that Jules and I were in trouble sank in. I wanted to fight, to claw, to tear their eyes out, to do something, anything to save us. My body, however, refused to do anything I wanted it to do. Inside my head, I raged and screamed even as the blackness licked at my mind, threatening to pull me under.
As the man dragged me past Jules, my head lolled to the side, my eyes locking on him. Jules was always so stoic, except for the times I’d fucked with him by touching him. Now, though, remorse was etched into every plane of his angular face.
“I’m sorry, Stella,” he whispered in his annoyingly high-pitched voice. “I had no other choice.”
The last of his words followed me into the sinking abyss of darkness. Then there was nothing.
CHAPTER 5
SWITCH
Cherry’s face brightened when she saw me walk through the door, the rag she’d been using to wipe down the bar frozen in midair. With the way I ran out on the club, she was likely to be the only friendly face I’d find here. Not that I’d let a frosty welcome deter me any.
Stel was all that mattered right now, and for her, I’d take whatever shit they wanted to shovel at my feet. Anything to have her back where she belonged, safely among her family, tinkering in the shop she loved.
Pain hit me square in the chest as I envisioned all the shit she might have had to endure since being taken, and I staggered the last few steps to the bar, grateful there was something to keep me upright.
Cherry’s smile fell, and she set her rag down, cautiously moving closer. She was smart. She recognized a wounded animal when she saw one. Tentatively she lifted her tiny hand, setting it down on my thickly veined one.
“Hunter will get our girl back.” Her hazel eyes were glassy as she shook her head up and down, her blond curls bouncing with the force of her conviction. “He would never break a promise he made to Brandy.”
Who the fuck was this Brandy chick? Never mind. It wasn’t important. Hunter’s promises didn’t mean shit to me because I would be the one going after my girl, not him. All I had to do was keep my cool around the club long enough to get the intel I needed, then I’d be on my way.
A door swung open, the muted chatter of men floating into the room. Cherry looked over my shoulder, nodded once, and met my eyes again. She gave my hand a squeeze, the pressure surprisingly strong for a girl who couldn’t weigh more than a buck twenty soaking wet.
“We’ll catch up later. The sooner you meet with the boys, the sooner you can give Stella a hug for me. She won’t like it”—Cherry gave me a watery smile—“but tell her it’s that or I cart her off to the nail salon when she gets back.”
My knuckles stood out against the metal of the bar as I gripped its edge, trying to rein in the riot of emotions that threatened to swallow me whole. Cherry was the sweetest person I’d ever met, and I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t recognize that she was only trying to help. But I couldn’t dwell on what I’d lost and keep a clear head.
Yet, I couldn’t seem to help myself. A memory of Stella standing in the shop, holding her nails up to the light, fine lines forming between her dark blond brows flashed behind my eyelids. Her full pink lips would part just before she let fly a string of curse words that would make a sailor blush.
When she was done with her tirade, I’d always tell her the same thing, that I liked her nails best when they had grease or paint staining the tips. She’d shoot me a snarky sideways glance, then turn her head to hide the ghost of a smile touching her lips. Knowing I was the one to put it there made me hard every damn time.
But memories wouldn’t bring her back, so I forced myself to set aside the pain and focus on the present. Cherry had always been there for me when the desire I kept locked inside became too much to bear alone, and she never asked for anything in return. She didn’t deserve for me to be a dick, even though a part of me wanted to lash out at her. Anything to shift the blame away from where it belonged, squarely on my shoulders.
“I’ll pass along the message,” I said with a fake-ass smile, my voice gravelly from a combination of disuse and alcohol.
Shit. If I was going to get Stel back, I needed to get a handle on all the fucked-up shit that was swirling around inside my head. The broken fucker that had walked through those doors wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good, and I had a lot to make up for. Starting with not being there when she’d needed me the most.
I turned to face the doorway, already knowing Ryder would be standing there. My best friend. My only friend, really, until he’d introduced me to Stella.
There was a reason I kept my circle small when I was younger. Hiding bruises wasn’t as hard when there was no one that gave a shit about you. Stel had blown that out of thewater the day she’d stopped by our trailer and caught my old man laying into me out front.
She’d taken one look at my battered face and let her most prized possession, the motorcycle I’d helped her rebuild a few years earlier, fall to the pavement. The battle cry she let out hadn’t even finished echoing off the piece of shit truck parked across our lawn when she launched herself at him, her tiny fists pounding his back.
