“Where’s that?” Conrad asks.
“About an hour north of us,” I respond. “It’s a small, rural town. Not much in it but fields and farms.”
“So, what was the tattoo guy doing there? Hiding out?” Hugo asks.
“No. He didn’t appear to be hiding or very shy. He was working at a shady porno studio…”
“What the hell were—” Cannon starts to ask, and I hold up my palm to stop him.
“What I was doing there doesn’t matter. It was him. I’m ninety-nine percent certain. Danny sent me the images of the tattoo again to compare and I think it’s a match. The guy’s name is Joey Simpson and he got the dagger tat from an Anthony over at Damaged Ink in Shallotte.”
“Shallotte?” Verek repeats. “That’s where the storage facilities are!”
“I know,” I tell him. “Which is why I think it has to be him.”
“So, what’s the plan, prez?” Verek asks. “We gonna hit these fuckers tonight?”
“No,” Roman says. “Not yet. We need to do more intel to figure out if anyone else at the porn studio was involved or not. If they weren’t, then we can’t go in there and kill them all.”
“We can’t?” Marcus asks with an exaggerated pout.
“No, we can’t. We’re only going to take out the men responsible. And I need time to inform the original Savage Kings chapter before we come up in their territory taking people out.”
“How long is that going to fucking take?” Verek asks. “What if the fucker runs?”
“It takes as long as it takes, brother,” Roman says, narrowing his eyes in warning at him. “We have to do this smart so there’s no blowback on us. You know I want revenge for Tessa and those women as much as you do. Hearing her screams at night…”
“Tessa’s still having nightmares?” Verek asks.
“Of course she’s still having nightmares!” Roman exclaims. “Do you think the memories of the shit that happened to her have just faded away after three months?”
“No, but I could try…”
“She’s not your concern!” Roman grits out. “Don’t make me tell you that again.”
Verek doesn’t respond, but I can tell by the hard, stubborn set in his jaw and brown eyes that he’s not backing off from Tessa, no matter what our president tells him, which means shit is probably going to hit the fan in the club soon.
“Anyway,” Roman remarks. “If none of the other men at the facility were involved in the kidnappings, then we’ll take Simpson alive and get the other names out of him, however long it takes. I’m working on getting a site ready where we can hold him securely. As soon as I have more details about when we go up north, I’ll let everyone know. Come prepared, locked and loaded. It could get messy. Until then, we’re adjourned.”
After Roman slams down the gavel and some of the men get up to leave, I ask him, “You got a plan for where Charlotte and Tessa will stay when this all goes down?”
“I’m working on that too. Why?”
“Do you think Zoe could stay with them? She was with me today when we were there, and they know everything about her…”
“Jesus! Zoe’s going into porn?” Roman asks.
“Fuck no!” I tell him. “She may have been thinking about it, but there’s no damn way I would let her do that.”
“How are things going with her otherwise? ‘Brother and sisterly’ since she’s been in town, or are you trying your best to get in her panties?”
“I…what…that is so messed up, Roman!” I stammer.
“You’re still a grumpy bastard, so I’m going to hazard a guess and say nothing’s happened…yet.”
“No, it hasn’t,” I tell him. “And it may never happen because I don’t think she can forgive me for hurting her.”
“You don’t know that,” Roman says. “There’s a thin line between love and hate, and you’re still straddling it. If she didn’t care about you, she wouldn’t be holding a grudge after all this time. Keep apologizing and I bet she’ll come around eventually.”
“You think?” I ask hopefully before it hits me that with everything I told her today, I never actually apologized.
“Yeah, you shouldn’t give up on her just yet,” he says with a pat on my shoulder.
“I don’t think I could even if I tried.”
Chapter Fourteen
Zoe
* * *
For the first time in years, my heart is racing and it’s full of…hope. I think I have butterflies too, waiting for Winston to come home, reminding me of the days when I was a naïve teenager who had a crush on her hot, older stepbrother.
Over the past few days, I’ve been so angry with only one goal—to make Winston want me and refuse to ever give in to him. Now though? I’m not sure how to act around him. I’m back to not knowing what will happen when he comes home.
The uneasiness has me craving my favorite comfort food: cinnamon Pop-Tarts. Luckily, my dad still has the same craving for junk food because there’s a box in their cabinet.
I’ve just popped one of my small indulgences into the toaster when the side door opens and Winston walks in. His eyes search the living room, looking for me, before he wanders over to where I’m standing in the kitchen.
“Hey. There you are.”
“Hey,” I reply with my back to the corner of the cabinets. My fingers grab the hem of my t-shirt, pulling on it nervously, unsure what to say to him. “How did your meeting go?”
“Good. Well, as good as it could for what we’re about to do.”
“Go after the bad guy?”
“Something like that,” he says with a heavy exhale.
I’m finally starting to see Winston’s motorcycle club isn’t like the ones I’ve met before. They’re the good guys, which is a huge relief. Winston would never share me with his brothers like the other MC guys did to me. He really does care about me, I think.
There are several awkward moments of silence where we just stare at each other across the room before Winston breaks it and comes toward me. “Look,” he starts. “The day you left, I shouldn’t have lied to you. I’m sorry for not telling you the truth about how I felt. I was young and stupid. At twenty-one, I didn’t think I was ready for a relationship, especially one with you that would’ve required coming clean to our parents, you know? But then, as soon as you were gone, I knew I had fucked up and that it was too late. So, the truth is, I’ve been a miserable son of a bitch since you left.”
“Y-you have?” I ask in surprise.
“Yeah, I have,” he says as he comes a few steps closer. “Fuck, it’s kind of a relief to finally admit that shit.”
I’m struggling with how to respond to his incredibly sweet honesty when the toaster suddenly pops up, interrupting the silence, making me jump in surprise.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who was startled. One second, Winston is standing five feet away and the next, he’s grabbing me and throwing me down on the tile. Somehow, I don’t even feel a thing, not with his arms underneath me, lowering me gently before his right hand reaches for the gun in the back of his jeans. My breath catches at the sudden change of position. And with our chests pressed together tightly, I can actually feel his heart thumping out of control.