"SL, what happened with Kendra?" I demanded as I checked my phone, finding a couple of messages in the council’s group chat that, fuck me, I’d muted because they drove me nuts with their talk about the Bengals.
If I survived this, I’d never mute a goddamn chat again.
SL wrung his hands together at my question which didn’t put my nerves on edge at all... Not. "I sent her back to Pittsburgh and set three different brothers on to guard her."
"She was meeting with Grim, wasn’t she? That day when I called?"
SL nodded. "Yeah."
"You find out what they were talking about?"
"Grim just said he bought her a coffee."
"I really believe that," Digger mocked.
"Kendra took a risk coming into Coshocton. It had to be for a reason."
"To give Grim something?" SL asked.
"Maybe." I scowled. "Please tell me he wasn’t one of the fucking brothers you used as a guard—"
He scowled at me. "Do I look like that big of a dipshit?"
"I dunno, man. I really don’t fucking know right now." I scraped a hand over my face. "I didn’t get more involved because I didn’t think she was a threat. Should have known that, even in Pittsburgh, she’d find a way to fuck with me."
All I’d done was check in with SL to make sure she was still in the motel room we’d shoved her in after Keira had beaten the crap out of her that day at the diner.
"Grim’s been acting weird all week," Digger said gruffly. "And I was in on the scheduling of her guards, man. Grim couldn’t get to her, but we didn’t keep her fucking prisoner. She had a phone. No reason why one of her guards wouldn’t give that number to Grim if he asked."
Anger lashed at me, but I thought about what North had said. "You heard of Jimmy’s Bar & Grill, SL?"
He scrubbed a hand over his dirty face. "Yeah, it’s near the motel where she was staying. It’s the only place for a couple of miles where you can grab decent food."
I wanted to scream, but instead, I just cursed fate and coincidences. "North said he heard those fuckers talking in that same bar. That’s probably how they met.
"If he overheard ‘em talking, no reason why Kendra wouldn’t too." I narrowed my eyes on my VP. "SL, you find out if that’s what happened."
His shoulders hunched up around his ears. "Will do, Prez."
Wondering why the ex-Sinners weren’t throwing demands at us, I turned back to look at the house, which was when I saw Kendra in the bedroom window, a goddamn gun to Keira’s head. She had duct tape covering her mouth and wrapped around her wrists too.
The rage that filled me made me think of the time I OD’ed on meth. I knew what it was like to embrace death, understood the feeling of letting the life in my body be drained away, but this was different.
I’d die a thousand times if it meant keeping her safe.
K’s eyes clashed with mine, and the lack of fear in hers had my heart leveling out.
She was angry.
I could deal with that. Anger was something I was accustomed to stirring in her. Her fear would break me.
"SL, pick ten men and get them going around the back of my neighbor’s house," I rumbled, a plan kicking into gear. "Keira keeps the French doors open now because of the dog." Christ, if Fraction had even survived—
"Okay, Storm, I’ll do that."
"Make sure they go in stealthily."
"Will do."
"What’s the game plan?" Digger demanded.
"Shift the focus of the fuckers in there so we can get to Keira—"
The window tilted open and Kendra’s grating voice shimmered out, "Storm, whatever you’re planning, stop it. You know what I want."
I cast the bitch a look. "I know what you fucking need—to be shoved in a mental asylum, you crazy cunt." My gaze shifted over the room at her back. "Where are the brothers?"
She smirked. "Trying to find your kid."
"Takes five men to find one kid?" Digger taunted.
"There are only four—"
Digger laughed when she bit back her words, cursing at having given us concrete numbers, confirming what I’d heard on the phone.
Though she was as big a moron as I already knew, rage still flushed through me. "Kendra, what the fuck is your game?"
"They want to be Sinners again, Storm."
"It’s not the fucking Boy Scouts. You can’t just come and go within the MC as you goddamn please." Gritting my teeth, I demanded, "Why did you jump in with them?"
"Overheard them talking in a bar—" Well, there I had my confirmation I was right. "—heard your name, thought I’d play along." A smile tipped up the corners of her mouth. "Don’t worry, Asher, I’ll never let them hurt you."
"You mean to tell me you got four bikers wrapped around your fucking finger? What did you put in that snatch of yours, Kendra? Fucking molly?"
Her mouth twisted. "Ain’t never met a man I can’t twist around my finger—apart from you, Storm."
Scoffing, I said, "You rewriting the last twelve years, Kendra? Where every day you whored that skank pussy out to any willing brother in the West Orange chapter?"
"I only did that for you!" she screamed, her face turning hot pink as she jutted her chin out with rage.
"Did that for me?" I retorted. "Since when did I ask you to do dick for me? Jesus fucking Christ, Kendra, I ain’t given a shit about whether you lived or died even knowing who your pa is. You’re the one who stuck around when I made it fucking clear that I didn’t want you—"
"You did want me," she snarled, shoving the gun harder into Keira’s temple, with enough force to make her stagger, knees buckling in response. "You just let her pussywhip you, trap you with that kid. I freed you, baby. You should be grateful to me." The last came out as a scream.
"Keep her calm, Storm, Jesus. She’s gonna pistol-whip her soon."
I didn’t ignore Digger’s advice, because sweet fuck, I wanted Keira harmed less than he goddamn did, but something weird as shit was going on here and I needed to figure out what the fuck it was.
Brothers, ex-MC or not, didn’t get snagged up by clubwhore cunt. That wasn’t how shit worked.
Bitches turned into clubwhores hoping that they’d snag a brother who’d brand ‘em, but that rarely happened.
"What did you do, Kendra? What did you offer them?" I rumbled, not focusing on the personal. There was nothing personal between us whatsoever.
She wanted me alive, I knew that. But the brothers would want me dead. Her goals and the brothers’ were divided.
"Nothing," she retorted, her arm tightening around Keira’s throat until my woman’s face turned a mottled red.
My hands clawed into fists at my sides. "Let her go. She ain’t done dick to you."
"She stole you from me," Kendra raged. "You’re mine. You were always fucking mine."
"I ain’t never been yours." I narrowed my eyes at her. "You creatin’ some kind of delusion about us being together don’t make it so. I ain’t never been yours and I never fucking will be either."