Last Mile (Vicious Cycle #3) - Katie Ashley Page 0,6
you’re totally on board with the new direction the club is taking?”
Although the question shocked the hell out of me, I tried to keep my face impassive. “I always support my brothers.”
“That’s a very diplomatic answer,” she said as she snipped the suturing thread.
After a few moments of silence, I exhaled a deep breath. “I know some people—some brothers from other Raiders chapters—might think what we’re doing is the coward’s way out. That Deacon instigated going legit all because he was pussy-whipped by a woman. But that’s not how it is.”
“Exactly how is it, B?” Annabel questioned softly.
I gave a quick shake of my head. I didn’t like to get serious with anyone about my world, least of all a woman. But in her own way, Annabel had earned her stripes. “In the last five years, I’ve lost my old man and then my president. Deacon almost got blown up, Rev was tortured and almost died, and even I got shot. I’m twenty-five years old, and if shit keeps going the way that it is, I won’t live to see thirty. Each and every time you have to put a brother in the ground, it eats away at you. Even if I do make it past thirty, I sure as hell don’t want to have to lose any more of my brothers, especially not Deacon and Rev. It’s a vicious fucking cycle, and somewhere things have to change.”
“Death is the greatest motivator for you,” Annabel stated.
“Hell yeah.”
“You don’t worry about jail time?”
Shrugging, I replied, “I wouldn’t want to do time, but at least there’s an option to get out. You can come back to your family and your bike.”
Annabel smiled. “Rev keeps quoting this MC president who turned his chapter around. He said, ‘You can’t ride a bike in jail.’”
“That’s the fucking truth.”
“And at the end of the day, that’s really what is most important to you guys. Isn’t it?”
“Bikin’ and brotherhood is all that matters.”
Rev appeared in the doorway then. “Putting Humpty Dumpty back together?” he asked with a grin.
Annabel laughed. “Yes. I just finished up.”
“Good. Because he has some company waiting on him.”
When Rev waggled his eyebrows, Annabel groaned. “I don’t think I even want to know.” She tossed the last of her supplies back into her bag. “I would recommend for the next twenty-four hours that you take some ibuprofen—” When I started to protest that I wasn’t a pussy who needed anything for the pain, she held up her hand. “For the inflammation.”
I grinned. “Yes, Doc.”
My ring girl appeared in the doorway beside Rev. “You’re looking better,” she said, with a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile.
After Annabel took one look at my piece of ass, she rolled her eyes and grabbed her bag. “I would recommend icing your forehead as well, but I can imagine any further advice I give will fall on deaf ears.”
“Pretty much.”
She shook her head. “You Malloy men are stubborn to a fault.”
Lowering my voice, I added, “We’re also horny motherfuckers, so do yourself and my brother a favor by getting out of here and going home to bed.”
“You’re impossible,” she muttered, but when she glanced over her shoulder at Rev, I knew he’d be getting some by the secretive smile Annabel wore when she gazed at him.
As soon as Annabel left my side, my ring card girl took her place. After Rev closed the door, she said, “My name’s Candy, by the way.”
I nodded. I wanted to assure her I wouldn’t need to know her name because we wouldn’t be hooking up again. The only reason why it might have mattered was to make sure I called out the right name when I came, because with all the women I’d been with, they managed to run together.
After making quick work of getting her and myself undressed, I showed her how a true champion can have multiple knockouts in one night.
TWO
SAMANTHA
Boiling summer heat radiated off the pavement, sending beads of sweat trickling down the backs of my legs. Even though the sun had set hours ago, there was no respite from the steamy onslaught. While I might’ve had plenty of ventilation in the black lace bustier and barely there black miniskirt, I waved my hand in front of my face, trying to salvage the makeup that I was sure was about to start sweating off. How in the hell do some women do this day in and day out?
A buzz from the communication device in my ear had me on alert. “Suspect has been spotted