He really wasn’t a bad man, even if he’d done bad things. Really bad things. And no matter how much I wanted to hate him, I found that I couldn’t. I might not have liked the man, but I couldn’t hate him.
I was halfway across the clubhouse when Click caught my eye. He was sitting by the door, a bottle of beer in hand and a cigarette hanging from his lips. The man was the most serious person I’d ever met. Poppy had once told me that even when they’d had sex he’d stayed serious—not even the hint of a smile of satisfaction on his face as he’d come all over her breasts.
I turned, deciding I could go out the back way, when I saw the Ripped going into his office. He had his hands around one of the clubsluts’ waists and he kicked the door shut behind them as I darted back the way I had come, grateful that he was too preoccupied with other women to notice me.
I reached the end of the hallway and clicked the door open, and froze as the same group of men from earlier turned to stare at me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Need some fresh air.” I quickly left the clubhouse and headed off into the darkness, away from the music and the lights, glad that it was nighttime and it was hiding my escape.
As I got closer to the gates I noticed that the prospects were passed out, and I clicked the gate open and slipped out, feeling sudden relief as the lights from a motorcycle flashed at me. I jogged the rest of the way to the bike, seeing an older-looking prospect sitting on the back of a motorcycle. He immediately handed me a helmet as I climbed on behind him.
“You good?” he asked, his accent not local.
“Yeah.”
“Name’s Skinny. Hold on tight.”
I nodded and wrapped my arms around his waist as he started the bike and started to duck walk us backwards a couple of steps so he could turn the bike around. I heard something by the gate, and when I looked over, Click was there pulling the gate wide open, his gun raised and aimed at me.
“Get off the bike, Quinn!” he yelled, his voice cutting through the air loud enough to cause my heart to stutter in my chest. “I won’t ask twice.”
“Fuck, I’ve got this,” Skinny said quietly, and I felt his hand begin to move to his waistband.
“I can’t, Click. I don’t love him,” I whimpered, terrified of what he would do. “Please, please just let me go.”
“Can’t do that, little girl,” he growled out.
It was so frustrating. So annoying. So ridiculous.
“He’s in there fucking another woman, Click! Just let me go! I don’t want to be with him. He can’t make me love him!” I yelled back, my terror dissolving into anger. It bubbled in my veins, igniting the fight in me. I was sore between my legs from Battle, and it reminded me exactly why I was doing this. For him. For us. “I’m not going back,” I said, my voice unwavering that time.
I meant it too.
I wouldn’t go back to him. Not that time. Not now that I knew that Gracie and Bonny were safe. Battle had shown me time and time again that he could handle himself, and I had to trust in that. In him.
“Go,” I said to Skinny.
Click took aim with his gun. “I told you I wasn’t going to ask again. If you think I won’t kill you because of Ripped, you’re wrong. I’ve had my orders to kill you if you try to leave for months, and I’ve been waiting for the right time,” he snarled. “You ain’t ever been good for him, or our club.”
This was it, I realized. This was where I died. The cold hard realization that Ripped would rather have me dead than with someone else hit me like a sucker punch and I couldn’t stop the tears from springing to my eyes.
But that wasn’t where I died. Because as I closed my eyes, expecting death to hit me, I instead heard Click grunt, and when I opened my eyes I saw him collapsing to the ground, one hand at his neck as blood sprayed from it.
Beside him stood Fighter, a knife in his hand and blood over his arms as Click dropped forward to the ground, gurgling in pain. I let out a small sob, hating that so many people were dying because of me, but knowing that I couldn’t stop it now. It was too late to go back.
“Get her out of here,” Fighter said, tucking the blade into the back of his jeans and then grabbing Click’s legs so he could drag his body out of sight.
“Plan the same?” Skinny asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Fighter asked, coming toward us.
He looked like something from a horror story. The arterial spray from cutting Click’s throat had coated half his face and he rubbed a hand down, smearing the blood away.
“You’re here,” Skinny said with a small shrug. “Gauge said you were gonna be at the safehouse.”
“Yeah, well, Battle seems to think he’s some medieval motherfucker that ain’t gonna get killed if he gets cornered. Brother needs someone watching his back, even if he don’t like to admit it.”
Skinny reached out with a hand. “Stay safe, brother.”
