Rough Ride

  And Snapper had incentive.

  That incentive was right there, lying on the hospital pillow.

  Her beautiful face was blown up, eyes swollen shut, lips inflamed, nose huge, broken, so taped. Red and mottled had given way to deep raisin-purple black, mostly around the eyes. There were livid scrapes and deep cuts that shared some of Bounty didn’t bother taking off rings. There was flesh stitched together above and through her left eyebrow, along that side’s jaw, and he knew, under the bandage at her nose, down the left side of the bridge.

  Her throat was stippled with angry jam-colored bruising. Along the left side and at the top of her windpipe, there were distinct heavier discolorations where Throttle had dug the pads of his fingers in cruelly, positioned like he wanted to tear her throat out.

  How Snap knew she was awake, he couldn’t say. Her eyes were now so swollen they weren’t open because she couldn’t open them. But like earlier, he saw her long lashes fluttering so he clapped his book shut, set it aside, and leaned toward her.

  “Hey,” he whispered.

  Her head had been turned to the side, his way.

  She rolled it, facing the other way.

  Snapper extended his fingers, flexing them before curling them in. They were swollen and mottled too, all the knuckles split and raw.

  He didn’t feel a thing.

  He considered his next move.

  He wasn’t going to make her keep trying to escape him by rounding the bed.

  Instead, he bent over her.

  “You want some privacy, Rosie?” he asked.

  She said nothing, just kept her battered face turned away.

  “Baby, swelling will go down, bruises will recede and you’ll be just as beauti—” he started to assure.

  “Get out,” she whispered.

  Fuck.

  Fuck!

  “Rosie—”

  “Get out,” she repeated, still quiet, frail.

  “We want an eye on you,” he told her.

  “No,” she replied.

  Snap leaned closer. “Honey—”

  She turned her head so it was righted on her pillow and he saw just that pulled at and tightened her lips, showing him it caused pain.

  They hadn’t laid out Bounty enough.

  Not near enough.

  It was still feeble, but she kept at it. “No Chaos. No you. Get out.”

  “Rosie, we got them then the cops got them so you’re safe, honey. But I wanna make sure you’re safe so—”

  “I never wanna see you again.”

  Snap froze.

  “Get out,” she reiterated.

  “Rosie,” he whispered.

  “Everett, go.”

  She pulled out his real name.

  This was more serious than the serious he already knew it was.

  He tried again, mostly because he couldn’t give up.

  “Got up in Speck’s shit, Rosie. Brothers are pissed. We rolled out on Bounty. All of us, we claimed you as one of our own. This didn’t stand, Rosalie.”

  “I won’t say it again,” she whispered. “In five seconds I’m hitting the call button.”

  He put his hand over hers, which was actually at the call button.

  She pulled it free, taking the button with her, and her mouth again got tight.

  He didn’t push that.

  He tried another tack.

  He shot her a grin. “C’mon, Scully. It’s me. You know you got—”

  It was the wrong thing to do.

  “I’m not Scully and you are definitely not Mulder. We aren’t out fighting for truth, having each other’s backs.”

  Shit, that cut.

  He leaned closer to her. “Baby, it’s not on Speck. I know, the way it is between us, what we got…I fell down. I fell down lookin’—”

  “It’s done, Everett. It’s over. I’m out. And you need to get gone.”

  Snap opened his mouth.

  She lifted up the call button.

  It was time to pull out the big shit.

  “I’m in deep with you,” he admitted softly.

  “Then dig yourself out,” she returned quietly, but her voice was harsh, ugly, and not just from having her throat squeezed to shit.

  “I’ll go now but I’ll come back,” he told her.

  “Don’t.”

  “I’m gonna take care of you.”

  “No you aren’t.”

  “We’re not done, you and me.”

  “Yes…we…are.”

  He got as close as he dared.

  And he put it out there.

  “I fell for you when you were Shy’s and if you think that now, when you need me most, now, when I finally, fuckin’ finally got a clear shot, I’m givin’ up, think again, Rosie. You’re hurt and you’re pissed and I get that. But I’m not givin’ you up. I don’t care what way I gotta take you, as mine or just havin’ you in my life in a way you’d let me be there, but however that is, I’m not givin’ up. Not ever, Rosalie. I’m not givin’ you up. You’re gonna be in my life and I’m gonna be in yours. Bank on it.”

  He gave her that because he had to and she had to have it.

  But he didn’t push her further.

  He reached up, kissed her forehead, straightened, grabbed his book…

  And walked away.

  For now.

  Chapter One

  Atone

  Rosalie

  I stood staring at myself in my mother’s bathroom mirror.

  I was going to have scars. Three of them.

  Men with scars on their face were considered interesting, like they lived adventurous lives or were tough guys.

  Women with them were looked on as pathetic, like some traumatic life event happened to them that they didn’t survive without being marked and because of that were objects of sympathy.

  Another discrepancy between the sexes which was absolutely not fair.

  Like the difference in physical strength.

  I was top heavy. Slender, long legs, slim hips, thin arms, but I had big boobs in a way they looked fake.

  They weren’t.

  My mother had given me a number of good things, including her thick dark hair.

  And her big tits.

  My father had lamented this.

  “Already hard enough to keep the men off you, gorgeous,” he’d say to my mom. “And you got my ring on your finger and it’s sat there for years. Now I got my baby girl to worry about.”

  Man.

  I missed my dad.

  I stopped thinking about my dad and stared at my torso in the mirror.

  I’d learned over the span of my twenty-eight years of life that large breasts had awesome powers.

  Helping you handle yourself when eight men were intent to beat the snot out of you was not part of those awesome powers.

  I lifted my gaze and studied my face in the mirror.

  They’d kept me in the hospital for two days, considering I’d taken a number of blows to the head, and thus had a serious concussion, and they tried to be cool about it, but I could tell they were concerned about the number of times I’d blacked out.

  Now I’d been out of the hospital for two days, as, apparently (and thankfully) all systems were a go.

  The swelling had decreased significantly but only that morning did I note that the bruising was starting to recede, some of the edges of the purple going yellow.

  My broken nose was still taped and would be for some time.

  I’d had a total of twenty-nine stitches sewn into my face. My eyebrow would never be the same. The jaw scar wouldn’t be easily seen. But the gash on my nose would stand out.

  I had been pretty, not beautiful, but definitely pretty. And I knew it.

  This was not vanity. This was being real. I could see myself in the mirror and I’d had a mom and dad who adored me and told me how proud of me they were for a lot of reasons, and they’d done this all my life. My looks just were what they were and I was grateful for them.

  I also used
them.

  I used them to get guys I was attracted to.

  I used them to get good tips at Colombo’s.

  I used them to jump the line at clubs I wanted to get into.

  And I used them to get out of that speeding ticket that time that cop pulled me over.

  Mom had taught me, if God gave you something good, you didn’t waste it. You used it (for good, obviously—I mean, it was God bestowing these gifts).

  So I’d used them.

  But as I stood there, looking in the mirror, I knew that Beck and his brothers had concentrated on my face, thinking that they were taking the most important thing I had away from me.

  Men were so stinking stupid.

  In the last few days, when there wasn’t a lot to feel good about, I felt good about the fact that they hadn’t raped me.

  That was my silver lining.

  My boyfriend kidnapped me, delivered me to his buds, they beat the heck out of me, but they didn’t rape me.

  If they’d done that to me, it would have taken away something that meant something.

  But they hadn’t.

  Yeah.

  Awesome silver lining.

  Still, for sure it was one.

  But, to my way of thinking, they didn’t do any lasting damage. They didn’t break anything but nine ribs (since I had twenty-four, that could have been worse) and my nose. When Muzzle’s fist connected with my schnoz, I felt the cartilage give, and that hadn’t been fun, but it would heal. Eightball had sprained my wrist, but he didn’t snap it, and it had been tender but it was already feeling better.

  I’d recover.

  I could walk, talk, eat, breathe. I could definitely still deliver pizzas to diners’ tables (or would be able to in a week or two, after the bruising and swelling were gone and I had less pain due to the broken ribs).

  I might even be able to learn to live with the fact that a man I trusted and thought I loved had not only brought me to that hell, he’d also delivered his share of it.

  Sure, I’d broken his trust. I’d informed on him and his brothers’ activities to Chaos, setting them up to be taken down by the cops.

  But let us not forget, they were able to be set up to be taken down by the cops. This meant they were doing felonious crap. That felonious crap being providing transport for illegal substances and firearms, offering this service to really bad guys.

  So sure, I could see, if he found out, Beck being really freaking pissed at me. Yelling at me. Breaking it off with me. That was, if he didn’t give me the chance to explain why I’d done it in the first place, that being for him.

  Well, not so much for him, I’d realized.

  But I couldn’t think about that right then.

  I had to think about the fact I survived. I was alive. Walking, talking, eating, breathing, and someday soon I’d again be laying pizza pies on tables for tips.

  What I would not be doing was getting involved with a man, maybe ever again.

  Seriously.

  That might seem dramatic, but the first man I fell for, Shy Cage of the Chaos Motorcycle Club, had shown me a window to a world I wanted and the doorway I wanted to use to get to that was Shy because Shy was Shy. He was beautiful to look at and fantastic in bed, but he was also funny and sweet and protective and affectionate.

  He was my dad (not that I knew about the “fantastic in bed” part with my dad, but from the time I understood the concept of sex, mom’s dreamy looks and dad’s cat-got-his-cream moods were not lost on me—gross, but not lost on me).

  So Shy was all that…including having all of it on a bike.

  But he dropped me like a hot brick the minute Tabitha Allen gave him indication that her doorway was open. He slammed the one on me and waltzed right through hers without a second thought.

  Looking back, I knew as I fell deeper and deeper for him that he wasn’t doing the same.

  That didn’t make it any better.

  Now, also looking back, I knew as I got deeper and deeper into things with Beck that I was trying to find what I’d hoped to get with Shy.

  They both belonged to motorcycle clubs, for one.

  And Beck looked a lot like Shy for another (which, not so by the by, was a lot like my dad looked). Beefier, maybe. A bit rougher around the edges. But I definitely had a type.

  And then came Snapper.

  God, Snapper.

  Nope.

  No.

  No more men for me.

  Seriously.

  Shy.

  Then Beck? (Enough said there.)

  And then there was Snap.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head just as I heard a knock on the bathroom door.

  “Sweetie,” Mom called through the door. “You been in there a long time. You okay?”

  She was worried about me.

  She would be. She was a mom. An awesome one. And when your daughter gets hospitalized due to her boyfriend and his motorcycle club stomping the crap out of her, that was definitely something that made moms worry.

  But she’d been worried before that. She was part of the reason I’d made the deal with Chaos in the first place.

  My dad had been a biker. He was a nomad when it came to that kind of thing (or, really, any kind of thing). He accepted being tied down by his woman and his daughter only, not anything else. Not a job. Not a mortgage. Not a membership to a club. He hung with a lot of them, including Chaos (in fact, Hammer, sadly now deceased, but one of the founding members of Chaos, had been my father’s best friend).

  But he’d never hung with Bounty.

  “Don’t like the feel of them,” I’d heard him mutter years ago. “If you’re an outlaw, own the outlaw. If you’re not, own that. You can’t wanna be a Gypsy Joker. You either are or you aren’t. They wanna be. But they aren’t. That shit just ain’t right and it could get dangerous.”

  He’d been right.

  It got dangerous.

  I should have known.

  I should have followed my dad.

  Mom and me had done it all our lives, job to job, house to house, city to city.

  Why I stopped…

  Damn.

  I knew why I’d stopped.

  I’d wanted Shy, Shy, who reminded me of Dad.

  And when I couldn’t have him, I’d gone looking.

  I’d wanted what my mom had.

  I’d wanted that sweetness. That love.

  That devotion.

  I’d wanted the stability that just seeped down deep into your bones from all that no matter the job changing, the scenery changing, the amount of times you boxed up a house.

  Stability had nothing to do with income and locale.

  Stability was all in the heart.

  “Rosalie, honeypot, you okay?” Mom called.

  “Yeah,” I called back. “Out in a sec.”

  “There are some…uh, people here for you,” she told me.

  I focused on my battered face in the mirror.

  People?

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Well, uh…”

  I didn’t like that she didn’t answer immediately.

  I went to the door and opened it.

  And there I was, standing before me, just a little older.

  Dark hair, but she was letting the thick silver settle in. It looked gorgeous on her.

  Hazel eyes that could change to more green or more light brown depending on what color she (or I) wore.

  Tallish. We were both five six. We seemed taller because our length was in our legs and we were slender.

  We also tanned easily. Laughed easily. But were mostly quiet, sometimes shy but not withdrawn, just not loud and feisty.

  “Christ, God loves me,” my dad had said. “Gave me the perfect woman and then gave me her carbon copy so I get double the goodness.”

  I remembered him saying that. We were living outside San Francisco then in a little two-bedroom house where we could smell the sea and Mom had a big garden. I remembered how happy he was.

  Alway
s happy.

  Always right where he wanted to be.

  With his girls, his bike close, the world at his feet…or in Dad’s case, his wheels.

  I remembered those words he’d said nearly every time I looked at my mom.

  And I hoped I never forgot.

  “Who’s here?” I asked.

  “Kane Allen and his old lady,” she said softly.

  Damn.

  “And also, um, his lieutenant and his old lady,” she went on.

  Damn!

  Shy was his lieutenant.

  I’d run into Shy and Tabby in a mall not long after he’d dumped me. I was now over him and not just because I had no choice since he was not only married to Tab, they also had a baby, but because I just was.

  And now I was even more because I’d figured out I wasn’t over Shy because I’d had Beck.

  But because I’d wanted Snapper.

  “I don’t want to see them,” I told my mom.

  “It’s Hopper Kincaid, not the other one,” she replied quickly.

  Well, at least Shy and Tabby didn’t march their way to my mother’s house to do whatever Kane “Tack” Allen and Hop Kincaid were there to do, this after the guy who came next when Shy was done with me got done with me.

  “I still don’t want to see them,” I said.

  “Honey, they…” She looked down the hall then back to me. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to refuse an audience with Kane Allen.”

  She was right.

  The Chaos Club had left their outlaw ways behind and was now clean, but that didn’t mean the brothers were men you trifled with. And of all of them, you didn’t trifle with Kane Allen.

  It wasn’t just in the physical (though he was physically intimidating). It was that the man was known to be killer smart. If he perceived a slight and wanted to act on it, that could come in so many different ways, none of them pleasant, it wasn’t funny.

  “Right,” I muttered to Mom, then, being careful with my body because other parts might be healing, but my ribs still hurt like hell, I rounded her and walked stiffly down the hall, feeling her at my heels.