Torched Page 28

  Before I had the chance to destroy everything in sight, I felt Zed’s arms wrapping around my shoulders and pulling me into his chest. “Hey… Relax, darlin’, you’re okay… Just breathe…”

  But I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even fucking see straight. My heart started beating so fast that I thought it was going to explode in my chest.

  My arms and legs started to tingle and darkness began to invade my field of vision. If Zed hadn’t been holding me up, I would’ve fallen right down. But thankfully he was, and as my limbs started to go limp, he gently dropped to the floor with me.

  He rocked back and forth, cradling me as I curled into a fetal position. “Keep breathing,” he repeated. “Just a panic attack, sweetheart.”

  So this was what that shit felt like. Fucking hell, it was like oscillating between drowning, suffocating, and having a heart attack. I took Zed’s advice and focused on taking deep and controlled breaths.

  A few minutes later, I felt normal enough to at least sit up. He nudged my chin up to look at him. “You good?”

  A chill ran through me, like the last of it leaving my body. “Yeah. Jesus, sorry. That’s never happened before.”

  “You ain’t gotta apologize. It’s been a fucking bitch of a day for you.”

  “You’re not lying.”

  He stood up and reached out a hand to help me get back to on my feet, using the other to steady me as I wobbled. “You should lie down.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m fine now. Sorry for dragging you out here, I just thought… you know… it would look better. That abusive criminals angle didn’t sit well.”

  He gave me one of those warm smiles that I loved him for. I’d gotten to know Zed a little more and my initial observations had only been confirmed. He was a gentle giant. “I didn’t know what the fuck that was about, but you did the right thing.”

  It struck me that something strange had happened. To the casual observer, it probably wouldn’t have been a significant detail. But to me, the fact that Zed hadn’t hesitated when I called on him to go with me, and hadn’t so much as glanced at Torch for permission, spoke volumes. Sure, it was a small step, and maybe there was a brotherly agreement I didn’t know about, but there was something gratifying about it. Whatever his reasons—maybe he just didn’t want to say anything in front of Rhodes—he’d made that call to take my lead. It may have only been one square inch of common ground, but there it was.

  “Thank you,” I croaked, suddenly feeling emotional again. “I don’t know how I would’ve handled that freak-out with you.”

  “No need to thank me, darlin’, it’s what we do.”

  I shook my head, a cloud of sadness overtaking me again.

  “Don’t give me that,” he warned. “I’m not my brother, there’s nothing in it for me to entertain your self-sacrificing bullshit—”

  “It’s not bullshit. We’re like oil and water—”

  “I told you I’m not entertaining it. Look, I don’t know what the hell you and Torch are doing, as far as I’m concerned you’re both blind and fucking stubborn. But, like it or not, you’re family now, and it’s okay to back down once in a while. Old lady or just a friend of the club… you need something, we’re there. Unconditional. You hear me?”

  I nodded, more out of intimidation than anything because he was laying into me in a tone I’d never heard.

  “Good.” He came closer and started unbuckling the straps of my backpack. “Now, you’re gonna take this ass to bed and get some sleep.”

  “I have work to do—”

  “Nope, not arguing about this shit either. Your work can wait a fucking hour. Sixty minutes, that’s it. Go.”

  I nodded again and let us both into the house, letting him carry the bag. I hated to admit it, but he was right. My body and mind felt destroyed. A nap sounded heavenly.

  I didn’t know what the hell he thought I’d do, but Zed followed me all the way into my room and waited for me to lay down.

  “You love him?” he asked.

  I sighed. “Sweetie, I wouldn’t know the first thing about love. Not that kind.”

  He looked unconvinced. “Why else did you want me to come here with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Yeah, you didn’t want the Feds thinking we hurt you, but why else?”

  I hesitated but confessed. “I knew he had to handle business with them and didn’t want him worrying about me on top of it. That’s just what he does.”

  “Sounds like you know something about it then.”

  : : : :

  “We’re here looking into OD’s on bad batch of a new street drug. Five in Linwood in the span of three days,” Rhodes explained to Torch and Buddha. The four of them—the other agent now identified as Mark Bowers—had made themselves comfortable in Buddha’s office. “Black Zombie. Have you heard of it?”

  She had to be fucking kidding. They’d taken care of the Serbs. Last he’d heard, Jovan hadn’t been seen since they’d dropped him off. They assumed grandpa Vikor took care of him. Had they been wrong? Had Maric been hiding in plain sight and up to no good this entire time?

  He looked over at his Pres, who had his poker face on.

  “No, we haven’t,” Buddha replied. “What would that have to do with us? I’m sure you’ve read our files, we’re not fucking dealers—”

  “Oh, the county Sheriff and Linwood PD had nothing but good things to say about the MC,” Rhodes assured him, rolling her fucking eyes.

  Torch scowled. “We do a lot in the community. New drugs on the street wouldn’t exactly benefit us. Which is why I’ll ask too… what does this have to do with our club?”

  “You said it yourself, you do a lot in the community. I’m sure that means you see and hear a lot too—”

  “We haven’t heard anything about this Black Zombie shit,” Buddha declared.

  The DEA bitch looked at them suspiciously. “Are you sure? I understand there’s a Nadia Roth who hangs out here quite a bit.”

  Nadia? What the fuck did she have to do with this? And where the hell had she been? Now that he was thinking about it, Torch realized he hadn’t seen her around for a couple weeks. “Nadia hasn’t been here in a while,” he told her. “Where is she?”

  “Linwood memorial. She’s one of the OD’s.”

  Fucking fantastic. What the hell had that dumb bitch gotten herself into now?

  “Son of a bitch,” Buddha muttered, leaning back in his chair.

  “When?” Torch asked. “And where was she?”

  “Two nights ago.” Rhodes motioned for Agent Bowers to hand her the file he was holding. She pulled a surveillance picture out and handed it to him. “Somebody dumped her in front of the ER. She says she doesn’t who it was and they didn’t get out of the vehicle. Do you recognize it?”

  Nope, but he knew somebody who could probably find it in no time.

  “No,” he answered, “but the plates might be in our system if it ever came through the garage. Unfortunately, the shop computer’s been down for a few days, we’ve been doing things the old-fashioned way. Mind if we make a copy of this and get back to you when we can check?”

  She glared at him dubiously and gave him the business card she’d tried to give Liv. “Sure.”

  He handed the picture to Buddha, who stuck it in his scanner and printed out a copy.

  “Will that be all?” Buddha asked her.

  “For now. We’ll be in touch.”

  : : : :

  They’d waited on Doc—an actual emergency room doctor at Memorial and their own on-call, off-the-books health provider—to call back and let them know whether Rhodes and Bowers showed back up over there, since tailing them was probably a bad idea.

  And now, an hour later, Buddha, Grimm, Mace, and Torch were barreling toward the hospital, lane-splitting and weaving through traffic.

  He couldn’t hear Buddha, but Torch was pretty sure the old man was grumbling away, about both Nadia and trying to keep up with
his VP.

  He didn’t give a shit. In the time they’d had to wait before heading out, he’d done nothing but stew and become fucking irate. The only thing that had kept him from completely losing it was knowing that Zed was with Liv, and she wouldn’t be going anywhere before he could figure out what to do about that fucking mess. This whole cursed day had been nothing but a goddamn shit storm, and he was being pulled in too many directions to make sense of any of them.

  They parked their bikes right outside the main entrance, waving off a pimply-faced valet who looked too intimidated to approach them anyway.

  Torch stormed through the front doors and headed straight for the stairwell. Doc had given them Nadia’s room number on the second floor. Focused on his target, he led the way and let himself in, almost knocking a startled nurse to the ground. “We need a minute,” he fumed.

  “Uh…” She glanced over at Nadia, who looked about ready to piss herself. She made the right decision and nodded. “Okay… Just press the call button if you need anything, Miss Roth.”

  As soon as the nurse left—with one last concerned look over her shoulder—Torch marched over to Nadia and wrapped a hand around her neck. He had to consciously remind himself not to squeeze too hard, because honestly, he wanted nothing more than to choke the shit out of her.

  “Tor—”

  “Listen to me, you junkie bitch,” he hissed, lowering his head so their faces were inches apart. “I’m not in a fucking forgiving mood. Start talking. I wanna know where you got it, when, and why the fuck you didn’t think to tell us about this shit hitting the streets.”

  He released his grip and sneered at the whimpering mess in from of him.

  “I started it a few weeks ago,” she blubbered. “Two maybe? I don’t know. Jimmy’s been giving it to me, he keeps some at Firehouse. We’ve kinda been hooking up.”

  “Shit,” Grimm mumbled.

  Shit was fucking right. Firehouse was a bar that often hired club members to bounce on rowdy nights. Hench, Toto, and Jet had been there just a week earlier, which meant that Jimmy Greer—the owner—had been dealing the shit right under their noses. And Nadia, that dumb fucking cunt, knew better.

  “He the one who dropped you off here?” Torch demanded.

  “No, I… I didn’t see him that night. I just remember the bar being packed… and going to the bathroom to shoot up… but then nothing. God, I’m so sorry, Torch,” she wailed. “I fucked up, I’m sorry. I was just in a bad place, feeling like I lost you.”

  The ridiculous apology did nothing but piss him off even more. “Like you lost me? You never fucking had me. Jesus Christ, Nad, you’re insane—”

  “It won’t happen again, I’ll get clean.”

  “You’re damn right it won’t happen again. Don’t ever show your fucking face at my clubhouse again. You hear me?”

  “Torch—”

  “No! You’re done!” he roared. “You’ve known about this shit for at least two goddamn weeks. Now we’ve got the motherfucking DEA breathing down our necks and bringing all kinds of heat we don’t need.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that—”

  “No shit! All you thought about was your next fix.”

  “And you with her—”

  “Don’t you even fucking say her name,” he warned. “You fucked Liv over too.”

  Apparently, now that Nadia knew she was no longer welcome at the clubhouse, all filters were off. “Live, Liv, Liv!” she yelled out. “It’s always Liv! I’ve been around for years. Years! And then one day she just walks in and you won’t even look at me anymore.”

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or grab her throat again. The bitch was making it sound like they’d had some kind of fucking relationship, when the reality was that she regularly opened her legs to almost every brother who didn’t have an old lady. Hell, he’d fucked other crawlers in front of her. They hadn’t even kissed. What part of that sounded like a goddamn relationship?

  “It’ll always be Liv,” he spewed at her, “You know why? Because she’s not a weak and stupid bitch like the one I’m looking at. You’re delusional. Nad… Just another fucking crawler taking dick like a champ and hoping to cash in.”

  “Is everything okay in here?” a male voice piped up. Torch looked over his shoulder and saw an orderly poking his head around the door.

  “Yeah. We’re leaving,” Torch snarled. “Let’s go.”

  He shot one last disgusted look at Nadia and walked out, just as fast and determined as before. He hated hospitals in general and really needed a fucking cigarette.

  Grimm jogged to catch up with him. “That mighta been a little harsh, brother.”

  All the anger he’d kept himself from taking out on Nadia burst through the seams. He turned around, fisted Grimm’s cut, and slammed him against the wall. Before he could throw a punch, Buddha and Mace were stepping between them.

  “Knock it the fuck off,” Buddha hissed through clenched teeth. “We got an audience.”

  Torch looked around and saw people up and down the hallway staring at them. He cracked his neck and walked the fuck away before he really gave them something to talk about.

  Outside, he lit up and sat down on his bike, leering at Grimm as he did the same.

  Buddha walked up beside him and squeezed his shoulder. “Son, I know it’s been a hell of a day, but you gotta reel it in. Take that shit out on Jimmy if you have to, alright? We’re about to pay the shitbag a visit.”

  Torch gave him a curt nod. “I’m straight.”

  “Wonderful. After that, go figure out whatever the hell you gotta figure out with your woman. Fucking hell.”

  “She’s not—”

  “Yeah, well, maybe that’s the goddamn problem,” he grumbled.

  : 24 :

  Running on sheer adrenaline and willpower by this point—well past two o’clock in the morning—Torch twisted the throttle and sped down the highway like his life depended on it. In a way, it did.

  He’d stopped feeling the pain of his bloodied knuckles and face miles ago, the cold wind acting as a numbing agent. A few superficial aches weren’t shit compared to the world of hurt he’d be in for if he didn’t do this. So, short of ending up in a coma or dead before he got there, nothing was going to get in his fucking way.

  He only slowed down once his wheels hit dirt, leaving him with the same walking-the-plank feeling as the very first time he’d come here. The sight of Zed sitting on her porch intensified it more, a juxtaposition of the woman he’d kill for and the club he’d die to protect.

  And vice versa.

  He parked by the front steps and smirked as he climbed up and got a look at Zed’s setup. The fucker was sitting snug as a bug in a pile of blankets and pillows. On the table in front of him, a tablet playing a movie and a thermos of something steamy.

  “Let me guess. She wanted to be left alone but felt bad about leaving your ass out in the cold?” Torch asked.

  Zed chuckled. “Pretty much. You know your girl.”

  He looked through the window and saw her, leaning on the kitchen door frame with a bottle of beer in her hand, staring at him. “Yeah. I do,” he said with a smile. “Thanks for doing this, brother. And the unofficial vote.”

  Zed stood up and shook out his crumpled jeans. “You know I’ll always have your back, man. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  They exchanged a hug, before Zed hopped down the stairs and got on his bike.

  Torch stalked toward the door, which swung open just as he was about to go for the knob. There stood Liv, looking like a fucking dream in her pajama bottoms and tank top. And fuck, those goddamn lips…

  He shook it off and cleared his throat. “We gotta talk, babe.”

  She didn’t reply, instead taking a step toward him and reaching up to touch his jaw. She nudged his head to the side a little and flinched, getting a good look at the gash in his cheek. It probably looked a hell of a lot worse than it actually was, he just hadn’t bothered to clean up.

 
; He should have started in on the speech he’d rehearsed on the way here, but all of a sudden his mouth wouldn’t fucking work. He cupped his hand over hers and brought it to his lips, closing his eyes as he kissed her soft palm.

  She sighed. “Come inside.”

  He stepped in and closed the door behind him. She pulled some kind of metal case out of the coat closet and took his hand, then led him to the couch where she motioned for him to sit down.

  Just like she’d done at the clubhouse earlier, she sat down on the coffee table opposite him. “That needs to be stitched up, it’s deep. You okay with me doing it?” she asked.

  He’d take a thousand fucking needles to the face if it meant she was touching him instead of demanding he leave. “Yeah,” he nodded, mostly because he didn’t know what the fuck else to say. It figured she knew how to sew up a cut too.

  He watched as she flipped the case open, rubbed some sanitizing crap between her hands, and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. She grabbed a fistful of tissues from a box on the table and tilted his head back. Holding the wad under his chin, she took a bottle of disinfectant and poured it over.

  It stung like fucking hell, but he didn’t care. It was a good pain.

  She then ripped open a packet of wipes and gently patted around the area, presumably cleaning away what was left of his dried blood. “You want Lidocaine?”

  Thank fuck she had Lidocaine. He was too tired and on edge to hold still if she was anywhere near him. “Would you call me a pussy if I said yes?”

  She smiled. “I’d call you an idiot if you said no. It’s just you and me, who the fuck cares?”

  There is was, another reason he couldn’t let Livia Ash go. Ever. He grinned up at her. “Then shoot me up, beautiful.” He held still and stared at her face as she injected him and went to work on the stitches.

  In no time at all, she’d sewn him up and started to clean up. She pulled a small mirror out of the case and handed it to him. “Make sure that looks okay. I tried to make them small.”

  He took the mirror and inspected her work. Tiny and evenly spaced. Doc wasn’t even that good. Damn. “Looks great, baby. Thank you.”