Page 7 of Beyond the Cut
Mad Dog returned a few minutes later, his face red and spittle bubbling at the corners of his lips.
“Wolf knows we got the Sinner. Wants us to let him go. One of you musta texted him during the drive. Who’s the fucking rat?”
Silence.
Although Mad Dog wore a vice president patch, Cade hadn’t been around the group long enough to ascertain just how much power he held in the club. But if one of his supporters had reported the kidnapping to Wolf behind Mad Dog’s back, then he didn’t have the type of loyalty that inspired leadership. Which meant he’d be trying to prove himself, making him twice as dangerous as any of the other Devil’s Brethren gathered around him.
“Fuck.” Mad Dog kicked Cade in the side and Cade clenched his teeth against the pain.
“Wolf says we can rough him up a bit, but until the patch-over is a sure thing, he doesn’t want to start a war with the Sinners.” His lip curled and he spat again. “Wolf is a fucking old man. He’s weak. Yeah, we need the Jacks, but why would we patch over and let them swallow us up instead of becoming a support club and keeping our power? It’s time for a change. Once I’m president, I’ll make this club great again like it was under my old man. I’m not afraid of the damn Sinners. We got lots of new blood. I say we start a war. Bring it on.”
“You got ambition and good ideas but you gotta be patient.” Rusty held up a warning hand. “You’re not gonna help your case in the election if you outright defy Wolf. You gotta show you can toe the party line until it’s your fucking party. We should do as Wolf says. Beat him good and let him go.”
“But now he knows about the patch-over.” Trey cuffed Cade on the head.
Dammit to hell. If they intended to rough him up, why not a few proper kicks and punches? Get it over with instead of pussyfooting around.
“What’s he gonna do? Go to Viper and tell him it’s a bad idea? Sinners can’t stop a fucking patch-over. It’s got nothing to do with them. And it’s better this way.” Mad Dog fisted Cade’s hair and yanked his head back. “Now they’ll be running scared.”
“Sinners aren’t scared of anything, especially not roaches like you.” Cade felt the ropes around his wrists slacken and steeled himself to wait for the perfect moment. These bastards were so going down.
“You should be scared.” Mad Dog lifted Cade’s chin with the butt of his gun, forcing Cade to meet his cold, dark gaze. “Six to one on a deserted road in the mountains and your hands are tied. We might not be allowed to kill you, but we can hurt you pretty damn bad.”
THREE
I will strive to better my skill of self-control.
SINNER’S TRIBE CREED
Dawn jolted into consciousness when someone banged on her front door.
Heart pounding, she reached under her bed for the .22 Arianne had given her as a birthday present. Trust Arianne to give her a gun, and an unregistered one at that. Although she had often talked about living in the civilian world, Arianne was a biker through and through. And no biker would ever leave his or her house unarmed.
Well, Dawn wasn’t a biker. Not anymore. And the two days of lessons at the shooting range with Arianne hadn’t changed her mind. Still, it was a comfort to know that she’d be able to defend herself from the crazy person trying to break down her door at three in the morning. Or at least threaten him. She never loaded the gun because she simply wasn’t prepared to kill anyone.
Weapon in hand, she raced through the living room and stood on tiptoe to peer through the peephole. At first she didn’t recognize the man standing in front of her door, his face swollen and bloody, his shirt in tatters, but it was his hair, golden strands matted with blood, glinting in the semidarkness, that made her look again.
Her breath caught in her throat and she undid the dead bolt, then threw the door open. “Oh God. Cade. What happened?”
“Jesus, Dawn. Put the gun away.” He brushed past her and stalked into her tiny hallway, his clothes rank with blood and covered in dirt. “What the fuck were you doing with a piece of shit like him?”
Stunned, Dawn could only stare. “You almost break down my door at three in the morning, looking like you need to get to a hospital, to ask me that?”
“Yeah.”
“If we knew each other better,” she said, her voice tight. “If we were friends, or actually seeing each other, maybe I wouldn’t be so annoyed at being pulled out of bed and ordered to explain my life choices. But we’re not. We’ve slept together twice. We’ve never had a conversation that lasted more than two minutes, one minute of which consisted of deciding how we were going to have sex next. So you don’t have the right to ask me that question, and unless you’re in dire need of medical attention, I suggest you leave.”
By way of answer, Cade took a step forward into the living room, staggered to the side, and grabbed the back of her sofa for support. “Damn. Gimme a minute.”
With a sigh, Dawn closed and locked the door, then put the gun into her purse. “I see you’ve chosen door number three, ‘dire need of medical assistance.’ You want me to call the Sinner doctor or take you to the local hospital?”
“No hospital.”
“Right. I forgot. Too manly for the hospital. You got a number for the club doctor?”
Cade shook his head. “No doctor. Just… water… bandages… maybe some whiskey. I’ll be fine.”
Hmmm.Fineis obviously a relative word. To her non-medical eye, he certainly didn’t look fine. In fact, he looked like he was about to collapse, and from the way he was holding himself, he was clearly injured far beyond the cuts and bruises she could see on his face. But that was always the way with biker beatings. Why go for the small target when you could go for the big one?
