Wicked Games: MC Romance (Bayou Devils MC Book 8) Page 3

  “Did you go to class that day?” Smith asks and she nods.

  “Yeah. I have… had English on Thursdays and it let out early that day so I decided to go home and try to relax before my next class.”

  Blaze scowls. “So, you deviated from your normal schedule that day?”

  “Yeah.”

  My mind spins with scenarios and possibilities as I study her. If class let out early and she did something that she wouldn’t normally do, that means he was watching her for a while, waiting for the perfect moment to strike but why pick her? She wasn’t associated with us at all and there is no way he could have known Rodriguez would catch the case. It could have easily gone to a different detective and then we never would have known about it.

  “What happened next?” I ask and she shudders.

  “I was walking down the hallway to my apartment and all of the sudden, it felt like someone was there with me. All the hair on my arms stood on end and when I heard footsteps, I started walking faster, telling myself that I was being ridiculous because it wasn’t uncommon for other people to be in the hallway but this time… it was just different.”

  Storm nods, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “According to the police report, your apartment door was open when officers went to investigate…”

  “I managed to get the door unlocked but I couldn’t get inside before he grabbed me,” she answers with a nod. “That’s the last thing I remember from my apartment. I must have blacked out and when I woke up, I was in a cabin out in the woods.”

  “How did he keep you there?” I ask. She meets my gaze and the haunted look in her eyes hits me in the chest. Whoever this guy is, he held her for almost a year and she could give us vital information about who he is and what he wants but that doesn’t mean it’s not fucking awful to pry these answers out of her.

  “There was this thick metal hook lodged in the middle of the floor and he put shackles around my wrists with a large chain connecting the two. I could go anywhere in the cabin and I could even step out onto the front porch but that was it.”

  Moose frowns. “He wasn’t worried about alerting someone if they drove by?”

  “During the entire time I was there, I never saw another person.”

  “What did he look like?” Chance asks softly, leaning forward and bracing his arms on the table. She shakes her head.

  “I have no idea. He always wore this white mask that covered his whole face.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Like a Halloween mask?”

  “No… it was more like a theater mask… like those ones that have happy and sad faces but this one was expressionless.”

  “What about his hair?” Henn asks. “Or his eyes?”

  She shakes her head, picking at the edge of the table. “His hair and his eyes were both brown and kind of… unremarkable?”

  “Right,” I scoff. Every single description we’ve ever gotten of this guy always sounds exactly the same. He’s perfectly average. The kind of guy that easily blends into a crowd which makes him even harder to hunt down.

  “I’m so sorry I can’t be more help.”

  Blaze shakes his head and leans forward, placing his hand on the table. “It’s not you, darlin’. This guy has just been really hard to find and it doesn’t help that he looks so damn average.”

  “Oh… yeah, that’s the thing. Even if he was standing in front of me right now, I don’t know that I would recognize him. Maybe if I heard him speak…”

  “I’m sure that was intentional,” I tell her. Why else would he wear a mask for an entire year? “How much time did he spend with you at the cabin?”

  She scowls. “Quite a lot, actually. He didn’t come to see me every day and there would be times when he would be gone for a couple weeks before he would come back but when he did stop by, he would stay and talk to me for hours.”

  “So, you got to know him, then?” Blaze asks and she shakes her head.

  “I wouldn’t say that. He asked me about my life and after a month or so, I was so starved for conversation that I opened up to him but mostly, he just talked about y’all.”

  Every chair in the room squeaks as we all jerk to attention and I suck in a breath, my heart pounding in my chest and my stomach flipping wildly.

  Holy shit.

  This is crucial.

  “What did he say?” Fuzz asks, his gaze intense as he stares at her. Her hand shakes as she presses it against her chest, near her neck, and keeps her gaze firmly on the table.

  “He talked about how much he hated you and how y’all had taken everything from him…” She looks around the room and when her eyes meet mine, I nod in encouragement. “And he told me that he has so many plans to make y’all pay. He said he wants to watch you suffer the same way he had before he tears this club apart.”

  The room is quiet, each of us contemplating what we’ve already learned and wondering how much more there is. We’ve already lost three girls… how much more does he have planned for us and can we really stop him?

  “Do you know what he’s planning?” Smith asks and she shakes her head.

  “I tried to get him to talk to me about his plan but he was always very vague… I guess that makes sense now. If he was always planning on dropping me off on your doorstep, he couldn’t tell me anything that would help y’all.” She scowls down at the table before shaking her head. “He did tell me about a woman he met in a bar, though. I got the sense that she had something to do with you guys but when I asked about it, he told me to mind my own business and he mentioned a man he’d met that hated this club as much as he did.”

  My gaze snaps to her as I suck in a breath. “He has a partner?”

  “I don’t think so. It sounded more like this man…. was inspired by him. He told him it was always better to use pawns to do his dirty work and there was something about a brother but I don’t remember that part…”

  “Holy fuck,” Storm breathes, falling back into his seat with wide eyes and every eye in the room turns to look at him. Blaze frowns and Storm shakes his head, looking dazed. “Ian.”

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  If the man after us also knows Ian and was around when all that shit went down with Storm and his old lady, Ali, then this goes way fucking deeper than any of us thought.

  “Was he in jail?” Henn asks and Veronica blinks up at him, shrugging.

  “I don’t know. He never mentioned it.”

  Storm turns to Henn. “What are you thinking?”

  “Just that for this guy to get to Ian, he either had to be in jail or he excels at digging into our most private shit. I mean, he’s got to be on Streak’s level,” he answers, glancing over at me and I clench my teeth. That would explain a few things, like how he’s been able to hide from me so well.

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Blaze says, his voice full of authority. He turns back to Veronica and offers her a warm smile but I can still see the stress creeping into his eyes. “Was there anything else?”

  “Probably,” she answers with a shrug. “I was there for so long and he talked so much but I’m trying to remember.”

  He nods, holding his hands up in surrender. “No one is trying to push you, darlin’. Just take your time.”

  “Okay,” she breathes, staring down at the table again for a moment before she looks up. “The only other thing that stands out to me is that he said he’s been watching from the shadows for a while and that he would step in when he felt it was necessary to maximize the pain and agony he was trying to inflict on y’all… but I don’t know details.”

  “Christ,” Moose whispers, scrubbing his hand down his face as we all look around the room, trying to wrap our minds around all this new information.

  How long has he been watching us?

  How many times has he intervened and fucked with us?

  “What about the day you showed up here?” Fuzz asks. “What happened then?”

  She sucks in a breath and her lip wobbles,
tears filling her eyes as the memories play out in her head, but she manages to rein it in. “He showed up that day and took the shackles off before leading me to the front door. He was standing behind me and he had his hand clamped down on my shoulders then he lifted them off and told me to run. At first, I was shocked, frozen in place, so he nudged me forward and I took off. I didn’t have any shoes on and my feet were getting all cut up but I didn’t care. I was determined to get away.”

  “Obviously that didn’t happen,” Chance says and she nods.

  “As I was running, I realized that he was following me, hunting me, and I thought it was the end for me. I thought he was going to kill me.” A sob bubbles out of her throat and I shake my head, fighting back the growing anger in the pit of my stomach. “When he caught up to me, he threw a bag over my head and carried me back the way we came. The next thing I knew we were in a car and my hands were tied behind my back.”

  Blaze blows out a breath and runs a hand through his hair. “What happened when you got to the clubhouse?”

  “He took me out of the car and we walked for a while… I’m not sure how far… and then when he took the blindfold off, we were standing in front of the clubhouse.”

  “And he instructed you to come inside?” I ask and she nods, her eyes full of pain as she glances over at me.

  “Yeah. I had no idea what was going on and I thought maybe it was just another game, that y’all were in on it with him and he was just going to endlessly torment me before killing me.”

  Blaze shakes his head, pain filling his face as he leans forward and meets her gaze. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you, Veronica… I can’t help but feel like this is our fault and if there is ever anything that you need, all you have to do is ask. This club is here for you, now and always.”

  “I…” she whispers, gaping at me. “I don’t blame you guys. Since he released me, I’ve been researching the club and I know the good work you do. The only person to blame here is him but regardless, I’m thankful for your support.”

  “It’s a really shitty induction but you’re part of the family now,” Storm tells her and she nods, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door.

  “Based on what I saw out there, it seems like a good family to be a part of.”

  Chance smiles. “We appreciate you saying that.”

  Silence descends over the room as we all look at each other, unsure of where to go from here, and Blaze clears his throat as he stands up and motions to the door. “Okay, well, if nobody has anything else, I’ll walk you out, Veronica.”

  “Okay,” she answers, sounding more secure as she stands up and looks around the room. “If there is anything else I can help with, please let me know.”

  “We will, darlin’,” Blaze assures her. She waves good-bye and Blaze walks her out of the room shutting the door behind him. Nobody says anything, each of us trying to process everything we’ve just learned. The lengths this guy has gone to in order to get back at us is extreme and I can’t shake this damn feeling that I’m missing something that is staring me right in the face but I can’t seem to figure out what the hell it is. It just continues to eat away at me, at all of us, but maybe that’s all just part of his game and this really will end with the ruins of my club and the family we’ve built littered around us.

  Chapter Three

  Rowan

  “Thank fuck,” I whisper, turning down the classic rock I’ve been jamming to in an effort to stay awake, as the lights of Lubbock, Texas, come into view. I rub at my tired eyes and merge over into the right lane, exiting at the first exit I find with a lodging sign. I’m in desperate need of something to eat and somewhere to sleep. Hell, at this point, I don’t even care if it’s an actual bed or a couch or a floor somewhere as long as I get to close my eyes and drift off to dreamland. It’s almost eight in the evening and I am on day five of my cross-country road trip which means I’ll be in Baton Rouge tomorrow but as far as I’m concerned, it can’t get here soon enough. I’ve been driving ten plus hours a day and I still have another ten to do tomorrow.

  Yawning, I scan the buildings on the side of the road, looking for the first semi-decent looking motel I can find. Lincoln would have an absolute fit if he knew I was looking for somewhere cheap, especially after he insisted on sending me money for my trip. When I checked my bank account and saw the one thousand dollars he had deposited, I almost had a heart attack and I have been trying to avoid using it. It’s too much and I fully intend on giving it back to him as soon as I get to Baton Rouge. Besides, I see no reason that I need to spend more than sixty dollars a night on somewhere to sleep. I finally spot a motel that fits the bill, sporting a sign that advertises forty-five dollar rooms and pull my car into the lot, parking in front of the small office at the front of the building before jumping out. A man with long, greasy hair looks up from behind the desk as I walk in and I smile but he doesn’t return the gesture. His gaze rakes down my body before dragging back up to my face with suspicion in his eyes.

  “Can I help you?”

  I nod, keeping my smile in place. “Yeah. I need a room, please.”

  “King or two queens?” he asks, looking bored as he glances down at a notebook on the desk in front of him and I arch a brow. What the hell kind of motel doesn’t have a computer? I glance down and notice a map of the entire hotel laid out in front of him with a giant “X” over some of the rooms.

  “King, please.”

  “Smoking or non-smoking?”

  “Non, please.” I pull some cash out of my pocket and wait for him to tell me the price but he takes his time looking through the available rooms before picking up a pencil and puts an “X” over a room near the front of the building. He glances up at me before his gaze drops to the money in my hand.

  “Sixty.”

  I scowl. “Your sign says forty-five.”

  “And I’m sayin’ sixty,” he answers with a shrug and I study him for a moment before nodding and turning toward the door. As much as I want to go to sleep as soon as possible, I’m not willing to let this ass take advantage of me.

  “Never mind, then.”

  “I guess I could do fifty,” he replies as I grip the door handle and I roll my eyes as I turn back to him. Sure, I could push the issue but this way we both win and I’m not willing to argue over five dollars. Nodding, I walk back to the desk and slap fifty dollars down in front of him. Sighing, he scoops it up and grabs a key off of a hook behind him before sliding it across the desk to me. “Room ten, it’s the first door on the right.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nods, turning back to the magazine he was flipping through when I walked in and I shake my head as I walk back out to my car and climb behind the wheel. Maneuvering around the office, I drive to the other side of the motel and park in front of a green door with a giant ten in the middle. The parking lot is fairly empty so hopefully it will be a quiet, uneventful night and I can get enough rest to make it the rest of the way tomorrow. I am so ready to be done driving and it’s highly likely that I refuse to get in a car all together for the next month, at least. As I climb out of the car, I throw my arms over my head and stretch before grabbing my bag out of the back seat before walking up to the door and unlocking it. Everything else I took from the apartment fit in the trunk so I don’t have to worry about hiding it from would-be thieves. The air of the room is stale and it has a generally drab look to it but it’s absolutely perfect for crashing in for the night.

  As I toss my bag on the floor my stomach growls and I sigh as I glance over my shoulder at the door. I passed a couple of fast food places on my way here and there is no way in hell I’m getting back in the car so I guess I’m going to walk. Grabbing my wallet and the key to the room, I step outside again and lock the door before turning toward the little burger place I saw about a block back as my phone starts ringing. Lincoln has been obsessively checking up on me since I left Alaska and as sweet as it is, I need the man to realize I’m a grown woman and can take
care of myself.

  “I’m still alive,” I answer.

  “You’d fucking better be,” he growls, annoyed, and I grin. “Where are you?”

  “Lubbock, Texas. I’m stopping for the night.”

  He sighs. “Okay, good. I was worried about you driving in the dark.”

  “Lincoln…”

  “Don’t you even start with me, Rowan. You are the only family I have left and it’s my goddamn right to worry about you.”

  I roll my eyes as I kick a rock across the parking lot. “I’m not your only family. What about Tate and the babies?”

  “You know what I meant,” he shoots back before sighing and I swear, I can feel the stress that has been weighing on him for most of his life.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know but try to chill, will you? The last thing I need is you to have a stroke because you can’t calm your ass down. You actually are the only family I have left.”

  He scoffs. “Bullshit. If I’ve got Tate and the babies, so do you.”

  “I know,” I say even though I don’t quite feel it. I’ve met Tate once and spoken to her on the phone a handful of times but the truth is, I don’t really know her all that well. I can see that she makes my brother happy but also puts him in his place when he needs it so I know that she is good for him.

  “So, listen, when you get here tomorrow, you will be coming to the clubhouse instead of our house,” he says, interrupting my thoughts and I scowl.

  “Oh… well, if you guys don’t have room for me, I can just get a hotel room or stay out at your cabin.”

  “Absolutely not.” There is no room for argument in his voice and a spike of irritation races through me. “Everyone is at the clubhouse and you need to be here, too… for your own safety.”

  My eyes widen as I stop outside of the restaurant and plop down on a bench next to the front door. “My safety? What the hell is going on, Lincoln?”

  “Look,” he sighs. “I didn’t want to say anything before because I didn’t want to scare you but… someone has been targeting the club and the clubhouse is the safest place for all of us right now.”