Hold Me Down (The Deacons of Bourbon Street #3) Read online

  “Uh-huh.” He kept staring at her, his gaze like a searchlight, hunting for shadows. “Where did you hear these rumors?”

  “Around,” she replied flatly, holding that dark gaze as steadily as she could. Hoping he wouldn’t see the flush she knew was burning in her cheeks. Hoping he wouldn’t ask her about the secrets she’d promised she’d keep.

  The tension drew tighter.

  He stared at her a moment longer, then let out a long breath, glancing down at the floor. “You remember what I told you yesterday, right? That you could come to me if you needed to talk?”

  The shame crept over her, hot and uncomfortable, the pull of her Ministry loyalty suddenly painful. “Yeah.” Her voice sounded thick.

  Blade looked up. There was understanding in his eyes, but something else, too. Regret. He’d do what he had to do for his club, because he was president. And if that meant forcing her to tell him something she’d promised not to tell, he would. Regardless of what he’d promised her father.

  She knew all that.

  “Last chance, Red,” he said quietly.

  So it was going to come to this, was it? Everything she’d worked so hard for the past five years—the family, the business, the place she called home—put at risk for the best friend who’d left her. For the club that had abandoned her.

  The Deacons come first; that’s where my loyalty lies and it always will.

  Blue’s earlier words rang loud in her head. Of course that’s where his loyalty lay; it was always the way with the brothers. Hell, if he were in her shoes, he probably wouldn’t even have to think twice about it. He’d tell Blade the truth, trusting his club, trusting his president.

  So why was she feeling pulled in two here? She had her own loyalties, didn’t she?

  Alice lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “Did you have Priest killed, Blade?”

  A crashing silence fell.

  Blade went still, his whole posture stiff, the glitter in his eyes pronounced.

  And for the first time a sliver of doubt slid through her. Shit, she’d better not have made a mistake in trusting him, otherwise she was screwed.

  Then abruptly, completely unexpectedly, Blade laughed. “Fuck, Red, you’ve got some balls. Was that really the thing you’ve been hiding?”

  Relief flooded through her and she had to lean her hip against the workbench, struggling not to show it on her face. She’d been right to trust him. He hadn’t done it—she knew it as surely as she knew the inner workings of a Harley. “You can see why I didn’t want to ask.”

  Blade’s laughter slowly wound down. “Oh, sure I can. Where did you hear that?”

  Beneath the amusement in his voice, she heard the note of command. It was an order, no mistake. Shit. Okay, so she’d broken her promise to Blue and asked Blade about Priest point blank, but there was no reason to bring Blue’s name into this if she didn’t have to.

  “I overheard it down at The Priory,” she said, settling on a half-truth.

  “What were you doing there? That’s Deacons territory.”

  “I was looking up an old friend, no big deal.”

  Blade gave her a measuring look. “What old friend?”

  She shifted, uncomfortable. “Just someone I used to hang with years ago.”

  “Uh-huh.” He paused, and there was another deeply uncomfortable moment when she thought he might press the issue. But then he went on. “Oh, and no, I didn’t have Priest killed.”

  Even though she knew the answer already, it was good to hear him say it out loud.

  “Well…” she said, her voice a little husky. “Good. But I kind of knew that already.”

  “Sure you did.” He was smiling, but the focus of his gaze on her didn’t lessen. “So the Deacons are saying Priest was murdered?”

  “That…seemed to be the case.”

  “Why do they think so?”

  “I’m not sure,” she lied. “I didn’t hear.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I thought you were going to be straight with me, Red.”

  Great. Fucking minefields wherever she looked. “All I know is what I heard. That Priest didn’t have an accident. I don’t know where they got their information, but something must have made them doubt the accident explanation. And I guess we’re the most obvious culprits to take out a hit.”

  Another silence, longer this time. Blade was staring at her as if there was nothing more interesting to him in the whole world.

  “It’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” he said after a moment. “In fact, I have a contact in the police department who got me some info from the accident report.”

  Alice took a small, silent breath. And waited.

  “The report deemed it an accident, but my contact was doubtful,” Blade went on. “That stretch of road is flat and straight, and given Priest’s riding ability, the chances of him coming off his bike by himself were zero. Also, his bike was all beat up but the dents didn’t match the type of accident. My contact said the cops should have investigated, but they didn’t because they didn’t want the heat from a potential biker murder. They wanted it all kept on the down-low.”

  So, it was definitely murder then. Blue had been right about that.

  “I see,” she said. “Did someone hit him intentionally, then? Knock him off his bike somehow?”

  “That’s what I think,” he said slowly. “But if the Deacons are looking to pin this on the Ministry, they’ve picked the wrong fucking war.”

  “Then you have to show them it’s not you. You have to prove that the Ministry had nothing to do with it.”

  Blade frowned and the atmosphere in the garage chilled. “I don’t have to do a fucking thing. If they want to come get me, they can damn well try.”

  A little shiver of fear crawled down her spine at the look in his eyes. “But don’t you think they deserve to know you didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  “No. Why should I? They’re weak at the moment. They can’t take us anyway, so who the fuck cares what they think?”

  Stupid, goddamn bikers. They were all the same. It was always about respect and showing no fear and all that male bullshit they seemed to love throwing around the place. They didn’t seem to care about anything else.

  They’d rip each other to shreds and not give a crap about anyone caught in the middle. Anyone like her. God, she’d lost too many families already. She couldn’t stand by and lose this one as well.

  “I care,” she said staunchly. “They were my old club, Blade. And Priest was a good guy. I don’t want to see them destroyed over a mistake or a misunderstanding.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment and she wondered if she’d gone too far, pushed too hard. Then he sighed and said, “I know you’ve lost a lot, Red. But remember your place. Remember who you are, okay? I don’t let any of the brothers get away with that shit, so why should I let you?”

  She had nothing to say to that, no answer at all. She was treading on thin ice already and she knew it.

  “I’ve told you what happened to Priest out of courtesy,” Blade went on. “Because he was your president and you had a right to know. But that’s the end of it, understand? The Deacons want to believe I took him out, that’s their business. They want to start a war over it? Then we’ll take them down. Easy as that. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone.”

  All she could do was nod. Protesting now would only make it worse.

  He left a minute later and she tried to go back to Gator’s bike, but she couldn’t concentrate.

  Fucking fantastic. What was she supposed to do now? Not only had she broken her promise to Blue and asked Blade straight up about Priest, she still hadn’t gotten any proof of Blade’s innocence. Which meant there was nothing to stop the Deacons from launching an all-out war with the Ministry. A war the Deacons would lose.

  Her gut twisted again. Because she knew who’d be the big loser in that war. Blue.

  She swallowed back the ache that squeezed around her heart at the tho
ught, glancing down at the scratches on Gator’s bike.

  His bike was all beat up but the dents didn’t match the type of accident…

  She blinked. Stared. There were flecks of red paint caught in some of the scratches.

  Bike got scratched a month back. Could use a touch-up…

  Priest had come off his bike a month back. And he rode a distinctive red Harley.

  She peered closer at the flecks of red. Yeah, they were definitely paint, and not from Gator’s bike since his was black.

  A cold shiver of fear spread out over her skin as she bent farther to examine the other dents and scratches on the bike. It definitely looked like it had been in an accident, yet she hadn’t heard about anyone having one, and usually the brothers were all up in one another’s faces about it if any of them had.

  Gator hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else.

  She took a shuddering breath.

  Had Gator caused Priest’s accident?

  That’s a pretty big fucking leap.

  Yeah, it was. There was no reason to think that a bunch of scratches on Gator’s bike meant anything but what he’d said. And that red paint could have come from anywhere.

  Alice stepped back, staring hard at the motorcycle. Thinking. This was all supposition, and without definitive proof she had nothing.

  Well, perhaps not quite nothing.

  Turning to the workbench, she reached for the drawers where she kept all her smaller tools, rummaging around for a tiny pair of tweezers. Then she went back over to the bike and began to pick out some of the red flecks of paint caught in the scratches, putting the flecks in a small plastic bottle.

  Half an hour later, after a making a couple of calls to people she knew who specialized in custom paint jobs, she put the bottle in her pocket and left the garage.

  By the afternoon, after a visit to a particular garage where Priest had last had his ride worked on, she had her answer. The paint from the scratches on Gator’s bike matched the distinctive red paint on Priest’s Harley. To be absolutely sure, she’d have to do some chemical tests, but the guy who’d done the paint job knew his specialty colors and he was positive. It was the same red. And there was only one way it could have gotten embedded in Gator’s bike.

  She was going to have to take this to Blade.

  He had to know that he had a potential traitor in his club.

  —

  The encounter with Alice outside her garage had knocked Blue for reasons he couldn’t explain. And she hadn’t said she’d come back to The Priory, which had put him in a foul mood for the rest of the day.

  His mood only got worse as he sat at his usual table in The Priory that evening, the minutes ticking by. She normally got off work at five, and during the past week she’d been turning up at The Priory at the latest by six. But it was now seven and there was still no sign of her.

  He checked his phone, but there were no texts or calls from her, and she hadn’t replied to any of his, which made him more and more antsy.

  Fuck. He’d given her the space she’d said she wanted, but he’d been very clear about what was to happen tonight. She needed to be back with him.

  Prince, sitting on a stool by the bar, eyed him as he got up from the table and paced around, his hands in his pockets, trying to ease the restless feeling. Blue ignored him. He didn’t know why that cocksucker insisted on sticking around when it was clear Prince was only here because Ajax had threatened him and not because he gave a shit about Priest or the Deacons.

  “She’s late, right?” Prince observed.

  Blue shot him a dire look but didn’t say anything.

  Prince lifted a shoulder. “She’s Ministry. Perhaps she decided to stay with them after all.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Blue growled, anger and now worry an uncomfortable mix in his gut. “She’s got my patch. She knows where she belongs.”

  “Yeah, sure.” The other man lifted his beer bottle and took a sip. “Just remember it’s been ten years for her, man. A lot can change in ten years.”

  Blue stopped dead. “What the fuck are you trying to say?”

  “What has she got to come back to here?” Anger glinted in the other man’s dark eyes. “A few tools standing around trying to pretend they’re still the meanest motherfuckers in town?” His lip curled. “It’s pathetic. If I were her, I know who I’d be sticking with.”

  He looked out for me, Blue. He made me the Ministry mechanic after Dad died, and he was at the hospital after my miscarriage. He was there for me.

  The memory of her words the night before echoed in his head, making defensive fury twist hard inside him, and he’d taken two steps toward the other man, his hands in fists at his side, before Sophie, who was standing behind the bar restocking, said curtly, “No, Blue. I’m not having another fucking fight in this bar. I’m still cleaning up from the last time. You want to lay into each other, go outside.”

  “No thanks,” Prince said dismissively. “If Blue doesn’t want to see the truth, that’s not my damn problem.”

  “What fucking truth?” Blue snapped, even though he knew what the prick was going to say.

  “That your woman’s been playing you.” Ajax had come in from the office and was now coming toward the bar. There was a hard look on his face.

  “Bullshit.” If he kept saying it, it wouldn’t be true. “That’s not it.”

  Ajax came to a stop in front of him. “How do you know? Blade took her in, gave her a home. She’s pissed as fuck with us. Why would she give all that up and come back here?”

  Yeah, why? You think she’d give all that up and come back just for you?

  Fury and denial twisted inside him. “She said she’d get us that information about Priest and I believe her.”

  Ajax’s blue eyes glittered. “Yeah, well, I don’t. She wasn’t here last night and she’s not here now. So either she’s been lying to you and never had any intention of getting that information or…”

  “Or something’s happened to her.” The worry threaded through the anger curling tight inside him. Had some Ministry asshole gotten suspicious? Had she been discovered? “Fuck this shit.” He turned on his heel and started toward the doors.

  “Blue,” Ajax said in the voice he used when he was issuing commands.

  Blue stopped but didn’t turn. “What?”

  “If you go into Ministry territory and they spot you, figure out who you are, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  He’d never directly disobeyed an order from his president, not even when Priest had told them all to get out of town. Not even when it meant the death of everything he knew.

  But this was different. This was Alice. Red. And regardless of how temporary it was supposed to be, she was his old lady. She was his. He wasn’t going to leave her, not again.

  What if they’re right? What if she picked the Ministry over the Deacons? Over you?

  They weren’t right and she hadn’t. Ajax could go fuck himself.

  Blue didn’t answer, just walked straight out the Priory doors. Five minutes later, having taken off his cut and stowed it away in his saddlebags, he headed out on his bike toward Alice’s garage, trying to ignore the cold feeling in his gut.

  The place was deserted when he got there, and there was no answer when he banged on the door.

  The cold feeling got worse, doubt coiling tight inside him. And this time he couldn’t ignore it. Last night she’d wanted to put some distance between them, and maybe today she’d thought that over more and decided she wanted that distance to be permanent. That she’d stay with the Ministry.

  And who can blame her? She thinks you don’t trust her.

  Well, she was just fucking wrong. He hadn’t given her any reason to think that, apart from the Blade thing, right? But shit, he’d told her his first loyalty was to the club and it always would be. That’s how it was with a brother. He couldn’t compromise his loyalties purely for her. That felt like something his old man would do—break his vows for pussy.

  It w
as either that or the Ministry had found her out.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  After a minute of standing there scowling at the garage door, he checked his phone again. Still nothing.

  Cursing, he went back to his bike, but not to go to the goddamn Priory. He headed toward the Ministry clubhouse instead.

  Yeah, it probably was a stupid thing to do, but he couldn’t stand around doing nothing. Not when he didn’t know what was happening with Alice.

  What if she has chosen to stay with the Ministry? What will you do then? Force her to leave them just because you want her?

  The cold feeling tightened, deepened. He could force her. He’d been pretty much doing that from the moment she’d turned up at The Priory a week ago, flashing her Ministry tat around and driving him crazy. He’d wanted her, so he’d made it impossible for her to leave, threatening her with Ajax, telling her she had to be his old lady.

  Sure, she’d wanted him; there had been no question about that. But making her tie herself to what was essentially an enemy club?

  What about her loyalties? Did you ever think of those? Her club is her family. You gonna break that up for her? Like your old man broke up her family when he screwed her mom?

  Ah, Christ. He knew what had happened after all the shit had gone down with his father. He still remembered going down to the Deacons’ clubhouse to offer an apology to Alice, shit-scared but knowing he had to do something to put right what his stupid fuck of an old man had done wrong.

  The bikers had been less than welcoming, but he’d insisted on seeing Alice. And then he’d found out the damage his father had truly done, that her mom had just up and left without a word.

  How was he any better, tearing her from another family? No, he couldn’t do that to her, not when she’d found her place. Especially now knowing that she wouldn’t be able to have a family of her own.

  If she’d chosen the Ministry, he’d have to respect her choice.

  The possessive biker in him howled in rage at the thought, full of denial, wanting to take back what was rightfully his. But Blue ignored it this time.

  Tonight he’d make sure Alice was okay, then, much as he hated it, he was going to have to let her go.