Outcasts MC (Complete Series), page 55
The thought of that made my palms sweat, but I tried to keep my expression just as cool as usual, folding my arms across my chest and glowering around the room. I had to keep focused. If we didn’t take Jeremy down, we didn’t know what he might do to me. Or to the club. Or to Olivia.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Olivia. I was still sure that telling her about the situation with Jeremy had been the right thing to do, but I couldn’t erase the image in my mind, her standing up and asking me to take her home. I couldn’t forget about the fact that she had quit her job, and all because of me.
I tried to fuel that dismay into anger toward Jeremy. He was the root of all of this. If I didn’t have to worry about him going after Olivia, I wouldn’t have had to tell her all about my job and the fact that I had covered up a murder.
That didn’t make things any better, though. I had never had any qualms about the things I did for work. I was just protecting myself and protecting my brotherhood. But at the same time, Olivia made me want to be a better person. She made me want to aspire to something more. I couldn’t imagine my life without the club in it, but I had to wonder if I could become something more. If maybe I could leave behind the fights and the persuasion and do something different with my life.
First, though, Jeremy needed to be dealt with. As long as he was still a threat, there could never be anything more between me and Olivia.
I had come clean about Olivia when I talked to Otis privately about this before. Otis agreed with me that Jeremy was a threat. That the more we found out about him, the surer it seemed that he was going to cause trouble for the club. Now that Victor knew where to look, we found some pretty damning evidence on him. He’d been looking into our club operations for a while now, in a bunch of different disguises.
It wasn’t something that the federal government itself was looking into, though. And it had nothing to do with the local sheriff and law enforcement officials, either. No, it looked like Jeremy was deep in the pockets of one of our rival gangs there in Massachusetts, giving them information about our organization. He didn’t just want to take out one or two of us. He had basically promised to hand over all of our territory to the other club and wipe all of us out.
All for a tidy sum that he was using to buy waterfront lands in the state to sell off for personal gain. Corruption at its finest.
Otis had been grim when I went into his office. “We need Jeremy out of the picture for good,” he’d told me.
I’d nodded. I had suspected as much. But I didn’t remind Otis or Xander that I’d already plotted to kill the man and instead been told to lie low. Instead, I just listened to Otis’s plan. It was risky, but no more risky than my original plan had been. And I was ready to take those risks.
For myself, for my club, and most of all for Olivia, who never should have been involved in any of this to begin with. I couldn’t live with myself if he went after her. Victor had found pretty alarming evidence that he might just be considering doing that, information about my therapy sessions, as well as information about Olivia herself.
We had to take Jeremy out.
Finally, Otis finished explaining my mission to the rest of the club. I could see looks of horror on some of their faces. “We can’t just send Logan in there alone,” Dax protested. “I’ll go in with him, have his back.”
But Otis shook his head. “Jeremy is a loose cannon,” he reminded all of us.
“The last thing I need is to be worrying about your sorry ass while I’m worrying about mine,” I joked with false bravado.
Dax gave me a look that told me that he saw right through me, that he knew my nervousness as though it were his own. I supposed that was only natural; if he were in my situation, he wouldn’t have felt particularly calm, either.
“The hope is that we can pull the same trick on Jeremy that he pulled on me,” I reminded the guys, looking around the room. “That means I need to catch him off guard so he thinks he’s the big dog in this situation and get him to do something damning right as the sheriff shows up.” I rolled my eyes at Xander, again trying to pretend that this was just another mission. “So I hope that this deal you’ve struck with the sheriff is real, or else I might be toast.”
That last bit didn’t go over as well as I’d hoped; some of the guys looked distinctly more worried about me now that I had mentioned that this might well kill me. I was only giving voice to what they were all thinking could very well be the case. But there was no point in pussyfooting around the issue. If that was what was going to happen, that was what was going to happen. If it meant that everyone else was okay, then it would be worth it.
I thought about giving some melodramatic speech about how I wasn’t worried about my death if it meant I could protect all of them (and Olivia). Or about how if you were in this job, you had to expect that one of these days, it might well be the death of you.
I wasn’t one for theatrics, and the guys knew that. Instead, I just looked around at the club, locking eyes with each of them. “I’ll be back soon,” I finally said simply. “Or not.”
I turned and walked out of there before anything more could be said. If I had to stare any longer at their worried faces, I was going to start to feel too nervous myself. Couldn’t back out of this, though.
I headed to Jeremy’s house, frowning down at my phone when it rang partway there. I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew I had to answer it. It could have something to do with this mission, after all. But when I answered it, it was the unmistakable voice of David on the other end.
“Hi, Logan, I was just wondering if we would see you today at your scheduled session,” he said, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that he already didn’t expect he would see me. I didn’t know how things were going to go with Jeremy, so it was better not commit to anything.
“I’ve got some conflicts in my schedule today,” I told him. True enough.
“All right, let me know when you want to reschedule,” David said. I was glad that he didn’t try to convince me and didn’t threaten to tell the sheriff about the fact I had quit showing up to my scheduled sessions. Now wasn’t the time to be dealing with all of that.
I had enough on my plate as it was. I already might go to jail over this. If we couldn’t get Jeremy to do anything too incriminating, anything that would get him locked up for good, then I was ready to kill him. Kill or be killed, that was the motto for this mission.
It was surprisingly easy to break into Jeremy’s house. Easy enough that at first, I panicked that he must not be living there anymore. He must have known we would come after him at some point. And if not us, then someone else. He was a corrupt agent of the government. He had the means to keep his place safe. But it seemed like he hadn’t bothered to worry about that.
No doubt, he figured he was the top dog, that he could handle anything that we threw at him. I hoped his cockiness would prove to be his downfall.
He definitely looked worried when I found him in his study, though. He grabbed for his phone immediately, his eyes going wide. No panic button, then. Not that it would help him much since the sheriff was on our side this time. Either way, though, I made a grab for the phone before he could get to it, not wanting to know what kind of backup he might have with the club he was working with. Or with the rest of the feds, for that matter. We might have the sheriff on our side, but that wasn’t everything.
I wanted to drop his phone on the floor and stomp on it, but who knew what kind of evidence there could be on there. Instead, I slipped it in my back pocket, stepping back away from him so that he would have to fight me if he wanted to get it back.
“I just don’t get why you handled things the way you did,” I finally told him. “Why call me to help cover up that murder? And then not go to the sheriff about it and get me arrested for that?”
Jeremy snorted. “Are you really that stupid? Didn’t you realize who that guy was?”
“You did a pretty good job of making sure I wouldn’t know,” I reminded him.
Jeremy’s lips drew back off his teeth. “I had a disagreement with the club that I’m working with,” he told me. “I killed one of their guys. It would have made them very unhappy to know that I was the one who did it. Easier to pin the blame on you and brush the whole thing under the rug.”
“Fuck,” I said, shaking my head. “You are crazy, aren’t you?”
Jeremy shrugged slowly. “I’ve done what I needed to do.”
“And what are you trying to do?” I asked, as though Victor hadn’t managed to tell us anything about his plans.
Jeremy grinned lazily at me. “I’m working with one of your rival MCs to make sure you’re wiped off the face of the world,” he said. “Locked up or dead; I don’t care much either way. At the end of the day, as long as I get paid, I’m happy.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Must have been quite the disagreement, then, if you killed one of their guys.”
Jeremy shrugged dismissively. “He was in the way,” he said. “He wanted you all in jail to rot, rather than dead. I had to show him how easy it is to kill someone, rather than put them in jail.” He suddenly held out a hand, a gun flashing. I didn’t know where he had drawn it from, even though I’d been tracking every movement of his.
Was that why the front door was so easy to get through? Easy enough to kill someone if they broke in on you and then claim that it was in self-defense.
I froze, trying to assess the situation. He hadn’t shot yet. I needed to distract him. Figure out a way to get him to put down the gun. But I could already tell that there was no convincing him that we were on the same side or that he shouldn’t kill me.
I knew that with absolute certainty.
I would have expected a chill to run through me. Or maybe for my life to flash before my eyes. But instead, I just stared at the cold metal gun in his hands and then up at his face. I narrowed my eyes at him. “So kill me, then,” I told him, spreading my arms out to either side.
No sense remarking on how cowardly it was to shoot at an unarmed man. No sense telling him that the sheriff should already be on his way there and that he was going to have a hard time convincing the sheriff that he had shot me in self-defense when I was clearly unarmed and he was the one wielding a gun. No sense wasting my breath.
Instead, I found my thoughts drifting to Olivia. I hadn’t talked to her since I had told her I was in the club. I hadn’t called to talk to her about work or anything else. I had been worried she would refuse to talk to me, to be honest. And I hadn’t been sure how to say goodbye to her. I didn’t want to say goodbye to her. Of all the people I had ever met, she was the only person I felt like I needed to say goodbye to, and that made it impossible to actually do so. Hell, I hadn’t even said goodbye to Otis and the guys.
Just, see you later. Or not.
It looked like the “or not” was going to come to pass. Jeremy was hesitating, like he was waiting to see what I would do. But I could see cold determination in his gaze. He hadn’t managed to get me put in jail, and anyway, it was easier to kill a man than to put him in jail. It might leave him in a tricky situation since he wouldn’t be able to have me hide my own body, of course. But at the end of the day, I was sure that he could find someone to help him out. And he knew that just as well.
The door to the study burst open again, and everything turned chaotic behind me. Scuffles of feet on the hardwood floors, barked orders from the sheriff and the men. And the single shot from Jeremy’s gun, right in the middle of it all.
I cried out as the bullet hit me. And then I knew no more.
22
Olivia
David had almost smiled when I came back to the clinic on Tuesday and told him I wanted to give things another try. He didn’t make me tell him about my reasons or anything else. He didn’t say anything about how this was a difficult job, and some people couldn’t cut it. Instead, he’d just nodded and put me right back to work. I spent the whole first day back holding my breath, waiting for something to go wrong. But things felt easier after the chat I’d had with Hazel, and I could tell that David appreciated my work as I was currently doing it.
Maybe this wasn’t such a mistake after all. It felt like I was finally starting to wake up and understand what was expected of me. It felt like maybe there was a steep learning curve now I was out of the classrooms and into the clinic, but a learning curve that I could master over time.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous about Logan’s next session, though. I didn’t know what had happened on Monday, what he and David might have talked about. I assumed he hadn’t told David anything about the suspicions he must have had: that he was the reason I had quit the clinic, no matter how briefly. But had they just sat there in silence for another session, or had he consented to David asking the questions finally? And what would that mean for today? Would he want me in charge of the session again, or would he ignore me and focus on David?
I thought about begging off on his session, but I really wanted to talk to him face-to-face. The more I thought about my interactions with him, the more I realized I wasn’t scared of him. Sure, I was scared of what he could do to me. But that went a lot deeper than the potential for physical pain. No, I was more worried that I would lose him from my life. More worried that he was just toying with me and that eventually he might break my heart.
I couldn’t talk about that kind of stuff in front of David, but I wanted to make sure that Logan knew I still wanted to talk to him.
I should have just called him. But until he was done with these therapy sessions, I decided that I wanted to keep things strictly professional. If I was going to do this, then I was going to do this. If this was my calling, as Hazel seemed to believe, then it was time to start acting that way. And that meant cooling things off with Logan for now so that David wouldn’t get suspicious.
I waited in the therapy room for a bit, watching the minutes tick by. David finally came in, shaking his head at me. “He says he has some other commitments today,” he said, frowning.
I grimaced and stood up, trying to pretend I wasn’t too interested in the news. Trying to pretend that my mind wasn’t already whirling, wondering if it was my fault that he was no longer showing up to his sessions. If it was my fault, there was nothing I could do about it, short of calling him and asking him to chat in private. And who knew how that meeting might end up. No, if he wanted to talk, he would talk. And if not, it was up to him.
I just hated the idea that I might never see him again.
But I’d let him call the shots. I could at least wait a couple of weeks, see if he came back. If he didn’t, then he was no longer my client, as far as I was concerned. I had his number; I could start something with him then. If he was still willing to talk to me. If he hadn’t found someone else.
That was silly, though. He said that he had never wanted to be close to anyone before. That I was the first. I had to believe that I was special, that he wasn’t just going to find someone else.
But I also hated the idea of having to wait weeks before I talked to him again.
Hazel called me a little while later, as I was filing some paperwork to do with one of our other clients. I frowned down at my phone. Was she checking up on me, making sure I was in the clinic? She had to have known that I would be working. Or had something happened?
I answered the phone, feeling a nameless dread course through me. Something told me this wasn’t just her checking up with me or asking me to a late lunch. I didn’t know where the intuition came from, but it didn’t feel good, whatever the source. “What’s wrong?” I asked immediately.
“I don’t know if this is your guy,” Hazel said immediately. “But we’ve just checked a guy named Logan in over here at the hospital with a gunshot wound. And he’s got a biker tattoo.”
I felt my heart stop for a moment. “I’ll be right there,” I said, all other thoughts going out of my head. There were sessions booked for that afternoon, things I was meant to be there for. But I didn’t even pause to tell David that I couldn’t be there for them. I just ran out of the building, my only thought to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.
As I sped down the streets, heedless of the speed limit, I cursed myself for not having asked Hazel more questions. Gunshot wound wasn’t specific. Was he dying? Was he in critical condition? Where had he been shot? By whom? I hadn’t asked anything, and yet here I was, pedal to the metal trying to get to him.
Because I loved him.
It came to me just like that, and there was no denying the feeling. I put it aside for now. I’d examine it later when I wasn’t worried about whether or not he was dying.
When I got to the hospital, he was awake, and I almost cried with relief. “Fuck, you scared the shit out of me,” I told Hazel as she led me down the hallway.
She gave me a sympathetic look. “To be honest, he was just coming out of surgery when I called you, and I didn’t know how bad it might be,” she said. “It’s pretty surprising that he’s already awake even.” She frowned at me and glanced at her watch. “How the heck did you get here so fast anyway? My morning commute takes me almost twice as long.”
I blushed and shrugged. She gave me a knowing look and shook her head, nudging me toward the hospital room.
I stepped carefully inside, biting my lower lip, still not sure what I would find inside. There were a couple other guys in the room when I entered, larger guys, the stereotypical biker guys. They immediately left at a jerk of the head from one of the older-looking ones. I stepped closer to the bed and immediately slipped my fingers into Logan’s.
Hazel had said that he was awake, but it looked like he was dozing at the moment. His eyes flickered open when he felt my fingers pressed against his, though, and he smiled wearily at me, hints of pain around the corners of his eyes and mouth. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“My best friend works here,” I told him. “She called me.” Then, I froze, wondering if maybe he would prefer that I not be here, that his friends come back. "Should I leave?” I asked, already starting to disentangle my fingers from his.
