Stephanie Tyler - Vipers Run

“Why?”

“Lot of reasons. But I pulled her into this, and I’m the only one who can get her out.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Tals muttered.

His friend was more pissed than Tenn after being shut out. Even though he’d known that Cage wasn’t dead pretty much the whole time. But before that, Cage had dropped out of sight for months, and he’d refused to return any calls. “I’m sorry, Tals.”

“Yeah, that you got caught.”

“Gonna make a great father with lines like that.”

Tals pointed at him, fear of the devil in his eyes. “Don’t you dare fucking curse me like that.”

Cage snorted. “Did Tenn get anything out of the Heathens?”

“They weren’t in a chatty mood and Tenn doesn’t have the patience for that shit.” Tals crossed his arms and stared at him. “Going to finally tell me what the hell really happened? Because I don’t believe the Heathens just happened to sneak up on you.”

“Got some intel.”

“Gonna share?”

“Tapes. Wiretaps.”

“Enough for a RICO case against them?” Tals asked.

Cage nodded. “It’s locked up tight, though. I won’t risk giving it to the feds until I know who I’m giving it to.”

“Your dad know you have it?” Tals asked, then paled. “Shit. That’s why?”

Cage kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t sure he could get the words out.

Tals whistled softly. “I knew it was Heathens, Cage . . . but . . . your dad?”

“He sent Troy.” And Cage didn’t know if that made it better or worse. “A lot of this is about me, Tals. But some of it’s about her.”

“We’ve had to tread lightly where Bernie’s concerned.”

Cage agreed. It was the only thing that kept him from breaking into the police database to see what they knew. The only thing that stopped him from calling Bernie’s sister. He thought about the burial, how he and Tenn and Tals had to avoid it . . .

“He always knew what he was in for with us,” Tals told him. “He went into things with both eyes open.”

“Calla didn’t.” Tals looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t, and so Cage continued. “Need a favor.”

“You’re serious? Beyond this saving-your-ass thing?”

“Where were you when I was trying to lose a Heathen tail tonight?”

Tals snorted. “Go for it. Just remember, you’re really racking them up.”

“Bernie was trying to help Calla.”

“And while you avoided all of us, you were figuring out a way to help her too.”

He nodded. “Her father’s Jameson Bradley.”

Tals whistled and shook his head. “And you got his baby girl in trouble.”

“I don’t think they’re exactly close. But she’s got a brother. Need to find him.”

“Take it we’re not paying a Welcome Wagon call.”

“As far from it as we can get,” he agreed. And there was also another guy out there who hurt her. Cage had that tucked into the back of his mind. Because as much pain as he’d been in that first night they’d talked, the pain in her voice when she’d admitted that a guy had hurt her in her past was unmistakable.

Every time he thought about it, his fists clenched, the way they were now.

Tals noticed, of course. “I’ll help.”

“Thanks.”

“S’what we do.” Tals touched the scarred side of his face, shook his head. “Helps that you were always an ugly motherfucker.”

“Better than you on your best day.”

Tals hooted, and for a second Cage was back in better days. Then again, the woman inside the cabin might just be the start of more.

Tals told him, “I’ll be back tonight to escort you back to Skulls. Preacher’s orders, so don’t try to say no.”

“Where are you going?”

“Figured I’d visit Havoc and give you two some privacy.”

Cage shook his head. “You getting involved in shit I should know about?”

“You’re one to talk. Don’t worry about me, brother. I’m just fine. See you in the morning.” Tals jumped off the porch, got on his bike and gunned it up the road.

For a long moment, Cage stood in the mountain air, letting what Tals said settle in.

Preacher swore the hills of South Carolina were the perfect place to soothe—and save—men’s souls. And that might be true of North Carolina too, because Havoc thrived there, while boasting the rep of being both calm and deadly. What that MC did was far enough removed from civilians and the law to give them some kind of mythological, legendary status.

Cage knew some of them, had visited their compound. Their rep was well fucking deserved. They had no desire to play nice with anyone. They just stayed to themselves and out of most wars, unless an MC fucked with them. And then their army came down from the hills and let their fury loose.

Whatever Tals was doing up there, Cage hoped it was for pleasure and not business.

Cage had been putting bikes together for as long as he could hold a wrench. The irony of being born in the back of a van—and being named after the incident—was something of an inside joke among the Heathens, because “cage” was a derogatory name for a car, which civilians drove, as opposed to the freedom of the bike.

For Cage, it referred to his Heathen lineage and his royalty, so to speak, because his cage was a beat-up Ford Bronco in which his mom had been in active labor, and it had a line of hogs leading it to the hospital. He’d been too damned impatient to wait, a trait that followed him his entire life. He was the firstborn, the golden child, and at that time his mom had been a hot-as-hell old lady his dad had been lucky enough to bag. She’d run away from a very wealthy family to be with his father and, by extension, the MC, and Cage knew she’d regretted it. Not at first, but for sure it was a part of the reason she’d turned to drugs.

She’d been trapped. She’d seen no escape and, in reality, there was none. So whether or not she’d planned to kill herself, she’d already been doing it slowly, years before her actual death.

Which was why everything about Calla concerned him. More often than not, the old ladies of the clubs had grown up around the MC, and if they didn’t, they were well enough versed in the ways of club life. The real version, not the romanticized one.

And then there were the MC groupies. The mamas. Similar to the women who looked for soldiers to marry. They knew what soldiers were capable of, and they knew that the job involved more than wearing a uniform.

Calla knew more than most civilians, unfortunately because of what he’d put her through already. But once that situation was over . . . no matter how hard it was for him, he was going to have to give her the choice to walk or push her out the door.

He knew he was trouble, more than any one woman should have to deal with. He also had an expiration date—if his family had anything to say about it. By running off on his own to get Calla, he knew he might be cutting himself off from the only family who’d ever given a shit about him.

But for now it seemed they were standing by him. He’d go back to Skulls and take whatever he had coming to him.

It was almost time to head to the Vipers MC, and I felt like mourning that. At the cabin, for a little while, at least, we were just Calla and Cage, no pasts, only present. Even though we were both wanted, we were also hidden from the world. We had each other all to ourselves.

Until Tals showed up to rip the curtain away and drag us back to reality.

“Did you ever just want to escape everything? Escape who you are, who you’re supposed to be? Run from the expectations until you know what you expect from yourself?” I asked Cage now.

He gave a small smile, almost rueful. “I know a little something about all that.”