Wheels’ Harley Sportster was small and compact, not designed for the comfort of a pillion rider, and she shifted in her seat as he raced through Conundrum, blowing through red lights and careening through back alleys. By the time they arrived at the clubhouse, she knew something was seriously wrong. Even a senior patch wouldn’t take the kind of risks he’d taken on that ride unless he’d been threatened with death.
He led her through the clubhouse in silence, his hand pressed against her lower back as if she might suddenly turn and run. But she stayed on course, curious about what could rile the easygoing Wheels and make Jagger demand her presence instead of coming for her himself.
They descended the stairs to the basement, and Wheels led her down a long narrow hallway, and through a spacious games room, his fingers twitching against her.
“What’s got you so agitated?” She skirted around the pool table, and eyed the well-stocked bar with appreciation.
Wheels stared straight ahead and mumbled. “Sometimes I forget.”
“Forget what?” she said in an uncertain tone.
“Who he really is and how careful I have to be.”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. They walked into a small room with blacked-out windows, and she knew.
“Banks!” A sudden coldness hit her core, and she flung herself forward, her cry echoing through the small space.
Tied to a chair in the center of the room, his left eye swollen shut, blood trickling down his temple, and his face a mass of cuts and bruises, Banks regarded her with a resigned expression. His eyes flicked to Jagger standing to his right, fist raised to deliver another blow.
“Bastard.” Banks growled. “Did you have to bring her down here?”
“No.” Arianne threw herself in front of Jagger and held up her hands, palms forward, taking in Cade and Sparky, leaning against the wall and Zane behind the chair. “Don’t touch him. Don’t you dare touch him.”
The room, pungent with the scent of blood and sweat, stilled. Jagger turned to her, his eyes cold, hard, and resolute. “He has information I need, and so far he’s been reluctant to give it up. Apparently, the women who took you to him told him the whole story, and it’s a story I want to hear.”
Seized by an unbearable fury, heedless of the muttered warnings around her, Arianne turned on Jagger. “You’re doing this to get information I did not want you to have. This is between you and me. Let him go. Now.”
Jagger’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, sweetheart. There’s a line you don’t cross, and you’re standing on the edge. I’ll tolerate only so much disrespect, and right now my patience is at its end. I want a name and I’ll do what has to be done to get it. He knows who fired the gun.”
Her face twisted in revulsion. “So you’re going to beat him up? He looked after me, Jagger. He took a bullet out of my arm. And right now he’s suffering for being a good friend to me. And this is the thanks he gets? I trusted you—”
“You don’t trust me.” He said through gritted his teeth. “You told me last night. What would the Jacks think if they found out was a woman I had claimed had been shot and I did fuck-all about it? Or the Triads? Or the Mafia? Everything we do or don’t do sends a message. Everything is a power play. I have one hundred men depending on me to keep them safe. We are the dominant club in the state, and we stay that way because we make sure no one fucks with us. And beating my girl, tying her up, chaining her to a floor, and shooting her goes way beyond that.”
“I’m not your girl.” She couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice. “I’m your prize. Your finger to Viper. The life you took for Cole’s life. If I were anything more, you wouldn’t be doing this.”
“You were mine the second you drove onto Sinner property.” His flat, toneless voice sliced through her heart. “You will be mine until I let you go.”
He sidestepped Arianne and looked down at Banks. “Name.”
“Fuck you.”
Without warning, Jagger punched Banks in the jaw. Banks’s head snapped to the side and he let loose a string of swearwords.
“Oh God. Stop.” She grabbed Jagger’s T-shirt and yanked him toward her. “Stop.”
His face twisted with rage. Stark, raw, and almost unrecognizable as the man who had been so gently cruel with her last night.
“I want a name.”
“Don’t fucking tell these bastards anything.” Banks spit blood on the floor. “Told you bikers were nothing but trouble. You keep your secrets to yourself and know they are safe with me. I’m not gonna break ’cause some pussy with marshmallow hands is pattin’ me on the cheeks.”
Jagger looked over at Sparky and dipped his chin. Sparky picked up an iron bar from the floor and tapped it in his hand. Wheels paled. Arianne took a step toward Banks, and Jagger grabbed her arm.
“Don’t interfere.”
Her stomach sank, and a wave of nausea washed over her. Wheels was right. She, too, had forgotten who Jagger was: not a friend or a savior, or even a lover, but a ruthless MC president who put his club above everything else. Just like her father.