Page 33 of Sniper

“Hmm, I’ll go with tequila.”But not too much,I promised myself as I joined the women gathered at two tables pushed together while Falcon and the other guys played cards. If I drank too much, I might accidentally tell them what I needed to tell Sniper, and he deserved to know first. Guilt weighed heavily but the first two shots lightened the burden.

“So,” Peyton began, her cheeks flushed. “What’s going on with you and Sniper and don’t say nothing, because something is definitely different.”

“How could you possibly know that when I never leave my room?”

Her gaze connected with Ellie’s, and they shared a smile. “Cole swings from casual and flirty to grumpy as fuck with the flip of a bird, but lately his intensity has been really intense. Like he’s really dedicated to what he’s fighting for.”

“Now I see, all of you are romantics.” I shook my head. “You see love everywhere.”

“That’s not exactly a denial,” Ellie teased.

“He’s intense because he feels like he owes my brother, and he doesn’t like to owe anyone.” It wasn’t anything more than that.

“Seems like you have a problem with bikers,” Hope said in her quiet voice. “Why?”

I shrugged off her observation. “You never worry that they’ll hit you?” I hated to say those words to these women who so clearly adored their men, but I had to know if they were oblivious or complicit.

Their gazes connected in different expressions of seriousness and then they all burst out laughing. Ellie recovered first and laid her hand on top of mine. “I get it, these guys are big and tough, and they can be a little rough around the edges, but they are really just big softies.”

“That and we refuse to take shit from them,” Laura added with an affectionate smile.

“Sure,” Emma began with a wide grin. “We allow them to boss us around when it comes to things like lockdown because we know it’s for our safety, and while we love ‘em to death we also know they don’t do too well with emotions. But outside of that, nobody bosses us around. Any of us.”

“Well,” Peyton began with a laugh. “Sometimes in the bedroom, but that’s just because it’s so much fun.”

Peyton’s words helped me relax, and for a little while I let myself feel as if maybe my life was getting back to normal. Of course there was nothing normal about sitting around a biker club with their old ladies, on lockdown because my psycho ex wanted me dead, but it was something like normalcy. Girls’ night with drinks and gossip was something I’d never really had, and I leaned into it, laughing at their stories.

“So you see,” Harper began. “We all ended up here because we needed protection and it turned out that the shittiest thing that ever happened to us, brought along some of the best things to happen to us.” Her smile was bright and beautiful. “I didn’t want to come home to Vegas for a job, and I definitely didn’t want Gio to be my fake boyfriend, but now I couldn’t be happier.”

Each woman had a similar story, and they were all sweet in their own way. “You have to be able to trust someone to fall in love,” I answered, the bitterness thick in my voice.

“When the right person comes along, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to trust them.”

I snorted. “Or you choose to trust because you don’t have a choice.”

“Honey we always have a choice,” Peyton said, her gaze saw right through me. “No matter how shitty the choices, we always have to make the choice. Remember that.”

I understood what she was saying but the truth was, as always, in the gray areas. I had two choices where Sniper was concerned, trust him to keep me safe as he promised Calortake my chances on my own until Ethan finally catches up to me and ends my life. It was technically a choice, but as humans we are hard-wired to survive. So yeah, I had a choice, the devil I knew or the devil I didn’t.

I didn’t fully trust Sniper yet, how could I when there was very little daylight between him and Ethan? But I trusted him to keep his word, and I trusted my brother, who literally trusted the man with both of our lives. With my body? Hell yes.

My heart? Absolutely not.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sniper

“Where are we taking this asshole?” I asked Diesel and kicked Roach’s unconscious body. Bloodlust pounded in my veins, there was a need to do more than choke him out. I wanted to strip his skin off inch by inch and listen to his anguished screams. But first, I needed answers.

Diesel’s dark brows rose. “You think he’s gonna talk?”

I shrugged. “I think it’ll be fun either way. Worst case scenario, I get to torture this asshole until he takes his last breath. Best case, we get answers.”

Gio and I grabbed him by his arms, his body nothing but dead weight as we dragged him to the truck and tossed him inside.

“Let’s put him under the garage,” Diesel finally answered, his gaze piercing through me as if to warn me to keep my emotions in check. “You good?”

“Me? I’m great.” I flashed a smile I didn’t feel and jumped into the passenger seat of the truck. “I won’t touch one hair on his head until you say I can,” I promised, flashing a wide smile as Diesel slammed my door.

---