Page 21 of Brooks (Dirty Misfits MC 1)
But guilt quickly replaced the butterflies and I swallowed the knot in my throat.
“They were just here trying to get a rise out of me, I think. Said they came to pay their respects to Gage, then they—”
Then, I heard it. Police sirens wailed in the distance. I quickly sat up off the couch and threw my legs over the edge, standing straight onto my feet. I turned toward the front door, and I felt more vulnerable and more exposed than ever before.
“Come on,” Brooks said as he gripped my arm, “we have to go.”
The butterflies in my gut dissipated completely. “I don’t need to leave my own home, but you do. You have to get out of here before they get here.”
He turned me around and gazed into my eyes. “Then explain to me why you had Black Flag members on my doorstep.”
“I’m telling you, it’s—”
He pulled me closer to his body. “You can tell me or the cops. But if you’re going to tell me, we have to go. Now.”
I ground my teeth. “I can handle it, Brooks. I don’t need your help.”
He released my arm. “Gage always kept you out of things, and he’d kill me himself if I allowed you to get dragged back into this shit now. Now tell me, what the fuck did that man do—or say—to you to make you so fucking upset?”
The police sirens were steadily approaching, and I knew our window was about to be lost. “Fine, okay. I’m coming with you. But only temporarily. Got it?”
He took my hand as he nodded. “That’s good with me.”
He tugged me out the front door and I managed to grab my pistol and my purse in the process. I closed my front door, just barely as he pulled me along, then we both jogged for his bike. I threw my leg over the back of it and for a split second, I felt Brooks staring at me.
So, I looked up into his eyes and smacked his arm. “You coming or what?”
He blinked rapidly. “Sorry, yes.”
He hopped onto his bike and cranked up the engine, and the rumbling beneath my ass made me feel at home again. I slid my arms around his waist and clung to his jacket, just like I used to do with Gage.
“Is there a back way out of this place?” Brooks asked.
I pointed toward the corner of the parking lot. “It’s a walking trail, but it dumps out onto the other side of the road. Take that.”
As police tires squealed into the complex, we blazed a trail for the dirt pathway. He hopped the curb and I clung to him, trying desperately not to fall off. The bumps of the rocks and the twigs we rushed over almost threw me off the bike a few times. But after traveling for a little over a mile, we soared through traffic and got ourselves going in the right direction.
Right toward the clubhouse I hadn’t been to in five fucking years.
Eleven
Brooks
My cock stiffened as her arms tightened around my waist. The faster my bike roared down the road, the more she clung to me. And my body couldn’t take it. I tried to focus on anything that might help the situation. I focused on my grandmother, and how she used to chastise me as a little boy for the stupidest shit. I thought about my father, and beating his sorry, pathetic excuse for a face in when I caught him beating on Mom.
I even thought about Mom, and how she’d wholly disapprove of how I felt about Raven.
Nothing worked, though.
Shit.
Then, I focused on the task ahead of me. I had to make sure Raven was safe from whatever the hell was coming our way. Because a visit from the Black Flags always signaled death. Whether it was death to the person receiving the unwelcomed intrusion or whether it was someone close to them, they had marked her. They had Raven in their sights.
And damn it, she wasn’t going to be taken away from me, too.
After a tense fifteen-minute drive, I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the clubhouse. I pulled up to the parking spot that had always been marked off for myself and found that my name had been spray-painted over so that just anyone could park there. It made me angry how this club seemed to try and erase my name. My legacy. Even my title from this entire club.
Something really weird is going on.
“We’re here,” I said as I took my helmet off.
Raven sighed as she let go of me. “I haven’t been here in years. It looks so…”
I snickered. “Neglected?”
She paused. “Yeah, in a way.”
Just like this entire club. “Come on. I want to get you inside before we start talking to people.”
“Do you think they’re going to accept me back?”
