CHAINED: A Motorcycle Club Romance (7 page)

Jenna just nodded happily, her eyes already locked on the rows of paint cans. Cain hesitated for a moment longer, but then shrugged. He'd check in on her later, he decided. How much harm could the girl get up to, with just some paint and brushes?

When he stepped outside the barn, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight after the dimmer interior, Cain's ears caught the rumble of another approaching motorcycle. Hands in the pockets of his jeans, he strolled over to the gravel driveway as the motorcycle pulled up, coasting to a stop in the flat, open space in front of Cain's house.

He recognized the rider even before the man had removed his helmet. Talon, another Iron Skull officer, stood up and stretched his long limbs as he climbed off of the bike. The man always reminded Cain of a scarecrow, or maybe a strange hairy spider of some sort. His straw-blonde hair always jutted out in several directions, as if he'd just recently been electrified, and although thinner than Cain's stocky figure, he stood even taller than the older biker.

"Morning, Cain," Talon greeted him with a nod. "Meeting with the prospects went all right?"

As Cain had slowly but surely taken a back seat in most of the Iron Skull affairs, Talon had slipped in to fill his empty shoes. The man did have a smart mind, Cain had to admit, even if it was coupled to an equally smart mouth, often without appearing to have any filter in between the two.

"Yeah," he replied, nodding. "The truck was there, just like you were told. We'll see tonight if the prospects found the bricks before that trucker wakes up."

"From one of your sucker punches? That'll be a while," Talon chuckled, stepping forward to slap Cain on the back. "And now, let's talk party!"

"Party?"

Talon raised his spiky blond eyebrows. "Well, of course! When the prospects who got their bricks show up tonight, well, we gotta greet them with some hospitality, don't we?" His grin grew a little more twisted. "And any of them who show up empty-handed, well, we gotta have all our members here, so we can come up with some creative punishments to inflict upon the failures!"

Cain remembered some of the previous "punishments" that had been doled out to prospects in the past. One young man, he recalled vividly, had to finish off a half-empty handle of whiskey while one of the house girls sucked his cock. If the man blew his load before he finished the bottle, the other bikers simply refilled the bottle and told him to start again.

It had ended up taking the man a couple tries, and he spent the entire rest of the night out in the weeds behind the house, vomiting up every last bit of his stomach lining.

"So," Talon was still talking, Cain realized. "You tell the girls, maybe get them to invite over a few of their friends, maybe a couple fresh faces that all the Skulls haven't seen - and fucked - already. I'll handle getting the booze, and as for the drugs, well, that's on the prospects, isn't it?"

"As long as no one ends up breaking any furniture, like last time," Cain pointed out. "Tell everyone that I'll be making them pay for whatever shit they break - and they won't get their bike keys back until the money's in my hand."

Talon rolled his eyes exaggeratedly at his older fellow officer. "Cain, you worry too much. Just relax and have some fun!"

Cain shook his head, but he didn't really have a reply to that. And, he reflected, this was how most of his conversations with Talon tended to end. Cain generally played the voice of reason, trying to keep matters under control, while Talon just waved a hand and insisted that everything would work itself out.

As Cain reflected on this, Talon turned towards the house, but he suddenly stopped as he passed in front of the open barn doors. "Well, holy hell, who is this?" he exclaimed, peering inside. "Cain, you didn't mention that you've already got a new girl ready for tonight!"

Not bothering to keep his cursing under his breath, Cain spun around, but Talon had already ducked inside the barn. When Cain burst through the open door, the tall, rangy man had one arm thrown around Jenna's shoulders, one finger inside her blouse, and was using his height to peer down her shirt.

"Hey!" Cain yelled. "Let go of her!"

Talon's eyebrows shot up at the other man's furious tone, but he did as requested, lifting both hands up to point at the ceiling in mock surrender. "Whoa, what's the problem?"

Ignoring the other officer, Cain hurried forward towards Jenna. The girl hadn't moved, but he could see that the fright was back in her eyes in full force, and she was shivering once again, her arms wrapped around herself in a tight hug.

Stepping up to her, Cain threw his own arms around her as well, pulling her up against his chest once again. Over the girl's head, he glared Talon.

"She," he said, speaking each word slowly to make sure that he wasn't misunderstood, "is off limits. To everyone. Understand?"

"Hey, no sweat off my dick," Talon replied, shrugging. "What's going on, Cain, you getting soft? Got yourself a new prize, one you don't want to share?"

"She's not-" Cain stopped, biting off the rest of his words as red-hot rage roiled up inside of him, tinting the edges of his vision.

"She's not a prize, not a part of our world at all," he spat out, each word dripping with venom. "That's all you need to know."

He saw Talon open his mouth, but Cain didn't let the other Iron Skull officer speak. "And if you, or any other man, touches her tonight, I'll kill him - and you, for letting it happen."

Chapter eleven

Sitting behind his desk, his fingers carefully splayed so that each fingertip pressed against its fellow, James Archon, founder and CEO of Archon Banks, millionaire many times over and well-respected pillar of the community, looked as calm as a statue.

Inside, however, he felt filled with anger, impotent rage that clawed at him like hot fire.

"Tell me again," he said, directing his voice down towards the small black speaker sitting on top of his desk.

"Sir, she got away, somehow," came the reply. The man at the other end knew that he was in trouble; that much was clear from Archon's icy tone.

"How?"

"We got caught in a thunderstorm, a hell of a storm, while we were transporting her," the man replied, his apprehension audible even over the static of the call's connection. "We were out in the middle of nowhere, and the van slipped on some wet gravel. Next thing I know, she'd hopped out the back and taken off running in the darkness."

Before he replied, Archon lifted one hand to press two fingers against the bridge of his nose, one on either side. "And you didn't chase after her to catch her?"

Another note of worry added itself to the chorus in his subordinate's voice. "I did, sir! Slipped on my ass, too, in the rain. Might have pulled something. But it was raining like hell, and the middle of the night besides. I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face, much less-"

"I see," Archon said, cutting off the man's excuses mid-sentence.

Several seconds of silence passed, while Archon thought through possible options and the man on the other end of the line waited in fearful silence. "Do you at least know where you lost her?" he asked at length.

"Yeah, sure. About ten miles outside of-"

"I don't need to know," Archon interrupted again, "as long as you do. And is there anything nearby?"

"Uh. Looked like a couple houses, down long driveways, but not much else. Pretty middle of nowhere."

Even though the man on the phone couldn't see him, Archon nodded to himself as he settled upon a plan. It wasn't an ideal plan, but given the circumstances, it was the most logical choice.

Archon was very good at making the right choice. It was a skill he had honed for many years. The skill helped him grow from nothing, just another ordinary child, into the head of an empire bigger than almost anyone knew. Even his closest investors, those who knew almost every inner working of the bank, didn't know about some of the other enterprises that Archon ran, managing everything from smuggling operations to escort services.

All of these businesses, whether legal or not, operated under the same principles. Archon quickly discovered that the same cold, calculating logic which helped him succeed so well in his legitimate ventures also worked perfectly well for the more criminal elements of his empire.

And while much of his bank's healthy profit ended up slipping through his hands, instead ending up in the pockets of worthless ingrates like his shareholders and the IRS, his less legitimate businesses provided a much more appealing and reasonable rate of return.

Even if he sometimes had to deal with annoyances like this.

"Very well," Archon said, speaking slowly to make sure that this half-wit didn't miss a word. "Get as many of the other thugs together, that can arrive by tonight. Tell them to grab guns, and once it's dark, go pay a visit to those nearby houses. Tell them we're looking for an escaped mental patient, a young woman who's very ill, suffering from schizophrenic delusions that can turn violent." He paused. "Do you need me to spell that?"

After the man had assured Archon that no, he was capable of remembering 'schizophrenic', Archon continued. "Tell them that you need to search their homes. If they refuse..." He paused for a meaningful second. "Well, put those weapons to use."

Archon expected the man to agree and quickly hang up, desperate to get off the phone before he received any further berating. But the man was either even dumber than Archon suspected, or else perhaps had a death wish, because he asked another question.

"Sir," the man asked hesitantly, "is this one girl really worth so much trouble? I mean, she's probably already dead, from exposure and such. She was barely wearing anything when she hopped out, and she went right into the storm. Can she really make much trouble?"

For just a moment, Archon's mouth hung open with anger and disgust that this worthless little man dared to talk back to him in this way. If he didn't need the man right now, he'd have him disposed of permanently! But even though the anger inside him climbed even higher, digging into him with fiery claws, Archon maintained the iron control for which he was famous.

When he spoke, however, the anger, despite being controlled, was still most definitely present.

"It is not your place," he hissed, "to question. It is your place to carry out the orders I give you, and to simply know that someone far smarter than you is pulling the strings, saving your worthless, pitiful little ass from ending up either in jail or dead. It would only take one girl's escape to ruin everything, and we cannot let that happen!"

Throughout this speech, Archon's voice had been rising in volume, and he felt himself half-standing up from his seat. "Find her!" he half-shouted. "Find her, and kill her, and if you can't manage that, I'll happily make you disappear in her fucking place!"

Archon slammed his hand down on the "end call" button," not waiting for the poor luckless idiot at the other end to respond.

Once he'd hung up, Archon sat back in his seat, giving him a minute to let his breathing and heartbeat return to normal. He'd slightly lost control of himself, he had to admit. But given the incompetence of the idiots he had to deal with, could anyone really blame him?

He took a deep breath. Things were fine - this was a minor hiccup, and he'd quickly have it all back under control. This girl, Jenna, who had escaped - she couldn't have gotten far, not alone and on foot. Most likely, his men would end up stumbling upon her dead body in a ditch.

Still, Archon thought to himself as he settled back into his chair, he wanted this taken care of quickly, before it could grow any bigger. His brothel was one of the most profitable enterprises in his empire, and he wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong. Having to shut it down would be a major blow to his bottom line.

But his current plan was the most logical, the most likely to work. There was no reason to feel anything beyond minor concern.

One last breath, and Archon felt himself return back down to his normal baseline for breathing and heart rate. Shifting his gaze to a small, neat stack of papers on his desk, he began to carefully read through them. These were complicated legal documents for the bank, much less interesting than his other ventures, but still a vital part of his empire.

James Archon prided himself on being, first and foremost, a businessman. He had worked very hard to master his skill of seeing the world in numbers. He could look at any person and, in a matter of minutes, know their value down to the penny.

Jenna, this girl who had escaped, was not worth even that.

Chapter twelve

Once Talon had left the barn, still shrugging as if he didn't understand why this new girl was a big deal, Cain relaxed his arms a little from where they still wrapped around Jenna.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice sounding much kinder as he peered down at the woman pressed up against his chest.

For a moment longer, Jenna kept her face buried in his shirt before she pulled back to raise her eyes up to him. "He touched me," she said, her voice quivering.

Cain's frown briefly reappeared as he glared after Talon. "Yeah, he does that. He didn't mean anything by it."

"Didn't mean anything?"