Walk Through Fire

“Stop moving. I won’t hurt you,” he ordered.

I kept moving, making preparations in order to take flight.

He reached into his suit jacket, pulled out his own gun, and lifted it my way.

“Stop... fucking... moving.”

Automatically, I stopped moving.

He turned his head and dipped his chin at the only other live person in the room.

I stared, shock begi

“You’re at the Mile Hi Motel in room two sixteen,” Valenzuela stated, and my eyes darted back to him. “You call your biker, you tell them where to find you, you tell them that’s for them.” He swung his gun toward the two dead bodies on the floor, then back to me. “You tell them I did not order what happened today. You tell them Carlos and Pedro acted alone. You tell them I was not happy about this and saw to their punishment.”

Punishment?

That was his brand of punishment?

I stared at him, suddenly realizing that I was not only trembling from hair to toenails, my chest was rising and falling with shallow breaths and my fingers felt like they’d been asleep but were coming awake, tingling in a way that skimmed the edge of pain.

But what I saw as I stared at his face was not fear.

He wasn’t scared of Chaos’s retribution for the mistake made by his men that day and taking care of it so they wouldn’t lose their minds.

It was something else.

And right then, I went from scared out of my brain to terrified down to my bones.

“You should leave town,” I blurted.

He dropped the gun, which was a relief, but he also smiled a creepy smile, which wasn’t.

“Thank you for the advice, but I think I’ll stay,” he replied.

Regardless of the fact that he didn’t want my very good advice to penetrate—seeing as I was witness to his minion’s double homicide and an old lady to a member of a band of brothers who took family and the protection of it really fucking seriously, so I knew what I was talking about—I kept going.

“You don’t touch old ladies.”

“I didn’t.”

That was the truth.

“Your men lured Lo... I mean, High’s daughter to their car,” I shared.

His mouth got tight.

He didn’t know that.

My body got tight too. Or tighter.

Then his mouth relaxed. “Another fail,” he stated. “And as you can see, they won’t do anything like that again.”

Another truth. A big one.

I kept my eyes off the slaughter sharing a room with me so I could keep hold on my mind.

“I mean no offense. I’m sure you know this,” I began. “But you don’t mean anything to me. Still, this plays out like I know it will, people I care about will be forced to do things they don’t wish to do. They’re good men. But this won’t stand.” I carefully indicated the floor beneath my feet. “They won’t let it and you shouldn’t underestimate them. There’s no way you can win.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

I stared at him.

He believed that.

Totally.

A chill crept over my skin and I kept trying.

“You won’t win, Valenzuela. Seriously, believe me. I’ve known them a long time. United, the brotherhood can’t be defeated.”

“Many brotherhoods felt the same and continued to do so until they fell.”

I stared into his eyes and I read everything there.

He wasn’t going to give up. He wasn’t going to go away. He wasn’t going to stop. He was weak, with men misinterpreting his orders, facing a woman who could guarantee his time in prison when he was caught and I testified that he’d ordered the murders of two men.

He still wasn’t going to stop.

Not until it was over however that came about.

There was something scarily wrong about that. He was a man with every chip in the pot holding weak cards in his hand.

But he was acting like he had an ace up his sleeve.

“You need to be careful,” I whispered.

“Ah, Millie, your concern in touching. But don’t you worry. I’m being very careful.”

“No,” I returned. “What I mean is, you hurt him, you hurt High, you hurt any of them, I’ll hurt you.”

He found that amusing, so much so it was incredibly insulting.

While smiling big, he tipped his head to the side. “You’re threatening me while I hold a gun?”

“Wrong again,” I told him, shaking my head. “It’s insane but I’m trying to save your life. Seriously, you should get out of town.”

“I will not fall to Chaos,” he said with utter confidence.

“If you don’t leave and you also don’t fall to Chaos, you’ll still fall.”

“Chaos gash comes after me after I bring that Club low, that’s business I’ll be forced to take care of too.”

Gash.

He’d said that word before.

It wasn’t nice.

It also pissed me off.

I straightened my spine and squared my shoulders, sharing, “There’ll be only one storm mightier than the one your men unleashed today. You don’t mess with an old lady. You definitely don’t mess with an old lady’s man.”

He was still amused. “After I claim all of Denver, that’ll be an interesting challenge.”

He might hold the ace.

But his cards were still weak.

“I see your weakness,” I told him.

That amused him too. Greatly.

He lifted his brows over dancing eyes.

“I have a weakness?” he asked in disbelief.

“You don’t think gash have brains,” I shared.

“You’re not difficult to look at, Millie, but you aren’t being very smart, where you are, how you are, speaking to me the way you are.”

“You don’t think gash have brains,” I repeated. “So you can’t know we have them and we also have hearts. And if you don’t know any of that, you also don’t know we hold a mean grudge.”

“I know this,” he said in a way that made my skin tighten all over my body. “I ordered the dispatch of two of my soldiers. I did it with a witness. I did it knowing Chaos has gone pussy, taking their twat asses to the cops. So I know you’ll share with Mitch Lawson and Brock Lucas. And I don’t fucking care.”

That was crazy.

My voice was rising high when I asked, “You believe you’re untouchable?”

“I believe I get Chaos out of the way, I’ll be ru

Delgado?

Hawk Delgado?

Elvira’s boss?

What did he have to do with all this?

I didn’t ask that.

I remarked, “So you’re go

He tipped his head to the side and asked, “What did you see?”

He knew what I saw since it happened five minutes ago and I didn’t think it was smart to remind him that I saw it but I had a feeling he had an agenda and that agenda was not further harming me, so I said, “You told your man to shoot them and he did.”

“I wasn’t anywhere near here and that man doesn’t exist.”

Both were wrong but I had a feeling he could make it so they were right.

He kept speaking.

“In fact, later today, there will be a man who will come forward, confessing to these killings. He’ll have the gun used. And he’ll share all about how he did this in retribution for what was done to you.”

I stared at him some more.

I’d heard about things like that. Saw it on TV. A bad guy paying someone to take the fall, maybe promising to take care of his family, doing it huge to make it worth the sacrifice.

“Anyway, Millie,” he carried on. “A win isn’t really a win unless there are losers left standing.”

“So you’re go

“Yes,” he confirmed.

Okay, I was more than a little done.

“Could you do that about now?” I requested.

He gri

“I’m totally showering for three hours when I get home,” I muttered.

He burst out laughing.