Rocco Read online

  They would kill her to save their own asses just as soon as anything.

  “What do you think we should do?” Jett turned his attention to me. He was going to leave me to make the decision since it was clear to them this was my old lady we were talking about. Sure, we might not have said so in front of the group, and I might not have even told her that’s what she was to me, but the fact of the matter was that that’s what I thought of her.

  I wasn’t going to leave her to the hands of those monsters.

  Not in a million years.

  “I think we’ve got to get to her, and sooner rather than later,” I said at last. “I think this isn’t going to go well, if you want me to be perfectly honest.”

  Jett nodded. “With Smith involved, I think it’s safe to say there’s going to be guns involved, as well.”

  “Let’s get in there and make this as clean as we can. We want to get Roman out of jail at the end of this, so if we can pull together any evidence and get it out of there, let’s do it,” I said.

  “And, let’s try to get Smith out of there without killing him, too,” Blade suggested. “I mean, if we’re going to have someone take Roman’s place in jail, it might as well be someone who doesn’t deserve the easy out of being shot in the face.”

  Laughter ran through the group, and I smirked. I would rather see Smith have to deal with what he had done behind bars than get killed in the crossfire, but I wouldn’t mind if he was shot dead in the rescue, either. I hated the guy, and I hated the thought of him being anywhere near my woman without me around to make sure he was behaving himself.

  We headed out of the bar and toward our bikes, the adrenaline starting to pump through my veins. It would be a quick stop at one of our own warehouses, and then we would get our weapons and be on our way. We had done this so many times, I knew it wasn’t going to be hard for us to be down to where the dot was on the screen in a flash.

  But, that didn’t stop the fear and the worry from forming in my chest. I didn’t want to think about the worst case scenario, but for the first time in my life, I had a woman in a position where I didn’t want her.

  I wanted her to be safe. More than anything, I wanted her out of there and back in the safety of her office. I hated the thought of her being in that warehouse with those men. And, I hoped to God she was in hiding somewhere. I didn’t want them to know where she was, and I really didn’t want them to know who she was.

  I just wanted her to be safe, and I was willing to do literally anything to make sure that happened. Those men had fucked with the wrong MC when they let Roman take the blame for what they had done – but if they were to do anything to my old lady in the process of this, they were going to all face a brutal end.

  No one fucked with my woman. Not without facing me. And I was pissed.

  All Hell was indeed about to break loose, and I was the one holding the key.

  Chapter 20

  Amelia

  Common sense told me it was a bad idea to head over to the warehouses alone. But, I knew where to go, and I was confident I was going to find what I was looking for when I got there.

  I had talked with Smith for over two hours after Rocco left, and with the information he had given me, all I had to do was figure out how to get proof. At first, he had been reserved with what he was telling me, but I got the feeling the more he told me, the more confident he was in that I was in awe of him.

  He didn’t seem to think that I would have the power to do anything to him or any of the men he was associated with, and he was more than happy to tell me that he was indeed letting the MC take the fall for what they had done.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked with a laugh. “It only makes sense to let them be the ones to take the fall for this so I can keep on doing what I’m doing. I’m not in any hurry to get in trouble with the law again, I can tell you that much!”

  “But why?” I asked with wide eyes, doing my best to appear as genuinely interested in what he was saying as I could. “Why do you want to stab someone and let someone else take the blame? Isn’t it better for you if the whole world knows not to mess with you?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “That was a message to the world that needed to hear it. When it comes to the rest of the world, all they think about is that a bad man did a bad thing. If he goes to jail, then they feel like they’ve done something good. They really don’t think about it beyond that.”

  “And, you get the money?”

  “I get more money than I know what to do with,” he said with a laugh and a nod. “And, I can tell you one thing. I doubt that prick lying in the hospital is going to want to get involved in any of this when he gets out, so it’s even better for me there, too. I’m telling you, you might want to think about the life I could give you if you would let me.”

  He let the words linger in the air, and I wrapped up the conversation. I knew he was drunk, but I still had to be careful. I was dealing with a brutal man, and I didn’t need him to be hitting on me or asking me to get involved.

  Hell, all I had to do now was find the evidence to prove all that he had said, and I would have Roman out of jail and we could move on to another case. It would be perfect. I would wrap up a high profile case by getting the guy everyone thought was guilty out of jail.

  Not only was this going to get me a lot of publicity, but it was going to get me respect with the other lawyers, as well. And, almost as much as I wanted to have the respect of Rocco’s MC, I wanted to have the respect of the other lawyers. I had worked too long and too hard to put up with the shit they put me through.

  They knew I was good, and they wanted to keep me beaten down because of it. They didn’t care that I was getting people out of jail who should be and giving justice to those who needed it. No, all they cared about was the fact that I had lost this case this time or that case that time.

  I was sick of being the bottom of the food chain at the office, and I was going to push my way to the top. I knew I could, and I would. So, after awkwardly trying to get out of the meeting with Smith for over an hour, I found myself standing in the parking lot and debating what to do.

  I wasn’t going to go back home, and I couldn’t go to Rocco’s place. If I told him what I had just learned, then I knew he was going to want to go with me down to the warehouse to get the evidence. He cared very much for Roman, and he wasn’t going to let that slip by.

  If there was a chance we could get his friend out of jail that night, then he was going to want to go through with the plan. But, I knew we were going to have to be careful. From what Smith had said, there were a lot of guards in the area.

  The warehouse itself might be abandoned, but to get near it was going to be hard enough alone, let alone with a bunch of guys with me. No, if I was going to get what I was after and get out of there without a struggle, then I was going to have to do it alone.

  But, as I got closer to the warehouse, I became more and more aware of the fact that I had likely made a mistake along the way. It wasn’t smart of me to go there by myself, and I knew I should have thought it through better before I went through with the plan.

  There were times in my life when I thought that I could get away with things, but there were other times when I knew that I had gone too far. This time was clearly a time when I had gone too far.

  I had managed to get into the warehouse. That was simple. All I had to do was wait for a moment when there wasn’t anyone around and slip inside. I took a few photos with my flash off, and while I had a feeling they were going to be bad pics, they were going to give me what I needed.

  But, when I was just about to turn and head back out of the warehouse to go home, I heard someone at the door. It was too late for me to try to get back through the window where I had crept in, so I dove into one of the empty crates.

  The door opened, and three men walked in. Smith was one of them, and he was talking about the conversation that he had with me at the bar.

  “I’m telling you, that girl wasn’t
a reporter. I’m not sure what she was, but I can promise you she wasn’t in it to get the story. She had to be a cop or something.”

  “I could have told you that from the beginning,” one of the other men had said. I recognized the voice from the bar, but he and I hadn’t been introduced earlier that evening.

  “You should have put a bullet in her head right there,” the man continued. “That’s what I would have done.”

  “And been marked as a murderer right in the middle of one of the biggest bars in town?” Smith asked with a laugh. “No, I’m telling you, I gave her enough information that’s going to match with anything she might have on us, and she’s going to come here. Do you really think she had Rocco with her for the mere sake of it? No, I bet you the two of them are working together, and he’s going to be coming, too.”

  “We can make quite a dent in the MC if they try to attack,” one of the men said.

  “Yeah, and I’m hoping that they do it soon. We have enough weapons to bring down here we can hold them off for a while. I bet we can even take out that president if we play our cards right,” he said.

  My stomach lurched as I realized they were setting a trap for the MC. And, I had walked right into it.

  “And, what if she doesn’t think to come down here?” one of the guys asked. It was as though he could read my mind. I wasn’t going to go back to the warehouse if I knew they were staging an ambush, but then Smith spoke again, and my blood ran cold.

  “We’ll kidnap her. We can get her here one way or another, and when we do, we’ll have Rocco and the rest of them on our tails. That’s when we’ll strike,” he said.

  My stomach was in a knot, and I wanted to throw up. I shifted uneasily without even realizing it, but the shift was enough for the crate I was in to knock against another. The sound of the two boxes resounded through the air, and the silence in the room told me that the men knew I was there.

  The light went on overhead, and the next thing I knew, I was staring at the faces of the three men who had come into the warehouse. Smith was smiling down at me with an evil grin on his face, and though I couldn’t find the words to say, I didn’t need to.

  “Well, well, well… Look at you making my life a lot easier than it already was,” he said with a laugh. He reached forward to grab me, and I screamed. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of that, and all I could think about was all the terrible things they were going to go do me while they waited to get Rocco to come for me.

  And, worse than that, I could only imagine the ambush they were going to put in place and the fact I was going to have to watch as the men who were coming to my rescue were met with guns and ammo. These men knew what they were doing, and I wouldn’t have the chance to warn Rocco of what he was walking into.

  It would be all my fault, and I felt terrible. I had to get out of this. I had to fight my way out, but I was terrified. I was too scared to move. When the crash came against the side of the building, I hardly heard a thing but the gunshots that opened up around us.

  I screamed as I crawled back to the crate, not knowing what was happening, but praying to God I would be able to get out of the situation I was in. I didn’t want to die, but I was scared I was going to. More than that, I was scared I was going to get Rocco put in a position where he was killed in my stead.

  I knew he would rush into it without a thought to himself. That was just the way he was. He wasn’t afraid of anything, and he hated this man and his group.

  As I cowered in the bottom of the crate, I realized that it must be Rocco who had come for me. He had the GPS, and for all I knew, he was tracking me from the moment he left the bar. That was just the sort of thing he would do. Though I had hated to feel stalked, I was grateful now that he had done that.

  How else would he know where I was? How else would he be able to come to my rescue like that? I was so happy I could cry, but too terrified to make a noise. All I knew was that I was in the middle of a gunfight, and all I could do was hide and hope for the best.

  I hardly dared look out of the crate, but among the shouts, I recognized Rocco’s voice. Blade’s and Jett’s, too. They had come for me. Despite what I used to think about MCs, the Steel Wings had come together and were there to save me. Smith might have had his plan, and it might have worked if he had managed to get ready for it.

  But Jett was faster than he was, and they were already here. There wasn’t the time to get the weapons or to lure them into the trap. Rocco knew where I was from the beginning, and he wasn’t going to let anything happen to me.

  I might be scared, but I knew they had it under control.

  For the first time in my life, I felt like things were going to be okay, even as they were falling apart around me. I just hoped to God Rocco would come out of this without getting hurt. I knew he would be willing to die for me, but I didn’t want that.

  I couldn’t stand the idea of losing him after all we had done together. I loved Rocco. More than anything, I loved him.

  I needed him with me.

  Chapter 21

  Rocco

  I fought my heart out.

  I was furious when we got to the warehouse and found Amelia hiding in a crate. She was hidden from the view of the three men we could see inside the warehouse, but they were talking loud enough for us to hear their plans, and when Amelia made enough of a noise for them to discover her, it took all the control I had in my body not to go crazy.

  Jett was in control of the attack, and he made us wait for him to give the signal before we could come down on them, but when we were free to do so, I came down with all the wrath I had in me. There was no way in Hell I was going to let anyone stand who talked of kidnapping Amelia.

  The way they were looking down at her in the crate was enough to make me see red. I wasn’t going to let anyone put a finger on her, and anyone who tried was going to face me.

  The guns were firing, but I was more worried about where she was than what was going on in the fight itself. I wanted to shoot Smith in the face, but I knew we were trying to get them out of there without killing anyone. We wanted them to take the fall for the crime, and that would be hard to do if they were dead.

  No, we were going to have to go through with this carefully, making sure we had the upper hand throughout.

  “Amelia!” I called. “Get somewhere safe!”

  I didn’t want her there. A bullet could go through the side of the crate and kill her in an instant, and she didn’t stand a chance. She nodded, darting out of the crate and trying to climb on top of it. I wanted to shout at her to get down from there, but it was too late.

  She got nearly to the top when I had to turn my attention to one of the men who was firing at me directly. Jett wanted me to pay attention to the fight and see if I could maim one of the men, but it was hard for me to focus on anything with Amelia in danger.

  She struggled as she reached the top of the crate, then she screamed as it toppled and she fell. I shouted her name, wanting to run over to her to catch her as she hit the cement floor, but I was stuck where I was. Any move I made, and I knew I would be shot.

  The man on the other side of the building had me in his sight, and the only way to stay alive was to stay where I was. Amelia managed to struggle to her feet and pull herself out of the main area in the room once more, but I wanted to run to her and make sure she was okay.

  I was sure she had broken a bone in the fall. She hit the ground hard. The scream she had made was drowned largely by the gunfire, but I knew it was just a matter of time before the cops were called and this was going to come to an end. I just had to hold my ground until then.

  I had to stand firm and make sure I helped the rest of the guys in the fight. That was one thing we did for each other and one thing we could continue to do. We were meant for each other. We were meant to work together, and that’s what was going to happen no matter what.

  We fought as one, we rose as one, and we would fall as one. But tonight, we had the upper hand from the b
eginning, and as the sirens started to scream in the background, we knew we were going to come out of this on top, too.

  “Let’s get out of here, boys!” Smith shouted. “They aren’t worth the time right now or in jail!”

  All at once, the fire stopped. The three men ducked through the back of the building, avoiding being in range for anyone with a gun on our side, then they were gone. I wanted to chase after them and finish the fight. I wanted to see them fall one by one, but I knew I had more important things to do.

  “Let’s get out of here ourselves!” Jett shouted. He didn’t want to get tangled up with the cops again. Not with Roman still behind bars. The last thing we needed was another violent charge pending toward us.

  They were clearing out, but I headed back toward the side of the building where Amelia was hiding.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” I told her.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

  “You’re not fine, you’re going to the hospital,” I said.

  “No, I’m fine,” she tried to argue, but as she tried to stand, she wasn’t steady on her feet. I scooped her up in my arms and headed for the door as the sirens grew louder. The cops would be down on the building in an instant, but we were fast enough. I knew we would be out of there before they managed to get inside.

  We didn’t want to talk to them, and I had a feeling Amelia didn’t, either. She could deal with them when she dealt with the evidence she had been trying to get. She closed her eyes and laid her head against me as I carried her to my bike, trusting me to get her out of there.

  Of course, I was going to. I knew how to keep her safe, and I was going to make sure I did no matter what. I wanted her to be okay. She might not think she had to go to the hospital, but we weren’t going home until I found out for sure she was able to do so.