Outlaw's Promise Read online

  And as I started to get older he started to look at me in a way he never had before. He never did anything. Not once. But the staring and the resentment built until the two were twisted together like choking ivy around a blackened, scarred tree. He hated me; he wanted me.

  I’d long since memorized the phone number Carrick gave me but I didn’t call. Calling the number would take its power away. As long as I held onto it, like a talisman, I could pretend that he could still come and rescue me.

  He grew in my mind, becoming larger-than-life. I remembered those blue eyes and that hard, strong jaw: I’d only been a kid at the time but now I was sure he’d been gorgeous. As I got older, the fantasies changed: I thought of hard abs, of tanned biceps under a tight white t-shirt. Beneath the covers, I thought of that Irish voice growling Annabelle and I gasped his name in return.

  Even when I hit eighteen I still couldn’t move out: my waitressing job barely made enough to pay the bills and my step-dad kept reminding me that he’d put a roof over my head for years so I owed him. My grades were good but there was no way I could afford college.

  But I found that my weird mind was good for something: I could fix things. People would bring me lawnmowers and chainsaws to mend. I was like a doctor with a patient: a machine that was out of whack felt wrong to me, the sound made me itchy and jumpy and I couldn’t leave it alone until I’d fixed it. In my head, the machines just sort of came apart into shining pieces and I could sift through them and figure out what was wrong. I was happier around machines than around people: machines didn’t laugh at how cheap my clothes were or make me feel like a freak. It brought in a little extra money but my step-dad was starting to run up debts with his drinking: first to bars, then to banks and then to loan sharks.

  I didn’t know how to talk to guys: I’d mumble and flush...and who’d want the weird girl from the farm way out of town, who still lives with her dad and has grease under her fingernails? I worked a seven day week as a waitress because at least that got me out of the house, then stayed up late fixing.

  The years stretched ahead of me, inevitable and identical. I thought life couldn’t get any worse.

  And then, one night, it did.

  2

  Annabelle

  Now

  I came home to find my dad talking to a guy I didn’t recognize: a biker. For an instant, my mind went to Carrick...but this guy was much older: forty or more, with a bald head and a thick, dark beard shot through with gray. The front of his leather cut had a shining metal spider the size of my hand on the chest, positioned as if it was scurrying upwards towards the man’s face. It had been made with jointed legs so that it seemed to tense, ready to pounce, every time the man moved, the metal clinking and rattling. It made my skin crawl. The patches on his cut said Blood Spiders and President.

  “Go upstairs,” said my step-dad, as if I was still a teenager. But he had that drunk, don’t argue with me tone, so I climbed the stairs, feeling their eyes on my ass the whole way. Instead of heading into my room, I hunkered down behind the handrail and listened.

  “How many are coming?” my step-dad muttered.

  “About thirty,” the biker told him. “Enough you’ll get a good price.”

  He’s selling drugs, I decided. But I couldn’t imagine him as a drug farmer. He had no knack for growing things. Meth? When would he cook? He barely left his armchair. He must have gotten hold of a package of something cheap and was hoping to sell it on….

  My step dad’s voice again. “Is that guy coming?”

  “Let’s hope so. I sent him the photo.”

  What photo? Why would he take a photo of drugs?

  My step dad went quiet for a moment.

  The biker’s voice grew low and hard. “You got second thoughts,” he said, “you tell me fucking now. People show up, there ain’t no getting cold feet: there’d be a riot. And if Volos turns up and you try to back out, he’ll kill you. He’ll kill me, too. The guy’s serious. Protected. You gotta be sure.”

  I heard my step dad knock back some whiskey. “I’m sure.”

  “Go get her ready.”

  Sometimes, your mind just refuses to go there. Her? A car. He must be auctioning a car. People sometimes called cars her, especially if they were old and valuable. Did he have something stashed in a barn I didn’t know about?

  The door banged as the biker left. A moment later, my step-dad came upstairs. I raced for my room and he found me there.

  “Get changed,” he said. “Put on a dress. Put on some make-up.”

  My mind finally started to swing around, like a boat pulled loose from its moorings by a whirlpool grown too powerful to resist. I sat there and gaped at him but my brain still refused to accept it. That’s insane. Things like that don’t happen.

  I couldn’t ask. Asking the question would make it real. Instead, I said, “I don’t have a dress.” I wore a uniform for waitressing and jeans at home. I didn’t go on dates. I hadn’t owned a dress in years.

  “Wear that one your mom left you.”

  My stomach twisted. My mom had left me an old, bottle-green vintage dress that I’d always loved when I’d seen it on her. It was small on me and not really suitable for anything other than a vintage-themed ball—it was a keepsake, not something I’d wear.

  Our eyes locked. I could feel mine going big, desperate. Please don’t let this be real. This can’t be real.

  And for a second, I saw his eyes soften and he looked away in guilt. My stomach plunged down to my feet because suddenly I knew I was right.

  “You can’t do this,” I told him. My voice had gone thick and hoarse. “You can’t—You can’t sell a person.”

  “I provided for you and your mom for years. Time you made a contribution.”

  I wanted to scream at him that I’d been the one paying the bills for years...but I knew it wouldn’t matter. In his mind, I was still the unwanted kid he’d been stuck with. “You can’t….” I shook my head, cold fear climbing my chest. I couldn’t get my head around the concept. I hadn’t known that things like this even went on: was I just naive? “Please!” I said at last, my eyes filling with tears.

  “Get ready!” he snapped. Then he turned and left, slamming the door behind him.

  I turned to my closet and took out the dress.

  I wouldn’t normally have let him drive when he was that drunk, but he was too riled up for me to risk arguing with him. So I clutched at the edges of the seat as we bounced and skidded on the dirt roads, cutting cross-country. At first I thought we were heading to Teston, the nearest big town, but we passed by and stopped on a country road a few miles beyond it.

  It was a bar, but take off the neon sign and it could have been a barn. Basic and functional, a place for people who just want to get wasted, away from the prying eyes in town. The parking lot was already full of cars, a biker with a shotgun standing by the entrance to vet people as they arrived. I saw him turn some cars away, pointing to the sign above the door: Private Function.

  Tonight had been organized. Planned. Everyone had known about it except me.

  The cold fear that had started in my bedroom had spread to fill my whole body. I am going to be sold. To a man. I knew it would be for sex, either with him or....customers. I’d serve him, or I’d be on my back in some brothel until I was too old and then he’d kill me. I was so scared I thought I was going to throw up. This can’t be happening. I’m twenty years old. This can’t be all my life is going to be.

  Our car stopped beside the biker—he too had one of those leather cuts with the spider on it. “This her?” he asked.

  I tried to shrink in my seat. The biker’s eyes trailed all the way down my body: ugly lust, the kind that makes you cross the street to get away. My mom’s dress had looked great on her but on me it was too tight across the bust, the front too low cut for my larger breasts. Where it had flowed elegantly over her hips, it clung to mine, outlining my ass.

  “Did Volos show up yet?” asked my step-dad, slurring a lit
tle. He was even drunker than I’d thought. Was he trying to block out the reality of what he was doing?

  The name made the biker nervously scan the line of cars behind him. “Not yet. C’mon. Hay’s waiting for you.”

  Who’s Volos? The name sounded foreign. Whoever he was, he scared the hell out of even the bikers.

  We were met at the back door by the guy who’d come to our house, the Blood Spiders President. I guessed he was Hay. “Put her in there,” he said, nodding at a door. “We’ll start in five, whether Volos shows up or not. The guys are getting impatient.”

  My step-dad gave me a push from behind. I stumbled—he’d insisted I put on heels and I wasn’t used to walking in them.

  I think the room was supposed to be a dressing room. A cheap bathroom mirror hung crooked on the wall. Outfits on hangers dangled from a washing line: lingerie and tiny skirts and tops, some of them latex and leather. The Blood Spiders must offer strippers or hookers here, when they weren’t auctioning women.

  I spun and grabbed my step dad’s arm just as he turned to leave. “Please!” I begged. “Don’t do this!”

  Again, I saw that momentary softening. He knew this was wrong. But then he looked at the floor. “It’ll be okay,” he muttered. “Pretty thing like you, you’ll do okay.”

  I gaped at him. Did he really believe that? Did he really think any guy who’d buy his woman would treat me well? When he looked up and met my eyes again, I knew he was trying to convince himself as much as me. “Please!” I begged again.

  He shook his head and pulled out of my grasp. “Don’t have a choice,” he told me gruffly, and pulled the door closed behind him.

  Shit! I started to panic-breathe. This is really going to happen. In five minutes, if I don’t get out of here.

  I looked around: no windows. I opened the door a crack and peeked out at the hallway. To my left, it ended in a set of double doors that I guessed led to the main room. I could hear thumping rock music and the yelling of excited men. I can’t let them take me in there. If I did, my fate was sealed.

  I looked the other way, towards the back door. My heart sank: a biker was leaning against it, standing guard. Shit!

  The only other door was directly across the hall. A cheap plastic sign read Office. That was my only chance. Maybe there’d be a window I could crawl through.

  The biker standing guard lit a cigarette, then glanced up at the smoke detector in the hallway and cursed. For a glorious moment, I thought he was going to step outside to smoke. But he just inhaled, opened the door a little and blew the smoke outside, then turned back to the hallway. I felt sick with tension. I’d have to run across when he next turned away. I’d have seconds.

  He lazily inhaled. My hand tightened on the doorknob….

  He turned. I dashed across the hallway and through the door to the office. I stood there with my back against the door for a second, shaking...but there were no footsteps in the hallway. He hadn’t seen me.

  I looked around. The lights were off but enough light came from the crack under the door for me to make out a desk, a chair and some bookshelves. No window.

  I wanted to cry. Please? Just a little luck?

  I started to search the room for anything I could use. I was shaking, close to hysterical—

  A phone. An old-fashioned corded one, the plastic cracked, the handset covered in peeling stickers. I grabbed it and held it to my ear, praying. Yes! There was a dial tone. I pushed the buttons for 911.

  The noise from the main room suddenly rose in volume as someone opened the double doors. Shit!

  The call connected. “911 Emergency.” A woman’s voice, calm and reassuring.

  “Please help me! I’m in a bar outside Teston—”

  My voice trailed off as I realized I was talking to a recording. “...and an operator will answer your call as soon as one becomes available.”

  No! I could hear voices in the hallway: the Blood Spiders President—Hay—and my step-dad. I crouched down behind the desk, but that would only buy me a few seconds at best. Come on! But the recorded 911 message just kept looping and looping. I hung up and stared at the phone’s keypad in desperation. Who else could I call?!

  The shamrock necklace swung forward and brushed my wrist.

  It’s been twelve years. He won’t be there. He might be in jail or dead or—

  I heard my step-dad open the door to the dressing room. “Annabelle?” he asked in puzzlement.

  My chest went tight. I prayed...and dialed the number I’d memorized.

  “Fuck!” said Hay from the hallway. I heard him stomp towards the guard at the back door. “You let her out to take a piss or something?”

  The line connected and the phone at the other end started to ring.

  “No!” It sounded like the guard was choking. “No one came outta there!”

  The phone rang and rang. Come on. COME ON!

  The door to the office swung open and I closed my eyes, trying to disappear. I heard Hay curse and his footsteps retreated: he hadn’t seen me. But there were only so many places I could have gone. When they searched again….

  The call was answered and my heart leapt...but it was a voice I didn’t recognize. Another recording. “You’ve reached Hell’s Princes,” rasped the man. “Leave a fucking message.”

  More voices, right outside the office door: Hay, my step-dad and three or four others. “C—Carrick?” I stammered. “I don’t know if you’ll get this. It’s Annabelle. I’m in trouble. I’m at a place outside Teston, a bar. There are bikers: Blood Spiders. They’re going to—”—my voice choked up as I tried to say the words—”S—Sell me—”

  The door burst open and the light went on. Heavy boots thumped across the room and then a biker with dirty blond stubble was looming over the desk. “Got her!” he yelled.

  I scrambled back across the room away from him. I was still clutching the handset so the phone fell off the desk and crashed on the floor. The line went dead.

  “Shit!” the biker said. He grabbed my wrist and hauled me to my feet. I tried to twist away and he slapped me hard across the face with a meaty hand. I cried out, seeing stars.

  More men burst in behind him: Hay, my step-dad, a few others. “She was on the phone!” the blond biker told them.

  “Who did you call?” Hay snarled. He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me right off my feet, his thumb digging into my windpipe. “Who did you call, girl? The cops?”

  I clawed at the hand holding me but his grip was like iron. I couldn’t breathe, my airway narrowed down to the width of a drinking straw.

  “911,” I croaked. “But...they didn’t...answer.”

  He gazed into my eyes a second longer then tossed me: a piece of rubbish he was finished with. My legs buckled and I went down on my ass, only for the blond-haired biker to wind his fist into my hair and use it to haul me to my feet. “Auction’s starting,” he told me. “Let’s go.”

  They marched me out of the office and down the hallway to the main room. As we approached, the noise of the crowd rose up like a wall to meet me. They opened the double doors—

  And I entered hell.

  3

  Carrick

  I kicked down my bike’s kickstand, switched off the engine and stretched, wincing as my shoulders complained. They’d been doing that a lot, recently, after a long ride. Felt like someone had been beating me with an iron bar.

  But it didn’t matter: I was home.

  The clubhouse was lit up in front of me, amber light flooding out of the mesh-covered windows, flames licking out of the oil drum barbecue out front. It was ugly as hell but to me it was as comforting a sight as any picture-postcard mansion. Inside, there’d be women, cold beer and sticky slow-cooked ribs from the barbecue.

  I needed it. I needed to lose myself for a few hours to forget what I’d just done.

  I swung my leg over my bike and marched across the compound. The party was already spilling out into the warm California night: I saw members, swigging bee
r and talking business; prospects scurrying around bringing them fresh bottles; a couple of hangers on and, yep, some girls. The girls all looked the same: blonde, short denim shorts, tight t-shirts and big eyes. They gasped and nudged each other as they listened to the men tell them about shit they’d done. Can you believe this, their expressions said. Real bikers!

  But when they saw me, they swallowed and backed away. That’s the thing about being the club’s enforcer, their scary fucker: you don’t get to choose who’s scared of you.

  But there are always one or two girls who hear what I do and get excited, not scared. Right on cue, one of them slid her arm around my waist as I walked past. “You want to get me a beer?” she asked, all white teeth and lip gloss.

  I could feel my cock swelling as I looked down her body from her fake tits to the jewel that glittered in her navel. But I knew it wasn’t me she was after. She just wanted a taste of bad, wanted a lights-on, no limits, gasping, panting fuck they’d never forget. And who better to let between her thighs than the club’s big Irishman, the angel of vengeance they unleash on their enemies? I’d be the ultimate act of rebellion.

  “Get your own fuckin’ beer,” I spat, and walked on.

  I was doing her a favor. Oh, sure, I’d be happy to toss her on a bed and pound her. It would help me put tonight’s job out of my mind. But then, in the morning, she’d realize what she’d done and run a mile.

  I’m the guy the outlaws call on when they need to teach someone a lesson. I’m the last resort of the fringes of society. Who’d want to be involved with me?

  Better that people are scared. Better that they stay away. It keeps things simple.

  As soon as I got inside, a hand grabbed my shoulder. I turned to see Mac, our President. “It’s done,” I grunted.

  Two drug dealers had thought they could deal in our town. They’d both be waking up in the hospital and they’d get the hell out of California as soon as they could walk again. That’s what I do: I protect the club’s interests, whether that means intimidation, a beating or ending someone. It’s what I’m good at. Maybe all I’m good at. Except…