Free Forbidden Beauty (Coffin Cheaters Motorcycle Club) by Abriella Blake Page A

room—and locked the door, and
shoved a chair against the lock—I began to pace along the floorboards. This was
hot water like I'd never known before.
    I was so totally and completely in over my head. Time to
think, Gizzy. Think, think, think.
    At the very least, the whole MC wouldn't be out tailing Carter
tomorrow morning. I had done my best to protect my lover (or whatever I was
supposed to call him)—and at this point, not having his blood on my hands was
about the best I could do. But that didn't mean his club was safe from the
Cheaters' vengeance—especially not with cretins like Flapper on the road.
    Then again, I thought, halting my train of thought: who was
to say that the Styx hadn't killed Rodney? It seemed, in that moment, as
likely as not that our oldest enemies were behind the murder of our leader. And
Carter! He hadn't struck me as a liar, when he'd bragged to me in that darkened
bedroom about how he'd never killed a man—but was it possible that I'd been
hoodwinked? Might Knox, in some way, have been using me to get to Rodney?
Moreover, was Knox a killer? I paused in my treading, leaning against my
bedframe for support.
    But no, wait, hold up—a real leader didn't think this way.
There was no hard evidence, no proof whatsoever that Rodney had even been murdered on the beach with a Magnum...all I had to go on was the word of the
high council, and Lord knew that those three misers were capable of trading in
misinformation. It was certainly better to not jump to conclusions. And
some illogical but confident inner voice believed Knox—he couldn't be a
murderer. I figured that no one with those hands, those eyes, that mouth, was
capable of destroying life. Flapper, on the other hand, had the markings of a
madman. Even if I didn't know all the facts yet, I knew who I could trust.
    My mind was made up, if my allegiance was still confused: I
needed to get a message to the boy, and fast. If Carter was still bumming
around town because “he couldn't not touch me” (oh, how I flattered myself...),
he needed to scram. I also wanted my own answers: what were the Styx really doing back in Miami-Dade? Didn't they know how dangerous it was, even crossing
Coffin Cheaters turf?
     
    * * *
     
    Casablanca was uncharacteristically empty that night. The
dance floor, vacant, reminded me of an abandoned city pool that Tati and I used
to bum around, back during our brief, pre-teen flirtation with skateboards. The
whole bar was shuttered, the tiki torches unlit. I caught a glint of lonely
moonlight dancing on the tip of the sundial (/birdbath...), back in the
pavilion where he'd first touched me.
    “Hello?” I called into the empty, hearing only an echo. I
crept across the garden path towards Scotty's house. It was a weeknight, and
late, but still—I hadn't banked on the club looking like this. I crept across
the grounds, scanning the area for any sign of recent traffic, but: nothing.
Spooky.
    Before leaving the compound, I'd had to wait until all the
bikers had trundled off to bed. Huddled in a ball in the far corner of the top
bunk, I'd watched the big house until every last light had been extinguished.
Then I'd walked my ride in neutral down past the moat, waiting to climb aboard
until I was some distance away from the main house. It had been so strange. I
felt like a runaway, sneaking away from home in the middle of the night. And a
not-so-small part of me felt like a traitor.
    There appeared to be a single candle flickering in Scotty's
bedroom window, which I took as an invitation. Moseying up to his front door, I
knocked twice—lightly—on the screen door. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I
took note of the interior: the room was slightly disheveled, unlike it had been
a few nights prior. The living room furniture looked off-center to me, as if
someone had shoved the couches and tables to the side and then failed to return
them to their proper locations. Had there been some kind of skirmish here? Fear
began to