Shane (Mallick Brothers 1)

It wasn’t that far.

They couldn’t be that far ahead of me.

And the crazy thing was, after some sleep to smooth over my frazzled nerves, yeah, I lost all that victim mentality shit.

The fear was gone.

So was the worry.

So was the guilt, the embarrassment, and the willingness to take back seat and let other people handle my problems.

All that was left was a bone-deep kind of anger, the kind that made my blood boil, that made my skin itch.

The kind that maybe Eli tapped into when he raged out.

I was so done being on the run, jumping at shadows, not being able to fall asleep because of the stress.

I was so fucking done.

It was time to face up my demons.

See, the Mallick men didn’t realize one thing. It wasn’t only the MC who I knew in Cali.

I had friends. The kind that were willing to go twenty miles out of their way to see me and give me a bike. The kind who would give me illegal guns and a supply of bullets.

Okay. So they were less friends and more some of my criminal exes. But whatever. In a pinch, you had to do what you had to do.

I sat down on the side of the bed, raking a hand through my crazy hair as I reached for the phone. It was more than a little bit of a miracle that I could remember their numbers.

“The fuck you got yourself into now, you crazy bitch?” the first asked as soon as he heard my voice. “I am not bailing your ass out again because you went streaking with a bunch of random fucks you met at a bar.”

“Nice to talk to you too, Grig,” I said, smiling and shaking my head, time making his attitude funny where it used to rake over me like cat claws. “That’s not the kind of pinch I’m in this time.”

“Alright, I’ll bite,” he said, moving away from the noise around him, surprising me. I swear to all that was holy, when we dated, he refused to ever turn down the fights when they were on, no matter how important what I was saying was. “What kind of pinch are you in then, LeLe?”

God, I hated that nickname.

“So remember the MC?”

“You mean the fucks who wouldn’t let me step foot on the property when I came to pick you up? That MC?”

“Yeah, well. The new president and I had a thing. He…”

“He what?” he prompted, sounding like he expected me to say anything but what I did. When I was finished, there was a long pause. “What do you need from me?”

“From you? A bike and helmet and a pair of boots.”

“You got it. Give me the address and I will be there as soon as possible.”

I gave him the address, hung up, then picked up the phone again, my stomach twisting a little. Grig and I, for all intents and purposes, had a relatively normal relationship, him being a mechanic and small-time underground fighter. I knew, despite what he had said when I first said hello, he’d have come and bailed me out. But me and Leo, yeah, there was some weird history there. A big part of that might have had something to do with the fact that he sold guns to local gangs, a fact he never told me about and then we fought about when I found out on my own. But, being the guy with the guns, he was the guy I needed.

“Leo, it’s Lea.”

There was a pause. “Seriously?” he asked, exhaling hard. I had been the one to dump him. And it had been ugly. “What the fuck could you possibly have to say to me?”

I laid it out quickly, each time telling it somehow making it easier. Like with Grig, there was a long pause. “And the reason you didn’t call me to put a fucking plug in him the first fucking time is…” he said, surprising me. He exhaled again. “Alright. So I’m assuming you’re not calling me because you want me to make you some chili,” he said, and I felt myself smile slightly. He really did make good chili. “So I’m assuming you need guns.”

“You’d be right,” I agreed.

About an hour later, I was opening the hotel room door to see two men standing side-by-side, both looking equally uncomfortable being near each other, but both sets of eyes on me.

Really, I apparently had a type.

Grig and Leo were both tall, built, with tattoos and a certain roughness around their mouths and eyes. While Grig had brown eyes, Leo had green. But aside from that, they were both dark-haired, jean and tee-wearing, badasses.

“That’s a look,” Grig said, and I noticed the boots in his hand, giving me what was an imitation of a smile, him obviously not looking at me quite the same after hearing my story. I noticed the same quality in Leo too, making me painfully aware and wholly thankful that I had found Shane who never looked at me differently.