CHAPTER NINETEEN
*Lace*
Vee reaches back, grabs my wrist, and lifts it into the air. “Follow?” I ask to make sure I get the signal right. His helmet bobs. I open my hand, palm facing toward the front.
We take off, the pack thundering behind us. Vee tucks his thumb in the center of my palm, wraps his Memento Mori fingers around mine, and settles my arm around his waist, giving my hand an extra tight squeeze. Out of instinct, I curl my fingers to squeeze back, but this time the thought of doing that makes my heart twinge.
When I renege, Vee draws a circle on the sensitive center of my palm with his thumb, hand signaling a message meant only for me.
“Sorry,” his gentle touch wordlessly whispers.
“Not good enough,” my motionless hand silently cries in response.
Vee nods as though the conversation were held aloud. Unable to stomach looking at him any longer, seeing his heartbreaking expressions without truly seeing them, I huff and sling my focus sideways instead.
Bae must catch the abrupt motion because his focus moves from the road over to me. The emotion in his copper eyes is cold and detached, but there is just enough warmth remaining inside him to give me a soft head nod before his attention returns to the road.
What Kal said about someone swapping the assignments pops into my thoughts, materializing from my subconscious. I seldom ever see Bae without that folder on his person, and I happen to know from experience that he keeps it inside a custom pocket on the interior of his jacket when not in use. As the club secretary, that folder to him is like a gavel to a judge. Unofficially, I also happen to know that he keeps anything else of importance relating to their Bike Week dealings in there as well: Tit for Tat house fee documentation, meal receipts, and business cards, to name a few.
Just like that, I am faced with having to entertain Baylor — my Bae — as the man who organized a hit on my father. I have to consider all of them. Everyone is guilty.
The heavy and sharp double-edged sword of having been betrayed and having to betray in return thrusts into me all at once. My lungs spasm and pulse rockets, pounding in my head and mixing with the sound of the wind roaring through my helmet.
As breathing becomes more and more difficult, my helmet turns into an airless, seamless globe. Shaking, I scrabble for my face, my fingers clawing at the strap under my chin. The bike wobbles slightly, and Vee reaches over his shoulder, flips open my visor, grabs my wrist, yanks my arm around him, and places my palm on his chest. The humid breeze blasts over my eyes, making them water, and I reflexively hold my breath just like Reece did when I blew in her face before putting her under water.
My mind goes wild, unbidden, with thoughts of Reece being gone, Mom overdosing on the streets somewhere, and Dad taking his final breaths at the hand of the man who holds the keys to my chains.
“Breathe, Bella, breathe,” Vee yells over the roar of our environment before pressing my palms flush against his leather jacket to feel his chest expand and deflate with a big, slow inhale and exhale. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, my first attempts are short, choppy, desperate sips of the humid, salty breeze.
That arm drops to drape over my knee, and the other one continues to grip the handlebar. He leans us into a turn just as I take my first full, shaky recovery breath. “Good girl. In and out. Nice and slow. Just like that.” Vee squeezes my knee and brings the bike to a stop. Only then does everything happening around me resurge — packs of bikes, crowds, live music.
The vibration between my legs stops and, just like he did when I needed to get on, Vee wiggles his foot out away from his bike to give me more of a lean for my dismount and also offer his shoulder as support.
The spike of my heel reaches the parking lot asphalt, but I struggle to hike up the other leg high enough to complete the action. Mid attempt, two hands come to my waist and lift, giving me that little extra boost to weave my foot beneath me and get off his bike without gouging the paint of his cowl.
My downcast eyes float past my heaving cleavage to the fair and freckled hands covering the hollowed lace portion of my black steampunk style corset. Worried I might have another panic attack if I look into the rusty eyes and hair that go with that light complexion or, even worse, get desperately needy and ache to use him as a fix, I push his hands off of me, spin on my heels, and stagger away.
“Lace, wait!” Bae yells after me, but it only makes me move faster. Using the language they seem to understand best, I put my arm out and down at a ninety-degree angle, hand open and palm back in the riding hand signal meaning stop.
The familiar Italian accent that can only come from Vee mutters a warning to Bae, telling him to leave me. For now, I get away. For now, I get to take the damn road I want — the one that leads straight to Brodi and the meds in his trauma kit.