Ignite (Savage Disciples MC Book 4) Read online

  I went up to the front door first, but saw the lights were off inside, which surprised me since it was only just after three. I’d seen people still working in the open garage bays, so I walked that way.

  When I reached the first one, there were two men standing inside talking. One was huge, as in really, really tall and built, and the sight of him made my feet stop where they were. Talking to him was a dark-haired man who was nothing to sneeze at in the size or muscle department either—though he didn’t compare to his friend. He was also holding a little boy, who had to be his son. Either that, or someone had perfected cloning and I’d missed the memo.

  And, trust me, I hadn’t missed the memo. I’d had a fear of and fascination with cloning since I first watched Obi-Wan discover the clone army on Kamino.

  “Need some help, pretty girl?” the really big guy asked, having noticed me standing there like a fool thinking about Attack of the Clones.

  “Um…”

  Wow. That was articulate, Quinn.

  But really, I was a little tongue tied. The guy was huge and hot, and he just called me pretty girl. I might have been comfortable enough in my own skin, but it wasn’t like I had a constant stream of guys telling me they thought I was attractive—particularly guys like that.

  Actually, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a guy like that before, so maybe that statement was irrelevant.

  “You got car trouble?” he asked, his friend with the cute little boy looking my way now.

  “Actually, I’m looking for someone,” I finally spat out. “Is Jack Wieser here?”

  They both took a minute to look me up and down—and not in an appreciative way that went with the “pretty girl” comment. It was appraising, which told me they were members of the MC and they weren’t going to let me see Jack if they didn’t like what they saw.

  I let them consider me without comment, figuring there was no point in actively trying to look non-threatening since I was as non-threatening as the man’s son compared to them.

  “Why are you looking for him?” the tall guy finally asked.

  “I’m an old friend,” I went with.

  From the less-than-welcoming expression on the face of the one with the little boy, I got the impression he was unsure about me, but could also plainly see the damage I could do was minimal to say the least. They exchanged a glance before the father spoke.

  “I’m Gauge,” he introduced himself, then jerked his head toward the tall guy. “That’s Ham.” Ham gave me a flirty grin. He pointedly did not introduce his son, but I couldn’t fault him for that. I was a stranger and he was obviously the protective type.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Quinn.”

  They both gave me nods, Ham’s still accented with a smirk, as Gauge went on, “We’re Disciples. You know about the club?”

  I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that question. Had I known he meant the Savage Disciples MC? Yes. Had I known Jack was a member along with the two of them? Yes. Beyond that, I knew nothing.

  Still, I answered, “Yes.”

  “There’s a party at the clubhouse tonight. He’s already there. You know where it is?”

  I thought about the address John had given me for Jack’s home. He said it was owned by the club. “On Sycamore?”

  “That’s the one. Head there and you’ll find him.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to their clubhouse, and less sure I wanted to do it during a party. I didn’t party, unless you counted movie marathon nights as a party. From what I understood—from what I’m pretty sure anyone understood—biker parties were in a league of their own. A league infinite levels above my fuzzy socks and dessert wine nights in, even when Max came over and upped the alcohol quotient.

  However, I wasn’t sure I had much of a choice now. If I didn’t go, they would tell Jack I’d been by. I might have been nervous about facing him, but I didn’t want him to know that.

  “Right. Thanks,” I replied, forcing brightness into my voice. I gave them a little wave as I turned to go back to my car.

  Before I got far, Gauge called after me. When I turned, he said, “When you get there, ask for Ace. Not everyone will know who you’re talking about if you say Jack. Yeah?”

  Ace.

  Right.

  Figured he'd have a new name. He was practically a stranger to me now.

  “Gotcha.”

  Guess it was time to go to the clubhouse.

  Max would be thrilled.

  I sipped the last of my beer, getting the warm dregs and regretting the choice. Before I could even think to get up and grab another, Ember came back and set a fresh one down for me before taking her seat on Jager’s lap with theirs. Jager was my brother in the Savage Disciples MC, and Ember was the woman he'd recently made his old lady.

  “I don’t get one?” Daz, another Disciple brother, demanded from next to me, giving Ember a fake hurt look.

  Jager, who was clearly more interested in his woman being back where he wanted her than the beer she brought him, answered, “She’s not your waitress, jackass.”

  “She brought him one,” Daz bitched, pointing at me.

  Jager lost interest in him though, his face disappearing into Ember’s blonde curls to get at her neck. Sometimes, it still surprised me to see the surly fucker like that with her. They'd only been together a short while, but it was still weird to see him as the affectionate type in any way. I got it, though. I wasn’t into Ember, but that didn’t mean I was blind or stupid. She was fucking hot, even more so when she did her whole pin-up look, like right then—tight as hell dress, tall red heels, red lips to match. My tastes went for a different fruit, but I couldn’t miss the appeal. And all of that was ignoring the fact that Ember was a pretty fucking special human being beneath the packaging. So special, she'd become one of the closest people to me, as well as him, since she'd arrived.

  Jager would have to be an idiot not to appreciate what he had, and he might have been a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them.

  “I get special privileges,” I told Daz.

  “Don’t talk about having privileges with my woman,” Jager snapped, his voice muffled by Ember’s skin.

  She laughed. “Should I just change my name to Jager’s Woman? Is that more accurate than Ember now?”

  Jager’s reply was quiet, but I heard it. “Don’t test me, pet.”

  Daz stood, presumably to go get his own fucking beer, muttering, “Bunch of pussy-whipped assholes I ride with.”

  Ember met my eyes and shook her head. “One day, he’s going to be truly fucked. It’s going to be hilarious.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but she wasn’t wrong. It would be entertaining as hell to watch.

  We were all hanging out in the clubhouse, a converted furniture warehouse the Savage Disciples had bought years back. We were in the big lounge area consisting of a handful of couches and chairs, a battered bar, a pool table, and a couple TVs. There were also rooms for the brothers if we chose to stay here overnight, and plenty of space for other shit that might come up.

  The grounds around back were large enough to host parties like the one on at the moment. Odds were Daz was headed outside where there were plenty of patch chasers ready to fuck any Disciple who showed interest. I probably should have followed him instead of watching Jager get more worked up until he dragged Ember off to deal with that. It was a dance the two of them had been doing plenty of since they sorted their shit a few weeks back, and I didn’t need to see it again.

  Still, the shit out back didn’t appeal to me.

  I was taking a long drink of my fresh beer when Tank called my name from near the front door. My eyes went there just as he continued with, “Someone here to see you.”

  I didn’t need him to say that. I saw who was standing with him.

  Quinn.

  If she was here, she was looking for me.

  Fuck.

  Ember’s eyes moved between Quinn and me as I stood. She started to pull away from Jager to stand, no doub
t to her man’s dismay, but I didn’t wait around to see how that panned out. It didn’t matter.

  Quinn was here.

  That mattered.

  I walked her way, taking her in. Her hair was different, cut so it only came midway down her neck with bangs across her forehead. It was cute. Fit her. She used to get lost beneath all her long hair and the new look didn't hide her away. She wore a sweater over a shirt that clung to her body and a pair of jeans. I was surprised there wasn’t a logo or a saying in sight. When she wasn’t at work, she used to always wear clothes that celebrated all the shows and shit she was into.

  Maybe the packaging wasn’t the only thing that was different.

  It had been two years since I’d seen her. She could be an entirely different person.

  When I was close, I could see the sorrow in her brown eyes she hid from the rest of her face.

  “Quinn,” I said, drawing a fucking blank on anything else.

  “Hi,” she answered.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked, as if I only owed her some small favor. I could spend a year catering to her every whim and everything still wouldn't magically be fine.

  I wanted to choke those words back down as soon as I said them, but life didn’t work that way.

  Her face went blank.

  Fuck, I was a moron.

  “What can you do for me?” she repeated, like she was trying to figure out some other way to take that. She shook her head slowly. “What can you do for me?” she said again.

  “Quinn,” I started, but she spoke up.

  “You know what you can do for me, Jack?” she bit out. I’d never seen her angry. Honestly, if you’d asked me years ago, I might have said the girl couldn't get angry, that it just wasn't in her nature.

  Of course, she had a fucking reason, didn’t she?

  She dug into her purse and pulled out a thick envelope. I knew what was in there. It was the same fucking paperwork she’d sent my way more than once. The same paperwork I’d gotten Jager—our resident computer genius—to erase from state records so nothing could come from it.

  “You can sign the freaking papers. No more doing whatever the hell you’ve done to make my motions disappear. Just sign them so I never have to see you again,” she seethed.

  “Quinn,” I tried again, but she wasn’t having it.

  “Just sign, Jack!” she snapped. “Why can’t you do this one thing for me? After everything? It’s not like I’m asking for something huge. It doesn’t even matter to you!”

  She was breathing fast, heavy, and I reached for her, hoping to center her.

  She gave a jerky step sideways and shoved a hand against my chest while crying out, “No!”

  Pain burst through my chest at the contact, stealing my breath and causing me to double over. It’d been weeks since I’d felt more than a twinge from the spot, but she’d gotten me just right to make it feel like that shit had barely healed.

  “Fuck,” I heard.

  There was movement beside me, then hands on my arm and back. The touch was so gentle, it barely registered.

  “Are you okay?” Ember asked in a soft, steady voice that felt odd against the pain, and just fucking wrong against the state Quinn was in. Soft and steady didn't fit.

  And the answer to her question? Not fucking likely. The physical pain was only half of my concern. Quinn being that upset took up the rest. I wanted to look at her, to calm her down, but I was still getting my breath back. My fucking body would not cooperate.

  “Shit, honey, it might’ve been a few months back, but the man’s still recovering. GSWs ain’t no joke,” Tank chastised Quinn, not harshly, but it was firm.

  “GSW?” Quinn repeated in a tense voice. “A gunshot wound?”

  Fuck.

  Mustering all the strength I could, I forced my eyes open and to her before straightening even as my body resisted.

  She had blanched, her body eerily still as she looked at me in abject horror.

  “You…” she choked out, “you were shot?”

  I didn’t answer, didn’t need to.

  “You were shot and I…I didn’t even know,” she went on.

  That knowledge settled in for her and I saw how it did. It was as if she shattered, but she didn’t move a muscle. The deafening silence, the violent stillness, it ricocheted through me with a brutal force even the bullets ripping through my flesh all those months ago couldn’t compare to. I forgot all about the radiating pain coming from my chest, my body taken over by the sudden swell of nausea at what I saw her in her eyes.

  Nothing.

  She took a couple steps forward, holding the envelope out toward Ember, who took it hesitantly.

  “Sign the papers, Jack,” she said in a dead voice. “Obviously, there’s no reason for you not to.”

  That parting shot, so much worse than the physical blow she’d dealt, was all she gave before she turned and walked out.

  “Ace,” Ember called out to me, but I didn’t respond.

  I watched the spot where Quinn disappeared in every type of agony I could imagine.

  “You okay, brother?” Tank asked.

  I didn’t answer him either.

  “Who was that?” a soft voice asked from behind me.

  Ash, Sketch's woman. I'd seen the pair of them around, enjoying having a sitter for their daughter tonight. Coincidentally, the woman I'd been watching out for when I'd taken those two slugs—the woman who made the pain worth it every time I saw her happy and healthy with her family.

  Apparently, a crowd had gathered to watch the fucking horror show. The Disciples—brothers and their women alike—were gathered around to witness my greatest fucking shame. As much as I wanted to deny it, to keep it hidden, there was no way for that to go on.

  Only Jager, Ember, and Stone knew. Just the three of them. Stone was the club president, so his knowing was non-negotiable. Jager had known just as long since he’d run the background check on me before I became a prospect. Had he not, I would have had to tell him either way since I’d needed him to do exactly as Quinn had said: bury the trail of her court motions. When those fucking papers Ember held had been served before, he’d made it go away.

  Ember knew because she’d needed me. When Jager had been taken by an asshole with too much power and too little sense a couple weeks back, when we’d been headed for him not knowing what condition he was in, she’d needed me to get her through. So, I’d bared my soul to her.

  Now, they would all know.

  Without me saying a thing, Ember knew it was time. She answered Ash's question for me.

  “His wife.”

  I drove away in a blur. It was lucky the way back to the hotel was easy. If not, I might have kept driving for hours. Instead, I parked and went to my room. Collapsing on the still meticulously made bed, I told myself I should have felt relieved. He hadn’t fought, hadn’t tried to stop me when I left, hadn’t voiced any sort of objection to signing the papers.

  Maybe it would finally just be over and I could shift my focus to moving on.

  Or trying to, anyway.

  Gunshot wound.

  The phrase kept coming back to me in a perpetual loop.

  He’d been shot.

  He was nearly healed from being shot.

  How long had it been since it happened? How long did he keep that to himself?

  If I wanted to, I could find out. Somehow, he’d managed to put me on his health insurance despite my wishes, and I could access the plan information.

  He did a lot of things like that. He deposited money into the account I’d given him access to when we were married. He knew I wouldn't do a thing with the joint one we'd opened. I never touched a cent of what he put in mine either, but he kept putting money in. I’d been tempted more than once to close the account, but that would require taking the money. I didn’t want it, not how it came.

  I didn’t want a damn thing from him when he wouldn’t give me the one thing I did want: him.

  I wanted the man who
was supposed to be my husband.

  I wanted to be in his life.

  Though I hadn’t been in two years, since the day he left, I never would have guessed he’d shut me out so completely, he wouldn’t even call me when he’d been hurt that way. It drove home a point I’d been in denial over for a long time.

  Jack and I were done.

  There was no refuting it now. There was no whispered what if in the back of my mind, wondering if coming to him might have woken him up, made him realize what we could still be. It made me sick to my stomach to think I’d even entertained the idea when I’d finally made the decision to confront him. Somewhere in my mind, I’d let myself think there must have been a reason he’d done whatever he did to make my divorce filings disappear.

  It was a dream, a childish fantasy.

  How much time passed before my phone started ringing, I couldn’t say, but I knew exactly who it would be.

  “It’s done,” I said by way of greeting.

  The voice that replied was not Max.

  “It’s not done.”

  I actually gasped, like some Victorian lady of the manor with a fit of the vapors. It was embarrassing, but I pushed through.

  “It is done, Jack. Just sign the papers. No contest. I won’t try to take anything from you,” I insisted.

  “Yeah, I fucking know that,” he muttered.

  It seemed he was keeping abreast of what was—or, more aptly, was not—happening with the money he deposited into my account.

  When he said nothing more, seemingly refusing to acknowledge the divorce filing, I pressed, “What do you want?”

  “Your room number,” he answered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m in the lobby,” he replied. “Just need your room number.”

  “For what?” I demanded, my heart beating out a frantic staccato at the thought of him coming to my room.

  “Little bird—”

  I’d never know whether he intended to say more. I didn’t care. Those two words, the pet name he’d given me when we’d first met, the affectionate phrase he’d snuck into the vows we took, cut through me like a knife.

  I, Jack Nicholas Wieser, take the Quinn Diane Young, my little bird, to be my lawfully wedded wife.