Exquisite Redemption (Iron Horse MC Book 3) (18 page)

Beach kissed my forehead, his scruff rough against me. “Come on, let’s get some chow in you then bed. Got a long day ahead of us tomorrow so get your sleep tonight, you’re gonna need it.”

Chapter 8

Carlos “
Beach
” Rodriguez

S
arah had fallen asleep in her chair after inhaling a large club sandwich and plate of fruit. Dark circles stood out beneath her eyes, and a myriad of bruises had begun to bloom on her smooth skin. We were back out in the main cabin, but I’d kept her away from everyone, needing to shelter her from my world as long as possible. Once we landed I would have a metric shit ton of stuff I had to personally attend, which meant I wouldn’t have a chance to settle her in anywhere personally. I fuckin’ hated the world for interrupting us, but I couldn’t put off business any longer.

I set down my cup of coffee with a weary sigh and stood, but before I could get to Sarah, Hulk was there. He was coming back to Austin to train with Big Al on a new hacking technique and I appreciated him taking the time to do this, but I didn’t like him reaching for my woman.

When I went to stop him, he said, “Lemme get her up. Carrying a woman with your leg all fucked up is not a good idea. Hard to impress a lady when you’re stuck in a wheelchair, Prez.”

His voice was just loud enough so I could hear it over the jet’s engines, but I nodded. My pride wanted to insist I could carry her, but the reality was I couldn’t afford any more injuries and I was smart enough to admit that. Didn’t mean I liked the idea of him touching her, but she needed to get back in the bedroom so I could do some business out here with the boys. ’Sides, Hulk had taken a shine to her and I knew my brother was not the kind of man who’d overstep his bounds with any woman. “Thanks.”

The moment Hulk touched Sarah, she shot out of her chair and away from him, her hands raised in a defensive stance while sleep still filled her eyes.

We all startled, none of us expecting such a violent response from a sleeping woman. I mentally cursed myself for not realizing this would be her reaction, and hoped like shit she didn’t kick my ass when I approached her.

“Easy. Just Hulk helpin’ you to bed,
mi riena
.”

She darted a quick look at me, then back to Hulk, then to me again and dropped her stance. “Right.”

I reached out slowly and held one of her hands, lacing our fingers together until our palms touched. “You okay to walk on your own? You were out pretty hard.”

She blinked at me a couple times before saying, “Yeah.”

My poor baby was out of it. “Follow me.”

The tension left her shoulders and she nodded, rubbing her thumb over the back of my hand in a slow, soothing manner. I got her back into the small bedroom with its queen-size bed, already turned down for the short flight. Slipping her between the sheets after getting her socks off, I lingered for a moment before turning the lights down to a low glow. Damn, she was sweet when she was tired like this. Her big pale blue eyes gazed up at me and my heart thumped hard at the sheer loveliness of my woman, bruised jaw and all.

“Aren’t you coming to bed with me, Carlos?” she whispered and my dick jerked.

“No, I wish I was, but got some business to work through before I get the privilege of pullin’ you into my arms.”

She smiled and reached out, slowly stroking my cheek where a good bruise was swelling up. “You need to ice this.”

“I’ll take care of it later.”

A stubborn set came to her jaw, but I already knew her well enough to anticipate a lecture I didn’t have time to hear was on the way. To stop it, I brushed my lips softly back and forth over hers. I’ve never kissed a woman with lips as full as hers before and it was like kissing two incredibly soft pillows. Soon I’d have those lips wrapped around my cock and that mental image was not helping me get my ass out the door to let her sleep. Her fingers stroked over my neck to curl into my hair and her lips parted beneath mine, giving me a taste of her sweetness I could easily get drunk on. My whole body hardened with the need to fuck but I managed to pull away before my dick could get me in trouble.

“Sleep.”

She pouted, tempting me to bite that plump lower lip of hers. “Fine, but only because I’m tired. You’ll be back soon, right?”

“Yeah, baby, I’ll be back soon.”

This seemed to satisfy her and she wiggled around until she was on her side, hugging a pillow and watching me as I left the small bedroom.

Hulk and Gardner, one of my Enforcers from Austin, were waiting for me outside.

“I’ll watch over her, make sure she’s not disturbed,” Hulk said as he stepped to the side, allowing me to pass.

I gave him a nod while Gardner walked ahead of me, his long dark brown braid tied back with a series of leather thongs. About thirty years older than me, Gardner had been one of the men my grandad, the former President of the Iron Horse MC, patched in back in the day. Man was completely loyal and knew how to keep his mouth shut, but liked to stay out of club business for the most part. He’d retired as much as a biker could, but shit like me getting kidnapped could pull him back into action. Without a doubt he was a surly son of a bitch, but he was loyal and had the club’s best interest at heart.

In theory, everyone on this plane fell into that category, but all those fucking cops back in Denver waiting to ambush me let me know someone was running their mouth and making trouble for me. Nothing new, but adding the police into the mixture was unusual. Someone either really didn’t give a fuck, or they were desperate enough to break the unwritten rule of the MC world that you don’t bring in the government to do your dirty work.

I cracked my neck to the side before slowly sitting in a seat that faced the rest of the plane. A quick glance showed the flight attendant was up front, looking at her iPad with a big pair of headphones on. She’d been with me for around five years now and I trusted her, but I still had Vance close the small curtain between us and the galley.

Myself, Gardner, Smoke, Vance, and Big Al shifted around so we were all facing each other and I studied their faces. None looked happy and I knew the shit that had gone down back in Sturgis was a negative mark on Iron Horse. Having their National President snatched up didn’t make them look good and they knew it. I was within my rights to punish them, but that wasn’t gonna happen. I chose to go after Sarah instead of with them and that was on me.

I decided to start with Big Al. He actually wasn’t big at all, around 5’7” and leanly muscled with curly black hair and dark eyes, but we didn’t call him big for his body, but for his brain. Big Al was a certified hacking genius, a tech ninja who was one of the craftiest fuckers I’d ever met. Thankfully he worked for us and Smoke paid him well.

The gleam in the younger guy’s eyes and a slight smirk tipped me off that he knew something. “What did you find out?”

Leaning forward so his elbows rested on his knees, Big Al gestured to the back of the plane. “I got the information you wanted on Sarah, and let me tell ya, Prez, you have no idea who the fuck you decided to place your patch on. Jesus, that bitch is not who the world thinks she is—at all.”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“What do you want first? You wanna know her dad is Mike Anderson, the arms dealer out west who we’ve done business with?”

“Wait, Crazy Mike?”

“The one and only. Or maybe you wanna know her stepmom is Mimi Anderson, aka Mimi Stefano, aka Lady Death.”

“Jesus.”

Pleased as shit he’s shocking us, Big Al rolls on. “Or maybe you’d be interested to know she hooked up with Morrie Rendbar, one of the top mob bosses and casino owners out in Reno, when she was sixteen?”

“What the fuck?” I said in a low breath, my disbelief echoing around the room.

“Sarah Marie Star, whose age is listed on all of her extensive documentation as twenty-three, is actually Sarah Jane Murphy Anderson, age eighteen—”

“She’s eighteen?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus fuck.”

I felt sick to my stomach. She was a fuckin baby, way, way too young for me. Christ, I was almost fourteen years her senior. I was in fucking high school when she was born. Bile churned inside of me as I frowned at a laughing Vance. “You find this fuckin’ funny?”

The smile dropped from his face and he looked away. “No, Prez.”

I plunged my hands into my hair and shook my head. “Keep goin’, Big Al.”

“Right, so from what I’ve been able to piece together, she’s hasn’t had the best life. Parents divorced when she was four, was supposed to be joint custody but her mom Billie took off with Sarah, leaving Mike with her twin sister Sue Wanda. Other than that, not much.”

“Not much?”

“As you can probably guess, Mike Anderson made sure both himself and his girls were as private as possible. I really couldn’t find anything other than the fact that Sarah did pageants and figure skating while living in Reno. Won a bunch of awards and shit, there was even talk of her making the Olympics but she blew out her knee when she was fifteen. Somehow when she was sixteen, she hooked up with Morrie—who was married at the time to a wife he has since divorced. Their affair lasted for awhile before it ended abruptly and she went off the grid again until she was almost eighteen. When she came back she had the new identity of Sarah Star. In less than a year, she became a performer in a high-class Vegas show, then won the World Pole Dancer of the Year and was in
Playboy
. Other than that, from the age of four to the age of fourteen, her life is a big blank page. Like when her mother snatched her, Sarah simply dropped off the face of the earth for ten years.”

My head ached and it matched the throb from my leg. I hated taking pain killers, couldn’t afford to be fucked up at what amounted to a war council, but damned if the Motrin I took earlier wasn’t cutting it. I looked down at my knuckles and forced myself to focus on the big picture, not just my personal bullshit. I couldn’t fucking wrap my mind around who I thought Sarah was, and who she really is.

Big Al grinned, his white teeth gleaming, and opened his laptop. “However, I can tell you what she’s been doing since she became Sarah Star. Check this shit out. Your old lady is amazing. This ain’t titty club shit right here, this is art.”

He clicked on a YouTube video then enlarged it and turned up the speakers. We all held our breath as the music started up, a weird tinny piano, then some chick singer with a velvety voice started singing about the long days being over and the world getting better.

I wasn’t sure what the song was about at this point, because I was entranced by the sight of Sarah wearing a small white summer dress and a bright, happy smile. She was all sunshine and innocence with her hair braided back and a wreath of tiny blue and white flowers threaded into it. As the camera zoomed in on her, I noticed her whole body sparkled with some type of glitter, making her look almost ethereal.

Instead of overt sexuality, her lithe movements were subtle and seductive. Her sensuality was in the way her body turned and how she flitted around the stage to the music, her movements graceful like a butterfly but also incredibly strong like a ballerina. Her entire body was tightly muscled, but not in a bulky way. No, she was all long, smooth lines and nicely rounded feminine curves. Stunning, the essence of everything a man would fight to keep for himself, no matter how wrong or taboo it was to want her.

The beat of the music changed and she skipped over to the pole, throwing herself onto it with an exuberant shout that rose above the music as she spun around with abandon. She flipped upside down, still spinning, and her golden braid whipped around her, gleaming in the now bright lights. My heart slammed as I took in the happiness pouring from her, the joy she shared so openly with the audience. The crowd of people watching were obviously loving the show because their cheers filled whatever auditorium she was in.

Extending her legs straight out, she then began to do this crazy hip undulation that made her legs flow through the air almost like wings. I didn’t know where to look, at the elegant, sculpted muscles of her strong arms holding her suspended, or at her world-fucking-class legs and the white panties revealed beneath the dress.

The music slowed and she wrapped one of those impossibly long legs around the pole and swung her upper body out, her arms flowing gracefully with the heavy beat. Once again I’d underestimated her, had assumed what kind of pole dancing she did, and found myself totally wrong. Yeah, it was sexy as hell, especially when she ripped off the skirt of the dress, using the fluttering white fabric as part of her routine. When she did a quick drop from the top of the pole to the bottom while spinning, I wasn’t the only man in the room who sucked in a quick breath of air.