Lone Star
Author: Lauren Gilley
Date: 2020-05-12 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Contemporary Romance; Romance; Contemporary; Romantic Suspense; Crime; Suspense; Action
Description: From London, England to Amarillo, Texas, Michelle Calloway – now Michelle Snow – has spent her whole life with the Lean Dogs Motorcycle Club. The last two years, she’s served as the first lady of the Texas chapter, keeping the books and overseeing the club’s expanding legitimate businesses, including the bar named for her husband: Tastes Like Candy. She loves the work, loves Candyman, loves their son, TJ…but sometimes, she misses the work she did in London. Faint restless stirrings. In Knoxville, Fox has officially patched into the Tennessee chapter, he and Albie both. They’re settling into ne
Publisher: HP Press

The Dartmoor Series

Fearless

Price of Angels

Half My Blood

The Skeleton King

Secondhand Smoke

Loverboy

American Hellhound

Shaman

The Lean Dogs Legacy Series

Snow In Texas

Tastes Like Candy

Prodigal Son

Lone Star

Dartmoor Book VII

by

Lauren Gilley

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are all the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, is coincidental, or meant to serve as entertainment, rather than fact.

Names and characters are property of the author and may not be duplicated.

LONE STAR

Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Gilley

Cover design copyright © 2020 by Lauren Gilley

HP Press®
Atlanta, GA

All rights reserved.

LONE

STAR

Amarillo

One

Nighttime in December, in the desert, was colder than a non-desert-dweller might expect. A fine, crystalline layer of frost settled on the hard-packed dirt, and the hardy, spiny vegetation that grew in tufts between boulders, and along the open, dry-cracked pans of flat ground that ran between the highways and the jagged, unclimbable hills. A cold that could send you into hypothermia if you weren’t properly equipped. A cold that could, in this case, preserve something.

The bodies had been dumped yesterday evening, just before dark, Candy judged. Late enough that, when the cold came on, quick and brutal, it had slowed the decomposition process. It had started up this morning, when the sun finally reached its zenith, when its brightness melted the last traces of frost and heated the arid earth to the sort of cozy temperature that made you want to dig your toes in, like you were at the beach.

Dump was an unfair word for it. They’d been positioned carefully. Staked: long railroad spikes driven in, the arms and legs star-fished out and secured with polymer rope tied tight. They’d been alive, still, when they were secured, and killed on-site: throats slit, ugly black gashes, serrated at the edges where the blood had clotted and dried. The blood had slipped down their necks, and pooled on the sand below, now an attraction for ants and scorpions. Buzzards had been here, too. The eyes were gone. A chunk from one cheek. Bits of finger pecked that Candy didn’t want to look at too closely.

There were three. Men in their twenties and or thirties; hearty, but showing signs of starvation, their clothes fitting as loosely as if they’d been staked out here in the sun for months, rather than a matter of hours.

Beside him, Blue let out a low, almost-impressed whistle.

Candy turned to the man who’d called him out here. Pacer Menendez stared off across the long, flat pan of this stretch of empty land, off toward the squat, abandoned little shack that housed the electrical boxes of the cell towers that threw long shadows against the far cliffs. He held his knuckles pressed tight to his mouth, edges of his lips white with stress and sickness, pupils shrunk down to pinpricks against the blazing sun. Candy had never seen him without a hat; when he took off his helmet, he always pulled a battered, curled-brim Houston Oilers hat out of his back pocket, and crammed it down on his head; it had left a permanent dent across his forehead over the years. He didn’t wear it, now, sweat beading on his brow and sliding down his temples unheeded.

It wasn’t hot. Candy wore his thickest Carhartt under his cut.

“Pace,” he prodded gently.

“I just don’t understand,” he said, voice low, and thready. “We don’t…we didn’t…who would do this to us?”

Candy didn’t know, but he intended to find out.

Two

“Ritualistic,” Agent Cantrell announced, grimly, and stood, shaking the creases from his trouser legs with one blue-gloved hand.

Candy had finally, after careful thought, and even more careful consideration, convinced Pacer to call the police. Two portable, open-sided tents had been set up, sunlight filtering through their blue nylon and making the bodies look especially dead. One had been erected over the corpses – the larger of the two – and the other had become a sort of command central. Candy was there, standing beside the folding camp chair Pacer had finally been steered down into, hand white-knuckled around a can of warming Coke, condensation dripping unheeded down onto one denim-covered knee.

He’d met Pacer for the first time when he himself was ten, when Pacer was a scrawny Lean Dogs prospect, his pimple-flecked face pale with stress as Jack Snow held out a hand for the cut the boy still gripped like a lifeline. “Hand it on over, son,” Jack had said, his rich voice low and soothing. “There’s no shame in finding out you aren’t a good fit for something. This isn’t meant to be your world, and nobody can find fault with that.”

He’d gotten his walking papers that day, but he’d left the club as a friend, and, a few years later, when he’d founded a non-outlaw riding club called the Road Runners, he’d done so with Jack’s – and the Lean Dogs’ – blessing. It had become a sort of haven for all the Harley riders who loved the open road, but didn’t love the idea of running guns and drugs to earn their bread and butter.

“No shame in it at all,” Jack had always said. “The world needs the good ones more than it needs us.”

A hell of a thing to tell one’s son, but it had stuck in Candy’s mind; he’d preserved the treaty with the Road Runners after Dad was gone, and Crockett stepped down. He hadn’t expected the call he’d gotten this morning; hadn’t expected the wavery panic in Pacer’s usually-mellow voice.

Definitely hadn’t expected “ritualistic” killings in the flat, arid stretch of land where Lean Dogs’ territory butted up to Road Runners’ turf, but here they were.

Texas State Troopers had shown up while Pacer sat in the shade of their three bikes parked together, staring sightlessly into the middle distance. A matched pair of boys in khaki, hiking gun belts up beneath their potbellies, one chewing gum, the other wallowing a toothpick around like a tongue-wielded weapon. They’d looked at Candy before they’d looked at the bodies, long stares over the rims of their cliché aviators, glances toward his patches, especially his President tag.

He’d given them his best shit-eating grin. “The poor, unfortunate deceased are over that way, officers.”

The toothpick had twirled his direction threateningly.

After a few minutes of moving around the bodies, crouching, examining, standing, fanning their red faces with their hats, the troopers had decided it was time to call in the big guns. The FBI – a single agent who looked young enough to be Candy’s kid – had pulled up an hour later, parking a dusty Explorer beneath the swooping black shadows of the vultures that kept circling, circling overhead, patient and tireless.

“Well,” Cantrell said now, stepping into the command tent, snapping off his gloves. “It looks like you boys have some cultists on your hands.”

Candy waited for the laugh he figured must be coming, but the agent just looked between the three of them. “Cultists,” he finally deadpanned.

“Yeah,” Cantrell said, reaching to dig around in the cooler for a drink. He paused to press the dripping can of Mountain Dew to his forehead a moment before popping the tab, not seeming bothered by the icy rivulets of water that ran down his face and dripped onto his sweat-darkened shirt front. “Goddamn, it’s hot out here.”

It was warm, Candy thought. He’d shrugged out of his jacket, but he wasn’t sweating like this guy.

“Cultists,” Cantrell repeated, when he’d taken a few long swallows. “Saw a case in Nevada like this just a few weeks ago. Vics staked out in the open, throats cut. The whole deal.”

“You found the murderers, then?” Candy asked.

Cantrell winced. “Not yet, no. But we’re narrowing it down. The profilers say it’s classic cult behavior.”

Candy stared at him.

“You’re gonna cut a guy’s throat, you’re just gonna cut it, right? Dump the bodies in a hog pen or something. But you lay them out while they’re still alive, and then kill them? There’s a reason for that. And in Nevada, they were sedated first. Lab found Special K in their tox screens. My guess is this’ll turn up the same.”

Candy glanced down at Pacer, but the older man was still staring into the middle distance, lips faintly trembling on each breath. If he was listening to their conversation, he gave no indication.

Cultists my ass, Candy thought. He reached down to grip Pacer’s shoulder, and squeezed.

He hadn’t expected a response, but the lack of one was disturbing all the same.

Three

“Can you email me the spreadsheet? Thanks, Jeannie.” Michelle disconnected the call and set her phone aside. She meant to turn back to her laptop, open on her lap, its battery growing warm enough across her thighs as to be uncomfortable, but the TV – nearly muted – caught her attention. The nightly news was on, something mindless to throw flashing colors across the floor and keep her a cold kind of company. She was used to working late – often onsite at TLC, or here in the cozy living room of the sanctuary – but, usually, Candy was sitting beside her, providing unheeded commentary on whatever old Western he was watching, or bringing her a glass of wine, or urging her to shut the computer down before she went blind and come to bed already. The last part he usually sweetened with a skim of fingertips across her cheek, and down her throat; a lingering, promising kiss beneath her ear; a tickle at her ribs until she couldn’t hold in the laughter, and finally closed the laptop and turned to him.

“You work too hard,” he always told her, and maybe she did, but he did, too. It wouldn’t be fair to sit on her laurels and let the still-tentative business growth they’d established here in Amarillo go belly-up while she lazed about in bed with her husband – no matter how convincing he set out to be.

On the screen, a stern-faced reporter squinted against the sun – a story recorded earlier in the day. Behind him, yellow crime scene tape, and the crenelated edges of two pop-up nylon tents, fluttered hard in the breeze. Gloved men and women in FBI windbreakers moved around behind him, toting crates and cases; there were drapes on the ground, white-tinted-blue beneath the far tent.

She snagged the remote and thumbed the volume.

“…triple homicide being investigated by the FBI, now. We’re told there might be a possible connection with a similar case in Nevada–”

“Don’t you know watching the news before bed is the best way to have nightmares?” Candy’s voice asked behind her.

Michelle jumped – remembered her laptop, and set it on the coffee table – then twisted around so she was kneeling on the couch.

Candy stood just inside the door, leaning back against it, actually, shoulders pressed against the wood, thumbs hooked in his belt in that unconscious way that made him look every inch a cowboy. She thought it was adorable, but hadn’t told him so, afraid he’d get self-conscious and quit doing it. She’d always wondered if his dad had done it, too; if it was a learned behavior. She loved the way it emphasized the leanness of his waist, and the fit of his Wranglers, and the width and heft of his arms and shoulders.

Clearly, she was overtired if her brain went straight in the gutter.

She blinked, and focused on his face, thinking at first that her vision was just blurry, but then realizing that he did indeed look more troubled than he’d sounded on the phone earlier.

He’d tried to act like his usual carefree self. It’s all fine, baby, gonna make sure Pace is okay and head home.

That had been four hours ago.

“I just saw on the telly,” she said. “Love, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, jacket rustling against the wood of the door. “I didn’t know the guys.”

“But you know Pacer.”

He shrugged again, gaze flicking up and over her shoulder, toward the TV that she now wished she’d switched off before turning around. His throat worked as he swallowed, blue light catching the faint, golden grain of his five o’clock shadow.

Michelle opened her arms and wiggled her fingers invitingly. “Come here, then. A hug will help.” It was what she said to TJ when he was in the worst depths of toddler despair, when he’d scraped a knee or broken a toy. He always came lurching into her offered embrace, and pressed his hot, wet face into her shoulder with a quiet “Mama.” It always left her pulse skipping; always. She was Mama, and that twisted like the sweetest knife in the tender parts of her heart. She’d been too young when her own mother died to remember calling her Mum, but that was how her dad, and she, and Tommy, had referred to her when they paged through old photo albums. She’d assumed, when she was younger, that if she ever had a child, it would be with a British man, and that she’d be Mum and Mummy.

She hadn’t counted on Mama, but she loved it.

Candy looked at her, brows lowering, mouth tucking down in the corners, petulant and suddenly young-looking. TJ was the spitting image of him. “I’m not a baby.”

“Come on.” She gave her fingers another waggle. “You can be my baby.”

He resisted another moment. Then he blew out a breath, and took the few slumping steps into her arms. His own, thick and strong as steel girders, closed around her tight, tight, and he dropped his face into her hair.

She hadn’t thought she needed this, too, until they were pressed front-to-front, his jacket carrying the chill of the desert night, the skin of his throat warm against her cheek when she snuggled in close and reached up under his Carhartt to take double fistfuls of flannel.

He let out a deep sigh, lungs working like bellows, ribs giving to the press of her own. “Mama,” he sighed, breath tickling the top of her ear.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “Was it terrible?”

“Pretty much.” He drew back far enough to tip her chin up with a knuckle and leaned in for a kiss. His lips were chilled, but his tongue was warm when it flicked out between her own lips.

She shivered.

“Coconut?” he asked with a grin when he pulled back again, licking a bit of her chap-stick off his lower lip. He touched her mouth with the pad of his thumb, right on the cupid’s bow.

She didn’t feel so tired anymore. “The raspberry was making me queasy.” She wrinkled her nose. “Like everything else.”

He chuckled, and stepped back far enough to go hang up his jacket and toe his boots off at the rack. Then he climbed over the back of the couch with more grace than any man that big had a right to, and settled in next to her, already reaching for her when she leaned sideways and snuggled up to his side, half in his lap. He smelled like Texas: like sun, and dust, and pavement.

On the TV, the ticker was running along the bottom of recycled footage from the scene; Michelle caught the words cult connection and turned to gauge Candy’s expression. “Cult?”

“Agent Howdy-Doody FBI thinks so,” he said, shaking his head with obvious disgust. “It’s not.”

She ran her nails lightly down the center of his chest, clicking over the buttons. “Now. Love. Not to second guess your aged wisdom.”

He snorted.

“But cults do exist. And they do sometimes do” – she motioned toward the screen – “the unspeakable.”

“Yeah, well…it’s not that. I’ve got a gut feeling.”

Generally, his gut feelings were correct. But…

“What about the other cases? The ones in Nevada?”

“What about ‘em?” He shrugged, getting agitated. “I’ve been in this game a long time – apparently a damn long time, according to my old lady.”

Her turn to snort.

“And I’ve not seen cult one. When people die horribly, in my experience, it’s about revenge, or it’s about turf, or it’s about fear. And sometimes all three.”

She leaned her head against his chest, and patted his stomach – still firm and taut, still capable of making her own stomach do somersaults. “I know,” she said, and she did. Things in London had been different for the Dogs than they were here – but not that different. “It would just be nice, is all, for it not to be the usual bullshit.”

“Hear hear,” he sighed. And sighed again. “Shit.”

“You’re going to try to figure out who’s behind it, aren’t you?”

“I have to,” he said, a little helpless. “I mean – it’s Pace. He’s club family.”

“I know, darling. I’m with you, one hundred-percent.”

“Oh, no, no.” She felt him twist so he could look down at her more fully, and tipped her head back to meet his gaze. His expression had gone serious – so grave it would have been comical in another situation, his brows up near his hairline. “No. I don’t want you worrying about this at all. You don’t need it on your plate, not on top of everything else.” His brows lowered again, a furrow forming between them. He’d been trying to encourage her to delegate more at the bar and take some off time. So far, she’d taken a grand total of one personal day, and she’d been so bored she’d spent the day crunching numbers on her laptop, double-checking all her spreadsheets…and then triple-checking to be sure.

“If it’s worrying you, it’s worrying me,” she said. “We’re a team.”

“Yeah, we are, but see, chivalry demands that I handle this one on my own.”

“Chivalry? Or you being a stubborn control freak?”

“I like chivalry. Also.” He reached out, deftly slipped a hand beneath the baggy old sweater she wore, and palmed the slight roundness of her belly. His voice lowered, that deep, Texas twang coming out in a register that was nearly a purr, that managed to be both serious, soothing, and wildly arousing all at once. “Whether it’s devil-worshippers, or a bitch-ass new club, or a run of the mill psycho killer, I don’t want any of it anywhere near you and the babies.” He caught and held her gaze, his eyes electric blue in the TV glow, deadly earnest, the handsome, square lines of his face set at their most determined angles.

Her next breath shivered in her lungs. “Damn. How’s a girl supposed to resist that kind of talk?”

He smiled, a slow, knife-sharp crescent bloom in the dimness. “Hopefully not at all.”

“You’re horrible.”

“C’mere.”

She went. How could she not? She’d never been able to resist his charm, and the smug bastard knew it. But, oh…it was worth the concession when his big hands settled on her waist and he hauled her up higher in his lap like she weighed nothing. When he cupped her face and brought her mouth down to his with lowered lids, and a quick bite of his lip, and a look like she was the most desirable woman he’d ever seen.

This was different from their hello kiss. This one started slow, gentle, like he was acquainting himself with the taste of her all over again. He cupped her cheek, thumb gliding along the line of her jaw, the pad of it rough with calluses, drawing a shiver from her. With the barest pressure, he tilted her head, angling the kiss and touching his tongue to her lips, asking, so sweetly, for entry. When she opened, his tongue slipped inside, and then the kiss went deep. Still unhurried, but lush, and wet, and hungry.

His other hand slid up beneath her shirt again, fingers climbing her ribs like a ladder.

“Mmm,” she hummed against his mouth. “Forward.”

He chuckled, and closed his hand over her breast; the nipple pebbled against his palm, so tight it ached. “I’m not the one who’s not wearing a bra.”

She put both hands on his pecs and squeezed. “Maybe you should.”

“Ooh, gonna take that as a compliment, baby.” He stood, and scooped her up, her stomach swooping, a laugh bursting out of her mouth before she managed to clap a hand over her lips and choke it off.

“Shh, don’t wake the kid,” he stage-whispered.

“Don’t make me,” she hissed back, and nearly choked on a giggle.

He carried her to their bedroom, heeling the door shut silently in a move they’d both perfected over the last two years. He set her down carefully on the foot of the bed; he’d been known to toss her down – even that carefully – so she bounced, and laughed, and then kissed the laugh right out of her mouth. But that had stopped when they’d learned she was pregnant again; he’d been treating her with nothing short of reverence since. It made her feel loved and cherished…even if she wished, a little, for some of the wilder nights.

When he unbuckled his belt, his hands were at eye level for her, and the lamplight glimmered off his rings: the simple gold wedding band she’d slipped on his finger two years ago, and the chunky dog’s head ring on his right hand, its jaws open, fangs bared, ears back. His Lean Dog ring – her Uncle Walsh had one similar.

Thought of the Dogs brought what she’d just seen on the TV back to the forefront of her mind. “What happened to Pacer?” she asked.

The belt – tooled floral leather – hissed through the loops and landed over on the corduroy armchair with a muffled thump when he tossed it. “Blue and I took him back home. He rents his cabins at the compound to a couple of his younger guys, and they said they’d look after him tonight: make sure he ate something, and didn’t get too drunk. We offered to bring him back here with us, but he thought he needed to be with his own club.” A shadow crossed his face as he said it, and he shook his head, mouth turned down with obvious sadness.

“Does he have a wife? A girlfriend? Anyone to lean on?” All the men in her life had one thing in common: the need of a soft place to land when shit got a little too real. For the first forty-five years of his life, Jenny had been that for Candy; a devoted, good-hearted sister. But there was only so far a sister’s love could go; some nights, even the biggest, meanest bikers needed a lap to lay their heads in, an ear to listen to the words that stood in place of tears they fought not to shed.

“Nah. He had a girl back twenty years ago, but she wouldn’t marry him, and he doesn’t keep anybody steady.” He undid the buttons of his flannel and shrugged out of it, tossed it over with the belt, leaving him in an old white wifebeater worn soft from countless washings. The room was warm, but his nipples were peaked, stiff points visible through the fabric. He grabbed the hem and peeled it off over his head, muscles of his torso bunching and flexing with the motion.

And, oh, there were muscles. Acres of them, the swells of pecs, and the chiseled definition of abs, throwing shadows in the low light. His Wranglers rode low enough to show off the sharp V of his Adonis line.

When she finally lifted her gaze to his face – her own feeling fever-warm – he lifted his brows and said, “Still wanna talk about Pacer?” He fought a grin. “Or is there something else on your mind?”

“Well,” she said, aiming for prim, unable to keep from wetting suddenly-dry lips; his eyes tracked the flicker of her tongue. “I was just thinking that you’re in remarkably good shape for a man of your advanced years.”

He chuckled darkly, and pounced.

Pounced carefully.

He undressed her, and she got him out of his jeans, tight enough to make the process difficult, but worth it to watch him walk around in them. He laid her out and lay worship to her, from mouth to knees, with his lips, sucking almost delicately at each nipple in turn, her breasts already swollen and tender. He teased at her sex, little kitten licks, until she was tugging on his hair, and then he reared up above her, pulled her thighs around his waist, and entered her on a slow, breath-stealing stroke.

He leaned down to kiss her as his hips started up a leisurely rhythm, his tongue mimicking the movement between her lips. “God, Mama, you’re perfect,” he murmured, one hand braced by her head, the other smoothing up and down her side, skating between them to touch her belly, the life growing inside it.

The problem with marrying into the club was the body count: the dark moments when someone threatened them and theirs. When you had to look over your shoulder, and lock your doors, and treat paranoia like religion.

But the thing that made it worthwhile? This, always this. She kissed him back, and lifted her hips to meet his, and resolved to worry about all the problems tomorrow.

Knoxville

Four

Fox wasn’t restless. He wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t, he–

Okay. He was restless.

He wore a Tennessee bottom rocker these days, and he sat in on church around Ghost’s ornate, long dining table with the other Tennessee boys. He spent his days tinkering with bikes or cars, and he ate lunch with Mercy, and Aidan, and Tango, and Carter instead of Jinx, and Cowboy, and Gringo, and Talis. He told himself over and over that this life wasn’t any different from the life he’d been living in Texas. And, here, he was even training two proteges. Three, if you counted Evan, which he usually didn’t. He was still a Lean Dog, still a contributing member of the club, still himself, with all his accumulated skills and experiences.

He’d even gained some things – like Eden, who wasn’t a thing, but a person; he liked making the distinction in his own head so he never slipped and said the wrong thing to her. And he had the opportunity, now, surprisingly, to watch perhaps his favorite brother floundering for the first time in memory. Albie’s face the day he’d shown up, sheepish and uncertain, had been priceless.

He'd stayed for long periods in cities before; had even sprouted roots, sometimes against his will. But something about this move to Knoxville felt permanent in a way none of the other moves ever had, and for a lifelong nomad like him, there was something disturbing about that.

He’d decided to throw himself full force into molding the next generation.

“No, your feet are all wrong,” he called from his position atop a picnic table behind the clubhouse. “You’ll trip all over yourself that way.”

In the cleared-out section of parking lot where he’d laid rubber and then sparring mats, the December sunlight beat down on the sweat-glazed skin of two very different fighters.

There was Reese, Mercy’s little murder duckling. He was lean, and fit, nothing but stark, carved muscles under his clinging tank top; not the hulking brute force of Mercy, no, but quicker, willowier; a striking snake rather than a rampaging bull. Efficient, heartless, robotic: Reese was a child soldier raised with a ruthless hand. The least human killer he’d ever encountered; not brutal and mean and delighted by the kill, like some of the two-dollar Yank sickos he’d encountered in the last few years. No, he didn’t know how to be a human. The boys were working on that, introducing him to pop culture, and booze, and, probably, as soon as he grasped the idea of it, women. But those things weren’t Fox’s worry. Fox’s job was to keep his skills fresh.

And then there was Evan.

Physically, the boys were well-matched. Evan was even a little taller; but he had no idea what to do with his long legs, and so, as usual, Reese was wiping the floor with him.

“Hand up, hand up,” Fox reminded. “Protect your–”

Reese cracked him across the jaw with the back of his hand.

“–face.”

Evan spun away from the match, hand pressed to his face where it was already reddening. “Shit! Dude!”

“What part of ‘sparring’ did you not understand?” Fox asked, dryly.

“I didn’t think he’d hit me for real!”

“When you’re out there wearing a cut, and we get into a tight spot, do you think whoever we’re fighting isn’t going to hit you for real?”

“I…” He made a face. “Fuck, I just…the other guys aren’t doing this.” He motioned toward the corner of the bike shop they could see from here, where Mercy, Aidan, Tango, and Carter were eating sandwiches at a picnic table of their own, the wind toying with the wrappers, Aidan gesticulating with his Coke can, saying something that had the others wincing and laughing at the same time.

“The other guys,” Fox said, turning back to him, giving him his best deadpan stare – one helped by the Ray-Bans he wore. “Aren’t flunky prospects. They don’t have anything to prove. You do.”

Evan muttered something petulant and stupid under his breath, and went to snag the water bottle he’d left sitting in the shade.

Reese still stood at the ready, coiled like a spring, not even breathing hard.

“Water break,” Fox told him, and the boy nodded, pushed his hair off his face, and went to get his own bottle.

Behind him, the back door opened with a squeal – Ghost would be busting someone’s ass, probably Evan’s, about oiling the hinges – and light footfalls heralded the arrival of Fox’s youngest brother. Tenny climbed up to sit beside Fox, slouching down, forearms on his thighs, relaxed, unbothered.

Seemingly so.

Everything Reese had Tenny had, too – plus the social, cultural, and governmental training to make him twice as dangerous. Reese was a bare blade, glinting, outwardly frightening. Tenny was a vial of poison, and you had no idea your life was in danger until the first drop hit your tongue.

Fox made a point of turning toward him slowly, like he didn’t care that he was an hour late to their scheduled session. Tenny wore fitted, dark jeans, harness boots, white t-shirt and a high-collar leather biker jacket so new it squeaked when he moved. His shades were aviators, his thick dark hair – the same glossy brown as Fox’s – artfully tousled, jaw shadowed with a few days’ worth of stubble.

“You look like you’re trying to land a cologne add,” Fox drawled.

Tenny shrugged and cracked his gum.

“Did you steal that jacket?”

“I bought it.”

“Did you steal the money you bought it with?”

Another shrug. He nodded toward Reese. “He’s too obvious.”

Fox knew exactly what he meant, but he wasn’t going to agree with the asshole. “We can fix that.”

The smirk that tweaked his mouth looked like the one Fox had been looking at in the mirror his whole life. It was eerie as hell.

“And,” Fox continued, “unlike some shitheads, he actually shows up when it’s time to train.”

Tenny turned toward him, just as slowly as Fox had, tucked his chin, and made eye contact over the gold rims of his shades. The absolute douchebag. “Train?” he asked, voice just as flat as Fox’s. But his eyes – the Devin Green blue they all shared – sparked with a challenge.

Not the first time, Fox was struck by the notion that handling Ten was like riding a horse that was just waiting for the right moment to scrape him off on the fence, and go leaping off the track.

And now he used racetrack references, apparently, because he’d spent way too much time with Walsh lately.

“Why would I need to train?” Ten asked.

“To keep sharp.”

Tenny made a show of surveying their surroundings, the empty section of lot, the unremarkable, rambling backside of the clubhouse; the scrap yard, and the glint of the river at the far edge of the property, sliding slowly, darkly past. Then he turned back to Fox, and some of the showmanship dropped away, leaving him flinty-eyed, ruthless, and – most disturbingly – just as restless as Fox felt. “Keep sharp for what?”

Keep sharp because I fucking told you to, Fox thought, and recoiled mentally like he’d been burned. God, he sounded like Phillip.

He turned away.

Reese was watching them, not at all coy, blatantly staring. Fox wondered how good his hearing was.

“That’s not for you to know,” he said imperiously. At least now he sounded like Abe rather than his oldest brother. “Guys like us in this organization: we go where we’re told, kill who we’re supposed to, and we don’t question the higher authority.”

“Higher authority,” Ten said flatly. “Ghost.” No mistaking that for anything but an insult.

Fox sent him a sideways glare. “You could do – and have done – a lot worse than Ghost for a boss. Remember that.”

Tenny stared back, silent, refusing to bend.

One of these days, Fox thought, I’ll have to put him in his place for good.

The worst part was: he didn’t know if he could.

Five

It was a big thing, a man moving across an ocean for you.

Axelle kept telling herself that wasn’t what Albie had done. His move had been about learning the true origins of his father. About the crushing disappointment, and the upheaval in London, and the need for a change of venue.

But the first thing he’d done, when he’d gotten to town, was have someone drop him off at the post office, where he’d learned she’d be, and he’d opened his arms, and it sure felt like this was for her – at least a little.

She wasn’t sure what to do with that kind of pressure.

“It’s not pressure,” Eden had assured. “He’s not that kind of guy. You don’t have to do anything. Or promise anything,” she’d added, eyes widening for emphasis. No doubt, in her book, promises were scarier than “doing anything.”

Axelle passed a cloth over her already-spotless coffee table one more time and stood back to survey her apartment: the whole thing, save the bathroom, was visible from where she stood. The club – Maggie, specifically – had set her up with a list of available apartments. This one had been her favorite, namely because there was plenty of room to park her car, and a garage in which to work on it, but she’d thought it was charming, too. The converted attic space of an old, but well-kept Victorian house in a quiet part of town. It was an open loft space, with slanted ceilings, ledges in the dormer windows, creaky hardwood floors, and a deep claw-foot tub in the bathroom. It had come furnished, the oval coffee table and faded Persian rugs already here, but she’d added her own bedlinens, a chair she’d picked up at a secondhand shop, a newer model TV. There had been strands of Christmas lights taped up on the window frames, and they’d still worked, surprisingly, plugged in now and giving the space a cheerful air.

Satisfied that everything was clean and orderly, she stowed the dusting cloth under the sink. Then went to the bathroom to triple-check her appearance.

She’d braided her hair loosely, its dark blonde length pulled over one shoulder. She didn’t really do dresses, as a general rule, but she’d found a nice navy sweater, and her jeans were new, still stiff. She’d used eyeliner, and dug a pair of dangly, silver earrings from the depths of the small chest of valuables she’d shipped to London, and then back again.

“This is fine,” she said aloud to her reflection, tweaking the hem of her sweater. “Right? It’s fine.”

Out in the main room, the buzzer sounded, and she jumped.

“Shit!”

She took a sequence of deep breaths as she crossed the apartment and pressed the button on the intercom. She didn’t bother to say “come in,” too afraid the nerves would show in her voice. It would be easier face-to-face, she reasoned, when she could gauge how he felt about all this and respond accordingly.

It took him a while to come up the two flights of stairs. Axelle had just decided that her kindly – but meddlesome – landlady must have waylaid him to ask what business he had here tonight, when a knock sounded on the door. Three quick strikes, soft…but sure. Polite, but not, she thought with a fraction of relief, hesitant.

One more breath – and an aborted attempt to smooth her hair, because she was being stupid – and she opened the door.

And was met with a mass of pink roses.

He’d brought her flowers.

Oh.

The bouquet was, honestly, obscene, at least two dozen roses, that frilly white filler stuff – she’d look it up later, on her phone, and find that it was called baby’s breath – and some green waxy leaves on long stems – eucalyptus – that smelled fresh and sweet in a way florists’ greens didn’t usually.

The bouquet tipped to the side, and Albie peeked around it, which she would have found adorable if she wasn’t freaking out about the fact that he’d brought her flowers.

He said, “Hi.” And he might have blushed, at least a little.

Axelle said, “That’s a whole lot of roses.” And then wanted to kick herself. “Um, I mean – come in?” She stepped back and motioned awkwardly.

As he passed her on his way inside, she caught a whiff of something pleasant that wasn’t the flowers – a woodsy, leather-and-citrus scent that must have been his cologne. She didn’t remember it from London.

He’d brought her flowers, and worn cologne.

She took a second, after she’d shut the door and thumbed the lock, to stare at the wood grain, scrambling to get her thoughts in order.

Why the hell was she freaking out about this?

When she turned around, she saw that Albie had moved to stand awkwardly in the center of the room, behind the couch, roses held as carefully as a baby – or maybe a bomb. From behind, she could see that he’d made some efforts with his appearance: clean, new-looking jeans, and a button-up black shirt, tucked-in. His belt and boots gleamed, faintly: polished.

He’d brought her flowers, worn cologne, and dressed as nicely as he was probably able, given his wardrobe and profession.

That made it real, somehow. That made it a date and not just acquaintances having dinner. Which was what adults did. “Hanging out” was for kids afraid of commitment. Adults made an effort, brought gifts, and dated.

She could do this.

First things first: the flowers. Flowers needed water.

She headed for her kitchen. “Here, we can…” A quick look confirmed her fear that she didn’t own a vase. She cringed when she found a vessel big enough: a plastic pitcher she’d bought at Target with the intent of making sweet tea. She filled it with water at the sink, and tried not to wince too dramatically when she set it on the island and said, “They can go in here.”

Albie considered the pitcher, and then the flowers, the plastic wrapped around them crinkling. “I think you’re supposed to cut them, first.”

“Cut…them?”

“The ends. They came with this little packet of nutrient stuff you’re supposed to put in the water. And then cut them.” He juggled the bouquet into one arm and made a snipping motion with the fingers of his other hand. “Diagonally. That’s what she said.”

It took a team effort, both of them nicking their fingers on thorns; Albie accidentally shooting the rubber band that held the paper in place across the room. They nearly overfilled the pitcher, and, loose from the band, fanned out in a great, dramatic spray, Axelle felt sure that the slightest nudge would send the lightweight, now top-heavy pitcher crashing sideways.

They stared at their handiwork – or lack thereof – for a long moment.

Axelle finally groaned. “God, why is this so weird?”

Albie blew out a breath, shoulders slumping – but something like relief touched his face. “I don’t know. I guess it just seems…really official, now, or something.”

They looked at each, finally, fully. Solid eye contact.

Albie smiled, crooked but true, and she felt her lungs expand a much-needed fraction.

“Thank you for the flowers,” she said. “I should have said that the second you walked in.”

He shrugged, charming and easy this time. And it wasn’t for effect; she found him charming, whether anyone else did or not, and that was what mattered. “I won’t tell anyone we’re hopeless at this if you don’t.”

She smiled, another bit of tension melting away. “Speaking of being hopeless: I’m not much of a cook, but there’s lasagna in the oven. And I’ve got wine.”

“Well let’s open a bottle, hm?”

~*~

He’d finally been given the greenlight to stop wearing the brace on his arm, he told her over their first glass of red, while she pulled the lasagna and he set plates and silverware out on the table. He had to go to physical therapy, which he made a face about, but Axelle noticed the faint tremor in his last two fingers as he placed a knife on a napkin, and made a mental note to bug him about it later if he didn’t go.

“How’s work?” he asked, when they were sitting across from one another.

“Less exciting than that shit in London” – he snorted – “but it’s alright. Mostly I just drive. I’m her chauffer. But Eden’s been sliding some things my way and asking for my opinion. So that’s kinda cool.”

“Just kinda?” he asked, picking up on the way her voice had gone up at the end.

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t suppress a lick of excitement. “Okay, so, last week, we did a stakeout – cheating husband, right? But there were two women we thought might be the mistresses. Eden waited outside one place, and I took the other, and I got to be all Jessica Jones.” She set down her fork to mime snapping photos.

He grinned, and she grinned back – until she started to feel self-conscious, hands up and still holding a nonexistent camera.

She grabbed her fork again, and dropped her gaze. “So that’s…that,” she said, lamely.

Silence again, a beat too long, before she said, “Found a place for a shop, yet?” She glanced up in time to catch his own gaze dropping, frown tugging at his mouth as he used the edge of his fork to cut a bit of pasta into smaller and smaller bits.

“I’ve looked at some places,” he said. “Real estate’s more reasonable here than in London – but a shopfront is a shopfront, you know? You’re going to pay for the visibility. And I’ve not found one yet with room for my actual workshop.”

Axelle swallowed, and lasagna went down like lead. Because it was one thing to have stood in Albie’s shop, and seen him bruised, and beaten down in spirit, surrounded by silent furniture pieces and a whole storefront full of the kind of quiet misery that drove men to the bottle – and to the grave. One thing to see that, to stand in it, and know that he needed to uproot himself and go somewhere sunny and verdant where he could plant roots – and another to have him across the table from her, and know that he’d done just that…at her urging. To know that the shop he’d inherited, hand-crafted, and turned into a place all his own was gone, now, and that he was starting over, from scratch, because she’d told him he ought to.

That was a helluva lot of guilt to hit her all at once.

She reached for her wine glass and drained it. “Sorry.”

He glanced up, brows lifted. “There’s more wine.”

Not sorry for that, she thought, miserably.

~*~

Albie had thought, stupidly, that it would be easier than this. That once he was here in Tennessee, once he’d made that first, huge, scary step, all the rest would fall into place.

He was savvy enough to know that Axelle was interested; he hadn’t imagined the way she’d softened toward him in London, the way she’d looked at him; the real hurt in her eyes, at his shop, when he’d turned her away like a fool. But things weren’t easy, still, and he felt like he was sliding backward down a hill, losing traction on mud, unable to come up with one line, or gesture, or the proper look to have her relaxing into the moment.

Whatever they had, whatever bond they’d developed, it had developed in a moment of crisis.

How did they transition that into something that endured in the quiet moments?

Because he’d realized, somewhere between her goggle-eyed look at the flowers, and the first sip of wine, that this – being here, with her – was worth all the shop-hunting and awkward-adjusting it would take to settle into this American city. He could build a life here.

If he could only stop spinning his wheels and start already.

She topped off his glass, and he reached for it. The lasagna was good, but his appetite wasn’t up to its usual standard.

“I like your flat,” he said, with an inward wince – though he did. It looked cozy and unpretentious, eclectic. He hadn’t been able to form a mental picture of the sort of home she’d make for herself, but this suited, somehow. Quality, but not obnoxious about it; worn at the edges, but welcoming. Like her car in that way, he supposed. She liked the American battleships, with big blocks and mag wheels; what was a rambling old Victorian with faded rugs and attic nooks if not the muscle car of American East Coast architecture?

That’s a stretch, Cross, he thought to himself.

“Thanks,” she said, casting a look around the place, her gaze narrowing a fraction, like maybe she was scrutinizing it the way a stranger would. “Apparently, one of the old ladies lived here for a while, several years ago.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. That’s what Maggie said.” She sent him a cautious look. “She’s…”

“Impressive?” he suggested.

“A boss bitch.”

Their gazes locked.

He kept his own features carefully schooled, staring at her guarded expression.

Then her mouth tugged at the corners. Her eyes brightened.

He felt his own smile threaten.

They started laughing at the same time, together.

Leave it to Maggie Teague, Lean Dog Queen extraordinaire, to finally break the ice for them.

“Albie, oh my God.” Axelle braced her elbows on the table, and put her head in her hands, smiling rather helplessly. “I was starting to think I understood the way things work with the London Dogs – even if it is kinda fucked up – and then I come here, and it’s starting all over again, but even worse. I don’t…there’s this whole pecking order. There’s rank and shit, with these old ladies, and I’m not one of them, and they look at me…” Her smile faded. “Everyone’s been perfectly polite. But. They don’t like me. I can feel it. And I don’t care. I mean, obviously…”

Except, she did care, enough to have worried about it – quite a lot, if her tone was any indication.

Albie took a breath and parsed through what she’d said. One thing stood out to him the most, but he decided to put a pin in that one. Too big too fast, and he didn’t want to backslide anymore.

“They’d don’t dislike you,” he said, and that he felt sure of. “In case you haven’t noticed, this lot of girls are of the practical variety. You’ll fit right in.”

Her expression tightened, eyes widening – confirming his initial worry. I’m not one of them, she’d said. Did she feel excluded? Or did she not want to be one of them?

“The thing you’ve got to understand about Maggie,” he explained, “is that – while a very sweet woman, from all I’ve seen and heard – her first worry is for her family, and that includes club family. It’s a family that does a lot of not-so-legal things, yeah? So she’s not quick to trust new people, is all.” He frowned. “No one’s said anything untoward, have they?”

“No,” she said, quickly, expression softening. “No, it’s just…” She bit her lip, and glanced at a spot on the tabletop. I don’t belong, the downward sweep of her lashes said. The set of her shoulders; the downward curve of her mouth.

He had a feeling she’d never felt like she had, not anywhere.

“I’ll tell you something else,” he said, quietly, and her lashes lifted, her eyes nearly seafoam in the low light. “There’s nobody in this club who’s judging – nobody’s got any right to. Not when they’re all misfits and scoundrels and outlaws.”

She arched a single brow. “And you think I’m one of those.”

“Love, we’d never have met if you weren’t.”

After a beat, she smiled, slowly, close-lipped. Tipped her head a fraction in concession. Then she picked up her glass and tapped it gently against his with a chiming salute to the truth.

Six

They rolled away from one another and toward the nightstands nearly in unison, both overheated, and still trying to catch their breath. When they rolled back, lying side-by-side on the mattress with all the sheets kicked down, cool winter air delicious on naked skin, Eden had her phone in her hand, and Fox was taking the first drag off a cigarette.

“Ugh, don’t smoke in bed,” she complained, but her gaze was glued to her phone screen, so his only concession was to snag the ash tray off the nightstand and rest it on his chest.

Walsh had grumbled about it, because that was just his way whenever Charlie was concerned, but, since he had a big, mostly empty, rambling house, he and Emmie had put up Eden and Axelle their first few nights in Knoxville. Walsh had always liked Eden, and Axelle was too much like his own Emmie for him not to have liked her – but it had meant Fox was around, and that he hadn’t liked, and hadn’t been shy about proclaiming. Emmie had swatted him in the arm, biting back a smile, and told him to get over himself. But the situation had only been temporary. Eden didn’t like to lean too heavily on the kindness of others, and she’d wasted no time finding a house for herself, the wheels greased along by Ghost, Fox suspected, though Eden didn’t know that.

She’d been saving up, since they’d last been together in any sense – that, and money stretched farther in the American Southern suburbs than it did in the heart of London. She’d landed a lovely place, a two-story red-brick colonial with a narrow porch flanked in white columns, and blue window shutters. The inside was all done up in overwrought Victorian wallpaper and elaborate curtains that she’d vowed to take down, strip, and revitalize. So far, all she’d managed was to have the carpets pulled up on the first floor, and new hardwood laid.

Moonlight filtered through a gauzy new pair of curtains, its bluish light illuminating the floral wallpaper and lending the pale pink carpet a silver look – an improvement, Fox thought.

He’d come over at her invitation. Making pasta, she’d texted him earlier, after his fruitless conversation with Ten. Come over?

He’d turned up with a bottle of white, already noting the new pansies planted out front and planning to tell her that they really improved the overall look of the house, but she’d opened the door in a pair of leggings and a too-big sweater that wanted to fall off one shoulder, and pasta and pansies and niceties had been the last things on his mind.

Her gaze had been welcoming at first, and then narrow with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Brother shit.”

They’d made it to the kitchen, and even poured the wine, trading glances; his openly admiring, hers assessing, trying to figure out what kind of “brother shit” he meant without asking.

Finally, she’d taken the water off the burner – it wasn’t boiling yet anywhere – switched off the oven, and they’d gone clumsily upstairs, already tangling together.

The sex had been good: heated, and fractious, and hurried, and a welcome distraction.

But, now, as the glow of orgasm faded, and he nursed his cigarette, he found himself frowning at the ceiling. All their sex seemed to feel like this: a frantic crashing together, over too soon…and, a flaw he’d never thought to find bothersome in his own sex life before, unemotional.

Had he…ever taken his time over it? With anyone? For any reason?

No. Sex was an urge, same as any other.

So why did he feel so hollow about it now?

“Axelle texted,” Eden said. “Albie just left.”

Fox turned his head so he could check the clock. “Left? It’s not even eight yet.”

“It was only their first date.”

“So?”

“So not everyone’s as unsentimental and basic as you, Charlie,” she scolded without any heat.

Did he want there to be heat? For her to be disappointed?

“Did he at least kiss her goodnight?” He rolled his head toward her, so he could see her profile thrown into glaring blue relief by her phone screen. “Tell me he kissed her.”

“Hold on.” The touchscreen clicked as her thumbs tapped out the message. A moment later, there was a ding of an incoming text, and Eden’s face went carefully blank. “He didn’t.”

Fox sat up, nearly dumping ash all over himself. “Oh, bugger him,” he muttered, crushing out the last of his cig and setting the tray aside on the nightstand. “Is he bloody stupid? You have to have the kiss goodnight. Got to leave ‘em wanting more, you know? Otherwise she’ll set her sights on someone with the balls and the brains to actually court her properly.”

She glanced toward him, face still blank – dangerously blank. That uncanny look that gave the impression of staring at a wall, left stewing in your own words, examining everything you’d said, while the face of the person opposite gave no indication whether or not you’d just stepped in it royally.

It was a look he gave to others, often.

“Keep them wanting more,” she said flatly. “Do you honestly believe women are that simple-minded?”

He opened his mouth – and shut it. Opened it, and shut it. “No,” he finally said, just as flat. “Of course not.”

“Hmm. Lucky for you, saying that.” She turned back to her phone. “Axelle’s a pretty girl,” she continued. “She’s tough, and she’s not shy, and she loves cars, and beer, and all the things blokes like. She could have a blowhard idiot American man who believes in keeping them wanting more if she wanted one. She likes Albie. I don’t think a first date kiss is going to make or break anything.”

“Would have for you,” he retorted, quietly, just to be contrary.

The look she tossed him then was curious, brows arched. “You think awfully highly of your kisses.”

On paper, it was a playful conversation; the good-natured ribbing of familiar lovers who’d moved past the honeymoon phase and settled into something comfortable.

Only, there was something prickly about it, and it didn’t leave him flushed with fondness, but, rather, wary. And wondering.

Eden sighed, set her phone down, and sat up, shaking out her finger-tangled hair with both hands. She stretched, spine popping audibly, and though his eyes followed the movements of her lithe, naked body, the sight didn’t stir him. Not now, so freshly satisfied.

A small voice in the back of his head informed him that something was wrong with his life – or maybe with him. But he ignored it.

“How about that pasta now?” she asked, throwing a smile over her shoulder as she got to her feet and reached for the robe hanging off her bedpost.

“Sounds good.”

But this here – whatever it was between them – was one of the reasons he said yes without even thinking when Michelle called a few days later.

Amarillo

Seven

“What can I do to help?” Michelle asked, the morning after Candy had gone to meet Pacer, and survey the scene.

He’d kissed her soundly, and said, “Nothing but stay safe, baby.”

She’d rolled her eyes, and decided to talk to Jenny and Darla about it, see if they could send a care package to Pacer at the very least.

(She spared a thought for the fact that it was only the three of them looking after all these boys, and again wished that some of the bachelors would marry so she didn’t have to worry about them so much.)

Candy and Blue went off to see Pacer again, talking of checking in with the FBI as they tugged their cuts on over thick jackets.

When Darla offered to watched TJ, Michelle went into town, to TLC, just to have a quick meeting with her assistant manager, she vowed…

But suddenly it was the dinner hour, and Candy was standing right in front of her at the hostess station where she’d become involved in trying to reboot the glitchy computer there.

“I see you’re taking it easy today,” he drawled, and she jumped a little, flushing immediately with guilt.

“I am,” she said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. A fruitless effort, she realized, by feel; her elastic had gotten all stretched out and her ponytail was more down than up at this point.

“Uh-huh, looks like it.” His eyes sparkled with suppressed mirth…but they bore dark circles, beneath. His whole face told the story of a long, tiring, frustrating day, down to the too-deep lines bracketing his mouth, smile lines that had been frown lines, today.

His coat was coated in reddish road dust, and she reached out automatically to brush some of it off his president patch. “You okay?” she asked, quietly, and the lead hostess, Janet, turned discreetly away to give them as much privacy as possible, given they stood in the crowded entryway of a popular bar.

“Yeah.” His tone – deeply tired – told another story.

“No luck, then?”

“Nah.” He tilted his head. “Thought I’d come put the fear of God into that barback you think’s nicking the Jack Daniel’s.”

“I’ve already spoken to him,” she said primly.

“Yeah, but.” He lifted one of his Lean Dogs’ famous fists and tightened it until his knuckles cracked. “I figure a little reinforcement couldn’t hurt.” A grin tugged at his mouth, and his eyes had a wholly different gleam, now.

Michelle sighed. “Fine. But don’t get blood on my floors.”

He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”

He went off, and she and Janet applied themselves to figuring out what the hell was wrong with the monitor in front of them, frozen on the table screen and refusing to update or allow for any kind of navigation. They’d restarted it manually twice, and Michelle had grown frustrated enough to want to smash the thing and buy a new one, when a twangy, female voice said, “Excuse me.”

Michelle glanced up, already searching for one of the other hostesses, regretting that a computer SNAFU had rerouted the whole wait line for the dining tables – and the woman standing opposite arrested her attention.

She was tall – at least a head taller than Michelle – curvy, and blonde. Deeply tan, and wearing a scoop-neck shirt that showed off a lot of cleavage; blood-red nails flashed as she tossed her hair over one shoulder. Her makeup had been applied with a practiced hand, but Michelle noted the fine lines that marked a lot of summers spent laughing in the Texas sunshine. She placed her as fortyish, and as the sort of woman who turned male heads, and liked it. She had a definitive look-at-me aura that left Michelle instantly self-conscious about her falling-down hair and her grubby flannel shirt, one of Candy’s that she’d rolled the sleeves of and belted around her waist to serve as a dress of sorts over leggings.

Not that it mattered. Stupid hormones.

“I’m so sorry about the delay,” Michelle began, “but we have a line forming over there–”

“Oh no, honey, I’m not waiting. At least not yet.” The woman rested an elbow on the edge of the hostess station, and hiked her cowhide purse up higher on her shoulder with a casual motion. “I’m looking for Derek. This is his place, right? Is he here now?” She smiled, teeth very white behind painted red lips.

Michelle wasn’t proud of the flash of possessiveness that flared in the back of her mind. What do you want with him? she thought, with an inward baring of teeth. Plenty of Amarillo natives knew him as Candyman: as the jovial, too-handsome, larger than life biker with the mean swing. He was like a mascot, or a minor local celebrity – but “Candy” was as familiar as it got. He wasn’t “Derek” to any of them. Who was this woman, and how did she know his name?

She must have made a face, because the woman’s smile widened. “I’m an old friend,” she explained. “Melanie Menendez.”

It took a second, but then the last name jumped out. “You’re related to Pacer?” Michelle asked.

Melanie’s brows lifted. “Yeah.” It was her turn to look uncertain. “His sister.”

That…made sense. Michelle told her inner guard dog to cool it.

“Candy’s here,” she conceded. “He’s in the office.” After a beat, one in which she realized Candy would no doubt want to talk to Pacer’s sister about the current situation, she offered, “Come on and I’ll take you there.”

Melanie’s smile widened again. “That’d be great.”

Michelle left Janet in charge, and headed the long, winding way along the outer catwalk of the second floor toward the office, overly aware of the tall woman at her back, the click of her high-heeled boots over the hardwood. She was startled to realize that, in terms of looks, Melanie reminded her a little of Jenny. But Jenny’s manner was much more mellow and blunt; Jenny didn’t walk into a room like she owned it.

You don’t own this place, Mel, she thought, savagely, and immediately berated herself. She wasn’t the jealous girl; the snippy, insecure girl. There was no excuse for the way she was acting here.

“Where are you from, hon?”

It took Michelle a moment to realize that it was Melanie who’d spoken, and that she was the one being spoken to. She twisted her head to look over her shoulder as she navigated the familiar terrain of the catwalk, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“That accent. It sure ain’t from Texas.”

“I’m from London, originally,” she said, stiffly.

“In England?”

“Yes, but I live here now.”

“There’s no place like Texas.”

“Yes, so I’ve been told.”

They reached the office, and Michelle opened the door without hesitation.

The barback – a beefy, dodgy guy named Carl – sat in one of the tufted leather chairs across from the desk, and Candy dwarfed the swivel chair where Michelle normally sat. Leaned back, hands laced together over his flat stomach, gaze almost bored. “If you think I can’t put your head all the way through the sheetrock…” he was saying as they entered, and broke off, gaze lifting to the door.

“Hey–” he started when he saw Michelle. And then he must have seen Melanie, because his brows leapt, and he said, “Hey!” in a totally different voice. He put his hands on the arms of the chair, and pushed to his feet. “Get lost, Carl, and remember what I said,” he said, absently.

Carl scrambled out.

Michelle stepped aside to let him through…and Melanie moved past her, already there to meet Candy’s offered hug.

“Look at you!” Melanie exclaimed, winding both arms around his neck and squeezing tight. “You look great!”

“So do you.” He pushed her back to arm’s length, grinning. “Jesus, it’s been forever.”

“Yeah, but who can tell looking at you.” She swatted him on the chest, familiarly, grinning. “Jesus, do you age at all?”

“Ah, well.” He pushed a hand through his thick, golden hair. “Yeah. The sun, you know?”

“Oh, I know, believe me!” Melanie laughed, and plopped herself down in the chair Carl had vacated.

Candy sat across from her.

“You see these?” Melanie gestured to the skin around her eyes. “Crow’s feet! God, I hate it. I used to think I’d rather die than get old. Now.” She shrugged. “It is what it is. Guess I should just be glad I still have my figure.” She laughed, and Candy laughed, and Michelle felt like she was standing a long, long distance from them, on the other side of some veil of the past they’d pulled around themselves.

They stared at one another across the desk, both wearing fond smiles.

Candy said, “I’m real sorry about what happened to Pacer’s crew.”

Melanie sighed. “I’ve always worried about him. No wife, and just those kids. He’s really broken up about it.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen.”

“He said the FBI are involved. How bad is it, Derek?”

When Candy didn’t answer right away, taking in a breath and sitting forward in his chair, Melanie turned to face Michelle, who still stood just inside the door, hand on the knob.

She smiled broadly. “I think a little privacy might be a good thing, hon.”

Michelle took a breath. Started to respond–

Candy said, “Oh, hell. You can talk in front of her. She’s my old lady.” He sounded explanatory, rather than annoyed.

Melanie’s mouth dropped open, an O of surprise; her eyes popped comically wide. “His old lady?” she said to Michelle in a tone of almost scandalized shock. She whipped around to face Candy. “Your old lady? Did I hear that right?”

Candy chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Get out. I don’t believe you.” She crossed her arms and flopped back dramatically in her chair, which made Candy chuckle again, his eyes crinkling up in the corners in that way that Michelle found so cute and boyish.  “You have an old lady? You…have an old lady? Nuh-uh, no way. Not buying it.”

“Hey, why’s that so damn surprising?” he asked, grinning.

“’Cause you’re one of those good for nothing biker types,” she shot back, laughing. “And I can’t believe you’d actually have the balls to settle down.”

“Guess what?” He tilted his head to a conspiratorial angle. “I’ve got a kid, too.”

“Shut up!”

“And one on the way.”

“Derek Snow, you’re the worst liar.” Melanie trailed off into gusty laughter; she slapped her thigh and everything, a loud smack that echoed off the walls of the office.

Michelle shut the door. Hard.

The slam startled Melanie and Candy; Melanie turned around again, laughter dying away slowly, throatily.

“Sorry,” Michelle said flatly. “I didn’t want customers overhearing anything they shouldn’t.”

A furrow appeared between Candy’s brows, his smile fading. He looked a little concerned, and on the verge of asking her something.

But Melanie said, “Oh, Lord, I’m sorry, I’m loud as all get out. Never could learn to keep to an inside voice.” She gave an offhand wave, like what’re you gonna do. But she pressed on being too familiar, without any sign of remorse. “So you two, then.” She pointed between them with one red-nailed finger. “How’d that happen? Gosh, you’re so young,” she said to Michelle. To Candy: “You old dog. Ha. Dog.”

Candy gathered a breath to respond – and Michelle realized she didn’t want to hear whatever he was about to say. Would he waggle his brows, and brag on himself, and talk about how he’d landed her? He wouldn’t cheapen their relationship like that…surely…but he also wasn’t one to get overtly sappy in front of other people.

Tone still flat, Michelle said, “My father’s the president of the London chapter. I came here on business, and ended up staying.” There was nothing she could do about her open hostility, no matter how much she’d regret it later. She was running purely off hormones at this point.

Melanie had the decency to look a little more composed; Michelle’s frostiness was getting to her, finally. She nodded. “Makes sense. I always thought you needed someone who cared about the club as much as you.” She nodded. “Glad you wised up after we split.”

Michelle stood there blinking a moment, trying to think of a way after we split could mean something besides the fact that Melanie and Candy had been involved romantically.

She wracked her brain. And she reminded herself that Candy had met her ex in London.

One of them, at least.

And she knew, rationally, that he’d been with lots of women, casually, and probably even a few almost seriously, in all the years prior to meeting her. He didn’t owe her an explanation. She had zero grounds for feeling possessive or anything approaching jealous.

But…hormones.

“Yeah, well…” Candy was saying, color blooming in his tan cheeks. “Had to find the right one, you know?” His gaze cut to her, warm, nearly bashful, but not hiding, not ashamed, not scrambling to explain.

Michelle let out a breath that took a good chunk of her tension with it. She dropped down into one of the chairs up against the wall and said, “How’s Pacer doing?” She thought she did a decent job sounding normal this time.

The last of Melanie’s smiles and giggles died away. She took a deep breath and smoothed her hands down her thighs, examining her nails. “Awful,” she said, and lifted her gaze up to meet Candy’s. “He’s awful, Der.”

Der? Michelle thought, and then chastised herself. Not her business; not a threat.

“He was real broken up when Dad died.”

Candy nodded, frowning.

“But I’ve never seen him like this. He feels like this was his fault somehow. He’s got all this guilt – and he’s scared, too.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him scared, not even when he should have been – maybe especially not when he should have been.”

“And I’m guessing he told you not to worry about it,” Candy said.

“You guessed right. But what was I gonna do? I see my brother on the news and I’m just supposed to shrug and say ‘oh well?’” She threw up her hands with a sigh of frustration. “He’s a stubborn old dumbass. But you knew that. Wouldn’t tell me anything.

“I hate just dropping by like this – and at your place, too.” She gestured toward the door, and the sprawling, raucous bar beyond it. “I went by the clubhouse, and Jinx said you were here.”

She’d gone to the clubhouse first. A fact which did not bother Michelle. Nope, nope, not one bit.

“The place is jumping, by the way. Congrats.”

Candy shrugged. “I wanted the place out of nostalgia. Chelle’s the reason it’s a success.” He sent another warm look her way.

It shouldn’t have left her feeling as good as it did.

“Yeah?” Melanie kept her gaze on Candy. “That’s wild. I was never any good with numbers.

“But. Der.” Somber again. “Please tell me you know what’s going on here. Who the hell would want to come after Pace and his boys? They’re harmless.”

“I don’t know anything yet,” Candy said with regret. “I’ve got some feelers out. Made a few calls. And so far, the feds aren’t so busy trying to pen it on my crew that they might actually get some real work done. But I don’t have any idea, yet.”

“Damn.” She raked a hand through her hair, and sagged a little, and looking at her profile, the sleepless circles under her eyes that Michelle hadn’t noticed out at the hostess station, Michelle wanted to kick herself.

She’d spent the past twenty minutes wrestling with her own selfish emotions, left reeling and stupid and downright bitchy in the wake of meeting her very loving, very attentive husband’s ex-girlfriend.

And here was Melanie, who, while a little more brash and Texas and friendly than Michelle herself, was worried about a brother who’d just lost three close friends. Who was so worried about that brother that she’d come looking for a friend who might be able to help.

Because Pacer’s boys had been staked out hand and foot, murdered, and left for the vultures.

Her stomach turned as she thought of it, and she swallowed down a wave of nausea. God, she was being an idiot.

“Melanie.” Her tone – her real tone, the one she used with friends, and club insiders – pulled Melanie’s attention, finally, and held it. “Whoever’s done this awful thing, Candy and the boys will find them, and nothing like it will happen again.”

It was the sort of hopeful lie that police officers and rescue workers told to shaken victims, an offer of hope to keep their spirits up. But, in this case, she knew Candy would find the bastards, and that they wouldn’t be alive very long after that.

Melanie stared at her a moment, tired and worried, and then she blinked and a slow smile formed. “Listen to you.” Her gaze cut toward Candy. “Yeah, you found one just as ruthless as you, huh?” She chuckled weakly. “Congrats to you both. A killer needs another killer, huh?”

Michelle sat back, idly wondering what the hell the other woman had seen in her gaze to come out with killer.

Whatever it was, she decided she was glad for it.

Eight

Prior to what Jenny – and a few state patrol officers who’d had the pleasure of shoving him in the back of a car in his younger, wilder years – said, Candyman Snow was not an idiot.

Though he’d kept in touch with Pacer before and after his stint in New York, the last he’d seen of Melanie Menendez, she’d been looking at him big-eyed and sympathetic, the wind snatching her sunkissed hair over her shoulder and across her face as she walked backward toward the car of the man she’d left him for. Some plain-faced nothing special guy with too much gel in his hair, and a shiny, generic silver import coupe covered in Texas dust he’d no doubt wash off with a sour expression and a handful of curses later. I’m sorry, Der, she’d said, but there had been no tears; no regret. She’d made up her mind, and the only sorry she was was for him. Almost pitying; a gut-punch. Like he was some poor thing about to need tissues and chocolate.

He hadn’t mourned losing her. Really, he’d known the split was coming long before it happened. He couldn’t even dredge up a proper amount of hatred for the plain-faced import-driver. Melanie had been attracted to the superficial aspects of the club early on: the leather, the bikes, the scars, the glint of too-many rings on busted knuckles. It was a thrill for a lot of women, he’d learned over the years. The cliché bad boy charm – and he was charming, more than most of his brothers, even. But she hadn’t liked the uncertainty of it. The waiting, the worrying; the dinners out called off because a truckload of guns needed running. The secrets she wasn’t privy to. She’d always been a digger, Mel. Digging at him for intel, wanting to be let in on the club secrets that, on paper, women weren’t supposed to know, but which all the old ladies learned during the hushed, pillow talk confessionals with their lovers.

“Don’t go confiding in that one,” Crockett had said once, early on, and Candy had nodded, and not protested, because he’d known. The way her gaze went narrow and probing, the little frown that tugged at her mouth when he talked about “the guys” – she didn’t accept the club. And then she’d gone and asked him to leave it; like shrugging out of his cut, blacking his tattoos, and selling his bike was a thing he could do, and not the wildest possibility ever suggested to him.

He’d let her go when it was time, and wished her well, because he wasn’t an idiot.

And because he wasn’t an idiot, he knew that her showing up tonight had bothered Michelle. His wife; his old lady; the woman with just as much club in her DNA as him, who had only been spared a cut by a chromosomal roll of the dice.

He watched her slip back out of the office with a professional assurance that it was nice to meet Melanie, but that she needed to get back to work, already wording a proper explanation in his head. She wasn’t the jealous type, but Mel had swept in like a typhoon tonight, louder and more emphatic than he remembered, and there was no mistaking Michelle’s expression. She wasn’t happy.

“Ah, shit,” Melanie said after a moment, and Candy tore his gaze from the closed office door – it wasn’t helping him, anyway. “I really stepped in it, didn’t I? First I act like the poor thing’s the help, then I open my big fat trap.” She held up her hands. “Still not a bit of grace.”

Back when they were together, even when she was at her most pressing, Candy had never found himself annoyed with Melanie. There were big guys who liked to reinforce their size, and big guys with patience in spades; he was of the latter. But he felt a quick surge of annoyance, now. “Poor thing?” he asked, brows lifting. That phrase paired with Michelle’s blank look of surprise from earlier rubbed him the wrong way.

“She’s married to you, isn’t she? And having to give birth to your giant baby?” Melanie smiled, familiar, and wide, and eager to share a joke. Just like always.

He let out a breath and smiled back. He was just feeling a little protective with her pregnant again, that was all. “Yeah. Don’t know why she puts up with me.”

“Well, when you cut out all the illegal biker shit, and the constant worry that you’ll wind up dead on the news, you’re kind of a catch. Wrinkles and all.”

He swept a hand back through his hair – which was still thick and sandy-gold, thank you very much. Why was everyone in his life – himself included – dead set on acting like forty-seven was over the fucking hill?

His retort died on his tongue, though, as he watched Melanie’s face fall.

Her eyes closed a moment, and she massaged the back of her neck, a habit he remembered from twenty years ago, suddenly, vividly. “I meant it,” she said, when she opened her eyes, voice soft now, serious. “This is as bad as I’ve ever seen Pacer. He’s so spooked. The news said something about – devil-worshipers, or something?” She frowned. “That’s not true, is it?”

“I sure as shit don’t think so. This was” – he debated, then sighed, and pressed on – “I’ll spare you the details, but this was rough, Mel. It wasn’t like a robbery gone bad, or bumping off a witness. This was ugly, and violent, and personal.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed, and her eyes went white-rimmed with panic. No tears, though; still wasn’t a crier. He’d always appreciated that about her.

“The feds are saying ‘cult’ because they haven’t found a way to accuse us of this yet. But this was personal. And it was organized. Whoever did it had help.”

She swallowed again, and nodded, visibly absorbing the information. “I thought y’all took care of that cartel, though.”

He felt his brows go up again. “How’d you know about that?”

“Pacer told me,” she said, without apology. “Not any details, obviously. But he knew y’all were warring with them. Said you knocked them down. And the boss dying in prison made the news. You’re not as secretive as you think you are, Derek.” A note of reproach in her voice, then. Still reprimanding him for keeping things from her back then? He didn’t know, and didn’t want to dwell on it.

“Yeah,” he said. “We took care of them. There’s not been any rumbling from that corner.”

“So who, then?”

Still pressing, still digging, after all this time. “Mel, if I knew, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

Her gaze narrowed, in the particular way that he remembered, a sharpening, as the busty blonde good-time girl façade cracked and allowed a glimpse of something many-sided that lurked beneath. “And what good does sitting here do?”

The air in the room seemed to chill. This was why he hadn’t mourned letting her go: the way it had felt, at moments, like they weren’t on the same side at all. Like he’d done something wrong, and she was the cop on the other side of the interrogation table from him, never accusing, but slicing the kinds of innocent-seeming openings that he could stumble through and break his neck.

He sat back in his chair, careful to keep his voice even and unbothered. “Last I checked, you didn’t like the sorts of things I did. What’d you call it? ‘Pretending to be badass?’”

She smiled tightly. “It’s not the sort of thing a girl wants to hitch her wagon to, but if you’re going to be violent for a living, you might as well keep my brother safe doing it.”

Nine

There was no reason not to head home the moment she finished dealing with the hostess station computer fiasco, but Michelle lingered afterward, leaning heavily on one elbow, queasy and tired, until she watched Melanie pick her way down the catwalk and head for the door.

Melanie tossed a wave and a broad smile in Michelle’s direction. “It was so great meeting you! Good luck with all the baby business, hon!”

Michelle waved, but fell short on the smile.

Beside her, Janet murmured, “That’s a man-stealer right there.”

“Jan,” Michelle reprimanded – weakly.

Candy showed up a few minutes later, shrugging into his jacket, gaze concerned before it found hers and held there, assessing. “You about ready to go, baby?” His knitted brows said what his tongue had been too graceful to: you look tired.

“Yes. Let me grab my coat.”

He put his arm around her waist as they stepped through the front doors and were hit with a blast of cold, dry night air. Their breath plumed, and Michelle snuggled into his side with a shiver.

She didn’t intend to say anything, had told herself sternly that she wouldn’t, but as she tipped her head back to seek out the bright specks of stars through a cloud of curling vapor, she said, calmly, “So that was your ex.”

He groaned. “Babe, I swear to God, I wasn’t hiding it–”

“I know, I know.” She had to chuckle at his tone, that of a scolded child who’d been caught hiding sweets under his bed. “I’m not upset.”

“But you don’t like her,” he guessed. When she didn’t respond right away, he said, “I saw your face.”

She had her own designated parking spot, at the corner of the building’s front walk, out of reach of stumbling, overindulging patrons, but close enough that she didn’t have to walk across the dark parking lot after dark – not that their cameras and security guards didn’t keep a close eye on the whole property. It was more the principle of the thing, a gesture that she’d felt a bit ashamed of, and had tried to resist. Every staff member, and Candy especially, had insisted she ought to have a marked spot, as general manager.

They reached her car, and stopped in front of it. When Michelle turned to face her husband, he had one brow lifted, his face faintly pink in the glow of the Tastes Like Candy neon up above.

“I don’t dislike her,” she said, careful to keep her own expression neutral. “I don’t even know her.”

“But you didn’t get a good first impression.”

“Do you really think I’m so petty?” she asked.

“No, but you’re skeptical. And you were very skeptical about her.” He looked entirely too satisfied with himself.

“I will admit–”

“Ha.”

“I will admit that her energy is very…different from mine,” she said, lifting her chin to a lofty angle. He always said she looked “super British” when she did that. “And I don’t think we’d suit well as friends.” She grew serious. “What do you want me to say, Candy? That I’m feeling insecure about your old girlfriend? That I’m ready to get into a bloody catfight? She’s your ex. And your friend’s sister. That doesn’t bother me.”

He stared at her.

She gestured to her stomach. “I’m flooded with hormones, but it doesn’t bother me.”

“Alright, fair enough.” His expression softened, then. “But I will say, even though you’re not bothered, that it wasn’t some bad, painful breakup. We were never good together, her and me. She never liked the club, and I was never invested enough to try and ease her mind about it.”

He reached up to hook a knuckle beneath her chin, callused thumb sliding along her jaw, eliciting a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. His gaze went low-lidded, smoky with promise. “She was nothing like you. I’d sell this whole club out to the feds tomorrow for you.”

The words shocked her – maybe more than anything ever had. If he hadn’t been touching her, she thought she would have staggered back a step. “I would never ask that.”

“I know. That’s one of the hundreds of reasons I love you. And that I’m married to you, and not her.”

She wasn’t embarrassed to admit that she melted a little.

“Let’s go home.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ten

Jenny wasn’t sure what woke her, but being awake wasn’t a surprise. She turned her head on the pillow, already alert at a moment’s notice, and saw Colin beside her, sleeping with innocent abandon, mouth open and one forearm over his eyes. Moonlight caught the faint glimmer of drool at the corner of his mouth, and she smiled to herself in the dark. He could sleep anywhere, anytime, not a worrier by nature, and confident he was big enough to handle anything stupid enough to wake him.

Jenny was a light sleeper, though. The house creaking in the wind, a dog barking down the street, the thump of a neighbor’s car door – all of it had the power to draw her out of sleep. Since meeting Colin, she’d at least stopped waking in a low-grade panic. Years spent feeling unsafe in your own home could make a light sleeper out of anyone.

She wasn’t panicked tonight, at least. She rolled the other way and checked the clock: just after three. She lay still and listened a moment. Theirs was a quiet neighborhood, with no dogs save the small indoor kind that didn’t normally cause a ruckus after dark. Their neighbors were either retirees, or young families with small children, so no wild, late night teenage antics to disturb the peace.

The house lay dark and hushed around her; she thought she could hear the stillness of the air in all the rooms; the barely-perceptible snuffling of the house settling down deeper on its slab like a contented, sleeping animal.

But she finally detected a noise that was out of place. Jack wasn’t crying, but she heard the unmistakable sound of his bed springs creaking as he climbed out of it.

Little brat, she thought fondly, sitting up herself and sliding her feet into the Ugg slippers that waited on the floor below. She grabbed Colin’s robe off the back of the bedroom door, huge, and flannel, and cozily threadbare, and pulled it on as she headed down the hall.

A thread of blue moonlight spilled from the cracked-open guestroom door and across the floor, but she didn’t need it, deftly stepping over an abandoned toy truck; missing the Lego that Colin would doubtless step on later and curse to within an inch of its tiny plastic life.

She’d just put a hand against Jack’s door when she heard another sound, one she couldn’t at first place. A quiet chink-chink-chink. Like metal on metal, but muffled. As if from a distance…or through a wall.

She pushed the door open, and in the glow of his nightlight, saw Jack standing at the window, pulling the blinds open with his hands, staring out at the front yard.

“What are you doing, bud?” she asked, coming up behind him. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“Mama, there’s a man there.”

Her pulse leapt, and she reached for the cord of the blinds. “Here, let me see.” When he pulled his hands clear, she raised them up to the top, and peered through glass that quickly fogged when her breath hit it.

The metal-on-metal sound had ceased, and she saw two men in dark clothes jogging away down the street, avoiding the street lights. She couldn’t tell anything, only that they were man-shaped, and that they had been in their front yard.

Jack tapped a fingertip on the glass. “Mama, look. The man. He looks like a star.”

“What?” she asked, half-distracted. And then her gaze dropped to where Jack was pointing, to the winter-dormant grass of their yard.

A third man lay on his back. She could see the moon-silvered skin of his face; the pale light gleamed on open, wet eyes. He was spread-eagle, like someone caught in the act of making a snow angel.

Only there was no snow.

And he wasn’t moving.

And the metallic sounds she’d heard? Probably had to do with the metal stakes that gleamed at his wrists and ankles.

~*~

Michelle woke to find Candy on his feet, tugging on a pair of jeans, cellphone clamped awkwardly between his face and his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he was saying, expression grim. “Yeah. Be there soon.” He paused in the jean-tugging to grab the phone, disconnect the call, and set it on the dresser. When she sat up, his attention shifted to her, as he buttoned his jeans. “Shit, baby, did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet.”

She rubbed the grit from her eyes and tried to rally her wits. A glance at the bedside clock proved it was three-thirty. “What’s going on?”

“Two more bodies,” he said, grimly, and suddenly she was awake.

She glanced at him again. “Where?”

He buckled his belt and reached for a clean flannel off the top of the dresser, one among a stack she’d meant to fold and put away earlier. “Jen and Colin’s place.”

“What?”

“Jen woke up hearing some kinda noise.” His mouth pressed into a tight, angry line, brows knitted. “She found Jack outta bed, staring out the window, looking at the goddamn things. They were all staked out like Pacer’s boys were. She thought it was just one at first, but when Colin went out to look, there were two.”

“Holy shit.” She thought of her own TJ, standing at his bedroom window in his pajamas, seeing something like that, and she wanted somebody – whoever it was doing this – dead.

“I’m headed over there,” Candy said. “Jen’s freaked and Colin’s ready to beat heads.”

Michelle flipped the covers back. “Hold on and I’ll come with you.” She swung her feet over the side of the bed and told her stomach to behave, for once. “Maybe Darla won’t mind sitting back here with TJ.” She was already wincing at the idea of asking a favor at this time of morning.

“I already sent Jinx and the twins to pick Jenny up and bring her and Jack here. Blue and I are gonna meet Colin over there.”

“Oh. Well.” She stood. “I’ll go put tea on.”

He caught her gently by the shoulder when she moved toward the door, and when she tipped her head back to meet his gaze, she found him studying her worriedly – and found herself breathing too quickly.

She took a measured breath, and exhaled with slow purpose. “I’m fine,” she said, before he could ask. “It’s Jenny you should be worried about.”

“I am worried.” He released her shoulder to reach up and smooth her hair back from her face. “About both my girls.”

“Go,” she said, softly. “I’m fine, love.”

He offered a brief, tight smile.

She wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was: thinking that it was one thing for someone to bother Pacer; for some heathen to challenge and spook a simple riding club. Bullies would be bullies, after all – even deranged, murderous bullies.

But it was quite another thing to throw a gauntlet down in front of the Lean Dogs MC. And that was what had happened tonight.

~*~

Candy and Blue passed the van that Jinx was driving on their way to the O’Donnell house. He caught the quick, two-fingered wave Jinx lifted off the wheel in the van’s dash lights, and returned it from behind the wheel of the club truck they’d taken to keep from waking the neighborhood with the ring of Harley tailpipes.

Knowing Jenny was on her way to safety eased his immediate panic – which left plenty of room for good old-fashioned anger.

Blue hitched himself into a more comfortable position in the passenger seat. “How are we gonna play this with the five-oh? Did Colin already call them?”

“No. He said he threw a tarp over the bodies.”

Blue made a choking sound. “Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah. Same old dumbass. Didn’t want the neighbors to see. He said he’d wait for us, but, if this looks like the other bodies out in the desert, I say we call Agent Cantrell.”

“The fed?” Blue sounded like someone trying very hard not to sound incredulous – and failing.

“It shows innocence on our part,” Candy said, feeling a little defensive. “We wouldn’t call him if we’d done it – not to mention, I wouldn’t dump a fucking body in my own sister’s yard.”

“Unless you were really trying to throw off the trail.”

“Not helpful, bro.”

He felt Blue’s gaze on the side of his head, and gritted his teeth against whatever his old friend was about to say, already anticipating a lecture. “Used to,” Blue said, and here it came, “you’d sooner cat burglars make off with everything you own than file a police report.”

“Blue.”

“You’d pay to replace a whole entire truck with cash outta your pocket before you called the cops so insurance could handle it.” It wasn’t said unkindly, or with any urgency; was spoken as a matter of mild observation.

Candy massaged the steering wheel a few silent minutes, putting a tight rein on his initial, kneejerk flare of anger. He felt defensive, and that wasn’t a normal feeling for him. He wasn’t used to explaining himself to the boys, and he hated doing so now.

But Blue had a point, damn it. He’d once accidently scratched a Mercedes with his wallet chain, trying to squeeze between it and an old truck in the grocery store parking lot. He’d left a fat wad of cash tucked beneath the windshield wiper to avoid having to give his name to whatever nice lady owned it, who would probably, once she got a look at his cut, want to dial 9-1-1.

“The fed already knows I’m involved because he saw me there with Pacer,” he reasoned, squirming inwardly because he was dodging some of the truth, and knew it. “If we go dump these bodies, and do a shit job of it – if someone found them – if one of Jen’s neighbors peeked out the window and saw it lying there already – then we look guilty as shit. Right now, we’ve got no idea who’s doing this, and no idea where to even start looking. Maybe we ought to let the long arm of the law get off its ass and do its job for once.”

“Solid point,” Blue said after a moment.

“Yeah, well. Getting smarter as I get older.”

“And more cautious.”

Candy darted a glance toward him, registered his thoughtful expression in the dash lights, the knowing way Blue glanced back before the road took his attention again. “You saying I’m getting soft?” he bristled.

“If I was, it’s because I know that it’s got nothing to do with age, and everything to do with a little blonde sweet thing and a baby boy.”

Candy lifted a hand off the wheel and made a staying gesture in the air between them. The anger spiked, thrumming through him now, wanting an outlet. Misplaced nerves over Jenny, and the situation, and frustration at his own helplessness – throw Michelle into the mix and he was ready to throw hands. “Blue,” he said, warningly. “I know you’re not gonna say some shit about my old lady.”

“No. Jesus, will you cool it? I’d never insult Michelle, I love that kid. You know that.” He made a disgusted sound. “Do you honestly think…? No. What I meant was, you’ve got a family now. That softens everybody up, and there’s no shame in it. Nobody wants to get locked up or shot dead when he’s got kids and an old lady. I get why you’re doing things the legal way this time.”

Candy frowned at the road. What Blue had said made sense. But Candy wasn’t just some guy in some club. The MC wasn’t just a stop-gap between disastrous life decisions like it was for some; not one in a long string of nefarious, law-breaking mistakes. Michelle and TJ – and the little nugget to come – were his everything, but calling Cantrell wouldn’t be about running gun shy. About worrying about getting locked up and leaving them behind.

It was the most practical, least risky decision for his club. His club, that he’d been born into, that ran thicker than blood through his veins.

He wasn’t soft.

When was the last time you hit somebody? a traitorous little voice asked in the back of his mind. He shoved it down and said, “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears.”

“No,” Blue said. “Nothing better.”

The turn appeared up ahead, and Candy was grateful to flick on the blinker and be done with this conversation. Questioning himself was not his natural state of being, and it sucked.

He half-expected to pull up to blue lights and fluttering yellow tape. But when they braked in front of the house, all they found was moonlight gleaming dully off the blue tarp, and Colin standing with his bare arms folded tight against the chill. He at least wore a pair of work gloves, Candy noted with grudging approval. Hopefully he hadn’t gotten his damn prints and DNA all over the bodies before he’d pulled them on.

Candy killed the engine, climbed out, and pulled up short when he nearly ran into Colin, who’d come striding down the yard to meet him at the front of the truck.

As a general rule, Candy didn’t run into anyone taller or broader in the shoulder than himself. Mercy was the only one, but he only saw him a few times a year. In day-to-day life, Candy was the “big one.”

Or, at least, he had been. Colin was just a hairsbreadth taller, shoulders just a smidge wider, and the muscles of his chest and arms bulkier. It was that Remy Lécuyer DNA; the body of a man who could dredge full-grown bull gators up out of swamp muck and haul them over the side of a tiny, wallowing boat.

Colin lacked his half-brother’s spookier energy, though, most of the time. His life had been easier; his smiles came a little slower, but truer, less frenetic. Colin smiled like a joke was funny. Mercy smiled like it was so funny he wanted to hit the joke-teller with a ballpeen hammer and see if more jokes would come spilling out like candy from a piñata.

Tonight, the December breeze plastering his shirt to his chest, his dark eyes black and gleaming in the moonlight, his jaw clenched tight enough to cut glass, Colin looked more Mercy than himself.

“What the fuck?” he demanded, voice low, and rough, and channeling fear into fury.

Candy elected to let it slide. But he did say, “We’re not having this conversation out on the street. We’re gonna call Cantrell–”

“Who?”

“Keep your voice down. Agent Cantrell. The FBI agent assigned to the desert killings case.”

There was just enough moon and streetlight to make out the way Colin’s brows scaled his forehead. “You want to bring that guy to my house? You want to bring a fed to my house?”

“What, you got another body in the garage?” Before he could answer, Candy put a hand on his shoulder, and not-so-gently steered him back up the yard, toward the tarp. “How bad is it?” he asked in an undertone. With this wind, and given the flatness of the street, the coldness of the night, voices would carry.

“There’s two corpses on my lawn, so pretty fucking bad.”

“What killed them, idiot?”

They reached the edge of the tarp and came to a halt. To Candy, used to seeing such things, the shape of two bodies beneath were unmistakable – if unusual, given the way the arms and legs were spread.

“Their throats are cut,” Colin said, grudgingly.

“Same as the others.” Candy cast a look down the street, checking house fronts. He didn’t see any lights on, but that didn’t mean anything. If you were peeking through your blinds, spying on the neighbors, you’d keep the lights off.

He crouched and lifted the edge of the tarp, just far enough to glimpse a battered work boot, equally weathered jeans, and to get a whiff of voided bladder and bowels. “What did the blood look like?”

“What?” Colin sounded irritated, on edge, distracted. When Candy glanced back, he saw that he was scrubbing his gloved hands through his hair, shoulders jacked up high and tight.

“The blood where their throats were cut. Did it run down their fronts, or down the sides of their necks?”

Colin lowered his arms, slowly. “The sides,” he said, and then, “fuck.”

They hadn’t been killed and dumped. They’d been killed right here, in Colin and Jenny’s yard.

“That’s just like the others, too,” Candy said, grimly.

~*~

Jenny murmured a quiet thanks when Michelle placed a steaming mug of tea in front of her. She wrapped both hands around it, and pulled it close, but made no move to drink it. Michelle was well-versed in the medicinal properties of having a hot drink in your hands; the drinking was irrelevant.

Michelle sat down across from her with her own mug. “Are you okay?” She’d asked that already, when she’d met Jenny coming in through the front door on a blast of cold air, but that had been automatic, and perfunctory. Now, it was alone, out from under Jinx’s watchful eye, in a safe place, at a familiar table, with tea and buttery lamplight. A person’s state of okay, Michelle had learned over the years, could shift in just a few minutes. It was when you finally stopped managing the situation and sat down that it hit you like a sucker punch.

Jenny reached up to rub at the place between her brows, the skin already pink like she’d done that on the ride over. Her gaze was on her tea. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve seen worse.” They both had. “But Jack…” She lifted her head, and glanced toward the sofa where Jack had curled up with his favorite blanket and fallen asleep almost immediately. “He saw it. One of them,” she said, quietly, her voice laced with a shiver. “I told him the man was just sleeping. Playing a game. He’s four, so I don’t know that it’s gonna stick in his head, you know? And, hell.” She sighed. “He’ll end up patching in one day. These won’t be his last dead bodies. But.” She turned toward Michelle, her eyes – the same faded denim blue as her brother’s – white-rimmed with repressed panic. “They were right outside his room. Somebody killed two men right outside his room.”

“I know.” That was the thing that put Michelle’s mama bear instincts in sympathetic overdrive.

It would have been so easy – would have taken only a moment – for one of the killers to take the three steps to the window and slip a blade in the crack at its bottom. Lever it up. Reach through…

She dashed the thought away before it could manifest too strongly. Jack was fine, and he was going to stay that way. Just like TJ. The last was half-determined statement…half-prayer.

“Candy say who he thinks it is?” Jenny asked, startling her.

“No. If I knew, you’d know.”

Jenny lifted a single brow and took a sip of tea. “Doubt it. I don’t know jack shit since we moved out.”

“No, but…” Michelle’s argument faded on her tongue as she thought about it. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she and Jenny had sat at this table together, having coffee, or wine, or a shared dinner with the whole family.

“Yeah,” Jenny said. “I’m out of the loop.”

“No.” A weak protest. If she pulled out her phone, she’d find that her last contact with Jenny had been three days ago, a quick text about an upcoming potluck at a rec center charity the club was sponsoring this Christmas. “I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t keeping you up to date.”

“Shit, no, that’s not your job. Phones work both ways. Most of this is on me.” She sighed, and toyed with the string of her teabag. “With my new job, and Jack being in school now. And not living here…I guess I never realized how deep you get in club business when you live under its roof.” She sounded wistful.

“Do you miss it?”

Jenny looked up, surprised by the question. “No,” she said, right away, but then took a long sip of tea and seemed to think it over. “I love my house,” she said, firmly, like she didn’t want Michelle to think she didn’t. Maybe to convince herself, too, a little. “We just put the fence in across the backyard, and I’m going to have tomatoes next summer. We’ve got so much room. And privacy. God. It’s a miracle to have sex without worrying your brother’s just down the hall and might hear.”

“Colin gets loud, does he?” Michelle teased, and they both chuckled.

Jenny’s smile faded fast, though. She shrugged. “I got used to it, though: being here all the time. Knowing everything that was going on. A lot of it was dumb – nobody needs to know what sort of terrible lunch creation Cletus let go moldy in the fridge.”

“Olive loaf on rye this week,” Michelle said, making a face.

Jenny wrinkled her nose in sympathy. “See? Nobody. But I was–” Her next breath came unsteadily. “I wasn’t an old lady, but I was the woman they all turned to. I was the HBIC, you know? It was like I had a place. Like I mattered. And now I’m just…an old lady, living away from all the action.”

Michelle frowned. “Jen, are things alright with you and Colin?”

“What? Yes. Yes, they’re great. This isn’t about us.” She shook her head, and looked frustrated. “He’s a big doofus, but I love him.” She said it like it was an affliction, but a deep, private smile tweaked the corners of her mouth, the kind Michelle could immediately relate to.

Jenny sighed. “You’d be feeling the same way, if it was you living apart from here.”

Michelle smiled. “Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

“Ignore me,” Jenny said with a little wave, and sipped more tea. “I’m all high-strung because of what happened. And,” she added, voice firming, gaze going steely in a reassuring way; that was the HBIC peeking through, still very much intact, living apart or no. “I can’t believe Candy isn’t already elbows-deep in ass-kicking yet. How does he not have a clue who’s doing this?”

“I don’t know,” Michelle said, letting worry bleed into her voice at last. She stared down at her own undrunk tea. The mug had gone cold between her hands. “Has he ever not known what was going on in this city?”

“No,” Jenny said, “and that’s what scares me.”

Eleven

Cantrell climbed out of his car wearing a wool trench over a threadbare Quantico shirt, his plaid lounge pants tucked into cowboy boots that, at least, carried admirable signs of wear. Never trust a man with too-clean boots, Dad had always said. He cursed, and fumbled with his coat buttons as he walked up the frost-crunchy sod to where Candy, Blue, and Colin stood beside the tarp.

“You touched the bodies?” he asked, glancing down at the tarp.

“The tarp touched the bodies,” Colin said, and Candy nudged him.

“It seemed important the neighbors not see two dead guys laid out like lawn ornaments,” he said. “And I figure your lab guys are talented enough to know the tarp’s not what killed them.” He grinned.

Cantrell regarded him a moment – there was enough light creeping up over the horizon to see the unimpressed flatness of his expression. “Yeah. Sure.”

Patrol cars rolled up after that. Candy took Colin and Blue and they all retreated to the front porch to let Cantrell handle things – which he did. The uniformed cops were put on tape and lookout duty. Vans started rolling up. A coroner, and some black vans from the FBI lab, full of techs in white gloves and black windbreakers. They dragged out their kits, and cameras, and they folded back the tarp just as the sun finally broke over the horizon in pale white spikes, the soft glow of dawn spilling through the neighborhood.

The neighbors rolled by a few at a time, slowing way down, rubber-necking on their way to work. The uniforms waved them on, but Candy was pretty sure one mom in a minivan got an eyeful of dead guy, if the way her mouth dropped open was any indication.

Cantrell finally ambled up to the porch, walking like a man who’d had less than three hours of sleep, smoking a cigarette. Colin already had a travel mug of fresh coffee ready and handed it out in offering.

Cantrell blinked at it a moment, exhaustion-rumpled face smoothing in momentary surprise.

“It’s cream and sugar,” Colin said.

“Thanks.” The agent took it, and if he had any hesitation about drinking something a confirmed outlaw handed him, he didn’t show it, taking a long sip straight off.

“How long ‘til they get them outta my yard?” Colin asked.

“Hard to say.” Cantrell glanced toward the action. Two female techs stood over one body, one near the head, one down at a staked foot, snapping pictures, then bending to place the little scale markers again and take more. “I don’t get involved in ‘the process.’” He said it like someone who’d been reprimanded more than once for doing just that. He turned back to Colin, gaze sharpening. “You saw them from the house?”

“My wife did,” Colin said, folding his arms across his chest, that same puffed-up, defensive posture he’d had when Candy first arrived. The idiot still hadn’t put on a jacket – only a beanie pulled low on his brow. He looked huge, and the pose wasn’t going to help things. “Right outside our son’s bedroom window.” He nodded toward it.

“Jesus,” Cantrell said, flatly. “Helluva thing to wake up to.”

Then the agent’s gaze landed on Candy – installed in one of Jenny’s cliché white rocking chairs – and stayed there. “I’d like to have a word, Mr. Snow. Just the two of us.”

Blue grumbled something unintelligible – though Candy swore he heard soft thrown in – but he and Colin headed inside without making a fuss.

When they were gone, Cantrell sipped his coffee, and stared out at the crime scene.

Candy snorted. “That old trick isn’t gonna work on me, boss. If you’ve got questions, you can just go ahead and ask them.”

Cantrell sighed and gave a little shrug with his brows, expression rueful. He hitched a hip up onto the porch rail, one leg dangling tiredly, and looked at Candy full-on. Not with that careful blankness of a questioning detective, nor with any hostility. Honestly, Candy wasn’t used to being looked at like this by law enforcement of any kind.

“I did some research into your organization.”

“Our reputation didn’t precede us?” Candy asked with a shit-eating grin.

“Oh, it did, believe me. But I don’t like to operate on rumor and hearsay. That doesn’t land me warrants or get dirtbags arrested. I’m a hard-facts only kinda guy.”

“How old fashioned of you.”

“Yeah, well.” The smile became more rueful – and then grim. “It doesn’t win you a lot of friends in the Bureau, I can tell you that. Turns out, the old Boy Scout routine fell out of favor a while back.”

“Sucks when that happens.”

“So I did my research. Conveniently for you and yours, though the club rubs up against a lot of very illegal shit, it never actually gets busted for it.”

Candy let his grin sharpen. It wasn’t as effective as one of Mercy’s crazy, gator-hunting smiles, he knew, but it wasn’t bad. “Maybe I’m a Boy Scout, too.”

Cantrell snorted – but something like real amusement peeked through his wry façade. “I know how clubs like yours operate. They oughta teach courses on it at Quantico. It’s – well, it’s fairly damn impressive, if we’re being honest.”

“Not that I don’t love being flattered, Agent…”

His voice went quiet. “I have no leads on this case. Not a one.”

Candy blinked. “Really?”

“None. Big fat goose egg.” He made a circle with one hand for emphasis. “The profilers say this fits all the marks of cult activity, but I’m not exactly gonna find a cult hiding under a rock out in the desert, and none of the vics’ families can tell me anything useful.”

Candy nodded. He’d reached out to their dealers, their wannabes, their Lean Bitches; the business owners downtown who kicked up a vig to the club to buy themselves protection. Nobody knew anything. He’d hoped that, if he had to put up with the feds, their cameras and tweezers and test tubes might at least provide some useful bit of insight.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked. He thought he knew – but it was too odd to be believed.

Cantrell sighed. “I want to make it very clear that I don’t like what you guys do.”

Candy nodded. “That’s a given.”

“But it’s…” He grimaced. “I can’t believe I’m saying this. Whatever bad shit the Dogs do, the ritual killing of civilians doesn’t seem to be on the list.”

“We do try to avoid that kinda thing.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” Candy levered a hint of steel into his voice. “This wasn’t us.”

“I know that,” Cantrell said, and the words sounded like they cost him – but like delivering them lightened the load across his shoulders, too. “Which is the only reason I can sit here and admit to you that I need help.”

Candy felt his brows go up again. “Sorry. I didn’t catch that. It sounded like you asked for my help.”

The agent’s face compressed, expression nearly disgusted. “Don’t get cute. I’m talking about an understanding – a business agreement. I share what I learn, you share what you learn, and we’ll meet in the middle and catch the bastards.”

Candy stared at him a long moment, searching for the catch, the trap. Can’t trust anyone with a badge, Dad’s voice – or maybe Blue’s – pinged unhelpfully in the back of his head. And he knew that; bikers and lawmen lived on opposite ends of a line that – while it could be obscured, or pushed up or down along a scale – could never be erased completely. One-percenters were outlaws, at the end of the day. By choice, by design. The incompatibility would always exist.

But the club did make temporary friends out of the occasional badge or two. Guys who owed the club; guys who’d grown up around it and appreciated the ways they kept petty crime and senseless violence at bay. Guys who understood the futility of trying to bring down the club, and who’d decided to make use of them in the ways they could instead.

Maybe Cantrell was one of those – he sounded like it.

But he was a fed. This wasn’t a local deputy sticking his neck out, ready to be dressed-down and turned loose by the higher-ups. Agents could pull all sorts of governmental strings. They had resources. When clubs were toppled, occasionally, it was always at the sizable hands of the alphabet agencies.

“I’m not talking about filling out paperwork,” Cantrell said, rolling his eyes. “But somebody has to go take your sister’s statement. Might as well be me.”

Candy searched his face. He’d always thought himself a good judge of character; unless he really had gone soft, Cantrell wasn’t smarmy enough, smooth or charming enough, to be playing any kind of game. He looked tired and frustrated.

So Candy nodded. “Yeah, might as well.”

Twelve

Michelle woke to the sound of a small voice saying “Mama” over and over. She sat up with a little gasp when pain lanced down her neck, and along the backs of her shoulders. She’d fallen asleep at the table, head down on her folded arms, and the position had pressed on all kinds of nerves the wrong way.

Jenny was in the same shape, grimacing across from her, blinking gritty eyes and reaching to massage the back of her neck. Jack stood beside her chair, tugging at the sleeve of her sweater.

“Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama–”

“Shh, I hear you, baby, what’s wrong?”

“Daddy’s here.”

That meant Candy was here, too, probably. Michelle raked her fingers through her hair and glanced around the room. Her tea sat stone cold in front of her, and pale early light streamed in through the windows. She should have been up, showered, and dressed by now. Should have been getting TJ’s breakfast ready now. Should already be thinking about spreadsheets, and numbers, and ways to make TLC run even smoother and more efficiently – the thing she was constantly thinking about.

Before she could stand, the door to the sanctuary opened, and Candy and Colin trooped in.

Jack whirled around with a glad, “Daddy!” and ran at them.

Colin scooped him up without any visible effort, hoisting him high so Jack’s little legs could go around his waist. “Hey, buddy. You get some sleep?”

Jack nodded vigorously, tousled gold hair flying. “Mama’s still asleep,” he said in a confidential whisper that, while hushed, didn’t hit the mark of being quiet.

“No, she’s not,” Jenny said, standing. Michelle caught her giving her hair a quick tidy, tongue running over her teeth with an expression that was a plain wish for a toothbrush. “Hey, baby.”

Michelle turned her head to give them what privacy she could, just in time to meet Candy as he braced a hand on the back of her chair and leaned down for a kiss.

“My breath’s disgusting,” she said, apologetically, after.

“Nope.” He gave a quick smile, and kissed her forehead before he straightened. “Jen,” he said, turning to his sister. “Agent Cantrell followed us back. He needs to get an official statement from you.”

Surprise flashed across Jenny’s face, briefly, but then it smoothed away, and she nodded. “Right. Sure. Let me just–” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Mind if I use the guest bathroom?” she asked Michelle.

Guest bathroom. “Of course. That’s your bathroom.” Michelle put a careful stress on the word, wanting her to still feel welcome – to know, after what she’d admitted earlier, that the clubhouse, and its cozy sanctuary in back, were still her home.

Jenny’s smile was tight. “Thanks. Be right back.”

When she was gone, Michelle got to her feet, and tied her hair up with the elastic she always wore on one wrist. “Jack, are you hungry?” she asked with as much brightness she could muster. “Would you like some jelly toast?”

“Yes!”

Colin, still holding him, gave him a gentle bounce. “Yes what?”

“Yes, please!”

“TJ up yet?” Candy asked, as Michelle went to the counter and got out the bread.

“No, I was going to check.”

“I’ll get him.”

When she unfurled the long plastic tongue of the bread bag, and breathed in the yeasty scent of fresh sourdough, her stomach recoiled. She willed the nausea down, and breathed through her mouth, struck by one of the waves of hormonal nostalgia that had plagued her first pregnancy. A frustrating sort of nostalgia, because it was a longing for something she’d never had.

She’d missed the nebulous, comforting, cultural idea of having her mum when she had her first period; when she got her heart broken by a boy for the first time; when she left London, and came here. Raven had done her best, always, and was beloved for it. But it wasn’t the same. She’d wanted her mother there for her wedding. And she wanted her here, now, to put an arm around her shoulders, and talk of her own morning sickness, and share all the little tips and tricks that mothers dispensed to daughters; the kind of advice that everyone else in her life had tried to compensate for so valiantly.

A water droplet landed on the back of her hand, and she realized tears slid silently down her face. She dashed them angrily with her sleeve, and pressed down the lever on the toaster with more force than necessary. Stupid hormones.

“Hey, you okay?”

She jumped when Colin leaned up against the counter beside her. A rather wild, embarrassed glance around proved that he’d installed Jack on the couch in front of cartoons, and that she hadn’t heard the TV come on, nor Colin approach.

She wiped her face again and said, “Fine. Yes. I’m fine,” in a tone that wouldn’t have convinced a stranger of the fact.

A quick look revealed Colin’s dark brows knitting as he frowned. “Are you crying?” he asked, low enough that Jack couldn’t hear. “Are you…?” He looked distressed, like he had no idea what to do if she said yes.

It struck her as hilarious, this big, scary guy looking at her like she was a bomb that might go off, and she smiled, the last of her tears receding. “Hormone moment,” she said, and his brow smoothed instantly in understanding. “If I’m not puking I’m crying.”

He nodded, and made a shooing motion with one giant hand. “Here. I can make toast.”

She gave way with a grateful sigh, sinking down into the chair at the end of the long table. “How are you doing?” she asked. “Besides freaking out, obviously.”

His mouth twitched sideways in rueful acknowledgement. “Really wishing my kid’s bedroom wasn’t on the front of the goddamn house.” He braced a hand on the counter and turned toward her. “And wondering why whoever this sick fuck is went from messing with Pacer to messing with me.”

Michelle had wondered that, too. “They must have realized that Candy got involved, and decided to send a message.”

“At my house.”

“His sister’s house.” She frowned to herself. “Anyone who knew him at all would know Jenny’s his big weak spot.”

Colin’s brows went up. “Just Jenny?”

“Oh.” Realization dawned a beat too late. “Me too, I suppose.”

“You, too, especially. That’s just common sense: you wanna mess with a guy, you threaten his old lady.” He made a face. “Men kinda suck, huh?”

“Duly noted. But…” She wracked her brain – for all the good it did. Pregnancy brain was a thing, and she had it. “Maybe it was too difficult to get in and out of here.” As soon as she said it, she knew it for the truth. We’ve got the fences, and the cameras, and the single boys are always coming in and out at all hours of the night.”

“Makes sense.” The toast popped, and he pulled it, and added more bread. When Michelle moved to fetch the jelly from the fridge, he waved her back down and got it himself.

In the two years since she’d come to Amarillo, Michelle had been surprised – at first – to find that she and Colin had developed a kind of friendship that existed as its own thing, outside of family obligations. There was plenty they didn’t have in common – most things, really, if she was honest – but one very important thing they did: they’d both married Snows. They were both outsiders from other cities, both had struggled to find a place here in the unforgiving desert-adjacent environs of Amarillo, and both of them loved born-and-bred club children who loved deeply…but who loved the club deeply, too.

“Candy mentioned an Agent Cantrell?” she asked.

“FBI,” he supplied, spreading grape jelly with the back of a spoon. “Your boy seems real chummy with him.”

“What?”

Colin swallowed his reply as Candy emerged from the back, carrying a still-sleepy, but dressed and presentable TJ. He made grabby hands at Michelle when they drew close, and she reached to take him and settle him in her lap. He was a heavy kid, solid, and warm, and the top of his head smelled like no-tears shampoo. An instant balm to her unsteady emotions.

“Good morning, my love,” she whispered into his hair. “Did you sleep well?”

“Coco,” he said, which was what he called Colin, tongue still clumsy with babyhood, mind sharp as the knife she carried in her boot.

“Yeah, Uncle Coco’s making breakfast. You want some?” Colin asked with a grin.

TJ bounced in her lap and clapped his hands with a resounding, “Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast!”

“Take that as a yes,” Colin said with a chuckle, slotting more bread into the toaster.

Michelle caught Candy’s gaze. “You’re getting chummy with a fed?” she asked conversationally.

It took a moment for her comment to really hit, judging by the way he reached for a coffee mug, and then froze a second, his whole body tensing. Then he shrugged and continued like his brain hadn’t just come to a screeching, panicked halt. The tips of his ears turned pink, though, giving away his self-consciousness. “Chummy, huh?” He managed to elbow Colin deftly while he poured coffee. “I see telling tall tales runs in the family.”

“Just calling it like I see it,” Colin said.

“Well, if I was a nobody, non-officer standing in someone else’s kitchen right now, I’d watch what I called.”

“Candy,” Michelle said, sharply enough that TJ craned around to get a look at her face. She bounced him on her knees in an effort at distraction. “What’s going on?”

He was slow in turning to her, sugaring his coffee first, and when he did, he wore an expression she hadn’t expected to see directed her way: the careful, nonchalant mask he wore when he was trying to lull someone into thinking there was nothing to worry about.

“No,” she said, before he could speak.

His brows went up. “No?”

“Your face. You don’t give anyone a real answer when you make that face.”

“Babe–” he started.

Jenny came back into the room, dressed in the spare outfit she kept in her old bedroom, jeans and a knit Henley, and had put her hair up in a charmingly messy bun. “He’s here already?” she asked.

Colin set a heaping plate of jelly toast on the table, and the boys cheered.

“Yeah, I’ll walk you out,” Candy said, motioning toward the sanctuary door.

“Coffee first,” Jenny said.

The time for any kind of real answer was slipping away. Michelle met Candy’s gaze – a brief snatch before he ushered Jenny out – and it wasn’t the reassuring look she’d hoped for. A glancing kind of regard, withdrawing, holding back.

She knew a sudden, intense urge to call Fox, as she watched Candy leave, his wide shoulders filling the doorway. It was her first urge in that direction – but she waited. Only hormones, she thought, and let it lie, for now.

Thirteen

Jenny was an old pro at this sort of thing. Candy forgot, sometimes – it was in his nature to worry about the people he loved most – that he didn’t need to shield her in situations like these. Jenny went out into the common room and offered Agent Cantrell a ready handshake, her voice and smile warm, undercut with the barest hint of emotion. The proper tremor for a worried mother who’d seen two corpses staked out beyond her baby’s window. She sat down with Cantrell, while the rest of them hovered, and Candy could tell which of her little hitched breaths, and her lowered gazes were for show – but only because he knew her. Cantrell would have no idea.

She described the way she’d woken, the way she’d heard Jack stirring. Described walking down the hall, dodging toys, and how she’d heard the sound of the stakes being driven into the cold, hard ground.

“Jack said…” Her voice quavered. “‘Mama, look. That man. He looks like a star.’ God.” Deep, unsteady breath. “Sorry. I keep seeing it again, in my mind.”

Nice touch, Candy though with an inward grin.

“You said you saw two men fleeing the scene?” Cantrell asked, pen poised above his notepad.

When the interview was over, Jenny thanked him, accepted the card he offered her, and Candy escorted the good agent outside to his dusty unmarked car. He told himself that the eyes he felt burning holes in his back were just his imagination, and not the silent censure of his club brothers.

It was noon, and the sun beat down, cool, but relentlessly bright. Cantrell had sweat on his temples, though, by the time they’d crossed the scrubby front lawn, gone through the gates, and reached the parking lot where the unmarked sat beside a row of gleaming Harleys.

Cantrell produced a handkerchief and wiped his brow with it. Candy wondered if he had some sort of condition, or if he himself had grown so used to the heat that it took truly soaring temperatures to make him uncomfortable.

“You and I both know,” Cantrell said, “that there’s no one holding a grudge against your sister.”

“Got a little crush, huh?” Candy said mildly, just to be a shit.

“Shut up. This was a message for you – for the club. Because you’re connected to Pacer?”

“That’s my guess.”

“Or was Pacer targeted because of you, too?”

Candy’s step faltered a moment. He hadn’t considered that.

“I’m convinced these are related to the Nevada killings,” Cantrell continued, as they pulled up beside the car. Someone – not Cantrell, Candy didn’t figure – had drawn a heart in the dust on the gas flap with a fingertip. “All the markers are the same: same position of the bodies; same method of slitting the throat. The stakes and the cord used to tie them even look to be the same brand – just waiting on the lab to confirm.”

“That’ll take forever,” Candy said, fake-cheerful. He planted his hands on his hips and squared off from the agent. “Let’s say it’s the same guy. When were those other killings: a month ago? You’ve gotta have more intel than you’re cluing me into.”

Cantrell stared at him, squinting against the sun.

“If you want my help, then I want yours. Tell me something useful.”

“And what will you do with that information?”

“If you’re asking me to lend a hand, you’re not really in a position to ask that kind of question, are you?”

After a long moment, Cantrell sighed, shoulders slumping. “There were other killings, besides Nevada. In Phoenix. The vics weren’t affiliated with any kind of club or gang, not that we’ve found yet. None of them were related, or knew each other, from what we could tell. But.” His voice lowered, though there wasn’t another soul who wasn’t a Lean Dog for miles. “They were drugged.”

“Makes sense,” Candy said. “If you’re gonna move a guy, tie him up, then kill him, he’d need to either be willing, or doped up out of his mind. And you said y’all found ketamine in the vics in Nevada.”

“We did. But in Arizona…We haven’t been able to pin down what it is, exactly.”

Candy lifted his brows. “It’s been tested?”

“Of course.” Cantrell made a face. “But it’s none of the usual stuff: not Special K, or morphine, or fentanyl, or heroin. We’ve run it against every kind of sedative we’ve got in the database, and so far, no match.”

“So it’s something new. Designer, maybe.”

“I’ve got someone who thinks she can figure it out, but it might take some time.”

“Hm.” Candy’s mental gears were already spinning. “Right. Well.” He took a step back. “If you figure out what it is–”

“Wait.” Cantrell ’s gaze sharpened. “What are you planning?”

Candy grinned. “You don’t wanna know. If I find out something useful, I’ll give you a call.”

He walked back to the clubhouse with Cantrell frowning after him.

~*~

“He wasn’t bad. For a cop,” Jenny said, shrugging. It was lunch time, and they were at a table in the common room, empty of all the boys, save the new prospect, a stocky guy in his twenties the guys had dubbed Nickel for reasons Michelle had been too tired and busy to ask about. “Kinda had that sad bachelor thing going on.” She snorted. “Looked like he rolled outta bed and pulled a jacket on over his PJs.”

“Like us,” Michelle said, with a snort of her own, dragging the tines of her fork through her salad.

“We looked a helluva lot better than him, let me tell you.”

Darla stabbed at lettuce with short, agitated movements, mouth drawn in a tight line. “I don’t like that he was in here. What if he planted a bug?”

“He didn’t,” Jenny said, firmly. But her gaze lifted and swept across the common room, anyway. “He wasn’t that slick, and he was watched the whole time.”

“Don’t care: I still don’t like it,” Darla said, spearing a tomato forcefully.

Michelle didn’t either, but she was trying not to sound paranoid.

Candy and Jinx had headed off to look into something, and the others had drifted away in ones and twos: to make a run with the wrecker, to go shake metaphorical trees and see if any information fell out of them.

The clubhouse seemed too quiet with just the three of them – four of them, if you counted Nickel. The kids counted, she supposed. TJ was down for his nap, and Jack, kept out of preschool for the day after their traumatic morning. But kids, Michelle felt a bit guilty for having learned, felt like soft spots in these situations. Like vulnerable points. It wasn’t just about watching her own back anymore, but about protecting her child: she didn’t resent that for a second, but she felt less capable than she had as a single girl with a knife and a gun.

“…Michelle?”

She started, glancing up from her plate. “I’m sorry?”

Darla and Jenny both studied her with furrowed brows.

It was Darla who’d spoken. “I asked if anything weird’s happened at the bar lately. Anything to worry about?”

Michelle knew she was asking if there had been any creepy customers. Any guys acting suspicious, hitting on women who didn’t want their attentions; anyone who’d needed bouncing, who was lingering out back, being generally suspicious. But the thing that popped into her head, and made its way out of her mouth was: “Pacer’s sister came by last night.”

“Oh,” both women said at once.

Jenny set her fork down with a quiet click that seemed deafening in the suddenly-silent room. Nickel had stopped sweeping, and hastily resumed, head ducked, when Michelle glanced his way. “So you met Melanie,” Jenny said, without inflection, face carefully blank.

Like she wasn’t sure how Michelle would react. Like she was trying not to upset her, or give away her own feelings on the matter.

It shouldn’t have, but that small gesture annoyed Michelle. “Yes,” she said crisply. “I met her. Are the two of you friends?”

Jenny eased back in her chair a fraction; maybe Michelle had been a little too crisp. “No. We’re not. You’ve never seen her here before, have you?”

Touché.

“We used to hang out some,” Jenny said, softening a little. “Back in the day, when Pacer was still trying to prospect. That’s how she and Candy met. She was always too…” She frowned. “Bubbly for me. But in a really aggressive way, you know? You met her. She takes that Southern friendliness thing and turns it up to eleven – and feeds it speed or something. I dunno. She’s alright.

“But,” she added, head tilting to an emphatic angle. “She and Candy were awful together. Just terrible. It was like they didn’t even like spending time with each other. And she was always after him about the club. Total mismatch.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re just trying to make me feel better?”

Jenny shrugged and picked her fork up again. “What’s there to feel bad about? They broke up ages ago, and he’s married to you. Because you guys are great together.” She gestured with her fork, a stabbing motion through the air between them.

Michelle snorted.

“What did she want, anyway?” Jenny asked, resuming her lunch.

Michelle looked down at her salad – a beautiful creation of Darla’s, with grilled chicken, mandarin oranges, sugared pecans, blue cheese, and homemade dressing – and decided eating any more would be unwise, given the way her stomach was flipping. “She said she was worried about Pacer. That he was more upset than she’d ever seen him.” She pushed her plate away for good measure, and Darla sent her a sympathetic look. “She wanted to ask Candy if he knew anything yet.”

“She couldn’t pick up a phone?” Jenny asked, shaking her head.

Michelle’s stomach tightened another fraction. “I guess she didn’t have his number.”

Jenny and Darla traded a look.

“What?”

Darla stood, suddenly, and took Michelle’s plate. “Here, hon, let me make you some toast for your tummy.”

“I had toast for breakfast,” she said, a little numb. To Jenny, she repeated, “What?”

“Nothing,” Jenny said, with a look that tried very forcefully to assure her that everything was alright.

Again, Michelle felt that tug of impulse, that urge to call Fox.

Again, she pushed it down.

Fourteen

Candy might have been president these days – but that was Amarillo president. Ghost still had final say-so over certain business practices, more unrelenting than ever, now that the club had a wealthy, connected dealer at the helm of their drug dispensary business. About a year ago, each chapter of the club had cleaned house. Any dealer who used his own product, who talked too much, who treated it anything less than the business that it was, had been purged. The result was a fleet of dealers who blended well with local crowds; regular guys on the outside, polite, responsible, clean and inconspicuous. Sales numbers were up, and customers were satisfied.

But the purge had left some really nefarious characters really pissed with the Dogs. No wars had broken out – most of the jilted dealers were too high or drunk to do anything but curse them to perdition. But Candy had been waiting, breath held, for a blow-up from someone.

He really hoped this nasty business with the killings wasn’t just such a thing.

They rolled their bikes up to the chain-link gates of Patty Sutherland’s “auto-shop,” a more generous title than the place deserved. Set well back off the road, beneath the shade of scrubby, drought-stunted mesquite trees, the “shop” was more of a shack, pieced together from a dozen different varieties of siding, with large swaths of tarpaper showing through. House on one side, complete with falling-off shutters and sagging porch, and a long, three-stall carport on the other. He had a lift that didn’t work, and at least a dozen rusting, disorganized tool chests, wrenches and bolts and myriad parts spilling out onto the dirt floor. The yard was crammed with the stripped corpses of every kind of car; one old Mustang had been in a fire, a ruined black husk, and Candy had never understood what could possibly be salvaged from it.

Patty had dealt pot and a little coke for them up until seven months ago.

The gates were secured with a length of heavy chain, glittering silver in the sun, the cleanest thing on the property, a fat new Master lock holding it in place.

Candy killed the engine and swung off his bike. Took off his helmet and went to present his face to the camera that peered down at them with vulture-like judgement. “Pat,” he said into the lens, raking a hand through his mashed-down hair. “It’s us. We just wanna talk.”

The yard was totally still, save a few flies droning in a sun patch. A crow croaked from one of the mesquite trees; a soft rustling of feathers against leaves.

Behind him, Jinx observed, “His car’s here.”

It was: the old white-walled Buick sat nosed up to the porch, just enough room around it for a three-point turn to get pointed back toward the gates.

“Doesn’t want to see you, though.”

Candy glanced back over his shoulder. Jinx sat forward, feet braced flat on the ground, forearms leaned on his handlebars. His eyes were shielded by his sunglasses, but the rest of his face was smoothly impassive. Candy knew that look well: his best friend’s detached sort of judgement.

“Yeah,” Candy said, dryly, turning back to the camera. “I figured that one out. Patty,” he said, louder, into the lens. “You can hate me all you want, but.” He fished into his back pocket and came out with a money clip that he waved slowly back and forth in front of the camera. “I’ve got some questions, and some cash if you feel like answering them.”

Jinx snorted.

A moment later, the screen door on the front of the house eked open, and Patty came slouching out.

Patty’s problem, when he’d dealt for the club, was that he didn’t keep track of the numbers. He was a pothead, plain and simple, high seventy-five percent of the time. It turned him mellow, and careless, and accommodating, and he forgot to keep up with his ledgers; forgot to measure out what he sold to customers; forget to collect money at all, sometimes. Candy had always felt sorry for him – he had a whole tragic backstory that would have softened the hardest of hearts. But he was like a slow leak in a pipe: the drips and drabs individually didn’t seem to make much difference, but over a period of years, you had a big stain on your hands, and a mess to clean up.

He didn’t look high now, though, as he approached the gate. His knobby frame was half-bent at the waist, his head on a swivel, gaze sweeping back and forth, like he was looking to see if anyone lurked in the scrub growth on either side of the driveway. When he finally reached the fence, and met Candy’s gaze, his own was sharp, and mistrustful, his mouth a compressed line of displeasure.

“Hey, Patty,” Candy said, easily.

Patty said, “What do you want?” in a voice totally unlike himself.

Candy only just masked his surprise. “You doin’ alright?”

“What do you want?” Patty repeated, brows lowering, and executed another furtive scan of the immediate area.

All the alarm bells were clanging in the back of Candy’s mind. He peeled a handful of twenties off the money clip and held them up to the chain link. “If you’re nervous about something, we can go talk inside?”

Patty’s gaze narrowed in on the cash for a few long beats, then his hand darted out, pale and flighty as a startled bird, and snatched it up. He stuffed it in one grubby jeans pocket and said, “Whatever you gotta say, say it out here.”

Jinx’s boot soles scuffed softly on the dirt of the driveway as he swung off the bike and took a few steps toward them. “Who’s out there?” he asked, voice tight, and a glance proved that he was surveying their surroundings, searching for boogeymen. “Who’s watching you, Pat?”

Patty didn’t answer. He glared at Candy and said, “What do you want?” Almost desperate.

Candy couldn’t ever remember seeing Patty like this before: scared.

Before a few days ago, he hadn’t ever seen Pacer scared, either.

“Pat – Patty.” He’d had his list of questions written out in his head, all ready to chat and meander his way toward the harder stuff. Get Patty off his guard until he could steer the conversation into a more serious direction. But now, he felt like he was talking to a small animal caught in a trap; the moment he could gnaw his leg free, he’d be gone. So when he had eye contact, Candy said, low and serious, “Someone’s got you spooked.”

Patty’s eyes went wide, wild and white-rimmed, and he took a step back.

“Wait,” Candy hissed. “Tell me who it is, and we can protect you.” Another step. “Patty, I know he’s killing people. The vics are drugged, and he’s tying them out with–”

Patty whirled and fled toward the house.

“Patty!” Candy called after him.

Shoes slapped up the porch steps, and then the screen door crashed shut.

The crow in the tree let out a disgruntled squawk and took flight, branch bowing with the force of his leap to the air.

Candy stood there a moment, skin prickling – not with fear, but with an unpleasant sort of adrenaline rush. The surge of awareness that things might – might – be much thornier and spookier than he’d originally thought.

He turned, and Jinx was regarding him with arms folded, jaw firmer now, his judgement less blank, and more pointed. “Don’t say it,” Candy said.

Jinx shrugged. But, spoken or not, the judgement was there, settling like an unwelcome weight across Candy’s shoulders.

Fifteen

“It’s about us,” Candy said on the other end of the line, and Michelle paused on her way around her car. TJ was already buckled into his seat in the back, and she was headed for the driver door. She rested a hand on the edge of the trunk as a fresh wave of nausea washed through her.

“Us.”

“About the club,” he amended. He sighed. “At least, I think. We went to see Patty.”

She made a face even though he couldn’t see. She’d met Patty once, when he came by the club. He’d smelled like he used weed for deodorant.

“Someone’s got him scared sober. Wouldn’t even talk to us. Whatever’s happening, it’s organized. Someone’s making an effort.”

“Someone’s trying to break onto the scene,” she said, grimly, belly tightening further. It was inevitable: when a hierarchy existed, people would step up to challenge it. She’d hoped – no matter how sick it made her – that these killings were the work of a deranged madman. Something finite and freakish that could be handled, over and done with. But Jenny had seen two men fleeing her yard this morning. And if Lean Dogs’ friends and former dealers were being targeted…

“Any ID on the bodies at Colin and Jenny’s?” she asked. Candy, nor Colin, nor Blue had recognized him.

“Yeah, Cantrell called. Guy named Dalton. He’d been busted a few times for possession. No ID on the other. We’re headed over to Pacer’s now, gonna see if he ever heard of him.”

“Okay.”

“You still at home?”

“Just leaving. It’s inventory day at the bar.”

“Chelle.” His voice hardened.

She bristled immediately. “Don’t Chelle me. Am I supposed to just sit at home, knitting blankets and worrying about you?”

He snorted at the idea, but his voice was still firm when he spoke. “Nobody’s going anywhere alone until we get this handled. I’m putting my foot down on that.”

Growing up in the club, she’d learned two things:

One: when a Lean Dog said you weren’t going somewhere alone, you could do all the arguing you wanted, but somebody was going to tail you like a shadow, so there was no sense fighting about it.

Two: when a Lean Dog said you weren’t going somewhere alone…their caution was usually warranted.

A shiver moved down her back, and across her skin, goosebumps lifting beneath her jacket sleeves. “Who do you want me to take?” she asked. “I have to be at the bar.”

He sighed. “Can you wait five minutes? I’m sending Jinx your way.”

The shiver came again. She’d expected to take Nickel, or maybe Pup. The twins, who could be useful, if given direction. But Jinx meant serious business. Jinx meant this wasn’t just a threat, but a Threat.

Dead bodies proved that, but she’d grown more immune to death than was healthy.

She thought of Fox, yet again. He could have this handled in a matter of days. Maybe even hours.

“I can wait,” she said. “But what about you? Then you’ll be alone.”

“I’ll be fine.”

There was no wood handy, so she knocked lightly on her own head. “Don’t let those be your famous last words,” she admonished.

“I won’t.”

When she hung up, she stared at her phone screen a moment, debating, thumb hovering over her contacts icon. She was hormonal, she reasoned; anxious, tired, fuzzy-headed. Candy was a grown-ass man, and plenty capable. The club was bigger and stronger than ever before. Things would be fine.

When the screen went black, she slipped the phone in her pocket with a sigh.

~*~

The Road Runners RC had a compound nestled in a desert hollow, surrounded by boulders and mesquites, a place of scrub grass, and pink sunrises, and early-arriving nighttime shadows. Candy passed the crime scene along the way. The tent was done, the bodies removed, the cars and vans all gone, but a tattered bit of yellow tape remained on a stunted bit of shrub, flapping in the breeze.

The compound wasn’t fenced – there was nothing of illicit value to steal, and you tended to make fewer enemies when you weren’t peddling vice – so Candy rode right up the long drive and parked in the shade of the main house: an unremarkable, low-slung stone ranch with a red tin roof. Beyond, a stone fire pit ringed by chairs marked the center of the property, and paths branched away from it, leading to cabins where members could overnight, or even live, in some cases.

Pacer’s battered old Panhead sat parked in front of the main house alongside a late-model Honda Civic. Candy parked on the other side and went up onto the porch to knock.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but somehow was, when Melanie answered the door.

Her expression was heavy with fatigue and worry, but she offered a broad smile when she saw that it was him. “Hey.” She stepped back immediately, opening the door wide. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Candy stepped in, and realized why.

Lifelong bachelor that he was, Pacer had never had a flair for interior design – the mounted antelope heads and deer statuary lamps gave proof to that – but he was tidy, and generally cheerful, and his home had always been a warmly welcoming place. Always with the blinds pulled up on their strings, light pouring in; always a fire crackling in cold weather, and lamps burning, and the scent of lunch sill heavy on the air. He liked to cook, and the place always smelled of grilling meat, and roasting veggies and potatoes.

Today, though, the blinds were closed. No fire, no lamps. Daylight peeked in over the kitchen window, because it was unadorned, and fell in softly across the living room rug. It was nearly as cold inside as it was out, like no one had bothered to tweak the thermostat. If food had been eaten, it hadn’t been cooked on the stovetop. The air smelled still, and cool. The place wasn’t messy, but it felt distinctly stagnant. Haunted. It was a vibe more than anything, and it unsettled him more than he expected it to.

“Where is he?” he asked, turning to Melanie as she closed the door, deepening the darkness around them.

“Bedroom.”

He felt his brows go up. Pacer was an early riser; up before first light, always; drinking coffee on the porch, tinkering with his bike, tackling some small project around the compound. He liked to walk; easy moseys down the driveway and out across the open plain east of the property; thought of that drove home just how exposed this place was, unprotected. Candy made a mental note to see about getting in touch with a fencing company.

“I know,” Melanie said, sighing. “I haven’t had any luck. You wanna try?”

“Yeah. Has he eaten yet today?”

“Doubt it.” She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. “I’m gonna see if there’s some soup or something I can heat up. See if you can get him up and around, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The blinds were shut tight in the bedroom, too. Pacer was like Candy had never seen him – never. Lying on his side, under the covers, facing away from the door. He looked terribly small like that, just a collection of thick lumps beneath the blankets, the back of his head covered patchily with iron-gray hair, bald spot gleaming faintly in what light fuzzed its way in from the hall, grainy and indistinct all the way from the kitchen window.

Candy was flooded momentarily with the selfish, ugly thought that he was glad his father hadn’t lived to anything like true old age. That he hadn’t had to watch Jack Snow fold in on himself like an origami bird until the husk that was left looked nothing like the man who’d raised him.

An uncharitable, bitter thought, and it struck an angry chord in his voice when he said, “Pacer, get up.”

No reaction, which only stoked the anger.

“Pacer.” Candy crossed to the bed and laid a heavy hand on Pacer’s shoulder. It didn’t even twitch beneath him. “You can’t do this. You gotta get up.”

There was nothing like warmth in the shoulder under his hand; he couldn’t even feel the vibrations that suggested movement was to follow. The air tasted heavy on his tongue, and for one awful moment, he thought Pacer might be dead. His gaze flicked to the prescription bottles on the nightstand – when had Pacer become less than hale? Someone whose body didn’t function like it used to – and he wondered if this was a heart attack, or something purposeful? A fistful of pain killers chased with whiskey.

But then Pacer took an audible breath and rolled toward him.

Candy stepped back – farther than he needed to; he snatched his hand back like it had been burned, a reaction he wasn’t proud of.

Pacer looked terrible: unshaven, face puffy and creased from the pillow. He squinted like the meager bit of filtered sunlight behind Candy was too bright to look at, whole face screwed up with the gesture. He moved sluggishly, like his body ached, and huffed and grunted until he was flat on his back, one trembling hand held up to shield his slitted eyes. “Derek?” he asked, unsteadily.

Candy understood now why Melanie had driven all the way to the bar in search of him.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, tone softening. He believed in tough love, but this was…not the time for it. Not in its purest form. “What are you doing in here? Sleeping during the middle of the day?”

“I…” Pacer blinked a few times, and turned his head slow, wincing like his neck hurt. He surveyed the room, eyes widening by only the barest fraction. “I’m in bed,” he said, his voice blurry, dreamy, laced with disbelief. “Am I…?”

“Yeah, you’re in bed. You feeling alright? Are you sick?”

With effort, Pacer sat up. He grimaced, and pushed himself up with both hands, arms quaking from the effort. Candy took his shoulder again and helped, startled by the nearly-dead weight of him, like his body was too heavy to move around – or his muscles were too weak. “Head hurts,” he gritted out, exhaling shakily. “I don’t…”

Depression, Candy thought. It had the power to cripple people. When the brain chemistry got screwed up, flooded with too much bad stuff after too many bad occurrences, depression could drive you to drink; drive you to bed; drive every bit of actual drive right out of you, until something as simple as brushing your teeth took a monumental effort.

Was this depression? Or something more sinister?

He’d been an outlaw too long to go for the usual, mundane explanation for most things.

“Pace,” Candy said, in a firm voice, hoping it might focus him. He earned a squinted, watery gaze. “Did you take something?”

“Take…what?” A few more blinks. “Just my meds.” He reached to touch his chest. “Gotta keep healthy,” he murmured.

Candy hadn’t known that, and felt a twinge of guilt. He rounded the bed and plucked the prescription bottles up one by one. Something for cholesterol; something for blood pressure; something he was pretty sure, based on a few commercials, was supposed to work in conjunction with the cholesterol meds. No sedatives or pain killers.

He went back around to the other side. Pacer looked a little more alert, scrubbing a hand through his rumpled hair, now.

Everything Candy wanted to ask would have to wait. With an internal sigh, he went to the dresser and found a pair of freshly-laundered, knotted socks in the top drawer. He carried them to the bed. “Here. Let’s see about getting up. Mel’s making you some lunch.”

“Mel’s here?”

It was going to be a long afternoon.

~*~

Over the course of her life, Michelle had learned that little quirks she’d thought entirely her own were actually family traits. And, despite the unlikeliness of it, those traits must have stemmed from the infamous Devin Green – the deadbeat-iest of all deadbeat dads – because they were traits shared by all nine of his offspring.

(Ten, she reminded herself. She had yet to meet her latest, youngest uncle. Fox had called him that, too, Ten, because of course he had, unsentimental to the last.)

She liked to make sense of things, and so did her father and her uncles and aunts. They liked facts; quantifiable, controllable facts. Her father brought all his logic to bear on the running of the London chapter of the club. Albie had his furniture; Walsh had his economics; Raven could capitalize on anything, but especially her own beauty and style; Fox had approached the business of killing with a mathematician’s exactness. Miles had computers, and Tommy could execute a plan down to the nanosecond. Shane liked pleasing people, making them happy, lending a hand when he could; he’d managed to weaponize that. No one was as accommodating as him. Cassandra was young, still, the youngest, and still finding her way – but Michelle had seen her art online, and knew that, for Cass, pigments and pencils were the chosen weapons of precision. Art was the thing that brought her a pleasant calmness of thought.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

She’d always enjoyed inventory. It was a chore for most people, was one now for the employees lugging boxes around the storeroom because she didn’t like the way laundered napkins and paper napkins had been stacked on opposite ends of the room. But for Michelle, there was a lovely kind of calm that came with knowing she had all her ducks in a row.

“Thank you, Hank,” she said, putting a green circle sticker on the box he’d just set down and making a mark on her clipboard. “That should be it.”

He nodded. “You’re welcome.” His voice was full of relief. He stepped aside to chug down a water bottle.

She did one last survey of the storeroom, all their supplies arranged according to use, in neat stacks and rows on the metal shelves, and then scanned her checklist. Every item was ticked off in blue pen. Done.

It was only then that she realized the angle of the light coming in through the propped-open back door had changed completely, that she was chilled, a cool breeze funneling inside, and that her lower back hurt like a bitch from standing for so long.

Something brushed gently against the backs of her legs, and she glanced over her shoulder to see that it was a chair. Jinx had TJ perched on one hip, and his other hand had slid the chair gently forward, so that all she had to do was sit down.

“Here,” he said, expression nearly stern. “You’ve been on your feet too much.”

“Playing stand-in husband?” she asked with a laugh, but sank gratefully down into the chair. The relief was exquisite, even though her muscles would continue to whine and protest the abuse for the next eight hours or so. “God. That took a while.”

“It always takes forever,” he said, frowning, bringing his other hand up to help support TJ’s bottom. He was getting big. “You shoulda let someone else do it.”

“You know I don’t believe in delegation,” she said lightly, but Jinx didn’t look amused. “Are you alright?”

“Want down,” TJ said, kicking his legs, and Jinx set him back on the rug where he’d been playing with plastic trucks earlier.

“I’m gonna go shut that door,” he said, and headed to do so. He tipped the delivery driver first, she saw, a quick cash handshake in the threshold before he kicked the block inside and let the heavy metal panel swing shut with a muted crash. TJ ignored the noise, long since used to the loudness that came with growing up with Lean Dogs.

Under the droning fluorescent tube lights, the breeze thankfully cut off, Michelle realized that the rest of the employees had gone, that they were alone in the storeroom for now, and that Jinx wanted to say something to her. Had maybe been wanting to say it all day, if his frown was any indication.

This was another thing she’d inherited from Devin Green, a trait that none of them would name, but which they all relied upon: a kind of sixth sense. Candy had said she didn’t like Melanie Menendez; but it wasn’t as simple as being a jealous, hormonal wife. Something about Melanie tripped a wire in her brain, and that wasn’t a feeling to be ignored.

Maybe anyone could have looked at Jinx now and seen how unsettled he was – or maybe it was just her.

“Jinx,” she prompted quietly.

“It’s nothing,” he said, shrugging, attempting a smile. Even at his happiest, his smiles were a bit grim; this one was downright frightening.

“No, it’s not,” she said, quiet but firm. “What’s bothering you?”

His attempted smile fell away – he looked better when he was being his surly, serious self; his beard betrayed the tautness of a clenched jaw beneath. He stared at her a long moment, and she swore she could see the debate waging in his head. He’d not been her biggest fan when she first arrived; save Jenny and Darla, the club had operated too long as nothing but a gang of bachelors; most of them were unused to leaning on women; unused to trusting them with sensitive subjects.

She liked to think that he respected her now, but she didn’t expect a genuine response.

He surprised her, though. “They haven’t made contact, yet.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Whenever someone tries to rattle our cage” – he walked forward, closing the distance between them, until he stood at the edge of TJ’s rug – “they make some big display, and then they reach out. It’s like ‘See what I did? Give me what I want, or I’ll do it again.’ There’s a reason for killing somebody.”

She thought of her own experience with killers, and had to agree, nodding.

“The people they’ve killed aren’t people we know. Scaring Pacer I get, but then to jump to spooking us–”

“Wait. Scaring Pacer you get?”

He gave her another considering look. Another debate warred within him. Then his gaze hardened with resolve, and he said, “Pacer’s a dumbass.”

She stared at him, unflinching, waiting for further explanation.

After a moment, he gave a short, sharp nod. It struck her as a gesture of respect. Things might never be warm between them, because he wasn’t a warm man, but he thought her trustworthy, now. That was something. That was really all she needed, here.

“He’s a dumbass,” Jinx continued, “and he’s weak. Candy told you he tried to prospect back when he was younger?” When she nodded, he said, “Jack could tell straight off he wasn’t Lean Dogs material, and cut him loose. That was the right move, but he shoulda cut all ties, instead of letting him hang on.”

“Not everyone’s cut out for one-percenter life,” she said, frowning. “And all clubs have friends at the fringes. Nothing unusual about that.”

“Yeah, but those friends aren’t supposed to start wars with other outlaw clubs and need their asses bailed out.”

Her brows went up.

“You ever heard of the Vultures?”

“No.”

“That’s ‘cause they don’t exist anymore. They only had the one chapter, in Odessa, but they were growing, looking to expand. They did things dirtier than the Dogs, but they were getting stronger, and Jack knew we’d have to either broker a peace, or push them out of Texas, eventually. Their president had a real chip on his shoulder.

“Pacer was trying to put together his compound, then, and needed capital. His credit was too bad for the bank to give him a loan; he came to Jack, but Jack knew he’d never pay it back. It was bad business loaning money out to Pacer, and he knew it. So Pace went to the Vultures, and when he defaulted, they tried to kill him.”

Michelle felt her own jaw tightening. It was a timeless story; she knew exactly where it was going.

“Jack went to war on his behalf. The Vultures are gone, and Pacer’s still around to ask for more help.”

Help that Candy wasn’t hesitating to offer.

“Candy’s got a big heart,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.

“Yeah,” Jinx said, flatly, and the tamped-down worry in the back of her mind swelled.

“I’ve not met Pacer yet,” she said. In fact, she’d never heard of him before this incident. “Why was Candy the first person he thought to call?”

He lifted his brows. “Because of that big heart you just mentioned. And now.” He heaved out a breath. “Whoever wanted to send a message to Pacer is sending it to us instead.”

~*~

Candy got Pacer up, into socks, and a robe; he didn’t bother – once he’d seen how wobbly Pacer was on his feet – to try to talk him into putting on real clothes. Candy held his arm as they went down the hall to the living room, startled by the weakness of the older man’s grip; by the unsteadiness of his steps.

“Alright?” Candy asked, halfway to their destination.

Pacer wheezed something that might have been an affirmative.

In the living room, Melanie had opened all the blinds, and light poured in through the windows. The air smelled like she’d spritzed some sort of perfume or freshener, a clean linen scent.

Pacer squinted, and leaned more heavily against Candy.

He got him settled, arduously, into a recliner, and Melanie bustled in with a laden tray: soup, a grilled cheese, and a steaming mug of coffee.

“Here we go,” she said with false brightness. “Derek, you wanna grab that TV tray for me?”

“Oh, sure.”

As he unfolded it, Candy was struck by the sadness of Pacer’s life – and not even now, in this pitiful state, but on a good day. Eating alone most nights in front of the TV; he was well-acquainted with that phenomenon. His evenings had been much quieter and duller before Michelle entered his life – though he’d at least had Jenny. Pacer had no one most of the time, if the single TV tray was anything to go on.

They got him all set up, and, under both their gazes, Pacer picked up his spoon and began to eat with mindless, mechanical slowness.

Candy caught Melanie’s gaze and tipped his head toward the kitchen.

“What the hell?” he asked in a whisper, when they were standing in front of the fridge.

She flapped a hand toward the other room. “I told you. He’s bad.”

“He’s drugged. What did he take?”

“Drug…” Her eyes widened, and then narrowed into a scowl. “He doesn’t take drugs,” she hissed. “You know that as well as me.”

“I know sobriety when I see it, and that ain’t it. This isn’t just depression. He’s on something.”

She folded her arms. “I was here all last night. If he’d taken anything, I’d know.”

He gave her a look.

“He’s not that way!” she insisted.

“Well, that’s not normal,” he said, pointing toward the wall. “So either he slipped something in the bathroom, or he’s having some kind of episode.”

Her nose wrinkled. “What kinda episode?”

Michelle would have had the word for it; one of those moments when a person’s brain cracked under too much stress.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I need to ask him some questions.”

“You’re welcome to try.”

He wanted a drink, badly, but didn’t think now was the time to ask for one, with Melanie squared off from him. The wave of déjà vu that accompanied her stance was unwelcome; that was how it had been between them, once they moved out of the short, thrilling honeymoon phase at the beginning of their relationship. Her with her arms folded, her head cocked, her expression challenging; him asking himself why he bothered.

He let out a breath and nodded. “Well, guess I have to.”

She followed a few paces behind when he returned to the living room. Pacer sat very still, watching soup drip off his spoon back into his bowl.

Candy wanted to scream.

He sat down in the chair beside him and said, “Hey, Pace?” He didn’t expect to get a response, but Pacer did turn to him, finally, slowly, his face eerily blank.

Fuck, this was so wrong.

“I need to ask you about your boys,” Candy continued, speaking slowly, clearly. “The ones who – the ones you lost. You couldn’t tell me much about them the last time we talked.”

He heard Melanie shift her weight behind him, a rustling of clothes, and he imagined her unfolding and refolding her arms, an old habit he remembered.

“Okay?”

Pacer blinked at him, his eyelids out of sync. “O…okay.”

The sunlight shifted across the floor. Candy hated this.

~*~

Sometimes, Michelle marveled at the speed with which she’d grown accustomed to the seasons of Texas. She loved the long, hot summers; the winter days, short and blustery, reminded her of home – of London – in a way that didn’t offer much comfort.

All afternoon, she mulled over what Jinx had told her of Pacer, of the Vultures, and the MC war that wiped a whole club out of existence. She wondered if any of the other Dogs shared Jinx’s…reluctance when it came to Pacer. She thought about it, and thought about it, and suddenly it was getting dark, and the happy hour crowd was filing in, and she was exhausted.

“Can I suggest something?” Jeannie asked, scooping TJ up from his Pack-n-Play and tucking his head deftly on her shoulder. His fussing stopped immediately, and he went limp, comforted in the arms of someone he knew. “Go home,” she said with a warm, motherly smile tinged with worry. “You’re too tired, your baby’s too tired, and we’ve got things covered here.”

“But…” Michelle protested, and promptly ran out of steam. She didn’t even know why she was protesting; it was a kneejerk reaction, the constant urge to stay longer, to do more, to work harder.

The irony of it: Devin Green’s restlessness had manifested in a string of fleeting romances that came with a string of illegitimate children. All of those children – and their children – in turn funneled that restless spirit into work, work, work.

Jeannie chuckled. “Everything’s done. All you need to worry about is getting home safe, and getting some food in you. Have you eaten today?”

She’d nibbled an onion ring out of a basket in the kitchen, earlier. “A little.”

“I already had someone go grab Jinx from the bar – ah, speak of the devil.”

Michelle turned – and, whoa, she was dizzy – and saw him trooping into the room, already wearing his heavy leather riding jacket and carrying hers. He must have gone back to the storeroom to grab it; thoughtful, she noted, fuzzily.

“You ready?” he asked, like he was afraid she’d say no.

She almost did – it was hardwired into her brain. How many times had Dad, or Tommy, or Miles, or Albie asked her the same thing, and she’d shaken her head, and sipped more coffee, and pressed on.

She couldn’t have coffee now, though, so she sighed, and nodded, and took her jacket. “Thanks.”

Jinx took TJ from Jeannie, and made a face when Michelle offered to take him. “I got him,” he said, and slung the backpack full of all his toys, Pull-ups, and snacks over his other shoulder.

Sometimes, she was damn glad of big men with broad shoulders.

Jinx even had the car seat down pat, buckling TJ in with a few deft movements. TJ’s head lolled and he was asleep almost immediately.

“You’re good at that,” Michelle said, smiling tiredly. “Preparing for little ones of you own soon?”

“No.” He said it so emphatically that she laughed – and then smothered it in her hand to keep from waking TJ.

“I’ll follow you,” Jinx said. “You good to drive?” He looked at her critically, one arm braced on the roof of her Challenger.

She squared up her shoulders and nodded. “I’m fine.” She didn’t want him to have to leave his bike here and bum a ride to pick it up tomorrow. Given the goings-on lately, he might need it before then.

She buckled in, started the engine, locked her doors, and checked her phone. Still no word from Candy. She fired off a quick text to let him know she was headed home, and then backed out of her reserved space. Jinx’s headlamp pulled up behind her, and then they were off.

When it happened, it of course happened after they’d left downtown behind. It happened on a stretch of empty road, because that’s always where terrible things happened.

Michelle checked her rearview mirror every so often, an old habit, checking that the single, bright eye of Jinx’s headlamp still followed. She did it the same way she would occasionally touch the hilt of a knife she carried; a thoughtless reflex. She drove with one hand, her free elbow resting on the window ledge, not in danger of falling asleep, but melting a bit like ice cream on a warm day. She wanted home, and comfortable pants, and her favorite spot on the couch. Maybe, if she hadn’t drifted off, Candy would arrive home, soon, and they could–

She did another check – and then a double-check. Something was wrong.

Someone was passing them. This was a long, flat, straight stretch of road, and the center line was a broken one; let your speed drop at all, and some wanker would go hurtling around you, as if jet-propelled. Michelle knew a moment’s panic when she saw a set of headlights rear up behind her, coming alongside Jinx in the oncoming lane, but she knew she was driving slowly. It was only someone passing. No need to–

The passing car swerved sharply to the right.

Jinx’s headlamp swerved, too – and then buckled, and was gone, somewhere along the shoulder. The passing car settled in his place behind her, high-beams – sitting tall; it was a truck of some sort – blasting through her back window, striking white fires in all her mirrors.

Michelle was suddenly very, very awake.

She sat bolt upright, both hands gripping the wheel tight, heart leaping. God, Jinx…

But she couldn’t think of him now, because the headlights were roaring up behind her, closer and closer. The glare in the mirrors was blinding; she had to squint against it.

It would overtake her, and then what? Run her off the road? Rear-end her?

Oh God, oh God, she thought. And then: No.

Fox had been with her when she’d bought this car, and he’d insisted she upgrade and get the Hemi.

The truck bearing down on her might be big, even suped-up; might be fast and powerful.

But it wasn’t a muscle car.

She let out a deep breath, and punched the gas.

The engine roared. The wide rear tires grabbed, and pushed. It was too dark to see the evidence of her acceleration flashing past the windows, but a gap opened up between her and the truck, as the tachometer flipped wildly and the Challenger cycled up through its gears.

But then what was she supposed to do? At the midway point between home and work, there was no bit of salvation waiting on the side of the road. Pulling over, stopping, would only open an opportunity for a fate worse than a car crash.

Maybe she could outrun him outright. Maybe…

But, no, the truck was gaining again. She’d bought herself some time, but…

An idea occurred. The kind of crazy, unsafe, unlikely to succeed idea that hit like lightning in the midst of awful panic. But it was the only idea she had, so she took tight hold of it.

All the logical, Devin Green parts of her brain were screaming the same thing at her, pointing out the same ratio. She was in a low-slung, wide-bodied car built to hug the road. The truck bearing down on her was tall, too tall; the kind of jacked-up truck teenage boys took mudding. Of the two vehicles, one had a significant stability advantage.

She steeled herself, sent up a little prayer, edged her car halfway across the center line, and stepped on the brake.

She hit it with two quick taps, to keep from going through the dash; even so, the car dipped hard, and TJ woke with a startled yell in the backseat.

Two taps, then she cranked the wheel hard to the left, and hit the gas.

The truck’s headlights hit her full in the face for one awful moment, and she was totally blind. Then they were past, and she was blinking red spots out of her vision, and touching the brakes again, coasting down slowly this time. Even over the roar of her own engine, and the squeal of her tires, she heard the scream of the truck’s mud tires skidding across the pavement, and she heard the terrible thunder of collapsing metal as inertia carried it up and over, and it flipped.

The high-beams flared and spun, a revolving disco ball as the truck tumbled roof-over-tires again, and again, and again. She steered her car around, and in her own headlights she could see that the truck had ended up thirty feet off the road, upside down, motor choking and tires spinning down slowly; the roof of the cab was crushed. Ugly black streaks on the pavement veered off crazily toward the shoulder, and disappeared, a trail of laid-down rubber leading to the place where the truck had flipped.

Michelle braked the Challenger to a halt, and sat there a long moment, breathing sharply through her mouth.

I can’t believe that worked, she thought. And then, Shit, shit, shit. Her skin buzzed; the second the adrenaline started to drain away, she’d be shaking uncontrollably.

Sounds began to filter back through the steady throbbing of the blood in her ears: her engine purring quietly, ready for her next command. TJ full-on wailing now, crying, “Mama!” over and over.

She twisted around to look at him. Red-faced, crying, little feet kicking, but still buckled in and unharmed – save maybe a little whiplash. Kids were resilient; he’d be okay. Better than if that truck had caught them.

Jesus, she could have killed them both with that stunt.

She let out a deep, unsteady breath. “It’s okay, baby, shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

Someone tapped on her window.

She couldn’t help the little scream that left her lips as she whipped back around. She was already fumbling for the center console, for the gun stowed there, when she saw that the bearded face filling her window belonged to Jinx. Blood snaked in a thin rivulet down his temple, but he was on his feet, his expression tight with worry.

She buzzed down the window. “Are you okay?” she asked, voice shrill, panting.

“Fine. Bike’s a little banged up, but I managed to lay it down and get off the road. What about you guys?” He leaned in a fraction so he could look toward TJ, sobbing gustily now. “Y’all alright?”

“Just rattled.” Her hands were starting to tremble; her lungs felt quivery and insufficient, but seeing him whole and on his feet sent a wave of relief crashing through her. “We need to get out of here. There might be more. Is your bike still rideable?”

“Yeah. But hold on. I wanna check something.” He stepped back, and headed for the downed truck. In the bright flare of her headlights, she saw him draw his gun; he approached soft-footed, and ready to duck, prepared for any sort of attack.

But none came. He walked all the way up and crouched down beside the shattered passenger window. Even leaned down and braced himself on his hands to peer inside. He swapped his gun for his phone, and snapped a few photos.

“Shh, baby,” Michelle crooned, “shh, shh, you’re fine, we’re fine, everything’s fine, we’re going home soon.” Lilting like a song, and TJ subsided to sniffles and hiccups.

Jinx returned to her window, shaking his head. “If they’re not dead, they will be. I’m not risking putting a bullet in them and leaving a calling card.”

She was afraid to take her hands off the wheel and turn to TJ again; shock was coming on, and she thought she might swoon if she moved too much. “Right.” She swallowed. “That’s smart.”

“Here.” He fished in his pocket, and then handed something through the window to her. It took her a moment to realize it was a wrapped peppermint. “Suck on that. Get some sugar in you, at least until we get back. You good to drive?”

She unwrapped the mint with shaking fingers, and popped it in her mouth. Her nausea was returning, but the taste was instantly soothing. She nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

It seemed to take forever to get home, the familiar roads now sinister, the darkness on either side hiding all sorts of monsters. An animal darted across her lane at one point, and she nearly screamed. She caught a glimpse of sandy brown and tan fur, a bushy tail: a fox.

It felt prophetic.

When they finally pulled in, and she killed the engine, it took all her strength to undo her belt and open her door. Jinx came around and helped her to her feet. Scooped TJ out of his car seat when she realized her arms were in no shape to hold her own baby.

Candy wasn’t home yet, still dealing with Pacer.

With Pacer’s sister, Michelle thought with a detached sort of ugly resentment.

Darla fussed over her; brought her tea with lots of sugar, and a sandwich that she couldn’t eat. Took TJ from her and went to lay him down in the sanctuary.

When she was finally alone, she sank down onto the couch in the sanctuary and folded her legs up beneath her. Still shaking, but more clear-headed now. She pulled out her phone, dialed, and waited.

Not long, though. He answered after the second ring.

She let out a deep breath that she knew gave away any calm she was about to feign. Oh well. Let him know. She should have done this days ago.

“Hi, Uncle Charlie. I need your help.”

Knoxville

Sixteen

Because Albie wouldn’t settle on a place for his new shop, Ghost was letting him use a coned-off section of one of the big steel storage warehouses at Dartmoor to work on furniture. Judging by the sad array of half-turned table legs laid out on the work bench, he hadn’t been very productive so far.

Fox had crossed the vast concrete floor silently, setting his booted footfalls down with a deft quiet he’d mastered long ago, so he whistled to announce his arrival when he pulled up on the opposite side of the cone barricade.

Albie – perched on a stool, bent over a sketch with his brow furrowed unhappily – lifted his head, glanced around, and then got marginally unhappier when he saw who it was.

“Nope,” Fox said lightly, before his brother could speak. “You don’t get to act like I’m a stray cat turning up on your doorstep. Not when, one, this isn’t even a doorstep, and not when, two, you’re the one who got on a plane and chased me here.”

“I didn’t chase you.”

Fox grinned at him. “The remarkable part for you is that there was any chasing at all.”

Albie sighed and set down his pencil.

“How goes it with your lady love?”

“She’s not my – it’s fine. Things are fine,” he said, correcting hastily, jaw set.

“Really? Because I’ve heard you don’t even know how to kiss a woman after a date.”

Albie’s eyes went comically wide. He looked panicked. Then he scowled. “You bloody gossip. Who told you that?”

Fox slouched sideways and let his shoulder rest against the cool steel of the wall. “Your girl works for my girl. They talk, you know.”

Albie glared at him a moment longer – then groaned and wiped a hand along his jaw. “Fuck,” he said with great feeling. “I’m–”

“Pathetic.”

“Rusty. I’ve forgotten how to date someone properly.”

“Albert, you never knew. Tell me honestly, now: Have you ever been with anyone who wasn’t a club groupie looking for a wild night out?”

“You’re one to talk.”

“I” – Fox splayed a hand across his own chest – “never claimed to be a relationship man. You, though, have all the makings of a boring old sod with a wife and two-point-five, picket fence and all, but none of the savvy as to how to get there.”

Albie snorted. “Not a relationship? What do you call what you have with Eden?”

“A mutual understanding,” Fox said, ruthlessly shoving down the unhelpful little voice that piped up in the back of his mind. The one that was asking for things he didn’t begin to understand or recognize in himself. “And if you’re not pathetic, explain these flaccid attempts at table-making.” He gestured to the three half-formed legs resting at Albie’s elbow.

Albie glanced at them, mouth twisting with obvious disgust.

“Distracted?” Fox guessed. “Or losing your touch with wood?” He made an obscene gesture, and barked a laugh when Albie gave him two fingers in return.

“What’s wrong with you?” Albie asked, closing his sketchbook with the air of a man who’d decided he wouldn’t get any more work done. “Why are you acting like a court jester? Why are you so…happy?”

He couldn’t deny it; he was happy. He’d gone to sleep with a smile on his face and woken up in the same condition. There was probably something wrong with him, but he’d accepted that fact a long time ago.

“Because,” he said, “I got a call last night from our lovely niece.”

“Which one?”

“What?”

“We have more than one niece.”

Fox thought on that a moment. He tended to forget most of the time that Walsh had procreated. King had always been nearly as monkish as Albie – at least in front of all the guys – so, if not for her giant blue Devin Green eyes, Fox could have easily believed that Walsh had had nothing to do with Violet’s conception. An uncharitable thought toward Emmie, sure, but he was a realist.

“The one who can actually work a phone,” he clarified. “Someone tried to run Michelle off the road last night.”

Albie gaped. “Shit. She okay?”

“Frightened. And rightfully so. Apparently, there’s all sorts of murder and mayhem unfolding in Amarillo, and Candy’s done fuck-all to put a stop to it.”

Albie’s expression shifted. “I doubt that.”

“The victims are being tied out with stakes.” He held his arms out to demonstrate the posture Michelle had described. “And then their throats are cut.”

“Jesus.”

“No one knows who’s behind it, not even the FBI – who are apparently involved.”

Albie whistled.

“I’m heading that way in a few hours.”

“She asked you to come?”

“Her exact words were ‘I need your help.’”

Albie looked gobsmacked. He leaned an elbow against his makeshift table and scratched absently at his jaw. Thinking. “You talked to Candy yet?”

“No. And I don’t intend to until I get there.”

More thinking. He gave him grief, but Fox’s brother was no idiot. “Chelle say anything else?” he asked, gaze narrowing.

“She didn’t have to. I could hear it in her voice.”

They shared a look, and Fox knew their thoughts were in alignment. As lovable and respectable as Candy was – Fox generally liked him better than he did his own siblings – Michelle was sacred. Fox would take her back to London himself if that needed to happen.

He was jumping the gun a little, yes. But he was so excited. Something to do, finally. A situation begging for his talents.

“Want to come with?” he asked.

Albie didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”

~*~

Leaving for Amarillo “in a few hours” was fine in theory, but there were problems with that plan. The first one presented itself a half-second after Fox left the warehouse.

As he approached the clubhouse, he saw a lanky figure lying flat on one of the picnic tables, shades on, hands folded over a flat stomach. The new leather jacket gleamed softly in the sunlight. Fox walked up and moved to flick Tenny’s ear, but his brother sat up – smoothly swinging his legs over the edge of the table – before he could connect.

“Isn’t there something you’re supposed to be doing?” Fox asked.

His answer was a lifting of brows.

“You might try to earn a living, you know.”

“I’m not a mechanic,” Ten said, tone flat bordering on offended.

“Does this look like the sort of place that employs full-time assassins?”

“No,” Ten said, disgusted.

With a sinking feeling, Fox realized he wouldn’t be able to leave the little shit behind. No one here was equipped to handle him. Mercy had done well with Reese, but Reese was an obedient creature; eager to please, willing to take direction. Tenny was acting like a spoiled show pony whose new owner didn’t know which buttons to press. Intimidation wouldn’t work on him.

Maybe, Fox thought, almost desperately, what he needed was a chance to get his hands dirty. Sitting idle certainly hadn’t served him.

“I’m going out of town,” Fox said. “A murder case; the feds can’t make heads or tails of it.”

Tenny uncoiled the slightest fraction; a barely noticeable sign of something like real interest, finally.

“And you’re coming with me.”

He expected to be mocked; expected a protest or some snide comment.

But Ten hopped to his feet and said, “When do we leave?”

~*~

The next obstacle was trickier.

Axelle’s GTO was parked in Eden’s driveway when he pulled up, and it was Axelle who came to let him in when he knocked at the locked door.

He’d always thought her pretty in a casual, natural sort of way, but he couldn’t help but notice that she wore a little more eye makeup than normal today; her hair looked like it had been curled on an iron, rather than left to its own tumbled, wavy devices. She wore low-heeled boots and a cropped suede jacket that looked new.

“Eden, the asshole’s here,” she called cheerfully over her shoulder, when she saw that it was him.

Fox grinned at her. “Do I smell a new perfume? I wonder if Albie’s partial to floral or citrus scents.”

“Bite me,” she said, with a fake, saccharine smile, and led him down the front hall to the kitchen.

The room, with its musty rooster-patterned wallpaper, had been transformed into a kind of command center for the day. Glossy, blown-up photos laid out on the table, notebooks open, a half-dozen pens uncapped and waiting beside notes already taken. On the peninsula that separated the eat-in area from the kitchen proper, Fox noted several Chinese takeout boxes, and a host of dirty mugs. The air smelled of sesame chicken and strong coffee.

Eden was at the table, poring over the photos, one leg tucked up beneath her bottom in the chair in a pose that struck him as girlish and unguarded – it nudged at a tender place in his chest that he refused to name.

She glanced up when he entered, smiling readily, if not downright warmly. “Hello,” she said, soft, tired-edged, as if they were alone.

Axelle went to poke around in the fridge in a very obvious attempt to give them a semblance of privacy – a thoughtful little gesture he hadn’t expected, and which made this all the harder.

If things had been different between them – more stable, that unhelpful voice in the back of his head piped up – telling her that he was leaving town would have felt more like simple news, and less like he was running away to alleviate his boredom.

Not that he was bored.

(He was hopelessly bored.)

“Hey,” he said, and Eden’s smile fell away.

“That’s certainly a look you’ve got on,” she said, wary now.

The fridge slapped shut, and Axelle slid into her seat across from Eden, looking at him too – more critically, gaze narrowed.

Great.

“Oh, yeah, well,” he said, hating that he sounded dodgy and nervous – that was very unlike him. “I came by to say that I’m going out of town for a while. Leaving tonight.”

Her brows jumped, a quick moment of shock played across her face, but then she smoothed it down. “Club business?”

“A little. Mostly family. Michelle called me last night: bad dealings in Amarillo have her spooked, and she could use an expert eye on the situation.”

“Expert,” Axelle said with a snort.

Eden pushed her chair back so she could face him fully, concerned notch forming between her brows. “Is she alright? What’s going on?”

He gave her the rundown; brief and to the point.

“Shit,” she said, after, her expression remarkably like Albie’s had been, earlier. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Is – oh, don’t look so surprised,” she said, frowning. “It’s been a while, but I’ve spent time with your niece. She’s lovely.”

Our lovely niece, Fox had said to Albie, only hours ago.

“Of course you’re going,” Eden continued. “But what about her husband? I thought he was some great big strapping fellow. He-Man or something?”

“Candyman.”

“Ha!” Axelle said, and nearly choked on the sip of tea she’d just taken.

“Laughter isn’t the normal reaction once you set eyes on him,” he said dryly. “But, yeah. He’s usually got this sort of thing covered. It must be a special case.”

Eden nodded slowly, considering, her expression once again mirroring the one Albie had presented back at Dartmoor. Her gaze wandered across the table, the spread of photos and notebooks, and then she locked eyes with Axelle.

Axelle said, “Are you going by yourself?”

He hesitated a second, feeling like an actual fox, a wild one, poised at the edge of a trap hidden beneath the leaf litter. “I’m taking the kids. Ten and the other one. Reese. And Albie says he’s coming, even if I don’t know what good he’ll do.”

The women regarded one another a second longer. Then Eden nodded and turned to him. “We’re coming, too.”

“Why?” he blurted out, like an idiot.

“I’m a private detective, in case you’ve forgotten,” she said primly.

He swept a gesture toward the mess on the table. “A busy one, it looks like.”

“This?” She lifted a photo and turned it toward him; from this angle, he could actually make out its subject: a heavyset man with bad hair and a worse nylon jacket with his arms around a woman at least two decades younger, their lips locked. “This is my third cheating husband since I arrived here. This ugly tosser – who looks to be a terrible kisser, by the way – has somehow talked this poor girl into being his mistress. And he hasn’t got any money. His wife took out a loan to pay me for the investigation, and I felt so bad about it I’m doing this one pro-bono.

“I’m bored to death, Charlie. So yes, I’d like to come help you solve a murder in Texas.”

“But…the house,” he protested weakly. “It needs…redecorating.”

She scoffed. “It can sit here being ugly all by itself for a while just fine.” Another frown threatened. “Unless…you don’t want me along.”

He gathered a breath, and tried to touch on just the right answer.

A moment of hesitation too long.

“Ah,” she said. “I see.”

“No!”

She and Axelle both shifted back in reaction. He’d shouted.

“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s only – you don’t have to.”

She stared at him. “Charlie…”

“But you’re welcome to come, if you like. Both of you.” Even if the idea worried him, a little.

He couldn’t deny, though, that hearing her say she was bored had been something of a relief. Thank God it wasn’t just him. Thank God.

“Come,” he said, surer now. He grinned. “I could use someone to be the co-brain of this operation.”

“Co-brain,” she said flatly.

“You didn’t think it would be Albie, did you?”

~*~

“Texas,” Fox said. “Amarillo.”

That was where they were going. Reese had spent enough time with Fox at this point to know that he was someone who didn’t mince words, and who didn’t like to waste effort.

Reese appreciated that. He understood it. Mercy was like that, too – but Mercy was busy. He had a wife, and three children, and he liked to linger over lunch with Aidan, Tango, and Carter, laughing in that loud, bright, open way that Reese struggled to comprehend. He knew what laughter was – but didn’t know what inspired it.

Fox laughed, some, but it didn’t strike Reese as the explosive, involuntary release of good humor like with Mercy. With Fox, it seemed performative; he laughed when he was supposed to, when it was socially appropriate; an effort to blend in with the others, though his eyes flashed darkly, and the way he bared his teeth didn’t speak to good cheer.

That Reese understood perfectly.

So he was fine with going to Texas. Was glad of an opportunity to put his skills to use, actually. Training was important, was necessary, but not a replacement for actual wet work. This was perhaps the longest he’d gone without performing an op, and he could feel himself growing complacent. Maggie’s rich cooking, and Aidan trying to explain the wonders of college football to him, and Tango explaining Instagram to him – a phenomenon for which he had yet to find a justification. Roman was courting Kristin, and Reese was keenly aware that he and his sister viewed the world very, very differently.

I’m happy, she’d told him. I want you to be happy, too.

He didn’t understand. Probably he never would.

So he would go to Texas, and he would work, and he would be useful.

But they were traveling via bike, Fox had told him, and Reese couldn’t take his usual arsenal.

It lay on top of his neatly-made bed, now, arranged in orderly rows, largest to smallest, all the guns clean and smelling of oil, all the knives gleaming in the soft glow of lamplight.

The sniper rifle he would have to leave behind, he decided; even broken-down, it would make for awkward carrying. He stared at it a moment, already missing it, then dismissed all thought of it. His regular shotgun wouldn’t work, either, but the sawed-off he thought he could manage, in its leather scabbard.

He would take the .45s, worn in their usual shoulder holster; there was a slim little sheath built into one of the straps that held his two-inch, double-edged emergency knife, so that would go, too.

He’d take the Glocks, and plenty of extra magazines, ammo for all the handguns. The bowie knife he’d leave, but take all the others, the slender stabbers and the serrated utility knives. A switchblade for each boot. All of that he could wear on his person, save the mags and ammo; those he’d pack in his knapsack, along with a bit of wire, some gauze pads, tape, eye drops, and a tin of grease paint.

“We’re going to Texas,” a scathing voice said from the doorway behind him, BBC British; a cultivated accent, carefully chosen for the weapon who would wield it. “Not Fallujah.”

Reese cinched the knapsack and carried it to the dresser to set beside his folded hoodie and Kevlar vest. Only then did he acknowledge Ten.

Fox’s brother lounged in the doorway, a shoulder braced against the jamb, arms folded, and hips cocked negligently. He had this way of melting and adhering to whatever wall or bit of furniture he was near. A kind of casual that he’d perfected, Reese knew, through long hours of practice, but which wasn’t natural. It was too perfect, too artless to have been anything like Evan’s unconscious sprawling across surfaces.

“Preparation is important,” Reese said, because that logic had been drilled into his head since his earliest memories. Tie your shoes, clean your plate, preparation is important.

Tenny rolled his eyes. “Yes, it is.” He pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the room. “Are you taking that?” He pointed to the broken-down rifle where it rested on the pillow.

Reese knew a sudden, intense urge to throw himself down on the bed and shield the gun from view. His things were his things, and he didn’t let others touch them. Didn’t share.

When he didn’t respond, stood there with his hands at his sides, open and loose from great effort, Ten took a few steps closer to the bed, and reached out.

“It’s clean,” Reese said, voice tight, and Ten’s hand paused, hovering in the air.

His head lifted, gaze sharp and assessing. “You don’t want me touching it.”

Reese swallowed. “The oils from your skin–”

“I know how to pick up a gun,” Ten said, faintly insulted. “But you don’t want me to touch it.” Probing now, the way he always seemed to.

When they’d arrived home from London, and Fox had introduced Ten to everyone, Ghost had said, “Shit, now there’s two of them.”

(“Um, three?” Evan had said, but no one had listened.)

He and Tenny had been slapped with the same label. Reese had known that he didn’t fit with the Lean Dogs. He did like them, and when he thought of Knoxville, of this clubhouse where he had a dorm room all to himself, he thought home. But he didn’t think like them; didn’t act like them. Didn’t understand, for instance, what was so special about the girls in the skimpy clothes who Boomer looked at with such round-eyed, baldly appreciative stares. Chanel had looked at Reese once, and closed one eye, and Boomer had come hustling over with his chest stuck out, his voice too deep, and told Reese to “back off,” He’d apologized after, when Reese only stared at him, pale and stammering. Chanel had laughed.

Reese didn’t understand.

But it didn’t bother him, not knowing; not speaking the strange social language that everyone around him did. He had his skills; he knew his place.

But then Tenny had come along.

Tenny who’d been raised to fight, and kill; to assess, and assault, and act without hesitation or prejudice.

But Ten had been groomed differently. He spoke a dozen languages, and he could slide into a conversation in the same easy way Reese slid a knife from his boot. He understood the social cues that Reese didn’t; his master hadn’t been just a man like Reese’s, but a government. An organization. They’d had the resources necessary to teach Ten to blend into a crowd; to seduce, and set at ease, and play mind games.

Ten thought Reese was weak, and he hadn’t been subtle in expressing that.

The idea of him touching Reese’s belongings left Reese thinking about the distance between them, and the force necessary to put his emergency knife in the other killer’s throat.

“No,” Reese said, “I don’t.”

Ten smiled, the blade-sharp grin that looked like Fox’s, the one that confused delight with aggression. “Because you don’t like me.” It wasn’t a guess.

I hate you, Reese thought, but didn’t say, startled by his own hostility. Hate wasn’t a prudent emotion in an assassin.

“I have no opinion of you,” he said, and thought he managed to keep his voice flat and neutral. Restraining himself was a foreign concept; he was struggling with it.

Ten chuckled; a forced sound, another practiced behavior too perfect to have been real. He sat down on the empty patch of bedspread where the knapsack had rested. “Do you know what your problem is?”

That I hate you.

“You haven’t been challenged.”

Reese thought of the small composition notebook in his sock drawer, the one rubber-banded shut. Thought of the tally marks on the pages. Of the accounting of his kills. He’d dropped over the wall of a bathroom stall to strangle a man to death. Had sniped down targets from rooftops, four blocks away before the body had cooled.

He’d crawled through the tangle of wires and vents and dropped out of a ceiling to save Ten’s own sister – whom he didn’t know, and didn’t love.

He lifted his chin a fraction. “I’ve been challenged.”

That earned another chuckle. “What? Killing rednecks? Drug dealers, and hooker-killers? You paint your face black, and you play grim reaper, and, what then, disappear? You murder the untrained civilians your masters point you toward. Where’s the challenge in that?”

When Reese only stared at him, Ten’s gaze sharpened. “You stick out. You stick out in a room full of people like a stinking, festering wound. You can’t play at charming, or interesting. You barely know how to speak.

“Could you work the long game? Could you befriend someone? Seduce someone into bed? Learn all their secrets before you slit their throats? No,” he said, when Reese gathered breath to speak. “You can’t. You haven’t the faintest notion how to get information out of a mark. Killing is good – it always comes down to killing, in the end – but any dog can kill. The best assassins can learn – and I don’t think you can.”

I hate you, Reese thought. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

Ten stood. “Fox might be taking you, but he doesn’t need you. When we get to Texas, stay out of my way.” He turned to leave.

He was at the threshold when Reese found his voice. “I have a name.”

Ten froze. Turned back around.

“I have a name,” he repeated. “And you only have a number. Don’t pretend you’re more human than me.”

Ten stood impassively a long moment. Then he bared his teeth in another too-sharp smile, and walked off.

His shoulders were tight, though. Reese noticed that.

Because he noticed everything.

~*~

Axelle drove back to her place and packed a bag. She’d become ruthlessly efficient about it over the years. Only the barest essentials – with a little makeup, and, okay, some underwear that verged more toward fancy than functional. By the time she headed back to pick up Eden, her stomach was doing somersaults.

They’d talked a few times via text – benign stuff. How was your day? What’s up? Isn’t this dog cute? But she hadn’t seen him in person since their date. Which hadn’t ended badly…

But.

Axelle had grown up around a certain kind of guy. She’d known Albie was different – was better – from the first, even when she’d still been trying to hate him and everything his club patches stood for. But she still didn’t know how to behave around him; didn’t know the automatic reactions to the things he said, to the glances he gave her. He was dancing to one beat, and she to another, and it was driving her nuts.

When she climbed out of her car in front of the clubhouse, someone got up from one of the picnic tables under the pavilion and walked out into the sun, toward them. It was Albie, she saw, stomach tightening with a mix of gladness and nerves.

He walked around the nose of the GTO to meet her, frowning a little. Walked right up to her – but stopped a fraction farther back than was intimate. A respectful distance, but not a personal one. “Hey. Fox said you were coming.” His gaze moved over her in an assessing way; she wanted it to feel heated, like he was checking her out, but really he was just cataloguing her boots, and jacket, and judging her readiness to leave. Probably thinking of saying something stupid like don’t go or it’s too dangerous.

“Yeah,” she said. “Eden decided the cheating husbands and missing cats could wait a week or so.”

“Probably can.” He nodded, and then met her gaze, his head tilting, measuring. “And what about you?”

“She’s not dragging me along, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t – it’s just that–”

“Do you wish I wasn’t coming?” she asked, already shriveling inside.

“No! No, I mean, I’m glad you are – but it’ll be–”

“Dangerous?”

He sighed. “Yeah.”

“Can’t be as bad as London,” she pointed out, and he nodded in an agreeing way.

“Hopefully not.”

That was when she noticed what she’d detected in him from the first, but been unable to label. Just beneath his calm exterior, an energy buzzed; one that turned his eyes electric, and betrayed itself in the way he kept taking short little breaths. His fingers, when she checked, curled and uncurled. As she watched, he lifted both hands and cracked his knuckles, making a face when it tugged at the nerves in his newly healed wrist.

“Albie,” she said, careful not to sound judgmental – or too eager herself. “Are you excited about this trip?”

“What?” He was glancing back toward the clubhouse, where Fox was coming out, Ten and Reese in tow, bags slung over their shoulders. “Oh, um.” He turned back to her. Pushed a hand through his hair, thick and disarrayed as ever. She hadn’t had a chance to touch it on their date; had vacuumed her couch cushions to within an inch of their lives in the hopes they’d up there, tangled and breathing hard. She could have touched his hair, then; could have raked her fingers through it and taken a tight grip. But, no. Only awkward goodbyes at the door and the ghost of a kiss that hadn’t happened.

“Maybe?” he said, wincing apologetically. “Not that I don’t enjoy Knoxville, and this will be dangerous, and–”

God, this was too painful. “I’m excited,” she said. “Dead bodies all over the place? Sounds like a party.”

A brow lifted. “I thought you were having fun playing…who was it?”

“Jessica Jones. You need Netflix. And, yeah, fun. Boring fun.”

“Oh.”

Fox reached them, gaze hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans. “We good?”

The sun was dipping down, bobbing low along the river, the night coming on cold and smelling of frost.

“We’re good,” Eden said, voice laced with anticipation.

Ready was a disease, in this case, and they all had it.

Axelle jangled her keys. “We’ll follow you. Lead the way.”

Amarillo

Seventeen

It had been a strange two days in the wake of what Michelle was thinking of as “the accident,” because “that time I flipped a truck off the road” was too much of a mental mouthful.

Immediately afterward, when she’d hung up with Fox, she’d thought to stay up and wait for Candy to arrive home. But the adrenaline crash was too strong, and the next thing she’d known, she was waking to the feel of a big hand on her shoulder, and Candy’s voice saying, “Shit, babe, are you okay?”

She’d tipped sideways so that she lay with her head resting on the arm of the sofa, and Candy knelt on the floor in front of her, shaking her gently, expression horror-struck. For a minute, she wondered if there was something on her face; wondered, with a flare of panic, if something had happened to TJ. But then she remembered the drive home, and the truck, and she sat up as it all clicked into place.

“Baby,” he said again, urgently.

“I’m okay.” Dizzy, though. Exhausted. Sore in the way that sheer terror always left you. “What time is it?”

His expression didn’t soften. His raised brows left a tidy stack of lines pressed into the sun-bronzed skin of his forehead. “After midnight. Jinx told me what happened. Baby, I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you. I shoulda been here. Pace was being…” He trailed off with a frustrated sound, and reached to touch her face.

Her reaction was automatic. Unconscious. She ducked back, just before his hand made contact.

Candy froze. They both froze, gazes locking.

She didn’t know why she’d done that. Nerves, she guessed; still keyed-up from what happened.

She shifted forward on an exhale.

But Candy put his hand down without having touched her, the furrow between his brows deepening. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, sitting back on his haunches, hands braced on the sofa cushions on either side of her hips. “I should have been there.”

“Why? So your bike could have been all dented up like Jinx’s?” She sighed and said, “You couldn’t have done anything, love. No one could have predicted what happened, and no one could have stopped it.”

A muscle in his cheek leapt as his jaw clenched. “You shouldn’t have gone at all. I shouldn’t have let you,” he said heavily, his gaze shifting inward.

“Would you have me sit at home and live in fear?” she asked.

“I’d have you stay safe.”

She’d sensed an impasse; an ugly, thorny sort of argument she didn’t have the energy for now.

He’d wanted to know all the specifics, so she’d delivered a play-by-play, all that she could remember. It sounded reckless and crazy as she delivered it in halting monotone. Reliving it left her numb; exhaustion dragged at her.

Candy’s eyes got wider and wider, his jaw tighter and tighter. His hands migrated from the sofa cushions to her thighs, and she managed not to flinch this time.

“Christ,” he said when she was finished, hands tightening against her. “I can’t believe you did that.” He attempted a smile, one that wobbled and fell. “Actually, I can. But I can’t believe it worked.”

“Me either.” It seemed even wilder and dumber in retrospect. “What happened with Pacer?”

He’d made a face. “I swear he was on something. Wasn’t himself. Could barely walk. I asked him about the guys he lost, and whether or not they’d been in debt, or on anyone’s shit list. He couldn’t tell me shit.”

“Drowning the pain with pills?” she’d guessed.

“Probably.”

They’d gone to bed without any answers that night; he’d slept at her back, curled protectively around her, a hand resting on the slight swell of her belly. He fell asleep quickly, his breathing evening out against the back of her neck, stirring her hair. But Michelle, after her nap, stayed awake long after, staring into the shadowy darkness of their room, straining for nefarious sounds that weren’t there, thoughts churning.

She hadn’t told him she’d called Fox. It felt like she was hiding something from him, but she wasn’t ready to admit it yet – if an admission it even was.

Her brain was a mess.

Fox will fix it, she’d thought, before she finally drifted off. She had a moment to reflect that, perhaps, this wasn’t fair to her husband.

But then her eyes closed, and she tumbled headfirst into nightmares of headlights and squealing tires.

~*~

Candy woke before dawn. He lay for a long moment in the faint silvery light, listening to Michelle’s deep breathing, keenly aware of how little area she took up on the mattress. She’d never felt so small and fragile to him; vulnerable and breakable. When he thought of someone trying to run her off the road – to frighten her? To kill her? – his hands tightened into fists. Tension stole through his entire body, and, finally, carefully, he slipped away from her and out of bed to keep from waking her. She’d been exhausted when he found her last night, fast asleep on the sofa, curled up protectively around her belly, brow creased with worry. Not a peaceful sleep; she’d looked like she was in pain.

“I didn’t want to wake her,” Jenny had said, but Candy hadn’t been able to let her sleep, not when she looked that miserable.

He tiptoed around the bed, now, headed for the closet, and glanced back toward the bed, peering at her face through the gloom. She still looked troubled, hand curled in a tight fist on top of the sheets. Her expression wasn’t slack and soft like it should have been, tension evident in her brow, and jaw.

That was his fault. That was because terrible people were doing terrible things in his city, and he hadn’t put a stop to it yet. Didn’t even know how to put a stop to it.

For one dark moment, standing in his underwear in the chilled morning air, he felt devastatingly helpless. Useless.

Give yourself some credit, he imagined his dad saying. You can’t fix everything all by yourself all in one day.

But this was his old lady. This was personally unforgiveable.

He turned away, dressed, and headed for the main room, and the door that led out onto the little back porch where Jenny used to sit and drink wine in the evenings, when she’d lived her.

The scent of coffee on his way through told him someone else was up – a welcome bit of nostalgia stealing over him. It could have been Colin, but somehow he knew it wasn’t, a suspicion confirmed when he pushed through the propped-open door and found his sister sitting curled up in one of the two chairs that overlooked the vast, shadowed sweep of the back ten acres.

Jenny wore a thick down jacket over a flannel robe that looked like it belonged to Colin; a pair of those ugly, but warm tug-on boots. She held a steaming mug between two hands, and had left another, full, black, sitting on the arm of the second chair.

She’d been waiting for him.

Candy picked up the coffee and sat, taking an appreciate inhale of the fragrant heat still wafting up out of it. “How’d you know I’d come out here?” It was only half-curious. He thought he knew what her answer would be.

She took a sip from her own mug and sent him a look just readable in the early hint of light: a penetrating, motherly sort of assessment. He didn’t know if telling her she looked a hell of a lot like their mother right now would be received well or not. “Cause this is where I’d come, too, if I was thinking the way you are right now.”

“And how am I thinking?”

“Like an idiot who thinks that if he’d been there last night, he could have stopped all that from happening.”

He shifted in his seat rather than answer.

“Not that you’ll admit it,” she continued, “but, magic fists or not, you can’t stop a truck all by yourself, Candy.”

“I coulda tried,” he said, just to be stubborn, and she snorted.

“Everything’s okay. She’s a smart cookie, your wife. Reacts well in those kinds of situations.”

That was true. “Yeah.” It didn’t make him any less wound up, though. “But what if–”

“Derek,” she said, firmly. She didn’t say it the way Melanie did – and always had; like someone who thought he was silly for letting people call him a made-up name. She said it like she knew him; like she could see through all his bullshit. It was comforting, in its own way. Being known was his favorite part of having a family, blood, and chosen. “You worry about shit less than anyone I’ve ever known. ‘What if.’ You could ‘what if’ yourself to death being attached to this club. What will you do? Go legit? Sell all the guns and open a charity? You’ve spent your whole life making enemies; they won’t stop coming just because you want to bow out of the race.”

He sent her a rueful smile. “When’d you get so smart?”

“I’ve always been this smart, asshole.” She took a sip of coffee, but not before he saw the ripple of doubt that crossed her face. He knew she was thinking of Riley, of her first marriage, and all the mistakes there.

He didn’t call her out on it. Sighed instead, settling back more deeply in his chair. Out across the flat expanse of the back lot, the sun touched the distant hills, a thin ribbon of pink nearly too bright to look at; pale rays like the spokes of a wheel thrust up into the sky from the still-hidden sun.

“You know,” he mused, “we’ve been in deep shit before. Deeper shit than this, really. But every time, I knew who to blame it on. I always knew who wanted my head on a plate.” He turned toward her, her face looking flushed in that wash of pink light. “Am I losing my touch?”

Her brows went up, gaze sliding over. “What?” She sounded truly surprised.

His chest tightened. Anxiety of that sort – personal doubt – was so foreign that, for a second, he thought he was having a heart attack.

He sighed again and said, “When I told Blue that I was gonna call Cantrell out to your place, he said I’d gotten soft.” The word tasted foul on his tongue.

Her gaze dropped toward his middle. “Uh, not to be that creepy sister, but if anything, I think you’re more jacked than ever. Damn, I hate you for your metabolism.” She pulled her jacket a little tighter across her own middle.

“Jen,” he said, not in the mood for teasing.

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” She rolled her eyes, and then got serious. “I don’t think soft is fair. You’ve always been…” She hesitated, shrinking down in her chair a little, voice going self-conscious. “Good to the people you care about. You’re a sweetheart a lot of the time. When you’re not punching people’s heads off.”

He couldn’t help a little smile, and she smiled back.

“But you love big. You didn’t turn into a pussycat when you got married.”

The relief that washed through him was overwhelming. “I don’t have a history of cooperating with the law,” he said, because he felt like he had to.

She shrugged. “You don’t have a history of being a dumbass, either. You wouldn’t do something just to be stubborn; that’s not your way, Candy. You look at your options, and you make the right decision for the circumstances. Outlaws that run their clubs outta spite and tradition are clubs that don’t last long.”

He stared at her, stunned silent.

“I love Blue, but he’s old school. He’s also not the president. You do what you gotta do, bro. Even if you catch some shit for it.”

Dawn was breaking fast, now, the pink ribbon unfurling, a tapestry of reds, oranges, and bright citrus yellows. The sun threatened, the first brilliant curve rising into view second by second.

“You sound confident,” he said. Confident in me, he meant.

“What can I say,” she said, lightly, “you’ve never let me down.”

And that, he decided, with a new surge of resolve, had to count for something.

~*~

Michelle was in the shower when he went back inside, the jets pounding on the other side of the closed bathroom door. Another day, he would have joined her.

When he started to peek in on TJ, still silent, Jenny said, “I’ll get him if he wakes up,” in that perfect whisper he swore all mothers had perfected. “You go on.”

Colin stood at the coffeemaker, in the process of opening the lid, a pod in his other hand.

“Be quick about it,” Candy said. “Church in ten.”

It was too early – evidenced by Colin’s bleary-eyed protests – but Candy wanted to get everyone first thing, before they’d gotten too sharp and opinionated; while they were receptive, and honest.

He wondered when he’d reached a point when he thought it was necessary to approach his own club this way, but dismissed it. It was what it was, at this point.

He went out to the common room for his own coffee; the drip had already run, and Jinx stood drinking a cup, arms bare despite the chill that penetrated from outside, goosebumps standing out in the pale wash of early light. “Morning,” Candy said as he snagged a mug and reached for the carafe.

Jinx hesitated a fraction of a second too long. “Morning.”

It was going to be a long day, he sensed.

“Church?” Jinx asked.

“Yeah. Tell the others.”

He passed the twins on his way to the chapel, Catcher rubbing his eyes with both fists in an alarmingly normal, human gesture that lent him an air of childlike innocence. Cletus, though, stared like usual. “Church,” Candy told them as he passed, and Catcher nodded, yawning.

The chapel, when he entered, still alone, welcomed him with its own special brand of silence.

Every outlaw clubhouse had a chapel: a scared place whose walls enclosed all their secrets. Half confessional, and half vault, a place of rare honesty. Brothers didn’t lie to brothers in the chapel; the things discussed here, the decisions voted on, were sacred.

He set his coffee down at the head of the table, at his usual seat, gaze moving down the long plank top, its ash trays clean and ready in the center, its finish scratched and dented and discolored from years of hard use.

Blue’s words haunted him – had been haunting him. Used to be… Was he so different, now? Soft? Stupid?

The door opened, and he pushed those thoughts away.

Jinx came in, the twins trailing along after him. As they pulled out their chairs, Blue followed, and Pup, and Cowboy…

A slow trickle. Candy sat, and sipped his coffee, though he was already having to resist bouncing his foot under the table. The air filled with the scent of freshly-lit cigarettes; lighters clicked, and chair legs scraped across the floor. Gringo was trying fruitlessly to get Talis to laugh at a joke; Pup was describing a sound his bike was making to a frowning, considering Blue who stroked his beard.

Colin was the last in, shutting the door with a “sorry, sorry,” and thumping down so hard his chair creaked. His brows popped up in comical alarm, and then he snugged up to the table gingerly.

All eyes swept to Candy.

Years ago, when he came home from New York, when Crockett had lost the ability to lead, and Candy had found himself at the head of this table, he’d known something like panic the first time everyone looked at him like this. His voice had come out uncharacteristically soft, and crackly. He’d sweated so badly he’d had to go take a shower after, and he wondered if there had been visible stains under his arms. That night, he’d called Ghost, and said, “How the hell do you do this?”

He’d laughed. “Heavy is the head.”

“Shut up,” Candy had shot back, “you don’t know that line. Your bookworm kid told it to you.”

Ghost had laughed again, and Candy had breathed a little easier.

He hadn’t felt those sorts of nerves in a long time, but he felt them now, and chased them with a swallow of coffee; cleared his throat.

“A lot’s been going on,” he started, “and I’ve talked to all of you.”

Pup’s lips pressed together, and Candy suddenly realized he didn’t know if he’d spoken to him; didn’t really remember explaining things save to Jinx, Colin, and Blue. Damn.

“I’ve talked to all of you,” he said again, more firmly, and continued. “But I wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

He rehashed all of it, even though no one looked surprised; even though he got nods and some glazed-over looks. There was a restless undercurrent in the room, one made audible by the lighting and sucking down of cigarettes; by the jangle of a wallet chain as a nervous leg bounced under the table.

“I asked Cantrell to get us these,” he said, pulling out the stack of business cards he’d slipped into his cut pocket earlier. He fanned them out on the table in front of him, and then began passing them down both sides, one at a time. “Everybody put one in your wallet. If you see something that needs handling, call him. If the cops give you any kind of fuss, show them that, and then call him.”

Blue turned his card over and over between his fingers, expression concerned.

Jinx stared at Candy, even more stone-faced than usual.

“This guy,” Pup spoke up, hesitant, tapping the edge of his card against the tabletop. “Do you trust him?”

A hush fell; just a quick pause, before Cowboy cleared his throat.

Gringo fiddled with the zipper of his cut in an old, well-known nervous gesture.

It was said in the most deferential of ways, because Pup would always be a good kid, no matter what the club asked of him, but it was a loaded question nonetheless, and everyone knew it.

Candy let out a breath. “Do I trust him with my life? No. With club secrets? Hell no. I’m not signing any kinda contract with the guy,” he said, and sent a hard glance around the table, the kind no one ever argued with. Most of the guys dropped their gazes a fraction; all but Jinx, still being a stubborn holdout. “But we’ve got common cause here. This won’t be the first time we’ve cooperated with the law. Be on your toes, don’t do anything stupid in front of him, and we’ll be fine. It’s important we catch these guys.”

It was quiet a moment, but no one argued.

Talis said, “How’s Michelle?”

It surprised Candy that it was cliff-faced Talisman, of all people, who’d inquired after her. He dipped his head in thanks. “She’s good. Tough as nails, you know?”

“Does Cantrell know what happened last night?” Jinx asked, voice flat.

Candy withheld a sigh. “I haven’t told him, no. But if he watches the morning news, he’s probably seen it. There’s no way there’s not a crew out there filming the scene.”

“Let somebody ride out and have a look,” Blue suggested.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll go,” Jinx said, and pushed his chair back.

Another silence fell, this one even thornier. You didn’t dismiss yourself from church; the president dismissed you.

Jinx paused once he was on his feet, head turning, looking right at Candy. An emotionless stare brimming with checked hostility.

“If you’ve got something to say–” Candy started.

“Nope,” Jinx said. His jaw worked. “How’s Pacer?”

“I was just getting to that, if you wanted to stick around.”

“Nah. Think I’ll head out.” He waited, though; arms tensed, shoulders elevated, bristling.

Candy finally jerked a nod. “Yeah, be safe.”

Jinx was out the door before he’d finished his sentence.

“Want me to go with him?” Colin offered, when he was gone.

Candy did, but Colin’s face was a little too fresh in law enforcement minds after yesterday. “Pup,” he said, jerking his head toward the door.

“On it,” Pup said, and hurried out.

Candy told the others about his visit to Pat, which garnered some raised brows.

He told them about the time he’d spent with Pacer yesterday, and those brows climbed higher.

“He was on something,” Gringo said. “Had to be.”

“That’s what I thought, but I looked through his nightstand, and all his bathroom cabinets, and all I found were blood pressure meds and some very questionable old condoms.” He resisted the urge to drop his face in his hands and try rubbing some of the tension from his scalp. “Maybe he’s just cracked, you know?”

“Happens sometimes,” Cowboy said thoughtfully, stubbing out a cigarette and lighting another. “There’s a word for it: when something really bad happens, and it’s just too much for your cabeza.” He tapped a knuckle to his own temple with his free hand.

“Nutso?” Gringo suggested.

“No.” His friend shot him a glare across the table. “A real medical word, dipshit.”

“What we know, then,” Blue said, loud enough to quell any further bickering, drawing everyone’s attention. “Is that everyone dead – so far – used to be a dealer. Right?”

Candy sat back, hands flat on the table. He was already so tired today. “We don’t know who was in the truck last night, but otherwise, yeah, so far. I couldn’t get anything useful out of Pacer about his boys, but I think it’s safe to assume they were in the selling business, too.”

“Fits the pattern.”

“Someone’s trying to set up shop, then,” Gringo said.

“Looks like. And if we can’t figure out who’s selling, then we need to talk to who’s buying, and trace the stuff backward.”

He gulped down the rest of his coffee, even though it burned his mouth, and divvied the crew up into pairs. “Talk to everybody. Fuck subtlety, at this point. Get the word out: someone tried to run my old lady off the road, and I want a head on a plate. Tell them they can come talk to me if they wanna start a turf war, and we’ll handle this the old-fashioned way.” He felt a familiar crack in his knuckles, and glanced down to see that he’d tightened his hand into a fist. God, it would be great to get hold of the guys responsible for all this drama, and put that fist into a face.

He dismissed church, and Blue lingered at the table. Last in, Colin was the last out, too, and sent them both a searching look – that went ignored – before he finally latched the door behind him, leaving them alone together.

Blue sat forward and braced his elbows on the table, stretching out his back in an old gesture Candy felt like he’d been witnessing his whole life. It was funny the way a person’s tics ingrained themselves into your awareness; the ways something so simple, like a pose, could evoke old memories. Memories of a time long distant when Blue had been a young man. He looked old now, suddenly. Candy wondered what he looked like in turn to his old friend.

“This thing with Jinx,” Blue said, and for the first time in days, he didn’t sound cautious and borderline lecturing like he had over the feds. “It’s about Cade, isn’t it?”

Candy let out a deep breath, and when he inhaled, it felt like the first oxygen he’d had all day. “Yeah. He hasn’t talked about it, but–”

“He’s not gonna,” Blue finished for him with a grim smile. “Yeah. I get that.” He sighed. “If it were up to him, you’d have left Pacer hanging when he called.”

“Why do you think I didn’t take him with me when I went out there?”

“To be honest,” Blue said, “nothing against the man personally, but I’ve got no love for Pacer either.”

Candy felt his brows go up.

“For RCs in general. I don’t like when they brush up against our territory. They always wind up sticking their noses where they don’t belong, they get hurt, and then it’s us slugging it out with whoever they pissed off.”

Candy nodded. “Noted.”

“But Jack liked Pacer, and you’ve honored that relationship. I respect that. It’s honorable.”

Candy blinked in surprise.

“And besides, at this point, I don’t think it’s about Pacer anyway.”

“Doesn’t look it.”

“Someone wants the Dogs pushed outta the limelight.”

“Yeah. What else is new?”

Eighteen

Michelle spent the day on the mundane around-the-house chores she always tended to save for later, preferring to work on business. Jenny pitched in, unasked, and they worked in brisk, efficient silence, Jenny already handing over the duster before Michelle could ask for it; Michelle unhooking the vacuum cord from around a chair leg before it could tip it over. Jenny tackled the bathrooms, and their harsh chemical cleaners, and kept trying to urge Michelle to sit down, fold laundry, polish something – quieter tasks she could do off her feet.

“I’m not a bloody whale yet,” Michelle complained, aiming for harsh. But Jenny just laughed and patted the top of her head.

Candy called at lunchtime to check in, voice laced with worry. He and the boys were out turning over stones, searching for answers.

The whole situation just felt…pointless.

Felt like they were sitting around, waiting, biding their time until the next disaster.

She hated it.

“Mama, TJ’s trying to eat my truck!” Jack complained, stomping over in an aggrieved huff.

“What have I said about that?” Jenny said calmly, folding a blanket over the back of the couch. “Tell him – sweetly – that we don’t eat toys, and ask if he’ll stop. If he won’t, I’ll take it from him.”

Jack made an unhappy sound. The truck in question was a huge, baby-safe Tonka thing. Jack had been very generous with eating; more like slobbering on one of the fat tires.

Both boys were on the rug in front of the TV, toys and blocks scattered around them. Jack was normally in preschool, but given the club situation, Jenny had kept him home, and it had been…challenging, to say the least.

She looked down at the boys now, and watched Jack kneel on the rug across from TJ, brows knitted comically. “Don’t eat my truck,” he said, lower lip jutting out.

Jenny sighed. “Jack, you know that’s not how we ask nicely.”

At another time, Michelle would have been onboard with lessons in sharing, but right now, she just wanted to avoid a tantrum. She leaned down, took the truck from TJ, set it down, and then plucked TJ up into her arms.

“Mama!” he protested, legs kicking.

“Oh, here, you didn’t have to do that. Need me to take him?” Jenny asked.

Ordinarily, she would have accepted the offer gladly; as wordlessly as they’d worked around the sanctuary all day. They more or less co-mothered the kids, never hesitating to wipe a nose, kiss a boo-boo, or deliver a necessary reprimand.

Even now, she wanted to push TJ into Jenny’s arms and take a step back. Take a deep breath.

Because she was breathing hard, she realized, suddenly. Her shoulders shaking; her whole body tight with tension. She ached everywhere, sore not just from a day of hard work, but from holding herself rigid throughout.

She wanted this to stop. This madness with people running her off the road. The feeling of being pregnant, and tired, and queasy, and helpless.

God, did she feel helpless. Folding laundry and dusting tables while there were people out there trying to harm her family.

She bit back the ugly no she wanted to give Jenny, and, to her horror, felt her eyes begin to sting.

“Oh, shit,” Jenny said softly, expression going concerned. “I didn’t mean – look, why don’t you–”

“Don’t say sit down,” Michelle gritted out through her teeth in a last-ditch effort to keep her tears in check. “I won’t–”

A rapid knocking sounded at the door, and it swung open before either of them could call out a question. Darla burst in, big-eyed and breathless.

“Chelle, it’s your uncle,” she said.

She said something else after that, Michelle thought, but didn’t hear. She tightened her arms around TJ and took off. Past Darla – glimpse of an even more startled expression, rush of a breath as she gasped – and down the hall. All the way down. Holding TJ too tight – he was starting to cry – nearly running.

She almost crashed into a table when she reached the common room; caught herself against its surface with an unsteady hand, and TJ wailed in her ear for the effort.

She didn’t care. Fox was here.

A small knot of people occupied the center of the large room, Texas brothers getting up from chairs and from the bar to walk toward Fox, calling out surprised and delighted greetings. Fox had a hand lifted in Gringo’s direction, his lazy, confident smile almost a smirk; that look that said he knew more than everybody in the room, even though he’d only just arrived.

She needed that smirk right now. Badly.

She walked forward, down a clear path; was aware of guys stepping back, giving ground, but couldn’t have said who, her gaze lasered in on Fox.

He turned to her, just before she reached him, and his expression softened a fraction, the smirk melting into the crooked half-smile she’d learned over time was his truest expression of all.

She didn’t slow down, but plowed into him, and he caught her, TJ and all. Wrapped them both up tight.

TJ quieted immediately, as if by magic.

Michelle clutched the back of his cut, gritty with travel dust, and pressed her face into his shoulder, eyes burning. He still smelled as he always had: of the wind, and the road, and gun oil, and a faint spice that would always remind her of Baskerville Hall.

“You came,” she whispered.

“I said I would.” Then, softer, “It’s alright, love. I’ll sort it.”

And for the first time since this whole mess had started, she felt like she could breathe.

~*~

Candy had spent a fruitless day trying to run druggies to ground and bribe answers out of them. Of the three he’d found – the ones he’d known to look for, regular customers – two had bolted on sight, and the other, even after lunch and a cup of coffee, refused to say a word. Just clamped his lips shut tight and shook his head, eyes bugging out of his skull.

On top of that, Melanie had called twice, and left voicemails both times. He hadn’t listened to them yet, and the knowledge that he should was nagging at him. What if Pacer had gotten even worse? What if he’d OD’d on whatever it was he was taking but Candy hadn’t found?

Distracted, he pushed through the gate of the clubhouse yard with only a cursory glance toward the dusty GTO parked out front. Huh, was all he thought. One of the boys must have gotten in some repo work amidst the chaos.

He thought he saw an extra bike or two parked in the line of Harleys, but he was tired, so maybe not.

Then he walked into his common room and found an atmosphere of unexpected revelry.

Nickel was behind the bar pouring drinks, and his boys, the ones already here, wore smiles; were laughing and calling to one another across the room. Someone had turned on the music, down low, an unobtrusive bit of twangy country guitar floating through. He’d expected sighs, and slumped shoulders, and rounds of whiskey for the frustration, but instead full pints of beer were sitting on the bar, foam sliding down their curves, and people were hugging, people were–

Oh, that was a woman. Two women. Women he didn’t recognize, and not Lean Bitches, either going by their clothes. A slender brunette with a tight ponytail was shaking hands with Cowboy, and then was turning to Michelle – there was his Chelle, TJ on her hip; shit, the boy was getting too heavy for her to be lugging around like that in her condition, and…

His gaze landed on one face in particular, as a man of unremarkable height with very remarkable blue eyes swiped a beer off the bar and sucked the foam off the top. Then it all clicked into place.

Fox. Fox was here.

He’d brought company. That was…shit, that was Albie. Candy hadn’t seen him in over two years, not since he and Chelle were in London.

The women, upon closer inspection, remained strangers. The brunette was beautiful in a sharp-featured, don’t-mess-with-me sort of way. The other, a blonde with big wavy curls and a much-loved tan leather jacket, had her head lifted, and her chin stuck out in a way that left Candy thinking she was nervous as hell, but trying valiantly to cover it with bravado.

His gaze locked with Fox’s, then, and he realized he’d been standing just inside his own front door, staring like an idiot.

He walked forward, and Fox pushed off the bar to come meet him, hand already stuck out for a shake, smirk twisting his lips. “There’s–” he started to say.

Candy caught his hand in a tight grip and tugged him into a hug. He heard the splash of beer hitting the floor as it overran the glass in Fox’s other hand, and heard Fox’s muttered, “Christ, you monster.”

Candy laughed. It sounded a little high and crazy to his own ears, but it eased a bit of the tightness in his chest. “Foxy!” he exclaimed, pushing him back at arm’s length. “Damn, I’m glad to see you! Did you just get in? What are you doing? Thought you were officially patched into Tennessee now.”

Fox did a little twirl, showing off the back of his cut, and the bottom rocker that read TENNESSEE in proud caps. When he turned back around, he was making a stupid, coquettish face that left Candy laughing again. “Why, you thought right, dahling,” he drawled in an overdone Old South accent.

“Easy, Miss Scarlett. You just patched. Why are you here?” A thought struck. “Did Ghost send you? Not that I’m not glad of the help, but he does tend to underestimate everyone who isn’t him.”

Fox dropped the act, expression closing off with a neat, vaguely terrifying efficiency. The way he flipped the switches on personas could make anyone’s head spin, even if you’d known him for years.

“Well,” he said, gaze fixed on Candy. Too fixed. “No. Not Ghost.”

“I called him,” Michelle said, stepping up next to her uncle. She held TJ with both arms – arms that were shaking – and the look on her face sent a pulse of disquiet through Candy. She didn’t have Fox’s knack for hiding what she was feeling – no one did – and she looked at him now with thinly veiled challenge. Jaw set, eyes hard, lips pressed together until they’d gone colorless. Not one of the soft looks she sent him when she thought he was being cute, or dumb; not one of the rare looks she gave him when she let her fear and doubt bleed through.

I called him, she’d said, with the air of someone throwing down a gauntlet. Daring him to reprimand her for it.

Like he was the sort of asshole husband who reprimanded in the first place.

In the last few days, he’d been worried, pissed-off, confused, and terrified where his family was concerned. But this was a new feeling hitting him now: like he’d been getting things badly wrong for a while and hadn’t even noticed.

“She didn’t have to try hard to convince me,” Fox said, putting an arm across Michelle’s shoulders.

Candy didn’t miss the slight shift of her weight as she leaned into him.

She said, “We need his help.”

Candy felt vaguely dizzy. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess we do.”

~*~

Michelle had expected Fox, but she hadn’t expected his retinue.

She hadn’t expected Albie, for starters. The last Fox had told her, he was looking for a place to set up a furniture shop stateside. His face sparkled with flecks of grit from the road, and he smelled like he’d been on the back of a bike for hours when he hugged her, but he looked almost excited, she thought. Maybe that had something to do with the blonde he kept shooting glances toward, checking on.

Her name was Axelle, she said, and even if she looked a little wild-eyed, she shook Michelle’s hand firmly and kept her chin up.

Eden she remembered, though it had been a while. Still as beautiful and put-together as ever, gorgeous enough to model clothes with Raven, too no-nonsense to ever put up with that kind of life. She’d softened a fraction, though; the set of her mouth wasn’t as harsh, and Michelle was surprised to get a hug from her.

But then there were the boys Fox had motioned toward offhand and called, “My students.”

“Um,” Michelle said, leaning into Albie’s shoulder, nodding across the room toward the two of them.

In a way, they couldn’t have looked more different. Different hair colors, and different clothes. Where Tenny was nearly posh, in designer jeans, and a new, still-shiny leather jacket, the scruff on his face groomed and stylish, Reese wore a patched and baggy old army coat under his cut, his jeans stained and ripped at the knees. His hair – pale blond – hung in untidy clumps to his shoulders, sliding out from behind his ears even after he’d tucked it back. He scanned the room with an inhuman watchfulness; she had the sense he had already pegged every exit, every weak point, and was cataloguing ways to disarm all of them. Tenny, by contrast, had perfected an aloof slouch, boots kicked up on the coffee table, hands behind his head.

But she’d grown up around her uncles. She could see the same thread pulled taut in both of them: that thick knitted line of training and performance. Both moved with deadly grace: Reese’s practical, Tenny’s practiced.

Tenny had been taught to walk and talk and sit and glance around a room like a real boy. While Reese had only ever been taught how to kill.

Both of them unnerved her.

Tenny most of all, because he was her uncle.

“Oh,” Albie said, catching on. Then he said, “Here,” and deftly plucked TJ out of her arms and into his own. Her back spasmed, and she stretched it out gratefully.

He arranged TJ on his hip and kept his voice low. “Fox told them this would be good training for them, but really, I think he just didn’t want to leave them in Knoxville unsupervised.”

She nodded. “Makes sense. What do you know about Reese?”

“Reese?” He sounded surprised. “Ghost picked him up about a year ago. He and his sister had gotten away from another club. Colorado, I think? He does what you ask. Very polite. Fairly spooky. Why?”

“Last time I talked to Cass, she couldn’t stop talking about the, and I quote, ‘actual book hero who saved her life.’” She grinned afterward, and then grinned wider when she saw Albie’s horrified expression.

“No,” he said.

“Did you honestly expect a pretty boy with blue eyes to drop out of the ceiling on top of a girl from our family and him not to seem like a book hero? We have a type.”

“No,” he repeated. “No, no, no.”

Michelle laughed, and it was the best she’d felt in days.

“My sister is a child,” he said firmly. “She thinks boys have cooties.”

“She’s sixteen,” Michelle said. “Not a child, and definitely not allergic to cooties.”

“Chelle, please shut up,” he said sweetly, and softened it with a press of his shoulder to hers.

Eden had gone to get a beer, and managed to make sipping it look elegant. “Somewhere we could go to talk?” she asked. From what Michelle remembered, she’d never been one for delaying tough business for the sake of social propriety.

Michelle nodded. “Yeah. I have an office.”

When she turned to take TJ back, Albie hugged him closer and said, “Nope. I’ve got him.”

TJ seemed quite content to play with Albie’s hair, so Michelle left them to it, leading Eden down the hall to the office that had once belonged to Candy, and which now mostly belonged to her.

Axelle came, too. She was the last one in, closed the door, and then perched on the arm of the small leather sofa, like she was uncertain of her welcome.

“Axelle and I work as a unit,” Eden said, and Michelle noticed Axelle’s brows go up, briefly. “We have different skills, and we approach problems from different angles, so it makes for a much more thorough investigation.”

Axelle’s mouth twitched into a tiny smile.

“Charlie will talk to the boys, I know,” Eden continued, crossing her legs. She sat in Candy’s usual chair, upright and prim and serious. “But I wanted to hear it from you, first, before any of the details get muddled by…” She waved toward the door. “Man shit.”

Michelle couldn’t help a grin, though a surprised one. “There will be an abundance of man shit, I promise you.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said, feeling at a loss. “Honestly, I called Charlie in a panic. It was very much ‘please come’ and not a lot of rational thought.”

“We’ve all been there, darling,” Eden said, and the endearment was said in a matter-of-fact way, rather than a syrupy or affectionate one; Michelle found it bracing, and comforting. She’d always liked Eden. “There’s no shame is asking for help. From what Charlie tells me, it’s been terrible.”

“It has,” Michelle said. She took a shaky breath and spilled out the whole story.

Eden and Axelle both produced notepads and took notes throughout, gazes flicking from their paper to her face, serious, listening intently.

“You did that?” Axelle asked, when she got to the part about flipping the truck. She sounded impressed. “You ever practice something like that before?”

Michelle resisted the urge to fidget beneath the scrutiny. “No.”

“She asks because she’s something of an expert in that area,” Eden said. “Later, she’ll probably ask you how you did it.”

Axelle grinned. “What do you drive? I saw a Challenger out front when we came in.”

“That’s mine.”

“Hemi?”

“It was insisted upon.”

Axelle’s grin widened. “Nice.”

“Did they identify the men who did it?” Eden asked.

“Someone went to check, I think.” Michelle frowned. “But I have no idea yet what they found out. Not that I’ll be told.” She tried to say it neutrally, but she heard the bitterness in her own voice.

Eden’s look sharpened a fraction. She stared a moment, considering. “Are things alright?” she asked, finally.

“Ha! No. There’s apparently a cult moving into town.” But she knew that wasn’t what Eden had been asking, not with that gaze.

Eden confirmed it with a subtle tilt of her head. “No. With you. With your family. Are you okay?”

Goosebumps broke out all down the backs of Michelle’s arms. “Yes,” she said, flatly. “Of course.”

Axelle’s smile slipped away, her mouth tightening.

Eden’s look became very patient, and Michelle knew the urge to snarl at both of them; another of those ugly instincts like she’d had with Jenny earlier.

Just hormones…she tried to tell herself.

But it wasn’t.

To her shame and horror, her eyes started to burn, her vision to blur.

“Oh, damn,” Eden murmured.

Michelle spun her chair a quarter turn away, so she faced her black computer screen. The reflection that greeted her wasn’t pretty; face crumpling and twisting as she fought to check her emotions. Exhaustion washed over her, as it so often did lately; she’d been blaming it on pregnancy – and that was some of it – but there were echoes of a different kind of weariness: a bone-deep, spiritual fatigue that, now that she acknowledged it, had been building for months, long before she’d even found out she was expecting again. A sense of the sky – this big, clear, blue, fathomless Texas sky – bearing down on her, weighting her, in a way the low clouds and smog of home never had. She felt heavy; felt cumbersome, in a way that had nothing to do with her growing belly.

“My marriage is wonderful,” she managed past the lump in her throat. “Candy is loving, and kind, and he’s the best father. There’s nothing wrong with my family,” she snapped, savage on the end, resentful. How dare Eden even suggest such a thing?

But the tears spilled over, running hot down her cheeks. She dashed at them with the back of her shaking hands, furious, but they kept coming.

“Dude, you made her cry,” she heard Axelle say in a reprimanding tone.

“No,” Eden said softly. “This has been building for a while. Hasn’t it, Michelle?”

Michelle sniffed angrily, desperately trying to regain her composure; she hated crumbling like this in front of these women – in front of anyone.

Her angry retort died on her tongue, though, when she saw Eden’s expression. Soft, and sympathetic – and, even worse, understanding.

“Michelle,” she said, so gently, and Michelle’s tears only came faster. “I’m not suggesting you don’t have a wonderful marriage. I know you love Candy, and your son. That isn’t what I’m saying.

“But I think.” Her tone became even more delicate. “That, if you’re anything like your uncle – which, from what he’s told me, you are – then you’ve perhaps been feeling a bit restless.”

Michelle’s breath caught. The words hit hard – but not in a bad way. No. Like a much-needed slap.

One instantly followed by a rush of guilt. “How can I be restless?” she asked, sniffing, wiping at her face again.

Eden produced a tissue seemingly from thin air, and Michelle took it with a nod of acknowledgement.

“I’m not,” she continued, and paused to blow her nose. “I work constantly. With balancing the books here, and worrying after the bar. And TJ, and trying to stir up some good will toward the club with the city…” The list felt endless. If she wasn’t asleep, she was going, going, going.

“Yes,” Eden said, with another sympathetic smile. “But I wonder…perhaps…if you’re doing anything for your soul.”

Another mental slap.

God, that was it, wasn’t it? Maybe?

She shied hard from the idea, and blotted her face dry with the clean corners of the tissue. She took a big, shaky breath, and finally grabbed hold of herself. When she spoke, her voice came out halfway normal. “I appreciate what you’re saying.” Not really, but politeness never hurt. “But the only problem here is that I’m pregnant, and tired, and full to the brim with hormones. And that little murderer on the loose problem we talked about. Thanks for worrying, but I can handle myself.” Firmer: “I think Uncle Charlie brought you here for your investigative abilities, not to be a marriage counselor.”

The last was harsh – too harsh.

Axelle sucked in a quick, shocked-sounding breath.

But Eden took it in stride, nodding. “Quite right. Well. I think you’ve given me enough to start with.” She stood, and offered a smile – this one the smooth, professional smile of a hired PI about to get to work. “I’ll see if your husband can point me toward any leads, Axe and I will put our heads together, and then hit the ground running, as the Yanks say.”

“Thanks,” Michelle said.

When they were gone, she snuck another look at her computer screen reflection, and wished she hadn’t.

Nineteen

“So that’s your old lady, huh?” Candy had a whiskey in his hand, and the first few swallows had taken the sharper edges off his discomfiture. He needed to talk to Michelle, but he wanted to do it later, when they were alone. For now, Fox had followed him into the chapel.

Fox shrugged. “I don’t put labels on things,” he said lightly – too lightly. He slid into Jinx’s usual chair and sprawled back in it, one boot propped on the opposite knee, half-drunk beer held on his thigh. The picture of casual, competent assuredness. Candy knew it was a cultivated persona – but that Fox had the goods to back it up. And it did make him feel calmer, having the guy under his roof again.

“You trust her?” Candy pressed, just as lightly.

Fox’s expression didn’t shift, but his gaze lifted, bright blue through the screen of his lashes. Michelle’s eyes were the same color, and held some of the same inscrutable mystique – but Fox’s were on a whole different level. Almost inhuman.

He held Candy’s gaze a long moment, before he said, “I wouldn’t have brought her if I didn’t.”

“She’s a PI?”

“And was MI6 before that. Above your paygrade, really,” he said with a wide, sharp grin.

“I’m paying her?”

Fox tipped his head. “Some. I think that’d be polite. The discount rate, we’ll say.”

“Hm.”

Fox sipped his beer. “You don’t want me here.”

“I do, actually. Coulda used you days ago.”

“But?”

“I didn’t think you’d come with an entourage.”

Fox’s mouth tightened, the first betrayal of any emotion. “The girls wanted to come, and I wasn’t about to tell them no. And the kids are going stir-crazy in Tennessee. I needed a problem to throw them at. Don’t act as if you travel alone, mate.

“Your problem, I think,” he continued, before Candy could speak. “Isn’t that I brought so many people with me. Or that I came.”

“I said I was glad you’re here,” Candy reminded.

“Your problem,” Fox went on, “is that your wife called me, and didn’t tell you about it. Am I right?” When Candy didn’t answer right away, Fox chuckled. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Candy fought the urge to grind his teeth. He said, “My wife can call whoever she wants. You’re her uncle. I’m not surprised she reached out.”

Fox’s grin widened the tiniest fraction. “Yeah, you are. I saw your face when you came in. You looked like you’d been slapped.”

“Did you come here to play psychiatrist?” Candy asked, as calmly as he could at the moment. “Or to actually help me catch whoever’s doing this?”

Fox shrugged. “I can do both.”

“Yeah, well, as the guy in charge of this situation, I’m telling you to do one, and knock it the hell off with the other.”

Fox shrugged again. “Fair enough. Tell me what’s been happening.”

“I thought Michelle already did that over the phone.”

“Tell me in your own words.”

He started with the phone call from Pacer, and laid it all out from there. By the end, Fox’s brows were lifted a fraction – a show of real interest and surprise for him.

“And you’re sure it’s not a cult?”

The fine hair stood up on the back of Candy’s neck. “No. Why would I?”

Fox’s expression went thoughtful. He braced a toe on the floor and rotated his chair fractionally back and forth, head tipped back. His voice had shifted when he spoke; a flat, learned recitation that made him seem almost professorial. “Placing the bodies like that – staking them in place and then killing them. He’s sending a message to someone, yeah, but this is ritualistic.”

“The fed used that word.”

“It’s the right word. A dead body sends a message. You don’t need to do anything special with it. Positioning all the bodies in the same way, that’s about servicing something in the killer’s head. He feels like he has to do it that way.”

Candy frowned. “You keep saying ‘he’ like it’s one person.”

Fox’s head lifted, his gaze narrow and pale. “Cults have leaders, don’t they? He’s got friends to lend a helping hand. Followers. But a single guy thought this up, that I can promise.”

“Gee,” Candy huffed, suppressing a shiver. “He sounds swell.”

~*~

A giant pot of beef stew was already simmering on the stove in the kitchen when Fox and co. arrived, but Darla insisted it wouldn’t be enough food. She enlisted Jenny’s help, told Michelle in no uncertain terms that she was to “sit down and rest,” and hurried to the kitchen to scrape together more food. After a few minutes, Michelle caught a whiff of cornbread baking.

Albie still held TJ, seated now on one of the sofas. TJ stared at his great-uncle with something like rapture; his expression drew a laugh out of Michelle she hadn’t thought herself capable of.

“He’ll be giant,” Albie said seriously, examining the toddler’s feet. “Like his father, I suppose, instead of the lot of us.”

“Dad’s tall,” Michelle said, biting her lip to keep from smiling. “So’s Tommy, and Miles–”

“That’s enough from you,” Albie said, but grinned.

Fox appeared, silent and sudden as was his way. He’d traded his beer for whiskey in a low glass, and held it in one hand while he flicked his fingers toward Albie with the other. “Shove off,” he said, without malice.

Albie sighed, but stood, taking TJ with him.

“Leave the baby,” Fox said, as he slid into his abandoned place.

Albie looked at him with lifted brows, more than skeptical.

“You think I can’t hold a baby?”

Albie’s gaze narrowed. “I didn’t think you’d want to.”

“He’s my nephew,” Fox scoffed.

“What’s his name?”

Michelle watched, laughing silently to herself.

“TJ,” Fox said pleasantly, “you absolute wanker.”

“No cursing in front of the kid,” Albie said, but set TJ down in Fox’s lap anyway.

TJ turned toward him with a happy laugh, and Fox gloated.

Albie sighed, and headed off toward the bar.

“You shouldn’t torment him,” Michelle chided.

“He needs it.” Fox put a steadying hand on TJ’s hip, and held his whiskey out of reach. His gaze cut toward her without his head turning; she stiffened immediately. “And what do you need?”

“What?” she asked, inwardly cursing. She should have known it wouldn’t be as simple as pointing him at the problem and stepping back. Should have known he’d be able to read her like no one else could. Candy had learned so many of her tells and finer expressions; could sense most of her moods. But like knew like, and all of Devin Green’s brood would always understand one another better than anyone else could ever hope to. It was a curse more than it was a blessing, sometimes.

His face said, come on, shadow of a smirk threatening at the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t–” she started, and heard the way her voice shivered.

He said, “Chelle.”

I need this psycho caught, she thought of saying. I need to not be run down on the street. I need my baby safe. I need to take a deep breath. All true; all most of the reason she’d called him.

But she didn’t say anything, a lump caught in her throat.

Fox’s expression softened. A fraction. “I think I know what’s really wrong.”

“You know who’s killing everyone in this town?” she said, more acidic than she’d meant.

He smiled. “No, not that. Not yet.” He bounced TJ and earned happy laughter. “I’m ready to listen when you’re ready to talk.”

I ought to tell him off, she thought, because she was just…angry. So angry. That formless sort of rage too elusive to pin down, too big to ignore.

She swallowed and said, “Yeah. Thanks.”

Twenty

There was so much food. Axelle had thought she was starving, but a few bites into the thickest, heartiest stew she’d ever eaten, fullness had set in along with a crushing tiredness. She’d wound up pushing bits of vegetable around in the broth in an effort not to nod off at the table.

“Oh, honey,” Darla said when she collected her plate. “You hardly ate anything. No wonder you’re so skinny.”

Axelle’s grin was more of a grimace.

“Leave her alone,” Jenny said, intervening. “Come on and I’ll show you where you can stay.”

Another city, another MC clubhouse. She wondered when she’d stop feeling like she’d stepped through the Looking Glass; when it would stop feeling like a betrayal to the prejudices she’d held so long.

The Amarillo headquarters looked like a country-western version of the one in Knoxville: hardwood floors, plenty of seating, big TVs, and a bar in the common room – plus steer skulls and cowhide. (Secretly, she preferred the Old World aesthetic of Baskerville Hall, the way it had felt like a beautiful, creaky beehive rather than a sprawling ranch house.) Jenny led her down a hallway lined with doors, just like in Knoxville, and showed her into a dorm with a similar setup: double bed, dresser, en-suite bathroom. Wood floors, rather than the orange carpet Ghost for some reason hadn’t replaced, and a cowhide rug.

“There’s clean towels in the bathroom,” Jenny said, moving through the room to push the adjoining door open. “Extra blankets in the bottom drawer there, if you need them. We turn the heat down at night.”

Axelle didn’t realize she was standing there, staring stupidly into the middle distance, until Jenny turned around and said her name, a gentle prompt. She blinked, and focused on her hostess’s face. Jenny had a little groove of concern between her brows.

“Thank you,” Axelle said, and then failed to stifle a yawn.

Jenny lingered, though. Her frown deepened. “Are you okay? You seem nervous.”

“Nervous?” Axelle snorted. “Maybe ‘cause a serial killer’s on the loose? No, I’m just tired. Thanks,” she said again, more firmly.

Jenny waited a beat, then nodded, and finally moved to leave. “If you need anything, the prospect’s in the first dorm on the left. And you can always knock at the sanctuary – there’s a sign. I’m staying here until we get things sorted.”

Axelle didn’t take a deep breath until she was gone; then she shut the door and sank down on the end of the bed with a sigh.

The mattress, like those in Knoxville, was springy and firm. Not broken in, she’d thought with surprise, on her first night at Dartmoor. She’d expected squeaking; jabbing springs; lumps; maybe even a smell.

Bikers were a lot of things, it turned out, but she’d learned they weren’t heathens – much to her dismay.

She sighed again, and flopped backward across the coverlet, eyes already closing.

In retrospect, she should have expected the knock on her door.

Should also have expected that, once she’d hauled herself up to answer it, she’d find Albie waiting on the other side.

The sight of him startled her, though. A little zing of adrenaline went through her, and her sleepiness evaporated.

He stood with both feet planted firmly in the hall, not so much as leaning in toward her, his hands linked in front of him. His expression seemed curious, cautious; mostly closed-off, that mask he and his siblings all wore – though Albie’s was much politer and friendlier than, say, Fox’s, for example.

He searched her face, and his brows lifted a fraction. “I didn’t scare you, did I?”

Had she reacted that way? She was too exhausted to control her face properly; she tried to smooth it. Folded her arms, and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “No. Just. I thought you were Eden.”

A wry smile tugged at his mouth. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“No, I’m not disappointed.” She said it too quick, she thought, but it earned her a true smile.

“I won’t keep you up,” he said, “you look knackered.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like it’s not a compliment.”

“You look sleepy,” he amended, chuckling. “I should let you get to bed. But I wanted to make sure you were okay first.”

A part of her she wasn’t going to grace with any kind of mushy labels found his sentiment very sweet. That he was worried; that he was checking on her. Major points in the win column for Mr. Albert Cross.

“I’m not that sleepy,” she lied. “Just sore from all the driving.”

He lifted his brows, doubtful.

“Beats riding a bike all that way.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

This is stupid, she thought, and opened the door all the way, even though her stomach clenched with sudden nerves. “You wanna come in?” she asked.

His brows went higher, surprise plain on his face. “Yeah.” He leaned forward, then hesitated.

Jesus Christ, she thought.

But he said, “Night cap?”

It was late, and she needed to be up early; alcohol couldn’t get them through all their awkwardness – eventually they’d have to learn how to be themselves around each other without any help, if this was ever going to work. But she said, “Sure.”

“Be right back.” He wasn’t even gone long enough for her to have second thoughts, only for her to appreciate the view of him walking away. Then he was back, bottle of Jack Daniel’s in-hand. “This do?”

“Definitely.”

There was nowhere to sit besides the bed, so they sat on the end of it, leaving a gap; room for someone else to have sat between them. Axelle didn’t remember shutting the door, but when she glanced up at it, it was closed. She didn’t feel panicked about that, though.

Albie wasn’t unsafe.

He just left her lungs trembling.

“Shit, I forgot glasses.” He frowned as he twisted off the cap, but had wiped his face smooth – into an expression almost hopeful – when he turned to her, and offered the bottle. “Ladies first. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

In answer, she took the bottle and a big swig. The whiskey burned all the way down; she choked down a cough, and caught a stray drop off her lips with the back of her hand.

It was too soon to feel the effects, but she was blaming the Jack when she said, “Why are we so damn bad at this?”

Another man would have asked for clarification, she thought. Played stupid. But not Albie. He made a considering face as he accepted the bottle back and took a swig of his own – two long swallows, and a deep breath after. “It was different back in London,” he said, brows knitted thoughtfully. He had a good face for thoughtful; it suited him better than cheerful, really. “We were dealing with – all that.” A vague gesture over his shoulder to encompass the craziness of that time. “Worried about our people. We just sort of” – shrug – “fell together. It didn’t take any thought. No effort. But now it’s like…” He trailed off, struggling for the words.

“Like boring old dating,” she supplied.

“It’s not boring,” he was quick to say, gaze snapping to hers, earnest. He wanted her to know that, she thought: that he wasn’t bored with her, or this little dance of theirs. “It’s…this is the hard part. Getting to know each other. It’s hard to know someone.”

She reached for the bottle again. “You brought me flowers.”

He made an apologetic face. “I thought you might like them.”

“I did.” She took a sip, smaller this time; the first was turning warm in her belly, moving through her veins in hot, soothing trails. “But I didn’t think I put out the ‘girl who likes flowers’ vibe.” She couldn’t remember the last time a man who knew she could drive like a demon had assumed there was anything feminine about her.

His smile was small, sideways, and a little bit sad. “Everyone likes pretty things, don’t they?”

She swallowed convulsively. “Yeah. I guess so.” Voice faint. Her throat was dry. “I guess the women you usually date do?”

His gaze never wavered, and she wished it would. Wished he’d have more whiskey, or turn his head, or give in to their usual awkwardness. “I don’t usually date.” Voice low, and serious. An honest voice; he was a criminal, and he’d done terrible things, but he’d struck her – even from the very first – as someone who told the truth whenever he could, even if people didn’t like it. It wasn’t about impressing people for Albie – wasn’t about being liked. He was who he was, and damn anyone who didn’t like it.

The room felt too hot, too close, suddenly. One of those ever-shrinking moments she always had the urge to leap away from. His eyes were the color of old blue jeans in the lamplight; warmly blue, now, and not the cool killer shine they were out in the sunlight.

She wet her lips. “You moved here for me.”

He could have dodged. I moved here to be nearer to my brother. For new business opportunities. To get away from London, and the memories it held of my awful father.

But he kept gazing steadily at her. His throat jumped when he swallowed. “I did.”

“Shit,” she breathed. “I mean…” Her pulse fluttered. “You just said: we’re still getting to know each other.”

“So?”

“So you don’t move across an ocean for someone you don’t know!”

“Axe–”

She stood up – too fast. The blood drained out of her head, and the whiskey swirled in her stomach, and, whoa, a night cap was a bad idea. “I mean,” she said, and started pacing a tight back-and-forth path along the foot of the bed, “I knew you did. Moved here. To be with me. I knew that. That first day, at the post office, when I saw you…But I kept telling myself that was crazy. You had four brothers in Knoxville, and all that shit with your dad had just happened, and you got blown up, and who wouldn’t want to get out of London after that–”

He caught her wrist. Gently, but it stopped her in her tracks, and she turned to look at him. She could feel that she was wild-eyed; her breath hitched unsteadily.

His expression was gentle; his thumb found the pulse point in her wrist, and rubbed back and forth over it, soothingly. “Axelle. Love.”

Oh shit. There was no defending against that.

“You don’t love me,” she said unsteadily.

“No,” he agreed. “Not yet. But I think I could.”

Just a whisper: “What if I end up not being worth it to you? Moving to the States?”

“I’ve lived alone most of my life. I want to try something new.” His smile hitched uncertainly wider. “A man can’t subsist on furniture alone.” When she stared at him, he added, softer, “I’m willing to take that chance if you are.”

When she could, she nodded, chest tight.

“For what it’s worth,” he added. “I think it’ll be worth it.”

“You’re really sweet,” she said. “It’s awful.”

He chuckled. “I can’t disagree.”

She stood for a long moment, gaze drifting to his hand, where it still carefully held her wrist – that’s what it was, a hold and not a grip. He wasn’t pinning her, wasn’t keeping her, but saying I’m here, and I’d like to hold onto you, if you’ll let me.

“I hate to admit this,” she said on a sigh, “but I’m…freaking out.”

“I’m terrified,” he admitted. His fingers shifted on her arm, a soft caress. “Maybe we can be scared together?” Hopeful, cautious.

“Yeah.”

Maybe it was the whiskey, maybe her tiredness; the late hour after a long drive, or the low light, or – probably mostly – the way he was looking at her now. But something clicked into place. An understanding dawned, one that made all the difference.

She could be afraid of the club; be afraid of what siding with it meant to her father’s memory. She could dislike their code; she could wish things were different…so many things.

But she wasn’t afraid of Albie, personally. She never had been.

And which was scarier? Being with him? Or being without?

There wasn’t much of a decision to make when she looked at it like that.

“You didn’t kiss me,” she said.

“I didn’t what?”

“On our date,” she clarified. “It was our first date, and when you left, you didn’t kiss me goodbye.”

His eyes widened. “Oh.” He swallowed. “I’m a bit out of touch with all the – dating rules.” He said it like they were very official and scary.

“There aren’t rules.”

“Aren’t there?” His turn to be uncertain, she thought. Hesitant. Backpedaling.

“If you–”

He tugged on her wrist. Not with any force – it was a request. Come here.

She sank down so she sat beside him again, and when she was settled, his momentary worry had become determination.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t want to,” he said. He reached up, slow, like he was afraid he’d startle her – or maybe like she would bite him. There was a horse metaphor in there either way. He set the pad of his thumb lightly on the point of her chin. His eyes dilated; his breathing audible. “Okay?”

She couldn’t breathe, for her own part. “Okay.”

His hand moved to cup her jaw, thumb sweeping up over her cheek, the skin rough, the touch gentle.

She’d always thought – in those rare moments that she thought about it at all, maybe wondering what women wanted with them – that bikers must do more biting than kissing. If they kissed at all. She’d thought of pawing, of being put face-down in the pillow and told to take it.

But Albie did kiss her, and softly.

Everything stopped for a moment. Her racing thoughts, her racing pulse; all her doubt, and worry about whether this was right, her fears that she was hurtling toward something insubstantial and treacherous. His lips gentle against hers, she existed a moment in perfect suspension.

Awareness filtered back in waves: the heat of his hand against her face; the flicker of his lashes against her cheek; the brush of his nose alongside hers. It was so little contact, but it felt like so much, and heat roared to life inside her, sudden and unexpected. If just this had the power to stop time, what would a deeper kiss be like? His hands on her body? What would it feel like if she lied back and pulled him on top of her?

She didn’t find out, then. He pulled back, his hand on her face keeping her from chasing forward; her eyes opening slowly. Her head was spinning.

Come on! she wanted to say.

But she saw the soft look he was giving her, his gaze heavy-lidded with want, but his smile tender, and she thought, no, wait.

Because maybe good things didn’t have to happen all at once.

Twenty-One

Eden woke to the gentle murmur of morning in a clubhouse. The rattle and creak of pipes; shuffle of footfalls; muted hum of the kitchen firing up beneath Darla’s deft hands. Voices, faint, the idea of them without any distinct words. Dawn came pink and silver beyond the curtain.

Fox lay beside her, his face buried in the pillow, one arm flung casually over her stomach, but she knew he wasn’t asleep: his breathing was too controlled and quiet for that.

“Axelle’s room is next to ours,” she said by way of good morning.

His hum managed to sound both inquiring and bored. The ass.

“Axelle’s room is next to ours, and we didn’t hear anything last night.”

A beat passed. He lifted his head, face scrunched up and pillow creased, and cracked one blue eye. “Did you want to hear something?”

“No. But I expected to.”

He pushed up on both elbows, and blinked a moment, gaze clearing – sharpening. He was a good actor; she’d give him that. “Is that your thing, then? Listening to other people shag?”

She smacked his shoulder. Not gently.

His reaction was a grin. “I always knew there was a secret kinky side of you. It’s alright, love, you can let it out.”

“It’s not secret, and I do let it out, frequently,” she deadpanned. “I meant: your brother still hasn’t moved in on Axelle yet.”

“Ah. That.” He slipped back down, arms under the pillow, chin propped on it so he looked like a little kid, mussed hair and all. It was a cute picture, but she wasn’t going to tell him that and swell his head even further. “So you want my brother to shag your friend.”

“Stop trying to play psychiatrist on me and take this seriously for a moment, would you?”

“Why? What does it matter?”

“Well…” She hated when he had a point. Another thing she wasn’t going to tell him. “I’m worried about Axelle. I want her to be happy.”

He chuckled. “And you think my idiot brother is what will make her happy?”

“I think maybe you could be supportive of your brother – who’s a gentleman, and not an idiot – for once, and that you might actually give a damn about his happiness. Though that’s probably beyond you.”

His face smoothed to blankness, and he pushed up on his elbows again, no longer feigning that he’d just awakened. On guard, now. “I don’t need advice about my own family,” he said, perfectly calm, smooth as glass. But it was a tone that sent a shiver down her back. “Thanks, but no thanks.” He rolled over and sat up.

Eden stared at the ceiling a moment, feeling…not trapped. Not angry.

Restless.

~*~

Eden had met Michelle Calloway years before, when she and Charlie were…doing whatever it was they’d done while she was still with the government. Not dating; never call it that. It had been a chance encounter, her sitting at a café table in her favorite tucked-away shop, having a latte and a slice of sinful chocolate cake, using caffeine and sugar to soothe the internal shaking that had been haunting her for days about a particular case. The bell had jangled, and she’d glanced up, surprised to find Fox walking in, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair – hair she was already thinking about running her fingers through, glossy-thick and lovely. Caffeine and sugar were fine, but there was nothing better than sex to ease her heartache over the terrors of the world.

She’d started to speak, lift a hand and catch his attention, almost thinking he’d known this was her favorite spot, and that he’d come here hoping to find her. Then she’d realized he wasn’t alone.

Her first thought, when she saw the girl trailing in his wake, was guess I should have known. Was there a man alive who could resist a beautiful blonde ingenue with cold-nipped cheeks and cornflower eyes, half his age and dressed in a leather jacket so oversized it could only have been his? Her coffee had turned sour in her stomach, and she’d felt her mouth twist into an uncontrollable grimace. She’d wanted to leave. Slide her novel back into her bag, turn pointedly away from them, and just – flee. She wasn’t proud of it, but that was the case. She and Charlie hadn’t promised one another exclusivity, but here she was, stung and jealous.

She hadn’t left, though. Had watched them, though she shouldn’t have. And the agent in her had picked out the details, against her will.

The way they’d settled in on opposite sides of a table. The way they spoke to one another easily, too low to hear, without eye contact, the girl glancing over the menu board while Charlie observed the patrons with a trained eye; the way they swapped, then, the girl scanning while Charlie had a look at the offerings. There was affection on the girl’s face, but not adoration; no batting of lashes and biting of lips and angling herself to her best advantage.

They weren’t lovers, she’d thought with a start, a vivid impression. Then Charlie had spotted her.

“Eden?”

She’d known a moment’s panic, and hoped it didn’t show on her face. Then she’d stood and gone over to their table, keenly aware of the girl’s eyes on her, a blue that managed to be both darker and lighter than she’d originally thought. Eyes that…were familiar, she realized. Charlie’s eyes – a version of them.

My niece, Michelle, he’d introduced.

A girl with a firm handshake, and a direct bearing, and a frank, un-shy scrutiny as she looked Eden up and down, cataloguing her, taking her measure.

Michelle was young, and decidedly not carrying a badge of any kind, but Eden had recognized the professional in her. This was someone who slunk through shadows, and pulled triggers, and made hard decisions, same as her.

She’d liked her on the spot.

Seeing her here, now, had been a shock – and not a pleasant one.

Eden knew she was pregnant, but she didn’t think the dark smudges beneath her eyes, and the drawn, careful wariness of her expression could all be chalked up to morning sickness and hormone fluctuations. Something was wrong – something, she’d be willing to bet, besides the murders currently rattling the club’s windows. This was personal.

Axelle set down a heaping plate and then settled in across from her. “Jesus, the amount of food they think I eat,” she muttered, staring down at the pile of sausage, hash, eggs, and what Eden had learned a few weeks ago were grits. “Darla fixed my plate for me,” she confided, shaking her head, “and I kept saying ‘that’s enough,’ and she just kept saying I was too skinny and piling it on.” She picked up her fork and nudged the tower of deep-fried potatoes. “Damn.”

When she lifted her head, and caught Eden’s gaze, her expression shifted. “What?”

“Just thinking.” Eden picked up her coffee and blew the steam off the top; the porcelain was nearly too hot to touch. “Sleep well?”

Axelle blushed and forked up a bite of eggs. Eden had never seen her like this. “Yeah. Bed’s not as shitty as I expected.”

Eden hid a smile in the rim of her mug. “Hm. Funny how that works out.”

Cheeks still bright pink, Axelle shot her a glare. “You don’t have to look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I told you so.”

“I never told you a thing,” she said, primly. “If I had, I probably would have advised against it. You’ve waltzed into your own romance all by yourself.”

Axelle grimaced and took a huge bite of hash.

Eden did her best not to laugh.

Footfalls scuffed over the hardwood, heralding Albie’s arrival before he joined them, sitting down next to Axelle. Eden didn’t miss the way Axelle swayed toward him, fractionally, as if drawn by a magnet; nor did she miss the way, head bent, Albie turned his gaze toward her, surreptitious, careful, perhaps nervous. They were still dancing around one another, but oh, there was tension there. Heat. A palpable frisson in the scant inches between them.

It eased some of Eden’s worries about Albie’s intentions.

“Hey,” Axelle said, looking at Albie’s plate: one slice of ham, and two eggs sunny-side up. “Why don’t you have a freaking ton of food?”

He shrugged as he unrolled his silverware. “I fixed my own plate.”

Axelle made a face, and glanced toward the kitchen. “You’re too skinny,” she mocked, in a good imitation of Darla’s Texas drawl. “My ass.”

“What about your ass?” Albie asked, turning to her, all innocence – save the faintest flicker of a smile teasing at one corner of his mouth. It was like Fox’s almost-smile, but softer, sweeter. Less calculated.

Axelle went crimson. She elbowed him, and lowered her face over her plate; Albie grinned.

They were a little bit adorable.

“What are you up to today, Albie?” Eden asked, because she could only take so much adorable at once.

His smile dimmed, and he tucked into his breakfast. “Heading out with Fox,” he said, when he’d swallowed a bite of ham. “He knows the terrain and I decidedly don’t. So I guess I’m backup.” He shrugged, and cut into the yolk with the edge of his fork.

Eden watched it run, yellow and viscous, out across the plate, pooling against the seared edge of the ham, and was glad she’d skipped breakfast.

She’d always worked best on an empty stomach.

Twenty-Two

“Are you taking Fox out to the crime scenes today?” Michelle asked as she tugged on her boots.

Candy stood at the door, halfway through pulling on his jacket. He stood with one arm in a sleeve, the other caught mid-slide, and turned to look at her, expression polite – but guarded. It was a perfectly fine expression, only it wasn’t the way he usually looked at her.

She wanted to be upset about that, but found she couldn’t be.

“Yeah,” he said, after a long moment, and shrugged his jacket into place. Checked the pockets; put a reassuring hand on the hilt of the gun at his waist. “Figure that’s the best place to start.”

His gaze came back, clamped-down, hard to read.

Not as hard to read as she knew her own to be. “Okay. Sounds good.”

He lingered. “Chelle…”

She lifted her brows.

After a moment, he twitched a fleeting smile and said, “Be careful today. Call you later.”

“You, too.”

He didn’t come kiss her. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

She stared at the door a moment, once he’d gone through it. Last night had been – chilly. Very civil, no arguments. But they’d slept back-to-back, without even accidentally touching, and he’d not kissed her since Fox arrived.

To be fair, she hadn’t kissed him, either.

She waited until she thought he must be gone, then went out into the main part of the clubhouse.

Jenny had gotten up before her, and, unasked, gotten TJ dressed. He was in his booster seat, now, eating eggs with his hands and making a mess. When Michelle headed that direction, Jenny waved her off.

“Go eat in peace. I already had my breakfast.”

Michelle sent her a silent thank you and went to collect a plate.

Darla heaped it full, though she wouldn’t be able to eat even half of it. The tea she craved, though, and held it carefully in one hand as she left the kitchen and surveyed the common room.

Eden and Axelle sat across from one another; Eden caught her eye, and then motioned her over.

Michelle headed that way with a stomach tight with apprehension.

“Good morning,” Eden greeted, all smooth politeness. It seemed sincere. That was the thing with Eden: she never betrayed the way she really felt about a person, save with Fox, and the way she usually felt about him seemed to be irritated.

“Good morning,” Michelle replied, and hoped she’d managed at least a fraction of her old composure; that she’d held on to at least some of who she’d been when she first met Eden, years ago. The competent, calculating, trusted weapon of her family’s own design.

The thought jolted her. Moved through her as a tiny inner earthquake. Her tectonic plates shifted, and she knew her eyes widened.

Eden lifted her brows, and traded a quick look with Axelle, who shrugged. “Candy came by and offered us some advice,” she said, turning back to Michelle. “Places he thought might be good starting points for an investigation. I wonder if those are the same places you would start.”

Michelle’s heart pounded. She clutched tight to her plate and mug to keep from dropping them. “He’s the native Texan,” she said, “he’d know better than me.”

Eden grinned, small and tight. “You’ve been here for a few years now. You mean to tell me you don’t know the city by now?”

Axelle pushed her plate away, folded her arms on the table, and looked at Michelle with frank, unselfconscious curiosity.

What was happening here? Why did she feel like she was being tested? Like she was being…

“Doing anything important today?” Eden asked.

…invited.

What was she doing today? Taking care of TJ. Probably more laundry. Making a dozen phone calls to TLC and wishing she was there in person to keep an eye on things because she was neurotic as hell.

She took a breath. “I’m not doing anything.”

Eden’s grin widened. “Want to come with us?”

“God, yes.”

Twenty-Three

The bodies, and the tent, and the vans, and the little plastic photography markers were long gone; the stakes and rope carted away as evidence. In another day or so, the wind would blow and smooth what remained of the tire treads and boot print impressions pressed down into the sandy soil where the first bodies had been found. But there were still signs of what had happened here, if you knew what to look for.

Candy studied a divot left by one of the stakes, and wondered if the faint, rusty-brown stippling on the dirt was blood. Probably.

“He cut their throats on the spot,” Fox said, drawing his attention. The Englishman crouched a few feet away, pads of his fingers pressed lightly to the ground, while he frowned off into the middle distance, eyes narrowed against the glare of morning sunlight.

“Yeah.”

“The killing was important. Like I said before: a ritual.” He stood, and turned to face Candy. “They were drugged, then. Dosed up with something heavy because there’s no sign of struggle. At least not now?” He cocked a brow in question.

Candy shook his head. “Not when it was fresh, either. Boot prints, yeah, but nobody was tossing around.” He flapped his own arms in imitation of someone fighting restraints. “Not even drag marks. It was like they got dropped out of the sky.”

Fox nodded, and cast his gaze across the ground again. “Unconscious or paralyzed.”

Albie was pacing a slow circle around the area, hands in his back pockets, brow furrowed. “Drug them, drive them out here, place them, cut their throats.”

“They were interrupted,” an unfamiliar voice called, and Candy whipped around.

When his gaze landed on Ten, the new brother, he realized with a bit of a shock that it was the first time he’d heard the guy speak. Tenny – and Reese, who currently lurked in his peripheral vision, wind blowing his pale hair – had kept silent through introductions, dinner, and even this morning’s departure. He had a very posh accent, and a very flat, very professional voice to carry it.

He stood a dozen or so yards away, on the far side of the crime scene, away from the place where the tent had stood and the feds and techs had parked their vehicles. He glanced back over his shoulder, and said, “They left in a hurry.”

Fox and Albie headed for him, Fox frowning, and Candy followed.

The sun cast deep shadows into a set of tire tracks they hadn’t examined before. Wide, knobby tires, from a truck or van, something heavy. Deep ruts that faded into paler prints: someone had stomped the gas, kicking up a spray of sand, leaving, as Ten had said, in a hurry.

Footprints, too. Several sets, thick-soled work boots, overlapping, clouding one another, and arcs where toes and heels had carved deep grooves. Signs of a scuffle. And drag marks, a single set.

“They parked here,” Ten said, pointing. He turned, sketching the scene for them with vague gestures from his long hands. “Unloaded the victims, one-by-one, and walked them over to the dump site. Three. But the fourth – the fourth wasn’t dosed strongly enough. He woke up, and he fled.” He followed the path of the footprints, placing his own feet carefully, disturbing nothing. “He went a few yards before they were on him. They subdued him, and got him back in the van. Either they couldn’t sedate him, or something spooked them, but they left. The other two bodies were the ones they placed later, on the sister’s lawn.”

Candy felt a strange fluttering at the base of his pulse. “You don’t know that.”

“A theory,” Fox proposed, giving his brother a sharp look.

Ten stared back at him, unrepentant. “No. This was an escape attempt.”

“You think,” Fox corrected, growing stern. “And if so, it only accounts for one other victim.”

“There were two.”

“How do you know?” Albie asked.

Ten didn’t respond.

The breeze kicked up, a sharp burst of cold air that sent sand and fine pebbles skirling around their boots.

“I’ll call Cantrell,” Candy said. “And tell him to get a team out here to look at this. Maybe they can tell something from the tires. Or the shoe prints.” He shrugged, biting back a rising swell of frustration. “They learn all kinds of shit from that sort of thing in the movies.”

Someone snorted – Tenny, he realized, when he glanced up.

The kid was smirking. “Movies,” he said, and turned away.

Candy didn’t know he’d balled a hand into a fist until his knuckles cracked.

“Yeah,” Albie sighed. “He makes everybody feel that way.”

~*~

Reese had been to Texas once before, on an op. A quick, clean kill, there and gone again. It had been in Dallas. Amarillo looked very different.

There hadn’t been any federal agents around then – or, well, there had been, but long after he’d gone. He’d not sat on a rock, like he did now, and watched them roll in. Just one dusty car and a dustier van. A man in a cheap suit and mirror-lensed shades, face creased with fatigue and unhappiness, and two young people in windbreakers toting cases, cameras swinging from straps around their necks.

He didn’t want to be here, not for this part. Every instinct told him to run; to hide his face, to disappear. He’d pulled his hood up, at least, and wore dark sunglasses. But he was still visible. Was still here, when he shouldn’t have been.

He’d been told to stay, though. When the men in charge didn’t run, you didn’t either.

The crunch of gravel announced Fox’s arrival, though that was the only sound. If not for a few loose stones, his approach would have been silent.

“What do you think?” he asked, when he stood beside Reese’s boulder.

“It’s risky being out in the open,” Reese said, more quickly than he’d thought he would. He’d meant to keep quiet, and do as he was told, but, well, the anxiety was getting to him, crawling across his skin like insects. “They can see us.” He nodded toward the FBI agent, currently shaking hands and talking with Candy.

Fox breathed out a little hum that sounded amused. An amusement Reese recognized; his previous master had done that. Usually just before he said, “I’m surprised you know that.” It was for when he said something smart. “They can. But I think that’s alright, in this case.”

“Does this chapter work with the FBI?”

“Not usually.” Fox climbed up to perch beside him, an arm span between them. “Special circumstances, and all that.” A pause. “I meant: what do you think of Tenny’s theory?”

Reese turned to him, surprised, but Fox’s expression gave nothing away. “Ten is your brother.” You’ll trust him more than you’ll trust me, he meant. Friendship he didn’t understand, but blood relation – siblings – he did.

“Technically, he is,” Fox consented, head tilting. “But mostly he’s my charge, and I’m his minder. He’s good at what he does, yeah, but he’s a wild card. I want to know what you think. What’s your read on that?” He pointed to the signs of struggle in the dirt, now being captured on film by the FBI lab techs.

Reese glanced that way again, squinting against the light, even with his shades. It was much brighter here than in Tennessee, like the sun hovered closer to the earth. “I don’t think he’s wrong,” he said, finally.

“But you don’t agree completely.”

He frowned, struggling to find the words. I hate him, he thought. A sentiment that formed inside his head every time he looked at Ten, every time someone mentioned him. But that wasn’t a helpful thought; wasn’t data that he could quantify and use. What use was an emotion like that? Hate? It served no purpose; it clouded his mind and dulled his edge.

Ten’s theory was a viable one. If he closed his eyes, he could clearly envision it playing out just the way he’d said. It was logical, and there was enough physical evidence to back it up to suit his own curiosity.

But…

(He hated that. But… That dangling bit of question. He wasn’t used to feeling this way – the closest he came was when he saw Roman set a hand on his sister’s waist, and read Kristin’s silent plea to let it be, but…anger always surged.)

“He’s too sure,” he said, frowning some more, because he couldn’t explain it. “He doesn’t know, but he thinks he does.” He glanced over at Fox, and earned a thin smile.

“He’s cocky, yeah. Too cocky. I hear you.” He sighed and rested his forearms on his knees, leaned forward with another, deeper sigh as his back stretched. “Shit. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do with him.”

Reese wondered why he was the one being told this. He wasn’t family, or friend, or even club member. He was…himself. And he knew of only one use for himself.

“Ah, well, it’s not your problem.” Fox got to his feet, and flashed him a grin. “Don’t worry about it. And don’t let him push you around, either. He’s a total asshole.”

Reese watched him walk over to join the others, wondering what had just happened.

~*~

Fox wasn’t surprised when, ten paces away from Reese and his rock, a shadow fell across his own, and Tenny slid into step beside him as if from thin air. He shot him a covert glance, and found him walking with his head down, and his shoulders rounded, more of his feigned nonchalance – but he vibrated with tension.

Good.

“What’s up?” Fox asked, lightly.

“You asked him about me.” Tone flat, but woven with a thread of accusation.

Reese didn’t like Ten – he’d suspected, but confirmed it just now. Fox didn’t blame the kid: Tenny was unlikeable. For someone as straightforward and uncomplicated as Reese, Tenny’s wiles and manipulations would be anathema.

It was Ten not liking Reese that cracked Fox up. “I asked him what he thought about your little two-more-victims idea.”

“It’s not an idea,” Ten snapped. “That’s what happened.”

“According to you.”

He felt the weight of Ten’s glare against the side of his face, and shrugged. “You’re well-trained, I’ll give you that. But you aren’t a genius, and you aren’t perfect.”

Tenny halted.

Fox went one stride farther, and then turned back to regard his brother, so the sun hit Tenny full in the face, highlighting every bit of checked rage he fought to conceal.

“You could be right,” Fox said, “or you could be dead wrong. You’ve been coddled.”

“Beg your pardon?” he asked, voice brittle, glass-edged. The most emotion he’d ever shown.

“You’re not working black ops for the British government anymore. Drop the attitude, and open your eyes.”

Fox turned away, dark satisfaction brewing in his gut. Good, he thought, savagely. He was going to keep pushing, until the façade finally cracked and he met the real boy underneath all those many, many layers of veneer.

If he even existed.

Twenty-Four

“The clerks that work the midday shift all know Candy and the boys,” Michelle explained, as she and Eden crossed the old cracked pavement of the Citgo station, headed for the door. Axelle was gassing up her GTO, slumped against the back fender, wind playing with her long, wheaten hair. With her beat-up boots and denim jacket, she looked right at home against the Texas landscape.

Eden less so.

She didn’t seem uncomfortable; quite the opposite. Composed, confident, she looked like a woman who knew what she was about. But even with her scuffed Docs and her black leather jacket, there was something sharp about her. Somewhere between the tight ponytail, and the huge shades, and the particular set of her mouth lay hints about her former profession. Not just a tough woman, but one who’d been paid to be so.

“Will they recognize you?” Eden asked, as they reached the sidewalk.

A man pulling a bag of ice out of the cooler paused and stared at them – at Eden, Michelle thought.

“Yes.”

“Hm,” Eden acknowledged, and opened the door.

The first time Michelle had ever come into this particular station, she’d realized why it was the one the club boys frequented most often. The linoleum yellowed with age, scuffed from thousands of footfalls; the lights above the drink coolers always flickering; the slurpy machine you couldn’t have paid her to use. It always smelled sharply of fresh cigarette smoke, and sometimes weed; the counter was fortified on all sides by candy bar racks, and Skoal racks, and cigarette racks; lotto machines and stands of Bic lighters and a forest of dangling key chains.

It was kind of a dump, the sort of place tourists and uppity types would have avoided, choosing instead to go across the street to the shiny new brightly-lit BP. But for an outlaw, grungy and smelly was a worthy trade for a lack of prying eyes.

The bell jangled overhead when they entered. Two clerks loitered behind the counter, one paging disinterestedly through a magazine, the other frowning and tapping at one of the keychains – one shaped like a little cactus wearing sunglasses. Neither of them glanced toward the door when Eden and Michelle entered. It smelled more like weed than smoke today.

They traded a look, and Eden nodded.

Michelle approached the counter, casually, gaze flitting like she was browsing. She snagged careful looks at both clerks, though. She didn’t need the name tags to know that these were Jesse and Eric.

She slapped a candy bar down on the counter with more force than necessary. Both boys jumped, a little, and finally glanced her way. She’d always thought Jesse – the one with the magazine – the cleverer of the two, and he proved it now; his eyes widened a fraction after he recognized her. Eric took a moment longer, but then he mouthed, Shit.

Gooseflesh broke out under her clothes. They knew something, and the idea of teasing it out of them hit her with the old thrill she hadn’t felt since she lived in London.

“Hey, guys,” she said, and it was so easy, sounding calm, a bit bored, tired and disinterested. “How’s it going?”

They stared at her a moment.

“Good,” Jesse finally said. He slid the magazine aside and reached for her Butterfinger like it might bite.

“Lots of crazy stuff happening around here lately, huh?” she asked, still casual.

Eric folded his arms tight across his chest and looked down at his feet.

Jesse said, “Yeah.” The scanner wasn’t working, apparently; he wagged the Butterfinger back and forth in front of it to no avail.

“All these people getting murdered,” she continued. “It’s like there’s a serial killer out there or something.”

The scanner finally beeped. Despite the smoke-clouded glass of the door, enough sunlight filtered in to highlight the beads of sweat developing at Jesse’s temples. “Uh-huh,” he said, reaching for her money.

She didn’t hand it over. Waited instead for him to meet her gaze. He kept his chin tucked, looking at her up through lashes that trembled as he fought not to blink. He was terrified.

“Jesse,” she said, letting a bit of steel slip into her voice. “What do you know?”

He gulped audibly. “Nothing.”

Eric leaned forward, face screwed up to vicious angles. “We don’t know shit!” he hissed. “You should know, biker bitch. It’s your man’s fault.”

“Eric!” Jesse turned and thumped him hard in the chest, eyes wild. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Candy’s not doing this,” Michelle said, and both of them looked at her, Jesse still with terror, Eric with terrified fury. “But if he knew who was doing it, he could put a stop to it.”

“Bullshit,” Eric said.

Jesse hit him again, harder this time. He was shaking.

“Boys,” Eden drawled. She materialized at Michelle’s side; she hadn’t even made a sound. The clerks whipped their heads around, and Eden unrolled a Ziploc bag with a flourish, holding it between two fingers. Michelle guessed the amount of weed it held was worth more than they made in three months’ time working here.

Eric’s face went red. He made a move to lunge over the counter, and Jesse grabbed the back of his shirt. “Dude, fucking think,” he hissed in his ear. “She’s his old lady!”

“She’s not.” Gaze trained on Eden.

“But I’m a friend of his old lady,” Eden said coolly. “And an old lady in my own right. We’re not here to cause any trouble. I only have questions. Answer them honestly, and we’ll leave.” She still wore her shades, and lifted her brows above the rims. With her free hand, she adjusted her jacket, just enough to flash the butt of the gun she carried at her hip. “Sound fair?”

Eric didn’t agree, but he stopped struggling.

Jesse took a deep breath and said, “Yeah.”

“Who did you buy this from?” Michelle asked.

“I didn’t buy it.”

“A sample, then,” Michelle said. “To sway you over. Or are you now a distributor, perhaps?”

He swallowed.

“What did I say before?” Eden pressed.

“It’s a sample,” Jesse said, voice quavering. “We’re supposed to sell it.”

“Have you?”

“Some.”

“Who gave it to you?” Michelle asked. “Actually, let me rephrase that: who are you working for now?”

He fidgeted.

“It didn’t bloody fall out of the sky into that warzone you call an office. Someone put it in your hand,” Eden said sharply. “Who was it?”

Sweat glazed his entire forehead now, the skin beneath flushed.

“They can’t be that terrifying,” Eden said.

“You don’t know.” His voice cracked.

Eric glared at them.

“They’re just – he’s just – you don’t know,” Jesse repeated, shaking his head. “The guys who are dead – those are the guys who said they wouldn’t work with him. Those are the ones who…”

“What?” Michelle asked.

“Who said they wouldn’t go against you fucking Dogs,” Eric spat.

“They told you they would kill you?” Eden asked. “Explicitly?”

“They said we would regret it,” Jesse said, “if we had any loyalty to the Dogs.”

Michelle frowned. “The Lean Dogs are the most powerful outlaw organization in this city. In most cities.”

“Last I checked, the Dogs don’t fucking crucify people.”

Eden let out a long, slow breath. “We need a name.”

“They’ll kill you, too,” Eric said, and it sounded more like a hope than a warning. “Just the men, if they can, but if you bitches start poking around–”

“That’s enough,” Jesse said, sharply.

They glared at one another. Then Jesse sighed and turned toward them. “Look. I always liked Candy. He’s not an asshole. But I don’t…”

“You’re right,” Michelle said, softening. “He’s not an asshole. And if you come to him yourself, he’ll keep you safe until this all blows over. This is his city, and he wants these guys gone just as bad as you do. Give me the name, I’ll pass it along, and this can all be over.”

He hesitated, still; a bead of sweat slid down his temple, and he dashed it away with the back of his hand.

“Don’t,” Eric urged him.

Jesse’s breath hitched, and he said, “He calls himself the Holy Father.”

“Fuck, no,” Eric said, and turned around, arms banded tight across his stomach, shaking.

“One of his guys – one of the high-ups – is called Luis, I think. I heard one of the others say that. I think – I think they’re cartel, maybe.”

Which would explain the terror – but it shocked her. She felt her brows go up. “Not the Chupacabras? Candy pushed them out.”

“They’re pushing back in,” Jesse said. Some of the visible emotion receded, suddenly, like the tide drawing back. He looked exhausted and pale, now.

“You’re sure?” Eden asked.

“You asked for a name, and I gave you one,” he said. “That’s all you’re getting.”

“Thank you,” Michelle said. “Call the clubhouse. Call Candy’s cell. I’ll call him. He’ll protect you.”

“We’ll see,” he said, sounding resigned.

Eden tossed the baggie on the counter, and they turned to go. Out on the sidewalk, she said, “They’re more afraid of the cartel than they are of the club.”

“I don’t think the cartel does any charity rides for the children’s hospital,” Michelle said, wryly. Then: “Shit, how did they get back in the city unnoticed?”

Eden shrugged. “These things happen.”

But Michelle couldn’t help but think she detected a note of judgement in her voice.

Twenty-Five

“The Holy Father?” Fox asked into the phone. The others, standing around him, all made the same face, brows climbing. Save Reese, who just stared at him in that unnerving way of his, and Ten, who rolled his eyes.

“Apparently,” Eden said on the other end of the line. “Bit of a flair for the dramatic, I suppose. Then again, you do have a friend named Candyman.”

“I do,” he said, lightly. “Anything else?”

“Our Holy Father, whoever he is, is linked to the Chupacabras.”

This time, Fox felt his own face do something complicated and disbelieving. The others edged in a step closer in response. “Hold on.” He put her on speaker. They stood on the side of the road, in the unpopulated spot where Michelle had nearly been run off the road, and managed to turn the tables on her attackers. The truck had been towed away, but a bit of yellow tape snapped from the branch of a mesquite tree, and you could see the fresh wounds in the earth where it had lain. “Say that again.”

Her voice came out muffled and tinny; a sudden gust of wind tried to snatch it away, but her answer was clear. “Your boys Jesse and Eric at Citgo say the good Holy Father is either a part of, or at least working for the Chupacabra cartel.”

Candy stared hard at the phone. “That’s not possible. We pushed them out of Texas.”

“I killed their boss myself,” Fox added.

“Yes. And it isn’t as if bosses can be replaced,” she said, dryly. “I’m just reporting what I know. I’ll check in if I learn something else.” The call disconnected with a beep.

Fox stared at the phone a long moment, until the screen went black. When he lifted his head, he realized Candy and Albie had been doing the same.

“Fuck,” Candy finally said, dazed. Then, frowning, “Fuck. The cartel? Fucking shit.”

“We don’t know it’s them,” Albie said, sounding cautious.

“Aw, shit, of course it is,” Candy said, turning away from them, kicking a rock in a show of uncharacteristic annoyance. His feet were as strong as his fists, apparently, because the rock sailed a long, long way into the distance, disappearing before it came back to earth. “How did I not see this? What–” He scrubbed a hand up the back of his head, fluffing the wheaten hair there, biceps bunching up so thick Fox thought the sleeve of his jacket might split.

“At least it wasn’t your hard work gone to waste,” Fox muttered, refusing to call his tone bitter – though it definitely was. Sue him: he was damn proud of the Chupacabra hit he’d carried out.

Candy whirled around. “What was that?”

“Nothing. If it’s them, then we need to be more aggressive about this.”

Candy stared off across the open stretch of field a moment, jaw set. Then he nodded. “Yeah.”

~*~

“Well, that’s done,” Eden said after she’d disconnected the call. “Any thoughts on where the boys will go with that information? Because it will be more efficient for us to search for additional leads elsewhere.”

Michelle didn’t answer, instead said, “You didn’t tell him I was with you.”

Eden twisted around so she could peer into the backseat, head tilting so she glanced at Michelle over the rims of her sunglasses. “Of course not. Your fellow would just come rushing to us and ruin the whole afternoon. They’re very white knight, these bikers.”

Axelle snorted. “Very controlling.”

After talking to Jesse and Eric, they’d piled back into the GTO and left the Citgo – only to go a half-mile down the street and pull into the bustling, shiny new BP so they could make a plan. An oil tanker trundled past them, engine nearly-deafening.

Michelle frowned to herself a moment, thinking. “They’ll have someone they go hunt down. Someone who they think will know something about the cartel. So far, all our regular dealers won’t say a word.”

“If the cartel is moving product, someone knows which channels they’re using,” Eden said.

“Yeah, but they’ll be smarter than those boys back there. They won’t talk.”

“Hmm.” Eden tapped the edge of her phone against her lips. “I wouldn’t mind having a chat with this FBI fellow Candy mentioned.”

“He’ll be staked out at Amarillo PD, I guess,” Michelle said, “but if we leave here, and go straight there, Jesse and Eric are good as dead.” When Eden lifted her brows, she said, “If they have eyes on us.” She suppressed a shiver.

“No offense,” Axelle said, “but we really shouldn’t have brought her.” She was facing out through the windshield, but hooked a thumb over the backseat to point at Michelle.

“Excuse me?”

“No one knows us around here,” Axelle said. “We coulda walked in back there and acted like we wanted to buy off those guys. But with you along.” She finally turned her head and offered what was almost an apologetic look. “Everyone knows we’re in good with the Dogs. Might as well be walking around with targets on our backs.” She looked to Eden. “This isn’t the way you normally do things.”

Eden sighed. “I know.”

Then why bring me? Michelle started to ask.

But someone rapped hard on her window.

They all jumped.

Axelle breathed out a fast, “Holy shit.”

It was Jinx, bent at the waist, his bearded face just beyond Michelle’s window, mouth set in a flat, stern line.

Michelle pressed a hand over her racing heart. “Shit. It’s just Jinx.”

Eden cranked down her window and said, “Can we help you?” with masterful iciness.

He ignored her, gaze pinned to Michelle. “Are you outta your mind right now?”

“Was I under house arrest?” she bit back.

He stared at her a moment, and she could feel it building, the speech he was about to give her about putting herself in danger, and going off without an escort, and how upset Candy would be when he found out. Felt it building, and wanted to scream.

But when he finally spoke, he said, “If you’re gonna go against your old man’s wishes, did you ever think I might want in on it?”

~*~

Soft. The word cycled through Candy’s head in a loop, mocking him. The roar of the engine and the wind wasn’t enough to drown it out. Even just a few years ago, he wouldn’t have missed something as dire as the cartel moving back into his territory. Murdering people. Stealing their market.

What else were they doing under his nose? Trafficking sex slaves? Drug mule kids? Was there a countdown clock ticking on a massive drive-by that would claim innocent families?

He remembered lying on the side of the road, the pain more like a coldness – one that crept and crept, stealing all the heat from his finger and toe tips and rushing inward. Remembered Michelle standing over him, haloed in sunlight, terrified but fierce.

They were married, now. Had one baby and another on the way.

His stomach ached. If he’d been soft – if that was the reason for this – he felt far from it now.

By the time they pulled in at The Oasis, he’d packaged his rage into something sleek, hard, and useful. An electric thrill down his spine he hadn’t felt in a while.

The lot was maybe a quarter full, so they parked up front, along the sidewalk, bikes lined up in a perfect row. Candy didn’t realize he was outdistancing the others until he got to the door and glanced back over his shoulder. Albie and Fox were at least ten paces behind, Reese and Ten back even farther, and surveying their surroundings. Candy waited long enough for Fox and Albie to catch up, then tugged open the door and stepped into the club’s dim interior.

The Oasis needed remodeling in a major way, its black carpet, black tile, and pink neon smudgy, sad, and outdated. But he supposed no one came here for the ambiance.

A center stage dominated the entire back wall, three catwalks leading out from it into the smoky, dark den where round tables offered a view of the dancers. A handful of patrons were scattered across the room, most of them sitting alone, and only the center catwalk was lit up, the girl on it dressed up like a nurse, down to a tiny skirt, stockings, and heels.

A bouncer leaned back against the wall just inside the entryway, eyes at half-mast, posture lax; half-asleep. He clocked their cuts, though, jerking upright, whole body going tense. He stepped forward as Candy halted to scan the room, his voice low when he said, “Hey, man, we don’t want any trouble in here today.”

“Good, ‘cause there won’t be any,” Candy said, staring at him until he took a step back. “Benny here?”

The bouncer’s tense expression melted into a grimace. “He’s in the back with Kimmie.”

“Cool. We won’t be long.”

A hallway lined with black velvet curtains housed the private rooms. Light – low and red-pink – showed beneath the curtain at the very end, and the faint thumping of slow, rhythmic music floated from there, muted by all the velvet and carpet.

Carpet that muffled their approaching footfalls, too.

Candy reached the curtain, grabbed it with both hands, and flung it wide.

Benny Boling was one of those guys you remembered as being unimpressive, but each time you saw him, you realized you’d forgotten how much so. Stick-thin, covered in tattoos that were an obvious attempt to distract from his scrawniness, dripping fake gold chains, and armed with a New York accent that stuck out everywhere in Amarillo, he’d spent the last decades blowing money on strippers, call girls, and drugs, yammering away to anyone who would listen about a score of ambitious business plans that never materialized. The underground made use of him off and on, as a go-between, as an informant, and they paid him just enough to eke out his existence of sin and braggadocio.

Currently, he was sprawled back across a velvet sofa, one arm outflung along its cushions, the other hooked loosely around the waist of the woman who straddled his lap, hand playing with the lace strap of her thong. She was bare otherwise, riding the bulge in Benny’s jeans, rubbing her breasts in his face while he moaned and tried to catch at her nipples with a half-open, slack mouth.

“Hate to interrupt,” Candy drawled, and the stripper, Kimmie, he guessed, stilled, glancing back over her shoulder. Her face, lax with false pleasure, tensed immediately, and she scrambled off Benny’s lap.

“Hey,” Benny protested, trying to hold onto her. She shook him off with a brisk, practiced movement. “What gives, sugar? I’ve got another ten minutes…” He trailed off when he spotted Candy, Fox, and Albie in the doorway. Even in the dim, unnatural light, Candy could see that his face paled; his eyes went huge.

“Ah, shit. What do you guys want?”

“Just a little chat, Benny,” Candy assured.

Kimmie bent down to snatch up the mini dress she’d wriggled out of, a crumpled scrap of glittery fabric on the floor, and fled with her head ducked, one arm banded across her breasts. Smart girl, Candy thought. She knew the drill with guys like Benny.

Candy moved to sit beside him, while Fox and Albie stayed on their feet, seeming casual.

Benny wasn’t fooled, though – despite the appearance most of the time, he proved not totally stupid at moments. He clapped a hand over his unimpressive erection and hitched himself up higher against the back of the sofa, white-rimmed gaze shifting between the three of them.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Candy,” he said, voice stuttering, licking his lips ever few words. “How’s the wife? The kid? You been busy?”

“Don’t mention my wife,” Candy said, smoothly. “You know, Benny, you’re awfully twitchy for a guy I haven’t seen in a while.”

“Yeah? No kidding. Guess you’re just scary, huh?” He let out a high, cracked laugh.

Albie leaned over to the iPod dock and switched it off; the beat died away, but Candy could still feel the music from the main room coming up through the floor, through the soles of his boots. It was quiet enough then to hear the scrape of Benny’s nervous breathing.

All three of them stared at him.

Benny wiped a hand across his brow that came away slick with fresh fear sweat. “What do you want?” he asked, meek for the first time.

That was more like it.

“The Chupacabras,” Candy said, and Benny’s brows jumped. “They back in town?”

“Uh…you guys are the ones who ran them outta town.”

“I’m aware. But something tells me they wouldn’t call to give me a heads-up if they came back. Gonna make me kick rocks and talk to ugly little weasels in the backs of shitty clubs to find out.”

Benny glanced at each of their faces in turn, again. “Oh, you don’t think – I mean, why would I – it’s not like I’d–”

Candy let his hand drop off the back of the sofa onto Benny’s shoulder; his palm engulfed the whole joint, like he was gripping a child. He squeezed, and Benny let out an abortive little sound that was doubtless unintentional.

“Let’s don’t play games,” Candy said, angling for a serious, but not-unsympathetic tone. “When things start happening in this city, you always catch word of them. There’s no way you don’t know. I want to give you a chance to come clean.”

Benny gulped, and attempted another shrill, hyena laugh. He was shaking. “Or what? You gonna kill me?”

Candy looked toward Fox, who gave an elegant facial shrug that spoke volumes. He’d taken out a pocket knife and was scraping dirt from under his nails with it, because he was a cocky showman.

“We know they’re behind these murders,” Candy said. “Some jackass who calls himself the ‘Holy Father.’”

He’d said the name hoping for a reaction, but hadn’t expected one so violent. Benny lunged sideways, twisting and flailing, and managed to get out from under Candy’s hand and get his feet under him. He stood between the sofa and the blocked exit, shivering like a wet dog. “No,” he said, slicing an unsteady hand through the air. “No, no, no, nuh-uh, don’t even mention him. We’re done here. You hear me, Candy? Done.” He tried to leave.

Fox and Albie each grabbed an arm and dragged him back; tossed him back onto the sofa. This time, Candy took a punishing grip on his shoulder, and Fox settled in on his other side; the knife was back out.

“No, no, no,” Benny said, squeezing his eyes shut tight, breathing in rough hitches. “Please, God.”

“Benny. Benny,” Candy squeezed hard, and felt the joint give beneath his hand.

Benny whimpered, but stilled, and finally looked at him – reluctant, head ducked down, a frightened animal. Candy was struck hard by the sense that Benny was a man caught between two fears: scared of the club like always, yes, but more scared of this new enemy.

Candy’s tone softened.

Soft, that mocking voice chimed in the back of his head again.

“Whoever this guy is, however spooky he is, he’s still just a guy. He can be stopped. Everyone can be stopped. But you’re not doing yourself any favors keeping us in the dark about it.”

Benny looked at him a long moment, unblinking, then turned away and shook his head; sniffling, mumbling to himself.

“What was that?”

“You saw what he does. The way he lays people out.” Another head shake.

“I have seen it,” Candy said, “I saw it out in the desert, where my friend’s people got murdered. And it saw it on my sister’s front lawn, where someone tried to scare her, and send a message to me.”

“It’ll be Jenny next,” he said, “with her throat cut, laid out like that. Your cute little wife.”

A flutter of barely-perceptible movement from Fox, and suddenly the knife was at Benny’s throat, hard enough to press his head back to the sofa and bring a drop of bright, dark blood welling up beneath the point. Benny gasped.

“You’re scared of having your throat cut?” Fox asked, tone silky soft. “Let’s have done, then, alright? I’ll cut it for you right here, right now. You can see what it’s like, holding all your blood in your hands while you choke to death in the back of a third-rate strip club. Or you can tell us what you know, and we’ll put you under witness protection.”

“Club wit pro,” Candy expanded, “or the real deal with the FBI. Your choice.”

Benny lay sprawled there a moment, the drop of blood slowly trickling down his throat, teeth bared in feral terror. Then, tightly, trying not to move too much against the blade, he made one last desperate attempt. “You can’t promise that.”

“Can and will.” Candy pulled out his phone. “I can have guys here with a van in thirty minutes, and we’ll pack you off to wherever you wanna go. I’ll even throw in whatever you want out of the medicine cabinet.”

Benny breathed a moment, shallow little rabbit breaths. Then he closed his eyes. “Shit.” When he opened them, he looked resigned. “Fine. Get me out, and I’ll tell you everything.”

~*~

“Stay out here, and watch the door,” Fox told them, before he went with Albie and Candy into the back.

So Reese found a nice vantage point against the corner of a wall, put his back to it, and set to surveying the room.

A few feet in front of him, Tenny dragged a chair back from one of the empty tables and executed his practiced sprawl in it.

Reese felt a quick, sharp burst of annoyance. He was still getting used to that emotion, struggling to rectify the way his hands curled into fists and his jaw clenched. “He’s annoying, huh?” Aidan had said weeks ago at the clubhouse, and something had clicked: annoying. Yes, that was the word for Ten. One of the words.

Technically, Tenny was doing what Reese was doing, head turning slowly as his gaze panned across the room, but he was doing it sitting down, and looking unbothered. Unprofessional, Reese thought.

But that was what Ten had been talking about before they left, wasn’t it? All the ways Reese couldn’t “play the game.” The ways he stuck out.

A girl started toward them, in high heels and a clinging red dress that glimmered all over, fringe dancing from the hem against her bare thighs. Her gaze touched Reese, briefly, but her smile, when it bloomed, was for Ten. She sidled up to him, leaning down to rest her palms on his knees, tipping forward at the waist so her breasts nearly came tumbling out of her dress.

The music was a low, steady thump, and Reese could hear her over it when she purred a hello and asked Ten if he’d like a dance.

“Sure, darlin’.” Ten pulled out a perfect Texas drawl like he’d been born to it, no trace of his proper accent detectable. One of those moments in which Reese was made aware that he had only the one voice, because that was all he’d ever needed – and that rarely, only to say “yes, sir,” and “no, sir.” He’d never felt the lack of that skill.

But…

The girl circled Ten’s chair, slow, stalking steps that worked her hips side-to-side more than necessary. Men liked that, the way it was exaggerated, the way it emphasized their anatomy. When he watched it, Reese felt a vague sort of warmth in his face, a flutter in his stomach. It wasn’t something he’d ever pursued. Girls like this were for his bosses; he was for holding up walls.

But here was Tenny, a girl swinging around into his lap, her hands going to play with the glossy hair at the back of his head. She moved her hips, lifting slowly up and back, rubbing against him, while Ten petted her sides and back with slow sweeps of his hands.

A burst of pain in his mouth told him he’d bitten his cheek; that he’d even drawn blood. His hands were balled up so tight his knuckles cracked. What was Ten doing? With his face buried in this woman’s cleavage. He wasn’t keeping watch; wasn’t following orders.

I hate him, I hate him, I hate him…

“Uh-oh,” Ten said, still in that fake accent. He’d twisted his head around, somehow – Reese had missed that, Reese hadn’t been paying attention, had been watching their surroundings like he was supposed to. Tenny watched him now with a sideways, threatening grin while the woman kept gyrating on his lap. “I think my buddy’s feeling kinda left out.”

The woman paused, peering at Reese over Ten’s shoulder. “He can come join us if he wants.” She bit her lip in a way Reese read as measuring. “He’s cute, too.”

“Nah, I don’t think he will. He’s shy.”

Her eyes and smile widened together. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Ten gave her a light smack on the backside. “Go on.”

Reese didn’t understand what he intended until the woman slid gracefully to her feet and then stalked toward him. He pressed back against the wall and thought wildly of escape – even though she wasn’t a threat, even though Tenny would have laughed at him, and that would have been shameful.

His belly tightened, and his breath grew irregular, and then she was right in his face, grinning at him, smelling of strong perfume. “Ooh, you are shy, aren’t you?” Her voice low, throaty. “What’s the matter, baby? You’re not scared of me, are you?”

A ridiculous question; a stupid one. But his belly squirmed like he’d swallowed something alive, and his face and neck felt flushed.

She chuckled, close enough now that her warm breath fanned across his throat. She lifted a hand, then, and reached for him.

It was instinct. He saw her long red nails, sharp as blades, and he moved, quick as a blink. He grabbed her wrist, grip lock-tight, and her touch never connected.

Her eyes widened; her mouth fell open in a shocked O.

Tenny was there behind her, suddenly, a hand on her shoulder. When he spoke, it was with that same unhurried drawl, but his gaze was dark and sharp on Reese.

“It’s alright, honey, you only startled him. Like I said: he’s shy. An honest to God virgin, this one.” To Reese, he mouthed, Let go.

Reese frowned, but he did let go; this woman wasn’t a threat; it had only been instinct, automatic and unthinking.

She took the wrist he’d gripped and massaged it with her other hand, chuckling weakly, her expression frantic. “That’s okay. Happens to everybody. A virgin, huh?” She aimed for that same low-lidded, secretive look she’d given him at first, but it didn’t land.

Tenny’s hand slid down her arm, and he turned her away from Reese, into himself, head angling down and expression shifting remarkably: from the ugly glare he’d given Reese to the easy, charming smirk he’d given the woman before. “Come on, don’t worry about him. Some guys just can’t lighten up.”

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you…

“You can dance for me, though, sugar,” Tenny said, arm going around her waist as he steered her back toward the chair.

Fox reappeared, then, and Reese knew a startling amount of relief. Albie and Candy were behind him, and none of them so much as glanced their way.

Fox snapped his fingers and said, “Let’s go, boys. T, get laid on your own time.”

Tenny fell into step beside Reese as they headed for the door. “Did you think she was pretty?” he asked in an undertone, back to his real accent.

Reese didn’t answer, the skin prickling unhappily down the back of his neck.

Ten snorted. “You really are a virgin, aren’t you?”

Again, he didn’t answer.

“You’re even more pathetic than I thought.”

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you…

Twenty-Six

“I didn’t know you have a brother,” Michelle said. “A biological one, I mean.”

Jinx took another drag on his cigarette and exhaled in a hard stream. “I used to.”

“Oh.” There was a story there, and doubtless he was about to tell it to her. That’s what he’d meant when he said he wanted to talk to her, alone; when she’d suggested they go sit on one of the picnic tables over to one side of the parking lot. His face had been not just serious, as always, but grave, his expression weighted with something heavy. It was this: it was a biological brother he “used to” have. “Jinx. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

He shrugged, fast and jerky. Didn’t make eye contact. “Why would you? I don’t talk about it.”

The parking lot bustled with regular activity around them, customers coming and going, cars driving past constantly. A man in coveralls was unloading a Coke truck, running trip after trip with his trolley. A harried mother was trying to convince her kids to clean all the fast food trash out of their minivan and chuck in the BP’s trash cans.

Eden and Axelle had gone inside to grab sandwiches and gigantic sodas, spread out four tables over, out of earshot, scanning their surroundings and chatting. Eden checked her phone at regular intervals; Michelle wondered if she was texting Fox about this, and hoped she wasn’t. The moment had a strange quality: a sense of being wrong-footed, but wrong-footed together, like she and Jinx were conspiring.

“That club war I mentioned before.”

“The Vultures.” She remembered it vividly, Jinx’s undisguised contempt for RCs in general, and Pacer in particular.

“Yeah. Well, back then.” Another drag. He was making an effort to blow the smoke away from her, she’d noticed, but his fingers shook on the filter paper; he had to smoke right now, telling her this. “Cade – my brother – he wasn’t patched in, wasn’t even a prospect. But he helped us out sometimes. Friend of the club, you know? When we had to make a delivery, and there was too much heat on us. Played go-between sometimes.” He finished the cigarette, stubbed it out, and lit another.

“Pacer was already in deep shit with the Vultures, but Jack hadn’t moved on them yet. He said he’d help Pacer, but we’d not had anything to do with the Vultures. Hadn’t even reached out. It was business as usual. We had a run to make, back east, to New Orleans. And a delivery to make to Nevada, too. The NOLA run was gonna be huge: all hands on deck, you know?”

She nodded. She could already see where this was headed, already vaguely sick about it for him, the way his brows were notched, the way frown lines marred his face; the way his lips trembled when he put the cigarette to them.

“Cade and a couple of his buddies offered to make the Nevada run. They took one of the club vans. It wasn’t marked or anything, but – the Vultures knew it was ours, somehow.

“I got the call at a rest stop in Mississippi. If Cade hadn’t had his wallet on him, they wouldn’t have been able to ID him.”

“Christ,” she breathed.

He set the half-smoked cig on the lip of his Coke can and braced his elbows on the tabletop; pressed his hands together. Not like a man praying, she thought, because he didn’t strike her as the type. But a man trying to hide how badly his hands were shaking; she understood that intimately – maybe more so, being a woman raised in a man’s world.

“Pacer got my little brother killed,” Jinx said, tone flat, eyes gleaming. “I hate his fucking guts. And now he’s gonna get my club brothers killed. I’m real tempted to ride out to his place and put a bullet in him.”

He was completely serious, she saw, and she wasn’t going to try to dissuade him from doing any such thing.

“Eric and Jesse at the Citgo say our murderer’s linked to the Chupacabras,” she told him.

It took a moment for the news to hit, smoke from the abandoned cigarette curling up between them. Then: “Jesus fuck.”

“We know it’s them,” she ticked off on a finger, “and that this killer’s calling himself the Holy Father.” Another finger. “My guess would be that he’s not the boss, just a super dramatic attack dog putting the fear of God into everybody.” The stupid nickname made unfortunate sense, in that light.

“And probably,” she added, voice tripping, “there was someone watching that gas station, so not only are Jesse and Eric in trouble, but us too for talking to them.”

“You’re in the crosshairs now,” he said, but not with censure. He tipped his head. “’Course, you already were, I guess. Now you’re just sticking your nose in.” Again, he didn’t sound reprimanding.

“I was tired of sitting at home while everything’s going to shit.”

“I figured. Candy should have figured that, too.”

She gave him a sharp look. “He’s your president.”

“And my best friend. I can call his ass out when he’s being a dipshit.”

A bit of wild hope fluttered behind her breastbone, an echo of the old, hard-pounding excitement she’d known when she worked for her dad.

“Why did you follow us?” she asked.

“Not to sound like a jackass, but I don’t know anything about those two.” He nodded toward Eden and Axelle; Michelle thought, based on the little tic in Axelle’s jaw, he’d been heard. “And somebody needs to watch your back.”

She waited for him to say something about her being a woman, or being pregnant, or being out of bounds – but he didn’t.

Instead, to her shock, he said, “So what’s the plan?”

She blew out a breath; pushed aside the emotion that lapped around her like hungry waves lately and just thought. Put aside all the ingrained prejudices about the club, and her gender, and the way of things. She’d never realized, before coming to the States, how adaptable the London chapter was – or perhaps it was just her father. She’d always been struck by the heaviness of it; by the roots, the sense of history, the tradition. But Phillip was open to nearly anything, ready to accept contributions from whomever. In London, the club couldn’t get away with the massive rides down main streets, the big, dick-swinging displays of authority. The club didn’t own London; didn’t have a hand in every police pie. No guns worn boldly on hips; no shoot-outs in broad daylight. Subterfuge and subtlety were the ways they thrived.

The way she’d thrived.

She’d spent the last few years trying to become a proper Texan. Her Texan husband would want to bash heads and lay down proclamations. Her first instinct, now, was to go bold.

But that was a new instinct. A Texas one.

The London girl in her bones said, “I think we need to be smart about this.”

He nodded.

“How’d you like to play a rat?”

One corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Twenty-Seven

Benny was pushed down into a chair at a round common room table with Jesse and Eric from the gas station, and all three of them were given one drink – one stiff enough to loosen their tongues, but not so strong that they’d get sloppy.

Candy paced, sipping coffee. He’d sent Darla back to the sanctuary to tell Michelle and Jenny that they were back, and that it would be best if they stayed in the back for the next few minutes while they ran an interrogation.

“When did they approach you?” he asked. “And how?” He paused, and pointed at Benny.

A few sips of whiskey had put some color back in his cheeks, but he was still shaking, the chains dancing against his chest and glittering with caught light. “It was, like, two weeks ago? Maybe?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I had a lotta stuff going on, okay? There was that party at – nevermind,” he said, hurriedly, when Candy lifted his brows. “It was two weeks ago. I remember, ‘cause I was at the Oasis. Lunch buffet, you know?”

“Salmonella buffet,” Blue muttered.

“And I was having some chicken, and a drink, and when Sheila got off stage, I was gonna see if I could have a private dance, you know? And this guy comes up to me. Sits down at my table, like we were friends or something. And he takes out this little vial.” He held up his thumb and forefinger a few inches apart to indicate size. “And he looks at the stage, not at me, you know, like you do when you’re trying to play it cool, and he says, ‘Heard you like to move stuff.’

“And I said, ‘Hey, no offense, but you heard wrong, buddy. I do a little business here and there, but I don’t fence.’ And the guy, all calm like, just pushed the vial closer, and said, ‘Try it.’”

Candy asked, “What was in it?”

“Coke. Good shit, too. But that’s how they do it.”

“Quality sample, then a shitty brick for you to move,” Candy said, motioning for him to move it along. “I’m familiar. What then?”

“I told him ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ and he said, ‘Okay,’ and he got up and left.”

Candy waited. Not so patiently.

“I think it’s over, right?” Benny shrugged and drained the rest of his whiskey. “That sorta thing happens all the time. Anybody who wants to sell anything can find a hookup at the Oasis.”

“Benny.”

“I’m getting there. You got anything else to drink?”

“No,” more than just Candy said, the word ringing off the walls.

Jesse and Eric seemed to lean in toward one another, trying to duck down into the collars of their Citgo polo shirts.

“Alright, alright.” Benny swiped a hand through his hair, and let out an unsteady breath. “When I left the club later – that night. I stayed around for a dance or two, a few drinks. I walk out to my car, and first I notice that the street light over it is out, right? And I thought, ‘Damn, that’s kinda spooky.’ So I get there, in the dark, and I can’t see to put the key in the damn lock, and I’m trying to use my phone as a flashlight, and suddenly there’s somebody behind me. Like this.” He clapped a hand over his nose and mouth, briefly, in demonstration. “And there was a needle in my neck, and then it was lights out.”

A quick glance toward Jesse and Eric proved they’d lost all the color in their faces, gazes skittering across the tabletop, both of them not just nervous, but traumatized – whatever had happened to Benny had happened to them, too, and they were reliving it.

“When I came to,” Benny said, and his voice was different, now. The accent softened – Candy had always suspected it was fake anyway, a way to try to sound exotic down here in Texas. His tone had shifted, too: the faint, oddly placid rasp of someone who couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. “I was in this room. I don’t know what kind. I think it was a garage. A warehouse, maybe. Someplace with metal walls, and the water pipes were exposed. The light was really bright. Up high, beating down on me, and I could tell there were people all around me, but I couldn’t get a good look at any of them. I was on a table,” he said, hushed, gaze withdrawn and glassy.

“I was strapped down. My arms and legs were out like…” He started to demonstrate, but his arms seemed limp and uncooperative.

“Like the victims,” Candy said.

Benny’s gaze shifted to his face, still unseeing, too wide, too dark. “Yeah. Just like that.”

Colin was at the bar, and he stepped forward now, without prompt, bottle of Jack in his hand, and refilled Benny’s glass.

“Thank you,” he said, with real gratitude, hand shaking so badly he spilled a few droplets on the table when he took his next sip.

“What then?” Candy said, gentler, prompting now. I’m your friend, see? You can tell me; I’ll protect you. Times like these he thought he might have been a detective in another life.

Benny drank down the rest of the whiskey in a few long swallows. “This guy stepped up where I could see him,” he said on the hot-throated exhale afterward. “And he was wearing some kinda robe. It had this hood. And a big old silver cross around his neck. Fucker looked like a priest or something.”

Holy Father, Eden had said. The boys sitting here had said.

“All I could see were his hands, like this.” He crossed his own over his chest. “And his voice was all deep and weird. He said, ‘Hello, my son.’

“I said, ‘I ain’t your fucking son.’ And somebody else hit me. Smacked the hell out of me, here.” He touched his face, and what Candy had thought might be smudges of dirt or makeup from one of the strippers did in fact, in the daylight, look like a faded bruise. “When I could open my eyes, he was still there, and he said it again. Hello, my son. And so I said, ‘What am I supposed to call you?’ And he said, ‘I’m the Holy Father.’ Like that. Like it meant something, you know?”

“I know.”

“That’s what he did with us,” Jesse spoke up for the first time. His lip trembled, and he looked nauseated. “We were on a table, and he came out with that Holy Father shit. And then–” His throat clicked when he swallowed.

“Did someone come into the store and ask you two if you were interested in dealing?” Candy asked.

“Yeah, but with hash,” Eric said. “Gave us the sample, we said we dealt for Hakes” – one of the club dealers – “and that we weren’t interested.”

“What’d he look like?” Candy asked.

“Young,” Eric said, “not much older than us. Late twenties, maybe.”

“Nice clothes,” Jesse said. “Not flashy, but you could tell they were expensive. Looked Latino. Little bit of an accent.”

“Had a mole right here.” Benny touched the skin just below the outer corner of his eye. “Good-looking guy. The kind the girls in all the clubs throw themselves at.”

Jesse and Eric nodded.

“You’d all remember him if you saw him again?”

“Yes,” they all said.

Candy turned back to Benny. “What happened next?”

He tapped his glass with a hopeful expression, and Colin gave him another refill. “The Father guy, he had this whole speech. I don’t remember it all, ‘cause I was still kinda loopy from whatever they gave me. But he was saying that the world was full of sinners, and that God forgave us for our sins – just like he’d forgive me of mine. I told him I had a lot of sin, but he said he only cared about one: conso…conset…?”

“Consorting,” Fox said.

“Yeah, that was it.”

“Consorting with the Lean Dogs,” Fox said. “Right?”

“Yeah. That was it. And I told him I wasn’t no friend of the Dogs. But he said…he said he had to make sure.”

He was silent a moment, breathing in and out through his mouth. Took another swallow; the whiskey didn’t seem to be easing his shaking at all. “He reached into one of his giant priest sleeves and pulled out a syringe, and I think, great, he’s gonna sedate me again, or give me heroin, or who fucking knows.”

“It wasn’t heroin,” Jesse said.

“Nah,” Benny agreed. “It was kinda warm at first, and I was all relaxed, and it wasn’t so bad, but then…then I couldn’t move.”

“It was a paralytic?” Fox asked.

“A what? I dunno. But I couldn’t move, man. I couldn’t even blink. I couldn’t talk. I pissed myself,” he said, too rattled to be ashamed of himself. “I could feel it running down my leg, but I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to.

“Someone grabbed my head, and turned it, and there was another table, next to mine, and there was a guy on it.” He shivered – and then kept shivering, big shudders that forced him to set his drink down. “He was tied up, like me, and his eyes were open, but he musta been on the same shit as me, ‘cause he didn’t move even a little bit. He didn’t even beg when the priest guy cut his throat.”

Jesse pressed the heels of his hands to his eye sockets. “They killed somebody in front of us.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“The guy said it was a sinner,” Benny said. “That he’d sinned against the Chupacabra cartel – our new Lord and Savior.”

~*~

Nickel the prospect was tasked with finding their three guests something to eat and getting in touch with Cantrell. The rest of them crowded into the chapel.

“I don’t know about the other two, but I know for a fact Benny’s not that good of an actor,” Gringo said. “He looked genuinely scared.”

“Yeah,” Candy agreed.

“Too bad we didn’t interrogate them separately,” Blue said.

“Who says we aren’t gonna now?” Candy asked.

“Ah. Fair play.”

“They started from the bottom up,” Candy said. “Picked the lowest, least involved in the business, and scared them first. Benny’s a notch above Jesse and Eric, and we know they’ve gotten to Patty at this point, too.”

“They’re removing our support system,” Cowboy said.

“Cutting us off,” Candy agreed. “And my guess is they’ll just try to close us in tighter and tighter.”

“And drop something big on us,” Talis said.

Candy nodded. “We need to stop them now, and stop them hard.” For the first time since all of this started, he felt all his anger and frustration moving through the right channels: the head-punching, rival-stomping, getting-shit-done channels of his brain that had enabled him to lead this club for as long as he had. He had a target, finally; now all he had to do was get sites on him.

“The trick is finding them, now,” he said. “We’ve gotta get out and cavass. Talk to all our contacts. Fox, you and your guys need to start doing your spy shit and find me some answers. We’ll go through the rest of our contacts. When I talk to Cantrell–”

His phone buzzed in his pocket. When he checked the screen, he saw that it was Melanie Menendez calling.

“Actually, first I’m gonna talk to Pacer. Everybody else: get on it.”

~*~

“I don’t normally do this sort of thing with women.”

Eden regarded her partner of the moment as they walked across a weed-choked parking lot. She supposed there were women who found Jinx attractive, but the bare arms, the writhing tattoos, and the beard were decided turn-offs for her. Leaving that aside, she would never have chosen to do any sort of uncover work with someone like him: he was too noticeable, too distinct. He wore Biker like it was a fashion label as well as an identity, from the little silver hoops in his ears to the flashing wallet chain, to the skull-printed laces of his boots. He couldn’t have blended into a crowd; couldn’t have slipped into the accent, the mannerisms, the persona of someone else.

She hoped that, in this case, his lack of artifice would serve as an asset. That was the plan, anyway.

“How unfortunate for you,” she said, as they reached the door.

He opened it, and his other hand settled in the small of her back, just like they’d discussed. It needed to look real, and attraction or not, Eden was a damn good actress when she wanted to be.

By the time they were inside, she’d relaxed her spine and her ankles, had tilted her hips and leaned into him, subtly: the portrait of a woman who didn’t want to be separate from her man, not even for the practical purposes of walking. She softened the tension in her face, smiled, tried to look vacuous. Fox would have laughed if he could have seen her.

The building they’d entered – a massive corrugated steel box with soaring, uninsulated ceilings – was an auto garage, the kind that serviced everything from commercial vans, to panel trucks, to the big tractor cabs of eighteen-wheelers. The front door, a dinky metal sign with the company name hanging above it, led into a waiting area that hadn’t been designed for customer comfort. An office stood off to the side, a smaller box with a small window in one wall, and the entire rest of the width of the building was contained behind a long, high counter. A few chairs and a water cooler stood along the front wall, but it was obvious no one spent time hanging around for an oil change here.

A radio up on the counter blasted rap music that couldn’t compete with the echoing of hammers, air hoses, and hydraulics in the workspace beyond.

A young woman sat on a high stool behind the counter, slumped down with an elbow braced on the countertop, absorbed in the screen of a laptop. Her hair was streaked pink and green, and tied up in two messy buns on top of her head; the stacked black chokers fastened around her skinny neck were the fashion transgressions of teenagers from two decades ago.

She flicked one quick, flat glance toward them when the front bell chimed, but then shifted her gaze back to her computer and kept it there as they approached. Eden had no doubt she was taking stock of them, though.

When they reached the counter, Eden laid her head down on Jinx’s shoulder and knotted a hand in the back of his shirt. He tapped his knuckles lightly on the edge of the counter and said, “Hey.”

A long beat passed before the girl lifted her head – slowly, and with a bored, sedated expression, like her neck wasn’t strong enough for even that much effort. Again with the flat look, but when she met Eden’s gaze, briefly, Eden saw apprehension lurking there, a shattering sort of fear, one betrayed by the rabbit-fast pulse visible in the hollow of her pale throat. “Hey,” she said, like they were imposing on her.

“Are you guys still looking to hire?” Jinx asked. “’Cause I’m interested in a new job.”

That perked her up a little. Her eyes widened a fraction, momentarily surprised. Then narrowed. She sat up, some of her malaise falling away, revealing the tense reality beneath. “You’re a Dog,” she said. “I recognize your ink.” She nodded to his right arm, and the massive, hyper-realistic snarling hellhound tattooed from elbow to wrist.

Exposing it had been a calculated risk, and Eden hoped it was one that paid off. She put on her best attempt at a Texas drawl and said, “My man wants to move up in the world. The Dogs ain’t shit.”

The girl’s over-plucked brows lifted. She stared at Jinx. “Yeah. And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Things are shaking up around here. I gotta do what’s best for me and mine. You gonna tell me your boss discriminates? He doesn’t hire bikers?”

The girl made a face – and then bit her lip to try and hide it. She could smell the threat on the wind. She was afraid of her boss, obviously, and she was afraid of the Dogs, and now she was caught in the middle, unsure how to proceed. If Jinx was here to make trouble, her boss would be furious; but what if this was a chance to get an in with the Dogs?

The latter – the possibility of pleasing her master – won out, finally. After a long minute, she frowned, said, “Wait here,” and jumped down off her stool, only her pink and green buns visible above the counter.

Eden turned her face into Jinx’s throat, careful with her expression, still. Just a woman being too affectionate; nuzzling at her big, bad outlaw’s ear. She whispered, “Do not fuck this up.”

He grunted in annoyance, and flicked his head back, out of reach.

She pressed her knuckles into his spine. I’m serious.

He sent her a look that said her doubt offended him.

Too bad, she thought. I’ve been playing this game a lot longer than you.

The pink and green buns popped back into view. The girl looked outright nervous, now, and pissed-off. “Go over there,” she said, tilting her head toward the office. “Carlos wants to talk to you. Not you,” she added, looking at Eden. “You have to stay out here.”

“That’s fine,” Eden said, breezily, and detached herself from Jinx with one last nudge at his back. She plopped down into one of the chairs by the water cooler and watched him head toward the office door, trying to look proud, hoping this worked.

Inside her jacket pocket, she felt the reassuring, warm weight of her phone. Axelle and Michelle waited at the other end of the open, ongoing call, listening for her signal. She hoped they’d parked someplace safe and were keeping an eye out. She wanted to execute this op flawlessly, because that was her job; but, personally, she just wanted Fox’s beloved niece to stay safe.

~*~

Axelle’s phone sat on the narrow, wood-paneled center console of the GTO, right behind the gearshift, Michelle and Axelle hovering over it from either side. They’d parked behind the warehouse that was Sandoval Auto, in the parking lot of the lumber warehouse beside it. Axelle had backed in, for a quick getaway, between two tall trucks and in front of a sign, so they wouldn’t be visible from the street. They had a glimpse through the windshield at the back of Sandoval, the huge roll-top doors, and a pedestrian door. A few employees in mechanic smocks were on a smoke break, standing in a loose circle amidst puddles of dripped oil.

So far, the phone – and its connected call – hadn’t yielded much beyond the rustle of pocket noise, and the faint strains of a conversation. There hadn’t been any shouting, though, and Eden hadn’t yelled out her signal word, so Michelle guessed things were going as well as they could be for now.

She fidgeted again, drawing her legs up sideways into the seat with her, cracking her ankles. Restless.

“You wish you were in there with them, huh?” Axelle asked.

When Michelle met her gaze, feeling almost guilty, she was relieved to meet a knowing smirk instead of a judgmental frown. “Am I that obvious?”

Axelle held up her thumb and forefinger. “Just a little bit.” She chuckled.

Michelle settled back deeper against the seatback, sighing. “It’s not that I don’t think they can’t handle it.”

“But?”

“But I used to do this sort of thing when I lived in London. I was my dad’s secret weapon.” Axelle’s brows lifted, genuinely curious. “My mom died when I was really young, and my dad raised my uncle like my brother – well, you were there, you saw how messed up this family is.”

Axelle nodded, expression seeming to say oh yeah.

“Things are different over there. Maybe because Dad was the president – probably – but I grew up with the club, and I always had my nose in something, and Charlie and Albie were always offering to teach me something they shouldn’t. When I started helping – when Dad would let Tommy and me do a little bit of recon – it felt like a natural progression. Why wouldn’t I help the club that raised me? Why not send me in when I was the best fit for the job?

“I didn’t have a cut, wasn’t patched in, didn’t ride…but I was doing the things the Dogs were doing, every day, and I liked it. I loved it.”

“Why’d you stop?”

Michelle hadn’t thought it would sting so much, remembering. When she looked back, her life seemed like it had belonged to two people; like maybe she was living with someone else’s memories: the past, London, still sharp and well-preserved as photographs, but untouchable. It was a story she’d read; a movie she’d seen. So different from the here and now.

“There was this one job,” she said. Tasted the black smoke; smelled the stink of charred…everything. Stumbling through a day made night with burning; Tommy’s face above her, his voice far away. She couldn’t breathe; was choking…

She put a hand to her throat; it felt tight now with remembrance. A thrill shivered down her back. “Things got really dangerous, and there were these terrorists, they were looking for me. Dad got spooked. He sent me to Tennessee, to be with Uncle King, but Fox said they could use me out here.” She touched her temple. “Good with numbers. I fixed their books. And I stayed.”

Axelle regarded her skeptically. “Because you got married.”

“I chose to get married.”

“Did you?”

Michelle couldn’t help a laugh. “Yes! It’s a love match. What are you thinking?”

She shrugged and her gaze shifted away, back toward the building. “I dunno.” She sounded uncomfortable now; her shoulders hadn’t dropped back down, yet. “You hear stories. People being dragged off by bikers. Being forced to marry them so they can’t testify against them. That kinda stuff.”

“That kinda stuff happens in movies.” Except Emmie had been more or less forced to marry King. It wasn’t as if she would have been killed…Michelle didn’t think. And Emmie did love him, now, so…Michelle wasn’t going to tell Axelle that little detail. “I love Candy.”

Axelle’s gaze darted back, assessing.

Let her look: Michelle was a lot of things lately, but she’d never been uncertain of this.

“I do. But. Sometimes.” This was the part that kept getting stuck in her throat; the thing she’d been reluctant even to admit to herself, but that Fox and Eden had seen straight off and tried to draw out of her.

She sighed. “I miss my old life, sometimes. I miss being in the thick of it.”

Axelle regarded her a long time, one hand idly tapping at the steering wheel. “I get that,” she said, hand closing, tightening, knuckles white. This car – driving – was the thick of it for her.

“Who got you interested in cars?” Michelle asked, softly.

Axelle’s answer was soft, too, mouth curving the barest fraction, a sad smile. “My dad.”

Michelle could tell, just from her expression, that Axelle’s father was no longer living.

“He OD’d,” Axelle offered, though Michelle hadn’t asked. “Used to buy his shit from the Dogs. I’ve blamed them for a long time.”

Michelle tensed.

Got a strained smile in return. “We all make our own beds, though, right?”

“Generally.” She asked, “Does Albie know?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s known all along. A lot of days…” She hesitated, hand dropping to the knob of the gearshift, thumbnail tapping against it. “A lot of days I ask myself if I’m shitting all over Dad’s memory. Thinking a biker’s hot.”

“It’s probably a little more than thinking he’s hot,” Michelle said, hoping she was right. Of all her uncles, Albie was the most vulnerable after Shane; the one most in need of something good and happy and honest in his life.

Axelle let out a deep breath that sounded relieved. “Yeah,” she agreed.

The phone on the console, heretofore offering up nothing but the rustling of cloth, emitted a series of beeps. An incoming call, Michelle realized, as both of them perked up in their seats.

But one from Eden’s end. There was more rustling, then Eden said, “Shit,” and the line went silent.

~*~

The office was a cramped, stale-smelling space crammed with a too-big desk, some chairs, file cabinets, and heaps of paper, pile after pile of it, rubber-banded and paperclipped, stacks sitting on the grimy tiles, giving off the smell of ink and dust.

Jinx dropped down into the indicated chair, and sat stony-faced, boots braced wide apart on the tile, arms folded to show his biceps to their best advantage.

Carlos Sandoval was a familiar name, but he’d never met the man. Average height, slim build, he wore his hair a little shaggy, its glossy dark thickness fanning like spikes over his ears and down the back of his neck. He had a hoop in one nostril, and the Virgin Mary tattooed in vivid color down one bare arm. Despite the grunginess of the office, his Dickies and work smock were spotless; his hands and fingernails clean.

The first time the Chupacabras came to town, he’d fenced product for them; the sort of deal anyone who wasn’t an idiot would have made in order to stay afloat business-wise, and to keep from being found dead in a ditch person-wise.

He’d been shuffling paperwork on his desk when Jinx entered, and gestured for him to sit. It was a long moment – a purposeful one, Jinx could tell – before he tidied up the stack in his hands, set it off to the side, and finally made eye contact. His gaze was that of a cautious, mid-level predator: dark, quick, smart. Not the top dog in the field ready to posture and brag, but not a nobody either. The gaze of a man who knew he had to be very, very cautious in his current situation.

“You’re Derek Snow’s right-hand man,” he said, by way of greeting.

“Most of the time,” Jinx agreed. “Not sure if that’s gonna keep working out.”

Carlos’s expression didn’t change; he wasn’t fooled. “Right,” he said, flatly. “You had a falling out with your boss, and you came running to me to look for work. Makes a lot of sense.”

“Where else do you think I’m gonna find work? The daycare?” He lifted his inked arms in demonstration.”

Carlos offered a tight smile. “I think you’re here to fuck with me, and I’m not in the mood.”

Jinx stared at him a moment, long enough for Carlos’s smile to grow even tighter. Careful to keep his expression grave – it didn’t take much care, really; he’d been told he had resting bitch face – he said, “The way things are going, the club won’t be around much longer.”

Carlos’s face went blank a moment, and then his brows drew together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t strike me as the sort who plays word games very well,” Eden had said earlier, ignoring his grunt of protest. “Don’t try to talk circles around him. Be direct; tell him what you want, and go from there. That’s what he’ll be expecting from a man like you.”

A man like me, he thought with inner sourness. Why had she made that sound like an insult?

He hated that, in this moment, despite her coldness and the fact that she was more or less a stranger, he felt like her advice was better than anything he could have cooked up on his own. So he went with direct, and hoped it worked.

“The cartel’s gonna try to squeeze the club out again – but for good this time.”

Carlos’s brows shot up.

“And they’re being smart about it. What’s that saying about sinking ships? Our ship is sinking, our captain’s got his head up his ass, and this rat wants off.”

Carlos stared at him a moment, openly shocked. Then his features settled back into his indifferent mask. “You expect me to believe you?”

“Not really. But I figure I’ve got nothing to lose being honest.”

“Except your life, when Candyman finds out you’re turning your back on the club. That’s a killing offense.” He said it like he thought Jinx was either stupid, or insane.

“Lots of people getting killed around here, lately.”

Carlos nodded. “Yeah. But why come to me?” The question sharper this time, more demanding.

“’Cause I know you’re in good with the cartel, and when they start killing Dogs, I don’t want to be on the list.”

They regarded one another a long moment, Carlos blinking only once, fast, his eyes black mirrors that revealed nothing. He didn’t appear to be breathing.

The moment stretched so far that Jinx thought he would have to break it; just say something.

But there was a burst of crackling static. Carlos darted out a hand, between two stacks of paperwork, and came out clutching a walkie-talkie. Hurried Spanish issued from it, hissing and snapping through the bad connection, and Carlos finally showed an emotion: fear.

~*~

Eden cursed when her phone started beeping in her pocket to signal another incoming call. She saw the receptionist glancing toward her with veiled curiosity as she fished it out and took the new call. “What?” she hissed when she had it to her ear.

“Where are you?” It was Albie, and not Fox, as she’d expected. He sounded near-panicked.

She took a breath and smoothed her expression; softened her tone. She couldn’t afford to look snappish and professional in front of a witness. “I’m with a friend. At a job interview.” You stupid shit, I can’t tell you! she wanted to yell.

“Is Michelle with you?”

Ah. “Yes.”

He cursed – elaborately and for a long time. “Christ,” he said, near the tail end, on a deep breath. “Candy and Fox just left, and I went to the back to check in with her, and she wasn’t fucking there!”

“Yes, well, obviously that’s because she’s with us.”

She could hear him trying to get himself together. “Right. Brilliant. Okay. So. Would you like to explain why you thought it was a good idea to take my pregnant niece on a fact-finding mission just two days after she was nearly murdered?”

Eden stood. Slowly, unhurried, hiding the irritation surging through her now. She slouched down the width of the long room in an aimless back-and-forth, pretending to examine the nails of her free hand, getting out of hearing range of the receptionist, but keeping her voice low anyway. “You’re acting like I bloody kidnapped her. The girl was desperate to do something – to get out of that bloody clubhouse. I asked her if she wanted to come along, and she jumped at the chance.”

“You shouldn’t have invited her,” he insisted.

“Because she’s pregnant? Or because she’s your niece? I notice you haven’t asked whether Axelle was okay.”

He sucked in a breath, and was silent a beat, stunned. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Axe knows how to take care of herself.”

“So do I, and so does Michelle. Your Candyman’s kept her locked up like Rapunzel in a tower. She was dying to get out.” She wasn’t sure why she kept saying his name like that, but it was turning into an outright habit at this point.

“Now that’s not fair,” he said, “Candy isn’t like that.”

“I’ve no idea what Candy’s like, but that girl needs a job to do or she’s going to go crazy.”

Another beat. He breathed out an anxious sigh. “How is Axe?”

“Now he asks.”

“Eden–”

She heard a shout. Several. Loud male voices on the other side of the counter. She lifted her head from the phone and realized all the normal clatter of a working garage had stopped. She heard frantic Spanish conversations; footfalls.

“Shit,” she breathed. To Albie, she said, “We’re at Sandoval’s, the three of us and Jinx. Consider this my official request for backup.”

Then there was chaos.

Twenty-Eight

Candy saw the dust cloud a half-mile from the turn-off into Pacer’s compound. Just as they reached the mouth of the driveway, he saw the reason for it. A plain black work van was racing down the last few yards of the driveway, bouncing crazily in the ruts, kicking up a boiling tail of dust that ran all the way back to the cozy stone house.

It braked just enough to make a harsh left turn out onto the main road – and gunned straight for them.

Candy held steady, watching the van’s grill come closer, and closer, and closer–

Then he braked hard and swerved off onto the shoulder, praying his brothers did the same.

The van blew past, but his gaze caught on the face that filled the back window; the hands pressed to the glass, palms pale and pleading. He saw an open mouth, and wild eyes; tangled curtains of gold hair.

Melanie, he recognized, with a lurch.

“Follow them,” Fox barked.

Tenny and Reese peeled away with a squeal of tires, leaving thick black marks on the pavement, racing after the van.

He gunned the throttle, got back on the road, and headed down the driveway for the house, teeth clenched against the roughness of it, each rut sending a hard jolt through his body.

When he reached the house, he scrambled off his bike, not bothering to take off his helmet or glasses. The front door stood open, still swinging, in and out, creaking faintly, like someone had just slammed it back. Like when they were wrestling Melanie out to the van. Right after they’d…

Candy had known what he’d find since the moment he saw the dust trail, but, still, he skidded to a halt, breath catching.

Pacer had been on the couch, reclined back against the pillows stacked there, if he had to guess. The TV was still on; a glass of what looked like orange juice rested on the coffee table, though some of it had spilled when the table was shoved…

By Pacer’s body, as he’d tumbled off the couch. One leg was still propped across the cushions, but his upper body was crushed down to the floor at an awkward angle. Candy smelled the blood before he saw it, bright, arterial arcs of it on the rug, on the cushions, on Pacer’s once-white shirt. The room stank of very recent death; of voided bowels and the copper of blood.

There was no need to walk over, and crouch down; scoot the coffee table over and search for a pulse; but that was what he did, because it felt necessary. He had to know, had to be sure.

Pacer’s eyes were still open, too-bright slits, his face red and still clammy with sweat, feverish.

“Christ,” Fox said, softly, behind him.

Candy dug in hard with his fingertips, searching, searching. The skin was warm, but there was no pulse. He was gone. Dead only moments.

Time slipped a little. He was aware of voices, and footfalls, filtered through a screen of numbness.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he jerked back from Pacer – from Pacer’s corpse. He twisted around on his knees to find Fox giving him a cocked-brow look.

“I figure we have two options,” Fox said, calm as ever, though that one lifted eyebrow spoke volumes of judgement. “We can call your fed friend, and deal with all that, or we can get the hell out of here and catch up with the kids.”

Candy swallowed, his throat dry and tight. For one ugly moment, he had no idea what he ought to do.

They had to play this smart, though.

“Can the kids handle themselves?” he asked.

Fox nodded. “Yeah. Better than us, probably, but don’t tell the little shits I said that.”

“We gotta call Cantrell then, I guess.”

Fox shrugged, and straightened. “Alright. Do it, then.”

He didn’t offer condolences.

~*~

Aidan had been the one to insist that Reese customize his bike, suggested a bevy of modifications designed to make it faster, sleeker, more efficient. He hadn’t seen the need, at first, but was glad for all the adjustments now, as he screamed down the highway in pursuit of the van that was their target.

Tenny rode right beside him, both of them leaning low over the handlebars, trying to reduce drag, trying to catch up.

The van had a good lead.

But the Harleys were much, much more powerful.

It was a long, straight, flat stretch of road, no turnoffs for miles, nothing but rough plain to either side. Now was the time to catch them – and catch them they did.

Reese darted a glance to his left, hoping to catch Ten’s gaze. They needed to approach this the right way, with a strategy that–

Ten veered into the oncoming lane and rocketed forward, pulling up alongside the van.

Reese was beginning to understand why everyone in the club cursed so much, and so loudly. His hatred and frustration boiled up, hot and tight, in need of a release valve. He didn’t think saying fuck out loud would help, though.

He faced forward again, and saw movement at the rear passenger window. An arm. Holding a gun. He dropped back; saw the quicksilver shine of the muzzle flash, and of the bullet glancing off the pavement in front of him.

Tenny appeared beside him again, bike engine growling and leaping.

“They’re shooting at us,” Reese called to him, shouting above the rush of the wind and the roar of the motors.

“I noticed!” Ten shouted back. “Hold on!” And then he was gone, as if yanked backward.

Reese glanced back under his arm: Ten had braked hard, his bike sideways in the road, now, foot braced on the pavement. Gun in both hands, raised.

Reese wanted to shout at him, but it would have done no good.

He looked up, and hit his own brakes. Ahead of him, the back windows of the van shattered into spiderweb cracks. A hole blossomed in the rear door.

Stop! He wanted to yell. He didn’t know anything about the woman he’d glimpsed through the windows before, only that she was a victim in this, and that Fox, Candy, and the others didn’t want her dead.

Ten’s next shot hit a rear tire.

The van swerved, and skidded, shredding rubber flying like shrapnel. It fish-tailed off onto the shoulder, kicking up dust as it hit the loose soil. Bounced down a slight slope, hit a dip – and flipped.

Reese slid to a screeching halt, watching as the van rolled over three times, and landed with a loud crash and a plume of dust amidst a scrubby bank of grass and weeds.

He glanced back toward Tenny, who’d put down his kickstand and abandoned his bike in the center of the lane, striding up the road toward him, gun still in his hand.

Reese climbed off his own bike, and turned to meet him.

When Ten reached him, he tried to step around him.

Reese stopped him with a hand in the front of his jacket.

Ten paused, and glanced down at the fingers that gripped the leather, then looked up at Reese, expression flat. It was a rare glimpse of his real self, of the emotionless soldier he really was – a look Reese saw every time he looked in the mirror. More dangerous than any scowl. “Let go of me,” Ten said, calmly, “or I’ll shoot you, too.”

Reese held on. “Why’d you do that?”

Tenny let out a sharp breath through his nose, an impatient sound. “Because they were getting away.”

“What if you killed the victim?”

“That’s not my problem.” He moved to pull away, and Reese tightened his grip.

Tenny’s hand lifted, sharply, and clamped around his wrist. Squeezed until Reese felt the bones shift.

“I kill people,” he said. “That’s what I do. That’s what you do. They don’t expect anything else.”

Reese let his grip go slack; let Tenny throw his hand off with a violent, angry motion, and stalk toward the van.

He turned and followed.

Just as they reached the van – upside down, its tires spinning – the rear doors opened, and three people spilled out onto the dirt in a heap. One was a woman, fresh red blood down her face, her hair long and pale. The other two were men dressed in black, wearing black leather gloves, and with black bandanas loose around their necks. They’d used them as masks, Reese thought, and then they’d come loose during the accident.

The woman’s eyes were closed, her body limp.

But the two men were conscious, groaning, and cursing. One had a dislocated shoulder – the uneven set of his shoulders unmistakable. The other had a bloody nose, red smearing his upper lip, visible on his teeth when he grimaced up at them, fumbling for the gun on his hip.

Ten shot him in the head. A shower of blood, and bone, and brain, and he fell back, limp and very dead.

The other one shouted at them in Spanish, and struggled to get away on his hands and knees, teeth gritted against the pain.

Reese stepped in front of him before Ten could get off another shot, and kicked the man in the face.

He howled and crumpled, clutching at his face, fresh blood leaking through his fingers.

“Is the driver dead?” Reese asked.

The man muttered something muffled.

His other hand was right there on the dirt, splayed out, and Reese stepped on it.

The man screamed and fell back. Blood sprayed down his chin, and onto his shirtfront as he gasped through the pain.

“Is he dead?” Reese asked.

“Yeah – shit – fuck – I dunno,” the man stammered. “Just – please…”

“Who do you work for?”

The man grimaced up at him, lifting the bloodied hand he’d used to clutch his face – to ward him off, or to block out the too-bright sun, Reese didn’t know or care.

He lifted his foot, ready for another strike.

“Las Chupacabras!” the man said – shouted, really, a desperate, pain-laced gasp.

Reese put his foot back down.

Only to be shoved, hard, in the shoulder: Tenny trying to push past him, gun trained on the cowering man.

“Wait,” Reese hissed – actually hissed. He couldn’t remember ever speaking like that, emotion doing strange things to his voice. He grappled with the other assassin, feet braced, refusing to be shoved off. “We should interrogate him.”

When Ten finally lifted his head and looked him in the eye, his gaze was furious. Electric and smoldering, the blue cold and hateful.

Yes, hateful. He hated, just as Reese did. Reese took solace in the idea that such emotion was probably just as new and uncomfortable for the other boy.

“Because you’ve got so much experience interrogating?” Ten hissed back, mocking, enraged. Reese felt flecks of spit spray across his cheeks.

“Our job,” Reese said, and a wave of calm washed over him. A slow, soothing lap that pulled him down, grounded him, blessedly. “Is to do what they tell us. To follow orders.”

Something in his tone sent Ten reeling back from him, brows lifting, face going blank. Reese thought he looked scared, the way his skin paled, and his nostrils flared.

“Fox told us to follow them – not to kill them.”

“He should have sent someone else, then,” Ten said, voice toneless, now. He gestured toward the still-cowering, sniveling man with his gun, a half-hearted flick of one wrist.

“There wasn’t anyone else,” Reese said. He could hear his own voice, low and flat – his usual voice. He had control again; felt right, now, reasonable, able to think through the situation. “We’re weapons,” he said, remembering being told that, years ago. “We’re tools. We’re for getting jobs done. Candy needs to know who’s killing civilians. No one’s told us to kill yet.”

Ten breathed harshly through his nose, the sound of each breath an audible rush. His gaze flicked to his would-be victim, and back to Reese.

He’s scared, Reese thought. “Do the job,” he said, and felt almost sorry, almost gentle.

Ten stared at him a long, tense moment, just breathing. Then he holstered his gun and turned. Went over to the woman, and crouched down beside her. “She’s alive,” he said, after he’d felt for a pulse, voice back to crisp efficiency. “We can’t transport either of them on the bikes.”

Reese nodded, something like approval easing the last of the tension in his chest. “I’ll call Fox.”

Twenty-Nine

Cars rolled up. Two black Mercedes sedans, followed by a boxy black van, all with tinted windows, all jumping the drain at the curb and entering the lot behind the garage with sinister purpose.

The mechanics smoking out back all lifted their heads, posture stiffening. Their huddle dispersed; they stepped back at least five paces, giving the cars and van a wide berth. Dropped their cigarettes to the pavement.

“Shit,” Michelle said, pulse leaping. She knew fear and deference when she saw it.

Axelle leaned in front of her to pop the glove box, and came out with a set of binoculars that she pressed to her face just as the car doors opened. “Latin guys,” she said, “wearing all black.” She passed the binoculars over and Michelle checked for herself.

She counted seven men total – the van hadn’t opened yet – all of them between twenty and forty, she guessed, mid-sized guys in black jeans, black shirts, a few sporting chains she thought were real gold, heavy cross pendants winking in the sunlight.

She spotted two white guys, big, muscled-up thugs, their arms bared to show off biceps like hams. She felt her brows go up in surprise.

One of them opened a rear door on the lead Mercedes, and the man who climbed out, adjusting the buttons on his shirt cuff, was the sort who reeked of money.

Young, slim, clothes – a silk long-sleeved button-up over fitted white slacks and mirror-shiny loafers – all tailored and molded perfectly to his trim physique. A long, prominent, straight nose, and full lips; Ray-Bans hid his eyes, but the dramatic arch of his brows told her they were lovely. He wore his long, silky hair pulled back in a bun, a few loose tendrils framing his sharp face. Diamonds caught the light at his ears, and on the cross he wore. When he reached to smooth a hand along the crown of his head, she saw a matte black watch that cost more than her car. He belonged on a yacht somewhere, sipping Cristal. On the upper balcony of a Mexican villa, one of those glorious, sprawling white stucco affairs with infinity pools shaded by manicured palms, overlooking white sand beaches.

But he was being escorted up to the back of an industrial auto shop, so she was leaning toward cartel boss rather than international playboy.

“Damn, it’s them.”

“The cartel?” Axelle asked. “What do we do?”

That was a damn good question.

~*~

To Eden, the shouting in the back sounded like a warning. A last scramble before something went to shit. She whirled to search for the receptionist, and found the girl struggling to stuff her laptop into a bag, shaking terribly, eyes wild. Trying to grab her things and get the hell out.

Eden lunged toward the counter.

The girl squealed and tried to bolt.

But she wasn’t willing to drop her bag, and that slowed her. Eden snagged her wrist and gripped tight, pinning it down to the counter. “What’s happening?” she demanded.

“Shit, stop, please,” the girl panted, face blanched white. “I have to go! They’re coming!”

“Who’s coming?”

The shouting had given way to loud, what sounded like forced laughter. Greetings and welcomes and beneath that a low, smooth, lightly-accented voice that left the girl shuddering hard.

“Who?” Eden repeated. “Tell me and I can help you.”

Footfalls – many steps – drew closer, echoing off the concrete and steel of the workshop.

“Is it the cartel?”

The girl finally jerked a nod, her lips trembling.

“Come on.” Eden all but hauled her over the counter – she didn’t weigh a thing – and then shoved her down to the ground beneath it. “What’s your name?”

“G-Gwen.” Her teeth were chattering with nerves.

“Gwen, I’m Eden. When I tell you to, run out that front door and get as far away from here as you can, okay?”

Gwen swallowed, and nodded, tears bright in her eyes.

Eden pulled her gun. Above and behind her, she could hear that the entourage – because that’s what it was, no doubt – was heading for the office – where Jinx was all alone with a Chupacabra ally, and about to be face-to-face with the real thing.

She had a moment to think about the smart option – the selfish but far safer urge to go bolting out the door with Gwen and wait for backup. Maybe try to go around the side of the building, and search for a window, a rear door that would give her the drop on somebody.

But stubborn pride wouldn’t let her abandon someone – even if he was a surly biker she’d just met.

“Christ,” she muttered, and crawled down the length of the counter toward the office.

~*~

Carlos shot to his feet, still clutching the walkie with one hand, groping at the air with the other, eyes frantic as a spooked horse’s.

Jinx tensed all over, but he didn’t stand, not yet. He wanted to – wanted to be on his feet and away – but as the knob turned, and the door opened, he knew that moving was the most likely thing to get him shot. He gripped the flimsy metal arms of the chair and kept his face neutral.

A big, thick-necked white guy in a muscle shirt entered first, stone-faced. Hired goon, Jinx knew, immediately. Two well-dressed Latino men with visible guns on their hips came next, gazes shifting around the room, searching for threats. They clocked Jinx, but didn’t stare fixedly; took up casual positions against the filing cabinets. Unbothered, at ease.

There was no mistaking the young man who waltzed in next. Dressed just flashy enough to show off his wealth, but not to be garish, with his sleek black hair and his shades and the rocks in his earlobes: this was the man in charge.

He took up a position at the corner of the desk, totally at ease, unruffled. He slowly pushed his shades up onto his forehead, revealing dark, intelligent eyes fringed with long lashes.

He looked first to Carlos, gaze hooded, mouth twitching with obvious distaste. A look that sent Carlos stepping back and bumping into a shelf. “This is him?” he asked, tipping his head a fraction toward Jinx.

“Sí. The Lean Dog.”

The young man’s head turned, then, a slow movement, followed by a slow, deliberate blink, as he raked an indifferent gaze over Jinx, from undercut to boot toes and back again. “Hmm. Dog indeed.”

“Not for long,” Jinx said.

A beat passed before a smile stole across the guy’s face, teeth straight and bright white. “You think you can lie to me. That’s cute.”

“I’m not lying,” Jinx said through his teeth, and called on every bit of stern sincerity he’d ever possessed. “The Dogs won’t be able to hold together when your people set up shop. I don’t want to be part of a failing club.”

“My people?” His brows went up. “You think you know who my people are?” Still smiling, helplessly amused.

His boys in black adjusted their stances; straightening their chains, checking their nails, making a show of looking bored.

Jinx kicked his chin up. “I think they’re the ones about to take over Amarillo.”

The boss chuckled, smile widening, eyes crinkling at the corners. “What’s your name, perro?”

“Jinx.”

He lifted a manicured hand and splayed it across his heart. “I’m Luis. And these” – a gesture to the others – “are my father’s people. This is his business. I’m only a poor soldier.”

“Poor’s not the word I’d use,” Jinx said.

Another laugh, light and easy. But Luis’s gaze sharpened. “Not as poor as you, probably. Look at you, you spent so much on your tattoos you can’t even afford a shirt with sleeves.”

His thugs sniggered.

“And your club has left you so bereft of soul that you come crawling to me, begging on your belly for scraps, just like the Dog you are.”

Oh. That didn’t sound…

“Do you know what I think?” Luis said, pacing slowly forward down the width of the desk, drawing closer. Behind him, his hired muscle stood with hands clasped in front of them, gazes shark-flat, ready for violence. “I think what your club needs is an exorcism. To have all the dark spirits driven out by a man of the Cloth.” He laughed again, low and vicious this time. “If you’ll beg for me, maybe you’ll get on your knees and pray for the Holy Father–”

The window behind Jinx shattered.

He didn’t care who’d provided the distraction, or why, but he was going to take it. He threw himself backward in his chair, tipping it over, curling up tight so he hit the floor on his shoulder, head protected. Sharp bits of broken glass bit at his bare arms, the pain little bright sparks, but he scrambled up onto his knees and drew his gun.

Overhead, someone shouted angrily in Spanish. He glimpsed feet shuffling as the two big goons shoved Luis behind them, shielding him. Someone let out a frightened yell – it sounded like Carlos.

He heard the crack-crack-crack of gunshots. Glass rained down on the back of his neck, and one of the Chupacabras in black fell back against the cabinets with a shout.

The window ledge was low, and right there. He swiped at the jagged glass teeth along the frame with his gun, and then dove through, pulling the blinds down with him and not giving a damn. He landed at Eden’s feet: braced apart, her gun raised and held expertly in both hands as she fired through the window and into the office.

“Bloody get on your feet!” she hissed. “We’ve got about two seconds before the rest of their boys come over this counter at me.”

If they survived this, he’d have time later to feel embarrassed about the fact that a woman had saved his ass, but right now, he was only grateful. He scrambled to his feet, untangling his arm from the blinds as he went.

After her next shot, Eden’s slide kicked open: she was out of ammo. “Shit,” she muttered as she ejected it.

“Go, I’ve got a full mag,” he told her.

She didn’t hesitate. Jinx ran backward, cracking off a few shots of his own. On the other side of the counter, he saw men running toward them, guns in their hands.

“Get low,” he shouted, and ducked down himself, running crouched over.

A shot pinged off the linoleum just to his left.

He heard a high, feminine scream, and thought it couldn’t be Eden.

It wasn’t. Eden had the receptionist by the arm, one hand on the back of her head, forcing her low, shoving her toward the door.

“Go, go,” she chanted, and the girl was going, leading the way toward the door.

Behind them: curses, some in English, some in Spanish; the thunder of running feet, squeak of shoe soles.

Another chunk of floor exploded.

The receptionist pushed open the door, Eden shoved her through, Jinx followed–

And his leg caught fire. Down low, right in the meat of his calf. An awful, sharp, bee-sting pain that took his breath. He’d been shot before, but only grazed. This hit rattled his bones.

He staggered across the threshold and out onto the sidewalk.

Eden turned, expression tight with well-channeled nerves, and swore when she saw him. “Where are you hit?”

“Leg,” he said through his teeth. The pain was surging upward in waves. He felt the hot wetness of blood running down into his sock, already filling his boot. His vision swam, in and out, edged with black spots. Shit, he couldn’t pass out, not now, not from a fucking leg wound.

“We have to go.” She snapped a fresh mag into her gun.

“I know.” But he took only two hobbled steps before he nearly buckled.

“Jesus Christ, this can’t be happening,” Eden muttered, but she came and put herself right under his arm on his bad side, her free arm around his waist. “Lean on me. Move, man.”

The receptionist stood in front of them, clutching a satchel to her chest, lost and terrified, tears running in black mascara streaks down her face.

“Gwen, you have to run,” Eden said, starting to sound desperate. “I can’t–”

A car roared around the corner, and skidded to a halt in front of them.

Jinx’s vision was taking another swim, but Eden said, “Oh, Axe, thank God.”

He leaned harder on Eden than he wanted to, and they lurched their way up to the car. The passenger door popped open, and Michelle got out – what are you doing?! – but she had to, because the car was a fucking coupe, and they had to flop the front seat. Jesus. She had a gun in her hand, though – good girl.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” she said, her gaze on the building behind them. “Who’s this?”

The receptionist was still with them.

“Put her in the car,” Eden barked.

They reached the curb after an eternity.

“Where’s he hit?” Michelle asked, and he caught a glimpse of the worry on her face – a hard, soldier’s worry, not the panic of a civilian. A lot of the time, he didn’t think Candy deserved her, even if that was uncharitable toward his friend.

“Leg,” Eden said.

The pain spiked so sharply his vision whited out as he half-crawled, and was half-pushed into the backseat. He cursed and scrabbled to keep hold of consciousness.

“Hey, don’t drip blood on the leather,” he heard Axelle say.

“Oh my God,” the receptionist, already inside and pressed to the far door, whispered, a low, panicked chant over and over.

He heard gunshots: that was Michelle returning fire.

Eden tromped all over his leg as she climbed in, and this time, he was going to pass out. His last thought, before the darkness overtook him, was regret that he’d been so damn useless.

~*~

Axelle had her foot on the gas before Michelle had her door shut. By the time the latch clicked into place, as Michelle was opening her mouth to say, “Go!” Axe was already gunning it.

The tires screeched when they grabbed pavement, but they were new, and they did grab. The GTO spun out in a wide arc, and then launched like a rocket, engine roaring.

She’d spent the last ten minutes quietly terrified, hearing gunshots ring out inside the garage, heart pounding as she worried about Eden, worried about the biker queen in the seat beside her. She badly didn’t want to have to tell an MC president that she’d gotten his pregnant old lady killed.

But now that she was driving, the GTO’s familiar vibrations shuddering through her bones, she’d slipped into that zone of perfect calm. She felt like a surgeon: precise, expert, balanced. Her pulse had slowed, her breathing evened, and she felt damn-near invincible.

She swung them into the short driveway of the garage, racing for the street.

“Car coming up on the right,” Michelle warned.

“I see it.” One of the black Mercedes that had pulled up behind the garage. Sleek, and powerful, but it didn’t have the jump on her.

She did a fast check for traffic on the road – and it was a busy one, in this industrial section of town – and spotted cars coming from both directions. She had time, though; cranked the wheel and floored it.

“Shit,” Michelle whispered.

The girl with pink and green-tipped hair let out a quiet shriek in the back.

“It’s fine,” Axelle said, like she would have to a scared animal. “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

The GTO slid neatly out onto the road, and she accelerated away from the car behind them.

The Mercedes, though, had come at the road from a tricky angle, trying to rear-end her. She saw the impending crash in a quick glance at the rearview mirror. The Mercedes slammed into the car behind them, an ugly crumpling of hoods and fenders. She heard the awful crunch of it; a horn got stuck, blaring shrilly.

She kept going, eyes on the road.

“Oh my God,” the girl said again, twisting around to look at the back window.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Axelle asked. When she didn’t get an answer: “Girl with the hair. What’s your name?” She pressed the gas and crossed the double-yellow line to leap-frog around the slow car in front of them. An oncoming dump truck laid on the horn, and she slid neatly back into place just before the truck rushed past, the wind coming off its top rocking the GTO side-to-side.

“This is Gwen,” Eden said. She was sitting mostly on top of Jinx, Axelle saw with another mirror check – he was passed out – and fiddling with her gun, checking the magazine. “Gwen, meet Axelle and Michelle.”

“We’ve got a tail,” Michelle said. She held her own gun on her lap, grip white-knuckled despite the calmness of her tone.

Another mirror check revealed the cool blue headlights of the second Mercedes, two cars back, but already trying to pass one.

“I see ‘em.”

There was a Dairy Queen up ahead on the left, with cars clogging the parking lot – but a clear lane through the drive-through.

“Hold on.”

Axelle cut the wheel hard, and steered through a tight gap between the two oncoming cars. The second one laid on the horn, and she caught a glimpse of the driver’s big-eyed, furious face before she slipped up the exit ramp of the drive-through and hit the gas again. The GTO gave a low, glad growl that echoed off the brick of the building and the retaining wall that hemmed in the drive-through.

A car was just pulling up to the order menu when they reached it, and the driver had to swerve and slam on the brakes to avoid them.

“Christ, sorry,” Michelle said, as if talking to the other car.

Behind the Dairy Queen, an open lane between two dumpsters fed into the bank next door. Thank God for interconnected parking lots. Axelle gunned for it, and swung a hard right, which aimed them at the four stalls of the bank’s drive-through teller setup.

“Watch the stanchions,” Michelle advised. She nearly sounded excited.

“We’re fine,” Axelle said, and threaded the needle perfectly through one lane. Then it was follow the arrow, down and out, and a big, swinging skid out onto the road again, a four-lane this time, cars swerving, braking, and honking as they blasted through.

“Have you ever crashed doing this?” Michelle asked, definitely excited now.

“Nope.” Axelle shifted and changed lanes twice, passing another two cars.

“She’s a bit of a prodigy, I imagine,” Eden said.

Jinx groaned.

“I think this guy’s dying,” Gwen said, voice a trembling wreck. “There’s blood all over.”

“Shit,” Axelle sighed. “My seats.”

“He’s got a second gunshot,” Eden said. “Abdomen somewhere. He wouldn’t be losing this much blood from his calf.”

Michelle twisted around to look into the backseat, swearing softly. “Jinx?”

Axelle blew through a yellow light and checked the mirror again. The Mercedes was back there, still – far back, but in this kind of traffic, with stoplights every few thousand feet, there was a good chance they’d get hemmed in. And if that happened, and the cartel guys got out of their cars while they were trapped…

She shivered and passed another car.

The Mercedes ran the red behind them.

Her pulse accelerated. “Guys, I can outrun them if we get out in the open, but if we get jammed up in traffic…”

“Right,” Eden said, grimly. “Michelle, do you need another magazine?”

“No, I’ve got one.”

“Wait – what happens if there’s traffic?” Gwen asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Eden said.

But there they were ahead of them: brake lights. Cars stacked up, with no gaps, blocking the turn lanes.

Shit, Axelle thought, and passed another car. If she could get into the oncoming lanes, she could bull her way through. But for now, she had to touch the brakes, had to slow.

“There’s a gap in the median up there,” Michelle said.

“I see it.” But there was a bus trundling in front of it, blocking it, and the light ahead was red, and oh, shit…

Sunlight winked off chrome in the oncoming lane, and there were the bikes.

Once upon a time, the sight of Lean Dogs riding in formation toward her would have elicited a flight response, part fear and part loathing. But right now, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

“It’s Albie,” Michelle said beside her, and let out an explosive breath.

Axelle’s hand spasmed on the gearshift, tremors moving up her arm and hitting her core in a shockwave of spent adrenaline. She loved driving – loved out-driving others – but now that salvation was in sight, she could allow herself to feel the terror she’d been keeping at bay. Thank God, thank God.

The gap between the bus and the median break was too narrow for a car, but the bikes swooped through it, one-by-one, earning honks and fingers from other drivers. They ignored them, riding down the center lines, turning and then falling in on either side of the GTO, flanking it like an honor guard so that by the time they’d halted at the light, they were all boxed in by rumbling Harleys.

Albie pulled up right outside the driver window and pushed his sunglasses down his nose so he could peer through the glass at her – a move that was all about practicality, but which sent a wild thrill through her all the same.

Axelle rolled down the window. “You have good timing.”

“You guys okay?” His eyes were so blue in the sunlight, his jaw tight, his body more than at home on the bike.

“Everybody but Jinx.”

“He’s been shot,” Michelle said, leaning across the console to get closer. “In at least two places.”

“And we’ve got the cartel on our ass,” Axelle said. “That Mercedes one light back.”

He twisted to glance back over his shoulder. Then glanced back, expression thunderous – but determined. “We’ll head for the hospital. They won’t push it now that we’re here.”

A shootout in a warehouse was one thing, but one on a main thoroughfare was another.

“Chelle, call ahead and tell them we’re coming,” he continued.

“Already on it.”

“Do you know which way to go?” he asked Axelle, in a completely different voice.

It stunned her a moment, the softness of it. The worry. It warmed her, too.

She swallowed. “No.”

He offered a quick, tight smile. “Just follow me.”

And so she did.

Thirty

When Fox arrived at the scene of the crash, he couldn’t help but let out a low whistle. “Bit dramatic, boys, don’t you think?”

Neither of them answered right away. They stood facing him, flat-footed, stiff, but with their shoulders dropped in that way he knew meant they could spin into action in a blink. A dozen or so paces separated them, so they framed a view of the back of an open, upside down van where three crumpled bodies lay like strewn flower petals. One was dead, the back of his head blown out. One was a bleeding, cowering man. The last an unconscious woman, her blond hair lying puddled beside her head on the dirt.

He smirked to himself. Of course they weren’t cradling her and tending to her wounds. That would have been too human of them.

“We apprehended the van,” Reese said.

“I apprehended it,” Tenny corrected, mouth flattening, almost angry.

The two very pointedly didn’t look at each other.

“I can see that,” Fox said, walking the last bit of distance toward them. “How many dead bodies we got?”

“The driver and two others,” Ten answered.

“We kept one alive for questioning,” Reese said.

“And the woman,” Ten said, glancing down, toeing at the ends of her hair like she was a dead snake he’d found on the side of the road.

“Is she alive?” Fox asked, crouching to check.

“Yes,” they both said, just as he verified. She was breathing, and regularly, but unconscious. A small cut at her hairline had bled down her face, but he didn’t see anything major. She could have broken bones or internal damage, though.

“Right, well, van’s on the way.” He stood, and glanced toward the cowering man. “What’s his story?”

“Las Chupacabras cartel,” Tenny said. “Or so he says.”

Fox walked over to him, and the man shrank in on himself beneath Fox’s shadow. If he was honest with himself – and he usually was – he always enjoyed getting that reaction.

“What’s your name?” he asked, nudging the man’s boot with his own.

He was met by a pained, panicked stare; the guy breathed in quick little huffs.

“We’ve got you, man. You might as well tell me.”

The man swallowed and said nothing.

“Alright. Any chance you want to tell me what you guys were up to?”

Silence.

“I didn’t figure. That’s fine.” He heard the crunch of gravel as the van arrived, and pulled slowly off the shoulder. He glanced over and spotted the prospect, Nickel, behind the wheel. “This part goes better with a chair and some duct tape anyway.”

~*~

“I’m assuming you know what this looks like,” Cantrell said as he snapped on a pair of gloves.

“Fuck you,” Candy said. He couldn’t even attempt a clever rejoinder, and the fact seemed to surprise Cantrell, if the way he lifted his brows was any indication.

He nodded toward Pacer’s body. “Tell me what happened.”

Candy had barely been able to look away from the man who’d been his father’s friend, his own friend. Who’d been alive only a few minutes ago.

Fox had been the one to clear the house, and the one who’d taken the call from Reese and told him about the crash. Candy had the presence of mind to omit that, now.

“There was still dust in the air when I pulled up,” he told Cantrell, his voice oddly toneless. “They’d just left. He was – he was still warm.”

Cantrell stared at him a moment, his gaze palpable, then nodded and crouched down beside Pacer, flicking the end of his tie over one shoulder. He probed the wound lightly with gloved fingers, delicate even, but Candy felt the urge to snarl and slap him away.

“Deep, but a clean cut,” Cantrell said, straightening. The gloves came off with another set of snaps. “He didn’t struggle.”

“He was acting real out of it the last time I saw him,” Candy said. “I think he must have taken something.”

“Sedative?”

“I dunno. I looked through his medicine cabinet, but couldn’t find anything like that.”

The agent glanced toward the open front door of the house; two uniformed officers waited on the porch; the crunch of gravel in the drive announced the arrival of either lab techs or the coroner. In a low voice, he said, “We got the tox reports back on the first five vics.” When he turned back to Candy, his gaze was imploring. “They’d been dosed – and heavily – with something the machines didn’t recognize straight off. It looked a little like ketamine, but it wasn’t. A sedative. A designer one. Something new, our lab guys think. Just like in Nevada.” His brows lifted for a second time, in clear question.

Candy stared him down. He’d make him say it, the bastard.

Cantrell sighed. “Any leads on your end?”

Candy took one last look at the lifeless form that had been a friend. He said, “You might wanna pull some Chupacabra case files, ‘cause the cartel’s back in town.” He walked away with Cantrell spluttering in surprise behind him.

The uniforms gave him dark looks as he passed between them and went down the porch steps. When he was swinging a leg over his bike, Cantrell called out to him.

“How the fuck would you know that?”

“You might wanna check down the road a couple miles,” he called back. Then Candy started his engine, and drowned out whatever else he said.

He became aware, on the long ride to the hospital, that a creeping numbness had overtaken him. Every time he blinked, he saw Pacer’s body, but it was with the hollow refrain of he’s dead. He didn’t feel anger – not yet. Not panic, nor grief. A faint buzzing, under his skin, and in the roots of this teeth, told him he would feel them, and soon. But for now, his mind was shielding itself, ready to power him through what came next.

There were bikes in the parking lot, when he arrived, and he took a brief moment to wonder why so many of his brothers had come to escort the van that had dropped Melanie off. Later, when he thought back on it, he would have realized the dusty GTO his eyes had raked over on his way past had been parked at his clubhouse overnight; it didn’t register in the moment.

He walked through the automatic doors of the ER, already scanning the array of plastic chairs for Fox’s face. He found it, over leaned up against a vending machine in the alcove along the far wall.

He halted in his tracks, though, when he recognized the slight, blonde figure talking to Fox.

His wife.

~*~

Michelle stared down at the Snickers she’d just bought, rethinking her decision. It had sounded like an absolute must-have to her post-adrenaline, low blood sugar self only moments before, but now that she was holding it, her stomach soured.

And that was before Fox said, “Oh. Well. This should be interesting.”

She glanced toward him, found him as she’d last seen him, with arms folded, and a boot braced negligently on the wall behind him. “What?”

He nodded toward the doors to the ER. “Your husband’s here.”

“Shit.” She knew about the scene at Pacer’s place – Fox had just been filling her in – but she’d thought dealing with Cantrell would occupy most of Candy’s afternoon. She hadn’t thought he’d show up here.

She turned, and looked, and there he was, frozen just inside the doors. People were having to step around him.

He was staring at her. Actually slack-jawed, totally gobsmacked. She felt like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or some other fictional entity that no one expected to encounter in real life.

She stood frozen, like an idiot, and then his expression firmed, and he came toward her.

“Oh, shit.”

“You’re not afraid of him, are you?” Fox asked, offhand, as Candy stalked toward them. “Because if you are, I could always kill him for you.”

She shot him a fast, startled glance – quick, but enough to see that he was deadly serious. He loved his club, and his brothers, but he would cut it all away for certain people. Knowing she was one of those people left her dizzy, even if a part of her had always suspected.

“No,” she hissed, and then Candy was in front of her, looking caught between thunderstruck and furious. “Hi, baby. I’m so sorry about Pacer.”

At another time, she would have laughed at the complicated array of expressions he cycled through: brows going up, then down, then up again, his frown twitching. He opened his mouth to say something, and leaned forward, hand moving toward her arm–

Fox slid neatly between them.

Candy pulled up short.

“Let’s keep it civil, alright?” Fox asked, tone brisk, disinterested. But Michelle could read the tension in his body. If Candy said or did anything he didn’t like, civility would be the last thing on his mind.

It was shocking, honestly: him getting between them – thinking he needed to in the first place. Inserting himself in a husband-wife, and brother-old lady situation. It flew in the face of all sorts of MC etiquette.

It also brought something into sharp focus for Michelle.

As Candy stared at her uncle, absolutely dumbstruck, his expression blank, she realized she’d let things go way, way too far.

She put a hand on Fox’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Uncle Charlie, I’ll take it from here,” she said, and sought to steer him away.

He resisted a moment, glancing back over his shoulder at her; gazed at her a moment, reading her expression, then nodded and slid away. He didn’t go far, lingering in her periphery as she stepped into the place he’d vacated and tipped her head all the way back so she could look at Candy. Showing him her throat on purpose; she’d been showing him nothing much besides the stink-eye for a few days, now, and it had to stop, for both their sakes – for the club’s sake.

He studied her a moment, expression darkening; she could see – in the tic of the muscle in his cheek – that he was trying to figure out how he wanted to phrase things.

She touched his wrist. “Let’s go outside.”

“I–” he started.

“Mrs. Snow?” A doctor – a young intern, Michelle suspected – had appeared, scrub cap secured tightly over her hair. “If you’ll follow me, please.”

“Okay.” In an undertone to Candy: “It’s about Jinx.”

He hesitated a moment before falling into step behind her. “Wait, what happened to Jinx?”

~*~

Axelle added an extra packet of sugar to her coffee, though she didn’t need it, or the caffeine given the way post-rush chills were cycling through her body. The break room was blessedly empty, save an older guy in scrubs eating an apple and reading a book in the corner. Her hands kept twitching, sore from the way she’d gripped the steering wheel so tight.

She heard footsteps behind her, the heavy tread of a biker boot, but the light step of someone who knew how to move quietly despite that. She knew who it would be before she turned, and when she spotted Albie, it wasn’t with the usual, nervous, schoolgirl fluttering of late that filled her stomach. It was a relief that left her weak in the joints, the same that she’d felt out on the road when she’d realized he and his club brothers were riding to the rescue.

He walked right up to her, hurrying, face creased with worry. He’d looked more confident out on the street, and even in the waiting room, but now, the worry shone through, and it warmed her.

“Hey.” He reached to tuck a lock of her hair back behind her ear, and touched her cheek with a gentle stroke of his thumb – gentle, but not hesitant. He didn’t hold back with his body, either; pressing into her space, and with her welcome.

She set her coffee aside so she could grip the front of his cut in both hands. It was an automatic movement, wanting to make contact, but she realized a beat later, with a start, that it was the first time she’d willingly ever touched the thing. This piece of leather that stood for so much she’d hated for so long.

She froze, staring at her fingers curled around the worn black leather, shocked by this small, but significant turn of events.

Albie closed his hands over hers, and she lifted her head, gaze seeking out his.

And his was soft, and concerned, and this was only leather she touched, only a symbol, and not a representation of him as a man, nor of his feelings about her.

“I haven’t had a chance to ask how you are,” he said, softly.

“Yeah, you have. You asked me on the road. And when we got here.” In those frantic moments of getting Jinx inside the ER, and onto a gurney, while other patients looked on goggle-eyed and whispering.

His mouth curved in a half-smile. “Not for real. Not when it’s just us.”

“Oh.” Wasn’t that devastating? “I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“It’s not like that was my first car chase.”

“Still.” He touched her face again, and his eyes were very blue, and full of caring, and it was the most natural thing in the world to lean in and kiss him.

He let out a quiet little breath when their lips touched; she thought it sounded like relief and longing both.

She let go of his cut and smoothed her hands up the cool leather, feeling the solidness of muscle beneath. Looped her arms around his neck and stepped in closer, until they were flush, as her mouth opened to his, and she tasted his tongue: mint and chap-stick and coffee and, again, that caring. She hadn’t ever thought a man’s thoughtfulness and care could have a taste, but it did, and it was Albie Cross.

Someone cleared their throat – loudly.

Axelle pulled back and turned to find the guy in the corner glaring at them over his book.

“You want to mind your own business?” Albie said.

“You wanna stop making out in the break room?” the man shot back. “Are you even supposed to be in here?”

Albie sighed. “He does make a point,” he muttered.

Axelle unlooped her arms from around his neck, and took his hand, biting back a grin. “Come on. You can help me clean out my car.”

~*~

The doctor walked them down a long, bright hallway and through two sets of double doors to the trauma ward, and a small, thankfully empty family waiting room there, with soft, vinyl cushions in the chairs and a cooking show playing on the TV. “Your friend is going into surgery – I’m headed that way now. From what we can tell so far, there’s a bullet lodged somewhere in the lower leg, and one in his hip – the hip will be the tricky part of the operation.”

Michelle nodded, wincing in sympathy. No wonder he hadn’t been able to support his own weight.

“He’ll be okay?” Candy asked, worry heavy in his voice.

The doctor, for her youth, had already developed that physicians’ poker face: grave, but not alarming; conveying gravity, but not instilling fear. “He’s lost a lot of blood” – all over the backseat of Axelle’s pristine GTO, much to her horror – “and we won’t know the extent of the bone or any additional damage until we get inside. But he’s young and strong. Dr. Barnes is very optimistic.”

Candy nodded, his jaw set.

“You can wait here and we’ll come update you at intervals.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Michelle said, and was glad for the doctor’s quick departure.

Even if her stomach writhed with nerves.

Relief threatened, too, though. She’d known a conversation like this was coming, but she’d thought she would feel keyed-up, defensive, perhaps even fearful. Now, after today, she felt mostly determined – with only a faint edge of nausea.

Candy stood a long moment, rubbing at the back of his neck in an absent way, every line of his big body drawn taut with what she knew were a dozen different kinds of stress. She hated that she’d added to his anxiety, but she wouldn’t go back and choose to stay home today, no matter how unpleasant this all turned out to be.

“Babe,” she said, finally, when he showed no signs of turning.

He rotated toward her, then, slowly, the handsome, familiar, much-loved lines of his face drawn at harsh angles. He was so polite, always so ready with a smile and a laugh, as sweet as his name implied, that it was easy to forget just how damn intimidating he could be. She was reminded of that fact now, looking at the leashed fury in his gaze.

When he spoke, his tone was even, though tight with restraint. “Explain it to me,” he said. “From the beginning.”

She took a deep breath, and told him about the day she’d had: about Eden’s invitation, and her ready acceptance; about grilling Eric and Jesse, and running into Jinx; about driving to Sandoval’s, and seeing the cartel roll up, flash and bold, like they owned the city. Told him about Axelle’s wild driving, the chase; about Albie and the twins and Blue and Talis pulling up right on time.

Her insides shivered the whole time, but she could hear the steadiness of her own voice. She’d spent her whole life learning how to control her nerves; she wasn’t going to quail now, not even for her husband.

“So,” he drawled when she’d finished. “You thought it would be, what, fun to go running around with those risky broads because, why, you don’t think life’s already dangerous enough?”

“First off.” She lifted a finger, and watched his gaze snap to it; the kind of gaze that could leave prospects cowering, and enemies cursing and backpedaling. “They’re not broads. Jenny would smack you for saying that. Second: I went because I thought I could be a good help to them – to the club. And to you.

“Because…” And here was the bad part. The part he’d probably take the worst. “Yes. I am bored.”

His eyes widened, brows shooting up. Shock moved across his face: loosening his jaw, parting his lips, shrinking his pupils down. He didn’t just look shocked, though; he looked hurt, too.

“Candy,” she said again, entreating. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, I know.” He shifted his weight – no, he wavered; the deep, sleepless lines beneath his eyes betrayed his exhaustion. And he’d walked in on his friend’s corpse only a little while ago, Fox had told her. He’d had not only a stressful day, but a shitty one.

He turned and dropped into a chair, suddenly. Braced his elbows on his knees, wagging his head. “It’s not like you have kids, or a husband, or a full-time job that wears you the hell out. You sit around all day hoping for something to do. Of course you’re bored.”

“Darling.” She sat down beside him. When she touched his shoulder, she felt the muscle twitch beneath her hand, like a horse shooing flies.

Well, she was no fly, and she wouldn’t be shooed.

“Bored is perhaps the wrong word.”

He lifted his head, and turned toward her, expression grave, now. Resigned. “Is it me?” he asked quietly. “You’re tired of me?”

“No – Derek, no.” She tightened her hand on his shoulder, leaning in close, imploring. “It’s nothing like that. Baby, don’t take this the wrong way, but it isn’t about you at all.”

He blinked. “Then what? I know you’ve been unhappy lately. I thought it was the hormones, or too much stress at work, or…” He trailed off, seeming at a loss.

Sweet man. She leaned her forehead against his a moment, grateful for the pressure of him leaning back. Then she withdrew and took a deep breath. “You know what I used to do when I lived in London. The way I ran ops for my dad with Tommy.”

His brows went up. “I know he sent you here when one of those ops almost got you killed.”

“Yeah, and then you went back to London with me and helped put that situation to bed. We’ve worked together before, you and me. We’ve fought together.”

He tipped his head a fraction in concession. “But.”

“But what?”

“That was before.”

He didn’t have to clarify; she knew exactly what he meant. “Before I had TJ, you mean.”

He let out a slow breath through his nostrils, gaze shifting to her stomach. “You’re pregnant right now, Chelle. While you were interrogating people, and going for car chases, and getting shot at, you were pregnant.”

“To be fair, I didn’t get shot at.”

“Michelle.” Voice sharp now, authoritative.

“Why am I more at risk because I’m pregnant?” she bristled. “Is it the baby you’re worried about?”

He stood up, fast, and she had to pull her hand back. He paced the length of the room in long, agitated strides. Fumed silently a moment. Then stopped and turned to her, expression anguished. “Is that what you think? That I’m worried more about the baby than you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Have I given you that much of a wrong impression?”

“I…” She hadn’t ever thought of it that way. Hadn’t ever suspected that he placed a greater value on the babies than he did on her – but she could see now, with an ugly realization, why he might think that, given what she’d just said. “I thought,” she tried again, “you thought I was weaker. After.”

Somehow, his eyes widened another fraction. And then he closed them, and massaged the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger: weary, frustrated, ashamed.

Silence between them, a long moment. Michelle wasn’t sure how to fill it; wanted to choose her words carefully to keep from making all of this worse.

Candy dropped his hand, and stared at her, face terribly open, now. His voice was low, contained within the room, but it carried straight to her. “Baby. I promise I’ve never thought you were weak. Not ever. Having TJ…I’d pretty much given up on having kids. It wasn’t something I thought about anymore. It just wasn’t in the cards. And then you came along, and I loved you so much, and we started a family, and I loved you even more. I love you more every damn day.

“I don’t think you get weaker,” he said. “But I do. I’m the one going soft. Every time I think ‘what if something happens to her?’ I get a little more scared.”

“Oh,” she said, softly.

He returned to his chair, head down, gaze on his clasped hands. “I don’t mean to be a big ass about it all the time. Or act like you can’t handle yourself.” He turned to her, uncertainty plain in the notch between his furrowed brows. “But I worry all the time, baby. It’s one thing to be in this life by yourself. It’s another to think the life might get the person you love most hurt.”

Her heart clenched. “I get it,” she said, and she did. “I think that ended up being Dad’s problem, in the end, when he sent me away.” She could feel the way her smile was rueful.

“So I’m your dad now. Greeeeaaat.”

Her smile tugged wider, real amusement washing through her. “Definitely not.”

He made a face.

She touched his shoulder again, and there was no shiver this time. She set her chin down on the back of her hand, so her face was right at his, her mouth right at his ear. “My father doesn’t make me want to take my clothes off,” she whispered, chuckling when he groaned.

“God, your family’s fucked up.”

“Including you?” she asked with false innocence.

He turned his head a fraction, the close grain of his evening stubble grazing her cheek, even that small intimacy sending a thrill down her back.

“Well, yeah,” he said, his voice shifting, finally, touched with humor, with his Texas grandeur, like the real him. “I’ve gotta be the most fucked up of all. Cradle robber,” he said, ticking attributes off on his fingers. “Yank,” he said in a terrible attempt at her accent, which left her laughing. “And not just Yank, but Texan.” He sobered, suddenly; she felt the tension ripple through his body. “Too stupid to realize the cartel was moving in on his territory again.”

“Not stupid,” she insisted. “Who could have known? That isn’t anything you’ve ever seen before – people being killed like that.”

“Drugged, too,” he added. “They’re using some kinda new paralytic, Cantrell said; something the lab hasn’t ever seen before. That’s how they’re getting the vics in place before they cut their throats.”

She frowned. “Why in the world would they be working with a drug like that? That’s what government assassins use.”

They both picked up their heads and looked at one another, both their gazes wide-eyed.

“You don’t think…” she started.

“That this is a government conspiracy?” Candy asked. “No, not really. But I know if you wanna get rich, you sell the kinda shit that makes people feel good. If you’re paralyzing people, it’s for a whole other reason.”

“Jesus,” she murmured. “Yeah. We’ll ask Fox. He would have some idea.”

“Or those weirdo kids of his.”

“Hmm. Tenny especially. He is a government assassin. Or was.”

Candy nodded. “You had a chance to talk to him yet?”

“No. I don’t think Albie trusts him.”

“He’s kind of a dick, from what I’ve seen,” Candy said. “Then again, so are most of your uncles.”

She swatted his arm, and he chuckled.

But he grew serious a moment later. “I swear I thought you were happy.”

“I am happy.” It was what she’d told Eden, and it hadn’t been a lie. She loved Candy, and TJ; already loved the new baby, growing every day, even if it made her queasy.

But Eden had helped her own a truth she’d been skirting around for a while, now. “I’m happy,” she repeated, “and God knows I’m tired, and I’ve got plenty to keep me busy. But I think I miss being useful.”

He frowned. “Baby–”

“No, not useful. I miss being relevant. I miss the thrill of it,” she said, and that’s what it had always been, when her heart was pounding, and they were seconds from being found out, and danger lurked around every corner. “I didn’t think, until recently, until I was out of the game, that I was somebody who enjoys that – the club work. Following leads, and sneaking into places, and serving like that.”

As she’d spoken, his brows had drawn lower and lower; he looked baffled.

“I was one of my father’s soldiers,” she continued. “Working wasn’t just a way to pay the bills. It felt like I was helping. Like what I did mattered to my family.”

That landed; his brows flew up, suddenly.

“I know I was never one of the boys, but I didn’t feel like somebody’s old lady, either.”

He studied her a long moment. “Old ladies matter.”

“I know that.”

“And I know plenty who’ve been damn important to the fate of the club.”

“I know that, too.”

“Ava Lécuyer shot a man’s face clean off in Louisiana.”

“To the admiration of us all. But Ava and I were brought up differently. I can’t be her, or her mother – no one bloody could, the woman’s a legend. But I can be me. I can be like Devin Green’s children – because his blood is mine, too. We’re spies, Candy. All of us. And even if I love my life, and you, and TJ, and this club, and our home, and our bar…I miss being a spy sometimes.”

He nodded. Turned his head, and stared out into the middle distance. “I don’t guess I ever thought of it like that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to make things complicated.”

He reached up and took her hand into his, his large fingers enfolding hers completely. “No, don’t apologize. We’ll figure something out.” After a beat, he turned a wry smile toward her and said, “I’m just glad you didn’t say I was disappointing you in the bedroom or something.”

She snorted. “Fat chance of that, love.”

~*~

“So,” Fox said, dropping down into the chair beside Eden’s. “Name me a reason why someone would be producing a new kind of paralytic drug.”

Eden closed the magazine she’d been pretending to read and turned to regard him. He was slumped down in the chair, hands linked over his flat stomach, pads of his thumbs pressed together. His tone had been casual, bored even, but she saw the professional sparkle in his eyes. He was chewing through a puzzle, and that was his favorite thing.

“Well,” she said, “no one takes those recreationally.”

“No,” he agreed.

“Depends on whether you’re trying to paralyze someone permanently, or for a limited period. It could prevent someone from ever testifying or confessing, without killing them.”

“Let’s say, in this case.” He tapped his thumbs together. It wasn’t quite visible, but there was a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “It’s a temporary paralysis.”

“Alright, well, it would be a good way to transport someone safely if you were afraid they’d resist…What do you know?” she asked.

The grin finally peeked out, a little baby one. Very Fox-like. “I just went down to check on Jinx. Candy and Michelle were in the waiting room – looking very cozy, no thanks to your meddling–”

“If you think I meddled, Charlie Fox–”

“–and apparently, Cantrell – that’s our FBI bloke – says all the victims had been dosed with a paralytic. If I were a betting man–”

“Aren’t you?”

“–I’d guess that it’s the same drug this Holy Father wanker used on our witnesses to spook them. Your service station boys and one other.”

He filled her in on the scare tactic ritual, and she felt her brows climb throughout the tale. “Well, they’ve come up with a very effective way of terrifying the shit out people in this city.”

He nodded.

“But you think they’re using it for something else, too.”

“You don’t know I’m thinking that,” he said, coy.

“You’re more readable than you think. Spill it.”

“The whole Holy Father business is a distraction. It’s the big stage show. He’s the wizard. But the real business is going on behind the curtain. Cartels like this like to terrorize, sure, but this is taking it to a whole new, very creative level.”

“Meanwhile,” she said, pulse starting to pick up, “they’re moving major product under everyone’s noses while the club and the FBI scramble around looking for a serial killer.”

“Give the lady a door prize.”

“Coke,” she guessed. “Maybe fentanyl.”

“Yes. But you don’t need a paralytic for that.”

It hit her, then. Slapped her right in the face and left her feeling stupid. “Oh, shit.”

“They’re moving people,” he said, and if he was still grinning, he couldn’t be faulted for heartlessness; that was just his way.

She shifted her gaze across the waiting room, toward the chair in the corner where the receptionist, Gwen, sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, chewing at the ragged sleeve of her hoodie, shell-shocked and trembling.

“Time to talk to our new friend,” Eden said.

“And Melanie Menendez.”

Movement at the sliding doors drew her attention, and she cursed under her breath. Two uniformed officers strode in, sunlight glinting off the cuffs swinging from their gun belts.

“Jinx has a GSW,” Fox said with a sigh. “This is standard protocol.”

“Come on, then, let’s grab our witness before they get to her.”

~*~

The front desk nurses steered the local cops their way. Michelle had Jinx’s blood all over her jeans, so there would have been no hiding, and so she’d been prepared for this. She gave her official statement – sticking to the truth save the part where they’d been intentionally trying to root out the cartel’s whereabouts – and sent them both on their way with the proper amount of worry and sadness.

“It’s scary how good you are at that,” Candy said when they were gone, smirking at her.

She tossed her hair and affected bored. “Lots of practice.”

God, but it felt good to have talked. To be on the same page again; allies and friends and just…them. She loved being them.

Albie and Axelle came around the corner and into the waiting room, dropping into chairs across from them. Michelle didn’t miss the way Albie’s hand had rested on the small of Axelle’s back the whole time, a thoughtless sort of gesture, automatic and caring. It left her smiling inwardly, so as not to spook Axelle, who still didn’t seem certain about all this. She was happy for her uncle, though. Albie deserved someone to fuss over, after all his years alone.

“We passed the cops,” Albie said.

“Standard stuff,” Candy said. “They’ll be back later to get a statement from Jinx when he’s out of surgery.”

“How’s your upholstery?” Michelle asked.

Axelle made a face. “I bought some towels and Clorox wipes in the gift shop. It’s mostly okay.”

“We’ll pay to have it deep-cleaned,” Candy told her, and surprise touched her expression.

“Oh. You don’t have to. Hazards of the job, you know?”

“One of my guys bleeds all over a lady’s cherry GTO, I’m gonna pay,” he insisted, firmly.

Axelle darted a glance to Albie, and then back to Candy, caught between wowed and nervous. “Oh. Well. Um. Thanks.”

Albie not-so-casually draped his arm across the back of her chair.

“What now?” she asked, scanning all their faces. “I mean…” She darted a glance around Albie, toward the open entrance of the waiting room, hands closing tight on her thighs. “Is the cartel gonna send guys right in here after us?”

“No, love,” Albie said, hand dropping down onto her shoulder.

“They won’t do something that obvious,” Candy said. “I told Cantrell it was the Chupacabras, and after today, I’d say they know we’re onto them. If the feds are worth a shit, they’ll start doing some real digging. But they will come after us.”

Michelle shivered, and not entirely from fear.

“Today kicked off a war,” Candy said. “Or picked an old one back up. And we’re all involved, now, so we’ll work together, all of us. Us against them.”

Axelle blew out a shaky breath. “Okay. Cool.”

Albie’s hand flexed where it rested on her shoulder.

Michelle spotted the same doctor from before coming toward them, mask dangling from her neck. “Jinx is out of surgery.”

~*~

Gwen jumped about a foot when Eden walked up and laid a hand on her shoulder. Let out a huge, whooshing breath when Eden smiled at her and said, “It’s only me. I thought we could have a chat.”

She hadn’t brought Fox with her – he’d said he needed to see to the young ones and an interrogation, and she’d waved him off, more than a little pleased that he leaned in to kiss her before he left – and was glad of it when she got Gwen settled in the cafeteria with a dish of chocolate pudding and a cup of coffee. The girl touched neither, and once again pulled her feet up in the chair with her. Her gaze darted in every direction, fleeting back and forth like a startled bird. Fox was no good at comforting; Eden wouldn’t say she had the softest touch, or the gentlest heart, but she’d had plenty of practice dealing with spooked witnesses with MI6.

“Gwen,” she started, and the girl startled. “You seem terribly frightened,” she said, with sympathy, offering another smile.

Gwen had been holding one hand up near her mouth, the damp, chewed bit of her hoodie sleeve within easy reach; she slammed her fist down into her lap, now, lip trembling. “Yeah, well I–” she began, much too loud, nearly shouting.

Eden noticed several heads whip in their direction.

Gwen paled further and dropped her voice to a rough whisper, leaning forward across the table toward her. She didn’t seem to notice that her hoodie strings wound up trailing through the pudding. “I got shot at. Yeah, I’m pretty fucking frightened.” Eden thought she’d wanted to sound indignant and petulant, but she sounded young and scared instead.

Eden rested an elbow on the table, her own voice very low and modulated so that it wouldn’t carry; she’d had lots of practice in that, too. “There was lots of shooting, and it was terribly unsettling for you, yes. But no one was shooting at you, specifically, dear.”

Gwen stared at her a moment in disbelief, and then outrage put the first, much-needed bit of color into her face. “Yes, they were!” she hissed.

“Why? Because they saw you with us and knew you’d betrayed them?”

“I–” Her lips clamped shut, and she paled again.

“Typically,” Eden said, “receptionists aren’t privy to sensitive criminal information. I understand being suspicious of your employer, but why would you immediately assume they would want you dead, I wonder.”

“I…”

“You know something,” Eden said.

Gwen stared at her, terrified again, all her indignation evaporated.

“If you share it with me, I can offer you protection.”

A head shake.

“If you don’t, I’ll walk out of this cafeteria right now, and leave you to fend for yourself.”

Her eyes widened another impossible fraction, and she chewed at her lip.

Eden pushed her chair back.

“Wait!”

Eden paused.

Gwen took a long moment, surveying the room again, shrinking down into herself, all hunched up like a timid mouse in her chair. Her gaze fixed on the double doors of the cafeteria, and she spoke in a rapid, breathless whisper. “It really was just a job at first. I got fired from my last one – that little goth place downtown, Tootsie’s – for shoplifting. I couldn’t get hired anywhere else, but Carlos finally took me on. I just had to answer the phone and shit, make appointments.” She gave a fast shrug. “It sucked, but it was a check.

“And then–” She broke off, and chewed her lip another moment, gaze skipping over to Eden.

“What happened?”

The girl swallowed with obvious effort. “I went back late one day, after I’d left. I forgot my laptop. The lights were off, up front, but they were on in the back, and I heard voices. I recognized Carlos’s. But, like, a lot of voices. Way more than just the mechanics. I thought they were having a party or something. So when I went around to get my bag, I just peeked over the wall, and–”

Another swallow. Her jaw trembled, and she blinked hard. Eden had seen this kind of fear before; it had a scent; had an aura that vibrated like a plucked guitar string in the air around a person.

“Carlos and the mechanics were there, but so were a bunch of other guys.”

“The guys who stormed the place today?” Eden asked.

“Yeah. The crew. Luis’s guys.”

“You’ve met Luis?” She made a mental note of the name; Jinx had been too busy passing out to forward that information along, if indeed he’d learned it inside the office before.

“Once. That night.” Gwen had begun to tremble all over. “There was – there was a girl there. They were all standing around her. She was lying flat out on one of the work benches, just…staring. Not moving. Her dress was all dirty. And Luis – he was standing beside her. He pulled her dress down, and was, like – he was showing her to them.”

Human trafficking, as Eden suspected. Her stomach soured, and she took a sip of her tea in hopes of soothing it.

“And then” – tears filled Gwen’s eyes – “he looked up, and he saw me.”

“Did you try to get away?”

“Yeah. But I wasn’t fast. It was Carlos who caught me.” She closed her eyes, tears trembling on her lashes. “He took me back over there, behind the counter, and sat me down in a chair. Luis came up, and he was…” She winced. “I was expecting some old sweaty gangster, you know? Fat and gross and ugly. But Luis was – he was hot.” She bowed her head, ashamed. “And he was really polite, you know? He was sweet? He introduced himself to me, and he asked what my name was, and he asked if I was going to tell anyone what I saw.”

“Oh, Gwen,” Eden sighed. “They never let you walk away. Promises don’t mean anything to people like Luis.”

Gwen lifted her head, fresh tears sliding down the dried mascara tracks on her cheeks. “I told him I’d help them.”

Eden pitied her, really. “The cartel needs you to answer phones?”

For a moment, she thought the girl would bristle again. It stung to be insulted, even if it was well-deserved. But she only took a shaky breath and said, “I’m the go-between with the trucking companies.”

Eden felt her brows go up.

“How so?”

“They don’t use their own trucks – less risk that way. If a truck gets stopped, and the cops search it, there’s not cartel guys behind the wheel to arrest. They let me make the phone calls and go drop off checks in person, with either Mack or Shawn.”

In the melee, Eden had spotted two big, muscled white guys rushing toward them. “Shit,” she said. “They need you because you don’t look like you’re attached to the cartel.”

Gwen nodded.

“Well. I give them points for creativity.”

~*~

Melanie wasn’t in serious condition. A mild concussion and some bruised ribs, the nurse told Michelle and Axelle. She was awake, and would be fine to have visitors. Michelle made all the right concerned noises and faces until she knocked once on the indicated door, and let herself in.

Melanie’s bed was elevated, her head propped on two pillows. She already had a black eye coming up, and the white light, white sheets, and white gown had washed out some of her golden beauty. Under the fluorescent tubes, she looked lined, and tired, and older than she had the night Michelle had first met her.

She’d been studying her hands where they lay on the blanket, but lifted her head when she heard them enter, a for-show smile already forming – one that froze and vanished when she locked eyes on Michelle.

“Hello, Melanie,” Michelle said, coolly, and walked straight to the bed. She heard Axelle shut the door behind them.

At their first meeting, when Melanie had strutted into TLC with her big hair and her even bigger Texas drawl, Michelle had been wrong-footed, over-tired, and, yes, a little jealous. But now, today, buoyed by a good rush of adrenaline and her conversation with Candy, she felt like she had the upper hand – because she did.

There was a chair against the far wall, and Michelle dragged it over by the bed and sat, legs crossed. She picked bits of link from her jeans, and examined her fingernails, and said, “Oh, damn, Axe, I’m afraid there’s nowhere for you to sit.”

“I can stand,” the other girl said, slouching back against the wall, right beside the door. With her bored expression, and her clunky boots, she projected just enough of a threat. Everything about the way she stood said, Try something, and see if I hit like a girl. “Pregnant ladies should get dibs on the chairs.”

Michelle caught her gaze, before she turned to the bed, and read Axelle’s little smirk as encouraging. She loved knowing that Candy had her back, that he supported her, but it was damn nice to have a friend on her side, too.

Then, finally, she turned her gaze fully on Melanie, gratified when the woman shrank back against her pillows. “How are you feeling?” Michelle asked.

Melanie darted a glance toward Axelle, and then to the folding tray at her bedside – the call button there, specifically.

Michelle lifted her brows. “Really? Are you so frightened you want a nurse to come and save you from me?”

Melanie sucked in a breath. “What – what are you gonna do?”

It was pathetic, really. But not so pathetic that Michelle wasn’t going to enjoy it.

She sighed for show, and shifted down lower in the chair. “I was going to ask you some questions. I didn’t expect to walk in and find you nervous as a cat. Am I really as frightening as all that?”

Melanie gulped audibly. The difference between her now, and her a few days ago, was so stark Michelle nearly laughed. “I – I just talked to the cops.”

“Great. Good. Now maybe you can tell me what really happened? Because I don’t believe for a second you were randomly kidnapped as leverage.”

Melanie stared at her, unblinking, a rabbit in a trap.

“That is what you told them, yes? It’s what I would have, being involved in the sort of counterculture dealings I am. ‘Oh, officers, it was terrible, they put a knife to my throat, and dragged me away, and told my brother they’d kill me if he came after them.’ Right?”

Melanie kept staring.

“But that isn’t what happened at all, is it?”

A long beat passed before Melanie’s lashes lowered, and she whispered, “No.”

“I didn’t hear that. Did she say no?” Axelle asked.

Michelle shot her a quick glance – there was no sense playing the Bad Cop card too soon or too aggressively – and earned another smirk and a facial shrug. Axe was enjoying this, too.

“No,” Melanie repeated. She let out an unsteady breath and lifted her head again, visibly composing herself, her expression resigned. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”

“Considering you came crying to Candy for help and didn’t fill him in on all the important details? Yeah, yeah you do,” Michelle said.

That earned a nod. Melanie closed her eyes a long moment, fingers knotted together in her lap. “You’re gonna think I’m stupid.”

“I already do.”

Melanie glanced toward her, startled.

“Let’s not pretend,” Michelle clarified. “I have my suspicions about you, and they aren’t flattering. This isn’t about saving face, now. Shit is sideways. The cartel is threatening all of us, and your brother’s dead.”

Melanie made a low, wounded sound, her lips parted.

“I am sorry about that,” Michelle said, tone softening. “If it helps – I don’t think he suffered.”

Melanie’s eyes welled, and Michelle worried the moment would dissolve into tears and awkward retreats. But she took a few more breaths and composed herself, blinking hard until her eyes looked dry again, if a little red around the edges.

“Okay, okay,” Melanie murmured. She plucked a tissue from the box on the nightstand and dabbed her eyes, blew her nose. Crumpled the tissue up in her fist. “I…” Some last bit of tension, of shame, worked through her shoulders – but then it left with a shiver, and she seemed to cave in on herself. “It started about two months ago.”

Michelle got settled and waited, schooling her features: open enough to invite confession, but not so friendly as to invite lies, hopefully.

“I was at work,” Melanie continued. “I run the front desk for a place that rents luxury cars. Breton’s, you know?” Michelle didn’t know, and gave no indication either way, so Melanie forged ahead. “A guy came in. Young, and real good-looking. I mean real good-looking.”

“We’ve seen him,” Michelle said.

Melanie blushed, her gaze full of shame. She fiddled with the crumpled tissue in her hand. “He wanted to rent a Porsche, he said, and he leaned down on the counter, and he winked at me, and said maybe he’d take me for a spin in it.”

“Jeez, he ain’t subtle,” Axelle mused.

“But he wasn’t, like, creepy about it,” Melanie said, turning to her, sounding defensive. “He wasn’t a schmuck, or, like, a corny old guy. He was really smooth.”

“I bet,” Michelle said.

“He was sweet,” Melanie insisted.

“He was hot.”

“Well, yeah. You said you saw him. When he asked for my number, I gave it to him, and he called me later that night.”

“He took you out?”

“Dinner, drinks, and then back to his hotel – he was in town on business and hadn’t found a place to rent, yet.”

“Business,” Axelle said with a snort.

“That’s what he told me. How was I supposed to know he was in the fucking cartel?” Melanie snapped, temper flaring again.

“A gorgeous guy twenty years your junior, living out of a hotel, renting foreign cars, waltzes up to your desk one day, picks you up, and beds you on the first date,” Michelle said, coldly, “and you’re not a little suspicious?” It was a low blow – she knew that before Melanie went goggled-eyed – but she needed to get her off her game; rattle her, spook her, shame her, whatever. There was no room for courtesy here. “It was flattering, wasn’t it?” she pressed. “He was winking at you. Took you out and complimented you. Here’s this beautiful guy all over you, and you can’t believe your luck. It was thrilling.”

Melanie’s throat moved as she swallowed, and she didn’t deny it.

“When did you realize what he was?”

Another swallow. Her voice came out unsteady, the defiance and hurt gone again. “A couple weeks. He started asking too many questions about Pacer…” Her gaze drew inward, glazed. Her lip trembled, and Michelle knew it was crashing over her again, that ugly, crushing knowledge that her brother was dead. She didn’t succumb to it, though. Blinked and shredded the tissues between her fingers, and pressed on, voice strained. “I’d mentioned I had a brother, but then, one night, he wasn’t just asking casually. Not like he was trying to get to know me better – he knew Pacer had a bike, and an RC, and he was – he was grilling me about it. He wanted to know if Pacer was a Lean Dog, and I said no, and that made him angry.”

“How angry?”

Melanie hesitated. “He didn’t hit me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“How angry?”

“He broke a wine glass. Threw it across the room. But,” she rushed to add, “then he apologized, and he cleaned up the mess, and he said he gets these terrible headaches sometimes, and they make him cranky, and he just slips, and…” She trailed off, glancing between the two of them; her expression said she realized neither of them was buying it.

“There’s nothing you can say that will make him – or you – look better in this whole situation,” Michelle said, entirely blunt now. “You might as well just get it over with quickly.”

For a moment, she saw a flash of undisguised hatred in Melanie’s gaze. Then she took a big breath and stared down at the lumps of her feet beneath the blanket. “I knew something about him was off that night,” she said, flat now, no longer trying to wheedle and show herself in the best light. But I – I wanted what I had with him more than I wanted to know the truth. I had my head in the sand. We kept dating; he found a house. I slept over most nights, and he had guys coming in out all hours. Some were Latin, and some were, like, this huge fucking wrestler types. They always wore black, and they had flashy jewelry.” She closed her eyes a moment on a deep exhale.

“You knew they were cartel.”

“I knew they were drug dealers,” Melanie corrected with a brief flash of challenge. “I didn’t care.”

“Once upon a time, the MC’s outlaw activities were something worth breaking up over.”

“People change.”

“Obviously.”

“I’m not a dumb kid anymore.” Frustration, now. “I’ve been married, and divorced, and my life’s shit, okay? I can’t afford to be picky like I used to be.”

Michelle snorted. Imagine trading in a life with Candy for this: concussed in a hospital with a dead brother and a murderer for a boyfriend. Melanie’s loss, but her own gain.

“Look,” Melanie said, bowing up, “I don’t care what you think of me. You don’t get to judge. You’re a–”

“I’m someone you dearly don’t want to piss off right now,” Michelle corrected, coolly. “What did Luis want with Pacer?”

The other woman met her stare; she was growing more defiant by the moment, and Michelle hadn’t expected that. “To get to the Lean Dogs.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. Because he’s obsessed with you freaks,” she hissed. “Because he wants to beat you, and take the Dogs’ place in the outlaw world. There. Is that what you wanted to hear? He said he wanted to ‘obliterate’ you. He used that stupid word.” She was breathing hard, eyes glazed-over.

Michelle had suspected as much, and so she wasn’t frightened to hear this, now – but deeply unsettled in a way she hadn’t expected. Here was a woman who had been mostly ordinary, and look at what she’d been twisted into. Luis had done that. Luis had the power to change people – or, perhaps more accurately, draw the poison that already lurked in them out to the surface.

“You knew killing some of Pacer’s crew would get Candy’s attention,” she said.

Melanie glanced away, and didn’t answer, which meant yes.

“You drugged Pacer to keep him quiet. To keep him from knowing what was going on.”

Again, no answer. Another yes.

“Did you help them kill him?”

Melanie’s head whipped around, mouth falling open. “What? No – No, I – no.” Her eyes welled up. Her voice cracked. “Luis told me he’d look out for me – and for Pacer. We were safe. We were…”

“He turned on you?” Axelle said.

A nod.

Michelle stood, disgusted now. “I hope it was worth it.” She glanced back, once, at the door, and saw that Melanie was facing the window, harsh overhead lights glinting off the tears that slid silently down her face.

~*~

Reese had watched Badger’s crew interrogate a man once. They’d bound him hand and foot to a chair with duct tape, and put another strip over his mouth. They’d used a hammer on his knees, and pliers on his fingernails, and they’d pulled the tape from his mouth every so often, when he’d stopped screaming against it, and asked if he was ready to answer their questions. He remembered the blood pattering down on the concrete floor; the stink of piss when the man wet himself; remembered the particular crunch of bone breaking when the hammer hit his kneecaps. In the end, it had been the threat of Reese that had dislodged the answers Badger sought. Reese had been standing over against the wall, half in shadow, watching as he’d been told to do, and when Badger pointed, and said, “Start talking, or I’ll turn him loose on you,” the man had caved in on himself and spilled his secrets.

The whole thing had been inelegant, crude, and ugly. Badger and his men had been so proud of themselves, so full of bloodlust and self-satisfaction. But where was the joy in beating a captive? What was exciting about taking a man to pieces?

Reese had spent his life honing his skills and his body for only the quickest, most efficient, most elegant kills. Torture was anathema to him.

But he knew torture would be practiced here, now.

The Amarillo clubhouse wasn’t a sprawling industrial complex like Dartmoor – it was, in fact, an underwhelming blip in a stretch of open scrub field – but it boasted a few outbuildings, one of which was a three-car garage with a concrete floor, and that was where they took their captive cartel member.

He’d been injured in the crash; one of his legs wouldn’t hold his weight properly. The prospect, Nickel, and a skinny, baby-faced Dog named Pup hauled him by the underarms inside, and pushed him down in a folding chair. Pup cinched the doors shut, and Ten went to secure their captive: hands taped together behind the chair, ankles taped to the chair legs. Ten didn’t put tape over his mouth, yet, but Reese didn’t put it past him.

“Fox said to wait for him,” he reminded.

Ten tossed the tape roll onto a tool chest and turned to give him another of those bristling looks he’d been doling out since the van crash. He hadn’t seemed able to get his mask back in place properly; it kept sleeping. “Do you see me doing anything?” he snapped.

Reese didn’t answer.

Nickel and Pup had moved over the by pedestrian door, Reese noticed with a glance; both of them shifted their weight in obvious nervousness.

“What’s wrong you two?” Tenny asked them.

They shared a glance, and didn’t answer.

Ten raked a hand through his hair, leaving it standing up in glossy tufts. He was coming unglued, Reese thought; his seams couldn’t hold much longer. Like it had at the crash site, the knowledge comforted.

“You’re scaring them,” Reese said.

Tenny sent him an ugly grin. “Me? What makes you think it isn’t you?”

“I’m not scared,” Pup said, but they ignored him.

“You’re losing control,” Reese said. “That scares people.” He’d learned that much, at least, in his time with the Lean Dogs. Humans thrived on predictability.

Tenny’s gaze flared–

And the door opened. Fox walked in; paused a moment to take in the scene. “Ten,” he said, calmly, “you want to take a walk and cool down?”

He pulled himself together with obvious effort; strapped down his expression, forcibly eased the tension from his shoulders. It was a remarkable thing to watch, the way he slipped between personas like this. Reese had seen all the Dogs display emotion, laughing, and cursing, and sighing and fuming. All of it, no matter how baffling, spontaneous; honest emotion, belly-deep, that waxed or waned as situations evolved. None of them did this; none of them acted the way Tenny did. He hated the other assassin, and knew it was a mutual feeling, but Reese had the sense he himself wasn’t the root of whatever was happening to Ten now. This unraveling didn’t feel personal.

Fox nodded with approval, and turned to Nickel and Pup. “Either of you boys have a strong stomach?”

Pup shook his head.

Nickel cleared his throat and said, “I do, sir.”

“Brilliant. Go get a notebook. Pup, go see about digging a hole. A big hole.” He walked over to the tool chest where the tape rested and picked up a heavy wrench. Swapped a glance between Ten and Reese. “It’s too bad Mercy isn’t here – this is really his specialty. But I suppose we’ll make do.”

The man in the chair lifted his bloody face, eyes white-rimmed, but jaw firmly set. A last scrap of defiance that Reese knew wouldn’t last.

And it didn’t. It took a half-hour. Fox had a finesse that Badger and his men had lacked; his voice was low, soothing, even friendly. His hands were quick, and precise, and he knew where to inflict the kind of pain that would elicit a scream, but which wouldn’t cause his quarry to pass out or become insensate. He questioned him, but he toyed with him, too; there was no joy in his expression – he didn’t enjoy this the way that Mercy did – but he was satisfied with his own effectiveness. At moments, the resemblance between him and Ten was startling.

And Ten, watching with arms folded, nearly smiled a time or two, Reese thought; he looked impressed.

When he had his answers, Fox killed the man, neatly and effectively, his knife sliding right between the ribs without resistance and finding the heart on the first stroke. He withdrew it, after, and cleaned the blade on the dead man’s sleeve.

Reese had forgotten Nickel was there, until he heard the door opening, and turned to see it closing behind Nickel’s hasty retreat.

He turned back to Fox, and found the man studying him, gaze assessing.

“Learn anything?”

“Yes,” Reese and Ten said together.

Ten probably hated that.

“Good.” He headed for the door.

“What about the body?” Reese asked.

Fox threw him an amused glance over his shoulder. “Our kind don’t have to do the cleanup. One of the perks.”

Tenny followed him out.

Reese waited a moment, glancing one more time at the dead man. Blood had run down his chest, glittering wet on the black fabric, and dripped now onto the concrete. Splat, splat, splat.

Why did anyone ever cling to their secrets? How could something like knowledge offer you any hope in the last moments of your life? Everyone died, eventually; he didn’t understand inviting all the pain that came beforehand.

Thirty-One

It was dark when they finally left the hospital. Bikes rode ahead and behind of the GTO, and Michelle slumped gratefully in the backseat, which didn’t appear too badly stained, and which now smelled strongly of Lysol. She was ready for home, for TJ, for a hot meal and a shower and her bed. But it was a good kind of fatigue that dragged at her, the kind she hadn’t experienced in too long.

In the passenger seat, Eden twisted around so she could peer over the console into the back seat; the pose, and the anticipation on her face, lit up by the dash lights, struck Michelle as terribly girlish, and she found herself biting back a smile. Eden had enjoyed their day, too.

“She was sleeping with him?” she asked. “Honestly?”

“So she says,” Michelle said, shaking her head, amazed all over again. “It makes sense, in a way. She has a type, apparently.”

Eden snorted. “Criminals.”

“To be fair,” Axelle said from behind the wheel, “he is pretty gorgeous.”

“Axelle, I’m appalled,” Eden said, sounding like she tried not to laugh.

“What? Did you see him? Back me up, Michelle.”

“He’s dreamy, no denying. If you don’t mind the whole going-to-kill-you-eventually thing.”

“Disappointing, both of you.”

“Says the woman willingly dating Charlie Fox,” Michelle said, and laughed when Eden rolled her eyes.

“Yes, fine,” she sighed. Then her gaze sharpened on Michelle. “Do you think she was being honest? That they’d turned on her – or do you think she’s still working with the cartel?”

Michelle sighed, too. She’d been wondering as much herself. “I can’t say that I like her.”

Axelle snorted. “Understatement.”

“And I’ve had a bad feeling about her from the beginning.” She nudged the back of Axelle’s seat with the toe of her boot. “But I can’t think someone would stand there and happily watch her brother get his throat cut just for some good dick.”

Axelle laughed.

Eden frowned. “Fear leads people to desperate alliances.”

“She says she was willing to make inroads with the club for them in order to keep Pacer safe.”

“People like her say lots of things.”

“Point taken. I never said I trusted her.”

“I didn’t think you did. Only putting it all in the open.” She twisted back around, and the way she flopped back against the seat revealed a fatigue not apparent in her voice. “The club will protect her, I suppose, same as Gwen.”

“And Jesse and Eric,” Michelle said. “It’s what they do.”

“The noblest of criminals,” Eden said, fondly.

The clubhouse, when they arrived, had never looked so welcoming, all its lights blazing. Michelle climbed out of the GTO in time to watch Gwen stagger off the back of Talis’s bike like someone afraid the machine might bite.

“Enjoy your ride?” Michelle asked, and earned a glare that was more terror than aggression.

“Come along,” Eden said, taking the girl firmly by the arm, “and we’ll see about accommodations.”

They’d intended to let the girl ride in the car with them, but Candy had insisted she ride behind one of the boys instead. Michelle knew he’d been thinking to keep the three of them safe, should Gwen get the wild idea to try anything – “People are less likely to jump off a moving bike than hop out of a car,” he’d reasoned – but she also thought it had been a means of giving the three of them – the wayward girl-group that they’d become today – a chance to unwind without listening ears. In both cases, she appreciated the gesture.

He appeared beside her, now, and looped his arm around her waist. Kissed the top of her head. “Tired, Mama?” he asked, softly, just for her.

“Little bit.” But she leaned into his solid side and let him support her.

Inside, Darla fussed over all of them. The common room was full of delightful food smells, and Michelle felt genuinely hungry for the first time in weeks.

Dinner was brisket, beans, cornbread, and braised carrots. Plates were cleaned, beers were drunk, and the ever-expanding group of witnesses were shuffled into dorms.

Michelle held a sleepy TJ on her lap, her chin resting lightly on the top of his head, content to let the idle conversation wash over her. She noticed Reese and Ten eating on opposite sides of the common room, both of them alone and hunched over their plates in near-identical poses, eating like men concentrating on refueling their bodies rather than regular, hungry boys enjoying a good meal.

She watched Albie and Axelle sit side-by-side, elbows brushing, sharing private looks again and again.

Eden and Fox, across from one another, exuded the same shark-like energy; they were a perfect match.

“Soon as we get listening ears outta the way,” Candy murmured when she tipped her head sideways to rest against his shoulder, “we’ll talk shop.”

That was her cue, then. She gathered herself to stand.

And Candy put a hand on her knee. “No, stay. Darla can put the kids to bed.”

She glanced toward him, startled. “She can?”

“Yeah, I already asked her.”

As if on cue, Darla appeared, hands out already, fingers flexing in grabby motions. “Come see me, little man,” she cooed, and TJ went right to her.

Michelle felt a maternal tug in her gut. I should do that. But Candy squeezed her knee. He’s okay. My place is here right now. She glanced up at Candy again, still disbelieving, and he gave her a rakish, if tired, grin.

Jack went along willingly with Darla, too, she saw, and Jenny looped her arm through Colin’s where they sat smushed together in a wide recliner.

All their “guests,” to use the term loosely, were gone. Nickel bussed away the plates and set to refilling glasses. The twins dragged some tables together in the center of the room, a makeshift echo of the long table in every MC chapel

Candy patted her knee one last time and stood. “Alright, everybody, let’s listen up.” His voice wasn’t loud, but commanding and presidential. Over at the bar, Nickel switched on a radio, and directed its speakers toward the hallway that led into the back of the house. Thwarting eavesdroppers with bad bro country. “A lot happened today. But we learned a lot, too. I know most of you know what’s going on, but I want to get all of us on the same page.

“For starters, Jinx and Melanie Menendez are in the hospital overnight – and Jinx for longer, probably. I left Cowboy and Gringo there on guard duty. We’ll handle it in shifts, and I’ve already got a call in to Ghost to see if anyone from another chapter can come into town and offer us backup. Last I heard from him, Cali’s on the way.” There were a few relieved murmurs.

“Today we learned that we’re dealing with Los Chupacabras cartel. They’re pushing coke, scripts, designer party drugs, and they’re trafficking girls and women, too. Everything you can move, they’re moving. Jinx met a guy named Luis at Sandoval’s, and both Melanie and the Sandoval’s receptionist, Gwen, confirm that he’s at the head of the organization – he talks about his father being the boss, and they’ve not seen him.

“Then we’ve got this ‘Holy Father’ shithead drugging and killing people as a distraction.”

“Maybe he’s the dad,” Colin said, brow furrowed. “Like a joke, huh? Holy Father is actually the father?”

“Could be,” Candy said.

“I doubt it,” Fox spoke up. “Whoever he is, they won’t want him to lead directly back to the cartel. He’s a smokescreen – a sacrificial lamb to draw heat off the trafficking.”

“Gwen gave me the names of the trucking companies they’ve used,” Eden said.

Candy nodded, and Blue stood, a roll of paper in his hands that he spread out across the tables: a map of the city. He pulled a red pen from behind his ear.

“Henderson’s, Pascal’s, Ready-Set, and Rapid,” Eden recited, consulting the slender notebook she kept in her pocket, and Blue circled the locations on the map.

“Pick-up address?” he asked.

Eden read that, off, too, and Blue let out a low whistle when he circled it. “That’s Doc Gilliard’s place.”

“Shit,” Candy muttered. “How many people have they got under their thumb?”

“Who?” Albie asked.

“A retired cardiac surgeon. His wife was sick, and when she was dying, he had this big ol’ gaudy mansion built for them outside of town. It’s huge: gardens, a pool, like, three garages. When she passed, I think he filled the void with cars,” Blue said.

“It’s private out there,” Talis said. “Plenty of room, and no one to see them move product in or out.”

“He’s got that one big industrial garage,” Candy said. “It’d hold a lot of something.”

“And the girls are being drugged,” Fox said, “so they’d keep quiet. Bundle them up in something, and the trucker would have no idea what he was carrying.”

Albie made a disgusted sound.

“So we know where to go to access the pipeline,” Candy said. “We need to cut it off at the knees. The next order of business is to get hold of this Holy Father motherfucker and put him in the ground. He’ll be harder to find.”

“Unless he comes to us,” Colin said, grimly.

“He won’t,” Fox said. “Now that we know who’s behind him, he’d be a waste of resources. They’ll come for us head-on, now, hard. The war’s on.”

“Which is why we’ve got to hunker down,” Candy said, passing a look across all of them. “No one goes out alone, not even to take the damn garbage out. Be armed at all times. Keep your eyes open, and your head on a swivel. As of right now, we’re officially on lockdown.”

“How are we gonna handle the doc’s place?” Talis asked. He looked like he was frowning, but Michelle had learned that was just his serious, ready-for-anything face.

“Well, normally I’d be all for going in guns blazing,” Candy said. “But while we’ve got the resources, I say we handle it in stealth mode.”

He glanced first to Tenny, and then to Reese, and both boys tensed immediately, like wires flooded with a sudden current.

Fox grinned. “See, boys? I told you you’d have work to do.”

Thirty-Two

Michelle leaned an elbow on the rail of the crib and looked down at TJ, sleeping like the dead, unbothered and sprawled out with his arms flung over his head and the covers kicked down. “Just like your daddy, huh?” she whispered. His fingers curled reflexively, but he didn’t wake. She knew the urge to reach in and touch his face, to feel the baby softness of his cheek on the back of her finger, but he wasn’t that heavy a sleeper. Candy was the same way. He could sleep through any amount of sound, but touch him, and he snapped awake.

She was a bit more sensitive. Those Devin Green instincts, she supposed. For instance, right now, she could sense Candy in the open doorway behind her. He hadn’t made a sound, but she could feel him there, all the same. Felt him step silently inside, and sidle up behind her. Wasn’t startled when his arm came around her waist and he palmed her stomach.

“You think he knows how badass his mama is?” he whispered in her ear.

She smiled. Whispered back, “I don’t think he’d care. You flatterer.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s true.”

She turned around, and stood up on tiptoe so she could slide her arms around his neck. She expected to find him sleepy-eyed, and etched with worry, tired after a long day, and fretting over what was to come.

She paused, though, when she found his gaze low-lidded with a very obvious hunger, instead. “What?” she asked, pulse kicking.

“The baby’s asleep.” Still whispering, but his voice had gone husky with promise. “Come to bed.” It wasn’t a request.

The best kind of chill rippled down her back. “Yes.”

He took her hand in his and towed her there; barely gave her a chance to latch TJ’s door. She saw a bar of light under Jenny’s old door as they passed, where she and Colin were staying for the lockdown, but the common room of the sanctuary was empty. They’d already gone to bed.

She thought he’d turn loose of her when they reached their bedroom, but he didn’t, crowded her back against the closed door and caged her in with his arms. “Do we even have time?” she asked. Her pulse was running, and her skin was prickling all over, and she wanted this, damn did she ever. But they were on lockdown, and Fox and the boys were running an op tonight, and–

Candy reached to hook a finger beneath her chin, gentle but insistent. Locked gazes with her, his eyes blue and starving for her. “Baby.” Only that: entreaty and command both.

Another hard shiver moved through her, and her belly clenched tight. She thought he might say something else, but he didn’t, only stared at her – and she understood. This wasn’t just things-are-bad-let’s-fuck energy. There was some of that, the kind of pent-up adrenaline that left you wanting to feel alive in the most fundamental ways. But there was something else there, too, in the touch of his finger, and the lift of his shoulders and the heat of his gaze.

He knew she was capable, and he respected that she wanted to reclaim a part of her past life. That was evident from the meeting, just minutes before. The way he’d kept the old ladies in the room, and listened to their contributions.

But like he’d told her before, he’d been worrying. Wondering if he was enough. If he was still her man in her eyes. Oh, love, she thought, how could you have doubted? He was more man than most. But even Greek gods could doubt. Even Casanovas could be made to feel like they didn’t measure up. He needed to assert himself tonight – and she needed that, too, she realized in that moment, staring up at him.

She let her body go soft, and parted her lips, and tipped her head back against the door. “Derek,” she murmured.

He ducked his head and kissed her, and it was the sort of kiss that left her wondering if they’d ever really kissed before, the way he lavished her mouth with insistent, heated attention. Thank God she was standing up against the door, because she wouldn’t have been able to hold herself up otherwise. Her knees and her neck turned weak, and he caught her with a gentle hand at her throat, his massive palm covering the whole of it, his thumb resting on the hinge of her jaw, pressing there lightly, encouraging her to open wider for his tongue.

The outside world – the threat of the cartel, the simmering panic of what lay ahead, the club and their allies – faded. There was only this room, this moment, and the two of them.

She reached for him, wanting to slide her hands beneath his shirt and feel his skin – but he caught her wrists and pinned them both back against the door, on either side of her head. Pulled back from the kiss as a startled little gasp escaped her lips. And grinned, wide, and sharp, and glittering with dark intent.

Oh, she thought. Oh, wow, yes.

“Not yet, baby,” he said, and bent to kiss her neck.

She tipped her head to the side, offering him better access, rewarded by the damp softness of his lips, the scrape of his stubble, and then the sharp sting of his teeth, as he bit her, lightly, right over her pulse. She made another sound, sucked in a breath, and he chuckled again, the rumble of it moving through her throat and down to her breastbone; her nipples hardened to tight, aching points inside her bra, and she wanted it off; wanted everything off both of them.

But that wasn’t the game they were playing tonight. Now, she could only lean back against the door and bask in the sensation, limbs restless, fingers curling, as he kissed and nipped a path up to her earlobe, and then sucked that into the heat of his mouth.

“Candy,” she murmured, not even sure what she was asking, just wanting to say his name.

He pressed a butterfly kiss to the shell of her ear, and whispered into it. “You getting restless, sweetheart?”

“Yeah.” And this time, it had nothing to do with wanting to work.

“I’m sorry,” he said, without an ounce of sincerity.

One of his hands opened on her wrist, and moved slowly, slowly down the tender inside of her forearm, a firm, methodical caress, unhurried, that left her trembling. It was the anticipation, as his thumb grazed the knob of her elbow, as he shifted up the inside of her biceps. The promise of where he was heading.

She was wearing a soft flannel shirt, unbuttoned, and he teased it off her shoulder. Played with the strap of her tank top a moment. Then, just as purposeful, slipped his whole hand down into the scooped neck, and cupped her breast.

Please, she thought, and bit her lip to keep from voicing it, as his thumb rasped her nipple through the satin of her bra.

“What do you want?” he murmured, pressing kisses to her jaw. “What do you need, baby? This?” He pushed down the cup of her bra and took her bare breast in his hand, finally.

She arched into his touch, overstimulated, needy.

He chuckled, and pinched her nipple between thumb and forefinger, whispering against the corner of her mouth. “Oh, yeah, you like that.”

“Please,” she said, out loud this time.

“Damn, baby.” He kissed her mouth again, deep, languid, thorough.

And he released her other wrist so he could push her shirt back off that shoulder, too; push her undershirt and bra down, and touch her other breast.

He was good at this; God was he good at it. He kissed her into oblivion, and plucked at her nipples, massaged her breasts with just enough force to leave her pushing her chest shamelessly into his hands, panting against his mouth.

She actually whimpered when he pulled back.

“It’s alright,” he soothed, and pushed her flannel shirt totally off. She lifted her arms readily when he pulled her tank top over her head. And then his expert fingers were at the clasp of her bra, and then she was bare, and he ducked his head, and took one of her nipples into his mouth.

He’d worked her up so thoroughly that the sensation – the heat of his mouth, the faint scrape of his teeth – was almost startling. She clutched at his hair, held him to her, breathing fast and harsh through her mouth. She tried to say his name again, but her tongue wouldn’t work, and so she let the door hold her – the door and the wild strength of his hands on her waist – as he suckled at one breast, and then the other; until she was damp, and red, and aching.

She wetness gather between her legs; felt it soak through her panties, her pulse pounding in her sex. She needed him. Needed him now.

But he was hellbent on taking his time. He nosed gently at the undersides of her breasts, and he dropped a slow trail of kisses down her stomach, down to her waistband, and opened it with teasing slowness. He followed the path of the zipper; nosed at her curls through her panties. Worked her jeans down off her hips on one side, and then the other.

“Candy,” she finally managed to pant. Her legs shook, and she gripped his hair so tight it had to hurt.

He chuckled, breath hot through the cotton that covered her. “We’re getting there, don’t worry.”

She lifted her legs in turn at his urging, and the damned jeans were finally off. He slipped both hands beneath the waistband of her panties, in the back, cupping her ass, petting her, before finally skimming them down to her ankles so she could step free.

Then she was naked, and he was fully clothed.

He stood, suddenly, a fast surge of movement, and pressed the whole hard, strong, masculine line of his body against her – pinning her even more thoroughly against the door. The denim of his jeans rasped against the tender, bare skin of her legs; the cold buttons of his flannel dug into her stomach. The contradiction, the imbalance of it, drover her pulse to new heights. She felt small, and fragile, and feminine – and none of those things felt like a fault or a threat now. They felt like great offerings, like what he needed now, in this moment.

He ducked his face against her throat and inhaled; breathed in the scent of her.

What do I smell like? she thought wildly. He smelled like leather, and smoke, and Scotch, and dust, and the wild outdoors. Like danger, and freedom, and every good thing she’d ever wanted.

He kissed her neck. Sealed his lips and sucked. She’d have a mark, and she’d wear it proudly; tipped her head to the side so he could have better access.

His hands shifted over her body, restless. Down her arms, and round her waist. He petted her sides, gliding his fingers along the channels of her rib bones; weighed her breasts and squeezed her nipples until the bright little sparks of pain left her breathing out wounded sounds.

Finally, he gripped her hips, and hoisted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist on instinct; felt his clothed erection press boldly against the wet folds of her sex, the denim rasping and scraping as he ground against her.

A knife-edge, electric sort of pleasure rippled through her, mostly anticipation, and the burn of friction where they touched – and where she wanted him deeper, and more solidly; where she wanted more.

He hiked her legs up a lighter higher, securing her, and then cupped her ass with one, steadying her, and reached between them with the other. Found her slick and ready for him. Found her entrance, and pressed right in with two large fingers.

She gasped.

His face hovered over hers, shadowed, eyes smoky dark, the pupils blown. Voice rough: “Sweet Jesus. You are such a little baby thing.” He thrust hard with his fingers, and circled her clit with his thumb, and she came in a sudden rush; a froth and tide like champagne bubbles, surprising, and hot, and mind-wiping.

He worked her through it with those clever fingers. Kissed her cheeks, and her forehead, murmuring endearments she couldn’t register, but didn’t need to. He had her, he had her.

She drifted, flushed and pulsing all over. Eventually, she became aware of the fact that she was whispering his name over and over, clutching at his shirt, clinging to him.

She couldn’t have tolerated anyone else seeing her broken open like this, shaking and vulnerable and outside herself. No one but him.

His hand withdrew, and she started to protest, but then she heard the zipper on his jeans, and a moment later the blunt head of his cock was pressing at her entrance, blood-hot and already slick where he’d been leaking. Her body was primed, but he was big, and she was so sensitive now, after coming.

He pressed in – and in, and in, and in. Every inch. Her body welcomed him, but it was tight, so tight, and he hissed, teeth flashing white as he bared them, as he worked his way inside. And then he was there, right there, crowding the breath from her lungs, inside her, and over her, surrounding her. Shielding her.

She wanted to touch his skin, to feel the heat and sweat of him. But when she glanced up through lids low and pleasure-heavy, she saw the raw hunger and love on his face, and he was more naked to her than he could ever be without clothes.

Michelle arched into him as best she could, heels digging his back as she shifted the angle and managed to take him even deeper.

“Christ,” he swore, pressing his face to the side of hers, breathing hotly in her ear as he started to move. “Oh, Christ, baby.”

“Give it to me,” she said. “I want it. Want to feel you.”

He groaned and clutched her hips, and he gave it to her. Almost frantic. Her head thumped faintly against the door on every powerful thrust – until he slid his other hand behind her head, protecting her, even in the throes of an almost-violent passion.

She melted. When he came – biting at her shoulder, hands spasming where they touched her – her own pleasure swelled up and overtook her again.

They clung to each other, heartbeats tangled, ribs pushing back and forth, giving and taking air. This was how she loved them best. Both of them dangerous in their own rights…but raw together. It didn’t feel like a concession, being weak with him. It felt like being loved – stronger and more deeply than she’d ever hoped.

Thirty-Three

Axelle stood with her back to the showerhead, hot water pounding against her back, head tipped forward to keep her tied-up hair from getting wet. She stood, and she stared down at her toes on the tile, and she marveled at how turned on she was. “I’m gonna grab a shower,” she’d said to Albie, a few minutes before, in the common room, and the way he’d looked at her…Like he’d nearly volunteered to come with her.

Today had been wild. It had been dangerous, and people were in the hospital…

But she’d gotten to drive. Really drive, like she’d been raised to. And then Albie had come riding in on his bike, her knight in leather armor and she…well, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been pulsing with awareness and desire like this. They’d been dancing around one another, been so careful and full of doubts. But right now, none of that mattered. Nothing mattered save the way her skin was sensitive and rippling with gooseflesh, even under the hot spray, and the way she felt empty inside.

Finally, she turned off the water, and toweled off in front of the fogged mirror, her reflection a blur in the steam on the glass. That was good. She didn’t want to look at herself – examine herself. Didn’t want to find faults or second guess. When she was done, here, she supposed she’d venture back down the hall, and…

When she opened the door into the dorm room, she found Albie sitting on her bed.

He had his feet braced on the floor, leaning forward, forearms on his thighs. His head lifted when she entered, and his gaze very respectfully didn’t move across her bare, bath-heated arms or legs, went instead straight to her face and stayed there. What a gentleman.

“Did I overstep?” he asked. His pupils were dilated.

In a fit of rare bravery, she unwrapped her towel and let it fall. “No.”

He stood – her pulse leaped. But when his gaze stayed fixed on her face as he approached, slowly.

She couldn’t repress a smile. “Oh my God, just kiss me.”

He reached her, finally. Cupped her throat; hovered over her, his breath fanning warm across her face, whiskey-scented. Poised and quivering on the edge of letting go of all that lovely, terrible restraint.

“Albie,” she murmured. “I’m ready. Aren’t you?”

He sucked in a little breath. “God, yes.” And then kissed her.

An immediately forceful kiss, lush, and deep, and wet. She opened her mouth to his, and she could tell then just how much he’d been holding back, trying to be respectful and careful of her. Not because he thought her weak, she knew, she his grip on her throat tightened and his other hand found the bare skin of her waist, but because he cared that much. Because he wanted to do this right.

The thought left her neck weak. She leaned into him, hands finding the front of his shirt – of his cut; cool leather and warm flannel. She was already dizzy, nearly overcome. She didn’t want to think anymore; to doubt, and restrain, and be cautious.

“Albie,” she murmured, between kisses.

“What, darling?” His hand skimmed upward, over the fretwork of her ribs, ghosting high on her side, shy of where she wanted it.

And how did she tell him? More suggestions and conversations? Or just…

“Touch me, please,” she whispered, and bit his lower lip.

That was the trigger, apparently. His hands found her breasts, and the kiss went dirty. Filthy.

She whimpered. She didn’t mean to, but the sound happened, and suddenly his arms were around her, and he was towing her to the bed, pulling her down into his lap. She straddled him gladly, and felt the hardness of his erection through his jeans. Had he been hard for her all this time? While she was in the shower? The thought had her pushing her hands through the glossy thickness of his hair, clutching at his skull as he trailed kisses down her throat, and out onto her shoulder. Down her collarbone and, finally, blessedly, to her breast.

“Oh,” she said on a gasp, because it was electric. The heat of his mouth, the silk of his tongue, the faint rasp of his teeth, just enough pressure to send pleasure rippling down her back. “Albie.” She clutched at his hair, desperate, suddenly – even more desperate than she had been. She ground down against him, the denim too rough against her most sensitive skin, but the burn of friction was good. Necessary. She needed…

He suckled hard, and his hand skimmed down the flare of her waist, over her hip, and finally, blessedly, through her curls to find her damp sex.

A teasing touch at first, feather-light. She rocked against him and felt herself growing wetter, slicker; his fingers – oh, they were clever fingers – parted her and finally stopped teasing. He pressed one into her, slow and steady, bit lightly at her nipple, and that was it, she was coming.

She made a shocked, choked sound as the pleasure washed up in a sudden, hot wave. She closed her eyes against it, hands going slack in his hair, clenching tight around his finger. She was weak with it, overwhelmed, trembling and unsteady.

His arm hooked around her waist, holding her tight, and he massaged her gently with that finger still inside, working her through the spasms.

“Christ.” Through the pounding of her pulse in her ears, she could pick out the reverence in his tone. “Christ, sweetheart, you went so easy.” He nuzzled into the sweat-tacky skin between her breasts, his breath hot, quick, but soothing.

She tried to say something, to thank him, but just murmured wordless nonsense instead.

He withdrew his finger, and then she did say, “No, wait, stay–”

“Shh, it’s alright.” He shifted her around and laid her out on the bed, hand cupped behind the back of her head as he lowered her to the bed with a sweetness that had her eyes burning.

She blinked up at him, still panting and pulsing with sensation, but getting her senses back. Sense enough to be both touched and terrified by the want and tenderness on his face as he looked down at her.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“Take your clothes off. Please.” She managed to grab the hem of his shirt and tugged. “I wanna see you.”

Nothing about him was hesitant now. He stood and stripped with a few efficient movements; she heard a boot go thumping across the carpet when he kicked it off. He didn’t stand back and give her a twirl, didn’t let her look her fill, but it was enough. Enough to see that he was all compact muscle, and old scars, and thick thighs…and that he was hard, and flushed, and leaking for her already.

He climbed on the bed, prowled on all fours when she opened her legs in ready invitation. Planted a hand on the pillow beside her head and hovered above her, dark hair falling forward to tickle her forehead, his breath sharp, quick, warm against her lips.

Kiss me, she wanted to say. No more waiting. But the look in his eyes stopped her. He was just studying her, his pupils blown, his expression nothing short of awed.

He was awed by her.

She shivered, cold now, as the sweat cooled, bereft of his body heat. She reached up and touched his face; traced her thumb along his lower lip. “I want you.”

He dropped down and kissed her; pressed them together, skin-to-skin, finally. He was warm, and his shoulders were hard and tensed when she gripped them.

She was sensitive, when he touched her again, messily wet; he slipped two fingers in easily, and she broke the kiss to take a deep breath.

“Okay?” He pressed deep, and crooked his fingers, and her body was singing.

She could feel her brow furrowing, her body almost overcome with sensation, but she wanted more, and told him in a broken murmur. He added a third finger, and kissed her mouth while he stretched her; lazy plunges of his tongue deep into her mouth that matched the thrust of his hand at her sex.

She dug her nails into his biceps, bit at his lip, marveling at how aggressive and needy she felt. It had never been like this with anyone else. “Albie. Come on.”

It was a loss when he withdrew, but then she got to watch him tear open a condom packet with his teeth and roll it on. Watched him stroke himself a moment, hand wet from her, face tensed like he was in pain, hips rolling like he couldn’t help it.

She opened her legs a little wider, and tweaked her own nipples.

“Christ,” he groaned. “Oh, Christ, wait, I’m here.”

Over her again, one hand supporting his weight, the other lining them up. He’d stretched her well, but his cock felt huge compared to three fingers. The pressure was sharp – and then the head slipped inside and her body opened for him. Welcomed him. They both let out harsh breath, and then he was pressing in, in, in, and was fully-seated, better than she’d imagined.

He rested his forehead against hers a moment, holding still. Trembling with restraint.

Axelle tightened her legs around his waist. “It’s okay. I’m ready.”

His breath shivered in the air between them as he pulled back, and then rocked back in. He hissed. “You’re tight. I – damn.” Another withdrawal, and a slow press back. Working her open, going slow. Withdrawing a little much on each retreat – until he pulled nearly out, and then his hips snapped forward, and he filled her on one fast stroke.

She pressed her head back into the pillow and sucked in a breath, legs tightening on his hips – she wondered, vaguely, if she’d have bruises to show for it.

He did it again. And again. Building a rhythm. She could feel herself grow impossibly wetter; feel the sweat building on both of them, until skin was sliding, and their bodies were meeting with an audible smack.

He pressed his face into her throat and fucked her in earnest. Axelle could only cling to him, delighted, hazy with pleasure, toes curling.

She marveled at the contrasts: the frenetic, desperate thrusts, and the breathy little endearments he breathed into her ear. He was coming undone, unraveling, as pleasure-drenched and overcome as she was.

They were in this together. In the moment, bodies tangled, yes, but in this adventure; this scary week of cartels and guns and bikes and blood. She wasn’t alone in it; she had Albie. She had this.

Axelle turned and sank her teeth into his throat to hold back the words that built on the back of her tongue, and she felt him shudder.

“Yes, love, like that.”

Pain and pleasure together. Wasn’t that just the true heart of the club?

Thirty-Four

Fox tightened the last strap of his flak vest and tugged a black sweatshirt on over it. She didn’t make a sound, but when he turned, he knew he’d find Eden propped up in the door of his dorm room. What he didn’t expect was the way she was dressed: black turtleneck, black jeans, her usual Doc Martens. A shoulder and a hip holster, both loaded. She held her jacket folded over one arm, and her hair was pulled back so tight it left her a little cat-eyed.

He’d always thought she was beautiful, had always warmed inside when he looked at her, and traced the contours of her body with his eyes. That had never been in question. But lately, since moving to Knoxville, he’d noticed a lack of – something. An ephemeral, uncatchable thread that always seemed to be sliding through his fingers. The sex was good, but the thrill of work would always be better. Tonight, right now, looking at her ready for work, he felt the old thrill. That spike of desire in the midst of the buzzing anticipation of getting his hands dirty.

His father had picked him to be the prodigal, and for good reason. Fox had never hated Devin for what he was – only for leaving. For never explaining to his children what they were. And when it came to the work, Fox enjoyed it.

Eden got that. Eden felt it, too. It had always been his favorite thing about her.

Pulse tripping, he said, politely, “Going out?”

She smirked. “If you’ll have me.”

“Well, it’s just me and those two robotic wankers. I suppose I could use another adult on the team.”

~*~

With four witnesses staying at the clubhouse overnight, it had become imperative for some people to share dorms. Reese had been told to share with Tenny. Nickel had brought in an air mattress. It was all handled very casually and as if it wouldn’t cause any bother.

Reese was bothered. Even if he did feel rather sorry for Tenny, post-crash, his patience was still a new, tender, developing thing, and Tenny was challenging it mightily.

Reese dipped his fingers into the tin of grease paint on the dresser and dragged them carefully across his cheek, the green-black of it stark on his pale skin. He’d scraped his hair back tightly, so it wouldn’t be in the way, and painted his face with practiced efficiency.

Tenny’s face appeared behind his in the mirror, lip curled up in a sneer. “Are you really going to wear that shit?” he asked, in his most posh accent.

“I always wear it.”

If the way his shoulders twitched was any indication, the calm answer ratcheted Ten’s anger up another notch. “Why? Because you like pretending to be a Navy SEAL? You’re not a real solider, you know.”

Reese painted the bridge of his nose, the thick paint gleaming in the lamplight. “I go where I’m told to go. I kill who I’m told to kill. Isn’t that what a soldier does?”

“Fucking hopeless,” Ten muttered, and turned away.

“I have enough if you want to wear some, too.”

“No, I don’t want to wear it! What’s wrong with you?”

Reese didn’t answer.

Tenny kicked the end of the air mattress – Reese’s air mattress, because Ten had of course called “dibs” on the bed with a snide comment about Reese not even appreciating a real bed, probably.

“Aren’t you going to get ready?” Reese asked. When Ten whirled again, teeth bared in a grimace, he couldn’t account for the warmth of satisfaction in his gut, like when he executed a perfect hit; the personal pleasure of a job well done.

Tenny opened the halves of his jacket and revealed the guns and knives strapped strategically to his person. “I am ready. I don’t have to do my makeup first, like you.”

Reese finished, tidying the last of the excess around the corners of his eyes – eyes that now looked too bright by contrast. He capped his tin, and wiped his fingers clean on a bit of rag he kept for the purpose, pre-soaked with solvent. He turned around, then, and leaned back against the dresser, observing Tenny as he paced the width of the small room. He’d been gathering his thoughts for the past hour or so, deciding what he wanted to say.

As if he sensed he was being watched, Tenny paused, and lifted his head. “What?” He was so full of hostility it was a wonder he hadn’t split open along some hidden seam in order to vent it.

“My sister told me something.”

“Well, good for you.”

“She said that sometimes a person acts like they’re angry with you, but they’re really angry about something else.”

Tenny had stood poised for a retort, lips set in a cruel line, dark brows lowered and malicious. But when Reese spoke, his face blanked. He blinked.

“She gets angry with me sometimes, but she says she isn’t really. She’s angry about what happened to us.”

Tenny waited a beat, and then wet his lips, and his voice came out small and choked. “What happened to you?” He sounded like he really wanted to know.

Reese’s own mouth felt dry, suddenly, but he didn’t lick his lips; he’d learned long ago to hate the taste of grease paint. “The Commander raised us. I was his soldier. I killed for him. Kris – I don’t know where Kris was, most of the time. They would bring her to see me, sometimes. She always told me to be good and listen to them, do what they said. I don’t know why, because I always did. When I did a job right, they let me see her more often. She was always crying.”

Tenny’s brows lowered again, but in an entirely different way.

“That was before Badger – that was…” he didn’t want to talk about Badger. “She smiles more, now. She has a boyfriend. She says our mother was sick, and the Commander took us from her, and that he shouldn’t have. She wants me to be a person. She gave me a book to read, but I don’t like it.”

Tenny snorted – but his expression wasn’t cruel, now.

“I don’t like you,” Reese continued. “I hate you. And I’ve never hated anything before, I don’t think, except for maybe Badger. I hate that you don’t take orders, and that you think you’re smarter than me, and that you’re pretending, all the time, to be a real person when you aren’t. You aren’t.” His breathing had picked up, and he forced it slow.

Tenny’s chest swelled as he took a deep breath of his own. “You said that before,” he said, tightly. “But my handlers spent millions turning me into about fifteen different people. Each with his own uses. I am a soldier, and a martial artist, and a sniper, and a driver, and a gangster, and a seducer. I’ve convinced rich old women to name me in their wills, and I’ve fucked closeted politicians in the beds they share with their wives. I’ve killed a third world dictator with my bare hands, and I’ve batted my lashes at warlords. I was cultivated to be whichever kind of person my handlers needed me to be. For my government. For my country.”

His voice shook. “And your Lean Dogs tore it all down. Fox tore it all–” He cut himself off, abruptly; pushed hands through his hair and laced them together at the back of his neck, head bowed. “What was it all for?” he whispered. “What a waste.”

Reese knew pity again. “I’m sorry.”

Ten’s head lifted, sharply, scowl back in place. “What are you sorry for?”

“I’m sorry you’re afraid. I wish you weren’t.”

“Fuck,” Ten swore – but didn’t contradict him. “Finish your makeup,” he snapped, and stalked out of the room.

Reese went to assemble his weapons cache for the night’s work.

~*~

Doc Gilliard’s house glowed like a jack-o-lantern. It stood against the dark of night as a modern, flashy stucco fortress, studded with windows, circled by iron fences, embellished with swimming pools and ornate gardens. Candy had given them a general idea of the layout, based on what he remembered, but had grimaced when he admitted he didn’t know where all the entrances and exits were located. Fox had waved him off. “We can take care of that.”

He lay now on his belly in the dirt, on the rise above the good doctor’s property, surveying the place through binoculars. His heart pounded like a metronome, quick, but steady, limbs full of anticipatory chills.

“I make one guard by the garage doors, but that’s all I can see outside.”

“That’s where they’ll be keeping the valuables,” Eden said.

“Some of them. But there’s outbuildings,” Fox said, handing over the binoculars.

She put them to her eyes, and then cursed softly. “You’re right.”

“We’ll have to check all of it.”

“Right.” She caught his gaze, and tipped her head toward the boys, brows lifted in silent question.

“They’ll be alright, won’t you, boys?” To Eden: “They’ve been briefed.”

Reese gave him a solemn nod. Tenny shrugged, which Fox figured was the closest thing he’d get to acknowledgement from him.

“Just like we talked about: you two start east, and moved west. Eden and I’ll start west, and we’ll pass one another, and meet back here. If you have to kill, kill silently. If you find Doc Gilliard, drag him out. You’ve got your phones? Take photos. Call if you get pinned down.”

Reese nodded again, and they slipped backward down the ridge, silent as wraiths, disappearing into the gloom.

Fox turned to Eden. “I would say ladies first, but in this case, I think going first would be the chivalrous thing.”

There was just enough ambient glow coming from the estate to reveal her smirk, and the gleam of excitement in her eyes. “Just concentrate on not getting yourself killed, Charlie. I can take care of myself.”

“Uh-huh.”

They picked their way carefully down the backside of the rise; Reese and Tenny were long gone, nothing but a bit of stepped-on sage to mark that anyone had moved off toward the east side of the property. The moon was out, half-full and waxing, and it offered enough light to see by – especially for two people used to slinking along in the dark.

The approach to the house was flat ground, and mostly bare, grasses rippling in the breeze, the odd, stunted tree twisting here and there, and offering little in the way of cover. Up top, through the binoculars, Fox had spotted two important bits of information: the solar panel that sat beside one gate post, and the way the guard at the garage was paying more attention to his phone than anything else. Fox headed for the panel, bent double, keeping low, pausing now and then to listen, and scan the area. He figured they were registering on a camera, popping up on grainy black and white on a monitor somewhere inside. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be here long enough for the cavalry, if called, to show up while they were still on the premises.

The fence posts were two-by-two brick columns, topped with flickering gas lanterns, the black iron running between each adorned with decorative finials, all of it very overdone and English-chic. The solar panel, though – the one that powered the gates and, according to Candy, an electric wire that ran along the top rail – was cheap, the sort of thing anyone could pick up at a local feed store. It was the work of a minute to disconnect it, and Fox watched the little red light fade and wink out before he fired off a text to Ten. Done.

He moved to the gates. They operated off a keypad – whose power source he’d just killed – and so they weren’t locked together at the center with any sort of chain. Convenient for a rich man who didn’t want to climb out of his car and unlock his gates by hand – but far less safe in this situation. Fox disabled the hydraulic mechanism that opened and closed them with his knife, and pushed them inward. They glided, without so much as a squeak, but as he’d expected, the movement finally caught the guard’s attention.

“Hey!” a voice called. A flashlight clicked on, its beam sweeping along the ground toward them.

Fox took off at a run, quick and silent, straight for the man. By the time the beam lifted, and hit him full in the face, Fox already knew enough to go in blind, eyes clenching shut against the onslaught, muscles gathering for the spring.

Eden’s distraction – a sharp “put your hands up” off to his right – sounded, just as planned, and the light swung that way. A quick, instinctual mistake – but a deadly one. They’d weighed the odds out on the ridge: if the guard had radioed first, and acted second, this could have been a very different scene. But he’d acted alone, and so Fox leaped, and twisted, body torqueing, and caught the man in the temple with a kick hard enough to send him crumpling boneless on first contact. He hit the asphalt with a sound like a sack dropping.

Fox landed, lightly, and turned to the man, fishing a roll of tape from his coat pocket.

Eden appeared on the other side of the fallen guard, gun held at the ready, head swiveling. “That was alarmingly easy,” she murmured.

Fox slapped a bit of tape over the man’s mouth, and then set to work binding his hands. “Famous last words, darling.”

~*~

“It’s done,” Ten said, slipping his phone in his pocket.

Reese didn’t wait. He took three long strides back, got a running start, and leaped. His gloved hands caught the top rail of the fence: hard, square-edged iron, strong but narrow; it bit into his palms even through the gloves. He bared his teeth, tightened all the muscles in his arms, shoulders, and chest, and hauled himself up, up, up, until he could reach with one leg and hook the toe of his boot. He balanced there, poised over the finials, gathering himself. Then brought the other leg over in a smooth arc and flew.

He landed in a crouch, one hand flat to the ground to steady himself, the impact jarring through his knees, his shoulders, his tightly clenched teeth.

Tenny landed a half-second after. Wordlessly, they stood, and set off through the garden, low and fast, sticking to hedges. Ducking behind a gazebo and following its shadow round to the base of the house, and a curtained first-floor window.

Candy had said he thought this room – marked by a whole wall of windows, white drapes drawn across them all – was a study. He’d been out here, once, when Doctor Gilliard first built the place, when he’d asked for a security consultation. He hadn’t ended up hiring the Dogs – too expensive, he’d said – but the visit had given Candy invaluable intel. For instance, he knew that there were alarms set at each window, contact points that, when separated, would set off a high shriek, and dial 911 automatically. Reese could see it on this window, the little white rectangle at the cross-piece of the frame.

He reached into the half-zipped backpack Tenny wore and pulled out the drill, already fitted with a carbide bit. It was louder than Reese would have liked, as the drill fired, and the blade cut them out a perfect hole, but nothing stirred beyond the curtains; the room stayed dark. Ten reached through and disabled the alarm, and then flicked the window latch. It lifted easily, soundlessly, and they stepped down onto plush carpet, ducking around the curtain to find that Candy had been right: this room was a study. A desk occupied the center, facing the windows; during the day, with the curtains opened, the room would have been flooded with light, the view of the gardens spectacular. Now, the filmy drapes let in just enough moonlight to reveal walls lined with bookshelves, and a treadmill in one corner.

Ten took the lead, because he’d insisted as much earlier; Reese had conceded, not because, as Ten kept saying, he was in any way lesser, but because he thought Tenny might throw a fit otherwise.

A door led out into a dark hallway lined with paintings and photos. Light awaited them at the end of it, starkly bright. Reese heard voices talking rapidly in Spanish, and his pulse accelerated the tiniest fraction. He swore his vision sharpened, in moments like these. He could see the wood grain in the dark floorboards underneath; make out the freckles across the nose of the girl in the painting he passed.

He heard music, too. Several people laughed – male voices, all of them. They were watching TV, he realized, arguing in a friendly way, music and dialogue playing in the background.

When they reached the mouth of the hall, Tenny paused, and glanced back over his shoulder. Reese read the look as a warning, Ten telling him not to mess things up.

He really was hateable.

He faced forward again, plastered his back to the wall, and glided out into the open on the balls of his feet.

Reese followed.

Candy had described this room, too, but it was more impressive in person.

A living room with clay tile floors laid with rugs, a wall of glass that overlooked the pool – glowing turquoise with underwater lights. Another wall dominated by the largest TV Reese had ever seen, white couches and tan leather chairs situated in front of it. The high, timbered ceilings echoed sound strangely, and he saw the dark wood balustrades of a second-floor gallery above. The kitchen was off to the left, gleaming white and chrome. One man was there, his back to them, rooting around in the refrigerator. Three more lounged on the couches and chairs in front of the TV; two had women perched on their laps, girls who stroked the men on the shoulders and chests, but who held themselves stiffly: nothing like the languid, smiling posture of the girls in Knoxville, girls like Chanel, who played with Boomer’s ears until his face turned red.

These girls weren’t willing, he realized. They didn’t want to be here. And whether or not he understood all the intricacies and rituals of sex, he knew that wanting to be on someone’s lap was a very important part of the whole proceeding.

At a glance, it didn’t appear that anything of import was being kept here in this room with its soaring ceilings and open vistas. Save the girls, Reese thought. They weren’t paralyzed, like the Holy Father’s victims, but they were prisoners, he had no doubt. But there was nothing here to photograph: no bricks of cocaine, no bound trafficking victims. They had to keep searching, and that meant getting to the staircase, which was in plain view of everything.

They’d have to subdue the men here. Quietly, Fox had stressed. He could do anything quietly. It was the subdue part of it he didn’t like.

Ten caught his gaze and gestured toward the kitchen.

Reese nodded and slid that way; his boots were well-oiled, his steps precise and slow, and he made no sound as he glided into the kitchen, right up behind the man still looking through the fridge.

He was short, and heavyset, his bare arms covered with tattoos: Reese got a glimpse of one in detail, a topless woman with hands folded and face lifted in prayer, the hilt of a knife protruding from between her breasts. A gold chain winked at the back of his neck, and more gold glimmered on his fingers, heavy rings set with gemstones, dulled by the blue light inside the refrigerator.

It would have been so easy to kill him. To put an arm around his throat and slide a knife into the other side. Messy, but silent, with Reese’s gloved hand clamped over his mouth.

He had his orders, though. Instead of a knife, he pulled a syringe, and it was only after he felt the bite of the needle that the man reacted. He slapped at the side of his neck, but it was too late, he was already going limp. Reese caught him, and laid him back across the tiles. The fridge door slapped shut above him.

Someone called out. “Hector?”

Reese stayed low, wondering. If anyone walked over to check, it would be a hand-to-hand situation, and their cover would be blown.

“Hector?” the man called again, but there were no approaching footfalls.

Reese pulled a zip tie and secured the man’s hands; tied a bit of rag around his mouth to act as a gag. Tape would have been better, but tape would have made too much noise.

Noise that wouldn’t have mattered, because a moment later, he heard a shout, a curse, a scream, and the unmistakable sound of someone getting kicked in the face.

Reese stood and turned in time to see Tenny landing on the other side of the couch, body tight with coiled energy. The man he’d kicked lay slumped over on the sofa, unconscious, nose gushing blood onto the white leather of the couch. The two women had thrown themselves to the floor – the source of the screaming – and cowered with their hands clapped over their heads.

One of the other men had a gun drawn, aimed at Tenny. Tenny disarmed him with a lightning fast strike; the man shouted when the blow hit his wrist, his hand spasmed, and the gun dropped to the carpet. Tenny moved too fast for normal comprehension, gliding in close before the man could recover. Reese saw the light glint off the brass knuckles he wore before the punch connected with the gunman’s temple. He went down like a sack of hammers.

The third man had a gun, too, though, and he was a good five strides away from Tenny.

Reese took off at a run.

The crack of the shot echoed in the vast space.

Tenny shuddered, and fell back a step, as the round caught him in the chest – in the Kevlar vest he wore beneath his hoodie. It would bruise, and it would hurt, later, but the gun was a nine-millimeter, and it hadn’t penetrated.

The second shot never sounded, because Reese reached the man, and clubbed him over the back of the head with his own gun.

“You could have just killed him,” Tenny said, watching him drop, massaging his chest where he’d been hit. “The whole house will have heard that.”

He heard door slamming, shouting, and the pounding of feet up on the balcony.

Reese shot Ten a fast glare, before they were set upon. “You weren’t supposed to engage anyone unless absolutely necessary.”

He shrugged – and then winced. “I got bored.”

~*~

The garage was empty – of people. But full of wooden shipping crates, neatly stacked on pallets, bound with plastic tarps, all ready for transport. By the time Fox had cleared the space – and it was massive, with room for four cars and a whole wall of cabinets and storage space – Eden had pulled back a tarp and was examining the lid of one crate in her flashlight’s beam, frowning to herself.

Fox plucked a crowbar off the wall and joined her. “Here. Let me.”

“Ooh, how chivalrous.”

He grinned. “Can it, you.”

She chuckled.

Holy shit, they were having fun.

Fox knew the urge to laugh – that scarce tickling in his chest that never accompanied the sort of laughter he used for effect around the clubhouse. A giddiness.

Right here, right now, the shadow of Devin Green was very small and far away, and he was being useful, employing all the skills that were his own – his, and no one else’s, because he’d earned them, learned them, perfected them. He was the him who Eden had fallen for years ago, and then again only months ago, and he didn’t feel even a little restless, not at all.

The wood was new, and so were the nails that had been used to secure the lids; it was only the work of a moment, and pressure in the right place, to pry them out with the crowbar. The lid came off with a few quiet shrieks of clean metal, and then Eden pawed away the packing straw and let out a low whistle. Cocaine, bricks and bricks of it.

“They’re not even trying to dress it up like something else,” Eden whispered.

“They’re cocky,” Fox said. “They…no, they’re confident. You’d have to be the stupidest criminal alive to be this cocky. They know it won’t be a problem.” He frowned, considering, and pulled out one of the topmost bricks. The question is, why?”

“Nothing about this whole case makes any sense,” Eden groused. She pulled out her phone and started snapping pics.

Fox opened the brick with one of his knives, and rubbed a bit on his gums. In the past, the Chupacabra product being moved through Texas had been cut with everything from baking powder to confectioner’s sugar, but this was the good shit. He used his knife to scrape some into a baggie he’d brought for the purpose, and then replaced it, the straw, the lid, and tarp.

The flash on Eden’s phone continued to go off as she moved through the garage, snapping photo after photo.

“So,” Fox said, stepping back from the crates, surveying the rest of the spotless floor. It didn’t look like a car had ever been parked here, though that might have been owed to the epoxy and sealant. He’d never understand the trouble rich people went to in order to beautify even the most necessary and unbeautiful of spaces. “The cartel trucks the coke up from Mexico, stores it here, and then hires out private trucking companies to take it deeper into the country.”

“According to what we’ve found so far.”

“Gilliard’s in on it,” Fox said, and knew it in his gut.

“Or his place is just convenient.”

“No, no, that’s not it. Why not buy up a plot of empty land and build a warehouse? This place, lit up like a Christmas tree, is conspicuous as hell. A well-known local doctor’s estate? There’s a reason for that.”

She sent him a questioning look.

“I’m still figuring that part out.”

She pocketed her phone. “All of it stinks,” she said. “This isn’t shaking out like any drug case I’ve ever worked. We’re missing something.”

“Obviously.”

From inside the house, he heard the crack of a gunshot.

~*~

Reese ducked down behind the sofa as gunshots zipped overhead. He heard rounds strike the marble on the fireplace. One of the huge windows shattered, the glass tinkling musically as it rained down on the floor. This was why he hated Tenny. This going off book, reckless, stupid behavior.

“Are you bored now?” he snarled, surprised by the venom in his tone.

Tenny was surprised, too, if his lifted brows were anything to go by. “No,” he said, simply. “Stay here if you’re afraid.” And he stood, gun in hand, and vaulted back over the couch, returning fire.

I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

Reese didn’t work like this, normally. He was the one who got the drop on people, who had the upper hand, not the other way around. Tenny was being flashy – why? To show off? To prove something to Reese? Or was it really a matter of boredom?

It didn’t matter. Right now, Tenny was providing a target for their assailants, and he meant to take advantage of it.

He tucked and rolled out from behind the couch, toward the kitchen, away from the broken glass. Got his feet under him, and took up a position behind an end table carved from heavy marble. The lamp that had been on it lay in shards on the floor, and its cleared top gave him a good view of the gallery above. Three men at the rail, two barreling down the stairs, on a collision course with Ten.

He considered, in the span between breaths. That’s what an effective killer did – thank you very much, Tenny – considered, in moments like these, who to kill first. Two quick shots would take out the men rushing at Tenny, and buy him some time, since he was flying in like he meant to go hand-to-hand rather than shooting them like he ought to.

But that would draw the attention of the men on the gallery, shooting now with wild inaccuracy and gouging big chunks in the floors. Them, he decided; he’d go for them, and let Tenny deal with the mess he’d thrown himself into.

One breath. Analysis, and on the next inhale, he aimed, fired, and dropped the first of the gallery thugs.

Clean center-of-mass shot. He wouldn’t be getting back up.

One of his companions let out a startled sound and glanced toward the dropped body, then swung his head around, searching for the source of the shot. The movement threw off Reese’s aim, and his shot caught the man in the throat. A messy gout of arterial spray fanned up the wall as the man fell back against it and slipped down out of sight.

He had to duck, then, as return fire chipped the top of the marble table. He wished he had his rifle; he always preferred to be in possession of the stronger gun in tight situations.

He heard the muffled thumps of impact, a pained grunt that definitely wasn’t Tenny. Heard a gun go skidding across the floor. The show-off.

He popped up, and took aim at the third man on the gallery, who’d turned his attention, mistakenly, to the fight happening at the base of the stairs. Reese took him with a clean torso shot, already glancing away before he’d fallen.

One of Ten’s assailants was down and either dead or unconscious. Ten grappled with the other one, to Reese’s surprise.

This was a big man, heavily-muscled, athletic, and aggressive, and not the sort of gang hanger-on just looking to drink and fuck and spend the boss’s money. This was a bodyguard of some sort; someone with some proficiency – and was taller and heavier than Ten besides.

Tenny delivered a sequence of sharp blows and karate chops to all the right areas, but though the man grunted and grimaced, he didn’t go down.

Reese looked for a shot, but couldn’t find one: they were too close, too intertwined. He couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t hit Tenny – not that the idea gave him much worry, but Fox might not like it.

Tenny punched his combatant in the throat, finally, and the man bent forward at the waist with an ugly choking sound. Tenny kicked him in the crotch, and then kneed him in the forehead. He slumped over and landed in a boneless, crumpled heap at the base of the stairs.

Tenny lifted his head, then, chest heaving as he caught his breath, hair askew, his lip split. He met Reese’s gaze across the room, licked the blood off his lip – and grinned. So suddenly, and so widely that it startled Reese. He’d seen Ten smile, and smirk, plenty by now. But it was always a crafted expression; part of a repertoire he deployed to please or antagonize or fool whoever he was speaking to. This, though, looked real. He was looking at the real Tenny – whoever he was – for the first time, he felt.

And then Tenny’s neck erupted in a shower of red spray.

Reese was used to things happening quickly; he’d been trained to think in slow, logical, complete sentences in the pulses of silence between the thumping of his heart; in the gaps between breaths. It was a kind of slow motion he hadn’t known how to describe until Aidan had forced him to watch all those silly action movies that got nearly everything wrong about the kind of work he did.

But this seemed to happen fast. Very, very fast. Blood fountained, spraying the wall, spraying up across Tenny’s face – which wasn’t smiling anymore, but was slack-jawed, his blue eyes huge. Ten was reaching for his throat, for the hole in the side of it, as he fell backward, and landed gracelessly on the marble, half-across one of the bodies he’d dropped.

The gunshot came after that, a sharp crack that echoed off everything, and vibrated up through the floor.

Gunshot. Shot. He’d been shot.

Reese’s brain leapt, sluggish a moment, but then he whipped his head around, looking for the gunman. He was up on the gallery, had just stepped out of a door there, and held a gleaming .45 in one hand. Reese saw the mother-of-peal grip, the lines of engraving on the barrel. An obnoxious showpiece of a gun where something matte and stainless would have been so much more efficient.

He catalogued the man, a quick reflex. Early twenties, black shirt, long black hair tied back, features that anyone would have labeled as “handsome,” though that sort of thing had always left Reese befuddled. Flash of expensive metal on his wrist, at his throat, diamond in his ear.

He turned to look at Reese – who lifted his own gun – then winked, and stepped backward through the door he’d come out of.

Reese had two options. Rush up the stairs, burst through the door, and take him into custody – or kill him, a persistent voice in the back of his head urged.

Or he could go to Ten.

He jumped over the table, crossed the room, and knelt at Tenny’s side.

He was alive. He had both hands over the wound in his throat, blood gushing between his fingers, pooling on the white marble floor beneath it. It freckled his face, and was soaking into his clothes. The round hadn’t pierced his windpipe, but he breathed in jagged gasps anyway, already pale from blood loss. His eyes were huge, and feral, his pupils shrunk down to pinpricks. He was bleeding out – he was alive for now, but he wouldn’t stay that way.

Reese set his gun on the floor, dug another bit of rag out of his pocket, and batted Tenny’s hands away from the wound.

Tenny gasped. “Don’t–”

“Stop. I have to control the bleeding.” He flicked the gloved fingers away – already weakening – and plugged the rag neatly into the hole in the skin. Wrapped both his hands tight around it and the side of Tenny’s throat and squeezed.

Tenny closed his eyes and hissed through blood-flecked teeth.

Reese could feel his pulse against his palms, irregular, wet beats, even through the gloves.

Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.

He heard footsteps – two sets – running up behind him. Reaching for the gun he’d set aside would have meant letting go, would have meant Tenny bleeding out.

Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.

Though they were both about to die, probably, once–

A hand landed on his shoulder, and Fox popped in right next to him.

“Shit,” he murmured, without any real feeling. “Carotid?”

“Nicked it, maybe,” Reese said, muscles in his torso unclenching though he’d been unaware of tensing up. “It’s a graze. He’s lost a pint-and-a-half, maybe.” On the next stutter of Ten’s pulse, he saw a faint seepage of crimson between his gloved fingers. “Still bleeding, but slowing.”

“Christ,” Eden murmured on the other side. “You got the shooter?”

“No. He’s upstairs. Second door on the right.”

“I’ll check,” Fox said. “Help him.”

“Right,” she said. To Reese: “Here, I’ve got tape and some cloths. Let’s get him bandaged up.” She swore. “I’ll have to call an ambulance, but there’s nothing for it.”

Tenny cracked his eyes open, just blue slits, his gaze unfocused.

“Don’t die,” Reese told him.

“Copy that,” Ten said, weakly, and passed out.

Thirty-Five

Fox wasn’t sure how he felt about watching his newest brother being loaded up in the back of an ambulance, unconscious, nearly dead, his throat swaddled with cloths and duct tape, but it wasn’t a positive emotion, he knew. Eden sent him one last look from inside the back, as the EMT with her bent over Tenny. She offered him a tight smile, an I’m okay smile, before the driver slammed the doors and went around to the front.

Beside him, Reese fairly buzzed with tension, a live-wire crackle that probably no one else could feel, but which Fox felt in the raised hairs on the back of his neck.

Fox sent him a quelling, authoritative look – cool it – and then turned back to Cantrell. “If you’re hoping for some sort of denial or cover-up, you’re shit out of luck, mate. We infiltrated.” Candy might have handled it differently, but Candy wasn’t here, was presumably stumbling out of bed, cursing, and tugging on jeans. So. Fox would handle it all how he saw fit.

“Fuck,” Cantrell muttered, checking over both soldiers. He looked harried, overwrought, and very typical, Fox thought, of an overworked fed. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Perhaps start arresting known Chupacabra allies?”

Cantrell gave him a dark look.

“Just a thought. Anyway, there’s a shit-ton of cocaine in the garage, and files and files of probably important information in the master bedroom. Gilliard is there. I trust you found him.”

“Tied to a chair! What happened there?”

Fox shrugged. “I went up in pursuit of the shooter and found him like that, with tape over his mouth. The gunman got away, if you care.”

“Of course I care!”

“Based on the description, his name’s Luis, and he’s the boss’s son.”

Cantrell stared at him a moment. “How do you know that?”

“You have your sources, and I have mine. Mine spill quicker, if through less legitimate channels.”

Cantrell shoved a hand back through his hair and glanced away a moment, jaw working. He let out a long, slow breath.

Reese buzzed just behind Fox’s shoulder.

Finally, the agent turned back to him, gaze narrowed. “I saw you earlier. Out at the original crime scene.”

“Ah. Did Candy forget to introduce us?”

“Yes.”

Fox smiled at him. “Good.”

“Are you–”

“Tick-tock, agent,” Fox said. He clapped him on the shoulder and started to walk off, Reese following along behind him.

“Hey!”

He’d expected that. He paused, and glanced back over his shoulder.

“You can’t – you can’t do this!” Cantrell said, throwing up his hands. He looked one tie-tug and coffee away from being at the end of his rope.

“Do what?” Fox asked, all innocence, wrestling with another grin.

“This is official FBI business, jackass!”

“Then do your job, and I won’t have to.”

They’d come in one of the club vans, parked a half-mile down the road, and off to the side, around a stand of trees, in a shadow and out of sight. By the time they’d reached it, the flashing lights and fluttering tape of the scene at Gilliard’s place were well out of sight.

When they were well alone, Fox glanced toward Reese and watched him for a moment. The boy walked, as always, with his head held up, eyes shifting as he scanned their surroundings. Always alert, this one. He didn’t slouch, or saunter, or stuff his hands in his pockets, or affect casual the way that Ten did – the way Ten could. He hadn’t been wrong about Reese lacking artifice. No one had ever taught Reese to blend in, and so he walked with a predatory grace that was all about effectiveness.

Fox could read the tension in him, though. It persisted; an unconscious fluttering of his fingers down at his thighs, bare and pale in the moonlight because he’d stripped off his bloodied gloves.

“You did well tonight,” Fox said.

Reese’s gaze slid over, and held, but betrayed nothing, of which Fox approved.

“That bit at the end with Tenny was great – you saved his life. But before that, too. Ten was an idiot, but you did all the right things.”

“I failed to secure the target.”

“You prioritized,” Fox corrected. “Everyone has to in those sorts of situations. You decided to help Tenny, and I’m glad. Had I been in your position, I’m not sure I would have.”

Reese’s eyes widened the tiniest bit in shock.

“Don’t look surprised. I’m terribly mercenary when I need to be.”

“You–” Reese clamped his lips shut and glanced away; his throat jumped as he swallowed, the pale column of it limned in betraying moonlight. He was still every inch the automatic, perfectly trained weapon he’d been, but Fox could see the way emotions were beginning to edge his responses; long-buried humanity lifting to the surface like grease bubbles through formerly impenetrable dark water.

“Go on. Say it.”

A beat passed before Reese said, “He’s your brother,” in a very flat voice.

“Biologically, sure, but I’ve only just met him, and he’s a wanker. So. I’d have hurdled over him and gone for the gunman.”

Reese stared straight ahead as they walked, swallowing again.

“That troubles you, doesn’t it?”

No answer, but yes was writ in the flexing of his fingers, the tight fists that he opened with obvious effort.

“I’d ask you to explain, but you’re not very good at that, no offense, and I’ve already guessed it. You have a sister – she’s all you’ve had, for most of your life. There’s plenty you don’t understand – hell, there’s plenty I don’t understand: why do people get so worked up over china patterns and seat-warmers in cars? But you understand siblings. That’s sacred to you, isn’t it? Whatever the job, whatever was at stake, you’d drop everything and save your sister.”

Reese halted – it looked involuntary, the way his steps jerked and he pulled up short. He looked at Fox with narrowed, glittering, inscrutable eyes.

“You expected me to be the same. And you’re disappointed that I’m not.”

No answer.

Fox grinned at him, and it felt like a baring of teeth, like a snarl, but he relished it. “That’s my role in the club. Do you know why they call me when stuff like this needs doing? Why someone like Candy, or Mercy, or Michael McCall doesn’t handle it instead? Because I enjoy it. And because my emotions never get the best of me.

“That’ll be your role in this club, too. It’s good that you saved Tenny, it is. Good for your soul, and good for him, and good that I don’t have to explain how I got someone killed tonight.

“But it’s not good for the club. That’s not what we’re for.”

He turned and headed for the van. A moment later, he heard Reese’s footfalls following.

~*~

A bleary-eyed Candyman greeted them in the common room when they got back to the clubhouse. He and Fox settled down at a table, heads bent together in earnest discussion, Candy’s blond brows knitted over a gaze that Reese labeled worry mixed with desperation.

Reese thought he ought to stand behind Fox’s chair, ready for orders…but he didn’t want to do that. That was a strange feeling: wanting to go off, to get away, to not be with someone. On the ride back, he’d realized he kept opening and closing his hands, tightening them into fists until his knuckles cracked. He’d forced them open and it had taken an effort to keep them pressed flat to his thighs, especially when he found the damp patch on the denim there, the place where Tenny’s blood had soaked through.

Now, without asking permission, he passed through the common room and headed down the hall, slipped into his dorm room.

He’d forgotten it was a shared dorm, now, until he leaned back against the closed door and his gaze landed on the air mattress on the floor beside the bed. He let out a deep breath and stood there a moment, replaying what Fox had told him.

It had troubled him, and Fox had been right about why. He remembered a night in Colorado, music gratingly loud through the speakers, the clack of billiard sticks off balls at the pool table behind him, the stink of smoke, and spilled beer, and sweaty male bodies. Remembered Badger standing in front of him, Kris held before him, one hand curled around the chain hooked to her collar, the other tilting the knife at her throat, so the edge of the blade winked at him. Do what I tell you, or I’ll carve her up. She doesn’t have to be pretty to suck dick.

Before he realized the impulse, he’d pulled out his phone and turned to sit on the foot of the bed. He dialed, and it was only when he had the phone pressed to his ear, and the other end was ringing, that he wondered what he would say. How could he put the thorny tangle sitting in his chest into words? He’d never had cause to express himself before – had never really had anything to express in the first place.

After four rings, Mercy picked up. “’Lo?” He sounded rough, and slurred, and – oh. It was just after five in the morning in Tennessee.

A bolt of coldness shot through Reese’s insides. He shouldn’t have called. Shouldn’t have bothered. “I woke you up.” His voice sounded like it always did, though he imagined it wavered; that Mercy would be able to hear his doubt.

“Well, yeah, but.” Mercy cleared his throat, and his voice sounded smoother. “I was gonna get up in like a half-hour anyway. What’s up?” He sounded friendly, even freshly-awakened. He had this way of talking, this way of acting like he wanted to know someone’s answer.

“I,” Reese said, and stalled out. He didn’t do this. He didn’t make personal phone calls. Kris called him, sometimes, but she did all the talking, and he said yes and no when asked a direct question.

From the other end of the line, he heard rustling, a murmured voice in the background – feminine, sleepy, Mercy’s wife, Ava. Mercy murmured something back, mouth too far from the phone for Reese to make it out, then there was more rustling, and the sound of a door shutting. “Hey, you okay?” Mercy asked, voice echoing. In the bathroom, Reese deduced; all the porcelain made for strange acoustics.

“Yes. Fine.” He glanced down at the floor; there was blood on his shoes, too, gummy smears of it against the worn black leather.

“Hmm. You don’t sound fine.”

“I am.”

“Nah.” He sounded fully awake now, his voice warm the way it was when his eyebrows went concerned. Reese could picture him frowning at the wall, absently rubbing at his arm with his free hand. “You definitely sound like something’s got you bothered. You wanna tell me about it?”

Reese lifted his head, startled yet again. How many things were going to happen tonight to freeze his normally-logical thoughts in their tracks?

“Reese?”

He swallowed. “You didn’t ask about the club.”

“What?”

“You didn’t ask if something was wrong with the club.” His pulse throbbed, and he was suddenly aware that he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in hours, that he needed to rectify that soon. “You asked if there was something wrong with me.”

Mercy was silent a beat, and then chuckled. “Well, the club didn’t call me at five a.m., you did, so I figure it’s you I needed to ask about.”

Huh.

“I know I run my mouth a lot,” Mercy continued, “but I’m a damn good listener when I try. Something on your mind?”

It continued to amaze him, even months and months after first landing in Knoxville, the way the people there kept asking him to talk. Kept wanting to listen to him. It was the strangest thing he’d ever encountered in his life.

He wasn’t good at it yet, talking. Relaying information in a way that held meaning for other people. But he was getting better, he thought. More human, a small voice in the back of his mind chimed in.

There were ways to introduce certain topics of conversation. Kris kept trying to tell him that, her gaze earnest and worried – but Ava had waved and said, “Nobody around here’s got an ounce of tact, so don’t worry about it. You can’t shock me.”

“He’s a blurter,” Maggie had said, smiling. “Doesn’t beat around the bush. I like that.” She’d looked at Ghost, then, who’d thrown up his hands and made one of those grumbling comments about “women this” or “women that” Reese didn’t get.

He supposed he blurted when he said, without preamble, “Tenny got shot tonight.”

“Shit, is he dead?”

“No. I stopped the bleeding.” His pulse slowed, remembering. He’d stopped the bleeding. Tenny was still alive when they loaded him on the ambulance. This he could do: give a mission report. No finesse, no social skills required, just the facts. “The wound was a through-and-through, at the very edge of his throat. .45 caliber. It only nicked the carotid.”

“Shit,” Mercy said again. “You did good, then. Who shot him?”

Reese listed off the physical attributes of the shooter, from the hair, to the earrings, to the ridiculous gun. “He matches the description several of our witnesses gave for a man named Luis. He’s the son of the Chupacabra boss.”

“Little prince charming, huh?” Mercy said. “And he winked at you?”

“Yes.”

“It was a message, then. A power play. He wanted you to know that he could have done a lot worse, but he didn’t. He didn’t mean to kill him.”

“I don’t understand,” Reese said, and heard frustration enter his voice.

“I know, kiddo. I don’t get it either – the way people gotta be jackasses toying with each other. It’s a lot easier to just bash heads in and get it over with, all out in the open.”

That was why Mercy was his favorite.

“So I take it things just got even more complicated with the cartel out there.”

“I guess.”

“Did you tell Fox? About the winking I mean. He’ll need to know all the details.”

“I told him.”

“Uh oh.”

Reese waited for an elaboration, frowning to himself.

“What’d Fox do to set you off?”

His pulse leaped again, a lurch and then a race. He hadn’t – Fox hadn’t…but that’s why he’d called, wasn’t it? Because he was…angry. Yes, he was angry.

“How’d you know?” he asked.

“Your voice. You sounded like you wanted to strangle him,” Mercy said, not without sympathy.

Reese took a deep breath – no doubt Mercy could hear it on the other end, and that was so unlike him, so discomposed and emotional and foreign. But he didn’t think he could help it right now.

As usual, nothing came out of his mouth the way it should have. “I hate Tenny.”

Mercy snorted. “Gee, I couldn’t tell.”

Sarcasm. Reese was learning to read it in others, even if he couldn’t deploy it.

“I hate him,” he repeated, and felt his face heat, afflicted again – still – with that useless emotion. It was tempered, now, though, by something else. Something bitter that made it difficult to swallow. “He doesn’t follow orders, and he put the whole op at risk tonight because he was bored.”

Mercy chuckled. “Sounds like Fox, honestly.”

Reese couldn’t stop the growling sound that built in his throat. He tried to swallow it, not understanding it at all, but Mercy must have heard it, because he made an inquiring sound in response.

“Well, not just like him,” he amended. “Fox doesn’t ever risk the op – not without a good reason. What’d he do to piss you off?”

You’re angry, he remembered telling Badger once, an observation.

I’m fucking pissed off!

He’d never thought of himself as being such. His chest felt tight, so he took a deep breath. “It’s Ten’s fault he got shot. He went down, and I saw the shooter, and – I went to administer medical care.”

“Ah. Instead of going after the shooter.”

“Yes.”

Mercy hummed; he did that when he was considering things; his mouth always screwed up a particular way, and he glanced at the sky or the ceiling, whichever was overhead. “You feel guilty because you should have gone after the shooter.”

“He had to go out an upper story window to escape, which would have taken time. I could have caught up to him. He wasn’t as fit as me.”

Mercy chuckled. “There is something nice about somebody being as honest as you.” One of those statements that always left Reese frowning as he tried to understand. Sarcasm? Sincerity? It sounded warm.

Then he grew serious. “Listen, kid, you did the right thing.”

“I could have apprehended Luis.”

“Yeah, maybe. Or maybe he would have shot you, or maybe you would have tripped going up the stairs and fallen flat on your face. You can’t know for sure that you would have gotten hold of him. But you can know that, if you hadn’t helped him, Tenny would be dead now. That was the only certain thing in that situation: that Tenny was going to bleed out if you didn’t do something.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t thought of it that way.

“I know you hate him, but do you wish he’d died?”

He thought of wrapping his hands tight around the wound, of Tenny’s eyes, big and pale, begging. And of his own internal begging: don’t die, don’t die, don’t die. “No.”

“He’s not patched in yet, I know, and who’s to say if he ever will. Or you, for that matter. That’s not me pushing you one way or the other, by the way. You guys aren’t like any kinda prospects we’ve ever had around here. Whether you choose to become full-fledged brothers is gonna be just that: a choice. But you’re definitely friends of the club.”

“Assets,” Reese corrected.

“Friends of the club,” Mercy insisted. “You’re part of the family now, in more ways than one. That makes Ten your brother. You were in a situation that went south, and you chose to save your brother. Whatever anyone else would have done – whatever anyone says you should have done – that was the right choice.”

The skin at the back of Reese’s neck prickled. Fresh anger washed through him, remembering his conversation with Fox, but relief, too. Mercy was the Dog he respected above all the others. If Mercy said he’d done well, then maybe he had.

“What did Fox say?” Mercy asked, voice hardening.

“He said he would have gone after the shooter.”

“Hm.”

“Tenny’s his brother.”

“Yeah, which is why I don’t believe what Fox told you for a second.”

Reese lifted his head and was met with his own reflection in the dressing table mirror. The grease paint had smudged in places, revealing streaks of pale skin beneath. He was all eyes and wild hair like this, gaunt as a skull. “You don’t?”

“He’s testing you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Fox is fucked up. But there’s some things even a total shithead like him hold precious, and his siblings are one of them. He might hate Tenny, too, but he would have saved him. You did the right thing,” Mercy said again. “He’s pushing you. Don’t be afraid to push back.”

Mercy yawned audibly, then, and Reese apologized for waking him.

“Don’t be. Call anytime, okay? I mean that.” He was told to be careful, to stay safe, and sent Ava’s love – whatever that meant – and then he hung up and set the phone aside on the bed.

He stared at his reflection another moment, this time noting the flecks of blood on the collar of his t-shirt: Tenny’s blood.

He needed sleep. His body was a vehicle that needed fuel and rest, and if he didn’t catch a few hours now, he would be less alert when dawn finally broke. There was much to do, still; it wasn’t a matter of if he’d be sent back out, but when.

He didn’t want to lie down, though. Couldn’t imagine finding his way to sleep, adrenaline still chasing through his veins. Adrenaline, and something else, something steely and stomach-tightening that left him wanting to kick his chin back and tell someone to…well, whatever it was you told people when you were angry with them. When you were pissed off.

He went to the bathroom to wash off his paint, and to think about what it would mean to push back.

Thirty-Six

Fox gave Candy a full report and then headed to the hospital. Candy, still rubbing sleep from his eyes – and with a very distinctive necklace of red marks around the base of his throat – made noises about sending someone with him, but Fox waved him off. “Tell Albie what’s happened when he crawls out of his love nest.”

Candy snorted.

“I’ll be in touch.”

A patrol car was parked in the hospital lot, when he arrived, and he spotted the two uniforms who’d climbed out of it straight off – standing behind a brown unmarked cruiser, talking to a young guy with a cheap suit and expensive sunglasses – the latter pushed up on his head, more for effect than anything, because the sun was still just a line of blush along the horizon. The police had come to interrogate a shooting victim, by rote – and been waylaid by the FBI. Perhaps there was hope for Cantrell yet.

Tenny was in the ICU. Fox had to be buzzed in, and found his brother in a glass-walled room, hooked to all sorts of monitors, neck wrapped up like a Christmas present.

Eden sat in a chair beside the bed, slouched down deep in its seat, temple propped on a fist. She shifted upright when the door shushed open, gaze instantly alert, though the shadows beneath her eyes gave proof to her exhaustion.

“Has he been awake?” Fox asked, moving to stand beside the chair, dropping a hand to the back of her neck and massaging lightly with his fingertips in the way he knew she liked.

She tipped her head back, so her cheek rested on his forearm, and let out a deep breath. “When they first wheeled him in. He was pretty out of it, though. Mumbling to himself.”

He caught her gaze and lifted his brows in question.

“Something about ‘target escaped.’ We’re lucky it was only that.”

“Lucky the little idiot’s not dead.”

“That, too.” She sighed and pushed to her feet. Fox put out a hand to steady her, but she didn’t wobble. Not his girl, never. She put her hands on the small of her back and stretched with a grimace. “Christ. Coffee?”

“In a minute. I’ll sit with him a bit.”

“Okay.” She leaned in for a kiss – he’d thought it would be a quick peck on the cheek, but she went for his mouth, and he cupped her cheek and drew her in closer. Warm slide of lips, and a hint of tongue. When she pulled back, her eyes sparkled with a promise of later. Because he wasn’t the only one who got off on work. “I’ll just be down the hall at the lounge.”

“There’s a fed down in the parking lot. I expect he’ll be headed up soon.”

“Ah. I’ll waylay him a bit.” The door rushed open, and she slipped out.

When she was gone, and the door was shut again, Fox dragged her chair over closer to the bed and dropped down into it. Put his boots up on the edge of the bed, mindful of the wires.

Fox had never thought of Tenny as a lively person – because he wasn’t. He could play at lively, just like he could play at sultry, or friendly, or dangerous. He could be a bad boy, or a frightened young person, or a stone-faced killer. He could be anything, just like Fox. Seeing him still like this, pale from blood loss, in a hospital gown, with IVs in the backs of both hands, wasn’t jarring. Not the way it would have been to see so many others brought low by injury. This could have been another part; a little makeup, some fake machines, the whole playing-dead routine. Another act for a master craftsman in the art of deception.

But the sight of him like this stirred…something…in Fox’s chest.

With his eyes shut – that treasonous Devin blue – it was easier to examine the rest of him; examine him for what he was. A handsome kid with a devil’s heart, and a brain built by a government.

The wealth of a nation’s secret funding and training slowly giving way to anger, confusion, frustration, hormones, and the grief of displacement.

“She’s gone,” Fox said. “You can quit pretending to sleep.”

Tenny’s eyes snapped open at once, bloodshot, glassy, but he was very much awake, and had been for some time.

“Have a good nap?”

Pain marked his face when he swallowed, and Fox knew it wasn’t an act. He had a feeling he was seeing the real Tenny for perhaps the first time, and wasn’t sure if he was glad of it.

Ten’s voice was a rough scrape, nearly airless. “Does she know?”

“Know what?”

“That you don’t love her.”

Fox sent him his most charming, over-the-top smile, the one he’d flashed at Cantrell earlier in the night. “You don’t think?”

“I know you don’t.” His jaw clenched, which caused his bandages to twitch, and his eyes watered from the pain. He didn’t back down, though, the stubborn sod. “You’re just like me. You don’t love. You’re using her. When she’s no longer useful, you’ll cut her loose.”

“Well,” Fox said, tilting his head in concession. “It does have its perks, you know, the whole steady girlfriend thing. Easier to get laid. Always someone there to kiss your hurts after a long day. It can be tedious, too, don’t get me wrong. Having to have dinner, and drinks, and remember birthdays. Bring her flowers and presents. A whole lot of bother,” he said with a wave. “What do you think she’ll do when I end it?”

The corners of Ten’s mouth hitched up in a cruel little smile. “Cry, probably. Maybe slap you.”

“Probably.” He touched his face, imagining it. She wouldn’t hold back. Would hit hard – if she ever hit him. If she didn’t just curl her lip in disgust and walk away, cool as you please, like she’d already done once before.

Beyond the room’s single, high window, the sky was growing pink. He hadn’t slept all night, but he didn’t feel sleepy; the thrill of it all was still powering him forward, better than coffee.

When he glanced back toward the bed, he saw that Tenny’s eyelids had flagged to half-mast, drugs and exhaustion and blood loss threatening to pull him under. “Reese was furious with me.”

Ten’s brows lifted.

“When I pointed out to him that, in saving your sorry life, he let the shooter escape, he said you were my brother.” Fox shrugged. “I explained to him that I would have let you bleed out. It was the shooter I needed to catch. You’d gotten yourself into this mess all by your bloody self.”

Slowly, those dark brows lowered again, and Tenny’s face went very blank.

Gotcha, you little shit, Fox thought, smirking inwardly. “He was all indignant about it. ‘He’s your brother.’” He made air quotes, and put on a ridiculous imitation of Reese’s clenched-jaw look from before. “But I set him straight. Told him how it was. We don’t care about all that sentimental brother shit, do we? It’s about the job. If someone puts himself in a bad spot, that’s his problem. The job’s all that counts, right?”

Tenny hesitated a moment before he croaked out, “Right.”

“It isn’t like it would have mattered anyway, would it?” Fox continued, plucking at a spot of lint on his jeans, giving Ten a fleeting, disinterested glance – but cataloguing. Oh, he could see it now, that threat of emotion, wilder and more dangerous than it had been in Reese, still so foreign, glittering and poisonous as crystal meth lying out in plain daylight. “You hate it here, and you hate me, and hate Reese, and this club, and all of it, you’re just so bloody bored, right? We’re all incompetent, and your handlers, the people you really wanted to please, are all dead, and you don’t get to assassinate dictators or power brokers anymore, this is all just so pedestrian. A biker club? How far you’ve fallen, oh great Nameless One. Why even bother? Why not just end it all quickly, and go out in the middle of a fight, hm? How much easier it is to just–”

“Stop.”

“–stop caring about what you’ve lost.”

“Stop,” Tenny repeated, eyes wide, jaw trembling, breath rattling.

Fox let the boredom drop off his face. He’d looked in the mirror enough times over the course of his life to know what his real resting face looked like – mostly like Tenny’s did, like Reese’s did, when they were listening, and not putting on a front. That inhuman, predatory flatness. The sight of it alone had the last bit of color draining out of Ten’s face.

He pulled his boots down off the bed and sat forward. “It hurts, doesn’t it? Feeling useless? Feeling lesser? You were bred and raised for one thing, for one purpose; all that training, all those skills spoon-fed to you along with your ABCs, that was for your handlers, for the people who changed your nappies and taught you how to use a gun and convinced you that you weren’t a person at all – how could you be, people have names? – and that your sole reason for existing was serving them. And now they’re gone. They’re gone because of me, because of this club, and now you’re serving us, and it was all a lie, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t ask what? His whole body was trembling now, his jaw clenched tight, despite the pain it caused. The heart monitor pinged as his pulse accelerated. But the question was there in his gaze, alongside the hate. What was a lie? Even though he already knew.

“It turns out they weren’t God, were they? Just a bunch of fat old men too out of shape and clumsy to do the dirty work that you did. They didn’t care about you. You weren’t important to them. You weren’t saving the country or whatever bollocks they fed you your whole life. They could be beaten, and they were.

“Your contempt for Reese,” he pressed on, talking low, and fast, watching Ten’s nostrils flare, his gaze flicking back and forth, looking for an escape route. Ten’s hands were fists, now, the needles in the backs pulling against the skin; a bead of blood leaked out and ran down his knuckles. “That’s not about his skills or his training. It’s about the fact that, not long ago, someone offered Reese the choice to betray his masters and break free, and he took it, willingly. It’s about the fact that he isn’t furious every bloody second. He knows who he is, and he isn’t having a bloody identity crisis like you.”

Tenny bared his teeth. “You don’t–”

“I don’t know? Oh, I assure you that I do. You might be good – you might be fantastic – but you’re also young, and stupid, and hurting right now, and I’ve been at this a lot longer than you. You’re good, but I’m better, and if you’d stop acting like a goddamn moody teenager after a breakup, you’d see that and listen to what I tell you. Wouldn’t get yourself shot that way.”

He sat, unblinking, gaze fixed, and watched Tenny wrestle with himself another long, pained moment. Then all the tension bled out of him on a deep exhale and he closed his eyes – closed them tight, little lines at the creases. The part of Fox that wasn’t enraged at the boy felt sorry for him; he himself had never quite fit in anywhere, but Ten had been dropped straight into the deep end of the Real Person pool without a life jacket, and he was drowning. No amount of training in the world could prepare you for having feelings, something Fox knew well.

Fox sat back, and softened his tone. “Truth told, I’m still having some trouble lately. Learning about Dad.”

He waited, and after a moment, Tenny’s eyes cracked open, curious despite his best efforts.

Good, Fox thought, and restrained a smile. One that wouldn’t have lasted anyway, not while thinking about Devin. “I always knew he was a wanker – or, well, not literally, he was putting it somewhere, with nine – ten – children out there in the world. I hated him. I hated him because I loved him when I was a kid, but I could tell he never loved any of us.”

Tenny’s eyes opened a little further, and Fox couldn’t believe he was saying any of this out loud; he didn’t even allow himself to examine it so frankly in his head. It seemed necessary, though; he wasn’t playing in his own mental sandbox, but using his experiences to teach his brother a valuable lesson.

“I worshipped him when I was little, you know? It was just me and Mum all the time, my mates at school, and their fathers were all getting beer guts and worrying about the stock market and spending all weekend in front of the telly watching football. I used to want that – God, did I. To have a real dad, someone to take me down to the comics shop on weekends. A man of the house to–” He cut himself off, abruptly, his throat tight, keenly aware of Ten’s stare, now.

“I wanted to be like the other kids,” he said. “Normal. But then Dad would come waltzing in every few weeks, and Mum would get all giggly, and it was like he’d never left. He had this way about him, especially when he was younger – pulled every eye in a room. Winked at pretty girls, and smirked at everybody, and drew people to him. Magnetic. Tommy’s got the non-lethal version of that charm, and half the brains. Walsh’s got more of the real thing, though he doesn’t use it. A real waste, that. He could have been on my level if he’d ever bothered to play the game. I don’t really know where Phil came from, Mr. Responsibility. And Shane’s just soft. Raven, now – she’s wicked.” He grinned, thinking of his oldest sister. “And Chelle’s full-up of the Green blood. Albie…”

He caught himself again. His accent was getting thicker, less polished.

He sighed, and met Ten’s gaze head-on. “Albie’s the best of both worlds, I suppose. Normal. Makes furniture – for fun, I think. But he’s got a basement full of guns, too.”

Tenny looked close to fascinated.

“They’re all stupid, and they drive me nuts, and they can’t stand me, really, but they’re my family. They’re your family, too. Welcome to this fucked-up bunch, I guess.

“My point is, I wouldn’t have gone after the shooter. I would have saved your sorry ass same as Reese did, because whatever else you are, you are my brother, and that means something. If you’d stop being so angry all the time, it could mean something to you, too.”

Tenny stared at him a moment, then blinked and looked up at the ceiling. He winced when his neck stretched, but Fox knew he would have been the same way: sometimes the pain was a good reminder of one’s vulnerability and imperfection – of your humanity. “I was going to kill you,” he said, quietly, voice rough. “When we fought, in London.”

“No, because I was going to kill you, until I got a look at your eyes.” When Ten didn’t respond, he said, “Did you recognize who I was – who I had to be – straight off?”

Ten’s throat moved. “Yes.”

Fox didn’t ask if Tenny had still meant to kill him, once he figured it out. That was an answer that wouldn’t do either of them any good.

“Okay, so, look,” he said, back to business. “I figure the fed I saw downstairs will be barging in here any minute, flashing his badge and being stupid and tedious. Eden’s good, but she can only hold him off so long.”

At mention of Eden, Ten’s gaze snapped back toward him.

“Yeah, you got that one wrong, too, boyo.”

“You do love her,” he said, wondrously.

“One: have you seen her? Two…” He didn’t try to keep the fond smile off his face. “I’ve tried telling myself I didn’t for a long time, but it never sticks. She’s brilliant, and she kicks my ass.”

He thought Ten looked contrite.

“I’ve been saying this for weeks,” Fox continued, “but you haven’t listened so far. I expect you to listen now, and that’s an order. Until you settle down a little, you’re to think of me as your superior officer. I’m your handler, alright? You’re to do what I say, when I say it, and trust that I don’t give orders lightly or stupidly. Respect your elders – respect this club. It might not be a whole bloody government, but it does undertake some dangerous and important business. Are we clear?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir.” Tenny’s blue eyes glittered, but not with obvious defiance or malice. Eagerness, maybe. Fox hoped it was an eagerness to cooperate.

Scuffling, hurried footfalls sounded on the other side of the glass, and Fox turned as the door rushed open to reveal Eden, the agent, and a harried-looking nurse.

Sorry, Eden mouthed over the man’s shoulder.

The nurse said, “Sir, I told you the ICU is for family only–”

“It’s fine,” Fox said, standing. “The FBI’s like a bad rash: it’s not going to go away on its own. Let the agent stay and then we’ll all quit mucking up your ICU.” He flashed her his best grin.

She huffed in indignation, but she was flattered, a little, he could tell. She gave a tight nod, said, “Five minutes,” and then hustled on down the hallway.

Fox finally made eye contact with the man. Offered an elaborate gesture. “Won’t you come in, Agent…?”

“Maddox,” he clipped out, his movements stiff and agitated as he paced across the length of the room and moved to stand on the far side of the bed. He was on the younger side for an agent, and looked like he’d spent at least thirty minutes on his hair, his fine-featured face flushed with annoyance. Later, Fox planned on asking what Eden had said to him to get him so worked up, and then congratulate her on it.

He shot her a quick glance as the door slid shut. She had her arms folded, lips pursed, annoyed, but not upset.

Not like Agent Maddox. Who brushed his suit jacket back when he placed his hands on his hips, a flagrant means to show off the gun he wore at his hip.

It was an effort not to laugh.

“Alright,” Maddox said, bristling, chest puffed out, the works. “This is the second shot Mad Dog in–”

“Lean Dog,” Fox corrected.

“What?”

“Lean Dog. You know that,” Fox said calmly, “because Agent Cantrell must have said it a hundred times by now, but you think this is insulting, and you hate us, so you’re calling us the wrong thing on purpose.” He smiled. “Right?”

He looked between the three of them, fast jerks of his head, brows notched together so tightly they looked in danger of putting a permanent wrinkle there, between them. But then his expression eased a fraction, sliding more toward neutral resignation. He gave a little upward nod, chin-first. “You’re the jackass from the Gilliard scene, then. The one who left that big fucking mess to clean up.”

“Yes. You’re welcome.”

Maddox gave an incredulous cough of a laugh. “Didn’t think they’d stick the perp on bedside duty. You people are getting bold.”

“We people are the only ones who’ve gotten anywhere with this case. I’ll venture to say your boss – and don’t make that face, Cantrell’s running this, I can tell – knows that, which is why he’s told you not to arrest any of us. I saw you in the parking lot with the uniforms – thanks for sending them off, by the way.”

The agent’s jaw worked a moment. He flicked a glance Eden’s way. “I take back what I said: I’d rather deal with you.”

She smirked. “Too late, I’m afraid.”

He sighed, and stared at the polished toes of his shoes a moment, then lifted his head, determined now. Probably, Fox thought, he was a good agent by someone’s standards. “Okay, fine. Walk me through it. What happened tonight?”

“Why, so I can incriminate myself? Have you got your phone recording all this in your pocket?”

“I’d need a warrant for that.”

“Yeah, but we all know ‘by the book’ doesn’t really apply when it comes to my sort, don’t we?”

Maddox controlled his expression this time – carefully blank – though his hands tightened at his hips; his knuckles whitened.

Eden cleared her throat. “Come on and tell the poor man what happened so he’ll go away.”

“Excuse me?” Maddox asked.

Fox sent her his best disappointed look, and hoped she could see the way his eyes sparkled. The twitch at the corner of her mouth said she did. “Fine,” he said, turning back to Maddox. “Based on tonight’s op–”

“Op?” Maddox said, quietly, incredulous.

“We can tell that the cartel is using Dr. Gilliard’s home as a pick-up for their wider shipping needs. They’re getting the cocaine into the country somehow – and obviously sneakily enough that they should just truck it straight on to their wholesale locations – and then using this as a connection point.” He rattled off what Gwen had told them about the local trucking operations, and gave him a brief recounting of what the Holy Father had been up to with his scare tactics.

“Jesus,” Maddox swore.

“They’re going to a lot more trouble than they need to for all of this.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“The most likely answer is to frighten us. The Lean Dogs,” he clarified, when Maddox frowned. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Agent, but if the cartel wants to take bold steps into the United States, they know their main obstacle is going to be our MC. We’re the top dogs, no pun intended. They’ll have to wrest control of certain – market sectors – from us. They’ve tried going at us head-on in the past. This time, they’re taking a more creative approach, and my guess is that’s the work of one man in particular.” He described Luis to him. Based on Melanie Menendez, Gwen, Benny, and now Reese’s descriptions, he had a clear mental picture of the man at this point.

“You’re real full of yourself, huh?” Maddox asked, scrubbing at the back of his neck. He glanced toward the bed. “How’s he not dead?”

Tenny lay there staring at him, unblinking, face a pale mask of distaste.

“Just a lucky boy,” Fox said, and saw the fast dart of Tenny’s eyes come to touch him a moment, and then retreat. In more ways than one.

“Christ.” Maddox turned side to side, looking at the ceiling, executing a sequence of nervous twitches and reaches that painted a vivid portrait of a frustrated man about to say something at odds with all his training. “I don’t like this.”

“Getting that down for the record?” Fox asked, mildly.

“Fuck you. Keep taunting federal agencies like this, and you’ll slip one day and get locked up.” He looked momentarily delighted by the idea, before resignation took hold again. “But right now, it’s about the bigger fish I guess, so. Cantrell says you’ve all been cooperating, and that we have to cooperate, too, if we’re gonna catch these guys.”

Fox smiled again. “Excellent.”

Thirty-Seven

“I could get used to this,” Fox said, after they’d sent Maddox on his way. He and Eden walked side-by-side to the elevators; he’d slowed his pace to match hers, surprised that she wasn’t hurrying. “We get to do all the fun parts, and the badges roll in and handle cleanup afterward. It’s genius.”

She laughed. “It’s dangerous.”

“That’s why it’s fun.” He checked the time on his phone, and saw that it was nearly eight. If the clubhouse wasn’t already a kicked-anthill of activity, it soon would be. “Next, I suppose…” He trailed off when he realized Eden had stopped a few feet behind him. He turned back and found her standing with an unexpected amount of tension, her arms folded, feet braced apart, hips cocked, her eyes…

Oh. This was a particular kind of tension.

He felt his brows go up, even as his stomach tightened, and heat crackled along his nerve endings. “Really?”

“The second we get back to the clubhouse, it’s going to be nothing but work.”

“I’d bet good money that somebody found some time for a quick shag last night.”

“Charlie.”

He laughed. His smile felt delighted, true. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

She stalked toward him, her hips swaying, affected, but oh-so-effective, and there was nothing fake about the way her eyes glittered, her pupils already dilated. When she was close enough, she pressed a hand to his chest, and leaned in until their lips nearly touched. Whispered, “If you tell me you haven’t been raring to go since you kicked that guard in the face, you’re a dirty liar, Charlie Fox.”

The heat was unspooling, filling him up. A familiar stirring in the pit of his stomach. “I am a dirty liar, always, but you’re not wrong.”

She grinned, and grabbed the front of his cut. Didn’t have to tug on it, because he followed, hot on her heels, as she ducked into the alcove that led to the restrooms. She paused a moment at the split, looking up at the sign overhead.

“Your choice, love,” he said, and flicked his hand beneath the hem of her jacket in the back, traced his fingertips along the bare skin just above her waistband. Even that slight touch made her shiver.

She took a deep breath. “Right, well, I don’t want any blokes walking in on us.” She towed him through the swinging door into the women’s restroom.

She let go, then, and stalked forward, bending to peek under the doors, ensuring they were alone. When she turned back, her face was flushed, her lips already parted in anticipation, her breath quick.

Fox leaned back against the counter and watched her come to him, enjoying the view, half-hard already with vicarious excitement. She wasn’t wrong: he’d been simmering with want from the moment he took out the guard; from the moment up on the rise surveying the estate; from the second he saw her in all black, propped against his doorframe, assuming that she would come along, and knowing that she would be anything but a liability in a tight spot. She was beautiful, always, even when she played at cool and detached, but this was how he loved her: wild with the thrill of the chase, hot-blooded, and needy, and anything but shy. A woman who knew exactly what she was capable of, and not afraid to say exactly what she wanted.

The restlessness that coursed through him now was of the best kind.

He reached up and caught her, a hand at her shoulder and a hand at her waist, hauled her in the last distance as she went up on her toes and kissed him.

Her mouth was soft, and lush, and hot, and she slipped her tongue between his lips right away – not a shy flirtation, but a bold, insistent demand. Fuck me. Just like that, all thoughts of the club, and the cartel, and this strange case flew out of his head. There was only now, this moment, and Eden pressing up against him.

Her hands found the front of his shirt, and she gripped tight, tugging, stretching the collar, desperate. When he pushed back into the kiss, taking control, her neck went soft, her mouth open, receiving now. “Yeah,” she gasped, in the quick breaths between. “Yeah, Charlie, please.”

That – that tone, that voice, the way her nails scraped at him through fabric – was why random, anonymous sex with club groupies was so boring. Because like this, with Eden, he knew exactly what she wanted and needed, without being asked outright. He always had loved having a plan.

He found the zipper of her jacket with two fingers and she moaned into the next kiss. Drew it down, down, down, unfastened it, and her mouth was hot and wet, totally open to him.

He broke away to trail damp kisses along her jaw, down her throat, and slipped his hands beneath her shirt, a fitted black turtleneck, and push it up. Pulled the cups of her bra down and took her breasts into his hands, her nipples already pebbled.

“Ah,” she breathed, tipping her head to the side, giving him better access to her throbbing pulse point. She was so responsive like this. So eager.

She rocked her hips forward, grinding against the bulge in his jeans. He was fully hard now, high off all her little sounds and responses.

“Charlie,” she whimpered, as he sucked on her earlobe.

He gripped her waist, and spun them. The fact that she went – with a little sucked-breath, her hands spasming against his chest – was more than permission enough. She wanted him to take charge. He sat her up on the edge of the counter, pushed her thighs apart, and stepped between them. Fastened his lips to her throat, and tweaked her nipples between thumb and forefinger.

She hissed. Oh, she liked that. Tried to lift her hips, to keep them grinding together.

Fox moved his hands to her thighs, and squeezed, holding her still.

She pulled back, lids lowered, mouth open, pink, wet. “If you’re asking for permission…” she drawled, nearly slurring, her voice low and rough.

“When do I do that, darling?”

She arched, thrusting her chest toward him, invitation, plea.

He bent his head and took a nipple into his mouth as he unfastened her jeans. Ran down the zipper. Her skin tasted faintly of clean sweat, and it went straight to his head. He was so hard it hurt, now, desperate too; he needed to be inside of her, to play out this adrenaline rush that had started hours and hours ago.

She shifted her hips to help him work her jeans down, and he didn’t bother with her knickers – black and sleek, just like everything else she had on. He brushed them to the side and slid his fingers against her wetness as he shifted to her other nipple, drawing another sweet moan from her throat.

Here was a secret he’d never told anyone, but which he should probably tell her one day. Sex was generally good. Perfectly acceptable with strangers, a means of scratching an itch.

But he was a trained killer. He could master new skills, sure, but he was best in the areas in which he’d lots and lots of practice. He could get off with new lovers, but with a familiar lover – with a lover whose tastes he’d learned to suit – sex became necessary and electric. With Eden, it was like a favorite knife in his hand; like knowing the exact sighting on a much-loved gun. They knew each other, and their bodies knew one another, and it could just be good without the learning curve.

He parted her folds with deft fingertips, probed her entrance with a teasing press and found her clit with his thumb. The sound she made in response went straight to his cock.

“God, just get on with it,” she breathed.

He pressed a smile into her neck and pressed two fingers inside her silken, wet heat. “Patience, love.”

She leaned forward and took his earlobe between her teeth. “Charlie.”

“Right, then.”

The counter was a good height for this. He reached for his belt, and her hands joined his, uncharacteristically clumsy, shaking. He loved when she got worked up like this.

And when her hand closed on his cock, and he let out a sharp, unsteady breath, he had to admit he wasn’t in any better shape.

He hauled her to the very edge of the counter, and she guided him, and then, oh, yes, that was perfect, that first breach, the way her body welcomed his, familiar, but still so tight, still with that bit of resistance that squeezed all the air from his lungs.

She made another sound – she was so vocal this time – and, when he was fully-seated, arched backward. Her head thumped lightly against the mirror, the long, elegant line of her throat offered up like a banquet, nipples pink, and tight, and glistening from his mouth.

Look at her, he’d said to Ten, and it hadn’t been a joke.

He did look at her, just a moment, poised and straining on the edge of movement. She should have looked vulnerable like this, he thought, but she didn’t, she never head. She looked graceful, and gorgeous, and unapologetically hungry, low-lidded and dangerous as a cat.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her, unbidden. The words slipped out before he could think them, his voice jarringly rough, and honest.

She froze a moment, eyes widening in surprise.

They didn’t do this: say honest, personal things to one another. It was either all work, or banter, ribbing each other, or desperate need. There weren’t confessions; no soft words.

The way she stared at him, utterly still, her pulse fluttering in her throat, told him that, though she’d never asked for those things, maybe she liked them. Maybe wanted them…maybe needed them.

He felt a sharp clenching in his chest that had nothing to do with sex. So he leaned forward, and kissed her. Felt her lashes against his skin as her eyes fluttered closed. Pulled his hips back a fraction, and thrust forward.

They both groaned, lips pressed together, breath hot and close between them.

They were in public, and had to hurry, and there were a dozen things they needed to do when they left. But for now, they could have this.

And maybe in future she could have more, if he kept telling her she was beautiful.

Thirty-Eight

Axelle couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken up beside someone else. She had a fleeting thought that that was embarrassing, and then decided it wasn’t, because she didn’t want to think about other guys right now, only the one spooned up behind her, his arm a reassuring weight around her waist.

She lay there a few minutes, utterly content, listening to the sounds of the clubhouse waking up around them. As she blinked the sleep from her eyes, she saw that dawn was breaking, a faint silver light creeping in at the window, painting stripes across the wall she faced. The scent of coffee reached her, just a hint, but it grew stronger moment to moment.

Albie took a deep breath behind her as he came awake, his fingers flexing lightly against her stomach.

They would have to get up, and soon. If not, someone would doubtless come knocking. But she wanted to savor their last few minutes alone. Their only minutes of the first morning after.

Rolling over left her aware of all the tender, newly-sore places where she’d carry last night with her for the next few days, whatever they held. A good, gentle kind of pain, a pleasant reminder when things got scary – because she knew they would.

She settled on her side facing him, sliding her foot between his ankles, the roughness of his leg hair causing a friction against her own smooth skin that left gooseflesh pebbling up her legs. His eyes seemed to glow in the early light, an underwater blue full of darker striations. His face was marked with a crease from the pillow, his gaze still sleepy, contented. She noted the mark on his neck, the place where she’d nipped him with her teeth in the throes, when she’d been on her back and he’d been inside her, his hips pistoning…

Her belly filled with warmth, and her nipples pebbled, and dampness welled between her legs. All that, just from looking at him.

She bit her lip, feeling stupid, trying to school her features before he could guess where her thoughts had drifted.

One corner of his mouth hitched upward in a knowing smile. “Morning.”

That was all he said, but her cheeks warmed, and she knew she was blushing. “Morning.”

“You look awfully pleased with yourself.”

She laughed and groaned at once, and tipped forward to rest her forehead on his shoulder. His skin was soft there, warm and smooth. He smelled like soap and sex.

His hand settled at the back of her neck, thumb sifting through her hair to find skin, a proprietary side-to-side sweep that, for some reason, felt nearly as intimate as everything they’d done last night. There was no such thing as a casual touch between them, she was learning. Each bit of skin-to-skin contact sparked, weight and meaning – sometimes unwanted, for her part – imbued in even the briefest of brushes.

In a softer, more serious voice, he said, “Are you okay?”

She couldn’t stop the little purr that built in the back of her throat, as his thumb circled the knob at the top of her spine, drawing more pleasant shivers across her skin. “Much better than okay.”

“Promise?”

She lifted her head so she could meet his gaze – closer now. She could see the grain of morning stubble on his jaw, and the lines around his eyes and mouth, the evidence of too many years in the sun, on the back of a bike. His hair was a wreck, a glossy dark lock fallen over his forehead. It wanted to curl, now, after the pillow, after her fingers.

She was struck again by the thought that this was him. This was Albie, here with her, without even clothes to warp her perception. She knew that he was one of ten half-siblings, and a Brit, and a furniture maker, and a gun dealer, and a Lean Dog, and a criminal, but this was him, without all the trappings. This was the part of him that she got to see – that he let her see. It was an honor.

“Promise,” she said.

Relief touched his face, obvious and endearing. His hand closed on the back of her neck, and he leaned forward to kiss her.

A soft, thorough kiss, and Axelle didn’t mind their morning breath, or the rasp of stubble – that second part she liked, even. Slipped her arms around his neck and swam through the last bit of sheets so they were pressed together, front-to-front. She was a little shocked, though, at the thrill that surged through her, when her breasts landed against his chest. That slight contact phenomenon, again.

His tongue stroked hers, and it was hard to think after that.

Someone knocked on the door.

Axelle pulled back with a soft “fuck,” smiling at the absurdity of it. “I knew that would happen.”

He groaned, but he was smiling, too.

“Good morning!” Darla trilled on the other side of the door. “Breakfast will be ready soon, and it’ll go faster with helpers!” Her heels clicked down the hall, and Axelle heard her repeat the exercise at the next door.

Axelle stared at Albie. She hadn’t anticipated being dragged out of bed to help in the kitchen. “Is she kidding?” she hissed. “I don’t cook.”

He looked far too amused. “You cooked for me.”

“I heated shit up ‘cause I was trying to get laid.”

“Hmm,” he said, doubtful. “You don’t strike me as a sex on the first date kind of girl.”

She smacked his shoulder, and it made a satisfying sound. “You don’t know.”

His smile widened, flashing teeth now. “Yeah, I do.”

“Ugh, you suck.” She sat up, and started to turn.

He caught her wrist.

When she turned back to him, all traces of humor had left his face. He was earnest, now, and that sent a whole other kind of shiver rippling down her back. “It’s going to be okay, you know. We’re going to catch them, and everything will be alright.”

Six months ago, she might have resented that kind of platitude; it would have felt like being lied to, patted on the head, told to let other people – men – worry about the hard stuff. But that wasn’t what he was doing, and in the moment, her pulse already starting to pick up for reasons far less pleasant than last night, she read the words as an offering. A hope for both of them.

She didn’t say I know, because that would have been a lie. But she leaned down to kiss him one more time, to thank him for caring.

~*~

Michelle had been awake since Fox’s four-thirty a.m. phone call had set Candy’s phone to vibrating across the nightstand. She didn’t even mind that she was drinking decaf; adrenaline had kept her alert and bright-eyed better than coffee ever managed. She had the volume on the sanctuary TV set almost too low to hear, but when Jenny sat down next to her on the sofa, she bumped it up.

“…Officials still haven’t made a statement regarding this scene behind me at Dr. Gilliard’s home…” a field reporter was saying, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward the house, which was ablaze with lights against the pearly dawn, all roped off and circled by unmarked cars and SUVs and lab vans. Behind him, someone in an FBI windbreaker was ducking under the tape, and walking toward the camera, furious, waving white-gloved hands. “Oh, hold on, we’re being asked to leave,” the reporter said, eyes widening, and the camera angle shook crazily before the feed cut back to the local news desk.

“How do they always know to show up with their cameras?” Jenny mused.

“Someone tips them off,” Michelle said. She turned to her sister-in-law, question poised on her tongue.

Jenny said, “Colin just told me. Jesus. Are they alright?”

“Everyone but Tenny, and he’s in the ICU. He’ll be alright, Eden said.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

Michelle shrugged and turned back to the TV. “He’s kind of a dick, and I’ve never even really met him.”

On screen, the feed cut back to the field reporter, blurry, unsteady footage taken from a distance of a forklift backing out of Gilliard’s garage, loaded with a pallet of crates. “Right there, Bobby, get that shot!” the reporter’s voice said from out of frame.

“Where are the girls, though?” Michelle asked, thinking aloud.

“What?”

A rap sounded at the door, and both of them called “come in” together.

The door opened, and booted footfalls moved forward. Axelle said, “Oh, wow, you’ve got a whole apartment back here, kitchen and everything.”

Michelle scooted closer to Jenny on the sofa and patted the spot she’d vacated. Axelle sat down a moment later.

“You heard?”

“Albie had a text. That’s the house?” She nodded toward the TV.

“Yeah, the media are all over it,” Michelle said. “Eden said they found millions worth of cocaine in the garage.”

“Shit,” Axelle swore.

“But no girls.”

“Yeah, what girls?” Jenny asked, for the second time.

“Eden said Fox checked the whole upstairs. They found Dr. Gilliard tied to a chair, sitting in his own warm piss, but, unless the feds found them in one of the outbuildings and no one knows it yet, there weren’t any girls being trafficked through that house, and we know they’re trafficking girls, so there’s another location.”

“Gwen said they were doing it,” Axelle said, nodding. “But she could have been lying.”

“People like this, doing what they’ve done, why wouldn’t they be trafficking girls?” When Michelle glanced over, Axelle tipped her head in concession – and Michelle took her first good look at the other woman.

Her hair, scraped into a loose ponytail, was still damp, her face freshly-scrubbed and pink, without makeup. She’d clearly just had a shower, and still smelled faintly of coconut shampoo. She wore her own clothes, broke-down jeans and a fitted Ramones t-shirt under a flannel. An old pair of Nikes with pink soles that clearly didn’t belong to Michelle’s uncle. But the way her gaze shifted over, and her cheeks got pinker, she might as well have been wearing nothing but Albie’s shirt and a few hickeys.

“What?” She looked like she tried not to squirm.

Michelle grinned.

“What?” Jenny asked, too, and shifted forward to peer around Michelle’s shoulder. Then she chuckled. “Ah.”

“Oh, fuck that,” Axelle griped, blushing furiously. “You don’t know anything.”

Michelle chuckled into her coffee. “Don’t we?”

“No.”

“That’s a yes,” Jenny said, laughing.

Axelle grumbled something unintelligible and looked pointedly at the TV. She wasn’t frowning, though.

The door opened and closed again, and a moment later Eden strode around the couch so she was facing them. She propped a hand on her hip, and though her gaze was direct – a quick glance at the screen and then toward them – Michelle could see that she was running on pure adrenaline. There’d be a crash, eventually, but that was what caffeine was for.

“There’s coffee,” Michelle offered, by way of greeting, motioning toward the counter where the Keurig sat.

“Yeah, thanks.” She turned to sort through the array of pods.

“And your fly’s unzipped, by the way.”

Jenny and Axelle both stifled sudden snorts in their hands.

Eden went very still, hand poised with a K-cup in it. Then, slowly, she set it down, and zipped her jeans with a quick movement. Cleared her throat, and loaded the machine. “Right, so.” Mug under the spout, press of the button, and she turned to face them, arms folded. Her fly was zipped, and her expression gave nothing away, but a telltale pink flush darkened her cheekbones. “The girls.”

“That’s what I was just saying,” Michelle said.

“If y’all are gonna play Sherlock Holmes,” Jenny said, “like you’re so much smarter than us, it’s gonna get real old, real fast.”

Eden flicked a smirk. “We are British.”

“You’re annoying right now, is what you are,” Jenny said.

The smirk turned into a true smile – a tired one laced with the edginess of the hunt. Michelle felt an answering smile tug at her own mouth, and when Eden’s gaze flicked to her, they shared the barest of nods. They got it; they felt the same thrill. Axelle loved driving, that was her adrenaline rush, and Jenny would never shy away from whatever ugly or dark things the club required of her.

But it was different for Michelle and Eden. They thrived on this.

“It’s a guess,” Eden relented, resting her weight more fully against the edge of the counter. “An educated one. Organizations like the Chupacabras have been using human drug mules for years. Young people – innocent looking people. Girls, young women, young men. Sweet faces. You can’t send some big hulking, tattooed thug across with a fistful of balloons in his belly, because he’s under all sorts of suspicion anyway. But the young people, the sweet ones…and then, at the end of the line, after they’ve made their deliveries, they can’t exactly be turned loose, can they? So they sold them off to the highest bidders, or were kept on as pets. Then they realized you could sell flesh for just as much money as you could sell drugs.

“The cocaine we found at Dr. Gilliard’s wasn’t the piddling amount smuggled along in digestive tracts. It’s clean, and uncut, which means if they’re selling humans – and Gwen says they are – then they’re moving them separately.”

“Like I told Michelle,” Jenny said. “Gwen could have lied.”

Eden nodded. “Which means we need to question her again. And the other three.” She surveyed them all with a glance. “I expect the boys have something daring and bike-related in the works. I say they leave the talking to us.”

Michelle took another sip of decaf to keep from grinning like a loon. “Seconded.”

~*~

Fox was the last one in the chapel, a steaming mug and a lit cigarette balanced in one hand, the other holding a half-eaten piece of toast.

Candy fought to keep his knees from bouncing under the table. “That’s all of us that are here,” he said, reaching for his own coffee, glancing down both sides of the table. Reese had refused to sleep, so they’d sent him to the hospital with Gringo to keep watch. He now faced Colin, the twins, Talis, Blue, Cowboy, Albie, and now Fox, settling into his usual seat down at the end. Everyone wore some version of the same expression: tired, but wired.

“I just talked to Cantrell a few minutes ago,” he said, fingertips drumming on the tabletop. He had to move in some way, and it was either this or crack his knuckles. “He’s got Dr. Gilliard in an interview room and he’s not sending him on to the hospital until he spills his guts.”

“My money says he wasn’t just a hostage,” Blue said.

“Mine, too. We–”

A knock sounded at the door, and all heads whipped that direction, chairs creaking.

Nickel opened the door, the wireless handset for the landline held almost gingerly away from him, like it was a bomb about to go off. “Um,” he said, scanning their faces before settling his gaze on Candy. “He says his name’s Luis, and that you’ll want to talk to him.”

Mouths opened, breaths were drawn in.

Candy made a sharp motion, and mouthed shut up. A few chairs creaked, but no one spoke. His pulse beat high and fast in his ears, like right before a fight. Adrenaline bolted down all his veins. He swore, somewhere, a bell was dinging.

He did curl his hands into fists, this time, felt the old, reassuring crack of his knuckles; glanced briefly down at the old silver scars there, where he’d damn near broken his hands on men’s teeth – the teeth had broken, so many of them, scattered across the wet pavement like Chicklets.

He took a breath and reached for the phone. “Thank you.” His voice sounded remarkably calm. Everyone had always said that, before every back-alley brawl, every for-show match he’d fought at club parties: you look so calm. Like you’re out for a stroll.

But he’d felt hectic as a shaken beer inside. Fizzing and frothing, ready to inflict violence. He felt like that now. A feeling he tucked up his sleeve like an ace. Let me get my hands on you, he thought, as he took the phone. You won’t be winking at anybody then, Luis.

Nickel ducked back out, and Candy put the receiver to his ear. “Good morning,” he drawled, laying his accent on extra thick.

“Good morning.” The accent on the other end of the line was light and elegant, faintly Spanish. “Am I speaking with Derek Snow?”

“In the flesh.” Every eye in the room was trained on him, his boys still and unbreathing as statues. Only Fox looked bored, but that was affectation born of long habit. His eyes were interested. Candy almost thumbed it over to speakerphone, so they could all hear, but in the next second was glad he hadn’t.

“Yes, it would seem I am. I thought you might try to get one of your Dogs to impersonate you, but it’s really you, I can tell.”

Tension streaked down Candy’s spine, like a guitar string being plucked. His voice stayed even. “How do you know my voice?”

A chuckle, low and smooth as velvet. “I have my ways.”

Whatever his face was doing, it caused Fox to shift forward at the end of the table. Very clearly, he mouthed, Don’t make the first move. It was like fighting: you had to let the other guy wear himself out before you delivered the killing blow.

“Mr. Snow,” Luis continued. “I want to apologize for not calling sooner. Though, in all fairness, I have been sending you messages.”

Bodies tied out to stakes, gaping wounds in their throats like second smiles. Look, Mama, like a star. Outside his nephew’s window. “Got a bit carried away with it, didn’t you?”

“No,” came the immediate reply. “Only until I was sure you’d gotten the messages, and knew who was sending them.”

“Or you could have just called first thing, and been direct about it.”

Another chuckle. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Candy didn’t respond.

A sigh. It sounded theatrical; like the bastard had practiced all his sighs in an attempt to find the one that sounded the most bored and disappointed. “Really, I should thank you. If your man hadn’t killed the former head of the Chupacabras, my father wouldn’t have had this chance. Well, he would have, but he would have needed to fight for it. This generalship just fell into his lap, so muchas gracias, señor.”

Fuck you, you son of a bitch, if I could reach through this phone…would you be smug if I put my fist through your teeth? He imagined it, the satisfaction if it, hone breaking, teeth chipping. Men like this, insulated by money, and power, and paid thugs were always so full of themselves so long as that barrier existed between you and them. But take the barriers away, and they all pissed themselves in the end. This one was just like all the rest – but Candy had to handle him, now.

He clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“Last night,” Luis continued, tone settling into something more businesslike.

“What happened last night?” Candy asked, all innocence.

“How’s your man?”

He was caught off guard, again. Traded a look with Fox that didn’t help at all. No sense playing coy, he guessed. “Alive.”

“Shame.” Luis tsked. “He certainly knew his way around a fistfight. He would have made for a nice trophy.”

For a moment, Candy wondered just how sick this guy was. Did he have people stuffed and poised around his living room like deer trophies? Probably he’d been watching too much weird TV with Michelle.

Another thought occurred – a useful one. “You weren’t trying to kill him, though.”

“Ah.” Luis sounded pleased. “Very good.”

“You’re like a cat, aren’t you? You like to play with your food.”

“Afraid of being eaten?” He chuckled. “And I suppose you’re a dog, just like the one running across the back of your cut. Brutal, loyal, hungry – less than subtle.”

What do you want? Candy took a steadying breath. “Something I’ve been thinking this morning.”

“Hm?”

“Your whole setup at Doc Gilliard’s was clumsy. If it only took four of my idiots” – Fox’s brows shot up – “to get inside the place and get their hands on your shit, you’re not exactly running a tight ship there, chief.”

“I’m not, am I?” Lightly, unbothered.

Candy felt the first prickling of sweat at the back of his neck. He wished this was Fox taking this call. Luis was a game-player, and Candy had never been that. Straightforward, uncomplicated, just, as Luis had said, like the dog he wore on his back.

“Listen.” Candy swiveled his chair a quarter-turn, so he wasn’t facing Fox anymore. “You’ve had your fun, and, I admit, you’re hard to pin down. But you aren’t going to get rid of the Dogs. That isn’t possible. If you know anything about us at all, then you know we’ve got chapters all over the country. You can’t push us out. You could kill every one of us here, and a new batch of guys would come take our places and give you more hell.”

Someone cleared a throat.

Fox smacked the table, once, a strike of his flat palm.

Candy stared at the closed door of the chapel and listened to Luis make a low, considering sound on the other end of the line.

“I want to meet. In person.”

“When and where?” Candy asked.

“Not today, I’m busy.” Pages rustled. “Tomorrow? Yes, tomorrow morning. First thing. For breakfast. There’s a restaurant called Gabriel’s–”

“I know it.”

“Good. Bring no more than five of your men.” The call disconnected.

Candy switched the line off from his end and set the phone down on the table beside him. He heard cigarettes being lit; the muted thump of a coffee cup setting down.

It was Fox who broke the silence; he’d known it would be. “Well. You’re an idiot.”

Candy snapped his chair around. Everyone but Fox was staring down at the table, or into their cups. Everyone but Blue, whose gaze moved between the two of them, like he was about to watch a tennis match.

Fox sat leaning sideways, one hand braced on the arm of his chair, expression still bored, eyes shooting sparks.

“I’m an idiot?” he asked, pleasantly, but Blue’s brows jumped once.

“You made the first move.”

“The conversation wasn’t going anywhere. He’s one of those assholes who likes to talk in circles and brag about himself.”

“You invited him to kill us.”

Candy arched a single brow. “And you wouldn’t have?”

Fox’s blank-faced refusal to answer was a small victory.

“If he’s going to pull something,” Candy said, “then he’s going to do it no matter what I say. And he needs the reminder: he can’t wipe out the whole club. Nobody can. He needs to consider the bigger picture. Let him think I’m a blowhard. We’ve got until tomorrow morning to nail down a plan of attack. Now, we can all sit around here second-guessing our president,” he said, dry, and earned a few squirms for it. “Or we can get to work.”

He heard the sound of bikes pulling into the front lot, and got to his feet. “That’ll be our reinforcements.”

~*~

Russell Ward had earned the club name Jackal when he was still just a prospect. Candy had always thought of him as a window into what Mercy could have turned out to be if he hadn’t had Ava to act as lodestone. If there was a tragic backstory there, and Candy had his doubts, no one had managed to suss it out yet. No president would have made him an officer, and he wasn’t one, but he was the sort of man you were glad to have on your side in situations like these.

“Candyman!” he crowed, when Candy stepped out of the clubhouse, bare arms flung nearly as wide as his smile. He looked the same: shaggy, sun-bleached hair, polarized sunglasses, white-white teeth, golden tan. A Jimmy Buffett concert tee with the sleeves cut off was all he wore beneath his cut, the front of which was sewn with a half-dozen patches marking the brutal things he’d done for his club.

He looked delighted.

Candy smiled back, and stepped into the offered hug, a tight, back-slapping, unapologetically warm and glad affair. “Hey, Jack. Good trip?”

“Aw, yeah, man, easy. Smooth sailing once we got outta LA traffic.” He pushed back, hands gripping Candy’s biceps. “Shit, dude, did you get bigger?” He squeezed the muscles until Candy laughed and shook him off.

“Nah.”

“No, you definitely did. You been lifting.” He tipped his head and grinned, gaze mischievous over the rims of his shades. “Trying to impress your little woman? Or just trying to keep up? Ha! She’s a lot younger than you.”

“So they tell me.” Candy felt his own smile fading. “Thanks for coming.”

“Hey, no problem, man, I live for this shit. If something’s going down, I want in.”

“Who’d you bring?”

“Only the best.” He stepped back and made a grand, sweeping gesture toward his fellow Cali Dogs.

Candy was pleased to note Loco, and Victor, and Tee, along with four unfamiliar faces who were appropriately muscled and threatening-looking.

“What’ll it be, boss?” Jackal said. “Point me at whoever I gotta kill.” His smile bordered on gleeful.

Candy snorted. “Let’s go in and I’ll give you the rundown.”

Thirty-Nine

Reese had never liked the taste of coffee, but appreciated its uses as a stimulant. On long ops, he always took a large thermos full of it, sipping at it continuously, fighting it down one bitter swallow at a time – but only ever at a rate that maintained the balance between liquid intake and output. He never wanted to piss and leave his DNA behind at a scene.

He hadn’t realized the bitterness of coffee caused him to make a face, though, until one morning a few months ago in Mercy’s kitchen. Ava had chuckled, and he’d glanced up to see her smiling at him. “You want some cream for that? A little sugar?” When he’d only stared at her in wonderment, she’d taken the mug from his hands and doctored it until it was pale, and sweet, and flavorful. He’d experimented with flavors; French vanilla was his favorite.

He searched the hospital lounge’s array of non-dairy creamer capsules until he found a vanilla one, and added it to his paper cup of coffee. Added four sugar packets, and turned around to find Agent Maddox studying him.

“That’s a lot of sugar,” he said, frowning.

Reese took a sip, and didn’t make a face. “I like sugar.”

“Obviously.”

Reese had arrived at the hospital ten minutes ago and rendezvoused with Gringo in one of the quiet, family waiting rooms on the second floor, where Jinx and Melanie Menendez had rooms. Gringo’s eyes had gone a little wide, and Reese took it he wasn’t the expected backup. But, despite the jests and insults – teasing, he knew – about Gringo’s incompetence, he’d schooled his features and adapted quickly.

“Fox’s brother is up in ICU. And there’s a fed up there,” he’d informed him, voice low, brows jumping on the word fed.

Reese had spotted the agent immediately, in his suit, with his sunglasses on his head, chewing gum and sticking out like a neon sign with his stiffness and uneasiness. He was young, proving himself at the Bureau, still, most likely.

He’d spotted Reese, too, gaze arresting, posture straightening. His gaze had traveled down and then up Reese’s body, and his mouth had set in a straight line, and even if Reese wasn’t wearing his cut – he so rarely did; identifying clothing was never a good idea – but the agent had said, “You’re one of them. A Dog.”

Reese had walked past him into the waiting room to fix himself a cup of coffee, exhausted suddenly. Faintly dizzy with fatigue.

He studied the man now between sips, letting the counter behind him hold some of his weight.

Maddox put his hands on his hips and huffed a challenging sound. “Right? You’re a Lean Dog?”

“No,” Reese said, because his cut, back at the clubhouse, bore only a bottom rocker that read PROSPECT. He wasn’t a fully-patched member, and therefore, technically, not a Dog. “I’m a Dog ally.”

“Ugh, okay, yeah, whatever. You’re a Dog. You people can’t just be hanging around the hospital.” He glanced away and raked a hand through his hair. “It’s bad enough Cantrell’s fucking working with you,” he muttered. He stared toward the window a moment, seeming to gather himself, then turned back to Reese. “Here to visit your buddy who got shot?” The question was conversational, but his tone was not.

“He’s not my buddy.”

The face the man made in response eluded Reese.

“I’m here to guard him.”

“Guard…?” The agent snorted. “You shitheads are unbelievable. Guard? I’m here.” He jabbed a finger into his own chest. “But I guess that doesn’t count, ‘cause I’m just a fucking federal agent.” He paced toward the window, and his hand made another pass through his hair. “Unbelievable.”

Reese sipped more coffee – intensely sweet, and warm; he could already feel the caffeine hitting his veins – and studied Maddox more closely. Young, and proving himself, yes, but the emotions playing out across his face, even in profile, spoke of restraint and frustration. A simmering resentment that he held tightly in check – but a hold that was fraying.

With an inner lurch, Reese realized that the man reminded him of Tenny, all of Ten’s pent-up anger and helplessness turning him sour and grim-faced, and reckless.

Reese said, “I’m sorry.”

The agent froze, and then whipped toward him, brows drawn low. “What did you just say?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “You don’t want to be doing this.”

“I don’t…” Anger flared again: color in the cheeks, flash in the eyes, leap of the chords in the throat. “You’re damn right I don’t want to be babysitting fucking gangsters.”

“Club.”

“What?”

“It’s not a gang. It’s a club.”

“Are you–” Maddox took a sharp breath in through his nose. “Are you stupid or something? Or just fucking insane?”

Not an uncommon reaction. Though they’d taken to educating him how they saw fit, trying to pull him into their daily habits, rituals, and secret languages, the Lean Dogs, all save Mercy, had asked him similar things – though with less hostility. Less fear. He knew he wasn’t normal, but that had never bothered him. Save for when Tenny needled him.

“I’m a special operative,” he said.

“A special operative,” the agent repeated. He didn’t believe Reese, he knew.

“I’m highly trained.”

“Is that right?”

“If you have other work to do, you don’t have to stay. I’m here to watch Te–” He nearly said Tenny’s name, but caught himself. “My colleague.”

The agent blinked at him. “That is…okay, yeah, you’re definitely stupid.”

Reese finished his coffee and turned back for a refill. He’d spotted two French vanilla creamer pods earlier.

Behind him, Maddox started pacing again, soles of his shiny shoes clicking over the terrazzo. “If it were up to me, I’d pull the plug on this whole operation. Fuck it. Let all you kill each other and good riddance.”

“You could leave,” Reese suggested, stirring in the required four packets of sugar.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll just leave. Maybe I’ll hand in my gun and badge while I’m at it.”

Reese turned back around. “You could.”

Maddox paused, and glanced up at him. The smile that crossed his face owed nothing to humor or good-will. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured, then turned around, throwing up both hands. “Be my guest. Guard, you freak.” He stomped out into the hallway and took up a post over near the elevators; fished his phone out of his pocket with an angry, jerky motion, and stared at its screen.

Reese went to get buzzed in, coffee in-hand.

The nurse that came to the door took one look at his face, and her own softened. “Oh, sweetie, are you here to see that handsome thing that got shot? Come right along with me.”

He followed, bemused. What sort of expression was he making that she’d just known? That she’d reacted with instant sweetness and sympathy. ICU’s family only, Fox had told him over the phone. Tell her you’re his brother. But he hadn’t even had to offer an excuse. Should he offer one now? Maybe he didn’t need to, he thought, as her sneakers squeaked along in front of him.

They reached a glass-fronted room with a pressurized sliding door, a chart secured in a plastic slot beside it. The nurse stopped, and turned, still smiling at him. She reached out and patted his wrist, light enough not to spill his coffee. “He’s awake, so you should be able to go right in. Buzz me if he needs anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

One more smile. “Poor kid. Y’all are so cute. You remind me of my nephew and his husband.”

Oh.

Her gaze flicked down to his left hand, and she whispered, “We’ll just say it’s official if anyone asks.” She gave him a wink and retreated down the hall.

Reese watched her go a moment. Oh. Then pressed the button that sent the door shushing open and went inside.

Tenny’s eyes were blue glittering slits, the only part of him that moved, latching onto Reese as he entered and following his progress up to the chair at the side of the bed, which Reese dropped into feeling a little unusually dazed.

“What?” Tenny croaked, his voice rough and strained, either from meds, or his injury, or the aftereffects of the tube they’d put down his throat back at the scene.

“That nurse thinks we’re…” Not married, because there wouldn’t have been any need for secrecy; that’s what she’d been checking for on his hand: a wedding ring. “Having sex with each other.”

Tenny let out a sharp, sudden laugh, and then hissed, his whole body tensing up. He closed his eyes and subsided back against his pillows with a groan. “Damn it.”

Reese waited for a swift tug of satisfaction – Tenny was here because of his own stupidity and bravado, and it served him right to be in pain because of it – but it never came. Instead, the coffee he’d consumed churned unpleasantly in his gut.

He reached for something to say, uncertain why he’d even walked down here, much less sat at the man’s bedside. He settled on: “You’re not dead.”

Tenny’s mouth tugged sideways into the flattest of smiles, one that lasted only a breath before it was dropped. “Thanks to you, apparently.”

“I didn’t want to.”

Ten’s eyes widened, fractionally, and Reese found himself surprised, too – surprised that such a revelation was news to Tenny.

“I wanted to pursue the shooter,” he said. “It was Luis. The one sexually involved with Melanie Menendez. The one whose father–”

“I know who he is. I was at the briefing, too.”

“I could have caught him.”

“Maybe.”

“I could have. I’m fast.” And it wasn’t like when Aidan said something about himself and the other guys laughed until he blushed and told them all to “fuck off.” No, Reese knew that he was fast; he’d pushed himself, isolated muscle groups, trained. His first handler had even timed him, and…

Tenny was making a sour face. “Fine, yeah, sure, you’re fast. And you should have gone after him.”

“That’s what Fox said.” Anger washed through him all over again remembering that conversation.

Tenny blinked – one quick pulse of uncertainty – before he settled back to sourness. “But you saved me instead.”

“Yes.” Something in his voice or face – he was going to need to practice in front of the mirror after this, if this morning’s reactions were anything to go by – caused Tenny to smile again, sharp with repressed glee this time.

“You disobeyed orders.”

“No.”

“You did. You disobeyed.” When he chuckled, he ended up wincing and groaning at the pain it caused, but the smile stayed fixed.

The cup he held started to buckle, and Reese forced his hand to relax before hot coffee showered all over his lap. “No,” he said, calmly; he could be calm, he could control his voice, and his face, too. “I didn’t have orders to pursue the shooter at all costs. We didn’t know Luis was going to be there. I was told – we were told – to clear the office, living room, and upper floors. We were supposed to look for contraband, and you looked for a fight instead.”

“Ooh, very good. Mincing words. You’re learning.”

Reese ignored him. “After, Fox said you were reckless and stupid, and that I should have let you die.”

“He said that?” Ten asked, mildly.

Reese checked the urge to clench his teeth. It was a new and strange impulse that unsettled him. “He said it. Your own brother.”

Tenny managed to shrug with one shoulder, on his good side. “He doesn’t like me much.”

“Don’t you care?” The part that angered him the most was that this conversation was happening after the conversation in the dorm room, just before they’d left for the op. When Ten had let his frustration and anger and confusion get the best of him and he’d allowed some of the truth to bleed through. Reese knew that he didn’t have his own secret inner truth; there wasn’t a person waiting to come awake and unfurl like a tender new plant reaching for the sun. He just was.

But Tenny could be different. Could be better. But he was back to all his bored tricks.

“You seem to care,” Ten said. “I wonder why.”

“I–” He closed his mouth, because he had no idea what might slip out. His thumb had nearly punctured his coffee cup.

“You’re angry,” Tenny observed, mildly.

“Yes,” Reese said, not at all mildly. His temper throbbed inside him, a living, parasitic thing robbing him of his normal, orderly thought processes. He hated it – hated Tenny.

“If you’d had orders to let me die, you would have disobeyed them.”

Through his teeth: “Yes.”

“Look at Pinocchio, turning into a real boy.”

“I’m not–”

“He’s testing you, you know.” Ten’s voice softened a fraction, no longer mocking. “Fox. He’s been testing both of us the whole time.”

The anger evaporated. His face did something else, unbidden, something that had Tenny shifting his head on the pillow and offering a wry grin.

“Yeah, he’s a real asshole.”

“We’re operatives,” Reese said, numb. “We don’t–”

“Need to be tested? No. No, we don’t. We’re better trained, better equipped, and smarter than all of these bikers.”

“You almost got yourself killed because you were bored,” Reese reminded.

Tenny flapped a hand dismissively. “Who can blame me?”

“Me.”

“Anyway. We outclass all of them. This isn’t about testing our skills. This is child’s play what we’re doing now.”

Reese stared at him. “You almost died.”

“Because – as we’ve already established – I’m stupid. Had I been treating it like a proper op I never would have put myself, or the op itself, into that kind of jeopardy. There. Are you happy that I’ve admitted it?”

“Yes.”

Tenny showed a moment’s surprise, like he hadn’t thought Reese might agree. “Careful,” he said, and Reese realized that he’d smiled, and when had that started happening? “Had I treated it like a proper op,” Ten continued, “we’d have landed the shooter, freed the doctor, all of it over and done with in a flash.

“My point is this: Fox is testing us as human beings.” His lip curled on the word, making a face as if he’d tasted something foul. “As potential brothers in this club.”

“I like the club.”

“Of course you do, you simpleton.”

“The club is a family,” Reese insisted.

“Yes, I’m painfully aware.”

“Don’t you want a family?”

More surprise. A blanking of the face and a rounding of the eyes. A beat of silence. A shift in tone. “Do you?”

“I’ve always had a sister.”

“To whom you are related by blood, and with whom your former employers controlled your allegiance. I was briefed on you,” he said. “But these men will never be your brothers. Do you think they care for you? That they love you?”

He thought about his phone call with Mercy earlier, the now-familiar softness and affection in the big man’s voice. Mercy was many things, but never duplicitous. Never subtle.

“What?” Tenny asked, brows lowering, because he must have had another facial malfunction.

“The club is a place for people who don’t fit in anywhere else,” Reese said, repeating what Mercy had once told him. “It’s a family for people like us.”

Ten studied him a moment longer, and then let his head fall back, let his eyes fall shut. Just talking like this had exhausted him. He yawned, and it didn’t seem fake. “Christ,” he murmured.

“You can sleep,” Reese said. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Oh, wonderful. I feel safer already.” But a few moments later, his breathing had evened, and the cruel line of his mouth softened.

Reese settled back in his chair to wait, and watch, an inexplicable kernel of warmth blooming in his chest.

Forty

The coffee might have been decaf, but by the time she’d finished it, Michelle felt properly grounded and ready to tackle the day ahead. She went to wash her face, and put her hair up, and dress for battle: loose sweater, tight jeans, a pair of ridiculous, pointed-toe cowboy boots she’d bought at Jenny’s urging, a faded brown stitched with turquoise whirls and flowers. She woke and dressed TJ, got his breakfast, and realized, as she plucked a stray Cheerio off the floor, that she was humming to herself.

There was a good chance there was something very wrong with her, and doubtless all her relatives would agree – though the same thing was wrong with them. She made a mental note to call Raven soon; that was always an appropriately sobering experience.

“What are you smiling about?” Candy asked, flashing her a smile of his own as she turned away from the garbage can and glanced up to find her brick wall of a husband standing in front of her. She’d never stop being amazed at how quietly he could move through the house, given his size. Must have been all the boxing that made him light on his feet.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, fighting to keep her smile from getting any wider. She was still riding that giddy, swooping-stomach feeling that had settled over her at the hospital, during their waiting room heart-to-heart.

“Uh-huh.” He caught her around the waist and reeled her in close, bending his head so his lips were against her temple when he spoke. Whispered, “You look like a woman who had a real good time last night.”

His warm breath in her ear, and the memories his words conjured, sent a delightful shiver down her back. Goosebumps broke out all down her arms, a sharp prickle that nearly hurt, and the sudden jump of her pulse flared in all the sensitive places where he’d left his mark. The finger-shaped bruises on her hips and thighs, the delicious tenderness between them.

She searched for something clever to say, and just murmured “Derek” instead, her body softening automatically against his, every part of her seeking connection.

He chuckled. “Damn. You’re too easy.”

“Just for you.” She reached up and found his nipple through his shirt, gave it a deft little tweak. “Ass.”

He stepped back, still chuckling, and cupped her face in one big hand, expression slowly going serious. “I know you love this, you little hellcat.” His smile fell away altogether. “But I want you to promise me something.”

Her own smile slipped. “That sounds foreboding.”

“I don’t mean it to be. But I’m serious. If something – if shit gets really bad – and God willing it won’t. If you get in a tight spot, if I’m not….there.” It sounded like his voice nearly cracked. “I know the club’s important to you. I know it’s your family, and you’ve grown up in it, and it’s your world. But you’re my world. If it comes down to saving yourself, or helping the club, I want you to be selfish, little baby thing. I want you to get the hell out. Run and don’t look back.”

The look in his eyes, the earnestness, the love, put a lump in her throat. “That’s a difficult promise to make.”

“Make it anyway. Please. For me.” His thumb stroked her cheek, and she loved, loved, loved this man, so much it hurt to breathe.

She took a shaky breath. This wasn’t about him denying her, or pushing her away, or limiting her involvement with the club. He’d never been that way. This was about him loving her, and not being able to live with knowing his life had brought about the end of hers.

“Okay. I promise.”

He kissed her – not on the lips, but on the forehead, a long, chaste press of lips. She swore she felt his heartbeat through it. “Thank you,” he murmured, before he pulled back, his voice rough.

She just hoped it was a promise she could keep.

~*~

Cantrell and his people had taken over the downtown police precinct. A familiar face greeted them at the door when they pushed through the airlock: Officer Martin Jaffrey, their usual liaison.

“Candy,” he said, expression grim, jaw set. “Would you like to make this make sense?”

Candy had been ready to murmur a hello and ask to be taken to Cantrell, but he paused, and turned to give Jaffrey his full attention. “You’re not assisting?”

“No. The feds won’t even put any of my guys on hospital detail. They’re not sharing shit,” he said in a low, tight whisper.

Candy flicked a glance to Fox, who lifted a single brow in what could have been surprise, or inquiry, or disinterest. “Are you guys cooperating?” Candy asked. Past the desk sergeant, he glimpsed a young agent in a suit coming toward them, her strides brisk and her expression closed-off.

Jaffrey, when he focused on him again, wore a sheen of sweat across his brow, a vein throbbing visibly in one temple. Stressed, worried. “Of course we’re fucking cooperating. You wanna tell me why the feds are working with you guys and keeping us in the dark?”

Candy didn’t get a chance to answer – not that he could have. The agent arrived, heels clicking on the tile. “Mr. Snow, you can follow me,” she said.

Candy shot Jaffrey an apologetic look and fell in behind her. Her hair was pulled back in a high, tight ponytail that swung back and forth like a pendulum as she walked. Several of the detectives in the bullpen shot her dark or suspicious looks as she led them back toward one of the large conference rooms.

Uneasiness prickled down the back of Candy’s neck, but another glance toward Fox was unhelpful.

The conference room they were shown into was the best in the precinct, Candy though, still modest, but with a wall of blinds-covered windows and a long, gleaming table running down its center. A whiteboard occupied one of the short walls, and magnets had been used to pin up photos, arrest records, mug shots, and maps. The table was littered with files and paperwork. Cantrell stood at a table in the back where a coffee station had been set up, stirring the contents of a foam cup, the end of his tie pooling on the tabletop, his expression tired and faraway.

This was the command center.

Cantrell straightened and turned to face them as they entered: Candy, Fox, and Blue. Everyone else they’d left behind to take shifts on the clubhouse and the hospital. His gaze shifted over the three of them in turn, and he bobbed a fast nod that wasn’t pleased, but more grudgingly accepting.

What aren’t you using Amarillo PD? Candy wanted to ask. Instead, he said, “Looks like you just need some red string and then you’ll have a whole conspiracy theory roadmap,” and gestured to the board.

Cantrell’s response was a deep exhale. He walked down the length of the table, on the far side. “Thank you, Candace,” he said, and the door clicked shut as the blonde agent showed herself out.

Candy took a moment to reflect on the fact that this was the first time he’d been enclosed in a room with a fed and he wasn’t being interrogated as a criminal suspect.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Candy said.

“I am?”

“For busting the coke den at the Doc’s place.”

“Ha,” Cantrell said, deadpan, and took a long slug of coffee. “Yeah, no, see, that complicated things. You were supposed to call with the intel and let us handle the arrests. And instead” – anger touched his voice, though he didn’t seem to have enough energy to enforce it properly – “my people are picking up bodies and having to tell the local cops not to arrest anybody for it. I’m pulling a lot of strings because of you, Snow, and I won’t–”

“We left you at least one alive,” Fox said.

“What?”

“The guards. I left one alive, and the boys did, too. Now you have witnesses.”

“Are you…” Cantrell trailed off and let out another breath. Set his coffee on the table and ran both hands down his face. “Okay. You know what? Doesn’t matter.”

He went to the board. “Let’s walk through the timeline. We’ve got ritualistic killings in Arizona two months ago.” He pointed to crime scene photos reminiscent of the scene out in the desert, where pacer’s people had been killed. “Five vics, in two locations, found twelve hours apart.”

“Five?” Candy asked, turning to Fox, who nodded.

Cantrell sent them a look.

“Just a theory,” Fox said, and apparently wasn’t ready to share with the class yet.

“Found twelve hours apart,” Cantrell repeated, continuing. “Staked out, throats cut, sedated beforehand, Special K on the tox screen.

“Next are the three here.” He shifted to photos from the scene Candy remembered all too well. The white-blue crystalline sky, the arid soil laced with cracks, the Road Runners set out in five points, like the Texas star…

With a jolt, he snapped his head toward Fox, brows lifted.

Fox smirked. Get it now?

He thought he did. Or at least partly. He’d ask when they left here.

“Also staked out,” Cantrell said, oblivious to their silent exchange, “sedated, and with their throats cut. Only this time it wasn’t ketamine. It was that new paralytic the lab’s still trying to figure out.” He tapped another photo. “The two men in your sister’s yard.”

“Five,” Candy said, connections snapping in his brain. Five points on a star, five victims laid out like stars.

Fox nodded again.

“Our guy’s lucky number, apparently,” Cantrell said, shaking his head as he surveyed the board.

“Did you do any digging on the Chupacabras?” Candy asked.

Cantrell shifted to the table, and opened a file, sifted through the loose-leaf pages inside. “It’s been two years since their last boss was found dead in his cell.” He darted a hard glance up at the three of them that wasn’t responded to. “Since then, other cartels have stepped in to fill the void, but the Chupacabras haven’t left any tags or calling cards. No one we’ve arrested on any sort of trafficking charges has pointed their direction. Based on all the intel, they disbanded, or disappeared, or the remaining members all hooked up with other gangs after the fallout here in Texas. No witnesses have stepped forward claiming they’re behind any of this activity – except the ones you’ve told me about.” He shot another look up at Candy. “I need to interview them.”

“And you will. I’ll get them to you.” Candy couldn’t help but sound smug.

“You understand that in order for it to be in any way admissible they have to either commit a crime and get arrested for it, or come to me directly looking to make a deal. I can’t pluck people off the street like you do.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“What about this Holy Father guy?” Blue asked. “Ever heard of anything like that?”

Cantrell straightened and folded his arms. He stood like a man who’d spent too many hours on his feet or in uncomfortable office chairs. “Religious fanatics, sure. We’ve dealt with cults and people who claimed they could talk to God – that God told them to do the crazy shit they did.”

“Waco?” Candy asked.

“Let’s not go there. But yeah, we’ve seen that sort of thing. But nothing turned up in the databases about someone calling himself the ‘Holy Father’ specifically.”

“It’s not actually fanaticism,” Fox said, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. Cantrell frowned when he put his boots up on the edge of the table, but said nothing. “It’s a new, creative way to terrify people, and it’s been effective.”

“What if it’s a pun?” Blue asked, and everyone turned to him. “Holy Father. And Luis said he wasn’t the boss, that his father was – maybe the Holy Father is his actual father.”

“Maybe,” Candy said. “He seems like the kinda guy who would like a little word play to go along with his outlaw expansionism.”

Cantrell snorted. “You say that like it’s an insult.”

“What?”

“Outlaw expansionism. Like that isn’t exactly what the Dogs have been doing since their conception.” His voice dripped contempt.

Candy shot him a grin. “Yeah, but we’re a lot better at it.”

“We make it look good, even,” Fox added.

Cantrell shook his head, and cursed. “Right. So.” Glanced toward the maps on the board: one of Arizona, one of Texas, one of North America. “Where are they looking to expand?”

Candy’s gaze flitted to the most familiar, most often-traveled points on the map, his own personal ports of call. They weren’t all necessarily the hubs of the rest of the world, or ordinary citizens, but they blazed like beacons for him. Albany, Richmond, Knoxville, Atlanta, Gulfport, Jackson, New Orleans, Amarillo, Los Angeles.

“The last time around, they were breaking onto the American stage and just passing through. We got in the way, and so we duked it out. This time it’s personal: they don’t just want us out of the way, they want us wiped off the map. Literally.”

Cantrell looked between Candy and the board. “Your chapter, or all of them?”

Fox answered. “They’ll start here. If they succeed, they’ll move on to the other chapters.”

“Can they succeed?”

Candy’s gaze traced the interstate pathways from Amarillo to Knoxville. If Knoxville ever fell, that would be the thing that fractured the whole organization. Another chapter would take up the “mother” mantle, and the Lean Dogs would regroup, keep limping along.

But it wouldn’t be the same. It would play out as a sign of major weakness; a crack in the armor. An unprecedented disaster that would shake the foundations of the outlaw world.

He said, “No, they can’t.” But his belly squirmed with an anxiety that was, like the idea of such a loss, unprecedented.

Forty-One

“Damn, ain’t you cute?” The self-appointed leader of the Cali contingent made a dramatic show of sliding his sunglasses down his nose and looking over their rainbow-slicked lenses at Michelle, smirking. “I knew he got himself an old lady, but I didn’t know she was–”

“Finish that sentence, Jackal,” Jenny said, breezing through the room with a legal pad, a pencil, and two cups of coffee. “I dare you.”

“Aw, Jen, you’re no fun,” he complained, sitting back theatrically, head tipped all the way back. He was perched on the edge of the round table where Michelle was seated with her own pad and pencil, and a cup of tea, having invited himself over with a great amount of put-upon Cali surfer charm that she didn’t find at all charming.

“Keep it up.” Jenny reached the mouth of the hallway and turned, her expression deadpan. “And you won’t be any fun for all the women you keep pretending want you.”

“Ooh, yikes,” he said with a chuckle, pressing a hand to his heart. He stood, though, and moved away from the table. “Please tell me there’s gonna be women after we get this shit squared away. A party? Just a little one?” He held up thumb and forefinger.

Jenny smiled sweetly. “That’s what she said.”

The other Dogs in the room cackled.

“Behave, Jack,” Jenny said, and whisked away.

He continued to chuckle, but Michelle thought she detected a nervous edge to the laughter, and he removed himself to the bar. The twins had never looked up, still watching a morning talk show at a faint volume over by the TV. She didn’t know why they were interested in business-casual makeovers for working moms, and wasn’t going to ask; was glad she and Axelle didn’t have an audience for this save Talis and Albie, the latter of whom was pretending to lounge two tables away, playing solitaire and stealing glances their way over his cards.

Across the table from them, Benny fidgeted in his chair. Darla had washed his clothes, but he only had the one outfit, and none of the boys had volunteered to let him borrow one of theirs. He’d shaved, and showered, thanks to the hospitality kits that Jenny always kept stocked in each dorm room, but he looked tired, worn-thin, fretful. Like a man afraid that any breath might be his last – which was the truth.

They’d agreed to divide and conquer when it came to interrogations. Eden and Jenny were camped out in a dorm in back, and Michelle and Axelle had this table in the common room. No one had challenged their ability or the appropriateness of letting them run the questioning, but the Dogs who’d stayed behind at the clubhouse were keyed up: listening, watchful, ready to intervene if they felt it necessary.

From Michelle’s view, their witnesses were too terrified to try anything cute.

“Alright, Benny,” Michelle said, penciling his name in at the top of her paper. “We just have a few questions, for clarifications.” Albie had been the one to knock sharply on his door, and tell him he was wanted for questioning, stone-faced, insistent. He wasn’t as inhumanly spooky as Fox, but Albie could inspire fear when he wanted to.

“Questions,” Benny repeated. He wet his lips, his gaze pinging around the room, refusing to settle on her. He didn’t see her as a threat, she realized; thought she was just a woman and nothing to be worried about. His gaze sought Albie, and Talis, and Jackal, and Victor, and the twins. “Yeah. But. I already answered all those questions–”

Michelle tapped her pencil on the table, drawing his attention. “Benny. Eyes on me.”

“I mean, I–” He looked at her finally, and his brows went up. “Shit, you’re serious.”

“Why would I not be serious?”

“Because…” His gaze shifted over her, sizing her up in a way that left her skin crawling, but he wisely left the sentence unfinished. His throat jumped as he swallowed. “No reason. Um. You have questions?”

“A few,” she said, briskly. “I want to talk to you about the night you were brought before the Holy Father and threatened.”

“Oh.” His eyes widened, pupils contracting; his face paled. “I told Can–”

“I don’t care about your trauma,” Michelle said. “I don’t want the whole story spun out in your own time. I have specific questions, and I expect specific answers. Is that clear?”

“Sheesh,” Jackal said from the bar, a stage whisper followed by a low laugh.

A darted glance proved that Albie was hiding a smile behind his cards.

Benny swallowed again. “Yes, ma’am.”

~*~

Over the years, Jenny had wondered if there was a woman who could convince Charlie Fox to settle down in a long-term, committed relationship. The idea had always seemed a little absurd. She’d enjoyed her own brief time with him, those few lonely nights tangled in the dark and secret. That had been about comfort. About wanting, and being afraid to want anyone she didn’t know, didn’t trust. He’d helped her as a friend, and it had been fun – she still got a pleasant shiver sometimes when she remembered – but she’d never kidded herself about anything so foolish as being in love with him. She’d known what he was about, and she’d entered their arrangement with eyes wide open and heart carefully shielded.

She’d never been able to imagine him with an old lady. Fox loved his family, though he wouldn’t admit it, and his club, and a stiff drink, and making himself useful. But he wasn’t warm. Wasn’t the kind of guy who offered flattery, or flowers. Who cared about birthdays, or anniversaries. He lacked all tenderness. Whenever she thought of him meeting a nice girl – a shy, pretty thing with a Texas drawl – and taking her to dinner, to the movies, bantering with her and drawing her out of her shell, she laughed. She thought of Colin, stupid, and charming, and insistent, pursuing her, making declarations and loving her in the sort of hat-in-hand, you-make-me-a-better-man way she’d only ever thought existed in movies, she knew that Fox would never be like that, not with anyone.

So she was wildly curious about his relationship with Eden.

“Alright, then,” Eden said pleasantly, settling on the footlocker at the end of the bed beside Jenny. She accepted her coffee with murmured thanks and took a long sip.

Gwen was across from them, in the room’s only chair, looking like every kind of mess. Hair unwashed and greasy, face pallid, eyelids twitching in a show of exhaustion and nerves.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” Eden said.

Gwen gnawed at a thumbnail and stared at them, a flat, prey-animal glance, and said nothing.

“We need some more information about the Chupacabras,” Eden continued. Jenny didn’t know her well, but the brightness of her voice was in total contrast to her demeanor an hour ago in the sanctuary. Then, she’d been cool, professional, no-nonsense. She wasn’t exactly saccharine now, but Jenny had grown up in the club; she knew a front when she saw one, even a good one.

She had all these questions. Michelle had told her that Eden was former MI6, and that she’d met Fox years ago, in London, when a case had brushed up against the Dogs. Law enforcement falling for the lawless: that was hot.

But was it love? Had Fox lain with her, their heads on the same pillow, and whispered those three words? Had Eden said them, and not gotten an answer? Had she expected an answer? Did she love him, truly, or was it just a tidy, convenient arrangement?

Eden had left a business behind and moved to Knoxville. That wasn’t tidy or convenient.

Whether or not they loved each other in the vocal, obvious, mushy way that most people did, Jenny could see the way they made for a good match. There were no stars in Eden’s eyes, no trace of longing on her expression when she looked at Fox. She’d always had trouble imagining him settling down – and she guessed he hadn’t. He’d found a partner, one more like him than most.

“Gwen,” Eden said, “you told me about the trucking companies you used, but you only had one pick-up address: Dr. Gilliard’s place outside the city.”

Gwen held still a moment, her gaze shifting back and forth between them. Then she nodded. “That’s the only pickup address that was ever on the manifestos.”

“Right. But was there another one?”

“I dunno. Not one they told me about.”

“Was anyone else doing any secretary work for them?”

“I dunno.”

Jenny glanced over, and Eden sent her a look of barest frustration.

Her voice stayed bright, though. “When we talked before, you told me about the night you discovered the Chupacabras were doing business at Sandoval’s. Can you elaborate on that?”

More thumbnail chewing, and another darted glance.

Jenny said, “They work on commercial vehicles there, right? So the mechanics were all in on it. A truck rolled in loaded down with cocaine, and the guys took it out of the wheel wells, or wherever, and then passed it along to local dealers. Right?”

Gwen’s eyes bugged. Her hand fell to her lap. “I don’t–”

“Either Sandoval and all his guys joined the cartel,” Jenny continued, “or they were working for them. Helping them fence product. My bet’s on the second one, and if you didn’t actually know about it, you wouldn’t look so damn scared right now.”

“And if you did know about it, and wanted to be well away from the cartel,” Eden said, picking up the thread, “you would confess all you know and be done with it. Why are you hedging?”

“I…” Gwen said, hedging. She glanced toward the door, a furtive look over her shoulder.

An alarm pulsed to life in the back of Jenny’s mind, a chime of something’s wrong, something’s wrong. She could hear the whoops, could smell the smoke, but she didn’t know the source of the fire – not yet.

“Eden,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Eden said, not bright now, but grim. “Gwen,” she said, sharply, a crisp snap that brought the girl’s head around. “You need to understand that things will go badly for you if you’re less than honest with us.”

Jenny could see the way fear spiked, the flutter of lashes, the throb of the girl’s pulse in her throat, but she pressed her lips together until they whitened, and said nothing.

“Do you think they’ll take you back?” Eden said. “After you’ve been here with us? Why would you even want to go back?”

Still no response.

“Maybe you don’t want to,” Jenny said, “but you think you have to.”

Gwen’s lips parted, and she sucked in a breath. Bingo.

~*~

“I don’t…I mean…it was like I said before. I woke up, and it was dark, and there was that Father guy in the hood–”

Michelle waved him silent. “Yes. But I’m more interested in your role with the cartel.”

He frowned. “My role?”

“Yes.” She consulted her notes, though she’d already memorized them, wanting him to think she wasn’t all caught up. If he wanted to think she was useless because she was a woman, she might as well lean into it. “The aim of their intimidation routine was to get you selling for the cartel, right?”

“Right.” Tone guarded. She had to put him at ease; loosen his tongue. Benny was a talker; get him in the right frame of mind, and the words would flow like water down a steep hill.

“Where were you selling?”

He gave her a dubious look.

She channeled Fox and flashed her widest, falsest smile, one that Benny believed, if the lessening of tension across his shoulders was any indication. “It’s not like we’re cops, Benny. Come on. Just between us friends. I’m trying to put together the cartel’s big picture.” She gestured to her pad, which she’d carefully tilted up, its carboard back resting on the edge of the table, so he couldn’t see what she wrote.

He coughed a humorless little laugh – but was trying, smiling back. His shoulders went down another fraction. “If you figure it out, let me know. Shit knows what those guys are up to, you know?”

She laughed in turn, pleased that, though it was forced, it sounded almost real. She was rusty, but not so rusty as to be an embarrassment to the family name.

Such as it was.

“No shit,” she said, letting her chuckle taper off naturally. “I know you went through this with Candy, but these boys are all hopeless. If I don’t put it all down on paper in some kind of order, they won’t remember jack shit. So this is just housekeeping.”

His shoulders went down again. “Surprised they don’t make a prospect do it.”

“No offense to Nickel, but would you trust a prospect with something important?”

Another laugh from him, this one truer. He slouched back in his chair, and she had him; she could feel it. “Shit no.”

“Right? Okay, so walk me through it. Just what you’re willing to tell me.”

~*~

“Gwen.” Eden’s tone shifted down into grave-serious-adult-in-the-room. “It’s important that you be honest and open with us.”

“I have been,” Gwen snapped, looking sorry that she had afterward.

“I’d like to believe that,” Eden said. “You seemed truthful when you confessed to me at the hospital.”

“I was.”

“We know you’re scared,” Jenny said, aiming for warm. The back of her neck was crawling, though, anxiety ticking up another notch every time Gwen looked toward the door. “And that’s okay. But we’re just trying to help – you, and everyone else the cartel is hurting.”

“You told me about the girl Luis was showing off to the guys at Sandoval’s,” Eden said. “That she was lying still, and letting him undress her. She was drugged?”

Gwen fidgeted, like she was trying to force her legs even closer together; making herself smaller, Jenny though, shrinking down into the tiniest possible space. “Maybe. Probably. I thought she was.”

“The Chupacabras are selling more than drugs, aren’t they?” Eden asked. “That girl wasn’t a hanger-on or Luis’s girlfriend, was she? A flash man like him would have had a date dripping in jewels.”

A shrug. Another darted look at the door.

“I believe the woman you saw was one he then sold,” Eden continued; she was starting to sound impatient. “We know the cocaine is being shipped in crates – we saw that for ourselves – but he’d have to get more creative to move scores of people across the border and then disseminate them through the country.”

Gwen went back to chewing her thumbnail, gaze feverish, half-wild.

Eden tapped her pencil on the edge of the pad. Each light tap caused Gwen’s lashes to flicker, a tiny flinch.

“You were the one arranging the shipping,” Eden continued. “What were the trucks picking up besides crates?”

“Nothing.”

“It was only crates?”

A jerky nod.

“They aren’t air tight,” Jenny said. “If they were all” – she swallowed, a wave of nausea washing through her – “jammed up tight…”

A pained looked crossed Gwen’s face, screwed it up into something tortured and ugly, then she made a frustrated sound through her teeth and slammed her hands down into her lap, palms open, so they made a loud smack against her denim-covered thighs. “Ohmygod, okay, look.” She glanced toward the door, fear sparking in her eyes. When she turned back to them, she pitched forward in her chair and nearly fell out of it, her voice low and hushed and shaking. “The girls aren’t coming across the border.”

Jenny could feel her brows scaling her forehead. Judging by her tone, Eden was equally shocked.

“They’re American, okay? He’s kidnapping American girls and selling them.”

“What–” Eden started.

Jenny heard two very different sounds: hurried, booted footfalls moving down the hall. And a roar – soft but growing louder, quickly. An engine. A truck – closer, getting closer, too close.

Jenny stood.

Gwen said, “I’m sorry,” and ducked her head.

The door banged open, and standing between the jambs was one of the two kids from the gas station. Jesse, she thought. He held a gun, its muzzle trained on her.

~*~

“I never saw the girls, man,” Benny said, relaxed now, talking so quickly it made note-taking difficult. “Some of the guys, they would come into the club when I was working, and some of ‘em were real shitheads. This one guy – Carlos Something, I think? Whatever. He’d always come sit right next to me, and lean over and whisper in my ear, like. It was creepy.”

“I bet,” Axelle deadpanned.

He went on, oblivious. “He kept saying that if I thought the girls in the club would good, I should see the ones he could get me. I was like, ‘Dude, are you a pimp?’ And he was like–”

Rapid footfalls from the back hallway caught Michelle’s attention. When she lifted her head, and saw who was approaching, time seemed to slow. To stretch out like taffy. Later, when she remembered these next few moments, all of it would be a shaky blur. But the heat of it all, the cascading tumble of details stood out, each one distinct, razor-edged and perfect.

Eric, from the gas station, stalked forward from the mouth of the hallway, lifting a gun as he did so, leveling it on the back of Benny’s head. His face was dark with anger, brows drawn low, mouth a grim line. Not just angry, but murderous.

Beside her, Axelle gasped, and sat up straight.

Michelle sucked in a breath. “Look–” a warning, an alarm, a call for help. The first note of it lifted Albie’s head, caught Jackal’s attention, had Talis pushing away from his post against the back of the sofa.

“–out!”

She lunged to the side a fraction of a second before Eric fired.

Benny was grinning when it happened, when the bullet entered the back of his skull, one last glimpse of that sideways smirk that he must have thought women found alluring. One last smile for a pretty girl he was trying to manipulate, and then his face erupted in a shower of red.

Michelle closed her eyes; felt the hot, wet spray of blood and brain stripe up the side of her face, and then she was falling. Hit the floor hard on her left shoulder, the breath knocked out of her. She heard two thumps, even as the crack of the gunshot echoed inside her head.

Heard the scrape of chairs, and a half-dozen wordless, furious shouts.

“Drop the gun!” Albie barked. “Drop it now!”

It landed on the hardwood with a clatter.

Michelle cracked her eyes opened – the right was gummy with blood, her vision clouded by it. With her left she saw Benny’s lower half beneath the table; saw his boots, and his jeans, and the piss darkening the fabric, its ammonia stench burning her nose. Beyond she saw other scuffling boots, as Albie and Talis and Jackal raced to apprehend Eric.

She craned her neck and saw Axelle, stomach-down on the floor, but alive, her head lifted, her gaze searching and frantic, gore splattered across her cheek.

Michelle opened her mouth to say her name, and that was when she heard gunshots from outside the clubhouse, a quick volley. Heard a loud, rushing, roaring sound, getting louder, louder, louder–

And then, just like Benny’s face – the wall exploded.

~*~

Gwen staggered up and out of the chair. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, voice wavering and tear-choked. She went to Jesse, who caught her around the waist, and shoved her back behind him, pushed her back out into the hallway.

Jenny sat rooted, gaze trained on the gun in his hand, disbelief and fury fighting for supremacy in her chest. How in the hell was this happening? How dare that stupid little shit threaten her!

Beside her, Eden sat stiff and erect, hands white-knuckled on the pad of paper, fingers twitching. She wanted to reach for a gun, Jenny figured, because that was her first instinct: grab a weapon and point it back. Nevermind if she got shot in the process: a threat like this was intolerable.

“What are you doing?” Eden asked, voice only a little tight.

Jesse shifted the gun’s aim toward her, and then back, swapping it between them, as he edged backward out of the room. Gwen disappeared.

“Was this the plan from the beginning?” Eden asked. “Were you plants the whole time? All of you?”

“No.” Jenny’s pulse throbbed in her ears, her throat, her wrists. “Nobody’s that slick. They lied to us, though. They called the cartel for help.”

“Loyal to them,” Eden said. “Why? Are they that frightening?”

“Yes,” Jenny said, just as Jesse said it, too.

His brows shot up, startled, and then he scowled, an overdone, ridiculous expression; a child trying to look tough, to convince them that he was angry instead of petrified.

“They won’t keep you alive,” Eden warned. “You’re disposable.”

“Don’t care.”

A shot rang out.

All of Jenny’s muscles tensed at once, and Jesse’s eyes bugged. It had come from the common room. Followed by shouts, and a stampede of feet.

“Shit,” he said, and ducked out the door, and out of sight.

Eden was on her feet in an instant, hand going inside her jacket. She drew a gun and rushed for the door. Jenny leaped up to follow, empty-handed, but thrumming with energy.

They’d just reached the door when they heard the crash. Heard and felt; it traveled up through the soles of her boots, and rattled around in her back teeth.

“What the hell?” Eden snarled, and grasped at the doorframe to steady herself before dashing out.

Jenny felt sweat bloom at her temples and under her arms; her lungs squeezed tight, and her next breath was hard. Adrenaline urged her on. Jesse wasn’t in sight, but she and Eden pelted down the hallway as more gunshots erupted in the common room, one after the next, from multiple guns, an uneven volley of cracks; she heard glass shattering, heard shouts and cries. It sounded like the world was ending.

They reached the end of the hall, barreled around the corner…

And skidded to a halt.

The room was chaos. The room was destroyed. Boards, and cinderblocks, and hunks of sheetrock littered the floor and the tabletops; foam and pink fiberglass insulation was strewn across the boards like cotton candy. It looked like a tornado had hit the side of the clubhouse and punched a massive hole in the wall, scattering furniture and Lean Dogs alike.

Not a tornado, she saw, but a truck, one that went screeching backward in reverse, sheetrock and plywood sliding off its hood and landing on top of a crumpled human form.

The gunshots came from Albie, and Jackal, on their feet, though Albie’s face was bloodied, aimed at the windshield of the truck – but glancing off, not penetrating the glass. Talis was down, his eyes shut. Catcher knelt on the floor, face slicked with fresh blood, holding an equally-bloody Cletus in his arms, staring at him with blank shock.

“No!” Albie shouted, running, scrambling and slipping on debris. “No!”

But the truck was well away. She heard gears grind, and tires squeal, and the engine roar, and knew it was gone, rocketing off down the road.

Albie stumbled through the hole it had left in the wall, a jagged, gaping thing already trying to collapse in on itself, studs clattering to the floor in the truck’s absence, more insulation sifting slowly down like snow.

Jenny closed her eyes a moment – one long blink – and hoped the scene would be different when she opened them. That this was all a hallucination. But it was still there, in all its horror, and no matter how awful, she was going to have do something about it.

“Oh – oh my–” She heard Darla say frantically, as she came running from the kitchen, and then the words choked off into a low scream.

Jenny turned, and caught her by the shoulders. “Darla.” Voice sharp and commanding enough to catch and hold her gaze, despite the ugliness all around them. Darla’s eyes already brimmed with tears, an instant reaction. “Darla, listen. I don’t know who’s hurt, and who’s dead” – she had to swallow after the last word, gorge rising at the idea – “but we have to take charge. We have to be the tough ones here.”

Behind her, someone groaned – that was at least one alive.

“Darla.”

Darla sucked in a deep, unsteady breath, her lips quivering, but she put her head back and nodded. “Okay. Yeah, okay, you’re right.” Sniffed hard, once, and then waved Jenny away so she could get to work. “One of you boys on your feet, call an ambulance.”

“Yes, ma’am,” someone said – a Russian accent, that was Victor, then.

Jenny turned just as Albie came back in through the opening in the wall, supporting a limping Pup, who had an arm flung over Albie’s shoulders.

“I was on duty outside,” Pup said. “I shot right at ‘em, but they didn’t slow down. I had to dive outta the way.” He looked freshly bruised, and dazed.

But beside him, Albie looked unhinged. His gaze sparked, white-rimmed and panicked, furious in a visible way that none of the Green stock ever were. His gaze came to Jenny, and he gestured over his shoulder with his gun. All the rest of it – Eden kneeling to check Cletus’s pulse, Jackal and Victor talking into phones, Talis easing upright with Darla’s hand at the back of his head – faded into a blur of colors and background noises.

“They took them,” he said.

Her heart lurched. “Who?” But she knew, without even scanning the floor again, exactly who he meant.

He cast a wild glance around the room, like he was searching for a way that it was false, hoping that he hadn’t seen what really happened. She watched him take one of those slow blinks, too, eyes glazed and terrible when they opened. “Chelle and Axe. They took them.”

Forty-Two

Gringo frowned at his phone as he pulled it away from his ear. He’d called Cowboy twice now, and both times had gotten voicemail. He checked the call log, and his text streams, and tried a third time. Voicemail again.

He tucked his phone away, still frowning.

He didn’t mind being on guard duty – it was considerably less work than whatever was happening right now at the clubhouse. Considerably less interesting, too. His grandfather had always told him not to “borrow trouble,” whenever he claimed to be bored as a kid. “Say you’re bored, and somebody’ll find you something to do,” he’d cautioned, and then stuck a rake or a broom or a dust cloth in his hand and sicced him on chores. “The second God finds out you’re bored, he’ll have a laugh at your expense,” Grandpa would say.

Gringo wasn’t sure that was how God worked – he hadn’t been on speaking terms with the Big Man in years – but he did believe in bad luck. In jinxes. So he tried not to feel too disappointed that he was stuck here babysitting the infirm.

He was lounging across three chairs in a small family waiting room. Jinx and Melanie Menendez were on the same floor, on opposite ends of this hall. He’d been watching daytime TV and eating too much junk out of the vending machines, bored out of his skull, and probably “borrowing trouble” just for thinking that.

The courtroom drama – someone had stolen his neighbor’s chickens and refused to give them back – went to commercial break and he pushed to his feet, stretching with a wince, his spine popping in several places. Might as well go down and see what Jinx was up to.

Jinx was watching the same show, sitting propped up in bed, incongruous with his beard, and his tats, his growing-out undercut and his hospital gown with the little blue diamonds printed on it. He motioned toward the TV with the remote when Gringo entered. “Who steals chickens?”

“That’s nothing.” Gringo dragged the visitor chair closer to the bed and dropped into it. That was the thing about sitting: the more you did of it, the more it seemed to be the only thing you could do. “Last episode, some guy was sleeping with his mother-in-law, and she drugged him and stole his fucking sperm.”

“I saw that,” Jinx said, mouth twitching, looking caught between disbelief, disgust, and humor.

Gringo noticed a groove between his brows, a tightness around his eyes. “You doing alright? They giving you enough morphine?”

“I’m not taking the morphine. They’re giving me Tylenol.”

“Aw, dude, don’t ever turn down morphine.”

Jinx shook his head. “Nah. I don’t wanna be unconscious. Gotta stay sharp.”

“Sharp for what?” Gringo leaned forward and reached out with a forefinger to poke his hip – and got batted away before he could make contact. “We’re gonna have to get you one of those walkers with the wheels on it, like my grandmother uses.”

“Fuck you.”

“You been on your feet yet?” he asked, more serious this time. If he felt bored and stir-crazy from an afternoon in a waiting room, what must it be like for someone like Jinx?

“Yeah, to go to the bathroom.” Jinx glanced down at his blanket-covered knees, expression stony. “I wouldn’t let them leave the catheter in.”

“Shit, yeah. How’d it go? Do you need a walker?”

“No,” he said, a lie, because there was one over against the far wall.

Gringo tilted his head, seeking his friend’s gaze, and Jinx finally rolled his eyes.

“The fracture was on the left side. They said I can’t put any weight on that leg for six weeks.”

“Shit. That sucks, dude.”

“Yeah. What’s going on at home?”

Gringo shrugged. “Candy was gonna go talk to the feds this morning. The Chupacabra guy – Luis – called. He and Candy are supposed to meet up in the morning.”

“Yeah?”

“He wants to get everything all lined up today so he’s ready.”

Jinx nodded, his gaze drawing inward, expression troubled – regretful. “I should be there.”

“Nah, man, you should stay here and eat Jell-O.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Gringo was sympathetic – God knew he wouldn’t have wanted to be in that bed, in that gown, with a leg he couldn’t put his weight on – but not overly so. Not considering. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gone off doing shit behind Candy’s back, and you wouldn’t be laid up.”

Jinx’s face smoothed a moment. Absolute shock.

Gringo was a little shocked himself; he wasn’t the brother who dispensed wisdom. Not ever.

“I know why you didn’t like Pacer,” Gringo went on, “and, hell, I don’t even have a good reason, but I didn’t really like him either. He was a dumbass. But you let that old grudge make you stupid.”

Jinx scowled. “I wasn’t the only one who went to Sandoval’s.”

“Yeah. But you didn’t have to go along with them.”

Jinx gave him a look.

“Okay, so I’m real bad at this whole devil’s advocate thing. I’ve never done it before. What I mean is: you can’t be there now, tomorrow, but you can support the boss man from now on.”

“This really ain’t your look.”

“Tell me about it.” Gringo pushed a hand back through his hair and stood. “I’m freaking myself out here. Being reasonable and shit.”

That earned a reluctant grin from Jinx.

“Shit, I better go down and see if there’s any hot nurses to hit on.”

That earned a chuckle. Success.

Someone rapped on the door.

“Ooh, maybe they’re coming to me,” Gringo joked.

But when the door swung open, it revealed a tall, broad-shouldered, muscled man in scrubs. He had an ID clipped to his pocket, and wore gloves, carried a little tray with paper pill cups.

But.

Gringo knew an immediate, instinctual bolt of apprehension, tight in his belly, tingling in his fingertips. He didn’t kid himself by thinking he was as savvy as Fox, or cold as Talis, or effective with his fists as Candy. But something about this moment screamed wrong to him, and he listened.

The man – the nurse – wore his hair shaved close to his head; he had a scar on one cheek, and his nose looked like it had been broken at least once. His neck spoke of weightlifting – lots of it. And his shoes, Gringo noted, as the door shut, and the nurse turned toward them, weren’t the usual Crocs or sneakers of every other nurse he’d seen. They were boots. Good, broken-in work boots that had been in dirt recently.

Oh, shit, he thought.

~*~

Tenny had been asleep for an hour or so. Reese had sat silent watch, occasionally checking the time on his phone, grateful for the quiet. It had given him time to think, to reflect on the conversation they’d had.

It wasn’t hate that simmered in his breast now – at least not his own understanding of that emotion. No flaring lights and sirens in his mind, an internal snarl, a fury that left him wanting to lash out. He felt…calm. Peaceful. Clear-eyed and sharp. Mercy had said what Tenny had then echoed, that Fox was testing him. That was easier to swallow than the alternative, than the idea of Fox not caring for his own brother.

Perhaps the problem all along had been about Ten not understanding family. The idea that he himself knew something that Tenny didn’t was a buoy. Maybe he was a person. Maybe he’d been learning that for a while now.

Beyond the glass wall of the room, he heard the slap of feet, and snapped to instant alertness. Was on his feet and facing the door, hand resting at the small of his back, on the gun waiting there in his waistband, when the door rushed open and a nurse appeared in the threshold. It was the same one from before, the one who’d smiled at him and touched his hand and thought that he and Tenny were to be married.

She looked different now, stained by panic, her eyes wild and glazed, her mouth trembling. “There’s – there’s a–”

Reese didn’t ask for clarification. He knew that brand of panic; most often, he was the one dealing it.

He went down the hall, to the door between waiting room and ICU, and as he reached to open it, he heard a shout, and a scuffle. After he’d gone through, he saw Agent Maddox on his feet, tussling with a large, beefy man in scrubs, while a second advanced on them, the edge of a knife winking in his hand.

Maddox was shouting, going for his gun, but fast being overpowered. And there was that knife.

Reese ran the possibilities in the span of a breath, and he reacted. The way he figured it: Fox had sent him here to keep watch for a reason. He was here because he would make the sorts of decisions that others wouldn’t. He wasn’t polite, wasn’t worried about manners or form.

He pulled his gun, aimed – time moved in slow motion, as it always did in these moments. Aim, fire. Crack. The man with the knife toppled. Aim, fire. Crack. The one holding Maddox fell.

He was dimly aware of screams behind him, on the other side of the wall. The staff would be panicking. Someone would already be on the phone with security, or with the police.

Reese scanned the area, searching for another threat, but it was a small bit of hallway, with only the elevators and a door to a stairwell to offer a vantage point. No signs of any others.

“What the fuck?!” Agent Maddox scrambled inelegantly to his feet, face flushed, frantic gaze searching out the still-warm bodies on the floor. Blood spread outward in a tide, slick and dark beneath the lights. “What the fuck?” he repeated, spinning to face Reese, hand fluttering to the gun he wore on his hip. “Are you insane? You can’t–”

The door into the ICU opened behind Reese, and Tenny’s voice said, “Shut up, he saved your life.”

Reese glanced back over his shoulder and saw that Ten was on his feet, his white-knuckled grip on his IV pole seemingly the only thing keeping him on his feet; spine bent, legs shaking, face ashen.

Reese’s stomach tightened unpleasantly when he imagined Tenny’s knees buckling any moment. It would be so easy for the wound at his throat to reopen. “You should be lying down,” he said. “If your blood pressure gets too high–”

“Fuck that, I’m up.” He lifted his other hand, and that was when Reese noticed that he held a gun.

“Where did that come from?”

“Fox left it. The nurses hadn’t found it yet.”

“Are you kidding me?” Maddox charged toward him. “Are you – you’re both so under arrest. I can’t even–”

“Shut up,” Tenny repeated. He turned to Reese. “We have to move. There’ll be more. If they came for me, they’ll come for – what’s the other guy? Jenkins?”

“Jinx.”

“He’s on a lower floor.”

Which meant they might already be too late.

“Do you have a car?” Tenny asked Maddox.

The agent clenched his jaw, tight enough to make a muscle in his cheek twitch. He looked at both of them in turn – precious wasted seconds that had Reese caressing his trigger guard with one finger, adrenaline spiked so strongly he was having trouble keeping still. Then Maddox turned to look at the bodies. Sighed. “Yeah, I have a car.”

“We need to move,” Tenny said, starting forward.

One of his legs gave out. He swore, and the IV pole rattled and nearly tipped as he clutched at it for dear life.

But he didn’t fall, because Reese was at his side immediately, ducking smoothly under his free arm and hauling it securely across his shoulders. He knew it was only an impression, a fiction, but he thought Tenny felt too-light, already weakened and wasted since he’d been admitted.

“This is–” Maddox stared, glaring at them.

“Shut up,” Reese and Ten said as one.

“We’ll take the elevator,” Reese said, because there was no way Ten would be able to navigate the stairs like this. “Lead the way.”

Maddox’s face said he wanted to argue, but he turned and punched the down button.

~*~

Jinx had broken his arm as a kid, and as an adult he’d had some cuts and scrapes; stitches a time or two, especially after that one knife fight…

But he’d never been injured like this. Never overnighted in the hospital. Never been held hostage by his own body. The pain was sharp, and the temptation of morphine was great, but in this moment, as it started to unfold in horrifying slow-motion, he was glad for the pain, and for the sharpness of his mind.

Gringo realized what was happening a heartbeat after Jinx did, but he was healthy, and whole, and not laid up bare-assed in a hospital bed. He was already on his feet, and Jinx saw him tense in his periphery.

The man who’d entered threw the tray he was carrying at Gringo’s head.

Gringo brought up an arm and deflected it, sent it crashing into the wall. He reached for his gun, after, but the thug already had his in his hand, was already lifting it. He’d won the draw. He wouldn’t hesitate.

Jinx held the TV remote in his hand, and he threw it. It struck the man in the forehead, and bounced off.

It didn’t slow him down for long – his eyes shut on instinct, and he grunted, and fell back a half-step, more startled than injured – but just long enough to give Gringo a chance to act first. Jinx was already braced for the gunshot, the way it would sound deafening in the confines of this tight, tiled room.

But Gringo didn’t shoot. He lunged forward, cracked the gunman’s hand with the end of his own weapon – a satisfying crunch, and the gunman’s hand opened on a spasm, and the gun clattered to the floor – and chopped him in the Adam’s apple with the side of his hand.

The man choked, because anyone would have. His eyes bugged, already tear-slick, and he let out an ugly wheezing bellow. But the attack didn’t drop him like it might have with a smaller man. He reached up with both his bear-paw hands, and then he and Gringo were grappling, shoving at one another. The thug tried to wrench Gringo’s gun away, even as he gasped, and stuttered, and coughed.

Idiot! Jinx thought. He should have shot him, consequences be damned.

He started to reach for the call button on his bed, but that would draw innocent nursing staff into the chaos. He spotted the gun on the floor, only a few strides away – a few normal, uninjured strides away.

Shit.

The gunman got a hand on Gringo’s neck, his own throat bulging, the veins distinct. His face was red, and he didn’t seem able to breathe, but he had his other hand fisted in Gringo’s shirt, and it was only a matter of time before he took total control of the fight.

Jinx clenched his teeth, braced himself, and rolled onto his good side.

Even that small, ordinary movement sent bolts of pain shooting through his pelvis, and down his leg. Fierce, fiery pain that traveled up through his stomach, radiating through his chest, shooting down to his toes as it lit up every nerve pathway with fresh agony. Black spots crowded his vision. His stomach rolled; he tasted salt under his tongue. Throwing up or passing out were distinct possibilities.

He pushed through it; he had to. His body screamed, and his throat closed up tight on a real scream. He gripped the bed rail, and swung his good leg down. It trembled, and was weak; his knee threatened to give.

There was still such swelling and damage in his hip that he couldn’t swing the bad leg down – not on his own. He grabbed his thigh with shaking hands and forced it over. Everything went white a second, the pain vibrating at an audible frequency, a high whine in his ears like a bad motor. When his toes skimmed the floor, the pain crackled all the way up the limb, took breathtaking hold in the ruined crater in his hip.

This was terrible, so terrible. His body sent him every kind of warning signal. Stop, you dumbass! Stop, you can’t do this!

But he could hear Gringo and the cartel thug shoving at each other, shoes squeaking on the tile, grunting and hissing and, in the thug’s case, gasping wetly.

Jinx marshaled every bit of strength, kept his teeth gritted, held tight to the bedrail, and lurched out of bed.

He lost his vision a moment, the black of unconsciousness pressing against the white of agony. His legs wouldn’t hold him. It felt like something gave way in his hip; swore he felt things tearing and snapping and breaking. He went down, but it was a controlled fall. He managed to pitch forward, and catch himself with his hands. As his sight was fizzing back to life, his gorge rising up his throat, he grabbed the gun, and made one last agonizing twist onto his side so he could aim it.

Gringo and the thug looked like they were dancing, roughly, swaying back and forth, pushing and then pulling, trading the upper hand. They were trying to choke one another, and he would have laughed about it if circumstances were different.

“G, play dead,” Jinx shouted.

For maybe the first time in his life, Gringo listened. He went totally limp, and the thug, surprised, lost his grip on him.

Jinx pulled the trigger, and blood showered the sheetrock of the wall in bright droplets. The shot bounced off the walls, obscenely loud. The Chupacabras hadn’t thought to equip their muscle with suppressors.

The thug went down hard, not dead yet, but dying, big legs kicking uselessly, making a few last gasps for breath.

Gringo scrambled to his feet and kicked the dying man. “Fucking shit.” He looked up at Jinx. “Aw, shit, dude, did you fuck yourself up?”

“Big time. Help me up.”

Beyond the door, he could hear shouts, and running. Someone called some sort of code over the PA system, a crackled voice calling for calm. Heard a scream. Heard a male voice bark, “FBI, move! Get out of the way! Stay down!”

“The feds,” Gringo said, going to a knee beside him on the floor. “Shit, this is bad. This is really bad.”

Jinx didn’t know if he meant the situation, the dead man, the feds, or Jinx’s pathetic body lying prone on the floor, but clarification didn’t matter; it was all bad.

“Move!” the voice in the hall shouted again, and then the door opened.

Jinx glanced up, and was startled to see Reese, one of Fox’s little proteges, in the threshold, a gun in his hand. Behind him, he spotted Fox’s brother, the one who should have been upstairs in the ICU, leaning on a young guy in a suit, clutching a wheeled IV pole, bandaged and looking like death warmed over.

Reese glanced over at the dying thug, his gaze as flat and spooky as Jinx remembered from a few days before. Some guys looked hard, some looked impassive, so many brothers who’d cultivated inscrutable expressions they wore like weaponized masks. But this kid didn’t even look human.

He glanced back at Jinx and said, “We need to leave.”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” Gringo snapped at him. “You gonna just stand there, or help me get him up? He’s fucking crippled.”

“I’m not crippled.” But his effort to sit up left him gagging.

“Right. We need a wheelchair.”

From the hallway, Fox’s brother asked, “Where’s the Menendez woman?”

“Other end of the hall,” Gringo said, distracted, a hand on Jinx’s shoulder. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

~*~

Jinx wasn’t the largest and heaviest of the Lean Dogs, but he was well-muscled, and more or less dead weight given the extent of his injuries, so it took Reese, Gringo, and Agent Maddox to wrestle him into a wheelchair while Tenny sat on the edge of the bed, shaking. Maddox had flashed his badge when they came off the elevator, and told everyone to take cover. Nurses and doctors and patients had ducked into rooms, and behind counters, but a voice continued to call codes over the PA. Reese knew they were dealing with a matter of seconds before security arrived, or the local police. Maddox could get them out of the building, but that didn’t mean complications wouldn’t arise.

Jinx’s IV had pulled loose from the crook of his elbow, little pearls of blood running down his forearm, staining his gown.

“He needs morphine,” Gringo said, tone grim.

“There’s a pump attached to his IV,” Tenny said from the bed. “Same as mine. Get a fresh needle in him and then hit him with two presses.”

Reese could have done it – he’d administered his own first aid in the field for years; he could stitch a wound neatly as a seamstress on his own body – but he could hear the clock clicking away in the back of his mind. “Can you do it?” Reese asked Gringo, and earned a grimace.

“Probably. Maybe.”

“I’ll talk him through it,” Tenny said. “Go.”

Reese headed for the door.

Maddox stepped in front of him before he got there, brows nearly fused together over his slender nose.

“We don’t have time,” Reese said.

Maddox’s mouth pressed to a flat, colorless line, because he knew they didn’t, and that Reese was right, and that Maddox was the least-equipped to handle this situation. It rankled, though.

The agent finally nodded and stepped aside, and Reese took long strides down the hall, his gun at the ready. A nurse peeked out of a door, gasped, and retreated. He passed a cracked door and heard loud sobbing on the other side. People were frightened – civilians. That was normal, in his line of work, but he didn’t normally have to show his face to them – naked and without paint, unmistakable, a gun in his hand for all the security cameras to see.

That wasn’t how it was done. That wasn’t the way to maintain ghost status.

His pulse ticked up a notch, and it had nothing to do with the situation at hand, but the situation to come, maybe, if the FBI didn’t wipe the slate clean after all of this.

Melanie Menendez was in room 203, Jinx had said. It was second to last on the left; he could see its door from here – its open door.

He approached with all the required caution, kicking the door in, hands tight on his gun. But it was too late. Melanie was gone – in a hurry, if the way the blankets hung down off the bed was any indication.

Reese turned and bolted.

“What?” Maddox shouted, when he reached the nurse’s station.

“Gone,” Reese said, already shouldering his way into the stairwell. “Tell them to lock the building down.”

“Fucking shit…” Maddox murmured, before the door closed, and cut off the sound. Then Reese was pounding down the concrete stairs as fast as he could go.

When he pushed through the door at the bottom, he had to dodge past a security guard, an out-of-shape young guy who shouted for him to stop. He wasn’t armed with anything but a baton, though, so Reese ducked, and kept running. Down a hall, doctors and staff members flattening themselves against the walls to avoid him. Everyone he passed wore a variation of the same expression: stark, knee-shaking terror.

It was the only way anyone had ever looked at him. Save for Kris. And his first master. And his new masters – who called themselves brothers, and who weren’t masters at all, and for whom he was doing this, so he could go home, and be around people who didn’t look at him like he was a ghost streaking down their hallways.

The guard didn’t pursue him, though Reese could hear him speaking over his radio. He hit a set of double doors, uncontested, and burst through into the emergency room, full of confused patients, some sitting, some standing, some demanding to know what was going on while the intake nurses waved their hands and called for quiet and order.

Everyone turned toward him when he entered, and everyone froze the moment they spotted the gun in his hand. In the second before the screaming started, he spotted his quarry: the flash of Melanie’s blond hair, and the back of a tall, thickset man as he hustled her out through the sliding doors. The man’s hand, Reese noted, was at her elbow, like he was helping her, rather than gripping tight at her upper arm.

She glanced back over her shoulder, briefly, when the shouting started, and it was only once she’d spotted him that her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.

She wasn’t being kidnapped; she was leaving with the cartel under her own power.

Reese took off.

He saw the man moving to intercept him from the corner of his eye. A citizen, someone who’d been waiting with a loved one in the ER. Middle-aged, fairly fit, his face set in lines of petrified determination. He’d decided Reese was a gunman, a threat to civilians, and he was going to throw himself on the figurative grenade. Try to take out the threat.

Reese admired his spirit, but he didn’t have time for the distraction.

He paused, and let the man get closer; he was unarmed, and came at Reese with bare hands open and ready to grab, to grapple.

Reese feinted, brought a hand up, and hit the man right in the sternum with the heel of his free hand. The man’s forward momentum, and the perfect strike, sent him staggering backward with an explosive breath, all the air rushing out of his lungs. Part force, part shock.

“Move,” Reese told him, dodged around him, and kept going.

Melanie and her escort were out the door. A car sat idling beneath the porte-cochere.

Reese hit the threshold just as Melanie was being bundled into the car. If he shot now, there was a high chance of striking her. Did it matter?

Personally, no. She was involved, clearly; he thought it would be easiest to clear the board of players.

But the club would want to question her. Candy had known her; he would want answers.

Reese made an on-the-move decision, and when he reached the open car door, he had his knife in his other hand. The man had his back to him, and he stabbed him, quick and clean, in the kidney. The man yelled, and toppled forward into the backseat of the car. Melanie screamed from inside.

Reese struck again, this time in the man’s calf, and earned another scream.

Then the car was jumping forward, tires screeching, and it sped away with the man’s feet still dangling out of the open door.

Melanie must have dragged him inside, because no part of him was visible by the time the car whipped around the corner and the door slammed shut on its own.

Reese stood a moment, catching his breath, listening to the motor of the Mercedes roar as it drew farther and farther away, out of sight, and then, a few beats later, out of hearing range. He inhaled, and exhaled, and inhaled, and exhaled, and realized, finally, that he was a jumble of emotions inside, fractious and quivery and feeling a dozen different things at once, too tangled to parse at the moment. He waited for the cold dispassion that had been his constant companion to descend, but when it didn’t, he finally turned and headed back inside.

Perhaps Agent Maddox could be of some help in escaping.

Forty-Three

There was a hole. In the wall. Its edges jagged, the studs snapped off like broken teeth, exposed wires trailing like snakes over the debris-littered hardwood.

To be fair, it hadn’t been the sturdiest of walls. A bit of cinderblock around the foundation, but mostly just sheetrock, insulation, and inexpensive wood siding. A man couldn’t have run through it, but a truck – especially one with a big brush guard or hunting grill on the front – could have done it, easy. And it had. It had punched right through, like a fist through wet tissue paper. Broken some tables. Destroyed the big flat-screen TV. Sent the couch flying. There had been glasses and coffee mugs on some of the tables, and their shattered fragments glinted along the floor, where sunlight flooded in through the opening where the wall had been only an hour ago, when he left for the precinct.

It was funny what a person noticed, in moments of crisis: the finer details that the eyes caught upon, and which captured the attention. Amidst the detritus on the floor, Candy’s gaze landed on a pencil, a basic, yellow, No. 2 like he’d used at school as a kid. It lay under a table, the table where Benny’s corpse was draped, his head a ruin like a split melon, blood and tea comingled on the tabletop.

There were blood flecks on the pencil, tiny droplets.

“…Candy. Candy. Derek.”

He blinked. Jenny stood in front of him, her hands on his biceps – clutching hard, nails digging in, bright spots of pain that cut through the haze that had engulfed him the moment Jenny said Michelle’s gone.

He lifted his head and scanned the room, the contained chaos of it. He didn’t remember walking inside, wasn’t sure if the paramedics had already been inside, tending to the wounded – his wounded brothers – or if they’d arrived while he’d stood there, staring, sound coming to him in muted swells like he was underwater.

Cletus was being strapped down to a stretcher. Another paramedic shined a penlight in Talis’s eyes, asking him questions Candy couldn’t hear the answers to. He noted Cantrell, with a start; the agent was picking his way carefully through the debris, wearing sterile gloves and murmuring to himself as he surveyed the damage. Fox was talking to Eden, who was bent at the waist, examining a long gash at somebody’s hairline. One of the Cali boys; Tee, he realized, belatedly.

“Derek,” Jenny repeated, and he looked down into her worried face. Her eyes gleamed, shiny with checked tears, but she was composed, brave-faced. Unlike him, she’d taken command of the situation, wasn’t panicking.

“Can you hear me?” she asked.

His mouth had gone so dry that he had to swallow a few times and wet his lips before he could answer. “Yeah.”

Jenny’s brows knitted, and he read it as doubt. “Candy,” she said, gentler now that she had his attention. “We’re going to get her back. It’ll be okay.”

It’ll be okay. That was what you said when somebody was dying in the hospital; when the business went belly-up; when there was no hope left, you said it’ll be okay, because empty platitudes were the best a person could offer.

If the Chupacabras had Michelle, it wouldn’t be okay. She’d be laid out under a starry sky, staked to the ground–

The image filled his mind, so sudden, so exact, that his stomach heaved. He clenched his teeth tight against the urge to retch.

Jenny’s hands tightened on his arms, and the pain of her sharp nails was the good kind, the focusing kind. He didn’t realize he’d bowed his head until she was leaning in close, her hair feathery against his chin.

“Listen to me,” she said, fast and low, no louder than this small, sheltering place between them. “I know this is terrible, and I know you’re scared – we’re all scared. But you’re the president, and we need you to lead. You can’t fall apart on us, Derek, not now.”

It was exactly the sort of buck up, cowboy line their dad or Crockett would have used. Shit’s bad, so step up.

He took a deep breath, and lifted his head. He couldn’t fight the fear, but he could channel the anger. The fury. Let it run loose to keep the fear from choking him.

Jenny stepped back, though she still touched him. “Okay?”

Not even a little bit. “Tell me what happened.”

She nodded, the faintest grim smile tweaking her mouth. Good job.

When Candy got hold of Luis, there wouldn’t be enough of him left for the feds to ID him. Not even dental records.

~*~

“Where’s Albie?”

Eden wore a pair of sterile gloves and pressed a butterfly bandage over the split at Tee’s hairline with one deft movement while she pinched the skin with her other hand. She straightened. “That should do it,” she told him, and snapped the gloves off.

“Where’s Albie?” Fox repeated. His voice sounded very flat to his own ears – too flat. His heart didn’t race, and his stomach didn’t roll, but there was a faint whining in his ears; a catch at the bottom of every breath. They’d taken Michelle, and that was intolerable. Was something he was going to fix. But he couldn’t fix it without a plan. Without knowing all the particulars.

Eden finally turned toward him – he’d very nearly grabbed her and demanded that she look at him – and he saw the wildness in her eyes, warring grief and terror and shame.

He felt a tug in his gut, and squashed it, fast and hard. No time for that. No time for worrying about how she felt about any of this.

“They took Axelle, too,” she said. “He went after them.”

Of course he did. “Fucking idiot,” Fox muttered, and turned for the door, flicking his sunglasses down off his forehead and back into place.

“Charlie,” Eden protested.

“I’ll be back.”

Two ambulances sat slanted across the parking lot out front, but it was obvious where the truck had backed away from the ruined wall, turned, and spun out toward the highway. Deep ruts like fresh wounds in the sandy spoil. The front fender of one of the flatbeds had been clipped, bits of shattered headlight glinting on the ground.

A fed wearing white gloves was pacing along the length of the track, one of Cantrell’s young helpers – the blond from the precinct. She swung around when she heard Fox’s footfalls crunching on the gravel, brows drawn low over the rims of her sunglasses. “Don’t walk on the evidence,” she snapped.

Fox swung a leg over his bike and clipped on his helmet. “Wouldn’t dream of it, love.” He cranked the Harley, and gunned it down the path the truck had left, kicking up a plume of dust, and hit the highway in the middle of two wide-set dirt tracks laid thick on the asphalt.

It gave him a direction, if nothing else. He opened up the throttle, leaned low over the handlebars, and flew.

The dirt trail ended after half a mile, as he’d known it would. But the road was a long, straight stretch here, shimmering with heat mirages ahead despite the cool. He didn’t check the speedometer; no local cop could have caught him had they been lying in wait anyway.

Albie, you fucking git, he thought, teeth gritted against the stinging wind in his face. What will you do by yourself? Take down a whole bloody truck alone?

A turnoff loomed ahead, the burned-out shell of an old shop on one corner. He remembered the intersection from his time living in Amarillo. Straight ahead would take him into downtown, but the left turn would take him the long way, through neighborhoods with more warehouses and machine shops than homes.

Any decision would be a gamble. One wrong step could cost him precious time.

He took the turn.

Roared down a bare stretch of road, and then signposts started to flash past, speed limits that he ignored, two cross-walks that he blew through. He passed a gas station, and a strip mall with dusty signage he couldn’t read. An apartment block, low-slung single story connected villas with flat roofs, and a plaster life-size horse holding up the sign.

The road curved, and forced him through a sequence of four-way stops that he pushed through, horns blaring, tires squealing. Warehouses reared up on either side. A three-way stop, and a wide, very visible parking lot in front of a warehouse with three huge roll-top doors open to the road. A bike parked haphazardly, and a man in leather and denim holding a gun on a smock-wearing man with his hands in the air.

Albie.

Fox nearly laid his bike down making the turn into the shop lot. Was off of it before the engine died. “Albie.” A sharp bark, an order.

Albie flinched, but didn’t lower his gun. “I have them,” he said through his teeth. “Help me.”

Fox stepped up beside him and took stock of the situation. The man in the smock was middle-aged, heavyset, with close-cropped gray hair and smudges of grease on his fingers. The stitching on the breast pocket read Ray, and his expression was one of unmistakable terror. Over his shoulder, through the open roll-top door, Albie glimpsed a jacked-up Ram with mud tires and a tool box. A younger man in a matching smock stood at the rear of the truck, a tire iron in his hand, his eyes wide and face pale.

“Albie,” Fox repeated.

When he got no answer, he took a closer look at his brother.

Albie was shaking. His face gleamed pale and sweaty in the sunlight, his jaw clenched tight, fine tremors cycling through every part of him. The muzzle of the gun vibrated faintly. His eyes – blue and cold in this moment – reminded Fox of Devin’s. Of his own.

“I don’t think it’s them, mate,” Fox said. His own voice came out calm; he felt calm. So long as someone needed him to be the one in charge, the voice of reason, the steady hand, there was no limit to the panic he could suppress.

Albie bared his teeth, chest heaving as he breathed. “It is. I followed them.”

“I don’t–”

“It’s them!”

“Please,” the man named Ray said, voice trembling. “I-I-I don’t know what he’s talking about. He just pulled a gun on me.”

“Dad,” the younger man called from the garage door.

“Do you mind if I have a look at your truck?” Fox asked. He showed his open palms. “No gun.” Not one visible. “Just a look.”

Ray swallowed hard and nodded.

“I’m going to go look at the truck,” Fox told Albie. “Don’t do anything.”

Albie didn’t acknowledge him.

“Easy, easy,” Fox said to the younger man as he approached. His smock read Tyler. “Don’t get any ideas about that.” He gestured to the tire iron and gave the kid a wide berth as he walked up the side of the truck.

“What’s his problem?” Tyler demanded. He was as scared as his father, but trying to cover it with useless bluster – the kind that led to rash decisions like taking a swing at someone. For Tyler’s sake, Fox hoped he didn’t make that mistake. “We didn’t do anything!”

“I know,” Fox said. The truck was an older model, with an extended cab, and suicide rear doors. He opened the front door – nothing but empty leather bucket seats and two massive gas station soda cups – and then the rear. More leather, a blanket, a tool box. “He’s had a rough morning.”

Fox turned to face him. “We’re looking for a truck. Something big, with a back seat, or maybe a camper shell on the bed – something with room for cargo. A brush guard. Big mud tires.” He framed the width of the tracks back at the clubhouse between two hands.

Tyler stared at him, breathing hard, wary, his gaze flicking out through the door, toward Albie, and his father.

“Have you seen another truck this morning? On this road?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Fox walked back out into the parking lot. “Ray, have you seen a truck similar to yours on the road this morning?”

“It’s Texas,” Ray said, staring fixedly at the muzzle of Albie’s gun. “There’s trucks like ours all over the place.”

“I’m looking for one big and powerful enough to drive through the wall of a house and back out again without too much damage. One with room for cargo. One–”

“Shit.” Ray’s eyes widened and rolled toward Fox, though he was careful not to turn his head. “There was one that passed us on our way in. Blew right past. I saw it in the rearview as it came by, and it had dust and plaster and shit all over the windshield. It was caught in the grill – and, shit, yeah, it had a brush guard. A big one. Like one you’d put on to go mudding.

“Hey, Ty, you remember that truck?”

“Describe it to me,” Fox said. “In better detail.”

“Shit, yeah, it was – lemme think. It was a Chevy – yeah. A new one. Black. Lift kit. Had those wide side mirrors, aftermarket chrome, like you’d use if you were pulling a camper or something. Black brush guard. Tinted windows. Camper shell on the back.”

“Wonderful,” Fox deadpanned. “It passed you?”

“Yeah. Going eighty, at least. Headed this way. Don’t know where it went, though.”

“That’s alright, we’ll find it.” Fox stepped in front of him, then, facing his brother. “Albie, were you listening?”

Albie grimaced. His gaze was trained – it was fixed. He had Ray in his sights, and all logic had abandoned him. He wanted answers; he wanted blood, and he wasn’t going to be picky about trivial details like innocent bystanders.

Fox had never seen him like this, and, frankly, it was pitiful.

“I looked in the truck.” He took a step forward. “And the girls weren’t there. They were never there.” Another step. “Where would they have put them? There wasn’t time.” Another step. “Did you hear what he said about the other truck? That was our boys. They’ve gone past here.” He reached up and curled his hand around the barrel of the gun. “We’re wasting time.”

The last was what finally seemed to penetrate. Albie blinked a few times, and his gaze sharpened; the harsh line of his mouth slackened.

“Albert,” Fox said, and he wasn’t a parent, but he’d heard enough parents speak to children to know that was how he sounded now. “Give me the gun.”

Albie blinked again, and his grip loosed just enough for Fox to wrench the pistol away. He tucked it into the back of his own waistband and then stepped forward and took Albie by the wrists. Walked him forcibly back toward the bikes.

“Sorry about that!” He called over his shoulder. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call the police.”

Behind him, Ray said, “Shit, we’re Lean Dogs fans. Normally.” He muttered something unintelligible after.

Fox hadn’t been thinking about their cuts, plain as day. He wondered if anyone else had witnessed this little spectacle. The last thing the Dogs needed was bad press and a rumor mill amidst all this upheaval.

Priorities, a small voice chimed in the back of his head. He’d never been very good with those.

They reached the bikes, and Fox gave Albie a hard shake. “Snap out of it.”

Albie glared at him, and ripped out of his hold. But the next second he turned, and dropped his head, hands going to his hips. To keep them from shaking, Fox knew. To give them something solid to grab onto. He could see the tremors in Albie’s shoulders; hear them in his shuddering breaths.

“I was in the room,” he said in a choked voice. “Charlie, I was there with them, and I couldn’t get to them.”

“There was a truck driving through the wall,” Fox said. “No one could have gotten to them.”

Albie shot a glittering, hateful look over his shoulder. “You could have.”

Fox didn’t counter him; probably he could have. But he did put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “So let’s go find them.”

Albie took a huge, unsteady breath, and nodded.

Forty-Four

“Do you have a way to contact Luis?” Cantrell asked. He looked more exhausted and lined than he had only a couple hours ago at the precinct. “Did you try calling back the number he used to reach you?”

“It was a blocked number,” Candy said, his gaze on the wrecked common room. “That won’t matter. If this is a ransom situation, he’ll make contact with us.”

“And if it isn’t?”

Candy shot him a glare.

Cantrell met it, not without sympathy, and then stepped away when his cell rang.

Colin approached, and Candy turned to face him, momentarily startled when he saw that Colin was carrying Jack. It was all-hands-on-deck, though, with no one to spare for babysitting. Oh, God, TJ…

“He’s down for his nap,” Colin said, before Candy could ask. “I just left him. Kid could sleep through anything, just like you.” A smile flickered and died. “What are we doing? What do you need?”

He took a deep breath, and tried not to think of Michelle, his little baby thing, laid out like a star. “I don’t–”

“Snow.” It was Cantrell, cellphone held out from his ear, expression freshly shocked. “It’s the guy I had on hospital watch. Maddox. Your boys there were attacked, and the perps got away with Melanie Menendez.”

Candy was fast losing his ability to absorb information.

“It was them,” Blue said, shaking his head, voice grim. “Shit. They orchestrated this job and that one at the same time, while you were outta the house, Candy.”

“Eric and Jesse,” he said, his tone calm – authoritative – his brain scrambling to keep up. “The cartel was waiting for the call, and one of them made it. We had moles under our roof the whole time.”

“My money woulda been on Benny,” Talis said. He leaned over the table and inspected the dead man, a pained grimace in place of his usual stony façade.

Cantrell waved him back. “Don’t touch the evidence, Jesus.”

Candy scanned the room. “Where’s Fox?”

Eden stepped over a broken chair and joined their loose circle. “He went after Albie.”

Shit. Albie’s girl had been taken, too.

Candy wiped a hand down his face, eyes closing, briefly, keenly aware of all the eyes on him. All the people who looked up to and depended upon him. People who’d questioned his judgement in the last few days, but who’d called him brother and leader for far longer than that. People he couldn’t afford to let down, no matter if his heart was breaking, no matter if panic threatened to choke him.

When he opened his eyes, he’d made a decision. “Someone has to stay here and man the phone in case Luis makes contact again. If he does, I wanna be patched through. You give him my cell number and tell him I was a word ASAP.

“We’ll need guys on guard here. The man from the hospital: all my guys are okay?”

Cantrell nodded. “Yeah. Two are pretty much useless, and ought to still be in bed, but they’re whole. The spooky kid and the smart-mouth convinced Maddox to bring them all here.”

That was one small wave of relief. “Good. Reese can help here, and Gringo, too. Jackal, I want you and your boys with me. Colin, you too. We’re gonna kick every fucking anthill in this city and see what comes crawling out. We’re going to find them, and then tomorrow morning, Luis is mine.”

Cantrell said, “The FBI–”

“Can stay the fuck outta my way,” Candy said. “If you don’t like it, arrest my ass, but otherwise, I’ve got shit to do.”

The agent looked like he wanted to say something, but gave a brief nod and stepped back. “Can my techs take samples here?” he asked, tightly.

“Pull up the damn floor if you want. Whatever. Tell Jen what you need.”

Jenny caught up with him at the door to the sanctuary, and he wanted to snarl at her for slowing him down. But when he turned to her, the softly encouraging, absolutely loving look on her face brought him up short.

“You’ll find her in time,” she said. “I know you will. Don’t worry about us here. I’ve got it handled.”

“I know you do.” To his great shame, his voice cracked.

“Come here.” She stood on her toes, and put her arms around his neck. Hugged him tight. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I love you. Please be safe.”

It didn’t matter if he was safe. Nothing mattered if he couldn’t get to Michelle in time.

~*~

Albie’s arm was all pins and needles. Belatedly, he realized it was the bad one, the one he hadn’t been going to physical therapy for. He gripped the handlebars so tightly, his body coiled with so much tension, that it was igniting all the half-healed nerves there.

He didn’t ease his grip. The pain was a good reminder of what could happen when you let your guard down.

Which he’d now done twice.

Only this time, he wasn’t the one to bear the consequences of overconfidence.

Christ.

Every time he blinked, he saw it replaying in slow motion. He’d heard the roar of the engine the second before the world had turned upside down. An awful crash, and a shove. It had been like a sudden fall, a sideswipe, a tumble of noise and pressure and the impossible. Not so different from the explosion in London, when his new little brother tried to blow him up.

He’d hit his head hard, had blacked out, just a second – more of a fritz, really. A second of crowding black spots and muffled hearing, a dizzy swim back to the top. When he’d lifted his head, blinking against a cloud of dust, he’d seen scattered furniture and big chunks of drywall. The glowing yellow high-beams of the truck, bright and distinct as klieg lights through the haze of pulverized sheetrock.

It came through the wall, he’d thought, wildly, and then he’d seen boots, and he’d seen bodies being lifted up into the air, two flags of long, bright hair, honey and gold.

He’d scrambled to his feet – too slow, too dizzy, slipping on tufts of insulation – and pulled his gun, and he’d fired, right at the driver. But the girls were already inside, and the glass held, and then the truck was…

Gone.

He’d thought he’d caught a glimpse of it, once, at that first stop sign headed into town: a black tailgate, and mud tires. He’d been so sure, back at that garage, so very sure…

He couldn’t feel shame about his mistake, because he was full to the brim with shame for letting Michelle and Axelle be taken.

Little Chelle, who’d sat on his knee when she was in diapers, who he’d given knives to for Christmas, and gotten tight hugs in return.

And Axelle, who he’d promised to keep safe, who was so tentative and skittish under the tough-girl veneer, but who’d melted when he kissed her, responsive and touch-starved.

Michelle pregnant.

And Axe unused to this sort of life. Both of them scared to death. Both of them precious to him, to so many. How was he going to face Candy? How was he going to face himself each night in the mirror if anything happened to either of them?

He and Fox rode side-by-side, running stop-signs, pushing speed limits along some stretches, and crawling down others, ignoring the irate honks and shouts of other drivers. This part of town was a rabbit warren of narrow side-streets lined by warehouses, garages, and industrial buildings of all sorts, a few sad houses with cracked foundations and weedy, chain-link enclosed yards interspersed. They passed lots of trucks sitting in driveways, many of them worth more than the buildings they were parked before, but none with the exact combination of traits they needed.

Every turn, every boarded-up window, every red or blue or white truck ratcheted Albie’s pulse a little higher.

At the next stoplight, Fox waved to get his attention, and then pointed off to the right.

About a block down from the intersection, a long, low-slung building studded with garage doors sported a shiny new fence along the street: tall chain-link topped with razor wire. As they watched, a van rolled in through an open gate that a man standing attendance shut right after. He locked it with a piece of fat chain and a padlock before turning to follow the van up to a garage bay. The gun he wore on his hip was obvious.

As was the glimpse of a tall-set, black tailgate through another open door.

Fox leaned over, speaking just loud enough to be heard above the din of their idling motors. “That fence is brand new.”

Albie’s heart lurched. “That’s the truck.”

“Yeah. Follow me.”

Albie did, reluctantly, palms clammy inside his gloves, as Fox went straight through the intersection and pulled over in the parking lot of a small grocery store with a Mexican flag in the window.

When the engines were cut, Albie continued to feel the purring thrum in his chest, his heartbeat as charged as the Harley motor.

“The fence makes sense,” Fox said. “Whatever I was doing, I’d want it roped off. Dartmoor locks down like Fort Knox at night.”

Albie found he had little patience for speculation. “That’s them. You know it.”

“I suspect it. You don’t know anything – you almost blew poor Ray’s brains all over the street in front of God and everybody.”

“Glad you can be so calm about our niece getting kidnapped.”

“I am calm.” Fox nudged his shades down his nose and gave him a steely look over the tops. Get it together. “Because that’s more useful than wringing my bloody hands. Shut up and listen to me.

“This isn’t so bad a neighborhood as to warrant an armed guard on the gate in the middle of the afternoon – not unless something sensitive is going on. I do think it’s them. We’ve never bothered to find all their little dens here in the city, and I know they have to have them. Doc Gilliard’s place was a decoy, I think. The cartel had that little bitch feed us bad information on purpose and we paid for it.

“Now we have to be smart. If that’s the truck, then this is where they brought the girls – but the girls might not be here any longer. If it were me, and I had valuable hostages, I’d move them at least once, maybe twice, to throw off the scent.”

Albie ground his molars. “I hate when you make sense.”

“Doesn’t everyone? It’s worth a look inside, is what I’m saying, but don’t get your hopes up that we’ll find Michelle and Axelle.”

“Are you calling Candy?”

“Not yet. I have a better idea.”

~*~

Fox strolled into la tienda as casual as you please, bought two bottles of orange soda, and had a lovely chat with the small, iron-haired woman running the till in her own language. She seemed surprised, at first, that he spoke Spanish so well, but warmed after he flashed her his good smile.

When he asked about the garage just around the corner, she shook her head and clucked her tongue. Strange goings-on there, she told him. Ugly men with lots of ugly guns. Her family had fled Mexico twenty years ago to get out from under the grip of the cartels, she said, and it made her sick to see them setting up shop here.

They steal from me, she said, and threaten me. I can’t call the police.

Fox had an elbow leaning on the counter at this point, sipping one of the sodas. He flicked the patches on the front of his cut. You’re telling me now.

The Lean Dogs help good people who need it, she said. And unlike the police, they take care of the bad guys.

“Your confidence in us is inspiring, abuelita,” he said, saluting her with his half-full bottle as he backed out into the parking lot, bell jangling in his wake.

Outside, Albie sat tapping nervous fingertips on his handlebars. His head whipped around at the sound of the bell. “Took you long enough.”

Fox popped the top off the second soda and offered it.

Albie made a face – disgusted with Fox and what he saw as wasted time.

“You’re shaking,” Fox said. “The sugar will help with the shock.”

“I’m not in shock,” Albie grumbled, but took the bottle and sipped at it. “What’d she say in there?”

“Pretty much what I figured. The cartel owns that place – or at least she thinks they do. Buncha young guys come into her shop now and then, shoplift, give her a hard time. She doesn’t give them any lip, which has probably kept it from escalating. She was glad to see me, she said. Hopes the Dogs are going to flush the bad guys out.”

Albie gave a little eyebrow shrug and took another sip. His shaking had already eased. He’d always been useless when he had nothing to do; it was talking shop more than the drink that was helping, Fox knew. “So what’s the plan?”

“We go in quietly, stealth-mode. Have Candy and the boys meet us in half an hour, which gives us plenty of time to poke around and see if there’s anything useful to learn until the big boys start bashing heads.”

Albie nodded. “Can you get over that fence?”

Fox grinned. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”

~*~

It turned out they didn’t have to go over; they went through. A narrow alley ran behind the grocery store, one that was fenced on both sides, and offered access to all the backsides of the buildings that ran down two parallel side streets. The tienda’s proprietress let them through her back gate with a key and wished them luck with a crinkle-eyed smile. Fox blew her a kiss and led the way.

It was dim and cool back here, the shadows of the buildings mated together to keep out the sun. The alley – just wide enough for a garbage truck to back down – was full of every building’s trash cans, and smelled of rot and piss.

The garage was easy to spot, its corrugated steel and a series of pedestrian and roll-top doors. The cars parked behind it were a mix of work vans, pickups, and a few sleek Mercedes sedans. The fence out front had been gleaming and new, tips of the razor wire winking in the sunlight.

But no one had thought to replace the old fence in the back. Why would they? It was high, and already in place, and there wasn’t street access back here.

Fox carried an array of tools on his person at all times, and the fence was rusty enough that the pliers in his interior cut pocket went right through it. A few snips, some peeling, and they had a hole large enough to wriggle through.

“What are the chances they have cameras?” Albie asked, once they were through.

“Look at this fence. If they do, there aren’t any aimed at this spot. Let’s go.”

In truth, there were cameras, and he’d already spotted them, one on each corner of the rear of the building, but stationary, rather than oscillating, and pointed forward to catch any movement coming around the sides from the front. The psychology of it was simple to him: This ratty old fence, this rarely-used alley, felt like a wall to whoever worked and plotted inside this building. Any watch they kept would be on the street, on the front of the house; a braggart’s false sense of security.

A quick check proved all the roll-top doors were cinched tight from the inside, but it was laughably easy to pick the lock on one of the pedestrian doors; one with a shade pulled down over the window from the inside, and patchy rust on the unpainted metal face of it. He checked that Albie had his gun drawn, drew his own – suppressor screwed securely onto the barrel – let them in.

The hinges squeaked. He gritted his teeth against the noise, tensed for an attack. Waited a few moments, a count of four breaths. No one came running.

They entered a narrow, linoleum-floor hallway that smelled stale and unused. Doors were set in the wall to either side, and ahead, the hall took a hard right turn. Fox pressed his ear to both doors before he tried them, and opened them to find a janitor closet that looked like it hadn’t been touched in a decade, and a storage room lined with shelves of dusty boxes. Whatever went on here, this wasn’t a high-traffic area.

The only way to go was forward.

Fox moved silently, and Albie nearly managed, the occasional bit of grit crackling under his boot soles not enough to give them away. Th turn opened into another hallway, lined with more doors, but there were signs of foot traffic on the lino here, a clean, shiny path down the center, and turning in at the thresholds. Fox heard voices, echoing as if in a large space.

A window lay ahead on the left, waist-high, covered in cheap miniblinds. When Fox reached it, he gapped the blinds with two fingers and peeked through. He had a view of a vast garage space, bay after bay, all open to one another. Several had car lifts, but most sat empty. He spotted the truck, black, and covered in dust and debris, with a camper shell on the back and big chrome towing mirrors, just as Ray had said.

A knot of four guys dressed in black stood chatting in Spanish. A younger man, a lackey, was unrolling a water hose toward the truck, where a bucket topped with soap suds waiting. They were going to wash away the evidence of the crash.

He couldn’t see anything else that looked like office space, though the tall, industrial cabinets along one wall warranted a closer look.

Fox released the blinds and stepped back. “We’ll search these rooms first.” The clock was ticking on Candy’s arrival, and he wanted to do his snooping before the shit hit the fan.

Albie wore an impatient expression, but nodded, and they split up.

Fox checked the rooms on the left. A bunk room with a few messy cots, a TV, and a microwave. A bare bones office with one filing cabinet it would take too long to search; he nicked the scribbled-on notepad by the phone and stuffed it in his pocket.

When he stepped out into the hall, he found Albie hanging out of a doorway, motioning him over.

“Come look,” he whispered.

Fox looked, and felt his brows jump.

It was a work room, a series of folding card tables laid out in a horseshoe pattern; large flat squares of glass, boxes of plastic wrap, rolls of tape. A few tightly-bound bricks of cocaine, and more along the walls, peeking out of plastic tote bins. The bins on the opposite wall contained cases of small vials, all full of cocaine, ready for retail distribution – of a sort.

“They’re distributing locally out of here,” Fox said, pulling out his phone to snap photos. He pocketed one of the vials, and crossed to the door, peered out into the hall. Still clear. Went to the window, and peeked through. A car was pulling into one of the empty bays in the garage, and the knot of chatting men were moving to meet the driver: a pimple-faced white kid smiling through white-lipped terror.

Albie appeared at his shoulder, gapping a section of blinds for himself, and they watched a roll of cash get traded for a paper lunch sack through the window of the car.

“Recognize him?” Albie asked.

“I don’t remember his name. Something with a D. Part of this little group of wankers always wanting Candy to cut them in on the business. I think he tried to prospect, once, but he couldn’t even cut it as a hangaround. Somebody got knifed at a party and he puked all over himself.”

“So he goes and gets himself tied up with the cartel.”

“No one in the cartel cares if he’s a right fit. If he fucks up, they’ll kill him.”

He let the blinds fall closed as the beat-up Dodge was backing out of the garage. “There’s a staircase out there, which means these offices have an upper floor. I want a look.”

“And how will we get to the stairs, genius?”

Fox shot him a grin, and Albie rolled his eyes.

Forty-Five

Jenny had always found that keeping busy in moments like these was the best way to keep upright and keep from giving in to despair. “Do you know where the shop vac is?” she asked Nickel.

“Yes, ma’am.” He headed to fetch it immediately. She had no idea why his nickname was Nickel, because he’d been solid gold since this madness started. When they were past it all, she was putting in a good word for him with Candy.

She turned to survey the room for what felt like the thousandth time. Darla had wanted to help, but she’d sent her to look after Jack and TJ. Darla was a godsend in all things, but her nerves were shot, Jenny could tell, and Jenny had plenty of stomach for this sort of thing.

The ambulances had departed, taking Cletus and Cowboy – neither conscious – to the hospital. Everyone else had been patched up as best they could be and put to work in some fashion. Blue had brought in a wheelbarrow from one of the sheds and was making trips out with loads of busted sheetrock. Talis had righted the salvageable furniture and Catcher – lost, bereft without his twin, even more detached-seeming than normal – was carrying out the broken pieces. A pile was forming in the parking lot, she had no doubt.

Eden had swept all the cotton-candy pink insulation into piles, and she would have Nickel shop vac it up when he returned, then have him slap on an attachment and start getting up sheetrock dust. Pup, hobbling on a badly sprained ankle, was nailing plywood up over the hole in the wall.

Satisfied for the moment, Jenny turned to the two invalids who’d been dropped temporarily on the sofa. Both of them had IV bags attached to hospital issue, wheeled metal stands, and both wore gowns and were barefoot, Tenny with his bandaged throat, and Jinx holding himself like an old man, pale-faced and sweating from the pain.

“Look at the two of you,” she said, realizing too late that she’d put her hands on her cocked hips. “Whose stupid idea was it to take you out of the hospital?” They’d arrived just minutes ago, the sight of them hobbling across the dirty floor so ridiculous she’d thought she must have hit her head.

“Theirs,” the FBI agent, Maddox, who’d driven them all, said, sour and accusatory.

Gringo rolled his eyes. “You sure do complain a lot for a guy who willingly helped three one-percenters shoot their way out of a packed hospital.”

“You shot your way out?” Jenny asked.

“We dropped some cartel guys,” Jinx said, voice hoarse and tight.

Reese reached over, subtle and deft, and pressed the pump attacked to Jinx’s IV. A moment later, his lashes fluttered. Morphine pump, Jenny guessed.

She locked eyes with Reese and tipped her head. “Can I talk to you a sec?”

Gringo looked more than a little scandalized. “I was there, too.”

“I know, hon. Reese?”

He followed away a few paces, toward the mouth of the back hallway and out of the fray of busyness.

“What happened?”

The rundown he gave her was succinct, flatly delivered, and unemotional; a soldier reporting back to his CO. Ordinarily, she would have found it creepy and sad, but for the moment, she was glad of his eerily level head.

“Melanie was with him?” she asked. “Not being forced?”

“No signs of coercion, but I can’t know what she was thinking,” he said, and she glimpsed the first flicker of something like emotion, a brief spark of disquiet in his gaze.

She nodded. “Right.” Then: “You did a good job, Reese. Thanks for looking after everyone.”

His pale brows lifted the slightest fraction in what could only be surprise. Poor kid.

“Will you help me get Jinx and Tenny set up so they can rest? Then I could use you on security.”

He stiffened, stood up tall, heels coming together. “Ma’am.”

She felt the tug of a fleeting smile as he turned back toward the sofa. Under the strange veneer of child-soldier-grown-up, she could detect the makings of a spectacular Lean Dog in that guy. He already knew one of the most important words in the vocabulary: ma’am.

~*~

“Agent Maddox,” Eden called as she continued to sweep, and his head lifted. She thought he looked surprised, and wondered if it was the fact that she’d addressed him, or if her accent had thrown him. “Can I speak with you a moment?”

She noted that he’d rested a hand on the butt of the gun at his waist since entering the clubhouse, and he kept it there now as he came to stand in front of her. Smart man – annoying, but smart. He wore a huffy expression, but she could tell that it covered a barely-suppressed panic. This was a rule-follower; a straight-laced, uptight, by-the-book guy who’d probably had a parent or grandparent in law enforcement, one who’d grown up idolizing men and women in uniform, rather than fictional superheroes.

An assessment she made on the fly, her own law enforcement experience so deeply ingrained that she couldn’t fail to assess and deduce each new acquaintance.

“What were your orders?” she asked, flicking a few more stray clumps of insulation with the end of her broom. “Why were you stationed at the hospital?”

“What?” Distracted, impatient. When she glanced up, she found him surveying the room, and knew some of the disgust on his face had nothing to do with the truck that had come through the wall.

She set the broom bristles on the ground, and gripped the handle like a staff, staring at the side of his face. It was rather a nice face; he was handsome in a fine-boned, albeit generic way; the kind of man her mother would have said came from “good breeding stock.” Though nothing remarkable leapt out to her.

Then again, she’d grown very used to Charlie Fox, and she supposed she had ridiculous expectations.

“Agent Maddox,” she repeated, sharper this time.

When he turned to her, it was slowly, expression hardening. Shields going up, hackles lifting. He tipped his chin down, so he looked at her from beneath lowered brows. Trying so hard to look tough and inscrutable it was nearly cute.

“I asked about your orders,” she said. “Why were you at the hospital?”

What’s it to you? she read, plain as day in his gaze. He said, tightly, “To keep watch. Specifically over the one in the ICU.”

“Why him and not Jinx on the floor below?”

A muscle in his cheek flickered. “I don’t question my orders. I follow them.”

“Even when those orders come from half-dead bikers fresh out of the ICU?” Before he could respond, his mouth already opening in outrage, she said, “Jinx was on the same floor as Melanie Menendez, and unlike Tenny, they weren’t behind a locked glass door. They were far more vulnerable. Why were you stationed on Tenny?” she pressed.

The cheek muscle flexed again, lips whitening as he pressed them together.

“Why were you there at all? Neither Tenny nor Jinx could leave their beds unassisted.” She’d been wondering all of this from the moment the rag-tag group from the hospital first limped through the door, and she didn’t like the way the logic was unspooling. Hated the way it made lots of unwanted sense. “What were your exact orders? To keep the local police away from the Dogs?”

“No,” he snapped. And then she saw it start to hit him, the way his brows jumped. “No, I – I ran into them, in the parking lot. Sent them packing.”

“Were you there specifically as protection? In those words exactly?”

“No. But…” He trailed off, jaw tightening again. He didn’t want to tell her.

“I don’t know all the intricacies of the FBI,” Eden said, “but I spent enough years with MI6 to understand that all government security agencies operate on insubstantial budgets. No one wastes manpower for the hell of it. If you were the only agent who could be spared to watch the hospital, then it was for a reason, and they would have positioned you where you would be most useful.”

His eyes had widened on MI6, and stayed that way.

“Your superiors didn’t think the Dogs would flee – they’re working with them, why would it even matter if they left? But they thought someone might come for them. They should have had you on the floor with Jinx and Melanie. She’s an innocent in all this, after all.” She couldn’t help but snort, because as far as she was concerned, Melanie was as bad as the whole cartel at this point. “You could have secured the hospital sooner. You could have done the most good there. But you were upstairs in the ICU. Why?”

He glanced away from her, and took a deep breath in through his mouth. “No.”

“Think about it,” she said, the idea solidifying in her own mind, clicking into place with a doomsday snap. This whole scenario had been bugging her since she learned of it; she’d known there was a piece missing, something that would make the picture whole. She knew in her gut, with a cold-dawning horror, that she’d finally found it. “You said so yourself that you’re a man who follows orders without questioning them. A good little soldier–”

“Don’t,” he started, turning back to her, eyes flashing.

“Who better to send into a trap?”

“A what?”

“The gunmen weren’t after you,” she said, thinking aloud, spit-balling; her brain felt full of static charge as she connected the dots. “You got up and interfered with one, right?”

“Two,” he said, sounding numb. His gaze had become withdrawn. He reached up to scratch absently at the back of his head, ruffling his carefully gelled hair. “They were gonna walk right past me, and I–”

“You did your job,” she said, injecting a soothing note into her voice. He was young, and obedient, and perhaps a little stupid – though she thought that was willful blindness and devotion. She was about to shatter his world, and she could do it gently. “Just as you were told. But you weren’t told very much at all.”

He chewed his lip, staring down at the square toes of his shoes; she knew they’d cost him a pretty penny, more than a junior agent should have spent on footwear. “‘I want you on the hospital,’” he quoted. “‘With the one in the ICU.’ That was it.”

“No further instructions?”

His throat clicked when he swallowed. “No.”

She felt a little dizzy, suddenly, the headrush that always came with this sort of chase. “Your superior knew the cartel was coming. He didn’t tell you to stop them, because he didn’t want you to – the plan was to get Melanie Menendez out, and killing the Dogs was a bonus. You, though – you were there as a witness, to cover the Bureau’s ass.” It was an ugly sort of triumph that surged inside her, but undeniable.

Maddox looked sick. He swallowed a few more times with obvious difficulty. “Doug Cantrell is–”

“In on it,” Eden said, and pulled out her phone.

Forty-Six

“Hands behind your heads, gents. That’s right. Thank you kindly,” Fox said behind him, as Albie dug through the drawers of a tool chest until he found something that would work: a roll of duct tape.

He returned to the center of an open garage bay, where Fox already had all the cartel lackies in a line on the floor on their knees. One sported a fat lip, another a rapidly-swelling eye that would turn into an impressive shiner in a few hours. All their weapons lay a few paces away, out of reach, magazines ejected and bullets flicked out onto the concrete.

Albie would have been lying if he said it didn’t give him a dark pulse of satisfaction to move down the line and bind their hands together with tape, more roughly than was necessary; he twisted their arms until he heard little grunts of pain. As he bound them, he was close enough to smell the sour bloom of fresh fear-sweat.

Oh, you can kidnap girls, he thought, digging his fingers viciously into the tendons on a skinny forearm as he wound the tape as tight as it would go. But someone shoves a gun in your face and it’s all over. Fox kicks you in the head, and you’re ready to piss yourself.

That had been a good image, that kick. Only rarely, Albie let himself envy some of Fox’s more superhuman fighting tricks, the spins, and ballet moves, and kicks, and martial arts flourishes. He got by fine with his fists and his guns and his knives, but Fox could disarm a crowd with a few seconds and a bit of panache, and it never failed to impress.

“Okay, then,” Fox said, footfalls ringing across the concrete. “I’m going up to check those offices. Look after the kids, will you?”

Albie looked between his retreating brother and their captives. “By myself.”

Fox threw a wink over his shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Then he started up the stairs two at a time, metal clanging loudly.

Albie realized that, in Fox’s own strange way, this was a sort of gift.

First, he double-checked that they were all bound at wrists and ankles, and couldn’t wriggle free or slide a knife loose. Then he went to look at the truck.

The cab was full of trash: fast food wrappers and empty drink cans, greasy- and stale-smelling, and full of prints and DNA for the lab people. So they could, what? Run tests, search for matches, eventually slap the results up on projector screens in a courtroom when it all went to trial? Leverage it for plea bargains, and cut all these goons sweet deals in an effort to get to the monster at the top of the food chain? He was an outlaw, and he knew how the law dealt with criminals like these.

He slammed the driver door and went around back to lower the tailgate. Shined his flashlight into the camper shell-covered bed. There was no bedliner, only dinged-up, cold metal. Clumps of earth, an old rake, a sledgehammer, a few crumpled beer cans.

Something caught the light, glinting faintly, a thread of gold.

Heart pounding through every inch of him, trying to punch through his temples and throat, Albie leaned forward and picked it up between two gloved fingers: a hair. Long, faintly curled, blonde. The girls had been in here. This was how they’d transported them, back here in the dark and cool, like disposable things.

He let the hair go, and then wished he hadn’t, stomach lurching as he watched it sift slowly down, feather-light, to land on the garage floor.

Then he dragged the sledgehammer out of the bed and stalked back to their captives.

All of their eyes widened gratifyingly.

Albie put his light away, and lifted the hammer in both hands, propped it on his shoulder. It was heavy, almost too heavy, but it felt good. This was why it had always been Mercy Lécuyer’s weapon of choice. He wished – fleetingly – for Mercy Lécuyer’s muscle mass, so he could swing it and keep swinging it, for as long as he wanted.

But he wouldn’t need it. He was strong enough. Even with the unhappy nerves firing in his bad arm.

“Tell me about the girls,” he said, drawing to a halt in front of them, weight swaying back and forth, hands tight on the hammer. Ready.

They darted looks to one another, faces paling; darted looks to the hammer.

“I know they came here in that truck. And they’re not in it now. Where are they?”

One man, the largest, shifted, testing his bonds. There were more darted looks, quick headshakes and tightly-pressed lips.

“Where are they?” he repeated, a growl in his voice.

Still no answer.

He was furious. He was glad of their silence. Adrenaline surged through him in a whipcrack; he swore he heard the snap of it as his fists tightened on the hammer, and he strode forward. One, two long steps, a tightening of all his core muscles, and the head of the hammer crashed down, down, onto the big one’s shoulder.

Albie heard it dislocate; the wet-chicken-bone snap of the joint popping loose. The blow was hard, perhaps harder than he’d meant to deliver thanks to the heaviness of the hammer, and the force of it juddered up the handle and into his arms. He felt it in his teeth.

The man screamed. A belly-deep scream that spoke of the brightness and heat of the pain. He retched, and pitched forward, spitting blood where he’d bitten his lip. Ugly wet sobs getting caught in his throat.

The bound men on either side of him tried to shuffle away from him on their knees, like a smashed shoulder might be catching.

The struck man didn’t lift his head again; his shoulders sat horribly lopsided.

“Where are they?” Albie repeated, and this time, there was a scramble to answer, voices overlapping and tangling, stuttering.

“They’re not here,” one of the captives, the youngest one, said, raising his voice to be heard, quavering and audibly terrified.

Albie shifted toward him, lifting the hammer again.

“Wait, wait!” the boy gasped. “Please. I just take out the trash. I sweep the floors! I didn’t do anything to them.”

“But you know where they are.”

“Not here,” he repeated. “They came in just a little while ago. Enrique opened the back of the truck, and I–” He gulped, and shook his head. “They weren’t conscious. They looked dead.”

His hand slid up the hammer handle as his heart jumped up into his throat. “Were they dead?”

“No! No. One of them made a noise. The tall one.”

Axelle.

“Enrique and the guys put them in a van. They left about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Headed where?”

“I-I don’t–”

“The workshop,” one of the others spoke up, and was elbowed for it. He shot his friend a glare, and muttered angrily in Spanish. To Albie: “It’s outside the city. The place where” – a distant, different brand of fear flickered in his eyes, one that had nothing to do with this moment, and the hammer Albie held – “where the Holy Father practices.”

Albie had feared that – had been thinking about a dark room, and a robed figure, and two women he loved laid out on tables – from the first, but having it confirmed now sent a fresh chill down his spine, soured his stomach all over again. His pulse tripped erratically, but his voice was low, calm, threatening. “Tell me where. Tell me where exactly.”

The man wet his lips, and looked regretful, but another aborted half-swing with the hammer had him talking again, fast and frantic. An address. And old house beyond the city, beyond the suburbs. Out in the middle of nowhere. A driveway latticed with tangled mesquite trees, and the house, tumbledown, ugly, abandoned. Another driveway, behind it, down into a gulley, a small workshop with a heavy, padlocked door. Windowless, reeking of blood.

Albie memorized the address, and he envisioned the place all too well.

He surveyed the pitiful group before him, now that he had what he wanted, and he knew an urge to more violence. What could it hurt to break their skulls open like fresh eggs? Who would miss them if they were dead? How great would the satisfaction be, to know that he’d taken the breath from them?

Out on the street, dim and growing louder, closer, he heard the roar of bikes.

The controlled clatter of rapid footfalls coming down the iron staircase from the second-floor offices.

He glanced up and saw Fox, his expression tightly excited, eyes gleaming, a sheaf of papers clenched tight in one hand.

“The boys are coming, I hear,” he said, as he hit the ground and strode to meet Albie. “Good. They’ll want to see this.” He flapped the papers toward Albie, too fast for him to read them.

“What?” Only half paying attention, because the hammer still felt so good in his hands.

“The top one’s a copy of a birth certificate. And look, underneath, photos.” He flipped through them, and Albie had the impression of a man, a woman, and a boy – their son, his skin a blend of her dark and his light. A lovely Hispanic woman, young, only twenty or so, and an equally young white guy, still awkward and gangly, his face pained.

“So?” Albie asked.

“I had to pick the lock of the safe these were in, all bound up in an envelope. This is blackmail material,” Fox said, like Albie was stupid.

The roar of bikes crescendoed, Dogs rolling up in front of the gate.

“Hold this.” Fox shoved the papers at Albie’s chest. “I’ve gotta go let them in.”

He trotted off with a pair of bolt cutters – and who knew where he’d gotten those – and Albie fumbled not to drop the papers. Blackmail material. He glanced down at them as they fanned back together, into order, the birth certificate on top.

He heard Fox shouting something to Candy at the gate. Heard the metallic clatter of the chain hitting the pavement, and the grumble of a half-dozen Harleys as they rolled into the lot.

The certificate was an American one, the state of birth listed as Texas, the baby, a boy, born twenty-four years ago. His name was Luis…

Luis.

But, no, that…

Albie scanned it again, carefully, squinting, heartbeat throbbing in his ears.

The wail of sirens reached him. Distant, but drawing closer, just as the bikes had.

The baby’s full name was Luis Miguel Juarez Cantrell.

~*~

The problem with being an optimistic person was that it was too easy to hope sometimes, even when you knew better. On the way to the address Fox had provided, full of the heady sense of invincibility his bike always provided, Candy let himself hope. Let himself imagine that Michelle was going to be here, at this warehouse; that he could punch someone’s jaw apart, kick down a door, and find her, whole and unharmed; that he could pick her up like the prince from a fairytale and make it all right again.

Fox disabused him of that notion quickly, though, when they pulled into the warehouse lot and killed the engines. The Englishman was already shaking his head. “They’re not here, but they were. Albie found us another address, I suspect, and I found–”

The wail of sirens reached them. Loud and growing louder, swelling. More than one.

Candy pulled off his shades and looked down the street.

Fox turned and said, “Oh, what in Jesus’s name…”

Candy saw the cars slide around the farthest corner, cherry lights winking on their dashboards, three unmarked black sedans with cheap wheels.

The feds. “Nice of them to show up after we’ve done all the work,” Fox said, turning back to him, as the cars screeched up in a line along the sidewalk. “There was an office inside, and a safe–”

“Fox,” Candy said.

Car doors were flung open, and men and women in FBI-printed flak vests poured out, guns already drawn. Cantrell came out of the lead car, his badge on a chain around his neck, slapping the front of his vest as he jogged. He carried a police issue shotgun, and his face was red from adrenaline and exertion.

Candy heard other sirens coming from behind them, approaching from the opposite side of the street.

“Amarillo PD,” Jackal called. “What is this?”

“Fuck,” Candy muttered, and swung off his bike. Snapped off his helmet and dangled it off the handlebars.

A PA crackled from one of the cars, and a staticky voice said, “Derek Snow, do not move! Put your hands where we can see them!”

“Jesus,” Fox deadpanned. “Holy Jesus. This isn’t happening.”

Local PD came to a skidding, screeching halt; doors slammed, and voices barked orders, and boots slapped over asphalt. Someone had a shotgun back there, too, one they cocked with a loud sequence of clacks that echoed off the metal building front.

Cantrell came around the gate and onto the lot, muzzle of his shotgun leveling on them. “Hands up, all of you. Let me see palms.”

“Put your hands where we can see them!” the voice yelled over the PA again.

“What’s going on?” Candy asked, as calmly as he could manage. His heart pounded to two competing rhythms: the terror of wasted time while Michelle was in danger, and the mounting fury of realizing he’d let himself get caught red-handed. He was glad neither Blue nor Jinx were here to say I told you so. “What is this? The guys you want are inside. My wife–”

The sharp, unmistakable barrel of a gun poked him in the ribs from behind. A voice barked, “Down on your knees! Get down, now!”

“Hey!” he heard Jackal say.

“Alright, alright,” came Victor’s thick Russian accent.

Slowly, trying not to get popped by a nervous trigger finger, Candy folded at the knees and went down to the pavement, hands moving to cup the back of his skull. In front of him, Fox did the same.

“Cantrell,” Candy said, trying to pin the man with his gaze – a gaze Cantrell wouldn’t meet, glancing from one to the other of them, not lingering. Furtive. Guilty. “What’s happening?”

Cantrell addressed all of them, and not Candy, as other agents joined him, weapons trained on them. “You’re under arrest for breaking and entering, burglary, assault–”

“Oh, rich,” Fox said.

“–and murder.”

“Hey, I didn’t murder anyone – ow!” Jackal said, the last after the distinct sound of him being smacked across the back of the head.

The woman from the precinct earlier, with the blonde ponytail, leaned in to whisper something in Cantrell’s ear. He nodded, and she moved toward the open garage bay doors with two other agents in tow.

Behind Candy, rough hands took his wrists and hauled them down to the small of his back. The first cuff went on, cold, its tiny little whizzing clicks loud as a vault door closing. He could have gotten loose – could have shaken off the cop, and turned, and punched his lights out.

And been shot for his trouble.

Even as his panic mounted – high up in his throat now, enough to choke him – he knew that he couldn’t do Michelle any good if he was dead. “We put down some cartel dogs,” he said, “and I don’t consider that murder.”

“The only Dogs here,” Cantrell said quietly, “are the ones wearing your patches.”

“Do you know what this is?” Fox craned his neck to glance over his shoulder at Candy, and was clapped over the ear by the cop cuffing his wrists. He didn’t flinch, but faced forward; raised his voice loud enough to be heard. “This is our mate Cantrell covering his own ass.”

Cantrell’s face did something strange – Candy read it as a brief flare of panic, hastily tamped down and covered with a scowl.

“He was content to let us do all the dirty work while we could – too many hoops to jump through, too much red tape on his end. At least, that was what I thought.”

He was hit in the head again, hard enough that Candy knew it had to leave his ears ringing.

“Let him talk,” Candy snarled. Two sets of hands gripped him – a man on either side of him, at each elbow – and hauled him up to his feet. He flexed his arms, and felt the cuffs bite into his wrists; felt the hands holding him tighten in sudden spasms of panic as they felt his biceps swell. “You owe us a fucking explanation for this.”

Cantrell ignored him.

“Sir!” one of the agents who’d gone into the garage called. “We’ve got victims. One needs EMTs.”

Fox chuckled.

“Victims?” Candy asked. “Victims?” He was ignored.

A  van pulled up at the curb, plain blue, printed with the Department of Corrections’ seal.

This couldn’t be happening.

“Load them,” Cantrell said.

Candy got another ungentle shove from the shotgun barrel, and was pressed forward toward the van, behind his brothers.

Fox was ahead of him. He risked speaking again, and the words hit Candy like a punch. “Found some paperwork inside. Luis is Cantrell’s son.”

Fox got smacked again; a tip of his head was the only sign the blow had registered.

But Candy didn’t need to ask for clarification. If Fox had said it, then it was so; if he’d found paperwork, he’d known whether it was real or fake.

My father, Luis had said on the phone. Had said to poor dead Benny. My father runs the cartel.

An FBI agent at the head of a blossoming, dangerous criminal organization. It made so much terrible sense it left Candy reeling and sick. A part of him felt duped, but a larger part grappled with the impossibility of it. How could he have known? How could anyone have known?

They were marched around the nose of the van. Colin was the first one in, and Candy could hear him go, “Holy fucking–” before he was shoved along down the center aisle.

A few moments later, he realized what the exclamation had been about. He went up the steps and did a double-take when he got a good look at the uniformed officer driving the van. Though he’d never spent much one-on-one time with the guy, the low-lidded, impassive blue gaze of Michael McCall was unmistakable.

Fuck, Candy thought, a laugh bubbling up in his chest.

He swallowed it, and turned his head, gaze landing on the other officer, the one riding in the front row of the van, baton laid across his knees. His uniform fit terribly, the fabric bunching and stretching across the shoulders, gapping at the buttons. And why wouldn’t it, when the man filling it out was Mercy Lécuyer, comically stone-faced beneath the brim of his cap; Candy could see a few loose, long black hairs that had fallen out from under it, dangling down past his shoulders.

Candy felt nearly giddy as he was shoved into a seat. The officers left, replaced by Cantrell, who stood at the top step and surveyed all of them a moment before nodding and sitting down beside Mercy, still holding his shotgun.

“We can roll out,” he said.

The van rumbled forward, and somewhere in the back, Colin started whistling, a tune that Fox then picked up and added to: “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Forty-Seven

Albie saw the unmarked and the black-and-whites pull up, and he hesitated a moment, watching the scene in the parking lot unfold with sick horror. Arrests were happening. Their tenuous FBI allies were turning on them.

Albie stood in shadow, still, hidden from view. No one knew he was there, save Fox. His brother, currently folding his hands behind his head and going down to his knees. Shit. Albie should go out there; should join them, be with them.

But what good would that do anybody? He had an opportunity here. His own instincts told him to walk out into the sunlight and face the music, align himself with his brothers.

But he swore he heard Fox’s voice in his head saying, Don’t be an idiot. Fox wouldn’t wait around – Fox was only waiting around now to give him a chance. Fox would run. Fox would get the job done. Not because he didn’t care, but because sometimes being mercenary was the only way you could execute the plan.

So Albie dropped the sledgehammer, shoved the paperwork inside his cut, zipped it up, and ran. Out the back, out the way they’d come. Through the hole in the fence, down the alley, back through the grocery store with a distracted wave for the proprietress. He hoped Fox’s bike wouldn’t get stripped or towed, but there was nothing for it. He straddled his own, barely getting his helmet latched on, and gunned it.

The trip to the clubhouse was a blur. He had no idea how fast he was going until he nearly laid it down pulling into the clubhouse, tires spinning and gravel flying. He braced a foot, got it stopped, and was off toward the front door as the growl of the engine died away in slow echoes.

He went inside at a run…

Only to pull up short in the middle of the ruined common room.

There were people there, so many. Those who’d been asked to stay behind, like Blue, and the agent who’d come with the boys from the hospital, whom Albie wanted to strangle, now, after what he’d seen. He glimpsed Reese in the shadow of the hallway, and saw Jenny walking toward him.

But his vision narrowed down to one figure. To his brother.

Inexplicably, Walsh stood in the center of the room. He held a glass of whiskey that he set down on a table, and he moved toward Albie, arms opening.

Phillip might have been the boss of them all, the oldest and the most respected, but after that, King was the savviest; the cleverest, and, once you got past his smooth exterior, the most loving.

Albie wasn’t aware of moving toward him, but suddenly he was being embraced, and embracing in turn.

Albie pulled back first. “How – what…?”

“Mercy got a call from his duckling,” Walsh said, with a grim half-smile. “He thought things were maybe worse here than we thought.”

Albie was too dumbfounded for proper conversation, but he trusted his big brother to understand whatever idiocy came out of his mouth. “They took Chelle and Axelle.”

“I know.”

“The feds have been working with the cartel all along.”

“I know.”

A flicker of movement over Walsh’s shoulder drew his attention, and Albie stepped around his brother, hands already tightening to fists. “If you’ll excuse me.” He heard the crisp, threatening politeness in his own voice, the way Phillip always sounded before he planted a fist in someone’s face. He’d spotted Maddox, and the agent had spotted him, it looked like. if the way he took a step back and touched the butt of his gun was any indication.

“Try it,” Albie growled as he bore down on him. “Pull on a Dog in his own house, and see what happens.”

A hand caught him by the back of the cut: Walsh trying to reel him backward.

But it was Jenny who stopped him, when she slid neatly in front of Maddox with her empty palms toward Albie. “Wait, wait, wait,” she said.

“Why is he still in here?” Albie demanded. “Why isn’t he chained up, at the very least?”

At another moment, he would have admired her calm. “He had no idea about the family relationship either. Cantrell’s kept him in the dark about the whole thing, and, from what I’ve seen, he’s not smooth enough to have pulled off that kind of lie.”

“Hey,” Maddox protested.

“You can hit him all you like later,” Walsh said behind him, “but maybe let him explain, first.”

Albie wished he had the sledgehammer back. But he jerked a nod and stopped trying to pull away from Walsh. This was about Axelle and Michelle; he had to keep them in the forefront of his mind. Not like back at the warehouse. That kind of red-haze bloodlust served no one.

He swore he heard Fox’s voice in the back of his head: disapproving of emotional displays.

He reached inside his cut and drew out the documents Fox had given him. Passed them to Walsh when his brother stepped up beside him. His gaze stayed trained on Maddox, and his voice crackled; there was only so much rage he could suppress right now. “Please explain to me how your whole department was in the dark about this,” he invited, mocking.

Beside him, pages rustled, and Walsh whistled as he scanned the birth certificate.

Maddox – still half-hiding behind Jenny – said, “Look, I’ve got no idea what the rest of the department knows, but I don’t know shit. Or I didn’t, until today. Cantrell’s never told me shit. I usually just carry shit to the car and pull surveillance duty.” He shoved both hands through his hair – thoroughly mussed, like he’d done that a lot today – and clasped them together at the back of his neck. Shook his head. He looked like a man who’d reached a point of disbelief and anger so total he’d tumbled over into numbness. The body’s way of preserving sanity.

Albie couldn’t find any sympathy at the moment.

“He never talked about having a family?” Walsh asked.

“No, never. But I thought…” He made a face.

“It would be wise not to withhold information,” Walsh said, almost gently. Albie was struck by the fleeting thought that Walsh was usually the one to do the note-taking when Mercy pried answers out of people. Strong stomach, and a steady manner.

Maddox let out a deep breath, and dropped his hands. “I’ve thought this whole case was fucked up from the start. We didn’t know shit. How could we not know shit? No leads, and no witnesses, except for you guys.” His expression went disgusted, momentarily, then fell back to bewildered defeat. “It seemed wrong. All the resources we have, and all this dicking around we’ve done here. He was stalling.” A hard glint flickered in his eyes. “He was planning this the whole time, wasn’t he?”

“Planning what, though?” Jenny said. “To help the cartel take out the Dogs? Arrest the club?”

Albie frowned. “I just came from there. How do you already know?”

Walsh smirked. “Police scanner.”

Jenny smirked. “God help Amarillo PD right now.”

There was a story there, but not one Albie was going to take the time to ask about now. “We need to move. I’ve got an address, and we don’t have time to wait.”

Eden joined them. “You know where the girls are?”

“Yeah.” It hurt to swallow; his stomach felt lodged in his throat. “They’re with the mad priest.”

~*~

Tenny didn’t so much as flinch on the walk from the sofa to their shared dorm room. But by the time Reese had deposited him down onto the bed, his face had gone very, very white, his lips pressed to a tight line. “You didn’t have to carry me,” he muttered, like he was annoyed, but Reese didn’t miss the way the veins stood out in his temples and wrists; the simple strain of trying to move without shifting his head or neck at all.

“I didn’t carry you,” Reese pointed out. He’d only kept an arm around his waist and supported his weight for the slow, careful trip.

“Ugh.” He closed his eyes and pressed his head back into the pillow, finally wincing. The bandages on his throat looked rumpled – they would need to be changed – but there was no blood leaking through. Yet.

Reese was shocked, honestly.

When it became apparent that Ten was secure, and not about to roll off the bed or have a stroke, Reese turned to the dresser and started sorting through his things. He needed some fresh magazines, and he’d take the sawed-off this time, in its sheath, and he was definitely wearing the grease paint.

Behind him, Tenny croaked, “What are you doing?”

“Preparing. I’m going with Albie.”

A pause. “Oh, bollocks, you’re not painting your face. Tell me you aren’t painting your face.”

Reese dipped two fingers into the grease paint and striped his cheek with it.

“You’re an idiot.”

Reese didn’t respond. Finished his face, until he looked properly skull-like, wiped his fingers, collected his guns and magazines. Pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt; he’d worn the long black one, full of holes, its hem tattered from so much use, and so many washings, but with the deep hood that shadowed his entire face. Then he turned.

“You look ridiculous.”

“So do you.” He headed for the door. “Don’t get out of bed. You’ll tear your stitches and bleed out.”

“Fuck you.” But when he was in the hall, and the door was nearly shut, he heard the faintest thread of hoarse laughter.

Felt his own lips tug in response. Another facial malfunction, this one not unwelcome.

Forty-Eight

Candy had been placed in the second row on the van, just behind the locked metal grate intended to keep the drivers and officers up front safe. Through the mesh, and over the top of Cantrell’s head, he had a view through the windshield and of the street ahead. Afternoon was melting into evening, the shadows growing long and slanted across the pavement. Two cruisers rode ahead of them, and doubtless another trailed. Candy wondered, with no small amount of delight, how Michael and Mercy planned to get them out of the convoy and to someplace where they could uncuff them all.

Colin was still whistling, and though Cantrell’s shoulders looked tight, he hadn’t ordered him to stop yet.

Candy wanted to poke the bear – a bear most of them outweighed.

“So he’s your kid, huh?” he asked, tone conversational, but much too loud.

Fox put on an obnoxious Texas drawl. “That’s what the paperwork says.”

“Who is whose son?” Victor asked.

“Cantrell’s been holding out on us,” Candy said. “Our boy Luis is his kid.”

“Right there on the birth certificate,” Fox said.

Cantrell twisted around in his seat – which set the muzzle of his shotgun forward, pointed toward the dash. And gave Mercy a clear opportunity, when the time was right to take it. If the way his head turned, wicked little smile visible in profile, was any indication, he’d thought the same thing.

“That’s enough,” Cantrell said, and maybe he would have sounded stern to someone who wasn’t a Lean Dog. Maybe he left ordinary criminals shaking in their boots. To Candy, he sounded scared and desperate. “Knock it off, all of you.”

Candy offered him a lazy grin. “Knock it off or what? Your kid’s already trying to cut all our throats. You think you’re scarier than him?”

A chorus of laughing oohs went up behind him.

Cantrell’s jaw clenched, and his face reddened – but the whites of his eyes gleamed like a spooked horse’s. He opened his mouth to respond, and Candy spoke over him, growing serious.

“Look, I don’t care if you hate me. I don’t care if you’ve somehow convinced yourself you’re some kinda upstanding cop despite the fact that your kid is literally terrorizing this city.” He sat forward, and saw the tension shudder down Cantrell’s neck; saw the way he wanted to lean back from him, even though a metal grate separated them. “And right now, I don’t give a shit about that. Or about you, or about this.” He lifted his hands and rattled his cuffs. “That little fucker has my wife. And you know that. You arrested me knowing Michelle’s–” He couldn’t finish the sentence, biting the inside of his cheek hard to keep the possibilities from flooding his mind and rendering him useless.

He couldn’t think about that now. Couldn’t get lost, couldn’t help her that way.

He swallowed, and his voice came out low and threatening; Cantrell did lean back this time. “Whatever I am, whatever I’ve done, whatever you think about me for whatever reason – she’s innocent. Are you going to let an innocent, pregnant woman suffer just to get me? Because your son told you to?”

“It’s not that simple,” Cantrell said, strained.

“That’s pretty messed up, bro,” Mercy said.

Cantrell started to turn toward him, but Mercy brought the baton up in a swift, brutal arc and clipped him in the temple with it. Cantrell went boneless and flopped down into the seat – and then onto the floor of the van. Mercy watched it all with something like warm amusement, and didn’t attempt to catch him or slow his fall. His head thumped dully off the rubberized floor.

Mercy stood and stepped over him, grinning, key ring jangling as he pulled it off his belt and moved to unlock the gate.

“Having a good time?” Candy asked, mildly.

“Oh, yeah.” The gate opened with a squeal and Mercy picked out a different key that he used to open Candy’s cuffs.

“I like the hat.” The whole moment felt surreal. Candy half-wondered if he’d been hit on the head and this was a hallucination.

But, no, Mercy was moving down the aisle, turning everyone loose.

“Me, too,” he said, reaching up to scratch at his hair beneath the brim of the ill-fitting cap. “Don’t think Ava would, though. My girl: she likes the hair.”

Chuckles all around.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, big guy,” Fox said, as he was being freed, “but infiltration and subterfuge aren’t exactly in your wheelhouse.”

“He means you’re big and stupid-looking,” Colin chimed in.

Mercy shot his half-brother the bird. “Walsh may or may not have installed a scanner in his truck. And there may or may not be two cops tied up behind a Seven-Eleven.”

Candy snorted, and stood, hands braced on the seat backs around him. “Okay, geniuses. How are we getting out of this convoy?”

Mercy turned to face the front, fingers lacing through the grate. “Mikey?” he prompted, expectantly, grinning again.

They were approaching an intersection. Michael reached for the radio on the dash and brought the receiver to his mouth, thumbed the switch. His voice was appropriately bored and flat when he said, “We gotta stop for gas.”

A crackle of static, and then an officer from one of the other cars said, “What? You didn’t gas up before?”

“Sorry.”

Mercy glanced over and waggled his eyebrows. “Y’all ready?”

The van slowed, and turned right. The two cars ahead kept going, but a quick check proved the one behind followed.

Just two officers to deal with, then.

Mercy took a spare pair of cuffs off a seat and squatted down to secure Cantrell’s unconscious form.

“They’re gonna have your photo up in every precinct in Texas,” Candy said, chuckling, cracking his knuckles.

Mercy shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

~*~

Eden grabbed an extra magazine off the dresser in the dorm she’d been sharing with Fox, slipped it down into her boot and then sprinted back down the hall and through the common room. Threw up a hand in passing at Jenny’s question, grabbed her helmet off the peg in the foyer, and pelted out the door.

Albie was just climbing onto his bike beside Reese, Walsh, and the uninjured twin – she couldn’t keep them straight and didn’t care to try.

“Wait! I’m coming with you.”

Albie gave her only a fleeting, dismissive glance as he buckled on his helmet and slipped on his shades. “No.”

“There’s only the four of you,” she said, aiming for reasonable. “You need all the guns you can get.”

He lifted his head, and she could tell by the set of his jaw that he was glaring at her through his mirror lenses. “What part of ‘no’ didn’t you understand? Go inside. Help Jenny.” Savagely, lip curling: “Bitches ride bitch; they don’t go out on jobs.”

The obvious grief and panic in his voice softened the sting of the words, but she glimpsed Walsh’s brows go up, and felt her own do the same.

Before she registered doing it, she’d closed the distance between them, and had a finger aimed at his face. “That’s beneath you, Albert Cross,” she hissed. “You’re not a sexist fucking pig, so don’t start acting like one just because you’re scared. We’re all scared.”

He stared at her through his glasses, unmoving save the flaring of his nostrils as he inhaled.

“Walsh,” she said, appealing to the more reasonable of the two of them. “I’m armed, I’m trained–”

“You’re bloody stupid,” Albie interrupted. “I’ve already gotten my old lady and my niece taken off to be murdered,” he spat, gesturing violently toward the tire tracks in the yard. “But oh no, that’s not enough. Let me tell Fox I got his old lady murdered, too!”

She recoiled a fraction. What kind of answer could she give to that? She had no way of soothing or comforting him now. Though she couldn’t see his eyes, she could envision the look in them, the emotions turning that Devin Green blue hard and cold, and ready to crack.

She glanced toward Walsh again. He wasn’t spitting and hissing like Albie, but he was hurting, too; she knew these brothers well enough to read the stress lines at the corners of his eyes, the tension in his mouth. “Let me come,” she pleaded. “I can help. I want to help.”

He stared at her a moment – long enough that Albie huffed in annoyance, muttered let’s go and cranked his bike. Then Walsh gave a fast jerk of his head in acquiescence.

Eden had her helmet snapped into place before she slid onto the bump seat behind him. The rumble of the Harley coming to life beneath her was familiar, but Walsh’s waist was not as she wrapped her arms around him and held tight.

She sent a fleeting prayer across the distance that separated them for Fox to hurry up and get himself un-arrested. Whatever awaited them at the end of this ride, she feared it would require Fox’s expertise more than anyone’s.

Forty-Nine

The steady throb of pain at the back of her skull woke Michelle. Her head weighed heavy on her neck, a sensation that dragged at her, left her feeling like she was falling. She had no sense of her limbs, only of her head, and the terrible pain, drumbeats in time with her pulse.

It was a long moment before she could crack her eyes open, and even that hurt, eyes tender and bruised-feeling. Concussion, she thought, dimly, her first coherent realization.

The next was don’t panic. That wasn’t her way, wasn’t how she’d been raised and trained; panic drowned out thought, and thought was the key to staying alive in situations like these.

A few blinks, and her vision had cleared enough to reveal her surroundings – or some of them.

They weren’t what she’d expected. She glimpsed a bit of blue-painted wall, and a pair of sturdy wood-and-leather chairs set at angles across from one another, a table between them: a seating area set in a bay window, sheer drapes letting in diffuse light.

She wet dry lips and tried to move.

Pressure at wrists and ankles. She was flat on her back, her head turned toward the window, and she could roll it, look up at smooth, clean white ceiling, but she couldn’t move her arms or legs. Tied, then. Hand and foot. Spread-eagle like all the victims.

Like a star.

She let out a long, slow breath. Not panicking, not panicking.

The surface beneath her felt soft, and supportive. A bed, then, and not a hard table like Benny had described.

She wet her lips again, for all the good it did; her mouth felt full of sand. “Axelle?” she croaked.

Silence a long beat. Long enough that Michelle thought–

But then: “I’m here.”

Thank God. They were together. If Michelle could orchestrate an escape – Ha! You’re tied up, stupid – she wouldn’t have to go hunting for the other girl.

“Are you okay?”

Another hesitation. Axelle’s voice came out very flat, save for a hitch at the end, like she was trying hard not to give in to fear. “I can’t move.”

“Me neither.” Michelle rolled her head the other way – the heaviness turned that simple movement into an effort, left the room spinning.

She was in fact on a bed, and there was a second one next to hers: clean white sheets and even a pillow, Axelle star-fished out just as she was, secured to the bed posts with cuffs on her wrists and ankles.

Axelle turned her head, so they faced one another; her eyes gleamed like blue glass in the wash of pale evening light. She looked frightened, but not, Michelle noted with approval, panicked.

“I don’t know. A house, think.” Beyond Axelle’s bed lay another stretch of wall, this one adorned with a watercolor print, a pastoral scene in soft colors. Under it sat a dresser, the same heavy wood as the chairs, and a small, flat-screen TV. The room didn’t look lived-in, but the furnishings were too fine for a hotel. “Have you got a bump on your head?”

Axelle shifted again and winced. “I figure that’s why it hurts so bad.”

“Yeah.”

Being taken was a blur. She remembered an explosion; a crash of sound, and things flying, shouts, and a roar like a train. Remembered being thrown to the floor – throwing herself to the floor. After Benny… But there had been another noise, after the gunshot. It hadn’t been a bomb; she’d heard too many of those in her life to mistake them for anything else.

She closed her eyes, struggling to remember. “I think…I think someone drove through the wall of the clubhouse.”

“Shit. I thought I dreamed that.”

“We both did, then.”

Michelle took a deep breath, but could smell only laundry detergent, and, faintly, her own dried sweat. She heard the twitter of birdsong somewhere beyond the window, and the low hum of a house with working lights and HVAC and appliances plugged in.

Axelle swallowed audibly. “We’re tied up like–”

“I know.”

“Do you think they’re gonna kill us?”

Michelle’s next breath shivered in her lungs, and she fought to keep her voice level. “Maybe. But we’re more valuable as hostages to ransom.”

“Guess it depends on whether they mind pissing the guys off.”

“Yeah,” Michelle agreed. Pissed off was far too delicate, but it was easier to think of. She didn’t want to envision Candy; didn’t want to picture the ugliness of his grief. He’d gone forty-five years without a mate, it was still such a fresh thing for him…but it would cut him. Cut him wide open and unleash the kind of fury she didn’t want to imagine.

A wave of nausea moved through her, and she swallowed against it. She couldn’t think about her body, about the baby; couldn’t think about anything but getting away.

What would Fox do? That would have to be her mantra; her guiding light.

She tested her bonds, rotating her wrists and feeling the dull bite of metal. These weren’t police handcuffs, but solid manacles secured with screws. They weren’t locked – if she had one hand free, she could have worked the wingnuts off and gotten loose. But with both hands bound like this, she might as well have been secured with a combination lock.

She let out a breath and willed her muscles to relax. She could feel the first phantom warnings of a cramp in her back, strain in her upper arms. Fighting it would only heighten the pain.

“Do you hear that?” Axelle asked.

Michelle listened, and detected the sound of approaching footfalls: hard-soled shoes on a hardwood floor. “Someone’s coming.”

“Shit,” Axelle swore. Her chains rattled as she tried to surge against them. “Shit, shit…”

“Don’t struggle,” Michelle said, as the footfalls drew closer, closer.

The footsteps halted, and then she could hear their breathing, quick and open-mouthed from fear, out of sync with her galloping pulse, and the distinctive clicks of a key entering a lock and working the tumblers.

The door opened, and Michelle pressed her head back on the pillow, refusing to crane and search. She didn’t want to look fearful. Didn’t want to show curiosity or desperation. Fox would lay here like he was having a nap, totally unbothered until he had the chance to strike.

The footfalls again; expensive shoes, she decided, with hard leather soles and slight heels. A light step, rather than the heavy tread of a booted thug. A figure stepped into view – and it took every ounce of willpower not to gasp.

He’d been described to her, and it was a simple image: a man in a dark robe with a deep hood. A staple of plenty of fantasy movies. A wizard, a Ring Wraith. In a way, given the way they were laid out, she’d expected him.

But the sight of the Holy Father coming to stand between the beds cut to the bone, a razor-sharp fear that took her breath and rendered her momentarily stupid.

The robe was dark brown, shapeless, full of folds, and tattered at the edges, where the rough weave of the fabric was fraying. The hood was cowled, and deep as promised, throwing a dark shadow over all but the tip of a pale nose. Manicured hands waited at the ends of the sleeves, folded together across the figure’s middle. He halted, and the hood turned one way, and then the other. Michelle thought she saw the glitter of dark eyes.

Should she speak? She had no idea what to say. Without a glimpse of his face, she couldn’t read how to play this – and he seemed supernatural, besides. Not a man, but a monster from a child’s nightmare. An urban legend in the flesh.

As she stared at him – helpless to look away – he reached slowly into one sleeve with the opposite hand and came back out with a knife. Unfussy: an old wooden-handled kitchen knife with a slender, sharp blade. Its edge caught the light, winking at her, honed and sharpened and ready for flesh.

She heard Axelle’s breathing pick up, a rough in-and-out sawing through her mouth.

“It’s okay,” Michelle told her, though it wasn’t, though the Holy Father was turning toward her, light sliding along the knife. “It’s okay.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

And then…

A chuckle.

The slow, liquid movements of the Holy Father fell away, and it was with a regular sort of casualness that the man reached up with his free hand and pushed his hood back.

Michelle knew who this was, too, because Melanie had given her a detailed description – and because she’d seen him herself outside of Sandoval’s. There was the sleek dark hair pulled back into a bun, the wink of diamonds in his ears, the smooth skin, and fine features. She hadn’t seen his eyes up close until now, and they were big, and coffee-dark, and fringed with silky black lashes. They were full of a delight and humor that had all the alarm bells in her head clanging. His smile – white and straight and flashing sharp canines – crackled with beautiful, unhinged malice.

“Luis,” she greeted.

His smile turned up sharply at the corners. “So they do tell their women things. I suspected they might.” His voice held a musical quality, velvety and pleasant. The voice of someone who’d practiced being charming. “You know my name, and I obviously know yours, Michelle.”

Intel as simple as her name wouldn’t have been difficult to obtain, not for anyone, but hearing him say it sent fresh terror rippling through her.

He glanced toward Axelle. “This one I don’t know, though.” He took a step toward her, robe swaying, slender back curving as he leaned over her. He lifted a hand – elegant, ringed fingers – and poised it as if to touch her face.

Michelle said, “She’s nobody.”

He paused, hand hovering, cheek twitching as he smiled again. “Really? You just let nobodies into your clubhouses?” He traced one careful fingertip down the slope of Axelle’s nose. Axelle shivered beneath him; Michelle could hear her teeth chattering. “No, I think she’s someone. I’d like to find out who.” His finger skimmed the width of Axelle’s mouth, pressed lightly at the point of her chin. Axelle was shaking, her jaw clenched. Her eyes rolled toward Michelle, a desperate plea for help.

“She’s just a friend,” Michelle said, fighting to keep her voice steady. She was terrified for herself, but she’d grown up in this life. She’d been raised to understand that sometimes ugly things happened to the people who walked on the other side of the law. But Axelle was still new to it; only just now starting to trust. This had the ability to break her. “I met her a week ago. She doesn’t know a bloody thing about all this, and she’s not important to the club. If you turn her loose, she’ll run home and not bother you ever again.”

He touched Axelle’s mouth again, a lingering press of this thumb, like a kiss, then straightened, and turned a close-lipped smile back to Michelle, eyes sparkling. “Do you really think that line’s going to work?”

“Worth a shot.”

Glimpse of teeth. “Oh, I like you.”

He retreated, though she knew not to feel relief, and came back a moment later with a cheap folding chair that he set down between the beds. Settled on it, legs crossed, forearms draped casually over his thigh. Relaxed and pretty and unbothered. “What’s her name?” he asked.

Michelle didn’t answer.

“Tell me her name,” he said, pleasantly, “or I’ll cut off a piece of her and mail it back to the clubhouse so someone else can tell me her name.” When she didn’t answer this time, he produced the knife again. Lifted his brows. “Do you think I won’t do it?”

He would. She knew that he would, and Axelle knew it too, going by the faint whimper from the other bed. Luis was a showman, was probably clinically insane, but he’d showed no hesitation so far in murdering and maiming.

“It’s Axelle,” she gritted out.

He bobbed the knife toward her, a little flashing good girl. “Interesting. Sounds like she ought to be in a band. Or in a whorehouse that caters to truckers.” Another grin. “Close enough, I suppose. Which of your bikers does she belong to?”

“None of them. She’s a groupie.”

Another gesture with the knife. “You’re lying to me again, and I don’t like liars, Michelle.”

“You don’t need her here. Let her go, and keep me. She’s not a valuable hostage.”

“That’s for me to deicide. Whose old lady is she? I won’t ask a third time.”

She thought about what Candy had told her this morning, in the safety and privacy of the sanctuary. If it comes down to saving yourself, or helping the club, I want you to be selfish, little baby thing. I want you to get the hell out. Run and don’t look back. This was the sort of moment he’d been talking about: a tight spot, and he wasn’t here, and she was supposed to save her own skin. Run and don’t look back. Her promise had been a lie, and it still was.

But her hands were tied, and she couldn’t run. Couldn’t do anything but stall. Play this man’s twisted game, take every opening he gave her, strike at every weak spot…and yield when she had no choice. A good operative knew when to hit, and when to hold back. When to play for time; when to grit their teeth and take the licks.

What would Fox do?

She took a deep breath and managed to let it out on a sigh. The twitch of his brows told her she’d sounded appropriately bored. “Well, she’s not an old lady, that’s for sure. She’s my uncle’s – the sentimental uncle. Picked up a piece of tail and convinced himself he’s in love with her. He’ll be tired of her in a few days.” Sorry, Axe, she thought, and hoped the other girl knew what she was playing at.

He chuckled, delighted. “Albie’s, then.”

“He is the stupid one. Almost got himself blown up in London a few months ago.”

“So I’ve heard. A near death experience can alter a man’s perspectives on love.” He tipped his chin up, inviting.

Michelle snorted. “This isn’t love. It’s a midlife crisis and a good shag.”

He shrugged. “It’s been known to happen.”

“Like I said: she’s a wasted hostage.”

“So you’ve said. I applaud your composure, Mrs. Snow, but you’re overeager to have me turn Axelle loose. Rookie mistake.”

Damn.

“I think you don’t want to see me do anything ugly to your future aunt. Brave, given that you outrank her, and that you’re pregnant.” He sat forward. “We don’t have to talk about her, though. You’re right: she’s not valuable as a hostage, only as a tableau when I’m done having a chat with you.”

Who are you? she wanted to ask. Where did you come from? Because this was no garden variety cartel boss, no. The creature studying her with rapt amusement was something far, far more frightening than that.

Fifty

It turned out not to matter that their guns had been taken back at the garage, because Mercy produced two duffle bags full of goodies once they’d taken care of the two officers who’d followed them to the gas station. Still in uniform, faces hidden by their caps, Mercy and Michael had gotten the drop on them at the pumps, locked them in their own trunk, and off they’d gone.

The van now sat parked along the shoulder, behind a clump of thorny shrubs. Their destination lay thirty yards ahead, the top of a dirt drive screened by tangled mesquite boughs. Adrenaline danced along every one of Candy’s nerve endings, breath choppy and fingers steady as he chambered a round on his borrowed .45 and holstered it.

Fox slipped his phone back into his pocket and met his gaze. “Albie and his crew are gonna come in from the other direction.” He nodded toward the street. “They’ll park off the road, like us, and cut diagonally overland to get to the workshop. We’ll split up: a few guys walk straight down the driveway, and the rest of us circle wide and go all the way around to the back of the workshop. It’ll be a hike, but it’ll triangulate.”

“I’m not here to question your strategizing,” Candy said. He surveyed the rest of his boys – his troops, for the moment. “Heads on the swivel, boys. Try not to get killed. Don’t be shy about killing them.”

He earned a chorus of yes, sir.

Mercy had stripped off the ill-fitting uniform shirt and now wore a white Henley and Kevlar under his cut, his hammer propped on his shoulder. “Any suggestions about who goes in the front way?”

Fox smirked at him. “I’ve got a few.”

~*~

Eden climbed off the back of Walsh’s bike and surveyed the area while she unclipped her helmet. They’d pulled off along a stretch of lightly-wooded, uninhabited territory with just enough trees to provide cover – and shade. Her breath misted as she exhaled. She could smell sap, and dry earth, and above the ping of cooling engines heard the looping calls of songbirds. A peaceful spot. The road was old, its asphalt faded and full of cracks. No traffic. The rustling she whirled around to search for the source of proved to be a fox – a four-legged one, slinking off between two trees.

“They shouldn’t be out in the day,” Walsh said, then cast a glance up to the sky. It was already darkening, the sun winking through the branches in pale panels and coins. “It’s nearly dusk, though.”

“We need to move,” Albie said, his jaw still tight. “The others are headed that way, now.”

“Reese,” Walsh prompted.

The boy looked like a nightmare. He wore a tattered black hoodie, its hood pulled up to cover his bright hair. He’d painted his face, all save the very edges of his eyelids, and then tied a solid black bandana over his nose and mouth. He carried a sawed-off shotgun on a strap across his back, and pulled one of two handguns from his waist, suppressor already attached. His other hand produced a compass. He gave the barest nod, and then turned and set off through the trees, down the slight rise that would lead them to the workshop where the Holy Father terrorized his victims.

The others let Reese get a little ahead before following. Eden hadn’t heard one of his footfalls, but was keenly aware of the small cracks and crunches of their own as they followed.

Fox was loose, along with Candy and the others, on his way to meet them now, but she couldn’t feel relieved, not yet. If learning the truth about his father had put cracks in Fox’s foundations, losing his niece would shatter him. And Eden didn’t know what to do with the idea of a world in which the most unflappable man she’d ever met was a shattered ruin.

Fifty-One

Michelle badly wanted a drink of water. Her throat ached, and her tongue was too dry to do much good when she dampened her lips again. But she wasn’t at the point of asking for things: not yet.

“If it’s intel you’re wanting,” she told Luis, “you would have done better to kidnap one of the boys.”

He gave a dismissive wave. “No. It’s boring talking to men. I just get a lot of chain rattling, and ‘let me go,’ and ‘so help me God.’ You know: threats and pleading. They don’t know how to play the game.”

“The game?”

“Well, more of a dance, really.” The smile he gave her this time was lazy, knowing; a we-share-a-secret smile. “Men are clumsy. Your men, my men. They don’t understand the delicacy of this sort of thing.”

She stared at him as levelly as she could manage. Stupid, pretentious wanker. If he wanted to monologue like a comic book villain, she’d let him; it would buy the guys more time.

“The club fascinates me,” he said, like an admission. “Individually, all its members start as outcasts. Soldiers, and criminals; the bullied, and the weak; the addicted, and the vicious. They don’t fit in anywhere so they decide to fit together. They form their own society – and then they adopt every trait of the society that shunned them. They bully, and they discriminate. They flood the markets with all the vices that once tempted them. Kill and capture and torture.

“It really isn’t about wanting to be free, or to find peace,” he said, smile edged with bitterness. “Is it? It’s only about wanting control. Wanting power. Humans are no better than any other animal: everyone wants to be the strongest with the most territory.”

“Your point being?”

“I like that you don’t deny it.”

“The club doesn’t have a gentle reputation.”

He chuckled. “No, it certainly doesn’t. And it’s just as dictatorial as any nation of the world, isn’t it?”

“And your cartel isn’t?”

“My cartel is exactly like your club: a means to an end. The means for the acquirement and maintenance of power by a few, supported by those willing to exercise ruthlessness.”

The game, he’d called it. A dance. She wanted to dismiss all this as philosophical nonsense, but she also wanted to live. “You sound like you don’t like that setup,” she hedged.

He shrugged. “I’ve learned to like it. Or at least appreciate it. You have to if you want to get ahead in life.”

“And you want to get ahead.”

“I have gotten ahead.” He made an expansive gesture.

“You’ve gone about it in a really strange way.”

The resulting smile was warm with pleasure. “I’m glad you’ve noticed.”

“But why go to all that effort? Why create” – she nodded toward him – “the Holy Father?” Why cut people’s throats and leave them out like sacrificial offerings, you freak? she wanted to ask.

“I told you I’m very curious about the way the club works. I’ve studied criminal organizations. Conflicts between them are usually comprised of back-and-forth raids on product. Shootouts. It’s all very cinematic and upfront.

“And – don’t take this as too great a compliment – we all know that no one could challenge the Lean Dogs in a cinematic and upfront way and hope to succeed. I realized I would have to wage a psychological war with them.”

He hadn’t beaten them, not yet, but he’d been more successful than he should have been. “Why wage a war at all?”

He leaned toward her, chin resting in his hand, tone conspiratorial. “Because wouldn’t it just be thrilling to slay a giant?”

~*~

Candy did as he’d told the others: kept his head up, his senses alert, scanning every rock and tree and clump of old pine needles, but he couldn’t hear much beyond the triphammer rhythm of his pulse in his ears. His own breaths sounded too loud inside his skull; his skin felt pulled tight, prickling all over with nerves. Every delay – Fox lifting a hand to halt them all so he could listen – tightened the invisible band around his chest.

They had to move! The sun was going down, and they’d lost too much time already, and Michelle was…

No, no. Couldn’t think about that.

He closed his eyes a moment, briefly, a long blink, and tried to take a deep breath. Tried to clear his mind. He’d been so afraid that he’d gone soft; that marriage and fatherhood had weakened his resolve, but he knew now that wasn’t true. It had stripped him like a wire and left him charged and sparking. A threat to his club could be dealt with coldly, efficiently. A threat to his family left him red with rage, murderous and merciless.

He opened his eyes, and Fox was motioning them forward again.

At his side, Blue whispered, “You doing alright?”

Candy didn’t answer. What good would a terse fine do?

Blue moved in closer on his next careful step, so their elbows nearly brushed. “We’re gonna get her back,” he said, with a confidence meant to be soothing, like he was trying to comfort a child.

What if I don’t? Then what?

Candy gritted his teeth and kept walking.

It seemed like hours, but was really only twenty minutes or so. It was an old, rarely disturbed patch of woods, plenty of underbrush, and old sticks, and leaf litter to create a constant rustling. If there was anyone out on sentry duty, they would hear them coming long before they drew into sight. It felt so – primitive. So pathetic. Creeping along through the forest. He wanted to be on his bike. Wanted to be kicking down doors, and throwing punches, and turning the barrel of a shotgun on his enemies. All sorts of Tarzan fantasies about cutting a path of blood and gore to get to his woman, to take her in his arms and comfort her, protect her. All folly and whim; all useless while he was stepping over old stumps and hoping he didn’t disturb a rattler.

“Wish Jinx was here,” Blue muttered.

“Yeah, well, he’s a dumbass who went off book, so he’s not,” Candy bit back.

Blue let out an audible breath, but wisely didn’t respond.

Finally, at the top of a rise, the trees thinned, and Candy caught a glimpse of rusted, corrugated metal through the foliage. His pulse paused, and then sped, a terrible lurching beat that left his chest aching.

There. She was there.

Fox lifted a hand and signed careful.

They drifted toward one another, closing ranks, lining up along the top of a ridge. The ground fell away below, carved up by summer flash floods, exposed roots and rocks and the striations of the sandy soil visible in the last red-gold rays of sunlight.

The promised workshop waited on the other side of the ravine, a rambling, ramshackle affair that had been added on to time and again, the metal marked by rust and rain, its windows small, barred, and painted-over.

Candy couldn’t breathe; his heartbeat strangled him. He wanted to charge down the hill, and go sprinting up the other side.

But Fox said, “Wait.” He cupped his hands around his mouth, and whistled. It wasn’t a human noise that left his lips, but three long, looping blasts that sounded like a bird call of some kind. A moment later, the same rhythm echoed back, faintly, from the far side of the workshop.

“Swing right,” Fox said. He glanced back over his shoulder as everyone moved to comply, and pinned Candy with a look. “No hero moments yet, okay?”

Candy bared his teeth in a semblance of a grin. “No promises.”

~*~

Dusk. When the last fingers of light had slipped back from between the tree trunks, Reese moved through the gloaming, quick and silent, toward the workshop. Albie had wanted to come, but Walsh had put a hand on his arm – fingers gripping tight, knuckles whitening with the effort of restraint – and said, “Let Reese. This is what he’s best at.”

A simple statement of fact, but it had felt like praise. So he moved now with a small kernel of warmth in his breast, as he flattened himself against a section of metal wall, melting into the shadows there.

The window beside his head had been brushed with a single coat of black paint: too thick to see through, but thin enough to allow the warmth of electric light, with which it glowed now. Someone might have left a bulb burning, but he thought it was more likely that someone was inside.

The window was barred from the outside, secured with screws that would be easy to remove – if he had the time or a screw driver.

But.

Roof it was.

It was low. He reached up and gripped its edge with gloved hands, took a breath, and pushed off from the ground. A flex, a pull, and he swung up and over and landed lightly on the balls of his feet. He’d made noise – impossible to avoid – but only a little, and his core burned pleasantly from the exertion.

The old tin crackled under his weight as he moved, slowly, on feet and hands, crawling to keep from falling through. He found what he’d thought he might: a fiberglass panel near the center – a line of them – to let in sunlight during the day. It was yellowed and brittle, but it too emitted a faint glow from inside.

Reese leaned down and pressed his ear to it a long moment, breath held, listening. Faint shuffling sounds, a rustling like bird wings. No voices.

He weighed the possibilities. In his experience, people like these Chupacabras couldn’t wait silently anywhere: always chatting and gossiping with each other. Passing the time, fighting the silence.

He drew one of his guns, and laid it within easy reach, then used his knife to pry up the panel. The noise of it inspired more rustling, and a few little squeaks; the unmistakable quickness of breath.

He set the panel aside and waited. Heard another noise, in the woods behind him: Albie growing impatient. That was why people like Reese existed, because people like Albie were too emotional and irrational to handle these sorts of jobs with the proper skill and caution.

When the noise from inside the workshop had died down again, he picked up his gun, and dropped down inside. Landed softly, absorbing the shock of it through bent knees. Turned, gun raised, scanning.

No Chupacabras, but he wasn’t alone.

Fifty-Two

Candy flicked a quick look toward Reese’s face as he stormed past him into the now-open door of the workshop, searching for a hint as to what awaited him inside. He didn’t find one, and wasn’t sure why he’d looked; that painted-black mask the kid wore revealed nothing.

Dark closed over him inside; a narrow space with open rooms on either side, hastily-patched-in additions to the original structure. He saw movement there, in the shadows; sensed the heat and volume of bodies. But the flickering orange light of a single caged bulb drew him to the heart of the workshop, to the wide-open, dirt-floored space in the center, where a row of tables waited. All of them was occupied, bodies stretched out atop them. The first was Jesse, from the convenience store, his throat a gaping second mouth. And then Eric. The girl, Gwen. Blood on the floors, soaking into the dirt, turning it to mud, stinking of iron and shit. The last table held another woman, and he saw the glint of golden hair–

The room tilted. His lungs seized, and he stumbled a moment, had to catch himself against the nearest table. Jesse’s body trembled atop it, but didn’t fall, held fast by cuffs.

Walsh and Mercy stood together, their backs to him. It was Mercy who turned, dark gaze sympathetic, and said, “It’s not her.”

His lungs opened painfully, and air rushed back in. He stood straight, and took the final steps up to the last table.

It was Melanie.

Her throat had been cut, recently, the blood still bright and wet. It had pooled beneath her head, matting her hair, and dripped off the edge of the table. Little plink sounds every few seconds. She’d died with her eyes open; blood flecked her lips, her chin, her cheeks.

“Do you know who she is?” Walsh asked.

“Yeah.” He searched for grief, but couldn’t find any now. He didn’t guess he could blame her for getting caught up in the cartel’s scheme – it had happened to better people.

But he did blame her, all the same. Was it worth it? he wanted to ask her. Was it worth your life? And Pacer’s? And Michelle’s?

Mercy touched his shoulder. “There’s live ones.”

There were. Walsh walked him back up to the alcoves he’d passed. Eden was there, crouching down, holding a flashlight. There were women, dozens of them, all of them young, in every combination of skin and hair color. Tattered clothes, exposed, dirt-caked skin. Tied at wrists, and ankles, gagged, sitting in their own filth.

Candy pressed the back of his hand over his nose and mouth. “You were right,” he told Eden. “They are selling girls.” His gaze skipped across frightened faces, and white-rimmed eyes. “Is–”

“I already checked. Michelle and Axelle aren’t here.” Her tone was grim. “And it appears Gwen was telling the truth about one thing, at least.” She nodded toward the girl in front of her, a redhead massaging her wrists after Eden had cut them loose. “This is April. She’s from Tahoe.”

“Tahoe?”

Eden offered her a water bottle that the girl took with shaking hands. She spilled more down her chin than she drank, panting afterward. Her voice was croaky and unused. “I was in town to visit my grandmother. And I went to the store, and…”

“She was taken,” Eden said, turning to him. “I’m willing to bet everyone here was snatched off the streets or from their homes, and the FBI had to know there were way too many missing persons reports being filed, but they covered it all up.”

He straightened, and turned, retrieved his own flashlight. The Cali boys were in the alcove opposite, cutting bonds, removing gags. Loco had another bottle of water, trying to divvy it up only a sip at a time, so everyone got at least a little.

Candy wanted to break things.

He went back outside, into the cool freshness of night. Stars wheeled overhead, vivid pinpricks against the blackness, casting the forest in a pale silver glow.

Fox and Reese stood a few paces away from the door of the workshop, voices low murmurs nearly drowned out by the call of night birds. Candy joined them – and then wished he hadn’t. He was boiling inside. The idea of giving orders, of formulating a plan, had his hands clenching and knuckles cracking. Fuck this. Fuck all of this.

Fox cleared his throat. “I sent two of the Cali boys after the van. Figured you’d want to talk to Cantrell.”

Cantrell. That fucker. They’d left him gagged and bound to the security grate in their stolen van, and he was coming here now, and Candy was going to break him.

He wasn’t aware of moving or speaking, but suddenly Fox was right in front of him, the mild lift of his brows visible in the moonlight. “Okay, okay, yes, fine. You can feed him his own entrails after all this is done, if you like. But right now, he’s our best source of intel.”

Candy took a deep breath that did nothing to loosen the knot in his chest. Wiped both hands down his face when he felt his eyes get hot and tight. He blinked, and collected himself; he felt patched together with tape and school glue. A hurricane in a bottle.

But he couldn’t do that, not now, not yet. He had to be like Fox. Had to keep his wits, see this through.

When he dropped his hands, he said, “We’ve got to call…somebody. I don’t know who. Someone has to deal with all” – he gestured over his shoulder toward the workshop – “that.” Ordinarily, he would have reached out to Jaffrey, and let him take credit for a major bust. But how much of PD could be trusted right now? Who was on the take with Cantrell and the cartel? And who…

Shit, he had no idea.

“I’m going to call Jen,” Fox said, levelly, soothingly. “Have her talk to Maddox, yeah? There’s no way the whole Bureau is on this. We’ll leave some of the boys behind to see that this is handled, and the rest of us will…”

Headlights cut through the trees, and the van crunched its way up the narrow gravel drive and halted in front of them.

“Where’s Albie?” Candy asked, and didn’t have to wonder for long.

~*~

Albie had to walk out of the workshop because he was deeply ashamed of the fact that he could look at all those poor girls in there – dirty, and hungry, and waiting to be sold into slavery – and not feel anything except sick and desperate because he hadn’t found his own girl yet.

Standing in the narrow front hall of the workshop, voices surging like white noise around him, lungs full of the stink of human waste, he was transported back to an alley in London. Back to tackling his own father to the ground; the pain of impact, the sharper pain of betrayal.

Devin had left them that night. Just left. He’d known about Tenny, and about Pseudonym, and about all the horror that awaited them, and he’d abandoned his own children. Again. Always. Always again and again.

And he’d been floundering under a toppled chair while cartel goons clubbed his old lady over the back of the head and threw her in the back of a truck…

He didn’t realize he was moving until the cold night air slapped him in the face. The lights startled him, at first, and then he saw the police van idling, its passenger door open. And then Jackal appeared, walking someone along in front of him – someone bound and gagged, his hands behind his back.

Cantrell.

Albie didn’t think; he moved.

It was only the work of a few strides to reach the van, and by that time Cantrell had come down off the last step, standing unsteadily on the gravel. Albie had his fist cocked before he was in range; the punch started in his gut, in the deep, angry, seething heart of him, and the impact of his knuckles against Cantrell’s cheek echoed off the steel walls of the workshop, a sharp crack.

The pain was immaterial; it was more numbness than anything else.

Cantrell dropped with a choked shout behind his gag, landing in a clumsy tangle on his side, hands still locked together behind his back.

Albie kicked him in the stomach, and he doubled up like a cooked shrimp, wheezing and choking and retching against the gag. He tried to go to his knees beside the man, another swing already winding up.

But strong hands caught him beneath the arms and dragged him backward. Picked him up off his feet, like he was no more than a doll.

A better man would have realized that he was acting like an idiot, and not resisted. Would have taken his scolding, pulled himself together, and would have applied himself toward something productive.

Right now, Albie was not the better man.

He kicked and thrashed, and tried to get loose, for all the good it did him, which was none. “Fucking – put me – I’m gonna–”

“Albert, you’re embarrassing yourself,” Fox deadpanned, appearing beside him. A moment later, Fox’s fingers were at his throat, pinching in just the right way against his windpipe and the nerves in the side of his neck.

He considered letting it happen. Fox could and would put him to sleep, and maybe that would be better than the hectic, bird-in-a-cage mental state currently plaguing him.

But he thought of the girls, and he subsided, choking only a little.

The beast holding him put his feet back on the ground, but kept hold of him. “Trust me,” Candy said, revealing himself – he’d known that only he or Mercy would have been strong enough to do what had just been done to him – “I wanna do that, too. But we’ve gotta talk to his ass first.” He patted Albie on the shoulders and turned him loose.

Fox still held him, and Albie shot him a glare. Fox waited a full second, unblinking, before pulling back.

On the ground, Cantrell remained curled up tight, heaving or crying or pleading, muffled sounds of pain. The moonlight caught the glint of tears on his cheeks.

Candy walked around to him, grabbed him by a fistful of his shirt, and lifted him up. Cantrell flailed a moment like a kitten, but Candy gave him a hard shake, kicked his feet into place under him, and pushed his face into the other man’s. “Walk.” Albie had never heard him sound like that, and Cantrell’s red-rimmed eyes went properly wide.

Candy marched Cantrell into the workshop, and Albie and the others followed. All save Reese, he noted, who stayed out on the ridge, keeping watch. At least not all of them were blinded by rage and panic.

Inside, some of the girls were on their feet. Albie saw Cantrell’s head turn side to side as they passed. Are you shocked? he wanted to demand. Did you know your little boy was doing this? Did you help him do it?

They reached the first of the tables, and Candy held Cantrell by the wrists with one giant hand, and reached with the other to test the bonds on Jesse’s corpse. “Fox?” he asked, when he didn’t manage to open the cuffs.

Fox stepped up and fiddled a moment. “Wingnuts,” he said. “Not even locked.” In a few moments, he had the dead boy’s ankles and wrists unlatched.

Candy grabbed the edge of the table and tipped it. The body slumped off and fell to the floor in a nauseating tangle of impossible angles and bends. The thump of it impacting the floor was almost satisfying, though, Albie thought. Then Candy hauled Cantrell up onto the blood-slick tabletop, hands still bound at the small of his back, so his spine was bowed awkwardly; the pain on his shoulders and elbows would be sharp.

Good.

Candy ripped the gag from his mouth, revealing red marks on the man’s cheeks where it had been tied overly tight. The sight sent another pulse of satisfaction through Albie’s stomach.

Cantrell started talking immediately, trying to save himself. “I swear I didn’t–”

Candy slapped the table right beside his head, and Cantrell flinched, eyes squeezing shut. “Here’s how this is gonna work,” Candy said, and his voice was still terrible; rough and raw and half a growl. But cold, too. There could be no mistaking him right now for a man with a shred of leniency or sympathy. “I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to give me answers. If you won’t talk, or if you give me a buncha bullshit, that guy” – a nod toward Mercy where he lingered half in and out of a shadow, hulking, profile orange-glazed in the light, hair a sinister ink spill down his shoulders – “is gonna start taking fingers and toes and other non-essential bits until you tell me what I wanna hear. Do you understand?”

Cantrell cracked his eyes open, face lined with pain and distress, and jerked a nod.

“There’s no law here,” Candy said, braced above him, looming, face a cold mask. “There are no badges, no squad cars, no agents to arrest me and save your sorry ass. Right here, in this room, you have no jurisdiction. This is me versus you, and I’m the bigger animal, so you need to think very carefully about your answers when you give them. I’ll know if you’re lying – I’ll be able to smell it on you.” He sniffed, scenting the air like the dog they all wore on their cuts.

Albie had an ugly, desperate thought: he hadn’t scented it before. None of them had. No one had ever suspected what that birth certificate had revealed. How could they have?

How could they win now when they’d been stumbling around up until now, blind and stupid?

Candy said, “Luis said his father was the head of the Chupacabras. Does that mean you’re a cartel boss?”

“No. No, that’s just a joke of his. He’s – he’s got a weird sense of humor.”

“Yeah,” Mercy said, approaching from the other side of the table, drawing Cantrell’s shivering, terrified attention. Mercy was Candy’s counterpoint here, relaxed, easy, smiling – but it was one of his sinister half-crazy smiles, and there was nothing comforting in the size of his arms – or of his fists, which he rested lightly on the table edge. “Nothing says ‘haha’ like a room full of sex slaves and a buncha dead bodies.”

Cantrell closed his eyes, throat convulsing as he swallowed. “He’s very disturbed. Luis is – there’s something wrong with him. He…I don’t know. I wanted him to sit down with a psychiatrist, but–”

“But you decided to help him murder a buncha people instead,” Candy said. “Got it.”

“I didn’t – I didn’t help. I just–”

“Lied to us, arrested us, and let innocent women suffer. No, sure, but you’re not guilty of anything. Where’s Luis now?”

“I don’t know.”

Very calmly, Mercy walked down to the end of the table, and unlaced Cantrell’s shoe.

His eyes flew open. “No! Wait! I really don’t!”

Mercy drew the shoe off, humming to himself, and then the sock. And with a deft movement broke two of Cantrell’s toes with an audible sequence of cracks.

He screamed. Anyone would have. Arched up higher off the table and shouted, “I’m not lying! Please, please!”

Mercy gripped another toe.

“Please! I have no idea where he is now!”

Candy looked at Mercy, and nodded.

The rest of the toes followed.

When Cantrell’s bitten-off screams had trailed into wet, shuddering breaths, Candy leaned down and said, “I believe you.”

“Candy,” Blue said. He sidled up to take Mercy’s former place at the table, expression stern.

Candy met his gaze, only a heartbeat, but then Blue nodded and eased back a step. Candy had been challenged lately, Albie knew. Brothers pressuring and doubting him from all sides. No one was challenging now, not when his fangs were out and all his muscles coiled for violence.

Cantrell panted up at him, face white with shock, rivulets of sweat running down his cheeks and temples. “What?” he asked, weakly.

Candy patted his chest. “I believe you.” Almost soothing. “But that’s also bullshit, because you’re holding out on me. Explain it to me. From the beginning.”

He hesitated, wetting his lips, eyes flicking back and forth across Candy’s face.

Mercy started to unlace his other shoe.

“Wait! No, I…” He took a breath, and then seemed to sag down into the table. Like he let go of all the tension he’d been holding; a physical bleeding-away of resistance. “Okay, okay.”

“The photos I found,” Fox spoke up, “show you with him when he was about five or six. But you didn’t stick around much longer after that, did you?”

“No.” A low, defeated voice, and no hesitation this time. “I didn’t – that photo was taken right before I went back home. I went to Mexico before I started college, a summer vacation, my senior trip, and I met Marisol, and I brought her home with me. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. And we had Luis…” He sounded wistful, though a deep groove marked the skin between his brows. “But Marisol wasn’t happy. She wanted to go back. I quit my job, and we moved again. Once we got back to Mexico, that was when I finally realized that Mari’s father worked for the cartel – he was one of the officers. When things got rough, I tried to take her and Luis back home with me. I wanted to build a life for us back here.”

“She wouldn’t leave?” Candy asked.

“No.” He shook his head, and Albie thought the gleam of wetness in his eyes had nothing to do with physical pain this time. “She wouldn’t, and she wouldn’t let me take Luis, he was only five, and I…”

“You got scared,” Fox said. “So you ran.”

He closed his eyes, ashamed. “I tried to keep in contact, I thought I could eventually convince them to join me. But. There were bombings in their city. Shootings. I couldn’t get hold of her.”

“You left your wife and child with the cartel,” Candy said, teeth bared in what was definitely not a smile. “And ran home with your tail between your legs.”

“I was young and stupid.”

“Well, now your kid is young and stupid, and he’s killing people and selling people. And you’re helping him.” The last was a snarl.

“He’s my son,” Cantrell said, voice cracking, desperate. “I already failed him once.”

“And this isn’t failing him?” Candy swept an arm out to indicate the workshop, the women, the whole fucked up situation. “You’re a deadbeat dad, and a real fucking loser, obviously, but I guess the whole FBI agent thing doesn’t matter either, does it? Did you join up just so you could use your position to help Luis get a foothold here in this country?”

“No.”

Mercy tugged the shoe off.

“I didn’t!” Cantrell shouted, hoarse, sweating. Pathetic. “I joined because I wanted to stop the cartels! I wanted to save other families. I had no idea – when Luis found me – I never thought he’d…”

“Be running his own cartel?” Fox asked, lip curling in a rare show of outward disgust. “Kids have a way of disappointing you, don’t they?”

“So you, what,” Candy said, “thought you’d make it up to him? Support him?”

“I tried to convince him to give this up. To walk away from the cartel. No one had to know he was ever involved.”

“But he didn’t,” Albie said, with a grim realization. “And you weren’t going to be the one to take him down.”

“I love my son.”

Candy leaned in low. “Your son’s a dead man.”

Fifty-Three

Nobody. That’s what Michelle had called her. And that was true, wasn’t it? She was no one’s niece, or daughter, or sister, or old lady. Hadn’t spent her life proving her loyalty to this club – had in fact spent a large chunk of time actively hating it. As far as hostages went, a huge disparity existed between Axelle and Michelle.

Axelle marveled at her ability to be hurt by this realization in the midst of their current situation. Easier to focus on the smaller, more emotional, more personal hurt than the enormity of being chained to a bed and touched by a madman.

Then she realized what Michelle was doing.

And then she bit her lip against a threatening sob.

Michelle’s gambit was a straightforward one: convince Luis that Axelle wasn’t valuable so he’d turn her loose. It was a nice thought, an endearing one, but it wouldn’t work. Axelle wasn’t going to become a dealer or an accomplice for the cartel. She had no delusions about leaving here alive. Unless the guys showed up, they were done for.

She glanced toward Michelle, a lump in her throat, already calculating the things they stood to lose. Michelle was married, and pregnant, and if she was terrified, she was brave enough to hide it well. Axelle had a car, and a job – and she had Albie, who she loved, but not for very long. She wasn’t ready to die, she wasn’t, she…

Michelle was staring at her.

Luis had gotten up, had left the room.

Michelle flexed her near hand, drawing Axelle’s attention, reaching down toward the cuff on her wrist, but not quite able to reach it. Axelle did the same, reflexively, and realized with a jolt that she could reach hers. Her fingers were longer than Michelle’s, and the pads touched cool metal.

Michelle gave her a nod, and then turned away, attention on Luis as he returned, carrying a glass of water.

Slowly, Axelle shifted her head on the pillow, and looked over at her far hand. Flexed her wrist, and found one of the wingnuts securing her cuff with her fingertips. Regulated her breathing forcibly, and tried, and reached, and gripped – and turned. Just a fraction, but it was a start.

~*~

Satisfied for the moment that Axelle understood what Michelle needed her to do, Michelle lifted her head off the pillow and let Luis press the glass to her lips. So, so gently. Tender, almost, his other hand coming to cup her cheek and help her gulp down a few long swallows. His wrist smelled of bergamot, she noted, rather than the cheap, sharp cologne she’d expected from a gang leader.

The water was cold, and crisp-tasting. A stray drop ran down her chin when he pulled the glass back, and he gently swiped it away with his thumb.

“That should help,” he said, sitting back, setting the glass on the floor by his chair. “Now, where were we?”

“I’m curious about something,” she said, grateful for the water, for the smoothness it lent her voice. “If you wanted to know about the club, why did you start small? Why Pacer and Melanie? Why not kill a Dog outright?” Just asking left her tingling all over unpleasantly. It was all too easy to imagine the scene: Jinx, or Blue, or Gringo, or Cowboy laid out dead, and Candy seething, raging, wreaking havoc.

She supposed she’d answered her own question before he flicked a tight smile and said, “Experiments are delicate things. I wanted to really see them, your men – your man,” he corrected, flashing sharp canines. “Candy, isn’t it? He’s the president. He’s the only one whose opinion counts. President first.”

“Club first,” she corrected. “It isn’t a dictatorship.”

“Ah.” He wagged a slender, ringed finger. “That’s what you tell yourselves. But?” An invitation.

“Candy’s the president,” she said, firmly. “What were you wondering?”

“I thought you were wondering.”

She gave him a look.

He laughed. “Oh, you’re a delight. Yes, I was wondering, same as you. I figured if I killed one of his brothers” – he said the word mockingly – “he would be irate.”

“Good guess.”

“I didn’t want irate. I wanted to understand him.”

“Do you?”

“I understand all he really cares about is you. He’ll be coming, soon. Unless my father has a better hold on his tongue than I think.”

“Your father,” she mused, quelling the sharp, inquisitive energy that spiked. Candy had said Luis’s father was the cartel boss, but no one had seen hide nor hair of him. “Does he know what you’re doing here?”

He flashed teeth. “Maybe. Probably. He doesn’t care.”

She affected a snort. “Dads always care.”

“Does yours?”

“Yeah. He doesn’t put up much of a fuss – he’s got too much else going on. But do you think he wanted me to marry another club president?”

He tilted his head, considering. “It does keep it all in the family, so to speak. What would you have done with a poor civilian man? Eaten him for breakfast?”

“Something like that.”

“My father doesn’t care,” he said, growing thoughtful; growing morose. “He never has.”

“He put you in charge, didn’t he?”

Another smile. “In a manner of speaking, I guess.”

There was something there; a tender spot, an old wound, a barely-concealed mountain of daddy issues ripe for the exploiting. But she didn’t know enough, and wasn’t sure she had the time to tease it all out of him.

Softly, in a voice laced with understanding, she said, “That’s why you created the Holy Father persona, isn’t it?” His expression tightened, her first warning sign. “You don’t strike me as a zealot. This isn’t about religion; it’s about you, and your dad.”

All the languid, performative grace evaporated. He bolted to his feet, tense as a wire, and produced a gun from inside his robe – a gleaming, ridiculous gold-plated Desert Eagle.

It was a stupid gun for a spoiled child trying to look cool – but it was massive, and Michelle could imagine all too well the way it would carve her face off her body and leave her nothing but a pulpy mess on the pillow.

He shoved the muzzle into her face, smile a rictus. “I know what you’re doing.”

She wanted to shrink back; wanted to close her eyes and will this moment away. Instead she stared at him, blinking, as blankly as she could manage. “What am I doing?”

The gun shoved in closer, close enough for her to smell the oil and cordite on it. The rictus twisted into a smirk. “Oh, you’re clever. Not clever enough.” He chuckled – a forced sound. “But I commend the effort.” He stepped back, then, dropped back into his chair, the gun across his lap. “This meeting isn’t about me, Mrs. Snow. It’s about your club.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw movement over an Axelle’s bed – more movement than mere shifting around. She was careful to snap her gaze back to Luis. “If you’re so interested, maybe you should have prospected,” she said. “You could have been a Dog, instead of someone fighting against them.”

He laughed. It started as a chuckle, but then he threw his head back and barked with it; the gun nearly slid off his lap, and when he finally straightened, he was blinking away tears. “Dios mio.” He wiped his eyes with careful fingertips. “I needed that. No, no I never wanted to join. The Dogs fascinate me because they’ve proved successful. But I don’t want to ride around on a cheap American motorcycle wearing Levi’s.” His lip curled in disgust. “The Dogs will fall because they’re in my way. I will crush them.”

“You sound confident,” she deadpanned.

“I am.”

“But it’s cute that you think killing me is going to accomplish that.” It would crush Candy, personally. And her dad. It was all too easy to envision the lurch in Tommy’s stomach when he was told; to imagine Raven slapping Phillip full across the face. I knew you’d get her killed one of these days!

But her death wouldn’t harm the club. Not long-term, in any kind of widespread way that counted.

Save yourself, Candy had said. And she would if she could, but the club wasn’t just a club – it was her whole family. I’m sorry, love, she thought. I can’t keep my promise.

Luis flashed her another toothy smile. “Who said anything about killing you?”

Fifty-Four

“Need anything?” Jenny asked. She set a glass of clean water on the nightstand beside Jinx, beside a bottle of Tylenol and a granola bar. His face looked pale and drawn, and she supposed the morphine was wearing off, but he had the pump right there, and it was his business at this point; she had too much else to do.

She was already turning for the door when he said, “Jen,” in a way that brought her up short, and had her turning around to face him.

It wasn’t just physical pain marring his expression, she saw now. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“You didn’t drive a truck through the wall.”

“I’m sorry I’m fucking useless.” He clapped a hand down on the bed beside him, and glared at the shapes of his legs beneath the covers. “I don’t know–”

“What’s done is done,” she said, quickly, firmly. “You can’t go back in time and keep from getting hurt. Better not to think about it.”

“I ought to be out there, with the guys.”

“You ought to be right there resting,” she argued. “God knows how much damage you did jumping out of bed.” If it hadn’t been so absurd and dangerous, she would have laughed when Gringo relayed the story earlier.

“I let everybody down,” he insisted.

Yeah, you did, she wanted to say, but would never. She schooled her features, careful not to show her line of thinking: that Jinx had let his own personal vendetta get the best of him; that he’d walked into a dangerously stupid situation that he normally wouldn’t have, all because he was blinded by old grief. She would never voice that, though, because none of them had clean hands. At some point, every person in this club had done something equally petty and reckless, herself included.

She glanced toward the dresser, where Reese had carefully laid out Jinx’s personal belongings: his rings, and wallet, and chain, and the earrings that had been taken out and bagged for surgery. His gun was there, too, spared the hospital treatment before he’d even arrived at the ER.

Jenny picked it up and returned to the bed. Set it down in his lap. Offered him a fleeting smile. “Here. Just in case.”

“If somebody gets all the way back here,” he said with lifted brows. “We’ve got problems.”

“We’ve always got problems.” She patted his shoulder and went back down the hall. Paused to peek in on Tenny, who was fast asleep, mouth slack, eyes twitching beneath his closed lids.

In the common room, the wall had been secured as best as it could be for the moment. Pup gimped along on his good leg, dragging a broom awkwardly across the floor.

“Here.” Jenny plucked it from his hand and waved him away. “Go sit down.”

“Oh, but–”

“Have you had any aspirin or anything for your ankle?”

He gathered himself visibly, shoulders squaring. “I don’t need it.”

“Uh-huh.” She gave him a little shove. “Nickel, can you get him some painkillers and a stiff drink?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Only a bit of sawdust remained. Jenny gathered it in a few long sweeps, moving across the floor. She ended up at one of the front windows, where Agent Maddox stood with his hands on his hips, staring tensely out at the freshly-fallen dark. He’d ditched his jacket and tie, and rolled up his shirtsleeves.

He was handsome in a sharp, pretty way; very spit-and-polish, good-boy attractive. But with his collar rumpled, and his hair disheveled, and his face lined with disquiet, he looked real in a way he hadn’t before. Not like a stock photo agent, but like a living, breathing man who’d had his world shattered.

He acknowledged her with only the barest sideways glance, not turning his head. Took a breath and said, “I called Virginia. Told them what was going on.”

“Are they sending someone?” Her skin prickled with a fresh wave of unease. It would take time to assemble forces and put them on the way. Hopefully the boys would be done and ducked back out of the spotlight by then.

“Yeah. I think.” He shrugged; a tight, unhappy movement. “They didn’t really tell me shit.” Sharp edge of bitterness in his voice. He turned, then, and she saw in his eyes the same look she’d seen on countless prospects; lost young men unmoored from reality, looking for a place to land. “I didn’t say anything about the Dogs being involved.”

“Really?” She fought to keep the surprise off her face. “Why not?”

Another shrug, and he glanced back toward the window. “Lesser of two evils, I guess.”

It was more than that, but Jenny didn’t think now was the time to push him on it. She could plant a seed, though; or maybe pour a little water on the one already lodged in the back of his mind.

“This won’t mean much coming from someone raised by this club,” she said, “but something I learned early was that life isn’t divided along a clear line. There’s not good and bad. Nothing’s black and white.”

That earned her another sideways glance.

“You know. Just if you’re thinking of a career change.”

The window in front of him shattered.

Fifty-Five

“Now.” Candy pressed the flat of his hand against Cantrell’s windpipe – just rested it there, with the promise of weight behind it. He could feel the man’s pulse running jackrabbit fast against his palm, and the jerky rhythm sent pleasant chills skating up his arm. He held a life in his hand, one he could crush if he so chose. “I want a list of all the places Luis might have taken the girls.”

Cantrell fidgeted beneath him, licked his lips. “I don’t – there’s a garage. Sandoval’s–”

“Your crew raided that place,” Fox said from the other side of the table. “Or did you just pretend to?”

“We raided it. I had to – had to give my people something to do.”

“And Sandoval’s people weren’t Luis’s people. So, try again.”

His gaze rolled, searching beyond Candy, beyond the table where he was trapped, and that wasn’t acceptable.

Candy pressed down, just a little. Just enough to make him cough. “Where is he staying? A house? An apartment? A fucking motor home?”

“Shit,” Blue said, “maybe at Doc Gilliard’s place. Plenty of room, and no one would be looking there now.”

“No,” Fox said. “That’s too easy. He went somewhere quiet and private. Someone that no one would ever think to look.”

Candy said, “Merc, break his ankle.”

“No, no, no, please–”

Mercy grunted as he hefted the sledgehammer.

“There’s a house!” Cantrell shouted, eyes squeezed shut.

Mercy hesitated with a soft damn. He’d never liked being denied opportunities.

“My house, the house I’m staying in. A rental.” He cracked his eyes open, panting, at a point of terror that was acute and animal and past all physical pain.

Candy straightened, and lifted his hand, feeling strangely bereft. He was aware, in a way, that he’d lost sight of things. All that mattered now was finding the girls, and there was no time for vendettas, or torture for sport, or any of things he was considering at the moment. He’d suppressed all his fear and panic, but those emotions were too big, too unwieldly. They’d morphed to violence instead. Bloodlust.

Get it together, he told himself. Leaving Cantrell alive – not crushing his windpipe here and now – speared through his ribs, a sharp pain.

“Get me an address,” he muttered, and put his back to the table.

Fox’s voice behind him, low, asking.

And Reese coming toward him down the dark hall of the building. “Someone’s coming,” he said. “Headlights from the house, headed this way.”

His pulse skipped. “Show me.”

He followed the boy back out into the moonlight, casting quick glances toward the women. Most were on their feet now, some being supported by the others. Victor knelt in front of one still on the ground, and Candy couldn’t tell if she was awake or not.

Eden turned toward him, and she said something, but he didn’t pause to listen. Stepped outside into the cold and the starshine and the sighing of wind through the branches.

He spotted the headlights straight off: cool blue, at least two cars. “If that’s a cavalry, it’s not ours,” he said, tightly.

Reese leapt forward – lithe as a woodland predator coiled to pounce – and melted away into a shadow.

“What–” Candy started, hand finding the butt of his gun.

The pain came first, before the sound. A sharp sting through the meat of his right biceps. Then the crack, and the echo.

Candy dropped on instinct; pressed his belly to the ground and drew his gun on a sharp gasp. He felt the hot tickle of blood running down his arm, inside his sleeve. The pain was expanding outward, shooting up and down his arm, sinking claws into his shoulder. But he knew right off it wasn’t a fatal shot; not even a debilitating one. He could work past pain. And if he could get to cover, he could fashion a tourniquet.

But another shot cracked off, and he heard the whine of the round zipping overhead. He scanned the darkness for Reese, saw no sign of him, but saw the headlights drawing closer, bouncing down into the dip that would then lead them up the hill, and to the workshop.

“Candy?” he heard Blue call behind him, at the door of the shop.

“It’s an ambush,” he called, crawling around, teeth gritted against the pain in his arm. “Get inside! Get down!”

Another gunshot; he heard the twang of it glancing off the metal of the shop.

“Shit,” Blue muttered, stumbling back.

Candy got his feet under him and lurched the last few steps, flinging himself through the door and then whirling to pull it shut with his left hand. His right gripped his gun, palm already slick with blood. He glanced down as more shots pinged off the side of the building, and saw the gleaming black ribbons of blood down the back of his hand, between his fingers.

“Goddamn,” Blue swore, taking his wrist between two careful fingers. “Where are you hit?”

“Arm. It’s fine.”

He turned and there was Eden, her own gun in her hand, her expression all taut lines and sharp angles. “Which direction did the shots come from?” she asked, and a volley hit the wall outside, answering her question.

“Get the girls in the main room, away from the windows.”

There was a scuffle of feet and murmur of anxious voices.

“It’s okay,” he heard Eden telling the captives in her crisp, businesslike voice. “Come along now, we’ll help you. Don’t worry.”

All his guys in the main room had their guns out, now. Mercy had his gun and his hammer, and who wouldn’t have wanted to watch that trick under different circumstances.

“Figure out where they are in the trees,” he told Fox, and earned a nod. “Your apprentice is already out there somewhere.” To the others: “I need guys on every window and exit. And we’ve got cars coming up the driveway. These bastards like to run through fucking walls, so some of us are going out the back and going around to keep that from happening.”

Mercy propped the hammer over his shoulder and nodded.

Albie checked his mag. “I’m coming with you.”

More gunshots. And the purr of approaching engines.

Candy turned to Cantrell, who still lay helpless on the table, his bare toes bent at wrong angles, his face shiny with sweat, spent tears, and snot. His eyes flew wide when Candy gripped the front of his shirt. “Let’s go say hello to your friends, huh?”

~*~

Jenny dropped to the floor on instinct while glass was still raining down. She was aware of Maddox doing the same, and when she glanced up was shocked to find him unharmed.

“They missed,” he said, his mouth slack, his eyes wide. Then: “Shit.”

Another window went; Jenny heard the gunshot this time. Not a hunting rifle. Only a small-caliber round. Nine mil – maybe an AR-15. Maybe just a Glock.

Panic welled a moment, sharp and salty on the back of her tongue. Her baby was here; her nephew was here. She thought of Darla back in the sanctuary, prayed that she’d stay back there – and then she shoved every thought that was a liability away.

“Prospect!” she called, already turning and scuttling toward the bar on hands and knees, careful of the sugar-shiny glint of glass on the floorboards.

“Yes, ma’am.” A glance proved he was bent low, and already had the shotgun from under the bar unstrapped, laying it out on the counter. He was stuffing his pockets with extra shells from the box they kept beside the tub of limes.

Talis drew his gun, uncharacteristically spooked. “If they try what they did before…”

“Then we’re fucked,” Jenny said. “Who has an extra piece?”

He produced one from the back of his jeans and slid it across the floor to her. Its cool weight in her palm was an immediate reassurance. “Someone get word to Candy,” she said, “and somebody get to the back door.” Because, fuck it, she was giving orders now.

She reached the far wall, turned and put her back to it, crouched, gun ready across her thigh. She saw that Maddox was still frozen over underneath the window. Deer-in-the-headlights, rabbit-in-a-snare, that was him now, swamped beneath the weight of another moral quandary they didn’t have time for.

“You with us?” she called.

And someone kicked the door in.

~*~

Reese wished he had his night vision goggles, but there was plenty of moonlight, and his eyesight was nearly perfect anyway. He heard Candy get hit, and drop, but turning back would only put him in the line of fire. So he moved; kept to the shadows and slipped soundlessly down the ridge, pausing, pressing his back flat to tree trunks and holding his breath, listening.

Two men, a dozen steps away, behind him. Breathing loudly through their mouths, not trying to step quietly. Sharp, up-close cracks of gunfire. .45s. No – one .45, one .09.

Reese ran the scenario in his head. Took three slow, silent breaths, and moved. Around the tree, two long strides, knife in his hand – stray flash of moonlight down its blade. Dark shape of a man, an enemy; his head turned when Reese’s hand landed on his shoulder, but it was already too late, the knife already sliding into his throat.

A choked gasp, a gurgle, the bright, metallic scent of fresh blood as he pulled the knife loose and kept moving.

“Hey,” the second man said. “Jimmy?”

Reese cut his throat with a flick of his wrist, a sharp slice. Felt the patter of warm, wet droplets against his own face and throat, and was already moving as the body fell, stepping over it.

He kept moving, and killed four more men. He had to pause and wipe the blood off the knife blade onto the leg of his pants. By that point, the cars had arrived: two low-slung Mercedes sedans.

They glided to a halt in the gravel, headlights trained on the front of the workshop. Reese glimpsed movement in the shadows: someone walking around the side of the building. He thought – but, no, he registered a patch: the distinctive flag of a Dog officer.

The passenger doors of the near car opened in near-perfect unison, and Reese moved in time to receive two matching startled glimpses from the front and back seat as he leveled a gun on the two men there, one in each of his hands.

“Drop your weapons through the windows,” he said. “Slowly.”

The doors of the second car opened – a stolen glance revealed the glint of weapons…and the bright yellow flash of the sledgehammer handle, as Mercy stepped out of the shadows and brought the head down on the car’s windshield on the driver’s side.

The glass broke into a spiderweb of cracks; still in place, but too hopelessly fractured to see through.

Mercy pulled back, and in the same fluid movement put the hammer through the driver’s side window. It did shatter, bits of glass flying, catching the light like confetti. When he reached through the window, the man behind the wheel yelped.

Fox and Albie and Jackal stepped forward into the light, guns trained on the cars.

“Anyone else in the trees, kid?” Fox asked.

Reese said, “No.”

Candy walked into the light, pushing a bound and hobbling Agent Cantrell in front of him. It looked like Candy’s grip on the back of his shirt was all that held him up. Candy held a gun poised at his temple, his hand red and shiny with fresh blood.

“I’ve got your boy,” he said. “You can either answer my questions, or I can blow his brains out, and then yours. What’ll it be, gentlemen?”

~*~

Jenny fired before the front door rebounded off the interior wall of the clubhouse. The man – and she hadn’t cared if he was cartel, or FBI, or some poor bastard whose car had broken down; you kicked in her door, and she was going to shoot – managed a startled expression before he fell, on his face, slow and heavy like a cut-down tree.

There were more behind him. Jenny fired again, and she heard Talis, Nickel, and Pup firing, too. A bottleneck in the door, the enemy overwhelmed.

“Get behind something,” Talis said, off to her left. “Go, I’ll cover you.”

“I need a new mag,” she called, and ducked and rolled. Got behind the shelter of the bar. Nickel had pulled out a box of them from their place beside the cocktail napkins, and she ejected her own and reached for a fresh one.

By the time she’d gotten on her feet, ducked low over the bar, the firing had stopped. A heap of bodies blocked the door of the clubhouse, and the silence rang, heavy and faintly pulsed, in sync with her heartbeat.

No…it wasn’t silent. Not totally. There was…

Jenny swore when she realized what she’d heard were running footsteps. She swung toward the mouth of the hallway in time to catch a flash of movement, to register the rush of breath and the shift of clothes and glimpse an unfamiliar face.

In time for the gunshot to echo like the sharp crack of thunder.

The stranger let out a low oof and toppled. He didn’t break his fall. Landed in a tangle and started twitching, blood surging out across the floor in a tide.

Tenny limped into view, clutching his IV pole in one hand, a gun in the other. “He came in through a window,” he said, eyes on the man he’d just killed. Then he slumped back against the wall and let out a tired-sounding breath.

Fifty-Six

It seemed to take Axelle forever to loosen the nut holding her cuff closed. Thank God their asshole captor liked to hear himself talk. He’d been rambling – lots of nonsense about power that she’d tuned out; it sounded like Michelle was volleying with him nicely, though how she’d managed to keep her voice level Axelle had no idea.

She herself no longer had any delusions about being a badass. She could wear all the boots she wanted to, and drive a car like a pro, but this here, now, had shaken her to her bones. She wasn’t equipped for it, no way, no how.

But she could loosen this wingnut. Half-turn by half-turn. Finally, the cuff sagged. One more twist would do it – but if the cuff fell, the chain would rattle, and Luis would hear, and that stupid, massive golden gun would get shoved in her face instead.

A phone rang.

She managed to peek from the corner of her eye and watched Luis balance the gun on his thigh with one hand and fish out his iPhone with the other. His face was smoothly pleased as he thumbed the screen and pressed it to his ear. “Is it done?”

A moment later, his brows flew up. “What?” He stood, hand tightening on the gun. “You what?” He whirled, robe flaring, and stormed from the room.

Axelle rolled her head toward Michelle. “I’ve almost got one hand loose.”

Beyond the room, Luis’s footfalls and his low, furious voice receded down the hallway.

“The chain’s gonna make noise.”

Michelle bit her lip, debating. “Something must have happened with the guys – something that’s pissed him off,” she said, gaze darting toward the door, briefly. “We could wait for them.”

Axelle’s heart throbbed in her chest. “Should we?” Every instinct screamed go now! This might be their best shot. To waste it, to lie here…

“That gun’s bloody stupid,” Michelle continued, voice hushed. “But it’s a fifty-caliber.”

Axelle shuddered, and didn’t need further explanation on that front.

“But I guess if he’s going to shoot us from point blank range, it’ll kill us no matter the caliber.” She took a breath that betrayed her first outward signs of unsteadiness. “Get loose. Do it.”

Axelle listened a moment longer, struggling to hear over the staccato beating of her heart. But she heard the unmistakable shift and creak of a flight of stairs – of Luis going down them, voice still low and furious.

She gave the last twist, the cuff loosened, and she slipped out of it with a fleeting, feverish burst of joy. One that evaporated when she listened to the slither and clink of the chain falling down against the bed post – but there was nothing for it. She sat up, dizzy, the room spinning, and started on her other wrist.

~*~

Behind the wheel of the stolen Mercedes – the one with the intact windshield – Candy drove with one hand, his right settled in his lap. He could still feel the sluggish trickle of fresh blood running down inside his sleeve, though the fabric had long since soaked through and gummed to his skin. His hand was cold and tacky with it, sticking to the denim over his thigh where it rested.

In the passenger seat, Albie rode with his gun in his lap, gaze darting from windshield to window, toe tapping in the footwell. He was as unraveled as Candy had ever seen him: chewing his lips, breathing in loud, repetitive sighs through his nose.

He could relate. The drive was taking forever, even though it was only a handful of miles. He was running stop signs and passing cars when he could, the steady throb of pain in his wounded arm a stimulant that kept all his senses on high alert.

“I should’ve driven,” Fox said from the backseat. He was perched in the center, leaning forward between them; he’d been loading guns up until a moment ago.

Candy’s hand tightened on the wheel, a spasm of protest at the idea. This was his old lady in danger; it was his job to get to her. He passed another car on a double-yellow and earned a honk for it, barely getting merged again before the oncoming car’s headlights flashed them angrily. “No.”

“You’re bleeding to death and he’s jumpy as a cat,” Fox said. “Both useless.”

Candy didn’t grace that with a response. He drove.

The blue-white headlights cut a wide swath through the dark. Past open stretches, and houses, and storefronts.

“In five-hundred feet…” Albie’s GPS intoned politely, “turn right.”

Candy’s pulse found another gear, and his eyes found the street sign, a flicker of shiny green just beyond the headlights’ range. He braked early, and hard and threw the Benz into the turn with a screech of expensive tires.

“You need to slow down,” Fox said. “We want to glide up nice and easy, like we’re supposed to be there, yeah? Don’t want him to know it’s us.”

Reluctantly, Candy eased off the gas, and let the long boulevard of the subdivision use up their excess speed. It was a new-construction neighborhood, one of those planned communities with baby trees planted in each yard – tied up with lines and stakes, oh the irony – and a bunch of two-story stone-and-stucco houses that were all clones of one another save the stray unique garage door or trim paint.

Cantrell had given the house number, all of which gleamed in gold numbers on the mailboxes. And he’d said it had a pale blue door.

Candy slowed to a crawl, knuckles white on the wheel, and searched.

~*~

Michelle couldn’t believe their luck: Luis had been gone for a full minute now. She could hear the murmur of several voices downstairs. He was talking to someone, coordinating with his people – which meant that, even if they got past Luis, there were other men to get past. But she’d worry about that later; worry about the fact that their luck surely wouldn’t hold.

For now, she wanted to grab on with both hands and take every advantage.

Axelle got her second ankle cuff unhooked and staggered to her feet, wobbly and uncertain as a new foal. “Oh, God.” She ghosted a hand toward the back of her head.

“We’ve got concussions,” Michelle said. “Take your time. Don’t fall.”

“Time,” Axelle breathed on a forced laugh, and clutched at Michelle’s bedpost, dragged herself over. “Like we’ve got that.” She swayed a little, but her hands were steady as they started on the wingnut latch of Michelle’s nearest cuff.

Michelle waited, straining, listening. The murmurs and swells of the conversation downstairs reminded her, unpleasantly, of being at the clubhouse: the sound of men going back and forth, with an occasional shout to punctuate. She could pick out Luis’s voice, even if the words remained indistinct; he was furious. He was panicking. That could help or hinder them.

The chain went slack, and she had a hand loose. The sensation sent a bolt of adrenaline through her.

“I’ve got the other hand. Work on my feet.”

Axelle hurried to comply as Michelle sat up. And, oh, the room spun. Her stomach sloshed, and she thought she might bring up the water Luis had given her. She fought the nausea off; breathed in short bursts through her mouth and concentrated on getting loose.

Her other wrist. An ankle. Axelle was working on her second ankle when she hurried footsteps on the stairs.

Her stomach gave another violent lurch. “Go shut and lock the door,” she said, twisting her wrist out of the cuff.

“God,” Axelle murmured, but moved to do so.

Michelle twisted around, and saw that the other end of the chain was secured to the bedpost with a series of double-ended snaps. The whole rig had been designed for easy removal. She hadn’t been able to reach any of it, but Luis had planned on moving them, and not wasting time with difficult locks or tricky knots.

She unclipped the chain from its mooring, left the snap on the end, and hooked her fingers through the cuff.

The lock clicked as Axelle thumbed it, and a moment later the knob jiggled as someone tested it from the outside. A fist thumped on the panel and an angry voice shouted an order in Spanish. It wasn’t Luis, but one of his men.

Michelle swung her legs over the side of the bed and straightened as slowly as she dared. She was still dizzy, but her equilibrium was returning as adrenaline flooded her system. She might collapse after – if there was an after – but need and instinct drove her now. Barefoot, she walked across the rug and moved to stand on the far side of the door, where the hinges attached.

Another loud thump on the door.

She caught Axelle’s frightened gaze. “He’s going to kick the door in. Can you stand over there? I need a distraction.”

To her credit, Axelle didn’t argue; she moved to stand between the beds, hands hovering at her sides, body coiled to flee, to shield herself, to fight.

Another thump.

Michelle gripped the other end of the chain with her free hand; wound the links over her knuckles twice. Flexed her biceps, testing them, wishing she’d had more time to work out lately.

Fox’s voice in her head, a memory: it’s about leverage, not strength. Anyone can kill anyone else if they’ve got the right tool, the right timing, and, most importantly, the right leverage.

She took a deep breath…

The wood around the doorknob shattered, and the door swung inward, toward her – concealing her.

…and exhaled as the man stepped into the room. Not tall, but thickset, padded with muscle and fat. He wore a long-sleeved t-shirt, and her gaze zeroed in on the sun-browned back of his neck, the little roll there, beneath the sharp line of his close-cropped hair.

He went straight for Axelle.

Michelle lunged. Got a good flying jump, pushing off hard from the floor, arms raised – over her head, over his – there, down. She landed on his back, and locked her legs around his waist from behind. Gripped the chain tight as she could, and hauled backward on it.

The man staggered, and choked out a harsh breath. Good, Fox’s voice again. Don’t let him inhale again. She brought her hands together in the center of his back, and let her weight help her; gripped tight with her legs and leaned back as he pitched forward.

A wire would have been better – a true garotte. But Michelle pulled and pulled, and he choked, and sputtered, and clawed at the chain pressing against his windpipe.

Over his shoulder, Michelle saw Axelle strike: a hard kick to the groin. The man bellowed and went down hard to his knees. Michelle leaned forward, and toppled him face-down to the rug. Scrambled up with her knees in his back and pulled with all her might.

Axelle joined her: straddling his head, hands gripping the chain below Michelle’s, breath stuttering as she pulled, too.

The choking sounds cut off first, and then he went still. Michelle pulled a little longer, and then finally let go, arms numb and shaking.

“Is he dead?” Axelle asked, voice shaking.

“I think so.” She felt for a pulse as she pulled the chain loose, and couldn’t find one. “God, I hope. Let’s go.”

Downstairs: shouting.

~*~

Fox made noise about going around the back, about being subtle and properly cautious, but Candy had reached a point where he couldn’t listen anymore. Lights burned in an upstairs window, and Michelle was here, she was so close, and fuck careful.

The door splintered in a gratifying shower of slivers when he kicked just below the doorknob. Albie was right with him; he could feel his body heat as he charged into the tile-floored entryway, gun raised.

A staircase lay just ahead, and a man stood on the first landing; he turned toward Candy, eyes going wide. His lips formed a curse, one left unspoken; Candy took him with a clean chest shot, already moving before the body dropped.

He heard shouts, and the slap of footsteps, and moved toward the sound, down a short hallway past empty rooms, and toward a kitchen. He was nearly there when a door opened suddenly to his right. He glimpsed dark clothes, and a snarling face, and a gun that wasn’t his went off: Albie. The would-be attacker fell back with a grunt, and Candy stepped through a wide cased opening into a gleaming chrome kitchen full of bodies.

He was on autopilot now: kill, kill, kill. The gun kicked in his hand, and a body dropped, and then another. He didn’t register faces, didn’t think of shielding himself or strategizing, or doing anything but pulling the trigger, again and again.

He hit the end of his mag, and reached into his pocket with his gummy, bloody hand for a second.

A sound like a cannon blast ripped through the house. A massive hole opened up in the sheetrock above Candy’s head.

A rifle, he thought. Dropped to a crouch, spun, and ejected his mag all in one movement.

But, no, not a rifle. There was a second staircase, one that led down into the kitchen. On the final landing, framed by the nightglow from a circular window, stood Luis, a gun even more ridiculous than the one Reese had described held in two shaking hands, teeth bared in an expression that looked more fearful than feral.

Candy slid the mag home – and pain blossomed in his back, right beneath his shoulder blade. Sharp, bright pain, and the heat of fresh blood.

He could still move, though.

As he turned, the pain spiked – a knife pulling out, he knew, because the weight of a man landed on his back, and then the knife was at his throat, a clean-edged kitchen knife in a tattooed hand.

Candy heard gunshots, and hoped they were Albie’s. The knife nicked his throat, a little papercut burn followed by a hot trickle of blood. Fox probably knew some slick, efficient sequence of moves that would have dislodged the man, killed him, and left himself with not a scratch to show for it. That was because Fox possessed superhuman reasoning in these moments – and because he lacked the straight-up brute strength to do what Candy did.

He reached up and gripped the man’s knife-wielding arm with both hands, bent forward at the waist, and threw him off.

The man yelped before he crashed face-first into the tiled front of the kitchen island, and collapsed in a motionless heap.

Candy lifted his gun – but not in time to get a shot off before a hulking guy with a shaved head and a muscle shirt barreled into him.

Candy wasn’t aware of losing his gun, but when he brought both hands up to meet his attacker, they were bare and bloodied. He caught him in the chest and shoved; grunt, pain spiking when he got a fist to the ribs. The man was a caricature, neckless and snarling, like someone who’d go ten rounds with Sly Stallone in a movie.

Shoulda gone for the face, Candy thought, cocked his own fist back, and let it fly. It connected with the crunch and snap of bone cracking – and not his own. He felt the pain of the hit move up his arm – sharp and tooth-rattling in the gunshot wound – but his knuckles were fine. The other guy’s face was very not. He staggered back, jaw offset, blood spilling out of his mouth and down his chin.

Candy bent, picked up the knife that had been at his own throat, and slit the big man’s throat with a vicious surge of satisfaction.

He heard the crack of a gun. The shattering of glass. The body hitting the tiles in front of him. Vision red at the edges, body burning with pain and adrenaline. And then he heard a sound that brought him up short. A sound like sweet music breaking above all the chaos and cacophony.

“Candy?”

Michelle.

~*~

Michelle went down the staircase with her chain brandished like a weapon. She felt the breeze coming in through the window, saw the broken glass littering the carpet on the landing. Heard the thuds, and grunts, and cracks of gunfire, and all she wanted to do was duck down and cover her head and will all of this to go away.

But she’d told Candy she was a spy, and spies didn’t give up just because their legs were shaking, and their hearts were racing, and they could hear men dying just around the corner.

She stopped shy of the landing, felt Axelle crowd in close behind her, and listened. No more gunshots. No more running feet. A groan. A shift.

“What happened to Luis?” That was Albie’s voice.

Axelle gasped.

Michelle took the last step down, and glanced across the wide kitchen. Across the scattered bodies, and the artful smears and splashes of blood. She registered Albie, in a distant way – he was on his feet, and seemed unharmed – and then her gaze locked on Candy.

Her man stood in the center of the room, feet braced, hands at his sides, shoulders heaving as he fought for breath, overhead lights catching on all the gold threads in his wheaten hair.

“Candy?”

He turned. Blood ran in streamers down his neck; it covered his hand completely in a tacky mess when he lifted it toward her. The way his expression broke nearly broke her; she almost sprinted down the last of the stairs and straight across the room to get to him.

But she was a spy. Born and trained, so she picked her way carefully over the glass, and she glanced side to side as she descended, checking for threats. Met Albie’s gaze, briefly – he still held his gun ready, its muzzle trained on the ground, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. A wealth of unspoken meaning passed between them in that one quick look: his relief and gladness that she was alive, his love, the letting go of a fear so crushing it glazed his eyes with moisture. And then he glanced up to Axelle, and didn’t glance back.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice as full of cracks as Candy’s expression: all that joy and terror and wonderment. Is it really true? Or am I dead and dreaming?

Michelle reached the main floor, the tile cold beneath her bare toes. Bodies lay between them, crumpled and bleeding, some dead and some dying. She took the first step.

And Candy took the rest of them. Rushed to her, long legs eating up the distance, and he snatched her off her feet, the length of chain still in her hands caught between them. She had fingers free, though, and clutched at his shirt. Pressed her face into the hot, sweat-damp fabric that covered his strong, strong chest and exhaled properly for the first time in hours.

One of his arms banded tight around her, enfolding her ribs, her back, his big hand splaying across her side. The other hand cupped the back of her head, and held her to him; held her still while he dropped his face into her hair and breathed raggedly through his mouth, humid breaths ruffling across her scalp.

“Little baby thing,” he murmured, prayerful, before his voice choked off into nothing.

Michelle couldn’t speak; she didn’t try to. Swayed with him, breathing in the blood-and-sweat smell of him, the dead spread out around them like so many crumpled petals.

~*~

Axelle thought she’d read somewhere that moments of extreme shock and stress were the moments in which you found out how you really felt about something. If that was true, then this was definitely one of those, and seeing Albie, alive and unhurt, and coming toward her, now, up the steps, past the broken glass, spawned a bright, fierce tangle of joy and relief inside her. So acute it ached; a wash of dull pain through her chest. Love, she categorized it, as her gaze locked with his very blue one, and her own eyes filled with tears.

She all but tackled him, arms going around his neck, face jammed into his throat. He stood straight and tall and held her; didn’t let her fall.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, over and over, his free hand rubbing circles into her back, the other digging his gun against her hip. She welcomed that small pain; oh, what she wouldn’t have given for a gun minutes ago, when she’d helped Michelle strangle a man to death.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt,” she managed, between desperate gasps for breath, her pulse thundering. She didn’t say I’m okay, because she wasn’t. And maybe unhurt was a stretch, too, but she was whole, and so was he, and the rest they could sort out later.

~*~

Fox stalked the perimeter of the house. He found a small pile of cigarette butts on the back patio that gave evidence to lots of smoke breaks. Around the back, on the outside wall, his gaze landed on the bright glint of broken glass – just a few slivers lying on the sod – and lifted to find the shattered window above. The grass, though short and new, was crushed below it. Someone had jumped out, had fallen; had taken off on foot afterward. He jogged along the backs of the two neighboring yards, but whoever it had been, he was long gone.

Or she. The girls?

The sounds of gunfire had ceased. He jogged back to the house, and peered in the back windows, expected a massacre – he found one, but he found a reunion, too. Candy and Chelle, and Albie and Axelle. Safe. Alive.

He let out a deep breath, fished out his phone, and dialed Eden.

She picked up on the second ring. “Did you find them?”

“Yeah. They’re okay.”

She let out a deep breath of her own, this one ending in a low murmur of “thank God.” Then an inhale, and another exhale, like she’d been running and was winded; Fox knew she wasn’t, knew she just needed to breathe a minute, same as him. He envisioned her massaging the tension from the back of her neck, and wished he was with her, and that he could do it for her.

He gave her a moment, and took one for himself, then said, “How are things there?”

“As good as they can be, I guess. No more surprise guests. All of the women are awake now, and appear mostly stable. One got cut on a nail and she’ll need a tetanus shot.”

“They all need to go get checked out.”

“Yeah. Wow. Talk about inundating the hospital.” She was standing outside; he could hear the rustle of the breeze, the stirring of boughs overhead. “Who are we calling this in to?”

“PD, I guess.” He felt an itching between his shoulder blades, a tension of uneasiness, but he had no other ideas at the moment. “Maddox reached out to Quantico, and I’m sure they’re sending someone.”

“Right.” She sounded doubtful, too. “Have to hope they aren’t all crooked, I suppose.”

“Call it in,” he said. “Disguise your voice, then get the girls all set up and get out of sight. I don’t want anybody else in a cut getting cuffed tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Eden.” He hesitated, scanning the fallen forms through the window. All of them were hired muscle, and though he couldn’t see upstairs, he knew what he was about to say was true, sick foresight. “Luis got away.”

She hissed. “Damn.” But she didn’t ask if he was sure. “Little bastard.”

“We’ve decimated his crew, though. We’ve got his dad. We know his face, and his name. I’ve got his bloody birth certificate. We’ll catch up to him,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel. This whole thing just – stank. Ripe as washed-up bodies.

The way Eden murmured “right” said she smelled it, too. “There’s a lot to sort out now, darling,” she said, half-exhausted, half-thrilled. She did love a tricky job, his girl.

“I know.”

In the illuminated kitchen, he watched Candy draw back from Michelle, and cup her face reverently between bloodied palms. The look they shared wasn’t meant to be witnessed by anyone; it was like looking at the sun and having your eyes burned.

He shifted his gaze over, and saw Axelle crying on Albie’s shoulder while he stroked her hair. Theirs was still a fresh tenderness; still uncertain, still breakable in an all-too-real way. For his dumb brother’s sake, he hoped Axelle was strong and smart enough to walk away from this moment in the correct direction. It would be so easy to flee; abandon the club and all it promised and never look back.

“I’ll see you in a little while,” he said into the phone, much less steady than he’d intended.

Her voice shook, too. “See you.”

Fifty-Seven

Michelle protested weakly that Candy needed to go to the ER. Standing in the kitchen, surrounded by bodies, she’d been too overcome by the feel, and sight, and scent of him – his presence with her, the solidity of him – to register that all the blood on him was his own, and that he was hurt. But then he’d winced, and she’d felt a hot trickle of fresh blood slide out of his sleeve, and she’d probed up his arm with one hand until she found the hole in the material – and he hissed in a pained breath.

“You’ve got to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll be fine,” he’d said, tone implacable. “I just wanna get you home.” Ordinarily that would have been a come-on, but the aftereffects of panic still lay heavy in his gaze, and so she’d let him walk her out to the stolen car he’d come in, and climbed into the backseat with him so Fox could drive them home.

Where a bevy of squad cars awaited them on the front lawn.

Michelle groaned. “What the hell now?”

“They attacked here, and at the workshop they sent us to,” Fox said, piloting the Mercedes up over the curb and into the lot; into a free space beside one of the flatbeds. “Everyone’s fine,” he said, in answer to Michelle’s indrawn breath. “Save the corpses, and those are all theirs. Kicked right in the front door, apparently. They wanted to keep us as busy as they could.”

He didn’t say why they wanted to keep them busy; he didn’t need to.

He killed the engine and twisted around to fire a look at Candy. “The cops will want to talk to you.”

Candy nodded, grim. “They’re not hanging around all night. Fuck them.”

Fox smirked. “That’s the spirit.”

They piled out of the car, and trooped toward the front door, which was hanging askew; it had been kicked in, just like the front door of the house where Candy had found her and Michelle, though she’d be willing to bet it had taken a ram or more than one try with a boot.

Fox had been right about the corpses. They no longer clogged up the threshold, but had been dragged out into the yard and draped with white cloths. A uniformed officer stood over them with her hands on her hips, watching them, presumably waiting for the coroner.

There was yellow tape, but then Martin Jaffrey was there, lifting it up. “He’s the home owner, let them through.”

Inside, Jenny stood with her arms folded, radiating competency and gravity, beside a tousled young man in a dress shirt; the two of them side-by-side, and talking with another officer. Michelle searched for the wreckage that must have been left when she was taken, but save the plywood patch over the hole in the wall, and a few ruined chairs stacked in a corner, there was no evidence that a truck had driven straight into the building. Jenny had captained the ship efficiently; had gotten everything cleaned up…and then killed a handful of guys.

She lifted her head at the sound of their approach, and emotion flared in her gaze. “Excuse me.” She stepped around the officer, and the next thing Michelle knew she was wrapped up tight in another Snow sibling bear hug. Jenny wasn’t as strong as Candy – no one was, really – but Michelle heard her spine pop.

“Oh my God,” Jenny breathed, and then pushed her back at arm’s length. “Are you okay?” Her gaze tracked over Michelle’s face, and down her body, assessing. “Did…” She bit her lip and left the next question unasked.

Michelle knew what she’d wondered, though. “I’m fine. We’re fine.” She attempted a smile. “Turns out Luis likes to hear himself talk, and it’s a good thing Axelle’s taller than me.”

Jenny smiled back, tight and worried. She shifted around and looped a supportive arm around her shoulders. “Come on. You can talk to the cops later. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

She wanted to argue. The old her would have; would have asked for a glass of whiskey and insisted on staying and tidying up all the loose ends. Proved she was tough enough for that; not put anything off for later.

But, despite her insistence, and her longing, and the funk that had plagued her in the weeks leading up to this, she wasn’t the old her anymore, was she? She’d gotten used to a quieter life. Her worries were for TJ, and Candy, and this family they had here.

Congrats, you played yourself, she thought, with a bitter inward smile. She would always love the club, always fight for and protect it. But she loved the love it had given her more, and right now, she was content to nod, and let her sister-in-law steer her down the hallway to the sanctuary.

There was blood on the floor at the mouth of the hall, a big puddle of it that had dried tacky, and which someone in a windbreaker was snapping photos of. When Michelle glanced down to dodge it – and Jenny made a stern face at the tech when he moved to protest their passing – she saw that Jenny had her other arm around Axelle, and was thankful that, given her own slow slide into some sort of fugue state, someone was looking out for the other girl, too.

Darla was there, waiting for them, behind the closed – safe, secure, impenetrable, Michelle’s brain supplied, because it felt like stepping into a vault, a wonderful locked place untouched by the day’s violence – door of the sanctuary. She let out a howl, already crying, and ran to hug them both tightly, murmuring a litany of oh I’m so glad and praise Jesus. Michelle and Axelle were set up on the couch, ginger ale for Michelle, and some of Candy’s Macallan for Axelle. The boys were asleep, Darla said; they woke fussing when the shooting started, but she’d soothed them and sung to them and they were doing fine, now. Jenny got the med kit and swabbed the raw, red patches where the cuffs had chafed at their skin; brought them socks for their bare feet, and a plate of crackers and a jar of peanut butter that Michelle didn’t feel like eating, but which Axelle leaned toward with sudden, surprising interest. Michelle could feel the threat of shock, a cold specter at the back of her mind, so she forced herself to make a few cracker sandwiches and choke them down.

She wanted to see TJ.

Both boys had been staying in a room that had once been devoted to storage – a narrow rectangle formerly lined with metal shelves – and which Candy had lovingly renovated himself. New sheetrock, and paint, fresh carpet; he’d even cut a window into it, one Michelle was now seriously thinking about outfitting with bars. A lamp burned softly on the dresser, and she could see Jack sprawled out in his toddler bed, TJ in his crib.

She tiptoed across the room and rested her arms on the crib. The light gilded TJ’s round cheeks, and the button tip of his nose; hair all wheats and golds, gleaming in the dimness, just like his daddy’s.

Michelle blinked stinging eyes and breathed a moment, gaze tracing every line and curve of him.

The brush of socks on carpet heralded Jenny’s arrival behind her, and she thought the sound had been purposeful, so as not to startle. A moment later, Jenny joined her at the rail of the crib.

“Sometimes.” She and Michelle had long since perfected the art of whispering without vocalizing; they could have entire conversations without the babies even stirring in their sleep. “I don’t even think they look related. But other times I see them together, and I think they look more like brothers than cousins.”

“Yeah,” she whispered back. Jack had Colin’s dark eyes, but it was true; Michelle had noted the same thing on occasion. Something about the arch of their brows and the angle of their cheekbones was distinctly Snow. TJ had her eyes, that Devin Green blue she shared with all her relatives.

Jenny breathed a sigh. “I know they’ll deal with the same stuff we’re dealing with now, one day. They’ll grow up in this club, and it won’t always be safe or easy. I wish I could spare them that.”

Michelle flicked a glance toward her to read her expression – but Jenny stared down at TJ with something like peace in her eyes.

There was a truth known to every woman attached to the MC, a simple one: their children could be spared. They could pack bags, and load up cars, and disappear. Raise their kids in the backwoods of Montana, and teach them how to fish and birdwatch instead of how to shoot and brawl. How to sell hardware in a family-owned store in some quaint, Hallmark-ready town, instead of how to sell drugs to spoiled rich kids.

They shared a smile of mutual understanding. They would never leave. It wasn’t even a choice, really. And no amount of terror or hardship would lead to regret.

For Michelle, it was a relief to still know that, after today.

“You wanna go take a shower? I’ll look after him if he wakes up,” Jenny said.

“A shower sounds amazing.” She got another hug on her way out, this one gentler, supportive.

A shower had sounded amazing, though she’d thought she was too tired, and didn’t realize that showering was necessary until she stepped under the hot jets in the master en-suite. She felt dirty in a way that had nothing to do with dried sweat and the musky dirt from the bed of a truck. Felt the phantom weight of the cuffs at her wrists and ankles, still.

She stood in the spray long after she’d finished washing, head bowed, watching the water swirl around her pink-painted toes and down the drain. Not thinking; not dwelling or remembering or replaying any part of the day. She emptied her mind. It was a skill, and she’d had years of practice. Another of Fox’s tricks: fretting doesn’t solve anything. You have to learn to let go.

So she did let go. And in the vacuum left behind, she was filled with a wash of calm. Something like peace. It persisted while she turned off the taps, wrung out her hair, and toweled dry. Lasted until she pushed the curtain back and found Candy standing in front of the mirror, wincing as he tried to ease his cut back off his shoulders.

“Wait, wait, wait.” She tucked the corner of the towel firmly into place above her breasts and went to help him. “Let me see. Where did they get you?”

“Arm,” he said, turning his back to her in obedient response to her twirled finger. “And right there–” He attempted to reach back with his opposite hand and touch beneath his shoulder blade, but stopped with a hiss of pain.

She hissed, too, when she saw what she’d missed before, in the dark of the car. A clean-edged slice through the leather of his cut, and, she saw when the muscles of his back twitched, through his shirt, too. She caught a glimpse of pale skin, and dark, half-dried blood. Blood had trickled down the back of his cut; stained his bottom rocker in thin streams.

She helped pull his cut down his arms, another twitch of muscle and a low grunt the only things that betrayed how badly that simple movement hurt. Underneath, his shirt smelled of sweat – the acridness of stress and fear sweat, rather than the clean sweat of riding in the sun, or working hard, or fucking until the sheets were damp with it. There was more blood on his back than she’d expected, enough to have her pulse leaping with worry.

“I’m just going to cut it off,” she said. “The sleeve’s ruined anywhere.” The sleeve was nothing but blood. Her hands trembled as she reached for the scissors in the drawer, but had steadied by the time she made the first cut. She shunted emotion to the side again, like she had in the shower. Didn’t think about pain, or vulnerability, or the things she stood to lose as she peeled the halves of ruined shirt down his arm, and wet a cotton ball with alcohol; cleaned the puncture in his back.

“It’s stopped bleeding, but this could use stitches,” she said, thumbing at the slice, noting the gleam of subdermal tissues within the wound.

“Tomorrow,” Candy said, tightly; the restraint of pain. “Just pack it for tonight.”

She cleaned it thoroughly, carefully, applied ointment, and gauze, and medical tape. Urged him to lean back against the edge of the counter as she started in on his arm.

This was uglier, though a through-and-through, the hole large enough to glimpse light through when she peeked. It needed irrigating. They had a bottle of sterile saline in the back of the cabinet, and she cupped a clean cloth beneath the exit wound to catch the drip as she squirted the solution into the wound. Repeated and repeated again until the saline came out mostly clear. More ointment, deep in the wound, and plenty of cotton batting and bandages.

As she smoothed down the last bit of tape, she registered the scrape and echo of harsh breathing, and assumed it was Candy’s. She hadn’t been gentle enough; hadn’t taken proper care of him in her attempt to get outside her own head. But when she glanced up, she saw that his brow was troubled, and his mouth closed, and that the staccato pounding of breath was her own, and that she was shaking all over.

And she was very much not okay.

She set the used-up tape roll aside on the counter before the shakes took total control and she dropped it.

“Hey,” Candy said, softly, reaching for her. “It’s alright.”

It wasn’t – but it would be, again. She’d been at this long enough to know that one terrible day didn’t mean she wanted a sea change. But it felt very, very nice to have him reel her in slowly, and hold her, his fingers teasing circles against the back of her neck, beneath the tangle of her damp hair. She rested her cheek against his pec, right over the steady beating of his heart that was the best reminder that they’d both made it, that they were a little dinged up, but on their feet. The familiar smoothness of skin, and the downy softness of his golden chest hair, and the brick-wall hardness of muscle.

“TJ okay?” he asked after a bit.

“Yeah. He’s sleeping.”

Slowly, her shaking eased.

“You know,” he mused, voice rumbling through his chest, through all of her in the places they touched. “The first time I met you, you weren’t wearing anything but a towel.”

She tipped her head back to find him smiling down at her, so softly, fond with remembrance, the sun and laugh lines carving shadows around his eyes.

She recalled the day she’d arrived in Amarillo for the first time, the bedroom mix-up, and felt a smile tug at her own mouth. “You were so angry.”

“For about a second,” he said, grin spreading to flash teeth, head tipping in concession. “And then I was thinking, Damn, she’s hot, how did I luck up?”

“You didn’t, not that night.”

It felt good to laugh quietly with each other, together, in this space where their lives together had started.

His smile faded away slowly, replaced with seriousness; with a shining emotion that could leave no doubt to his honesty when he said, “I love you more than anything.”

“I know,” she said, because she thought it was important that she know. “I love you, too.”

He cradled her face in one freshly clean hand and leaned down to kiss her. Their first kiss since they’d parted this morning. A gentle brush of lips, careful, like he was worried she was too fragile for more right now.

But gentleness had always carried its own sort of aggression with the two of them, and she didn’t want that to change, now.

She reached up and threaded her fingers through his hair, tightened them, and urged him to kiss her deeper. He made a sound against her mouth – of pain, she thought at first. But then his tongue was flicking between her lips, urging them open, plunging deep, and no, it wasn’t pain, but desire. Fervor. His hand closed on the back of her neck, firm but careful, holding her, and he kissed her like he was starving for her. That was good: she was starving for him.

When he picked her up and carried her out into the bedroom, her legs hooked over his arm, his lips pressing feather-light kisses at her hairline, she remembered the last time he’d done this. It had been the night he’d returned home from going to see Pacer, when those first murders had taken place: the bodies starred out on the hard ground, sightless eyes fixed on the sun, the buzzards circling. He’d come in worried, burdened, and she’d teased him, and it had been with mock growls and playful ferocity that he swung her up and carried her off like a war prize.

Tonight, he toted her to the bed like a groom with his new bride; like a prince with a swooning damsel. She relished it, maybe more than she should. She’d never liked being treated like something precious by men before, but Candy was too impossibly big and strong and larger-than-life for it to ever feel like anything less than reverence and the carefulness of a big, violent man unused to watching his steps around someone smaller.

Her eyes started stinging again, when he laid her out on the pillows, and he saw them, of course he did, because his gaze was fixed on her face, ravenous, and covetous, and worshipful.

His brows tucked low. “Okay?”

She nodded, throat tight. “Just…glad.”

His brow smoothed, and he chewed at his lip a moment, a boyish-looking betrayal of his own strong emotions. “I know, baby.”

He stripped off his jeans and boxers without ceremony, then turned his head to sniff at himself. “I can shower.”

“Candy, get down here.” But a moment later, “Oh, your arm.”

“Fuck my arm.” The bed dipped beneath his weight as he nudged her legs apart and settled between them; plucked at her towel and smoothed its halves apart. Unwrapped her like a gift. And then sat back on his heels, and stared at her – studied.

Years ago, she would never have pegged Candy Snow as a thoughtful man. As someone who appreciated things beyond their most basic ability to bring him pleasure. A prejudice of hers, she could admit. But she recognized the look on his face now, the careful way he was studying her, as if committing her to memory.

He reached out and touched her in the dip between her collarbones, lightly, with just the pads of his fingers. Trailed them down, a path that tingled and sparked in the wake of his touch, between her breasts, and up the gentle slope of her belly. He paused there, briefly, to cup the growing swell, his gaze locked with hers. He hadn’t asked about the baby, and he didn’t now, but he’d been worried. A raw honesty in his gaze, maybe even a silent censure for endangering herself and their child both. But that went unsaid, too, and he moved down, and cupped her sex, already slick for him.

“Candy.”

He surged down to her, then, pressed them together, skin-to-skin, and at last, finally, she was home.

Fifty-Six

When they first arrived back, and Candy went to talk to one of the local officers, Fox leaned in to Albie and whispered, “Don’t say anything to the cops. We don’t even live here.” Then he’d smacked Albie lightly on the shoulder. “Come do a perimeter check with me.”

An excellent idea. Axelle had gone off with Michelle and Jenny, was being looked after, and it would be best to ensure that the cartel hadn’t left a man behind. A sniper, even just an observer.

Outside, frost had settled over everything, jagged white fur on the cars, and bikes, and fence posts, the air sharp in his lungs, breath pluming like dragon smoke. The stars were clearer here, compared to Knoxville; the sky broader, all its many shades and tints of blue visible. Fox vaulted easily over the wire fence, and Albie followed, less easily. They went off property, through waving grass turned silver by the moonlight, and up a short rise, where Fox halted, and turned back to look at the clubhouse, glowing warm and yellow like a beacon on an arid sea.

“What?” Albie asked, drawing up beside him.

“We’re not doing a perimeter check. I put someone else on it.”

Sometimes, Albie wondered if scowling at this particular brother was just his default expression. It was certainly putting little lines in his forehead. “Who?”

Fox waved, dismissive, and pinned Albie with a look; enough moonlight to see the eerie blue of his eyes. “How’s your rage?”

“My what?”

“Don’t play daft. It’s only funny some of the time. Your rage. Where is that at as of now? Still liable to smash someone’s shoulder with a hammer?”

That rage. He’d known he hadn’t been subtle; hadn’t hidden his emotions away. But it was one thing being seen by the other Dogs, and entirely another to be seen by Fox. Fox studied him like he could see inside his skull; like he knew exactly how shaky and unmoored Albie had been on the inside.

He wanted to shrink back from those instincts, now; to fidget and redirect, so he held himself very still, and took a good inward look at himself, instead. “It’s under control,” he said.

Fox didn’t look convinced. “It’s different being that angry because you care so much.”

“What?” Albie asked, and, okay, he was playing daft, because his pulse thumped hard, a sudden lurch, and he knew exactly what Fox was getting at.

The twist of Fox’s lips said he wasn’t fooled at all. “You can be angry when you want to. I know you gave Paul a tour of your gun cabinet that time.” Because Fox knew everything. “But this was the first time you’ve had a real relationship with a woman. And she was in danger, and that’s a different kind of rage altogether.”

“It sounds like you’re suggesting I don’t love my niece.”

“It’s a different kind of love,” Fox insisted, almost gently. “It’s pure, but it’s not proprietary. Your rage about Axelle didn’t feel like anything you’ve ever felt before,” he insisted. “And you need to get hold of it or else you’ll scare her with it.”

“I won’t.” But he had scared her, hadn’t he? Not with any one specific act, no, but she’d been so hesitant and cautious around him for so long, and she wasn’t a cautious girl, his driver, but she’d looked at him warily.

“She’s not like us,” Fox insisted. “Not like Michelle, or Jen, or even Eden. If you go back to her all in a rage still, it won’t matter that it’s not directed at her. She’s like a horse looking for something to shy from.” He glanced away, then, irritated. “Fucking King,” he muttered. “Fucking horse metaphors.”

Albie started to retort, and took a breath instead; attempted to tamp down the surge of aggression that had been steadily rising like a dark tide while they stood here. He was wrong, and Fox was right – infuriatingly so. His rage was still here, like the lingering pain from a pressed-on bruise, and if he showed it to Axelle, she might bolt. God knew she had every right to.

“By the way,” Fox said, “when I said she wasn’t like us, that was a compliment.”

Albie took a few more deep breaths, and found that he could smile, a little.

Until a black wraith popped into view right in front of them.

“Jesus!” he swore, seeing only the bright white and blue of eyes, and entertaining wild fears of childhood boogeymen before his brain caught up with his startle reflex, and he realized it was Reese standing there, still all in black and wearing his grease paint. “Jesus,” he said again, massaging at the pulse that hammered behind his breastbone.

Fox smirked as he turned to the boy. “All clear?”

“Clear,” Reese said with a little nod, and turned – all but disappearing without the shine of his eyes to betray him.

“Get some sleep,” Fox called after him, as he descended the slope. Then he turned to Albie. “And you, too. Go find your girl and both of you get some rest.”

A rare thing: Fox had an excellent idea.

Albie trooped back down the hill, half-expecting Reese to pop up again like the world’s scariest Jack-in-the-box. But he arrived, finally, unmolested, and was relieved to find that all the squad cars had gone for the moment, and shrouded bodies no longer littered the yard. Things had quieted down inside, too. The prospect was slinging drinks, and most of Albie’s club brothers – battered and exhausted – had settled into the bruised furniture to talk quietly and nurse beer and whiskey. He didn’t spot Candy, though he hadn’t expected to. Made his way quietly back to the sanctuary where the president lived with his family, and rapped gently on the door.

Jenny opened it a moment later, a glass of red wine in her other hand. “Oh. Hi.” She looked as exhausted as the boys out front, but lovelier with it, and she attempted a smile of genuine warmth; Southern hostesses were a thing, he was learning. “Candy is, uh – indisposed, I think.” She offered a soft laugh, edged with tiredness – but real gladness.

“Oh. Um. I’m looking for Axelle, actually.”

“Oh.” Her brows went up. “She’s not here anymore. I think she went to her dorm.”

“Oh.” He wished Jenny a good night and headed that way with some trepidation.

But the dorm was empty; the en-suite, too.

He went back to the common room with his heart pounding, and scanned the room carefully, thoroughly. Fought to keep his voice even when he said, “Anybody seen Axe?”

Blue scratched at his beard and said, “Saw her go out the front door a few minutes ago.”

She left. That was his first, gut-clenching thought as he headed that way. She’d had enough; tonight was the last straw, and so she’d decided on the only logical course of action: escape.

It wasn’t a rational thought on his part; a fuzzy, fizzing static of panic in his chest and his head. He wasn’t thinking about the fact that he’d just seen her suitcase in her dorm, didn’t reason that she wouldn’t leave town without her curling iron, and her lip gloss, both of which he’d just seen on the bathroom counter.

He hit the parking lot and stood a moment, gaze sweeping side to side across the moon-silvered night, the dry cold painful in his lungs. It was with dread that he turned to search for her car – but his pulse skipped when he saw that the GTO was still there. And, visible as a silhouette in the glow of the porch lights, Axelle was sitting behind the wheel, head tipped back against the seat.

Of course. Of course she’d gone to the place she felt safest, the most in-control and like herself.

He walked over slowly, getting his breathing under control, and rapped gently on the passenger window. He hated that she startled – a fast jerk of her head, her eyes wild – but he hadn’t wanted to try the handle and frighten her even more.

He smiled through the glass, and she relaxed and waved him in.

The GTO was cherry; she kept it in perfect condition, waxed, and buffed, and tuned up. The seats, butter-soft deep tan leather, smelled of the conditioning wipes she used on them, and, faintly still, the Lysol they’d used to clean Jinx’s blood out of the back with. But even so, it was an old car, and Albie loved the way it settled like one as he climbed in and shut the door; the way it rocked and swayed in that old way before safety and efficiency had been so high on the Detroit automakers’ priority lists.

He sat with his hands on his thighs and stared through the windshield, silent a moment. Amarillo was a dustier city than Knoxville, and the porch lights picked out the glitter of it in the faint dusting across the glass and on the hood, gleaming and still-clean beneath a powder coat of it. Axelle, he could see from the corner of his eye, held both hands loosely at six o’clock on the wheel, fingers hooked through, more relaxed than he’d seen them throughout most of this trip.

He realized, as the seconds ticked by, that he had no idea what to say. How to begin this conversation – nor what conversation she would even want to have right now. He could only guess what she was thinking, and he was thinking, far too loudly, about what Fox had told him a few minutes ago: about the ways she wasn’t like the rest of them. And he’d never had to reconcile his life, his family, his kind with someone so fundamentally different. It scared him, more than a little.

Finally, she gathered a deep breath, one that sent dread pulsing through him. Whatever she said, he wouldn’t blame her; he would be gracious. He’d earned any number of reprimands; he deserved her fear in return – in spades.

She said, “I get it.”

Albie heard the words, but they didn’t land right. He turned to look at her full-on then. “What?” Was that the only thing he was capable of saying tonight?

She stared back at him steadily, and she still looked a little spooked – who wouldn’t after what had happened? – but he was surprised to see a very obvious resolve in the elegant curves of her mouth and jaw; in the lift of her chin and the set of her shoulders. “I get it,” she repeated. “I think maybe I always have, but–” She bit her lip, pain touching her features. “What happened to my dad, you know? It was – it was really hard to get over that.”

He didn’t dare speak, barely even breathed. He didn’t know what she was working toward, but he had a suspicion he hoped was correct. Oh, he so hoped.

She took another breath, visibly gathering herself, digging deep. “It’s not about breaking the law – I break about a dozen traffic laws on the regular. I used to think it was about hurting people, but people hurt other people all the time, in a hundred little ways, and people hurt themselves. That’s what my dad did: he hurt himself, and that hurt me. And…” She met his gaze with a sudden fierceness. “Guys like Luis, his cartel, they’ve always existed. They’re always going to exist. And you can either play by all the rules, and do all the right things, and hope nobody ever kidnaps you and tries to sell you, or strong-arms your garage into helping them, or shoots you dead, or ties you out and cuts your throat.” She swallowed, fingertips ghosting up to her own throat as she imagined the horror of it. “You can hope it never happens. Or you can make sure it doesn’t.”

I couldn’t keep it from happening to you, he thought, aching. I couldn’t keep you safe, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.

“The club does some bad shit, but it does some really good shit, too.” The corners of her mouth fluttered, a hopeful little smile.  “So I get why the club does what it does. Why they sell drugs, and guns, and why they fight, and kill. Those girls Luis took – civilian life didn’t keep them safe. If I have my choice, I choose to take my chances with the club.” She wet her lips, uncertain now. “With you. If – if you still want–”

He reached across the center console and she met him halfway with a glad little exhalation full of relief. It was awkward, leaning together, but Albie didn’t care. He wrapped her up and felt her fingers hook tight in the back of his cut; felt the shaky dampness of her breath as she pressed her face into his throat.

He cupped the back of her head, fingers sliding against the silkiness of her hair. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

He was afraid he might be crushing her, but he couldn’t bear to let go, not yet. “I didn’t keep you safe, I didn’t–”

She laughed, unsteady, but bell-bright and wonderful. “Your expectations are really too high, you know that?”

He felt his face heat, but said, stubbornly, “You trusted me, and I let you down.”

She drew back – he let her go with reluctance – and took his face in both her hands. She smiled, and blinked against the glimmer of fresh tears. “You are a very sweet man, with a very big heart. But it’s not your job to save me.”

He took a ragged breath; his chest hurt. “If anything had happened to you–”

“But it didn’t. I mean.” She winced. “I’m not proud. I was really freaked out. If Michelle hadn’t kept her head…and I’m definitely gonna have nightmares…but I chose to come. I chose to help. If you’re in this, then you’re in it, and things get scary sometimes. It’s not down to you to save me every time.” Another smile, tremulous, but true. Brave.

If she’d sat here and told him that she couldn’t handle this; that the club was too dangerous and frightening, and that she wanted a quiet, normal civilian life, she wouldn’t have been the first woman to do. It would have only been the natural response.

But Fox was wrong. She wasn’t different from them.

Albie touched her face in turn and reeled her to in to kiss her. A slow, sweet, salty-tasting kiss, and he didn’t care whose tears they were, only that they could have this now – and in the future.

~*~

Reese had a post-op routine. A ritualistic, specific practice that, once completed, left him feeling empty inside in a pleasant way, tired and ready for rest. First, he stripped off all his weapons and cleaned them appropriately, until the steel gleamed, and the guns smelled strongly of oil. Put them all away in their proper places, secured them. Then he stripped off his clothes, showered; worked the grease paint from his face with a rough cloth and plenty of soap. Dressed in clean things – or as clean as he had to hand. There had been some rough living when he’d first arrived in Knoxville, when he was following Roman and longing for a true sense of direction. Things were better, now; his routines could be preserved.

But not tonight. Not yet. He had a room, and a bathroom, and harsh soap, and rough cloths, and all that he needed to properly care for his weapons…but it was a room he shared with Tenny, and a quick look moments ago had revealed that Tenny was asleep again, pale-faced, whimpering quietly. So Reese had come back outside and sat now on a low bench against the clubhouse wall, wiping what he could of his face with a handkerchief from his pocket. He’d used one corner of it to wipe his knife clean, earlier, and so he tried not to rub other men’s blood into his eyes.

He heard a door open, and the crunch of boots over gravel: whoever it was wasn’t trying to be quiet; was in fact, Reese decided, trying to be loud. Trying to alert him that he was being approached, down to the overexaggerated click-inhale-exhale of lighting a cigarette. A moment later, Mercy’s unmistakable silhouette appeared around the corner, and dropped down beside him on the bench. The old wood creaked beneath his weight, but held.

There was just enough ambient light to make out the gray plume of smoke Mercy exhaled up toward the sky. “That was fun, huh?”

Fun was still a concept with which Reese struggled. He’d developed a general idea of it: it was most often applied to parties, to drinking, and laughing, and to evenings that began with a woman sliding down into someone’s lap. But there was an individual component to it, too; fun meant different things to different people. Kris had said shopping for pots and pans for her new apartment was fun. With Mercy, fun usually involved bloodshed.

“Contributing was…satisfying,” Reese said. Because it had been. He felt heavy inside, glad to have been productive and successful. Unfinished ops nagged at him like hangnails.

Mercy chuckled – but not in an insulting way. Never that. Something as simple as a laugh always sounded like understanding.

“I didn’t know you were coming.” After he said it, Reese decided that it wasn’t something he would have said a month ago; his tongue felt loose inside his mouth, more connected to what had once been fleeting thoughts, but which now pushed their way more and more to the forefront. More like a human, he thought, with a hint of wry amusement – also new.

“I didn’t know I was coming until the last minute,” Mercy said, easily, like he hadn’t noticed Reese was acting strangely. Or wasn’t going to remark on it, even if he had. “Fox called, and he didn’t ask for help, really, but we could tell things were tight. And when Ghost heard Cali was sending guys – well, he couldn’t let Knoxville look bad,” he said with another laugh.

“Fox called?”

“Yep. Kept us updated the whole time. Had some very complimentary things to say about you, by the way.” Reese could tell that he turned toward him, his brows lifted in silent question, while his cigarette curled thin ribbons up toward the stars. Then he voiced the question: “How are things with you and him, by the way?”

“Things?”

“Fox. You hate him a little less now?”

“I don’t hate.” Except for Tenny, and that wasn’t hate at all, not really, not anymore.

Mercy nudged his shoulder with his own; Reese had learned that to be an affectionate gesture, one he didn’t feel able to reciprocate. Not yet. “I told you he was pushing you on purpose. Fox has his issues – hell, who of us doesn’t – but he’s not a monster.” He leaned back and stretched his longs legs out. “That’s my title, after all,” he said, proudly.

Reese wiped his eyelids again and then held the handkerchief in his lap; his face itched where the paint had been. “I was very angry with him.”

“I could tell.” It was said lightly, without heat or humor. An acknowledgement. Reese appreciated that. “That’s okay, though. That’s the thing about the club: guys like us have to follow orders. But sometimes those orders piss us off. And sometimes those orders are wrong. It’s okay to speak up when they are. Sometimes you just have to do what’s right, you know?”

Reese tightened his hand on the dirty cloth, the grease paint sliding between his fingers. Thought about the night of the house raid, and of Tenny’s blood hot and slick between his fingers, very much like the paint. Thought of challenging Fox…and of being right.

“I know,” he said, and he thought he did.

Mercy clapped him on the shoulder, and he knew that was affectionate, too. “I’m proud of you, kid.”

When he smiled, it didn’t feel so much like a facial malfunction anymore.

Fifty-Seven

“Officer Jaffrey’s been very obliging,” Eden said the next morning at breakfast, standing at the makeshift head of several pushed-together tables. She held a crisp manilla folder and pulled paperwork out a sheet at a time, laying the pages out in front of her eggs. “These ten girls were local to the Amarillo area. These,” a second row, “are from various cities in Arizona. And then New Mexico.”

“Gwen told us at least a little of the truth, then,” Candy said, frowning down at the photocopied missing persons’ reports. The girls were of all races and body types, but none were older than twenty-five. One, he saw with a curdling of his breakfast, was only fifteen.

“They’ve all been reported missing in the past month, and we found all of them in that workshop.” She sighed. “Except for these four.” She separated four files out. Four girls, one eighteen, one twenty, two who were twenty-two, all big-eyed, and fresh-faced, and smiling broadly in the pictures their family had provided to the police. “Two were from Amarillo, and the others were from Phoenix. They weren’t in the workshop, and the girls I spoke with couldn’t say for sure when they disappeared. A few formed some friendships in confinement, but most don’t even know one another’s names.”

“Where are the girls we can account for now?” Candy asked.

“They’re in federal custody,” Maddox said. He’d overnighted at the clubhouse, and someone – Jenny, Candy figured – had found some old threadbare jeans and a flannel shirt that would fit him. Dressed-down in normal clothes, his hair still slicked back from the shower, he looked far less preppy and clean-cut. He rubbed at the stubble along his jaw and met Candy’s gaze, his eyes puffy and smudged with sleepless shadows. “So is Cantrell,” he added with a dark scowl. “The girls will be looked over by a doctor, set up with therapists, and sent back to their families. Cantrell’s going to serve the maximum for everything. The department’s furious.”

“And you, too, I take it.”

He made a face, and bobbed a quick nod, his jaw tight. “The missing girls – the way all of them were taken. This isn’t the first time the FBI’s seen something like this.”

Blue cleared his throat expectantly.

Candy lifted his brows.

Maddox put his hands in his borrowed pockets, shoulders slightly rounded like a kid offering up bad news to a parent. My how quickly things changed.

“There was a case last year in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Girls – young women were being reported missing all across the state. No pattern; none of them were friends, not even on social media, none of them went to the same schools or worked together. All different races, hair colors, body types, just like these.” He nodded toward Eden’s printouts. “And then one of them turned up in Manhattan. It was a fluke – she’d gotten loose. Some goon got careless, and she slipped out a back door. Barefoot, and dirty, and she fucking ran right into an Italian restaurant and started screaming for help.” He shook his head. “She told the cops everything, described a warehouse full of other girls, and buyers coming in to look them over: guys in suits, rich old guys, pimps, gang leaders. I’m gonna bet some cartel bosses, too. NYPD got the FBI involved, and she led them right back to the place where she’d gotten loose. The place had been cleared out. Forensics found a shit-ton of evidence, but nothing that could lead us definitively to any one organization.”

“So you have no idea who did it,” Candy said, disappointment heavy in his gut.

Maddox bristled. “Oh, we have an idea. The ES-8 cartel, for one. The Russo family. There’s a Russian crime syndicate that leaves Cyrillic tags all over everything. But you can’t go around arresting people on gut feelings and likelihoods.”

Candy flashed his teeth in a semblance of a grin. “Did I say anything about arresting anyone?”

Maddox glared at him a moment, then swore and glanced away.

“You aren’t thinking Luis was working cooperatively with other crime families, are you?” Eden asked, one skeptical brow raised. “It’s a big leap from Texas to the East Coast scene.”

“He was fascinated with the club, though,” Michelle spoke up, frowning contemplatively. “And I do mean fascinated. He said he’d been studying us. It was like…like he didn’t understand, but he wanted to.” Her frown deepened. “There was a lot of bollocks about power. He’s obsessed with it.”

“Traumatized by his father’s abandonment,” Fox said. “And trying to both please him with his performance, and challenge him. His father’s a cop, so he decided to become a criminal – a rich and successful one.”

“And childhood trauma can make a person do that?” Candy asked.

Fox sent him a level look. “Childhood trauma can make you do all sorts of things.” Case in point: the assassins sitting at this table currently. Case in point: Mercy and Michael, on their way home now with Walsh.

The Knoxville Dogs had left before first light, save Fox and Albie. In his lengthy phone conversation with Jaffrey this morning – no doubt smoothed by Eden’s competent sweet-talk when she’d visited the precinct – Candy had pinned the theft of the police van and roughing-up and binding of four officers on Cantrell’s cartel contacts. Jaffrey had made noises, but with Mercy and Michael unknown in the area – and gone, now – all prints carefully wiped-down, and bigger fish to fry, Candy felt confident the club would skate out of reach of the law on this one.

There was still the problem of Luis, though. Of the threat he could still pose in the future.

Candy took a sip of coffee and shifted his gaze away from Fox’s – still and cold. “Where does that leave us with the Chupacabras?”

“Back where you started,” Maddox chimed in again. “The cartel was shattered the last time they were in Amarillo. Luis revived them – but only a portion, and with him in the wind there’s nothing left to hold it together.”

“Twelve are dead,” Eden said, “and fifteen were arrested. Officer Jaffrey tells me they’ll be coming down hard on anyone who was involved, like Sandoval and Gilliard.”

Maddox nodded.

“The Chupacabras are no more.”

But he didn’t feel relieved, not really. “I guess…that’s that, then.”

Eden, face carefully blank, shared a look with Michelle, then gathered her paperwork together again. “I suppose so. The club isn’t a law enforcement agency.”

Candy wondered what that look had meant.

“We’ll keep ears to the ground,” Fox said. “All chapters on high alert for specific activity.”

“Yeah.” Candy knew it would be a while before he felt safe letting Michelle go off somewhere on her own. She would buck at that, but he’d be damned if he let her get captured again, by anyone.

He glanced toward her now, and watched her lean over and say something quietly to Axelle, who nodded. How could he keep them safe, he wondered, when they were just as stubborn as him?

~*~

He went to see Jinx after breakfast. His friend sat propped up with pillows, paging listlessly through a bike magazine, wearing a Lean Dogs t-shirt, his hair in wild disarray, his beard in need of combing. Someone had brought him breakfast, and an empty, grease-shiny plate rested on the nightstand beside an array of pill bottles.

He glanced up when Candy entered, and Candy hated the way – for a fleeting moment – he saw fear, doubt, and guilt flash in his best friend’s eyes. He thought about Blue lamenting Jinx’s absence last night, and his own terse, cold response. A regrettable response on his part.

He offered a smile. “They keeping you in the good stuff?” he asked, nodding toward the nightstand.

Jinx closed the magazine and set it aside, expression going careful; a manufactured sternness that seemed prepared for the worst. “Gringo had some oxy left over he said I could have. Catcher gave me an edible.” His mouth twitched, a near-smile. “Cletus is doing okay?”

“Yep. Awake and everything. He’ll be pulling his weight in their little Shining bit in no time.”

Jinx nodded. “I’m just taking Tylenol, though.”

Candy walked deeper into the room. “If you need some more morphine–”

“Nah. I’m sick of that stuff.”

A chair stood in the corner, a pair of jeans tossed over it. Candy moved them to the dresser and then dragged the chair over closer to the bed and sat. “You fucked yourself up, brother,” he said. “It’s okay to need a little help out of a bottle while you’re getting back on your feet.”

Jinx looked down at his hands, linked together in his lap, on top of the blankets. His fingers looked delicate, somehow, without his usual assortment of rings. “No. Morphine and that other stuff – it’s hard to think straight when you’re taking that.”

“You’ve got a big crack in your pelvis,” Candy said, gently. “I don’t think anybody expects you to be thinking straight. The important thing is to get better.”

Jinx took a deep breath. When he lifted his head, his expression seemed resigned. “The important thing woulda been to do my job, and not give you a buncha shit. Not get myself all shot up.” To Candy’s surprise, color rose along his cheekbones, a dusting of pink – a flush of unmistakable shame. “I was wrong,” he said. “And I’m sorry. I let the club down – I let you down, brother.”

Candy sat still a moment, shocked. His friendship with Jinx had always been built on a mutual – but largely unspoken – understanding. They usually thought the same, followed logic along the same lines. They rarely disagreed, and never like they had this time. They’d never distrusted one another.

And that wasn’t all on Jinx.

He leaned forward, and placed a hand on Jinx’s blanket-covered knee. “I’m sorry. I was wrong, too.”

“No, you–”

“No, I was.”

Jinx swallowed. “You’re my president.” His jaw set. Shame, but determination, too. A manful willingness to swallow pride – to acknowledge that, within this club, they held different ranks.

They did, but it wasn’t something they ever pointed out to each other, and it broke Candy’s heart a little to have it happen now.

“No,” he said again, even more gently, his voice soft. Not a president’s voice; a friend’s. “You had misgivings going in. I know what happened with Cade” – Jinx flinched, slightly, just a lowering of his lashes – “made you hate Pacer. And it was easy for me to think that was the reason you didn’t want to help the Road Runners in general, and Pacer in particular. But the whole thing with Melanie, the way she was involved with the cartel…if I’d listened to you from the start, maybe I would have realized sooner that something was really wrong with the whole situation. Maybe Chelle wouldn’t have…” His breath caught. He swallowed and pushed on. “I didn’t trust my sergeant, is what I’m getting at. I should have. And I’m damn sorry I didn’t. It won’t happen again.”

They regarded one another a long moment. Then Jinx stuck out his hand. “We both fucked up and we won’t do it again?” he asked, another smile plucking at his mouth.

Candy took his hand gladly, with a sense that another piece of his universe was righting itself. “Amen.”

~*~

Jenny was helping Darla with breakfast clean-up when someone cleared his throat behind her in a not-at-all-subtle way. She turned to find Maddox standing on the other side of the island, tense and awkward.

“I was wondering if I could have a word,” he said, oddly formal.

She traded a look with Darla, who lifted her brows.

“Sure,” Jenny said, reaching to dry her wet hands. Please don’t let him be asking me out. God. “You wanna go outside?”

“Please.”

He held the door for her, and when they were standing in the bright, cold morning sunshine, he folded his arms right across his middle and seemed to shrink down into himself.

“Gotta say I’m curious,” she prompted.

He let out a deep breath and stared out across the parking lot. “I haven’t told my superiors yet, but I’m quitting the Bureau.”

“Okay.”

He glanced over, frowning. “Okay?”

“I can act like I’m surprise if you want me to, but I’m really not.”

His frown deepened.

“I might not know you personally” – though she felt confident she’d figured out more about him than he knew about himself; men were so easy that way – “but I know a little something about your kind and our kind. The law enforcers and the law breakers. There’s a very thin line between them, actually. Someone who wanted to stay on the enforcement side would have killed Reese at the hospital. Or at the very least arrested him. When you showed up here with him instead, I figured your badge-carrying days were numbered.”

His frown smoothed, and he stared at her, blinking, dumbfounded.

Better not to gloat, she decided.

“What are you gonna do now?”

He shrugged and looked away again. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Can I ask why you told me this?” And not Candy, she didn’t say.

Another shrug. “I guess I just wanted them all to know” – a tilt of his head back toward the clubhouse and its inhabitants – “that I’m not interested in trying to arrest anyone. I won’t be a problem for you guys anymore.”

Jenny grinned. “You sure about that?”

He frowned again. “What? Yeah, no, I won’t.” Resentful, now.

She chuckled, and patted him on the shoulder as she turned to head back inside. “That wasn’t the kind of problem I was talking about.” She reached the door, and paused. “Being a prospect involves a lot of mopping and drink-fixing,” she offered over her shoulder, “but it’s only a year. And sometimes they even let you sit at table.”

She could hear his little indrawn breath of surprise as she slipped inside, smiling to herself.

~*~

Michelle had awakened that morning expecting exhaustion of all kinds, but had instead found that, while physically sore and tired, her mind was sharp, her wells of mental energy refilled. It was lunchtime now, and she set a plate of cold sandwich triangles down on the sanctuary table with something like eagerness before dropping into her chair.

Jenny reached for a ham and swiss. “You’ve got that look Fox gets.” She smirked.

“Which look?” Michelle feigned innocence.

“The one that heralds lots of work and trouble,” Eden said, not unkindly, and reached for her own sandwich. “Though in this case, I think I already know what you’re going to suggest.”

“Propose,” Michelle corrected. “I want to propose–” The words threatened to dry up in her mouth; a sudden, unexpected shyness. She’d never hesitated to offer an unfiltered opinion when it came to club finances, or anything pertaining to the bar. But this was different – this would be a collaboration, a venture for which she didn’t have all the answers or resources, and which would require participation across multiple chapters of the club.

She glanced around the table, at the three gazes fixed on her, all their own blend of expectant and encouraging.

She took a deep breath, and spoke the words she’d rehearsed in her head while she brushed her teeth this morning. “All that’s happened has got me thinking about the club’s larger role. About its potential, really. We look out for ourselves, take care of each other. We handle threats against the club. In London, we were in the habit of taking jobs that people brought to us, everything from rescue missions, to info gathering, to hits.”

Axelle’s brows jumped once on hits, but she didn’t interrupt.

“But this week…I don’t know. I guess it highlighted just how much good doesn’t get done the legal way. And I was thinking about the good we could do. All these girls – their families reported them missing to the police…but what if they’d reported them to us, too?”

She watched that settle with all of them.

Eden was the first to speak. “You’re talking about the club taking a proactive stance in combatting crime?” She sounded more interested than skeptical.

Jenny was a harder sell. “I’m all for vigilante justice. But there’s such a thing as being too visible.”

“I know,” Michelle said. “And I’m not saying we take out adverts in the paper. But these girls, the four who are missing: I want us to find them. Us.” She circled a finger around the table, indicating the four of them. “Our own project. And then we sic the guys on whoever we need to.”

“Oh,” Axelle said, quietly.

“We start small, and we start careful. We have the girls’ names. We contact the families, ask the sorts of questions, and chase the sorts of leads that the police can’t. There’s nothing in place to stop us; no rules we have to follow.”

“Except not getting caught,” Jenny said.

“Except that. If we start helping people, word will spread. And the next time some great big cartel-level threat starts to rear its head, the FBI won’t be the first ones on the scent: we will. We can stomp out bad actors before the public even knows about them. We preserve the club, preserve our profits and our way of life. And help the poor people who keep getting caught in the crossfire.

“If what Maddox said about different gangs and crime families starting to collaborate is true, then it’s only a matter of time before they challenge the Dogs. Things could get really ugly. I think we’ve all seen that before.”

Jenny had been attached to the Dogs the longest, and she nodded sagely.

Axelle looked a bit nervous, and took a sip of her Coke.

Eden looked eager in a restrained way. “Maddox handed us a boon with that bit of intel.”

“One the enemy won’t expect us to have,” Michelle agreed. “So I say we don’t waste it.”

They all regarded one another a moment, gazes shifting and flicking, assessing.

Jenny shrugged. “I’m in. Be kinda nice to do something besides babysit and wash dishes.”

Michelle nudged her, but offered a supportive grin.

“I have a few contacts here in the States,” Eden said. “I can make phone calls today, before we even get on the road.”

They all looked toward Axelle, then.

She set her Coke can down with a sigh, but her mouth hitched up at the corners in a smile. “I mean, I guess if I’m in then I’m in, huh? Sure. What the hell. Let’s all be biker Robin Hoods.”

Michelle grinned, a little thrill of excitement sparkling in her chest. “Robin Hoods and Marians.”

She had work to do, and oh, that was scary, but it was wonderful, too.

Knoxville

Fifty-Eight

“This whole line of storefronts is empty right now,” Ghost said, gesturing with the end of his cigarette toward Bell Bar – the favorite public watering hole of the Knoxville Dogs for years now, Albie knew – which was boarded over with plywood, along with the three next shops along the sidewalk to its right. The club had just bought Bell Bar – it would be club-owned, now, and Ghost had been looking smug about it the last couple weeks; construction had just started on the remodel – and the struggling, neighboring businesses. “The old café is gonna be Mags’ – but don’t tell her yet, it’s gonna be a surprise.” He smiled to himself, proud as punch. “But the one next to it I don’t have slotted for anything yet. It’s yours if you want it.”

Albie turned to him, startled. “Mine? Why?”

Ghost glanced toward him, brows lifted as he took another drag off his cigarette. “You still need a place to make furniture, right?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Truth told, he hadn’t so much as opened his sketchbook since arriving back in town. Between spending time with Axelle, and settling back in with the Tennessee chapter’s day-to-day business – gun shipments to coordinate, and runs to execute – he hadn’t thought much about table legs and chair upholstery.

He felt a twinge of guilt, now. He’d shipped over his remaining stock from London when he first moved, including a dozen or so half-finished projects. They were all in a storage unit in the Dartmoor property’s self-store business now, waiting for him. Neglected.

He’d zoned out a bit, he realized, and snapped back to the present moment to be greeted by Ghost’s lone raised brow of question; it was an expression that always managed to look mocking, even when Albie didn’t think the man was trying to be so.

“You interested?”

It would be good to get back to work. To open a Maude’s here in the States. A place where he could channel all his restless, irrational genetic predisposition to violence and knavery into something productive, creative, and beautiful. (He should also stop being such a lovelorn fool who turned up on his girlfriend’s doorstep every evening. It could start to look pathetic.)

“Yeah. Very much so.” He even felt the quick skip of something like real excitement in his chest. “How much is rent?”

Ghost shrugged and glanced away again. “Reasonable. We’ll work it out.” He studied the line of closed shops, the evidence of the club taking an active role right in the heart of the city, on a main thoroughfare, where all the civilian public could see it. His smile was small, private, infinitely pleased. “We’re moving up in the world.”

“Yeah,” Albie agreed. But he’d learned a long time ago that with great standing came great challenges. Luis hadn’t been the first, and wouldn’t be the last. And was still out there, somewhere…

He suppressed a shudder, and walked to his bike, leaving Ghost to his dreams of grandeur.

~*~

“Here, I packed some up for you to take home.” Kristin turned away from her new kitchen counter and held out a small, square glass container with a red rubber lid. “Or, well, back to the clubhouse. Which is your home, I guess. So.”

It was obvious she wanted him to take the offering, so he did, the heat of the pasta they’d just eaten for dinner leaching through the glass and into his hands. This was something that made her smile, he learned, feeding him, and even if smiling was still a strange and new practice for him, he liked when his sister did it. Knew it meant that she was happy, and Kris deserved to be happy more than anyone.

There’d been a faint line of tension between her brows when she first turned, but now that he held the leftovers it had vanished, and her smile had widened, become truer. “Just preheat the oven to three-fifty, take the top off, and let it bake for about twenty minutes. You could microwave it, but the noodles will get soggy.”

“Okay.” He had no idea how to preheat an oven, but figured someone at the clubhouse did. He could ask Chanel, and then Boomer could glare at him some more. “Thank you,” he remembered to say, belatedly, and she beamed.

He headed for the door, and she followed. “Where’s Roman?” he asked.

Kristin paused in the act of opening the front door. He didn’t use to ask questions; Reese supposed it was an adjustment for both of them.

“He’ll be by later.” Her voice didn’t manage to be unbothered.

“After I’m gone.”

“Well…”

“He’s afraid of me.” Reese felt a pulse of satisfaction. Of all the new emotions and sensations in his life, satisfaction was the one whose exact parameters he found most slippery.

“No!” Kris said, face flushing. “No. He’s not afraid. He’s just…”

Best not to say what he was, probably. Reese didn’t disapprove of him – Roman had been the one to get them out of Colorado, after all, the one to finally convince Kris to take the risk of running from Badger – but he thought his sister could do better. Would be safer and better cared-for with someone a little less…Roman. With someone like Mercy, but Mercy was married, and so Reese supposed they all had to settle for third-best.

Kris sighed. “Goodnight, Reese. Thank you for coming.”

She was always thanking him for coming; for letting her feed him.

He nodded, and left. Stowed his leftovers carefully in one of his bike’s saddlebags and pulled out of the apartment complex.

He passed Roman on the road, and received a little wave that he didn’t return. The slight gave him another bit of satisfaction, no less slippery.

It was a strange thing, to be out on the road after dark, and for the reason to have been innocent. Dinner at his sister’s house: a normal thing for so many – for all the people he passed on the sidewalks, and in their cars trundling through the heart of the city, behind the big, well-lit windows of restaurants. People went shopping, and they had dinner, and they went to movies, and they moved about in these benign, unimportant, but to them, deeply fulfilling circles of which he’d never been a part. Before the Lean Dogs, if he’d been out after dark on his bike, he was on his way to or from an op; covered in fresh grease paint, or cooling blood, most times, with hands that smelled of cordite.

The clubhouse gate at Dartmoor was open, lights burning in the windows. He parked his bike, and carried his glass square of now-cold pasta inside, stowed it in the fridge alongside packages of meat and a number of similar glass containers. Should he label his? So no one else ate it? He decided he didn’t really care – it didn’t matter what he put in his body so long as it gave him the necessary fuel – and it was more the act of Kris providing for him than the food itself that was important.

The lights were still on in the common room, but he didn’t find the crowd he’d expected. Usually Boomer and Deacon were playing pool, or watching something loud and incomprehensible on TV. They’d been watching lots of boxing matches lately, and Reese found them boring because both parties usually survived the ordeal.

It wasn’t late, and he could have picked up the remote and flicked through the channels until he found something worth watching; nature documentaries were his favorite. He liked gathering knowledge. But someone might come out to see what the noise was about, and then they’d want to talk, and, honestly, he’d used up his allotment of language on his sister tonight. The idea of small talk left his skin itching. So he headed for his dorm with a mind toward reading one of the books Mercy had lent him. He found The Iliad particularly fascinating. Achilles was…

Reese halted half-across the threshold of his dorm room. His private dorm room, that he didn’t have to share with anyone. He felt a bit like he’d walked straight into a wall, caught totally off guard. His mind went blank, all thoughts of Kris, and normal routines, and reading abandoning him.

His private room was not empty.

Tenny stood slouched back against the dresser.

And a woman he’d never met before sat on the end of his bed, legs crossed, playing idly with a curling strand of her golden hair.

This is my room, he thought, a faint protest he was too shocked to voice.

Tenny chuckled. “Told you,” he said to the woman, and then she chuckled, too, a low, throaty sound that sent goosebumps shivering down the middle of Reese’s back.

He gave himself a mental shake and conducted a fast threat assessment. Tenny – while hated and, as Aidan would say, a douchebag – couldn’t really be considered a threat, not at this point. The woman – he did a basic visual scan, head to toe – wore a dress too tight to conceal any weapons. Her shoes were open-toed, high-heeled things, so no knives stuck down there. She could have slipped something small into her cleavage – which was, he noted, very deep and exaggerated. And there was something of malice in her smile as her red-painted lips parted.

His hand settled on the gun he wore at his hip, hidden beneath his jacket.

“Oh, bollocks,” Tenny swore, and shoved off the dresser, came to stand in front of him. “No, no, no, stand down, soldier.” Standing like this, he blocked the woman from view – had presented his back to her, so either he was being stupid and reckless again, like in Texas, or she truly wasn’t a threat.

To be honest, Reese had no idea why he’d even thought that, only that his skin was too tight, and dread was tickling at the back of his mind, and he could tell something was going to happen – something bad.

“Reese,” Tenny said, and his voice had changed. Less crisp, less commanding – more like a real person voice. Without all the usual mockery. He wasn’t even sneering, his expression strangely soft and open. “Shut the door, and I’ll explain.”

Reese hesitated long enough that Tenny sighed and stepped around him to shut it himself. The woman on the bed had leaned back, weight supported on one arm, one high-heeled foot idly swinging back and forth. She watched them like a predator.

Tenny returned, and put both hands on Reese’s shoulders, tipped his chin down – he was only a fraction taller – and locked gazes with him. He no longer wore bandages at his throat, and his wound had healed up, no longer a stroke risk, but the scar was an ugly, puckered, discolored thing. Fox had suggested he get a tattoo to cover it, but Tenny had fingered it almost fondly and said no.

“Okay,” he said now, “I want – just for a little while – for you to stop thinking like an operative. Okay? This isn’t a mission. This is a human thing.” He stepped to the side, but kept one hand on his shoulder, the touch oddly grounding. “This is Stephanie.”

The woman lifted a hand and waved at him with a rippling waggle of her fingertips. Winked.

“She’s gonna teach you how to do something fun for a change.”

Reese turned his head and sought Tenny’s gaze. “Fun?”

The grin he got in returned intensified the tight itchiness of his skin. “Sex, dummy. She’s gonna deflower you.”

“I…” His mind went very blank again.

The woman – Stephanie – sat upright and then stood with a grace he found surprising, given the height of her heels. She walked toward them, exaggerated steps that set her hips rolling and pulled her already tight dress even tighter over her breasts. Probably there was nothing between them. Probably nothing at all except a shadow, a deep shadow–

Warm breath across his face. He snatched his gaze up, and she was standing right in front of him, smiling in that predatory way, chuckling again. She lifted a hand – red painted nails, reaching toward him, a threat, Tenny’s fingers closing brutally tight on his shoulder in a warning, a restraint – and skimmed the edge of one nail along his jaw. He clenched his teeth together in response, and she must have felt it, because her smile widened an impossible fraction as she trailed that feather-light touch all the way down to his chin, and then slid it up so she had one fingertip pressed to the center of his lower lip.

“Look at those blue eyes,” she murmured. “You’re cute as hell, honey.” She cast a fleeting glance toward Tenny. “You sure he’s a virgin?”

“Of course. Look at him shaking.”

He was shaking, though he didn’t mean to be. He flashed hot and then cold; his lungs ached, like when he had to hold his breath. And in his belly – oh, in his belly was that low gathering pit of heat and pressure, like when he woke hard in the mornings, and touched himself just to get rid of that difficult state. It always felt good – put little sparks behind his eyes – but it was more relief than any sort of fun. He couldn’t walk or work or function if he was hard, so he alleviated the situation in the quickest, most efficient way and went about his business.

He could feel the blood rushing to his cock now. Up close, Stephanie smelled of flowers, and warm skin, and her lips were very full and red, and his cock was plumping, pressing at the confines of his jeans, and Tenny wanted him to have sex with this woman, and he’d never, had no idea…

Tenny’s hand closed on the back of his neck and squeezed, bracing rather than punishing.

“It’s alright, honey,” Stephanie said. “I’ll take real good care of you.” She pulled her hand away, leaned in, and pressed her lips to his.

Kissed him. That’s what this was: kissing.

With his eyes open, her face was blurry this close up, but he could see the dark fans of her lashes against her cheeks, knew that she had closed her own eyes. Her lips were soft, and slick, and plump against his – which were wind-chapped and closed tight.

Tenny squeezed his neck again. Something went and hot settled at the bow of his top lip – her tongue, he realized – and pressed for entry. His mouth opened, and her tongue slipped inside, a slow, sinuous flicker against his teeth.

Breath and lips at his ear. Tenny: “Relax.” Voice still low and soothing. “Unclench your jaw and open your mouth.”

It was easier to follow orders than to think, so he complied, and then Stephanie’s tongue was sliding against his own, and she tasted strongly of mint, and she was making a little humming sound, her lips vibrating against his, and–

He couldn’t breathe.

Stephanie pulled back, chuckling again. Pressed her hand flat to his stomach, scratching at him lightly with her nails through his shirt. “You nervous, baby?”

He couldn’t have described nervous at the moment. Couldn’t even speak. Every drop of blood was rushing south and he didn’t even understand why. He’d liked her tongue in his mouth, though. That had been…good.

“We’ll have to work on making him a better kisser,” Tenny said. “You wanna give him a little taste of something else?”

Stephanie grinned and tossed her hair – so gold, and gleaming, and coconut-scented – over her shoulder and said, “Sure.” Then she went down to her knees on the carpet.

Reese twitched forward, not sure if he was meant to pull her up, or push her away, or simply flee, but Tenny’s hand was still on his neck, pinching again, holding him in place. Stephanie pushed up his shirt and scratched at the bare skin of his stomach, the trail of pair hair below his navel, and Tenny gripped his chin with his other hand and turned his head so they faced one another.

He was very close, their noses almost touching.

Stephanie unfastened his belt, and then his jeans. The rasp of the zipper going down seemed terribly loud in the muffled quiet of the dorm room. It helped, having his pants open, eased some of the pressure on his swollen cock – but it tightened his belly with nerves, too. No one ever looked at him there, not like this, not on their knees, not smiling and wearing lipstick, and–

“Breathe,” Tenny said, and kissed him.

It felt both similar and different than Stephanie’s kiss. Tenny’s lips weren’t as full, nor so smooth, but his mouth and tongue were hot, and wet, and he pushed in faster, more forcefully, until Reese could only suck in a breath through his nostrils and open for him, push back with his own tongue out of instinct.

A hand that was not his own reached inside his boxers and drew out his cock, aching now, already dripping, and gripped it, gave it a few slow strokes from root to tip.

And Ten kept kissing him. It was rough; it was a battle, at first, and Reese could feel his hands closing into fists. He was shaking. The hand on his cock felt – felt wonderful. And the tangling of tongues was–

Tenny slanted his head, and curled the tip of his tongue behind Reese’s top teeth, then pulled back, plucked at his lower lip with both of his own, and he understood, then. It wasn’t a fight – not a true duel. It was like sparring. Give and take. And Tenny was pushing and retreating – was teaching him, showing him the way.

Reese softened his mouth, gave ground, and Tenny pulled back with a breathed-out little laugh. “Good.” Leaned in again, and this time it was his mouth opening, his invitation, sucking on Reese’s tongue.

Stephanie kept stroking him, and then he felt the press of wet heat on the underside of his shaft.

He pulled back from Tenny with an involuntary gasp. Tenny’s mouth was wet, now, shiny, and pink.

“Watch,” he urged, and Reese – head strangely heavy – glanced down to where Stephanie knelt.

She held his cock steady in one hand, and as he stared, dumbfounded, she pressed a kiss to the leaking head. Then parted her lips and took the whole head into her mouth.

He’d seen women do this to men before. In Colorado; even here, when one of the Lean Bitches had hustled Deacon into a corner at a party. He’d seen the way Deacon had winced, and bit his lip like he was in pain; he hadn’t imagined that it would feel like this. That the sensation would be heightened by watching her take more and more of him until the curls of pale hair at his base were tickling her nose.

Tenny shifted so he stood behind him. Wrapped a stabilizing arm around him, across his chest, and rested his chin on Reese’s shoulder. “Ease off or he’ll come,” he said, and Reese realized he was talking to Stephanie when she pulled back, letting his spit-shiny cock slip out of her mouth. She circled the base with her hand and squeezed.

Reese nearly choked on nothing.

“Nice and slow,” Tenny said. “Make it good for him.”

Time slipped sideways, everything blurry. Stephanie worked him with her mouth and her hands; took him all the way down until he thought he must be in her throat, and then pressed delicate kisses along the length of him, teasing lightly at his balls with her nails.

Tenny put his mouth to his ear. “She’s good at that, isn’t she? Doesn’t her mouth feel wonderful? It’s all hot and wet. Wait ‘til you try her cunt.”

Reese had thought to give some kind of warning before he came, but he could only let out a gasping breath before his insides seized, and watch hazily as Stephanie pulled back just in time and his release splashed across her neck and chest; slid down into that wonderful, deep shadow between her breasts.

She was laughing as she stood, wiping the corners of her mouth with her fingertips.

Tenny patted his stomach. “Good boy.” Kissed the side of his neck, and then walked him over to the room’s lone chair and set him down into it almost gently.

He was breathing like he’d just sprinted across a rooftop; the room spun like he’d taken a kick to the head. He slumped back and just…rested. Worked on getting his pulse lower. His pants were still undone and his spent cock lay limp on his belly, terribly sensitive.

Another Aidan saying came to mind: holy shit.

Tenny stood over him a moment, petting his hair like he was a dog. He wasn’t a dog – not a dog with a small D – but it felt nice, and he realized he was leaning into the motion before he could check himself. “Now, I want you to watch, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

He straightened, and shucked off his jacket.

Reese watched, helpless to do otherwise, as Tenny stripped with military efficiency, clothes winding up in a pile on the floor, boots kicked over toward the wall. Reese had known he was all lithe muscle, had felt it when they sparred, and just now, when Tenny held him; it was impressive to witness, though. Not the bulk of someone who lifted weights for show, but the flexible, strong, dancer-like lines of an operative who knew how to use every inch of his body for maximum impact. He could drive, and ride, and fight, and kill; stab, and shoot, and brawl, and run, and evade capture. What was sex, Reese thought like a revelation, but another physical arena in which to perfect skill? Why be studied and triumphant in all those other areas, and not in fucking, too?

Then Stephanie took her clothes off.

She made a show of it. Her dress unfastened in the back. He watched the straps loosen; watched her pull them slowly down her shoulders, baring herself to the waist, swiveling her hips side to side as she worked the tight fabric the rest of the way off with a shimmy. Her breasts were heavy, slick from his release, the nipples dark and peaked. A narrow waist, and a soft stomach, and hips that seemed made for Tenny’s hands when he gripped her there and pulled her in close enough to kiss her.

A messy kiss; Reese saw glimpses of their tongues and wondered if her mouth tasted like him.

Tenny touched her all over, up her arms, and down her back; cupped her breasts in his hands and thumbed over her nipples until she shivered and giggled. He lowered his head and sucked one into his mouth.

If Reese’s pulse had slowed, he couldn’t tell it now, his heartbeat high and fast in the veins of his ears.

Stephanie raked through Tenny’s hair with her fingers, red nails against glossy dark brown.

Reese hitched himself up higher in the chair. He felt lightheaded, but not dizzy anymore. He was salivating, wondering what that pebbled nub would feel like on his own tongue – it was obvious Stephanie liked it, the way she murmured praise and arched up into Tenny’s mouth.

He’d never wondered such things before. Had never wanted like he did now, a buzz beneath his skin, a desire for touch and contact.

Tenny urged Stephanie to lay back across the bed – across the width of it, so Reese could see them. He climbed up over her, settling between her spread thighs and urged them wider with long sweeps of his hands up the insides of them. She still wore her high heels, Reese noted.

Tenny was hard, cock curved up, flushed, glistening at the head. He picked something up off the bedspread – a condom, Reese saw, and the foil crinkled as he tore it open with his teeth. He tipped his head back a second, when he rolled it on, stroked himself a moment, and it didn’t seem, in that instant, that any of this was about Stephanie. That it was her he was fixated on. A stolen moment of pleasure, of anticipation that struck Reese as something private, despite there being three of them in the room.

Then he opened his eyes, and shuffled forward – “Yeah, come on, baby, Jesus,” from Stephanie – and pushed into her slow and relentless. Tenny could tell when he bottomed out, the way Stephanie kicked her head back and hummed, the way the muscles of Tenny’s back rippled, the cords popping visible in his neck beneath the scar where Reese had pressed his hand and saved his life.

That thought – the knowledge of the skin there, the sense memory of the heat and wet of blood against his palm – pulled Reese upright in his chair, his pulse throbbing in his ears, his wrists, his throat. Transfixed. Lungs still aching, nerves firing and tingling.

Stephanie gripped Tenny’s biceps, nails digging crescents, and Tenny drew back his hips and started to thrust. Deep, slow thrusts at first.

“Oh,” Stephanie said, lifting into them. “Oh, yeah. Like that. Go faster.”

Tenny ignored her; he kept his pace, turned his head, and caught Reese’s gaze. Was only a little out of breath, despite the sheen of sweat on his face, and the flaring of his nostrils. “See? Like this. It’s really – ah – it’s tight. A good tight, like her mouth, but better. Sometimes you have to finger them a while, get them good and wet, but she was ready – she was hot from sucking you off and I could just slide right in.” He gave an especially hard thrust and Stephanie let out a high sound that wasn’t pained.

“Start slow,” Tenny continued. “And then you can go faster.” He did, hips kicking, the room filling with the slap of skin against skin. “But you have to vary it. Variety’s good.” He slowed again, gripped her hips and lifted them. “Change the angles, so you can–”

“Ah!” Stephanie cried out. “Yes! Right there!”

Tenny smirked, though it looked strained. With pleasure; maybe with something else.

Reese had pitched forward in his chair, elbows on his thighs, and he was hard again, his cock throbbing, still too sensitive, but ready for more.

“You like watching?” Tenny asked. “Does it get you hard?”

He swallowed, throat so dry it felt sticky. “Yes.”

“Watch me,” he said, a faint note of pleading in his voice. “This is how you do it.”

Then he pulled back – all the way back, shiny, condom-covered cock gleaming in the lamplight. Tapped her hip. “Roll over.” A command.

Stephanie blinked up at him a moment, bereft, eyes glazed, then scrambled to comply, not so graceful now, clumsy and pleasure-drunk.

Tenny put his hands on her hips again to help position her; lifted her so she could get her knees up under her, so her backside was up in the air, her folded arms down on the bedspread.

Tenny shuffled closer and entered her again, from behind; a rough thrust that left her moaning, and Tenny swearing under his breath.

The sight stirred up new chords of excitement in Reese’s belly. This way was less intimate; you couldn’t look into one another’s faces like this – but there was something raw and primal and thrilling about it. He couldn’t have described how it made him feel if asked; only knew that he was leaking now; that he’d gripped his own cock to keep from coming.

The right move, because Tenny sought his gaze again, and said, “Come here,” all low and rough.

Walking wasn’t easy, but Reese got to his feet and crossed the distance to the bed.

“Here. Closer.”

Right up beside Tenny, close enough to smell the sweat on him. Close enough to watch his cock disappearing again and again inside Stephanie’s sex. It was. Oh, it was…

Tenny pulled out, and staggered backward off the bed. “Stay.” He dropped a light slap on Stephanie’s ass and she held her place, whimpering, shivering.

Still hard, cock bobbing obscenely, Tenny plucked another condom packet off the bed and tore it open. Moved to stand behind Reese.

“What are you doing?” Reese asked. But he didn’t move. Stared at the heart-shaped swell of Stephanie’s ass – and the glistening pink sex beneath – skin prickling all over as Tenny shoved his jeans down his hips and reached up under his shirt. Stroked his cock – he couldn’t help a little thrust forward, into the other boy’s hand.

Tenny bit his neck, gently, holding him in place, and rolled the condom onto his cock. After, he gathered his shirt, and stripped it off over his head, smoothed his hands down Reese’s chest; Reese could feel the damp, hard press of his erection against the small of his back.

“Get inside her,” he murmured. “Like I showed you.”

The bed dipped when he knelt on it. Stephanie shivered like a horse with flies as he petted her flanks. Tenny stepped in close behind him; it was Tenny’s hand that steadied his cock, positioned it at her entrance. And then he was pressing inside.

Oh. It was tight. There was resistance, just a bit, and then he felt her give, and it was so warm, it was hot, and she kept taking him, and taking him, and then the smooth skin of her backside was against the tender skin low on his belly, and it was…it was…

“Breathe,” Tenny said, arms around him again. He tucked his hips in behind Reese’s, and nudged him forward. Nudged Reese into Stephanie. “Breathe, and fuck her.”

It was an ancient rhythm; instinctual as breathing or swallowing. Once he was inside her, he didn’t need to be told how to move; his body just knew. But Tenny helped him move, anyway; gripped his hips, urged him forward and back, faster and faster. His erection slid against the cleft of Reese’s ass, and he could feel Tenny’s breath, harsh and damp, against the back of his neck, ruffling his hair.

Stephanie moaned, and swore, rocking back into him, gripping him so tight.

Tenny’s hand slid down to where Reese was joined with her, sliding through the wetness there, touching the base of Reese’s cock, and then touching a place on Stephanie that made her scream, and convulse. Her inner muscles rippled, and Reese was whiting out again, coming again, his teeth gritted and his back bowed.

Tenny bit his neck again, harder. “Oh, good boy, good boy. Beautiful. That was brilliant.” Petted his belly and his chest; thumbed his nipples, lingeringly, the way he had Stephanie’s.

Reese was still shuddering when Tenny pulled him back; his spent cock slid out of Stephanie with a gross sound, and he was sore, now, and exhausted, and a little bit ashamed.

But satisfied. Oh, was he satisfied, and it wasn’t a slippery feeling, no, not anymore.

Tenny turned him around, gentle again, and his cock was soft, now, too; he’d come as well. He scraped Reese’s sweat-damp hair back from his face and kissed him once, slow and sweet. Reese was too overcome to respond at all, but Tenny was smiling when he pulled back. “Well done.” He dropped another kiss on Reese’s forehead, and then removed his condom for him.

Reese stood, digging his toes into the carpet, not sure how to feel about anything.

Beyond deeply, guiltily satisfied.

He watched Tenny tied little knots in the condoms and throw them in the waste basket. Go into the bathroom and come back out with two damp, clean cloths. He took one to Stephanie, who sat up and thanked him casually, like they hadn’t all just – done that. The other Tenny brought to Reese, and wiped him down; the sweat on his chest and stomach and the semen from his spent cock.

He used the same cloth to wipe himself.

“Well, boys, this was fun.” Stephanie stood and stepped back into her dress; pulled it back up her body and zipped it with far less fanfare than she had while undressing. “We should do it again.”

She leaned in to kiss Tenny – but he turned his head and she hesitated a moment before kissing his cheek, fast and chaste. She turned a smile to Reese. “You were great, honey. Glad I could pop your cherry for you.” She blew him a kiss, grabbed her bag off the dresser, and left, the door clicking shut behind her.

Tenny took the cloths back to the bathroom. When he returned, he looked almost…well, almost meek, but that was so unlike him that Reese thought he must be imagining things.

“You look asleep on your feet,” he said, bending to retrieve his clothes. “You should lie down.”

But Reese stayed standing, toes still twitching in the carpet, while Tenny redressed, jacket draped over one arm. He wouldn’t meet Reese’s gaze.

“Now you’re not a virgin,” Tenny said. “We’ll practice some more. Have you seen Boomer and those other dumb sods? You’ll be a hit with the groupies. Well. Goodnight–”

Reese caught his arm as he started to turn. Pulled him back.

Tenny finally lifted his gaze, and there was no mistaking the guilt in his eyes, the lowered brows, the knitted lines across his forehead.

“I’m not angry,” Reese said, and the brows jumped up, once.

“Oh. Well. That’s good, I guess.”

“Why are you being this way?”

“What way?”

“Not smooth.”

Tenny cracked a humorless grin. “Little shagged out, I guess. I’ll be back at it tomorrow.” He rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand.

He was troubled, and Reese wanted to fix that, because he really didn’t hate him, and all of their rivalry had been really, really stupid, and he’d never felt so mellow and at-ease as he did now. He’d wanted to ask, when he’d first walked in and found Ten and Stephanie in his room, what the meaning of this was. Had wanted to bristle and fuss and reprimand Tenny for invading his personal space.

But he could see now that it had been a kindness. Something well-intentioned. Something shared. Reese had been made vulnerable, but Tenny had been vulnerable, too.

He didn’t have to second-guess any of his instincts in this moment.

“Thank you,” he said. Tenny’s brows went up and stayed there. “Thank you for showing me how to have fun. It was. Fun. I like it.” Tenny stared. “You’re a very good kisser.”

Something amazing happened: Tenny blushed. “Yeah, well, that was just for practice, yeah? We can’t be doing that sort of thing in an MC clubhouse.” A note of regret in his voice.

“We aren’t like them, remember? We can do what we want.”

Tenny’s face smoothed. Reese thought it might have been amazement.

“I want to show you something.” He let go of him and turned toward the bookshelf along the far wall of the dorm. It had been empty when he moved in, save a few old dusty bike magazines, but it was where he now kept the books he’d borrowed from Mercy. He slid a finger along the cracked spines, until he found the volume he wanted. Slid it out, and flipped to the page he’d marked a few days ago.

He glanced up at Tenny, now thoroughly perplexed. Lowered his eyes to the page, cleared his throat, and read aloud.

“Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.”

He glanced up again, trembling a little inside. He was literate, but he knew his voice was no good for that sort of thing, nothing like the rich warmth of Mercy’s voice when he told stories. But Tenny stared at him, perplexed and transfixed. “It’s from a poem,” he explained. “It’s called ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’ I don’t really know what it’s about, but I liked that bit about the cannons. About being shot at, you know, and facing Death? It reminded me of–”

“Us,” Tenny said. “It reminded you of us.”

“People like us,” he said, relieved. “The club too, I guess.”

Tenny swallowed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“The man who wrote it was pretty famous, I think. His name was Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”

Tenny stood very still, but he vibrated like a plucked cord.

“Ten is a number,” Reese went on. “But I thought, if you were going to be Tenny, that maybe your real name could be Tennyson. Like the poet. If you like. And then you could be a person. Like me.”

Silence.

Tenny’s lips parted, and he took a breath–

And then his jacket hit the floor and his arms were around Reese, crushing him, and the book hit the floor, too.

Reese thought to scold him, because the book was Mercy’s and they shouldn’t damage it, but then he felt the hot, wet tears, and Tenny was sobbing, broken-open and full-throated, against his shoulder, and so Reese only held him, and they swayed together on the orange carpet, two people who weren’t numbers or weapons at all, but people.

This was satisfaction, too, holding his friend while he cried. This was the best kind of satisfaction of all.

Epilogue

It took a few weeks for the wall to get fixed, because Candy would be damned if he paid someone to do it, but Jinx was his best fix-it guy and he was laid-up, and he himself was pretty good, but he’d bought the wrong kind of insulation at first…

And anyway. It was another few weeks after that before the swing set arrived in the mail and he got it all set up. It was a cold January, but TJ didn’t care, laughing wildly in his toddler swing every time Michelle pushed him. She was bundled up in coat and scarf, her nose and cheeks pink, but laughing in delight at her baby’s laughter.

“You should let me push, baby,” Candy offered, not for the first time.

“Not an invalid,” she called back, sing-song, “just pregnant.”

“You’re stubborn, is what you are.”

“Ha! Says you.”

His phone trilled in his pocket, and he groaned as he pulled it out and thumbed the screen. It had been one call after the next with Jaffrey, with the other chapters. This particular dust-up hadn’t been one to settle down quickly. Lots of loose ends, lots of questions. And now the girls were trying to talk him into being even more involved. It was a whole mess.

“Hello?” he asked, tone bored. He was getting real sick of Jaffrey at this point…

“Mr. Snow.”

That was not Jaffrey. But he did recognize the lightly-accented voice on the other end of the line.

Every hair on Candy’s body stood on end; rage flared to life, fire-hot in his gut. He turned away from Michelle and TJ and stalked across the yard, not wanting her to hear. “Luis. Nice to hear from you.” He managed to sound only mildly put-out.

“Hm. I think not. But I suspect you’ll change your mind by the end of this call.”

“Where’d you slink off to?” Candy asked. “You jumped out the window like a little bitch when I kicked in the front door.”

A hollow laugh. It sounded like, wherever he was, it was a close-walled room; no echo, no acoustics, no background noise. “Sometimes the most advantageous thing a man can do is beat a tactical retreat, and live to fight another day.”

“Tactical retreat. That’s a nice way of putting it.”

“How’s your wife?”

Candy swallowed a growl. “None of your fucking business.”

“Oh, on the contrary. She’s my business just as you all are my business. I learned some very valuable things about your club in my time spent studying you all. You’re a worthier opponent than I expected, I’ll grant you, but, still. All giants have weak spots. All giants can fall.”

Candy sighed.

“Have you figured them out yet? My tableaus?”

A cold chill washed through him. “Yeah, sure,” he bluffed; it felt like the truth, but like a bluff, too. As much as he hated to admit it, Luis wasn’t your garden variety criminal. Candy couldn’t wrap his head around him – not yet. “You’re a sick fuck, and you like making a big stink about.”

Luis chuckled, almost warmly. Unnervingly so. “My father is from Texas, I was born there – just as you were. I’ve always loved that story, even if my mother hated it: the story of the Lone Star state. The Independent Republic of Texas.”

“I’d imagine you’d have some conflicting emotions about that,” Candy said, tightly.

“Yes. It’s true, given my mother’s nationality. She can trace her family straight back to Spain, did you know?”

Candy didn’t answer.

“Texas,” he continued, “thought itself so brave. So independent. I thought it a fitting metaphor. Five points on a star. A lone star.” Another laugh. “Just as I’m alone. A rebel. Isn’t it thrilling?”

Candy felt a rush of wild panic; a sense of being out of his depth. The enemies he’d faced hadn’t cared about ideals. About tableaus, and metaphors, and the art of it.

An intolerable panic swelled, one he pushed down fiercely. “Listen here, you up-jumped stupid little shit. Your plan? It fell apart. It didn’t work. Your old man’s gonna swing for this, and your whole cartel is dead or in jail. And the ones in jail? Singing like goddamn canaries. Give it up, shithead. You lost. Get over it.”

It was quiet a moment. “Hm,” Luis hummed again, at last. “You know? I don’t think I will. And I think I should warn you: I do have friends. And most of them hate you even more than I do.”

The line went dead.

Candy pulled the phone away and scrolled through the call log. A blocked number.

He lifted his head and stared out across the empty stretch of field that bordered his property. The wind ruffled the winter grasses. Far in the distance, over the hills, vultures circled, crisp black fan shapes against the blue bowl of the sky.

I do have friends. And most of them hate you even more than I do.

That was nothing new. The club had always had enemies, and nasty ones at that. But if what Maddox and Cantrell had said was true…if other parties in the underworld were banding together.

Then a storm was coming.

Not today, not tomorrow. But soon. He swore he could feel the crackle of electricity in the air, smell the ozone. Gray clouds loomed behind him, out of sight, but ready to sweep in and cloak his bright world in darkness.

If that happened, they would be ready.

“I gotta call Ghost,” he murmured to himself. If someone wanted to take on the whole club, then let them come. Let them throw themselves against every chapter, against every mean son of a bitch just itching to get blood on his hands.

“Baby?” Michelle called behind him.

He took one last breath, found a smile – a real one, satisfaction burning through the rage, bringing with it thoughts of victory, of crushing out anyone who would challenge him. Him and his family – his brilliant, ferocious family. And turned back to her, to them. “Coming.”

Walked back toward all the things that mattered, already drawing up a mental list of the ways he’d never fail them again.

THE END

About the Author:

Lauren Gilley is the author of over twenty novels, including the Dartmoor Series, and her Sons of Rome paranormal fantasy saga. She writes contemporary and historical novels with a focus on found family and surviving tough odds. She blogs, sometimes, at hoofprintpress.blogspot.com, and accepts emails at authorlaurengilley@gmail.com. When she’s not writing, she’s mucking horse stalls, or walking her giant dog.

You can also find her on:

Instagram: @hppress

Twitter: @lauren_gilley

Facebook: “Lauren Gilley – Author”

Other Titles by Lauren Gilley:

The Dartmoor/Lean Dogs Legacy Series (in reading order):

Fearless

Price of Angels

Half My Blood

The Skeleton King

Secondhand Smoke

Snow In Texas

Tastes Like Candy

Loverboy

American Hellhound

Shaman

Prodigal Son

Lone Star

The Sons of Rome Series

White Wolf

Red Rooster

Dragon Slayer

Golden Eagle

Lionheart (coming soon)

The Russell Series

Made for Breaking

God Love Her

Keeping Bad Company

The Walker Series

Keep You

Dream of You

Better Than You

Fix You

Rosewood

Standalones

Whatever Remains

Walking Wounded

Shelter