Homecoming
Author: Lauren Gilley
Date: 2020-08-12 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Romance; M M Romance; Contemporary Romance; Contemporary; Crime; Adult; sports
Description: It pays to be top dog. It’s spring in Knoxville, and the Lean Dogs are expanding, buying up new business fronts on Main Street, including the infamous Bell Bar. But with success comes challenges – and, in this case, the challenge comes from a now-familiar enemy, one hellbent on destroying the Dogs. Carter Michaels is dealing with his own, personal turmoil. Ever since injury forced him to give up his football dreams, he’s struggled to find his place within his home city, and within the club he’s pledged himself to. Aimless and depressed, it takes a big shakeup from an old friend to have him que

The Dartmoor Series

Fearless

Price of Angels

Half My Blood

The Skeleton King

Secondhand Smoke

Loverboy

American Hellhound

Shaman

Lone Star

The Lean Dogs Legacy Series

Snow In Texas

Tastes Like Candy

Prodigal Son

Homecoming

Dartmoor Book VIII

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.

HOMECOMING

Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Gilley

Cover design copyright © 2020 by Lauren Gilley

HP Press®
Atlanta, GA

All rights reserved.

HOMECOMING

One

The rain tapered off, the last crystalline drops of a pop-up spring shower flashing in the sunlight. Umbrellas snapped shut, tires hissed over pavement, and the glaze of rainwater flared, bright and slick as sugar frosting over everything.

Ghost took another drag on the cigarette he wasn’t supposed to be having – he kept promising he’d quit, for his own health, for Mags, for Ash’s sake – and turned away from the idyllic view of the street, and toward the boarded-up windows of Bell Bar. Of his new bar. Construction was still underway, and in the way of all construction, was taking forever. Grand Re-Opening Coming Soon, it read on the sign taped to the plywood covering the front window.

Someone had spray-painted under it: Fuck the Lean Dogs.

And, in Sharpie, on the sign itself: Don’t let them take over our city!

He exhaled a plume of smoke. “We’ll have to get some new plywood up.”

“That’s the third time in the last two weeks,” Walsh said. He stood with his hands in his pockets, expression inscrutable save the groove pressed between his brows. “It’ll keep happening.”

“Yeah.” He glanced down the sidewalk, to the other storefronts they now owned: the planned café for Mags, the home of the future Maude’s, a failed old music store he still hadn’t decided what to do with yet. Fuck the Lean Dogs seemed to be the consensus all the way down. “Here’s what I don’t get: how do people know we bought these storefronts?”

Walsh shrugged. “That sort of thing is in the public records. Someone could look it up – if they wanted to.”

“But that’s my point: who would want to?”

Walsh gave him a flat look that managed to suggest he was stupid. He managed to do that in a way that wasn’t insulting. “We’re not exactly the Boys and Girls club, Kenny.”

Ghost sighed out his next exhale of smoke. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Word gets around,” Walsh continued. “We can set up some cameras inside and see if he we catch anyone on film.”

“Yeah.”

Behind him: the sound of a car pulling up, the engine cutting off.

He turned to find Jasmine’s silver Toyota at the curb. She smiled at him through the window, but he could see the tightness in it. The uncertainty. Could see it in her body language, too, as she climbed out and joined them, heels clipping on the cement. “Hi.” She was on her way to class, Ghost figured, based on the jeans, and the light jacket she wore over her low-cut top. Jazz didn’t do modest, as a general rule, or flat-heeled shoes, but she’d toned her usual look down a fraction.

Carter had said she was unexpectedly excited about her afternoon GED classes at the high school, but Ghost didn’t think it was unexpected at all.

Lean Bitches tended to come and go. Those who’d been looking for a thrill and a taste of danger usually got spooked and took off the first time things got dicey. Some had been hoping to become old ladies – and some did – but, for others, the shine of wildness wore off quickly.

Jazz was one of the ones who’d stayed. Ghost could still remember her kneeling at his uncle Duane’s feet, young, and terrified, but already committed, for whatever reason. No one would have blamed her for bolting after Duane died, but she’d stayed. Through the shootouts, and the rival clubs, and the revolving door of Lean Dogs. Throughout the duration of the club’s slow, inexorable climb to the top in Knoxville.

Ghost knew you didn’t stick around that long without wanting something for yourself. Some recognition for loyalty; you didn’t hang around somewhere most of your life without acquiring a dream or two.

“Hey,” he echoed, careful to keep his expression neutral. “You off to class?”

“In a little while, yeah.” Her face brightened immediately at mention of it. “We’re talking about the Revolutionary War tonight.” She toyed with a honeyed curl of hair in a rare show of self-consciousness. “It’s pretty cool.”

“Hmm,” Walsh hummed, his back to them, still, and Jazz cracked a grin.

“Not for you, I don’t guess,” she teased.

“He married an American, he’s got no room to judge,” Ghost said.

She laughed. Her eyes held a question, though, as they flicked to him. And a hunger, when she glanced toward the boarded-up front of Bell Bar.

Maggie was the one she’d asked about it, a few months ago, when Ghost first bought the place. Mags said her brows had gone up, and her hands had frozen on the salad tongs, and she’d said, “Who’s gonna run it?” in a show of forced casual interest.

When he’d considered it, he’d thought why not? Everyone else was busy with his or her own stuff, and Jazz had long since proved her dedication to the club and all its members and family. She ran the clubhouse like a drill sergeant – only better to look at. She had an easy, friendly way with strangers, that Southern hostess skill that seemed ingrained at birth here in Tennessee, plus the kind of flirtation skills that would have men emptying their pockets when they passed the tip jar at night.

Ghost hadn’t promised her anything yet, or even asked if she wanted to, but she’d started taking classes anyway. And he could see the want plain as day on her face now, as the post-storm sunlight caught the sparkle of her eyes.

“Construction’s been slower than we thought,” Ghost said, gesturing to the building. “There was mold in the walls and some of the wiring was bad. A whole lead paint situation. But the dry wall’s going up next week. We managed to keep the original bar. Now we’ve gotta figure out what we want it to look like inside.”

She nodded, gaze still tracking over the exterior façade. “Right.”

“I was wondering if maybe you’d like to help with that.”

It took a moment for the sentence to land. She started to nod, and then her eyes widened, and her gaze snapped to his face. Her throat jumped as she swallowed. “Really?” Cautious, doubtful, wanting to be pleased.

He reached into his cut pocket and offered her what he’d just picked up on the ride over. The nametag.

It was just a bit of plastic with a pin on the back. But on the front, engraved in sleek caps, was JASMINE. And, under it, Manager.

“If you’re up for it,” he said, suppressing a smile.

“I…” She sucked in a breath. Pressed one shaking hand to her mouth, and reached slowly toward the tag with the other. She hesitated, manicured nails hovering over his palm. Her gaze darted up. “Really?” she whispered.

“Really. A bar needs a manager, right?”

“I…” For a moment, he thought she’d cry, and he wasn’t equipped to deal with that – shot a glance toward Walsh who only smirked at him. But then she took a deep breath, gathered herself, and picked up the tag. Curled her hand tight around it, knuckles white, like she was afraid he’d take it back. “I…thank you. Oh my God. Thank you. You won’t regret it. I won’t let you down.”

“I didn’t figure you would.”

She squealed, and threw her arms around his neck.

“Oh. Um. You’re welcome.” He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, and Walsh grinned.

~*~

He still dreamed of it: more often than he’d like to. The field. Sometimes the bright green and the low bleachers of Knoxville High; the scent of popcorn and hot dogs, and the stink of sweat, his uniformed brothers all around him. The blurred faces of students, and parents, and girlfriends. The taste of youth, and success, and hope. That magic hope – that wild, crazy confidence that scholarships awaited. Contracts. Money, and fame, and notoriety, and a spot behind an ESPN desk one day, retired at thirty, sitting on piles of cash, and proud, so proud of what he’d accomplished. No more tumbledown house; no more of Dad’s hand against the side of his head.

He dreamed of the next step, too. Of Kyle Field. Of the tens of thousands; the screaming, the blur of swinging towels, the boom and crackle of the loudspeaker. The Home of the Twelfth Man. The hot lights blasting down on him. The prayers, the huddles. The ball, light in his hands, fingertips sure, his feet quick, quick over the grass. Three-man rush, but he was quicker; aim, and away. Perfect slant. Perfect bomb. Touchdown.

He dreamed of everything he’d thought his life would be. But then he opened his eyes, and he was just Carter Michaels, Knoxville local. A rising star who’d fallen.

A Lean Dog.

A criminal.

Virtually everything about his outlook on life had changed in the last few years. But he still dreamed. And it still hurt, more than it should, to sit on the bleachers by the practice field and watch spring training unfold in all its miserable, sweaty glory.

Knoxville High’s varsity team was dressed out in matching t-shirts and shorts, doing up-downs at the sound of the whistle. The strength coach was a red-faced bulldog of a man, a holdover from Carter’s days here, and between whistle blasts he shouted encouragements that felt like insults. Carter watched and felt a sympathetic burn in his quads and calves; vicariously breathless, skin prickling as if he was the one sweating through his clothes and praying for a breather.

His hand flexed in his lap, remembering the ball. Its heft, and texture; the way it had felt to launch it, and know already that it would land in his receiver’s hands. A perfect throw.

The sharp rap of heeled shoes on the bleachers snatched him from reverie. He blinked, and the team was jogging laps now around the perimeter of the field. The cheering he’d thought he’d heard died away; became the rustle of the spring breeze in the row of pears behind him.

Jazz settled down beside him, legs crossed, one spike-heeled pink slingback swinging lightly in his periphery.

“How was class?” he asked when he turned to her.

The sun was beginning its descent behind her, its rays the fragile lemon of April, fanning out behind her head and shoulders like something from a painting; it gilded her hair, and backlit her face in a way that left her skin glowing. She’d never looked her age, but she seemed even younger now, lately, with a little less mascara, and with a whole lot of enthusiasm for the new direction her life was taking. She was beautiful; a blind man could have seen that.

But that hollow ache behind his breastbone remained.

“It was good!” She beamed. “Only a few more classes, and I can take my test. God, I’m so nervous.”

He’d never seen her smile like this before she started studying for her GED. It was lovely to see her genuinely excited about something. “You’ll pass. All you do is study anymore.”

Her grin shifted into wicked territory, and she hooked her chin on his shoulder while both her arms looped through one of his. “Aw, have I been neglecting you, baby boy?”

Their sex life wasn’t what it had been at first, but he hadn’t been thinking about it, honestly. His cheeks warmed now, though. “No.”

She chuckled, low and throat, full of promise. “Oh, no, I have been. Poor baby. We’ll have to do something about that.”

His belly tightened pleasantly. “Yeah. Alright.”

She kissed the corner of his jaw, lingering and warm, and he knew he’d have a lipstick print there.

Then she pulled back, suddenly. “Oh! You’ll never guess. I have to show you something.” She leaned away from him so she could search through her bag. She came out holding something small and plastic that she brandished with a flourish, smile achingly wide. She giggled like a thrilled little girl.

It was a name tag, he saw. With her name, and the title of manager, and a little bell logo.

“For real? He gave you the job?”

“No interview or anything!” She laughed again, emotion glimmering in her eyes. She dropped her gaze a moment, traced a fingertip across her name in shiny new all-caps. “Can you believe it?”

He smiled, full of warmth and true gladness. “Absolutely I can, yeah.”

She lifted her head, brow quirked.

“You deserve this. You earned it.”

“Ha.” Her brightness dimmed, like the sun going behind a cloud. “You suck enough dick, you eventually get a job offer, I guess,” she tried to joke, her smile wry – resigned.

“No.” His voice firmed, drawing a startled glance from her. He could feel his jaw set; feel his pulse give a hard, sure throb. This was something that hadn’t changed since his first night with her – that first awful night that had started heated, and slick, and impossible, and thrilling, there with Tango…and had ended with Jazz choking, and Carter ready to strangle Aidan in turn. He’d never felt so wildly protective of someone, not ever, not even when his stupid, misguided teenage heart had found itself fluttering in Ava’s direction. Seeing strong, tough, sex-on-legs Jazz shrink back from a man in fear – the very idea that someone as willing and friendly as her should have to feel fear from a man – had left him damn near murderous.

He still felt that way, even if other things had grown hazy and tangled.

“It’s alright,” she said, quietly, laying a hand on his knee.

He wondered if his protectiveness had ever scared her; if she’d wanted to shrink away from the anger that boiled up in her defense. “No, it’s not. You earned that job because you’re loyal to the club; because you run the clubhouse, and the club girls, and you get shit done. Maybe Maggie’s the queen, or whatever, but the Lean Dogs couldn’t function without you. If anybody gives you any bullshit about sucking dick to get that job…” His hands curled to fists.

“Send ‘em to you?” she asked with a little smirk – one that quickly melted into a truer, softer look. “You’re a sweet boy, and I appreciate it, but you don’t have to go to bat for me, darlin’.”

“Yeah, I really do.”

Gently, she said, “No, it’s okay. I’m not your old lady.”

He started to protest – and she rested a finger against his lips.

“Hush,” she said, her smile soft, her voice sweet. “It’s not your fault. It’s not like you haven’t tried.”

But he’d failed, he guessed. They more or less lived together, and they slept together, and she’d shown up to one of Maggie’s big dinners at the farm on the back of his bike, but it wasn’t official, was it? No ring, no tat, no heartfelt declaration of love. He’d not rescued her from kidnappers, or killed for her. Nor knelt at her feet and offered her forever.

He was a quarterback, but not really, not anymore. He was a Lean Dog, but not an essential one. No reputation, no striking of fear into enemies’ hearts. And he was her old man – but not really. No one saw him as that.

The story of Carter Michaels was a story of almost. Of nice try. Of obscurity and inadequacy.

Sometimes he wondered why he ever bothered trying. Anything.

“Hey,” she said, and cupped his chin. “It’s alright. We’re alright.”

He swallowed, and it hurt.

“Take me to dinner, huh?” She cocked her head, imploring, smile encouraging. “We’ve got to celebrate.”

He swallowed again. His voice was tight. “Yeah, okay.”

They climbed down the bleachers and headed toward the parking lot with the shrill blast of the coach’s whistle ringing behind them.

Carter didn’t look back. He knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to keep going.

Two

Plans had a funny way of changing.

Leah set the last of her boxes down on top of the stack in the center of her new living room, and cast a look around the space. It wasn’t grand, but she was trying to look on the upside: it was hers, and it was comfortable. It was spacious enough.

Knoxville hadn’t reached Nashville levels of in-demand yet, but it was a college town, and it was constantly expanding, reinventing itself, and becoming all the while more charming, accessible, and trendy. Finding a spot downtown was becoming a tall order; when she’d known she was moving back home, she’d called her parents – and then she’d called Ava. Because Mom and Dad had thrown some Zillow listings her way, but Ava had said, “Lemme ask Mom,” and next thing she knew she had a showing of a second-floor, two-bedroom, two-bath walkup in a charming, sprawling complex occupied mostly be retirees. No wild nighttime parties, no farm animals in the pool, no shootouts or car break-ins. A club old lady, someone newer to town named Kristin she had yet to meet, lived on the ground floor in this same building, and the price had been spectacular. Leah had no doubt either Maggie or Kenny Teague had greased palms and applied the right sort of pressure.

The complex had been built in the early nineties, and looked it: from the laminate floors to the green Formica counters, and the ruffled lace curtains in the bedrooms. But it was spotless, well-maintained, and smelled fresh, like open windows and lemon cleaner. It would take time to get it decorated to her liking, but of all the changes she’d undergone in the past three months, this wasn’t one she could complain about.

“Tell your parents they can drink coffee for free forever,” she said, gratefully, massaging the tension from her lower back.

Ava sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling wrapped items out of boxes, and chuckled. “Pretty sure they already do.”

“I’ll have to bake them cookies, then. Seriously, I can’t believe this place. I was ready to live in Mom and Dad’s garage, and now I’ve got two bedrooms, and my own washer/dryer.”

“Don’t mind us,” Aidan said as he and Tango toted in the sofa, a secondhand leather monstrosity she didn’t really want to know the origins of. “Stay right in the way, that’s fine. We’re only giving ourselves hernias over here.”

“Oh my God,” Ava deadpanned, “it’s finally happened. Your full transformation into Dad.”

He halted, spluttered out a clumsy, “Hey, fuck you,” and nearly dropped the end of the sofa on his foot.

Leah bit back a laugh. “Thanks, boys, it goes over against that wall,” she said, sweetly, and a little bit of laughter slipped out.

Tango caught her eye and grinned as he passed.

“…Dad wishes…” Aidan was saying.

Ava shot him a wicked smile and said, “What was that, Kenny? Something about kids these days, and back when you were young? Time for your afternoon cigarette and Raisin Bran?”

Aidan set his end of the sofa in place with a huff of annoyance, all drawn up and ready to lob another easily-dodged jab at his sister.

Mercy trooped in the door, said, “Think fast, bro,” and chucked a sofa pillow at him.

He turned too late, and it hit him square in the face.

Tango died laughing, doubled over and everything.

Leah couldn’t contain her own giggles anymore, clapping a hand over her mouth to smother them.

Aidan squawked indignantly. “Why the fuck was that big monster carrying pillows while I’m throwing my back out?”

Mercy grinned. “Just admit you suck at rock-paper-scissors and get over yourself.”

Verbal jabs turned to physical ones, and then the two brothers-in-law were tussling right there on her freshly-unrolled rug.

Ava stood up and rolled her eyes. “Don’t break anything,” she admonished them, and picked up the box marked “Sheets.” Tipped her head toward the hall. “Let’s make up the bed while they get it out of their system. Otherwise they’ll never settled down.”

“Aw, babe,” Mercy complained, as they left the room.

“Don’t break my brother,” she called back over her shoulder. “Or else you’ll have to apologize to Sam.”

“Ow,” Aidan exclaimed. “Dude, help.”

“Not a chance,” Tango chuckled.

“I feel kinda bad,” Leah said, as they left the melee behind and stepped into the master suite. It was her favorite room in the apartment, with its own en-suite and a large window that overlooked a walking trail and bit of green space behind the building. The bed was already there, the frame and mattress; she had a desk, and a tall wardrobe cabinet – that one Mercy had helped carry in. “I should have hired movers.”

“No, you definitely shouldn’t.” Ava set the box down on the floor at the foot of the bed. “What else have those goobers got to do?”

Leah laughed. “Remember when you were pine-city over Mercy? And now he’s just a goober.” She sighed theatrically. “How fast young love fades. Replaced by gooberness.”

Ava chuckled. “Mom used to say that all men were basically little boys in grown-up clothes, and honestly, she was right.”

“Isn’t she right about everything?”

“Tell her you said that and you don’t have to bake her cookies.”

They pulled out the fitted sheet, spread it between them, and moved to opposite sides of the bed to tuck it into place.

It was a little bit amazing how they slid right back into their old friendship. It had never ended, not really, but when Leah had followed Jason to Chicago, they’d fallen out of the habit of daily communication. Texts, and emails, and photos still happened; but they hadn’t helped co-host a bake sale, or studied together, or spent an aimless afternoon in front of the TV with popcorn and nail polish. They hadn’t had proper girl time, and she’d worried, a little, if things would go back to the way they had been – a dumb worry, it turned out, because they fell right back together like always, their friendship a familiar groove into they which they slipped, well-oiled, productive, comfortable.

They got the bed made, and by the time they returned to the living room, the guys had gone back down to the U-Haul for the next load. There wasn’t much left: she didn’t have a kitchen table, or chairs, or dishes, or glasses, or…anything for the kitchen, really. Maggie had said she was on it, and though Leah had protested, and hated the idea of accepting charity, there was no stopping Maggie Teague once she’d latched onto a cause.

“Pizza?” Ava asked, already pulling out her phone. “I’m starving.”

“Oh. Well.” The sky was darkening beyond the windows, a dusky purple-pink. “I’m sure the kids…”

Ava waved her off. “Mom’s fine with them ‘til later, she said. You still like pepperoni and mushroom?”

“Yeah.”

Tango and Aidan brought up the last boxes and then said they had to get home to their wives. Leah thanked them, surprised to get hugs from both of them – until she was pressed quick and close to their cuts, smelling the leather, and smoke, and asphalt scent that had heralded all her childhood slumber parties over at the Teague house.

Aidan tugged on her ponytail as he pulled back. “What happened to the pink?”

“It went blue, and then green, and then I had to get a grown-up job.”

“Aw, damn, that’s a shame.” He gave her one of his ladykiller grins and winked as he headed for the door.

“You stop that, asshole,” Ava called after him, without heat. “You’re married.”

“And the women of Knoxville can’t stop crying about it,” he called in parting.

Leah chuckled. Yep, she was home alright, no mistaking.

~*~

Ava had brought paper plates, Solo cups, and a cooler full of drinks. They poured cold Coke into Jack, and settled cross-legged on the rug in the living room with steaming, greasy pizza. Mercy had stayed behind, and that didn’t feel as strange as she might have once thought. For a lot of years, he’d been the hulking, scary, much-too-old enigma that had fascinated Ava, and terrified the teenage boys who Ava in turn fascinated. But, despite the tats, and the cut, and the long hair, and the wildly-violent club reputation, Mercy was, at heart, a man. A kind one. Who loved his wife, and who liked a good joke, and he didn’t feel like a third wheel.

“Have your parents seen the place yet?” Ava asked.

Leah nodded and swallowed. “Mom came by yesterday and dropped off a bunch of toilet paper and paper towels and stuff. They’re coming by tonight after they close up the shop.”

“You gonna be working there?” Mercy asked.

Ava shot him a look.

He made a face. “Wrong question?”

“No, it’s a good one,” Leah said, trying not to frown; she failed. Felt her nose wrinkling up. She dropped her pizza back onto her plate with a sigh. “They’ll let me pull shifts there, for sure. But I don’t want them to have to cut back hours for the students they’ve got working for them now. I need to find something more permanent – and find it quick.” She glanced around her bare new apartment. “I’m gonna blow through my savings fast.”

Ava and Mercy traded another look. “Well,” Ava said, setting her own slice down. “If we can–”

“Oh, no, no, no, absolutely not.”

“It could be a loan.”

“You guys have three kids! No. No, I’ll be fine. I just hate job-hunting.”

“What did you do before?” Mercy asked. “Ava said you had, and I quote, a ‘legit degree.’”

Leah snorted. “Accounting. And, yeah, it’s legitimately boring. I was working for a CPA in Chicago. I guess I’ll look at H&R Block or something down here.”

Ava made a considering face. “Dad’s trying to get a whole bunch of new businesses up and running in town. He might have something.”

“Be careful: that sounds like more charity.”

“No, it wouldn’t be. He’s got Bell Bar they’re remodeling, and Albie’s furniture place. What’s it called?”

“Maude’s,” Mercy supplied.

“And then Mom’s restaurant – oops, that’s a surprise for her for Mother’s Day, so don’t say anything.”

She mimed zipping her lips.

“But there’s a space he hasn’t figured out yet.”

“Your dad didn’t figure something out?” Leah asked with – mostly – mock alarm.

Mercy chuckled.

Ava said, “Whatever it is, he’ll need a manager.” She waggled her eyebrows in invitation.

Leah laughed – but only a little. She wanted to sigh instead. “That’s really sweet.”

“But?”

“But – I dunno. I’ll figure something out.”

Ava looked troubled, and sympathetic, and like she wanted to help. But she picked her pizza back up and said, “Well, since you need a kitchen table and chairs, I totally know a guy…”

~*~

Ava didn’t press for details about Jason in front of Mercy – she wasn’t a gossiper by nature, and she definitely wasn’t going to start becoming one with a man in the room, even if it was her man. She hadn’t pressed on the phone last week either, when Leah first called to tell her that she was headed back for Knoxville.

In truth, the details were neither dirty, nor even interesting. There’d been no cheating scandal, no raucous confrontation. He hadn’t been leading a double life – hadn’t secretly been the cousin of her high school bully and working undercover for the FBI. That sort of wild shit only ever happened to Ava Teague.

For Leah, life had been much more straightforward; much less daytime-television-worthy. Sometimes people drifted apart in the same way they’d drifted together. Sometimes leases weren’t renewed, and you were left holding your life in boxes. Sometimes CPA firms went under – the irony wasn’t lost on her there – and you had to admit defeat, put your boxes in the back of a rental truck, and head home.

It felt like defeat some moments, and like a chance to start fresh in others.

Like defeat when she waved goodbye to Ava and Mercy and closed her new front door. Turned around and put her back to it, and looked at the scuffed cardboard boxes, and her ugly secondhand sofa, and her empty kitchen counters. She wasn’t a pessimistic person by nature, but there were moments, like now, when it was hard to find the silver lining. When the backs of her eyes stung, and she felt like she’d been wasting time.

Her mother would have argued. Time isn’t wasted if you learned something.

She’d learned not to work for someone who was scamming his clients.

Learned that love wasn’t a guarantee, and sometimes it didn’t last, and sometimes it had been so flimsy to start with that you didn’t even miss it all that much.

She stood chewing at her lip, twirling her ponytail around her finger, until she heard Mercy’s bike start up in the parking lot. Then a grin touched her lips. There were motorcycles in Chicago, but they hadn’t sounded the same. Not like Knoxville. Here, that sound meant something totally different.

As she went to put the pizza boxes in the trash, she realized she’d missed it.

Three

“Why weren’t you helping us wrestle that couch upstairs last night?” Aidan asked the next morning, jabbing an accusatory finger toward Carter.

“What couch?” He’d had a quiet night. Jazz had wanted to study, and he’d watched TV in the common room a little while before eventually dragging himself to bed with a bottle of whiskey tucked under one arm. Now he had a headache and a sour stomach; had overslept his alarm and missed his chance for coffee and breakfast.

“Leah’s couch,” Aidan said, like that was supposed to make some kind of sense.

“Who’s Leah?”

“Dude. Leah Cook. Aren’t you friends with her, too?”

“Leah…oh.”

Mercy materialized beside him, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand that he held out in offering. “You look like you need this, QB.”

“Jesus, yes, thanks.” The first sip worked wonders. “Leah’s back in town?”

“Got in yesterday,” Aidan said. “Didn’t you know that?”

“Obviously not if I’m asking about it.” He felt snippy – sounded it, too, if Aidan’s raised brows were anything to go by. He shook his head and sipped more coffee. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep well.”

Mercy took pity on him. “She called Ava last week and said things hadn’t gone the way she wanted in Chicago. We helped her move in last night.”

Carter nodded. He hadn’t seen Leah in years, since before she moved. He’d gotten busy with the club, prospecting, and patching in, and going on runs, and he didn’t socialize with anyone beyond it, now. He and Leah had been friendly, before, but not friends. In his memory, she was Ava’s tiny, bouncy friend with an excess of energy and hair dye. She’d been the sort of girl who seemed able to see right through whatever bullshit veneer that caused other girls to simper or stutter. Not the sort charmed by blue eyes, and blond hair, and a good football arm. He could easily picture her owning her own Bohemian shop of some sort, married to a tattoo artist with fifteen earrings. Someone who looked like Tango, honestly, who was studying him quietly now, arms folded.

When Carter made eye contact, he cocked his head and said, “You alright?”

An innocuous question, and a fair one, given the state of his reflection this morning. He hadn’t shaved, and the hangdog bags under his eyes were reaching failing-used-car-salesman levels of critical mass. A kind question, too; concern from a worried friend.

But it hit Carter like a spotlight. The coffee he’d just drunk sloshed in his stomach. “Yeah, fine.”

Tango’s gaze narrowed with doubt. He’d been through too much shit personally to buy it from others.

“Just slept bad. Too tired. Too much whiskey.” Carter wondered if he sounded as desperate as he felt.

Tango nodded, and offered a flickering little smile. “Been there.”

“Hey,” Ghost called, from the open rolltop doors of the shop, and Carter released an internal sigh of relief for the distraction. He knew Mercy had talked with Tango, daily, back when things had gotten really rough. A listening ear, a shoulder to help with the burden he carried. The last thing he wanted was for someone to offer that to him – he was afraid of what might come spilling out if he dared to crack the shell.

The president had his shades on, hair windblown like he’d just climbed off his bike; probably he had. He rarely seemed to stay in one place for long these days. “Any of you four been by Bell Bar lately? Seen anything fishy? We keep having a graffiti problem.”

Aidan winced. “All that ‘fuck the Lean Dogs’ shit? Yeah. It’s…lame.”

Ghost’s jaw tightened. “Lame can still ruin your reputation.”

“Reputation, boss?” Mercy asked with a grin. “We got a good one I don’t know about?”

“Good, and getting better,” Ghost said, aiming the end of a cigarette at him before he stuck it in his mouth and reached for his lighter.

“What happened to quitting?” Mercy asked.

“Figure out who’s defacing my fucking buildings, and I’ll quit,” he said, and headed off toward the clubhouse.

“Always an excuse, huh, Daddy?” Mercy called after him.

Ghost shot them the bird over his shoulder, and everyone laughed.

Everyone but Carter. He sipped his coffee. When Tango fired him another covert, questioning look, he turned away.

~*~

Sometimes Leah couldn’t get over the fact that Ava had three kids. She loved her best friend, but Ava had never struck her as the maternal type.

But here she was now, carrying Millie, while Remy and Cal went streaking across the open expanse of the huge, empty industrial building where she’d brought Leah to buy a kitchen table.

It was one of the Dartmoor buildings, overflow for the trucking business, Ava had said, and the temporary home of Maude’s Furniture, owned and run by one Albie Cross, formerly of London.

“Boys,” Ava called, “be careful.” She sighed. “Why do I bother?”

Someone whistled, sharply, and both boys froze in their tracks. Leah glanced over her shoulder to see a Lean Dog she’d never met before striding toward them, smirking to himself as he pulled his hand from his mouth. He had dark hair, and intensely blue eyes. “Here.” A British accent, and he held his hands out for Millie, who reached for him immediately.

Ava handed her over. “Someday, you’re gonna have to explain how you of all people have the kid magic, Fox.”

“Me of all people,” he mused, hiking Millie onto his hip. “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

“You should.”

“Go shop in peace, ladies.” In a stage whisper, as he turned away, “Try not to stare at Albert. He’s very self-conscious about his whole face situation.” He gave a dramatic wince, and walked toward the boys, already propositioning a round of the Quiet Game.

“Albie’s brother,” Ava explained when he was gone. “Great babysitter, but don’t trust him as far as you can throw him.”

“Dunno,” Albie said, “your husband could throw him pretty far.”

Ava snorted.

Albie had his brother’s startling blue eyes, and the same dark, glossy hair that was the sort of thick that begged you to run your hands through it, but his face was a little more rugged, a little less precise. He looked approachable and friendly in a way that Fox didn’t.

He had a corner of the warehouse cordoned off with orange cones and plastic chains, which Leah found amusing. Inside the barricade, he’d set up benches, and saws, and tables, and a whole array of tools. Sawdust and fragrant wood curls littered the ground, and once she got past the idea of an outlaw biker making furniture, she realized that all of it was quite pretty, and nicer than anything she would have been able to afford at one of the big box stores.

She picked out a modest café table that came with two chairs, but Ava steered her instead toward a larger, round-topped dining table with four chairs, and room to squeeze in two more in a pinch. The top was inlaid with several different kinds of wood, a pattern of varying stripes all sealed with poly, simply but elegant, very farmhouse-chic.

Leah ran a hand across the glossy top. “Gonna guess this is out of my price range.”

“Family discount,” Albie assured with a wink. “And I’ll throw in the chairs free.”

“Oh, no–”

“Consider it advertising.”

Albie and Fox loaded it all up in the bed of Ava’s truck, and the kids were wrangled into the backseat, the boys red-faced and happily tired now.

It was lunchtime, and Ava turned to her as she drove them back around to the front of the building and down the long, wide drive that ran back and forth across the entire width of Dartmoor. “You mind if we swing by and say hi to Mercy?”

Leah bit back a grin. “You’re still a hopeless teenager about him, aren’t you?”

Ava faced forward again, color blooming in her cheeks. “A little bit.”

Mercy was camped out on a picnic table in front of the bike shop with Aidan, Tango, and Carter Michaels, the breeze trying to snatch away their sandwich wrappers.

“Daddy!” Cal exclaimed, hand pressed to the window.

Mercy stood when he saw the truck, wide grin breaking across his face, and Ava parked so she could get out and kiss him; so she could open the back door and let the boys out to latch onto their father.

Leah walked around the nose of the truck and leaned against the brush guard, breathing in the scents of river water and motor oil. Déjà vu hit her hard: this could have been a scene from her high school years: the boys on a lunch break, Ava besotted.

Only there were kids now, and wedding bands, and both everything and nothing had changed at all.

It left her a little dizzy.

Tango lifted a hand in greeting, and she waved back.

“Albie give you the discount?” Aidan called.

“Too much of one, honestly.”

He nodded, pleased.

“Hey.” The last came from Carter, who’d set his sandwich down so he could turn to face her, straddling the bench.

She’d recognized him straight off when they pulled up, the back of his head unmistakable after spending three years behind it in English class. She’d known his home situation was bad before, that he’d lost his place on the A&M football team, and his scholarship. She knew all about shattered dreams. She’d known he was thinking of prospecting the club, but seeing him up close, face-to-face, was a shock.

He’d always been the sort of All-American golden boy that left girls swooning and mothers reminiscing about their younger years. The sort of boy you wanted to make out with in a backseat, but whom you weren’t afraid to take home to meet your father. Never Leah’s type – she’d grown up knowing that success in any arena wouldn’t be found for her if she chased the popular crowd. Korean, adopted, different, opinionated, uninterested in schoolyard politics, she’d known she wouldn’t fit in and so she hadn’t tried. It was why she and Ava had become such fast friends. It was why she’d never entertained romantic notions about pretty blond boys like Carter.

Well. He was still blond. And he was still pretty: those classic, masculine features, the straight nose, and the full lips.

But his eyes. Their blue depths were full of shadows; full of unhappiness and cynicism, and a sort of sad resolve that was echoed in the stubble on his jaw, and the scuffs on his boots.

He was properly patched in now, and his cut bore the wear and flaws to prove it. Gone were the polo shirts and the boat shoes. The rolled-up sleeves of his flannel shirt revealed strong, tan forearms and knuckles laced with scars. Old healed-over workshop cuts; evidence of punches thrown, and violence wreaked.

He’d been depressed when he first came back from college, working the till at Leroy’s and wondering what to do with his life. But he’d still been Carter.

The boy looking at her now seemed an entirely different person.

“Hey,” she returned, belatedly, when she’d recovered from the shock.

One corner of his mouth twitched in what wasn’t a smile, like he’d noticed. “You back for good, or just visiting?”

“For good.” She didn’t manage to sound chipper, but she figured he understood all too well what it was like to come back after a big letdown.

“She’s a got place over in Kris’s complex,” Ava said. “Now we’re job-hunting.”

Leah really didn’t want charity, but that we still felt good. Unlike Carter, she wasn’t on her own as she returned.

He wasn’t either, anymore, but he had been at first. She wondered if, had things been different, if he’d had a support network, he would have joined the Dogs.

Probably not. And he probably wouldn’t appreciate being asked about it, either.

“Ready?” Ava asked.

“Yeah.” She offered a wave. “Bye, guys. Good to see you again, Carter.”

“Yeah, you, too.” He gave her a flat, unreadable look before he turned back around.

Once they were back in the truck and driving away, she looked toward Ava and said, “God, what happened to him?”

Ava shook her head, frowning. “I don’t really know. But he’s worrying me. Something’s not right.”

Four

Come over 2nite baby boy. Followed by a winky-face emoji. And a confetti emoji.

That last one pulled him up short a moment, as he was stowing his tools and getting ready to leave the shop for the night. Celebration usually had a slightly different meaning for Jazz than it did for other people. Regular civilians went out to dinner. Bikers and club girls, well…things could get wild.

It was after eight, and dark now, beyond the cinched doors. He was the last one here; the other guys had all gone home, but he’d been working on a custom bike and decided to finish the mods he’d been working on all day, rather than leave them for the morning. Now he was pleasantly tired, dirty, hungry – and vaguely unsteady inside in a way that no longer had anything to do with the morning’s hangover. He was just…blah. His usual state of being these days, and he had no idea how to fix it.

Jazz had some ideas, though, if those emojis were anything to go by.

He fired off a return text, cleaned up as best he could in the shop sink, shut off the lights, and headed out, desire and awareness already prickling along his skin and pooling in his belly in anticipation.

When they’d first started…whatever you wanted to call this relationship they’d had going the past few years…Jazz had lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in a bad part of town. But she’d asserted herself more firmly at Dartmoor, picking up some of Maggie’s slack after Ash was born, and she’d been able to afford a new place: a modest, but well-appointed condo in a new development that seemed mostly occupied by newly-married couples and bachelors.

The lights were on in the bedroom when he pulled up. A car he vaguely recognized sat beside Jazz’s, a black Honda that he thought he’d seen at the clubhouse before. He braced himself, mentally, as he walked up the steps and to the door, let himself in with the key she’d given him when she first moved in. His pulse pounded in his ears, and in his gut, and his groin. He felt a little dizzy, almost sick with it. Blood already heated. He had a Pavlovian response to Jasmine, to her ideas; fingers and toes tingling, he went down the foyer and into the empty living room. Spotted three wine glasses on the kitchen counter.

“Jazz?”

From the direction of the bedroom: a giggle, a murmur, a moan.

The door stood cracked open a fraction. He put his fingertips to the panel, and sent it swinging inward.

The sight that greeted him was no longer merely the stuff of fantasy – but it wasn’t exactly commonplace, either.

Jazz sat on the end of her bed, dressed in cutoffs and a denim shirt unbuttoned to her navel; no bra beneath, her full breasts bare; her new manager nametag pinned forgotten above the chest pocket. The blond sitting on her left was one of the newer girls, something with an S. The curvy brunette on her right was Chanel, who’d been keeping company mostly – but not exclusively, he didn’t think – with Roman’s son Boomer these days. Both other girls were naked save for lacy thongs. The blonde had Jazz’s cutoffs unbuttoned, and a hand down the front of them, arm flexing as she worked her with doubtlessly skilled fingers. Jazz loosely clutched a handful of Chanel’s hair, holding her in place, as Chanel suckled at her breast.

Jazz’s eyes were closed, her head tipped back; she bit her lip, and her hips worked in short little movements, shifting into the touch that worked between her legs. Enjoying herself, basking in the attention.

She was someone who loved giving and receiving pleasure, in all its forms, always up for anything, never shy, never ashamed of feeling good. It was what had drawn Carter to her from the first, when the club was still this overwhelming spectacle, rather than his daily life. It was what drew him to her now, and every other time he was feeling lost, and hollow, and in need of feeling good himself.

He must have made some sort of sound, though he wasn’t aware of it. Her eyes opened, and her hazy gaze landed on him. Her smile widened, dazzling, already half-drunk with pleasure, and only looked at him a moment, letting him get an eyeful.

“Girls,” she said, voice throaty. “The guest of honor’s here.”

Both turned to him, Chanel with one last flick of her tongue across Jazz’s nipple. Both of them looked eager, hungry, predatory; both raked him over with their eyes, flagrant scrutiny.

“Hey, baby,” Jazz purred. “You wanna join us?”

He stepped into the room already reaching for his belt buckle.

~*~

There was a wide mirror mounted on the wall of the bedroom, and Carter stared at it, the view it offered him of Chanel’s heavy breasts swaying in time to the rhythm of his thrusts as he fucked into her steadily, but not frantically enough to bring either of them off yet. He gripped her hips tight, pulling her back onto his cock again and again, relishing the tight, hot grip of her sex, and the sounds she made: little cut-off moans and whimpers that might have been real, might have been for show. He didn’t care. Liked the way her eyes were shut, and her mouth was open, and the way she clutched the edge of the mattress, trying to keep her knees under her. He could see the play of light on the sweat that sheened his chest; the flex of his abs as he worked his hips.

Every few seconds, he would glance over to the side, to where Jazz lay back against the headboard, propped on a stack of pillows. She held her breasts in her hands, offering them up; the other blonde – Stephanie – knelt between her spread legs, fingering her and sucking at her nipples in turn, back and forth.

“Oh yeah,” Jazz panted, head thunking back against the wood. She arched up off the pillows, chest lifting. “Like that. Oh yeah. Harder. Right there.”

Carter watched Stephanie’s fingers plunge deep; watched her cheeks hollow as she suckled hard at a peaked nipple, and his rhythm stuttered.

Chanel pressed back into him, and he fucked into her hard, harder, his grip on her hips so tight it had to hurt.

“I’m – I’m–” Jazz gasped, and came on a deep, throaty moan.

Stephanie sat back grinning, triumphant, and worked her through it, stroking Jazz’s quivering stomach with her other hand.

Carter closed his eyes a moment, thrusting into Chanel, listening to Jazz come down and catch her breath. He felt like he was on fire, flushed, and breathless, the sweat pouring off him. But he wasn’t ready to come yet, not even close.

“Need a hand?” Stephanie’s voice asked, right in his ear; her hair tickled his shoulder.

When he opened his eyes, she was right there, grinning at him, and a moment later he felt her fingers at the base of his cock. Circling, teasing at where he was joined with Chanel. Then she shifted upward, and he knew she was stroking Chanel’s clit when Chanel let out a quick, breathless cry.

A few more thrusts and she was coming, clenching around him, screaming quietly into the mattress.

He gritted his teeth and kept working his hips until she collapsed; then he slid out, and sat back, seeking her red face in the mirror, seeing its dreamy, blissful expression.

Stephanie stroked the other girl’s back and her gaze went to Carter’s cock, still hard and wet. “Jazz, you weren’t kidding,” she said. “He’s got stamina.”

Jazz chuckled, sheets rustling as she sat up. “You wanna hop on and go for a ride?”

He ended up on his back, Stephanie sitting astride him. She peeled off the used condom, rolled on another, and sat down on his shaft without preamble. “Ooh,” she said with a breathless little laugh. “God, I love this club.” She tossed her hair back and lifted up onto her knees, settling into a hard, fast rhythm right away.

Jazz stretched out beside him, with Chanel sitting behind her, watching.

Jazz raked her nails across his chest, and leaned in to kiss his cheek, his jaw. “You like my surprise, baby boy?” she murmured, tongue tracing the shell of his ear. “Is it cheering you up?”

Stephanie was clenching around him every time she sank down on him, and speech was beyond him at this point. He lifted an unsteady hand, got it tangled in Jazz’s hair, and pulled her in for a kiss.

It was more like panting into each other’s mouths, uncoordinated and sloppy. She bit his lip so hard he tasted blood, and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, tasting wine, and cigarettes, and himself.

Stephanie upped her pace, little, breathy “ah-ah-ah” sounds leaving her mouth on every drop.

Jazz’s nails dug into his pec, he kissed her desperately, and he heard and felt Stephanie come.

“Yes,” she moaned. “Oh my God, yes, fucking Lean Dogs, holy shit.”

She slumped forward, hands braced on his heaving stomach, and he was still hard, still inside her, and he couldn’t take a deep breath, couldn’t think, couldn’t –

“Here, honey,” Jazz said as she pulled back from him, voice all business now. “Here, hold on.”

He closed his eyes, panting, struggling. Stephanie slid off of him, and then he felt Jazz’s familiar hands stroking up his thighs, over the trembling muscles in his belly. Back down in long, sure sweeps, petting him. “It’s alright, baby,” she murmured. “Look at me.”

He managed to turn his head, and open his eyes. All he could see was Jasmine, poised above him, honeyed waves of hair falling around her shoulders. She looked like a washed-up mermaid, beautiful, mystical – and so much softer than she’d been only minutes ago, when she was chasing her pleasure. There was a sweet sort of concern on her face now – one that left him wanting to shrink away from her. She wanted to get off; to fuck and be fucked. She didn’t want to baby him; to take care of him. He was supposed to take care of her, and he–

“No,” she said, gently, and stripped the condom off his cock. She stroked him a few moments, until he was fully hard again; he’d been holding off an orgasm so long that it hurt to be hard at this point. He bit his lip to keep from cursing, his pulse a loud drumbeat in his ears.

“Here, baby,” she said, “I know what you need.” She mounted him, lined him up with her already-wet entrance, and sank down on him slowly.

It was different than it had been with the other girls, and not just because he was bare this time.

She braced her hands on his chest and leaned low, working her hips in slow rolls, barely pulling off. She leaned in to kiss him: his mouth, his forehead, his eyelids, when they fluttered closed.

“You with me, baby?” A low voice, just for the two of them. “You feeling good?”

He slid his hands up her thighs, smooth and flexing, and found her hips; cupped her breasts, briefly, squeezed hard like he knew she liked until she hummed against his mouth. Then he latched onto her waist, gathered himself, and rolled them.

He opened his eyes when he was poised above her, saw her grinning at him.

“There he is,” she said, and pressed her head back against the pillow, baring her throat. “Fuck me, pretty boy. Make me feel it for days.”

He pushed her legs up, spreading her wider, and did just that.

Somewhere between his teeth at her throat and her nails scoring his back, he found a moment of peaceful clarity. The strong work and flex of his body, and the soft, feminine yield of hers against it. He felt vital, and alive; felt needed, and wanted, and he wanted in return with the kind of hunger that always threatened to swallow him whole.

He shouted against her collarbone when he came, vision going black and star-studded. And for that moment, nothing was wrong, and nothing hurt, and he understood perfectly why Tango had drowned all the bad in his life with sex for so long.

~*~

Carter sat against the headboard, scrubbing a hand through his sweat-damp hair, dazed and numb. He took the glass of wine Jazz offered with a nod of thanks, and drank half of it down in a single gulp.

Stephanie and Chanel were getting dressed; Stephanie zipped up the back of Chanel’s dress and said, “Like, seriously, is there a farm where they grow these guys or something?” Her voice had lost all its seductive tease and was just normal. A girl-talk voice. He may as well have not been in the room.

Jazz chuckled as she sat down on the edge of the bed, wrapped up in a silk robe, now. “You’ve been hanging out with those new boys, haven’t you, Steph?”

“Oh my God.” She made a dramatic expression, back of her hand pressed to her forehead. “The fucking Wonder Twins, those two.” She shot Carter a wink. “No offense, honey, you were fantastic.”

“New boys?” he asked after his next sip. “Boom, and Deacon, and them?”

Stephanie laughed. “Uh, no. Tenny, and the quiet one, Reese? Holy shit. He doesn’t have to say a damn word if he fucks like that.”

“Do you do the two of them together every time?” Jazz asked.

“Yeah.” Stephanie tossed her hair, looking proud of herself – and a little flushed. “Ten said Reese was a virgin, which, not now! I popped his cherry, thank you very much. But they’ve had a few of the other girls, too. Always together. I don’t really know what’s going on there, but something is.” She smirked.

Chanel sat down in the tufted chair in the corner to pull on her boots. “Aren’t they both, like, secret agents or something?”

“Something,” Jazz agreed.

“They’re hot is what they are,” Stephanie said, stepping into her heels.

Carter felt like none of this was gossip he was supposed to be hearing, but the persistent numbness kept him from forming an opinion on the sexual habits of their resident assassins – who was he to talk, after all?

“Thanks for coming, ladies,” Jazz said, and they all laughed when they realized the double entendre. “I’ll walk you out.”

Carter finished his wine and stared unseeing at the empty threshold, listening to their voices fade down the hall toward the front door. He tried and failed to define how he felt about what had just happened – only knew that it had been both too much and not enough at the same time.

Jazz returned a moment later, leaned a shoulder in the doorjamb and tipped her head, offered him a quiet smile. Concern marked her brow. “You doing alright, baby boy?”

He nodded.

Her smile widened, close-lipped, tinged with sadness. “No, you’re not.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but instead, to his horrified shame, his eyes filled with tears, and his throat closed up.

He blinked them away fast. Cleared his throat. He didn’t cry.

But she’d seen. “Honey,” she murmured, and came to sit beside him. He tipped his head back, his eyes shut, but she wasn’t deterred; stroked his hair, petting it, tracing along his scalp. She knew all the best places to scratch, and he felt the tension slowly melting from his neck. Let out a much-needed deep breath. She was silent. Waited.

When he could, he opened his eyes and rolled his head toward her, just a fraction, so he wouldn’t dislodge her hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he murmured, his voice rough. “I don’t – there’s nothing wrong. Nothing bad happened to me.”

“Baby, that’s not true.”

He swallowed. “So I didn’t go pro. Big deal. Most people don’t. I knew that was a long shot even before I got hurt.”

She gave him another soft, sympathetic smile, and he was really starting to hate those, the way they made him feel pitied – though Jazz was the last one to pity anyone. That was another thing about her he loved: she didn’t look down on anybody, and hoped you wouldn’t look down on her in turn.

“But it still hurt,” she reasoned. “Even if you thought you’d never make it in the NFL, you still wanted it. It hurts to want something and not get it.” She sounded almost wistful.

“I’m being a brat,” he said.

“You’re being a sweet baby boy who got dealt a shit hand. And who put up with it without complaining for a long time. And it’s hitting you all at once right now, sweetie. That happens sometimes. It happened with Kev.”

He breathed a humorless laugh. “The shit that happened to Kev makes my shit even lamer.”

“No. Don’t go comparing scars. If we all did that, we’d fall apart.”

“Is that what this is?” he asked, fear stealing through him; he heard it touch his voice, a little shiver. “Am I falling apart?”

“I dunno,” she said, honestly. “But I don’t think so. I hope it’s not. But I think you’re unhappy, and I think you need to start thinking about what would make you happy.”

“You make me happy.”

Her hand stilled at his nape. She leaned in and kissed him, sweetly, lingeringly. Pulled back a fraction, even when he tried to chase her lips. “This, being with you, has been some of the most fun I’ve ever had. But, honey, you’re miserable.”

“Jazz–”

“Now, don’t worry, I’m not blaming myself.” He was helpless but to return the smile she offered. “I’ve got no doubts in my ability to please.” Then she grew serious. “But I don’t want to watch another baby boy go down a dark road. I won’t do it. We can have all the fun you want – four girls next time. Five. We can ask those freaky assassin boys if they wanna join in and we’ll have ourselves a real orgy. But don’t go getting lost in your head and keep quiet about it. If you need help, then ask for it, and we’ll get it for you, whatever that looks like.”

Her words threatened to bring all his thorny, unexamined emotions boiling up to the surface. He closed his eyes again, and rested his forehead against hers. He couldn’t find words of his own, too overwhelmed and shaky.

But, in typical Jazz fashion, she didn’t seem to need them. She stroked the back of his neck. “You’ll always have me,” she whispered, fiercely. “No matter what.”

Five

Carter showered, dressed, and headed back for his dorm at the clubhouse. It was late – after three in the morning by the time he’d had coffee and the sandwich Jazz insisted on making him – but he hadn’t wanted to sleep over. Her sheets reeked of sex and, despite being bolstered by her care and support, he felt a little unmoored. He needed quiet; needed his own bed and a chance to gather his thoughts.

The lights were off in the clubhouse save the few that were always left burning at night to keep people from stumbling into the furniture.

Carter was startled to run into a tip-toeing figure at the mouth of the hallway. A girl, he realized, one of the newer Lean Bitches. Meg? Mary? Something. She was carrying her high-heels by the straps, and even in the meager glow of the light above the bar he could see her tousled hair and badly-smudged makeup. She looked a little shell-shocked, dazed – but not necessarily in a bad way. Looked the way he had in the mirror just a short while ago: all fucked-out.

She pulled up short, and so did he, and they regarded one another a surprised moment.

“Sorry,” he said.

She offered an “excuse me” and stepped around him; tip-toed for the main door.

Halfway down the hallway, a silhouette stood leaning in a lighted doorway; the cherry of a cigarette glowed and swelled, chased by the quiet sound of an exhale.

Carter had to walk past whoever it was to get to his own dorm. Paused only long enough, when he was alongside the guy, to catch a glimpse of his sharp-featured face in the cigarette’s glow, the glimmer of blue eyes. Tenny, shirtless, in unzipped jeans, stinking of sex and sweat.

As Carter passed, and their gazes collided, a hand reached out from inside the door, closed on Tenny’s wrist, and pulled him inside. He went willingly, his movements coiled and languid like a big cat. Carter got a glimpse of Reese’s odd, haunting face, his pale hair in snarls around it, and then the door shut, and he heard the low murmur of voices.

He gave a little eyebrow shrug – Stephanie hadn’t been exaggerating – and continued on.

His dorm was like all the others on this hall: room for a bed, and a dresser. A closet, a bathroom. They all had the same dated orange carpet, because Ghost could afford to buy up bars and cafes, but why spend good money on perfectly serviceable carpet? He’d left the bed unmade this morning, and he stripped down to his boxers and fell back onto it. Clicked off the lamp, and waited for sleep to claim him.

It was a long time coming, though.

He was physically exhausted, but his mind kept going over all that Jazz had said there at the end. He wasn’t happy. He did feel like he was drowning; slowly being crushed beneath the weight of waves through which he didn’t know how to swim. Admitting it, even to himself, felt like incredible weakness, though. He had food in his belly, and a roof over his head. Had a bike to ride, and friends to depend upon. Had all the sex anyone could ask for.

He should be happy.

He was living the dream.

So why didn’t it feel like he was?

He finally drifted off while he was chasing answers, all of them sliding through his fingers, just out of reach.

~*~

Chanel was bustling about in the kitchen the next morning, and Carter’s face warmed when he passed her on the way to the coffee pot.

“Morning, sugar,” she said, brightly, without a hint of flirtation. No winks, no sly looks. It was like nothing had happened.

“Morning,” he echoed, relieved it wasn’t awkward, filled his mug and headed out.

Tenny and Reese were sitting side-by-side on the couch, watching TV, devouring plates of eggs and toast with the same mindless economy of movement. They could have been twins, one light and one dark-headed.

Both of them glanced toward the sound of his footfalls, and Carter froze a moment, like he had last night.

There were dangerous Lean Dogs, violent Lean Dogs; Dogs with short fuses and big biceps. Guys who would kick your ass as soon as look at you. But no one had a stare like these two. That eerie, inhuman calculation; perfect blank masks that revealed nothing of their thoughts. Like robots.

The moment stretched on too long – Carter had the sense he was being challenged, dared to say something – and then Tenny slipped on his other mask, the one that was all for show, his pretend-person façade, and smirked at him before they both turned back toward the screen. It was a sitcom rerun, the sort of old, laugh-track, early-2000s thing Carter didn’t watch anymore because fake laughter hit him the wrong way these days.

Tenny aimed his fork at the TV. “You need to learn how to do that with your face,” he told Reese.

“Do what?”

“Change expressions, you tit.”

“I can change expressions,” Reese said, in that strange, flat voice of his that proved he probably couldn’t.

“Not worth a shit, you can’t. And even then, you only make faces at me.”

“You’re very easy to make faces at.”

“Oh-ho, he’s working on his jokes.”

“Morning, guys,” Carter muttered, and headed for the door.

He was almost there when a voice behind him shouted, “Hey, asshole!” That could have been directed at anyone, and was probably directed at Tenny, so he kept going. But then: “Hey, I’m talking to you, preppy-ass motherfucker!”

Okay, that was definitely him.

He turned – in time to see Boomer rushing at him, face set in a snarl. His first instinct was to throw his hot coffee at his attacker, and was a little startled by the violence of that thought. Instead, he dodged the rush, side-stepped Boomer’s swipe, and Boomer ran into the corner of the wall, only just getting his hands up in time to keep from cracking his nose against the sheetrock.

The thing about Boomer was…he was kind of a doofus. “He’s a dumbass,” Ghost had said, bluntly. But Carter saw it more as a case of Boomer being, despite his tumultuous upbringing, a bright-side sort of guy. There was an innocence there that most of them found endearing.

It was easy to forget, then, that he was a big guy. His dad was all long and lean, with the silky, good kind of hair Carter was convinced he dyed to keep it lion’s mane gold. Boomer, though, was all beef. The sleeves of his t-shirt threatened to rip as he pushed off the wall and turned his wrath on Carter for a second time.

“Fucking asshole!”

Carter held up his free hand in a placating gesture. “Okay. Hold on. Why am I an asshole?”

“Oh, Boom, don’t!” Chanel called from the kitchen.

Ah. So she’d told him.

“You–” Boomer started, reaching toward him.

Carter stepped behind a chair. “Look, I didn’t–”

“You can’t go around fucking other people’s old ladies!”

Carter put another chair between them, but Boomer kept coming, brushing them aside. “Jazz invited her, and it wasn’t like–”

“Asshole!”

“Okay, yeah, you said that.” Something bumped against the backs of his legs; a fast glance revealed the coffee table. They’d backed all the way across the common room. Tenny and Reese were staring at him, now, instead of the TV. “A little help?” he hissed.

Reese said nothing.

Tenny said, “Throw the coffee in his face.”

“Thanks. Boomer, listen–”

“Chanel’s my woman, and you have no right…” Boomer’s big hand was coming at his face, now, maybe his throat, and, shit, he really was going to have to throw the coffee, wasn’t he?

“Boomer!” Chanel snapped, and Boomer froze. Turned toward her as she stalked toward them, face a thunderhead, heels rapping like gunshots on the floorboards. “What in the hell are you doing?” Carter had never heard her raise her voice, or be anything but solicitous with everyone.

All the anger drained off Boomer’s face, and he looked helpless as a child. “I don’t…but you…and he…”

She folded her arms. “He didn’t do anything I didn’t want him to. Jazz invited me over, and I wanted to go, and I went. It’s simple as that.”

Boomer swallowed with an audible gulp. “But you’re–”

“Don’t say my woman. Don’t you dare. Because I’m not.”

“But–”

“Do you see a ring on this hand?” She lifted it for inspection, manicured fingers wiggling. “Have you ever even asked me out on a date? I like you, Boom, and we have a good time, but until you’ve got the balls to tell me you want us to be exclusive, I’m gonna do what I damn well please. Understand?”

Good for her, Carter thought, relaxing a fraction.

A mistake, it turned out. Boomer gaped at her a moment, opened and closed his mouth a few times, soundlessly, out of arguments. The sharp turn of his head was Carter’s only warning, and then one of his meaty fists was coming right at Carter’s face.

Oh shit, he had time to think, and then everything went black.

~*~

“It’s kinda scary how much he already looks like Aidan,” Leah said with a chuckle, touching one of the dark curls on top of little Ash’s head.

He smiled at her and said, “Ada.” He couldn’t say “Aidan” properly yet.

“Oh, I know.” Maggie’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “The DNA is strong. Almost done…there, okay, it’s printing.” She swiveled her chair to face Leah. “You got many interviews lined up?”

“Uh…well…”

The printer chugged to life, spitting copies of her resume out into the tray.

“Ah.” Maggie chuckled. “I get it. Having never actually interviewed for a job” – she gestured to the Dartmoor main office around them – “I absolutely get it.”

“I looked online last night,” Leah said. “There’s some places I’m gonna apply to.”

“Geez, hon, don’t sound so excited about it,” Maggie joked, but softened the words with a motherly look. The same worry and sympathy her own mother had turned on her last night. Leah both appreciated and hated it. “You know, if you’re interested, the offer still stands that we can help you find something.”

Her smile felt more like a wince. “That’s really sweet.”

“But you want to be stubborn and do it on your own,” Maggie said, not unkindly. “I get it.”

“But you think it’s stubborn.”

“I think it’s brave, and admirable. But there’s no shame in taking help from friends, sweetie. Ghost’s name opens doors in this city, and if he can open one for you, I say why not take it?”

It was a very valid point. Even her parents had agreed. “They’re offering to help?” her dad had asked last night, brows lifted. “Well, damn, that’s great.” He’d thought she was stubborn, too, but she thought her mom had understood.

“I don’t–” she started.

And the door banged open.

She twisted around in her chair and saw three people crowded in the threshold: two young guys she didn’t recognize, and between them, his mostly-limp arms draped across both their shoulders, was Carter.

“Holy shit,” Maggie said, without inflection. “What’s going on?”

Carter had a bloodied nose; red had dripped all down his mouth and chin, and stained the front of his white t-shirt. His head hung low, but he was awake, Leah noted – or, at least his eyelashes were fluttering.

The guy with the dark hair said, “Boomer decked him.” He had a crisp British accent. (Honestly, how many Brits were there around here these days?)

Maggie pushed her chair back and got to her feet. “Boomer did? What the hell for?”

“Carter had sex with Chanel,” the blond guy said, his voice toneless, his expression very blank. Spookily blank.

The British guy breathed a harsh laugh. “Him and every-bloody-one else.”

Maggie muttered under her breath and moved to stand in front of Carter; took his chin in her hand and lifted his head. He was conscious, but glassy and out of it. “You get your bell rung, kiddo?” she asked.

He swallowed. Licked blood off his lips. “Yeah.”

She lifted a hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Uh…five?”

“Lucky guess.” She stepped back. “Sit him down, then. We need some ice.”

“Reese has it in his pocket,” the Brit informed her as they shuffled Carter into the office and got him situated in the chair beside Leah’s.

Reese produced a cold pack that he pressed into Carter’s hand.

“Thanks,” Carter mumbled. He tipped his head back and pressed the pack to the bridge of his nose. “I think it’s stopped bleeding.”

“Did you black out?” Maggie asked.

“Fell like a tree,” the Brit said with a malicious grin that Leah found herself recoiling from physically. He demonstrated with his arm. “Right back on the coffee table.” The grin became a sneer. “He spilled coffee on my boots.”

“Tenny,” the other one, Reese, said, a bit of inflection touching his voice. A reprimand.

“Well, he did.” The Brit – Tenny – gestured down at his feet. “And these are brand new.”

“They need a little character, then,” Maggie said, sharply. “No self-respecting Dog oughta be walking around here in squeaky new boots.”

The tiniest smile flickered at the corners of Reese’s mouth.

“You two go do – whatever it is you do on a Wednesday. Shoo.” She waved, and they both left.

“She doesn’t like you,” Leah heard Reese say, as they slipped out the door.

“The tragedy. How will I survive?” Tenny shot back.

Maggie stared at the door a minute after it was closed, hands on her hips, shaking her head. “If Fox doesn’t get hold of that one, I’m going to.” It sounded like a threat, and knowing the queen, it wasn’t an idle one.

Then she turned to Carter. “Well. Let’s take a look.”

He lifted the ice pack away and Maggie tutted and fussed over his face, touching the already-swelling, already-bruising line of his nose with careful fingertips. “It might be broken.”

He swallowed again – swallowing blood down the back of his throat, probably, based on the thickness of his voice. “Feels like it.”

Maggie bustled around behind her desk, and rummaged through one of the drawers. “Did you really sleep with Chanel?”

A beat passed. “Kinda.”

Maggie snorted and produced a package of wet wipes. “Jazz not getting the job done anymore?”

“It was Jazz’s idea.”

“Ah.”

Leah felt like an interloper in the worst way. She was struck again, like yesterday, by the thought that Carter was a very different person from the kid she went to school with. Getting his nose broken because he slept with someone’s girlfriend? His own girlfriend suggesting he sleep around?

She knew things with the Dogs were – different – sometimes, but she’d never pegged Carter as that type. Had always assumed that, even as a one-percenter, he was the sort who’d settle down with a wholesome girl, dedicated and monogamous.

She wanted to get up and leave; this wasn’t her business and, frankly, it was awkward listening in on it.

But she also wanted to hear more. Sue her: sometimes, gossip was juicy.

Maggie set to cleaning the blood off Carter’s face with a wipe, her touch motherly, efficient, and practiced. God knew how many bloodied noses she’d wiped in her tenure as club first lady. “In case you were wondering, Leah,” she said, “nothing at all has changed around here. Men are still dumb, and they do dumb shit on the regular.”

Carter made a face – and then winced for real.

“Hold still,” Maggie told him, and went back to wiping.

He kept his face upturned, his eyes closed. Leah saw a glimmer of wetness on his lashes, at the corners of his eyes. Having your nose broken had to hurt like a bitch; his eyes would definitely have teared up, an automatic reaction to the sinus damage.

But that bit of shine looked like tears to her. Like sadness.

Poor dummy, she thought.

Six

When Ghost found out what happened, because he found out about everything, there was some yelling. Some strong gesturing. Carter endured it with a bowed head, and plenty of nodding and yes, sirs. Boomer went red-faced, and shrank down in on himself, his big shoulders drooping low as he tried to wriggle back into the depths of his chair. Roman cuffed him upside the head, too. “What the hell’s wrong with you, idiot?”

“This isn’t gonna go on,” Ghost said, to wrap it all up, a look encompassing everyone present – including Chanel, cowering back against the kitchen doorframe with her arms banded tight across her middle. “We got enough people wanting to knock us down out in the world” – a hand flung toward the window behind the bar – “without us knocking each other down. If anyone’s messing with an old lady, you bring it to me. If someone’s too much of a chump to ask a girl to go out with him for real, you get the fuck over it.” A dark, hard glare swept across all of them. “Understood?”

He was met with a chorus of yes, sir.

Tenny kicked Reese’s boot lightly with his own, his grin sharp and mean.

Ghost sent him a look. “Don’t push me, Prince Peckerhead.”

Tenny smoothed his face and held up both hands in surrender.

As the impromptu meeting broke up, Evan appeared in front of Carter, his face eager in a way that Carter instantly distrusted. “Dude. Did you really bang Chanel and that new chick, Stephanie?”

Carter stared at him. “Where’d you hear that?”

“I heard Stephanie telling Mary. Dude, did you?”

Carter was reminded, unpleasantly, of high school. Dude, did she really let you finger her? Holy shit, she sucked your dick? You dog!

He sighed. “It’s none of your business.”

“Aw, come on, man, I need details!”

“Leave me the hell alone.” Carter knocked their shoulders together as he walked past, harder than he should have, probably.

“Hey! Ow!”

He tried to keep his head down and lay low for a few days. Boomer didn’t make any more threatening gestures, and he didn’t speak, but Carter was aware of more than a few dark looks thrown his way. One evening, he heard him muttering over on a sofa with Deacon. Deacon said, “He’s not even that good looking, if you ask me.”

He wasn’t now, no, with his nose purple and blue, still swollen, the skin split across the bridge. But it wasn’t the first time that sentiment had been hissed behind his back, not quite out of earshot. The angry guys at school, less pretty, full of jealousy because the girls they liked had winked at him. He’d heard it on the field, too, when the backup quarterback thought he should be the starter. He’s not that good.

He thought about what Jazz had said, about not wanting him to get lost in his own head – to not get so far gone that the darkness closed over him. She hadn’t had a chance to repeat that, to pet and fuss over him, in a few days. He hadn’t been by to see her, and had responded to her texts in only yes and no. When he reflected back on their last time together, that night with the other girls, he couldn’t scrape up anything close to desire or fond remembrance.

It was evening, and he was headed across the parking lot for the clubhouse, on his way to church, when his gaze flitted over a figure sitting in the shadow of the pavilion, long legs draped casually on the bench of a picnic table, smoking. It was Tenny.

Carter looked away and started past him. He couldn’t think of anything in the way of polite chitchat to offer the guy, and knew it wasn’t wanted of him anyway.

But Tenny said, “You need to put him in his place.”

Carter froze, and turned to him. “Who?”

“That wanker who popped you. Boomer.” He made a face like the name tasted bad. “He’s still simmering, and you need to put him in his place before he breaks your nose again.”

Carter stared at him a moment, hating how casual and affected his posture was. He wondered, briefly, if the guy had been waiting here for him, to deliver his message, just because he hadn’t gotten to kill anyone lately and was bored. “Why do you care?”

He lifted a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t. Only offering a suggestion.”

“Yeah, well, thanks but no thanks.” He started to walk off again.

“You won’t last like this.”

Again, he paused, against his better judgement. “What?”

Tenny took a long drag, his gaze hooded, unfathomable; he had the body of a strong twenty-something, but his eyes were hundreds of years old. “This club. As pathetic as it is, it’s going to chew you up and spit you out if you don’t get your head on straight.”

“Gee, thanks, prospect,” Carter bit out. “Glad you’re an expert.”

“I watched you the other day,” he pressed. “And you retreated.” Another sneer. “You’re the senior member here, and he has no claim on that woman, and you ran away and let him hit you.

“This is a pack of wolves. If you act like a sheep, they’ll eat you alive.”

Carter’s hands curled into fists. “Like I said: why do you care?”

Tenny ignored the question. “What if it had gone the other way? What if it was your favorite woman who’d been taken out from under you? Used by someone else?”

“I don’t own anybody,” Carter said, bristling. “Jazz isn’t mine.” Though he’d challenged Candyman of all people about her, once. That seemed decades ago now. “I guess I’m like you,” Carter said, offering a sneer of his own. “Sex is just sex. Nobody has to be my property for me to enjoy myself.”

“No,” Tenny said, expression hardening, his voice on just that one syllable sending a shiver down Carter’s back. “I assure you that we are nothing alike, you and I. Sex can be just sex. But if anyone ever touches my property, I’ll rip him apart piece by piece, and stop his heart last of all.”

He was, Carter could see, wholly serious.

Carter wet his lips. “You don’t have an old lady either.”

“No,” Tenny agreed, and Carter thought of a lighted doorway, and a hand on an arm, and Stephanie saying something.

Tenny grinned nastily. “Have I shocked you?”

“Nothing shocks me anymore,” Carter said, and went inside.

~*~

Ghost had an honest to goodness slide projector set up in the center of the chapel table, projecting an image of the currently-under-construction Bell Bar up onto the wall. All the lights were off, and curls of cigarette smoke lifted up into the beam of projected light, distorting the image.

“General updates, first,” Ghost said.

At his side, Walsh opened up the thick file folder in front of him. “The contractor says it’ll be another six weeks or so on the bar.”

“Six weeks?” Dublin asked, brows raised. “Why so long? It’s already been, what, two months?”

“The plumbing, the mold, the permits,” Walsh said, ticking off on his fingers. “And the window glass we wanted was on backorder, so that’s another delay.”

Aidan took a long drag on his cigarette. “It’s so much easier selling hash.”

“Agreed,” Ghost said, mildly. “But I can’t put hash on my tax return, so.”

“The café and the empty place are totally demo’d,” Walsh continued. “Stripped down to the studs, and all the wiring and plumbing checks out on both. We can’t move forward until we know what’s going in.”

“Maggie will get to make the big café decisions,” Ghost said, and there were nods all around.

“Albie, you were gonna draw up a list of things you’d need for Maude’s?”

He nodded and produced a paper list from his cut pocket that he passed down the length of the table toward his brother. When Carter handed it down, he caught a glimpse of tidy, precise writing in pencil, a thorough, front-and-back list organized by categories and brands. Albie had put a lot of thought into it, obviously; spent time debating and researching different options.

Carter couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that, he thought with a little pang.

Walsh scanned the list, nodded, and tucked it into his folder. “I’ll make up a list for the contractors. You’ll need to do another walk-through and come up with a layout,” he told Albie.

“Yeah, I can do that.”

Ghost clicked a button on the projector, and the image changed: a close-up of the boarded windows of Bell Bar, and the unimaginative graffiti painted across the plywood.

“We’ve replaced the wood twice this week,” Ghost said. “And twice last week, and the week before. And this keeps happening.”

“You need cameras,” Hound said.

“We’re putting them in,” Ghost assured. “But then the question is: if we find out who’s doing this, what do we do with the footage?”

“Shake some cages,” Mercy said with a grin. He cracked his knuckles. “Time for some little dipshits to get scared.”

“Wrong,” Ghost said, frowning. “I mean, yeah, that’s what I want to do. But we have to play this smart. There’s a spotlight on those shops, on the bar. If the public knows we’re setting up businesses on Main Street, then they’ll know that any retaliation against these punks came from us.”

Mercy sighed.

Rottie said, “Have you talked to Fielding about it?”

“Yeah, and he pointed out that the Dogs just got done being in the national news about that whole business in Texas. He thinks that’s what the graffiti’s about: dirty FBI and Dogs all tangled in an international cartel bust – he says people are more afraid of us than ever, and it’s, quote, ‘bound to draw a little payback.’”

“I feel like he musta been grinning when he said that,” RJ muttered.

“Kinda,” Ghost muttered. “And, the bad part is: he’s not wrong, really.”

“We gonna hire a PR guy?” Mercy asked, and sounded like he was only half-joking, his smile slipping away.

Ghost didn’t answer a moment, and Carter felt a jolt of tension move through his stomach. Felt it echoing in the frisson that moved around the table. Chairs creaked as Lean Dogs shifted forward in them.

“We’ve always had an optics problem,” Ghost said. “It comes with the territory. The club has a reputation, and it’s not like we didn’t earn it.

“But we’re not small anymore. It’s okay if everyone hates a little club without any reach. But at this point? We’re very visible. We have power, and people know it. People in this city see us as the enemy.” He gestured to the projected image on the wall. “If someone puts a brick through Bell Bar’s window one night, you know how it’s gonna get spun. The club attracted gang violence to the heart of the downtown shopping district,” he said, scowling. “We can’t let that happen. We need to be in charge of the narrative here.”

No one looked surprised. Carter certainly wasn’t. Anyone who knew Ghost Teague at all knew that he wanted to be in charge of everything – narrative included.

“We’re going to have to be more visible in a positive way.”

“We’ve got that charity run next month,” Rottie said.

“Right. And there’s the thing the Texas girls put together.” Ghost nodded toward Walsh, who produced a new set of paperwork that he passed down the table. Ghost clicked the projector, and the next image was one of three girls, all smiling at the camera; three separate photos laid out alongside one another. “They busted a massive sex-trafficking ring down there,” Ghost continued. “The Chupacabras cartel was snatching American women off the streets and selling them into slavery. All the missing girls from the southwest were accounted for at the rescue, save these three.” He gestured down the table, and Fox stubbed out his cigarette and cleared his throat.

“Right, so. Chelle had the idea, and Eden’s in full support. Old ladies wanting the club to be a place where people can come when something bad’s happened to someone.”

“No warrants necessary,” Albie said. “In Texas…” He made a face. “It was ugly. It was Chelle’s idea, but I agree: we can go where the law can’t; we can rattle cages and get answers. No rules to get in our way.”

“There are people who already know to come to us,” Ghost said. “How are we gonna expand that? Advertise?” Said more than a little mockingly.

“Same way we do everything else,” Fox said, touch of a challenge in his voice. “Word of mouth. We make an example of somebody, and we let word spread.”

There were some thoughtful faces around the table; some nods. Hound looked skeptical – then, he usually did.

Ghost leaned back in his chair, and scratched absently as his bristly chin. “I won’t say it’s a bad idea. I just know we’ve got to be seen doing some good in this city – some public good. Not just bashing heads, but more normal stuff.”

“Look out, boys,” Mercy said in an undertone. “The boss wants us to go legit.”

Ghost gave him a rueful smirk. “Not yet.”

Seven

Walking through the doors of Cook’s Coffee filled Leah with nostalgia. She’d spent her childhood coloring, then reading, and then studying at these small, round tables, now filled with UT students, and mothers with their young children, and businesspeople in suits talking quietly on their cells while they lunched on lattes and fresh pastries.

Her mom was working the register, and Leah paused on her way there, in the moment before she was noticed, to do some noticing of her own. Mom had always been slender bordering on skinny, a lifelong runner and athlete, everything from tennis to mountain biking to water skiing. She seemed too-thin now, though, her clothes hanging off her narrow frame. Light fell in warm panels through the windows, highlighting the bags beneath her eyes, the way her face looked drawn, and sleepless, and tired.

Leah was startled. She talked to her mom on the phone daily, for the most part, and she’d never said anything about being worried. About, God forbid, marital strife, or personal worry. As far as Leah knew, no one in the extended family was sick; nothing terrible had befallen anyone. So why did she look like something was weighing on her?

When Leah stepped up to the counter, Marie lifted her head, spotted her, and she smiled. All gladness and welcome. All signs of stress vanished. “Hi, sweetie! How’d it go?”

Leah slid onto a stool at the counter and tried not to make a face.

Failed, apparently. Marie cocked her head and winced. “That bad, huh?”

“It wasn’t bad. The interview itself was good, actually. She liked my shoes.” She stuck one leg out to reveal the ridiculous platforms she’d worn, the tops and rubberized soles printed with pink hibiscus flowers. The rest of her outfit was black and white and muted, but she’d had to spice it up at least a little.

“Those are the cutest,” Marie said.

“Yeah, she thought so, too.” Leah felt her momentary smile dim. “And she said my resume was great. But they won’t have a position available until next month. I got the feeling they’ve had a ton of applicants.”

“Well, you’re bound to be the best one.”

“Mom.”

“And a month isn’t that far.”

But it was when you needed to make rent, and Leah could see that her mother knew it, based on her slight wince. She was trying to look on the bright side, though, the way she had Leah’s whole life.

“Oh, honey,” she said, in response to whatever Leah’s face was doing, her voice softening. “Something’ll turn up.”

An array of local business cards sat perched in plastic holders on this part of the counter, free advertising for the florist, and the salon – and Dartmoor Cycle Repair. Leah traced the corner of the card, with its familiar black dog silhouette – with a fingertip. She’d matched the pink of her nail polish to the pink of the hibiscus on her shoes. “Maggie’s offered to help me find something,” she said in an undertone, reluctantly.

“She did? Well, let her!” Marie laughed. “There’s your answer right there!”

Leah lifted her head, frowning, already forming a response – but a customer arrived, a harried-looking young woman with a laptop bag and a Tennessee sweatshirt. Marie held up a finger and stepped aside to take her order.

Leah picked up one of the Dartmoor cards and swiveled around on her stool, surveying the mostly-crowded shop, the pedestrians passing the windows out on the sidewalk. The air smelled of strong, freshly-ground beans, flaky pastry, gooey chocolate. Sweet, soothing, familiar scents. I should just work here, she thought, but then caught sight of a high school-age boy in a blue Cook’s Coffee apron bussing a table. Her paycheck here wouldn’t cover her expenses, and she refused to take a job from a teen who needed it.

She glanced down at the card in her hand, that symbol that drew love and hate, awe and contempt in this city. For her, the Dogs had always meant Ava, her best friend; had always meant plenty to eat, and a free car tow, and a cheeky grin from Aidan. They’d never frightened her.

“Maggie has contacts,” Marie said, and Leah turned back around. Mom had her hands braced on the counter, head titled to a no-nonsense angle. Imploring. “You just interviewed with my contact. What would it hurt to let Maggie help if she’s willing?”

Nothing, she knew, logically. It would hurt nothing. The Dogs got things done in this city. Maggie could open all sorts of doors: sometimes with sweetness, and sometimes with force. Leah’s parents had never seemed bothered by that fact. Dad had served in the Marines – stationed in South Korea, where they’d found her, and adopted her – and he was a realist under his good cheer. She’d asked him once, when she was a kid, why Ava got picked on at school because her dad was a Dog. Her own father had shrugged and said, “Some people are assholes, and like to beat up on others. And some people get shit done: that’s Kenny Teague.”

“I guess I’m just being stubborn,” she admitted.

Marie nodded, and bit back a smile. “Wonder where you got that.”

Leah snorted, and replaced the card. “Did you guys know the Dogs bought up most of this block of shops?” Cook’s sat at the very end of the strip that housed Bell Bar and the future Maude’s.

Marie nodded and picked up a rag to wipe at the spotless counter. “Yeah. They’ve got the construction going all the time now. This section of street’s really gonna look good and cleaned up. It’s needed a makeover for a while.”

It had. But Leah saw a twitch at the corner of her mother’s mouth, a faint sign of tension. She thought of what she’d seen when she first walked in, those shadows beneath Marie’s eyes.

“Mom,” she said, carefully, and Marie’s head snapped up. “Is everything okay?”

“What? Yeah, of course.” Marie laughed, a forced, brittle sound, and glanced down at the counter.

“Mom?”

Marie’s head lifted again, and she gathered a breath. Leah watched a variety of emotions flicker across her face; saw the debate happening behind her eyes.

But then the bell jangled above the door, Marie’s gaze shifted toward it, and she put on a mostly professional smile – one tinged with true warmth. “Afternoon, boys.”

Leah turned to see Aidan, Tango, and Carter walking up toward the counter. Carter was sporting two ugly, but healing shiners; he wore a bit of tape across the bridge of his nose, still, the skin around it mottled purple and green. He looked exactly like someone who’d been punched in the face by a jealous boyfriend.

“Hi, Mrs. Cook.” Aidan propped a hip against the front of the counter and perused the cookies that waited there behind the raised, glassed-off display case. “You got any peanut butter chocolate chunk today?”

“Always.” Marie snapped open a paper bag. “Carter, honey, what happened to your face?”

Aidan snorted. “He tripped and fell on some dipshit’s fist.”

“What happened?” Marie asked, tone taking on a distinctly maternal edge. Women of all ages were fooled by Aidan’s bad boy swagger and good looks, but never Leah’s mother.

“Nothing, ma’am,” Aidan said. If his grin was aiming for innocent, it missed the mark by a long shot. “Shop accident.”

Leah studied Carter; the way he stood with his head ducked, shoulders drooping, hands shoved in his pockets. He’d come along with his club brothers, but he didn’t want to be in here; didn’t want anyone to see his face, probably.

When he lifted his head, she caught his gaze, and offered a smile.

He turned around.

“Mrs. Cook,” Aidan said, as Marie passed him a bag full of cookies. “Thanks. But I’ve got a favor to ask, too. Can we watch your security footage?”

~*~

“According to my guy at the city, three people have asked to see the records for our new properties,” Ratchet said, bringing up and then minimizing files on his laptop screen at a dizzying pace. “Rodney Cosgrave, who owns that strip mall over by the AMC theater. Doug Wallace, who’s doing all those house flips on the east side of town. And – here’s the interesting part – Pete Weston.” He pulled up a driver’s license photo of a young guy with pale hair and a red-and-white striped tie.

“Why is that the interesting part?” Ghost asked.

“He works for the mayor’s office.”

“He own business property?” Walsh asked, standing behind his other shoulder.

“No, nothing. He’s a glorified secretary. My guess is: he wasn’t down there looking at property records for his own benefit.”

Ghost itched for a smoke. He settled for scrubbing at the back of his neck when the skin there prickled with a premonition. “So the mayor’s looking at who’s buying up property on Main Street.”

Walsh, who, to Ghost’s knowledge, hadn’t promised his wife he’d quit smoking, took a drag off his cigarette and sent Ghost a lifted-brow look. “It makes sense that a mayor would want to know who’s buying property in his city.” There was the faintest note of doubt in his voice, though.

Ghost said, “Forgive me if I don’t believe in coincidence, or responsible mayors.”

Walsh snorted.

“What about the security footage?”

“That. Okay.” Ratchet clicked across his keyboard, and opened up a six-way split screen view of paused black-and-white security footage. “This” – the upper left – “is from the Cooks’ coffee place. This is Maude’s, the café, the empty spot, and Bell Bar.”

He pressed play, and the videos must have all been synched up, because Ghost got to watch two people in dark clothes, faces shielded by hoods, walk down the sidewalk and take spray paint to their store fronts. He got glimpses of both their faces – but only pale flashes of chins and noses.

“Could be kids,” Walsh said, again with doubt.

“Could be.” Ghost didn’t think they were dealing with anyone his own age, at least. But they lacked that lanky, loose-limbed gait he’d come to associate with furtive teenagers out for a bit of vandalism. “Did the cameras catch anything specific?”

“Kinda,” Ratchet said. He pulled up one of the videos, and zoomed in. There was a logo on one of the guys’ hoodies, blurry and out of focus. But it was a large, simple design. “Is that a fish?”

Walsh snapped his fingers. “That custom boat place.”

“Flash,” Ratchet said. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He twisted around to regard them. “They sell shirts and stuff there in the office.”

“Yeah,” Ghost said, and scratched his neck some more.

He could envision the way it would play out: taking a trip to Flash, maybe producing a grainy photo of this footage. Asking around. Getting lots of nos and no way, mans. Learning nothing – looking like idiots.

Or…

“I’ve got an idea,” he said.

Eight

Jazz hadn’t asked him to meet her over at the high school this evening, but guilt had been gnawing at Carter’s gut ever since their last night together. He found her car in the parking lot, left his bike in the space beside it, and made his way slowly toward the side entrance as a sugar-pink sunset tickled the bottoms of the clouds.

The door she normally used was over by the art rooms, where the windows overlooked the soccer and practice fields. The low bleachers there offered the perfect place to sit and wait for her; to enjoy the breeze, and the sunset. And, tonight, he noted with a stirring of nostalgia, football practice again.

The team was split into smaller groups tonight, running position drills. The quarterbacks were set up right in front of him, working on passes, two young coaches doing all the actual catching, then passing the balls over to the QBs to be thrown.

It didn’t take long for Carter to pick out which was first string: his assuredness with the ball, the easy, athletic way he stood. He turned something as simple as warm-up drills into a show.

His long ball, though, when they shifted on the field, needed a little work. He wasn’t bad. He was plenty accurate enough to handle most of the high schools around here. But if he was trying to play college ball – which he surely must be, given his grace, his musculature, the ready way he offered advice and guidance to his backup, friendly, not threatened by the other boy, but with an authority that commanded respect – he needed to be more precise about being a deep ball right in his receiver’s hands.

A pass was set up: over fifty yards. The wide receiver swung right past the bleachers where Carter was sitting, stiff-armed the defensive back trying – gently, it was only practice – to bring him down, turned, and put a gloved hand up for the ball. The quarterback threw; a beautiful, arcing spiral that caught the now-orange gleam of the setting sun.

And Carter stood up and caught the ball on the third row.

Downfield, he saw the quarterback drop his arms and kick his head back in disappointment.

The wide receiver trotted to a halt and burst into laughter. “Hey, man!” he called to his QB, hands on his hips as he caught his breath.

The quarterback made an I know, I know gesture and turned to listen to what his coach was saying, too far away for Carter to hear.

When the WR turned, Carter tossed him the ball. Not a true pass, not enough to tweak his bad rotator cuff. But far enough for the old thrill to light up his gut.

“Hey, that’s pretty good, biker man,” the wide receiver said.

Carter twitched him a grin and nodded before he jogged back up the field. “Used to be,” he murmured to himself.

~*~

When Jazz emerged from the school, he was surprised to see that she wasn’t alone. She was walking with two other women: one lanky, young girl with a shy face, and a middle-aged woman with curly red hair who he was pretty sure worked at Smokey’s. He swore he’d seen her waiting tables there. They made an incongruous picture, the three of them, as they headed down the sidewalk three-abreast. The matron, the school girl, and the biker chick. Even if Jazz was dressed a little more conservatively these days – at least for class – there was no dampening her general sex appeal. But they were all talking animatedly. The shy-looking girl said something, and Jazz’s laughter floated along on the evening breeze.

She hadn’t been expecting him to show up, if the surprise on her face was anything to go by when she finally spotted him. “Well, hey – Carter!” His name sounded funny on her lips, and he realized it was because she hardly ever used it. He was always “baby boy,” just like Tango had been. She had a type, obviously.

He offered a little wave, very aware of the stares of the other two. “Hi. I thought I’d come make sure you got home alright.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” But she bit her lip and did something she never did: she hesitated. Her gaze shifted left and right toward her classmates – her friends, he realized. They were friends. “But actually, honey, I wasn’t gonna head home just yet. The girls and I were gonna go grab something to eat. Bev gets an employee discount at Smokey’s.” She gave the older woman a friendly nudge with her elbow. “And it’s hot wing night.”

The woman – Bev – chuckled. “Every night’s hot wing night. Tonight they’re just bottomless.”

“I could eat all of them. I’m starving,” Jazz vowed. “But you could come with us,” she offered to Carter, smiling – it wasn’t a hopeful smile, like she wanted him to come. Maybe she didn’t. This felt like charity. “We’re gonna be studying, so we’ll be real boring, but you’ll give us something cute to look at.” She gave an exaggerated wink and the other women laughed. The shy one covered her mouth with one hand and blushed.

He considered it a moment. Pictured all three of them spread out at one of the ugly orange booths at Smokey’s, picking at hot wings and turning textbook pages with sauce-stained fingertips. Cokes, and girl talk, and all three of them so different, but working toward the same goal. Trying to better their lives. It was a picture that, when he shoved himself in, looked more like awkward chit-chat. Looked like being on the outside of this experience.

Jazz deserved a study evening with her friends, and he wouldn’t intrude on it.

He shook his head. “No, thanks. Y’all go have fun. Ghost needs me to do some stuff anyway.”

Jazz tilted her head, her gaze searching, worried. “Are you sure?”

He scraped up a smile. “Positive. We’ll catch up later.”

She nodded, reluctant, even more worried. But stepped in to kiss his cheek. “You can come by tonight,” she whispered, as she pulled back, and then gave him a real wink, private and just for him, full of promise.

“Sure,” he said, already envisioning his dorm, his bed, and a drink.

As they walked off toward the parking lot, he heard Bev whisper, “You’re just a regular cougar, aren’t you?”

“Oh my God, you can’t say that,” the shy girl said, and then all three of them laughed.

Carter sat back down on the bleachers, and…just sort of stayed there.

A part of him knew that watching young, healthy guys play football, all of them only just now getting a feel for the dreams that lay ahead, wasn’t good for his psyche. Being reminded of what he’d lost – even if it was a career, a sport, a too-big dream and not a flesh-and-blood person – would only make him feel worse. About everything. But he’d missed this: the smell of the dewy turf, the calls back and forth; the smack of pads colliding and the war whoops of triumph. Football was the sort of thing that got in your blood, and stuck around forever; flaring up in moments of intense fondness, great swells of emotion too nebulous to categorize.

He supposed Aidan had grown up feeling that way about the club. About one-percenter life.

But no matter where that life took Carter, football would always be his first love.

It was nearly dark and the lights had come on with big, echoing thumps by the time the coaches called practice and the boys all packed it in. Carter hadn’t meant to stay so long – he really did have club work to do – but he’d been lulled into a sort of trance by the ebb and flow of practice: reminiscing, wishing.

He felt nearly loopy with it; endorphins, he thought, vaguely. He’d gotten a contact high just from watching people play. That was what he chose to blame his sudden burst of forwardness on.

As the team trooped past, chatting, complaining of sore muscles, and playing with their phones, Carter spotted the first-string quarterback and said, “Good arm.”

The kid froze and lifted his head, gaze already suspicious when it landed on Carter. Most of his teammates continued on, but a few stopped, glancing between the two of them.

Belatedly, Carter realized that maybe the older guy lurking in the bleachers with a Lean Dogs cut didn’t look like welcome company.

“Uh, sorry,” he offered. “I was waiting for my girlfriend, and I watched you guys practice.”

“Dude,” one of the other players said. “Your girlfriend goes to this school?” Two others laughed.

“No, not like – she’s getting her GED. Evening classes.” He gestured over toward the building.

“Didn’t that let out, like, an hour ago?” another kid asked. “Why are you still sitting here in the damn dark?”

“Dude, are you a pedophile or some shit?”

Another player struck a fake scandalized pose and fanned his hand dramatically over his crotch.

Carter wished he hadn’t said anything, now. He’d forgotten how tricky it could be talking to teenagers, and now he felt old, and creepy, and wrongfooted. “I didn’t – I’m not–” he tried, as laughter swelled among the group. He sighed. “I used to play here, in high school. Wanted to go pro. Sorry. I won’t come by again.” He stood, and started down the bleachers while the players feigned terror, screaming, and covering themselves. Something bounced off his forehead: a wadded-up paper cup, he saw, as it landed on the grass.

The quarterback hadn’t spoken a word through all of this, standing tall and rigid, phone clenched in his hand. When Carter reached the bottom row of bleachers, he said, “Knock it off.”

The other players went silent, cutting off mid-laugh, mid-taunt. They froze. True authority had rung in their QB’s voice, and it was obvious they respected him as a leader, going by their reactions.

“Go on,” he said. “Go on and wait by the cars. I’ll be a sec.”

Some doubtful looks were thrown, but the rest trooped off toward the parking lot.

When they were gone, Carter stepped down onto the grass and turned to the quarterback. “Thanks. I wasn’t trying to start shit. I won’t come back.”

The kid’s next words froze him in his tracks. “You’re Carter Michaels.”

Carter turned back to face him. He was a little taller than Carter, and with his head tipped back, his gaze low-lidded, assessing, guarded, he regarded him with a regal sort of judgement that so many teenagers played at, but never possessed. He was built a little thicker than the average quarterback. His sweaty t-shirt and shorts clung to thickly muscled shoulders, biceps, and thighs. This kid spent a lot of time on weight training, and it showed. Carter had watched passing drills today, but he could see the speed in him; knew that, if given a run play, this quarterback could put his head down and bull right through the defenders. Light on his feet, he’d be hard to sack; give him a gap, and he’d be dangerous headed for the endzone.

“I am,” Carter said, not bothering to hide his surprise. “How did you recognize me?”

His voice carefully modulated, the quarterback said, “Your picture’s on the wall in the weight room. Y’all won state that year.” His gaze tracked deliberately down to Carter’s boots and back up; his lip twitched, not a sneer, but not a smile, either. “You look a little different now.”

Carter plucked at the front of the cut. “As you can see,” he said, dryly, “I really hit the big time after college. You want a ‘stay in school’ poster? I’m your man.”

Another lip twitch – a reluctant smile, this time. The kid had a stern face, but his smile, a glimpse of bright teeth in the dark, softened him; gave truth to the fact that, despite looking like he could bench press Carter, he was still just a teenager.

“Coach said you went to Texas A&M,” he said, tone a little easier now.

“Yeah, and then I ruined my shoulder.” Carter touched it, phantom pain flaring. “Now I’m a creepy-ass biker.”

The kid laughed. “Nah. Just…I mean. A little.”

Carter winced. “Yeah, sorry. I just miss it, sometimes.” He gestured out across the field. “You know?”

The quarterback nodded, expression growing serious again. “I know.” He glanced out across the expanse of grass, profile limned a moment by the lights. With a little notch pressed between drawn brows, Carter could see it so easily: the SI cover. The country was full of good, talented ball players, but this kid – this kid had that ephemeral something special. It clung to people, radiated off them like stardust. It didn’t always mean that success was guaranteed, but Carter hadn’t seen it up close and personal like this in a long time.

That old thrill again.

When the quarterback faced him again, he tipped his head, braids rustling against the back of his shirt. “You caught that pass.”

Carter nodded. “Like I said: good arm.”

The kid snorted. “Yeah. If I’m trying to throw it into the stands.”

Carter offered a sympathetic smile. “You can work on accuracy.”

“I can run the ball. I am damn good at running the ball.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“And I can throw. But.” He made a face that betrayed his nerves. “If I can’t make the deep pass by the time the scouts come around.” He shook his head, face creased by a momentary hopelessness.

“You’ve got some time.”

“Coach just keeps saying–” He bit his lip, and shook his head again.

“Coach thinks yelling about it more will make it better,” Carter said, remembering all too well. “He’s not exactly about the nuance.”

“For real.”

Ghost’s words from earlier came back to him. The assertion that they were going to have to ingratiate themselves more with the community; make connections with people in a way that didn’t rely on dealing or intimidation – so that more people would turn to them in times of crisis.

He took a breath – and a chance that, even fifteen minutes ago, he wouldn’t have thought he’d take. In typical fashion, lately, he made it awkward and distinctly un-biker-like. “Hey. Um. If you want – I mean, there’s private coaches out there. You could hire somebody. But if you just want some pointers, I could…I could help. Maybe. If you want.”

Damn it, he thought, after. That was a real winning offer.

The quarterback stared at him a long moment, expression inscrutable. His voice had gone careful again when he said, “You a biker or a coach?”

“Not really much of either, honestly. I know a few things, though. Or, I used to. The arm’s busted, but the brain still works. If you’re interested.”

The kid wet his lips, started to respond – and hesitated. “Lots of people say lots of things about the Lean Dogs in this city,” he finally said, and Carter had been a Dog long enough to pick up on that particular note of fear, no matter how small or well-hidden.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “They do.”

The kid nodded toward his cut. “Why’d you join?”

In the moment, the true answer was also the easiest to voice. “Because I had absolutely nothing. My dad was shit, my job was shit, my future was shit. And a friend gave me a chance to be a part of something.”

Though what his own part in that something was, he still sometimes wondered. He wasn’t a killer; wasn’t a spy; wasn’t especially good with money, or business. He brought no ideas to the table; he didn’t serve a single function that someone else couldn’t serve. He was a body in a cut. The realization wasn’t a new one, but it hit him hard and sudden now, standing in the half-dark, talking to a kid with the kind of bright future he’d always wanted.

He sighed. “Look. I know what gets said about the club. I’m in it. I know that things aren’t always–” He offered a vague hand gesture. “On the up-and-up. But I’m not talking to you right now as a Lean Dog. As a former state champ who got a full-ride football scholarship to an SEC school: I can help you. If you want. If you don’t, it won’t hurt my feelings.”

The quarterback studied him another moment longer – so long Carter nearly cut his losses and walked away. But, finally, the kid adjusted his backpack and stuck out his hand. “Elijah Henry.”

Carter accepted his shake – as firm and strong as expected. “Good to meet you, Elijah.” He realized he was smiling.

Nine

Dear Ms. Cook, While you certainly are a strong applicant, at this time…

Leah exited Gmail without bothering to open her latest email. She would go back and read the whole rejection later – “Sometimes they ask you to reapply later,” her mom would say – but right now, she didn’t feel like being told she yet again wasn’t a good fit.

“Any luck?” her dad called from over behind the counter.

She shook her head.

“Next time, tiger. You’ll get it.”

She offered a half-hearted smile, but didn’t turn her head to see his go get ‘em smile. She just couldn’t right now.

Around her, the coffee shop hummed with its usual evening crowd: mostly students, mostly in groups. They’d dragged tables together, and the low murmur of voices was cut by the occasional sharp, quickly-shushed bubble of laughter.

She glanced up in automatic reaction when the door opened, surprised to see Carter there, back again for the second time that day. His bruises looked even worse.

“Hey,” she said, and he glanced over, a little startled. “Hey. You’re here again.”

“So are you,” he countered. He hesitated a moment, looking at the chair across from her. When she pushed it out with her toe, he pulled it back the rest of the way and sat. “Homework?” he asked, nodding toward her laptop with a bare scrap of a smile to show he was teasing.

“Job hunting,” she said, making a face. “Job not-getting, actually.”

He winced in sympathy.

“I think I’m gonna have to take Maggie up on her offer to help me find something.”

“She’ll love that. Getting people to do what she wants is kind of her specialty.”

“It’s a superpower.” She closed the lid of her laptop, and saw that Carter had his hands on the tabletop, picking at a scrap of loose cuticle. His knuckles were bruised and scuffed in a way they hadn’t been in high school. Roughed up from garage work? Or had he been throwing some punches, and not just taking them? “So, what’s up?” she asked. “Why are you here?”

“I like coffee,” he said, a touch defensive.

She gave him a narrow look. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

He chewed at the inside of his cheek a moment and glanced toward the window. “Technically, I’m working.”

“Lots of bikes in here that need fixing.”

He rolled his eyes. “Club work.”

“You shaking my parents down for some money?” she asked with a laugh. Then sobered. “Oh, shit, you’re not, are you?”

“No,” he huffed, offended. “This is a stakeout.”

“Ooh. What are we staking?”

He lifted his brows.

“Humor me. I’m bored and I’m jobless.”

He snorted, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. “Okay. So. Top secret.”

“Of course. I did grow up best friends with Ava, you know.”

He nodded, conceding. “Okay, so, you’ve seen the graffiti on the plywood down the block?”

“Yeah. Y’all ain’t as popular as you think you are.”

“Pretty sure Aidan is the only one who ever thought we were popular.”

She snorted.

“We’re trying to figure out who’s doing it. But without scaring the shit out of anyone.”

“You’re fairly non-threatening.”

“I feel like that isn’t a compliment.”

She shrugged, biting back a grin.

“You’re not wrong, though,” he said, frowning. “I’m on lookout. But we’ve got guys stationed on the second floor at Bell Bar.”

She glanced toward the windows. The sun had set only a half-hour ago, and the dinner crowd was thick on the sidewalks; a lovely, cool spring evening had lured everyone to outdoor dining patios and a local production of My Fair Lady over at the theater. In the soft glow of the coffeeshop, one reflected in the window glass, she could see herself easier than she could see the people passing back and forth. She saw clothes, hair colors; had impressions, but she couldn’t have offered a description to a sketch artist. Though she guessed someone with a mask and a bag full of spray paint would stand out.

“What are the guys at Bell Bar gonna do?” she asked, turning back to him.

He made a face. “Honestly? Who knows.”

~*~

They’d taken the glass out of the window, and kept all the lights off, so the second floor opening that overlooked the street below would be the yawning black of a vacant window; unremarkable and unlikely to draw attention. Reese crouched just inside the frame, dressed head-to-toe in black, his face concealed by grease paint.

Beside him, Tenny swiped at his own painted face.

“Don’t,” Reese admonished. “You’ll wipe it off.”

“I’m trying to wipe it off. It fucking smells.”

“It’s practical,” Reese countered. “It’s keeping us hidden.”

“This is the definition of a low-risk op. It’s zero risk. Do you seriously think these spray paint wankers are going to spot us up here?”

“We don’t want them to recognize us when we drop down.”

“They’ll be too busy pissing themselves to take note.”

“Tenny.” It was a warning. Drop it. But he could hear that his voice wasn’t quiet stern; something like affection colored its edges. A new habit: saying his name like that. Now that Tenny was a proper name, and not just a number. It felt right to use it more, and so Reese did. The change had been remarkable. Reese didn’t know that others saw it; Tenny was still insolent, and caustic; still rolled his eyes and acted like everyone around him was a hopeless idiot. But he could see and feel the change. A faint glint in his eyes, the slightest softening of a smirk. His insults felt more like conversation now, and not like attacks. Tenny just…was that way. Reese had learned he didn’t mind.

Mostly.

“You’re chewing gum.”

Beside him, Tenny blew an obnoxiously large bubble with it, and then popped it. Loudly. A second later he went, “Ugh, shit.” And spit the pink wad out through the window. “It got paint on it.”

“Serves you right.”

Tenny’s eyes cut over, the blue of them bright as glass in the gloaming. They narrowed in an affected sort of scrutiny; he might be a good actor, but Reese was learning what was show and what was the rare, human real of him. “You’re getting better at banter.” It was said like an accusation.

“I’ve been studying my environment. And reading.”

Tenny’s gaze narrowed another fraction. “You really are starting to understand humor. It’s terrible.”

Reese felt a bare smile touch his own lips.

A paint-smudged finger appeared in his face. “See? Stop doing that.”

“I thought I was supposed to work on controlling my face.”

“Not to me! It’s for running ops.” The little twitch in his cheek betrayed his own threatening smile, and Reese felt warm inside, like he so often did these days. A comforting sort of internal flush that came with knowing someone who no one else did. In so many things – little day-to-day, social, ritualistic things – he was ill-equipped and left out. But he was the only one who could read Tenny like this, and that felt like a hard-won skill.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he shoved all non-relevant thoughts aside. “Someone’s coming.”

They both glanced down toward the sidewalk. Pedestrians used the sidewalks frequently here, and now, just before the dinner hour, a variety of couples, families, and friend groups tracked past in front of the boarded-up storefronts. Reese spotted their marks right off: two males, both wearing black hoodies, heads down and on a swivel, scanning nervously back and forth. Both of them carried backpacks. When one reached to tug at his hood, Reese spotted the black, leather shine of a glove.

“They’re not subtle,” Tenny remarked in a whisper. “Makes our job easier.”

Reese nodded, and put a foot up on the empty window ledge. Tenny did the same. He could hear the way their breathing fell in sync; felt the vibration of Tenny’s readiness as an echo of his own. The thing about it was: Tenny liked working. Reese had always found a kind of quiet pleasure in knowing he’d executed his task neatly and efficiently, but some of Tenny’s feral thrill for the hunt was starting to rub off on him, he feared. Working as a pair was an entirely different experience, emotionally, than working as a lone wolf.

Below them, the targets moved into position, trying to shrink up against the front of Bell Bar’s boarded windows. A family was passing, and they watched them, waiting for them to move down the sidewalk, hands clutching their backpack straps.

Reese traded a look with Tenny, whose expression, beneath the grease paint stripes, had gone tight and ready, eager, all business. He nodded.

Reese gripped the window frame, and they both dropped out and down at the same time.

Reese had landed like this countless times; Tenny had, too. When he hit, he landed on the balls of his feet, bent his knees, let his whole body take the shock of impact, and he was turning within the same breath.

The two targets in hoodies let out yelps of surprise, and shrank back against the building façade.

One tried to bolt. Tenny grabbed him by his hood, whirled him around, and slammed him face-first into the plywood.

Reese took the other by one unresisting hand and followed suit.

“What the fuck, man?” one of them cried out, and his voice was young. These were kids, and not hardened criminals.

The one Tenny had, his hood down, proved to be a teenager in a beanie hat, his eyes wide and rolling in terror. “Hey, we didn’t do anything! Let us go, let us go!”

Tenny held his wrists together in one hand, and with the other rifled through his backpack. He pulled out a can of black spray paint and shot a look at Reese. “Sure. Not yet.” He was using his American accent; he sounded Southern as a local.

The kid in Reese’s grasp tried to twist away; Reese pinched his wrist until the nerves spasmed, and he subsided with an exclamation, going limp against the plywood. A quick search revealed he was carrying spray paint, too.

“Out for a little light vandalism?” Tenny asked.

“Hey!” a familiar voice shouted from down the sidewalk.

Tenny sighed. “Spoilsport,” he muttered, and Reese was afraid he might smile again. It was getting to be a habit.

~*~

Carter clocked the two kids in hoodies with backpacks, felt a twinge of internal guilt for assuming – but sent the text. Better safe than sorry. And prayed Tenny and Reese didn’t get too rough. They’d been cautioned at length by Ghost, he knew, that they were simply trying to scare whoever this was, and not add notches to their belts, or whatever sick method they used to tally their kills.

“Was that them?” Leah asked, glancing between the window the targets had just passed, and his face. She looked eager. Bored and jobless she’d said a few minutes ago. He guessed this counted as excitement.

He pocketed his phone and pushed his chair back. “I gotta go.”

“No, wait.” She stood, too. “Was it?”

He hesitated; he had a little window of time here. Thirty seconds or so to let Tenny and Reese rattle their quarry. “Maybe. I’ll find out in a minute.”

She stepped around the table. “Can I come?”

“What? No.” He frowned at her, genuinely startled by the request – though he guessed he shouldn’t be. She’d always been the sort of person who leaped into things with both feet. “It’s dangerous.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, it’s teenagers, and you’ve got backup.” When he continued to frown at her, she said, “I’ll stay back. Promise.” And then, voice gong low so they wouldn’t be overheard: “It’s not like I don’t know what the club gets up to.”

She had him there. “Just…stay behind me.”

“Dad, I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder as she followed him out the door.

He couldn’t hear the scuffle taking place down the sidewalk, but he could hear that people were reacting to it. A few low murmurs and shocked gasps. “Oh my God,” he heard a woman say. “Should we call someone?”

“Is that a mugging?”

“Hey,” a man called, “what are you doing? Break that up!”

Carter wended his way through the growing crowd and spotted a tangle of dark clothing in front of Bell Bar. Reese and Tenny, with their all-black tac gear and grease paint, had two teens in hoodies pressed face-first against the boarded-up front window.

Behind him, Leah grabbed at the edge of his cut, a gentle pressure, and let him tow her along, taking advantage of his wake to slip through the bystanders. “Your guys?” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

A woman turned and noted his cut, her eyes widening in alarm.

Hopefully, she would change her tune in the next few minutes.

He turned to look at Leah – she bubbled with excitement, failing to hold back a smile. Crazy girl, he thought, with a sudden swell of fondness. No one could have been Ava’s best friend and be the type to shy away from danger. “Stay here,” he told her.

She let go, and nodded, right at the edge of the crowd – still growing; pedestrians had crossed from the other side of the street, the low roar of voices getting louder.

He faced forward, took a deep breath, and shouted, “Hey! What’s going on here?”

Four faces, two streaked with black and green stripes, turned toward him; the teens’ cheeks were smushed into the plywood, their eyes wild and white-rimmed.

“Please,” the nearest begged, “we didn’t do anything!”

“Walk away, biker bitch,” Tenny said, and, wow, his American accent was flawless. “This isn’t your business.” He’d projected his voice on purpose: overloud and theatrical for their audience.

An audience to which Carter was keenly aware he was showing the back of his cut: his patches, his designation as a Lean Dog. “That’s club-owned property,” he said, projecting his own voice, drawing on all his meager one semester’s worth of Intro to Drama. “So, yeah, it actually is my business. What the hell are you doing? These are just kids.”

Tenny shoved the kid he held, grinding his face into the rough surface of the plywood. “Get lost.”

He heard the exclamations behind him, the shouts and gasps and curses. He said, “Fuck you,” and charged in.

They’d rehearsed this earlier today, at the clubhouse. Carter went in with a swing that Tenny blocked – after he’d let go of his victim. It was choreographed, a few fake punches, some fake grunts on Tenny’s part.

A very not fake glancing blow against Carter’s jaw that snapped his head back and had bright pain sparking through his skull. With real anger, he delivered the last attack: a flurry of blows, and then a kick – it didn’t connect, because Tenny was too fast and too good. Carter caught a glimpse of his wicked smile of delight before he went into a fake tumble that had him rolling out into the street.

Carter squared off from him, hands clenched into fists.

Tenny stood, making a show of it, feigning dizzy and hurt. He even added a limp, and wiped at nonexistent blood on his mouth with the back of a gloved hand, smudging his grease paint.

They locked gazes, and Tenny ducked his head, and started limping down the street, as practiced.

Carter glanced back over his shoulder at the teenagers, still covering. Reese was nowhere in sight, now. “You guys okay?”

They nodded, darting glances toward the crowd.

“Go on, get out of here. Those guys won’t give you any more trouble.”

They didn’t wait; bolted down the sidewalk and around the corner.

The crowd milled; the gasps and shouts had given way to hushed conversations, a low rustling like paper. Carter found the gaze of the woman who’d been startled by him only moments ago, and the fear had given way to thoughtfulness.

Carter lifted both hands in a disarming gesture. “Sorry, everybody. It’s okay.”

“Who was that?” one man asked, covering his fear with lots of bluster, chin and chest thrust outward. “Those guys with their faces painted.”

“I don’t know.” Carter made a grim face, and shook his head. “But we’re gonna try to find out. Nobody should be terrorized on the street like this.”

“The Lean Dogs bought Bell Bar?” someone else asked.

And another: “What are they gonna do with it?”

Why me? Carter had asked earlier, vaguely queasy with panic. I don’t think I’m the best person for this. Not someone bred and born in the club; hardly a mascot.

But Ghost had said, You were a hometown hero for a while there in high school. Some people remember you. And, even better, you’re pretty. He’d grinned. You still look like a prep, and not a tatted-up monster. No offense, Merc.

Mercy had shrugged and grinned.

His face was still a bruised mess, but there was nothing for that. He said, “Yeah, the Dogs bought Bell Bar. It was full of mold and bad wiring, and the old owner couldn’t afford to fix it up. So we’re doing a full reno, and it’ll be back open to the public soon, better than ever.”

That earned him a few considering looks; some head tilts.

“This bar has been a staple for decades, and it needed a facelift. The Dogs are going to give it that.” God, he felt like a politician.

Someone said, “What about these other stores here?” An arm reached up out of the crowd and gestured toward the neighboring storefronts.

“One of those is going to be a boutique furniture store. All handmade originals. I know the craftsman, and he’s been really successful in London, where he was born. The café is being revamped, too. It’s gonna be Southern home cooking. All these businesses” – he gave a sweeping gesture – “will be locally-owned and operated. They’ll be hiring soon, so if you know anyone who’d be interested, tell them to be on the lookout for online job postings.” He offered what he hoped looked like a sincere smile. “Sorry for all the trouble tonight, everyone. Enjoy your evenings.”

When he rejoined Leah, she was beaming, eyes sparkling under the streetlights. “Oh my God,” she whispered, delighted. “You totally practiced all that beforehand, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. I’m not an idiot.”

She laughed. “The whole thing was a PR setup. Nice. Were the kids in on it, too?”

“Actually, no.” He frowned. Around them, the crowd was dispersing, talking amongst themselves, providing a kind of open-air privacy. “I have no idea who they are, but they don’t look like the guys we saw on the surveillance footage.”

“Ah. You let them go, though.”

“Technically, yeah. I did. But Ten and Reese are following them.”

“Ooh, spy shit.”

He made a face. “God. I hate the spy shit.”

She laughed again, and looped her arm through his – a move that surprised him in its casual intimacy. “Come on, number twelve.” No one had called him that in a long time; it filled him with a pang of longing for the old days – and a bit of hope that, maybe, through helping Elijah, he could reconnect with his former football life, at least a little. “I’ll buy you a latte.”

~*~

The kids were fast, slender and leggy and young, and fueled by fright, too. But though they skirted down a couple alleys, and finally clambered into a beat-up Toyota, they were painfully easy to follow.

“There, in that blue car,” Reese said as he slid into the passenger seat of the nondescript blue club truck, and slammed the door.

Tenny was pulling away from the curb before the latch even clicked. He’d wiped his face mostly clean, and handed over a rag without taking his eyes from the road. “If someone looks through the windows, and sees us with our faces camouflaged, that’s going to draw undue attention,” he explained, when Reese hesitated.

He took the rag and started wiping. “They’re heading for the marina.”

“That was my thought.”

After a few more turns, the buildings gave way to the diamond glitter of moonlight on water. Long, floating docks extended out into the river, flanked by tied-up boats: everything from small ski boats to the big, expensive yachts that Tango had explained were often anchored outside the stadium at the university and used for on-the-water tailgating. Reese understood that in practical terms, but not in theory. Humans had such strange rituals…

Ahead of them, the Toyota slowed and turned into one of the many parking lots along the river’s edge. A large lot, with a small, squat office, and, in back, a boat ramp, and a warehouse big enough to back a boat trailer inside. Flash Customs, the sign marked it.

There was no other traffic on the road, so Tenny slowed to a crawl. Slow enough that they could see the two teens scramble out of the car and go pelting inside the office. It had to be closed for business for the night, but the door was unlocked, and Reese glimpsed the faint glow of a light on somewhere deeper inside.

The truck came to a halt.

Reese noted another car in the parking lot, a dark pickup. “They were sent to do that.”

“Which means they aren’t the brains of the operation.” Tenny pulled out his phone; put it on speaker when it started to ring, and Fox’s voice crackled through the cab.

“Status?”

“The op was successful,” Tenny said. His voice went very flat and official when he was talking to Fox about business. “The marks weren’t the ones from the video. Two males, late teens, highly anxious. We followed them to Flash Customs, and they went inside to rendezvous with someone.”

“Should we engage?” Reese asked.

“No.” Emphatic. “Pull back. Ghost and I’ll go tomorrow and have a chat with the shop owner.”

Tenny sighed. “Fine.” He disconnected the call and sat a moment, hands on the wheel, lips pursed in clear disappointment.

Headlights flared in the mirror, a car slowly pulling up behind them. It flashed its brights.

“Go,” Reese urged. A moment later, the horn honked.

Instead, Tenny turned toward him, slowly. Just as slowly, a grin broke across his still-smudged face. One that inspired a faint flutter in the pit of Reese’s stomach.

“If we can’t fight…” Tenny drawled, and laughed, darkly.

In the past few months, Reese had come to know exactly what that laugh meant.

Ten

Leah was surprised that Carter came back for that offered latte, and then accepted a ham and swiss bagel sandwich, too.

“When did you guys start doing savory food?” he asked around a mouthful, taking an appreciative glance at the sandwich in his hands, dripping spicy mustard and frilled with balsamic-dressed arugula.

“About a year ago, Dad said.” She had her laptop open again, filling out more job applications. It was less daunting when she had someone sitting across from her, keeping her distracted. “Customers were coming in for a coffee, and then going somewhere else for lunch, so they added some soup and sandwiches to the menu.”

He took another bite, nodding.

She leaned forward, whispering. “Do you think Maggie’s café is gonna be too much competition? You said Southern home cooking, right?”

“That’s what Ghost said. But he still hasn’t told her about the place yet.”

“Right. Ava said it was gonna be a Mother’s Day surprise.”

“That place will serve whatever Maggie wants it to.”

They shared a mutual snort of amusement.

She bit her lip, after, and glanced toward the counter, where her dad, and one of their young employees, Doug, were mixing complex coffees. “It’s not, though, is it?”

When she glanced back, she found his brow notched with concern. He set his half-eaten sandwich down. “Your folks are doing okay, right? The shop?”

“Yeah. I think so.” She thought of her mother earlier, that quick glimpse of her in the sunlight that had screamed something’s not right to her.

“What?” he prompted.

“I got the impression earlier that my mom was worried about something. But she didn’t want to talk about it.”

“You think they don’t want you to be worried?”

“If something’s wrong, then yeah. What with my whole” – she gestured – “situation.”

He looked like he wanted to ask for details, a spark of curiosity in his eyes. She didn’t blame him. It was only natural.

Which was why, when he picked his sandwich back up, and he’d left his questions unasked, she lobbed one of her own. “So, your nose.”

He froze, teeth sunk into bagel.

“Are you some kind of sex fiend or something?”

He choked.

Leah managed not to laugh – but it was a struggle. With what she thought of as admirable poise, she plucked a napkin from the dispenser on the table and offered it. He took it, pressed it to his mouth, and coughed for what seemed like a solid minute, red in the face, eyes tearing up. Finally, he drained off half his latte in one gulp and let out a deep breath. “Um.”

She lifted both hands, palms toward him. “Hey, I don’t know all the down and dirty. But I was in the office with Maggie that day. Something about someone named Jasmine, and someone named Chanel, and a Stephanie, too, I think.” She couldn’t hide her smile anymore, and his face flushed a deeper shade of red – not from choking, this time. “Holy shit,” she said on a laugh. “You’re a total player, aren’t you?”

“No.” Not one of Aidan’s dishonest refutations, accompanied by jeers and elbows from his brothers. But a true, emphatic denial.

It had her laughter dying away. “Okay. Sorry. It’s none of my business.”

He wiped his mouth again, head ducked, and looked up at her through his lashes, guilty now. It was easy to forget sometimes, when he wasn’t looking at you, how very blue his eyes were. If he was in a fact a player, it was all his pretty face’s fault.

“It’s…” He made a face. “It’s just kinda weird. I have – a girlfriend.” Lots of hesitation there; an uncertainty. “And she’s kinda wild. Free spirit, you know?”

She nodded. “Club life. I get it.”

“No, it’s not…” He chewed at his lip a moment. “I mean, wild stuff does go on. We’re not a bible study group.”

“Shocking.”

“Shut up,” he said, blushing again, but he sat back in his chair, less tense. “It’s like…okay. So. I can’t believe I’m talking about this.” He scrubbed at his face with both palms. “In the club, there are girls who–”

“Have casual sex with the bikers. The Lean Bitches.”

He stared at her.

“It’s like you think I’m a regular civilian or something. In high school, I was at a Dartmoor party with Ava, and Aidan was literally getting a blow job in the middle of the common room. I get it, okay?”

But he shook his head. “I’m not…” Another sigh, this one belly-deep and exhausted. In the span of a second, his face fell, and she saw the lines that hadn’t been there when they were younger. Some from sun, she knew, but there were frown lines, too. A deep, defeated sort of sadness etched into his skin. His gaze dropped to the table, and his fingers fiddled with his wadded-up napkin. His voice came out low, and flat – so much so that she felt instantly bad for poking at what was, she now saw, a sore spot.

“When I first joined, when I was a prospect, and just starting to hang around the club – yeah, I admit that the girls were…” A muscle twitched in his cheek. “I’d never seen anything like that before. In college, there were some wild parties, but at the clubhouse it was just…it was so casual. It wasn’t this big, scandalous thing, you know? Sex? It was just something you could have, and everything was on the table, and it was okay.” His face was beet red, but his expression was still troubled – and determined. She had the sense he felt like he needed to say this.

She was willing to listen. God knew she’d vented plenty in her life.

“I always thought, when I was a kid, that I’d get married. Find a nice girl, and we’d go on dates, and we’d get hitched, and have kids. The whole white picket fence thing. But then I came back home, and everyone else had moved on. Everyone I went to high school with was off at college, or already settling down, and I was just…floating.”

Like she was now. She understood all too well.

“Then I was prospecting, and dating is a whole other thing when you’re a part of the club. You don’t just bump into someone at the grocery store and ask her out for a fancy dinner. It’s like…” He lifted his gaze to meet hers, finally, imploring, and it had her chest clenching in sympathetic sadness. This boy was depressed, and she wondered if anyone else had noticed it.

“The couples I know: Maggie and Ghost. Ava and Mercy. Even Aidan and Sam…that’s not, like, ‘hey, we met on eHarmony’ or some shit. Hell, Emmie was pretty much forced to marry Walsh. It worked out okay, but…”

“I get it,” she said, and saw relief flicker across his face. “I had front-row seats to the Ava and Mercy show back in the day. That was some epic, world-ending, soap opera stuff.”

He nodded, and looked like he almost smiled. “Most people don’t want to be associated with the club. Not civilians, anyway. It’s too dangerous, and too messy.”

She could see how a girl from a calm, law-abiding family would struggle with so many aspects of the club. She nodded.

“Jasmine – she’s my…” He didn’t say girlfriend again. There was pain there, appearing in the faint grooves that bracketed his mouth. “She was in a bad place, when we first got together. And she’s doing a lot better now – she’s doing great. Getting her GED. Ghost is giving her the manager position at Bell Bar. She’s great,” he repeated, voice fading.

“But you’re not.”

He took a quick breath, like he was startled. “Um. Well.” He glanced back at the table. “Not really, I don’t guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, and the movement looked more like his cut didn’t fit than the casual, dismissive gesture it should have. “It is what it is. Everybody goes through times when they’re not happy. Right?” His brows lifted on the last, not quite daring to hope.

She thought of her own current state of mind. There was nothing wrong with her, physically. She had a roof over her head, and loving parents, and a best friend, and this place was her home; it was comfy in all the well-worn, best-known ways that Chicago hadn’t quite been. She didn’t wish she was still with Jason…but she missed him. Sometimes. Lots of times. Mainly at night, when she stared up at the dark ceiling and listed all the ways she could have handled things differently. She felt like a failure. Maybe if she’d been more affectionate, or spent less time at work, or if they’d tried going to counseling…

“Right,” she agreed, throat tight.

He glanced away, absently toward the window. “Anyway.”

It was awkward now. She didn’t know if Carter had the energy or the savvy to fix that.

“So what happens now?” she asked.

His brows went up, and he looked back toward her almost cautiously.

“With the guys who ran off. You said Tenny and Reese were going to follow them?”

“That was the plan.” His expression turned grim, but his body relaxed, some of the tension dropping from his shoulders. “They were told not to engage with anyone, but with those two, who knows. Reese is pretty good about following orders, but Tenny’s a total wild card. He got himself shot in Texas being a dumbass.”

“Engage,” she said. “This really is spy shit, isn’t it?”

“Kinda? I guess? I dunno. All I know is that those two aren’t your regular garden variety biker.”

“Where’d they come from? I thought Tenny was British, the other day at Dartmoor.”

“Oh, he is. He does accents, same as Fox.” He made a face. “Honestly, I think he’s from hell.”

Eleven

Each time they ended up like this – which happened with more and more frequency – Reese marveled that he’d gone so long without anything like it. It wasn’t something he’d wanted before; he’d never thought about it, never wondered, really. There was a part of him that felt…lesser, for enjoying it. He’d been a finely crafted machine, and machines didn’t want or hunger.

But he was a person now, after all, so this was expected. Was encouraged.

They were in his dorm; Tenny had his own, but rarely seemed to use it, and never for anything like this.

Reese sat propped against the headboard, his legs spread, Stephanie on all fours between them. The hot, wet suction of her mouth on his cock had blurred his normally-sharp senses. He watched her through low-lidded eyes that kept wanting to flutter shut; watched the stretch of her painted lips, the golden cascade of her hair over his thighs, rustling forward and backward as her body was rocked. Watched the smooth dip of her bare back. And, behind her, fucking into her steadily, Tenny, his hands tight on her hips, his bare, flexing torso sheened in sweat. A lock of dark hair had curled and stuck to his forehead, shifting with every thrust of his hips. Stephanie’s mouth would go slack every few moments, and she would make a low, humming sound in her throat, overwhelmed by Tenny’s cock inside her.

It still wasn’t quite familiar: this onslaught of sensation. The way his stomach fizzed, and his belly clenched and tingled. The way his lungs didn’t quite work, and the pressure built, and he felt so, so good, chasing a feeling that was even better. If he’d looked down, he would have seen the way his chest heaved, his nipples drawn up tight; the way his stomach looked caved in; the way the veins stood out in the juncture of his hips. Would have seen himself lost to this moment, to sensation and indulgence.

But instead he looked up; he watched Tenny. The way his face was tight, his cheeks hollow. The way he bit his lip, and watched himself disappearing inside Stephanie’s body over and over.

Then, like always, his head lifted, and his gaze met Reese’s, glassy-bright, dilated, but still penetrating. Still so riveted and riveting – Reese was helpless to look away, even as he felt his cock hit the back of Stephanie’s throat. He felt pinned back against the headboard, as Tenny stared at him, and snapped his hips hard. Reese watched him, and for a moment, Stephanie faded, and the pleasure wasn’t tied to her, but to the way Tenny watched him in return.

It was…

But then Tenny stopped, and sat back. Pulled out of her. “Hey.” He rested a hand on the small of her back. “Sit up. Get on him.”

Stephanie’s expression was one of hazy pleasure as she pulled slowly off Reese’s cock with one last mind-numbing suck, and straightened up on her knees. She turned to glance back over her shoulder at Tenny, smirking, dabbing at her mouth with her fingertips. Her voice was rough. “You could say ‘please,’ you know.”

Tenny stared at her, and said nothing, his jaw set.

Stephanie chuckled, and shifted around so she could place a hand on Tenny’s chest – Reese saw the muscle flicker, like he wanted to flinch away – and lean in close. She whispered something in his ear that Reese couldn’t make out; something that caused Tenny’s brows to jump, once. She chuckled again, and kissed him.

For a moment, Tenny didn’t respond, his mouth slack against her imploring one. Then his eyes closed, and his hands moved, suddenly; he gripped her head, hands fisted in her hair, and kissed her back. Aggressively. Reese could see the thrust of his tongue into her mouth.

Belatedly, he realized he was stroking himself, and stilled, hand closed tight around his cock.

Tenny drew back from the kiss first, panting, licking his lips.

Stephanie gave a low hum that sounded satisfied, like after she’d come. “Didn’t take you for the shy type, honey.”

“Shut up,” Tenny said, without heat. “Turn around. Get on him, like I said.”

She rolled her eyes as she turned back around. “Yes, sir.” But she shuffled up the bed and straddled Reese’s hips. The dark, anticipatory look returned to her face as she brushed his own hand from his cock, took the hard length in hers, and lined him up; sank down on him. Took him to the halt all in one, slow press.

“Mm,” she hummed, settling, raking her nails lightly down his chest. “You feel good, baby.”

Tenny crowded in close behind her, and Reese’s stomach, already taut with restraint, gave a little flip. His gaze shifted from her face, up and over to Tenny’s; to the clenched jaw, the hooded blue eyes, the unreadable, tense set of his mouth.

He held a little tube in his hands, one that he unscrewed. “Move,” he told Stephanie.

She let out a dramatic exhale. “He’s so bossy, how do you stand him?” But she did start to move; lifting and then setting back down, rolling her hips like a dancer.

It was good – too good. Reese had to close his eyes a moment and breathe harshly through his nose to keep from coming as Stephanie’s pace picked up. His hands reached out blindly, found her knees, her thighs, strong and flexing beneath his touch.

She shifted, and the angle changed, suddenly. He opened his eyes to find that Tenny had a hand between her shoulder blades, urging her forward. She gripped the edge of the headboard on either side of Reese’s head, her breasts swaying forward into his face. Her breath hitched, and her eyes, when he glanced up, had gone very wide.

“Any objections?” Tenny asked.

She clenched tight around Reese. “No. Go for it.”

Reese didn’t understand at first what was happening. Stephanie continued to move, but it was a gentler rocking motion now, and her sex would tighten in sudden little spasms that matched a sudden intake of breath. He felt…movement. Something…

And then, with a sudden rush of heat to his face, he recalled something Tenny had said a couple weeks ago, one of those aimless, half-asleep conversations they’d had lying side by side on the mattress after Stephanie had left. We should both fuck her at once some time. Front and back. He’d gone on to explain the mechanics of that after Reese’s questioning look, laughing at whatever Reese’s face had done in response.

Not such an aimless idea after all, it seemed.

Tenny was prepping her – a knowledge confirmed when, as Tenny added more lubricant, he slid his fingers down to her sex, where she was joined with Reese, and then cupped Reese’s balls, briefly, in one slick hand. He squeezed and retreated, before Reese could even suck in a breath, and then Stephanie was rocking a little more forcefully on his cock, pressing back against Tenny.

She moaned. “Oh…okay, yeah. I’m ready. Come on.”

More shuffling, a slick sound.

Reese looked up over Stephanie’s shoulder, and it was Tenny’s face, and not hers, that he watched as Tenny pushed slowly inside her. The shine of sweat on his brow, his lashes low and dark on hollowed cheeks. The glimpse of white as he gritted his teeth against the tightness of it.

He worked his way in slow, and Reese realized that he could feel him. The shape and heft and pressure of his cock, separated only thinly from his own. Both of them inside her at once. Both of them feeling the tight, hot grip; seeking pleasure together in a new, wholly more intimate way than they had so far.

It was so…so…

Tenny started to move, and Stephanie started to move, and Reese was lost to it. Dragged out by the tide of sensation and crashed against the rocks of overwhelming pleasure.

The pressure on his cock was exquisite, but it was Tenny’s face he watched the whole time, when he could watch, when his eyes didn’t close, as Stephanie got louder and louder, tossing her head, moaning, and cursing.

“Yes, yes, yes, oh God, so full…Jesus Christ…”

She gripped Reese’s hair and yanked his head forward against her breasts, heaving as she was bounced by Tenny’s ever-quickening rhythm. He pressed his face to her smooth, heated skin and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, because he knew it was what she wanted. Absently. His entire awareness had narrowed down to the feel and the knowledge of Tenny’s cock right there against his own.

It was so much.

Stephanie cried out as she came, her sex spasming and clenching on his cock. She lifted away from him – Reese’s eyes fluttered open and he saw that Tenny had lifted her, an arm around her middle, pulling her back against his own shoulder while he continued to thrust up subtly into her ass. His gaze was on Reese, sprawled back, and sweaty; his other hand slid down Stephanie’s belly, skimmed over her sex, and his fingertips brushed the base of Reese’s cock.

That was all it took to tip him over the edge. Orgasm hit him with a full-body clench, and a rush. His lungs seized, and his hips kicked, and starbursts bright as fireworks crowded his vision – but didn’t overtake it completely. He could still see Tenny, his flared nostrils, his lip bitten until it bled.

He drifted, heavy and drugged, body still sensitive as a live wire, but the exhaustion immediate and all-consuming. He couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to. Watched in a kind of daze as Tenny moved back and lifted a nearly-limp Stephanie off of him. Pulling out was always unpleasant; Reese curled his lip as his softening cock flopped down onto his thigh.

He closed his eyes a moment, breathing.

And opened them again when the bed dipped afresh between his legs, and a hand touched his face.

Stephanie lay beside him now, curled up on her side, expression dreamy, her eyes closed.

Tenny knelt in front of him, cupping his face; a darted glance proved that he was still hard. He’d stripped off his condom, and held his cock in his other hand, as a thumb traced Reese’s chin – and then his lower lip.

Tenny’s gaze, when he met it, was feral. As bright and bloodthirsty as when he was fighting. His voice was low and rough. “Did you like seeing her like that?”

Reese was too tired and pleasure-drunk to attempt verbal banter. He could only be honest. “I liked seeing you.”

Tenny’s eyes widened – fast and sudden and real in a way they never were out in the rest of the clubhouse, in front of others. Then he surged forward and kissed Reese.

They’d done this off and on – practice, Tenny always said. Reese needed to learn how to kiss properly so he could keep the ladies pleased. He was getting better at it, he knew, because Tenny would draw back sometimes, a little breathless, and give a tight nod. Good.

He was uncoordinated, now; was more passive than anything, opening for the press of Tenny’s tongue, yielding and giving beneath an aggressive, biting kiss that tasted like blood and felt like an attack. Tenny panted against his mouth, harsh, pained sounds. Reese could hear the slick, rhythmic noises he knew meant that Tenny was touching himself. And then Tenny bit his lip, hard, and hot jets splashed across Reese’s belly.

Tenny had come. On him.

Tenny kept kissing him; fast, small little nibbles, grinding their foreheads together, mashing their noses. His breathing was audible and vocal, not like he felt good, but was in pain.

Reese didn’t like that at all. Sex was supposed to be fun, and satisfying, and not painful, no. So much else was. Recreation was supposed to be just that, he’d learned.

He lifted his arms, and started to close them around Tenny, planning to reel him in for an embrace.

But Tenny jerked backward. “Shit,” he muttered, and, shakily, nearly falling, he leaped off the bed.

Reese sat upright, reaching, trying to catch his gaze.

But Tenny ducked his head and went into the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him.

Reese let his hand fall. Sat a moment, frowning to himself.

Beside him, Stephanie said, “Heh.”

~*~

Tenny came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, dressed in sweatpants and carrying a damp cloth that he handed to Reese. Stephanie was up and about, moving with her usual post-hookup efficiency. Once the sex stopped, she was a whole different person, and Reese was deeply appreciative of the way she didn’t place any demands upon them. She took her clothes and shoes and ducked into the bathroom. A moment later, the shower cut on.

Reese cleaned up as best he could with the cloth, and then flopped back, flat-out on the bed. His skin was cooling, and in a few minutes, he’d be chilled and pull up the blankets, but for now, he was lax, and tired, and comfortable.

Except that little voice in the back of his head telling him something wasn’t quite right.

Tenny puttered around the room, gathering their clothes and folding them on the dresser. He trashed the condom wrappers and squeezed a spritz of air freshener.

Finally, when it couldn’t be avoided any longer, he stretched out on the bed beside Reese, like usual.

In the bathroom, the water shut off. A few minutes later, Stephanie emerged, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, hair twisted up into a clip, dressed and presentable. “Thanks, boys,” she called over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “That was fun.” She gave them a quick wave, and was gone.

Only then did Reese turn his head on the pillow and say, “Are you okay?”

Tenny lay with his hands folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling, hair slicked back off his face, profile limned in lamplight. He had a very straight nose, and defined brow ridges. His mouth, when he wasn’t making faces, which he always seemed to be doing, was soft and pink.

His throat jumped as he swallowed, before he answered. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Reese continued to stare at him, trying hard to read this strange mood that had come over him. He was good at reading emotion and intent on an op: knowing when someone was about to bolt, to confess, to strike. Knew how to read body language in anticipation of an attack.

But this was trickier. This was delicate.

He thought about Tenny pulling back before, his quiet curse. Sharing Stephanie together like that had been his idea, so Reese didn’t think he was regretting it. But the faintest wrinkle marred his brow, and this silence was tense, and not comfortable.

An unpleasant thought occurred. “Did I do it wrong?”

Tenny turned his head, finally, his brows lifted. “What?”

“What we just did.” His face heated at the idea. “Did I do it wrong?”

Tenny blinked. And then snorted, face splitting into a grin – that lacked real humor. Tenny’s true smiles were rare things, eyes crinkling and dimples popping in his cheeks. This wasn’t one of them; this one hinted at some unpleasant emotion Reese couldn’t parse. “No. No.” He looked toward the ceiling again. “There’s definitely nothing wrong about the way you fuck, trust me.”

Reese wasn’t convinced.

Tenny said, “Stop staring at me, you tit.”

Reese propped up on an elbow, so he could better assess his expression. Tenny’s eyes flicked over, and then away, his frown deepening. “You didn’t mind that I was staring at you before.”

Tenny let out a short breath. “Yes, well, that was different, wasn’t it? You might as well have been staring at the wall you were so far gone.”

“No,” Reese said, evenly. When Tenny got worked up, which he could sense him doing now, he’d found that his own instinct was to mellow. To keep calm; he’d never thought of himself as being a grounding presence for anyone – he’d never thought about how he related with anyone at all – but that seemed to be the case in this relationship. “I was looking at you. On purpose.”

“With her tits right in your face?”

“When we’re like that – when it’s – your face…”

Tenny’s eyes flicked over again, too much of the whites showing, like he was spooked. “What about my face?”

Reese didn’t know how to put it into words, the way looking at it, taut with pleasure and effort, while he felt his own pleasure, heightened every aspect of the act. If he was honest, none of the sex he’d had in the past few months – the only sex he’d ever had – had been about the women. He liked their bodies, their attention, and affection, and enjoyment. But he had no desire to spend an evening alone with any of them. He wanted Tenny there. He wanted to know it was good for both of them, together.

He reached out, on instinct, and touched Tenny’s face the way that Tenny had touched his own, earlier.

Tenny went very still, and his eyes widened another impossible fraction.

“I like your face,” he said, because it was all he could think to say, no matter how inadequate. And he ducked his head and kissed him.

He felt Tenny’s lips part beneath his, a startled gasp, and he didn’t understand that. Maybe Tenny liked to initiate? Maybe he wasn’t doing it right?

Then Tenny’s hand fisted in his hair, and he kissed him back.

It wasn’t as harsh and punishing as before. Softer. Tentative, almost. And after a moment, Tenny turned his face away, chest heaving beneath Reese’s, breathing hard like they’d been doing much more than kissing.

“Shit,” Tenny said again, a faint whisper.

Reese drew back. “Why ‘shit’?”

Tenny closed his eyes a moment, his expression pained. Then he sat up, forcing Reese to sit up, too. He blinked down at his lap a moment, and when he lifted his head, he wore an entirely pretend smile. “You did well tonight. Next time, we’ll have to get two girls.”

He pressed a fast, smacking kiss to Reese’s forehead, then slipped out of bed, and left the room, without looking back.

Reese raked his hair back off his face, and felt something like loss.

Twelve

“Finally,” Maggie said the next morning, when Leah broke down and called to ask for her help in finding a job. “Hang tight. I’ll get back to you.”

Five minutes later, her phone rang again. “I know it’s short notice, but can you make a noon interview?”

Leah bolted up from her chair – her new, gorgeous, Albie Cross-made kitchen chair – and slapped a hand to her rumpled ponytail. “Absolutely,” she said, and headed toward the bathroom.

“Great. I’ll text you the address.”

Noon saw her standing on the sidewalk in front of a sleek, glass-front building in the heart of downtown. People in smart suits and dresses moved in and out of the revolving door; through the cool, green-blue tint of the glass, she spotted a lobby with marble floors, a marble-fronted desk, and a fountain laced with lots of potted palms and ferns.

She double-checked that the address Maggie had sent matched the gold numbers above the door, straightened her skirt, took a deep breath, and went in.

A young man with very shiny hair and a very fitted suit glanced up at the sound of her approach, and offered a mild, professional smile. “Good afternoon, ma’am, how can I be of service today?” He had one of those pleasant, unaccented voices made for the service industry, and it caught her a bit off guard. She’d been expecting a local firm of some sort; professional, but still undoubtedly Southern at heart. She felt a bit like she’d stepped through a portal back to Chicago. Or maybe New York.

“Hi, I’m here for an interview.” With a flash of panic, she realized Maggie hadn’t given her the name of her interviewer. “I’m Leah Cook.” She lifted the folder that contained her notebook and resume, and flashed a hopeful smile.

“One moment.” He checked his computer monitor. “Ah, yes. Miss Cook. If you’ll follow Candace” – he motioned toward a woman who stood over by the elevator bank – “she’ll take you up to see Mr. Shaman.”

That was a weird name.

Candace of the white teeth and the sleek gray dress greeted her with muted, but perfect politeness and took her up in the elevator to the fifth floor. The doors slid open onto a serene space full of low couches, chairs, more potted plants, and widely separated cubicles occupied by more elegant, well-dressed people talking softly into phones. At the far end of the vast space, a frosted glass wall set with a door proved to be their destination. When they reached it, Candace knocked once, then cracked it open and said, “Your noon appointment is here, Mr. Shaman.”

“Thank you, Candace, send her in,” a very crisp, posh British voice intoned.

Candace ushered her in with a soft good luck, then closed the door behind her.

Leah wasn’t embarrassed to admit that she was a little bit stunned.

The back wall of the room was floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street below and the buildings across the way. Inside, the office was all minimalist chic, lots of gray and white and black, down to the faux white fur rug beneath the glass-topped desk. The man who sat behind it, in an expensive, ergonomic chair, didn’t look like the sort of man with which Maggie would have inroads.

Even sitting, she could tell that he was tall. Long arms, and long, slender fingers steepled casually together. The glass desk offered a view of long, crossed legs, and tremendously expensive shoes. He wore a gray suit, and a lavender shirt, open at the throat. Long, straight auburn hair framed an angular face composed all of sharp angles and striking, big blue eyes.

“Miss Cook?”

She nodded.

“Please sit.”

She did. And belatedly remembered her manners. “Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me – Mr. Shaman.” She stumbled over the name, and wondered, briefly, why Maggie hadn’t shared it with her.

One corner of the man’s mouth twitched – a quick flicker that didn’t turn into a smile. “I owe the Teague family more than a few favors. You’ve brought your resume?”

“Oh, yes.” She pulled it from her folder and handed it over, realizing as she did that she had no idea what sort of position was on offer.

He reached to pluck it off his blotter, a flat, platinum band winking on the ring finger of his left hand. He read the whole of it, eyes tracking back and forth across the lines of tight text. Then he nodded, set it aside, and folded his hands over his flat stomach, leaning back in his chair. “Tell me about yourself, Ms. Cook.”

His regard – direct and carefully composed – left her wanting to shrink down into her chair. He was very good-looking, pretty even, but lacked all the touchable humanity of guys like Carter or Aidan. He looked regal, carved from marble. Like an expensive statue that should be kept on a high shelf, out of reach of children.

She found that she had to take a deep breath before she spoke, silently berating herself for her nerves. She wasn’t the sort who got stumbly and uncertain in front of people.

“I got my bachelor’s in Accounting at UT,” she said, nodding toward the resume, “and I started with a private CPA firm here in Knoxville right after I graduated, Lott & Sons. I took a job in Chicago…” She trailed off when he waved for silence.

“No, no. Your resume is perfect. I mean, tell me about yourself.” He made a little go on gesture. “Tell me why Maggie Teague called me before breakfast and asked if I could offer you a job.”

It hit her like a shove, the knowledge that Maggie had asked outright like that. She’d known what she was getting herself into, calling in a favor like that. But this felt so much like charity.

Still, she didn’t guess this Shaman, whoever he was, was the sort to be strong-armed into doing anything he didn’t want to.

“I grew up with Ava,” she said, starting over. Her voice sounded more normal, at least. “We were best friends all through school, like this.” She lifted two crossed fingers, and the corner of his mouth twitched again. “I grew up around the club, even if I wasn’t officially one of their kids. I went to parties. I heard stuff.” Better not to say too much. She shrugged. “When I moved back to town, Maggie started offering to help me find a job. I’ve been filling out apps online – not successfully, so I finally decided to take her up on it. She called this morning and told me to be at this address – though, to be honest, I have no idea who you are, or what you do, or what position I’m even applying for.”

Oops. Too much.

But his twitch became a smile, small and tight, but unmistakable. “Honesty. I like it.”

“Sorry.” She felt her face heat. “I’m kind of a blabber-mouth.”

“No, it’s refreshing.” He tipped his head. “To a degree.” His chin ducked a fraction, and his look said that refreshing could get old really quick. The office – his outfit, his overall look – suggested he didn’t suffer fools.

She nodded.

“I suppose you could say I’m a – friend of the club as well.” His gaze flicked over toward the bookcase, brow crimping, and for a moment, he looked almost surprised. Then his gaze returned, expression smoothing. “I’ve known Kev – Tango, since we were both boys. I’ve been in business with the Lean Dogs for several years now.”

“Oh.”

“This is my second office. I have another on the other side of town. I’m something of an investor – fingers in lots of pies, and all of that. I’ve begun investing in real estate, lately. If you join the team, you’ll be working here, out of this office, as part of what is currently a three-person accounting team. They’re all about your age. Very charming. You should like them.”

“I…”

“You may of course have a few days to think it over, but, to be truthful, Maggie’s phone call came at the right time. I’m in need of another accountant, and you’re perfectly qualified, and part of the family, so to speak. The job is yours if you want it. You can start right away.”

She blinked at him.

His brows lifted. “Do you have any questions?”

She had a whole print-out of them, questions she carried with her to every interview. She’d memorized them long ago, but struggled now to recall a single one.

He gave her another smile, amused.

“Um. What sort of salary would I be looking at?” She winced after, knowing she could have phrased it more eloquently.

He plucked a sticky note from a neat stack on his desk, scribbled a figure on it, and leaned forward to set it before her.

Holy shit.

She should ask other things. She should take the time he’d allowed her, those few days for thinking things over.

But what the hell: no one else had offered to take her on, and she didn’t figure, even if they did, they’d be offering that kind of money.

She laid a hand over the note, the sum he’d written, to keep from staring at it like an idiot. She met his expectant gaze, and said, with what elegance she could gather, “Thank you. I gladly accept.”

His grin widened, showing a flash of teeth, and the expression put her in mind of a predator hiding in the long grass. “Excellent.” He offered one manicured hand for her to shake. “Welcome aboard, Ms. Cook.”

~*~

“Oh my God, Mom, you didn’t!” Ava whirled on her mother, her expression scandalized, and, really, Leah had pictured this going differently.

They were at Maggie’s kitchen table, having something of a late, celebratory lunch, complete with champagne. Maggie shrugged as she set chips and salsa down in the center of the table. “I did. She needed a job, and I knew where she could find one that actually pays a living wage.” She settled into her chair with the imperious air of a queen: which was to say, the air with which she did everything. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

Ava heaved a sigh. “With Ian? Really?”

“Ian?” Leah asked, looking back and forth between mother and daughter.

“Ian’s basically family at this point,” Maggie said, opening the chip bag with a loud pop that had the ring of finality to it.

“Ian?” Leah asked again.

Ava turned to her. “Your new boss. Mr. Shaman.” She rolled her eyes. “His name’s actually Ian, and he’s–” She pressed her lips together, and Leah had the sense she was biting back club secrets. Which were none of her business, she told herself, though it stung a little, being out of the loop.

“Shit,” she said, pulse giving a jump. “He’s not some kind of creep is he? He was wearing a wedding ring. Is he some kinda sexual harasser?”

“No,” Maggie said at once, with a firm shake of her head.

“No,” Ava echoed. “He’s gay, actually. And married.”

“And he’s club family, apparently,” Leah said. “And he’s gonna pay well. I’m not seeing the problem here.” She gave Ava’s foot a nudge under the table with her own.

Maggie sent her daughter a very maternal look.

Ava threw up her hands. “Okay, okay. There’s not a problem. But Ian is…let’s just say not all of his business is…above board.”

Maggie snorted.

Leah smiled. “I forgot you were married to a minister.”

“You know what I mean,” Ava said, sourly.

“No, I absolutely have no idea what you mean.”

Ava looked at her – and then the look softened. “Ian is…well, if you knew him, I think you’d understand. Plenty of civilians work for him, and I think most of them have no idea about his – other business. He does do legit stuff, same as the club. But working for him won’t be the same as working for H&R Block.”

Leah shrugged – but she did give the idea a moment’s consideration. She’d hesitated to accept Maggie’s help – but out of a sense of pride. Not wanting to be a burden; not wanting to feel like she’d needed help.

Had she been hesitant about being tied more officially – financially – to the club? She didn’t think so. But it was a big step down a road she’d never traveled before. She’d been friends with Ava, been friendly with the club, but had always stayed on the fringes. There was no paperwork or money to tie her to it.

She waited for a tickle of fear that didn’t come. Her life – such as it was – lay in Knoxville now, for better or worse. She’d never been popular; why shy away from closer affiliation with the Dogs now?

She smiled at her friend. “I’ll take my chances.”

Thirteen

Ghost slowed and turned his bike in at Flash Customs, whose lot was currently full of cars. With summer approaching, and the local economy booming, there were plenty of Knoxville residents looking to revamp, trick out, and customize their boats for the coming river season. Ghost found a parking spot near the back, along the guardrail that offered an up-close view of the water, and Walsh, Fox, and Mercy snugged their bikes in close behind.

He took off his helmet, and surveyed the lot as he gave his hair a few absent fluffs. A father and son came out of the building, the son swinging a plastic shopping bag and talking excitedly, pointing off toward the water, and the boats tied up at the dock.

“The crowd can work to our advantage,” Fox said. “They won’t want to talk in front of customers.”

“I want you to come back with me,” he said, turning to Walsh. “You two poke around front where you can.”

Fox’s mouth twitched – doubtless he’d wanted to be a part of any interrogation – but Ghost would rather have his trusted VP at his side. They were familiar, used to working together in these situations. Walsh made for an excellent, impassive good cop of the two of them. And he wanted Fox scoping for cameras or other little clues the rest of them might miss.

“I’m hurt, boss,” Mercy said, with a fake pout. “You never want me to go in the back.”

“I need them talkative – not pissing themselves. Come on.”

Inside, the office was crowded with shelves and clothing racks near the front, offering t-shirts, keychains, travel mugs, and, the closer you got to the counter, more practical items: microfiber towels, boat wash, wax, decals, seat covers. A long counter dominated the back of the space, behind which were displayed posters and pricing charts, ads for fancy motors and paint brands. A middle-aged man and a teenager stood behind the registers, wearing Flash Customs polos. Ghost recognized the man: he was the co-owner, Dave Connors.

Customers milled about the aisles: a husband and wife, the wife holding a t-shirt on a hanger up to her chest and doing a twirl for her husband, laughing. A set of parents with a whole gaggle of children demanding keychains. Lots of noise, voices tumbling over one another.

Fox and Mercy melted off to the sides – or, well, Fox melted. Mercy stood out like a sore thumb, too tall, and long-haired. Ghost noticed several people give him startled glances, their gazes lingering on his cut.

Ghost and Walsh bellied up to the counter, and the teenager glanced up first.

“Hi, welcome to Flash Customs,” he said in a bored voice. “How can I…” He trailed off when his gaze fastened on Ghost, and his eyes widened. His Adam’s apple jumped in his skinny throat as he swallowed. “Dad,” he said, and there was nothing bored about his voice now.

Gotcha, Ghost thought. There was no way this wasn’t one of the two kids Tenny and Reese had spooked last night.

“What?” Dave said, bored, harried. He cursed at his computer screen, clicked the mouse a few times.

“Dad.”

“What?” He looked, finally, and Ghost wished he had a camera; his face went white and then red. Belatedly, he snapped his mouth closed, and then crowded his son out of the way. “Kenny,” he greeted, aiming for normal, casual. He did an admirable job of smoothing his features.

But it was too late. Ghost had seen that first, unguarded moment of panic.

“Hey, Dave,” he said, trying to hold back a smirk. “Could we have a word?”

“Uh…” He glanced around his shop, a little wildly. Behind him, the son ducked into a door marked Employees Only. “Sure. You guys have a boat, right?” He gestured toward the thick, spiral-bound catalogues chained to the counter. “We’ve got lots of new…”

“This isn’t about boats,” Ghost said, quietly. “And you know it.”

“…mods.” He pressed his lips tight together, and regarded Ghost a long moment. Flicked a glance toward Walsh, whose impassive expression revealed nothing, and offered no respite.

Dave drew himself upright, hands braced on the counter. He spoke quietly, too, in the hopes his customers wouldn’t overhear. “Look, whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying. I’ve got no beef with the Dogs, but I’m not interested in – joining the team, or whatever. If you’re buying up the city, you’ll have to do it without my shop.”

Ghost grinned. “Good to know. But that’s not the word I was talking about. Your boy there.” He nodded to the door the son had slipped through. “He and a buddy were trying to vandalize my bar last night.”

Blended panic and indignation flared in his gaze a moment. “My son–”

“Almost got his head caved in by someone a lot meaner than him. One of my boys stepped in and intervened, and kept things from escalating. You should be thanking the Dogs right now, and not condemning us.

“Now, in a second, I’m gonna raise my voice, and I’m gonna stop being coy. When that happens, we can have our conversation out here, in front of everyone, or back in your office. Your choice.”

Dave scowled. But finally jerked a nod, and lifted up the panel in the counter to let them through.

In the office, the teenager sat hunched in the desk chair, nursing a Mountain Dew, legs drawn up to his chest. He shot to his feet when they came through the door, face white with terror. “Dad–”

“Go mind the register, Jimmy. It’s alright,” Dave said.

He bolted from the room.

Ghost and Walsh settled into the two spare chairs, and Dave landed in the desk chair with a deep, worry-laced exhale. He rubbed his face a moment with both hands. When he dropped them to his lap, and opened his eyes, he said, “Look. Jimmy’s a good kid, but he does stupid shit sometimes. You’ve got a boy, you understand.”

“I do. I also understand that, when he does stupid shit, there are consequences.”

Dave’s expression hardened. “So that’s why your people attacked them? It was just spray paint. That doesn’t justify roughing them up!”

“I already told you: it wasn’t my people.”

His jaw clenched.

“Did he say that? When he told you what happened, and he got to the part about a Good Samaritan stepping in, did he tell you who it was?”

Dave hesitated.

Ghost motioned to Walsh, who pulled out his phone, cued up the surveillance video Ratchet had sent him an hour ago, and set it down on the desk to play for Dave. There was no sound, but via the camera they’d hidden outside of Bell Bar, the action was unmistakable. Two men all in black, with painted faces, came out of nowhere, dropping down onto the two teenagers with backpacks. A scuffle ensued, with the boys clearly the losers. A crowd gathered. And then here came Carter, flying his colors, the patches on his back clearly visible as he engaged with one of the thugs – Tenny, by the look of him – and a fight ensued.

Tenny was a damn good actor, and he’d coached Carter well beforehand. If he hadn’t known it was staged, Ghost would have thought it looked real.

“That’s Carter Michaels,” Ghost said. “He took the city to state his senior year at Knoxville High. He’s a Dog now, and he spared your kid and his friend an ass-beating.”

The video ended, and Dave looked up. “Who was in the black?” he asked, skeptically.

Ghost shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Strange shit’s going on around here lately.” He allowed his gaze to sharpen, chin tucking fractionally for effect. “Why’s Jimmy vandalizing my property? We’ve never done a damn thing to him.”

This time, Dave’s face colored with embarrassment, rather than anger. “I didn’t know he was doing that. But…”

“But what?”

“He said the kids have been talking at school. Lots of them think it’s time to force the Lean Dogs out of town. It’s kind of becoming a thing.”

“What sort of thing?” Ghost asked, tone sharpening. He hadn’t expected this of teenagers. The anti-Dog crowd tended to be adults of the country club variety. Teens generally liked and romanticized the whole outlaw image.

“A movement,” Walsh said. “And it’s spreading.”

Dave nodded. “One of his classmates – a girl named Allie – disappeared. Vanished on her way home from a party. Her car turned up out on the old mill road, but the police haven’t found anything out yet.”

Ghost hadn’t heard of this. “When was this?”

“Two weeks ago, or so,” Walsh supplied. He fiddled with his phone, and then offered Ghost a glimpse of a headline, and a photo of a smiling, pretty teenage girl.

He traded a look with his VP. The graffiti had been happening for longer than that, but if someone – like, say, the heavier-set adults that had appeared on the videos – had started the efforts, it would make sense that they wanted to expand it; bring the whole community into it. And what better place to start than with the young people? A nudge here, a bug in an ear there. Someone close to the kids, with some influence, talking shit about the Dogs. And then a girl disappeared, under nefarious circumstances…

Walsh’s expression didn’t change, save the subtle flexing of his jaw as he clenched it.

Ghost nodded and turned back to Dave. “Whatever happened to Allie, I can promise you the Lean Dogs had nothing to do with it.” He stood. “Make sure your son and his friends stop vandalizing private property, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

Dave nodded. “Yeah.”

But when they were at the door, he said, “Ghost.”

Ghost glanced back over his shoulder and met Dave’s troubled expression.

“I appreciate your guy stepping in last night. That was good of him. But…can you honestly tell me your club makes this city a safer place? That it doesn’t make it more dangerous?”

Ghost offered him a wide, toothy grin. “Come on, man. Who loves Knoxville more than the Dogs?”

Fox and Mercy were waiting for them at the bikes, having a cigarette. Mercy dropped his to the pavement and ground it out beneath his boot. “Anything?”

“It was the son – Jimmy Connors – and a friend last night that our guys spooked. Not a big surprise. But Dave Connors said the high school kids are starting to feel distinctly unfriendly toward us.”

“A girl disappeared two weeks ago.” Walsh had the article pulled up still, and passed his phone to Mercy.

At least, he tried to. Fox snatched it away, earning a glare from his brother.

Ghost didn’t smile, because he tried not to encourage sibling rivalry. But. It was hilarious to see the always unflappable Walsh make faces at people.

“No leads?” Fox asked, lifting his head. He had that look on his face: the faint crimp that meant his mind was already racing, spinning a half-dozen possibilities.

Walsh held out his hand for the phone. Fox looked at it, then looked at his face, and continued to hold the phone.

“They found her car,” Ghost said. “A hunter called it in, off the old mill road. But no hide nor hair of her since the night of the party.”

“She was snatched,” Mercy said, frowning. “By who?”

“Not to jump to conclusions…” Fox said.

“Give me the bloody phone,” Walsh hissed.

Fox held Ghost’s gaze, a sideways smile breaking across his face, and set the phone in his brother’s palm, pinched delicately between two fingers. A delicate grip that he maintained, though. “What’s the word?”

“Piss off.”

Fox released the phone, and his expression grew serious again. “This is exactly the sort of thing Eden wants shuttled her way: missing girl, no signs. That’s what was happening out west. American girls being snatched and sold into the sex slave trade. Three of those are still missing.”

“This girl disappeared two weeks ago,” Ghost said. “It’s not connected to what happened in Texas.”

“Luis got away,” Fox reminded, and the wind picked that exact moment to come funneling in hard off the water, still chilled by the last fingers of winter, despite the spring sunshine beating down on their heads. “And then he called Candy to gloat. We’d be hearing from him again, he said.”

“What are the odds it’s him? Already? Snatching one high school girl here in Knoxville?” Ghost asked. But he’d been alive, and in the life, too long to dismiss ideas just because they seemed too far-fetched. According to Fox, in the debriefing they’d held in the chapel after his return from Amarillo, the FBI – if they could be trusted, which was doubtful – believed Luis might have been reaching out to a crime syndicate that was rapidly forming in New York.

Which wouldn’t have been their problem if not for their New York chapter. And Luis’s avowal that they would be seeing him again.

“It’s probably just your garden variety kidnapping,” Mercy said.

And what kinda world was it when a kidnapping was “garden-variety”?

Walsh and Fox looked two varying shades of unconvinced.

“Mind if I throw it Eden’s way?” Fox asked. “This is right up her alley, and she can approach it as a PI, and not as the club.”

Ghost nodded. “Tell her to have at it.”

“Our graffiti problem, though. It was kids last night, but I don’t think it was at first.”

“We’ll keep digging,” Walsh said.

Ghost nodded, and swung a leg over his bike. Internally, he felt an uncurling of disquiet in the pit of his stomach. Why, oh why, could things never stay calm?

~*~

“He’s damn lucky Dad didn’t demand they buy us new plywood,” Aidan said from the next garage bay. “Make the little shits hammer it up themselves.”

“So they could hate us even more?” Tango countered. “No. I think he’s handling it the right way.”

“Psh.”

“What I don’t get is the whole angle with the high school hating us,” Mercy said. “What would make those little shits so bold they’d start vandalizing stuff? If they really think we kidnapped that girl, why provoke us?”

Carter stood and grabbed the rag he’d left on the seat of the bike he was working on; wiped his hands as his pulse gave a quick thump-thump. “What girl?”

Mercy turned toward him, leaned back against a tool chest, big arms folded. “High school kid. Seventeen. Cheerleader, prom queen, Beta Club type. She disappeared two weeks ago. Went to a party at a friend’s house, and never came home. Cops found her car on the old mill road a few days later, no obvious signs of a struggle. If our pal Connors at Flash was telling the truth” – Aidan scrunched up his nose in a skeptical face – “then the kids at the high school are blaming it on the Dogs. We’re a convenient scapegoat, apparently.”

He thought of his interaction with the football team the other night: the taunts and what he’d thought were joking accusations. Pedophile. But they were young guys, and young guys were always full of bullshit and bluster. No one had really thought that he…that the Dogs…had they?

He thought of Elijah, his head tipped back, his gaze hooded, watchful – careful.

“What?” Tango asked, a notch forming between his pale brows.

“Nothing. Just. I was waiting on Jazz to come out of the school the other night and the football team was practicing. They were a little less than friendly with me.”

“What’d they say?” Aidan asked, already bristling.

“Nothing,” Carter said, firmly, because the last thing any of them needed was Aidan lying in wait in dark parking lots scaring teenagers and proving everyone’s suspicions correct. “But they didn’t exactly seem happy to see me there.”

Tango glanced at each of them in turn. “Is someone messing with us? I mean…is it more than just graffiti? Is someone trying to get the city stirred up?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Mercy said, grimly; though a smile touched his mouth when he cracked his knuckles. “Won’t be the last.”

“That Luis guy,” Tango said, hand tightening on the wrench he held.

“Hey, he may have messed with Texas,” Aidan said, and then snorted at his own, unintended joke. “But it’s a whole different story up here. He can’t mess with us.”

“He can try,” Carter said, anxiety stirring in his gut.

Mercy lifted a hand in a placating gesture. “Fox said he’d put Eden on the missing girl, and see if she can find anything out. Maybe she could do some snooping at the school, too. Her or Axelle. The administration over there won’t have a hard-on for getting her in trouble like with all you Teagues.” He gave an up-nod in Aidan’s direction, grinning.

Aidan shrugged. “You’re the dumbass who married into us.”

“What about Jazz?” Tango asked.

Hearing him mention her, remembering that Tango had once been her chosen favorite, was always jarring. “What about her?” Carter asked. He sounded more defensive than he should have, he knew.

“She’s going into the high school for her GED classes, right?” Tango’s expression had gone soft and kind, like it had the other day. Like he could see right inside Carter and read the conflict, tension, and unhappiness in him.

He hated it. “Yeah. But she’s not in with the kids.”

Tango nodded. “Just thought it might be a way in.”

Carter frowned…and then realized something. “Um. Actually. I might have an in of my own.”

Fourteen

Carter promised to ask Elijah about the schoolwide Lean Dog sentiments if the opportunity presented itself – but his main focus wasn’t about club business at all, but about his genuine offer to help with his throwing.

They’d traded texts the other night, and made tentative plans to meet this evening. When Carter texted a possible location – a park with a big soccer field at one end, Elijah texted back a simple ok. Not exactly enthusiastic, and Carter began to doubt. But when he parked his bike in the lot beside the field, and glanced down the gentle slope toward the flat expanse of grass, he saw the Elijah was already there, wearing workout gear, spinning a ball up into the air and catching it again and again. He glanced over his shoulder, once, at the sound of Carter’s Harley, then turned back and resumed his spinning and catching.

Still not comfortable with the idea, Carter decided; still doubtful and distrustful. He didn’t blame the kid.

He hadn’t worn his cut; was dressed in shorts over compression leggings, Nikes, and an old A&M t-shirt. For a moment, he wished he’d thought to borrow a club truck, rather than bring his bike – that he looked more like a regular guy and not a Lean Dog, astride all this matte black and chrome – but it was too late for that. He adjusted his backpack, and headed down the tiered gravel path to the field.

“Hey,” he called, when he was in range.

Elijah turned around fully. “Hey.” His expression was smooth and neutral – save his eyes, and those were guarded. He’d tied his braids up in a bun at the back of his head, and a light sheen of sweat proved he’d already warmed up and was ready to jump right in.

That wasn’t all that Carter noticed, though. He saw also that, save his Nike shoes and gym bag, nothing else he wore was outwardly name brand. No big, flashy logos on display anywhere. The bag was school-issue, the same one he’d carried, once upon a time, the cost of which was included in the football sign-up package. He remembered his own father bitching about writing that check: If you don’t win some games, boy, this is the last check I’ll write for you. He’d bought name brand shoes, because bad shoes without the right support were a killer. But his sweats and other gear he’d always picked up at Walmart, with his car-washing, table-waiting, odd-jobbing money.

Modest means had made Carter hungrier for perfection. He wondered if Elijah was the same way.

“Hey,” he finally responded, spinning the ball again. “Where’s your uniform?” He nodded toward Carter’s cut-less torso. Still testing; still searching for a trap.

Carter would just have to prove that it wasn’t there. He plucked lightly at the front of his shirt and said, “I can’t throw it in the wash.” He dumped his backpack on the grass. “Alright, let’s try some drills.”

~*~

It was nearly alarming how quickly he settled back into the routine of the game. How, though he’d been feeling so far removed from football, like his time on the field had been a thousand years ago, talking shop sucked him right back in, reminded him that it hadn’t been that long at all, and that he still knew what the hell he was talking about. An unexpected, but wholly thrilling rush.

Elijah had a tendency to overthrow the deep ball, an observation from the other night that proved to be a pattern. After he’d done it the fourth time in a row, the ball skimming over Carter’s outstretched fingertips and landing back at the edge of the field, he shook his head and cursed when Carter came jogging up with the ball tucked under his arm.

“I wasn’t shitting you the other night,” he said, “you have a hell of an arm.”

“Hell of an inaccurate arm,” Elijah muttered, looking disgusted.

“Hey, it takes forever to build up that kind of strength. Accuracy is about tiny little adjustments.”

Elijah looked unimpressed.

“Here, let’s try something.”

They started out standing only a few paces apart, playing catch, to which Elijah rolled his eyes.

“Don’t knock it,” Carter said. “Step back two paces.” A few minutes later, they both stepped back another two.

Gradually, they expanded the distance between them until Carter was putting his whole body into each throw. Until they must have been forty yards apart, and Elijah threw a perfect deep ball that landed right in Carter’s waiting hands. He grinned, adjusted his stance, and sent the ball arcing back.

It was only after that he realized he’d just thrown farther and harder and more accurately than he had since his surgery – the one that had spelled the end of his football career. His shoulder felt tight, but not bad. It would have given out on him in true game play; if he got sacked, if he had to throw on the run over and over, the repaired rotator cuff wouldn’t hold up.

Still, he had the distance.

And, more importantly, in this moment, Elijah had the accuracy.

He jogged back toward him. “Did you see that? Right into my hands.” He held them up in demonstration.

For the first time since he’d met him, Elijah looked something like excited. It was muted, kept carefully in check, but he’d realized that he could throw accurately; that sort of realization was always a thrill. “I was standing still,” he said, downplaying it. “It’ll be different on the run.”

“We’ll work on that,” Carter assured. “But now you know you can be accurate. It’s a mental thing, the overthrowing. Once you figure out how to conceptualize an accurate pass on the field, you’ll be able to make one every time.”

Elijah whistled. “Conceptualize. Look at biker boy with the big words.” But he grinned, afterward, wide and truly amused.

“Hey,” Carter huffed, his own grin tugging at his mouth. “I went to college.”

“On a football scholarship.”

“I read about the psychological aspects of the game. Shut up. Let’s try that again.”

~*~

They worked for another hour or so, until the shadows had grown long across the grass, and the air had begun to cool, their shirts heavy and clammy now with sweat that left Carter shivering pleasantly. They sat down on the grass by their bags, legs stretched out, drinking water from the bottles they’d each brought. Things felt easier now, that early tension burned away by hard work and success: Elijah was hitting something like sixty percent of his passes now, and though he’d said he needed to do better, Carter had assured him he’d get there.

“Which schools are you applying to?” Carter asked.

“All of them,” Elijah said with a snort, knocked his feet together absently. “I’m making straight As, and I’m in Spanish and drama club. Extracurriculars, you know? I volunteer at an old folks’ home, too.”

“Wow,” Carter said, genuinely impressed. “Sounds like you’ve got all the bases covered.”

“Yeah.” Elijah shrugged, self-consciousness creeping back in. “I mean, that’s what it was at first. It’s not enough to be smart and play ball well. You’ve gotta have the full resume, you know? But, I actually really like drama.” He snorted. “Maybe I’ll be an actor when I’m done with football.”

“More and more guys are doing that – it’s a good career move. I don’t think there’s a baking show on TV that doesn’t have a former NFL guy as the host.”

Elijah laughed – the first time he’d laughed since they met.

“No, I’m serious, you might get to meet Martha Stewart.”

His laughter deepened – and he laid back across the grass, hands folded over his stomach as it died away slowly, happily.

Carter’s life had become so pathetic that making someone laugh felt like a victory.

After a moment, when the silence was once again only broken by the twitter of birds and the distant calls of children over on the playground – ignoring their mothers’ calls that it was time to go home and have dinner – Elijah’s gaze cut over, serious once more, assessing. “You’re good at this.”

Carter lifted his brows.

“Coaching.”

He was too stunned to respond.

“You ever think about doing it as a career?”

“No.”

Elijah shrugged and glanced away. “Maybe you should. If the whole biker thing doesn’t work out.”

In truth, he’d never considered such a thing. Opportunities were for people with better connections, better resources, and, above all, money – all things he hadn’t had when he left college. He’d spiraled straight into depression, written off the whole rest of his life, and never stopped to consider other possibilities. When Ava walked into Leroy’s that day, he’d seen it as a sign, as the best offer he was likely to get.

Tripped up on second-guessing, he nearly missed what was unfolding right under his nose: an inroad to talking about the high school. His stomach soured when he thought of it. He’d come here out of a genuine desire to help Elijah; he wasn’t running a sting, or trying to use this kid for his own, nefarious purposes.

But.

He wore the black dog on his back. That came with responsibilities and obligations. He could hear Ghost’s voice in his head: If you club has your back, then you have to have the club’s.

He drew one knee up and rested his chin on it. “Since you brought it up: the other night. When your teammates were giving me a hard time.”

Elijah stiffened immediately, face blanking. Shit. “Man, they were just playing. They didn’t mean anything.”

“No, I know. It didn’t bother me. But. Like. When I was in school, everybody thought the Dogs were pretty cool” – a total lie; he’d watched them torment Ava, had known what Mason’s posh set thought of the local “biker trash” – “but it seems like maybe they don’t anymore.”

Elijah fidgeted a moment, fingers drumming against his stomach. He made a face, squinting against the sinking sun – or maybe shrinking back from what was probably a harsh truth he was reluctant to share. “You guys have a reputation, you know? You’re not scary. But everybody knows who runs all the drugs in this town. And when you guys all go down the street together like you do…”

“Yeah,” Carter said. “I get it.”

“Everybody around here knows who Ghost is. Everybody knows that he isn’t the guy you ever want showing up.”

Even if he was trying to work on public relations, Carter thought there was a large part of Ghost who would be delighted to know that. Plenty of his brothers relished being a dark shadow that fell across doorways; the boogeyman in the middle of the night.

“I had someone tell me they thought the Dogs were responsible for that girl that went missing.”

Elijah’s brows went up. “Allie?”

“You know her?”

“She came to a lot of the games last season with her friends. She was on the homecoming committee. But I wasn’t friends with her, no. I was at the party, though, the one where she disappeared, after.”

“See anything weird?”

“Nah. The usual shit. Jimmy’s parents weren’t home, and he’d gotten his older brother to buy a keg. Buncha stupid white kids getting drunk and spilling shit on the furniture.”

“Wait. Jimmy Connors?”

“Yeah. His dad has that boat place.”

Alarm bells went off the in the back of Carter’s mind, but he fought to keep his face smooth.

“I left early,” Elijah continued, oblivious to Carter’s internal note-taking. “Had practice the next day.”

“That’s smart. Hey, do people still go up to the quarry for their keggers?”

“Shit, no, that place is haunted.”

“Not as haunted as Hamilton House.”

“I know, right?” Elijah sat up, shaking his head emphatically. “And I’m not even talking ghosts. No one has ever had a party there that didn’t end with at least five people arrested.”

Carter laughed, and Elijah echoed him. He tucked his little piece of intel away, and leaned back on his hands, breathing in the early grass and honeysuckle smells of evening. He didn’t want to be a Lean Dog right now. For a few minutes longer, he just wanted to be a guy who liked football.

~*~

Gratifyingly sore and tired from his workout, his stomach was rumbling as he passed through town. The warm, golden glow of Cook’s Coffee drew his attention at a red light, and then he thought about the bagel sandwich he’d had in there the other night, and then he was pulling over against the curb, parking, and going in.

The strong smell of coffee hit him first, and then the undercurrents of sweet and savory from the food. The low murmur of busy voices washed over him: lots of students working away on laptops and over notebooks. Dressed as he was, fresh from a workout, he had the sense he’d gone back in time. That he might have been a student, too, hopeful for the future, and still innocent.

“I’m starting to think you’re stalking me,” a familiar voice said, and he turned to find Leah sitting at one of the window tables, in front of her laptop.

His smile was automatic, and accompanied by a surge of warm fondness in his chest. “Nah. Just your mom’s bagel sandwiches.”

She nodded sagely. “If I have to come in second, it’s definitely a compliment to come in second to one of Mom’s sandwiches.” Her smile afterward, when she broke character, rooted him in place a moment.

The thing about Leah was: she was beautiful. He’d known that even in high school. But she’d been friends with Ava, who was shunned by the popular crowd for her Lean Dog origins, which in turn meant, loyal friend that she was, Leah had been shunned, too. But he’d noticed that she was pretty. That she was so confidently herself, and not at all bothered about looking like the dyed-blonde, fake tan crowd trying to look like Abercrombie models.

As a football star, he’d been expected to have one of those tan, cotillion-ready blondes on his arm at every dance, and he’d dated several. But beyond the shiny veneer, he’d not found anything like true companionship.

He’d been attracted to Ava, brooding, and quiet, and aloof. But Ava had most definitely never been attracted to him.

Now, all these years later, he felt a pang of regret that he hadn’t properly appreciated Leah’s candid good cheer, and her easy sense of humor.

As he watched her, marveling more than a little, she moved some of her things aside, clearing a space across from her on the table. “Here. I’ll save you a seat while you get your food.”

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

Her dad was working the counter tonight, and sight of him sobered Carter up fast.

“Carter,” he greeted, brows giving a single jump of surprise. He’d said Carter’s name with the firm, loud air of a commanding officer. “We’ve seen you around here a lot lately.” Not an accusation – not quite.

Carter swallowed. “The food’s good, sir. I like the new menu.”

Mr. Cook stared at him a moment, before a flicking a quick glance toward his daughter – so fleeting Carter would have missed it if he’d blinked; but he’d seen it, and his belly squirmed unpleasantly. “What can I get you tonight?”

“I don’t think your dad likes me,” he whispered, a few minutes later when he sat down with his sandwich and an iced green tea. He’d been hitting the burgers and whiskey lately, and the sight of his meal went a long way toward softening Marshall Cook’s severity.

Leah picked her head up, fingers stilling on her keyboard. “What? No, he does. Why?”

“When I went up there, he was all, ‘Carter.’ Like he wanted to call me young man or something. He said I’ve been in here a lot.”

“So? You have.”

“But not in a good way.”

She huffed a laugh. “You work for Ghost Teague, but my dad’s the scary one?”

“He’s…” He felt his face heat, and resisted the urge to squirm in his chair. It wasn’t that he was scary on his own; it was more that he’d given Carter that look right after Carter had been thinking about how pretty the guy’s daughter was.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He took a massive bite of his sandwich, and then realized he couldn’t talk. Nodded instead to her computer.

She understood. “I’m filling out all my new employee paperwork so I don’t have to do it tomorrow. I got a job!”

He swallowed. “Really? That’s awesome.”

“Yeah. I finally asked for Maggie’s help, and I had a job offer, like, four hours later. It’s insane.”

“Club stuff usually is. Where is it?”

“One block that way.” She pointed over her shoulder through the window. “That big glass building.”

He knew the one, and he frowned. “Which company?”

“Evolent.” She made a face. “Weird name, I know, but then again my new boss has a weird name, so…” She trailed off, gaze sharpening on his face. “Oh, are you gonna do it, too? I hope you’re not, because I really need this job, and Maggie says it’s fine, so…”

“Do what?”

“Ava got all freaked when she found out I was gonna work for Ian – I mean, Mr. Shaman. That’s how he introduced himself, so that’s what I should call him, right? Well, technically, his secretary introduced him, but, same principle. But like I said: Maggie says it’s fine, and, really, Ava was just worried I wouldn’t want to be too close to the club, which is dumb, because she’s my best friend, and right now my only friend, and she’s tied to the club, so.” She shrugged and let out a deep breath, winded from rambling.

She was nervous, he realized.

“That’s not true,” he said, and her brows shot up. “That Ava’s your only friend. I’m your friend.” When she blinked at him, he said, “Right?”

Her expression warmed, melted into a quiet smile. “Yeah. Definitely.” Her smile quirked mischievously. “Even if you are a sex fiend who gets his face smashed in.”

He groaned. “Please don’t.”

“So why do you think I shouldn’t work for Ian?”

A welcome – if no less tricky – change of subject. “I’m not saying it’s a bad idea.”

“Which is totally why you put all that emphasis on the word.”

“Ian is – let’s just say that when we first met him, he wasn’t exactly a friend. It’s been kind of a weird, slow evolution over time. He’s a friend of the club now – hell, he’s helped us do things we never could have otherwise. He’s an ally. Ghost trusts him, so I guess we all should. And I genuinely think the guy likes and respects Ghost. He’s kinda weird, though.”

“He’s very intense,” Leah agreed, nodding.

“He’s got big villain energy.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, definitely. All he needed was a white cat.”

“It would have gotten hair all over his fancy suit.”

She laughed again, her smile more than a little dazzling, her dark eyes sparkling, and Carter was very glad he’d decided to stop in.

Fifteen

Leah woke at three the first morning of her new job. She lay in the dark, staring at her ceiling, berating herself for ten minutes. “You don’t get nervous,” she said. “You really don’t.”

Which was a lie, because she certainly did, and had done so her whole life, but she’d learned how to handle it well. To hide it, even. Anyone watching her would have sworn she didn’t get rattled about things.

But Chicago, feeling like she’d failed, had shaken things up a little. It was always harder to try again than it was to set out for the first time.

And, if she admitted it, Ava and Carter’s less than enthusiastic response to her new employer had her doubting things.

“Nope,” she said aloud. “Nope, nope, not today, Satan.” She flung off the covers, and went to get ready.

She swung by the coffeeshop on the way in, to get a good luck hug from her mom, and to add ill-advised caffeine to her already-jittery system.

Her mom was waiting behind the counter, steaming travel cup and a chocolate chip muffin waiting.

Ava was standing in front of the counter, leaning back against it, holding her own travel cup.

“What are you doing here?” Leah exclaimed, filled with a sudden, nearly-overwhelming burst of gladness to see her best friend.

“Mom’s watching the kids for me so I could come wish you good luck on your first day.” She grinned, and held out a brown paper bag. “She also made you lunch: roast chicken on sourdough, and homemade fries.”

“You guys.” Because not only was she nervous this morning, but liable to burst into unhelpful tears. She took the bag, and then tackled Ava in a hug that had Ava laughing and protesting about spilling her coffee.

For a minute, with Ava’s lavender-scented hair tickling her nose, Ava’s arms tight around her own much-smaller frame, she felt sixteen again. Like it was the two of them against the world – or at least just against Knoxville – and she’d always felt her most invincible when they had each other’s backs.

She pulled back, and saw Ava blink a few times, tossing her hair over her shoulder to hide it. “Go forth and account things. Make us proud.”

Leah saluted her.

“You’re gonna do great, baby,” her mom assured, leaning over the counter to offer a less-crushing, but no less warm and welcome hug of her own. She kissed Leah’s cheek as she pulled back, eyes sparkling and shiny with unshed tears. “It’s so good to have you home, I was just telling Ava.”

“Mom.”

“She was,” Ava agreed, nodding, “and I can’t second that sentiment enough.” She gave Leah another, quicker hug. “Knock ‘em dead – and I mean that literally. If Ian’s an ass, you have my permission to slap the pretentious right off of him.”

It wasn’t far to the office, but she drove there, rather than take up a valuable customer parking place in front of the shop. She parked in the new, well-lit deck behind the building, and showed her ID to the guard behind the desk at the rear entrance.

“Just a sec,” he told her, and another immaculate, gently-smiling employee – Josh, this time – appeared from nowhere and took her to have her photo snapped for an ID card.

Fifteen minutes later, still-hot ID hanging from the waistband of her skirt by a little clip, Josh led her down a hallway on the third floor, and into a wide open, well-lit space studded with open-concept cubicles; the kind with only the barest nod to privacy, and easy sightlines to encourage cooperation and collaboration. (She’d already seen it last night, online, in the training video Candace had emailed her the link for.)

It was a pretty space, with a full, open-concept kitchen along the back wall, and floor-to-ceiling windows to offer dramatic views of the streets and shops below. More plants; she was sensing a theme. And several plush couches and chairs with side tables. Breaks were encouraged, her introductory email packet had explained.

Three people were already seated at computers, more smartly dressed than her, she noticed. All of them glanced up at the sound of her arrival. All of them smiled.

One young woman waved. “Hi! You must be Leah.”

The young man nearest stood up to shake her hand.

Leah took a deep breath, told her nerves to cool it, and got started.

~*~

“Why are you so terrible at this?” Tenny asked. He lifted his arms again, feet spread on the mat, bent slightly forward at the hips, ready to strike again. “Again. Come at me.”

Evan wiped sweaty hair off his forehead, squinting against the sunlight that beat down on the back salvage lot behind the clubhouse – and scowling at Tenny. Sweat had soaked through his t-shirt, plastered his hair to his head, and bruises were already starting to come up on his arms, faint shadows and smudges. He’d yet to land a hit of his own, and Fox had stopped offering instructions and was just watching now, sitting impassively on a picnic table, watching the match play out from behind dark sunglasses.

“Come on,” Tenny coaxed, voice going falsely bright. He made little kissing sounds, like he was trying to lure out a shy animal. “Have another go at me.”

Evan’s face darkened, his nostrils flared, and he lunged – only to be caught and tossed right on his back. Tenny placed a booted foot on his sternum, pinning him.

“Terrible,” he said, clucking. “Just terrible.”

Reese saw Evan snap before he moved; it wasn’t surprising. Tenny was being even more of an asshole than usual.

“That’s – alright, fuck you, that’s it!” Evan exploded with movement, kicking out with both feet, arms flailing. He grabbed at Tenny’s ankle and tried to claw him away.

Tenny pulled back, but slowly, in total control, expression one of mild distaste.

“Fuck you!” Evan repeated, scrambling to his feet. He whirled to face Fox, chest heaving, stabbing a finger through the air toward Tenny. “Fuck him! I give up! Fuck it!” He stormed off, and a moment later, the back door slammed shut behind him.

Fox said, “That was uncalled for,” his voice flat.

Tenny picked up his water bottle and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “It’s time to cut that one loose. He’s nothing but dead weight.”

Reese found himself frowning, as he thought of guys like Aidan, and RJ, and Boomer: brothers without special skillsets, but who were nevertheless loyal members of the club. He and Tenny – and Fox – all had elite training, and brought certain niche abilities to the table. Even Mercy and Michael had above-average willingness to commit violence. But most of the Dogs didn’t, and yet were still fully-patched members who sat at table and who voted on club measures.

“He’ll never best you in hand-to-hand,” Fox agreed. “Either of you. But it isn’t my decision to cut him loose.”

Tenny made a face.

“He can walk away before his prospect year is up, or he can stay. I will be recommending that he no longer train with us – with you, specifically, since you seem so hellbent on embarrassing him.”

Tenny spat a mouthful of water on the pavement and sneered. “He deserves to be embarrassed.”

“Right,” Fox said, dryly, “because it’s the nineteen-seventies and clubs are nothing but dick-swinging and pissing on prospects so they learn their place.”

Tenny stilled, expression frozen; deciding on a retort, Reese thought.

“Evan’s nothing special,” Fox continued. “He’s just a guy with shit luck who’s made bade decisions, and has nowhere else to go. Just like you.” He nodded toward his brother. Then climbed off the table. “You won’t have to train with him again.” He turned and walked off.

A sharp crackle of plastic drew Reese’s attention; Tenny had crushed his water bottle in his hand. He glanced down at it, expression disgusted, then chucked it away across the pavement.

He stalked over to the bench where Reese sat and threw himself down with a gusty exhale. “Fuck him,” he muttered under his breath, and began unpicking the tape from around his hands.

It was always one step forward with Fox and Tenny, and two steps back. Reese was starting to think that was just the way of brothers; with only a sweet-natured sister of his own, he had no real basis for comparison.

“He was trying to make you angry on purpose,” Reese said.

“I know that,” Tenny snapped, and then sighed. “I know that,” he repeated, softer. “He’s bloody good at it, the asshole.”

“You’re too hard on Evan.”

“Someone has to be. Do you want that incompetent idiot at your six? Guarding your back? Would you trust him to do what we did the other night?”

“No. But he could have played Carter’s part. He can be useful without being like us.”

Tenny’s lip curled as he dropped the tape and started on his other hand. “Aren’t there enough idiots in this club already?”

“I think acceptance is based on loyalty and willingness, not on usefulness.”

Tenny snorted. “Yes. A wonderfully efficient organization, isn’t it?”

Reese shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be.”

He watched Tenny’s profile, the unhappy set of his mouth, and waited for another biting rebuttal.

Instead, Tenny flicked the last of the tape onto the ground and heaved another sigh; settled leaning forward with his forearms resting on his thighs. “Why would anyone design such a thing?” he asked, tone reflective, barely above a whisper. “Why would inefficiency be tolerated?”

“Because it isn’t a squad of assassins,” Reese said. “It’s a family.”

“Family.” He snorted. “Christ, how very mundane.”

“Mundane can be good.”

Tenny turned to face him, finally; his masked was coming loose at one corner, the true him struggling to shine through; a bit of real tension around the eyes, and his mouth. “Careful. You’re very much in danger of sounding like one of them.”

At first, Reese had wondered why Tenny would throw these fits of intense club resistance. They had frustrated him: it felt like whatever progress had been made would evaporate. Like Tenny would start to lean into the idea of belonging, and then reject it wholeheartedly – and Reese along with it. But he’d learned that, rather, these fits were mostly for show. Like Tenny felt like he had to justify his initial prejudices; like he had to fight to remain the detached, perfect, government-trained assassin he’d been before, and which, at least as far as detachment went, he certainly wasn’t now. It was the only life he’d known, that of unemotional efficiency and usefulness; letting go of it was difficult. And so he rebelled, like today; acted like the club and everyone in it disgusted him.

Usually, the fits were brought on by something Fox had said or done. An order passed down from Ghost, whom Tenny still didn’t quite respect as his leader. But this time – this particular fit – had begun a few nights ago, when Tenny sat up suddenly, launched himself from bed, and left the room in a hurry.

They hadn’t spent any evenings together with one of the groupies since. And Tenny’s insults had seemed a little thornier and less teasing in the time since. What Reese had just witnessed with Evan hadn’t been Tenny’s usual, low-simmering disdain for the less talented. He was angry. Upset, something. And he’d taken it out on Evan.

Reese couldn’t help but feel that he was the one Tenny was truly angry with.

He’d improved, especially in the last few months, but he still lacked eloquence or subtlety when it came to talking about delicate subjects. So he cut to the chase. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” Tenny’s brows lifted a fraction, and Reese watched his mask slide back into place; its corners unfurling, sticking tight. The veil came down over his eyes.

Reese hated being on the receiving end of it. He frowned again.

“You’re doing that more often,” Tenny said, lightly, glancing away. “Frowning. It suits you better than smiling, I suppose.”

Before he could register the impulse to do so, Reese gripped his wrist.

Tenny looked down at his hand, his pale fingers curled around his own wrist, and then slowly lifted his head, the mask skeptical now. “Something on your mind?” he asked, mildly.

Forget the mask, sometimes Reese still hated him. “What’s wrong? You’re acting strange.”

“I am? How so?”

“You’re angry,” Reese said, jaw setting, determined. Tenny could act like an ass if he wanted to, but Reese wasn’t going to be so easy to shrug off and dismiss. “Because of me.”

Tenny made a dismissive sound. “Why would I be angry because of you? You aren’t the one who fights like someone’s grandmother and then cries about it. The wanker.”

“Tennyson.”

He stilled. Didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, his gaze fixed to Reese’s face; a window, in the handful of seconds before he moved again, to a shocking degree of turmoil. Anger was too simple a word, but Reese didn’t have the means necessary to describe what he glimpsed, in that moment before Tenny turned away, shaking his head in dismissal.

“The last time we–”

“Oh, leave it!” Tenny hissed, bolting to his feet. He took a few long strides across the pavement, one hand on his hip, the other pushing back through his tousled dark hair. Tension radiated from every taut line of his body; his spine was half-curved, a protective, defensive posture wildly at odds with his usual put-upon swagger.

Reese said, “No.”

Tenny whirled on him, gaze wild. “No? What’s gotten into you? What are you bloody digging for? Huh? Like you have emotions. Like you want to talk.” More barbs, like always, to distract from his own anguish. Don’t look too closely at me, I’m an asshole.

Reese knew the game now. He wasn’t offended. Wasn’t put off. He sat placidly, hands resting lightly on his thighs, and said, “You’ve been looking for a fight with someone since I kissed you.”

Tenny bared all his teeth in clear warning, like a dog backed into a corner.

“If it was bad – if it was wrong – if you didn’t like it, I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.”

He got another glimpse of raw, pained truth, before Tenny’s sneer covered it. “Is that what you’re worried about? Do you think that little – well, it wasn’t even really a kiss was it? That’s the first time you’ve ever attempted to initiate anything on your own, wasn’t it? You think that…?” He barked out a laugh that Reese could tell was fake, overdone, too loud. He walked back to the bench, patted Reese affectionately on the cheek. “Don’t flatter yourself. There’s nothing wrong with me.” He walked off toward the door, whistling a tune Reese didn’t recognize – when did he ever recognize tunes? He didn’t listen to music.

The door banged shut.

Reese sat for a long minute looking out across the heat mirages that shimmered between the wrecks in the salvage yard.

“You’re a liar,” he said, quietly, and went to pick up his things.

Sixteen

There was no one home when Fox pulled up at Eden’s house that evening, so he let himself in with his spare key and went to see what he could find in the fridge.

When they got back from Texas, Eden dove right back into renovating the tired, nineties-era colonial. Fox had been roped into helping her take the kitchen cabinets off the wall, sand and repaint them, and then hang them back up, now a soft gray. “Shouldn’t the brother who handles woodwork be involved in this?” he’d complained, and she’d told him to shut up.

She’d pulled down the curtains – and who put drapey peach curtains in a kitchen? – stripped the wallpaper, and painted the walls white. The new countertops had been ordered, but hadn’t arrived yet; she’d been eating lots of takeout and TV dinners in the interim, until she had a proper prep space again.

He found a beer in the fridge and went to sit on the couch.

Ten minutes later, the garage door went up, and Eden and Axelle came bustling in from the back door, toting paper bags from Stella’s.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Eden said, spotting him. She set the bags down on the coffee table and unslung the satchel from across her shoulders. “Will you go get some silverware? I brought pasta.”

“Hello to you, too,” he said, standing, and she swooped in to press a fast kiss to the corner of his mouth, offering a distracted, fleeting smile as she pulled back. She smelled of the hunt. With her hair in a tight bun, dressed in jeans, and Docs, and her favorite black leather jacket, zipped nearly to her chin, he could tell she was fresh off a case, and still thinking about it. If she was glad to see him, then he knew which case it was.

“Oh, and beers for us,” Axelle called to his back as he headed for the kitchen.

“Get your own beer.”

“Charlie,” Eden said, crisply.

He sighed. “Fine.”

When they were all settled, Fox and Eden on the long sofa, Axelle cross-legged in a chair, foam container of noodles balanced in her lap, Eden set her own penne with pesto aside and instead pulled out her notebook, crammed with tidy, handwritten notes.

“Someone’s been busy,” Fox observed.

“Very. We went to talk to Allie Henderson’s parents.” She sat back into the corner of the sofa, angled her body, legs crossed, notepad held up on one thigh. A woman who’d already drawn some conclusions, and looked to them now to flesh out some more. She looked eager, and if Fox didn’t already know better, he would have said he hoped she hadn’t displayed this kind of excitement in front of the poor, distraught parents. But he did know her; his girl was nothing if not professional.

“It’s an all-too-common occurrence,” Eden said. “Allie was a wonderful student, beloved by her friends and the community – at least, according to her parents. All sorts of clubs and extracurriculars. Volunteer work, the whole bit.” She made an encompassing hand gesture. “She’s an only child, and the mother is absolutely distraught because the police haven’t found anything. The father is devastated, to be sure, but he was able to speak with me.

“According to phone records – which he gladly showed me, and apparently showed the police as well – Allie called them at ten-fifteen the night of her disappearance and told them she was leaving the party and coming straight home. She said she hadn’t been drinking, and he believed her, based on the clarity of her voice. The party was at the home of” – she checked her notes – “a classmate named Jimmy Connors, and Mr. Henderson said that was only a ten-minute drive from their own home.

“When Allie failed to show after fifteen minutes, the mother called her. After twenty minutes, they called again. After thirty minutes, the father got in his car and drive the route to the Connors place to make sure she hadn’t broken down on the way. He went into the party – still raging, by the way, and full of drunk teenagers, and no parents. He asked several of the other students if Allie had come back. No one had seen her, they said – the last glimpse of her was her leaving, and, according to one girl, very publicly turning Jimmy Connors down for a date on the front lawn.”

Fox started to respond, and she held up a finger.

“Just a moment more. Henderson called the police on the party, and when they arrived, and kids scattered like roaches in the light, he told them about Allie. Technically, it hadn’t been long enough to file a missing person’s report, but the officers knew Henderson, and they said it was a light evening, and offered to drive around and look.

“Her car was found at midnight, on Mill Road. Axelle and I went and scoped the location.”

“Find anything?”

“Lots of broken bottles and old crushed beer cans. Part of a broken taillight – though the police report indicates Allie’s car was intact, so it wasn’t hers.”

“Someone hangs out down there,” Axelle said, twirling spaghetti onto her fork. “There were cigarette butts, and old condoms, and candy wrappers, and all kinds of shit.” She wrinkled her nose. “Fucking disgusting.”

“It’s a dead-end road,” Eden said, nodding. “And aptly-named. There is in fact an old, abandoned saw mill at the end of it.”

“Which I’m assuming you went into,” he said.

She plucked her camera off the table and passed it over.

The sequence of photos he tabbed through looked straight from a horror movie: a hollowed-out gravel bowl of a parking lot, and a two-story, weather-beaten wooden building perched on the edge of a weed-choked stream. A pair of double doors hung haphazardly from busted hinges, and between them, a yawning black cavern of a doorway of the sort that kids would have dared each other to enter, only to come back out shrieking.

Fox checked the urge to ask if she’d been armed; he knew she had been.

The next photo was taken at the doorway, looking inside. A few boards had rotted away, or been pulled off, and sunlight fell in bold, yellow slats across the dirt floor. An open space, with a few bits of old, rusted equipment lying about: a saw, a chisel. The ceiling went all the way up to the second story, with only a narrow gallery to stand on; she’d captured a dove in mid-flight, as it had been startled by their entrance. A few old, warped boards sat propped in a corner, layered with dust.

The next photo was the interesting one: a close-up of a section of wall, and a very fresh symbol spray-painted onto it.

“The paint wasn’t wet, but it’s fairly fresh,” Eden said. “Within the last few weeks, I’d wager.”

The symbol itself was simple: an inverted triangle painted in fluorescent yellow.

Fox glanced up, and met Eden’s serious gaze.

“Yield,” they said together.

“I’ve got a call in to PD to ask if they saw this tag, or if they even searched the mill at all.”

“Send this one to me,” he said. “Or, better yet, come show it to Ghost yourself.”

She nodded, and accepted the camera back. “I was planning on going by Dartmoor in the morning.”

“Okay,” he said, settling back against the cushions, dinner abandoned. The chase was on, and that was way more exciting than lasagna. “Let’s back up a step. Jimmy Connors tried to deface Bell Bar and his dad gave us a line about high school kids having it out for the Dogs because of Allie’s disappearance. But it was Jimmy’s unsupervised party she left right before, and it was Jimmy she was publicly, and no doubt embarrassingly, turning down in front of all their friends.”

“I think Jimmy followed her, killed her, and then tried to stir up a buncha shit about the Dogs to cover his ass,” Axelle said. “The little shitstain.”

“Oh, he’s a shitstain alright,” Fox agreed, “but did the father say Jimmy was at the party when he arrived?”

Eden nodded. “Yeah. And wasted, apparently.”

“He could have been pretending,” Axelle said. “He could have left and come back.”

“Thirty minutes isn’t long enough to kill someone, dump a body, dump a car, and get back to your own party.”

“So he had help. He would have needed an accomplice to drop the car, anyway.”

Eden chewed at her lip a moment. “That tag, though. Jimmy may very well be our culprit, he and some of his friends. But that tag feels like a message, and Jimmy isn’t the head of any sort of organization.”

“The tag could be kids playing around with spray paint. It might not mean anything at all,” Fox said.

Eden sent him a quick look, one he returned. They’d both been in the game too long to hang things up to coincidence.

“I want to talk to Jimmy,” she said.

Fox grinned. “I can probably arrange that.”

“That look never bodes well.”

“Not for Jimmy it doesn’t.”

~*~

“Try it again, on the move this time.”

“It’s a trash can.”

“Right, which doesn’t have arms and hands, so it can’t reach and help you out. If you can hit the can, you can hit your receiver. Again. Feet moving.” Carter punctuated the instruction by taking a run at Elijah, who muttered a protest, danced like he’d been pushed out of the pocket, and threw the ball while he was running.

It spiraled up into a perfect arc, the last of the day’s sunlight gleaming on the laces, and dropped into the can so perfectly it didn’t even wobble.

Elijah threw up both hands in celebration, and turned to beam at Carter. “You see that?”

“Yeah, I did. Now tell me the trash can idea is stupid.”

Elijah rolled his eyes – but chuckled.

Carter clapped him on the shoulder as they walked down to retrieve the ball, and set the trash can back on the jogging path where it belonged. “That was good today. You’re already showing a lot of improvement.”

“Coach noticed at practice yesterday,” Elijah said, with the air of confiding a secret. His smile was nearly bashful as he flipped the ball from hand to hand, and they walked across the grass back toward the bench where they’d left their bags. “All he said was, ‘Better,’ but coming from Coach–”

“That’s a huge compliment,” Carter said, knowingly. “Dude, that’s awesome.”

When they reached their gear, they found a group of elementary-age boys with a huge bag of soccer balls held between them, practically bouncing up and down with anticipation. “Are you done with the field?” one asked.

“Yeah, little man, have at it,” Elijah said, offering high fives to all of them before they dashed out onto the grass, whooping in delight.

The two of them sat down on the bench to take long pulls from their water bottles; Carter offered a wave to the watchful mothers who’d taken up spots on the next bench over, and got several waves – and even an appreciative look – in return.

“Now that your face doesn’t look like shit” – his bruises had all but faded – “you gonna try to bag a soccer mom?” Elijah teased.

“No.” His cheeks heated. “I mean, I could if I wanted to…”

Elijah choked on a laugh.

“But nah. Not really my thing.”

“Not your thing? Who was that MILF I saw you talking to that night at practice?”

“Oh. Um. Well. She…”

Elijah knocked their shoulders together. “I’m just playing, man, relax before you have a stroke.”

Carter wiped a hand down his face. “My relationship history is really weird, okay?”

“Okay, okay. That’s cool.”

It was a little bit shocking, how quickly they’d moved from warily circling one another to being something almost like friends. When he wasn’t waiting for Carter to prove himself an enemy, Elijah was jovial, and funny, and not at all afraid to rib his pseudo-coach. Carter truly did love his club brothers, and, on good days, he liked joking back and forth with them, too; but there was a part of him that would always feel like he’d stepped into a world in which he did not belong. Even flying the Lean Dog on his back, he didn’t truly feel that he was one.

A braver man than him would have opened his mouth and actually talked to someone about that – maybe not Aidan, but at least Mercy, or Tango. Even Ava.

It was easier with Elijah. With someone who loved the game the way he did; who was hungry for the same things he’d been hungry for at this age.

Out on the field, the boys had upended their bag and now zipped around wildly, kicking soccer balls in every direction without any sort of organization or cooperation. It was the spirit that counted at that age, Carter guessed. Beyond them, the sun flirted with the tree line, brilliant as a fresh orange, too fierce to look at for long, though the trailing gold and pink froths of cloud tempted the eye.

“Hey,” Elijah said, and his voice had gone serious. “You know how you asked me about everybody hating the Lean Dogs at school?”

Carter turned toward him, careful not to look too eager. “Yeah.”

“Jimmy Connors was running his mouth in the cafeteria today.”

“About what?”

Elijah shrugged and looked away, hands knotting together around his water bottle. He looked uncomfortable. “Just talking shit about how the Dogs tried to scare him at work. Said y’all roughed up his dad.”

Carter snorted. “My president spoke to his dad. He didn’t rough him up.”

“I know,” Elijah said, surprising him. “He was all worked up. Saying y’all took Allie off and chained her up in the clubhouse. Lotta real nasty shit.”

Carter took a slow breath in through his mouth, startled by the surge of fury that swept through him. And after they’d gone to the effort of setting up that little show on Main Street. After people saw Carter step in. And now Jimmy was out saying they’d turned Allie into some kinda club sex slave. That little shit. “Do you believe what he said?”

“No.” Right away, no hesitation. His gaze slid over, cautious – but not like it had been at first. “It’s like I said before: I don’t really give a shit about Jimmy. And now he’s being super fucking annoying. He’s got it out for y’all. Bad. And I don’t know why. Everybody knew he liked Allie–”

“He did?”

“Yeah. He was kinda stalkery about it, actually. She was real sweet, but there was no way in hell she was gonna go out with him.”

“Did he harass her?”

“Nah. But he was following her around at the party.” His gaze narrowed. “Why do you care?”

“Well, for starters, I care about the fact that some dumbass is trying to blame us for something awful that we didn’t do.”

Elijah nodded, and Carter thought he looked sheepish.

“And one of my brothers – his old lady’s a PI. A really good one. The police haven’t found anything, and she was supposed to do some poking around today and see if she could find anything useful out about what happened to Allie.” He caught his gaze and held it. “But I promise you: we had nothing to do with Allie disappearing.”

Elijah stared back a long moment, then nodded and turned away. “I tried to tell him that you guys wouldn’t need to do something like that: lots of hot chicks hang out with y’all anyway. Not like you’d need to kidnap somebody.”

Carter smiled, wryly.

“And there’s something my dad says,” Elijah continued, tone shifting, growing more serious. “If somebody’s spending all their time pointing fingers at someone, it’s the guy with the finger who actually did it.”

Seventeen

“I keep telling myself I’m gonna go to the store, buy real food, and cook myself dinner,” Leah swore as her dad set a plate in front of her. It was nothing fancy, just a club sandwich and a small bag of chips, but it beat going home and turning on the stove.

“What’s the point in having a restaurant if you can’t feed your own kid out of it?” he asked with a wink, and rested a hand on the chair opposite her own. “What about your coworkers? Are they nice, or are they assholes?” He’d been grilling her about her first day for ten solid minutes, from the moment she’d walked into the door, and all through making her sandwich and decaf.

“They’re all very nice,” she said. “There’s Gabe, and Rochelle, and Isobel, and all of them are lovely.”

“Lovely could mean anything,” he griped.

“Yeah, but in this case, it means they respect breakroom fridge etiquette, and they don’t talk obnoxiously loud on their phones. They’d ordered a cake, Dad, with my name on it and everything, to welcome me on my first day.”

“That’s overkill.”

“And you’re a sourpuss,” she proclaimed, and took a bite of sandwich to lay the point to rest.

He snorted. “Did you see the boss man today? Mr. Fancy Pants?”

“No.” She dabbed her mouth with a napkin and reached for her coffee. “Rochelle said he hardly ever stops on our floor.”

“Not fancy enough, probably.”

“Dad, you’ve never even seen him. How can you have an opinion about his level of fanciness?”

“Ava said he was fancy, and I trust Ava.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh my God.”

He glanced up as a new customer entered, and she saw his jaw get tight, that Marine look stealing over his face – there was no such thing as an ex-Marine, after all. “Your boyfriend’s here.”

She nearly choked on the bite she’d just taken. “My what?”

A glance proved that Carter was walking across the shop – or, had been, before her dad’s look brought him up short. He glanced uncertainly between her and her dad. “Um…”

“It’s fine, Carter,” she said, motioning toward the counter. “He doesn’t bite.”

To her dad, after Carter had skirted around him and headed for the counter: “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Then why’s he coming in here all the time now?”

“Are you going to turn away a paying customer?”

He folded his arms. “I am if he’s got ill-intentions toward my daughter.”

The statement deserved such a dramatic eye-roll, she decided not to attempt it and risk pulling something. “I’m the last person on earth Carter Michaels is interested in romantically. But we are friends, and have been for years. Plus, I’m almost thirty: the dad-with-a-shotgun routine isn’t cute anymore.”

He grumbled, but pushed off and returned to the counter. She watched him go, ready to interfere if he said anything to Carter; but he didn’t. Went over to the cappuccino machine and let Noelle fill Carter’s order.

That look, though, had caused some doubt. Carter stood with his wrapped sandwich and a green tea after he turned away from the counter, surveying the tables – few of which were available – and darting Leah a questioning glance.

She waved him over. “Please ignore my dad. He’s regressing, apparently.”

“I heard that!” Marshall called from behind the counter.

Carter’s face went pink as he dropped into the chair across from her. “I told you he doesn’t like me,” he whispered.

“He likes you fine. He thinks you’re trying to seduce me, or whatever. And won’t listen to any of my assertions that we are definitely just friends.”

His face went blank a moment. “Oh. Okay, well.” He unwrapped his sandwich. “It’s good he’s protective, I guess.”

“It’s ridiculous, is what it is.” She took a bite of her own sandwich and chased it with coffee. “Subject change: you were dressed like that yesterday, too.” She nodded toward his outfit: shorts and t-shirt, sneakers, no cut or wallet chain in sight. “You hitting the gym? I thought Ghost had a weight room at the clubhouse.”

“No. He does. I’m…” He hesitated, regarding his sandwich with undue attention. “I’m actually doing some coaching.”

“Of…?”

“The varsity quarterback over at the high school. I’m helping him work on his long ball.”

That wasn’t what she’d expected at all.

Whatever her face did in response, it had him saying, in a rush, “It’s nothing official. I’m not charging him or anything. I wouldn’t even call it coaching, really. We’ve met a few times at the park, and I’m giving him some pointers. He already had the raw talent, it was just that he needed some tips, and Coach isn’t–”

“Breathe, Carter.”

He exhaled unsteadily.

“I think that’s great,” she said, and meant it; hoped he could hear that she meant it. “It’s great,” she repeated. “I was surprised is all, because you’re…” Belatedly, she realized what she was about to say, and the way it might be perceived.

“A criminal?” he guessed, rueful smile pulling at his mouth. He looked unbearably sad in that instance.

She wished she could start over, but that wasn’t possible; all she could do now was try to smooth what she’d already said. “No, not that. I’m pro-Lean Dog, remember? But I didn’t know if you were still involved in anything football related.” Gently: “Sometimes it’s hard to pick back up where you left off when your role is different. It’s probably hard to be the coach instead of the athlete.”

His brows lifted, and his face smoothed with surprise. “Actually…it’s not as hard as I thought.”

“Really?”

“No. I thought it would be. I have a hard time watching a game sometimes. It feels like I’m left out. And I thought it would be that way working with Elijah, but…” She watched realization break over him, as golden and beautiful as a sunrise, his blue eyes dancing with light beneath the soft glow of the overhead lamps.

God, it was a good thing she didn’t go for pretty boys, because sometimes Carter was gorgeous enough to stop a girl in her tracks.

“Watching him get better makes me feel good, you know?” he said, nearly wondrous. He’d set his sandwich down, and was talking with his hands now, gesturing with an easy excitement she hadn’t seen in him since she got back to town. “And I’m getting to be a part of it without, you know, my dad breathing down my neck about how I better earn the team fee. Without all that pressure.” He shook his head. “I threw up before every college game I played. And…” He’d been winding up the whole time, fervor blazing in his eyes.

He bit his lip now, and seemed to shrink, his gaze withdrawing. When he turned his lip loose, and took a breath, it shivered. The coffeeshop faded to a blur of noise and light around them; Leah felt like they were insulted, tucked away, just the two of them. A frisson moved through the air, a sudden, unexpected intimacy.

One ripe for a confession. “You know,” he said, looking up through his lashes, a blast of blue under dark fringe, “the day I got hurt. I almost…shit, this is bad. I shouldn’t…” He shook his head again – but his gaze found hers again, too, and wouldn’t let go.

She wasn’t sure she was breathing.

“I was relieved,” he admitted, and his shoulders dropped afterward. He’d been carrying that, she realized, for years now, and based on the sudden, total loss of tension from his body, she didn’t think he’d told a soul. “It was so much, being on that stage, and having all of that riding on me. Knowing people back home were watching me on TV every Saturday, knowing it was my one shot, and that so many things could blow it for me. Knowing I was done – and that it wasn’t because I couldn’t cut it, or because I quit – but because of something outside my control. God, it was a relief.”

He sat back and wiped a hand down his face, grimacing when he realized that he’d wiped sandwich grease down his cheek.

Wordlessly, Leah offered him a napkin.

“Wow. Okay. I’m a jackass,” he said. “How many guys would have killed to be where I was, and I was glad it was over.”

“You’re not a jackass.” She finally found her voice. “That kind of pressure eats away at a person. It’s awful sometimes, even if you’re doing something you love – even if it’s the thing you love most.”

He sent her a doubtful look.

“I actually finished college,” she joked. “So trust me: I know what I’m talking about.”

He snorted, and smiled, and he was radiant with that relief he’d just laid on the table between them.

Uh oh, she thought to herself. Don’t start thinking he’s cute.

A tiny voice in the back of her head said, Too late.

Thankfully, nothing ever stayed heavy between them for very long. “Oh shit,” he said, eyes widening. “I didn’t ask: how was your first day?”

Thank God, she thought, and readily launched into a recap of her day. He made far fewer faces than he dad, and burst out laughing when she described the “relaxation corner,” with its sofas, chairs, rain machine, and essential oil diffuser.

“It’s relaxing!” she protested.

He pressed a hand over his mouth that did nothing to stem his laughter. “I’m gonna tell Ghost we need one.”

She threw a balled-up napkin at him, and the way it bounced off his forehead, and landed right in her mostly-empty coffee cup sent them both into fresh peals of giggles.

When he finally had to go – and she was shocked to see that two hours had passed, and that most of the customers had filtered out, save a few older men reading paperbacks in the corners – he said he’d see her tomorrow, and waved as he backed out the door.

“Not your boyfriend, huh?” Dad called from the counter, when he was gone.

“Definitely not!”

~*~

She couldn’t wipe his smile from her mind, though. Couldn’t get over the change in him tonight, when he’d embraced what she suspected was a whole lot of self-actualization.

She went home, changed into sweats, and had just collapsed onto her ugly secondhand sofa in front of House Hunters when Ava called.

“You have to slap a pretentious wanker today?” Ava asked in a horrible attempt at a British accent.

“Of your many talents, impressions aren’t one of them,” Leah said, and Ava laughed. “And no, I didn’t even see him. I’m an accountant, remember? Not his personal assistant.”

“There’s always tomorrow,” she said in her normal voice. “Seriously, though, how was it?”

“It was good.” Which was what she’d been saying all evening. She walked through the same summary she’d given her mom on the phone, and her dad, and then Carter at the coffeeshop. “First days are always kinda weird, you know?”

“I know.”

“But it’s a fantastic job. Plenty of breaks, nice office, close to home, and the shop…I think I’m gonna be thanking your mom for the rest of my life.”

Ava chuckled. “Don’t say that if you don’t want to get roped into babysitting.”

“Bring on the babies.”

“You haven’t seen Ash when he’s having a tantrum. Oh my Lord, can that kid scream.”

Leah still found it hilarious that Ava had a little brother younger than her own three kids. It was a reminder that, though so much of Knoxville was just as she’d left it, a lot had changed, too. Babies were born, bars were bought…and former star quarterbacks spiraled into depressive episodes.

“Hey,” she said, during a natural lull in the conversation. She heard small voices in the background, and Mercy’s deep, bass rumble, and knew she would need to say goodnight soon. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about Carter.”

“Carter?” Ava sounded surprised. “Oh, about the whole getting-punched-in-the-face thing?”

“No, he told me that story.”

“Yikes.”

“No, I…he’s been coming by the shop a lot in the last few days. I think we’re kinda building a have-dinner-together habit or something.”

“A what now?”

“Tonight,” Leah pressed on, feeling a surprising surge of annoyance, “was the first time I’ve seen him smile – really, genuinely look happy – since I got home.”

“Oh.”

“Please tell me someone besides me has noticed that he is very not okay.”

A pause. And then Ava let out a deep breath. “Yeah,” she said, softly. “He’s…he’s good at hiding it. Covering it, I guess. Usually. I don’t know if he’s been unhappy all along, and just stopped trying to keep us from noticing, or if maybe it’s been a long, slow slide into it.” Another pause, and shame touched her voice. “I’ve been busy with the kids, and work, and helping Mom, and…listen to me making excuses. There is no excuse. I should be checking up on him better.”

“He was better tonight,” Leah said, her annoyance evaporating; replaced by a gentle sort of sadness. “He said he was helping coach the high school quarterback.”

“He is?”

“Yeah. He said he’s really enjoying it. Being back into football like that again. You should have seen the way he was smiling.”

“Kinda dazzling, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t seen that smile in a long time.” She gave a low, considering hum. “I don’t think he ever wanted to be a Dog. I nudged him that direction.”

“It’s not your fault. Nobody sticks out their prospect year if they want to leave, right?”

“Right.” But Ava didn’t sound convinced. “Tell you what: I’ll have a dinner. Aidan and Sam, Tango and Whitney. Carter. Oh, and you should come, too.”

“To your couples party?”

“Not a party, a dinner, and not just couples. You said he was happier with you, so, you can come and make him happy.” She laughed. “God, I just heard how that sounds, and it’s bad. But. Just come. It’s not a couples thing. It’s family, and you’re family.”

Leah smiled to herself. “Okay. What can I bring?”

Eighteen

Doves burst from the rafters overhead, the sudden working of their wings loud as clapping hands in the dank stillness of the old mill. Dust and feathers and old tatters of cobwebs showered down from above.

Ghost side-stepped the falling debris, moving in closer to the triangle spray-painted on the wall. “There was nothing else?” He touched the paint with his fingertips; dry, soaked deep into the wood. It could have been weeks or months old, though the color retained its brightness. “Nothing else out of place?”

“Not that I could find,” Eden said behind him. Ghost liked her. She reminded him of his own girls; the way she was practical, and smart, and didn’t fuck around with important stuff. “But I didn’t go wading out through the tall grass.”

“The kids’ll find it, if it’s there.” He’d sent Reese and Tenny out into the unkempt fields behind the building, told them to search for anything relevant to the crime at hand.

He nodded toward the tag. “What’s your take?”

Her boots – sensible, but rebellious Docs – scuffed over the dirt floor as she came to stand beside him. “It’s a triangle,” she said. “Generic in that sense. An easy shape to try for someone unused to using spray paint.”

“Fox said he thought it was meant to be the yield sign.” That’s the way it read to him; that was what had jumped out the moment he’d laid eyes on it. Yield. Maggie called him paranoid, but he’d been in the club long enough to know that sometimes the wildest option was the truest.

He glanced over to get a read on Eden’s expression.

She was frowning, arms crossed, one thumb tap-tap-tapping in the crook of her leather-clad elbow. “Part of me thinks that’s exactly what it is. But another part of me thinks disappearing Allie Henderson is really convoluted as far as sending a message to the club goes.” She turned toward him, brows lifting. “It’s an obscure message, at best.”

He nodded and glanced back toward the triangle. Yield. It would be a rare, strong individual to challenge the club this way. And someone more devious and insidious than the enemies they’d faced in the past.

Like Luis Cantrell, an unhelpful voice chimed in the back of his head. He’d never met him, hadn’t seen him for himself, but he trusted Candy. Trusted that if Candy was properly spooked, and insistent that an enemy would strike again, then it would happen.

“Ghost,” Fox said, behind them, in the threshold. They turned. “You’ll want to see this.”

~*~

Reese had found it. Snagged on a serrated stalk of seed-heavy grass, blowing in the wind like a pennant. A shirt. A girl’s shirt. Size small. An airy, embroidered bit of white cotton and silk. A three-quarter sleeve and a belled hem. Like something a girl would wear to a party, under a light jacket.

Ghost stood just beyond its reach, as it rippled and pulled at the stalk to which it was affixed. He couldn’t see any blood, but that didn’t mean anything. Looking at the sheer fabric, he would have guessed she wore another shirt under it.

And there was a chance she hadn’t had her skin broken at all. At least here.

Eden stepped forward, and snapped a picture with the camera slung around her neck. “Good find,” she said. “Axe and I didn’t range this far.” She took several photos, then snapped on a glove, and took the shirt between careful fingers. Tucked it away in a plastic bag.

Ghost had already told her Ratchet had a backdoor lab contact. No sense calling out the boys in blue and complicating things.

He looked toward Reese. “Anything else?”

He gave a single shake of his head, pale hair flaring around his ears before he tucked it back. “No, sir.”

Behind him, Tenny stood with hands on his hips, surveying the area from behind the lenses of his shades. Seemingly unbothered.

Ghost hated his indifferent act, but, like with Mercy, he knew that idiosyncrasies that hid true talent were best tolerated.

Beside him, Fox said, “CSIs could come through here and comb for every fiber. Tell us the exact brand of the paint.”

Ghost looked at him. “Do we need them to do that?”

Fox grinned without humor. “Nope.”

Eden said, “I want to talk to Jimmy Connors.”

Ghost nodded. “Get the parents to sign off on you taking the case. Officially, and then we can make that happen.”

~*~

“Does her dad owe you money or something?” Vince couldn’t have sounded less interested; he didn’t lift his head from the report he was scanning when Ghost dropped into the chair opposite and asked him about Allie Henderson.

“That’s a cynical thing to wonder.”

He finally glanced up. “I’m a cynical guy these days. Allie Henderson is none of your business, Ghost, and I’ve got shit to do.”

“So do I. Only, unlike you, I’m planning on actually finding this girl. You can share what you know, and make my job easier, or you can keep wasting my time being bitchy. Your choice.”

Vince stilled, and the edge of the report slipped off his finger and fluttered shut. “Did I miss something? Are the Lean Dogs in law enforcement now?”

Ghost offered a tight smile. “Did I say anything about enforcing the law?”

“Ah, Jesus, what are you–”

Ghost held up a hand, and Vince went silent. He looked like he wished he hadn’t, brows lowering in outward frustration. But there was no denying the balance of power between them at this point.

“The family’s hired a PI. A friend of ours.”

“Shit.”

“She’s good. Better than this local bunch. No offense.”

Vince blew out a breath. “And you expect me to, what, help her?”

“I expect you, as a concerned citizen of Knoxville, to want Allie Henderson found – no matter who does the finding.”

How could anyone argue with that? Many would, simply because Ghost had been the one to say it. But Vince hadn’t had that luxury for years.

He sighed again, and seemed to cave in on himself in what was now a familiar pose of defeat. “We pulled a whole bunch of prints off her car – mostly hers, her parents’, and her friends. She gave lots of people rides, apparently. But no fluids or anything like that. No body, no ransom note – no ransom phone call. Every day we don’t find her, it becomes less likely that, when we do, we’ll find her alive. You know that.”

“I do.” Ghost nodded. Stood. “I’ll be in touch. Eden’s going to do some digging.” He paused at the door and glanced back. “Let me know if you hear anything useful.”

Vince refused to make eye contact; stared sullenly at his desk. Finally, he nodded, though.

~*~

“It’ll take time to run the DNA,” Ratchet said a half hour later, back at the clubhouse. “But my lab guy pulled a long, blonde hair off the shirt you found out by the mill. Just based on a look under the microscope, he’s saying it matches samples pulled off Allie Henderson’s hairbrush. DNA should confirm in a few days.”

Ghost nodded. “Eden took a photo of it. She’ll show it to the parents.”

“You know,” Fox mused, “when I decided to move to Tennessee, I wasn’t anticipating ‘getting framed by a high school kid’ to be the sort of problem I’d tackle.”

“You’re not tackling it,” Walsh said. “Your old lady is.”

Fox licked a fingertip and held it up to an imaginary stove, grinning. “See? Give him long enough, and he’ll eventually come up with a good line.”

“Guys,” Ghost said. “Don’t make me ship you off to different chapters.”

He got near-identical unimpressed looks – though they did stop bickering.

“Good,” he told Ratchet. “Keep me posted. Fox: given Eden the greenlight to sit down with Jimmy Connors. You gonna go with her?”

“Yeah, probably.” He stood, and stretched, lazy as a cheetah after a nap, not at all worried about catching his prey: people tended not to get away once Fox put them in the crosshairs. “Might even take the asshole along. Get him some practice handling things like a civilian.”

Walsh snorted. “And just like that, I’m not the least favorite brother anymore. Kind of a relief.”

“The hate’s all one-sided, baby,” Fox said, and leaned in to give his brother an exaggerated, loud kiss on the cheek as he passed.

“Ugh,” Walsh muttered, but his heart didn’t sound in it.

“What’s your read on this?” Ghost asked, seriously, as the front door closed behind Fox. “Do you think Jimmy Connors killed her?”

“And is trying to pin it on us?” Walsh shrugged. “Could be. We make good scapegoats. You blame it on another civilian, and it’s easily proven false. Someone would bother to find out that it’s false in the first place.”

“No one cares if we’re guilty of a particular crime or not,” Ghost said.

“Already guilty in the eyes of the public.”

Ghost sat down on the edge of a table, the soft click of Ratchet’s fingers over his laptop keys almost soothing. “At first, I wanted the graffiti to stop. And then finding the Henderson girl seemed like a good way to build a little public good will. Now I think we have to find her.”

“To keep from looking guilty,” Walsh said, nodding. “Story of our lives.”

~*~

Eden’s favorite part about freelancing was the distinct lack of red tape. Sure, nothing she learned would have been admissible in any kind of court, but she got answers; the pursuit of knowledge was what had drawn her to the force when she was young, and it was the thing that persisted to this day.

“That car up there, the blue one,” she said, lowering her binoculars, and Axelle put the GTO in gear and pulled away from the curb, settling a few car lengths behind their quarry.

Traffic was slow out in front of the school, the lanes clogged with students and parents exiting, a crossing guard in an orange vest directing at the intersection. But Eden wasn’t worried about losing Connors; once Axelle caught sight of someone, there was no outrunning her on four wheels.

Eden sat back, content to wait for the moment.

“What’s our angle here?” Axelle asked, braking for the crossing guard. “Do you want my help questioning him? Or am I just your wheels?”

Eden smiled to herself. “Oh, I’ll want your help. Boys like Jimmy – if I’m correct in assessing someone who was shamed in front of his own party – might shake in their boots when MC presidents roll up, but he’ll be dismissive and condescending with us. I don’t have an interrogation plan yet. We’ll just get hold of him, and see how things play out.”

“You trust me to read the situation?” Axelle asked, sounding more than a little surprised.

Eden knew a moment’s swift guilt; if Axelle still had doubts about her own abilities, then it was because Eden hadn’t been firm enough in praising her. She’d have to do better about that. “Of course. You’re smart, and I trust your instincts.”

“Hmph. Learn something new every day, I guess.”

They followed Jimmy for only a few miles, into the shopping/dining district of downtown and into one of the public lots that charged by the hour. He’d never seen them before, so he made no move to hide, or dart, or even look over his shoulder. No furtive behavior as he stood behind his car, fired off a few texts, laughed to himself, and then headed, whistling, up the sidewalk where he turned in at Stella’s and walked down to slide into a booth across from another young man, this one pimply and unwashed-looking.

It wasn’t hard, looking at the pair of them fist-bumping over the table, to imagine one or both of them being creepily interested in a girl.

Or maybe that was just Eden’s usual cynicism.

“Hello, boys,” she announced, pulling up to the booth with intentional suddenness. Both of them jumped and whipped around to stare at her. She blocked Jimmy in, and aimed her coolest smile at the friend. “I need to speak with Jimmy for a moment, if I may.”

“Uh…” He stared at her, slack-jawed.

“That means get lost, dipshit,” Axelle said, stepping into view, motioning him out of the booth.

“Dude, I…uh…” His gaze pinged between the three of them, and, then, finally, he slipped out of the booth with a muttered, “I’ll call later.”

“Excellent,” Eden said, taking his place across from Jimmy.

Axelle slid in beside him, preventing a similar escape, and his face went red with immediate anger. “You can’t just–”

“It is Jimmy, yes?” Eden asked, voice professionally cool. There was always a certain thrill that came with sliding on this persona, one she’d learn to disguise beneath cool indifference over years of practice. “Jimmy Connors? I hope I haven’t gotten the wrong young man.” She tilted her head, and allowed her brows to draw together a fraction: subtle confusion, faint worry that she’d made a mistake.

Let him think her uncertain. A useful tactic.

“No, I–” It knocked him off his guard. He glanced over at Axelle; her lanky frame angled with an elbow on the table and one leg crossed over the other, totally blocking him in. Then to Eden, her manufactured worry. He let out a breath. “Nah, I’m Jimmy. What do you want?”

Eden nodded, played at relieved, and produced a business card that she slid across the table toward him. He craned his neck to look, but didn’t touch it. “I’m Eden Adkins.”

“You’re a detective?” His brows went up into his messy hair, and she saw the first tick of something like panic in the throb of the pulse in his throat and the flicker of his lashes.

“Private investigator. Allie Henderson’s family has hired me to look into her disappearance, since the police aren’t making any headway.”

His brows climbed a little higher.

“I asked them to make me a list of all her closest friends,” she continued, which wasn’t a lie. “I’m working my way down it, and you’re the next one on it.” Which was a lie, because Allie hadn’t ever given this kid the time of day. Her parents hadn’t known him, beyond knowing, as most boating families did, that the Connors owned a customs shop.

“Oh.” His brows came back down a fraction; he blew out a breath and raked a hand through his tangled hair. “Shit. Yeah. The cops have been coming around school asking everybody about it – about her. If we saw anything.”

Eden glanced toward Axelle, who’d produced a small, spiral notebook from her back pocket, and a pen.

“Well,” Eden said, levering a false bit of cheer into her voice. “Not to be redundant, but I’m afraid I’m going to be asking the same sort of things. Only – well. Since I’m very much not a police officer, I don’t have to worry about warrants or the admissible sorts of questions.” She gestured vaguely. Oh, those silly admissible questions. “I can get right to the heart of it without worrying so much about channels and permissions.”

He swallowed. “Right.”

“I think Allie’s still alive, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, totally. I mean, there’s no body, right? Nobody found her, did they?” A bit too eager.

Axelle made a face that Eden didn’t think was an act, pen poised over the paper.

“No,” she agreed, shaking her head, trying to keep his gaze fixed on her. Axelle was proving invaluable help, but she hadn’t quite mastered the whole acting aspect of this business yet. “They haven’t. And I don’t think they will. I think she’s alive, as I said before. But it’s important to find her soon, wherever she is.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“I’ve heard that some of your classmates hold the Lean Dogs responsible.”

His gaze flared; she watched him jump all over his pet theory with both feet.

“Yeah,” he said, “a lot of them do. Everybody around here knows the Lean Dogs are fucking trash.”

“Everybody?” she asked, frowning. “I only ask because I’m new in town – in the United States, in fact.”

He nodded. “I wondered about the accent.”

“Bit of a sore thumb, I’m afraid.” She smiled and held up both palms as if to say guilty, and earned a smile from him in response. And a quick check-out: his gaze traveled down her torso, the sensible black t-shirt she wore under her unzipped jacket, and back up, lingering a moment on her mouth. Little pervert.

“Nah, it’s…” He trailed off. Wisely.

Unseen, Axelle mimed gagging.

“Anyway. You were saying: the Lean Dogs?”

He blinked, refocusing. “Yeah. They suck.”

“You called them ‘trash.’ That’s harsh.”

He leaned forward, earnest – excited about this line of questioning. “Yeah, it’s like – I dunno if they have MCs like that where you’re from” – if only he knew – “but those guys should all be in jail. They deal drugs, and they’re, like, pimps or something. If they see a girl they like, they just take her, and then force her to have sex with all their friends. It’s sick.”

“Sounds like it,” she said, dryly, not at all surprised when he missed her tone. “But why would the city allow people like them to roam the streets, doing what they will?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” He’d shouted, and his cheeks reddened; his head lowered along with his voice. “I think everybody’s afraid of them. They totally kill anybody who gets in their way.”

Eden said, “Goodness. How do the people of Knoxville sleep at night?”

~*~

“Laying it on a bit thick,” Fox murmured to himself, a smile tugging at his lips. He and Tenny had settled into the booth behind Eden’s, and each question sounded more and more like a line delivered on stage. Fortunately, Jimmy Connors was an idiot; plus, he trusted Eden to read the boy correctly and adjust her acting accordingly.

Across the table, Tenny was slouched sideways, his back to the wall, his long legs sticking off the end of the booth while he ripped open sugar packets and poured them one after the other into his coffee, his expression one of performative boredom.

Speaking of laying it on thick…

“Would you like to pretend to read?” Fox asked, tapping the magazine he’d spread out in front of himself for show. “Or are you determined to give yourself diabetes?”

His only response was a flicker of dark lashes as Tenny darted him a glance and then plucked up another sugar packet.

The thing about Tenny was: no one liked him. And he was probably keen enough to know that himself. It was his own fault, Fox knew: he wasn’t just prickly, but outright cruel. Sneers instead of smiles, cutting insults instead of good-natured ribbing. He was a perfect actor, and he was perfectly miserable.

Though, Fox had seen some changes in him since they got back from Texas. Small things, like saying “yes, sir” when Ghost gave an order; things like being respectful of Eden. Even she’d noticed, and had commented.

But mostly, the changes pertained to Reese.

Fox had asked once, and Tenny had denied it with one of his uglier sneers, but Fox wasn’t the sort who failed to notice things. Tenny liked Reese. Even when he was insulting him, or bad-mouthing him, or telling him he needed to work on “being human,” Fox could see the glimmer of true affection in his eyes. Around Reese – which he always was – some of the tension had dropped from his shoulders; his sneers had lost their sharp edge, and some of them had even resembled true smiles. Fox had heard the whispers from some of the other Dogs, the lifted brows and throat-clearings; he knew that Tenny had introduced Reese to the delights of the Lean Bitches – and then kept introducing him, again and again, and that neither boy ever took a woman alone. Fox didn’t care about gossip, and he damn sure didn’t care what direction Tenny’s bedroom leanings took.

But the last few days, the tension was back, and the sneers were lethal, and something had happened. If it had been the sort of thing you could bring up within an MC, Fox would have called it a lover’s spat.

“Were there any Lean Dogs at your party the night of Allie’s disappearance?” Eden asked behind him, and Fox refocused on the task at hand.

“Were there…what?” Jimmy stumbled, caught off guard.

“The last place Allie was seen was your party,” Eden said, voice going crisp and professional again. “That was two weeks ago. On the fifth, correct?”

“Er…I guess. I think. Maybe?”

“Few too many keg stands that night?”

“I…”

“That’s alright. Her parents have already confirmed it was the fifth. You do remember her father showing up, don’t you? He says he remembers you. That you were very upset.”

“Upset about what?” A note of tension stole into his voice; a prickling of defensiveness. “I don’t know–”

“Allie turned you down. Very publicly. In front of your whole party. Her friend Nicole said it was, quote, ‘brutal.’ That you begged. Quite pathetic, really.”

Squeak of the vinyl booth as Jimmy sat up, his breath huffing in annoyance. “I didn’t even ask her out!”

Fox tapped the table, once, caught Tenny’s gaze, and nodded.

Tenny set down his latest sugar packet – fifteen empties littered the tabletop – and melted to his feet and down the aisle. Like Fox, he wasn’t wearing his cut.

“Multiple witnesses say you did,” Eden said, gravely. “And that you were terribly upset by it, and that, according to Nicole, you went to ‘get smashed,’ and started calling Allie names.”

“I didn’t – Nicole’s a lying bitch!”

The last word rang out through the muted late-afternoon ambiance of the restaurant. Conversations cut off. A passing server halted, and whipped a look over her shoulder toward the angry teen. Fox risked craning his neck to catch a glimpse of Jimmy’s face: beet red and pulsing with fury. Fury too high and hot to be caused by something as simple as getting rejected. Whatever was happening here, it went way beyond missing out on a date with a pretty girl, Fox felt sure.

Eden waited, silent; let it become a tableau; let patrons stare in open-mouthed shock until the silence became damning. Then, as if Jimmy’s outburst hadn’t happened, she said, “So there weren’t any Lean Dogs there?”

“Fuck no,” he hissed.

“What’s the truth here, Jimmy? Do you really think a roving band of bikers snatched your crush out of her car on her way home? Or are you just afraid that pretty young girls are more attracted to sexy bad boys than to mere children like you?”

Fox watched the words hit the boy like a slap, his head rearing back, the flush of anger bleeding out to white.

“Fuck you,” he hissed, and Axelle was already out of the booth and on her feet, giving him an avenue of escape – which he took like a shot.

The moment he was out the door, Eden twisted around to face Fox. “He’s involved,” she said, grimly.

“Oh, definitely.”

Now they just had to figure out how.

Nineteen

When Carter arrived at Bell Bar, he found the front door propped open, a contractor in a hard hat toting a big section of plywood inside. The clatter and hiss of tools greeted him as he followed the guy in, and he paused a moment to survey the progress.

The whole interior had been stripped down to the studs and replumbed. He noted the clean, white PVC and gleaming copper of new pipes; spools of new, plastic-coated wiring, all of it now up to code.

The bar itself was being salvaged, and it was draped now in paper and plastic to keep it safe. That was where Jazz stood, dressed down today in jeans and a light sweater, wearing a more sensible pair of wedge sneakers instead of her usual heels. She had plans of some sort unrolled on the bar top, gesturing to them and discussing with one of the workmen, the foreman, Carter guessed.

Jazz glanced up, spotted him, and beamed. “Hey!” Thankfully she left off baby boy in front of all the contractors. “Come see! Ghost is letting me help with the design.”

He felt his brows go up as he crossed to the bar and joined her. “He is?”

“Yeah!” The excitement poured off of her, and he was helpless but to smile back.

He noted the foreman looking between them, reading the moment, then the man nodded and said, “I’m gonna go check on the stairs. Let me know what you decide about the shiplap.”

“Thanks, Todd.” Jazz sent him off with a little wave…and a subtle, but noticeable appreciative glance.

Carter snorted. “Oh, so bikers are out, and contractors are in?”

“What? No.” She looked scandalized – and she blushed. “A girl can look. I know you look.” She leaned in close and whispered, “Sometimes I help you do more than look.”

There had been a time when he would have been tempted to tangle a hand in her hair and kiss her. But there were people watching, and he didn’t feel that pull today. “Hm,” he hummed, gaze going to the plans. “What’s this?”

“Our options.”

Mostly, it looked like paint swatches and photos of other materials. But a closer inspection proved they were grouped in four distinct “looks.”

“Todd thinks this one,” she said, pointing to a quadrant full of white, horizontal wood walls, black iron fixtures, and pale wood furniture. White and gray tiles, and vinyl in charcoal and dove. “It’s that whole modern farmhouse look.”

He snorted. “I’m guessing that’s not your favorite.”

“Not for Bell Bar, no.” She tapped the diagonal quadrant, one full of dark woods, gleaming brass, historical tile, and deep red vinyl. “I think it still needs to look a little like it used to. Like Bell Bar – but fancier, maybe. Not so much beer neon, but still like sort of…European-y, you know?”

The look she’d picked reminded him of the photos he’d seen of Baskerville Hall in London. “I like it, too.” He gave an approving nod. “Don’t let some guy named Todd push you into picking something that’s not right. Go with your gut.”

She chuckled. “What’s wrong with the name Todd?”

“It’s just so…Toddy.”

She laughed again, and reached up to pat his cheek. “Jealous, baby boy?”

“No.” And, really, he wasn’t. “Ava’s having a dinner tonight. Six-thirtyish,” he said. “She invited me, and said Aidan and Sam, and Tango and Whitney were coming. You wanna go?”

“Oh, sweetie, I can’t. I have class tonight until seven-thirty.”

“Shit. I forgot.” He frowned. “I’m sure you could come by after you got out. We could save a plate. Ava wouldn’t…mind.” He trailed off in response to her smile – another of those soft, sad, close-lipped things she’d given him the night they were together last.

A night that was getting farther and farther away without any intimate contact since. No sleepovers, no sex, no makeouts. Nothing but a few hasty pecks, and smiles that tasted more and more of regret.

“Jazz,” he said, and heard the question in his voice. Do you still want this? Do you still want me?

She patted his chest, hand lingering after. “We’ll do something tomorrow night, huh? Something fun. But you go enjoy hanging out with your friends tonight, honey. I won’t mind at all.”

Your friends. That made it seem like she didn’t count herself as his friend.

~*~

“I followed him to Cook’s Coffee,” Tenny said, with only the barest gesture toward the photos he’d snapped: now displayed on Ratchet’s laptop for all to see. “He met a friend, and they sat outside on the patio. Their conversation was quiet, and terse, and not of the sort you would want to have in public.” His accent was very posh and professional when he gave a report, Reese noticed; even crisper than his usual, which he’d self-described as “BBC proper.”

“Specifics?” Fox prompted, brows lifted in expectation.

Tenny – pacing back and forth across the width of the common room – lifted his hands to gesture and put on a sulky, American teenage accent. “Dude, her parents hired a detective! They’re gonna find out!”

“Find out what?” Ghost asked, his tone tight – with impatience, Reese interpreted. Though Ghost seemed to find Fox’s repertoire of accents and mannerisms entertaining, he didn’t share that sentiment when it came to Fox’s younger brother.

Because Tenny was an incurable asshole. One who still wasn’t behaving normally around Reese.

Once upon a time, that sort of thing would never have bothered him. But now…

Tenny halted, and turned, the tips of his fingers braced against a tabletop in a deceptively light stance; Reese knew he could have spun from it into a roundhouse kick without any obvious effort. “They weren’t nearly that helpful. Lots of wondering what the police knew, and about the Dogs.”

Fox made a please elaborate gesture. “About how the Dogs…?”

“How you questioned his father and, quote, tried to scare him at the shop. And about how he loathes you all, apparently, though don’t credit him enough to think he uttered the word loathe.”

“We,” Fox said.

Tenny’s brows went up, in turn.

“You’re a Lean Dog prospect. When you refer to the Dogs, you should say we.”

Tenny blinked in momentary shock. Then he tapped his fingers twice on the tabletop and resumed his previous expression. “Yes. Well. He isn’t a fan, regardless.”

Fox said, “The boy’s involved, most definitely. Whether he killed the girl himself, or knows who did, he’s not innocent.”

“Boss,” Mercy said, “I think it’s time for a little…” He offered a gesture that looked, at least to Reese, like the motion of turning a screwdriver. Mercy had several of those in his tacklebox; he’d offered Reese a thorough tour of it, once, and Reese had found its contents gratifyingly satisfactory.

Ghost sighed. “Probably. We’ll let Eden tail him for a few days, see if she can find anything. I really want some hard evidence before we move. And I don’t want to fuck this kid up too badly.” He lifted an admonishing finger toward Mercy.

Mercy tipped his head back in mock dismay.

Mock. Reese could decipher that sort of thing now. He thought the feeling that surged inside him when he recognized an emotion might have been pride.

“Holding pattern for now,” Ghost said, sweeping the whole room with a look. “Ears to the ground, everyone. Right now, I’m just glad the graffiti bullshit seems to have stopped.” He clapped his hands, once, and the informal meeting disbanded.

Reese’s gaze, as it tended to do lately, sought Tenny. It would be good to spar. The weather was still cool enough that an afternoon run was possible, and he felt full of coiled energy in need of an outlet, any outlet.

But Tenny’s gaze skittered away when Reese tried to pin it.

Reese stood, pulse giving a hard thump, intending to cross the room.

But Mercy stepped in front of him, blocking the way. Reese almost ducked around him, but checked the impulse – used to, he would never have done such a thing, not when he respected Mercy as much as he did.

He couldn’t keep his hands from closing into fists, though, nor tell his pulse to settle.

Mercy noticed. He tipped his head. “You alright?” They hadn’t spent as much time together since Tenny came along. Partly because Fox had kept him busy with training. But also because Reese had begun, in quiet moments, to seek Tenny’s company instead of Mercy’s.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m alright.”

The twist of Mercy’s lips proved he didn’t think so, but he didn’t comment. Only reached out to clap Reese on the shoulder. “Ava’s having a dinner thing tonight if you wanna come by. It’s pot luck, but there’s always plenty of food, so you don’t have to worry about bringing anything.”

The idea of “bringing anything” to a dinner was mind-boggling, though he knew that was the etiquette.

Without meaning to, he glanced toward Tenny again, now walking past them, headed for the kitchen.

Mercy, far more observant than some of his club brothers gave credit, missed little, and glanced that way, too. “Hm? Oh. I mean. I guess you could bring him. Ava’s not afraid of him or anything. Just, maybe tell him to not be as much of an asshole as usual, okay?” He squeezed Reese’s shoulder and stepped back. “Six-thirty for drinks, food at seven.”

Reese nodded, and went to follow Tenny. Behind him, he heard Ghost saying, “I’m not invited?”

“Younger generation only, boss, sorry.”

Fox said something unintelligible that had Mercy laughing, and Ghost going, “You know what…”

In the kitchen, Tenny stood in front of the open fridge, rooting through the soda cans on the top shelf, clucking disappointedly to himself – which was odd. If left alone, and not forced into performing, he wasn’t the sort of person who talked to himself. He would talk to Reese, sometimes, after a girl had left the dorm room, and the sweat was drying; Tenny would work on a cigarette and wonder aloud. Innocent questions. Random musings. That hadn’t happened that last night with Stephanie, and it hadn’t happened since.

Reese pulled up short behind him, missing their normal interactions a moment – and then realized with a lurch that, given things hadn’t been normal, but that Tenny undoubtedly recognized the soft sound of his footfalls, that this was an act. This humming and grumbling. Tenny was performing – for his benefit.

Or, rather, to hide from him.

He finally selected a soda and turned back around, letting the fridge door slap shut behind him. He met and held Reese’s gaze as he popped the tab and took the first sip. “What?” he asked, after, eyebrows moving into their Annoyed setting.

Reese took a breath, and strove – probably not with success – to put some inflection into his voice. He tried to make it sound like an invitation, instead of one of his usual flat statements. “Mercy invited me to dinner at his house. It’s a potluck.”

Tenny shrugged and took another long swig from his soda.

“He said I could bring you, if you wanted to come.”

His brows went from Annoyed, to Stunned, and then to Cranky. He swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Bring me? Like I’m your date?”

“He didn’t say ‘date.’ He just said you could come.”

“With you. What the hell is he implying?”

“Probably that we spend a lot of time together.” Reese heard the snap in his voice.

“Bollocks,” Tenny muttered. “Fuck that.” His gaze shifted to the door, and he started toward it.

Reese caught him by the arm, a tight grip on his bicep, one that pulled him up short, slopped soda out of the can, and had Tenny’s head whipping toward him.

Their faces were suddenly, surprisingly close; close enough to feel the heat of Tenny’s breath, to smell the sugar and lime on it.

“What do you want?” Tenny hissed.

Reese’s first instinct was to shrink back – an old instinct, from his days with Badger, and with his first handler. Don’t question authority. Shut up and do your job. You don’t count.

But he wasn’t a tool anymore, to point and shoot. Not even an attack dog. He was a person, and this other boy – still clawing his way to personhood, too – was one that he had named. He’d given that to him. And he wouldn’t accept what now felt like hatred from him.

Especially because he didn’t think that it was actually hatred at all.

“I want you to tell me what’s wrong with you,” Reese said, as level and calm as he could. “Because I want to help you.”

Tenny stared at him, mouth slack with shock a moment. Then he sneered – one of those ugly, false, biting sneers he’d doled out at the very beginning. “You’re what’s wrong, and I want you to leave me the fuck alone.”

Reese’s whole body went numb with a sudden, sweeping shock. His grip slackened, and Tenny ripped out of it, storming from the room.

Reese stood staring at his empty hand. Slowly, sensation returned, a painful prickling, like he’d been burned.

Why? He found, as in so many cases, he didn’t have the answers he wanted.

Twenty

Leah didn’t consider herself a great cook by any stretch – there had always been more interesting things to occupy her time, and she lacked her mom’s deft hand in the kitchen – but she could throw something decent together, and that was just what she did for Ava’s impromptu potluck. She considered picking up something premade, but settled instead, on her early morning grocery run before work, on the ingredients for a quick, cold corn salad. She stowed all of it in the kitchenette at work, mixed it at lunch, put it in the fridge, and then collected it on her way out.

“Have fun!” Rochelle called to her as she headed for the elevators.

“Thanks!”

As she waited for the cab to arrive, she found that she was tapping her toes inside her shoes – that she was nervous. Not the usual emotion that accompanied dinners with Ava. She was glad that she’d said something on the phone last night about Carter; he was a sad puppy these days, and he needed a boost from the people who cared about him.

But she couldn’t help thinking about her father’s teasing last night, calling Carter her boyfriend.

And she couldn’t stop remembering Carter’s wide, white, frankly breathtaking smile, his blue eyes denim-colored in the soft lamplight of the coffeeshop.

She shivered, unbidden, and scolded herself internally.

The elevator arrived with a polite ding, and the doors slid open – to reveal her new boss. And a hulking, thick-necked man standing just behind him who screamed Hired Security with his stony expression and ironed shirt collar.

Mr. Shaman – Ian, according to Ava, and Maggie, and Carter – wore a bespoke blue suit with a champagne silk shirt beneath, without a tie and open at the throat, like the day of her interview. His hair gleamed beneath the lights – and no one ever looked good under elevator lighting. He was scrolling through something on his phone, and glanced up. “Miss Cook.” His tone was polite, if not warm, his smile charming, if not friendly. “Going down?”

She almost said no. That was her first, kneejerk reaction – one that surprised her. She wasn’t afraid of him. He was just…a lot.

But she’d never fancied herself a coward, so she said, “Yes, sir,” and stepped inside.

When the doors closed, he pocketed his phone, inclined his head toward her, and said, “How is your first week going so far?”

“Really well.” When she returned his gaze, because that felt like the polite thing to do, she had the sense he could see right through her skull and into her brain. “My coworkers are great, and the work is all stuff that I’m used to and comfortable with. The office is so nice.”

The corners of his mouth twitched in an almost-smile. “Lovely to hear.” His gaze shifted to the covered bowl in her arms. “Lunch leftovers?” he asked, a single brow lifting to a sardonic angle.

“Oh, no. I’m on my way to a potluck.”

“Ah. Potluck.” He said the word as if he was tasting it, and the tilt of his mouth afterward suggested he’d found it unappetizing. She figured men who wore shoes as expensive as his, with personal bodyguards, didn’t do casserole get-togethers.

The elevator arrived, and he motioned her to go first with one elegant sweep of his arm. “Give my regards to Mrs. Lécuyer, then.”

“Thanks…” She hadn’t told him she was going to Ava’s.

She pushed that disconcerting thought aside, though, as she walked out to her car and headed out. She debated going by her place to change into something more casual, but she was already running a bit late. She headed straight to Mercy and Ava’s place, then, and found the driveway already full of bikes and an unfamiliar car.

She parked on the street, killed the engine…and sat a moment, hands still on the wheel. Nervousness flared to life again, a tickling in the pit of her belly. It wasn’t just about Carter this time.

She’d seen Aidan, and Tango, and Carter, and of course Mercy since returning home. But she hadn’t been to any sort of sanctioned club event. She’d never met Aidan or Tango’s wives. She wasn’t Ava’s sole friend anymore. Would things feel different? Would their dynamic shift in the presence of a sister-in-law, and another girl who might as well be?

She felt acutely single, suddenly, and that wasn’t anything she’d ever felt before. She’d never felt like she might be lacking, just because she was alone, and not part of a pair.

An ugly feeling, honestly, and she berated herself for it as she unbuckled her belt and climbed out of the car.

Ava had said to come to the back door, and she could hear the low murmur of many overlapping voices as she reached it. She was shifting the bowl to one arm so she could knock when the door opened on its own, letting out warm air, and savory cooking smells, and revealed a tall, pretty blonde with glasses who Leah had never met before.

“Hi.” She had a warm, shy smile, instantly disarming. “Leah? I’m Sam.” Aidan’s wife.

“Yeah, hi, it’s so nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise. I know Ava’s so glad you’re back in town to stay.” Oh. She pushed the door wide and stepped back. “Come on in, we just opened the wine.”

Nerves greatly settled, Leah followed her through the mudroom into the kitchen, where covered dishes were heaped on the table, and several pots steamed and hissed on the stovetop. It was a small room, and overwarm with all the cooking and the volume of bodies, but there was something so overwhelmingly homey about it: from Cal’s crayon drawings on the fridge, to the cuts hooked on the backs of the chairs.

Ava and a slight brunette stood at the stove, peering down into the pots and pans.

“What do you think, another minute?” Ava asked, stirring what looked like carrots in an iron skillet.

“Probably,” the other girl said. That must be Whitney Estes, Leah figured.

Ava glanced up, and smiled; set her spoon down and came to give Leah a hug, bowl of salad and all.

Leah was laughing by the time they pulled apart, and her stomach wasn’t fluttering anymore. “Look at you: barefoot in the kitchen at last.”

“Oh my God, I’m a cliché!” Ava groaned with mock despair, and took the bowl from her. “This smells like corn salad.”

“It is.”

“Excellent.”

“Leah, this is Whitney,” Sam said, touching the brunette on the shoulder.

Whitney was young – younger than Leah had anticipated, with big doe eyes, and a sweet smile. She offered a firm handshake, though. “It’s so nice to meet you!”

“Dude, when are we eating?” Aidan asked, entering the kitchen to root around in the cooler set up at the end of the peninsula.

Sam rolled her eyes. “When we feel like feeding you.”

“So probably never,” Ava said, firing a wine cork off the counter at him.

He caught it, pocketed it, and reached to lift the lid off one the dishes on the table.

“No!” Sam shooed him away. “We gave you guys chips and salsa.”

“Mercy ate it all.” Aidan dodged his wife, skirted around the table, and opened another dish, plucking out a green bean between two fingers and cramming it in his mouth before she could get to him.

Sam propped her hands on her hips and fired him a look across the table.

He grinned, and winked at her.

Sam’s face colored.

“Aw, they’re cute,” Leah said.

Beside her, Ava said, “Kinda nauseating, to be honest.”

“Oh, definitely.”

Aidan licked his greasy fingers and then aimed one at Leah, not able to keep the smirk off his face. “There’s two of you again, and I’m not digging that.”

“Too bad,” Leah and Ava said in unison, and then traded a look, grinning.

She had no idea why she’d been nervous.

~*~

Carter turned up at Ava and Mercy’s place toting a bottle of white wine under one arm, and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red for Mercy under the other. He hadn’t even attempted to make any sort of food – that would only lead to food poisoning. He went up the back sidewalk thinking that he’d put on too much cologne, and mulling over Jasmine’s refusal to come. She did have class. But it would let out in about ten minutes, and she definitely could have come late; no one would have minded.

He tried not to examine his own relief too closely. Lately it felt like they were on neighboring rafts, drifting, drifting farther apart as the current carried them downstream. It wasn’t too late to reach out for her; for them to join hands, and draw their lives back together. But he didn’t feel the urge to do so, and he wasn’t sure if he would.

Wasn’t sure if she would, either.

He didn’t bother to knock when he got to the back door; juggled his bottles around, and let himself in. Walked into the kitchen…

And promptly forgot all about the strange evolution of his relationship with Jazz.

The old ladies were in the kitchen. Ava, of course, and Sam, and Whitney.

And Leah.

Who wasn’t an old lady, and who arrested Carter’s immediate attention in a way he hadn’t expected, and couldn’t explain.

Belatedly, he realized he’d come to a halt, clutching his bottles, staring like an idiot.

“Oh, hey,” Ava said, turning toward him. She was nibbling a chip and reached for the wine with her other hand. “Thanks, you didn’t have to.”

“Oh, uh.” He handed it over. “Gotta bring a hostess gift, right? This is for Mercy.” He lifted the Scotch bottle.

Ava smiled. “I figured.”

Behind her, arranging slices of cheese on a platter, Leah looked like she’d come straight from work: her shiny black hair twisted up into a clip, her cream blouse tucked into a high-waisted black skirt printed with loud florals. Her high heels, open-toed and glittery black. Her earrings were black, too, gleaming hoops that bounced softly against the sharp edge of her jaw as she moved.

“Carter.” Ava was still standing in front of him. He snatched his gaze from Leah – wondered what sort of expression he’d been making – and saw her give him a careful once-over, her face settling into lines that held nothing of Maggie’s gentle concern; lines that belonged to her father. Ghost’s unflinching, unforgiving assessment. “Are you okay?”

He must have been blushing before, because he felt the blood drain out of his face. “Yeah. Fine.” His pulse fluttered, high and rapid like it did when the guys started drawing guns and gathering themselves for dangerous moments. “Jazz couldn’t come.”

“That’s too bad,” Ava said, her gaze never wavering. Then she gave a little nod and mercifully looked away. Turned to pluck another chip from the bowl and dunk it in the guacamole on the counter. “The guys are in the living room with the kids. And, look, I talked Leah into coming.”

I noticed, he thought, needing to swallow, suddenly, his throat tight.

Leah’s head lifted, and she glanced toward him, already smiling. “And he comes bearing wine. Nice.”

He smiled, feeling how sideways and awkward it was. What the hell was wrong with him? “I aim to please.”

It was probably his imagination, but he thought her smile widened, that her dark eyes glittered.

She looked pretty tonight. She looked…better than that. Pretty, and put together, and cheerful, and rosy-cheeked from the heat in the kitchen. She didn’t look anything like Jasmine: no come-hither glance, no “baby boy,” no unsubtle tilt of her hips. None of the things he’d come to think of as normal.

He gave himself a mental shake, because he knew all too well the dangers of that word: normal.

“I’m just gonna…” He pointed toward the living room with the neck of the Scotch bottle, and then headed that way. He told himself he wasn’t fleeing, but that was exactly what it felt like.

~*~

Knocking was polite, so when Reese got to Mercy’s house, he knocked. Ava opened the door, and she wasn’t quite fast enough to cover her surprise at finding him standing on the mat. He’d never sensed that she was afraid of him – truly, never – and she had a way of saying only what was most important that he appreciated. But she hadn’t expected him to turn up tonight, and he felt a momentary twinge of disappointment to realized that he still had a long way to go in his quest to become human. Tenny’s reaction, and his own reading of it, had proved that this afternoon; Ava’s reaction now drove the point home.

“Reese, hey.” She opened the door without hesitation. She’d never been hesitant about letting him into her home, with her children.

He still marveled over the fact, sometimes. “Mercy invited me,” he said, still rooted outside. “He said I could bring Tenny, but–” Too much. She hadn’t asked, she didn’t care. He wasn’t sure why he’d blurted that.

Her brows drew together, and she opened the door a little farther. “Well, you’re welcome to come in. We’re just about to eat.”

He nodded his thanks, wiped his boots, and entered.

Every available surface in the kitchen seemed to be heaped with food, including the table, where the women sat, wine glasses in front of them, an array of cheeses, crackers, chips, and bowls of dip interspersed amongst covered dishes. He recognized Aidan and Tango’s wives. But there was a newcomer he hadn’t seen before: small, black hair, brown, almond-shaped eyes.

No, not new, exactly. He’d glimpsed her once before, in the main office at Dartmoor the day he and Tenny took an injured Carter to see Maggie. She’d been sitting in a chair across from Ghost’s wife, and she’d looked over at the tableau they’d made with undisguised interest.

She looked at him that way now, too. He could see the spark of recognition, and open curiosity. She was probably wondering why he was here – just like he was, a little.

But it was different from the looks Samantha and Whitney gave him. Whitney’s carefully composed; Samantha’s edged with a fear that she couldn’t quite control.

A familiar look, in his presence. It had never bothered him, and still didn’t, but he noticed it now, in a way he never used to.

No one looked at Tenny that way, because Tenny had perfected his mask. He was good at making faces, unlike Reese, and maintaining them.

Usually.

He’d replayed the moment in the kitchen over and over again on his ride here. Turning it over, trying to look at it from different angles. It still didn’t make sense. Tenny was the one who kept initiating Reese’s sexual education. Who inserted himself and in turn pulled Reese into his own couplings. The touching, and the kissing lessons, and the praise – all Tenny, from the start. So why play offended now? If play it had been – it had seemed like genuine affront. Reese didn’t understand, and he didn’t begin to know how to ask anyone for advice.

“The guys are in the living room,” Ava informed him, snatching him from his spiraling thoughts. “Do you want a beer?”

That was social protocol, right? “Yes. Please.”

~*~

Mercy and Ava’s dining room was too small for the amount of people they were currently trying to cram into it, but no one seemed to mind. An extra folding table had been snugged up to the regular table, both draped with a big, black cloth, and mismatched china and silverware squeezed in for everybody.

Leah offered to sit on one of the tight corners, all but straddling the table leg, since she was the smallest, and, somehow, she ended up sitting next to Carter.

He hesitated a moment, before he set his plate down. “Oh. Hey.” Then he settled in his chair like nothing was the matter. But she’d noticed the pause, just like she’d noticed it in the kitchen when he’d first come in.

If she didn’t know any better, she would have said he’d been surprised to see her here tonight – and just now, even, in the seat next to his.

“Hey,” she said, easily, though she got that funny, squirmy feeling in her belly again.

Unlike him, she hadn’t been surprised to see him walk through the door, had been almost waiting for it, actually, but she’d still had that sudden pulse of oh when he walked in. Setting sun coming through the window and catching in the summer wheat of his hair, shirt bunching around heavy biceps as he lifted his bottles in offering. It had been – a sight. Worth looking at. Definitely.

He smelled nice, too, she could tell now, beside him: a woodsy sort of grown-up cologne far different from the Axe spray she’d expected.

The club table was always a loud one, tonight’s no exception. All save Reese – who sat silently down on the far end with a spare plate and what Leah thought might already be his third beer. Conversation swelled, and overlapped, and murmured around them, laughter punching through in bursts.

“…and then I was like…” Aidan was telling a story about an irate customer at the bike shop that had everyone in stitches. Everyone but Reese…

And Carter. Quiet beside her.

It was the sort of rowdy dinner table that offered pockets of relative privacy, for two people sitting close.

“You didn’t bring your girlfriend?” Leah asked, cutting into her barbecue chicken.

He coughed. Recovered with a swallow of beer. “Uh, no. Not really my girlfriend, remember?”

“Right, right.” She tried and failed to bite back a smile. “Sex fiend.”

“Oh my – don’t say that,” he hissed.

A glance proved that his gaze bordered on panicked, and she snorted. “What, like your bros don’t know?”

His cheeks flushed. “Look, just – change of subject?”

“Sure.” She felt her own smile dim as he glanced back down at his plate. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought his not-girlfriend up; they’d already had that conversation, and he clearly wasn’t comfortable talking about his sex life.

Which she shouldn’t have cared about in the first place.

She groped for something more benign to say – and he beat her to it. “Did you make the corn?” he asked, scooping up a spoonful.

“I did. It’s not fancy, but it was the best I could do at work.”

He nodded, appreciatively, she thought, swallowed, and spooned up another bite. “I remember it. I think.” He frowned, thoughtful.

“It was what I always took when Maggie invited me to something. I can’t cook like her, but I can whip up a mean salad.”

He nodded again, serious against her self-deprecation.

There was a lull down the table.

“Speaking of Maggie cooking,” Leah said. “Ava, what’s the news on the restaurant?”

“I keep telling Dad to go ahead and let her know about it,” she said, “but he’s insistent on it being the best Mother’s Day present ever.”

“Here, honey, I got you a buncha work and stress,” Mercy said, to chuckles. “Nah, she will love it.”

“And she’s going to want to plan every tiny detail,” Ava said. “Which I’ve expressed to him repeatedly.”

“Ooh, you know,” Whitney said, “your mom’s been taking Kris under her wing. Maybe she’ll let her help.”

Ava waved a fork in her direction. “That’s an excellent idea.”

“Just admit you don’t wanna be involved,” Aidan said.

“Oh, I’ll be involved, I’m sure. But. Kris needs something to be excited about. And doesn’t have a floundering writing career and three babies.”

“Yet,” Mercy said with a snort. “And it’s not floundering, fillette, don’t say it like that.”

Ava shook her head, lips going momentarily tight, and Leah made a mental note to ask her about it later.

“Are Kris and Roman getting that serious?” Sam asked, and then glanced down the table toward Reese, shoulders tucking a little.

Warm breath against Leah’s ear startled her, as did the press of a warm, hard shoulder against her own.

“Kris is Reese’s brother,” Carter whispered, too soft and close for anyone else to overhear. “It’s a very long, very weird story, but she’s a little more normal than him.”

At the other end of the table, Reese picked his beer up again and drained it, giving no indication that the rest of the table was discussing his sister.

“Okay, a lot more normal,” Carter conceded. “She actually lives in your building.”

“Oh, so that’s…” She turned her head – why, she didn’t know. Instinct. When she did, their faces were a hairsbreadth apart. Close enough that he was just a blur of blue eyes, and tanned skin, and white teeth.

They both froze.

Then his breath rushed warm across her face as he pulled back.

“The Kristin Maggie meant,” she finished, voice faint. She swallowed, her throat tight. “I haven’t met her yet.”

Carter didn’t respond at first; stared at her, lips parted, expression unreadable, the blue of his eyes only a thin ring around his pupils.

Unreadable, maybe, but shocking all the same. So unexpected that it sent a quick, hard pulse of heat through her; it washed down her face, and throat, her chest, pebbled her nipples and landed deep in her belly with one final, clenching throb.

Holy shit.

He turned his head, finally, and she forced herself to do the same, looking down at her plate, her cheeks feeling traitorously pink. “So maybe I’ll see her soon,” she said, voice flat.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Leah glanced up, and her gaze collided with Ava’s: wide and shocked. Slowly, Ava grinned, small and sideways, but encouraging.

Leah ducked her head again and stabbed at her chicken.

~*~

After dinner, Mercy ordered all the guys into the kitchen. “If they cook, we can clean up.” It was one of his standing rules, and everyone, even Aidan, had long since stopped trying to wheedle out of it.

Aidan loaded the dishwasher while Tango packed all the leftovers away and found room for them in the fridge; stacked Tupperware containers on the counter for the rest of them to take home.

Mercy washed the pots, pans, and bigger casserole dishes, and Carter took up a towel and stood beside him to dry.

He couldn’t stop thinking about that moment at dinner. It had started innocently on his part, leaning in close to share pertinent information, only thinking about the fact that Reese – who was acting even weirder than normal tonight – might come cartwheeling down the table with a knife clenched between his teeth if Carter said the wrong thing about his sister.

But then a few silky strands of Leah’s hair had brushed his cheek, and her perfume had filled his senses: soft and floral, a hint of vanilla. He’d known she was too close for him to turn his head, but he’d done it anyway, an impulse he hadn’t been able to check. And then she’d been right there, and his gaze had gone straight to her mouth, and for one breathless moment, he’d thought he would close the last distance and kiss her. Another impulse – pure instinct – but one he’d restrained. Barely.

She’d looked as startled as he felt. Like she couldn’t take her next breath; like her heart was pounding.

Holy shit.

He’d turned away, face flaming, pulse throbbing in his ears. A heated embarrassment that he still couldn’t shake. A distraction.

Beside him, Mercy gave a short, sharp whistle, and he started, and took the clean, dripping skillet from him.

“Sorry.”

“Looking a little preoccupied there, QB,” Mercy said, all deceptive mildness.

Carter shot him a sideways glance, not fooled for a second. Mercy picked up on much more than his usual happy-monster persona indicated.

“Wishing Jazz had shown up? Or glad she didn’t?” He held a bowl under the tap, and turned a knowing, arched-brow look toward Carter.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carter deadpanned.

Mercy grinned, white teeth flashing like a predator’s. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

“I don’t–”

A crash sounded behind him. Glass breaking.

They both turned, and found Reese standing in the center of the kitchen, staring down at the shattered remains of a beer bottle. Foamy amber liquid was spreading across the floor tiles, and Reese wore a perplexed frown unlike anything Carter had ever seen on the guy.

“Reese?” Mercy asked.

He lifted his head, and he was gone. Gaze glassy and detached. He swayed a moment, as if pressed by a breeze. He was drunk off his ass.

“Uh…how many beers did he have?” Tango asked.

“I saw him with at least six,” Aidan said. “He’s shitfaced.”

Reese turned toward him slowly, hair falling from behind his ears, falling across his eyes.

It would have been a hilarious sight if Carter wasn’t sure that he could still kill all of them in a matter of minutes, drunk or not.

“Reese, let’s get some water, kiddo,” Mercy said, drying his hands and reaching for a glass up in the cabinet. “You can sleep on the couch.”

He froze, halfway to the tap, they all froze, when Reese said, voice slurred, “I kissed Tenny and now he hates me.”

Silence reigned a few seconds.

Aidan breathed, “Shit.”

Tango’s eyes got wide, and white-rimmed, and frightened-looking.

Mercy nodded, filled the glass and turned to what was essentially his charge, his expression patient and kind. “Alright.” He moved to lay a hand on Reese’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go get some fresh air, and you can drink this down.”

Carter traded looks with Aidan and Tango, both varying degrees of shocked and panicked.

When Ava poked her head into the room and said, “Carter, can we talk a sec?” he went gladly.

Carter had suspected that something like that was going on with Tenny and Reese – something romantic. And he didn’t have a problem with it; didn’t care what they did. Honestly, both of them freaked him the hell out, and he couldn’t decide if a romantic entanglement made them twice as scary – or spared some poor civilian girl having to deal with their special agent, human weapon bullshit. But dropping that kind of bomb in mixed club company…dropping it while being Reese…that was a whole can of worms Carter wanted no part of right now.

So he followed Ava, and didn’t think, until they were out on the front porch, amidst the fluttering moths and the cool spring breeze, that this was a strange request.

She sat down in one of the three rockers there, crossed her legs, casual and unbothered. She gestured to the one next to her, and he sat, warily.

“What’s up?”

“That was actually going to be my question.” She rested her elbow on the arm of the chair, and propped her chin on her fist, gaze trained on him. “How’ve you been lately?”

A benign question, but not her expression. He wanted to squirm beneath the weight of her dark eyes; her dad’s eyes. He’d thought her so pretty back when they were in school, and she was still, but the crush he’d entertained senior year had wound up on the bloodied floor of Hamilton House, wiped away by an image that still haunted his nightmares, occasionally: Mercy crouched over a screaming, bleeding Mason, Mercy’s hand still on the knife buried in Mason’s leg, Ava leaning against his back, her arms draped around his broad shoulders, hands on his chest. Totally trusting. He’d known then, in that moment, the air scented with iron and copper, that she was a whole different creature from he himself. He was not of her species, not like Mercy was.

But, lately, he couldn’t classify himself, if pressed; he sensed she knew that, and so the question landed heavy, a dropped load of bricks between them. He didn’t know which to pick up first, or which would prove a lie.

He took a breath, a little warm and too-honest thanks to the two beers he’d had with dinner. “I don’t really know how to answer that, to be honest.”

She nodded, not seeming surprised. “I thought you might say that. I feel awful that I haven’t bothered to talk to you about it before now.”

He felt his brows go up. “Why would you?”

Her brows went up in turn. “Because I’m your friend, and I care about you.”

“I have a club full of friends,” he said, a little meanly, and she frowned. Almost a smirk.

“Really?”

And here he was worried about being mean.

“Yeah, okay,” she relented. “They’re your friends. Your brothers,” she amended. “But I don’t think you go telling your deep, dark secrets to my brother.”

“You think I have deep, dark secrets?”

“I think you looked at Leah tonight like a guy who didn’t have a sexy woman of his own waiting on him at home.”

“I don’t,” he blurted, and then checked himself.

Ava’s smirk smoothed out into a smile. “Things not going so well with Jazz?”

“No. Yes, I mean – no, things aren’t bad.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Things are…” The back of his neck prickled unhappily, and he reached to scratch at it. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing, if you don’t want to. But I wanted you to know that you could say something – anything – if you need a friendly ear. I never imagined you ending up with someone like Jazz.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he bristled – but it felt obligatory. Like he was supposed to be offended. Inwardly, he just felt tired.

She sighed. “I like Jazz fine. Considering.” She shook her head a moment, expression one of marveling at this life they were both a part of. It was a comfort to know that even Biker Princess Ava could hit mental roadblocks, sometimes. “But, for one, she’s a good bit older than you.”

“You wanna talk about age gaps? Really?”

“Totally different situation,” she said with a dismissive wave. “What I mean is: Jazz isn’t anything like the girls you used to go out with in school.”

“Like you were paying attention,” he scoffed, surprised by the bitter note of his voice.

Ava was surprised, too, if the way she blinked was any indication. “I’m a writer, dude, I notice things. And the kinds of girls you dated were spending a hell of a lot of time trying to make my life at school miserable. So.”

He ducked his head a fraction, anger fizzling out.

“I thought,” she continued, gentler again, “that you were the kind of guy who’d end up with a high school sweetheart. That you were the wife and picket fence type.”

He snorted. “You saw the house where I grew up. I told you about my old man.”

“What does that matter? Is Mercy his mother? Or his father, even? It doesn’t matter where you’re from. I always thought you’d be the romantic type. The spoil-a-girl type.”

He couldn’t think of an answer that wasn’t either insulting to Jasmine, or damning to himself.

“If you tell me that you’re perfectly happy with Jazz, and that you aren’t missing out on anything, then I’ll leave you alone.”

Again, he couldn’t answer.

“Are you interested in Leah?”

“I don’t…know.”

“Because if you are, and you’re ready to break things off officially with Jazz, then I think that’s great. I think you guys could be good together. But if you’re just looking at her because she’s so different from what you have…because you’re tired of the wild side…” Her voice took on a warning tone.

“I’m not. I mean, that’s not what I’m doing. I…” He huffed out a breath and remembered being a teenager, and Ava helping him write his English papers so he wouldn’t fail and get kicked off the team. Years later, and he still didn’t have a way with words. “I don’t know, okay?”

She sat back in her chair. “Fair enough.” Pressed her boot soles to the floor and set the chair to rocking.

He pushed off with his feet, too, and they rocked in silence a few moments.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, after a while, “from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t look like you’re happy.”

“Hm.”

“Even Tango’s worried.”

“He is?” Though he’d seen the worried looks from that quarter himself.

“Tango’s been down in the pit,” she said, voice growing soft with old sadness. “He knows how hard it is crawl back out if you get down too far.”

His chest tightened, as he thought of the white walls of the hospital, and Tango’s wildly uncharacteristic screams coming down it. The nurses rushing in with sedatives, the grave looks on everyone’s faces. They’d almost lost him, and no one had known he was on the brink until it was nearly too late. Aidan had pulled him out of a bloody bathtub; tears had slipped down his cheeks when he related the story, later.

He and Tango had never been close, but Carter had been shocked; had been hurt. It had felt like a betrayal, Tango trying to leave like that, permanently; like he was abandoning them all.

That old you don’t know what you have until you lose it thing.

“I’m not in the pit,” he said, and knew it the moment the words left his lips. Yes, he’d been depressed, felt aimless, felt like he was drifting and perhaps didn’t belong in this club. But he wasn’t ready to end it. He wasn’t despairing. He hadn’t been through anything like the torture, mental and physical, that Tango had endured.

Ava stared at him.

“I mean it,” he said. “I’m not. I’m just…” He shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t guess–” Honesty was always painful when it came to self-reflection, but he found it was easier to tell her than it had been to tell anyone so far. Ava might give you a verbal ass-kicking if you needed it, but she didn’t hold judgement the way some people did. “I don’t guess I feel like I fit. Sometimes.”

“Here? With the club?”

He nodded.

She regarded him another beat, and then glanced out across the yard. It was too early in the season for cicadas or fireflies, but despite the cool currents, the air had begun to smell of warmth, and grass, and growing things. “You’re probably not the only one who feels that way,” she said.

He hummed in faint disagreement.

“No. Think about people like Roman. Harry. Littlejohn. Boomer and Deacon. Hell, Reese – is he drunk by the way?”

“Totally smashed.”

“I thought so. But take him for example: do you think he’s best buddies with anyone here?”

He tipped his head. “You should see him with Tenny.”

“What’s he like with Tenny?”

“I’m gonna let Mercy fill you in on that one.”

Her lips quirked with interest. “Hm. Well. You take my meaning.”

“I do.” He didn’t really think she got it, though.

She stilled a moment, rocker tipped back. “You aren’t thinking of leaving, are you?” She sounded horrified by the idea.

“No.” When that didn’t seem to ease her mind, he repeated, “No. Where would I go?”

She resumed rocking, but still looked troubled. “I didn’t realize it had gotten this bad.”

He glanced away from her pitying gaze, shrugging, uncomfortable beneath it. “It’s not. I’ve just got to figure some stuff out.”

Another silence descended, bristling with all the things neither of them were saying. He wished he could open up his head and let her take a peek; if she could see what he was thinking for himself, she’d have a better chance of putting it into words. Could even help him make sense of it, this tangle of feelings and absent purpose that left a foursome feeling mundane, and coaching a high school kid feel like flying.

“We care about you,” she said, low, serious. “You know that, right? All of us: Mercy, and me, and Mom, and Dad, and Aidan, Tango – everybody.”

“Yeah, I know.” He did know, and the knowledge did warm him.

But he wondered why sometimes, so often, really, that didn’t feel like enough.

~*~

Reese felt funny.

He’d been drugged before, when he was with his first handler. Sometimes after missions, when he couldn’t settle down, but usually for training purposes. You need to know how to fight it. How to keep your mouth shut when you’re under. Building up his tolerance, little by little, teaching him how to fight the sedation so that in the event of capture and torture he wouldn’t give up his handler’s identity or location.

He felt a little drugged now – woozy and sluggish – but mostly he felt warm. And unsteady. He felt like he stood on the deck of a boat on rough water, the ground shifting beneath his feet. His hands didn’t work the way they should – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d dropped anything on accident. He’d watched the bottle slip right through his fingers, his vision blurred and doubled, and shatter with a sound of breaking glass that seemed to come from down a long tunnel.

He had no idea how many beers he’d downed; didn’t remember getting up from the dining table and walking into the kitchen. He was aware that he’d said something he shouldn’t, blurted out something he never would have expressed, normally.

But the most overwhelming sensation of all was a deep, sucking well of sadness that yawned inside him, black and full of dread. Tenny hated him, and it was his fault, and that left his chest, and throat, and eyes stinging in a strange, terrible new way.

Mercy’s hand landed heavy on his shoulder, a comforting heaviness. When he propelled him toward the back door, its grip felt like the only thing keeping him upright. The floor tilted so crazily that Reese had to close his eyes, unable to trust them, his steps small, and shuffling, and graceless.

It seemed to take an hour, and his stomach sloshed dangerously, but then he felt the touch of cool, spring air, and smelled its freshness, and that helped, a little.

Mercy’s other hand gripped his other shoulder, and both of them pressed down. Reese folded, and found a chair beneath him. When he opened his eyes, the Lécuyer back yard swayed and blurred, its shadows distorted smears. He thought there was only one tree, with two bird feeders, but now it looked like two and four. He blinked, breathing shallowly through his mouth, but his vision didn’t clear.

A chuckle and the creak of a chair proved that Mercy had sat down beside him. “Drink the water. It’ll help.”

Water? Reese glanced down, and found that he held a glass of water – two glasses – between both his hands. Had he carried it outside? Without dropping it? Or had Mercy just given it to him.

He raised it slowly to his lips – Tenny would have laughed to see him like this – and took a tentative sip, teeth clacking against the rim. It was cold, and it tasted good, so he drank all of it down.

“Whoa, whoa,” Mercy said, plucking the empty vessel from his fingers. “Don’t make yourself sick. I think that’s gonna happen on its own, but let’s not help it along.”

Reese licked stray droplets off his lips, panting through an open mouth. “Sorry.” The yard seemed to pulse, swelling in and out, like it was breathing.

“Nothing to be sorry about. It happens to the best of us.”

Reese was sorry that he’d let his judgement become clouded. This was a slip; an inebriated operative was a vulnerable operative, and vulnerability lead to death.

But in this moment of dizzy confusion, he was most sorry about the fact that he’d spoken out of turn. It wouldn’t be good to let anyone know he was this upset; it might get back to Tenny, and then Tenny would make merciless fun of him, and there might not be any nights together anymore; no more girls to share, and, even better, the quiet minutes lying side by side, once the girls had gone, when it was just the two of them. When Tenny’s guard had come down, and his voice came out soft and full of doubt and question. Reese liked him like that best.

Something warm splashed on the back of his hand.

“Aw, kid,” Mercy said. “I’m sorry.”

Reese lifted his hand to his face; it was blurry, but he could see the gleam of moisture on his knuckles. He touched his face, and that was wet, too. Wet, and warm. When he licked his lips again, he tasted salt, and…

Oh.

Tears poured down his cheeks, a hot flood of them. He wasn’t sobbing or choking like people did in movies. But just like he hadn’t known to start this, he didn’t know how to stop it, and could only wipe messily at his cheeks with both hands, confounded.

Mercy’s big, heavy arm draped across his shoulders, and Reese found himself shifting into the solid presence beside him. He wasn’t himself now, couldn’t be trusted to be alert or capable, but Mercy was more than capable enough for the both of them. Mercy was safe. A thought that flickered through his addled brain in a way it hadn’t before. Not just to be respected, and listened to, and consulted professionally. Mercy was safe, and good, and Reese could lean on him now. Maybe any time that he needed to.

“The guys and I should’ve been doing a better job,” Mercy said, patting his far shoulder. “Fox is a lot of things that are good, but he shouldn’t be giving anyone any romantic advice. Who am I kidding, he hasn’t talked about this with you at all, has he?”

Reese wiped his face, and thought of Fox sitting cool and distant on the picnic table, corrected their form, pushing their boundaries, riling them up. Always testing. He found he couldn’t put any of that into words at the moment, so he didn’t try.

“And Tenny’s fucked up,” Mercy continued. “He’s got his own issues. Someone else should have sat you down and had the talk. I should have sat you down. Reese, before you and Tenny started – whatever it is you started – had you ever been with a woman before?”

Reese shook his head, which proved a bad idea when the world around him swayed. He closed his eyes, and gave up on trying to wipe his face; the tears kept coming, and there didn’t seem to be a way to stem them.

Mercy sighed. “You remember when you were in Texas, and you called me?”

He wanted to nod, but shaking his head had been a bad move, so Reese managed a choked, “Yes.”

“And remember how you said you hated Tenny? I’m guessing you don’t anymore.”

Even fainter, more tremulous, his voice an awful traitor: “No.”

“He’s more like you than anyone else around here, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“You guys butted heads at first, but it makes sense that you’d end up getting along. That you would – care about each other.” A pause, and Mercy’s voice shifted. “He hasn’t forced you to do anything, has he?” Sharper. Worried.

Reese didn’t dare attempt explaining that first night, walking into his room and finding Stephanie sitting on the end of his bed, in that red dress, and Tenny with his arms folded. Watch me. This is how you do it. “No.” Nothing about that night, or any since, had been forced.

“You kissed him?”

Reese’s nose was getting stuffier and stuffier. He sniffled, and swiped ineffectually at his wet face again. “He kissed me first.” When he closed his eyes – which he did to stop the night from spinning around him – he could still see the way Tenny’s eyes had widened, and his mouth had gone slack, damp and pink from being pressed against Reese’s own. The way he’d closed his eyes and turned his head. That soft “shit,” his jaw clenching. “He kissed me first,” he repeated. “And now I don’t know…” Anything. He didn’t know anything.

“Was there a girl with you when you did it? All three of you together?”

“No. Just us.”

“Ah,” Mercy said, patting Reese’s shoulder again. “I think I see.”

Reese struggled to sit upright – somehow, he’d slumped down and was more or less lying against Mercy’s side – and blink the moisture from his eyes. The yard spun around him, Mercy’s face a blur when he finally managed to get it in his sights. “You do?”

He thought Mercy smiled. “Yeah. I’ll go have a talk with Tenny, and–”

“No!” Sound echoed off the concrete of the patio, and Reese realized he’d shouted. His pulse jumped and kicked; his stomach squeezed painfully. “You can’t. Don’t. He’ll know I told you.” And then he would really hate Reese.

Mercy squeezed his shoulder. “It’s alright.”

“Don’t tell him.” He’d never given an order like that before. It startled him. “Please.”

“Okay, okay. I won’t.” Mercy frowned. “But you can come talk to me about it, if y’all’s…situation…is bothering you. Maybe when you’re sober.” He breathed a laugh, and then grew more serious. “You’re not in trouble, Reese. Okay? It’s okay that you and he – but you’re upset tonight, and that’s not cool. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Hurt? “He doesn’t get the best of me when we spar,” he said.

Mercy laughed. “Shit, kid. You’re something else.” He slapped him hard on the back – hard enough that Reese felt a belch gather suddenly at the base of his throat.

No, not a belch.

“Let’s have some more water and then get you set up on the couch.”

“Okay,” Reese said, turned, and vomited onto the concrete.

~*~

“What was that?” Leah hissed when Ava settled on the sofa beside her.

Ava picked up her wine glass and fired a mildly questioning glance over the rim. “What was what?”

Leah glanced toward the hallway; when Ava and Carter slipped back in the front door, Carter had cast a fast glance toward the sofa where Leah was sitting, then ducked down the hall, presumably to the bathroom.

She fixed Ava with the sternest look she could manage – she’d been told it wasn’t that stern at all – and said, “You and Carter sneaking off for half an hour.”

Ava’s brows went up. “Sneaking off? I said I would talk to him, remember? About how he was doing?” She paused, and it looked like she tried not to smile. “You were the one who brought it up to me on the phone: that he seemed sad.”

Oh. Right.

“Afraid I’m moving in on your turf?” Ava asked, all innocence.

Leah gave her a play shove, face heating. “No. I don’t have any turf. There’s no turf.”

Ava laughed.

“And even if there was, I wouldn’t want to be on it.”

“You sure?” Ava asked, grinning. “I think he’s very familiar with turf. He could give you the grand tour.”

“Oh my god, shut up.” But Leah laughed, too, feeling as flustered and dumb as when they were in high school, teasing one another and laughing breathlessly as they made fun of their vicious classmates.

Across from them, sitting with her legs curled beneath her in Mercy’s recliner, Sam swapped a look between them. “Wait,” she said, smile dawning. “Are Leah and Carter–”

“No,” Leah said.

“Not yet,” Ava said, the traitor, “but they could be.”

Movement caught her eye, and she turned to see Carter on his way back to the kitchen, paused at the mouth of the room, gaze skimming across them.

Had he heard?

God, she wanted to sink down between the sofa cushions and disappear.

Carter hesitated only a second, and then continued on, without speaking.

Leah’s pulse beat like a trip-hammer. “Shit, do you think he heard?”

Ava and Sam both gave her I don’t know looks.

“Thanks for the help, guys,” Leah huffed, getting to her feet.

“You’re going after him?” Ava whispered.

“I have to make sure he didn’t get the wrong idea.”

Following him into the kitchen filled her with a burst of fluttering nerves, but her parents were both of the mindset that it was best to get painful things over with quickly. If she didn’t seek him out before the night was over, she’d be twice as nervous the next time she saw him.

The kitchen was spotless – the last of the dishes drying on a rack, counters wiped, leftovers put away, dishwasher chugging quietly – but occupied by more than Carter, unfortunately. Aidan and Tango stood at the window, peeking out through the gap in the gauzy curtains.

“Ugh,” Aidan said, lip curling. “He puked.”

Tango clucked in sympathy.

Carter was filling a water glass at the sink, and Leah took a moment in the threshold, trying to decide how to approach this. She couldn’t just ask him outright, and she definitely didn’t want Aidan and Tango to overhear.

She still felt like she was back in high school, but now in a much less fun way.

He shut off the tap and turned; noticed her. His expression tensed, a flicker of worry evident in the groove between his brows – then smoothed. He smiled a little sideways. “Want some?” He lifted the glass in offering. “Don’t want to end up out there puking with Reese.”

“Sure, thanks.”

He pulled down a second glass, filled it, and passed it over. When their fingertips brushed, her pulse fluttered because she was being an absolute idiot.

“Thanks,” she said again, her voice looser.

He took a step closer, his head angled down – everyone always had to look down at her, even when she was wearing heels – and the concerned groove made a reappearance between his brows. “Everything okay?”

“I was actually on my way to ask you that after your little porch heart-to-heart.” His breath caught a moment, before he let it out with what looked like purposeful slowness. “Ava wasn’t giving you shit, was she?” she asked, inspiration striking, suddenly. She didn’t like the idea of lying, but she could bend the truth just a little to keep from making an ass of herself.

His brows lifted. “No…” But he didn’t sound emphatic.

She leaned in even closer, dropping her voice. “She said she was worried about you. I told her not to harass you about your relationship status.”

He frowned, gaze flickering through a whole sequence of emotions. “Everybody sure is worried all of a sudden,” he muttered. “I’m not the one getting shitfaced at other people’s parties.”

She darted a glance toward the window; Aidan and Tango ducked into the mudroom and she heard the back door open; heard Aidan ask if help was needed. “Reese?”

“Totally having a crisis.”

“About his sister and that Roman guy?”

He leaned a shoulder against a cabinet face, and she could see him loosen across the shoulders, warming to the topic: namely that it was no longer him, she’d wager. “Nah, this is about his – well, whatever Tenny is.”

She sipped water, recognition sparking. “That was the dark-haired guy who helped him bring you to the office the other day, right?” She cringed internally for bringing up the getting-punched incident again, but he didn’t react.

“Yeah, and who helped him scare those kids outside of Bell Bar.”

“Oh, right. Wait. Are they together?” She felt her brows go up. No one had ever told her outright that certain things didn’t go on in one-percenter clubs, but she’d read as much in the few books and articles she’d paged through over the years out of casual interest, checking to see if the so-called experts and academics knew what they were talking about.

Carter shrugged. “Who knows. I don’t care, and I don’t think Ghost would either. But Reese is, uh, not acting like himself tonight.” He made a thoughtful face. “Maybe that’s a good thing, though. I’m not sure he actually has a personality.”

Before she could check the impulse, she leaned forward and swatted his arm, a little bump with her knuckles like she’d done with Ava a moment ago, an automatic, chastising gesture. “Hey, be nice.”

Carter grinned, flashing teeth, the smile going all the way to his dancing blue eyes. “I am being nice. I didn’t say he was a fucking robot.”

“Oh my God.” She reached to shove him again.

And he caught her hand, palm and fingers closing over her fist. A light touch, the gentlest of restraints, and no doubt just as automatic as her own gesture had been.

It froze both of them. And it shouldn’t have, it really shouldn’t; this was what friends did. Tease, and play, and give each other shit. Nothing about his hand encompassing hers should have sent a frisson up her spine, nor compressed her lungs, but that was exactly what happened.

Their eyes locked. His had gone wide, and surprised, the pupils expanding even as she watched. She wondered if her own did the same. She wondered what the hell was happening. She could smell his cologne again, its grownup cedar notes now undercut by the faint yeastiness of beer.

She’d never thought of beer smelling good before, but here she was thinking it now, pulse tripping, gaze fluttering from his eyes to his mouth, parted again, that same caught-out, startled energy from the dinner table earlier.

Slowly, he turned her loose, and just as slowly she lowered her arm to her side.

He wet his lips, and her gaze followed the pink peek of his tongue. “Hey,” he started.

A tangled scuffle of footfalls coming in the mudroom had them springing apart.

She watched, pulse still high and fast, as Mercy, Tango, and Aidan guided a nearly-unconscious Reese into the kitchen. Mercy was doing most of the holding up, as Reese’s ankles turned and threatened to buckle, while Tango and Aidan steered him by the arms.

“Come on,” Mercy said, in the same gentle, fondly chiding tone he used on his kids when they were throwing tantrums. “Let’s get you somewhere flat.”

“And get you a bucket,” Aidan said.

Leah glanced toward Carter – and found he’d moved all the way across the room. He held his glass in one hand, the water rippling, betraying the way his hand trembled. His other hand was in his hair, raking through the golden thickness of it, his gaze trained on the floor.

Whatever she was feeling, whatever explanation existed for this strange new tension, he was feeling it, too.

Twenty-One

Eden had several laptops and several digital cameras, but she still liked to tackle some cases the old-fashioned way, an urge of which Fox approved. She’d printed all the relevant photos for the Allie Henderson case out on her home printer and pinned them up on the corkboard in the formal living room that she was slowly turning into an office. Rose-printed drapes still flanked the window, letting in soft, early morning light that gleamed on the sensible wooden desks and storage cabinets she’d picked up at Ikea.

She sat cross-legged and barefoot in her ergonomic chair, rim of her coffee mug pressed to her lips, steam swirling in front of her face as she studied the photo array with intense concentration, squinting faintly.

Fox stood behind her, one hand resting on the back of the chair, waiting. He knew better than to intrude upon these sorts of meditative moments.

After a while, she said, “Jimmy Connors was far too angry at the friend – Nicole, I need to talk to her today – for his attraction to Allie to have been sudden or fleeting. He’s been watching and wanting for a while, long before the party.”

“Yeah,” Fox agreed, winding a silky lock of her hair absently around his finger.

“He watched, and he wanted, maybe he’d made contact previously: just a passing remark here or there. Let her borrow a dollar for the vending machine; paid her a compliment when she got a new dress; borrowed a pencil. And all the while he’s been imagining.”

“Building up their grand romance in his mind?”

“Yes, it’s what people do. They plan the perfect relationship: holding hands, and sharing milkshakes, and all that sappy bollocks. Some even manage to convince themselves that, if only she would finally look at him, she would realize he was exactly what she’s been looking for all along.

“He made his move the night of the party. Just enough to drink to feel brave, and strip away all the inhibitions.”

“He shoots his shot,” Fox agreed.

“And she shoots him down.”

“How embarrassing.”

“Perhaps murderously so.” She sipped her coffee, and tipped her head to one side. “I don’t think he’s clever enough to have killed her and hidden her by himself, though.”

“He had that friend, the one the kids saw him with.”

“Whose identity I still need to pin down. My guess is it’s the same friend from the café.”

“A guy can have more than one friend.”

“Not this one, I don’t think,” she mused; didn’t mean it as an insult, but had gleaned something. A gut feeling. Usually, those were correct when they were Eden’s. “Any little wanker could get fixated on a girl, it’s true,” she elaborated, “but this feels different. This feels like he doesn’t have much, and like he took her refusal far, far too personally.”

“So he and Café Boy did it together.”

“And got back to the party before Mr. Henderson arrived?” He couldn’t see her face, but he could envision her arching a single brow well enough. “I don’t have that much faith in their stealth or cunning. Even if they left the party, and followed her; even if Jimmy Connors killed her – someone else left that yellow tag to be found. Someone else disposed of her.” She finally spun the chair a fraction, far enough for him to see that both her brows were raised. “If she’s even dead.”

“There’s been no note, no phone call,” he reminded. “No proof of life.”

“Maybe that’s because whoever took her isn’t planning to offer it. Maybe it’s not a ransom.”

He lifted one of his brows in silent question.

“She’s a pretty girl, Charlie. And who do we know who likes to collect pretty American girls and keep them locked in barns until they can be sold?”

He felt a quick pulse of maybe. Her idea had merit, certainly, and Luis had told Candy they hadn’t seen the last of him. If that fed Maddox – ex-fed, he supposed – had been telling the truth, then this was becoming a trend within the broader outlaw community. Luis could have friends; could have resources.

“His calling card was a star, not a triangle,” he reminded.

“Hm.” She turned back to the photos. “I have a few more interviews to conduct. Ghost said he’d put me in contact with the police lieutenant.”

“You’ll be busy, then.”

“Most of the day. Dinner at eight?”

“Yeah. Keep me posted.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, to which she murmured a soft, wordless response. Then he headed for Dartmoor.

He was on Industrial, a quarter-mile from the edge of the Dartmoor property, riding along the river – glinting in the morning light – when he spotted a familiar figure jogging along the shoulder.

Tenny wore compression leggings and a compression shirt, the fabric black, and clinging. Unforgiving. Fox knew all its advantages, and Tenny did, too; this wasn’t a jog, actually, but a run. A hard one. His muscles would be screaming, his lungs burning. His face, when Fox pulled up alongside him, was red and streaming sweat, despite the mild morning temperature, and his scowl had pressed lines into his forehead.

Fox kept pace with him a while, but when it became obvious he wasn’t going to turn his head and acknowledge him, he rode on. Got to the clubhouse, went in for a cup of coffee, and was sitting on a picnic table out front, having a smoke, when Tenny loped across the lot and finally fell into an exhausted, ground-eating walk a few yards away.

Fox had brought a water bottle out with him, and he lifted it now, so the sun glinted off the stainless steel: an offering.

Tenny spotted him, and debated a moment, standing expressionless. He peeled up the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, and then finally approached. He took the bottle with a quiet, “Ta,” then sat beside Fox and drank it down in long, slow swallows, gasping after.

Fox nursed his coffee, and said, “I thought you and Reese ran together most mornings.”

“No. Sometimes. Not most.”

“Not this morning.”

“No.”

“Were you not invited to Mercy’s for dinner last night?”

“Mercy didn’t invite me.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Fox turned to look at him and found a perfect mask in place. He looked tired, and bored, and indifferent. But his long fingers tapped softly against the water bottle, betraying the amount of feeling that he’d so carefully concealed. “Why didn’t you go?”

Tenny’s lip pulled back into his familiar, scornful sneer. As manufactured as every other part of this performance, but it would have looked real to a civilian. “Why would I? I don’t want to spend time with those people.”

“What about Reese? He’s the only one you ever want to spend time with. He went.”

Tenny met his gaze, and Fox could see the way his flickered, his control fraying. His tone was flat, still, when he said, “Why do you care?”

“Let’s call it brotherly concern.”

Tenny’s nostrils flared. “Let’s not. There isn’t that between us.”

Fox sighed – a bit theatrically, and the way Tenny’s fingers twitched again on the bottle told him that he knew it. “You’re regressing, Ten. I thought we’d gained a little ground. You have a name, now” – Tenny’s jaw tightened, a muscle in his cheek leaping – “and you actually speak when spoken to by people other than me, and you’ve been more cooperative. I thought you were starting to settle. That you didn’t hate all of our guts. Why are you backsliding? What happened with Reese?”

The façade cracked. A subtle shift, but one that screamed like neon to Fox’s eyes. Unchecked anger flared in his gaze, and tension stole through his body; even the flick of his lashes when he blinked was aggressive. “Why the hell do you think Reese has anything to do with it?” He put a nasty sort of emphasis on his name: overcompensating for a hurt he didn’t want to show.

“Because you care about him. Because he’s the only thing you care about, and the only thing capable of putting you in this bad a mood.”

Tenny wanted to lash out. Fox watched the urge to violence shiver through him. But then he turned his head, and stared out across the parking lot, jaw still iron-tight.

The drone of bike engines reached them, and Fox glanced up to see two approaching. One was Mercy, obvious even from a distance. But the other, he saw when they’d parked, and the helmets had come off, was Reese.

Yards away, Fox could see the dark circles beneath the boy’s eyes, the drawn, sallow cast of his face. His hair was never tidy, but was usually at least clean; today it looked dull and unwashed. His movements, when he set his helmet on his handlebars, were slow and too-precise.

Hangover, Fox diagnosed.

Beside him, Tenny vibrated with tension. A stolen glance proved that he’d pressed his lips flat, his stare fixed on the other boy. Even in profile, Fox could read the longing etched in every line of his expression. It startled Fox, a little. He knew there was a real, human boy beneath the government-built exterior, but he’d always imagined it being something muted and strange, much like his own inner workings. He’d anticipated want, or lust; a lascivious smirk. Truth told, he hadn’t had any concrete thoughts about Tenny wanting anything, until right this moment. It was a visceral, painful, shocking kind of yearning staining his cheeks red now. He was wholly, unreservedly in love with Reese, and it was clawing at him, killing him from the inside out.

Fox had the thought to look away, and spare them both the embarrassment of having noticed. But Tenny didn’t acknowledge him. Slipped off the table and away, quick and quiet as the ghost he’d been trained up to be.

Mercy and Reese had reached the table, Reese walking with his head down, curtains of his dirty hair falling around his face – shielding him.

Mercy clapped him on the shoulder, giving him one of those gentle shakes that, despite Mercy’s well meaning, always left the recipient stumbling. “Go take a shower, and you’ll feel better.”

“Yes, sir,” Reese mumbled, and shuffled to the clubhouse door.

Mercy sat down on the bench beside Fox’s feet and lit a cigarette.

“Did the couples potluck get a little wild?” Fox asked.

“Just Reese’s version of it.” Mercy exhaled a plume of smoke and sent Fox a guarded look, one that had a laugh building in Fox’s throat: the two of them both looking after their charges, all ready to bristle on their behalf. At least for Fox, that had changed in the last few minutes, after seeing Tenny’s – frankly sad – pining.

Mercy was still serious, though, almost stern with it. “Okay, I’m gonna say something, because I think you already know what’s going on, but I want it to stay between us for right now. Ghost can know about it when he needs to.”

Fox nodded. “The kids aren’t alright.”

Mercy nodded.

“Ten’s of no use if he’s this lovesick.”

Mercy frowned. “I was more worried about them, not how useful they are.” He sat forward, taking another sharp drag on his cig. “What do you mean: lovesick?”

Fox sighed. “Whatever’s wrong between them, it’s mutual.” He had a feeling he knew what, but he wasn’t going to share it with Mercy.

He had a reputation for being heartless, but, in some instances – this one, it turned out – he had a sense of fraternal loyalty.

~*~

A shower did help, marginally.

Reese had awakened that morning with a foul taste in his mouth, a splitting headache, and a shakiness the likes of which had only ever accompanied sedation.

Ava had been sitting on the coffee table, a steaming mug in her hands, and her head tilted, her smile soft. “Good morning.” When he’d pushed himself upright, more than slightly panicked that he’d allowed himself to drop his guard and become so useless, she’d offered the mug to him, and it had proved to be coffee with lots of vanilla creamer and sugar. That had helped. As had the cold crackers he’d managed to choke down at the Lécuyer table, while the children looked on him with curiosity – and, he imagined, judgement.

The soothing hot water of the shower, the fragrant soap and shampoo, being clean, left him hungry and something like eager to move past last night’s transgressions. He scraped his wet hair back off his face, wrapped his towel around his hips, and went out into the room to dress.

Tenny was sitting on his bed.

Reese froze, and his gaze, out of habit, raked the room, searching for the nearest weapon. There was an intruder in his room, and he was naked from the shower. Not defenseless, never that, even if still shaky, but the urge to arm himself was immediate and swift. When he settled – because he wasn’t under attack, and there was no threat – he glanced back toward Tenny, and saw him smirk knowingly; Reese thought he would have done the same thing.

Reese opened his mouth to speak–

And Tenny said, “You look like shit.”

He’d grown used to Tenny’s insults: they were as casual and benign as other people’s comments about the weather. But now, after yesterday, the snarl, and the hate, and the – rejection. It had been rejection. This insult didn’t feel like one of the usual teasing jabs. It felt pointed. Felt like it was meant to wound.

Reese had never cared about his physical appearance, or whether anyone found it pleasing or not. But he’d said, “I like your face,” to Tenny, and Tenny said he looked like shit.

He gripped the towel at his waist, and stood up straight. “What do you want?”

He watched – to his own shock – surprise, and then something almost like hurt flicker across Tenny’s regal features. In a blink, it turned to offense. Tenny leaned back on the mattress, hands braced, and crossed one leg over the other, foot bouncing in a show of casual indifference. But Reese could feel the tension vibrating through the air between them.

“Your eyes are red and puffy,” Tenny observed, and Reese tensed, remembering, vaguely, trying to wipe the ceaseless, unwanted tears from his face. He’d never cried before, and was stunned and ashamed that he had last night. He wondered if Tenny could tell.

But Ten said, “Did you get drunk?”

“Yes.” Almost breathless with relief. Yes, he had, and he hadn’t cried, certainly not over Tenny’s rejection.

Tenny snorted, and stood, unfolding his long, lean frame with his usual elegance.

Reese could read the fatigue in him, though, the drop to his shoulders. He smelled of a shower, hair still damp at the ends, and he wore a crisp, white shirt, and jeans, and harness boots – but he’d been running, Reese knew, because they always ran in the mornings, before it got hot, when the dew was still thick enough to soak their shoes. He’d gone running alone, because Reese was slow to wake, hungover and sick, and for a moment, he regretted not being there with – for – his friend.

But he was still angry. Still hurt, truly. In the harsh, sober light of day, he could better identify the phantom pain behind his ribs. So, as Tenny gave him an unreadable once-over and turned for the door, Reese took a breath and said, “You look like shit, too.”

Tenny froze with his hand on the knob. Looked slowly back over his shoulder, his brows lowering, expression clouded. “What?”

The self-righteous asshole. Sometimes, Reese still hated him, and now was one of those times. Anger crowded out all of his hurt, had his hand tightening on his towel, had his breath quickening. Tenny liked to play with people, fool and trick them, and that wasn’t good, but it was tolerable when he was doing it to others. When he was doing it to Reese, it stung like a fresh burn.

“You’re a liar,” he said, and could hear the unchecked fury in his voice; he’d never sounded like this before, never so human.

Tenny turned. “I’m a what?”

“A liar. You said your problem was me. That you wanted me to stay away from you. But you kissed me first. You made me have sex. You invited the girls, every time.”

Tenny’s face went blank. His eyes widened.

“It was your idea, all of it. Stephanie. Mary. That waitress.” He’d never even learned her name, but she’d sucked him off behind Smokey’s while Tenny watched, smoking a cigarette, and, eventually, stroking himself. “You kissed me first,” he repeated. “It was you, not me.”

He was heaving for breath afterward, his pulse throbbing.

He saw Tenny’s chest lift as he took a deep, harsh breath of his own. Watched him attempt to put his mask in place. “You’re right,” he said, tightly. “It is my fault.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “I supposed I’ve molested you, then. Apologies.” He spun.

“Tennyson–” Reese took a step forward.

And Tenny was gone, the door shut firmly behind him.

Twenty-Two

“Kinda hard to run through a pass progression with only one receiver, and no tacklers,” Elijah pointed out, tossing the ball from hand to hand.

“Imagine they’re there.”

Elijah snorted, and grinned.

“Imagine they’re there, and go through the footwork. That lamppost is your first receiver, the trash can’s the second, and I’m the third. You can pretend those birds over there are a three-man rush.”

Elijah laughed. “You’re crazy.” But he dodged, and spun, and pretended to get pushed out of the pocket, and pitched the ball neatly downfield into Carter’s waiting hands. He gave a single, restrained fist-pump of triumph afterward, trying and failing to hold back a smile as Carter jogged up to join him.

“See?” Carter said. “The power of imagination.”

Elijah gave him a playful shove. “Man.”

Carter laughed, his chest amazingly light. He felt like his spine had come unbent during practice, his shoulders growing weightless and wide. He could breathe.

“Let’s run through it a few more times.”

They did, Elijah’s accuracy perfecting on each sequence. It was a warm evening, warmer than it had been so far, and when they were both sticky and uncomfortable with sweat, pleasantly sore and tired, they flopped down on the grass to drink water and catch their breath.

“It’s starting to feel like spring for real,” Carter observed, reclining back on his elbows, the evening warm and humid against his face. The air smelled of cut grass, and sweet flowers, and, faintly, the tang of the river, carried along on the breeze. He cracked an eye open, to find Elijah mirroring his posture a few feet away. “When does school let out for the summer?”

“Week after next. We’ll still have practice, but only a couple times a week.”

Carter nodded. He’d always liked summers – the football camp parts of it. No studying English, no slaving over pages of incomprehensible equations at night. He ate, slept, and breathed football, from the pre-dawn run, to the films he watched before passing out at night. He’d seen other kids laid out around pools, and headed to the mall – aimless, teenage fun. But he’d had work to do. It had felt, no matter how pathetic it sounded now, like his life held some importance. You didn’t become great without putting the time and effort in. And by God, he couldn’t make his dad a better father, and he couldn’t change his origins, but he could work, and work he had, until he’d had SEC schools knocking on his door, offering him opportunities he’d only ever dreamed of.

And then…

He closed his eyes again, the last rays of sun warm across his lids. “I guess we won’t be needing to meet anymore, then.” He was a little surprised at the note of sadness in his voice, but he shouldn’t have been: he’d enjoyed this. Enjoyed getting back to football; enjoyed being useful in a way he never felt with the club.

“Why not?” Elijah asked.

Carter turned his head, vision red-edged and blurry from the sun when he opened his eyes. “I think I’ve probably shared whatever wisdom I had. You’re doing great. You don’t need me.”

Elijah frowned and sat up, plucking idly at the grass with fingertips that looked nervous, suddenly. His face didn’t give much away, though, nor his voice, more like that careful, modulated tone he’d used when they first met, before he trusted Carter at all. “We’re gonna have some clinics at camp,” he said, studying his hands, “and Coach said something about getting a new offensive coordinator.”

“About time.”

“But.” His gaze cut over, questioning. He took a deep breath, and said, “But what if I wanted to keep meeting. Not all the time,” he said in a rush, trying not to sound too eager, Carter thought. “Just some of the time. But. To keep fresh.”

Carter couldn’t hold back the smile that bloomed. It must have looked crazy, judging by the way Elijah’s brows went up. He managed to keep his voice calm, though, when he said, “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good.”

They regarded one another a moment, then Elijah nodded and glanced away. He plucked an especially long blade of grass and ran it slowly through his fingertips, again and again. “Second string might need a tune-up, too.”

Carter nodded, still grinning. “Bring him. Happy to help.”

Elijah stilled. “Shit, should I be, like, paying you? For coaching?”

“No. No, I don’t need the money.”

Another nod, and Elijah’s shoulders dropped in obvious relief.

Carter drained the rest of his water and glanced out across the field. Now that they’d stopped moving around, the birds from earlier had returned, fat robins hopping along with their heads cocked, pulling up worms from the soft grass. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this hopeful about something. And it was a small thing: giving free advice to high school players. But more and more he was deciding that that sort of hope wasn’t something to be mocked, no matter how small or inconsequential it seemed.

When Elijah spoke next, his voice had shifted. “Hey.” A heaviness now, something low and worried that had Carter’s head whipping around. Elijah’s brows had drawn together, and a frown plucked at his mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything, but…Jimmy Connors.”

And just like that, hope was crowded by a familiar nervous dread.

“He was running his mouth yesterday in the cafeteria. I wasn’t even sitting at his table, but I heard him talking a buncha shit. He said Allie’s parents hired a detective, and that she was threatening him.”

Carter frowned. “Her parents did hire a detective, but she isn’t threatening him.”

“I didn’t figure. But. That’s what he’s saying. And he said the Lean Dogs were gonna be sorry.”

Carter snorted. “It wouldn’t be the first time somebody said that about us.”

Elijah looked serious, though. Concerned. Troubled. “He said he was gonna prove to everybody that y’all killed Allie. He said he had actual proof, when somebody called bullshit on him. He said he had photos.”

“Photos?” Carter’s pulse gave a jump. “Of what?”

“Man, I dunno. But he’s out to get you guys, and I don’t think he’s playing.”

“What’s one seventeen-year-old kid gonna do to the Lean Dogs?” It was only after Elijah’s brows had lifted, and the boy had recoiled another small fraction, that he realized how harsh his tone had been.

Shit.

He tried to smile. “Thanks for telling me. We’ll be on the lookout for anything weird.”

Elijah held his gaze a moment, his own unreadable, then nodded. “Watch your back.”

~*~

Leah pushed through the door of the coffeeshop and took an immediate, grateful deep breath of its usual tangle of enticing scents. It had been a bit of a hectic day at work, but a productive sort of hectic. Numbers to crunch, emails to fire back and forth. She’d always loved numbers: the concrete efficiency of them. Numbers didn’t lie; numbers were dependable. She’d always thought of herself as whimsical and wild, a little, but she loved the orderliness of what she did for a living. The way it grounded her.

She headed for the counter, surprised to see Dustin and Sarah working behind it, neither of her parents in sight.

“Hey, Dust, is my dad here?”

“Your mom, actually.” He pointed toward the door to the back. “She had to make a phone call.”

“Thanks.”

Beyond a swinging door, the back housed the kitchen, break room, an employee restroom, and the office – whose door was cracked open. She could hear her mother’s voice coming from the other side – but the tone brought her up short, breath held.

“I understand,” Marie said, low, and raw, and crackling; she sounded near tears. “But if you could give us one more week to – you have a buyer? Well, what if we…I understand. But, Mr. Pearson….no, but.” Silence a long moment, while Leah’s heart pounded. Marie took a shaky breath. “Yes. Yes. I’ll talk with my husband. Thank you.” Clipped, and not at all thankful. The receiver clicked back into the dock.

Leah stood debating a moment, fingers and toes tingling with nerves. If she retreated, her mother would hear her footfalls, probably, and know that she’d heard. If she went in, she would find her mother upset, and Leah would ask why – she had to ask. Either way, there could be no pretending she hadn’t accidently eavesdropped.

Leah took a breath, rapped quickly on the door, and slipped inside.

Marie glanced around, startled, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. She looked unbearably thin, almost haggard, in that first unguarded moment, and Leah’s heart clenched.

“Leah!”

“Oh, Mom.” Her own eyes burned, on reflex, and she set her bag down and went straight to her mom, all thoughts of trying to skirt around this carefully deserting her.

Marie stayed sitting, and she wiped at her eyes – right up until Leah reached her. Then she pitched forward and wrapped both arms tight around her, squeezing hard.

Leah squeezed back, feeling her mother’s fluttering sadness seep into her, plucking at all her nerves. “What’s wrong? Who was that on the phone?”

Marie didn’t answer right away, breathing warm and ragged against Leah’s stomach. Then she finally pushed back with a deep sigh, and wiped at her cheeks, her eyes dry now. From this angle, Leah could see the gray in the part of her hair, evidence of an overdue salon trip. “Your father and I didn’t want to tell you until we were sure. We didn’t want to worry you.”

Her stomach lurched. “Worry me about what? God, Mom, are you sick?”

“What? No, no.” Marie waved away the notion and shook her head.

It was a big relief, one that left Leah weak-kneed enough that she dropped into the chair against the wall, the one beneath the coat rack. Soft jacket sleeves fell over her shoulders, cupped around her head.

“No.” Marie sighed again, and attempted a smile, one hollow and spare. “That was Mike Pearson on the phone. The landlord. He’s moving to Florida, and he wants to sell the building – but he wants an outrageous amount for it, and won’t accept our offer.”

Of all the things Leah had expected, this wasn’t one of them. She blinked stupidly. Then frowned. “How much does he want for it?”

“Almost twice the actual value.”

“What? That shithead. Why?”

“Greedy, I guess.” She slumped back in her chair, shaking her head. “He’s raised the rent on us for the last two years, another bump every three months.”

“What? I had no idea!”

“Because we didn’t tell you.” Sad little smile. “We’ve been going back and forth for weeks, trying to buy it outright, but he won’t budge, and now he’s going to officially put it on the market. Your dad and I have talked to the bank about a loan, but things have been so tight lately with the rent increase. And our credit’s not the best.” She seemed to shrink down into herself as she spoke, folding like dry paper. “We can’t buy it. Hell, at this point, we can’t afford to buy any place.”

“God, Mom.” Leah felt her eyes stinging again, and dashed at them. “I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

“Nothing, sweetie.” Through the tired lines of sadness, Marie’s face shone with love for her. “This is our mess to fix. I don’t want you to worry about it at all, okay?”

Leah knotted her fingers together in her lap. “Okay,” she said, mind already racing.

~*~

Carter debated skipping what had become his usual evening stop at Cook’s Coffee after his session with Elijah. He hadn’t seen Leah since the dinner at Ava and Mercy’s, when there’d been all this new, strange tension between them. He didn’t want to call it a spark, or attraction, but he knew that’s what it had been. He didn’t want things to be awkward now; didn’t want to meet Leah’s gaze across the shop and feel the urge to go crawl in a hole somewhere.

He’d been with three women at once a few weeks ago, but the thought of a little eye contact had him nervous as a teenager again. Idiot, he scolded himself, parked at the curb, and went in.

Leah was at her usual table – Carter half-wondered if her parents put a reserved sign on it, or if the regular customers had come to realize it was hers and steered clear – tapping away at her laptop, hunched low over the screen, lip caught between her teeth as she squinted, concentrating fiercely. He frowned to himself, and stood a moment, waiting for her to glance up in automatic response at the sound of the bell. She never did.

His stomach growled, and he headed for the counter – only to pause again when he caught sight of Leah’s mother standing behind it. Eyes puffy and red, face splotched, it was obvious that Mrs. Cook had been crying. Family drama? he wondered. An argument with Leah? That didn’t seem likely, but something had upset her, and he found himself wanting to soothe her, somehow.

She glanced up at his approach, and smiled – as full and sincere as normal, if a little stiff through the cheeks. Dried tear tracks, he thought. “Hey, Carter! You’re just a regular these days, aren’t you? Marshall says you’ve been coming in every night.”

“Oh, um, some nights. Most nights.” His face heated, and he willed himself – probably unsuccessfully – not to blush too much. He felt caught out, and again couldn’t believe his reversion to teenage-era jitters over a girl. “I really like y’all’s sandwiches.”

She beamed. “Glad to hear it! Turkey or ham?”

“Oh, turkey.”

“Grab a sandwich and a green tea for Carter, Sarah,” she instructed one of the teens working alongside her, before turning her smile back to him; folding her arms, tilting her hips. Getting settled: a Southern matron ready to set down roots and talk a while.

Shit.

“We haven’t had a chance to chat, you and me.” She cocked her head and gave him an assessing once-over. “How you been? You coming from the gym?”

“No, ma’am. I’ve been doing some coaching.” That felt disingenuous, but better than giving free quarterback advice.

“Oh, over at the Boys & Girl’s club?”

“No, uh, private coaching, actually. I’ve been helping out Elijah Henry.”

Her brows went up. “Oh, Elijah! Hometown hero. He’s so talented. We can’t wait to go to the games in the fall.” She went off on a tangent about the team, and the upcoming season, while Sarah brought his order up. Her expression seemed brighter, and he was glad to have offered a distraction from whatever had caused her tears.

When he pulled out his wallet to pay, she waved him away.

“No, it’s on the house.”

“Let me pay,” he insisted.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Go sit down and enjoy your food.” Her expression shifted, becoming sly. “There’s a spot open over there with Leah.”

“Uh…yes, ma’am.”

“You two seem to be reconnecting now that she’s back home.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gathered his tray and hurried off before his cheeks could grow too warm again and give him away.

He hesitated on his way to Leah’s table, willing her to look up and notice him; he wanted a chance to read her reaction to him before inviting himself down into her personal space. But she remained fixated on her computer screen, so he finally steeled himself and sat, as quietly as possible.

She glanced up, then, a distracted meeting of gazes and a fleeting smile. “Hey.” She went back to her work, and he was both grateful for the fact that it had turned out to be a non-event – and a little disappointed that there hadn’t been any eye contact, or tension, or a chance for butterflies in stomachs.

“Hey.” He unwrapped his sandwich. “Work stuff?” he asked, and, when she glanced up, nodded toward the computer before taking a bite.

“Not really.” She frowned. “I’m looking at loan options.” She shook her head. “Not very successfully.” That was when he noticed that she wasn’t just concentrating, but that faint lines of strain wreathed her usually-smiling mouth, lip caught again between her teeth. She looked worried, and sounded it, too.

He set his sandwich down, and wiped his hands. “A loan? Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” she said, and then sighed, and her gaze finally met his and held. Her dark eyes brimmed with stress and sadness, and Carter wanted to reach across the table, an automatic reaction to touch her somewhere, anywhere, and offer comfort. He didn’t, but he found himself leaning toward her. “No,” she admitted, a minute later. “I don’t…” Her gaze flicked toward the counter, where her mother had stepped back to froth milk and let the teen boy run the till for a moment. When Leah glanced back, she leaned forward, too, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Okay, they’d die if they knew I was telling anyone, but when I got here, Mom was in the office on the phone with the landlord. He’s selling this building, and he’s got the price so jacked up they can’t afford to buy it from him.”

He lifted his brows. “Why would he make it so hard for them?”

“Because he’s a grouchy old asshole,” she muttered. “He’s been hiking their rent up every three months for the past two years, Mom said. He’s trying to make them go broke! I don’t…” She let out a shuddering breath and pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes closing a moment. “I had no idea they were in financial trouble.”

“They must not have wanted to worry you.”

“But I could have helped!” She tossed her hands up, and then linked them behind her neck, sighing again. “I could have tried to help. Jeez.” She inclined her head toward her computer. “I thought maybe if I cosigned the loan with them, they could pass the credit check. I just…don’t know what to do.” She turned to Carter, gaze imploring. “They’ve poured their whole life savings and all their love into this place. If someone else buys it, and forces them to vacate, it’ll all go down the toilet.”

“I’m sorry,” he said with a pang of sympathy. He hated seeing her like this; the urge to help was swift and strong. “What if someone bought it who would just keep the shop as is. Charge your parents rent like the first owner – or, well, not price gouge them. But maybe a new landlord doesn’t mean the shop has to go anywhere.”

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced. “But there’s no guarantee. They could say they would leave it, and then change their minds in six months.”

“Cook’s Coffee is a landmark.”

She gave him a look.

“It is. It’s an important local business around here. You’d just need to find a new landlord who thought the same way and wanted to keep it as is.”

“I don’t think you get to pick your own landlord,” she whispered, dryly.

“No, but you could…” He gesturing, frowning to himself. There had to be a way…

“Ask someone to buy the place,” she said, and then her eyes flew wide. “Oh my God, we could ask someone to buy it.”

“It’s an idea.”

“It’s a good idea.” She grinned, hope sparking in her gaze. “Who just bought every other building on this block?”

He sat upright with a jolt of excitement. “The club.”

“The club.” She grinned, and she was radiant. He wanted to kiss her, he realized. Wanted to thread his fingers through her hair, reel her in close, and taste her mouth.

The impulse was so shocking, so intense, and flooded him with such molten heat that he gasped.

“What?” she asked, brows drawing together. She must have thought something was wrong. He wondered what his face was doing, besides heating until he felt feverish.

He cleared his throat and tried to get a handle on himself; tried to push away the specific, highly arousing fantasies that surged up out of the vague depths of his imagination and plastered themselves across the forefront of his mind. “I can talk to Ghost, and see if he’ll go for it.”

“Would you?” She vibrated, bouncing a little in her chair and clasping her hands together. “Oh my God, Carter, that would be perfect!”

Back at the practice field, his chest had felt light and empty; now it felt full, heavy – achingly so. Full of promise, and want, and the kind of crippling avarice that would keep him pinned to this chair until he could talk himself down.

He picked up his tea and took a long, cool slug, helpless but to smile back at her.

He thought about what Ava had said, about getting things settled first, and knew it was time to talk to Jazz.

Twenty-Three

He went back to the clubhouse first, showered and put on clean clothes, his cut. It was nearly eight by then, but when he fired off a text, Jazz answered right away, telling him he could come over if he wanted.

He spent the ride to her condo trying to come up with something suitable to say, but felt no closer to the right words by the time he reached her welcome mat. He debated a moment, staring at the fresh paint of the door, the wreath of twigs and silk, spring flowers. He was sad, and he was full of regret – regret that he might be about to hurt her. That he’d wasted her time these last few years. But he didn’t feel a loss hovering. Deep down, he knew this was the right thing. He hadn’t been happy, and it hadn’t been Jazz’s fault, not at all – but sometimes, letting go was the best thing you could do.

He took a deep breath, and knocked.

He never knew what he’d find Jazz wearing when he turned up on her doorstep. Usually something slinky; sometimes a mini dress, sometimes cutoffs or tight jeans and a halter top. Sometimes nothing but a filmy scrap of a robe, and always a smile. He was expecting something similar tonight, and was already steeling himself not to get lost in looking, when the door opened, and he was hit with a blast of surprise.

Jazz stood in the entryway wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt with a modest scooped neckline. Her honey hair was piled up on top of her head in a messy bun, and she’d already washed her face, her skin clean and scrubbed pink, makeup free.

He’d never seen her so casual.

“Hey, baby boy,” she greeted, her smile soft, her voice affectionate and warm – but not at all suggestive. “Come on in.”

“Hey,” he echoed, belatedly, wiped his boots, and stepped inside.

The TV was on in the living room, some sort of reality show where women with lots of makeup and hair extensions screamed at one another. Jazz grabbed the remote and thumbed the volume down low. “You want something to drink?” She gestured to the half-finished glass of wine on the coffee table.

“No, thanks.”

They settled in side-by-side, plenty of space between them, and that in and of itself felt like a domino tipping over; the start of the chain reaction. Jazz drew her bare feet up beneath her, propped an arm on the back of the couch, and angled her upper body toward him, expression open, soft, ready.

“What’s up?”

Carter realized he’d linked his fingers together and was worrying them. He unlaced them, and smoothed his hands down his denim-covered thighs. His skin itched, too warm beneath his clothes, and his stomach jumped.

“You smell nice. Where you been tonight?” she asked, without any hint of accusation. She wasn’t the jealous type, and didn’t look like that was about to change in the next few minutes.

Carter let out a deep breath, and relaxed down into the cushions a fraction. “I was out at the park earlier,” he said. “I’ve actually, uh, been working with the varsity quarterback at the high school. Helping him with his long passes.”

“Really?” She perked upright, her smile widening. “Did you meet him over at the school? Waiting for me?”

“Yeah.” He had no reason to blush – it wasn’t like he was doing anything wrong – but he felt his cheeks warm, regardless. “I watched them practicing, and when I offered to help him out, he said yes.”

“He getting better?”

“He already had all the natural talent; he had the range. But he’s more accurate, yeah.” He couldn’t keep the tinge of pride from his voice.

“Well that’s great, baby.” She slapped him lightly on the arm, chuckling. “Good for you! You big sweetheart.”

“Oh, I’m not–”

“Yes, you are.” She nodded, sagely. “The sweetest. You like helping people. It makes you happy.”

He shrugged.

“You helped me, when we first got together. You came running to my rescue.”

He sent her a skeptical look. “Oh no, I saved you from getting dicked down by Candyman,” he deadpanned. “Some hero.”

Her expression turned serious, smile fading. Softly, she said, “I didn’t want anything to do with Candy that night. And I don’t take him for the violent sort, but he wasn’t listening real well. I didn’t want–” She took an unsteady breath. “I didn’t want things to get ugly. You saw that I didn’t want to be there in that spot. You stepped in. That was a help. You’re a help. You’ve never pushed me for anything, and let me tell you, that’s a damn rare thing in this life most of the time.”

Guilt washed over him, sudden, unexpected. Settled in his belly like cold water. She trusted him; he’d never frightened her, or pushed her, or forced her. And here he’d come to tell her that he wanted them to draw new lines around their relationship. How could he do that to her? How, after all this time, and what they’d both been through? Life had dealt both of them shit hands, but they’d found a little comfort with each other. And to turn away from that – to stop being a help – all for a rush of childish emotions and a few locked gazes. He…

“Carter.” She said his name so rarely that the sound of it on her lips was startling. As was the hand she laid on his arm. She scooted closer, caught his eyes, and offered him a look that was peaceful, unbothered. Almost encouraging. “It’s alright, honey.”

“What is?” A tremor moved down his spine.

She smiled. “I know what you came to tell me.”

He swallowed, unable to say it, now. His hands curled to fists on his thighs.

“It’s not working anymore with us, is it, baby?”

“I don’t – it isn’t–” He stopped. Took another breath. Thought, no. He couldn’t keep stuttering and dodging around it. He’d come here to talk, and he couldn’t let himself shake apart like he had the last time they’d skirted around this subject. No skirting tonight, even if the guilt left him sick, even if sweat prickled his skin beneath his clothes. It was time to step up and be a man about this.

He exhaled slowly, and met her gaze head-on. She studied him with kindness, and understanding, but no sadness. She didn’t look on the verge of heartbreak.

“Jazz, I love you.”

Her brows jumped, expression blanking with shock. She hadn’t expected that.

To be honest, he hadn’t either. But it was the truth, of a sort. “You’re a good person. A kind person. And you’ve been really, really good with me, even when I don’t deserve it.”

Her head tilted, smile returning, the soft, sad one. “You deserve it.”

He shook his head, but pressed on. “We’ve been through a lot, you and me. And it’s been really fun. I mean – really fun.”

She chuckled.

“I do love you. I care about you, and I want you to be safe, and happy. To have the things you want.” He sighed. “But I’m not – shit, this sounds so fucking cliché.”

“It does, doesn’t it? I’ll say it: you’re not in love with me.”

He winced, but nodded.

“Hey, I’m not in love with you either, baby boy.” Her gaze dropped to his lap. “Parts of you, sure.”

“Jazz,” he protested, a startled laugh bubbling out of him.

She scooted closer again, and her hand shifted up to sit on his shoulder, her smile impossibly fond. “You are the cutest damn thing, and you fuck like a dream. But, honey, it’s like I said before: we both knew this wasn’t going to be a permanent arrangement. We could keep doing what we’re doing, and it would be real fun, no doubt. But you won’t be happy.”

“I want to be happy,” he said, leaning into her touch. “I can’t help thinking it’s insulting and ugly as hell to tell you I haven’t been happy.”

“Have you been unhappy because of me?”

“God, no.”

She shrugged. “I know it’s not my fault. It’s not about what you do have, but what you don’t have.”

He sighed, smiling back at her. “You’re taking this really well.”

“I’ve seen it coming for a long time, baby boy. Don’t worry about me.” She leaned in, and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial volume. “So who is she?”

“What?”

“Carter Steven Michaels” – okay, how did she know his middle name? – “you’ve been perfectly content to be not content at all, and then, bam, you wanna have the big talk.” Her grin was teasing. “So I think you met somebody.”

“Jazz,” he protested.

“Nobody? Nobody at all?” An innocent eyelash flutter. “Not even that cute little thing you went to high school with?”

A droplet of sweat trickled down his back, tickling unpleasantly. “Ava’s married. To Mercy.”

“No, not her.” She flicked his shoulder with her fingertips. “Her friend. That little tiny one. Didn’t she just come back into town? I saw her with Ava at Dartmoor one day.”

He resisted the urge to fidget, but barely. “She’s not tiny.”

“She’s so tiny, and it’s so her.” She laughed, but it wasn’t mean, nor mocking. She sounded delighted, almost, if that was possible. “She’s cute! And you two go way back. It makes sense. She’s club friendly, right?”

“Nothing’s happened,” he said. “We haven’t – I haven’t – I mean, nothing.”

“I know.” Her manner gentled, and she reached to tidy his hair in the front, nails delicate and familiar. “You like her, and you wanted to come tell me before you did anything.”

Forget a few moments of chemistry, a couple of intense gazes: what existed between him and Leah still felt so fleeting. Could turn out to be nothing. But he said, “Yes,” because it was the truth, and because, like he always had when he was younger, when he threw himself out onto the field every day in the hope that it would amount to something, trying was worth it. Wanting to try was the most alive he’d felt in years. “Jazz, I’m sorry.”

She smiled again, and then rested her head on his shoulder, patted his chest – not seductively, but in a comforting way. “Don’t be, baby boy. If you like her, go get her.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me: I like the idea of doing things on my own a little while. Besides.” Her tone turned mischievous. “I have a date this weekend.”

“With who?”

“Todd.”

“Todd the contractor?” He made a face that must have manifested through the rest of his body, because though she couldn’t see his expression, she laughed.

“Come on, he’s nice!”

“His name’s Todd.”

“Doesn’t matter what his name is. Have you seen him in those Wranglers he wears? Damn.”

Carter laughed, and groaned, while she giggled against his side, and it felt, almost, like they were friends – it definitely didn’t feel like he’d just broken things off painfully with a lover.

The lightness returned to his chest, and he knew he’d done the right thing.

A lightness edged with nerves, because now there could be no more excuses. He hadn’t tried to court a woman properly in years, and the idea terrified him, more than a little bit.

Twenty-Four

“Really?” Ghost’s eyes lit up with immediate interest when Carter explained the Cooks’ situation to him the next morning. “I had no idea.” He took a meditative sip of his coffee and nodded, gaze shifting toward his VP.

Walsh was sitting on top of a table, legs dangling off the edge, cigarette dangling off his lip as he dug for his lighter in his cut pocket. “I don’t know,” he said, cig bobbing. He paused to light it, and then exhaled a plume of smoke, the notch between his brows the only outward sign of his doubt. “Things are very comfortable right now – we’ve got enough legit money to get us through until the Main Street shops are up and running and pulling in income. We could stretch it.” He didn’t sound like he thought that was the best idea, though. “You could buy it personally,” he told Ghost.

Ghost shook his head. “I don’t wanna take out another personal loan right now.”

Carter sipped his own coffee and tried to keep his frustration from mounting. He’d never had a look at the club’s financials, and expected he never would. The numbers were for Walsh and Ghost to know, and they were all given details on an as-needed basis. The club never bought anything as a club without the hearty consent of its members. But moments like these left Carter feeling like a kid asking his parents for an allowance.

Ghost made a face. “Marshall and Marie are good people. Club fans,” he added, to which Walsh nodded. “Owning that place would put that whole block in club hands.”

Belatedly, a dark thought occurred. “You would just charge them rent, right?” Carter asked. “They wouldn’t have to do anything else, would they?” That would be Marshall Cook’s decision to accept or refuse, but the club had a way of backing people into corners.

Ghost’s gaze shifted to him, and narrowed, like he could read his thoughts. “What kinda businessman do you think I am?”

Carter thought it best not to answer.

“But if that old shit Pearson is being difficult,” Ghost said, looking back toward Walsh, “I say we soften him up before we make an offer. If we make an offer.”

Carter withheld a groan: intimidating landlords wasn’t exactly the sort of headline you wanted circulating on the business pages.

But Ghost grinned and said, “Maybe we don’t buy it outright. I think I’ve got a better idea.”

~*~

For years, the upstairs of Bell Bar had been nothing but storage, its dusty corners crammed with old, broken furniture, and decades’ worth of old receipts and files, some in cabinets, some in faded stacks tied together with string. In the process of cleaning it out, they’d found WWII newspaper clippings, and several antique mantels that had fetched a pretty penny at the auction house. Now, this many weeks into renovation, the space was totally cleared out, stripped down, and rewired. Ghost paced across the new plywood subfloor and surveyed the progress, already able to envision dark wall paneling, gleaming marble counters, and cozy tables lit with flickering tea lights.

The plan was to turn the second floor into a fancy little niche restaurant, full of Old World charm and soft music; the sort of place where the wait staff wore waistcoats and black ties.

Downstairs, he could hear the whine and rhythm of work being done, but was alone here for the moment, peering out of the new glass in the window that Reese and Tenny had leaped out of when they caught Jimmy Connors trying to vandalize the place. He frowned to himself: the sooner they found out what was going on there, the better.

Sunlight glinted off bright metal, and he watched a black Jag pull up to the curb. Bruce got out, and went around to let out his boss.

The crisp strike of leather-soled shoes on the stairs announced Ian’s arrival before he stepped through the doorway and into view. Despite the ever-warming weather, he wore a topcoat and a pair of leather gloves; didn’t want to risk touching anything dirty at a construction site, Ghost figured with an internal eye roll.

Bruce followed, silent and hulking as ever, and took up a post just inside the door, where he could monitor the stairs.

Ian strolled across the subfloor with practiced elegance, surveying the exposed pipes and wires, the stacks of materials over against the far wall. “Love what you’ve done with the place,” he deadpanned.

“Just wait ‘til we’re done with it. You won’t be able to keep your fancy ass away.”

Ian smirked, and halted in the center of the room, making eye contact finally, one russet brow arched. “How flattering of you to notice my ass.”

Ghost didn’t take the bait. He’d learned that it was best to let him get it out of his system, and he’d eventually get bored with taunting people.

As predicted, the smirk melted away into a bland expression, and he took another slow look around the room, brow marked with signs of true scrutiny this time. “It isn’t the largest space, but then, the nicest restaurants favor smaller dining rooms and niche clientele. I can see the potential. Forgive me, though” – the smirk returned, as did his gaze – “but I think you’re wise to consult me. No offense, Kenneth, but you’re hardly familiar with the finer things in life.” Above the sharp lines of his mocking little smile, his eyes sparkled, fond and warm. It was just a game, the back and forth, the insults; he enjoyed it, and, truth told, in the right frame of mind, Ghost enjoyed it, too.

He smirked back. “Not that I don’t appreciate a good poke at the redneck heritage, but this isn’t the place I wanted help with. I was talking about the coffeeshop down on the end. The landlord’s being a dick, and says he won’t sell for anything less than a fucking ransom. The proprietors are club friends. The Cooks.”

Ian’s brows jumped in interest. “Related to the charming Miss Cook your wife asked me to hire, I take it.”

Ghost nodded. “Her parents.”

Ian tipped his head, auburn hair sliding in the sunlight. “Turning over a new leaf? Adopting whole families now?”

“You can’t adopt whole-ass adults.”

“Not even me?” An innocent tone, but his eyes betrayed a stroke of true feeling; a gratefulness that Ghost found himself looking away from, to keep from embarrassing the boy too much.

Predictably, Ian cleared his throat and was himself again. “Do you want me to lean on the landlord? I’m honestly flattered that you think I’m more intimidating than you.”

“I want you to buy the building. After you lean on the landlord to get the price down – that shithead doesn’t deserve to rob anybody, not even you.”

“Hm. Am I to assume you’d want me to allow Cook’s Coffee to stay?”

“Yeah, that’s the whole point of it.”

Ian stroked his chin with gloved fingers in a movement Ghost knew was calculated.

“Don’t get all supervillain on me,” he muttered, and Ian’s hand dropped, and his cheeks colored. “If you don’t wanna do it, just tell me, that’s fine. But since you’re buying up half the real estate in Knoxville anyway, I figured it might be a good investment.”

“Is it turning a profit?”

“You’d have to ask the Cooks. They have a decent crowd.”

“This entire row of buildings is two stories. What’s above the coffeeshop?”

“Dunno. But I think it’s empty.”

Ian’s fingers twitched, like he wanted to stroke his chin again, but managed to restrain himself. That was the problem with posturing so much: it became habit. A thought Ghost entertained while he managed not to rub at the back of his neck, for once. “Why isn’t the club buying it?”

“We could swing it,” Ghost said, “but it would make things a little tighter than I want, and we’re nowhere near done with renovations on the places we’ve already bought. Whereas you could buy it with whatever pocket change you’ve got on you.”

“Don’t hate me because I’m rich, darling,” Ian sang, chuckling, then grew thoughtful. “I’ll consider it. Seriously,” he added, in response to Ghost’s look. “When have you ever known me to pass up the chance to gain more power?”

“You make a good point,” Ghost said, dryly.

“Darling, don’t I always.”

~*~

Of all the people Leah expected to find in the coffeeshop when she walked in that evening, her boss wasn’t one of them.

She halted just inside the door, bell jangling behind her, brought up short by the sight of Ian standing in front of the counter, taking an obvious, though thankfully appreciative, look around the shop, as elegant and well-dressed as ever, hair so deeply auburn it was nearly brown in the soft lighting. The big guy she’d pegged as a bodyguard before stood to the right of him, and a slender, equally elegant young man with dark hair and glasses on the left.

Both of Leah’s parents stood on the other side of the counter. Mom looked a little awestruck. Dad looked mistrustful.

“Bruce, you’re too intimidating,” she heard Ian say as she approached. He waved at the big man. “You may wait outside.”

The guard – Bruce – nodded and turned obediently.

Ian glanced after him, and caught sight of Leah, his smile immediate and sharp. “Miss Cook. There you are. I was just introducing myself to your parents.”

“That’s…nice. You can just call me Leah,” she said, faintly, too stunned – and slowly filling with worry – to be anything like eloquent. “Um. Mr. Shaman. Did you come for coffee?”

“Of course. And, I must confess, a bit of business.” He touched the arm of the man beside him. “My husband, Alec. Alec, darling, this is my new accountant over at the in-town office.”

Alec smiled warmly, and offered his hand right away. “Lovely to meet you.” He was American, but something about his voice told her he’d picked up on some of his husband’s speech patterns, the way he pronounced lovely.

“Hi,” she said, stupidly.

“Mr. and Mrs. Cook,” Ian said, turning back to her parents. “I was wondering if there was somewhere we might talk privately.”

~*~

Practice with Elijah gave Carter a chance to burn off some of his nerves and focus on something else for a little while. But by the time he parked his bike in front of Cook’s Coffee, his stomach was full of butterflies again.

“Idiot,” he chastised himself, as he unsnapped and hung up his helmet, but he was smiling. He took a moment, standing on the sidewalk, to try and scrape his sweat-damp hair into some kind of order and get his wide, stupid smile down to something pleasant and normal. He even scoped his dim reflection in the shop’s windows. He was wearing workout gear, but, to be perfectly honest, it showed off his physique, and he was hoping that was a point in his favor.

Inside, Leah wasn’t at her usual table, but at the register, an apron hastily tied over her work clothes, her gaze nervously darting toward the hallway that led back to the Employees Only section of the shop.

“Everything okay?” he asked, as he approached.

She sent him a fast, distracted smile. “Maybe. I hope.” She leaned over the counter and whispered, “Ian’s here. He wanted to have a private discussion with my parents.”

Carter bit back a wince. Ghost was nothing if not efficient. “Yeah. About that. I talked to Ghost about the club maybe stepping in and buying the building.”

“Uh, Ghost isn’t the one who showed up.”

“I know. He thinks Ian ought to buy it.”

Her eyes widened. “Why?”

“Finances, I think. I dunno. He and Walsh and Ian are the only ones in the know about money stuff these days.”

She let out a breath and nodded, slowly. “Okay. Well…that’s still a good thing, right?” She propped her hands on her hips and glanced up at him for confirmation. “Ian’s in tight with the club, Ian has lots of money. Ian came here, to talk to my parents first, which shows that he cares what they think, right? So this is good.” She nodded again, like she was trying to convince herself.

“Probably, yeah.”

“Probably doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“I thought you were the one who said you liked Ian. That Ava and I were overreacting when you got a job with him.”

“I did, yeah…but now I’m working for him, and my parents are going to be paying him rent, maybe, if this works out, and that’s just a whole lot of fancy British man in my life, suddenly. I don’t know how to feel about that.”

A thought occurred – a spark of something that felt dangerously like jealousy. “Wait. You’re not into him or something, are you?” Maybe her nerves were about infatuated intimidation, and he really didn’t want to think about that. “You know he’s gay, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, he’s here with his husband, you goober. I’m worried about the fact that this fancy British man is really rich and powerful, and I have no idea if we’re on his friend list, or his People To Use list.”

“Oh.”

“You see my dilemma.”

“I don’t think he’s gonna do anything sketchy,” he said, “not to you guys. Ava and I were worried, yeah,” he admitted, in response to her raised-brow look. “But he’s trustworthy. If Ghost thinks it’s a good idea for him to buy the building, then it is.”

A glint of red drew his attention, and he glanced over to see Ian and Alec emerging from the back hall, Bruce melting out of the shadows to tail them, like always. Ian spotted him right away, and his small, curving little smile left Carter uneasy. I see right through you, that smile said.

They didn’t linger, thankfully. “Miss Cook, lovely to see you outside of work,” Ian said with a quick, correct bow before his little crew swept out the door. Carter wondered how he’d missed the Jag on his way in; too distracted by his own plans, he guessed.

“I can’t believe he and Ghost get along,” Leah mused when they were gone, shaking her head.

“Nobody can. It’s weird.”

She chuckled, and some of tension she’d been holding melted off her face.

Good, he thought. He didn’t like seeing her tense, or worried.

Boy, he was in trouble, wasn’t he?

“Leah–” he started, and her parents came bustling back behind the counter.

Her dad was scowling to himself, but her mom was beaming.

“Leah!” Marie gripped her daughter’s arms. “He’s going to buy the building and let us keep running the shop! He wants to put in a bookshop upstairs, even! Nothing’s been there for years, and a bookshop will be perfect!”

Leah smiled back, though less manically. “That’s awesome! Why is Dad making that face, though?”

“He’s too fancy,” Marshall said. “I don’t trust that.”

“Oh, hush.” His wife swatted his arm. “He’s just being him,” she told Leah. “Don’t mind him. Oh, Carter! Hi!” She was bubbly as a schoolgirl. To Leah: “Here, sweetie, give me that apron back and you kids go sit down. Do you want the usual, Carter?”

“Um, yes, ma’am.”

Five minutes later, they were seated at Leah’s usual table, him with his sandwich and tea, Leah with a bagel and a latte.

She looked a little shocked. “So that’s happening, I guess.”

“Looks like.”

She licked a bit of cream cheese off her thumb, then propped her chin on her fist and stared at him, a small, enigmatic smile plucking at the corners of her mouth.

“What?” he asked, prickling with a sudden awareness.

“I’m just…I told you this time yesterday about my parents’ problem, and twenty-four hours later there’s a solution. It’s…stunning, actually.” She sighed, and maybe it was his imagination, but he thought it sounded dreamy. “Lean Dogs really do get stuff done around here, huh?”

Lean Dogs meant all of them, and in this case even included Ian, but her gaze was fixed on him – was warm for him. So it felt personal, her attention – the way she was so clearly, openly impressed.

His throat was tight. He set his sandwich down and coughed discreetly into his fist, wanting to move beneath her gaze. Not to get away, no, but keeping still was hard, suddenly. His palms tingled, and his heart gave a few hard beats, and it was that same tension that had happened at Ava’s house. The same insistent, nearly choking urge to grab her and kiss her.

It had been like that with Jazz at first, way back when. Shocking, heated need. But that was where the similarities ended.

“All I did was ask,” he said.

“And delivered.” She gave him one last look, her gaze warm, and appraising – lingering, unmistakably, on his mouth a moment – before she sat back and reached for her bagel.

The moment had all the markers of slipping away. She’d ask him about how working with Elijah was going, or he’d ask her how her day at work had been, and they’d slip back beneath this sudden swell of mutual something else, back into the safe, warm waters of friendship.

Fuck it. If he could have the conversation he’d had last night with Jazz, he could have this one – even if it was alarmingly more nerve-wracking.

Endings hurt. Beginnings left him breathless.

“Leah,” he said, too firmly. Her head and brows lifted, surprise evident on her face. “Do you wanna have dinner this weekend?”

She stared at him, frozen.

“Not dinner like this.” He gestured to the table between them. “I mean a real dinner. Where I’ll be wearing real clothes, and I’ll pay. I mean – a date. Do you want to go on a date?”

She stared another moment, and then blinked, her gaze dropping. She set her bagel down slowly, and took a few breaths. When she lifted her face, her jaw was tense in a way that didn’t bode well.

His stomach sank.

“You want to go on a date?” Her tone was careful – it reminded him of Elijah’s tone, in those moments when he was trying to get a read on Carter. Unsure of his intentions.

He nodded, pulse kicking up another notch. “Yeah.”

A pause. “With me?”

“Yeah.”

She frowned. “Really?”

He’d run at least a dozen possibilities through his head, and in none of them had this conversation unfolded like this. “Yes, really.” He fought his own impulse to frown back at her. Tried to keep his voice even and encouraging. “Why do you look like that’s so hard to believe?”

“Because it is.”

He sucked in a breath. “Leah–”

“It’s not that I’m – that I’m not interested,” she pressed on, stumbling over the words. “But, Carter…you got your nose broken for sleeping with someone else’s crush. You have a not-girlfriend.”

“Not anymore. I ended things with her.”

Her brows flew up again, voice getting high. “For me?”

“For me, because I’m not happy,” he said, sharper than intended.

Her expression softened – to one of sympathy. “I know you’re not. But I don’t think throwing yourself at a new relationship–”

He leaned back so hard and so fast the legs of his chair scraped loudly on the tile. “Is that what you think?”

She froze again.

“That I’m just experimenting? Shopping around until I’m less sad?”

She swallowed, and at first he couldn’t place the sheen in her eyes. Quietly, she said, “Yeah, that’s what I think. And I think I’m familiar, and safe. I’m easy. So. No, thanks, I don’t want a date.”

He realized what it was, then, that gleam of emotion: it was fear.

He gripped the edge of the table with white-knuckled force, and his sleeves felt too tight over flexed biceps. He was breathing hard. And when he glanced around, he saw that he’d gotten loud enough that customers were looking at him. Curious, alarmed. And, in Marshall Cook’s case, working toward furious.

“Sorry,” he muttered, stood, and bolted.

~*~

Leah sat very still for a few minutes – save waving her mom off with a murmured “everything’s fine.” Everything was not fine, and it was definitely her fault.

What did I do?

Ava warned her – well, more like told her – after the potluck that Carter was, in her words, interested.

In me?

Oh, yeah. Did you not pick up on the way he was staring at you? Those were some mutual stares, by the way, don’t try to hide it. I know chemistry when I see it.

And Leah knew it too, and had been feeling it…but it was one thing to share long looks, and wonder, and dance around, never really touching on what was happening. It was quite another to be asked out to dinner twenty feet away from her parents.

She’d panicked. Not in a stuttering, blushing, make-a-fool-of-herself way. A more controlled panic. She’d thought about Jason, about his assertions that they’d drifted apart, and that he needed to undergo some self-exploration. Thought about Carter’s nose dripping blood down onto his shirt in Maggie’s office, and Tenny’s sneer, and Maggie’s clucking. A guy didn’t go from fucking everything in sight to wanting to try a real, grown-up relationship in the span of a few weeks. That only happened in novels.

But the longer she sat there, staring at her long-cold bagel, the more she could acknowledge that she’d freaked out, plain and simple. And that, in the midst of it, despite knowing that her arguments had been good, she’d definitely insulted Carter, and probably hurt him, too. She’d seen the evidence of his unhappiness up close and personal, and then watched, over the past few weeks, as he began slowly to blossom again.

She’d handled it horribly, and there was no undoing it. She wanted to smack herself.

She sat, silently beating herself up for who knew how long; but when a fresh, steaming latte landed on the table in front of her, she glanced up to see that all but one lone patron had left, the closed sign had been turned in the window, and her mom was sitting down across from her and unlacing her apron. All her earlier exuberance had been replaced by a deep, motherly concern.

“What happened, sweetie?” she asked, softly.

Leah darted a glance to the counter, but her dad had gone in the back. Dustin was sweeping up beneath the machines.

“Carter left in an awful big hurry,” Marie pressed. “And you look miserable.”

Leah sighed and reached gratefully for the hot latte. “I’m an idiot.”

“Definitely not.”

“Carter asked me out.”

Marie’s brows went up. “Like on a date?”

“Like on a date.”

“And you said…”

“That I didn’t think he really wanted to go out with me. That his love life is so screwed up, and he’s depressed, and he was looking for a safe option.”

“Oh.” Marie’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s…”

“Bad, I know.”

“Terrible, I was going to go with terrible.”

Leah groaned and dropped her face into her hands. “You should have seen his face, Mom.”

“I kinda did. He looked really upset.”

He’d looked devastated. And wounded. It had been a big leap, asking her outright like that. No ambiguous hanging out or hooking up. A date. He’d said dinner, and that he would pay for it. It had been comically juvenile, and terribly grown-up and endearing all at once.

She lifted her head and propped her chin in her hands. “What am I gonna do?”

Marie nodded, expression becoming businesslike. She was a problem-solver, Leah’s mom, especially when it came to other people’s problems. “Apologize, for starters.”

“Obviously.”

“I can’t tell you how to do that. You’ll come up with the right words, you always do.”

“I didn’t have the right words tonight.”

Marie tilted her head, conceding the point. “No. But I think maybe you were caught off guard.”

Leah nodded. “There had been – some, I don’t know, tension, I guess. Some looks. But I really wasn’t expecting him to ask me out.”

“Did you want him to, though?”

She frowned.

“Leah, do you like him?”

“I just broke up with Jason.”

“Months ago. Are you missing him?”

“I’m…it’s complicated.” By the end, by the time Jason rolled out the dreaded self-exploration excuse, they’d already drifted apart. The heat and the spark had gone, and even companionship had frayed into something tattered and insubstantial. Sometimes, she dreamed they were still together. Sometimes, she turned away from the fridge, his name on her tongue, ready to ask him what they should have for dinner, only to be confronted with her new apartment: outdated and empty. The hollow ache in the pit of her stomach then wasn’t grief or loss. But she’d grown used to be part of a pair, and now it was just her again. It could get lonely, sometimes.

Marie smiled with sympathy. “I know, baby. You two were together for a long time. It makes sense that it’s hard to move on.”

“It isn’t hard,” she protested. “But…I guess I’ve not even been thinking about that. I just wanted to come home, and get back on my feet, and focus on work. On catching up with you guys, and Ava. Dating wasn’t even on my radar.”

“It probably wasn’t on Carter’s, either.”

“Do you think he meant it? That he actually wants to go out with me, and this isn’t some kind of – I don’t know – experiment?”

“I don’t know, sweetie, not for sure. But I’ve watched you two sit in here together. The way he looks at you: that’s not fake. But I can’t say if it’s the sort of thing that’ll last.”

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered, but smiled to soften it.

“You need to talk to him. Start with ‘I’m sorry,’ and then see where it goes.”

Leah nodded, ad slumped back in her chair. “What if I did date him? You don’t have a problem with me dating a Lean Dog?”

“Well, you’re a grown woman, I can’t tell you what to do.”

“When has that ever stopped a Southern mama from trying anyway,” Leah teased.

Marie chuckled, and then grew serious again. “I haven’t ever looked at them as Lean Dogs. They’re people, some wilder than others, who just happen to all wear the same cut. Carter’s a sweet boy. I’ve always liked him.”

“What about Dad?”

“Well. We’ll have to work on Dad.”

Leah smiled. Whatever happened, it was good to know she had her mom’s support.

Even if Carter never spoke to her again.

Twenty-Five

There was an uncertain moment, after Carter straddled his bike and snapped on his helmet, when he considered going to Jazz’s place. She would pet his hair, and call him baby boy. Would get out some wine, or beer, and tequila, and then undo her shirt, and he could pretend he hadn’t just been shot down spectacularly in the middle of a crowded coffeeshop.

But that wouldn’t be fair to Jazz. He couldn’t go crawling back to her, now, after he’d gone to such pains to redraw the parameters of their relationship.

He headed to the clubhouse, because he had nowhere else to go, and he told himself that there were probably girls there…but the idea didn’t interest him at all. The urge to prove his manhood after rejection struck him as a hollow and stupid one at the moment. He felt shriveled, and cold, and sex was the last thing he wanted.

So was company, but when he walked in the clubhouse, he found Boomer, Deacon, and Evan at one of the tables in the common room, drinking beer and playing cards.

Ugh, was his first thought. He shouldered his backpack higher and planned to walk right past them.

But Boomer called out, “Hey, Carter.”

He almost kept going. Paused, and turned.

Boomer, for all his muscled bulk, could look downright boyish at times, his face too-expressive and sweet when he was uncertain. He looked like that now, biting his lip in obvious apprehension, fidgeting with the cards in his hands.

“What?”

“Hey, man, I just wanted to. You know. Say I was sorry. For.” He pointed to his own nose, which looked like it had been broken long ago. “That.”

As apologies went, it sucked. He couldn’t even come up with complete sentences. But his face shone with sincerity, and Carter found himself sighing, shoulders dropping.

“It happens. I’m sorry, too. I didn’t realize you and Chanel were serious.”

Deacon snorted. “They’re not.”

Boomer kicked him under the table.

“Still,” Carter said, and realized that his own apology kind of sucked, too. Maybe he just sucked. “Sorry.”

They traded nods – and, he thought, an understanding. They were both more or less pathetic idiots living out of an MC clubhouse.

He started to walk off, headed for his dorm, but Evan said, “You wanna be dealt in?”

His first instinct was to refuse. But he hesitated. What was he going to do besides get drunk alone in his room like a sad piece of shit?

He tossed his backpack on the couch. “Sure. Lemme grab a beer.”

~*~

Reese ate just enough to take the keen edges off his hunger, and then set his fork down. The food tasted good – everything his sister cooked tasted good, and he was even starting to appreciate food as a source of pleasure and not simply a means of fueling his body – but his stomach was unpleasantly tight, a condition he was starting to worry might be permanent.

Sorry, Tenny had said, and shut the door on his own name as Reese tried to call him back. They hadn’t spoken since. When Reese walked into a common area of the clubhouse, Tenny got up and left without making eye contact. No insults, no cutting looks, no sneers.

Fox had sent him a questioning look. “I think you broke him. That’s not a bad thing, mind.”

But it was for Reese. He wanted things to go back to the way they’d been, and he had no idea how to make that happen.

He’d said yes when Kris invited him to dinner, had even brought her a bottle of wine, after consulting Maggie. Was even having some of it himself, because Kris had insisted, and poured him one, and then another glass. It hadn’t dulled his consternation, though, like he’d hoped. The chicken and vegetables might as well have been cardboard on his plate.

And Roman was here.

Reese supposed Roman was the sort of man that women found attractive, if they cared about that sort of thing. He was in his early fifties, but didn’t look it: golden tan, with tawny hair he wore fashionably long across his forehead. Reese was convinced he dyed it, but Kris had acted scandalized when he’d asked her, one time.

Currently, Reese was studying him, and Roman was studying him in return – looking back, actually. Roman wasn’t one for scrutiny. He was frowning; Reese thought he hoped that those stern frowns made him look intimidating, but Reese could always smell that lick of fear on him. It never quite went away.

“Is the chicken alright?” Kris asked, worried. “I think I put too much rosemary on it.”

“It’s fine, baby,” Roman said, turning to her, laying a hand over hers on the tabletop, an intimate little gesture that snagged Reese’s gaze. “It’s perfect.”

She smiled at Roman, a soft, sweet smile full of gratitude and other, deeper feelings that Reese had never bothered to examine closely before. He’d only known that it was similar to the smiles Kris gave him, only a little different.

He thought he understood that difference, now. She loved Reese – she said so at every parting, when she hugged him in her careful way and wished him a safe trip – but it was a love different from that she felt for Roman. That was romantic love – the love between lovers.

Thanks to Tenny, he had a whole new perspective on that whole lover business.

Alcohol, it turned out, was not his friend. He’d had just enough wine to loosen his tongue, formerly to tightly leashed, so unnecessary to his daily life. He’d never had a need to express himself before; had never asked questions irrelevant to the op at hand.

But now, he said, “Do you have sex?”

Both of them froze, and then turned to him as one, slowly. Kris’s eyes had gone wide, and Roman’s brows had drawn together. They were shocked.

Seconds passed before Roman said, “What?”

“Do you two have sex?” Reese asked again. “With each other?”

Kris swallowed, and dampened her lips. “Why do you want to know?”

“Don’t ask him that,” Roman whispered out the side of his mouth.

“I’m not stupid,” Reese said. “Everyone thinks I am, but I’m not. I haven’t–” He thought of Tenny, of the night he’d introduced Reese to the pleasures of the flesh, and, in turn, Reese had read him a poem and offered him a name of his own. A real name for a real person. His lungs tightened painfully. “I haven’t been a person for very long,” he continued.

“Oh, Reese,” Kris murmured, her free hand sliding across the table toward him.

“I’ve had sex.” Lots of it. More than he could count. And now, when he looked at his sister giving Roman soft looks, he knew exactly what happened between them behind the closed bedroom door.

“With every-damn-body, by the sound of it,” Roman said.

“Roman,” Kris murmured.

“Does he make you?” he asked his sister, and somehow her eyes widened even further. “Is he like Badger?”

Kris gasped. “No. Reese, no. Not at all. He’s never forced me to do anything.”

A darted glance proved that all the golden tan had drained from Roman’s face. Tenny’s last, parting words returned to him. He asked, Kris, “He doesn’t molest you?”

“Jesus Christ,” Roman hissed.

“Reese.” Kris’s voice quavered. She looked and sounded scared. “Roman’s good to me. You know that.” Scared for Roman, he realized.

And then he glanced down and saw that, unbidden, his hand had curled around his knife. It was only a blunt butter knife, but he’d made do with worse.

The sight of his hand clenched around the handle, the blade gleaming silver, stunned him.

Never before had he been shocked at the sight of himself. Not until now. Not until all those nights gripped by passion, when he marveled at the clench and flex of muscles, the sheen of sweat, the effort in his whole body, spurred by nothing but want and sensation.

Not until Tenny.

Fine tremors stole through him, and he let go of the knife with effort.

“Roman,” Kris whispered. “Would you–”

“Go in the next room? Gladly.” A chair scraped back, and footfalls receded from the kitchen.

“Reese.”

When he lifted his head, he was alone with his sister. She pushed their plates aside and put hands on the tabletop, reaching out to him physically, and with her voice, as she dipped her head to catch his gaze.

“Did something happen? Did – did someone hurt you?”

He frowned at her. “Who could hurt me?” Her question was honestly ridiculous.

She frowned. “What about that guy – your friend. What’s his name?”

That guy. Your friend. She didn’t even know his name. Reese was closer to him, had shared more with him, than he ever had with any other living being, and Kris called him that guy.

His hands curled to fists, and he straightened them.

She noticed.

“Tenny,” he said. “His name’s Tenny.”

“Right.” She took a quick little breath through her mouth. “Has he…?”

“He didn’t rape me.” The word tasted foul on his tongue. He snarled it. Wanted to snarl it at Tenny, who knew better, who knew that it hadn’t been molesting, but who was retreating behind that – retreating behind a screen of something ugly – to keep from telling Reese what was really wrong.

“Okay. That’s good.”

“He…” His throat tightened. “I think he hates me.”

“Oh,” she said, and then her expression shifted. “Oh.” She offered a thin smile. “Did you guys have a fight?”

“I guess that’s what it was.”

“Are you guys…together?” She hesitated. “Like Roman and I are together?”

He thought of that last night, after Stephanie had lied down. When Tenny had kissed him, so wet and desperate, had bitten his lips and breathed wounded sounds into his mouth. Thought about every breakfast and lunch and dinner together, the runs, the ops. They were rarely ever separated. They were friends. Reese had never experienced anything like companionship before; had never had anyone elbow him in the ribs and laugh, and expect him to laugh back. And he’d never known that inner burn of desire before. There had been girls, always, but Reese had looked at them less and less. It was Tenny, over and over, that captured his attention, in the throes. Tenny’s hands on him that left him shivering.

He didn’t know if there was a word for all of that.

He wasn’t sure he knew anything anymore.

He watched sympathy bloom on his sister’s face; once upon a time, he hadn’t been able to read that expression for what it was. He’d learned so much.

And yet he felt like he’d lost something, too.

“Reese,” she said. “I know you – like him. Obviously. But maybe it’s time to start making other friends. Maybe you’d like to date someone.”

He blinked at her, surprised. “Date someone?”

“Yeah,” she said, smile widening, warming to her topic. “If Tenny doesn’t feel the same way as you, then you ought to find someone who does care about you.”

He leaned back in his chair, stunned yet again.

“Just something to think about.”

~*~

As he left, a few minutes later, he heard Roman’s voice behind him. “You didn’t really encourage him to start dating, did you?”

“I did. Why shouldn’t he?”

“Babe, he’s terrifying. I don’t think eHarmony has an Assassin option when you set up your profile.”

The rest of their conversation was lost behind the closing front door, but that wasn’t what Reese was thinking of as he walked to his bike and clipped on his helmet. Kristin had brought him coffee, and that, plus his newly racing thoughts, burned the last of the wine-fog from his senses and left him tingling faintly.

Date? He understood the concept only in the loosest terms, from what he’d gleaned from movies and TV. Meals were involved, tables for two. Talking, and talking about the sorts of things that left both parties laughing and blushing in turn, leaning ever-closer together.

The idea held no appeal, as a superficial exercise.

But.

If Tenny didn’t want anything to do with him…he wasn’t sure he could go back to his former robotic indifference. He felt random stirrings of lust; he didn’t want to be alone, sometimes. He liked the elbow in the ribs and the laugh in his ear.

He’d started working toward personhood, and he didn’t want to go backward, he realized. Wasn’t even sure he could, if pressed.

He had to ride past the under-construction shops on Main Street on his way back to the clubhouse, and cast a glance toward the boarded-up lower windows at Bell Bar: no new graffiti.

It was a quiet night, relatively speaking. Light traffic, the promise of rain on the humid air. As he made the last turn onto the long, riverside road that led to Dartmoor, he saw lightning flare muted and distant along the cloud bellies ahead.

And he saw lights out on the water.

He slowed, taking stock. It was a boat. A small, but fast ski boat with a tow bar arching overtop. He could hear the loud drone of its engine even over the rumble of his own – at least until he hit the throttle and continued on.

He thought to catch up to it, an instinctual urge, accompanied by an uptick of concern in the back of his mind – but it was too far ahead.

Its lights shut off, and it moved in closer to the shore, its wake frothing out as it decelerated. It looked like it was headed for the small pier that jutted off the Dartmoor property.

~*~

In between sips of beer, Carter was hit by the realization that he’d never actually socialized with any of the three prospects at the table with him. He only ever spent downtime with Aidan, Tango, and Mercy, and to be honest, that was only because they dragged him along with them, one of Mercy’s great arms heavy as a ceiling joist across his shoulders, towing him inexorably into whatever mischief those three had on the books for the day (usually, it was just Aidan getting into mischief while Tango shook his head and Mercy waded in to save his dumbass brother-in-law). If asked, he would have said that he didn’t like these three, though he didn’t have a reason not to. He’d jumped to conclusions, and he always hated when people did that about him.

“No, fuck it, I don’t care,” Evan said, shaking his head and sliding chips into the pot. He was smoking menthols, rapidly and twitchily, and the whole table was suffused with their particular minty stink. He took a drag and then stabbed the end of his cig in the air, driving home his point. “I won’t work with them anymore, I don’t care what Fox, or Ghost, or anybody says. I’ll scrub floors and run gopher errands all day, but I’m not letting those assholes beat me up for fun anymore.”

“No offense,” Carter said, “but why were you training with those two in the first place?”

“I dunno! I just got lumped in. Which, hello, I’m human, and not a Karate Kid robot, so your guess is good as mine.”

“It’s ‘cause you said you’re a ‘sniper.’” Deacon lifted both hands, cards held haphazardly in one, to make air quotes. “Fox musta thought you had those sweet, sweet special agent skills.”

Boomer laughed.

“Okay, first off,” Evan huffed. “I am a sniper.”

Boomer and Deacon both laughed this time; Carter felt a chuckle building in his throat.

“I am!” Evam insisted. “You’ve never seen me shoot. You wouldn’t be laughing if you’d seen me shoot.” It was hard to imagine the lanky, floppy-haired kid laid out elegantly on a rooftop, cool and deadly behind the scope of a rifle. “But I’m just a sniper. I get working on hand-to-hand and stuff, but making anyone spar with those two is cruel and unusual punishment, dude.”

Boomer’s laughter died away, and he nodded. “I hear you. I’ve got at least fifty pounds on Reese, and I know he could wipe the floor with me.”

“Do they even have to do chores and stuff?” Deacon asked. “I ain’t ever seen one of those bastards holding a broom or pouring a beer.”

Evan made a face around his next drag. “No. They’re special.”

It was easy to see why prospects would be angry and jealous about two of their own kind slacking off on the grunt work. But. “I honestly can’t imagine either of them mopping the floor, can you?”

He got three glum head-shakes. Deacon’s was grim. “They’re hogging all the girls, too.”

“I didn’t even know Reese knew what girls were,” Boomer said, frowning.

A flicker of motion at the mouth of the hallway drew Carter’s attention, and a darted glance proved it was Tenny lingering in the well of shadow there, high cheekbones and blue eyes visible above a fitted white t-shirt. His gaze, as glittering and indecipherable as ever, was fixed on Boomer – who hadn’t noticed him yet, silent as he moved.

Carter nudged Boomer’s boot under the table with his own.

Boomer pressed on, oblivious. “And, like, not to be that guy, but who would wanna hook up with Reese? He barely even talks. He’s like a fucking statue.”

“Maybe he’s like a statue where it counts most,” Evan suggested, to Deacon’s sniggering.

But Boomer was speaking in earnest, warming to the topic. “No, really. He’s a freak – and I don’t mean the good kinda freak, shut up, Deacon. Like, are you honestly gonna tell me he’s a good lay? That he knows how to make a girl feel good? He probably doesn’t even know where to put it in.”

Tenny’s crisp voice rang out from the shadows. “Perhaps someone was so helpful as to show him where to put it in.”

All the blood drained from Boomer’s face. His eyes popped comically wide, and he sucked in an audible breath.

Carter sighed – and braced himself. He’d only ever had a handful of interactions with Tenny, and while he knew Reese was dangerous, and well-trained, and expert, it was Tenny who was most likely to knife one of his club brothers over some small slight.

Carter remembered, vividly, the conversation they’d had a few weeks before. If anyone ever touches my property, I’ll rip him apart piece by piece, and stop his heart last of all. Tenny and Reese might be on the outs at the moment, for whatever reason, their personal drama awkward and obvious in the way they were never in the same room at the same time anymore, but hearing someone else insult Reese was going to be a triggering offense, Carter knew.

He whispered, “Don’t make it worse,” as Tenny pushed off the wall and strolled languidly into the room.

Boomer trembled, faintly.

Watching Tenny close the distance, unhurried, but alive with elegant tension, was like watching a leopard pad through the tall grass toward an antelope too scared, or too stubborn to run.

In Boomer’s case, a little bit of both, with a pinch of stupid thrown in.

Tenny reached their table, and even Carter knew an urge to tighten his hands on his cards. He became hyper aware that he was still in his workout clothes, and that his gun was all the way down the hall in his dorm. A stupid thought – he wasn’t going to have to defend himself.

Right?

Tenny laid one hand on the back of Deacon’s chair, and the other on Boomer’s shoulder, deceptively casual. Cocked his hips and surveyed their table; his mouth was soft, his gaze was not. “Poker, hm? Who’s winning?”

Evan pointed soundlessly to Carter.

Boomer stared at his cards, his breathing quick and shallow.

Tenny’s hand shifted on Boomer’s shoulder, knuckles white as he gripped. He smiled, then, all teeth and malicious intent. “What’s the matter, Boomer?” Disdain coated the name like oil. “Suddenly shy? I thought you were interesting in putting things–”

The front door opened, to Carter’s immense relief. A momentary relief – the boards creaked, but there were no audible footfalls, and when he turned, it was Reese standing there, tense and ready, his gaze going straight to Tenny.

Carter considered sliding down under the table.

But Reese said, “There’s an intruder on the property.”

~*~

They found the back gate standing open, its chain cut, and a boat tied up at their pier. It was a small ski boat, and its sides were striped with a custom paint job, some obnoxiously flashy decals of shark fins and skier silhouettes. There was no logo, but Carter had no doubt who’d done the paint work.

He stepped down off the dock, gun in his hand – he hadn’t changed clothes, but he’d thought to go and arm himself. It was cool down here by the water, but that wasn’t the reason he shivered a little.

He surveyed the three prospects standing in front of him, looking to him, as the only fully-patched member present. Reese and Tenny had slunk off, melted into the shadows with promises of finding the boater – and Carter had no doubt they would, God help the poor bastard once he was caught – but Boomer, Deacon, and Evan had turned to him automatically for orders.

It was a bit of a headrush, to be honest. A novel situation, for sure.

“Okay,” Carter said. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is that little rat Jimmy Connors.” Stranger though the kid may have been, he was starting to hate the bastard. “Which means he’s a teenager, and a shit one at that, but we don’t want to kill the kid.”

He earned three nods.

“They could be anywhere on the property at this point.” And doing all sorts of harm. “They can’t run on foot worth a damn, so they’ll come back for the boat. Evan, stay here and yell if they turn up.”

“Right.”

“You two” – Boomer and Deacon – “head toward the bike shop and make sure they didn’t go for any of the businesses down that way. If you see a light on, guard the exits, and call me. Do not move in on your own.” The last had been stern – maybe too stern, a bad impression of Ghost – but both of them nodded.

Carter headed back toward the scrap yard. He had a feeling Jimmy, and whichever stupid friend he’d brought, would have designs on the clubhouse itself, and sneaking up on them through the tangled, metal jungle of the scrap yard would be the best way to get the drop on them. Carter wanted them caught, and questioned; maybe even hauled down to the precinct by Fielding for trespassing on private property, have their little cages rattled. A few years ago, he would have wanted to shoo them away like flies; tonight, for a variety of reasons, he wanted more than that.

He was sliding between two old stripped-down pickups when he heard a shriek. The chain on the gate here was cut, too, and he stepped through into the concrete backyard of the clubhouse to find two dark shapes crouched over two felled ones, and a third boy, still on his feet, running for dear life. In the glow of the security light, Carter registered Reese belting one guy’s hands behind his back, standing, a boot braced between his shoulder blades.

Tenny smacked the other one’s head off the pavement, rendering him limp, and sprang lightly to his feet.

“Jesus, don’t kill him,” Carter admonished, storming toward them. “I want them conscious.”

Tenny turned to him with a mild expression, not even winded, and lifted a single brow. “You’ll be wanting that one to run away, then?”

Carter glanced at the kid’s retreating back, the hood of his jacket slapping as he sprinted for the grass, and the gate, and the river.

There was a rock at Carter’s feet, small, ping-pong ball size.

With a sigh, he bent, picked it up, and drew a bead on the retreating teenager. Felt his body settle automatically into the old stance, the one he’d revived and been exercising during his workouts with Elijah.

Tenny snorted. “And you worried about me killing this one, hypocrite.”

Carter threw. The rock disappeared into the darkness, but a moment later, the kid tripped and went face-down, skidding across the grass with a quiet yelp.

“Still got it,” he muttered, and went to collect his captive.

Twenty-Six

“I wanna question them,” Carter said, his voice firm, his arms folded. Reese hadn’t ever seen him try to project anything like authority, but he was doing an admirable job of it tonight, and, given he was the only patched member present, he supposed it was only right – and easy – to follow orders.

Interrogations were never held in the clubhouse, a rule that Reese already knew, and which Carter reinforced. Evan and Deacon were sent ahead to the bike shop, along with specific instructions given by Carter in a calm, authoritative tone.

He and Tenny had worked silently to bind their three captives with duct tape, and they sat now huddled against the bar, waiting to be transported, all awake now, and in various stages of panic. All staring up at them with wide eyes and trembling lips, pale, hair plastered to their sweaty foreheads. Two of them Reese recognized from the night outside Bell Bar, when he and Tenny had jumped down from the glassless window and frightened them, their little charade with Carter. The third was unknown, but just as greasy, pimply, and unremarkable as his friends.

Reese glanced toward Tenny, but Tenny didn’t glance back; watched their captives with hawkish intensity, eyes gleaming, lips frozen in a tight smile. Anticipation, Reese thought, with a mounting sense of foreboding.

The change in Carter was remarkable. He propped his hands on his hips, and there was something very Ghost-like about his stance, and his air, despite the baggy workout shorts and t-shirt. He wasn’t wearing any of the patched leather regalia of a Dog – the regalia that struck fear in the hearts of regular citizens. By all rights, he shouldn’t have looked intimidating, with his golden hair, and his blue eyes, and his clean-cut style…but something had shifted in him. Something dark and hard making itself known at last. Whatever it was, whatever had inspired it, it had these three boys cowering.

“Jimmy,” he said, nudging one in the shoe with his own. “What brings you out tonight?” There was a hint – just a faint one – of Mercy’s Cajun drawl in his voice. He’d watched the extractor do this, and was going to copy his tactics as best he could, of which Reese approved. He wondered how far Carter would want to take it.

The boy – Jimmy – took a big breath and said, “We were just out for a joyride. Please don’t tell my dad – he’ll be pissed we took the boat.”

“A joy ride. With bolt cutters,” Carter deadpanned. “Right. Try again.”

Jimmy looked up at him, breathing harshly through his mouth a moment. And then his jaw firmed, and his nostrils flared, and he said, “You hit me in the head with a fucking rock. Your buddy bounced Kyle’s head off the concrete. You’ll get arrested for that.”

Carter regarded him, and then slowly sank into a crouch, his voice dropping low. “Only if you can prove it.”

Jimmy’s eyes widened.

Reese looked again toward Tenny, an automatic gesture, seeking out his partner in arms, his club brother, his friend, delighted with this transformation in Carter.

But Tenny still wouldn’t look at him.

Thumping footfalls heralded Evan’s return. “We’re ready.” His voice quavered a bit, and Reese remembered that he’d been worked over in London; he knew exactly what awaited these boys.

Carter stood, and turned to face Reese. “Call Mercy.”

Reese nodded.

“Gag them and bring them.”

Tenny finally moved, but he never made eye contact with Reese as they sealed the boys’ mouths with duct tape, hoisted them to their feet, and marched them out into the night.

Some prisoners would have tried to make a run for it, even with their hands bound behind their backs. Reese and Tenny could have managed to get loose, incapacitate their captors, and then walk, not run, away.

But these were high school boys, and so they walked, and went into the bike shop when ushered, where the windows had been covered with black trash bags, and three chairs awaited above the drain in the floor. They sat when pushed into the chairs, and Reese secured them all himself, to make sure the tape would hold.

“Alright, Jimmy,” Carter said.

Tenny stepped forward and snatched the tape from his mouth, leaving him gasping and hissing.

“You ready to tell me what you were really doing?”

Behind him, Reese heard Deacon mutter, “Shouldn’t we wait for Mercy?”

“He’ll be here soon,” Boomer whispered back. “Let him get scared, and when Merc comes in, he’ll wet himself.”

Reese didn’t think there was any such plan in place. He thought Carter was flexing his muscles a little, taking the lead, for once. It wasn’t Reese’s business in either case.

“I told you!” Jimmy said. “We took my dad’s boat. And you fucking psychos–”

A hand landed on the top of his head; rested almost gently over his hair. It was Tenny, who’d paced around the perimeter of the shop and melted forward out of the shadows, his cheeks hollow in the gloom, his eyes gleaming like blue glass.

He tsked. “Manners, manners.”

Jimmy’s eyes rolled upward, but he didn’t move his head, frozen beneath Tenny’s bare touch.

“You aren’t in any position to be throwing that kind of language around.”

Jimmy swallowed, shaking all over. He wet his lips. “Your voice. It’s you.”

“Who, me?” Tenny asked innocently, shifting into the rough American accent he’d used the night he and Reese spooked Jimmy and his friend.

One of the others – still gagged – whipped his head around, gaze rolling as he tried to catch a glimpse of Tenny.

Reese’s hands curled to fists at his sides. Tenny was being reckless, giving himself away like this. They’d had their faces painted that night; none of these three would have recognized them if they’d kept quiet.

But Tenny was a showman. He’d been trained as one. He’d been playing as one that night in Amarillo when he got shot; when he’d been bored, and stupid, and nearly died, his blood pouring out between Reese’s fingers.

Carter said, “I would take his advice. You aren’t the one in the driver’s seat here. And if you want to start talking police, you’re the one who snuck onto private property – and cut your way through two gates.” He glanced toward Boomer. “What was in their bags?”

“Besides the bolt cutters?” One of them had been carrying a backpack, and Boomer upended it on a work table. A few flash drives clattered down onto the surface, a can of spray paint, and a camera.

Carter’s eyes widened, fractionally, before he smoothed his features and glanced back. “Gonna leave some real creative insults on our wall and then take pics to show your friends at school?”

Jimmy’s throat moved as he swallowed; his lips pressed together into a thin line, and he didn’t answer.

“I heard you were bragging about having some kinda photo evidence we took Allie,” Carter said, and Reese could feel his own surprise echoed by the others in the room – save for Tenny, who hovered, unmoving, shiny gaze trained on the back of Jimmy’s neck. “You thought you’d bring your camera, get the shots you needed, download Photoshop and go to town, huh?”

No answer, again.

“Why are you so hellbent on convincing everyone the Dogs did this?” Carter asked. “None of us have ever even laid eyes on you. The club doesn’t own a shop that competes with your dad’s. You’re trying to get every kid at your school against us – and for what? As cover? You killed Allie Henderson and now you want us to take the fall for it?”

Fear flashed in his eyes. He took in another sharp breath, but he held his tongue.

One of the other boys had bowed his head, and closed his eyes, tears glimmering on his cheeks.

“Just tell me,” Carter said. “You aren’t strong or brave enough to handle what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Jimmy wet his lips again, but hesitated.

Tenny didn’t. He closed his hand into a fist in Jimmy’s hair, and yanked the boy’s head back, startling a yell from him. His other hand whipped into view, knife glinting in the glow of the cage lights, and he pressed the naked blade against the boy’s exposed throat. Hard enough to dent the skin.

Jimmy sucked in a harsh breath.

“Don’t move,” Tenny said, pleasantly. His gaze was wild with malice. “You’ll cut yourself.”

One of the other boys shouted behind his duct tape, struggling fruitlessly at his bonds.

Shock pressed grooves around Carter’s mouth. He was losing control of the situation, and probably didn’t know how to get it back.

Jimmy’s chest worked in desperate gasps, hands twitching, whole body vibrating, save his head and neck, held rigidly still. Reese could see his pulse in his throat, running rabbit-fast against the edge of the knife.

“I don’t think you understand,” Tenny said. “You don’t have any leverage here. There’s no police, no concerned citizens. No Daddy Dearest to shield you. You are tied hand and foot to a chair, and my knife is very sharp. Your only weapon is information, and if I were you, I’d start deploying it.” He lifted his brows in invitation, his smile fanged and so wide and false it was ugly.

“Let him go,” Carter said, and Tenny didn’t move a moment. “Now, let him go.”

Slowly, the knife pulled back a fraction, and Tenny righted the boy’s head, though he kept hold of his hair, and he fired a dark look from beneath his lashes at Carter.

Reese swallowed. It was a situation poised to tumble into disaster, and he knew if that happened, he would be the only one capable of stopping it.

“Jimmy,” Carter said, tone softening. “Tell me what’s really going on. If you’re in trouble of some kind, the Dogs can help.” He even managed to sound sincere.

To his credit, Jimmy held out a moment longer, breathing like a caught prey animal, gaze darting from one face to the next.

“Jimmy,” Carter prompted again.

And the boy dissolved into tears. Harsh, messy tears pouring down his face, sobs catching in his throat, nearly choking him. He closed his eyes against them, shuddering against the tug of Tenny’s fingers in his hair. “I can’t – I can’t – I can’t tell you.”

“Yes, you can. We aren’t the cops. We can’t charge you with anything. Whatever you’ve done – whatever you did to Allie–”

“I didn’t do anything to Allie!”

“Then why do you keep saying the Lean Dogs kidnapped her?”

“Because I have to! Because he said–” He bared his teeth, biting back the next words. Opened wide, wet, pleading eyes on Carter. “I can’t tell you, or they’ll kill me. Me and my parents.”

An alarm pinged in the back of Reese’s mind. Whoever they were, they frightened this boy more than the Lean Dogs did. Frightened him enough that he’d lied, committed vandalism, and snuck on their property tonight with the intent of committing more.

He was back in Texas, suddenly, watching a grown man snivel and get drunk and maudlin, terrified down to his bones, talking about a man in a robe with a knife and a wicked new drug.

“Who’ll kill you?” Carter asked, sounding breathless. “Jimmy, who? I swear we can protect you, you and your friends.” It was what the Texas Dogs had said, too, to Benny, and to the clerks, and that teenager from the body shop. We can protect you – but all of them had ended up dead, one way or another.

Jimmy sniffed, snot gleaming on his upper lip. “No. No, please, I just wanna go home. I can’t–”

Tenny yanked his head back again; the knife flashed, and bit into skin, a red line welling along the boy’s jugular. Tenny was breathing hard now, visibly rattling with each inhale. His voice was a growl. “Fucking tell us, you little–”

Several things happened at once.

Boomer yelled, “Shit!”

Evan said, “He’s gonna kill him.”

Carter said, “Ten, stand down, now!”

Reese said nothing; he moved. A few long strides took him across the garage bay. He laid a hand on Jimmy’s collarbone and pressed him back, away from the knife. With his other hand, he gripped Tenny’s wrist, pinching at the nerves there, trying to numb his hand.

But Tenny, though focused solely on his victim, noticed him at the last second; twisted out of his grip, bringing the knife up with a twirling flash.

Pain lanced across Reese’s arm, the soft inside of his forearm. A look showed a deep, clean slice, already welling and spilling blood.

The knife flashed again. Reese brought up both hands, and captured the blade flat between his palms, the knife’s point only a few inches from his face.

He tensed, waiting for the next move, ready to counter it, even as he felt the hot tickle of blood sliding down to his elbow; felt the sting and heat of it filling his palms.

But nothing happened; the knife quivered; Tenny was quivering, he saw, when he lifted his head and sought the other’s gaze.

Tenny’s eyes had blown very wide, his face blank and white with shock. As Reese watched, his blown-out pupils retracted; shrank down to pinpricks.

Below them, Jimmy sobbed quietly.

Reese said, “Stop.” And slowly pulled his hands away.

Tenny stared at him a moment, the knife trembling in the air between them, his body poised for violence – or flight. Reese could read it in his eyes, the horror of what had just happened. His gaze flicked down to Reese’s arm, bleeding freely now, and then his hands, slick with his own blood.

“It’s alright,” Reese said, softly.

The door banged open behind him, Mercy’s loud, big-cat roar echoing off the walls. “What the hell’s going on?”

Tenny spun and retreated into the shadows.

~*~

Carter scrubbed a hand through his hair, which did nothing to alleviate his mounting headache. They were still in the bike shop, though Jimmy had been patched up, and he and his friends taken to the clubhouse to be kept under Michael’s careful, if terrifying watch while Carter faced the music. The whole cavalry had arrived, right in time to witness Tenny snapping, and now Carter stood in front of Mercy and Ghost.

It was hard to maintain eye contact, but he managed.

“I get what you were trying to do,” Mercy said.

“I don’t.” Ghost had his arms folded, and his shoulders jacked up. His anger was mostly for show tonight, Carter thought, rather than the brewing-storm-cloud rumble of true fury. He was worried. “You were the only patched member present, which means you were in charge, and you started a goddamn interrogation without us.” His frown flickered, and deepened; Carter thought it almost looked concerned. “You were the only patched member present, and you let Reese and Tenny be in the room while this little charade was happening.” He nodded toward the three chairs lined up in the middle of the first bay. “You didn’t see that situation going south ahead of time?”

Carter started to respond, and Mercy cut in.

“Nah, boss, don’t lump Reese in with that other one. Reese is dependable.”

“Reese is a trained assassin who didn’t know what the hell TV was until he got here. They’re both a liability.”

Mercy turned to shoot a dark look at his father-in-law. “And yet you sent them both out on a mission just a few weeks ago.”

Carter hedged a step backward in the face of the ensuing stare-down.

“You put cuts on them, boss. They’re part of the club, even if they’re not patched.”

Ghost snorted, expression going wry. His voice was firm, though, when he said, “They can’t go off half-cocked and cut teenager’s throats. I won’t have that, no matter who’s around.”

Mercy nodded.

Ghost turned to Carter. “The next time either of them are around, and shit turns south, you stop and wait for us. Mercy or Fox needs to be here to handle them.” He spoke about them like they were dogs in need of special handling. Which…wasn’t too far off the mark, unfortunately.

But Carter agreed with Mercy. Reese had been the one to step in, while the rest of them were freaking out. Carter had tried to lever some authority into his voice, to give Ten a true order, but he’d never been a respected superior. He didn’t have the reputation, or the experience to deal with that sort of situation. Reese, though, had leaped right into the fray. Had gotten cut up for his efforts. Carter had thought, for a moment, when Tenny bared his teeth, his eyes flashing, that he would stab Reese outright. That they might start dueling to the death right there in the middle of the shop. Reese had kept his head, better than anyone. Had diffused the situation.

He wasn’t going to argue with Ghost right now, though. “Yes, sir, understood.”

Ghost nodded, as if to say, good. “What did the little shit tell you?”

“Nothing.” Carter shrugged, frustration returning. “He had a camera and some flash drives, and according to my contact at the school, he’s been bragging about having photos of us abducting Allie. I think he was going to snap some pics of the buildings out here, up close, you know? And then try to edit them to make it look like Allie had been here.”

“That’s a lotta damn effort for a dumbass kid to go to.”

“I don’t think any of this is his idea, really,” Carter said. “He did something, I know. Something that’s gonna get him in deep trouble. But his fear didn’t seem fake. Tenny had a knife to his throat, and he wouldn’t talk. He said he couldn’t – that they would kill him and his family.”

“Who’s they?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I was trying to find out when Tenny…” He gestured to the chairs. There were droplets of blood drying black on the floor: Reese’s blood.

“Hm. Come on, then,” Ghost said, and headed for the door.

As they walked across the parking lot, Mercy slung an arm across Carter’s shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. “I get it,” he said, quiet enough that Ghost, ahead of them, wouldn’t be able to hear. “You wanted to step up.” It wasn’t said with any censure, but Carter groaned.

“I was just trying to handle the situation.”

“I know, which is stepping up. You’ve not had a lot of practice flying solo, QB, and that’s on us, we shoulda been giving you more to handle here and there. Tonight was like jumping in the deep end first time out, and that’s not really fair.”

“You act like you guys told me to do this.” He made a useless flapping gesture toward the clubhouse. “Shit happened, I was here, so I handled it. Or, I tried to.” He sighed. “It would have been okay if Tenny wasn’t here.”

Mercy chuckled. “I feel like that’s what most people think about him. Poor shithead.”

~*~

“Go clean up,” Walsh told him the second he entered the clubhouse, and Reese didn’t argue; went back to his dorm, and got out his med kit, frowning at the way he smeared blood all over the clasps and lid. His hands were slippery with it, the cuts on his palms trailing crimson trickles down each finger; they dripped onto the bedspread, and into the tidy interior of the kit. He pressed squares of gauze into each palm, the blood gluing it to his skin immediately.

The laceration on his arm was still weeping, though the flow had slowed, and, under the lamplight, he could see that it was deeper than he’d initial thought. When he wiped the blood away with a bit of cotton batting, he glimpsed the yellow shine of fat beneath the top layers of skin; pressed the batting tight when fresh blood welled, applying hard pressure with one bloody palm that had already soaked through the gauze. Laceration to laceration, both stinging sharply.

When his door opened, he lifted his head expecting to find Mercy.

Tenny filled the threshold, hesitating a moment, his expression, before he dragged his mask into place, one of quiet horror as his gaze went to Reese’s bloodied hands and arm.

Reese felt blood slide between his fingers; it was dripping down onto the carpet, now.

Tenny took a short, sharp breath, and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. “Here.” He crouched down in front of Reese and reached out with both hands.

Even though he’d just attached Reese a few minutes before, had been the one to cause this damage, wild-eyed and vicious, Reese immediately submitted his injuries to him; lad the backs of his hands in Tenny’s open palms.

They both seemed to realize it at once. He sucked in a breath, and heard Tenny do the same.

Reese stared down at his own hands, the red-soaked gauze, the pearls of blood sliding out from the edges, rolling off his palms – and down into Tenny’s palms. Tenny’s thumb stroked over the pads of his fingers, smearing the blood there, a slow, back-and-forth sweep. His breath shivered on the exhale, cool across Tenny’s wet skin.

Then Tenny reached for the kit and set to work. He taped wadded cotton batting over the lacerations to stop the bleeding, then used alcohol wipes to clean off the rest of Reese’s skin. By the time he peeled the tape back, the cuts were ready to be flushed; he did so with saline, catching the drip in the little dish Reese kept for just such a purpose.

Tenny worked in silence, and Reese glanced up once, searchingly, to find him intent on his task, brows drawn together, his frown deep.

When the wounds were clean, Tenny paused a moment. Traced the very edge of the one on Reese’s arm with a careful fingertip. He exhaled long and slow through his nostrils, shoulders slumping; but still, he didn’t speak.

Ointment was applied, and then bandages.

Reese flexed his hands afterward, the tape tight and binding against the movement. “Thank you.”

Tenny met his gaze, then, finally. His eyes were very wide, and very blue, and full of an emotion that Tenny couldn’t name, but whose enormity hit him like a shove in the chest, regardless. It stunned him – and by the time he’d scraped together a question, Tenny was standing, and tidying the kit.

Reese sat upright, bandaged hands resting on his thighs. He studied Tenny’s profile as he ordered everything with military efficiency, and snapped the lid shut. The mask was firmly in place again, an expressionless front that revealed nothing, and invited nothing.

“Tenny.”

He gathered up the dirty gauze, wipes, and batting and went to throw them in the bathroom wastebasket.

“Tenny,” Reese tried again.

Tenny paused on his way to the door, hands by his sides – curling into fists as he took a deep breath and released it, his jaw set.

“I’m not angry.”

Tenny didn’t respond, though Reese saw a muscle twitch in his cheek. Then he left, closing the door softly behind him.

Reese stared at the panel a long moment, willing it to open again. When it didn’t, he flopped backward onto the bed, folding his injured hands over his stomach. He stared up at the ceiling, and replayed Tenny’s face in the garage – and his face a few minutes ago, when he’d traced Reese’s wound, and then sought his gaze. He lingered over the contrast; shaping and recreating that emotion he’d seen, trying to place it – failing.

Then he thought about what Kris had said at dinner. About new friends, about dating. He felt hollow and lost when he contemplated those things, unable to envision them.

But he’d felt like that a lot lately, in the wake of Tenny’s hate. So. He supposed he had nothing to lose.

~*~

Walsh poured a splash of whiskey into three glasses of Coke and set them down in front of their three captives, all unrestrained and seated at one of the round tables in the common room. Mercy stood leaning against the bar, arms folded, and they kept darting glances toward him and shrinking down even deeper into their shirt collars. They weren’t going anywhere under his dark gaze, schooled now into something unimpressed and vaguely threatening.

Carter sat alone at a neighboring table, nursing his own drink, and Walsh joined him and shook out a cigarette as Ghost dragged out a chair and sat down across from Jimmy and his friends. Ghost could almost look friendly, when he wanted to, in a gruff, paternal sort of way, and he put on that front, now, folding his arms on the tabletop, leaning in toward the boys, his voice even and pleasant – but still authoritative.

“Alright, boys. You got banged up a little.” The one Tenny had knocked unconscious was holding a bag of frozen peas to the back of his head. “You had the shit scared out of you. Now, to me, that seems like turnabout’s fair play.” He inclined his head to a very dad-like angle. “You know what you were doing was wrong. This wasn’t about a joyride, or stupid teenage shit. You came here for a reason. The camera, and spray paint. The rumors flying around – throw in the fact that we caught you defacing our storefront, and that all adds up to you trying to make the Dogs look real bad in this city.” He pointed at Jimmy on you, and Jimmy’s Adam’s apple jumped in his skinny throat.

“I don’t really care why you’re doing it. But I wanna know the truth. Once and for all. If it’s like Carter said, and someone’s pushing you into it, threatening you, then we can help. But if you’re just trying to make us look bad to cover your own ass…” He spread his hands, and let the sentence hang; let their imaginations run wild with the possible consequences.

Jimmy traded glances with both of his friends. The one with the peas dropped his gaze and sucked at his lip, miserable. The other one shrugged.

Jimmy took a deep breath. “They said I had to cooperate, do what they said, or they’d kill me and my family. All our families.” He tilted his head side to side to indicate his friends. “I had to make the Dogs look bad. They called it” – he frowned – “grass-roots. They wanted it to look organic. They said our parents all used to hate the Dogs, but things had started to shift. They said if the high school went anti-Dog, then our parents would jump all over the excuse.”

“Who is they?” Ghost asked, just as Carter had asked before, in the shop.

Jimmy swallowed again. “They’re – these guys. Friends, I guess. They’re young – not as young as us, but–”

“They’re dealers,” the one with the peas spoke up, grimacing. “These two friends who are in their twenties. They came into Flash to get their boat tricked out, and Jimmy thought they were cool ‘cause they paid attention to him.” The last was said with a sneer. “I told you not to fuck around with them.”

“They were fucking around with me!” Jimmy protested, turning to his friend.

“They said they bet you were really popular at school,” the friend retorted with a snort. “That didn’t sound like made-up bullshit to you?”

Jimmy’s face flushed. “They were cool.”

“They looked like they were on Miami Vice, dipshit. They played you up like you were hot shit – might as well have fucking blown you – and then out came the baggie, and you were like, ‘Yeah, please, let me sell it.’”

“You’re dealing?” Ghost asked.

“No,” Jimmy said, too-fast. “Well…I mean…I sold a little. But only a little! They had uppers. Designer stuff. I shared it with some kids at school, and had a few parties.”

“Lemme guess: the first few bags were on the house.”

“Dipshit,” the friend muttered.

“They said they were samples! That if I could get rid of them, then they’d let me sell for real.”

“Except then they asked for their money,” Walsh said.

Jimmy nodded, and wiped his hands down his face, miserable. “They said I had to come up with the money, which I didn’t have, and couldn’t get, or I could help them make the Dogs look like shit.”

Carter traded frowns with Walsh, and glanced over to find Mercy doing the same. If someone was wanting to make the Dogs look bad, manipulating idiot teenagers seemed like an ineffective and risky way to go about doing it.

“Did you tell anyone what was happening?” Ghost asked.

Jimmy shook his head. “Just Kyle and Patrick.” He indicated the boys flanking him. “They were in on it.”

“Well, I want out of it,” Kyle spat. He turned to Ghost.
“Can you get rid of those guys? That’s what the Dogs do, right? Make people disappear? They’re your competition, dealing and shit. It’s them you want, not us.”

Ghost’s frown shifted into sterner territory, and Kyle shrank back in his chair; condensation from the thawing peas trickled down the side of his face, and he shivered.

“I would need names,” Ghost said. “Descriptions. Some way to contact ‘these guys.’ I’m not moving on anyone on the word of dumbass kids who trespassed on my goddamn property.”

All of them winced, properly scolded.

“How does Allie Henderson play into this?” Ghost asked.

As if rehearsed, all three boys blanched.

Ghost’s voice shifted low and dangerous. “I don’t care about you dickheads and your bad business decisions. A real girl is missing, and probably dead, and your party was the last place anyone saw her. Tell me what you know about Allie, or protection is off the table.”

Jimmy’s mouth opened on a gasp.

“Tell me about Allie, or I’ll let the crazy fucker with the knife come back out here and have another go at you.”

Another gasp. Jimmy jerked up straight. “Okay, okay, okay…” He breathed for a moment, open-mouthed, gaze going distant as he withdrew into his own thoughts and memories. “They, um…they were there that night. At the party.”

“Who?” Ghost and Mercy asked in unison.

“The dealers. The guys, who…their names are Fred and Ricky.”

Ghost reacted first. He sat back, brows climbing. “Fred and Ricky?”

Then it hit Mercy, who snorted, expression disbelieving.

Carter got it a moment later. “Oh.”

“Fred and Ricky?” Ghost asked. “Those are their names?”

“Yeah…” Jimmy glanced between them. “What? That’s what they said.”

Ghost shook his head. “Never mind. They were at the party?”

“Yeah. They – after Allie, you know, shot me down – they, well, Ricky, he said, ‘You should go after her.’ But I’d had too much to drink. So he drove me…”

Carter felt a tingling sense of disquiet at the back of his neck; he nearly shivered.

“What happened to Allie?” Ghost asked.

Jimmy took a few more breaths, and then the tears started again. Through choked sobs, he managed to say, “I don’t – I don’t know. We were – we caught up to her. At a red light. And Ricky got out. We drove her and her car out to the mill, and I just wanted to talk to her. If she would just listen – if I could tell her – then she’d go out with me. But she – she ran. And Ricky went after her. And…and I don’t know. That was it. She was just gone.”

“You haven’t seen her since?”

He wiped at his face with shaking hands. “No.”

“And Ricky? Fred?”

“We talked on the phone. He told me – told me what I had to do.”

Ghost’s face settled into grim lines; his hand twitched, and for a minute, Carter thought he would lean across the table and cuff Jimmy in the side of the head. But he just said, “Give me their numbers.”

~*~

Carter was sent outside to wait for Jimmy’s dad to show up. He’d been sitting a few moments, enjoying the mild temperatures, trying to ignore the pull of post-adrenaline exhaustion in his muscles, when Mercy joined him, a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other.

“Top you off?”

Carter held out his glass with a quiet thanks.

“I sent the three stooges to go search the boat,” Mercy said, climbing up to sit beside him. The table creaked, but held. “See if there’s anything useful there.”

Carter nodded.

“You pick up on the Fred and Ricky thing?”

“Yeah. I Love Lucy, right?”

Mercy nodded and took a swallow of Scotch. “I get giving out fake names. But those? Whoever this is, they’re having fun. It’s a joke. Fred and Ricky. They’re laughing at us.”

Carter sipped his own drink. “So that spray paint out at the mill. I’m guessing it’s definitely a message for us now, and not just kids screwing around.”

“Looks like it.”

They sipped in silence a moment. “How’s Reese?”

“I checked on him before I came out here. All bandaged up.” He lifted his brows. “Tenny helped, he said.”

“Nothing says ‘I’m sorry for knifing you’ like a little first aid.”

Mercy chuckled. “Aw. Poor kid.”

“Which one?”

“Both of them, really. Most of us have had it rough at some point or other. Some of us…well, God knows I’m…” He gestured eloquently, grinning, teeth white in the dark. “But I had a good childhood. Modest, broke as hell, really. But I was loved. I had Daddy, and Gram. And then I had the club; I’ve got Ava, and the kids, and all of you brothers.” He knocked their shoulders together. “But those two in there never had anything. Worse: they weren’t even raised like people. They’re got each other now, and that’s something, that’s good. They’ve got us, too, but we don’t count as much, I don’t think. They’re struggling. When you’re a trained killer, I think that struggling looks a lot like knifing your best friend.”

Carter shook his head. “I should have waited to talk to Jimmy until y’all got here.”

“Nah, you took initiative. That’s good.” Mercy leaned back so he could inspect him. “I’m proud of you. Most of the time I get the impression you don’t give a damn what goes on around here.”

“You…you think that?”

“Well, ‘don’t give a damn’ is maybe a little harsh. But you seem kinda checked out. The club isn’t the place you always wanted to end up. I get that.”

Carter swallowed, throat suddenly tight, and set his drink aside. “Does Ghost – does everybody else think that, too?”

Mercy shrugged. “Maybe some of ‘em. Probably.”

“Shit.”

“Everybody comes at it a little different–”

“No. Mercy, I prospected, and you guys patched me in. Why would you put a Dog on my back if you thought I wasn’t loyal?” His pulse picked up, the first stirrings of panic licking at his gut.

Mercy gripped his shoulder, and squeezed reassuringly. “Nobody said you weren’t loyal. There’s never been any doubt that you were trustworthy.”

“Yeah, but what about the don’t give a damn part? Isn’t giving a damn kind of a prerequisite?”

It was hard to tell in the dark, but he thought Mercy looked amused and fond. “Let me ask you something: do you think every member of every chapter of this club is equally invested?”

“I…dunno. I’ve never really thought of that.”

Mercy smirked. “Trust me, they’re not. Nobody expects them to be. But if you’re loyal, and you show up, and you take care of your brothers, nobody needs you to be me.”

“I’d have to grow about a foot, first.”

Mercy tousled his hair, and the gesture was so big-brotherly it tightened Carter’s throat another fraction. “Start eating your spinach.” He grew serious again, hands folding together, hanging between his knees. “That was big what you did tonight, though. I’m serious. Things went a little sideways, sure, but that happens. And all things considered, you were doing a good job of it until Tenny, well – look, I don’t even think I’m qualified to handle that one.”

Carter snorted. “I dunno. You’ve got the bellowing down pretty good.”

“Hey, what’s the point of being this big if you don’t get to throw your weight around a little?”

Carter laughed, and picked his glass back up, feeling warm and much, much better in a way that had to do with the company, and the unexpected praise, and nothing to do with the alcohol.

Headlights turned in up at the main gate, and he swallowed the Scotch down in one long slug, throat burning afterward.

“Show time,” Mercy said, and hopped up to go tell Ghost that the dad was here.

Twenty-Seven

The next day was Saturday, and after a fitful night of not-sleeping, Leah fired off a text to Ava around nine in the morning, asking when they could meet up. The answer was immediate: come for breakfast at Mom’s.

She picked up some champagne and orange juice on her way, and knocked on the door at Casa de Teague just after ten.

“Ooh, mimosas,” Maggie said when she answered, and waved her in right away.

The kitchen was warm and sunny, and smelled of fresh bread and something fruity and sweet. Leah heard the kids’ voices echoing from the living room; could envision Mille and Ash in their playpen while Remy and Cal played on the rug. Cal’s voice was always piping and excited, and Remy’s low, and soft. He looked just like a mini-Mercy, but with a calmness to him; Ava joked often that he was already a little old man.

“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t just a social call?” Maggie asked, getting glasses down from the cabinet.

“No, it is,” Leah said, setting her burden down on the counter and turning into Ava’s offered hug, a quick, tight embrace.

“Then why do you look so glum?” Maggie asked. The loud pop of the champagne cork accentuated her raised-brow glance.

Leah bit her lip, guilt washing through her again. “I may have done something kinda stupid last night, and I may be in need of some advice.”

Maggie nodded sagely, and filled their glasses, more champagne than juice. “We know all about stupid,” she said, softening it with a wink. “Ava, baby, get the casserole out of the oven.”

They sat down around the table with drinks and plates full of breakfast casserole, sliced melon, and fresh cranberry muffins.

Ava speared a piece of cantaloupe and gestured toward Leah with it. “Is this about Carter?”

Maggie paused, glass hovering in front of her mouth. Her eyes had gone glassy with that Southern Mother thirst for Gossip. Leah would have laughed at another time, if this wasn’t her own personal gossip about to be laid on the table. “Carter? I’m guessing I missed a few steps.”

“It’s nothing,” Leah rushed to say. “Or, well, I thought it was nothing. At first.” She gave Maggie a bare-bones rundown. From her run-ins with Carter at Dartmoor, including the awkward moment in Maggie’s office, to his nightly post-football visits to the coffeeshop, until they had a routine down, and a regular table, and things had just started to feel comfortable.

“You left out the dinner,” Ava pointed out.

“Dinner?” Maggie asked.

“They both came to dinner at my house,” Ava said, “and there were fireworks.” Her eyebrows waggled on the last word.

“They weren’t fireworks,” Leah protested.

“You stared at each other for a full minute at the dinner table.”

Leah gave her a really? look.

Ava chuckled. “There were sparks, don’t deny it.” She sobered. “But you don’t exactly have that new-relationship happy glow this morning.”

“That’s because there is no relationship. And probably won’t be – especially after last night.”

“What happened?”

She sighed, took a sip of mimosa for courage, and relayed last night’s disastrous conversation with Carter, as well as she could remember it. “He literally got up and ran away, after. He left a Carter-shaped smoke cloud behind like he was a dang Loony Tunes character.”

Maggie and Ava traded a look.

“Rejection hurts, hon,” Maggie said. “He wasn’t gonna stick around and wait to see what you said next.”

Leah’s stomach clenched, and she pushed her plate away; took up her glass and drained it in one long gulp. “Mom said I ought to apologize.”

“No,” Maggie and Ava said at once.

Maggie laid a hand down on the table, near but not touching, her expression serious. “You’re never obligated to go out with someone if you don’t want to. No, if you wanted to turn him down, and you did, then that’s that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She’s right,” Ava agreed. “But – did you want to turn him down?”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” She glanced longingly toward the counter, and the champagne there – but knew she was being stupid. She set her glass down and hitched up higher in her chair. “That’s why I came: I don’t know what I want. Last night, when he asked – it was so unexpected. There had been looks, yeah. And I was…feeling things.” She felt her face heat. “But I never thought he’d ask me out. Not like that. Not like ‘let’s go on a date.’ With him paying and everything.”

“Why not?” Maggie asked, lips twitching. “Carter’s a gentleman – when he’s not railing everything in sight.”

“Mom!” Ava hissed.

“She knows.” Maggie gestured to Leah. “She knows all about the railing. She was there for the broken nose incident.”

Leah’s breakfast turned over in her stomach, and she couldn’t keep from making a face.

“Oh, shit, honey, sorry. Look,” Maggie said, turning back to her. “Neither of you were expecting to run into each other and feel this way. I can guarantee he was just as caught-off-guard as you.”

“He’s not even my type,” Leah protested.

Maggie arched a brow. “Hot’s not your type?”

Leah sputtered, and Ava rolled her eyes, but chuckled.

“Do you like him?” Maggie asked.

“We’ve been friends for years, even if we haven’t kept in touch.” She shrugged. “Do I have to have a solid answer on that right now?”

Maggie and Ava both looked taken aback.

“Of course not,” Maggie said.

Ava said, “We’re not trying to pressure you.”

The quick thump of little feet heralded Cal’s arrival before he pelted into the room, blond hair flapping. “Mama, Mama, Mama.”

“What, baby?” Ava turned to him, and he thrust a toy toward her, a little red-faced; tears weren’t far off.

“It’s broken!”

“Here, let me see.”

The diversion gave Leah a chance to gather her thoughts; she felt a little flushed, and unsteady, and was glad she hadn’t gotten up for that second mimosa.

She was also doing what she’d done last night with Carter: thinking one thing on pure, unfiltered impulse, then thinking it to death, repackaging it, and saying something very different. It was exhausting, actually.

She was aware of Maggie studying her with unself-conscious intensity; did Maggie do anything self-consciously? If so, Leah had never seen it.

“Thank you!” Cal chirped, when Ava handed him the fixed toy, and he darted back to the living room, whooping with excitement.

When Ava glanced back, Leah took a big breath and said, “Okay, I like him.”

Ava and Maggie grinned.

Leah held up a hand to stop them before they could say anything. “I’m still figuring it out, okay. I don’t – I’m surprised. I never expected this. Yeah, he’s cute – he’s hot” – she tipped her head in concession to Maggie – “but I’ve never gone for guys like him before, and it’s honestly freaking me out a little. But.” There was no denying the pleasant heat in her stomach when she thought of him, the chills that rippled over her skin when he looked at her like that. “I don’t guess I trust him.”

Ava nodded.

Maggie said, “Is it the Lean Dog thing?”

“No, that’s actually a point in the win column.” She didn’t expect them to give her matching surprised looks. “What? I don’t have a problem with the club.”

Mother and daughter traded a look.

“It’s different being attached to it, honey,” Maggie said.

“Believe me, I know the risks.” It was maybe firmer than she’d intended. Both women studied her a moment, and then nodded.

“You’ve got to talk to him, then,” Ava said. “I can arrange another dinner…?”

“No.” She squared her shoulders and have herself a mental kick. “I’ve got to do this on my own.”

Maggie grinned. “Attagirl.”

~*~

Post-adrenaline crash, and with several whiskeys in his system, Carter slept like the dead and woke startled by the sharp rap of a fist on the other side of his door. “Church in ten,” Fox’s voice called through, and he dragged himself out of bed and into the shower.

His hair was still wet when he found his usual seat at the table, and was surprised – though maybe he shouldn’t have been – to find the prospects in attendance, too, standing lined up along the back wall, behind Mercy’s seat at the foot of the table. Reese and Tenny, he noted, stood with the other three between them; Reese had his arms folded, hands wrapped in white bandages. Tenny stared at the flags on the wall, working on a cigarette.

“Alright,” Ghost said, dropping into his chair, and all heads turned his direction. “Here’s what we know:

“Jimmy Connors was working the register at his dad’s shop a few months ago when two men who claimed to be dealers approached, sweet-talked the little dumbass, and started feeding him designer party drugs that he was encouraged to then share as free samples with his friends. They called themselves Fred and Ricky.”

Several quiet laughs rippled through the crowd.

“I know.” Ghost arched an eloquent brow and continued. “He fenced a bunch of expensive shit for free for a while, and then Fred and Ricky wanted their money. He of course didn’t have it, so the threats started. The usual stuff: we’ll kill you, we’ll kill your family, yada yada. The party he had was him trying to collect money from the friends he’d given samples to, but they’re all dumb kids, and they have no money, so that was a bust.

“So Fred and Ricky came up with a creative solution. They’d consider his debt paid if he could gin up a buncha anti-Dog sentiment at school and around town. He and his friends were the ones doing the graffiti down at Bell Bar. And, despite the fact that he’s a stupid little shit who thinks drugs are free, he was smart enough to try and link us to that missing girl: Allie Henderson. Carter said he was telling kids at school that he had photos.” He tilted his head in invitation, and a little jolt – that Carter didn’t want to call excitement – moved through him in response to being looked to like this, at church.

“Yeah.” He sat up straighter, cleared his throat. “My contact said he was bragging about having photos of Allie on our property. That’s what he was doing here last night: taking pics so he could edit her into them.”

“Your contact?” Dublin asked, frowning. “Who’s that?”

“Uh. The varsity quarterback. I’m sort of coaching him.”

That earned him more than a few surprised looks.

Walsh said, “But that brings us to the matter of the girl herself. Connors says that his friend Ricky went chasing after her down at the mill, came back empty-handed, and said he’d taken care of it.”

Ratchet pulled out a glossy photo and laid it in the center of the table. “My guy at the lab was able to confirm DNA on the shirt Reese found behind the mill. Hair and sweat were a match for Allie Henderson, with no blood, or semen.”

“Small favors,” Hound muttered.

“Vince said his people would go back over the area with a fine-tooth comb, but we didn’t find any freshly-overturned dirt out there. If she’s buried there, it’s back in the trees somewhere,” Ghost said.

“Eden thinks she was taken,” Fox said. “That there was another vehicle waiting down the road, out of sight, and this Ricky person subdued her, got her inside it, and that she’s still alive, penned up somewhere like those girls in Texas.”

“Could be,” Ghost said. To the table: “We’re looking for three people, now. Allie, and Fred and Ricky. Let’s get to it, boys.”

~*~

It was Saturday, and there were still shifts to be worked at all the Dartmoor shops, but Ghost divided them up into pairs so they could work, and hunt, in shifts. Carter was supposed to start at the shop, with Mercy, and then Aidan and Tango would relieve them at lunch. There was a faint buzzing under his skin; not anticipation, but something like it. Mercy had accused him of – no, congratulated him on – stepping up last night. He felt newly invested; invigorated and ready to set down his wrench, get on his bike, and go do something.

He was wrapping the pipes on a custom job when he heard a car pull up. Cars came and went constantly, so he didn’t think anything of it until Mercy called, “Hey, QB,” from the next bay. “There’s a pretty girl outside, and I don’t think she’s here to see me.” A teasing note in his voice.

Leah. That was his first thought, flashing like lightning inside his mind. From pretty girl he leaped straight to Leah; to her wide grin, and her laughing eyes, and the easy way she could tease and comfort all in one breath.

Then he remembered last night, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

He stood slowly, reaching for a rag to towel his hands. It seemed weeks ago instead of hours, that moment in Cook’s Coffee when she’d told him no. So much had happened since then, to distract and excite and concern him, but suddenly he was back in the coffeeshop, dinner turning to lead in his gut, while she gave him that pitying look and said he wasn’t serious, that he didn’t want her.

He took his time walking out to the door, telling himself it was probably Jazz instead. If she offered him a shoulder to cry on, he wasn’t sure he had the strength to tell her no at this point.

But it was Leah, standing in the bright morning sunlight, in heels, and a skirt, and a yellow shirt printed all over with pineapples. Her sunglasses had yellow rims, and her hair was in a shiny black ponytail that gleamed like polished jet. His heart gave a little bump, and he took a measured breath. It was okay. He could do this; could be adult enough to have a polite conversation with the girl who’d turned him down.

“Hey.”

Her smile was slow, and small – and doubtful, he thought. Cautious. “Hey.”

A dozen questions bubbled up his throat, and died on his tongue, forcefully bitten back. He’d been the one to go out on the limb last night, and had it hacked out from under him. It was her turn now. She’d come, for whatever reason, and even if it was childish, he didn’t want to make it easy on her.

The seconds stretched on – then he saw the subtle movement of her throat as she swallowed. She reached to push her sunglasses up onto her head, and it was easier then to see the worry in her expression, pressed into the little line of tension between her brows. “I know you’re busy, and you probably don’t want to anyway, but I wondered if we could talk for a minute.”

Yes. Hope sparked, a tiny kernel of it. But he dashed it; hadn’t life taught him not to hope? He didn’t get what he wanted, not ever.

He said, “I’m on the clock.”

“Nah,” Mercy said, appearing on the other side of a tool chest, massive arms draped over it, wrench in one hand. “We’re dead around here. Go take ten minutes and talk to the lady.” His grin was half-encouraging and half-suggestive, and Carter wanted to hit him, as stupid as that would be. He envisioned breaking his knuckles on Mercy’s jaw, and Mercy laughing and saying something about a fly landing on him.

He sighed. “Sure,” he told Leah, and walked out to join her.

They fell into step, an easy pace, headed toward Maggie’s sprawling, raised garden. He could hear the splash and tinkle of the water in the creek from here; could see the tender green leaves of the fruit trees, just now coming in after the blossoms had blown like snow across the parking lot.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be working today,” was the first thing she said. A glance proved her gaze was fixed on the garden, its waving flowers and decorative grasses. “I had breakfast with Ava and Maggie, and they said there was some big to-do happening at church this morning.”

“Some stuff’s going on, yeah.”

“More graffiti?”

He didn’t answer that. He felt protective of his club business, suddenly. If she didn’t take his interest seriously, then he wasn’t going to discuss sensitive topics with her. It was an angry, bitter thought, but an honest one, and he didn’t try to squelch it. “You thought you’d come by and see? You could have texted.”

“I don’t have your number.” He was watching her as they walked, and so he saw her halt, and turn to look at him, her gaze searching in a sharp, pointed way. Assessing him. Not with the hopeful caution of so many women. Her look alone was a question.

He took it as a challenge. Halting, too, turning to face her. He held out his hand. “Here, gimme your phone and I’ll program it in, if you want it.”

She frowned. “You’re pissed.”

He frowned back, curling and loosing his fingers. “Do you want it or not?”

“Are you–” She paused, and let out a deep breath. “Okay, I’m not gonna assume. I did that last night, and I was way off, apparently. I…” Her gaze met his, and her head tipped to a soft angle, her expression gentling. “I think I hurt you, didn’t I? And I don’t mean your pride, but you.”

Her gaze seemed to go right through him, and he felt naked, suddenly, his anger fizzling away in a rush, leaving him open to nerves, and doubt. He was a teenager again, standing in front of a girl maligned by her peers and unbothered by it. A girl who didn’t give a single solitary damn about his blond hair, and blue eyes, and football jersey. A girl self-possessed and world-weary and confident, and so very, very far out of his league.

His mouth had dried, and he had to wet his lips before could speak. Lying felt like a lot of effort he didn’t possess the faculties for right now. He could hear the faint note of his own voice, but couldn’t alter it. “I guess I thought things were heading a certain way, and that you felt the same, I was wrong.”

“No,” she said, quickly, swaying forward half a step. The spark in his chest flared a little brighter. “No, I – you weren’t wrong. I just thought…”

“That I was a sex fiend? Yeah, you said. Several times.”

She frowned again. “No, it’s…” she said, frustration plucking at her features. Join the club, he thought. He’d been wrestling with this for weeks now, and still had no idea what it was beyond the most nebulous definition of desire.

“Let me start over,” she said, taking a deep breath that seemed to steady her. “Up until a few months ago, I thought I was going to marry Jason and live in Chicago.”

Jason. It was the first time he’d heard her ex’s name, and even if it was a less pretentious name than his own, he immediately conjured a mental image of a douchey guy like the one Ava had brought home from Georgia. An unfair, but satisfying presumption.

“Things had gotten so boring and routine with us, and I thought that was normal. Couples drift; the spark fades. But he was the right kind of guy, you know? Very responsible, and mature, and he made a good living. We were comfortable.”

The presumption was a little less satisfying, now. “Sounds like maybe you shouldn’t have split up.”

She shook her head. “Looking back, I don’t think there was ever anything like a real spark. I liked him. Maybe I even loved him. But it wasn’t – there was never…heat.” Her brows jumped when she said that, chin tucking a fraction so her eyes looked huge, her gaze full of intent.

“Oh,” he said, stupidly.

“The other night at dinner: if you’d kissed me, I would have kissed back.”

“Oh,” he said again, even more stupidly.

Her cheeks flushed a rosy pink, but she pressed on, brave as ever, not mincing words. “I never stopped to consider someone like you – never expected you,” she corrected, with emphasis. “You were always the prom king type, and I was the smoking in the bathroom type, and that kind of hope was so She’s All That I could have gagged on it. And even if you noticed one of the bad girls, it was always going to be Ava. I was just the bubbly sidekick.” Her tiny, self-deprecating smile left him wanting to reach out, to pull her close, shocked to hear that kind of self-consciousness from her of all people. She’d always seemed so Teflon-coated, so impervious to the stupid shit that bothered everyone else.

“Leah–”

“You’re not the popular kid anymore, maybe. In the biker world, I think you’re the nerd, to be honest.”

“Wow, thanks,” he said flatly, but his pulse fluttered rapid in his ears, and his palms tingled, still wanting to touch.

She tipped her head, smile plucking at her mouth. “Come on. You know you’re not the killer bad boy type.” The smile slipped. “But you’re still someone who is very, very capable of breaking my heart. I think that’s why there are certain guys who I just block off. I don’t even consider it. I can’t–” Her voice shivered. “I can’t be that sad, desperate, dumb girl who goes chasing the butterflies in her stomach and winds up dumped for a blonde with big boobs. I’ve always promised myself I wouldn’t do that.”

He swallowed. “That’s not what I was asking you to do.”

Her smile showed teeth this time, edged with bitterness. “Oh, honey, they never ask. It just happens. Like clockwork.”

He sighed. “Do you think I’m that shallow? That I’m just an asshole?”

“No.” She blinked, gaze darting away. “I’m assuming again. Turns out I’m really good at it.”

The blonde with big boobs can’t make me happy, he thought, but didn’t say. This wasn’t about Jazz, or any of the girls he’d been with, really. It wasn’t about her ex. It was about fear, plain and simple, two-sided. Which was worse? Rocking along at a sustainable level of misery? Or reaching out for something like joy only to lose it, and go crashing into despair?

For his part, rocking along hadn’t gotten him anywhere in the past few years.

“Why did you come?” he asked, as gently as he could. “What do you want?”

She turned back to him, eyes glittering in the sunlight, lip caught between her teeth. “I wanted to apologize for hurting you. And to explain why I said no. And to see if…” She took a big breath that lifted her chest, and let it out in a rush. “See if maybe it wasn’t too late to say yes after all.”

“To say yes?”

“I want to go out with you. Yes. If you’re still interested.”

“Oh.” It was difficult to take his next breath. “Okay.”

They stood squared off from one another, and Carter realized this was a first. In high school and college, girls had always been quick to press up into his personal space. A hand on his arm, an arm around his waist; lots of lash-batting and chest-displaying. Jazz had all but fallen into his lap the first time she’d ever come onto him, and then kept doing it, dressed and undressed.

But Leah stood her ground, hands clasped together on her purse strap. Waiting for him to make the first move – no, he realized, correcting himself. She was challenging him, in her own, small way. If you want me come and get me. She wouldn’t be a sighing, swooning damsel. She’d laid all her doubts and presumptions at his feet just now, and he would need to gather them up, throw them over his shoulder, and prove her wrong.

If he could undertake an interrogation with nothing but prospects and half-cocked lunatics for backup, he could do this. He wanted to do this, suddenly, quite badly. Wanted to prove himself to her.

It struck him like a lightning bolt that he’d never had to do so before. No woman had ever demanded anything of him.

He actually relished the novelty of a challenge.

“Okay,” he said again, surer, and closed the distance between them with two long strides.

She reacted, he saw; a tightening of her whole body, a little flex of her knees; her eyes widened as his shadow fell over her. He heard the low, quick intake of breath, and imagined he saw the flicker of her pulse in the hollow of her throat.

He had doubts about just about everything lately, but he didn’t doubt that he was a damn good kisser these days.

He captured her face gently with one hand, and she froze – and then leaned into it, fractionally, eyelashes fluttering.

“Damn,” she murmured.

“What?”

“I’m already a total cliché. If I swoon, please drop me on my ass.”

That startled a laugh out of him, and she grinned in response, eyes crinkled with delight. It was easy as anything, then, to duck down, and press his lips, quick and soft, to hers. He could feel the shape of her smile, the warmth of it, and though he immediately wanted more – a bad habit from a few years of total, unrestrained passion – he pulled back, a laugh still caught in the back of his throat. “Okay?”

She nodded, expression suffused with warmth, her cheeks still so pink. “Definitely okay.”

“Carter!” Mercy called. The sound of his real name – and the look on Mercy’s face when he glanced over – put him on high alert immediately. His fingers tightened on reflex at Leah’s nape, and he nearly pulled her into his chest, wanting to shelter her.

“What?”

“Fox called,” he said, voice grim. “There’s another one.”

That could have meant a number of things, none of them good, but he guessed Mercy didn’t want to shout it for all the world to hear – or to worry Leah with it.

He nodded. “Coming.” He turned back to Leah, already regretting having to let go.

She was holding up her phone, offering it to him. “Gimme your number, and I’ll text you. We’ll talk later.”

He was flooded with a surge of warmth. She wasn’t a civilian, she wasn’t going to demand that he stay here, or tell her what was going on. He punched his number into her Contacts in a hurry, then ducked in to press another fast kiss to her cheek.

“Be thinking of where you want to have dinner,” he called over his shoulder as he jogged away.

Her laughter floated to him on the breeze, giddy and happy.

Twenty-Eight

Eden was pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of Miss Belle’s Boutique when they pulled up, her jaw set, her stride agitated. Fox went to her, but didn’t crowd her. She didn’t want a hug and a kiss and an assurance that he would make it all better – not ever, but especially not in front of half the club like this.

She halted when he stepped up onto the sidewalk, and turned a look on him that was outwardly pissed, but through which he could read the faint touch of desperation and helplessness. “If I’d come two hours earlier,” she said, shaking her head, lips pressing together until they turned white. “Christ, Charlie, I could have prevented this!”

“What is it?” Ghost asked, joining them. “What happened?”

Eden took a breath, and smoothed both hands along the crown of her head, flattening nonexistent flyaways from her tight ponytail. When she spoke, she was more collected. “I came to speak with Allie’s friend, Nicole, the one who told me that Jimmy left the party right after Allie. She’s not here. Her boss said a man came in asking after her, and that she left with him, someone the manager had never met before, who introduced himself as Fred.”

“Shit,” Fox muttered.

“Her break is only supposed to last thirty minutes, but she’s been gone two hours, and she isn’t answering her cell.” Eden propped her hands on her hips and kicked at a bit of loose gravel on the sidewalk. “They’ve taken her. I know it.”

“Well,” Ghost said, expression hard. “It looks like it, but we don’t know.”

Eden challenged him with a sharp look, and he lifted a hand, palm-out in supplication.

“If we tell her folks, they can’t file a police report until it’s been twenty-four hours.”

“I thought you owned the police in this city.”

“Eden,” Fox warned, under his breath.

“I do,” Ghost said, meeting her glare with an implacable gaze of his own. “Part of it, anyway. An important part. Her parents can’t file a report, but I can get Fielding to set some guys on it. In the meantime, let’s see what we can do. Did the manger get a good look at the guy?”

“A good one. Tall, white, early-thirties, dark blond hair. She said he had an ugly nose.”

Ghost nodded. “I’ll see if Vince can spare a sketch artist. It was only the one guy?”

“Yeah. She said Nicole seemed nervous, but she went with him; greeted him by name.”

“So the dealers were introducing themselves at the party,” Walsh said, joining them. To Eden: “Do you have a picture of Nicole?”

“I took one the first time I spoke with her.” She pulled out her phone. “I’ll text it to you.”

Fox surveyed the sidewalk, the street. It was just before lunch in a bustling part of the downtown shopping district, just one red light down from the club-owned properties on Main. No place to hide, a high chance of being seen. “There had to be a vehicle. A van or a truck. Something with a door he could shove her into and then take off. He wouldn’t have risked taking her far, not when she could scream for help or cause a scene.”

“So we’re looking for a kidnapping van,” Eden said. “I’m sure there’s not any of those around.”

“What about traffic cameras?” Walsh asked, pointing to the intersection, and the camera mounted above the stop lights.

“I’ll ask Vince about that, too,” Ghost said.

Fox could tell by his expression that he could feel the reins sliding through his fingers, his control of Knoxville pulling against his grip.

He also had the sense that this tug-of-war was only beginning.

~*~

Rottie slipped his phone into his pocket and glanced back at them over his shoulder. “Ghost said there’s a lab team on the way. I want to do a walk-through before they get here and trample everything.” He glanced toward the alleys of bent grass that zigged and zagged across the field behind the mill. “Again.”

Carter turned – before they started off, following Rottie and Hound’s careful tracks through the waist-high grass – to look back at the mill. It wasn’t quite noon yet, the sun still behind it, and the building’s shadow stretched toward them across the ground, as steep-roofed and sinister as the rickety structure itself. It had a smell of dust, and rotting wood about it, undercut by the algae tang of the stream that ran beside it. Though the Interstate was within earshot, the rush and hiss of passing traffic loud from the bridge overhead, it felt a world apart down here, like they’d stepped back in time, or entered an alternate dimension. One filled with the droning of flies and bees, studded by the low voices of their own group – and yet, somehow, for all that, afflicted with an eerie sort of stillness. It was a building that seemed to watch them. It had seen things, Carter thought, fought off a shiver, and followed his brothers.

A glimpse from the corner of his eye proved that Reese walked beside him, his bright hair tied back into a utilitarian knot. He hadn’t bothered to cover the bandages on his hands or arm; they’d been affixed with a knowing hand, as tight and tidy as hospital wrappings.

Stepping up, Mercy had said. He seemed to be doing that on all fronts, lately, so he said, “How’re the hands? And the arm, I guess.”

Reese flicked him the barest, questioning glance as they walked, then resumed watching the path ahead, careful to follow in Hound’s tracks, rather than leave any of his own. “Sterilized. They’ll heal.”

When he’d first met him, those sorts of comments had left Carter uneasy; Reese talked like a robot from a post-apocalyptic movie, rather than a regular twenty-something boy. But he thought, now, that he was starting to hear the faint threads of uncertainty in statements like those; Reese wasn’t the sort who would ever ask someone how to sound more normal, wouldn’t admit to his own strangeness.

He thought about what Mercy had said last night, about how Reese wasn’t the wild card of their two assassins, that he could be trusted.

He thought about what else Mercy had said, about his own lack of involvement and interest.

About crossing that bit of distance earlier, and the fast press of lips with Leah; about the prospect of more.

He took a breath. “That was really quick thinking last night. Stopping Tenny like you did. I didn’t react fast enough to get to him in time.”

“You couldn’t have stopped him,” Reese said, matter-of-factly. It clearly wasn’t meant as an insult. “You don’t know where to pinch on the wrist. You aren’t used to being cut. And he would have killed you, anyway, for trying.”

“Heh? You think. Probably. He’s an asshole on a good day.” He thought he played it off well, but it was all too easy to imagine Tenny ripping the knife from between gripping palms and plunging it between ribs. What if he’d done that to Reese last night? What then? “Hey, what’s his problem lately? He’s being even more of a dick that usual.”

Reese didn’t answer right away, and a glance proved his hands had curled into fists, the bandages cutting into the skin, and his mouth had turned down at the corners. He unflexed his fingers, but it looked like it took effort.

“Did you guys have a fight or something?” He was pressing too hard, probably, but true curiosity was winning out.

“Yes,” Reese said. And offered nothing further.

“Dude, that sucks.”

Reese nodded and stepped over a spiky clump of blackberry leaves.

“I may have to get you to show me the trick with the wrist pinch sometime.” Reese turned his head a fraction to regard him, brows lifted an infinitesimal amount in silent question. “In case I ever need to disarm anyone.”

After a long moment of his cold, blue, impossible stare, Reese nodded slowly and faced forward again. “I can show you.”

“Cool.”

Ahead, Rottie reached the tree line, and halted; squatted down and disappeared amid the tall grass. Everyone else halted, save Hound, who went to join his protégé, standing over him, looking down at whatever Rottie had found.

Carter cast another glance back at the building, its slanted shadow, the grass rippling like the sea in the stretch between. Crows squawked and fussed in the trees, unhappy about the human trespassers.

Something had happened here. He could feel it.

When he turned back, Rottie was standing, holding a dead, brown leaf carefully by the stem. “Blood,” he announced. “It’s old, and dry, and been sitting out in the sun and the rain, but it’s definitely blood.”

“Could be an animal,” Hound said, hands on his skinny hips. “Coyotes coulda killed a possum.” He was frowning, though, more than usual.

“Could be,” Rottie agreed, but he pulled out a clear plastic envelope and tucked the leaf carefully inside. “The pine straw’s disturbed here, going back through the trees. It’s too uniform to just be squirrels or birds digging around. It’s a trail. Someone walked – no, ran through here.” He glanced at Carter, specifically, as he tucked the envelope into his cut and said, “Walk very carefully. If you spot something, call me, don’t just pick it up.”

Carter nodded. “Yeah.” When they started up again, he said, “Still the incompetent one. Nothing changes.”

“No,” Reese said, surprising him. He stared at the ground, stepping lightly as they entered the shade of the forest. “You lack training.”

Carter felt another grin threaten. “I’ll have to work on that, too.”

“Yes,” Reese agreed, and fell silent again.

It was slow going, following the two trackers as they scanned, and knelt, and sniffed, and plucked at leaves, none of it jumping out at Carter as significant in any way. Though it was daylight, they clicked on flashlights often to sweep the ground, here in the shadow of the closely-clustered pines.

More blood was found on a green leaf still attached to its branch. A place where all the pine straw and litter had been disturbed, an uneven circle of bare dirt where a scuffle had ensued; Rottie snapped photos of partial boot and shoe prints; the shoes had been small, and distinctly feminine in shape.

Reese stood and fingered the bloodied leaf after the area had been cleared by the trackers, and a photo had been snapped. “This is his,” he mused, leaning in to sniff it – for a minute, Carter was afraid he’d lick it.

“How can you know?” Carter asked, moving to stand beside him.

“If they’re going to sell the girl, they won’t want her injured. The only wounds we found on the girls in Texas were the places where their bonds had chafed, and where they’d bruised themselves jostling around in the dark. You can’t sell something damaged.” Matter-of-fact, and emotionless – but his frown was harsher than any expression Carter had seen on him before.

“Come along, boys,” Hound called, and they followed. Through a dry creek bed full of last year’s leaves, and up a slope, where it crested at a road. Carter heard the shush of traffic before they reached the shoulder.

Rottie looked both ways. A single truck trundled past, a flatbed loaded down with pallets. It was a two-lane, with badly cracked and faded pavement; not a major thoroughfare to be sure.

Two fresh tire tracks marred the near lane, thick, black rubber laid down as a vehicle had accelerated away from the curb. They were short. Not a great slide, but a quick, hard start, and then gone.

“This was where the van was staged,” Rottie said, grimly, pointing to the tracks. “Our boy wrestled her through the woods, and she was conscious for at least most of it, and then shoved her in the van, and off they went. He turned around and went back to meet with the Connors boy, told him she got away.”

“And the little dipshit didn’t notice he had blood on him?” Hound asked, spitting on the pavement, disgusted.

Rottie shrugged. “It was dark, the kid was drunk. Ricky could have been wearing dark clothes.”

“Okay, so they took her,” Carter said, pulse giving an uptick. “Where did he take her? Straight out of town? Or are they holding her somewhere?”

Rottie sighed. “That’s the million-dollar question. But if the friend got snatched, I’m thinking there’s a staging area of some kind. Maybe.” He shook his head. “Who knows.”

“Hey!” A voice called from down the hill. Carter turned and saw a CSI in a county windbreaker standing below, waving two blue-gloved hands to get their attention. “What the hell are you doing?”

“And that’s our cue to leave.”

~*~

Ghost called Vince Fielding about the traffic cams, but going through the proper channels, even with the wheels of justice heavily greased, took too long. Ratchet hacked into the city’s system and looked up the footage. A van had been parked one door down from the boutique where Nicole worked; her assailant, the self-appointed “Fred,” had taken her in his arms, and made wrestling her look like a young, passionate couple embracing right there on the sidewalk. One passing woman even gave them an ugly look and hurried past, never realizing what was really happening. Their faces close together like they were kissing, Fred bundled her into the sliding side door of the van, and tumbled in after her. The van pulled away before the door had finished closing.

Ratchet was able to zoom in on the license plate, and then find out who owned the vehicle: a Mr. Jorge Ortega.

He owned a matting and framing shop, one at the end of a strip mall, and that was where Fox and his four Stateside brothers stood, now, in the parking lot, surveying it.

“The van in the video didn’t have any lettering on it,” Albie said, “but I’m guessing it used to.” He pointed to the SUV parked out front, the one with decals advertising Ortega Frame on the rear windows.

“Easy enough to paint over it,” Fox said. “But they didn’t bother changing the plate.”

“How else could they waste our time on this wild good chase?” Walsh asked, tone dry, but Fox could read the tension in him, the lines of it pressed as grooves into his forehead. “Let me do the talking.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Fox said, as they headed for the door. “Shane, why don’t you ever challenge him?”

Shane cast a glance back over his shoulder, mildly amused. “I think you do enough of that for the whole family, Charlie.”

“Heh,” Albie deadpanned. “Got you there.”

Tenny trailed along silent and bored-looking behind his aviators, but Fox knew he held his own tension, and that it had nothing to do with this interview, and everything to do with the fact that he’d nearly stabbed his best friend last night.

That was a conversation for later. Right now: this.

A bell above the door jangled merrily as they entered. It was a small shop, that smelled of lacquer, its walls lined with frame samples, stacked up one above the other, pointing like arrows to the ceiling.

The proprietor – presumably Ortega – stood at the counter in back, and looked up at the sound of the bell. Fox noted the way his gaze widened as it skimmed across their cuts. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” Walsh said; he and Shane headed for the counter.

Fox left them to it. Tenny had immediately slipped off down an aisle, and Fox followed at a slight distance. He was aware of Albie behind him, hovering, and cast a glance back.

Albie nodded toward Tenny’s back and mouthed, What’s with him?

Fox shook his head; he wasn’t going into that here, now. If Albie had remained this oblivious – and of course he had, he only had eyes for Axelle and his shop right now – then he could remain so a little longer.

He hung back, thankfully, and Fox tailed Tenny around an endcap and into the next aisle, this one’s shelves loaded with ready-made frames whose stock images could be replaced with personal photos or drawings.

Tenny reached out and tapped a pane of glass with the back of a fingernail. “You aren’t being subtle.”

“Not trying to be.” Fox drew up beside him. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you last night before you hid away in your room like a child.”

Tenny hissed a dismissive noise, lip curling as he side-stepped, trying to put some space between them.

Fox let him have it – but he didn’t drop the matter. “You nearly stabbed him. You did slice him up.” He let the words settle between them, watched the way Tenny’s jaw clenched. “Proud of yourself?”

Tenny turned to regard him through the mirrored lenses of his shades, and his effort to hold still, to not even swallow, was obvious – at least to Fox.

“You know,” Fox said, conspiratorial now, “Eden and I have been known to fight like cats and dogs. We were absolute bastards to each other when we reunited in London. But trust me: it’s a lot easier to just fuck, get it out of your system, and then carry on like adults.”

Tenny did swallow then, throat moving like it was dry and difficult. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, turning away, moving down the aisle in the same aimless way as before – but his shoulders were drawn up now, the line of his back rigid beneath his cut.

“If you deny it,” Fox said, and Tenny paused, hand half-outstretched toward another frame, finger poised to tap, “if you deny yourself this. You’ll be angry every day for the rest of your life. Anger like that will make you more human, sure – and more dangerous.”

Tenny took a breath and let it out slowly, whole body moving.

“Haven’t you gone long enough without ever having anything you want?”

Fox thought, for a moment, as Tenny wet his lips and gathered another breath, that he would respond, even if it was just to tell him to fuck off. But he kept silent, and moved off again.

When they reached the end of the aisle, Walsh was waiting. “The van was stolen two-and-a-half weeks ago. Overnight, out of this lot. He filed a police report.” He held up a flash drive. “And he made copies of the security footage that night.”

Fox nodded. “Where to next, oh wise and powerful vice president?”

Walsh smirked. “Your house.”

~*~

Eden had three laptops open on her desk, and flitted between all of them, barefoot and stripped down to just a t-shirt and the black jeans she’d worn earlier, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. “So, timeline.” She pointed to the corkboard, and the transcript of Jimmy Connors’ confession to Ghost; Fox had recorded it. “Our mystery dealers approach Jimmy, and start feeding product.

“Next, the van is stolen outside of Ortega’s.” She pointed to the first laptop, open on the paused security video which showed two masked men breaking into and hotwiring the van.

“Night of the party.” A spread of glossy photos she’d taken at the mill, and the second laptop, open to the lab results from Ratchet’s friend, confirming that shirt had belonged to Allie Henderson. “Allie goes missing, and Jimmy claims Ricky chased her off behind the mill, and she disappeared. There we have blood – on its way to the lab – signs of a struggle, and tire tracks.

“Today.” The third laptop, the traffic cam footage pulled up. “Nicole Myer is abducted outside of her place of work, with no contact since.” She straightened, and bit absently at one ragged thumbnail. “I’ve spoken with her parents, and tried not to alarm them, but they were headed down to the precinct, apparently.” She turned to survey them. “All of this smells like trafficking to me. Now we have to find where they’re being held.” Her expression shifted from fractious, to furious. “And find our Fred and Ricky as well.”

Fox was struck by a hefty dose of déjà vu.

Albie, too, judging by his frown. He had a shoulder braced in the doorjamb of the office, arms folded. “Why is this sounding so terribly like Texas?” he asked with a sigh. “It’s another manhunt.”

“No dead bodies yet,” Axelle said. She was seated in Eden’s office chair, twisting it aimlessly side-to-side. She shrugged. “For whatever that’s worth.”

“It’s worth a little,” Eden said. She turned to Walsh. “Any chance you know which empty barn or warehouse might be holding abducted girls?”

“Not off the top of my head, no. I say we lean on Jimmy again. They came to him, some, but he must have gone to them as well.”

Eden nodded. “I also asked your Lieutenant Fielding for a list of all the reported missing persons in the last three months. The victims we found in Texas were female, and all post-pubescent, so, using that criteria, I've found another of interest.” She plucked a print-out off the desk and handed it to Walsh, who then passed it around the room.

Shauna Davis, age twenty-five. The photo was of a slight girl with dark hair and a shy smile. She looked retiring, pulling back from the camera, her arms around a small dog, but her eyes were keen and bright, intelligent.

“She lived alone,” Eden said, as Fox passed the flier on to Albie. “When she failed to show up at work for three days in a row – she was a veterinary technician – a coworker went to her place and found it empty. The mail had piled up, and the dog had soiled the rug, and all the sinks were bone-dry. Her car was found a few days later in the Kroger parking lot.”

“Security footage?” Walsh asked.

“Fielding says no. They checked back when it happened, but the car was too far from the store to make out anything definitive.”

Albie shook his head and handed the flier off to Shane. “This is exactly what was happening in Texas – only no one realized it until the murders started. It brewed for months before shit escalated.”

“So maybe this is just the beginning,” Walsh said. “Maybe we’re catching it early.”

Eden said, “Knowing about it isn’t stopping it. And right now, it’s open season on pretty young women in Knoxville.”

“Jesus.” Walsh wiped his hands down his face. “I’ll call Ghost. We need to get hold of Jimmy again. I need to get on the horn with some real estate agents: see if there’s property for sale that fits our bill, and is sitting empty.” He surveyed them all. “Em wants to have dinner. Family dinner.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re all invited, if you want to come.” His gaze sought Tenny, who was busy examining his nails, and didn’t look up. “You too, Ten.”

Belatedly, Tenny lifted his head. “Me?”

“You’re family, aren’t you?” Shane asked, encouraging in that totally un-Devin-like way of his.

Tenny lifted a shoulder in an indifferent shrug, unaffected.

“Bring Reese,” Fox said, on impulse – a rather mean one. When Tenny glanced his way sharply, he grinned at him. “Unless you have another date in mind?”

Tenny sneered viciously at him, but he wore his sunglasses up on top of his head, now, and he couldn’t hide the panic that flared in his gaze. He turned away, and slouched to and out through the front door. His bike didn’t start, though; he was waiting for them.

“I can’t ask after him,” Albie said, dryly, “but you can antagonize him. I see how it is.”

“It’s good that you do. Shall we go?”

~*~

“You’re the closest to him in age,” Ghost reasoned. “Well, besides the prospects, but those three are idiots, so.”

“I was there last night when Tenny almost” – Carter drew a finger across his throat. “I don’t think he’ll want to talk to me.”

“Well, he has to talk to someone, and you’re, I dunno, good at making people feel relaxed. Just drive him around.” He offered his own truck keys, the shiny, black Ram waiting behind him in the parking lot. “Fox and the boys will tail you, and they’ll go in if there’s any place that needs to be searched. Okay?”

Carter took the keys, nodding, feeling a bump that wasn’t excitement, but was a sort of gladness to have been trusted like this, especially so soon after last night’s near-disaster. “Yes, sir.”

Twenty minutes later, Jimmy Connors climbed into the passenger seat at Flash Customs, pale with no small amount of trepidation.

His father stood at the open driver’s side window, glaring at Carter. “If you think you’re gonna abduct my son–”

“I’m gonna drive your son around and try to jog his memory, which is a better deal than he’d get from the police,” Carter said, flatly. “He’s involved enough in Allie Henderson’s disappearance, and possible murder, to be arrested. Maybe you should calm the hell down and be grateful this is the worst that’s happening to him.”

The man’s face purpled, but he stepped back, and didn’t comment further.

Carter put the truck in drive and pulled out of the lot, Fox, Tenny, and Reese behind them on their bikes.

Jimmy shifted in his seat. “I can’t help you,” he said, voice petulant and young. “They didn’t tell me shit. I have no idea what happened to Allie.”

Carter sighed as he braked at the first red light. “But you cared about her, yeah?” A glance proved that Jimmy’s face paled further, and he gulped, audibly. “You wanted to go out with her, so that means you actually liked her, didn’t it? Or were you just trying to get your dick wet?”

Jimmy spluttered a protest. “No! I didn’t – we never – I cared about her, okay? I like liked her, man.”

Like like. Carter felt horribly old, suddenly.

He nodded. “Okay, so, if you care, then you should want us to find her, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re the last one – besides your drug dealer friends – who saw her alive. So cooperating saves your skin, and hopefully saves hers, too.” He didn’t mention Nicole, too afraid that Jimmy would feel like he was being accused and clam up like he had last night. “Where did you meet them aside from the shop?”

Jimmy fidgeted again, toying with his seatbelt, but he said, “A house, sometimes. Take a left at the next light.”

Carter turned on his blinker.

As they headed down the next street, Jimmy muttered, “You guys are drug dealers, too.”

“What was that?”

Jimmy hitched up straighter in his seat and turned to face him, feeling brave, apparently. “You guys deal drugs, too.” An accusation, petulant and pouting.

Carter didn’t deny it, but he said, “What the Dogs don’t do is trick high school kids into dealing for us, threaten to kill their families, and kidnap underage girls.” He bit back a satisfied smirk when he glimpsed Jimmy’s chastened expression. “You made a dumbass mistake, Jimmy, and you’re paying for it – Allie may have paid for it with her life. You don’t get to pawn that off on us. Our sins have nothing to do with yours. Man up and take some responsibility for once in your shitty life.”

He heard the boy swallow again, but he didn’t talk back this time.

“Take the next right,” he murmured as they approached another intersection.

They proceeded in silence, save for Jimmy’s occasional directions, and they ended up in an alarmingly familiar neighborhood. Carter felt the old prickling of anxiety sweat between his shoulder blades as they passed modest, run-down houses with chain link fences and crowded carports; weed-choked lawns and Beware of Dog signs. The windows were rolled up tight, but he swore he could smell cigarette smoke, charcoal, and garbage left out in the sun.

His skin was buzzing, faintly, when Jimmy directed to a house only a few mailboxes down from the one where Carter had grown up; where his father still lived, presumably. He’d never bothered to keep up with the man after he came home from school, and didn’t plan to start now.

He took a deep breath, cleared his mind of the past, and refocused.

The house was small, probably a two-bedroom, chipped blue-painted siding, a carport, broken blinds in the windows and big flakes of rust on the iron porch rail. It looked vacant and abandoned, its carport empty, the grass of the yard waist-high and strewn with food wrappers and last fall’s leaves.

“This is it?” he asked.

Jimmy nodded, gaze tense and fearful now, pinned on the front of the house. “If the gate was open, it meant I could pull up. I would go in through the kitchen door.” A second set of concrete stairs led up from the carport to the side of the house.

“Did you see any other part of the house?”

“The bathroom, once.” He made a face, without looking away from the house. “It was nasty. So was the kitchen.”

“You went in, got the stuff, and got out.”

“Um…” He hesitated. “Sometimes I’d hang out a bit. They’d let me have a beer.”

Carter was starting to actively hate this kid. “How many times is ‘sometimes’?”

Jimmy shrugged uncomfortably. “Dunno. Five. Six, maybe.”

“And you’d hang out a few minutes. A few hours?”

“I dunno,” he said in a small voice. “I lost track of time.”

Carter huffed a sigh. “Were you so starved for friends you thought hanging out with a bunch of grown-ass criminals was a good idea?”

“I wasn’t–”

A sharp rap on the window startled both of them.

Carter whipped around and found Fox’s unimpressed face on the other side of the glass. Heart jumping, he rolled down the window.

Fox smirked, quickly, but then smoothed his expression and didn’t comment on Carter’s obvious startlement. “This is the place?”

“He says it is.”

“We’ll go take a look around. Watch the street. Call if something looks shifty.”

“’Kay.”

Tenny and Reese were already halfway up the driveway. Fox vaulted over the gate with the ease of long practice, and followed them.

“What’s up with those guys?” Jimmy wondered aloud.

“I dunno. They’ve got issues.”

~*~

There was a distinct chance the personal, silent tension between them would reach a tipping point in the midst of going through the house, and Fox would be forced to physically separate them, but he knew he didn’t have to tell his two proteges to step lightly and keep touching to a minimum. A glance, once they’d picked the lock on the side door, proved they’d both pulled on leather gloves without prompt.

Good boys, he thought with an inner surge of satisfaction, and tugged on his own.

“Take it they didn’t entertain much,” he said, examining the kitchen. A scuffed, Formica-topped table and three mismatched chairs sat in the center of the room, but aside from a fridge in one corner and a microwave on the counter, the rest of the room was bare.

Tenny pulled open an upper cabinet to reveal dust and dead moths.

Reese headed into the next room, and Fox followed.

Here there was moldy, stained carpet, mashed down from decades of foot traffic, and a sagging old sofa with a plastic slip cover. A TV – the old console kind, a lamp perched on top of it. One that clicked on, when Fox tested it: someone had paid the power bill recently enough that it hadn’t been shut off yet.

They found a grungy bathroom, and two bedrooms, each with bare mattresses on the floor. A few stray articles of clothing: a sock, a black t-shirt.

Fox picked the latter up, and sniffed it. “Sweat. And blood.” He held out a hand. “Let’s have a bag.”

Reese produced one, and passed it over.

“There’ll be DNA all over it.” He tucked it under his arm, and kept looking.

It became quickly apparent, though, that there wasn’t anything else to find. The bathroom cabinets held basic first aid supplies, mouthwash, and a few grubby towels; some rolls of toilet paper. They found beers in the fridge, along with ketchup, mustard, and mayo; a still in-date package of ham. Bread moldered in the pantry cabinet. But there weren’t any humans here, and Fox doubted there would be again.

On their last pass through, Tenny made an amused sound from over by the TV.

Fox paused in the doorway. “What?”

Tenny had crouched down, half behind the old console set, his back to the threshold. Reese stood a few paces behind him, his shoulders squared, and his bandaged hands curled into fists that had to hurt. Fox spared the boy a moment’s fleeting sympathy. There was a longing in him, too, even plainer, though perhaps more innocent than Tenny’s. A hurt, and a confusion. For all that he was easier to manage, and always more level-headed in a tight situation, he was still far less worldly. He was taking rejection hard, but he still didn’t understand, Fox didn’t think, that it was a rejection born of fear and self-denial, rather than any true hatred.

Twenty-Nine

Leah spent most of her afternoon online furniture shopping, browsing, mostly, though she did order some new bamboo window shades. She wanted to have her kitchen redone, but that would require professional help. She looked at tile and countertop samples until she was cross-eyed, and finally set the laptop aside to realize that evening was coming on strong, the shadows long and buttery across the floorboards, and that she’d skipped lunch and was starving. She wondered what Carter was doing; wondered how difficult his club errand had been.

As if summoned, her phone dinged with a text alert, and she scrambled for it across the coffee table.

It was Carter: Long day. We can still do dinner out, if you want. Or I can bring takeout and come over.

Immediately, butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She wanted to equate the feeling to when she’d first started dating Jason, but it had never been like that with him, only a low, pleasant warmth at being seen and listened-to. You could build a relationship on that, a life, even; for a long time, she’d thought she would. Thinking about Carter – now that she’d stopped denying herself and truly opened the door to the possibility – left her breathless and heated in a whole new, thrilling, cliché way that was nevertheless intoxicating.

Takeout’s good, she texted back.

Be there in 30.

She realized he hadn’t asked for her address, but that he probably hadn’t needed to: the rest of the guys knew it, Ava, too.

She shivered, and went to freshen up.

She had a minor crisis standing in front of her closet. What did one wear for a not-date in her own home with the boy who’d kissed her a few hours ago in a parking lot? Long day, he’d said, and it was just takeout, and it was just Carter, even if her pulse was pounding. She decided on casual: yoga pants and a bright orange t-shirt. She took her hair down, and shook it out; touched up her lipstick, a soft peach that wasn’t too loud for the occasion.

She straightened her bedspread and plumped her pillows for good measure. “Wishful thinking,” she muttered to herself, but was grinning.

A knock sounded at her front door ten minutes later, and she opened it to find Carter standing on her new welcome mat, two paper bags from Stella’s in his arms.

There was a moment, before she found her voice and invited him in, when their gazes locked, and it hit her all over again, like it had that morning, in the few heartbeats before he stepped in close and touched her face. This was him. This was her. This was happening, when neither of them had ever anticipated such a thing. She wondered if the unexpected quality of it was what made it so thrilling – or if the thrill was long overdue. If this was always supposed to happen. She didn’t believe in fate, so she guessed there was no way of knowing.

Then she pushed the door wide and stepped aside. “Hey, come in. Wow, how did you carry all that on your bike?”

“I didn’t. I’ve still got Ghost’s truck.” He wiped his boots on the mat before stepping carefully inside. “Oh, this is nice.”

“It needs some updates.” She closed the door. “But it’s roomy, and the neighbors are quiet.”

He nodded, surveying her living room, and the big, ugly sofa, and the kitchen, and its laminate counters, and she couldn’t feel self-conscious about it when his face was nearly serene – definitely approving.

“Where should I put–”

“Oh, just on the bar there. I’ll get plates.”

They portioned up the pasta and chicken he’d brought. Leah poured them both wine, and they sat down at her new kitchen table, across from one another. All they needed was a candle and some violin music in the background, and it would have felt like a real date.

Carter ran a finger along the edge of the table. “Not that I’m an expert or anything, but Albie does make nice-looking furniture.”

“It’s gorgeous.” Every time she ate at it, she paused to admire the intricate design of the top, the sheen of the varnish. “You bikers are all just full of surprises,” she teased.

He shrugged and speared a tomato. “Some of them, anyway.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You have hidden skills.”

His head, and then his brows lifted, a smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.

She realized how that must have sounded, and knew she blushed. “I was talking about football,” she said, waving her fork at him in admonishment. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Uh-huh.” He innocently went back to his food. “Though, considering I’m a sex fiend–”

“I’m never gonna hear the end of that, am I?”

“Considering you came up with it? Nope,” he said, pleasantly. A pause, and then he said, “But, for the record, as a sex fiend – it’s safe to say there are other hidden talents, too.” He shot her a wink, and a blast of heat flooded her insides.

She’d not ever allowed herself to wonder about him in that way before. But she let herself wonder now, for just a moment, and the images that flashed through her mind, all promised in that smirk and that wink and the wind-ruffled yellow-gold of his hair, were specific. Graphic. Shocking, because this wasn’t a favorite actor prowling over her body, but Carter, very real, and very here, right across the table from her.

Winking at her.

She had to get a grip.

“Um.” She reached for her wine, and his smirk widened into a true grin, straight, and white, and handsome as sin. “Stop. I’m trying to make conversation.”

He made a go ahead gesture with his fork.

“Conversation,” she repeated, after a healthy sip. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“You sure?”

“Sue a girl if she hasn’t gotten laid in a while and you look like” – she motioned toward him helplessly – “that.”

He leaned back a fraction, expression slipping. She’d surprised him, she realized, but hadn’t expected to.

It was his turn to struggle for words. “You, uh – you like the way I look?”

“Are you seriously asking that?”

He shifted a little in his seat, uncomfortable. “I guess, yeah.”

Duh, you idiot, she thought. Have you seen yourself? There was no way someone like him could look in the mirror and doubt his beauty. But he sounded skeptical, and doubt flashed in his eyes.

Maybe it wasn’t about his objective good looks. Maybe…maybe he worried whether or not she was attracted to him.

She considered their conversation that morning, and set her fork down. Laid both hands flat on the table and held his gaze, though it left her pulse jumping and her skin shivering. “Carter,” she said seriously, “I didn’t expect this, but that doesn’t mean I’m not – invested. Yeah, I like the way you look.” Doubt on his face, still, before she said, “Mostly because I know it’s you under the blond locks and the prom king smile.” She offered her own smile, and hoped it was enough. “I like you. The looks are a definite bonus, but they’re not the reason I came to see you this morning.”

“Oh,” he said, softly. “That’s. Good.” He ducked his head back over his plate, cheeks tinging pink.

She’d embarrassed him, and that was adorable. But things felt too heavy, too fast.

She picked her fork back up and said, “So what was the emergency earlier?”

He nodded, swallowed, and looked up with obvious relief at the change of subject. Then his brow furrowed. He twirled pasta onto his fork. “Another girl went missing. The first girl’s best friend.”

“Shit,” she said, with feeling.

He nodded. “This one we got on traffic cam: some guy went into the shop where she worked, said something to make her come outside with him, and then he wrestled her into a van and took off with her.”

Her bite of food fell like lead into her stomach. “Right in broad daylight?”

“Yeah. In the middle of downtown.”

“Jesus. And nobody saw anything? Nobody called the police?”

“The shop owner gave us a good description of the guy, and we chased a few more leads today, but so far, we don’t have enough to pin down a suspect.”

“Did the friend know too much? Why her? Why – why any of it? Is this a serial killer?” The idea sent a hard shudder through her, one that Carter noticed.

He laid a hand on the table between them, not close enough to touch her – he would have had to lean forward for that – but it was obviously meant as a gesture of reassurance. He tilted his head, and she had the sense he chose his words carefully – trying to be honest without frightening her, she thought. “Eden – that’s Fox’s old lady – says this is looking like what happened in Texas a few months ago. She thinks the girls aren’t being killed – that they’re being trafficked.”

“Jesus,” she said again, and this time her pulse wasn’t leaping because of his cute face. “But why would – hold on. Why would Knoxville high school girls get snatched?”

He shrugged. “Why not? They’re just looking for pretty girls they can get lots of money for. And, if this is the same guy who was doing it in Texas, then he’s got a mad hard-on for the Dogs for some reason.”

“Oh. Well. That’s comforting.”

He winced. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to scare you.”

“No, it’s – it’s good to know. That there’s human traffickers in Knoxville, shit.” She shook her head, and attempted a smile. “Thankfully, I’m not a hot, young high school student.”

Carter didn’t look amused.

“Not exactly the target demographic,” she tried again.

But his frown only deepened. “I want you to be careful,” he said. “Keep a lookout for anything weird. Don’t go anywhere with anyone you don’t know.”

“I won’t. I’m always careful.”

But he didn’t seem to hear her, gaze going distant and glassy as he stared at her. He leaned back, braced his hands on the edge of the table. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit…”

“Carter…”

“No, it’s – Candy’s wife, Michelle. She and Axelle. They got snatched in Amarillo. The guy – his name is Luis – had them chained up and shit.” His face had paled, and his next breath shivered. “They managed to get loose, and then Candy and the guys found them. Luis got away. The girls were safe, but – what if they hadn’t been? What if Luis had moved them out of town? Trucked them off somewhere? He won’t make the same mistake again. But there’s no reason he wouldn’t try to hurt another old lady.”

Leah took another long sip of wine – what the hell, she drained the glass, and got up to get more. She brought the bottle back to the table with her, and found Carter with his forehead in one hand, staring unseeing at his plate.

She refilled her glass and said, “So, this is fun.”

“I’m sorry.” He wiped his hand down his face and sat up. Shook his head, blinked his vision clear. “It just hit me: I’ve been thinking about all the girls that could be in danger, but the women attached to the club are in danger, too. I…” His gaze landed on her face, and he trailed off. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and her stomach tightened unpleasantly. “We haven’t. If you don’t want–”

“Carter.” She aimed the neck of the bottle at him, and he fell silent. “Ava’s my best friend. I’m at her or Maggie’s all the time. I’m already attached to the club.”

Sadness deepened the sun lines around his eyes and mouth. “Yeah,” he said, softly. “I don’t want you to get hurt. Or…”

There were worse things than being hurt, she knew, and he didn’t say. Silence fell heavily between them.

“It’s always something with the club, huh?” she said, attempting a smile.

“I wish there wasn’t,” he lamented.

“That’s the price that comes with being top dog – literally speaking, I guess. People come after you.” He looked miserable, and she hated that things kept going off in odd directions, that they couldn’t just make small talk, and steal heated glances at one another, and wind up making out on the couch. Why did things have to be so difficult?

No, not difficult. Unusual. He was a Lean Dog. Normal social convention didn’t apply.

It shouldn’t have been a revelation, but it was a little bit. She’d had ordinary; had safe, and normal, and socially acceptable.

Carter may have been that once upon a time, in high school, maybe, but that wasn’t his life anymore. If she chose him, she had to accept that.

She did accept that.

“Tell me something good,” she said, softly, and his gaze flickered back up to meet hers. Questioning, uncertain. If she didn’t handle this the right way, manage to draw him back in, he would leave, she thought, and tell himself he was sparing her somehow. Protecting her. “Tell me something that happened today that was good.”

His brows lifted, and, slowly, his expression cleared – to one of quiet wonder. He wet his lips. “Um.” Thought a moment, and then a second, softer wave of surprise seemed to hit him. “Ghost complimented me.”

She knew Kenny Teague well enough to know that compliments were rare and sparing things. She smiled encouragingly. “That’s awesome! What did he say?”

“He said I was good with people. That I put them at ease.” He sounded like he couldn’t believe it. “He sent me out as the lead today.”

“In Ghost-speak, that’s better than a compliment. That’s, like, a ringing endorsement.”

“Yeah.” His brows drew together. “Something went down last night, after I left…”

The coffeeshop. After a conversation that she didn’t want to dwell on, and which she suspected he didn’t want to, either.

“I was the only patched member there, and I was just trying to contain it, but. Mercy said something, after. He said I was ‘stepping up.’ He said I always acted like I didn’t care what went on around the club.”

“Well, that can’t be true.”

“No, it…I think maybe it is. It was,” he amended. “But it felt good today to be a part of things. To feel like I was contributing, you know?”

She nodded. “I know.” The poor thing had been very lost for a long time, now, and she had the sense she was witnessing him finding his way, shakily, nervously, back to the path of his life. A different one that he’d started out on, sure, but no less worthwhile, for all that it didn’t resemble everyone else’s.

He blinked, and refocused, his expression softening. “What about you? Tell me something good that happened to you today?”

Heat flared to life again inside her, simmering and comforting this time. “I manned up and told the truth,” she said. “And then this incredibly hot biker boy kissed me.”

His smirking, teasing grin from before creeping back, twice as welcome now, twice as thrilling.

“So that was pretty good.”

He picked up his fork again and went back to twirling pasta. “Yeah, that sounds pretty good.”

~*~

They ate, and Carter helped her load the dishwasher, though she told him he didn’t have to. They topped up their glasses, and went to sit on the couch, and it felt easier, now; like a splinter had been pulled out, sore spots lanced. Like another hurdle of mutual understanding had been leaped, and he wasn’t nervous anymore so much as pleasantly warm and glad to be sitting a few inches away from her. Carter was aware of a mutual, below-surface heat simmering between them, acknowledged, but silent, still. There was no need to rush this – even if it took a shocking amount of self-control not to grip her hair and reel her in like he’d been wanting to for days, now.

It turned out, once they stopped dancing around each other, it was shockingly easy to slide back into an easy friendship.

“It was so busy there,” she was saying of Chicago, gesturing with her half-full glass. He was afraid wine might slop over the side and splash the sofa, though, given its dated, ugly bulk, he didn’t figure she would mind that much. “And that was so exciting, at first. It was a real city, finally. The lights, and the traffic, and the way everyone walked, or took the bus, and it was all so crowded. It felt like being a part of something huge.” Her tone shifted, then, from wistful – it was obvious she’d enjoyed her time there, in the Windy City – to something a touch more glum. “Something so huge that you don’t matter at all. You’re literally an ant.” She held up thumb and forefinger, dark purple nail polish catching the light, gleaming bright as glass. “And busy is great at first – but then it got so I was tired all the time. You can’t take a breath. My boss was always emailing, or texting, or calling me. He’d want files sent over after nine at night. Which, I get it. That’s business. But then it would take two hours instead of two minutes to send, and I’d oversleep, and miss the bus, and some douche would bump into me in line at Starbucks and spill hot coffee all over my jacket, which I couldn’t afford in the first place.”

“Someone spilled hot coffee on you?” he asked, alarmed.

She waved the concern away. “It all went on the jacket, which was ruined. Four-hundred bucks down the drain. But I was trying to keep up with everyone else’s fashion at the office – my whole purple hair and Doc Martens schtick wasn’t exactly the done thing where I worked.” She rolled her eyes, and then held out her arms. “Which is how we got the new, improved, more appropriately fashioned me.” She sounded bitter, and it troubled him. Leah was the sort of person who’d always struck him as shockingly confident, adaptable, and unbothered. She’d changed her style a little, sure – though she still had bright nails, and loud shoes, and wild pops of color here and there. He’d thought she’d chosen to tone her look down a little, and not that she resenting having to try and fit in anywhere.

“You could dye your hair again,” he suggested, carefully, “if you miss it.”

She scrunched up her nose, and titled her head, considering – adorably so. “Working for Shaman? Doubtful.” She shrugged, and slumped against the sofa back, folded arm hooked over it, so she sat sideways, facing him. He read a lot of trust in that pose, an easiness and total lack of concern. It warmed him, maybe more than it should, given its innocence. “But. I liked my hair, back in the day. But I don’t miss it. That wasn’t really why I was secretly glad to come back home.”

“Secretly?”

“I wasn’t supposed to want to, was I?” She made a face. “That’s why everyone hates all those Hallmark movies, right? The girl has a big job in a big city, and she gives it all up to move back home to her small town.”

He shrugged. “Not that I watch those movies” – he’d watched one or two, with Jazz; Leah’s chuckle said she could see right through him, and he felt himself blush – “but Knoxville isn’t exactly the sticks.”

“No. But it’s different. It’s quieter. More personal. It’s not all rush-rush, bitch-bitch, never-sleep is it? It’s Southern,” she said, finally, nodding. “I felt like coming back here was admitting defeat or something. Like I wasn’t cut out for that life in Chicago – but, God, it’s a relief. I missed my parents. I missed my best friend.” She grinned, small and sideways. “I missed the sound of motorcycles, to be honest. Game day traffic, and real barbecue, and watching the sun set.”

He smiled back. “All good things. Game day traffic does suck, though.”

She chuckled. “Do y’all ever go tailgate on the river?”

“Once or twice. Ian has this obnoxious fancy boat and he invited us out once. Dude knows nothing about football, but he likes to drink champagne and be – what’s the word?”

“Ostentatious?”

“If that means obnoxiously fancy for no reason, then yeah, that.”

“I haven’t been inside Neyland in forever.”

“I haven’t been in any SEC stadium since I quit playing. Have you seen how pricey tickets are these days?”

“Now that I don’t have to pay bus fare, maybe I’ll treat you sometime,” she said, with a playful eyebrow waggle.

“I didn’t even think you liked football.”

“I didn’t like the kids who liked it when we were in high school. The sport itself never tried to shove me in a locker.”

“Tried?”

“You think I let them?” she asked, archly.

“Never.”

They grinned at each other, and he thought she was as keenly aware as he was that they’d lived on very different sides of the social divide for a long time, but that the divide stopped mattering once you grew up. Priorities changed, people did – prejudices, too.

“You really don’t miss it?” he asked. “Chicago?”

She hesitated. “Parts of it, sometimes.”

“Do you…want to talk about him?” Jason, she’d said his name was, but Carter couldn’t bring himself to say it. Whoever he was, wherever he was, whatever he looked like – he was an idiot.

“No,” she said, right away. But then: “He wasn’t a bad guy. But it wasn’t…”

“Wasn’t what?” he asked, quietly, heart throbbing with a hope he couldn’t name. It was selfish, and stupid, and primitive, but he relished the idea of being more than Jason had been, in every capacity. He was so used to being an afterthought and a runner-up. He didn’t think he would be that with Leah, and the prospect was dizzying.

“Wasn’t special,” she finished, expression indicating she still hadn’t found the right word, but was making do. “I didn’t want him badly enough to try and hold on when he pulled away.” Whatever his face was doing, it caused her to smile, and reach to lay a hand on his arm, where it rested in his lap. “It’s alright. I’m not heartbroken or anything.”

No, she wasn’t. He was the one she was worried about breaking her heart, though he still couldn’t imagine anyone being capable of that, not with Leah.

“That’s good,” he said, tone rougher than intended, his gaze on her small hand, with its purple nails, resting on the tan skin of his arm. The hair there prickled to attention, chill bumps skating up to his elbow and down to his wrist. As if she noticed, her fingers curled a little more tightly. “Is this too soon?” he asked, and it was only a whisper now, afraid of the answer.

“Is it too soon for you?” she countered.

He lifted his head and met her gentle gaze, quietly concerned now, and no longer teasing.

“I shouldn’t have called you a sex fiend,” she said, apologetic. “I don’t know…?”

“Jazz. Jasmine.”

“I don’t know Jasmine, but you care about her, and I shouldn’t–”

The impulse to touch her struck, and struck hard; he didn’t try to deny it. He’d set his wine glass aside minutes ago, and he reached now with his free hand, the one not in his lap, beneath her hand, and cupped her cheek.

She was smaller in every dimension that Jazz, than maybe anyone he’d been with. Her jaw felt delicate and fragile in his palm; he felt the hummingbird beat of her pulse in his fingertips, in the soft skin just behind her ear. How little she was, how strong inside, but how breakable outside. Unbidden, thoughts of the missing girls filled his mind; he heard Eden’s sharp, bitter tone when she lamented Michelle and Axelle being taken, as if there was something she could have done personally to stop it. A whole clubhouse full of Dogs hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it.

Fear clenched hard in his belly, and he let out a shaky breath, gaze fixed to his thumb as it swept delicately along the fine skin of her cheek. He didn’t want to be afraid, not now, not in this moment, but wanting to kiss her, wanting to touch her, was all tangled up with wanting to keep her safe, and the pulse of desire it sent spearing through him left him gasping, a little.

Her eyes widened; he was probably worrying her, but he couldn’t do anything to alter that, not now.

“Carter.”

“I am a sex fiend,” he said, wholly serious, and felt the little shiver that moved through her. “You’re right about that. I’ve been trying to drown my unhappiness with sex for a long time now, and that doesn’t work. It won’t make the bad shit go away.” He let his hand shift, palming slowly, gently down the slide of her throat, his thumb tracing her scattered pulse, feeling the flower-stem fragility of her neck. It had never been like this for him, this interlocking of want and fear and attraction and anticipated devastation. It was heady, and wonderful, and terrifying, and he was very, very glad of the years, the days, the hours he’d spent trying to drown himself, because it meant he had something – hopefully – worthwhile to offer to this girl who was giving him a chance to be something besides an afterthought.

He wet his lips, and leaned in closer, just as she swayed toward him, her lashes lowering a fraction. “But,” he said, shocked by the throatiness of his own voice, “I like to think I learned a thing or two along the way. I’m not a clumsy high school kid anymore.”

“No,” she breathed out, faintly, swaying even closer. “Definitely not that.”

He trailed his hand down to the join of neck and shoulder, thumbing briefly at her collarbone, sharp and just-visible in the open V-neck of her shirt. Then back up, pad of his thumb pressed to her chin, to her lower lip. He reveled in the way she responded, mouth parting, breath sighing out of her. He wasn’t a dumb kid anymore; he could make her feel good, could make it so, so much better than Jason ever had – why shouldn’t he show off a little? Why not enjoy making her pulse race and her skin shiver and her blood pool low in her belly, down near where she would start to ache for him?

“Leah–”

“Wait.” He froze, worried as she moved – but it was only to lean over and set her glass on the coffee table. When she leaned back, she leaned all the way back, got up on her knees on the cushion, put her hands on his shoulders, and she was right here, lips damp and glistening from the pass of her own tongue, dark lashes thick as fans against her blushing cheeks. “Okay,” she breathed.

He tangled both hands in her hair, finally, its cool, silken heaviness, pulled her in, and kissed her.

Gentle at first, careful. But her hands tightened on his shoulders, and her lips opened right away, and it was easy as anything to angle his head, and slip his tongue between her lips. Opening her up for him, sealing their mouths with a hot, wet press.

He got lost to it, for a minute. The slick slide of lips, and tongues; she tasted like wine, and her lips were so soft, and her hair was watered silk through his fingers.

She made a sound, a little whimper, and Carter realized he’d gotten way too aggressive way too fast. He pulled back, and found that he’d bent her back against the arm of the couch, bearing down on her with intent, kissing her with the kind of wild avarice that led to skin on skin. Not kissing because it was nice, but kissing with intent.

Shame washed through him, and he opened his fingers, intending to push back from her. He’d gotten so used to Jazz’s no-frills, forward approach to sex that he was skipping all sorts of steps, violating Leah’s trust; shit, he was all but dominating her.

“I’m–” he started. Sorry got caught in his throat when he got a look at her face, her lips kiss-swollen, her eyes low-lidded, cheeks flushed.

Her lashes fluttered as she glanced up at him, lips parting on a soft breath. “Why’d you stop?”

He leaned back in – but caught himself. Paused. “Is it too much?”

She smiled. “No, you dummy.” Caught his shirt collar, and reeled him in the rest of the way.

~*~

Carter was the sort of guy that people her grandparents’ age always described as a “nice young man.” Unfailingly polite, and modest; quiet, careful, mannerly. He opened doors and always thanked people properly; said ma’am and sir. When he was nice, he was so nice, and it would have been easy to imagine him as a sweaty-palmed, fumbling, overeager lover, done in a minute and not worth the effort, in hindsight.

But there was another side to him, lurking underneath. The side that had made him so light on his feet on the football field, such an accurate passer, so rarely sacked. It was visible, in rare moments, in the sharp corner of a smile, in the way the light would catch his blue eyes just so, a sparkle, a sly little sideways glance. At times, he looked like he had a secret; it was visible, in those moments, the way he tucked that cockier persona away behind his polite mask.

Leah had been glimpsing more and more of it lately, especially tonight. She thought tonight she’d gotten her first good, long look at the real Carter; the person he was when he wasn’t trying to obey orders or toe the line. His father’s ready backhand had molded him into someone eager to please – but tonight she thought she understood that he wanted to be pleased, too.

She realized now that she’d still managed to underestimate him.

His kiss was straight-up sex.

She couldn’t get over his hands in her hair, and the hot, relentless stroke of his tongue, forward, and intimate, and unforgiving. She’d thought he might be a good kisser, but she hadn’t anticipated him taking control like this.

It was spine-meltingly good.

Right up until he pulled back.

Her pulse throbbed in her temples, and throat, and beat wildly against her ribcage. It was an effort to open her eyes; catching her breath wasn’t possible.

She saw the guilt flash across his face. Saw him gather a breath to speak.

“Why’d you stop?”

She watched hesitation war with want on his face, open, and raw, and the most unguarded she’d ever seen him. Doubt, and worry, and hunger – the kind of hunger you wouldn’t think to see in a self-professed sex fiend. He’d gotten up to some wild shit, the particulars of which she didn’t ever want to know, but it hadn’t satisfied him, she saw now. He was a boy with two appetites, and only one had been served.

“Is it too much?”

Her insides were already liquid, and they rippled and shivered in response to his earnest question, hushed and almost frightened. He didn’t want to scare her; didn’t want to push her too hard.

Any ideas she’d held about going slow promptly evaporated.

“No, you dummy,” she said, and pulled him back in.

He breathed a low, ardent groan against her mouth, and his hands tightened in her hair as he kissed her again. She started it, but he took over, that same relentless slide of lips and tongue, totally overwhelming.

She lost time, in the heated middle of that kiss. Her neck grew weak and she let her head fall back; let him hold her, and ease her back against the arm of the couch. Felt the cushions dip beneath his weight; felt the heat and strength of him caging her in, and his mouth was as worshipful as it was aggressive.

Her whole body throbbed like a pressed-on bruise, alive and thrumming and ready; his hunger was contagious. She gripped the front of his shirt and tried to pull him closer; let her thighs fall open, and he settled between them. He was already half-hard; she could feel him stirring against her belly, plumping behind his fly.

His tongue stroked behind her teeth, and his hips hitched forward, an involuntary roll that pressed his hardening cock more firmly against her; his breath hitched, a sharp little inhale through his nose.

It was – so much, so fast.

It hit her suddenly, a little bolt of apprehension.

He felt it, too, because he drew back, braced above her, panting, flushed, his hair tousled – and, oh, when had she threaded her fingers through it? When had she slipped down to lie flat? His hand braced on the couch arm overhead.

He angled his hips back, away from her, so they no longer touched below the waist – save where her thighs bracketed his lean hips. They were halfway to dry-humping, and his eyes blazed, the blue shrunk down to a thin ring around his blown pupils.

Leah felt swoony, shocked at her own ardor.

She wet lips that were swollen beneath the stroke of her tongue; watched his gaze track the movement. “Maybe…”

“Yeah.” He sat back, and swung his legs around so he sat flat-footed, upright. No longer touching her anywhere.

Leah pushed up more slowly, and mirrored his pose, elbows on knees, feet braced apart. It wasn’t exactly ladylike on her part, but then, neither was what had just happened between them. So.

“That was…” she started.

“Too much?”

“I was going to say amazing.” She glanced over, and watched his head turn; watched his brows go up in quiet, beautiful surprise. She dredged up a smirk. “Were you aware you were that fantastic of a kisser?”

After a second, he smirked back. “Well. Maybe.”

She chuckled, and it eased the unnecessary tension in her chest. “Damn.” She knocked her shoulder into his. “Kudos.”

He chuckled, too – and then full-on laughed, face creasing with it, eyes scrunching up. “Kudos?”

“Take the compliment. Trust me.”

He laughed again, then it died away, slowly, his gaze still fixed on her. “I don’t…”

“You don’t what?”

He hesitated. Licked his lips – which was distracting. “I don’t really know where to go. From here.”

“Good.” The sudden, painful tension in her chest loosened. “Neither do I.”

They traded glances, and it felt like progress.

“Wanna watch TV?” she asked.

He nodded, and so they did.

Thirty

Fox assumed that Tenny wouldn’t come, but he appeared halfway through cheese and cocktails, and set an expensive bottle of red down on the kitchen island as a hostess gift. He was an asshole, sure, but he was a good actor; he played it up to Emmie until she was smiling quietly, in that subtle way of hers. She’d always been easily impressed, Emmaline – though, secretly, Fox admired and liked her. She’d seen through all Walsh’s bland effrontery straight off; been drawn to him in a way no one ever had. She’d earned major points for that; Walsh deserved to be loved, unreservedly, even if he would have denied himself.

They ate. Eden tried – and occasionally failed – to keep work out of it. After dinner, all the girls wound up in the small, back living room, a cozy den with a stone fireplace and plenty of overstuffed couches. Fox knew Eden was pitching her crusade to Emmie and Becca. He went to have a smoke on the porch with his brothers, but wandered back in for another beer, eventually.

It was only then that he realized Tenny had stayed inside; that he was in the kitchen, now, squared off across the gleaming island from Emmie.

Fox tucked himself in a dark corner to watch and listen.

“…horses, sometime?” Emmie was saying.

Tenny nodded. “I have – equestrian experience.”

Fox was surprised. It made sense – he knew that Tenny had been trained in so many things, as part of his creation as a prime operative. Rich, influential types – the types manipulated and targeted by the government – had horses, especially in Europe. Of course Tenny could ride – but it felt different, hearing it here, hearing him tell Emmie so, haltingly, awkwardly.

Emmie, to her credit, didn’t acknowledge his stiff, inhuman response. Only nodded. “I’ve got some lesson horses – school masters. Older and dependable. One’s even a western pleasure mount,” she said, smiling. Tenny smiled back, faintly, helpless to do otherwise. His hands, Fox saw, where they were splayed against the lip of the counter, were open and relaxed. They twitched in response to her words. “But there’s my boy – he’s confirmed Prix St. George, and advancing. Finicky, though. He chooses who he likes and who he tosses. I’ve got a couple young ones, though. I1 and ready to advance. I could always use a learned hand schooling them,” she said, head tilting in obvious invitation.

Tenny hesitated – and Fox didn’t think it was for show. He glanced down at his own hands, shifted his weight, and wet his lips. He looked nervous. “I can. If you want.”

Emmie beamed at him – Fox had honestly never seen her smile that wide. “Awesome! Can you come by Tuesday? Some of the babies are due to be worked.”

Tenny nodded, and mumbled something in the affirmative, before he slipped out of the room, ducking into the dining room.

Emmie stared at the place he’d been, smiling faintly, and nodded to herself.

Fox slipped into the room, taking up Tenny’s spot at the island. “Interesting.”

She adjusted smoothly; no sign of a surprise, just an indulgent, amused lift of her brows as she poured herself a glass of wine. “Is it?”

One of the reasons he liked her so much was the effortless way she made him work for every conversation. She could take the sort of comment that would send one of his brothers off in a huff, spin it right back on him, just as vague and deceptive, and suddenly he was explaining himself, and she was grinning. “His whole bashful real-boy routine with you just now.” He gestured toward the door Tenny had gone through. “All I get is teeth.” He imitated one of Tenny’s nastier sneers for her, and she grinned.

A grin that faded quickly, though. Her voice lowered – and softened. It was sincere. “That is one very broken boy, Charlie.”

He bit back a sigh. “Yeah.” He tipped his head, and pretended to consider her – though there was a note of truth to his request when he said, “Want to help me with him?”

She breathed a laugh. “You just need more practice.”

“Handled many government assassins, have you?”

“Horses,” she countered. “So, so many horses. You learn how to handle aggression. And fear,” she said, seriously. “I don’t know what he’s scared of, but it’s something.” Her head tipped, not quite an accusing angle, but close. Are you addressing that fear?

He lifted his chin, hands braced on the edge of the counter. “Alright, horse trainer. What do you think he’s afraid of?”

She snorted. “Everything, probably.” When he frowned, she said, “His whole world got upended. Every aspect of his life was planned out for him. They told him when to sleep, and when to work; which persona to put on. He didn’t have a shred of autonomy. He also didn’t have anyone to care about – or to care about him, beyond his usefulness.”

“Do you think I haven’t thought of this?” he asked, and though his tone was mild, he knew Walsh would have decked him had he been in the room and heard him ask that.

The little sideways twitch of Emmie’s mouth told him she knew it, too. “I’m sure you have. I’m sure you all have. But have any of you tried being kind to him? Or have you just barked orders and told him it was time to act like a member of this club – which he doesn’t know, and to which he has no loyalty.”

Fox had never liked the mental sensation of having a bucket of cold water poured over his head – he liked it even less now.

“You’ve treated him like he’s dangerous. Like he needs handling. Have any of you asked him what he wants?”

He swallowed – with effort, and he saw her gaze track the movement. Of course someone used to working with animals knew to search for the nonverbal cues. In Tenny…and in him.

Emmie’s tone gentled. “What is he? Twenty-three, twenty-four? He’s young, Fox. Maybe ask him if he wants to watch a ballgame or something. Go fishing.”

“Do I look like I fish?” he asked, aiming for teasing.

She shook her head, wry smile widening. “Maybe you ought to.” She picked up her glass and went to rejoin the other old ladies.

Fox stood staring at the place where she’d been a moment; above the sink, the sky had gone indigo beyond the window glass, that last flush of purple before the light failed completely.

He grabbed the beer he’d come to get – grabbed two – and then slipped silently through the house, and out the front door.

Tenny was visible as a lean slice of shadow halfway down the long, curving driveway that led down the hill to the barn. His strides easy, but ground-covering, his hands in his pockets. There was enough filmy twilight left that the white threads of his bottom rocker – PROSPECT – seemed to glow. He paused when he reached the circular parking pad in front of the barn, staring through the open double doors and down the aisle, face bathed in the soft glow of the overhead security light.

He stepped inside, and Fox headed that way.

If pressed, he would have admitted that he understood why Walsh loved this place. The cool, spring dark was alive with the chirp of crickets, and the first peep of tree frogs; it sounded like there were leagues of them, their trilling calls echoing across the fields, bouncing off the tree trunks at the forest edge. A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves overhead, and fireflies flickered to life out in the gloaming. He couldn’t hear any traffic, or sirens. No human shouts, no slamming doors, no horns honking; no domestics in progress. It had been like this in Texas, to an extent, drier, the coyotes always yipping. Tennessee had coyotes, too, but they were much larger, and much more likely to be part of a massive pack.

A part of him would always miss the bustle and crush of London, though. Even if he could breathe better here, there was a certain reassuring quality to the chaos. Humans he could handle; nature, not so much.

The barn – along with the rest of the property – was an overly fanciful dream of an estate, the sort of place neither Walsh nor Emmie could have owned individually, without the club’s help. Cupolas set at intervals down the center aisle contained chandeliers on dimmer switches, set to low, now, offering enough ambient light to illuminate the stall fronts, and the drowsy horse heads hanging over the doors.

Tenny stood halfway down the aisle, little more than a silhouette, hand held up for inspection while a horse with a frankly huge head – why did anyone need a horse that big, honestly? – sniffed at the backs of his fingers.

Fox debated, and decided he would announce himself; doubtless Tenny had already heard some near-silent tell: the scrape of a shoe, a kicked pebble. But Emmie’s words from minutes ago sat large in his mind. The quip he intended was bitten back; he took a breath, and called, “I have to get away from them all sometimes, too.”

Tenny’s only reaction was a sudden closing of his hand. The horse nudged him, and he opened it again, and let the animal lip at his palm.

Fox strolled the rest of the way to him and offered one of the beers.

Tenny looked over, slowly, whites of his eyes gleaming, gaze narrow, before accepting it and twisting the top off. The horse stretched out his neck, big nostrils flaring at he sniffed at it.

Kindness. He might have to fake that, at first, until he got the hang of it. “I didn’t know you were into the whole horse thing.” He aimed for curious.

Tenny shrugged, and went back to stroking the horse’s nose. It was a chestnut with a big white marking on its forehead. Its gleaming stall plaque proclaimed him Toby. “I have equestrian training. I worked an op in Saudi Arabia once; the crown princes all ride.”

A simple explanation, delivered without fanfare, but a sharp reminder: this boy had done unspeakable things, and been subject to them in turn, because he was ordered to. Not because he’d chosen to. Fox had honed his body and his mind, perfected languages and accents and personas – and all of it had been because he felt driven to do so. Because he’d seen the usefulness in it. Because he was, at heart, cold; he’d inherited all the worst of Devin Green.

But some of his brothers were kind. Appreciated normal, safe, wholesome things. He hadn’t figured Tenny was one of them…but maybe he was wrong. “Walsh used to be a jockey, you know.”

“I know,” he said. He trailed his fingertips up the strong bones of the horse’s face, careful in a way Fox had never seen him be before – but no one could have become so well-trained and technically perfect without a great amount of care.

“I’ve never been so inclined.” Fox leaned a shoulder against the stall front, out of reach of the curious Toby. “But maybe it runs in the family.”

Tenny didn’t comment; he hadn’t expected him to.

“You gonna come work some of them for Emmie?”

Tenny let out a short, sharp sigh that had Toby pulling his head back, and stepped away from the stall, shaking his head. “Congratulations on eavesdropping, you prick. What do you want?”

Again, Fox checked his initial reaction. You little shit, he thought. And then, Ugh, if anyone had the right to be…

He silently cursed his sister-in-law, and said, “The last time we spoke, you said there wasn’t brotherly concern between us, but that’s not true.”

Tenny cast a sharp, doubting look over his shoulder.

“I won’t bring it up again, since you so obviously don’t want to talk about it. But there is concern, at least for my part. If something’s bothering you, you can come to me. I wanted you to know that.” He shrugged. “That was all.”

He turned around and headed back out of the barn before Tenny could respond – positively or otherwise. Probably otherwise. He glanced back, though, before he returned to the house, and caught his silhouette again, edged with soft chandelier light; stroking the horse’s nose again, his head bent, his shoulders trembling.

Thirty-One

In his tenure as president, Ghost had learned to loathe early morning phone calls. If his cell chirped before sunup, it never meant anything good.

His eyes snapped open that Sunday and he was on instant, tense alert the moment he heard the chime. Maggie murmured something groggily beside him, sleepy fingers trailing down his arm.

He rolled over and snatched his phone off the nightstand, registering the faint bluish glow of just-before-dawn. “What?” he asked when he answered; he’d thumbed the screen without bothering to read the caller ID.

Walsh’s voice greeted him, heavy and serious. “There’s a scene at Bell Bar.”

~*~

The locks had been picked, and not busted, and secured afterward so that their lead contractor, Todd, hadn’t noticed anything amiss when he let himself in at ten ‘til seven. He was an early bird, didn’t mind working on Sundays, and trying to make up for lost time while supplies had to be reordered. He’d headed upstairs to retrieve a forgotten tool, and that was when he’d found it.

Or, rather, him.

“No obvious signs of struggle,” Walsh said, “at least not here. The blood fell straight down the sides of his throat and gathered there. It spread out to here, and here.”

Mercy toed one of the shiny bits of metal screwed down to the floor, the ones his bonds had been tied to. “Boat cleats,” he said. “Guess he thought that was clever.”

The pounding of boots on the stairs preceded Fielding, who burst into the room already winded and red-faced, in civilian clothes. His eyes bugged when he caught sight of the body. “Jesus Christ.”

Ghost took another drag off the second cigarette he’d lit since walking in here ten minutes before. “You can see why I didn’t want a forensics team out here yet.”

Vince looked at him wildly, eyes glazed with shock. “No. No I do not see that. This is a kid, Ghost! His parents need to – and the fucking – shit.”

“Yeah.”

Jimmy Connors had been tied by both wrists and both ankles, the bonds secured to the aforementioned boat cleats, which had been screwed down into the new plywood subfloor. He’d had his throat cut, on site, it would seem, and left to bleed out, most likely sometime in the wee hours of the morning, according the blood coagulation, and Walsh’s educated guess. His body had been laid out with his feet together, and both arms jutting straight out from his body.

“It’s just like in Texas,” Walsh said, standing, face twisted up uncharacteristically. “Staked out, throat cut. He must have been drugged, and I can guarantee the same paralytic is in his system the feds found in the Texas victims.”

“It isn’t just like Texas,” Fox observed. “They were spread-eagle, with their legs out, too.” He motioned with a negligent finger toward Jimmy. “This one’s in a T.”

“A T for Tennessee?” Mercy asked.

Albie murmured, “Jesus.”

Michael stared at the scene with arms folded, face set in harsh lines. He had no problem killing, not even unlikely targets. But there could be no approval or joy in this, not in a teenager who’d been displayed like this, as a message.

“Who did this?” Vince asked, voice faint. He sank down on his haunches beside the body; he didn’t seem able to take his eyes from it.

“Someone who’s trying to make us look bad. And who wants to send us a message,” Ghost said. He wasn’t giving Luis’s name up, not yet. Not until it was confirmed, and maybe not even then. Given what had happened in Amarillo, he thought it better to keep law enforcement out of it if at all possible. “There’s another thing.” When he motioned, Vince stood and followed him to the front wall: to the place where an upside-down yellow triangle had been spray-painted. The paint was still faintly wet to the touch.

“A tag?” Vince asked.

“Our best guess, with the color and shape, is that whoever it is is telling us to yield. You ever seen it before?”

Vince shook his head, both hands lacing together at the back of his neck – like he was holding on for dear life. He cut a sideways glance toward Ghost. “I have to call this in.” He said it desperately, more of a request than a statement; like he was afraid Ghost would say no, and that, given their record, he would have to go along with it. Showing that kind of weakness floored Ghost, though he didn’t show it. “I have to get people in here. Connors has to get the call from me, and not from you – it’s only right, Kenny.”

Ghost nodded. “Yeah.” They couldn’t start jumping too many normal channels in town without the rumor mill getting worse. “I hear you. But. You’ve got to handle it the right way.”

“The right…?”

“Suspicion can’t blow back on us. We didn’t do this. The guys who did are sending us a message, yeah, but Jimmy stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong, and he lied to us from the get-go.”

Vince stared at him a long moment, mouth tightening in a hard line, finally. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You already knew that about me. Don’t act surprised.”

~*~

Carter hadn’t expected to sleep well, still buzzing and keyed-up from his evening with Leah; his lips had felt swollen and unwieldy by the time he got back to the clubhouse. He’d expected to feel frustrated, after having pulled back. But instead, he’d been suffused with warmth, keenly aware of the phantom pulse that seemed to beat all down his side where Leah had leaned up against him in front of the TV. He’d fallen asleep with a smile on his face, and dreamed pleasant dreams for once.

Until he was awakened by a pounding on his door the next morning.

After that, the whole day went to shit.

“I don’t get it,” he said at table. His pulse was throbbing again, through his whole body, and no part of it felt pleasant, now. “I thought someone was watching his house!” He had his hands buried in his hair, and scrubbed them back and forth, wishing he could massage the mounting tension headache away.

“We did,” Briscoe said, tone heavy. He motioned to Dublin, who was smothering a yawn in his hand and lifting a coffee mug with the other. “We parked right in front of the house and didn’t move all night. Didn’t see anyone coming or going.”

“He musta snuck out,” Ghost said. He stood behind his chair at the head of the table, visibly coursing with energy as he frowned down at his now-empty coffee mug. He’d chugged it straight off. Without being asked, Harry got to his feet, and took it from him to go for a refill. Ghost nodded absently. “Put a slug of Jack in it this time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m letting Vince handle telling the family,” Ghost continued, one hand on his hip, the other on the back of his chair. “It’s not gonna be pretty, and I expect Connors to blow up and do something stupid. Keep your eyes open, because he will turn up here.

“I told Vince to take his people in and out the back of the building. No one’s been coming and going there save the crew, and Todd said he’d keep them all back. The last thing we need is a buncha crime scene tape out front and squad cars parked in front of the place. Vince agreed not to tell Connors where the body was found.”

Carter stared down into the depths of his own untouched coffee and the idea of taking a sip turned his stomach. This was not the first, nor would it be the last time Ghost broke things down into the cold language of club damage control. For him, the club, and his blood family were all that mattered. Oh, sure, he would help others if he could – but only if it didn’t require a personal sacrifice. It was an attitude that had expanded and protected the club, but it was one that still nauseated Carter when it made an appearance. When it painted tragedy in black-and-white figures and dispassionate edicts.

“It was going by that house that did it,” he said, before he could catch himself, and lifted his head to find that the whole table had fallen silent, Ghost cut off mid-sentence. “We took him to the house they were dealing out of, and now he’s dead. They must have seen us.”

“How?” Briscoe asked – demanded. He was rattled and angry that Jimmy had gone missing on his watch, Carter suspected. “Were you not watching for a tail?”

He’d checked his mirrors periodically, but maybe not as carefully as he should have…

“There could have been cameras in the house,” Fox said. “We followed them the whole way, and there were no tails.”

“Cameras would be smart,” Mercy said. “Then you’ve got dirt on your buyers.”

“Look,” Ghost said, impatient. “It’s nobody here’s fault. In hindsight, we shoulda been keeping the kid here overnight under lock and key.”

“Yes, because that worked so well in Texas,” Albie said, and his gaze, when Carter glanced toward him, was harder than he’d ever seen it. It left him wanting to recoil.

Ghost nodded. “Yeah. I don’t like the idea of keeping civilians here, especially not ones with targets on their backs.

“Right now,” he said, rerouting. “We’ve got to minimize the fallout. And we need to find who did this. We need to find them yesterday.”

“I’ve got a call in to my lab guy,” Ratchet offered. “He’s got access to the sketch Nicole’s boss gave us, and he’s running it through all the databases.”

“That could take forever,” Ghost said with a wave. “I want boots on the ground.”

“If Fred and Ricky were at Jimmy’s party, then some of the other kids there will have seen them,” Walsh pointed out. “Maybe even bought product from them.”

“Right,” Ghost said. “Let’s go back to Allie Henderson’s parents – Eden can be the go-between, since they’re familiar with her, now, and she–”

A soft knock at the door interrupted him. Evan poked his head meekly through the door. “Sorry, boss. But there’s a guy here who wants to talk to Carter. He says it’s important.”

Carter felt his brows go up. “To me?”

“Yeah. Said his name was Elijah.”

~*~

Leah slept terribly, but in a happy sort of way, too giddy with new excitement to settle into a proper REM cycle. She woke every time she rolled over, but would find herself remembering the feel of Carter’s lips against hers, her mouth tingling, and she would smile into the dark. It had been too long since she’d felt this way – about anything – and she wasn’t going to feel guilty for this schoolgirl rush of endorphins and fledgling emotions.

She finally quit pretending around six, and got up, fixed coffee and toast, and watched the sun come up through her living room window.

She was headed toward the bathroom to shower when she heard a knock at her door.

Leah wasn’t, by nature, the most cautious person. But the last few days talking to Carter about threats and missing girls had taken a toll, apparently, because an immediate bolt of fear shot through her when she realized there was someone at the door.

“Don’t be stupid,” she told herself, tightened her robe, fluffed her hair, and walked to answer it.

She paused, though, with her hand on the latch, and stood up on her tiptoes to peer out the peephole. An unfamiliar woman stood on the welcome mat, pretty, dark blonde. She offered a smile and a wave, as if she knew Leah would be looking.

An unfamiliar man stood behind her, and with the peephole’s distortion Leah could only make out tawny hair, and sunglasses – and a Lean Dogs cut.

An imposter? she wondered, full-on paranoid now. If someone wanted to harm the Dogs, committing crimes in ripped-off cuts would be an excellent way to do so.

Her hand tightened on the latch, and a tremor rippled up her arm.

But then the woman called through the door: “Leah? Hi, I’m Kris, and this is Roman. I live downstairs.”

Kris. That was the old lady Maggie had mention. Reese’s sister, Carter had said. Now that she looked closer, she could see the resemblance, in the shape of her nose and brows. The cool blue eyes, warmer on Kris, lit up with her kind, shy smile.

She unlocked the door and opened. “Uh, hi. Nice to meet you.” She couldn’t keep the frown from her voice or face, and Kris immediately winced in a sympathetic way.

“I’m sorry we’re here first thing on a Sunday, but Maggie called, and all the old ladies are gathering at the clubhouse.”

“Why? Did something happen?”

Kris’s wince deepened, and she nodded again. “Somebody got murdered, apparently – oh, no, not one of the boys. But it’s still bad.”

Her heart leaped and then settled, rattled, now. Then another thought occurred. “Wait. I’m not an old lady.”

Kris cocked her head. “But Maggie said you were with Carter.”

Maggie. Oh, you…Leah thought, and made a face. But she said, “Yeah, okay. Let me go get dressed.”

~*~

Elijah stood in the common room with his arms folded, and his hands tucked into his armpits. He was glancing around the room, feet braced apart like he was ready to bolt any second.

Carter took a moment to register the barely-masked fear on his face, and wished he hadn’t come. He’d grown used to the clubhouse over time, and on the surface, it looked like a cross between a home and a dive bar, albeit a spotlessly clean one. But it was easy to see how the old framed photos, Lean Dogs memorabilia, and less-than-clever signs could intimidate a civilian. Elijah clearly didn’t want to be here, but he’d come anyway, and that alone spoke of the importance of his errand.

“Hey,” Carter said, walking to join him, and Elijah’s gaze snapped to him, immediately relieved…and it widened. Took a trip down to his boots and back up to his cut. He’d been dressed like this the first time they met, on the practice field, but in all their training sessions since Carter had been in workout gear, without a black dog logo in sight. Now he had a wallet chain, and a sheathed knife in one pocket, and a gun in his waistband, and he wasn’t Friendly Local Football Star anymore. He was a Dog.

He managed not to sigh. “You wanna go sit outside and talk?”

“Yeah,” Elijah said, gaze making another fast trip around the room. “That other guy said you were at church?”

Carter waved and headed for the door. “Not real church. It’s a club thing. Come on.”

They went to sit on the picnic tables, side-by-side, facing the parking lot: quiet today, on a Sunday, the sun advancing across the pavement, warming it, gleaming off clean bikes.

Elijah folded and then refolded his hands on the tabletop; tapped his fingertips against the wood. “Okay. So.” He sounded nearly breathless with nerves – scared, and not of Carter, he realized, but of something else. He fished out his phone, illuminated the screen, and then set it on the table between them. “My boy Tate – he’s a linebacker – texted me this last night.”

Carter leaned in close to see. It took him a moment to make sense of what he was seeing, and then he realized: it was a plastic baggie full of small white pills. And, printed in the lower corner of the bag, a logo. The running black dog of the Lean Dogs MC.

His reaction was immediate and visceral. Anger speared through him – not personal, but club anger. Outrage on behalf of his organization, and his brothers. It shocked him. “That’s not ours.”

Elijah sent him a measuring look. “Tate said he got it from these two guys who were at Jimmy Connors’ party. They said they dealt for the Dogs.”

“They don’t, trust me.” He realized, with a sick jolt, that Elijah didn’t even know Jimmy was dead yet. Probably none of the kids did. What would they say when they found out? When they found out his body was found on Dog property? Ghost had talked about keeping it from the press, but Carter didn’t think that was possible.

“That’s y’all’s logo, though,” Elijah said. He didn’t sound convinced, and definitely not accusing.

Carter realized that this was a kindness, in a way. Elijah wanted confirmation – no, he wanted denial, and he wanted to believe it – but by coming to Carter, he was giving him a much-needed heads-up.

He took a breath and forced himself to calm. “Yeah, that’s our logo, but we didn’t put it there. What sort of idiot would stamp their club patch onto a baggie of shit? That’s just asking to get arrested.”

Elijah nodded, slowly, his shoulders dropping a fraction. “That’s what I told him. But I don’t know if he believed me.”

“Is this a free sample? Or did he buy this shit? And what is it?”

“He said he bought it. It’s supposed to be some kinda uppers. Final exams are coming up.”

Carter sighed. Things were getting out of control with the high school crowd. It had been a smart move, trying to turn the young people against them, and then, without any further effort, their parents. But it wasn’t something they could brush off any longer. It needed to be shut down, now – but they couldn’t find Fred or Ricky…

An idea struck. “Elijah? How would you feel about giving us a hand?”

~*~

Kris offered her a ride, but Leah wanted to drive her own car. She even packed a small bag with a change of clothes, extra hoodie, toothbrush, and deodorant. Just in case. She had no idea what to expect – evident in the nervous way her hands kept trembling on the wheel as she drove, Kris behind her, and Roman tailing along on his bike behind her – but there was no way murder meant anything good. She wanted to call her mom, but decided to wait until she talked to Maggie, and figured out exactly what was going on.

Something serious, she realized, when she slowed to turn in at Dartmoor. All the gates were closed and locked with chains save the main way down between the bike shop and the clubhouse, and two prospects in cuts with guns on their hips stood sentry at either side. She slowed, and rolled down her window, as one – a young, thickly-muscled guy with buzzed dark hair – approached, offering her a quick smile beneath his Ray-Bans.

“Are you Leah?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He stepped back. “Maggie said to expect you. Go on in.” He waved her forward, and she touched the gas again.

Maggie had said to expect her, and Kris had come to get her – tall, strong, prospect boyfriend in tow – because they hadn’t wanted her traveling on her own.

By the time she’d parked and walked to the clubhouse door, her stomach was churning.

Inside, the scene was one of controlled chaos. Lots of Dogs milling around, talking, hurrying, several speaking into cell phones. The old ladies had camped out at the tables. Ash was crying, and Maggie bounced him lightly on her lap, crooning endearments.

Ava looked up, spotted her, and waved her over.

Remy was sitting beside his mother, but slid off the chair and offered it to Leah with adorable gentlemanliness.

“Thank you, sweetie.” She dropped down beside her best friend, skin rippling with gooseflesh by now that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. “Okay, what’s going on? Something about a murder?”

Ava nodded, her expression serious – but not tense. She was too old hat at this to get worked up about a lone little murder. The idea would have made Leah laugh at another time. “A high school student. He was involved with a couple of dealers, apparently, and they wanted him to try and paint the club in a bad light.”

“High school? Is this about the missing girl? Allie?”

For a second, Ava looked surprised, then she nodded. “Carter told you. Yeah. It’s all a mess. This whole thing stinks of some scary shit that went down in Texas back in the winter. Dad just wanted to call everyone together and get us all on the same page. The whole ‘watch your back’ monologue.” She made a whatever gesture.

Leah nodded, and glanced around the room, searching for Carter, and not finding him. She turned back to Ava. “Okay, you wanna tell me why I’m here?”

“Hm?” Ava lifted her brows.

“Kris said this was for Dogs and old ladies, and when I told her I wasn’t one, she said your mom said I was Carter’s.”

Ava pressed her lips together, hiding a smile.

Maggie turned toward them, because she had supersonic hearing, apparently. “I said you were with Carter, honey, I never said old lady – though that can’t be far off, can it?” She offered a perfect cotillion smile that had Leah laughing despite herself.

“We’ve only, like, hung out! And that was last night. It’s way too early for labels.”

“He didn’t spend the night?” Maggie asked innocently.

“No.”

“Shame.”

A loud clapping of hands drew everyone’s attention, and all eyes swung toward the bar. Conversation died down. Even Ash fell silent, suddenly, not even a year old and already obeying his club president, Leah thought ruefully.

Ghost had been the one to clap. He stood leaning back against the bar, Michael and Mercy flanking him – and Carter, she saw, with a pulse of heat and gladness. Her first good jolt of the morning.

When Ghost took a breath, before he addressed them all, and laid terror at their feet, she gave herself a moment to look at Carter, and to appreciate the view: a simple, good old-fashioned ogling, just because she could, just because he was beautiful, and he’d kissed her last night like he couldn’t keep his hands off of her.

Though the interior of the clubhouse was always dim, his hair seemed to glow wheat-gold under the can lights. He wore a white t-shirt with very short, tight sleeves that showed off the lean, muscled beauty of his arms, naturally tan from riding and working out. Through the open halves of his cut, she could see the way the shirt clung to his chest, and flat stomach. He still had an athlete’s build, some lucky trick of genetics, freshly-honed again, from helping the high school quarterback.

She appreciated all of him, in her indulgent moment of scrutiny, but it was his face that captured, and then held her attention. Still all clean lines and perfect angles; aristocratic bone structure that belied his origins, and those long-lashed, stunning blue eyes. The faint, lingering softness of boyhood had gone, though. His jaw was sharp, his eyes shadowed, guarded, serious in a way they’d never been growing up. And, right now, he looked like a Lean Dog. At the coffeeshop, even at her house last night, he’d looked like Carter, well-known and well-liked. Now, though, something about his face, and his gaze, and his stance labeled him irrefutably as Dog.

It wasn’t unattractive.

“Alright,” Ghost said, and it was time to focus on murder.

~*~

For all the ways that Ghost could be a Neanderthal, a throwback to the original, post-war one-percenters, he had fairly progressive views on the role of women within the club. Up to a point. He told the old ladies the truth that morning: about what happened in Texas, about Luis’s threat to Candy, about Allie and Nicole, and Jimmy. About the kids at the high school and their anti-Dog sentiments. No doubt all of them had heard all or most of the details piecemeal, from their husbands and from each other, but it was good to get everyone in the same room, and all on the same page at once. Easier to look out for one another and act in concert.

Like a team meeting when he’d played ball, Carter reflected. Everyone knowing everyone else’s objectives could only help game play.

He was mostly preoccupied with mental prep for the part he was to play, but partway through the meeting, he spotted Leah sitting next to Ava, and started. He’d planned on calling her later, and giving her a rundown, but someone had invited her here, to be part of the family meeting.

As Ava’s best friend? he wondered.

Or as his old lady?

The thought didn’t panic him – but his pulse gave a hard bump.

He caught her gaze, and she smiled, small and quick. He smiled back.

“Everyone needs to be on high alert,” Ghost said. “I won’t say lock yourselves indoors, or camp out here – this isn’t a full lockdown. I know you’ve all got responsibilities – Emmie can’t leave the farm.” She nodded in response. “But we have to play things smart. Never be alone, and I want everyone to be armed at all times. Ladies, you’ve got conceal carry permits, and I expect them to be in your wallets. Have a gun within reach at all times. If something looks fishy, call someone; don’t assume everything’s okay. There’s no such thing as being paranoid right now.”

Everyone nodded; everyone looked sober, and serious, and steel-edged.

When the meeting adjourned, Ghost turned to him and clapped him on the shoulder. “When are you headed over to the school?”

Not here’s when you’re going, but when are you going? That bit of autonomy floored him.

“In a couple hours, probably. Elijah was going to gather up the team, and as many friends as he can. I’m supposed to wait for his text.”

Ghost nodded. “Good. Take someone with you when you go – leave him in the parking lot if you don’t want to spook the kids, but no one travels alone.”

“Yes, sir.” They were all probably going to get tired of hearing those words before it was all over, though Carter knew they were necessary.

Conversation picked back up, the dull roar of lots of overlapping voices, and Carter went to find Leah.

She’d gotten up from her chair, and stood beside one of the room’s support columns, one shoulder braced against it, fond gaze trained on Ava’s boys as they very seriously discussed something with bent heads and fervent whispers. Carter spared a moment’s regret that children so small were here listening to Ghost’s dire warnings, hearing their mothers told to be armed and watchful. Murder and drug deals and vengeful cartel bosses weren’t the sorts of stories he would have wanted children of his own to hear.

But he supposed these were club kids, and it wasn’t always possible to shield them.

Lucy McCall joined Remy and Cal, and the three of them set off at a dash, off on an adventure.

Leah turned to him, as he reached her, angled her body toward his in a subtle but inviting way. Not provocative, but open, trusting. Simple and innocent, but it hit him like the best kind of shove.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

The way her cheeks colored, faintly, he thought she must be remembering last night. His hands wanted to feel the silk of her hair again – the silk of her skin, untouched, still, because he’d been too eager to go farther than assaulting her with kisses.

“Did Ava call you?” he asked.

“Maggie sent Kris up to get me, actually,” she said. “We’re neighbors, you know.”

“I know.”

“Roman followed us in.” Her smile looked rueful. “I’ve never had the personal Lean Dog escort experience before. Kinda exciting.” But her eyes were full of worry, and he thought exciting was actually scary.

He nodded. “Maybe you can hang out with Ava today. And then tomorrow, I can escort you to work. Or one of the prospects…” He trailed off when he saw her brows draw together. “What?”

“It’s nice that you’re worried. But I was honestly shocked to be included in all this.” She gestured to the room around them. “You and I just – I mean, I’m not–” Hesitance, now, when she’d been so firm the day before yesterday in telling him that he didn’t really want him. “I’m not an old lady,” she finished with an uncertain shrug. “I don’t expect to use up valuable club resources.”

He frowned. “It’s not about labels.” The words came out sharper than intended, but stress was making him firmer, he found. “You’re important to people in the club – you’re important to me. That means you need to be protected.”

She blinked. “No one even knows I’m–”

“Leah, these guys killed a high school kid and laid him out like a freak piece of art. They’re smart, and they’re not letting any kind of moral code stand in the way. If they’ve tailed us, or followed us, or spied on us with cameras or something, they’ll know about you.”

Her lips parted on a soft “oh.” She swallowed, and he reached out, sorry that he’d snapped, to lay careful fingertips against her arm.

“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said, softly. “But – I’m scared. I – nobody – wants to risk anything happening to club family. We couldn’t live with that.”

She took a breath. “What about my parents?”

“I…”

“Are they in danger, too?”

He didn’t know, and he could tell that she read that doubt in his face. Which wasn’t at all acceptable; he couldn’t pull her into this world with him, put a target on her back, and then not have the answers she needed.

He schooled his features, and lifted his shoulders, forcibly gathering his resolve. “I’ll talk to Ian about getting them security,” he said.

Her brows went up. “Ian?”

“He’s buying the building, right? That shop is his investment, now. He’ll want to protect it, and that means protecting your parents.”

Slowly, a smile dawned. “Listen to you. All strategic and stuff.”

His face heated. “I don’t want you to worry. You and your parents will be safe.” A lump formed in his stomach when he remembered that he’d said the same thing to Jimmy Connors, currently cold in a morgue drawer.

She sighed. “Let’s hope so.”

Ditto. “I’ve got to run,” he said apologetically. “I’m supposed to…”

But she was already nodding, face full of understanding. “Of course. We’ll talk later.”

He ducked down to kiss her, one quick, soft press of lips that left his stomach jumping in a new way, and left her blush a shade deeper.

He went to talk with Mercy, because, despite his size and sometimes-sinister look, he was the easiest, most sociable, and best able to set young people at ease. Mercy agreed to tag along to the school, and Carter went to his dorm to make sure he was properly armed and equipped.

He was headed back to the common room when he almost ran into someone coming out of the kitchen. It was Jazz, and the moment he recognized her, his stomach flipped.

“Hey, honey,” she said, breezily, hand propped on her hip as she surveyed the crowded common room. “This is wild, huh? That poor kid. And in my bar! Holy hell.”

“Your bar?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Mine to manage, don’t go thinking I’ve got things backward.” Her gaze settled on him, and turned mischievous, her smile sharp as a blade. “So your girlfriend’s here, huh?”

“Oh, uh, no, she – I – uh…”

She laughed, and it was easy, not cruel. Jazz had never been that. “Stop, I’m teasing. But I saw you with her.” She tilted her head. “You like her.”

“I thought we’d already established that.”

She snorted. “Yeah. Y’all are cute together.” She patted his arm, and it was friendly rather than suggestive. “I’m glad for you.”

Despite the murder, and the danger, and the logistics of protecting their own and their city, Carter was glad, too. He finally had something good in his life – now he just had to look after it.

Thirty-Two

“You want me to hang back?” Mercy asked. “Or come with?”

Carter smoothed his hair and glanced across the parking lot to the practice field. It was a Sunday, but a surprising number of cars filled the lot. Students had gathered at the edge of the field, and he spotted Elijah at the head of the crowd, talking to them, gesturing with his hands in a soothing way. A true leader, on and off the field.

It was time for him to step up again. To keep stepping up.

“Stay here for now,” he told Mercy. “And come over if it looks like I’m screwing it up.”

Mercy grinned. “Go get ‘em, QB.”

He took a deep breath, and headed over.

He’d debated changing clothes; leaving his cut behind, or wearing shorts and sneakers. It would have made him look younger and non-threatening. But he’d stood in front of his mirror, and he’d studied his cut-wearing reflection, and he’d decided to go as he was. He was a Lean Dog, now, and there was no sense denying it. He was meeting with these kids as a liaison and trying to disguise that would make him look like he was hiding something. So he approached with his cut, his boots, his knife, his gun, his wallet chain, and what he hoped was a friendly expression.

Elijah spotted him first, and waved. Carter waved back, and saw several heads turn toward him. By the time he reached the grass, he could hear the buzz and murmur of conversation; couldn’t tell if it sounded excited or worried. Several of the girls huddled closer together, and even clasped hands.

Ah, shit, he thought, but pushed a smile across his face.

“Guys,” Elijah called, voice carrying. “Guys, guys, come on. Let’s get quiet. This is the friend I was telling y’all about.”

Friend. Carter hadn’t expected that.

“Y’all remember Carter Michaels, right? His photo’s in the weight room.”

One of the boys, tall and muscular, cocked his head to the side and wrinkled his nose. “That’s Carter Michaels?”

Before Carter could say anything in his own defense, Elijah said, “His arm’s better than yours, don’t hate. Guys, listen. Carter’s been helping me with my passes the last few weeks. When I heard about the shit going around with the dogs printed on the baggies, I asked him, and he said it’s bullshit. The Dogs aren’t selling that, and the Dogs aren’t the ones who took Allie.”

“Man, whatever.”

“The Dogs deal drugs,” one of the girls said, voice squeaky with fright. “Everyone knows it.”

“My uncle gets his weed from y’all.”

“The Lean Dogs kill people.”

“Yeah, Dogs suck!”

“Hey.” Carter didn’t shout, but he leveled as much authority as he possessed into that one word. To his shock, all the kids fell silent. He saw wide eyes, and frowns, and a few brave sneers, trying to cover up fear. “I asked Elijah to bring you guys here today because I wanted to explain to you what’s going on. There’s been a lot of crazy shit going on lately, and lots of talk about the Dogs doing things we haven’t done.

“We’re an outlaw MC, yeah. I don’t think I have to tell you what that means. We don’t follow all the rules all the time – that’s kind of in the playbook.” He saw one fleeting smile. “But this club has been a staple in this city since before you all were born. Since your parents were kids. The club doesn’t kidnap teenagers. It doesn’t sell party drugs with our logo stamped on it – who would do something that stupid? Who would advertise that they’re dealing?”

A few reluctant nods at that.

“But the club does have enemies, and one of those enemies is trying to make us look really bad in this city. They’re using you to help push that agenda, and it’s going to get you guys hurt.” Killed, he amended in his head. “The Dogs are trying to find Allie and Nicole. We’re trying to catch the assholes who are dealing you this shit and telling you they work for us. They don’t, and they’re really fucking dangerous. Anything you can tell me that would point us in the right direction would be a big help.”

There was a moment’s loaded hesitation; lots of glances were traded among them.

Then Elijah said, “He came here to talk to us. Not to threaten anybody, not to sell you some shit. He wants to talk – he wants our help. So we can figure out who’s really hurting girls, and the Dogs can go after them. You think the cops can stop it? If they could, why did nobody find Allie? She’s still missing. If anyone can find her, the Dogs can. If you guys tell him what you know.”

Carter was floored. He glanced toward Elijah, and earned a nod, a solemn regard of solidarity.

He took a breath, let his shoulders relax, and said, “The night of Jimmy Connors party. Who saw what?”

Twenty minutes, and two mini notebook pages of info later, he thanked the students and headed back for the parking lot. To his surprise, Elijah fell into step beside him.

“Does that help?” he asked, and almost sounded worried. “I think they were all mostly telling the truth.”

“It does help, yeah. The more details we have about those guys, the easier they’ll be to find.”

“No sign of ‘em yet?”

“No.” He frowned at thought of Jimmy. Probably the parents had been notified by now. He wondered how ugly things were about to get for them. “We found an empty house they were dealing out of, and collected some stuff for prints and DNA, but no hits in the database yet.”

“Database? MC got a CSI division now?” he asked with a snort.

“Something like that. Lots of friends in town, anyway.”

Elijah nodded. “Guess so.” He walked facing forward, hands in his hoodie pockets, but Carter knew him well enough by now to detect the way self-consciousness crept into his voice and expression. “I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but I’m gonna try to get some minds changed around here. Work on ‘em a little bit.”

Carter knocked their shoulders together as they walked. “See? You’re gonna be a Dog fan after all.”

He snorted. “Nah. Just…trying to pick the side that’s doing the right thing. In every situation, you know?”

“I know. Smart man.”

They reached the parking lot, and Mercy, sitting on his bike, watching the surrounding area from behind the lenses of his shades.

Elijah, as expected, paused a moment, and murmured, “Whoa.”

Carter didn’t blame him. Even relaxed, his expression pleasantly bland, Mercy was a sight to behold. His height was evident, even sitting astride his bike, and he wore a tank top under his cut that flashed ink, and muscles big as Carter’s head. Some men got married, had kids, and started working on beer guts and receding hairlines. Mercy had managed to pack on more muscle, even more impressive than he’d been a few years ago when Carter first came home, and his hair was as thick and glossy as ever, down to the middle of his back now, shifting in the breeze.

Carter decided to go the polite route. “Hey, Merc, this is Elijah. Elijah, this is Mercy.”

Mercy turned toward them with an easy, automatic grin, and pushed his shades up so the warm brown of his eyes showed. With his other hand, he reached out for a shake. “Hey, Elijah, good to meet you.”

Elijah gathered himself visibly, stepped forward, and gripped Mercy’s hand, his own dwarfed inside it, like everyone else’s always was.

“You’re a QB, too, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mercy laughed, low, and rich, and Cajun, and disarming. “I know this one misses it. Glad you can get him outta the house and back on the grass.”

“Oh, uh, yeah.” He’d never sounded so uncertain.

Carter didn’t blame him. “Eli, thanks for this,” he said, offering his own handshake, one Elijah gripped ready and strong. “Let me know if you need anything. Or see anything. Or just get freaked out. It’s brave, helping us.”

Elijah rolled his eyes – but smiled. “Yeah, yeah, sure.” He said goodbye, and headed off for his car.

When Carter slung his leg over his bike, fastened his helmet, and glanced to see if Mercy was ready, he found him grinning at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Mercy said, buckling his own helmet. “It’s just my little pretty boy’s growing up.”

“Dude. Shut up.” But he couldn’t hold back a grin as he cranked the bike.

~*~

Leah checked the sidemirror of Ava’s truck and glimpsed their escort, riding close behind. It was a prospect she’d never met before, lanky and floppy-haired and fresh-faced: Evan, Ava had said.

“Not to doubt your dad’s security assignment or anything…”

“I know,” Ava said, sighing through her nose as she piloted the truck through the next intersection. Behind them, Evan nearly missed the light and accelerated to keep up. “Evan’s not exactly the Punisher or anything, but he’s not totally incompetent. I don’t think,” she added with a wince. “Mostly it’s just about having a presence. No one will try anything crazy if they see a cut tailing us. And if they did.” She patted her purse where it rested between them. “I’m packing.”

“I’m not,” Leah said, unnecessarily. It was a weak joke and she knew it, but she said, “You’ll have to do the shooting for both of us.”

Ava didn’t miss a beat. “We’ll have to get you your own piece. I can take you up to the cattle property and show you the ropes. Or.” She turned away from the road long enough to send her a shit-eating grin and an eyebrow waggle. “Or Carter could take you. Show you those ropes.”

Leah sighed. “Sometimes I miss the days when you thought romance was stupid.”

“I never said it was stupid.”

“No, you just didn’t care about anybody’s romantic life but your own.”

Ava made a scandalized sound, and Leah burst out laughing. “I’m not that big of an asshole – am I?”

“Not now, no.”

Ava sighed. “Well. I guess you change enough diapers and clean up enough vomit and you start liking to live vicariously.”

“Is this you wishing you’d married Carter instead of Mercy?”

“Uh…yeah right. No offense to your taste in men or anything.”

By the time they pulled up to Cook’s Coffee, they were both laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes and side stitches.

Evan’s face appeared on the other side of the window, scrunched up with concern. “Are you okay?” he called through the glass. “Are you crying?”

“We’re fine!” Ava called back, waving him off until he retreated up onto the sidewalk. “Reverting to sixteen-year-olds, but otherwise fine.”

They’d left the kids at the clubhouse under Maggie, Holly, and Kris’s watchful gazes, and so once they’d checked their mascara and collected themselves, they headed into the shop.

“Girls!” Marie called the second they were through the door. She’d been ecstatic since Ian had said he would buy the building; she looked at least five years younger. The lines of worry on her brow and around her mouth had smoothed; her skin seemed to glow. “What a nice surprise! Are y’all here for lunch? Out shopping? Ooh, Ava, you’re kid-free. Nothing like a good girls’ day.”

All of Leah’s good humor for the car fizzled as she was reminded why they’d come. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, Mrs. Cook.”

Marie picked up on their tones right away. Her face fell. “Oh no. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Leah said, and then made a face, because that wasn’t true at all.

Ava had more experience with this sort of thing. With calm aplomb, she said, “Mrs. Cook, if it’s alright, we want to tell you a little bit about some of what’s been going on here in the shopping district, and prepare you for what to expect moving forward.”

“Oh, dear,” Marie said. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.”

~*~

Ghost got all the way to ten ‘til one before he had to deal with Dave Connors. He was standing behind Ratchet’s chair, watching him click through screens at wild speed – he’d hacked into yet more traffic cams, and with new info from the high school kids via Carter, they were trying to pin down a black Chevy Malibu on the night of Allie’s disappearance – when his cellphone went off. It was Boomer up at the gate, his tone cringing. “He says he’s Jimmy’s father, and he is – pissed ain’t the word. He’s outta his goddamn mind.”

“Let him in,” Ghost said. “Tell him where to find me. I’ll be ready.”

“Okay,” Boomer said, doubtful.

Ghost slipped his phone away and turned to Michael, who gave him a tight nod of understanding and drew his gun; held it down low along his thigh. To Briscoe and Dublin, he said, “Meet him at the door. Pat him down.”

“Right.” They headed that way.

Ghost rolled his head side to side, popping the vertebrae in his neck. “Mags?”

She was already on her feet, Ash on her hip. Kris had hold of Millie. “Come on, babies,” she said, and Cal and Remy followed her. Holly took her daughter Lucy’s hand and Mina herded the older kids along. They all trooped down the back hallway, and Ghost could breathe a little easier. Could crack his knuckles and brace himself.

He heard the scuffle at the front door. “Let go – fuck you – get off me!”

Dave Connors was not a brave, blustering sort of man, but he burst into the room like a charging bull: red-faced, veins standing out in his temples and throat, hands curled somewhere between fists and claws. His gaze was wild, glazed; he looked drunk. And in a way he was: drunk on grief.

His gaze landed on Ghost, and his snarl deepened. “You.”

Dublin came in after him, huffing for breath. “He’s not armed, but he’s out of his goddamn mind, boss.”

Ghost nodded. “I’ll handle it.”

If he’d heard their exchange, Connors didn’t acknowledge it. “You. You,” he repeated, chest heaving. “You killed my boy!” He charged.

From the corner of his eye, Ghost was aware of Michael readying himself, but Ghost was ready, too, and Dave Connors didn’t scare him. When Connors reached him – breathing ragged and open-mouthed, growling like a wounded animal – Ghost caught him by the wrists, braced his feet, and held him back.

Connors roared. His hands curled and flexed; tried to get loose; tried to claw at Ghost’s throat. He wasn’t the strongest man Ghost had ever faced, but this kind of sudden, shocking grief lent an adrenaline boost.

“I didn’t kill him,” Ghost said, his tone low and soothing, for all the good it did. “Dave, listen, I didn’t – we didn’t. Why would we? But I’m trying to find out who did.”

“You killed him! You killed my boy!” Tears ran down a face going purple. Spit flecked Ghost’s face on the man’s next exhale. He couldn’t be reasoned with you. “Fuck you, I’ll kill you!”

“Ghost,” Michael said, warningly.

“I know.” Ghost shoved Connors backward; he caught him off guard, and managed to torque his own body, twist Connors around so that he could slam him up against the edge of the table. Connors’ eyes widened in shock as he lost his balance, and then it didn’t take much to slam him back across the table. He yelled.

Ghost pinned his wrists, and leaned all his weight into it. Connors kicked and thrashed, but his feet weren’t on the ground, and he had no leverage, and not enough athleticism to twist loose some other way.

Michael, Dublin, and Briscoe moved in around the table, close enough to lend a hand if need be, but not crowding.

Ghost shoved his face into the other man’s, and roared, “Shut up!”

Someone dropped a dish in the kitchen, and he heard Jazz’s low “damn!” of startlement.

Connors gasped a moment, his eyes wide and still leaking tears.

“I didn’t kill your son,” Ghost said, enunciating with extra emphasis. “My club didn’t kill your son. Jimmy got involved with some really bad guys who’re trying to take the club down and using kids to do it. It’s sick, and it’s awful, and we’re going to stop them, but what you’re doing isn’t helping. Get hold of yourself.”

Connors dragged in a ragged breath. “He was in your bar.” Another protest, but all the force had drained out of his voice. His body went limp beneath Ghost. “He was…”

“Do you honestly believe I would kill your son and put his body on display in my own bar?”

“…On…display…?”

Shit, he shouldn’t have said it that way.

Ghost gave him a little shake. “I’ve got every one of my guys working on this. We’ll catch the bastards – if you get out of the way and stop trying to start fights you can’t finish.”

The front door must have been left open, because Ghost heard the squeal of tires, the slam of a door, the slap of feet. “Kenny,” Fielding’s breathless voice said, and then: “oh, shit.”

“Dave,” Ghost said. “Let’s work together. Help me find the guys, and we’ll get justice for your son.”

Connors stared at him a moment, searching his face with a blind, withdrawn gaze. Then his eyes closed, and his face screwed up, and the ugly, broken sobs came.

Ghost released him and stepped back. Turned to face Vince. He put a hand on his shoulder and spun him around, marched him back down the hall and out the front door, despite Vince’s affronted protests. Try me, he thought. I’ll put you over a table, too.

“That man is the victim’s family,” he blustered, “you can’t–”

“What I can do,” Ghost said, spinning him around, shoving a finger in his face. “Is clean up your damn messes, lieutenant. He came storming in here, talking about how his son was on display. How’d he know that little tidbit? Did you show him fucking pictures?”

Vince spluttered, as pale in the face as Connors was red. “He – he asked questions. The family has a right to know–”

“The family doesn’t have a right to go off half-cocked on some vigilante justice mission, dipshit.”

Vince’s expression hardened. “Oh, and what you do isn’t vigilante justice?”

“I own this city,” Ghost snapped. “Knoxville belongs to me, and so do you.” He gave him a light shove in the sternum. “Do your fucking job.”

Vince staggered back, more steps than necessary, a wry, disgusted smile breaking sideways across his face. “Don’t act like you care about this kid. You’re worried about your reputation. You’re just a goddamn gangster.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m the one holding your leash. Now, I’m going back inside to question Dave Connors. You can participate, or you can leave. What’ll it be.”

Vince glanced off across the parking lot, visibly collecting himself. He muttered something too low to hear, took a huge breath, and then nodded. He headed back for the door, and Ghost followed.

~*~

“I don’t understand why we continue to meet at this place,” Ian said. He plucked his fork delicately off his napkin, held it up to the light, and frowned at it.

“I thought you liked it,” Mercy said around a mouthful of country ham and eggs. “Thought it made you feel like one of the regular people.”

“Yes, well.” Ian produced a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and polished the fork with a grimace. Then he looked down at his plate of waffles and bacon and made yet another polite face of disgust. “Many aspects of it leave something to be desired.”

“Eat your waffles,” Mercy said. “They’re good for you.”

“Hm. Hardly.”

They were at Waffle House, in a booth by the window, and, at first, Carter had been too shocked and gratified that Ian had actually taken his call that he hadn’t been bold enough to broach the subject at hand yet. Ian wasn’t the sort of person you could just come right out and say stuff to. He liked to play word games and trade the sort of banter Carter didn’t feel sharp enough to employ.

But he was starting to get impatient.

He cleared his throat, and Ian and Mercy both looked to him immediately. Mercy with a smile plucking at one corner of his mouth like he knew how awkward Carter felt. Ian with a single arched brow of inquiry, the rest of his face impassive.

He had to clear his throat again, and take a sip of water for good measure.

“Poor boy,” Ian said, “I feel like I must ask you why you wanted to meet with me because you’ll never get it out yourself.”

Carter frowned, and felt his face heat.

“Go on, then. Lay your – what looks to be very serious – proposition before me.”

“He’s being an asshole,” Mercy said in a stage whisper. “He can’t help it. Just go on and tell him.”

“Felix, I’m wounded.”

Carter said, “I wanted to ask you about protecting the Cooks.”

“The Cooks whose building I’m in the process of acquiring?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s that going, by the way?” Mercy asked.

Ian waved away all thought of concern. “The old man is being a stubborn fool, but he’s beginning to crack, and he wants it off his hands. We’ll sign paperwork this week.”

“Their daughter, Leah…” Carter said.

“Ah, yes, the lovely Miss Cook. I’ve employed her. It seems I’ve done quite a lot for the Cooks lately.”

Shit. “She and I are…”

“Something of an item?” Ian guessed, brow arching again.

“I–”

“Aw, come on,” Mercy said. “Don’t be like this.”

“Like what?” Ian asked, all innocence.

“Quit acting like you’re gonna tell us no.”

“What am I supposedly saying no to?”

Carter caught Mercy’s elbow in his ribs, and blurted out, “We’re trying to keep an eye on all the old ladies and kids. Everyone attached to the club is gonna need protection right now, until we find who’s terrorizing us. Leah’s worried about her parents, and we’re already spread thin. I don’t know if we can keep a regular watch on them.”

Understanding dawned delicately across Ian’s sharp features. The eyebrow went up again. “And you want me to provide protection for them.”

“Technically, if you’re going to own the building, and you want the coffeeshop to stay, you’re just looking out for your own interests.”

Ian smiled. “How practical of you. I like that. Well. Let me think.” He leaned back in the booth, arms folded, and glanced out through the window, presenting them with his elegant profile.

“Why no one’s put you in a Bond movie yet, I have no idea,” Mercy quipped.

“Hush, you.” Ian turned back to them, hands steepling beneath his chin. “Alright. I’ll appoint them guards.”

“You will?” Carter asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch. Consider it a favor to a friend.” He slid out of the booth. “In exchange for bringing Felix along to this little meeting. He’s quite enjoyable to look at.”

Mercy laughed, delighted.

Ian winked at him. “Come, Bruce.”

The big bodyguard slid out of the booth behind them and fell in behind his boss.

“Tell Miss Cook her parents are in good hands,” he said, and left them.

~*~

Marie couldn’t seem to stop shaking her head, an absent back and forth that left her short, ash-blonde hair swinging over her ears. Her eyes were wide, and she kept touching her mouth. “Oh my God. That poor family.”

“Do you know the Connors, Mrs. Cook?” Ava asked. She had her mother’s perfectly consoling tone down pat. Leah was honestly a little jealous of it.

“No. Well. A little,” Marie amended. “I’ve seen them around. The wife comes into the coffeeshop a good bit, and we’ve exchanged hellos and small talk. This is just devastating.” She took a deep breath, and her gaze focused, shifting between the two of them. “And this is about the club?”

“It’s about some really sick people who kill and sell kids,” Leah said, firmly.

“Who want to intimidate the club and keep it from stopping them,” Ava said. “They know the Dogs could stop them, so they want to scare us, and make us look bad around town.”

“This is related to the graffiti at Bell Bar, then.” She might have been a cheerful person, but she wasn’t a slow or stupid one. Her gaze sharpened another fraction. “Is that why Carter’s been hanging around? Leah, I thought you and he – I’m sorry, honey.”

“No, no.” Leah’s face heated. “He and I are…”

Marie grinned, faintly.

“Which is why he – the club – is worried about keeping this shop and you and dad safe.”

“Safe?” Her brows went up. “Surely you don’t think we’ll be targeted, do you?”

“Mom, a guy’s dead. And two girls are missing.”

“Right.” She swallowed with obvious effort, and surveyed the shop floor with a critical eye from their tucked-away table. Her hand tightened on her mug, and her gaze lingered on a pair of men seated at a table by the window, both of them young and athletic-looking.

“We’re not trying to scare you,” Ava said, quickly. “But we want you guys to be warned, so you can keep a sharp eye out.”

The door opened with a cheerful jangle, and in walked an even more suspect pair of men. Tall, and jacketed, dressed in jeans and clinging black t-shirts. Save their hair – red-blond versus black-brown – they looked like a matched set, sunglasses and everything. Both of them, Leah noted as they approached their table, wore holstered guns on their hips, plain as day.

“Shit,” Ava muttered, tensing. One hand slipped down into her purse, and Leah knew she was grabbing her own gun.

Leah had nothing to grab but the edge of the table, her heart leaping up into her throat.

But the dark-haired man said, “Mrs. Cook? I’m Ray and this is Don. We’re with Elite Security. Mr. Shaman is stationing us here, and at your home, if that’s convenient.” He and Don produced wallets with credentials that Ava stood to scan, and which she then passed to Marie, who looked them over with bewilderment.

“Mr. Shaman? But I don’t understand.”

Leah did, though, a surge of warmth and affection smoothing out her racing pulse. Carter had said he’d talk to Ian, and he had, and here was the proof – here with the hulking, strong guys he’d gotten to keep her parents safe. If he’d been here now, she would have embarrassed them both with a public kiss.

“Shaman really sent you?” Ava asked.

Ray turned to her, dark brows drawing together, briefly. “He told us to, quote, ‘be dears and look after them like family.’”

“He called us ‘darling,’” Don added.

Ava snorted. “Yeah, that’s him.”

Thirty-Three

“Yeah, thanks, man. Let us know if you hear anything,” Aidan said, his smile appreciative, but unable to cover his frustration.

“Yeah, definitely,” the warehouse manager said, and waved them off.

“Cross another one off the list,” Aidan said, hands going in his pockets.

Beside him, Tango said, “We’re narrowing it down. That counts for something.”

Reese hadn’t gone into the manager’s office with them, and waited now at the massive rolltop door to the warehouse, watching them approach, the sun warm on the side of his face as he conducted one last survey of the main floor from behind his sunglasses. He looked in every corner, traversed every catwalk, and peeped in restrooms and storerooms; even opened a few boxes with his pocketknife when no one was looking, and had pressed his ear up against others, listening for sounds of human life. The manager was friendly with the club, and the staff had been cooperative, and, at this point, it seemed this warehouse wasn’t moonlighting as a stop on the human trafficking ring.

The three of them had spent the day on recon, nosing through a long stretch of industrial complexes that included garages, outbuildings, and warehouses – mostly the last. Everything from imported carpet wholesalers to food storage depots. They’d looked through lumber, and steel; fence materials, tractor parts, and cheap plastic toys and souvenirs, most of them orange and UT-themed. Ghost had reasoned that if the girls were being held in-town, it would either be in a private residence – impossible to search – barn or secluded bit of property, like in Texas, or in a warehouse, also like in Texas. Reese didn’t disagree, but he wished there was a more thorough and foolproof method for narrowing the search.

“We have to find Fred and Ricky,” he said when Aidan and Tango reached him.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Aidan muttered as they walked past.

Reese tailed along behind.

Tango turned to walk backward, holding this hair off his forehead as the wind took hold of it. “You’re right,” he told Reese. “We do need to find them, and then they’d lead us straight to the girls.”

“Or Mercy would work ‘em over,” Aidan said.

“Do you have any suggestions on doing that?”

After a moment, Reese realized that it was a serious question, and not an insult. He was so surprised he didn’t have an answer until they’d reached their bikes.

“We need a trap.”

“What kind of trap?” Tango asked.

Aidan glanced over sharply.

“They have to think they’re meeting with a customer. They deal drugs, yes?”

“Yeah…” Aidan drawled. And then his brows shot up over the rims of his sunglasses. “Holy shit, we need a trap.” He snapped his fingers and aimed one at Reese. “Sometimes, you’re almost smart.”

~*~

“A trap?” Ghost asked, fifteen minutes later.

“They’re dealing to the kids, right?” Aidan asked. He was taking credit for this idea, but Reese didn’t care. He sensed something almost desperate about Aidan’s eagerness to please his father. Without a father of his own, Reese could only observe and imagine what that impulse might feel like.

He did dart a glance across the common room, though, toward Tenny’s sprawled, seemingly indifferent figure. He was wearing his sunglasses indoors, and appeared to be asleep, but Reese knew he was listening attentively.

“So we reach out to the kids – Carter’s got the in,” Aidan explained. “We have the kid text Fred and Ricky, set up a meeting, hell, let’s use the kid, make it look legit, and then, boom, we jump on the guy.”

“Damn,” Ghost murmured, stroking his chin. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Aidan’s grin was wide and blinding.

“Carter, can you get us hooked up with one of the students?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Ghost nodded. And then he turned to Reese. “Get out your face paint.”

~*~

It was twilight, and Carter’s stomach was unpleasantly tight. He was glad he’d forgone lunch.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told Elijah. “You arranged the meeting, and that’s all we need.” When he’d called Elijah to ask about contacting the dealers, he’d hoped and expected Elijah to pass him off to one of his friends, most likely the Tate guy who’d sent Elijah drug pics before. But Elijah had said he would do it himself.

Carter’s guilt gnawed at him.

“Seriously,” he stressed. “Go home and let us handle this.”

Elijah lifted a questioning brow. “Earlier you said you needed it to look real for these guys. They needed to see an actual kid.”

“That’s what Ghost wants, but he’s an asshole,” he said, dropping his voice. His brothers stood a short distance away, and he didn’t want them overhearing. “Please just leave.”

“You think I’ll screw it up.”

“I think it’s not worth risking you getting hurt.”

“Oh,” Elijah said, tone darkening. “So it was cool if one of my buddies got hurt, but not if I do.”

“That’s not what I meant–”

“I’m not asking someone else to do what I’m not willing to do myself. Not on the field, not in life. I’m helping you because you’ve helped me. And I’m gonna do it right.” He sounded like he wouldn’t be swayed.

Carter knew that Mercy could bundle him in a van and they could forcibly remove him from the op. But he had to admire the kid’s bravery and take-charge attitude. Even if fear sat sour on the back of his tongue, threatening his gag reflex.

He blew out a breath that did little to ease the pressure in his lungs. “Okay. Well. Okay. Just. Follow the plan. And the second shit goes sideways, hit the dirt and let us handle it. Okay?”

Elijah nodded, but rolled his eyes. “You worry too much, Coach.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Coach. It had a nice ring to it. Please don’t let anything happen to this kid.

He motioned for Elijah to follow him, and they joined the others.

~*~

The op was straightforward, and relied mostly on discretion and well-oiled teamwork. Silent communication. While important, Reese thought of it as low-risk. He’d been in much more dangerous situations – which was probably why he risked another glance to the neighboring tree to catch a glimpse of Tenny.

He’d been thinking a good bit – too much – about what Kris had said to him. About dating, and making friends, and exploring options. When Carter had initiated friendliness while they searched the mill property, he’d dug deep into his limited social repertoire and reciprocated. When he’d been assigned to go with Aidan and Tango today, he hadn’t felt disappointed; he’d been bold enough to speak up, and share his trap idea – even if Aidan was acting as if it was his own.

The idea of dating was still mind-boggling. But he’d Googled some stuff. Read a few articles.

But he kept feeling this tug, this urge to look, to get up and follow. He missed him. This was what missing someone felt like.

He’d never had anyone to miss before, but now he missed the kick of a boot against his own, and the elbow in his ribs. Missed insults, and dirty jokes he didn’t fully understand. And he missed lying side-by-side in the afterglow, smelling Tenny’s cigarette smoke, listening to his hesitant, halting ruminations on their new lives, all the things he never told anyone else.

He looked again, caught the faintest glimpse of Tenny’s profile amidst the shadowy leaves, and then forced his head away. He couldn’t be thinking about that. Couldn’t be distracted.

The op was playing out on high school property – the biggest risk was that of being spotted by local police and having the whole thing broken up. There was a spot down past the practice fields, the beginning of a nature walk, with a bench and a bower, a commemorative plaque of some sort, complete with soft landscape lights. That was where Carter’s student friend, Elijah stood now, shifting his weight, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets. Reese didn’t know if he was truly nervous, or acting that way, but it looked like a realistic teenage reaction to this situation nevertheless.

Dogs were stationed behind the bower, tucked down in the bushes, and elsewhere on the property as lookouts. Reese and Tenny had each found well-hidden perches in two trees that flanked the path leading up to the meeting spot, and would drop down to cut off the dealer’s escape route.

Reese’s legs had started to go numb, and the tree branches dug painfully into his spine. He took a deep, steadying, but silent breath, and retreated back into himself. No more worrying about Tenny, and their discontinued conversations. No body, no pains, no physical sensations. Only the op. The wait. Straining to listen, to scent, to see. He tamped down every unnecessary sense. A familiar process, but, strangely, no longer as easy as it had once been.

Finally, the hoot of an owl pierced the gathering night. The four-beat call of a barred owl.

Fox. Someone was coming.

A few minutes later, Reese heard the careful tread of rubber-soled shoes on the sidewalk. A huff of breath. When he glanced down, he watched the top of a head go by. A man, medium build, his hair covered by a dark beanie, his hands gloved despite the warmth of the evening. As he proceeded down the path, a red dot appeared in the center of his back: Tenny had been charged with painting a target. For a camera, Ghost had stressed. We can’t fucking snipe somebody on school property.

Elijah lifted his head as the man approached him, posture stiffening. He held up a hand when the dealer was still a few paces away, and the dealer stopped. They talked a minute; Reese couldn’t hear the words, only the low rise and fall of their voices. An exchange was made: a bag in return for cash that Ghost had given Elijah to use. Then the dealer turned, and began making his way back down the path.

Reese looked to Elijah for the sign, and got it: a quick flicking-on of a flashlight. It was their man. One of them, anyway.

Reese tensed, leaned forward on his branch, balanced on fingertips and the balls of his feet.

The man approached, walking faster than before, wanting to get away before he was spotted.

Too late for that.

Reese gathered himself, and dropped; the rustle of leaves in the other tree proved that Tenny had, too, that they’d moved in perfect sync. They landed side-by-side, nearly on top of the dealer, who staggered back with a sharp, shocked gasp.

Reese grabbed his arm. Tenny karate-chopped him in the side of the throat, and the man’s legs gave out. He toppled backward, wheezing and choking, and it was only a matter of a few brisk movements to flip him onto his front, bind his hands with a zip tie behind his back, and clap a hand over his mouth.

“If you’re good, I’ll let you quit choking before I put tape on you,” Tenny said, voice silken and accented and…sending strange little ripples of energy down Reese’s spine.

Dogs jogged toward them, Aidan, and Carter, and Tango, and Mercy.

“Got him?” Mercy called.

“Yes,” Reese said.

Tenny let go of the man’s face so he could pull out a roll of duct tape. “Get the van.”

The dealer choked on the sidewalk, not struggling, but body bowed by his wracking coughs.

“Before someone hears that,” Tenny said, disgusted.

~*~

“You sure you’re alright?” Carter asked. For the fourth time, at least.

“Dude, you sound like my mom. Chill,” Elijah said, chuckling. He’d been in an uncharacteristically giddy mood since the van drove off a few minutes ago, headed for the clubhouse with their prisoner secured in the back under Fox’s watchful eye. Post-adrenaline rush, Carter figured.

“Yeah, well, excuse a guy for worrying.”

That inspired another laugh, a deep belly laugh that had Elijah clutching his stomach.

“I like you better when you’re grouchy.” Carter refused to call his tone bitter.

Ghost joined them, standing in a shadowed corner of the parking lot beside Elijah’s car. “You did good, kid,” he said, clapping Elijah on the shoulder.

Elijah’s laughter cut off immediately. He went wide-eyed, looking at Ghost like he was a celebrity – or an actual ghost, more like. It wasn’t exactly admiration in his gaze, or the faint tremor of his voice. “Sir.” He fished into his pocket. “Here. The money you gave me to use.” He offered the stack of cash.

“Keep it,” Ghost said, and Elijah’s eyes got impossibly wider. “Consider it returning the favor.” He gave him another light slap on the shoulder and drew back. “I’ll let Carter keep you in the loop if there’s anything you need to know.” He headed off for his truck, parked several spaces down.

“He’s my ride,” Carter said. “I should go.”

Elijah was still staring at the money in his hands, and lifted his head. “He’s for real? I can keep this?”

Carter grinned. “See? The club’s not all bad.”

Elijah released a deep breath and tucked the cash back in his pocket. “What’s gonna happen to that guy? Fred?”

“We’ll ask him some questions. Figure out where to find Ricky, and where to find the girls.”

“Ask him questions,” Elijah said flatly. Full of doubt.

“Do you really want the dirty details?”

He made a face. “No.” He sighed. “You really think you’ll find Allie and Nicole?”

“I hope so.” Carter knocked him lightly in the shoulder with a closed fist, and it didn’t inspire the same shock and awe that Ghost’s touch had. He was trusted; it felt good. “Get home. Keep a watchful eye.” He didn’t tell him that Hound and Rottie would be parked in front of his house all night to keep an eye out. No sense terrifying the poor kid.

~*~

Fred turned out to be white, blond, and in his early thirties. He had the physique of a former athlete gone soft, and the piggish nose of overbred Southern Old Money; the flushed cheeks, the colorless lashes. “Oughta be a football coach with a face like that,” Ghost told him, before he left the garage and left their hostage in Mercy’s very capable hands.

That had been an hour ago. Carter wasn’t sure why he’d stayed – he was sipping the whiskey Fox had brought him to keep his stomach from getting too jumpy. He guessed it was something about Mercy praising him, Ghost praising him; stepping up, again. If he was going to be a member of this club, he couldn’t keep shying away from the unsavory aspects of it. In meant all in…even when Mercy was doing what he did best.

Walsh was on secretary duty, as usual. He sat on a work bench, clipboard in one hand, pen poised with the other. His expression was weary, with only the faint lines on his brow to indicate any disgust in the proceedings. “If you’ll cooperate, all of this can stop,” he said, not for the first time. “I honestly don’t understand why we’re going through this whole charade. Give us Ricky, give us the girls, and the pain will stop.”

Fred sat slumped in the chair he was taped to, head hanging, sweat-soaked hair falling across his forehead. A long, sticky line of blood dripped down off his lower lip, and finally landed with a wet splat on the floor with the rest of it.

Mercy laced a hand in his hair and lifted his face; eyes glassy, face etched with a numbing kind of pain. Blood trickled over his lower lip, and ran down his chin. “I took the back ones,” Mercy said, almost sweetly, his voice low like a purr. “Fuck around anymore, and I’ll take the front ones, too. Good luck charming teenagers with dentures.”

His mouth moved, and he murmured something unintelligible, the blood bubbling between his lips.

“What was that?” Mercy lifted the pliers again.

“No,” Fred choked out, voice slurred, mouth full of blood. “I’ll…okay…okay…”

Mercy kept hold of his hair, and used it to turn his head so he faced Walsh.

Carter took another sip, dimly aware of Reese and Tenny walking circles around the edges of the light, like circling sharks moving in opposite directions.

Walsh said, “What’s your real name?”

“Pete – Peter Weston.”

Walsh wrote it down, and lifted his brows. “Where are you from, originally?”

“Here. I – I grew up” – he swallowed with an audible gulp – “here.”

“Doing what?”

“I work – I work for the mayor. I’m his – personal assistant.” His eyes fluttered closed a moment, and Mercy and Walsh shared a look.

Walsh said, “What’s the mayor’s personal assistant doing selling drugs to minors?”

“He told me – Mayor Cunningham, he said it had to be me. He couldn’t do it.”

“Why would he want to do it anyway?” Walsh had an alarming amount of patience in these situations, but Carter detected a hint of strain. The patience was wearing thin.

More blood welled and dribbled. Carter saw Mercy’s hand tighten in the man’s hair. “Had to – had to – take the Dogs out.”

“A mayor who wants to get rid of the Dogs. There’s an original thought.”

Mercy chuckled.

Walsh said, “Any particular reason – Merc, he’s passing out.” A quick slap roused him. “Why does he want to take the Dogs out?” Walsh repeated, slower and louder.

“It…isssa for the plan. The big plan.”

Walsh sighed. “What plan?”

Peter’s eyes fluttered closed again.

“Shit, he won’t last much longer.” Walsh stood, and went to stand in front of him, snapping his fingers to get his attention. “Hey, hey, look at me. Where’s Ricky?”

He stared up at Walsh with unfocused, tear-bright eyes. “He’s gone,” he said, and then the pain finally pulled him under.

“Shit,” Walsh said, turning and stalking away. He wiped his hand over his mouth, jaw tight afterward, and, in that moment, beneath the soft glow of the overhead light, he seemed more like a man – uncertain, frustrated, worried – than the stone-cold Money Man of the club.

Carter was surprised by the way it unsettled him.

“Secure him,” Walsh said, gathering himself. “Keep him quiet. When he wakes up, we’ll try again.”

Carter drained off his drink, went to ask Ghost if he would be needed for a little while, and then he was on his bike.

Thirty-Four

“You don’t need to stay with me,” Leah said. She felt like a broken record.

“Do I look like I mind?” Ava asked. They were sitting at the kitchen table playing doubles solitaire, the slap and slide of the cards a much-missed Southern comfort for Leah.

Night had fallen, and Evan was watching some kind of awful reality show over on the couch, and Leah was starting to wonder what exactly they were waiting on. She didn’t think Ava planned to spend the night, not with her kids back at the clubhouse, and she couldn’t imagine Evan would be ordered to stay here while Ava drove back on her own, in the dark. The lateness of the hour only made everything worse, she figured.

“No, but…” She lowered her voice. “How long do you think it’ll be like this? Will I be able to go to work tomorrow?” Despite Ian knowing the current situation, she loathed the idea of calling in sick so soon into her tenure with the company.

“Yeah, I think–” She was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Speak of the devil.”

Evan turned off the TV and went to answer it.

“Check first,” Ava reminded.

He did, and then unlocked and opened the door. Leah was expecting Mercy, come to collect his wife, but it was Carter who stepped inside, and she was immediately all butterflies and champagne fizz inside. The day’s stress and fatigue melted away, and she couldn’t keep from smiling broadly.

Ava’s little chuckle indicated she’d noticed.

Leah kicked her under the table as Carter walked toward them.

He looked tired, she noticed. A little pale and worn-down.

He smiled at her, though. Just at her, his gaze fixed, and a little color bloomed in his cheeks.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Oh, God,” Ava said, standing. “Y’all are still at the awkward ‘hi’ stage. I’ll leave you to it.”

Belatedly, Leah tore her gaze from Carter. “Wait, you’re going? You headed back home?” She shot a glance toward the window, the night inky black beyond the glass.

“To the clubhouse. The kids are probably already tired, and Mercy’s there.”

“If it’s not okay for me to be here alone, then it’s not okay for you to drive alone,” Leah reasoned.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got Evan,” Ava said, gesturing toward him with a flourish…then making a face.

“I saw that,” Evan said, pouting a little.

“It’s fine,” Ava said. “We’ll be fine. I can even text you if you want when I get there.”

“Please.”

As they left, Carter said, “I wouldn’t worry too much. Ava shot a man’s face clean off once.”

Leah felt her brows go up. “When?”

“In Louisiana.” He shrugged, and sat down in Ava’s vacated chair. “Cards?”

The door clicked shut.

She nodded. “Nervous fingers, I guess.” She displayed them, and found them trembling slightly – though the tremors weren’t from nerves. Not mostly. More like anticipation.

He studied them seriously a moment, and nodded.

“Are you my bodyguard for the night shift?” she asking, aiming for teasing.

But he nodded again, serious and drawn tight. “Hold on,” he said, and got up to go slide the chain home on the door, and check the deadbolt.

“Oh,” she said, as he stood a moment, fingertips braced on the panel, looking out through the peephole. “Ian sent two guards to the chop today to watch out for Mom and Dad. Big guys. They looked like they just got done fighting Sly Stallone or something.” Her chuckle came out faint. Why was she so jittery, suddenly?

He turned, and walked back toward the table, unhurried, but with a clear purpose. His expression was so serious, like it had been this morning.

“You know,” she said as he neared, “if you didn’t want to go to all the trouble, we could stage a very public argument and then keep clear of each other. No one would think I was important to the club, then, and no one would have to–”

He reached her, and took hold of her hands; they’d been fluttering around her head as she spoke. Closed his over them, warm, and firm, and callused at the base of each finger from his handlebars. He tugged her up out of her chair, and reeled her in toward him.

She went up on her toes automatically. “Babysit me,” she finished on an unsteady breath. “Carter?”

His own breath, when he released it, wasn’t all that steady either. “I know I ought to be doing this the slow way. The right way. A gentleman and all that–”

“You’re a gentleman.”

“I’m really not.” He released her hand and cupped his palm around her throat, thumb skating up her pulse, speeding faster, faster by the second. “We haven’t even had a real date. I said I would take you to dinner.”

His gaze, trained on her mouth, was nearly feverish. She hadn’t been able to tell that, from a distance, when he’d first walked in. He’d been quiet, calm – he’d been restrained. Eyes dilated, pulse visible in his throat, he was about to snap, and such blatant evidence of his want was electrifying.

He said, “But…”

“It’s been a shit day.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

She slipped her arms around his neck and met his kiss halfway.

His lips were warm, and chapped, and his tongue flicked hot and wet right away at the seam of her lips. She opened to him, and it was instantly incendiary; slick, and deep, and dizzying.

His hand slid up to cup her jaw, cradling her face, holding her to him.

She could touch too, she realized, belatedly through the haze of desire; she trailed her fingers up the back of his neck, into the short hair at his nape; softer than it looked, almost fluffy, thick and slippery as she burrowed through it, feeling greedy, pulling him down to her more firmly.

His tongue was wicked. She’d never kissed or been kissed like this, and a part of her felt she ought to be ashamed right now of the wanton moan building in her throat, but she couldn’t be. Not when it felt this good. Not when she could feel how much he wanted her – very distinctly, as his hips pressed in close, and she could feel him stirring half-hard behind his fly.

She’d pulled back last night. Too much too fast. But she’d been tailed by a bodyguard all day, and the club was going to war; girls were getting snatched off the street, and nothing was safe, nothing was guaranteed – nothing but the surety that this was going to be good. So fuck it. Fuck restraint.

She didn’t realize he’d been waltzing her steadily across the room until her back hit the kitchen counter.

“Shit,” he muttered, swaying backward, breaking the kiss, putting a bit of distance between them.

That wasn’t acceptable, but it gave her a chance to peel her shirt off over her head.

His eyes popped wide, falling right to her breasts, her purple, floral-stitched bra. “Oh,” he said. “Okay, we’re doing this.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, an unexpected laugh bubbling.

He grinned, and shucked his cut; it landed on the floor with a heavy sound, and then his hands were on the hem of that tight white t-shirt she’d admired this morning.

She had one fleeting moment of doubt, as his gaze stayed trained on her chest. She wasn’t a busty girl; couldn’t hope to compare to the sorts of women she’d seen around the clubhouse, with their overflowing halter tops struggling to contain D-cups. But his gaze was only heated and ardent, and then he got his shirt off, and it wasn’t her chest she was thinking about anymore.

She’d strolled past the practice fields a time or two in her days at Knoxville High; had shot appreciative glances toward the players during spring and fall training, shirtless, glistening, still contrastingly lean and edged with puppy fat in places, young guys not yet in their prime, but full of promise.

Carter Michaels was in his prime now. Holy hell. Naturally lean, he’d been lifting wights, and he’d put on muscle, stark contours along his pecs and abs.

Without thinking, she reached out and traced his Adonis lines with her thumbs, watching the flickering in his stomach as he sucked in a breath in reaction.

“Damn,” she said, voice lower than she’d ever heard it. It was the only coherent word she could form. He was gorgeous, and her mouth was dry, and his stomach caved in beneath her fingertips as she trailed them up his washboard abs.

When she reached his pecs, she spread her hands over them, felt the heat of his skin, the thud of his heartbeat. Felt his nipples draw up to sharp points. He was affected; she was affecting him. It was a head rush of the best kind.

She lifted her head to meet his gaze, finally – and was shocked by what she found there. Negative tension marked his brow. His mouth was closed, now, set, nostrils flaring as he breathed. He looked apprehensive; she could see him withdrawing from the moment, shutters coming down in his mind.

She lifted a hand to touch his jaw, startled by the tension there, the leap of a muscle beneath her fingertips. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” His hands landed on her hips, right at her waistband, and skated lightly up and down, petting her waist. One corner of his mouth twitched up in a pitiful smile. “Like what you see?” His tone was off; more mocking than cocky, almost bitter.

“Yeah,” she said, right away, and his quick nod was wrong, too.

How could anyone who looked like him be self-conscious? Unless…

She swallowed, and took a leap of faith, hoping, thinking, she was reading him right. “Yeah,” she repeated. “You’re okay. If you’re into muscles and stuff.” She made a face. “But mostly I just like that you’re sweet, but that you came in here ready to throw down, because I don’t know about you, but I’m keyed the hell up after today. Let’s bone, and then make nachos, huh?”

His brows shot up. His gaze cycled through surprise, alarm…and then melted into something amused. And fond. And soft.

He breathed a quiet laugh through his nose, and when he smiled, she felt the tension in his jaw ease a fraction beneath her palm. She stroked the sharp edge of it; smoothed a thumb across one pretty cheek.

“You’re weird,” he said, affectionately, and he put his arms around her and pulled her in close. Pressed a shockingly chaste kiss to her forehead.

It was amazing how quickly the mood had shifted, but she couldn’t regret it, not standing pressed skin to flushed skin, his strong arms tight around her, his chin propped on top of her head. Couldn’t regret the way this brought them closer than kissing could. Both were wonderful in their own way. And it was reassuring to see that he had doubts, too; she wasn’t alone in this, they were together.

“There’s a lot of girls who look at your body, aren’t there?” she asked. “And don’t look any further.”

She felt his chin move as he swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Same here. Just…for different reasons.”

His hands circled on her bare back, calluses catching at the satin band of her bra. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. It sucks being this beautiful sometimes,” she joked, and he snorted hard enough to ruffle her hair.

She did understand, though. How many times had she been judged on sight? For being Asian. For being small. For having pink hair. For being, as one of her Chicago coworkers had been overheard to say at the water cooler, “too fucking perky.” People had assumed she was good at math – she was, but she didn’t appreciate the stereotype, thank you very much. Men had called her an anime character, and men had called her ugly, and there probably weren’t many people alive who hadn’t had to push past erroneous first impressions, and prove themselves as multidimensional.

It would have been easy to see someone as beautiful as Carter as lucky…but it had been all too easy for some, she guessed, to only see Carter as beautiful. As a sex object, or a dumb blond.

He played with the length of her hair; traced idle fingertips along the bumps of her spine. “This is a really weird time for us to be doing – this.”

“To be fair, is there ever a time around here when it’s not weird?”

“No.” He sighed. “Not really.”

“It’ll pass,” she said. “It always does.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound convinced.

The seconds ticked by as they stood there, fingers exploring one another’s skin, swaying, a little, she began to realize. Side-to-side, at first – but then she felt a tell-tale twitch in his hips. Felt his muscles clench and release beneath his skin.

She smoothed her hands down to the small of his back; found the twin dimples just above the low rise of his jeans, and pressed her fingers into them until she felt him shiver all over – and press a little closer, hips twitching again.

One of his hands slid up beneath her hair, skimming back and forth across her upper back. The other moved to the band of her bra, with purpose this time; he slipped his thumb beneath it, and tested the give of the fabric; followed it all the way across, under the clasp, over her ribs, and then back.

Her face was in his throat, and with every breath she was inhaling his cologne, and the scent of heated skin. She could feel it when he swallowed; feel it when his pulse picked up again, a steady hard throb this time, and not the flutter of nervousness.

Her own pulse was starting to pound, all throughout her body, a drumbeat echo – one that was more and more concentrating between her legs. Her skin prickled with heat and awareness. Her breasts were crushed to his chest, and her nipples hardened when she thought about the negligible amount of satin that separated them.

He kissed the top of her head, and then her forehead again. Her temple. Her ear. He gathered her hair and pulled it aside, and then he was kissing her throat, slow and deliberate.

The last traces of her amusement evaporated. Heat bloomed beneath her skin wherever his mouth touched, and spread outward, a flash-fire rush that moved through her whole body in a matter of moments. She tipped her head, giving him better access, and he opened his mouth against her pulse point; painted it with his tongue.

His other hand slid back to the clasp of her bra, and he opened it with a quiet clip.

Her breath caught, and then she breathed out sharply against his throat, goosebumps shivering out across her skin.

He parted the halves of the band, smoothed them apart slowly. His kisses, open-mouthed and wet now, trailed down to her shoulder, out to the point of it – and he reached deftly to draw the strap of her bra down. One, and then the other, and then it was falling away, and she was digging deep grooves into his biceps with her nails as his hands slid forward along her ribcage, and he took her breasts in his hands.

Kissing, it turned out, wasn’t his only passionate skill. He stroked her with deft fingertips, feathery touches interspersed with firm squeezes, her breasts small but aching in his hands, cupped perfectly in each palm. He traced her nipples to even stiffer peaks with his thumbs, while he nibbled at her collarbone.

The careful preciseness of his ministrations left her tingling with sensation. No rough pawing that became a blur; she felt each glide of his fingertips, each firm flick of the pad of his thumb; could feel the shapes of his teeth as he bit her now, harder, until she gasped, and raked her nails up to his shoulders.

His mouth came back to hers, and he kissed her again, tongue forceful and demanding. His hands found her hips, gripped her, and in the span between kisses he hoisted her effortlessly up onto the counter.

“Oh,” she murmured as their lips parted. His face was a little below hers, now, upturned, so she could see that his pupils were blown, and that his mouth was as pink and swollen as hers felt.

“Bad ‘oh’?” His voice was rough.

“No. Definitely not.”

He smiled, fleeting and sharp, and leaned in to place his lips at the hollow of her throat. A slow, thorough kiss there, hot press of his tongue, and then he moved down. Lips trailing down her sternum – and then feathering out across the top of her breast. He licked her nipple before he sucked it into his mouth, and then he latched on hard, and Leah gasped.

Her neck felt liquid, and it was an effort to hold her head up, but she managed, eyes slitted stubbornly open though they wanted to close, because she couldn’t miss the sight of his golden head bent, of his lips pink and pursed against her. She was so, so sensitive there, and he seemed to know it, teasing at her with the edges of his teeth, little nibbles, and then hard sucks that had her thighs clenching where they were splayed on either side of his chest.

He went back and forth, from one nipple to the other, until she was slick, and gleaming, and sore. His hands petted her sides, and back, and her quivering stomach – and then found the button of her jeans and popped it open.

He didn’t lift his head to check this time, but he didn’t need to; could read the way she spread her legs a little more, and tilted her hips in offering. She gripped his hair with one hand, and the counter with the other, bit her lip and watched, pulse a hard, steady throb in her sex, where she was already wet and growing wetter.

He eased her zipper down, and folded back the halves of her fly. Leaned in to press butterfly kisses against the tender skin of her lower belly, just above the satin waistband of her panties.

“Mph.” She couldn’t hold back a shocked little sound, and she saw his lashes flicker in response.

He tucked his thumb in the waistband, and flicked it back and forth, lower, lower, lower…When he brushed her clit, she said, “God.”

He teased her there a minute, and she wasn’t too proud to squirm, to seek more contact.

Then he stood.

“Oh, come on–” she started.

He gripped her jeans in one hand, held her steady at the waist with the other, and tugged them down over one hip, and then the other. Leah braced both hands and lifted up, helping him, and then the jeans were down, and off.

He plucked at the toes of her socks – big purple flowers on white – grinned, then pulled them off. Both hands skated up her legs: shins, knees, thighs, to her hips. He found her gaze – and, God, his face like this, so wonderfully unfamiliar in its heat, intensity, and confidence. He knew he was good at this, was proud of the fact, and damn if she wasn’t going to eat it up and love every second.

His thumbs smoothed back and forth across the waistband of her panties, and he lifted his brows in silent question.

She was flushed – she could see the blush across her whole body, from her peaked, aching nipples, to her belly, and thighs. She was panting, but she managed to say, “If you don’t, I’ll hit you.”

His grin was a wicked flash of teeth, and then he skimmed her panties down with a few expert movements, dropped them, and it didn’t figure in her mind to worry about sitting totally naked on her kitchen counter, because he was urging her thighs wider, and stepping between them, touching her face with one hand – and the very top of her thigh with the other.

Again, her breath caught. His gaze arrested hers, and so she was looking only at the blown-out blue ring of his irises when his hand shifted inward, and he brushed her wet sex with the backs of his fingers for the first time.

Even that bare contact had her inner muscles contracting, and her pulse skipping erratically.

He touched her again, fingertips this time. Bolder. Explored her folds, gliding through the wetness there, slicker as more welled, as her body opened in anticipation of him. He found her entrance and tested it. Pressed in with one finger – and then two. Thrust in and out of her, slow and deep, his gaze never wavering, holding hers relentlessly.

She hadn’t expected this. He’d managed to surprise her again, because this wasn’t the fast tangle she’d imagined, sloppy kisses and fast thrusts and starbursts. He fucked into her with his fingers, over and over, and she knew he had to feel her clenching around him, and getting wetter, and wetter. Her lips parted, and she breathed in quick little gasps, every nerve alight and sparking, wanting. The pressure was building deep in her core, and this was so good – it felt obscene, almost, with his eyes locked on hers, his touch purposeful. If she hadn’t been so wildly turned on, she would have wanted to cover herself; thought fleetingly of grabbing his hair and dragging him into a kiss.

His thumb swept across her cheek, cool against near-feverish skin, and another understanding dawned. How many times had she called him a sex fiend? Joking, yes, but he was experienced – beyond experienced. People looked at him and saw beauty; and now people looked at him and saw the center of wild stories and debauched orgies.

Look at me, his gaze said. I can make you feel like you’re flying. Don’t pretend this is sweet and gentle with me, ‘cause it’s not.

He liked sex. He was damn good in bed, she’d realized by this point. He wasn’t used to fumbling around in the dark and praying for the Lord’s forgiveness afterward.

Let me show you, he seemed to say.

Okay, she thought, melting another fraction. Show me.

She wasn’t used to being encouraged in her pleasure like this, but she wasn’t afraid to try and figure it out.

She wet her lips with a deliberate sweep of her tongue. A little showy, but she was gratified by the way his eyes followed the movement. Then she spread her legs a little wider – his fingers plunged deep, and she didn’t bite back a sound this time, a high little huff of breath – and sat up straighter, arching her back. She smoothed her hands up her stomach, her ribs, until she cupped her breasts. The movement drew his gaze, and his throat bobbed as he watched her caress herself; lift and shape herself.

She pinched one nipple hard between thumb and forefinger, and slid her other hand back down her belly, until she could stroke her own clit. He crooked his fingers inside her at the same time, and, “Oh, God,” she murmured. She moved as best she could, a roll of her spine, hips seeking, and then her chest. “Carter. Take your pants off.”

“Yeah.” He was grinding against the front of her cabinet. “Yeah, shit.”

The loss of his fingers was tragic – but she replaced them with her own, sliding in with two and reaching not as deep, but at least not staying empty.

“Christ,” he muttered, gaze trained on the movement of her hand as he tore at his belt and fly. Pushed down his jeans and boxers without ceremony. He fumbled with his boots a moment, and then gave up, left them on, crowding in close to her again.

The angle wasn’t right, they weren’t lined up perfectly – but it didn’t matter, Leah thought vaguely, as ripples of heat surged through her. She wouldn’t last, and she didn’t figure, judging by the proud jut of his fully-hard cock, that he would either.

He was flushed, and leaking, and this part of him was as pretty as all the rest. With the hand that was wet and slick from seeing to herself, she gripped him, stroked him root to tip.

He hissed through his teeth – and then his fingers were back at her sex, three this time, pushing in, stretching her. His thumb found her clit and rubbed.

Leah pitched forward, braced a hand on his shoulder, and worked his cock in long, firm pulls. Until his hips were kicking, and he was fucking into her fist, the slide wetter on every pass as he continued to leak.

He dipped his head, and she lifted hers, and they surged into a clumsy kiss. It was mostly panting, just breathing against each other, little bites, and flickers of tongue. She started moaning and couldn’t stop, vocalizing every breath. His fingers were so good, but his cock would be even better; she clenched around him, with her sex and with her hand. He fisted his free hand in her hair, pulling just hard enough to send little shocks of sensation along her scalp–

And that was what tipped her over.

She gasped against his mouth, twisted her wrist, and felt the hot jets of his release against the insides of her thighs as she came in a shocking blast of pulses and, yes, the hoped-for starbursts.

~*~

They leaned against one another for long minutes, catching their breath, working one another through the aftershocks. And then they reclaimed their respectively slippery hands, locked gazes…and laughed. Low, tired, deeply warm laughter that unknotted the last of the day’s tension in Carter’s chest.

He felt like an idiot kid, coming all over her and not inside her, but she’d come, too, hard, his palm full of slick, his fingers crushed tight; the sounds she’d made. The way she’d touched herself, bold and hungry and…Jesus.

Even as the afterglow set in, he wanted her again. Wanted inside her.

“Did you say something about nachos?” he asked, still panting.

She gripped his neck in both her little hands, heedless of his release spattered across the one, and dragged him down into a kiss no less heated, even if it was slower and lazier.

“Fuck nachos, take me to bed,” she said.

Thank God. “Yes, ma’am.”

Thirty-Five

Ava hovered over Millie’s temporary crib, debated leaning in to kiss her sweet, round cheek, and decided not to disturb her sleep. Over on the bed, both boys were sacked out, exhausted by a rousing game of indoor tag that had thankfully resulted in only one bumped-into table, and one skinned knee. Clean, all snuggled into their pajamas, they slept on their sides facing one another, dark hair and light, both with Mercy’s luxurious black eyelashes fanned on their cheeks.

Night, babies, she said silently, heart overflowing with love, and stepped out into the hall and eased the door shut, baby monitor crammed in her back pocket.

She and Mercy were going to spend the night in the dorm right next door, and he must have come in while she was checking on the boys, because she could hear the faucet running through the open door. She slipped in and closed it; set the baby monitor on the dresser.

The door to the en-suite stood open, too, and Mercy was at the sink – he had to bend down a little because he was so tall, and the vanity had been set at a height for average-size Dogs – thoroughly scrubbing his hands, soap suds spread up to his arms while he worked a bar of harsh soap against his nails. When Ava propped a shoulder in the threshold, and glanced down into the sink basin, she saw that the water swirling down into the drain was tinged pink.

The soap was yellow.

“Hey, baby,” he greeted, lifting his head to meet her gaze via the mirror, grinning. His smile was full of gladness and affection, but his dark eyes still had that faintly-glazed look they always had after an interrogation. His blood was still up, even as he washed the blood from between his fingers. “Kids okay?”

“Fast asleep next door. They had an exciting day.”

“Yeah? I bet.”

“Seems like you did, too,” she said, smiling.

He set the soap down, and began the rinsing process, smoothing pink-tinged suds away with his broad, tan, callused hands. “More exciting than most,” he agreed, a little smug.

Ava had long been aware that the surge of approval she felt wasn’t exactly normal in polite society, amongst nice young couples. You weren’t supposed to be proud of your man’s viciousness; shouldn’t feel glad that he’d cracked open a tacklebox of tools and hooks and knives and forcibly extracted answers from an enemy of the club.

She’d been aware – but she wasn’t going to waste a second on berating herself, or him. They were club; they didn’t have to be normal. To hell with polite society. The ugly things he did kept their family safe, and that was all that mattered. If he enjoyed it in the process – well, everyone needed an outlet of some sort. Mercy’s just happened to be violent.

“What do we know?” she asked, tone sliding into more serious territory, approval shifting into readiness.

He finished rinsing, shut off the tap, and reached for a towel. He turned to her as he dried his hands, hip leaned up against the edge of the counter. Someone else might have read his expression as concerned – Ava saw instead a quiet sort of regret. Things hadn’t played out as he’d wanted; he was doubting his approach in this particular instance. “He’s asleep, and we won’t know more until he wakes up.”

“Too scared? Or too much blood loss?”

“Eh. Little bit of both, I think. I went for the teeth.” He made a face.

She nodded.

“But what we know so far is that this is the one who was calling himself Fred. A local boy. Peter Weston.”

“Why do I know that name?”

“Ratchet already looked him up, said he has a younger sister your age. She probably went to school with you.”

Ava had a sudden, stark mental image of a pug nose, and piled-up blonde hair, and the practiced, disapproving flick of eyelashes accompanied by a little tsk of disgust. “Let’s just say we ran in different circles.”

“God, I hope so.” He chuckled, once, and then sobered. “Apparently he works for the mayor’s office, and this whole drug thing was Mayor Cunningham’s idea.”

“Oh, great. A mayor who’s after the Dogs. That’s original.”

“That’s what Walsh said.”

She sighed, exhausted suddenly. “God. Talk about déjà vu.” It was all too easy to trip and fall backward into the past. To remember newspaper headlines, and Littlejohn following her around campus, and living with a ball of stress lodged constantly at the base of her throat. To remember the shiny gleam of Ronnie’s loafers. And Mercy, home again, the frenetic, harrowing fear and lust of those first few weeks back together again. Hating him almost as much as she loved him – but never really. Hate was just an outgrowth of love; the after-effect of love lost.

He set the towel down and reached for her. She unwound her arms, and let him take them in his big, strong hands, and tow her up against the solid wall of his body; readily slipped her hands beneath his cut to grip the back of his shirt in both fists, his body heat an immediate comfort. It was hard to be afraid of anything when she was touching him. When he was stroking her arms, and tucking her hair behind her ears, and looking at her with a loving softness that managed, in all the ways that he was multi-faceted, to be heated and fractious at the edges, too. He was her Great Wall, and her incendiary device, too.

“It won’t be like it was, then,” he said, voice going low, purring, his accent thickening.

“Not to doubt you, baby. But. A city against us. A mayor against us. Sounds like old times.”

“Yeah, but see, this time, we’re different.” He held up his left hand, his wedding band catching the light.”

Even as she felt her insides softening, she had to say, “Because marriage conquers all evil?”

“Nah, but we do. We’ve got our heads on straight this time.” He laid his hand on top of hers, warm and grounding. “And your dad’s a better president now. The club’s bigger; it’s stronger. Got more money, and more allies. We’re ready, fillette. We can handle this.”

She rested her chin on his chest, head tipped back to look up at him. “I do admire your confidence.”

“You should. It’s pretty spectacular.”

She laughed.

“Among other things.”

“Now you’re fishing.”

“Damn straight. I’m good at fishing – and not just fish, either. I hook me some gators, baby.”

She laughed until her face ached, in a good way.

“Hey, did I ever tell you that story about the time we hooked the one that got stuck on that old boat propeller?”

At least seven times. But she said, “No, I don’t think you did,” just to hear his voice come to life, rumbling and colorful, dripping all the algae tang of the swamp he’d loved and then left.

“Well, Daddy got the boat all turned in the wrong way, and then…”

~*~

They’d left the lights off, but the blinds were open, and enough moon and streetlight filtered in to afford her a view of bunching, straining muscle.

Carter was above her, one hand braced on the pillow beside her head, the other gripping the headboard, leverage for the thrusts that rocked her body.

Any last vestiges of self-consciousness had burned away as they’d stumbled down the hall and into her bedroom. There was no room for doubt or shyness when he was buried this deep inside her, hitting her right there, over and over. She watched him from beneath heavy eyelids, vision blurred. She whimpered and moaned to let him know that it was good, to encourage him – God, she’d die if he stopped – and squeezed his hips tight with her thighs, ankles hooked behind his back; reached up when she could just to touch all that hard, working muscle on his sweat-slick chest and stomach.

It was good. It was so good.

Then he pulled out.

But before she could murmur a protest, he had hold of her hips, and was turning her over, easily. Urging her up on her knees, hands tight over her hipbones, and he was sliding back in, picking the previous rhythm right up. And, oh, this was good, too.

She braced her elbows on the mattress, gripped the sheets, and pressed back into each of his thrusts, chasing the blunt pressure of his cock. She was panting raggedly, and so was he.

Her orgasm surprised her. She closed her eyes and let the starbursts crowd behind her eyelids; let the wave of pleasure crest – and wash over her.

She was dimly aware of making some sound, but didn’t know if it was a cry or a whimper. Thought she might fall. But Carter held her hips, held her up; she pressed her heated face against the pillow, still wracked with pulses that sent fresh darts of pleasure through her, as he chased his own released. Faster, faster, he pressed in deep, and came with a bitten-off shout, grinding against her, his fingers spasming.

Her body felt liquified, shaky and unreliable – but it was a good kind of haze. He stayed above her a moment, as he softened, and she shivered pleasantly beneath the gentle stroke of his hands across her back. When he finally withdrew, Leah collapsed down onto her stomach, eyes shut, body humming. Falling asleep was a real possibility.

The mattress dipped, and she heard him moving around, and her eyes snapped open when she felt a warm, damp cloth press against her swollen sex.

“Sorry,” he said, softly. “We’re a mess.”

She held still, while he wiped her down, so gently, and then rolled onto her side, watching him walk back to her en-suite to put the towel away. His torso was an inverted triangle, strong and spare, but his ass, she noticed, was sweetly curved, and pale, untouched by the sun.

She was smiling when he returned, and stretched out on his side, facing her.

“What?”

“You have a very cute butt.”

He wiped a hand down his face, groaning – but laughing, too.

“Don’t deny it. You do.”

“No, it’s just…” Enough filtered, bluish light fell through the blinds in slats to afford her a glimpse of his eyes, made even bluer in the shadows, sparkling with an emotion she couldn’t name. Not yet. “How can we do…that. And then just go right back to. You know. Joking around and shit. Like we’re friends.”

“Aren’t we friends?”

“Yeah, but…that.” He gestured to the mattress between them; the sheets smelled of sweat and sex.

She shrugged. “Why can’t we? Why not be friends, and then have killer sex. And I do mean killer. Holy shit. That was…”

His teeth flashed white in the gloom. “Yeah.”

“We should do it again. Very soon.”

She expected another laugh – but his smile slipped, the Cheshire cat grin fading. “I’ve never…” He trailed off.

“Never what?” she prompted, softening her tone.

He hesitated. Played with an imaginary bit of lint on the sheet between them. “It’s never been like this for me.” His lashes lowered, and he was uncertain, she realized. He didn’t know how to rectify companionship with hot sex.

They’d have to work on that. “Good,” she teased, “because I like to feel special.”

His smile came back, gentler this time. He looked almost bashful, now, and she wondered, if she clicked the lamp on, if she’d see him blushing. “You still up for nachos?”

“God, yes, I’m starving.”

~*~

“Go get some rest,” Fox had suggested. “I’ll come get everyone when he wakes up,” he’d said of their prisoner.

Reese went to the clubhouse kitchen to make a mug of tea, then he went outside, into the pleasant coolness of the evening, the stars wheeling overhead. He walked aimlessly, until the soft lights of Maggie’s parking lot garden drew him. He went up the little stairs, into the sprawling raised bed full of benches, and fruit trees, and flowers, and fountains, and paths, and found Tenny there.

He sat on a curved stone bench beneath an apple tree strung with fairy lights, staring down into the goldfish pond at his feet, knees splayed and feet hooked together. Slumped down with his elbows braced on his thighs. In the fraction of a second before he heard Reese and looked his way, his expression was one of deep contemplation – but not unhappiness, Reese didn’t think. The notch between his brows spoke of mulling things over, but not of misery.

When he lifted his head, he’d smoothed his expression into its perfect mask. He didn’t speak.

Reese wasn’t sure what to do for a moment. He couldn’t remember a time when Tenny hadn’t made the first overture, whether it was friendly or vicious, or, as was the case most of the time, viciously friendly.

He said, “I can leave. If you want.”

“No.” Tenny shrugged and looked back at the pond again. “You can stay.”

Reese knew it was the closest he’d get to an invitation, so he went slowly down the path, and sat down on the opposite end of the bench, giving Tenny plenty of time to get up and move if he wanted to. He didn’t. “I’m not sleepy,” he explained.

“Me neither.” Tenny sat back, and stretched out his long legs; the heels of his boots rested on the flat rocks that edged the pond. “Thought about going for a run.”

“Or call Stephanie,” Reese suggested, though his stomach twisted unpleasantly at the suggestion. “I won’t get in the way. Just you and her this time.”

Tenny sucked in a sharp breath…and then let it out slowly. “You stupid fucking tit,” he muttered, not quite under his breath. Then he sighed, and in a more normal voice, said, “Walsh’s wife asked me to come help exercise some of her training horses.”

Reese paused mid-sip and turned to look at him. No part of that sentence had made any sense.

Tenny seemed to know it, if the way he rolled his eyes was any indication. “I had dinner over there.”

“At the farm.”

“Yes, at the farm, where else would I have spoken with Walsh’s wife?” he snapped, impatiently.

“At the clubhouse,” Reese pointed out.

“Hmph. At the farm. She asked me, then.”

“Do you know how to ride a horse?”

Tenny turned to meet his gaze, his usual sneer in place, haughty and overconfident. “Do you honestly think there’s anything I don’t know how to do?”

Explain what you’re thinking and feeling, Reese thought. Be polite. He didn’t say that, though, and it turned out he didn’t need to.

Tenny made a face and said, “Nevermind, don’t answer that. Yes, I know how to ride a horse. Quite well, actually.”

“Walsh used to be a jockey.”

“Yes, yes.” Impatient again. Then he sighed, and stared out across the garden. Reese didn’t have words for the atmosphere of the place, couldn’t have begun to describe it to someone else with any kind of artistry, but he’d been drawn to it tonight. He felt more at peace here. It was easier to let the daily concerns fade into the background, here in this most unlikely of oases.

When Tenny spoke again, his tone had shifted. Light, airy, careless – but Reese picked up on a subtle vibration of tension. “I’m going Tuesday afternoon. You should come.”

He felt his brows go up in surprise. “You want me to come?”

Tenny didn’t answer for a long moment, but Reese, studying his profile, saw his lashes flicker, and his throat move. Finally, he said, “Yes.” Just that, no further explanation.

Reese didn’t need one. “Okay.” A thought struck. “We might still be busy. Ghost will want to go after the mayor.”

“Oh, that.” Tenny dismissed it with a wave. “We’ll have that settled before then. Wait and see.”

Thirty-Six

“You don’t need to follow me,” Leah said over an early breakfast of toast and sliced grapefruit. “I’ll be totally fine. It’s right downtown. And it’s daylight. You don’t have to worry.” Her cheeks glowed a faint pink, and her lashes were lowered in signs of obvious charmed embarrassment at his insistence, but her tone was steady and firm. She really didn’t want to inconvenience him; but, mostly, he thought, she didn’t like the idea of being dependent. She’d always had a contrary streak.

One that Carter wasn’t willing to indulge right now, not about this. “It was broad daylight when Nicole Myer got snatched, too. Right on the sidewalk in the middle of downtown. She went out for a ten-minute break, and never came back.”

Leah’s gaze flickered up, and the color drained out of her face. Carter hated scaring her, but it was necessary now, he thought. There was no such thing as being too cautious in the world of the Lean Dogs.

“I’m not going to follow a stranger outside,” she said.

“What if the guy was dressed as a cop? Or a fireman or something?”

“Carter–” she started.

“Me following you isn’t about me thinking you can’t take care of yourself. Or that you’re not smart,” he huffed, impatience showing, he knew. “If something happened to you…” He didn’t finish because it was all too easy to imagine her running through that field behind the mill where they’d found Allie Henderson’s shirt, and blood drops spattered on leaves. “It’s about making sure you’re safe because I care about you.”

She studied him a moment, then nodded. “Okay.” Took another bite of toast. “Where are you going after that?”

“To the clubhouse, to see what kinda crazy shit we’ve got on the agenda today.” When she smiled fondly, he was helpless but to smile back, despite the churning anxiety in his stomach.

Last night had been something of a revelation for him. Sex in high school and college had been a strange mix of girls so shy they didn’t want him to look at them, and girls trying to use him for social clout thanks to his football star status. It had been mechanical for that kind of young woman: they said he was hot, and asked to feel his muscles, but they weren’t seeing him. They’d eyed him up like a prize hog, until his skin had crawled, and he’d lost all interest in dating.

Then had come the club, and Jazz, and a walk on the wilder side, free of shame and judgement. Whatever felt good was good. He’d learned a lot in her bed; she’d taken his raw skills and honed them just like any good coach, until he knew all the moves and tricks that had women blossoming like flowers, the moves and tricks so often unknown-to, or disregarded by men just looking to get their own.

But, even though he genuinely liked Jazz, she’d never felt like a friend. Like a companion. When they were tangled up and sweaty, there’d been something almost motherly about her affection, and he’d thought that was as close as he could come to love.

But Leah last night…

He’d already known that he liked her. They’d been friends for far longer than they’d been anything more serious. She had a way of reading his moods and expressions, anticipating just what he needed to hear in weak moments. She could cheer him up like no one else. He’d wondered, though, if she would recoil from his frankly demanding passion.

To have her meet him halfway; to see her enjoy herself, and him, and for them to be able to laugh and joke with each other after…To sit up late with a plate of nachos and a crappy action movie…

He had no idea what to make of that. She could moan, and arch, and urge him deeper inside her – and then share the inane details of her day with him. Make faces and do bad impressions of the characters in the movie they were watching.

It was so contradictory – and so rich because of it. So unexpected and wonderful, and he would guard it with everything he had.

He loaded the dishwasher while she gathered her laptop bag and purse, and did one last check that the apartment was set for the day.

She paused at the door, before they went out, and turned to him.

Worry flared – but it shouldn’t have.

The smile she tipped up to him was full of banked heat; he could watch the memories from last night play out across the pleasure that shifted over her features. “You won’t be able to pull into the parking deck when we get to the building,” she said. “And don’t worry: it’s guarded, and well-lit, and totally safe.” She hummed a sound that was almost a laugh, and then grew serious again; placed a hand on his chest that didn’t grope or fondle, but which felt heavy with promise. “We should say goodbye here.”

His throat had gone dry. He swallowed. “Good idea.”

“Last night was…” Her gaze flicked back and forth across his face as she searched for words. “Incredible. I’ve never had sex like that.” She said it plainly, without artifice – but it felt like a gift. Was a gift. She grinned. “Thank God for Sex Fiend Carter Michaels.” At this point, she didn’t mean it as objectification, but she went on to say, “And for Wonderful Friend Carter Michaels, too.” She leaned up to kiss him, then, lashes falling low.

He cupped her face and deepened it, one indulgent moment, before reluctantly letting her go. “Thank you,” he said, and the spark in her eyes told him he didn’t have to say what for.

~*~

The clubhouse, when he arrived, buzzed with activity. Ratchet’s usual table looked to have become a catch-all for printed photos and Red Bull cans. Chanel was handing him another as Carter entered, and he wondered if the Secretary had even slept.

Ghost was looking over his shoulder, as expected, cell phone pressed to his ear. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you think – well, I don’t travel in that rich shithead circle, do I? Yeah. Talk later.”

Carter perched on the edge of a table, beside Reese; his first instinct was to sit somewhere else, but he remembered their brief semblance of a conversation the other day, and thought about stepping up, and didn’t avoid the quiet assassin.

To his surprise, Reese leaned over a fraction and said, “Peter Weston woke up an hour ago. We questioned him again, and he gave us an address where they were keeping the girls, a phone number for Ricky, and details about the mayor’s involvement.”

“Awesome. Where is he now?”

Reese’s gaze cut over, cold blue and impossible to read. “In storage.”

Headed for the cattle property, then.

Ghost disconnected his call, and said, “Okay,” loudly enough that everyone perked up. “Ian’s gonna handle the meet-up: lure the asshole to some fancy lunch, and give us a chance to have a little heart-to-heart without any of us having to go down to the office. We gotta figure out how to play it, though. Strong-arming him will just make us look bad.”

“Ahem,” Fox said, deadpan, expression smug. “You’ve got two world-class actors here, faces unknown in the city. Make use of us, please.”

“God,” Albie muttered, and rolled his eyes. But said, “Yeah, that’s a good plan.”

“Okay,” Ghost said, nodding. “I want you both mic’d up. If we’re taking this asshole out, then we gotta have hard evidence.”

“Why don’t we just…?” Aidan drew a finger across his throat.

“Because I wanna know how deep this goes,” Ghost said, expression stern. “According to Peter’s, and the kids’ descriptions, Ricky is Luis Cantrell, and I wanna know how the fuck that creep got the mayor of Knoxville to go along with this sick little plan. We’re gonna call the number Peter gave us as soon as Ratchet gets the setup ready to tap the call.”

“We can do that now?” Tango asked, impressed.

“Ratchet can do anything,” Ghost said, absent, but genuine praise. “We also need a team to head to the house. If Luis has figured out that Peter’s missing, then he’s moved the girls. But we still need to search the place.”

“We’ll go,” Rottie said, motioning to Hound. “Fox, does your girl want in?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“That leaves the last piece of the puzzle,” Ghost said, “and it’s the most delicate. Somebody’s gotta get inside the mayor’s office and see what they can find there.”

“You really think somebody’s gonna keep that shit in their office?” Briscoe asked.

“If they’re stupid enough to take us on,” Ghost said, smirking, “I figure anything’s possible.”

~*~

Fox didn’t own a suit, and neither, of course, did his younger brother. But Macy’s was open at ten, and by ten ‘til noon, he and Tenny were, if not tailored, at least decked out in new suits, shirts, ties, and cuff links. “It’s the little details,” Fox explained needlessly, adjusting his cuffs as they approached the door of Chez Henrí. His cuff links were mother of pearl, and the flash of them in the sun was muted and tasteful.

Tenny – to be a shit, Fox thought – had picked bright gold, shaped like little swords with diamonds set in the hilts. “I know,” he said, tone bored, and reached to smooth his hair back again. Both of them were pomaded to within an inch of their lives, and Fox thought they looked admirably unlike themselves.

They reached the door, and a doorman swept it open for them. “Afternoon, gentlemen.”

“Afternoon,” Fox replied in his Tennessee drawl.

“Thank you so much,” Tenny said, mimicking his accent perfectly, and they stepped into an air conditioned, perfumed waiting area lined with tufted leather benches, the white-painted wall paneling hung with dreamy Southern landscapes.

The hostess greeted them with a decent, but fake, French accent, and after checking their names off on her list showed them to Mr. Shaman’s table.

Ian sat alone – Fox clocked Bruce in a corner booth with a view of both his boss and all the entrances and exits – at an intimate circular table draped in white linen, auburn hair gleaming in the sunlight, dressed in a dove gray suit with a powder blue shirt, the menu held before him in one elegant hand. He didn’t acknowledge them as they sat, only thanked the hostess with a tight smile and resumed looking over his lunch options.

Fox hadn’t spent much time at all with the Dogs’ moneyed drug supplier, but what he’d glimpsed of him in London felt like enough to read him properly. He was smart, originally from old money; he liked tasteful, expensive things, and he was a slave to aesthetic. He also had a bitter, insecure streak that he hid masterfully beneath good manners and flirtation. A thing to exploit, should the need ever arise.

“Well, how you doin’, sugar?” Fox said, laying the Southern accent on extra thick. He intentionally swerved into Texas oil baron territory.

Ian closed his menu, rested it on the table, and looked up with a slow-spreading shark smile, eyes glittering cruel above it. “I’m splendid,” he said, accent crisp – and not at all fake. Money and breeding dripped off every syllable. “Though you seem to be in the wrong state, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, well.” Fox grinned back, just as wicked, and slipped back into his Knoxville persona. “What can I say, I like showing off.”

Ian’s smile widened, and some of the coldness melted from his gaze. “Damn,” he said quietly, “you are good. Kenny said. But. Well, one never knows.” Then he turned his head to regard Tenny, and his expression turned downright predatory – and pleased. “And who have you brought to our little charade? He has your eyes. A brother, hm? A much prettier brother.” Lower: “Hello, darling, what’s your name?”

To Fox’s amazement, Tenny blushed. A lot. His face stayed carefully neutral, save for the flicker of a muscle in his jaw.

Ian laughed, soft and delighted. “Oh, you’re sweet, aren’t you?” He sighed, and sat back. Glanced down quickly at his left hand, the gleam of platinum there. “I’m quite happy, but it never hurts to look. Beautiful things are to be admired.”

He brushed his hair back over his shoulder and composed himself.

Tenny stared at his hands, now knotted together on the tabletop, red all the way up to his ears.

Hey, Reese, Fox thought. Come learn how to flirt from this guy and you’ve got your boy in the bag.

Ian turned to Fox, all business now. It was shocking the way all his showmanship melted, and he looked cool and professional. “Ghost said you’d be wired.”

“We are,” Fox said, quietly, in his true voice, and watched Ian’s brows give an uptick of surprise before settling. “We need him to admit to involving Peter Weston – that’s his assistant, or, was – in his crusade against the Dogs. It won’t be enough for him to say that he hates us.”

“Too commonplace a sentiment, I’m afraid.”

“We’re almost one-hundred percent certain Luis Cantrell is involved, but we don’t know all the inroads and connections.”

“Ghost said something about crime syndicates joining forces in New York.”

“And a human trafficking ring that I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface of yet. The more he can give us, the better. We need to charm him, get him comfy, and act like we’re on his side.”

“Darling, charming is my best quality, don’t you know. Give me ten minutes, and he’ll be eating out of my hand.” He shot a wink at Tenny, who frowned in response.

Fox kicked his brother under the table. “Get your head on straight. Deal with your blue balls on your own time.”

“Have I touched a nerve?” Ian asked, too innocently.

“No. Look, here he comes.”

~*~

Carter felt like he was the last person who should have been picked for this part of the plan, but Reese had looked right at him, and said, “You should come.”

Mercy was going along too, and had shaken him fondly like a dog shakes its puppy. “Yeah, come on. It’ll be good practice.”

Practice for what? he wanted to ask, but hadn’t argued.

Stepping up.

The plan was simple – so simple that Carter was worried it wouldn’t work. He and Reese left off their cuts and traveled to the office – set in a gleaming industrial building off Gay Street, overlooking the river and the iconic Gay Street bridge – via club truck. Reese had scraped his too-long hair back into a tidy knot at his nape; they wore nondescript t-shirts and jeans, tool belts around their waists and hardhats crammed on their heads. Carter toted a small, metal stepladder.

Mercy, though, walked into the building several paces ahead of them, wearing his cut, his long hair loose, his shirtsleeves short enough to flash his ink. Every inch of him screamed outlaw biker, and he drew immediate, alarmed looks from the people milling about the lobby.

“Hey,” he called, far too loudly, as he strolled toward the counter. “I need to talk to the mayor about some shit.”

“Oh, God,” Carter muttered; ducked his head and followed Reese to the elevators.

Ratchet had been able to pull up the building’s floor plan on his computer, so they knew which floor the mayor’s personal office was on. They boarded a thankfully empty elevator car, and Carter pushed the button.

He let out a deep breath when the doors closed. “I don’t know that this is gonna work.”

“I’m going to set the fire in the trash can,” Reese said, calmly – almost soothingly, Carter thought. “And you will speak with the receptionist.”

“Thanks,” Carter muttered, but knew it was the best call. They’d talked about it on the way over, and decided that Carter had a much better chance of being charming and apologetic than Reese.

The elevator arrived, and they stepped out into a windowless, carpeted hallway. One man hurried past, shuffling through paperwork and muttering to himself, an ID card on a lanyard bouncing against his chest.

When he was out of earshot, Carter said, “Try not to burn the whole place down, alright? I don’t wanna have to jump out a window – and then go to jail for torching a government building.”

Reese only nodded, and took out his book of matches.

When the garbage can started to smoke, they went around the corner, heads ducked so their hardhats hid their faces from the cameras, and approached the reception desk that allowed access to the mayor’s inner-sanctum.

The receptionist – a harried-looking young woman with her cellphone in one hand and the landline handset in the other – glanced up quickly, and then did a double take, frowning. “Hold on,” she murmured into the handset. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah.” Carter hefted the ladder up higher on his shoulder and offered his best fake, relaxed smile. “We’re here to replace the bulbs in all the offices. We got a call that some of them are burned out.”

Her frown deepened. “Okay, sure, but I don’t…”

She was interrupted by the whoop and screech of the smoke alarm going off.

“Shit,” she said, just barely audible over the nose. She slammed one phone down, and slid the other into her pocket. Reached under the desk to gather her bag. “Shit, we have to get out of here.”

Carter stepped aside. “Ladies first.” He had to shout to be heard.

She brushed past him, and they made as if to follow – but didn’t. Turned instead back to the office door.

It was locked, but Reese picked it easily, and they swept inside, shutting it behind them.

Carter set the ladder down and took a second to get his bearings. The alarm was overpowering; he couldn’t stop wincing, whole body jerking each time the whoop sounded. He gritted his teeth, and his eyes started to water.

Reese appeared in front of him, something held out in offering – earmuffs. High quality shooting over-ear hearing protection. He wore another pair himself, the headstall hooked behind his neck so he could leave on the hardhat.

Carter nodded his thanks, and snapped them on. He could still tell the alarm was going off, but it no longer felt like the sound was drilling holes through his eardrums. He took a breath, and gathered himself.

The office was large, with wide windows, and a massive wooden desk modeled after an antique. Bookshelves dominated the walls to the left and the right, full of leather-bound tomes Carter assumed were mostly for show. The rest of the wall space was given over to plaques and diplomas, awards, and photo ops. The family photos were in frames on the desk, the mayor with his wife and two children.

Reese was already at the computer, had already plugged in the flash drive Ratchet had given him, and was clicking through programming screens.

Carter saw a leather-bound day planner at one corner of the blotter and picked it up. It was clear that Cunningham kept his own appointment book, the handwriting slanted and dark and obviously masculine. No doubt the receptionist had a digital schedule for him synced to all her devices, but these were Cunningham’s personal notes.

Carter flipped back through the last few months: lots of lunches and dinners; a ribbon-cutting ceremony or two. Conference calls, and golf games, and dentist appointments.

A date circled in red in February caught his attention. The note read: Abacus Call 4:00. Two phone numbers were listed, one labeled A, and one labeled R. The R had a Knoxville area code – the A, however, had a Manhattan area code.

Carter punched both into his phone as a note, and kept searching. Abacus, whatever it was, popped up again and again, as did “meeting with R.” The meetings continued regularly for about six weeks, and then halted.

Ricky? Too much to hope for, probably.

He snapped photos of the planner’s pages and put it back. The idea was that Cunningham wouldn’t immediately realize his office had been tampered with.

While Reese finished up with the computer, Carter searched the desk drawers, sorting through files and papers that didn’t seem to have much to do with anything illegal or immoral, just regular bureaucratic bullshit. He didn’t honestly know what he was looking for, and it frustrated him.

Then he got to the bottommost drawer, and found it locked.

He tapped on Reese’s arm to get his attention, and pointed, tugging on the handle in demonstration.

Reese pushed back the chair and the lockpick set came out again. He had it open in moments.

Inside was a bottle of Scotch and a sticky tumbler. And an envelope – full of photos. They’d all been taken at a distance, with a long-range lens, and all of them were of the Lean Dogs.

A cold chill took hold of Carter’s gut as he paged through them. There were Ghost and Walsh talking in front of the under-construction Bell Bar. There was Aidan pulling out of the main gate at Dartmoor. Ava and Mercy’s house, Ava’s truck in the driveway. Maggie coming out of the grocery store with Ash in the seat of the shopping cart. The Dogs riding in formation down the center of town, when they’d done their childhood cancer charity run back in January. He spotted himself, walking across the parking lot of Leroy’s toward his bike.

He didn’t see any photos of Leah – and maybe that was because she’d only recently gotten back to town; maybe there was a chance no one had associated her with the club yet…but they would.

He slid the photos back into their envelope and glanced up to find Reese studying him. “You ready?” he asked, and could only hear the faint vibration of his own voice inside his skull.

Reese nodded, and held up the flash drive. They tucked the chair back the way they’d found it, and straightened everything.

Carter took the photos, though; tucked them away in his toolbelt. Cunningham would realize they were missing when he went for his first Scotch that evening, but some evidence, Carter thought, was too offensive to go unconfiscated.

~*~

Mayor Cunningham was just as Fox had expected: a big boned, soft-faced, blond relic of the Good Old Boy network, with a booming, deeply-accented voice, and fat fingers, upon which he wore several rings, including a monster of an old alma mater signet. He looked like he’d played football in his teenager years, but all the muscle in his wide shoulders had run to fat and melted down his bones to rest solidly in his midsection. His suit and shoes were impeccable, and he smelled strongly of expensive cologne.

“Mr. Shaman,” he greeted Ian heartily, shaking his slender hand with his own bearlike paw, gripping hard enough that Fox saw a muscle twitch in Ian’s cheek as he fought not to wince. Ian had been a good choice for this, not only because he had the money, connections, and sophistication for a meeting like this, but because he was the sort of refined and elegant man that someone like Cunningham would see and immediately want to dominate in all aspects.

Fox was already schooled and deeply rooted in his Knoxville act when the mayor turned to him and offered a shake – it did hurt; he felt bones crushing.

“I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Shaman yet, but I have heard of him. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with you.” The way his brows tucked said he wasn’t afraid of that at all; always looking for someone new to intimidate.

“Colton Ledford,” Fox drawled, and offered his own hand for a mauling – he felt bones grinding together. “And my brother, Dalton.”

In the moment before Cunningham turned to him, Tenny’s eyes flashed: really? Colton and Dalton?

Fox sent his brother a wink and enjoyed the way his face paled when he shook Cunningham’s hand.

“We’re recently back from Texas,” Fox continued as Cunningham took his seat and accepted a menu from the hostess. “We’ve got investments in Orwell & Sons down there, and now we’re looking to invest here in Knoxville.”

“Nothing like getting established in your home city,” Tenny chimed in, and his face was composed again, the perfect mask of a spoiled Southern rich kid.

“No, there’s really not,” Cunningham agreed, distracted, gaze on the menu.

“I’m trying to convince them not merely to invest, but to establish their own firm,” Ian said. “I’ve had wonderful entrepreneurial luck here in Knoxville.”

“Yes, you have.” Cunningham glanced up slowly, his gaze narrowing a fraction. “I hear you own more small businesses in the city than anyone these days.” Not an accusation – but close. “Is that true?”

Ian smiled. “Surely you would know better than me, Mr. Mayor, what with your access to all the city’s records.”

“Hm. I confess I stay too busy to keep up with all the little details.”

“Little details, yes.” Ian stroked the rim of his water glass with one fingertip, producing a low chime. “Seeing that I do own a sizable amount of property, it seems only natural the Ledford brothers have come to me for advice – they expressed interest in investing in my business.” He invited Fox to add to that with a gesture.

Fox chuckled and laid on the Tennessee charm. “Well, no offense to anybody else, but we didn’t get to where we are by betting on slow ponies. If you’re going to invest, you need to invest in something already successful. I’m not much of a gambling man.”

Cunningham’s expression went thoughtful. “No reason to be these days. It’s easy to see who’s sinking and who’s swimming. No sense climbing in a boat with a hole in the bottom.”

“My, we seem to be mixing metaphors,” Ian said, the gleam in his eyes subtly mocking. “I’ve told the Ledfords there’s plenty of opportunity to be had here. I thought speaking with you would help allay the last of their misgivings.”

“Misgivings?” Their server arrived, and Cunningham said, “Bring me a Scotch, honey,” and waved her off. “What’s there to worry about?”

“Well, there’s taxes, and interest rates,” Fox said. “And we’d of course have to tailor our business to suit the sort of clientele we have here. And…then there’s the competition.”

Cunningham snorted and motioned toward Ian with his water glass. “You’re sitting right next to him. If he likes you, I say you’re golden.”

“I’m flattered by your confidence in my economic domination,” Ian said.

The mayor snorted again, chuckling afterward – but his expression bordered on angry. He didn’t like Ian, and Fox was beginning to think it wasn’t solely about Ian’s manners and dress.

“No, I’m talking about a different sort of competition,” Ian continued. “Of the less legal variety.” He leaned forward, voice lowering. “You and I both know who has the ultimate say-so in this city, Mr. Mayor. The Lean Dogs Motorcycle Club.”

Cunningham’s eyes bugged. His face reddened. “The fuck you say!” he exclaimed, much too loudly.

Other diners glanced toward him.

“That trash doesn’t say jack about shit.” The server arrived, quailing visibly, and handed over the man’s Scotch. He threw it back in one go, set the glass back on the tray, and said, “Bring me another one.” He propped an elbow on the table, and lifted a wagging finger toward all of them. “Let me tell you a thing about the Lean Dogs…”

~*~

“It’s ready?”

“Ready,” Ratchet confirmed, clicking one last key on his keyboard. “When the call picks up, we’ll have to keep him talking for at least a minute, but then we should have a location.”

Ghost nodded, and picked up the landline they’d rigged up for this purpose. He punched in the number, aware of the unnatural hush in the common room around him.

The line rang, and rang, and rang, and rang…and went to voicemail.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

But then, after the hiss of static, he heard the outgoing message. A velvet-smooth voice with a faint Spanish accent. “Hello, Mr. Teague. I assume that’s who I’m speaking to. I won’t offer my name, because you already know it, but I will offer you this: my apologies. I’m sorry that I thought you were cleverer than this. I expected more from the mother chapter, honestly. Send Derek Snow my love.” A kissing sound, and then the beep.

Ghost thought about leaving a message, something biting and threatening – but hung up. Luis would never listen to it. The phone had already been abandoned, he knew. Even if it was found, all they would find would be prints and saliva, and that was useless, because they already knew exactly who he was.

“No luck?” RJ asked, face screwed up with disappointment.

“No,” Ghost said, wiping a hand down his face. “And I have a feeling we won’t find the girls, either.”

~*~

Eden stood with her arms resting on the top of a split rail fence and stared off across a field of waving grasses and wildflowers; bees droned among the buttercups and Queen Anne’s lace. Doves fluttered up laboriously and winged for the tree line, thick with blue-green pines, shady as nighttime beneath the canopy of needles and young poplar leaves.

Behind her, in the rotted shell of an old farmhouse that Peter Weston’s dying breaths had directed them to, she heard screen doors slapping and boots tromping across the porch floorboards as the boys did one last walk-through. There was nothing to find save a used-up roll of duct tape, some water bottles, and a single roll of toilet paper in the disgusting bathroom. They’d even searched the root cellar, but had walked through layers of cobwebs to do so. It had been too damp and uninviting even for sex traffickers to venture down into.

The girls had been here – but weren’t now. They would call Fielding, and a team would come, and snap photos, and take samples. But to what end? There wasn’t a trail here. There was nothing of any use.

Eden watched a hawk circle overhead, silent, riding an updraft, hunting the field.

She wiped the corners of her eyes, told herself it was only from looking up at the sun, turned and went back toward the house.

~*~

Mayor Cunningham could drink Scotch like it was water – but he couldn’t hold it. He swayed forward in his seat, bleary-eyed, talking in a whisper that wasn’t at all quiet; the mics should be having no problem picking up every word. “They get in the way of every goddamn move anybody tries to make in this town,” he said, words soft around the corners from the alcohol. A lock of hair fell over his reddened, shiny forehead, and he didn’t seem to notice. “It’s high time they all got thrown in jail and got outta my hair.”

“But how?” Ian asked, batting his lashes innocently. “All of their businesses are legitimate ventures. They’re well-established members of the community.”

“Not for much longer, they won’t be.”

“But they’re expanding.”

“I heard they bought up that bar downtown,” Tenny chimed in.

“Not Bell Bar.” Fox feigned outrage. “It’s a Knoxville staple.”

“And bought quite legally, I assure you,” Ian said. “There’s nothing to prevent the Lean Dogs – individually or collectively – from investing in the city in their own way. And their intimidation tactics are subtle, I’m afraid. They don’t leave evidence of any kind, and citizens end up too frightened to ever come forward. No charges ever seem to stick to them.”

“Fucking police department,” Cunningham agreed, nodding and throwing back the dregs of his latest Scotch. “I swear they’re in bed with the Dogs. Why else wouldn’t you arrest them for dealing all that shit?”

“Do they deal?” Fox asked.

“They’re a biker gang! Of course they do.” He grinned, then, ugly and uneven. “Let’s just say, their marketing is a whole lot more explicit, lately.”

“What do you mean?” Ian asked.

“Oh, you know. Sometimes people gotta see something with their own eyes before they realize it’s a problem. We know the Dogs are bad for Knoxville.” He splayed a hand across his chest in demonstration. “But the little people don’t always know what’s best for them. We have to help them along.”

“Who is we?” Fox asked, too sharply, and smoothed his face. Signaled to their server for another round. “Are there efforts being made to snare the Dogs in some sort of sting?”

Cunningham’s bleary smile was triumphant. “You could say that.” He hunched low over the table, voice dropping – slurring noticeably now. “Something just fell into my lap. I’ve – and if you wanna talk investments, don’t look at Knoxville, this city is absolute shit. You wanna invest with someone who can guarantee you some real return. A few months ago, I sank some assets in a group out of New York. Abacus – that’s who you want to get in touch with. When I explained the problems down here with the Lean Dogs, they sent a rep down to advise us, and boy, does he have some ideas, let me tell you.”

“Abacus?” Tenny was typing on his phone. “The…” His brows lifted. “It says they’re a financial consulting firm.”

“They are. They consult you on how to get rich. Ha! Smart, smart group. Lots to offer.” He winked. “Get hooked up with them, you won’t regret it. They’re getting rid of the Lean Dogs for me.”

“How?”

Cunningham made an impatient sound, hand flailing – nearly spilling the new Scotch that the server set before him before retreating in a hurry. “Come on, don’t play stupid. A rumor here, a bag of Dog-labeled pills there. Enough people turn against them, make it too hard for them to do legit business around here, and they’ll show themselves for what they really are.”

Too vague. Time to take it up a notch.

Working some delight into his voice, Fox said, “Wait, are you setting them up? Are the bags – it is bags, right? – with the Dog logo on them, are they coming from you?”

“Damn straight! Sometimes you gotta do shit like that for the greater good, you know?”

“Oh, I know.”

“Tell me more about Abacus,” Ian said, and, obligingly, he did.

~*~

“That’s the number I just called,” Ghost said, tone grim, when Carter showed him the photos he’d taken of Cunningham’s day planner. The number listed for R. “Wherever the phone is, I’m gonna guess Ricky isn’t with it. Luis left us a little message.”

“Abacus?” Tango said, frowning as he looked over Carter’s shoulder. “Where have I heard of that?”

“Hold on,” Ratchet said, clicked a few keys on his laptop, and turned it to face them.

It was YouTube, a video labeled “Abacus ad NEW.” Ratchet clicked play, and the video faded in slow, with artful, soft piano music, a shot of a man standing on a cool beach, hands in the pockets of his linen pants, staring out at the waves with a look of deep contemplation. The image faded, melted into one of a family playing in a yard, parents pushing a child on a swing. Then an elderly couple holding hands on a quiet front porch. A young woman clutching a briefcase and satchel, dashing along a crowded sidewalk in heels and a skirted suit.

“Big dreams? Whatever they are, Abacus is here to help you count them,” the voiceover said. A title card flashed up at the end, the company’s name and logo in elegant script. The logo looked like some sort of geometric flower done in yellow.

“Okay, but what the hell do they do?” Aidan asked.

“Consult, apparently,” Fox’s voice called from the door, and everyone turned to see him striding in, Tenny in his wake – both of them wearing slim-fitting, flashy suits.

Aidan chuckled. “What’s up, Al Capone?”

“A crime syndicate alliance, apparently,” Fox said, not rising to the bait. “It took an obscene amount of Scotch, but we got Mayor Cunningham properly sauced and he spilled the beans about everything.”

“He talked about this Abacus?” Ghost asked.

“In detail,” Ian added, swanning into the room, Bruce in his wake. Ian held out hand to his bodyguard, and had a memory stick placed in his palm. “This is our lunch conversation,” he said, handing it over to Ghost. “You should find it very enlightening.”

“But the short answer,” Fox said, “is that he got in with them first, and they advised him to take us out. He confessed to distributing the drugs with our patch on the bags, and to stirring up rumors and gossip. He didn’t outright say anything incriminating about Allie Henderson and Nicole Myer, but he was awfully coy”–

“That is to say subtle as a chainsaw,” Ian quipped.

–“about Abacus providing ‘entertainment for every taste.’ He admits on the tape that the whole consulting group thing is a flimsy cover. They service a select clientele of the very wealthy. From all the winking and elbowing, and what he managed to say outright, they can get you anything from blow, to a girl, to a boy, to an exclusive weekend on a private island.”

The enormity of it hit Carter like a physical blow. He swallowed the sudden lump that formed in his throat.

Ghost had been standing, shifting his weight restlessly back and forth, but paused, now, face blanking. After a moment, he eased back to sit on the edge of the table behind him. “Candy said that, according to the fed who gave up his badge, the FBI had been sniffing around a trafficking ring that was made up of several different outlaw groups. Mafia, cartel, overseas interest, New York street gangs. Are you saying you think Abacus is them?”

“Yes,” Fox and Ian said together, and Tenny nodded, hands going in his back pockets.

“It makes sense that they would operate similarly to us,” Fox said. “A legit business to handle the money, and provide cover, and a reason for dealing with one another. This way they don’t have to hide, and it’s easier to fence product if you can use coded messages in advertising and social media than relying on the old-fashioned grapevine.”

Ian’s expression had gone thunderous. “If this is true, they’re operating internationally, and they also see your club as a threat to success.”

“They know we’ll interfere, if we can,” Fox said.

Ghost let out a long, slow breath. “If they’d just left us alone, we would have never known about it.”

“The truly depraved aren’t very good at leaving anyone alone,” Ian said, acidly.

“They’re trying to preempt our involvement,” Fox said, more level-headed. “They have to have heard what went down in London with Symbiote: the Lean Dogs are no longer just yokels on bikes in the public eye. We’re capable, and smart, and ruthless. We attracted their attention first, I’m afraid.”

Ghost spent long moments massaging at his forehead; Carter felt his own tension headache building. “God. Okay. Let’s say all this is true, and not the wildest shit I ever heard. It’s obvious Cunningham is involved. But who else? There could be mayors and governors and department heads all over the country who are on the take. There’s no way to know.”

“Not unless we cut the head off the snake,” Fox said.

Ghost snorted. “Excuse me if the idea of taking on a massive, conjoined crime syndicate based in New York sounds like biting off a helluva lot more than we can chew.”

Fox shrugged.

Ghost stared into the middle distance, fingers drumming on the table edge. “Okay. Let’s start with what we can do. We expose Cunningham, and cut the head off our own little snake.”

Mercy grinned. “I’ll get the machete, boss.”

Thirty-Seven

Three o’clock saw Leah standing at the counter in the office kitchenette, trying to decide if she needed a latte, or just wanted one, when Gabe came bustling over.

“Oh my God.”

Isobel glanced up, in the process of heating water for tea. “What?”

“I turned the radio on, and well, listen.” He had his phone out, open to a radio app, and thumbed up the volume.

“…according to this same source, Mayor Cunningham was hoping to turn public opinion completely against the Lean Dogs MC, and, in his own words, force the Dogs to react – we can only guess with violence. But we’ll let you hear the mayor tell you himself.”

Leah recognized the voice of a local shock jock, Mad Mike, and then she recognized the mayor’s voice: slurred, sloppy, and unlike anything she’d heard on his TV and radio ads. “It’s all about getting trash like that to live up to their reputation. They’re violent, and stupid, and they sell drugs. Everyone knows it, but I had to remind them about it. Give ‘em a push, huh? So, yeah, we had the bags printed up, and I had someone I trusted do the actual distributing. Him and the Abacus liaison. He was young, and good-looking, and he had a real smooth way with the young people. What kid wouldn’t eat up that kinda attention? Boy or girl.”

“Shit,” Leah breathed.

“The mayor’s basically saying he sold drugs to kids and blamed it on the Lean Dogs,” Gabe said, stricken and delighted all at once. It was a harrowing, ugly thought – but the juiciest gossip since the last mayoral fuckup – that had been Mason’s father, and Ava had been the one in the crosshairs.

Leah felt a creeping sense of unwelcome déjà vu.”

“How is the station getting away with airing this?” she asked.

“They said they got it from an anonymous source who definitely wasn’t the cops. None of this would stand up in court, but it’s enough to make Cunningham look really, really shit.”

“I’ll say.”

“They have to go away,” the mayor continued. The audio had been edited, so she couldn’t hear who was asking him questions, only his responses. “For a buncha fucking criminals, they sure do like to play Robin Hood. If they ever found out what was going on in this country, they’d try to shut it down, and a lot of important people would end up broke or arrested.”

“Oh my God,” Isobel breathed. “Who do you think he’s talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Leah said, distractedly. Her attention had been caught on Robin Hood.

For all that they weren’t heroes – even if she loved its members and considered so many of them as her second family, she could be honest about that – the Dogs did hold to certain codes and standards. They didn’t pick on the weak; didn’t countenance bullies. They weren’t exactly robbing from the rich and giving to the poor…but it struck her as an appropriate metaphor.

She felt a pulse of pride, and fought to keep from smiling to herself.

“What’s gonna happen?” Isobel asked, sounding worried. “Will the mayor have to resign?”

“If he’s lucky,” Leah said.

~*~

Pair a relatively intimate Southern college city with the digital age, and word spread like wildfire. Mad Mike, with his ears and lips full of piercings, his arms laced with intricate ink from Dog-favorite tattoo artist Ziggy, was all too happy to share the edited audio that Fox, Ian, and Tenny had gathered over lunch with Cunningham. Ratchet had a contact at the news station, someone in the social/gossip section, and the photos went there: were currently trending on Twitter, locally. A dozen bloggers and picked up the story from other sites, and were sharing links. Soundbites were all over.

“Ha. The four o’clock news is covering it right at the top of the hour,” Aidan reported, holding up his phone.

“Good,” Ghost said. “We’re in the right spot. He’ll want out before rush hour traffic hits.”

Carter knuckled his sunglasses farther up his nose – the sun had warmed his face, sheened it with sweat, and the Ray-Bans kept trying to slide down. It was nearly May, and the afternoon was warm. Bees and flies droned behind them, in the verge, and, staring down the long, straight stretch of four-lane highway, he spotted his first heat mirage of the season.

Most of the club was parked along the shoulder on either side of the road. They’d brought a van, just in case, and Evan leaned against its rear doors, arms folded, eyes shut and face tipped back. He looked asleep.

Carter checked the time on his phone – again. He’d promised Leah he would be waiting when she got off work, and he planned to be. Hopefully, after this, he wouldn’t have to worry about her quite so fiercely. Things felt far from settled, but, like Ghost had said: it would be good to cut the head off this particular, local snake.

“Someone’s coming,” Mercy called, farther down the row of gleaming bikes.

Carter lifted his head, and he saw a faint glimmer, a wink of sunlight on metal, distant, but coming closer at speed.

“Might not be him,” Roman said.

“Yeah, but unlike you, I don’t like taking chances,” Ghost said. “Everybody fall in.”

Bikers strode out onto the pavement, lining up, stretching from one side of the road to the other, blocking it totally. Carter felt Mercy’s shoulder brushing his on one side, Aidan’s on the other, and as the car became a black Tahoe, and drew ever closer, he felt something swell inside his chest. A sweeping, giddy tide of positive emotions. He felt taller, felt stronger, felt – unstoppable. A part of something. A wicked man was bearing down on them, and he stood shoulder-to-shoulder, as an equal, among his brothers.

The Tahoe continued toward them – and then slowed – and then stopped. The driver leaned out the window – a hired driver, a bodyguard, a thick-necked young guy with a black suit and sunglasses. “You can’t block the road!” he called.

Ghost said, “Tell your boss to get out of the car.”

A long, tense moment passed – but Carter wasn’t worried. They had them beat on numbers, on weapons. Nothing could touch them now, standing in the middle of the road, the Lean Dogs protecting their city. It always sounded so pretentious and over the top when Ghost said that: our city, my city. But he could feel it now; Knoxville was the Dogs’ to protect, and everyone else’s to lose.

The rear door of the Tahoe opened, and Mayor Cunningham climbed out – not florid and enraged. No. Bleary-eyed, still, no doubt nursing a hangover from lunch. And pale. Terrified. He surveyed all of them, and Carter felt the pathetic loathing of his gaze when it briefly touched his own.

He finally fixed his glare on Ghost. “You ruined me.”

“No,” Ghost said, evenly. “You ruined yourself.”

~*~

At five, Leah shut down her computer, gathered her things, tossed a distracted goodbye to her coworkers – she hadn’t been able to focus since hearing about the mayor on the radio – and headed for the elevators.

Only to pull up short when she saw Carter standing leaned up against the control panel.

“You’re here!” she blurted, too loudly, pulse going wild immediately.

He grinned – and she thought he was trying to be coy, but landed on delighted, instead. Boyish and happy. He reached up and flicked the plastic visitor badge he’d clipped to his cut pocket. “I checked in with security and everything.”

She hesitated, and wasn’t even sure why. She had the sense that if she went right to him, unchecked, she would kiss him, and have trouble stopping, and she wanted to know, first, how bad things were.

Not very, if his smile was anything to go by.

“Sounds like you had a busy day,” she said, fingers clenching on the strap of her bag. He looked like a dream – like her dream – and she felt like the sort of swoony high school girl she’d never been.

“You listened to Mad Mike?”

“All of us did. Gabe had it going on his phone.” She took a breath. “How worried should I be? About…everything?”

“Well, considering Mayor Cunningham is currently cooling his heels in a holding cell right now…”

She gasped. “They arrested him?”

His smile slipped. “Fielding says the charges might not stick because there wasn’t a warrant for the audio, and the police weren’t the ones who recorded it, anyway. But he’ll definitely have to resign, now, and he knows not to mess with us.”

She had the sense there were things he hadn’t told her yet, and knew he couldn’t do it here, with Isobel and Rochelle packing up at their desks, still.

But life with the club meant taking the wins when you could, and celebrating them heartily. She closed the distance between them, and stood up on her toes, ready for the kiss he pressed to her mouth, shivering gladly in response to the fingers he trailed down her throat.

“Ready to get out of here?” he asked.

“Beyond ready.”

Thirty-Eight

Tuesday morning, Reese dressed for his usual run, tied his hair back, laced up his Nikes, and stepped out into the hallway, expecting to find it deserted, just as he had every morning for the past couple weeks; ever since things had fallen out so suddenly and strangely with Tenny.

But Tenny was there, in the pre-dawn dark of the hall. In compression leggings under shorts, a white tank top with the arm holes cut down deep along his ribs. A water bottle in one hand.

Reese felt a fluttering in his chest; a burst of pleasant warmth.

Tenny didn’t speak, only lifted his brows.

Reese nodded, and they walked out together. Left their bottles on a picnic table, and started off at a slow jog across the parking lot.

This was as usual: turning out onto the street, lengthening their strides, settling into a fast, sustainable rhythm, the only sounds the light slap of their shoes on pavement, and the regular rushing of their breath. They didn’t speak, but they never did. Wasted effort; a lack of efficiency. For all that Tenny liked to run his mouth and give the impression of disregarding authority, he knew the value of silence, same as Reese.

They ran.

They stood after, as the sun was coming up, bright fire on the brown-blue of the river, drinking water, and Tenny’s uplifted profile glowed against the dazzling backdrop of the water. Reese didn’t know he was staring until he accidently poured water down his front, and then he turned away, face strangely warm in a way that running hadn’t made it.

They went inside, still not speaking, to their dorms. Showered. Returned to the common room, where Deacon and Boomer were shuffling in half asleep, and Chanel was making breakfast. They ate hash and eggs on the sofa, like normal, if sitting farther apart.

Once, Tenny snorted and said, “That’s stupid,” of something on the TV. A movie trailer, one of those action films full of stunts achieved with harnesses and wires. “Why don’t they get actors who can actually do those things?”

“Aidan says because they can’t find anyone good-looking enough who can.”

Tenny snorted again, and when Reese looked toward him, found himself the subject of a smirking half-smile, and a low-lidded look. Before he could ask what it meant, Tenny ducked his head over his plate again, and the moment was gone.

Ghost was giving him some hours at the shop today, and though Reese didn’t ever forget that Tenny was supposed to go exercise horses for Emmie Walsh today, he wondered if Tenny still planned to go. His answer came in the form of Tenny himself, appearing right at five, sunglasses in place and helmet tucked under his arm. He was frowning.

“Are you still going to come?”

“Yes.”

They rode over together, the light dappled on the long, snaking driveway of Briar Hall, the soft reverse of the light on the river this morning. They parked in front of the barn, and took off their helmets. Reese wanted to say something, though he hadn’t decided what – but didn’t get the chance, because Emmie came out to greet them.

There was something Reese had always found reassuring about Emmie. She didn’t ever balk at the things he said the way some of the other old ladies did, nor did she ply him with sweetness and maternal concern the way Maggie and even Ava did. There was a brisk efficiency about the way she moved and spoke that he approved of; she was completely without artifice, and that was a trait he could see that the horses appreciated, too, the way they nosed at her and crowded her space automatically, until she gently corrected them. They felt safe with her, and animals were honest things; Reese appreciated that about them.

“Do you ride, too?” Emmie asked him, and he shook his head. He stood in front of Emmie’s personal show horse, Apollo, and the large gelding snuffled at his shirt, lipped at his cut.

“No,” she told him, patting his velvet nose. “Shame. They seemed to like you. If you ever want to learn, I’ve got some nice schoolmasters you could take lessons on.”

The idea held a certain appeal. He liked acquiring skills, and it was a quiet activity; an activity that rewarded technique, and sensitivity. It would also give him something else in common with Tenny – who, he saw, turning, was saddling a horse with obvious knowledge and familiarity. He didn’t own true riding pants – breeches, Reese reminded himself – but he’d put a pair of black leather chaps on over his jeans, and Emmie approved his harness boots as adequately safe.

“Your whole foot will go through the stirrup if your shoes aren’t heeled,” she explained to Reese, “and that’s just asking to get dragged.”

Emmie was riding, too. She saddled a chestnut. Tenny’s horse was gleaming black with four white feet, and a white diamond on his forehead. He danced and fidgeted while Tenny tacked him up, but settled when Tenny stroked his neck and murmured to him, too quiet for Reese to hear.

When they led the horses out, Reese followed. There was a bench in the shade down beside the arena, and he took up a post there. Tenny and Emmie mounted, and they only walked at first, the reins long, the horses stretching and blowing. Emmie was talking: “…likes to stretch first, I usually put him through some big circles and figure eights and let him have his head for a few minutes, then collect him more slowly.” Birds twittered in the branches overhead, and a breeze touched his face, and for one rare moment, Reese felt his hypervigilance melting away. Physical sensation receded, but not in the focused, detached way that it did on an op. He felt light, weightless, suffused with quiet.

Peaceful, he thought, absently. A bird landed beside him, and then fled in a quiet flutter of wings. It left a feather behind, small and striped.

Tenny did know how to ride. He was boastful, yes, but he never lied about a skill, and he hadn’t lied about this one. The long, slender lines of him seemed molded to the horse as he put it through its paces. The young gelding was full of energy; he tossed his head, and even bucked, once, but Tenny never looked close to unseated. There was a quietness to his movements; it was impossible to see him giving the horse cues, but the horse’s slow transformation from loose-reined colt to steadily-working, collected chess piece confirmed that Tenny was using his hands, and seat, and legs effectively.

“Good,” Emmie would call, from time to time. “A little more outside rein – yes, there, good.”

Reese heard cars come and go at the barn, voices calling back and forth, but it was impossible to look at anything else. He sat, transfixed, hands playing with the splintered edge of the bench, trying and failing to think of ways to properly describe what it was like to watch Tenny slowly blossom, a faint smile touching his lips as the horse responded to his cues.

Eventually, he became aware that someone was sitting next to him – ordinarily, he would have been horrified by his lapse – and a quick glance proved that it was Becca, Emmie’s working student and undermanager. Belatedly, he remembered that Becca was dating Shane, who was another of Tenny’s half-brothers. Sometimes it seemed like Tenny was related to everyone, in that respect.

But it was Reese he’d asked to come along with him today. Reese who he ran with each morning, and with whom he entrusted the raw glimpses of passion and fury in the bedroom – though there’d been none of that lately.

“Wow, he’s pretty good,” Becca said. “Walsh helps out sometimes, but he mostly just likes to take the young ones out for a gallop in the upper pasture. He’s got some dressage skills, though. I’m jealous of how long his legs are.”

Reese didn’t respond, because he’d learned enough about Becca to know that she liked to talk, whether or not anyone talked back.

But then she said, “Hey.”

He turned his head a fraction, still trying to keep one eye on the arena. Tenny had his horse cantering, and the animal lengthened and then shortened his stride in turns; Tenny’s doing, Reese knew.

“You’re the boyfriend, right?”

That got his attention. He faced her fully. “I’m – what?”

She winced, and lowered her voice. “Sorry, is that like a biker no-no?”

“I…”

“Becca,” Emmie called. “Don’t torture poor Reese.”

“I’m not!” Becca called back. Then she stood and went to stand at the rail.

Reese touched his own cheek, and felt the heat in it. Frowned to himself, because he didn’t get flustered. And he didn’t let people sneak up on him, especially not loud civilians – she was even chewing gum, and he’d totally missed her.

He sighed…but he sat there on the bench and kept watching, because no amount of self-recrimination could dampen the pleasure of watching Tenny achieve something like happiness, even if only for a brief span of time.

Thirty-Nine

The club spent a week in a strange sort of limbo.

Mayor Cunningham’s unethical strategy for taking down the Dogs made the national news – but the stories, while sordid and frothy with journalistic rabidity over a good scandal – left out all mention of the consulting firm Abacus. The company’s commercials continued to air, and no one in any sort of position of authority spoke about Cunningham’s affiliation with organized crime. His motives were offered as personal, and local, and Ghost spent a lot of time glaring at Ratchet’s laptop over his shoulder, grinding his teeth and muttering about idiots.

Eden continued to search for Allie Henderson and Nicole Myer without cease. Carter passed her one afternoon in the clubhouse and noted, with shock, the sleepless dark smudges beneath her eyes, and the tense set of her jaw. She’s fine, Fox said, but Carter hoped he was a little more sympathetic when he was alone with her, because she was anything but fine.

They combed the city, east to west, north to south, for Luis. For even a sign of him. They talked to their dealers, and their contacts; shook hands and made inquiries with local business owners. A real estate agent recognized his description – he’d approached her about looking at property – but she’d turned him away. He was cute, she said, and charming…but, I dunno, he kinda gave me the creeps.

Smart girl, Ghost said of her, after.

But Luis himself was nowhere to be found.

Everybody’s just worried about finals, now, Elijah told Carter one evening, while they drank Gatorade and cooled off from a training session that was no longer necessary, but which felt – mutually, he thought – like hanging out and talking shop with a friend. That and the mayor. Dude. What the fuck?

We have bad luck with mayors.

Several church meetings were devoted to plans for the future: of the club’s businesses, and the club’s strategy on dealing with Luis when he inevitably reappeared. They all knew they would see him again, and everyone was dreading it; Mercy proposed they go on the offense: track him down, kill him, and be done with him.

But finding him was the problem.

They talked about Abacus, but had no real idea how to go about dealing with it.

Let’s concentrate on what we can control for now, Ghost finally said.

Things settled, in the way that they always did, and after a week of paranoia and fruitless searching, Ghost finally allowed that they deserved to celebrate the successful toppling of yet another mayor.

It was party time.

Friday afternoon, the clubhouse bustled with preparations.

Carter eyed the streamers and looped strings of pennants with a smile and a headshake. No one attending this party would care about decorations, but that was beside the point, he figured.

He passed the prospects wheeling in handcarts full of beer cases, dodged Chanel, her arms full of clean, folded towels, and stepped into the kitchen to find Jazz doing a fridge inventory. She had a notepad, and a pen, crossing things off, and scribbling things down. She wore a t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops, hair tied up efficiently. He still wasn’t used to seeing her so casual, but he liked it. Felt a pang of regret, even, that she’d still been putting on a bit of a show for him; it gave proof to the fact that they weren’t meant-to-be, though. And he was glad that she was happier, now.

He waited, hands resting on the island, until she finished, and turned to find him, her smile quick, but no less warm than usual. “Hi, hon. It’s crazy around here today.”

“Looks pretty organized to me,” he said.

“Well, yeah, that’s ‘cause I’m in charge.”

He grinned. “No doubt.”

Her smile turned mischievous, even as she pulled out drawers and started counting hand towels. “You gonna bring your girlfriend?”

He felt his face heat – but he didn’t try to hedge or dodge, not this time. Leah was his girlfriend. When she was ready for and comfortable enough, he would call her his old lady. “Yeah. I think she’s nervous; she hasn’t been to a club party in a long time.”

She chuckled. “Well, I know at least one pair of boobs she won’t have to see flashing around.”

“You’re not coming?” It was impossible to imagine; Jazz had never not been at a big club bash.

“Nah.” She gave a headshake, and her smile turned soft. “I’ll make sure the place is stocked and ready, but I’m not sticking around.”

“Jazz…” Was it about him? Did she not want to see him with someone else?

But – no. She said, “I’m going out with Todd. He’s taking me for steaks and lobster.”

“On a contractor’s salary?” he blurted before he could think better of it.

She laughed. “Contractors make good money, kiddo.” Kiddo, not baby boy. They had both moved on, and his momentary flare of worry died down.

She said, “I’m happy. I don’t want you to worry.”

He nodded.

“Are you happy?” she asked.

His answer was immediate, and truthful. “Yes.”

They smiled at one another. He hadn’t thought they’d get here – hadn’t dared to hope. It was all the more wonderful for its unexpectedness.

~*~

“I have no idea what to wear,” Leah said into her phone, pinched between cheek and shoulder as she held up two dresses by their hangers, debating.

“You always dress really well,” Ava assured from the other end of the line. Leah could hear the kids’ small voices in the background. “Way better than me.”

“I dress for work,” she stressed. “Not wild club parties.”

Ava laughed. “Just wear what’s comfortable for you! You know everyone there. You already bagged the cute guy. It doesn’t matter what you have on.”

She made a face at herself in the full-length mirror, holding up first one dress, and then another over her current outfit of sweats and oversized t-shirt. The first dress was classic, basic black, with a cinched waist. She could dress it up or down. But it had a high, modest neckline, and wasn’t short enough to be considered flirty. The second dress had a V-neck and a swishy, scalloped hemline, but it was a summery floral print, and nothing about it screamed biker party.

She tossed both onto the bed with the other rejects and took her phone back in her hand. “I haven’t been to one of these things in forever,” she said, toying with a strand of her hair in the mirror. “I’m nervous.”

“Of what?” Ava asked, gently.

“I don’t really know,” she admitted. “I guess – I guess it’s just that I always came as your friend. And now I’m coming…”

“As an old lady.”

She felt her face heat, and watched it flush in the mirror. “We haven’t exactly used that label yet.”

“Yet,” Ava said. “But that’s what you are.”

Leah took a breath that trembled in her lungs. “I guess…I guess it just feels – daunting.”

“Daunting?”

“To be an old lady. That’s an exclusive, badass group to join.”

Ava chuckled. “Oh, come on.”

“No, I’m serious. It’s…honestly intimidating.”

A beat. Ava said, “You’re serious.”

“Duh.”

“Leah” – concerned now – “we’ve been best friends for most of our lives. It’s just me, and Mom; and Holly and Kris are really sweet; and Sam, and Whitney, and Mina.”

“I know. But. I want to measure up.”

“Leah,” Ava said again, gently chiding. “It isn’t like that. I don’t want you to worry. You’re already family.”

Leah sank down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know why I’m being so weird about this.”

“Because new things are scary,” Ava said, sagely. “Even if you know it’s okay, you freak out anyway.”

“Says the girl who never freaks out.”

Ava snorted. “Please. My stomach was in knots the first time Mercy and I went to one of these parties together.”

“I don’t believe you,” Leah said, chuckling at the very idea.

“I was! Mercy and I had never been together openly in front of everyone else. When I was seventeen, that was – anyway. Dad was still kind of Dadding-out about it, and we’d eloped on our way to New Orleans, and hadn’t even invited my mom, and I was pregnant, and he was still healing up, and so much had changed since the last party.” A deep breath rustled across the phone. “I’d been Ghost and Maggie’s daughter my whole life to all the men and women in that club, and suddenly I’d taken a step up on the hierarchy ladder. I didn’t know if these people I’d grown up around would see me as an adult, and as an old lady, or if they’d think I was pretending.

“Damn. Okay, now I get why you’re nervous.”

“See?”

They laughed together, quietly. Leah said, “But it worked out all right for you.”

“Exactly. And it will for you, too.”

There was something cathartic about expressing fears, and having them reflected back in a friend’s voice. Leah hung up feeling lighter, and more determined. She finally settled on black jeans, a plain white top, and boots that, while printed with flowers, had chunky soles. Punk leaning cute, she thought.

The outfit certainly got a quick, appreciative glance from Carter when he turned up on her doorstep at seven-thirty. He gave himself a shake, and met her gaze, offering a small, new-smelling helmet to her.

“No, it’s okay, you can look,” she said, laughing, pleased.

He did, dragging his teeth across his lower lip in a much more blatant show of interest, and, oh, that did things to her.

She snapped the helmet on – somehow, it was a perfect fit, and she wondered if he’d measured her head or something while she was sleeping – to hide her sudden blush. “Ready to go?”

“If you are.” His gaze flicked back up to hers, cleared, and she saw a faint glimmer of concern. “Ava said you were nervous.”

“That traitor. Some best friend she is.”

“No, that’s – she’s looking out for you. That’s something I’d want to know.” He tipped his head. “Are you nervous?”

“A little,” she lied. She’d managed to suppress most of it while she dressed and did her hair, but now her pulse was thumping again.

He took one of her hands, and pulled her in – but not for the heated kiss she’d expected. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and stroked her arms, and rested – well, attempted to rest his forehead against hers. He pressed his to her helmet, instead.

“This usually works better without a helmet.”

She snorted. “Don’t be sorry. I’ll get over it.”

When he drew back, he gave her a soft look. “Ready?”

“Yep.” And, thumping pulse or not, she was.

~*~

Reese still struggled with parties as a concept.

The ones he’d witnessed here at Dartmoor involved less bloodshed than the ones in Denver had – not to mention his sister wasn’t on display in chains, men invited to “look but not touch.” And, no longer a virgin himself, he was beginning to see the appeal it held for most of the Dogs: the opportunity to relax, get drunk, and enjoy the attentions of a beautiful girl – or two, or three. But he wasn’t sure why anyone wanted to enjoy those things in a loud room surrounded by all his friends. And his grasp of conversation was still fragile enough that watching people gather in knots, heads bent in close to talk above the wail of the music, baffled him.

That was all normal.

What wasn’t normal was the frothing of emotion in his belly every time he glanced across the room and spotted Tenny.

The last week had kept both of them busy with unsuccessful searches for Luis Cantrell. When he wasn’t out riding around in groups, walking through warehouses and vacant homes, Fox was pushing him in sparring matches – sparring with him himself, rather than pitting him against Tenny and sitting back, seemingly indifferent. Reese had the sense a storm was coming, and he’d pushed himself, on his runs, in the weight room, on the mats. Fox was quick and expert, full of tricks, but Reese could pin him half the time, and Fox had grinned, pleased, to find that out.

He and Tenny ran together, and trained together, ate most meals together. Tenny would talk, and he would tease, a little, no longer furious – but not himself, either. A tension still lingered. No longer thorny, but dangerous, still, Reese sensed; he could touch it, trace its edges with his fingertips, thought he might, given time, be able to fully map its contours and pin a name to it.

He couldn’t name what he felt tonight, but he had a sense that was because he didn’t want to.

Tenny sat in the corner of the leather sectional, a girl on either side of him, beneath the arms he’d draped along the back of the sofa. Neither were familiar. Both were young, and dark-haired, wearing short, tight dresses and spike heels. The one on Tenny’s left hooked a leg up over Tenny’s knee and turned her body into him, pressing her breasts into his ribs until they threatened to spill out of her dress. The other one laughed, and traced long, red nails down the buttons of his shirt.

Tenny wore one of his masks – Reese recognized it. A smile like a blade, eyes low-lidded, voice dropped low and sultry. It was an act – Reese knew it was an act – but his stomach burned, and his fingers twitched on his glass of vodka, and he hurt, deep in the tissues beneath his breastbone.

He didn’t understand. He didn’t want to feel this way. But.

“You alright?” someone asked beside him.

He turned, tamping down his initial startle response. Carter stood beside him, a drink in each hand: something dark and on the rocks, and a glass of wine. He’d brought Leah tonight; Reese spotted her now over at a table with Ava and Maggie.

“Yes,” he said, automatically. People didn’t usually stick around to find out more once he gave a simple, single-syllable answer. No one really cared, he didn’t sense, save Mercy and Fox. Fox because he didn’t like to see assets squandered, and Mercy because he was – kind. Despite his delight in violence. No one else ever did more than nod and move on.

But Carter frowned at him. And then his gaze shifted – to Tenny, Reese realized with a sick lurch. “Maybe go talk to him,” Carter suggested. And then: “For what it’s worth, I think he’s as miserable as you.” He shrugged and moved off.

Reese looked back to Tenny – and the squirmy, unpleasant feeling in his gut intensified. Tenny was kissing the girl on his right, with the red fingernails. A showy, obscene kiss, with lots of tongue. The other girl palmed his cock through his jeans, and Tenny laughed into the first one’s mouth.

Reese turned away, and drained his glass, shocked at himself. The vodka burned, and tasted terrible. It sent heat spiraling through his stomach, his veins – his head.

He stood a moment, one hand braced on the edge of the bar, just breathing, feeling the warmth suffuse his limbs, and soften the sharp corners of his mind.

When he turned back, Tenny was looking at him. One of the girls had straddled his lap, and was kissing his neck, while his hand swept down low at the small of her back – shifted to her ass, and squeezed. The other girl nibbled at his ear, then tongued it, theatrical and obscene. Tenny’s mouth was hidden behind the first girl’s shoulder, but his gaze was electric; hard, and dark, and pinned on Reese.

He read it as a challenge. A defiance.

Talk to him, Carter had said.

Date, his sister had said – his sister who was seated cozily with Roman now, talking and laughing quietly, content, and taken care of. He couldn’t begin to understand what his sister wanted, what she’d achieved for herself. She loved Roman, and she said he loved her, too, and she was happy with him.

And Reese wanted to throw his empty glass down onto the floor just to watch it shatter.

But Carter had said something else: I think he’s as miserable as you.

Reese set his glass carefully on the bar, and walked toward Tenny.

It was slow progress. RJ had three women around them, all of them dancing poorly, drunkenly, in time to a too-loud song. Another girl made a grab for Reese’s sleeve, one that he shook off. He had to step around Dublin and Briscoe’s heated pool game debate. Samantha and Whitney stepped in front of him with polite excuses, headed for the bar and refills.

Then he stood in front of Tenny, and Tenny rested his head back against the couch, while the girl in his lap kept grinding against him and kissing his throat. “Problem?” he asked, all crisp and proper and disinterested.

But his eyes – oh, his eyes blazed.

Reese might have been an idiot and not understood all that he should, but he knew that now was a time to press, and not to retreat. “I want to talk to you,” he said, and his voice cracked on talk. Talking was not what filled his mind in bold, colorful imagery.

Tenny sighed, like he was bored, but his eyes flashed, and Reese saw the way his breath caught, momentarily. “Yes, yes. Ladies. What do you say we take this somewhere more private?”

The women murmured approval. The one on Tenny’s lap leaned in to nibble at his throat; she left a red smear of lipstick behind, just above the scar there, the mark left by the bullet that had nearly killed him the night Reese saved his life.

That smudge sent a wash of unproductive emotion through him, too hot and ugly to name. Emboldened him, so his voice came out harsh and grating when he said, “No.”

His tone startled the women. Both of them turned to look at him.

“I want to talk to you. Tell them to stay here.”

One of the women murmured something – Reese wasn’t sure which one; his gaze was pinned on Tenny.

Tenny, whose self-satisfied, lion-at-leisure expression froze, and then melted, leaving him flat and expressionless. Operative mode, cold and efficient. “This is a party,” he said, like Reese was stupid.

Reese matched him, stare for stare, mask for mask – though he could feel the anger lifting off himself like vapor, and knew it must be visible to Tenny. “I don’t care. I want to talk to you.”

It was the third time he’d said it, and Tenny finally reacted. He gathered himself to stand, and the woman with the red lipstick slid off his lap and back to the couch. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said with a big, put-upon sigh. “I have to go and deal with this little problem.”

The words didn’t sting as they’d no doubt been intended. Reese was too furious to be hurt by slights. Every second Tenny delayed – straightening his cut, swiping a hand back through his perfectly slicked hair – wound his anger another notch tighter. His jaw and throat felt tense; he wanted to bare his teeth.

Instead, he stepped back, and gestured, and Tenny set off in front of him, rolling his eyes dramatically.

He led the way down the hall, where the music was only a dull rush like the ocean; where several doors closed on laughing intertwined couples. Absently, Reese noted Chanel and Boomer. Stephanie preceded Deacon into a room, already reaching back for the zipper of her dress. Reese searched himself for anything like jealousy, but it wasn’t there. It was good she’d found someone else for the night; he didn’t want any third parties involved in this conversation.

They went to Reese’s dorm, because that was where they always went. Tenny strolled into the room with an affected swagger, and stood with his hips cocked, and his hands braced on them, heaving another dramatic sigh.

Reese closed the door and leaned back against it. He didn’t speak at first, which was stupid, given he’d been the one who insisted on this, and given that–

“Okay, so.” Tenny turned around and gestured to him, his expression one of crafted boredom. “Let’s have this talk.”

–he was going to do that.

Fuck it, Reese thought, in a very unlike him fit of pique. That was something Aidan would have said, but maybe he needed to be more like Aidan, now. He’d been hesitant, and reserved, still out of his depth in this particular arena. But Tenny was playing some kind of game, and he was tired of it. He wasn’t moving from this door, or letting Tenny out of the room, until he had some sort of answer.

“Were you going to have sex with those women?”

“I’m still going to, if you’ll hurry this along,” Tenny said with an impatient motion. “I’d invite you to play, but you’ve not been much fun lately.” The last he said with a sneer.

“You’re the one who started acting strange,” Reese shot back. “You keep leaving the room. You won’t talk. You’re the one who ran away when I kissed you.”

Tenny’s expression clouded; the anger sparked quick, had been waiting just beneath the surface. It rushed now to darken his cheeks with blood, and to draw his brows together. “I didn’t run away–”

“You did,” Reese insisted. “I kissed you, and you got up and ran away, and you wouldn’t look at me after that for days.”

Tenny bared his teeth, and Reese fought not to echo the movement; they were both bristled up like dogs about to fight. Reese felt adrenaline flood his veins.

“I didn’t,” Tenny started again.

Reese said, “Why is it okay for you to kiss me” – and a lot more than that, besides – “but I can’t kiss you?”

Tenny’s eyes flashed, one bright flare – fear, fury, a frenetic, violent burst of energy. “Because I can’t control it that way!” he said. Shouted. A gasp, really, hoarse and wild, but it seemed to echo – at least in Reese’s mind.

He felt dizzy, and remembered to take a breath, small and insufficient. “Why do you want to control–”

A stupid question, because he understood all too well the need to control one’s environment. It was the only way to maintain the upper hand; to complete an op successfully. This wasn’t an op, this was…

Tenny lashed out, suddenly. Reese had half-expected it. He got his hand up in time to block the punch thrown at his face – but not the low sucker-punch that caught him in the ribs.

It hurt; it knocked the breath from his lungs. But for all that it was a gentle blow. Tenny hadn’t meant to break anything, even if they were face-to-face, now, and Tenny was snarling at him audibly, and his breath came in sharp punches, hot on Reese’s face.

He pushed down the pain, twisted his hand, and caught Tenny’s wrist with it, gripped it hard. Tenny made a grab for his hair, and got a fist twisted up tight in it. Reese could pull away, but he’d lose a chunk of hair, and he didn’t think–

Tenny dragged him in, and then their mouths collided with a clack of teeth.

Reese felt his lip split. Tasted blood.

And then Tenny’s mouth softened, and he felt his own jaw go loose in automatic response. Even with a hand pulling painfully in his hair, and Tenny’s body bowed and tensed against his, the trust was immediate. Tenny licked into his mouth with a low, wounded noise, and then they were kissing hard, wet and raw, and hungry. Reese was so hungry for it.

He let go of Tenny’s wrist and gripped the front of his shirt instead, between the open halves of his cut; felt the pounding throb of his heartbeat through fabric and skin and heaving muscle.

Tenny’s fingers spasmed against his scalp, and he stepped backward, towing Reese with him by his hair. They reached the bed, stumbled, and Tenny fell back across it and dragged Reese down on top of him.

Reese flailed a second, getting his knees under him, finding his balance. Their mouths never broke apart. Reese couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t want to stop, licking into one another in turn, a push and pull, ebb and flow.

Tenny pushed his other hand into Reese’s hair, but gentle this time; holding his hair back, fingertips scratching at his scalp, holding him close. They closed, and pulled Reese back a little.

Their mouths came apart with an obscene sound, and they panted against one another.

Reese licked tender lips, and glanced down at him with glazed eyes – not at all prepared for the sight that greeted him.

As he watched, blinking his vision clear, Tenny’s face screwed up; he closed his eyes, and turned his face away, lips trembling.

Reese braced both hands on the mattress and pushed up on his arms, putting more space between them. Tenny let go of his hair with one hand, and pressed it over his own eyes, breath shuddering out of him in a full-body shiver.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t want to feel this way.”

Reese took a few deep breaths, trying to get his thoughts together. He’d gotten hard shockingly fast, and he could feel that Tenny was in the same state, but Tenny sounded fragile and full of cracks, like he might cry, and that wasn’t something to be solved with their cocks out.

“You don’t want to feel what way?” he finally asked.

“You’re an idiot. I hate you.”

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, Reese had thought, at first, up until he hadn’t thought that at all.

He shifted, so he could lay down on his side – heard Tenny take a few more unsteady breaths and curse softly, under his breath – and then reached for him. Gathered him up and pulled him close, so Tenny was on top of him, now. Put his arms round him, tight, the comfort of close compression, and guided his overheated face into his own throat with a hand on the back of his head.

“No,” Tenny said – whimpered. “No, no, no.” But he went unresisting as a doll, and he pushed his face hard into Reese’s pulse. Clutched at his shirt with both hands.

It felt natural to stroke his hair, slowly work the stiffness of pomade from the ends until it felt silky-soft and natural again.

Tenny’s breathing quieted after a few minutes; his shivering eased. When he spoke again, his voice sounded almost normal – but not the angry, cold voice he used out in the common room around the others. The tone he used when it was just the two of them, in the cigarette-scented aftermath of sex, once the girl of the evening had gone.

He said, “You were jealous tonight.”

“Yes.”

A beat passed. Tenny pushed up, just far enough so they could regard one another. His face was blotchy and pink, and his eyes were shiny, but his cheeks were dry, and he looked in-control again – if softer than normal. Unguarded.

Reese knew this was a rare mood, and he didn’t want to say the wrong thing for fear one of the many masks would return.

Tenny reached to trace his lower lip with a thumb, his touch gentle, his own lower lip caught between his teeth a moment. “Why were you jealous?” he asked. “Did you wish it was you sitting there between those girls?”

“No.”

“No?” Tenny pressed at the center of his lip, pulled it down a fraction. “What didn’t you like?”

He swallowed, and felt his pulse flutter. “I didn’t like them touching you…when I couldn’t.”

Tenny stilled a moment – and then pressed the pad of his thumb to the edge of Reese’s teeth. He wet his own lips, until they shone in the lamplight. “I want to try something. Hold still.”

He pulled back farther, and shifted down Reese’s body.

Reese tried to sit up–

And a hand landed in the center of his chest, and pressed him back. Tenny’s gaze sharpened. “Lie still, or I’ll stop.”

Reese lied back, swallowing again. He didn’t know what it was that would stop, but the idea of Tenny running off and retreating from him again filled him with dread. He held still.

Tenny moved downward, until he was at his waist, and then pushed the hem of Reese’s shirt up – all the way up, until it was gathered beneath his arms. He hummed, and stroked a hand down Reese’s chest, his stomach. Reese shivered, goosebumps breaking out all over his skin, and Tenny’s mouth curved up in a small smile.

His hand shifted lower, until it was cupped over Reese’s cock, soft again, but twitching with immediate interest.

“What are you doing?” Reese asked.

Tenny massaged at him, through his jeans, and stroked patterns across his belly with the fingers of his other hand. His gaze flicked up, bright blue through dark lashes. “Does it bother you?”

Reese thought the way he was hardening was proof that it didn’t, but he said, “No.”

“Do you wish it was one of the girls instead?”

“No.”

The smile got a fraction wider, and Tenny’s gaze dropped again. He stopped petting him long enough to open his belt, and then his jeans. He gave a little cluck when he started to tug them down, and Reese lifted his hips enough to help.

“Good boy,” Tenny murmured, and Reese could see his own cock twitch inside his boxers.

Tenny hummed another little note, amusement this time, definitely. He left Reese’s jeans bunched down around his thighs, and then pushed his boxers down, letting his cock spring free.

It wasn’t the first time he’d taken it into his hand, stroked it – but it was the first time he’d done it without a woman in the room with them.

It was the first time that, after a moment, he leaned down and put his mouth on Reese.

It was hard, during sex, to keep his breathing regulated, but Reese didn’t make noise. He didn’t talk, didn’t express the way he felt, not like Stephanie did, didn’t curse the way Tenny sometimes did, when pleasure left him looking almost angry.

But he gasped, now, because there was a warm, wet, expert mouth drawing him in, inch by inch, and it was Tenny’s mouth, and that knowledge coupled with the sensation had his eyes closing, and his head kicking back. He gripped the comforter in both fists because he had to touch something.

Tenny pulled off long enough to say, “You can pull my hair.” Then he swallowed him all the way down to the root.

Reese let out another sound, a half-choked moan over which he had no control. He opened his eyes, and lifted his head, because he wanted to see. Because Tenny was beautiful, and this was…he had no words for this. He did grip his hair, but he didn’t pull. He petted through it, felt its softness slide between his fingers, and watched the stretch of Tenny’s lips, and felt the movement of his throat as he swallowed.

It was overwhelming.

Tenny didn’t tease and alternate his technique like Stephanie sometimes did. He brought him off quickly, efficiently, and Reese had to let his head fall back after he came, stars bursting black and white across his field of vision. He was panting, sore all over from the strain of holding still when his hips had wanted to kick. He felt wrung-out like a dishrag, and just as limp.

Tenny sat up and wiped his mouth; licked the corners of it. His smirk was smug – but his gaze was guarded again, glittering and uncertain.

Reese was too spent to feel guarded. To move with any grace. He lifted an unsteady hand and beckoned.

“What?” Tenny asked, brows drawing together.

“Come here. Please.”

When he was close enough, Reese caught a fistful of his shirt collar and hauled him down to kiss him. His mouth tasted like – well, that was him on his tongue. Reese lapped at the roof of Tenny’s mouth, shocked, electrified all over again.

Tenny stiffened a moment, and Reese thought he would resist – but then he was kissing back, and after a moment, he was grinding his hard cock against Reese’s hip, panting into his mouth.

Reese slid his hands down Tenny’s front, and around his hips, until he could palm his ass his through his jeans and urge him forward. Again, Tenny resisted until he gave in. Then he pulled back from the kiss, head hanging, breathing in quick, ragged draws as he worked his hips steady, the bulge of his erection driving again and again into the hollow of Reese’s hip.

The denim chafed at him, but he didn’t want Tenny to stop. Kissed his temple, his cheek, his ear. “Good boy,” he murmured, echoing the words Tenny had said so many times to him.

Tenny let out a choked cry and stiffened, coming in rippling spasms that wracked his whole body above Reese’s.

It seemed to go on a long time, and then Tenny collapsed onto him with a groan, splayed out and boneless. “Christ,” he huffed into Reese’s neck. “Oh, Christ, I can’t do this.” But a moment later he lifted his head and blearily sought Reese’s mouth with his own, a tired, clinging kiss, still touched with desperation.

Reese had the sense nothing had been solved, but maybe something had begun. A start in the right direction.

When Tenny pulled back, and he saw that his eyes were fever-bright, he thought Tenny must be thinking the same thing.

Forty

“Doing okay?” Carter asked, arm sliding around her shoulders.

“Yeah.” Leah leaned into his side and turned a smile up to him. His expression was worried again.

He’d been very attentive tonight – maybe too attentive, because he kept giving her these measuring looks like he was waiting for her to freak out.

They were more or less alone now, as alone as you could get in a crowded room full of bikers, old ladies, and club chicks, with music blasting and booze flowing. Aidan had been telling a story that involved lots of rude hand gestures and which caused Sam to continually cover her face in played-up embarrassment. It shouldn’t have felt intimate, looking up at Carter now, but the din created pockets of small, close quiet in the space between bodies.

She’d had a glass of wine – okay, two – and felt pleasantly warm. She knew almost everyone here, and she’d been talking with Ava most of the time, getting to know the rest of the old ladies better. She’d settled, nerves long forgotten, but he was concerned, and that was cute.

She reached up to touch his face, a light scrape of her nails down his jaw. “I promise I’m really fine. Why are you so worried?”

He shrugged, and glanced away, out across the shifting crowd of bodies. “Dunno. Guess I was just kinda – it was a lot, my first party.”

“But it’s not my first party,” she pointed out.

“No. You were nervous, though.”

“I was. I’m better now.”

He didn’t seem relieved to hear it.

“Are you okay?” she countered.

“Yeah.” He sipped his drink, Scotch by the smell. She hadn’t known he drank that, and wondered if Mercy had been the one to fix his drink.

“Carter.”

He turned back to her.

“What is it?”

“I–” He paused. Made a face. Then set his drink aside and reached for her hand. “We can’t really talk here.”

Bemused, she let him lift her to her feet and then lead her not to the front door, like she’d expected, but down the back hall to the dorms.

A few doors stood open, but more were closed. And there were sounds coming from beyond them.

She laughed, and couldn’t manage to make it sound easy. “I forget it was like orgy city around here on party nights.” She hadn’t actually forgotten, it was, just – one thing to know it, and another to hear it.

He glanced back over his shoulder with an apologetic glance. “Sorry.”

“Not like I didn’t expect it.”

But the mood had shifted, she could tell. Had slid into a tense space that had the potential to toss them one way or the other. All it would take was telling a dirty joke – or pulling her hand from his grasp.

She did neither. Followed him into a dorm room that, after he’d closed the door softly behind them, finally letting go of her hand, she realized was his. She’d seen the dorms before, unremarkable, but private, each with their own bathroom, and small, covered windows. Each with the same ugly orange carpet, but always with scrubbed surfaces and clean linen. Ghost didn’t tolerate slovenliness.

This room had signs of a longer-term habitation. A stack of folded t-shirts on top of the dresser. Personal effects on the nightstand: an empty glass, an alarm clock, a magazine. Several pair of sneakers sat lined up against the wall by the door, and a gym bag hung off the closet doorknob.

“Do you live here fulltime?” she asked, turning to him.

He’d been turning, too, to face her, and he froze a moment. She realized too late that she’d said something that struck a nerve, and rushed to say, “No, it’s great. It is. Why wouldn’t you live here?”

His gaze landed somewhere to the left of her, and he nodded, face too blank. “Yeah. I know.”

Shit, things had tipped, and she hadn’t even meant them to. This felt like letting go, rather than stepping closer. “Plenty of the guys live here,” she said.

“Some. Not plenty.”

“The single ones. All the ones who have their own places are married.”

He let out a breath, and she thought some of the tension across his shoulders eased.

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad about it.”

“I know.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, heedless of the way it stuck up afterward. “I know, it’s just – kinda answered my own question.” A quick, grim smile.

She stepped closer. “What question?”

“Just that…” He blew out a breath. “Things are good. They’re good, right?”

“Yes.”

“They feel good. And I like what we’re doing. And this – bringing you here with me tonight feels like another step. And I want it. It’s a good step,” he added in a rush. “I want – a lot of things. Things I’d given up on, really. And maybe that’s why – look, I keep thinking that you’re going to change your mind, I guess.” He scrubbed at his hair some more, expression going miserable. “And I feel stupid saying it, ‘cause maybe that’ll make you realize you should change your mind. But I wouldn’t blame you.”

She closed the last distance between them, and rested her fingertips lightly against his stomach, pushing past the light barrier of his shirt so she could feel the warmth of skin and muscle through the fabric. “What are you saying?” she asked, frowning.

He flapped his arms, looking helpless. “You’ve got all your shit together. A job, your own place. You had a real relationship in Chicago. You’re an adult. And I’m…I live in a dorm. And I’ve never had a serious girlfriend, and, yeah, the sex is hot, but what if you wake up one morning and realize that’s not enough? That the risk of being around the club isn’t the life you want, and–”

She reached with her other hand and shushed him with a finger against his lips. Life, he’d said. It sent a terrifying thrill through her. She’d thought she would live her life with Jason, but that had fallen apart, because he’d only ever thought in increments of months, and now here Carter was talking about life, and he was so earnest, but it was so soon, and it made it a little hard to breathe.

“Hey,” she said, softly, trying to keep the sudden tremor of nerves from her voice. “The club doesn’t scare me, remember? I’m not going anywhere. We have lots of time to figure things out.”

He swallowed, and sucked in a breath against her finger. When he spoke, she felt his lips tremble. “But I want…things,” he said, even more softly.

She let her hand drop to his chest, over the rapid tattoo of his heartbeat. “What sorts of things?”

He hesitated, gaze tracking back and forth across her face. He said, “I brought you here tonight as – my old lady.” The phrase wasn’t unexpected, but it still landed like a jolt of electricity; she could see that it did for him, too. “I always wanted, even when I told myself I didn’t, and that I wasn’t…but that’s why I brought you tonight.”

“I know that.” But shivers crawled across her skin. She didn’t understand why it was like this with him; why every simple exchange had the potential to become so fraught. The way they sparked like this, so wholly unexpected.

She watched his gaze fix on her mouth, watched his pupils expand. “I don’t want it to be too much for you.”

“It’s not,” she said, “none of it,” and meant the words to encompass a whole bevy of things. Some sweet, some decidedly not.

“I don’t want you to get scared,” he said, voice dropping. His hands landed on her waist, warm and grounding – and thrilling. She remembered the last time they’d been on her, skin to skin, and wanted that again, suddenly, terribly. Her pulse settled hot and erratic between her legs.

“You don’t scare me,” she promised, and he kissed her.

~*~

Still floaty from orgasm, Reese didn’t quite believe that this was happening as Tenny stood up and stripped, and then he sat up and allowed the rest of his own clothes to be pulled off. Didn’t believe it when Tenny straddled his thighs, and worked Reese’s cock slowly back to hardness with one hand while he reached back behind himself with his other hand, fingers coated in lube.

But then Tenny shuffled into position, muttered, “Don’t say anything, just hush,” and slowly lowered himself down onto Reese’s cock. Entering him was real. It was impossible not to believe when he felt that slick, tight grip, and Tenny let his head fall back as he lowered himself down, breathing out in a low, moaning rush that sounded like pain, but which looked, from his expression, like ecstasy.

Reese had always loved to watch him when he was like this, flushed, and sweat-shined, all gleaming, clenching muscles, drunk with pleasure. But now there was no one in between them, no barrier; he could look his fill. And this time, the electric pleasure of being inside someone one was coupled with that unfettered view, and it was Tenny, it was all Tenny; it was Reese’s cock wringing those sounds from his mouth, his body offering pleasure that twisted Tenny’s face, and made his hard cock jump and drool against his stomach.

Don’t say anything. But he hadn’t said he couldn’t touch.

Reese sat up, suddenly, which changed the angle.

Tenny swore. “Presumptuous,” he scolded, breathlessly. But he didn’t try to get away when Reese put his arms around him. Gripped his back, his shoulder, his waist, his hips – lifting and dropping, still, until Reese moaned and kissed him.

It was sloppy and uncoordinated, and when they broke apart – Tenny’s eyes glazed and low-lidded, his lips bitten red, his face flushed – Reese’s gaze slid down to his throat, to the scar there, and the smear of red lipstick the groupie had left there earlier.

Without thought, Reese leaned forward and licked the spot clean.

Tenny made a strangled sound and clenched down on him hard. Reese’s hands spasmed along his ribs, and he fastened his mouth to the spot, sucking at the scar, tracing its shape with the tip of his tongue.

“Oh, Christ,” Tenny murmured, his rhythm going erratic. “Oh, Jesus, I can’t–”

Reese felt him come. The splash on his own stomach; the rippling spasms of Tenny’s body.

“You bloody idiot,” Tenny said, though it sounded like praise. He gripped Reese’s shoulders tight. Fisted the hair at his nape. Clung to him.

Then he was tugging his hair hard, lifting his head, their gazes coming together. “Here. Come here to me.” He lay back, and pulled Reese with him, on top of him, still inside him. “Finish. Let me see.” He hiked his own leg up and over Reese’s shoulder, even though he winced, and he smiled wide, though tears sparkled in his eyes. “Come on. I’ve shown you how.”

He had, and so Reese knew to be gentle, and to go easy – not because Tenny had ever told him that, but because Tenny had shown him that under all his sneering and snark, he was unbelievably fragile, so utterly human and laced with cracks, like a dropped piece of pottery.

It was unlike any of the sex Reese had had so far.

It was better.

And, after, shaking and gasping, Tenny stroked his hair and murmured, “Good boy. Christ, what will we do?”

~*~

Carter sat on the side of the bed, his legs open, Leah standing between them, already breathing hard just from kissing. They’d maneuvered over here a little awkwardly, lips locked, and then Carter had sat. When she’d tried to follow him down, all ready to straddle his lap, as willing and eager as last time – more so – he’d halted her with gentle pressure from both hands at her waist. He wanted to look a minute.

He couldn’t get over wanting to look at her, and even if he didn’t quite understand it yet, it was one of the few things in all of this he wasn’t going to question. He thought, though, that it had something to do with not being able to believe that this was Leah, after all these years, and that she was this open, hungry, sexual woman in a way he’d never expected – and that she was hungry for him, even though she’d once been the kind of girl who could flay a popular boy alive with one look and a dismissive chuckle.

That was the thing about her, and about Ava: they’d always felt like outcasts, rejected by the girls in his own social circle. But rejection could move both ways, and they’d had no idea of their own power to wound back then.

He suspected they did now, at least a little. Definitely Ava.

And Leah, it seemed, had learned that it wasn’t so hard to get his pulse knocking.

With the lamplight shining behind her, her white shirt turned nearly translucent. He could see the narrow shape of her waist through it; the opaque white cups of her bra; the tiny pink bow on the bit of band between them.

He slipped his hands up under the gauzy material and touched warm skin, already pebbled with gooseflesh. The realization that he was already affecting her, just as she affected him, sent a thrill through him. This wasn’t just about his pulse: it was mutual.

“I should have worn a dress,” she whispered on an inhale.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking about” – he skimmed his palms up the delicate lattice of her ribs and palmed her breasts, smoothed his thumbs over the slick satin – “easy access,” she finished on an exhale, then she pulled her own shirt off and tossed it over her shoulder.

Still full of surprises.

He glanced up at her face, wondering what his own looked like, as he wet his lips. Hers was flushed, but bore not a trace of nerves. Her eyes glimmered, dark and full of intent. Unmistakable want.

“I’ve never had the chance to test out one of these mattresses before,” she said, voice a little rough in a way that sent shockwaves rippling down his back. “How are they?”

He swallowed. “Not bad.” His mind was already full of images, overlapping and heated. But he wanted to be sure…

“Leah.” He watched her eyes dilate; shit, his voice was ragged. “Last time…I was a little…was that–?”

She grinned, a fast, wicked slice of teeth flashing. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I really wasn’t expecting you to be that” – she bit her lip – “intense. Or that good. I mean…damn.”

He huffed out a breath, lungs tight. “There’s an ego boost.”

“Take the compliment. And don’t worry about me. I’m loving it.”

Okay, then. He nodded. “Alright. Go…” Honestly, he was a little surprised at his own take charge attitude. Jasmine had always been the aggressor in their relationship – though he supposed he picked up on a thing or two along the way. When you stopped worrying about what was expected of you, and started doing what felt good – well, if he was intense, and good, and she loved it, that was all he cared about. “Go open the closet door,” he said. “Please. And then come back.”

Her grin widened, and she made a show of spinning around and walking the short distance to the closet; opening the door. She bent over more than was strictly necessary, offering him a view that left him chuckling. She opened the door – and revealed the full-length mirror hung up on the inside of it.

“Ooh.” She laughed. “Kinky.” When she turned back, she was still grinning, but her flush had deepened, cheeks fever-pink, and he could see the flutter of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. Anticipation not unlike nervousness.

“Come here.”

She did, with slow, prowling steps. He thought it was an act, but a good one. When she reached him, he reached up and caught one of her hands, smoothed his thumb across the back of it.

“You have flowers on your boots,” he said.

“You like?”

“Yeah. Here.” He put his hands on her hips and turned her around, pulled her down to sit in his lap so she faced the mirror. He hooked his chin on her shoulder and looked at their reflection.

Watched his own hands, dark tan against her paler complexion, slide up her stomach and cover her breasts again. He played with her through the silk a moment, until he felt her nipples tighten. Until her breath hitched audibly, and he could see her biting at her lip. Then he drew her bra straps down, and reached back to unclasp it. The white silk fell into her lap, unheeded, and when he cupped her bare breasts, she pressed her hands to the backs of his, encouraging, pushing her chest forward into the touch.

His gaze alternated between the mirror – the sight of his hands shaping her breasts, the white of her knuckles as she urged him on – and down over her shoulder. He could hear the distant thump of the music beyond the dorm, and the occasional muffled sound from next door, but here in the room he could only hear the soft rasp of his calluses against her skin, her quick, needy breaths, and his own pulse, loud as kettledrums in his ears.

He was hard, now, and when she shifted on his lap, he sucked in a breath at the feel of her ass grinding down against him.

His hands slipped lower, gliding down over the soft skin of her belly, so he could unfasten her jeans.

They were all but painted on, but with the fly undone, he had just enough room to dip inside with one hand, duck under sleek white silk and find her already heated and damp for him. His fingertips glided through slick wetness, and he watched her face in the mirror while she shivered in his arms: the way her mouth opened, and her eyes fluttered shut.

He parted her folds and traced her entrance, and her hips bucked forward. She leaned back into him, legs spreading over his thighs, trying to give him better access.

He didn’t have any kind of savvy dirty talk. He resisted the urge to thrust up against her and said, “Feels good?”

“Yes.” Her voice was a heated sigh, and it tightened the coil of mounting pleasure in his gut.

“Look at yourself,” he urged, and her eyes fluttered open. “Look at us.”

It was a simple picture, but shocking all the same, he thought. Her topless, with her legs spread, and her pants open, his hand down inside them; the flex of his wrist and arm, the undulation of her hips; her overcome expression, and her silly flowered boots, drumming against the edge of the mattress as he worked one, and then two fingers inside her.

His cock twitched, looking at them. But another image filled his mind; a better one.

He stood, arm going around her waist so he could hoist her up to her feet. She weighed nothing, and her startled little gasp was all sex, went straight to his cock. He had to get out of his jeans – but first…

He worked her jeans down her hips, panties, too, chasing them with his palms along her smooth thighs. Stroked the sharp points of her hipbones, and cupped her sex, its tidy dark curls. She was so wet now; when he slipped a finger back inside her, her slick filled his palm.

She gripped his arm. “You’ve got – oh, God – way too many – mph – clothes on.”

He gave one last firm thrust and withdrew his hand; his fingers glistened in the lamplight and he wanted to taste them, to taste her – to do everything all at once, but mostly mount her like he was a fucking stag, and –

He was getting overwhelmed. Again. It kept happening, but it was different, now, with her.

He closed his eyes, and pressed his nose into her temple, breathing a moment, flushing hot when he realized he was rutting against her back. He stilled, and tried to get himself under control so he didn’t come in his pants like a teenager.

“Carter,” she said. “Honey. You get your clothes and I’ll get mine, huh?”

She knew. She knew that he was swamped with – everything – and she knew just how to drag him out of it.

He swallowed, throat suddenly tight. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

He hated stepping away from her, but then he got to watch her bend at the waist, limber as a gymnast – one with her jeans bunched around her thighs – to unlace her boots.

He tore at his own clothes: cut, and shirt, and boots, and jeans going in an unceremonious heap. He was still tugging off his socks as he went around the bed to the nightstand and grabbed a condom from the top drawer.

When he looked up, she was kneeling in the center of the bed, back arched provocatively, not a trace of self-consciousness in sight. “How do you want me?” she asked, breathless, her flush spreading down her throat and across her chest.

Christ.

“Hands and knees. Face the mirror.”

She turned and complied, arched even more dramatically, and for a second, he thought he wasn’t going to have the coordination he needed to get the condom on.

But he managed, and then he knelt up on the bed behind her, and got to touch her again. It was easier, like that: touching. He stroked her back, and hips, her thighs; smoothed his palms over the curves of her ass and felt her twitch; let out a sharp breath through his nostrils when she pushed back toward her, thighs spreading a little wider on the mattress.

When he stroked her sex again, she was dripping.

She was ready, beyond ready, and he was so hard it hurt, but when he’d shuffled into position, he paused with his cock just touching her entrance, slapped suddenly with the memory of his last night with Jasmine – and Chanel, and Stephanie.

He glanced up at their reflection again. It was Leah in front of him now; Leah’s dark eyes, and silky black hair draped over her shoulder; Leah’s small, sweetly-curved breasts hanging. Her elbows and knees braced on the mattress.

Her voice, saying, “Carter.”

He gripped her hip, and pressed inside on a slow, smooth stroke. Felt her stretch and give around him. Heard her shaky, pleasure-drunk murmur. Felt her press back again, taking more of him, all of him.

And it wasn’t at all like it had been that night with Chanel.

It was perfect. Because with Leah, it was okay to respect and adore her, and to feel a thrill at the hedonistic pleasure of it, too. He could have both at the same time. Affection for the little constellation of freckles on her left shoulder blade, and delight in the flex and heave of his own sweaty chest, the sight of his cock breaching her body again, and again, and again.

He rode her hard, and she took it, met him thrust for thrust. Cried out when she came, mouth open, glorying in it. Said, “God, yes,” when he pulled out at the last, stripped off the condom, and came all over her back.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

It was easy as anything to collapse down on the bed beside her, after, and pull her into his arms, sweaty skin gluing together.

Quiet sex sounds filtered through the walls, and this was his world, and Leah was in it.

He’d been wrestling with it ever since she got back to town. Ever since he felt the first jolt when Mercy said he was stepping up, but it had taken him until right this moment to label the sensation that had been dogging him for weeks: that of things finally falling into place.

~*~

Reese woke slowly, to the glow of a lamp left on, and a sense of cold and loss along his right side. He turned his head and found Tenny sitting up on the side of the bed, back bowed, his face in his hands. He was all muscle and sinew, but in this light, he looked too-thin. The knobs of his spine stood out prominent. Vulnerable.

He didn’t speak, but Tenny had sensed that he was awake. Had heard the rustle of his hair on the pillow; the change in his breathing. Tenny’s head lifted, and his hands fell limp in his lap. In a very small and uncharacteristic voice, he said, “I can go.”

Reese said, “Stay.”

After a moment, Tenny nodded, and leaned over to click off the lamp. He stretched back out, on his side, facing Reese. Reese saw a fast glimmer of eyes in the dark, and then the weight of Tenny’s head landed on his shoulder.

“Stay,” Reese said again, and it sounded like a question.

Tenny let out a deep breath, warm across Reese’s chest.

Eventually, sleep pulled him back under; his last thought was that it felt nice to have a heartbeat against his arm.

Forty-One

Fox had his father’s capacity for drink, which meant he could be near to passing out, but give him some strong coffee, a splash of cold water in his face, and a cigarette, and he could be fight-ready sober in less than an hour. He had enough at the party to get pleasantly loose and warm, but, while he could have ridden home, it was easier to stay late, have another drink, and find a dorm where he and Eden could crash.

She’d left scratches down his arms, but she’d been quiet and withdrawn after, cuddled up against his side in a way she didn’t normally go for.

He regarded her now, from his position sitting up against the headboard, her face tense down on the pillow beside him, her brows drawn together even in sleep. Her fingers would curl every so often, slow to uncurl. The pearly, pre-dawn light caught on her lashes as they flickered. She was dreaming – having nightmares, more like.

They’d celebrated the downfall of the mayor last night, but Eden hadn’t looked very celebratory, hand wrapped tight around her glass, her smiles fleeting, and her gaze distracted. She was still worried about the missing girls, he knew; the two from Knoxville adding to the three for whom she was already searching.

Slowly, silently, Fox slipped out of bed, tugged on last night’s clothes, grabbed his smokes, and went outside to watch the sun come up.

He wasn’t the only one who’d had that idea, apparently. A slender figure draped in a blanket sat on top of one of the picnic tables, the smoke from his cigarette just visible in the rapidly-lightening blue of early morning.

Fox knew it was Tenny before he approached and joined him, but he wasn’t lying when he said, “I didn’t expect to find you out here.” Wrapped in a blanket, he didn’t add.

Now that he was closer, he could see it wasn’t just the blanket. Under it, Tenny wore sweats and a thin white t-shirt. He was barefoot, for some ungodly reason, and his hair was a rumpled mess.

His expression, when he regarded Fox with the barest glance, was drawn, and raw, and troubled. He looked his age, for once, and like a real boy rather than a highly-skilled, highly-trained government assassin.

There were several observations Fox could have made aloud:

You disappeared in back awfully early last night.

Reese disappeared, too.

You need a shower.

He opened his mouth to say something milder, but Tenny spoke first. His voice was rusty, like he had a sore throat.

“When I was fifteen, I grew about a foot, and the handlers decided I was ready to add seduction to my repertoire.”

“Fifteen is young,” Fox said, observationally, without inflection. Whatever Tenny was working up the nerve to say, he knew there could be no rushing it.

“People like young. And I have blue eyes, and prominent cheekbones, and a soft mouth,” he said, equally flat. Detached. “They brought people in. Teachers. Probably they were escorts, I don’t know. A woman and a man. They taught me what to do. In bed and out of it.”

“Seduction is a valuable tool of the trade. It allows closeness, without all the blood.”

“No less messy, though.”

“No.”

“I was good at it. Skilled,” he corrected. “I become skilled at everything I attempt.”

“I’ve noticed. Including denying yourself something you want badly.”

Tenny took a long drag off his cigarette, and his hand started to shake. He made a face; sniffed hard, and it sounded like he’d been doing that for a while. “Sex is a skill like any other, and it serves its purposes. It even provides physical pleasure in the moment. It’s a natural urge; a bodily function.”

“But,” Fox prompted.

Another drag, and then he flicked the cigarette away onto the pavement. “I’ve never…” he whispered.

“Cared?”

He pressed his hand flat over his eyes. “I don’t,” he said, vicious. “I don’t care. I hate him.”

Fox sighed. “Well, for one thing, hate isn’t the opposite of care. Hate requires lots of caring, actually. And for another, you don’t hate him.”

He waited, giving Tenny the chance for a much-needed confession. But instead he wiped his eyes, composed himself, and lit another cigarette.

“Not that you’ll admit it,” Fox said, “but you’re as ill-adjusted to regular life as him. You’ve had better training, and you can fake it in a way that he can’t. You pull on accents and personas the same way I do. Aside from him, I’m the only one you know who’s anything like yourself. But I’m your brother, and you do hate me, a little, and don’t want to jump my bones, besides.”

Tenny graced him with a dark look.

“He understands you, in a way that no civilian ever could, or ever will. He’s a version of you: a distorted mirror image, and you don’t have to pretend with him. Anyone else you sleep with is getting a carefully-crafted mask. An identity that you can pull out of your wallet alongside the condom. But it isn’t the real you. You can’t show the real you to anyone, not even when you want to.”

Tenny’s brows lifted, and kept climbing.

“But he sees right through all the bullshit. And he knows that killing a man on orders is the simplest, easiest, freest thing in the world. And sometimes it’s even fun.

“You’re having real, human feelings all of a sudden, on top of a lot of other feelings, and it scares you – almost as badly as thinking about going back to being alone scares you.”

The light had shifted, silver on the river, the first rosy glow teasing below the tree line.

Tenny took a drag, and his gaze came to Fox, blue, and earnest, and heartbroken; a boy at war with himself. “He’s better than me,” he said, and his voice cracked. “Not at fighting, and killing, and talking to people–”

Fox placed his hand on top of his head, and he fell silent. “He is. I know.”

“I am so – I am so angry. I am furious, all the time. They made me, they made me, and they fell apart and threw me away, and they should have just put me down like the others, but they left me alive – why did they live me alive? And you brought me here to this place that I hate – I hate it here. It’s small, and ugly, and backward, and there’s nothing to do, it’s laughable how pathetic all this is, these aren’t even ops, I’m working with petty, small-town drug dealers, and I hate – I hate–” He was hyperventilating.

Fox took a firm grip on his biceps, and though he was taller, and yes, as much as he hated to admit it, stronger than Fox, he was kitten-weak now, and he came when Fox towed him in and enfolded him in a tight, bracing hug. Gripped the back of his neck and let his own body absorb the hard shakes of his. Rocked him a little, side to side.

Abe had done this for him, more than once, when he was a teenager, and the rabid, uncontrollable fury at Devin had come boiling out at the eyes and nose, pathetic, wet dribbles that made him feel helpless and babyish. “This is normal,” he said, because that was what Abe had told him. “You are normal, and anger is normal, and you can’t hold it. You have to let it out. Good lad.”

Tenny shuddered.

“Life is hard,” Fox said, in as soothing a voice as he could manage. “It’s hard enough for ordinary people, but it’s harder still when you’ve been given the kind of knowledge that you have and then dropped like you have. I won’t lie and say it gets easier – only that, over time, it’s easier to pretend. The anger gets less bitter on the back of the tongue.”

Tenny sucked in a ragged breath. “He’s not angry.”

“No, he’s not. But haven’t we already established that he’s better than you?” Fox teased.

“He’s sweet.”

“He is.”

“He gave me my name.”

“I know he did.”

“I love him.”

“I know you do.”

Another breath. “What am I supposed to do?”

“You could try telling him.” That earned a hard shiver. “Or maybe start by trying to be less of a massive dick to everyone all the time.”

That earned a snort, and Fox smiled, as the sun faded blue and gold across the water in dancing crescents.

Forty-Two

Albany, NY

Mav squinted up at the leaden sky and watched a silent tongue of lightning flicker between the clouds. “It’s gonna rain, boys.” Thunder, distant and rolling, like a bowling ball down a lane. “Scratch that, it’s gonna storm. We gotta hurry this up.”

“We’re hurrying!”

Frankie was, but Stu definitely wasn’t.

“Fuckin’ – lift with your legs!” Frankie shouted at him.

“I’m trying!”

Mav cast another glance at the sky and was rewarded by another flash of lightning.

For the past five years, the headquarters of the New York chapter of the Lean Dogs MC had resided in a two-story brick house in the middle of a subdivision that had grown decidedly more hostile about late night bike start-ups and loud parties as time went by. They’d long since worn out their welcome; what had started as a temporary situation, a place for them to have church – the president, Marco’s, own home – had turned into a semi-permanent occupation. Marco’s wife, April, had grudgingly made room for larger sofas, and even a pool table, and her downstairs had been overrun by bikers and biker memorabilia.

They’d finally secured a new place, though: a proper industrial building with a bike shop in front, and a clubhouse in back, separated by a concrete lot where they could string up lights and a pavilion, and party all night, with drum fires and everything.

Today was moving day.

If these idiots would get a move on.

Frankie and Stu had been trying unsuccessfully for at least fifteen minutes now to navigate one of the long, sectional couches in through the back door of the new clubhouse. Stu almost dropped his end again, and Mav stepped forward with a sigh. It seemed he had to do everything around here. They couldn’t even find a prospect who knew how to use a mop properly.

He stepped in next to the kid and added his own hands to the arm of the sofa. “Here, we’ve gotta get it higher so the angles will work. On three, ready? One, two–”

Later, when his eyes fluttered open at last in the hospital, he would remember what happened in quick, colorful snatches, all of it disjointed, pieced together with unmatched edges as he struggled to come up with the reasons why.

He would remember being picked up like a rag doll, being thrown. A terrible force like a wave knocking him back at the beach. Something heavy on top of him: the sofa. A flash of blinding light. And, belatedly, the sound. A roar like a train, like thunder, like his bike when he cranked it.

He caught a glimpse of fire and black smoke in the sky. And then hot wetness ran in his eyes, and the inside of his skull rang like a struck gong, and everything was black.

Forty-Three

Mother’s Day dawned bright and warm. Ghost knew a rare kind of nerves, deep in his belly, and he smoked two cigarettes in quick succession in the kitchen while Maggie showered and did her hair. “Don’t judge me,” he said to Ash, who only blinked at him and continued to shove mushy Cheerios into his mouth.

Maggie sailed into the room a few minutes later, with all the grace and poise of her debutante days – he enjoyed reminding her occasionally that the training had stuck, no matter how hard she’d resisted – and said, “You’ve been smoking.” Not an accusation, but he folded his arms all the same and made a face.

She grinned. “Just admit you’re never gonna quit.”

“No, I’m gonna.”

“Sure, baby.” She patted his cheek, and he leaned into the touch a moment, purely indulgent.

She had her purse on the table, and she checked it before she went to hoist Ash out of his high chair. “You finally gonna tell me what this surprise is?”

“Nope. That would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?”

She turned to him, Ash on her hip, expression delighted – and devious, suddenly. “Kenneth Teague. You’re nervous.”

“No.”

She smiled. “You’re a lying chain-smoker who’s nervous. I love it.”

They took the truck, because they had Ash. He still sometimes marveled that they’d just gotten the house to themselves, and could go out on his bike together, and now they had a kid in diapers again. It felt fitting, though, on Mother’s Day.

They were expected at Ava and Mercy’s for family brunch at eleven, but they’d left a little early. He slowed when they reached Bell Bar, and found a parking spot along the curb.

“Did you want me to look at the tile choices for the bathroom?” Maggie asked, gesturing through the window at the bar, managing to sound almost eager and not as annoyed as he knew she must be.

“No, not now. Come on.”

“Come where?”

“Just out here.”

He took the baby from her when they hit the sidewalk; held him in one arm so he could steer her with a gentle hand between her shoulder blades.

“Ghost,” she protested, curious now, twisting to look back at him.

He repressed a smile. “Look at the glass up there.”

They’d reached the café, and Evan, as instructed, had come by earlier to take the cardboard and plywood off the glass door. A small sign that read Opening Soon hung off the handle. And in artful blue script above, the door proclaimed the place Maggie’s.

He could tell when the shock registered, because her back tensed beneath his hand, lungs expanding on a sudden, shocked breath. He watched her, nerves at their jangling peak, as she stared with wide eyes at the pale blue letters – designed by Ava, because he himself was hopeless, and applied to the glass by an expert – and slowly brought both hands up to her mouth.

In his experience, that could be a good or bad sign.

“You can be as involved as you want,” he said. “You can run it, work part-time, or just have your name on the door. We can even rename it, if you want.”

“Don’t you dare,” she breathed, then turned to him, hands clasped together beneath her chin, eyes shiny. “You bought me a restaurant?”

“A café, technically. But yeah.”

She braced both hands on his chest, and stretched up to kiss him.

“Take it you like it alright?” Ghost asked when she pulled back.

She kissed him again in answer. Then stepped back, vibrating with excitement. “I have so many recipes. God, this is gonna be fun!”

And it was fun to watch her imagining it already, sketching plans in the air with her hands, her expression luminous.

Until his phone rang.

~*~

Carter couldn’t remember the last time he’d celebrated Mother’s Day. He certainly never had with a girlfriend and her parents.

The Cooks lived in a small, comfortable ranch house in an old, established neighborhood with lots of mature trees. Sunlight reached the bay window in the kitchen where they were having brunch in kaleidoscopic whirls and dots, leaf patterns dancing across the tabletop and the spread of baked goods, ham, and fresh fruit.

The food was excellent, as expected, but Carter hadn’t been able to eat much, stomach churning with nerves. This was the first time he and Leah had appeared together in front of her parents, as more than friends. Leah had assured him that she’d already told her mom about them, and Marie had been delighted to see him on the doorstep, all ready with a warm hug and a motherly kiss on the cheek.

Marshall, he could tell, was going to be a harder sell. He kept glancing at Carter from the corner of his eye, his expression stern and unreadable. His gaze weighed heavy on the side of Carter’s head, and he wasn’t sure if he should meet it head-on, man-to-man, or give in to his childish impulse to scrunch down in his chair and play meek.

“We signed the lease this week,” Marie said. “And Mr. Shaman”–

“What kinda name is that anyway?” Marshall grumbled in an aside to Carter, like he was looking for agreement.

–“is giving us a much better deal on the rent. We’re saving so much that we’ll be able to make those improvements to the shop we’ve been talking about.”

“Mom, that’s fantastic,” Leah said.

“Isn’t it?” Marie reached across the table, suddenly, and laid her hand over Carter’s, startling him. “And it’s all thanks to you, Carter. You have no idea – this is just…” She trailed off, and her eyes welled up, and he had no idea what he’d do if she started crying. Her fingers flexed and her nails pressed into the back of his hand as it was.

“Oh, well,” he hedged. “Um.”

“Thank you,” she said, voice wobbling. “You saved the shop.”

“Technically Ian – I mean, Mr. Shaman did.” He fought the urge to squirm in his chair.

Marshall said, “Come on, Marie, don’t make the boy uncomfortable.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” She pulled her hand back to dab at her eyes, smiling and blinking. “I’m just so grateful.”

Carter looked toward Leah, but she only offered a warm, affectionate look in response.

After they were finished eating, Carter helped Leah clear the table and load the dishwasher. They settled in side by side at a soap-filled sink to wash the knives and pans.

“What Mom said freaked you out,” Leah observed, working a sponge against the grease in the bottom of the pan.

It had, and it was still freaking him out a little, half an hour later. “I’m used to people thanking me.”

She snorted. “Come on.”

“I’m serious.”

She paused, and glanced over at him, gaze thoughtful. “You’re serious.”

“It’s been a long time since I did anything worth being thanked over.”

“Okay, that’s too sad for me to poke fun at.”

“Now I’m freaked out and sad. Great.”

She chuckled, and knocked her hip into his thigh.

He grinned and knocked back, and some of his nerves settled. It was always like that with her, he’d come to learn. Just when he got overwhelmed – by lust, by doubt, by self-recrimination – she detected it and pulled him back. Warmed him like a balm.

“Needless to say, Mom’s a fan,” Leah said, back to scrubbing.

“Yeah, but what about your dad?”

“What about her dad?” Marshall’s voice asked, right behind them, and Carter barely managed to bite back a curse. He considered sticking his head under the tap a moment, and drowning himself.

Leah’s eyes widened, but she didn’t look as worried as he felt. She set the pan back in the water, and turned to her dad, toweling her hands. “Just that you’re a total softy under all the mean faces you make,” she said, sweetly, grinning. “Carter’s not convinced.” The tilt of her head seemed to say, Be nice, Dad.

Marshall made a low, noncommittal sound. “Go sit with your mother on the porch and I’ll help Carter with the dishes.”

Oh no.

“Dad,” Leah started.

“It’s Mother’s Day, and you’re the kid. Go on.”

Carter cast a desperate look toward Leah, but she mouthed sorry and slipped away.

Marshall took her place, rolling up his sleeves, jaw set like a bulldog.

Carter took a measured breath and schooled his features.

They worked in silence a moment, Marshall finishing up the pan and handing it over so Carter could rinse and place it over on the drying rack.

Carter’s pulse thumped. Forget having a meal with the parents – he’d never dated anyone seriously enough to even meet her parents. And he was finally serious with someone, and standing here with her father, in his own kitchen, and he was no longer a football star with a scholarship, but a Lean Dog. One who’d been having lots of sex with the daughter in question.

The moment had shovel talk written all over it.

Marshall picked up a knife and dunked it under the water, its keen edge glinting through the suds.

Carter braced himself.

But he said, “Leah seems happy.”

Carter felt his brows go up. “She does?”

Marshall nodded – stiffly. He brought the knife out of the water to work at the sticky remains of fruit rind with a sponge. “She was real down when she first got home. She’s better, now.” He glanced over, hands still moving, his chin tucked a fraction, his gaze direct. “She likes you.”

Carter swallowed and refused to glance away first. “I like her.”

They held eye contact a long moment, before Marshall nodded again, the creases on his face shifting from stern, to something Carter wanted to label as satisfied. He turned back to the knife before handing it over to he rinsed. “You think I don’t like you, though.”

“I think I’m the biker dating your daughter, and that any father would be worried about that.”

One corner of Marshall’s mouth flicked up, nearly a smile. “You think I don’t like bikers.”

Carter couldn’t withhold a sigh. “I dunno. You tell me.”

Marshall braced both hands on the edge of the sink and twisted to face him fully. He looked very much like the Marine he was in that moment – but he didn’t look threatening. “I like the Lean Dogs.”

“You – do?”

“I’m a military man, not some stock broker. I know they do some things that lots of people don’t agree with. But, then, that’s true of lots of groups, and not just outlaw ones.”

Carter stared at him, disbelieving.

“I’ve always respected Ghost. He loves this city. He looks out for it. If someone needs help, he and his boys are there. The Dogs are brothers. That cut means something – it means loyalty.” He nodded toward the one Carter wore, and smiled a little more obviously. “Reminds me of my uniform days. You take care of your brothers, you die for your brothers, you protect the club and the people attached to it. The club makes the city better, not worse.”

Carter said, “You really believe all that?”

“I do. And I believe a Dog knows more about loyalty, and about caring for the woman he loves, than that shithead who took her to Chicago.”

Carter wanted to smile. He said, “Yes, sir.”

Marshall stared at him a moment, looking for something. Maybe he found it, Carter thought, because he nodded and turned back to the sink. Picked up the next knife and started washing it. “I’ve got no reason to dislike the guy, but what’s your read on this Shaman we’re paying rent to?”

Feeling like a sizable weight had been lifted from his shoulders, Carter set about trying to explain Ian in a way that made him sound like what he was – a useful ally who seemed to genuinely care about the Dogs.

Until his phone rang.

~*~

Ghost’s expression was downright spooky: a glittering, quiet, and composed sort of anger. The sort that preceded bodies hitting the floor.

“At eleven-fifteen this morning, an improvised explosive device detonated inside the New York chapter’s brand-new clubhouse. It was moving day.” He ground his jaw. “They’ll be picking through the wreckage for a while, so they don’t know exactly what was in the bomb, but the fire department is saying they think it was detonated remotely.

“Three members were killed, including Marco Gonzalez, their president.”

Hisses and low murmurs rippled around the table.

“Maverik is now acting president until they can get a proper vote, and he got beat up pretty bad. He called me from his hospital bed. Sounded like he’d just woken up.”

“Who did it?” Michael asked.

Ghost held up his phone, open to a blown-up photo, one that Carter could see even from halfway down the table. A span of concrete, a cinderblock wall, and spray-painted on it, a bright yellow inverted triangle.

Yield.

Ghost said, “The same people who left us this tag at the old mill when they abducted Allie Henderson.”

~*~

“This took some serious string-pulling,” Vince said late that afternoon, when the shadows lay long and blue across the concrete and steel of Dartmoor. It sounded like a token protest.

Ghost stood at his side, their backs to Maggie’s raised garden, both watching as a handler in a police windbreaker kept instructing the bomb-sniffing dog in his grasp to “seek” beneath the clubhouse pavilion. A second dog was searching the inside of the clubhouse, and they would move all down the property, checking offices and warehouses.

“No one’s ever launched that kind of assault on a clubhouse,” Ghost said. He could hear the strained detachment in his voice. He’d had to shove the anger down. Action was all that would help, now. “Not ever. I don’t want to take chances.”

Vince let out a breath that wasn’t a sigh; a nervous exhalation. “What are the odds someone placed a bomb here? You’ve got cameras. You’ve got a dog.”

“An old dog. All Ares does is sleep anymore.”

“Maybe you should get a younger dog.”

“I plan to. Walsh is searching for breeders.”

“Damn,” Vince murmured. “Who was it?”

Ghost wanted to take a deep breath of his own – his lungs tight, his skin prickling. He said, “The short answer is Luis Cantrell: the son of a disgraced FBI agent with a hard-on for the club. The long answer is whoever his friends are: a growing crime syndicate who want the Dogs out of the way for their human trafficking agenda.”

“You’re not serious,” Vince said.

“They’re headquartered in New York: Italian and Russian mob families. Cartel. The stupid rich fucks who want to buy humans. They’re using a consulting firm as cover, and the girls they’re selling are Americans, snatched right off the street from all over the country.”

“Jesus. Why don’t you go to the FBI?”

Ghost turned to him. “You heard the part about the disgraced agent, right?” He cocked a single brow.

Vince shook his head. “Don’t you have anything concrete? Hell, I can…”

He trailed off when Ghost shook his head. “Who would you run to? Who would you tell? The mayor was in on it. Who knows how deep this goes. Is there someone high-up you could trust? Who’d believe you?”

Vince bit his lip.

“Welcome to my world.” He looked back toward dog and handler, watching the sleek shepherd sniff at their picnic tables with tight focus. He loved his own shepherd, and Ares had been a wonderful dog, but when they’d talked at table, prospects and everything, Tenny had said, “You want a Doberman.” That’s what Walsh was searching for.

After a moment, Vince said, “Can you stop them? Kenny…if this is national, if this is as big as you say it is…”

“I can stop them. I will.” He wasn’t sure how, yet, but he knew that his club was bigger, stronger, and more resourceful than it had ever been.

Vince said, “You might be the only one who can.”

Forty-Four

“There was nothing at Dartmoor,” Mercy said, spreading his hands through the air in a gesture that, coupled with his low, accented voice, and his serious expression, had a definite, appreciated calming effect. Leah’s heart still ran rabbit-fast, though. “Not in any of the buildings. The dogs checked it all, and didn’t find a thing.”

Ava sat beside Leah on the sofa, arms and legs crossed, tense and brittle and defensive, though Leah could only read that because she knew her friend so well. A stranger would have thought her unaffected. “What about all our homes? There’s a lot of them.”

Leah felt a touch on her hand, and glanced up to see that Carter had leaned forward in his chair, his palm warm and comforting against her knuckles. She managed a bare smile for him, through the beating fear.

Ava had called her, shortly after Carter left her parents’ place in a hurry, with lots of apologies and a quick kiss for her. Her dad had nodded, looking understanding, and she wondered just what had taken place at the kitchen sink after she left. She’d arrived a little concerned – and then become a lot concerned. She and Ava had been on the couch when the boys arrived, and had taken up seats in dragged-over dining chairs across from them, respectively.

Mercy said, “There was only the one explosion in New York. None of the private homes were hit.”

Ava titled her head.

“I know,” he murmured. “Fillette, I know.”

Leah said, “Should we be worried?” A dumb question – she was already worried out of her mind – but it seemed like the mature, jaded, old lady thing to say.

Carter’s hand closed more firmly over hers. He didn’t say no. But he said, “We’re gonna fix it.”

Ava groaned. “Jesus.” But then she shook herself, even as Mercy was reaching for her hand, and said, “Okay, what do we need to do?”

Mercy’s smile was small, and crooked, and impossibly proud. “Just keep being you.”

Ava shot him a glare – one that melted into a gaze so affectionate that Leah felt compelled to look away.

~*~

“I’m sorry,” Carter said, hours later, when they lay side-by-side in the dark, in her bed, facing one another and still catching their breath. The sex had been vigorous, as always, but desperate, and tender, too. He’d been so sweet with her, even as he’d taken her apart completely. His chest still heaved, the sweat on it gleaming in the moonlight.

The worry of the moment was the only thing that gave her the awareness to keep from getting lost in the sight of him. “It’s not your fault.” She couldn’t resist touching, stroking a hand across his pecs. “You didn’t blow up a clubhouse.”

“But you wouldn’t have to know that if you weren’t with me.”

“Carter.” She sighed. “Haven’t we been through this?”

“Yeah.” He looped an arm around her, and pulled her in closer to his chest, despite the sweat on both of them. “Feels like I gotta sat it, though.”

She shifted, so her face rested in the hollow of his throat. He smelled like sex, and her laundry detergent, and he was an indescribable comfort. It made her brave enough to say, “Those missing girls. They’re not still in Tennessee, are they?”

“I doubt it.” His hand stroked up and down her back. “This is…worse than anything the club’s faced before.” It felt like an admission; like he was trusting her with a secret.

“Are you worried?” she asked.

His arm tightened. “Yeah. About you.” She scratched at his chest, and, a beat later, he said, “About a lot of things.”

She took a deep breath and heard – and felt – him echo it. “The Dogs always come out on top.”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah.”

For good or for bad, she thought, she was tied to their fate, now.

The rewards outweighed the risks.

~*~

Despite Carter’s arms warm and strong around her, his knife and gun on the nightstand, the front door locked, Leah slept poorly. She spent most of Monday morning yawning into her coffee, and continually rubbing at her eyes, vision blurring, grateful she’d left off mascara and eye liner for the day.

“You alright?” Gabe, whose desk was closest to hers, kept asking, and she managed to dredge up a smile every time.

Rochelle brought her a fresh mug of coffee right before lunch. “You look like you could use it.”

“Thanks. I’m kinda running on E today.”

It was a cloudy day, beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of the office. The numbers kept sliding together on her computer, and so she found herself glancing mindlessly out at the street more and more. Her body was sore and heavy. She entertained fantasies of a bath, and a glass of wine, and Carter coming over, smiling, not at all worried about bombs and enemies and unstoppable crime organizations disguised as legitimate consulting firms.

She shivered, blamed it on the AC, and tried to throw herself back into work.

She was poring over the spreadsheet for one of the multi-acre, potential-subdivision plots of land the company was looking into buying when she heard the elevator arrive with a soft ding. The kid from the mail room, probably, with a fresh round of envelopes.

Behind her, Gabe said, “Leah.” His voice was wrong.

When she lifted her head, she saw one of the pressed and polished front desk staff from downstairs. Eric, she thought his name was. He didn’t look so polished now, his hair ruffled like he’d been running his hands through it, his tie crooked.

“Eric?” Isobel said. “What’s wrong? You look terrible.”

Eric swallowed before he answered, his throat bobbing. “There was a phone call – at the front desk. It – he – there’s a bomb in the building.”

~*~

The door to Ian’s office – his private, appointment-only office – swung open without so much as a knock, and Alec filled the threshold, wearing a light sweater and pair of designer jeans that Ian had bought him, his hair dark, and soft, and lovely, his gaze warm behind the lenses of his frameless glasses.

Ian’s stomach dropped. His pulse quickened. He knew his face fell, when he saw the joy dim on his husband’s face. “I’ll have to call you back,” he said into the phone, and hung up rudely, not caring.

“Well,” Alec said, a little stiffly. “It’s good to see you, too.”

Behind him, Ian saw Bruce’s reassuring silhouette, all bulk and brawn. He sat back, and waved Alec in. “No, no, it is. But I said you didn’t need to come by today.”

Alec stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. “And I said, in your own words, ‘bugger that,’ because we haven’t had a lunch date in weeks.” He plopped gracelessly down into the chair opposite Ian’s desk, though that wasn’t quite true, because he was graceful – with his long limbs, and his lithe build, and his pretty, cut-glass features – even when he wasn’t trying to be.

“Darling,” Ian said, holding back a sigh. His hands flexed on his thighs, and he forced them still. He hadn’t been nervous before, but was now, suddenly. Every single time the Lean Dogs got themselves in hot water, he remembered standing outside his other office, the funeral home, while a biker pressed a gun to Alec’s temple. That terror was the sort that he managed to suppress, but never to cure completely. Ghost had called yesterday afternoon, to tell him about the explosion in New York – which had made the national news by midnight. Alec had asked why he was so tense, but he’d set his phone aside and pulled his husband into his arms and not answered.

“Oh no,” Alec said now, going stern. It was precious. “No, you’re hiding something. We agreed not to do that when we got married.” He folded his arms for added effect, jaw setting.

“You’re quite right. We did agree.” Ian let out a slow breath. “Alright, then.”

“Ian.”

“Yes, yes. There’s been some trouble with the club. Their New York chapter was attacked yesterday afternoon.”

Alec’s brows lifted. “Attacked how?”

“An explosion. The news called it a bomb.”

“Shit,” he said, quietly. “Well. Maybe it’s stupid, but I’m going to point out that we’re all the way down in Tennessee.”

“We are.”

His gaze hardened again. “What aren’t you telling me?”

This part stuck in his throat, because he’d kept it back ‘til now, and that wasn’t good. Wasn’t conducive to a healthy relationship. “Ghost believes that the little fiend who was terrorizing the Texas chapter has been here, in Knoxville. He thinks that he was the one who abducted those missing teenagers.” Just hearing missing and teenager in the same sentence made his skin crawl, and brought old, ugly memories to the forefront. “That he’s aligned himself with the people who planted the bomb in New York.”

Alec studied him a moment, after he’d spoken. Then stood and moved around the desk.

“I’m perfectly alright,” Ian protested stiffly, though he felt a telltale pressure in his temples, and a heat behind his eyes.

“Of course you are,” Alec said, sweetly, tone soothing now. He perched on the edge of the desk, close – Ian had to adjust the way he was sitting – and reached to trace gentle fingertips along the sharp edge of his jaw.

“Are they taking boys, too?” he asked.

“Only girls, so far as I know.”

“Taking anyone is horrible.” Alec thumbed across his cheek, and Ian was struck by the urge to push him away – and to pull him into his lap. He held still instead. “What can I do?”

Ian sent him a rueful smile. “Well, if you can’t stay clear of my professional life, as I’ve asked, then you can–”

A knock sounded at the door.

Alec dropped his hand to his own thigh, but didn’t move to get off the desk.

When the door opened, Candace stood with an unsteady hand braced on the jamb, wispy hairs coming loose from her tortoiseshell clip as if she’d run here from the elevator, further evidenced by her high color and breathless voice.

Ian sat forward, instantly tense, and rested a hand on Alec’s thigh. Gripped tight, ready for something – ready for anything. “Candace. What is it?”

“A call – there’s a – it’s a–”

“A bomb threat,” Bruce said, appearing behind her, expressionless and efficient as always. He took Candace gently by the waist, picked her up off her feet – she gasped and flailed – and stepped into the room so he could set her down out of the way, coming to rest his huge hands on the edge of the desk. “It was just called in a few moments ago at the front desk. The caller said it was placed overnight, and he has a remote detonator.”

Just like with the Dogs in New York.

But this was different, very different. This wasn’t just targeting Dogs, but a Dog ally, and one who, through his careful efforts, wasn’t too publicly associated with them.

There had been instances, though; sightings together. He’d grown lax, leaning too heavily on the semblance of family they offered.

But there were civilians here, too. All his employees.

“Shit,” Alec breathed. “Is it credible?”

“We can’t afford to act like it isn’t,” Bruce said.

Ian had to swallow a few times before he could answer. “Alright, then. The thing is not to panic.” Though panic was beginning to crowd his vision into a narrow, dark tunnel. “We have to evacuate the building, absolutely everyone, but in an orderly fashion. We don’t want anyone stampeding. Candace.” She stood with a hand cupped over her mouth, breathing through it. “Are you alright?”

“No. But I’m here.” She gathered herself, smoothed her hair. “I’ve already dispatched someone to every floor. We’re gathering the employees.”

“Excellent. We’ll get everyone out on the street. Call the fire department, the police – whoever deals with this sort of thing. And then we’ll–”

The fire alarm went off.

Ian sighed. “Wonderful.”

~*~

“A bomb?” Hoaxes happened, sick practical jokes, and Leah wasn’t sure she believed there was a real threat until the fire alarm went off. Like everything else in Ian Byron’s elegant office, the alarm was polite, a muted, ringing chime underlaid with rhythmic pulses, designed to alert you, but low enough that you could still think and speak over it.

Eric’s eyes went impossibly wider. “Oh, Jesus, oh, shit,” he said, last of his tact abandoning him. He looked like he might cry.

Leah closed her eyes a moment and took a few deep breaths. It wasn’t a coincidence, she knew: that a Dog clubhouse had been bombed, and now an office belonging to a wealthy Dog ally was being targeted. It didn’t matter that they were states apart: if what Carter had been saying was true, then this new enemy was after all the Dogs, and not a particular member or chapter.

He’d been so worried, this whole time, that it was dangerous for her to be with him. Afraid she’d come to regret the risk.

Fear welled up in the pit of her stomach. It would make her sick if she let it. But there was no room for regret, not amidst the mounting panic, and the trembling knowledge that, of all the people on this floor with her, she was, in her own way, most equipped to handle whatever happened next.

When she opened her eyes, she squared her shoulders, and said, “Eric.”

He whimpered, but his gaze snapped to hers.

“You have to stop freaking out. We all have to stay calm, and get out of the building.”

Gabe, Rochelle, and Isobel all stared at her like she’d sprouted an extra head.

“I’ve gotta make a phone call, and then we’re all going to leave together. We’ll take the stairs, because the elevators might not work.”

More stares.

“Hold on.” She pulled out her phone, and her hand only shook a little.

Carter picked up on the second ring. “Hey…” His greeting died away, and she realized he must be able to hear the alarm in the background. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t talk long,” she said, “but you guys need to know: I’m at work, and somebody called a bomb threat into the building. I’m leaving – I’m getting out, and I have to help my friends. But tell Ghost. Call the club’s cop buddy. Just – you needed to know.”

“Leah.”

“I love you,” she said, and hung up, and slipped the phone away. “Okay, guys, let’s move.”

~*~

“Sir, we have to get you out of the building right now,” Bruce said, as stern as he’d ever sounded.

“The bomb is because of me,” Ian said. “This isn’t a random target – they know who I am, and they want to take me out, or frighten me, or–”

Alec touched his face. Sweet, brave Alec, always tougher than Ian expected him to be. He really never did give him enough credit, and, oh God, they were all about to be blown up…

“Ian, we have to go.”

“My people–”

“Are already evacuating. Look out there on the sidewalk.”

A glance through the window at his back proved that people were indeed filing out of the building, collecting on the sidewalk.

“They’re much too close,” he observed. “They have to get down the block. The neighboring buildings need to be evacuated as well.”

“Right,” Alec said, gripping his elbow, pulling him up to his feet. “And we can sort all of that once we’re outside. Okay?”

Ian searched his face. He saw fear, yes, lurking back behind his eyes. But mostly he saw resolve.

It strengthened his own. Ian blew out a breath and nodded. “Yes, right.” He could do this. He’d lived through far worse than the threat of explosion.

It was only that he had so much to live for, now.

He couldn’t think of that, now. He had to bundle Ian away and let Shaman run things, now.

When he spoke next, his voice was firmly in-hand once more. “Candace, go on ahead. We’ll be behind you.”

She hurried out.

“Sir,” Bruce said, even more serious.

“Yes, yes, Bruce, I’m coming.” Ian pulled the tiny key from his pocket and used it to unlock one of his desk drawers. Withdrew the two guns and extra magazines he held there. One he slipped into his own tailored waistband, and the other he passed to Alec.

“You keep these in your desk?”

“Of course. Do you remember our lessons?”

“Yeah.” Alec chose to keep hold of his, rather than stow it. He took a breath that revealed a wider flash of nerves. “You don’t think it’s just a bomb, do you?”

“Darling.” Ian cupped his cheek, briefly. “It never is.”

~*~

Leah hadn’t come to work this morning expecting to lead a huddle of terrified accountants, and one very terrified receptionist, down an emergency-lit hallway in her wedge heels, but here she was. Her heart hammered in her chest, pounding in time with the still-chiming alarm, but being de facto leader helped her keep her head in the game. Kept her from giving in to panic.

The hall that led to the stairwell was narrow, windowless, and more than a little creepy with the lights at half brightness. An alarm box set high along the wall emitted bursts of red warning light at intervals. Closed doors down the length of it were labeled with other departments, and they opened up, she knew, into other communal office spaces.

One ahead of them burst open – they all jumped, even Leah, who clutched at her heart – and a gaggle of spooked young men in suits tumbled out into the hall.

One glanced around wildly and spotted them. “The elevator isn’t working!” he shouted.

“They don’t usually in case of fire,” Leah said. “We gotta take the stairs. That way, ahead of you.”

“I heard it was a bomb!” another yelled, voice high with panic. “Is it a bomb?”

They tripped over one another, headed for the door marked Stairs.

Idiots, Leah thought, savagely. They were exactly the sort who would go nuts in a crisis, and trample other people, choke up stairwells and create chaos.

One of the guys shoved past his buddies and grabbed for the door handle – but the door flew open before he could touch it, and he stumbled forward…

Into the chest of a man wearing all black, and a mask, and carrying a rifle. With three more just like him at his back. Red light glinted off tac gear shiny and hard as beetle casings.

The bomb may or may not have been real. That was irrelevant: this was why the alarm had been pulled. To make way for an invasion.

Cold terror seized her insides. She swallowed a wave of sudden sickness, and then instinct took over. She whirled around and shoved Eric hard in the chest. “Go back,” she hissed. “Go through that door, there.”

“What, what are they–”

“Now. Get out of the hallway.”

Rochelle was bringing up the rear. She tugged open a door, and Leah herded the others into it. The gunmen had to have seen which one, had to know where they went. As the door fell shut behind Leah, she heard screaming.

~*~

The trip from Dartmoor to Ian’s building was a blur of color and sound, the wind like sandpaper against Carter’s face. He wasn’t sure how he could still be upright, given the jerky, erratic beating of his pulse; thought he was running on pure adrenaline as he followed the swooping line of bikes past Bell Bar, and Maggie’s Place, and Cook’s Coffee, through a light and down a sidewalk where pedestrians in professional dress were gathering on the sidewalk in frightened knots. The cops and fire department weren’t on the scene yet.

Ghost turned in at the entrance for the parking garage, and the roar of their tailpipes was deafening off all the concrete. The guard station was empty, the mechanical gate arm up. The parked in front of the doors to the building, and when the engines died, and his helmet came off, Carter could hear the alarm going inside, polite but insistent.

He was trying to control the trembling in his hands as he set his helmet on the handlebars, willing his legs to straighten so he could swing off the bike – Leah, oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m here, but I can’t – when he heard a crack, and a whine, and the unmistakable ping of a ricochet.

He dove to the ground, and saw some of the others do the same.

Michael, though, whirled, gun already out, and returned fire. Three neat shots cracked off in a row. Carter heard the bodies hit the ground as he crawled around the front of his bike to look.

Three down, in black tac gear, and masks, bearing rifles. A handgun lay beside a still-twitching body; it had sounded like a nine mil round that had zipped past them.

“Anybody hit?” Ghost called.

“No,” went up the chorus.

They got carefully back to their feet.

Michael had gone to inspect the bodies, and behind them, stacked up like sinister black dominos, sat a row of black SUVs with tinted windows.

“Mob goons,” Mercy said. He cupped his hands around his eyes to peer in a back window. “Already inside. These three were left to guard the wheels.”

“We need to get inside,” Ghost said. “Who knows if there even is a bomb, but there’s still people inside, and we know these assholes have no problems hurting civilians.”

“Wait,” Fox said. He stood over one of the bodies, toeing at its helmet, so its head shifted back and forth on the concrete.

Carter gritted his teeth. Leah was inside. They needed to move.

But Fox was infuriatingly unhurried. “If we walk in there, we’re immediate targets.” He plucked at his cut.

“Better us than fucking interns,” Aidan huffed. “Let’s go.”

“Oh, we should go,” Fox agreed. His gaze lifted – and went to Tenny and Reese, standing a bit apart from everyone else, as always, lean and deadly, and–

Carter got it, then, just before Fox said, “But let’s send them a little Southern hospitality gift, first.”

~*~

The location of Ian’s personal office had been chosen for a reason: from it, he had hidden access to a private elevator and a private staircase, one carpeted, and softly lit, with real wood handrails. He felt like a heel for choosing that, the fastest, safest, easiest way out, while his employees clattered en masse down concrete stairwells in a panic. But. Well.

Bruce led the way to the hidden door that offered access, head swiveling, one hand reaching back now and again to grip Ian’s coat sleeve and hurry him along. Alec crowded at Ian’s back, and while Ian would have liked to think that he was the one shielding his husband, he knew it was the other way around, that Alec was feeling just as protective as Bruce.

The brave, beloved idiot.

“Do you know the code?” Bruce asked Alec when they reached the panel. He would have never spoken to him with that gruff, short tone under normal circumstances, was as deferential to Alec as to Ian. But emergencies had a way of bringing out the best in people.

“Yes,” Alec said, stepping forward as Bruce turned to guard their flank. He lifted the keypad’s flap – it looked like a small portrait of Henry V – and punched in the numbers.

“I’m not sure why everyone acts like I must be handled,” Ian complained. “As if I’m a small dog in an old woman’s purse.”

“Sweetie,” Alec said absently, and pressed Enter.

The lock disengaged, and the panel swung inward with a light press of Alec’s fingertips. Opening to reveal–

Two gun muzzles trained on them.

Alec swore.

Ian registered hired muscle in black tac gear, fleetingly, but his gaze settled on the man at the center. The slender young man in a black turtleneck, holding a ridiculous gun, his longish, black hair falling out of a ponytail to frame his pretty face, diamonds glinting in his ears.

He smiled, flashing dazzling white teeth. “Mr. Shaman. Perfect. Let’s have a chat.”

~*~

Leah’s previous employer in Chicago had mandated they all watch an active shooter training video.

She wished she’d paid better attention.

There hadn’t been any gunshots, yet, only screams. That group of unarmed, twenty-something boys hadn’t warranted shooting, she guessed. No real threat.

She couldn’t think of that. They had to hide. And, when they had the chance, run again.

The door Rochelle had opened let into a wide, group workspace just like their own. The lights were off, the computer screens dark. The desks and partitions were mostly glass, reflecting the sunlight coming in at the window: not direct, because it was noon and the sun was straight overhead. There were some shadows. Some dark cabinet faces in the kitchenette where she could squeeze…but the others wouldn’t fit.

She stood a moment, panting, trying to think, think, think.

“We have to hide,” she said. “All of us – find somewhere. Anywhere.”

They scattered. She was dimly aware of Isobel climbing down inside a tall trash can. Eric hunkered in under a desk, pressed back into the opaque panels that surrounded the computer modem.

Leah ducked between the printer and the copier, crouched down low beneath a small table that held stacks of unpackaged paper and toner, arms tight around her knees. She closed her mouth, and forced herself to breathe through her nose, slowly, silently, despite the chaos of her nerves. She heard rustling, and a few murmurs, and then silence.

And then the outer door opened.

~*~

Ordinarily, Carter would have loathed the idea of pulling on a dead man’s clothes. Michael had shot them through the throat, and blood had pooled beneath and dribbled down the front, until the neck of the black turtleneck was cold and clammy and stank like salt and iron. Then again, ordinarily, he wouldn’t have volunteered to go with Reese and Tenny.

It had been spur of the moment, an instinctual snap to action. Leah was inside. He’d said, “I’m going with you.”

Tenny and Reese had traded unreadable looks. Reese had nodded. Tenny had said, “Stay behind me, and don’t get in my way.”

There had been three bodies, three sets of black gear. Carter held a dead man’s rifle in black-gloved hands and tried his best to mimic the silent, floating way that Tenny and Reese moved ahead of him, a fast walk that covered more ground than a run would have, and kept their equipment from jangling.

A quick sweep of the ground floor proved that those in the lower part of the office had already evacuated, and successfully.

They found the first team of goons on the second floor.

They left a stairwell, and entered a dim, gray-carpeted hallway to find employees in smart clothes sitting on the floor against the wall, wrists zip-tied together, some of them crying, others staring numbly. One woman was praying. A three-man team in black gear stood in the center of the hall, rifles held casually.

One of them glanced up, eyes shielded by goggles, voice a rough smoker’s crackle.

“What are you doing in here? We’ve got this floor covered.”

“Sorry,” Tenny said, and shot him.

He’d drawn his own, suppressed handgun so quickly that Carter had barely registered it before he heard the soft pfft of air, and the man was toppling backward, blood spraying from a hole in his throat.

The other two turned, one shouting, both raising their rifles. Tenny and Reese put them down with brisk efficiency.

Carter was numb a moment. They were so fast. It came so easy to them.

Shit, he was in way, way over his head.

“You, blond boy,” Tenny snapped, snagging his attention. “Cut them loose.”

The hostages, he meant.

Right. He could do that. Had to get it together. Had to get to Leah.

He pulled his knife and knelt. “It’s okay,” he told the woman, who shrank back from him. “This is a costume, we’re not with those guys.”

Reese helped, while Tenny kept watch, and they had the hostages on their shaky feet and heading for the exit in short order.

Tenny tipped his head and started moving again.

“What happens if they detonate the bomb?” Carter asked, unable to help it.

“Then we die,” Tenny said, flatly. “Keep moving.”

“My old lady’s here,” Carter said, throat tight. I love you, she’d said before she’d hung up. Would they find her cuffed in hallway? Or worse off?

“Then shut up and keep moving.”

Reese glanced back over his shoulder. “What floor is she on?”

~*~

There was a moment when Ian thought Bruce and Alec might both throw themselves at the young man – who had to be Luis Cantrell, he knew – and get killed in the process. He’d staid them, a hand on each of their arms, and all his shaking nerves had settled. So this was it. A meeting. Criminal to criminal.

This he could handle. This was where he shone.

Voice totally steady, then, he’d put on his best, coldest, most disinterested smirk and said, “You could have just made an appointment with my secretary, but I’m afraid she’s run screaming from the building. Shall we?”

They were outgunned. It made sense to let Luis’s thugs herd them back to the office. To sit behind it, as always. Bruce stood stiffly at his side, and Alec perched on the edge of the desk, near him, leg swinging nervously so the toe of his shoe thumped lightly against Ian’s knee on every pass.

Luis took the chair opposite. He left the door standing open, and his thugs filled the jambs.

“Now,” Ian said, folding his hands together in his lap, fingers steepled. In the background, the fire alarm continued to pulse. “What can I do for you, Mr. Cantrell?”

Luis’s brows jumped, once, before he quickly smoothed his face. “You know who I am, then.”

“Of course.”

“And I know who you are.”

“It would seem likely, given you’ve found me at my office, yes.”

A smile spread, crooked and delighted. “You’re a lot more fun than the Lean Dogs, aren’t you?”

“Generally. Though I’m afraid they have the monopoly on wild house parties.”

Luis chuckled, and the sound was reflected in the bright spark of his eyes. He was lovely, physically, but Ian found his energy immediately repulsive. “I’m curious why you spend so much time with them, then.”

“It’s a business arrangement,” Ian said, dismissively. “Nothing more.”

“Business. I suppose it was some sort of business transaction when Ghost and Maggie Teague turned up as witnesses to your wedding, then.”

Cold terror pierced Ian, a sharp needle of it. He snapped it off and calmed himself through sheer dint of will, just as he had as a boy, when some fat man was grinding his face down into a pillow.

“It was a civil ceremony,” Luis said. “A bit dull for someone wearing eight-hundred-dollar shoes.”

Bruce’s suit rustled faintly as he shifted his weight.

Alec, silent until now, said, “He’s trying to rile you up.”

Luis’s gaze shifted to him, smile stretching meanly. “Very good. It’s Alec, isn’t it? You changed your last name. Because you’re subservient to him? Or because you wanted to distance yourself from your family in an effort to keep them safe?”

“Mr. Cantrell,” Ian said.

“He’s killed for you, but I don’t know that he’d kill for your parents.”

“Luis,” Ian said, crisply, pressing his fingertips tight together to keep them from shaking. “If you want to play a game of observations and cutting remarks, I assure you that I will win. Perhaps you’d like to save us both the effort and state why you’re here.”

Luis chuckled again, but his eyes flashed with a brief, tamped-down malice. He was intelligent, undoubtedly, and he liked toying with people, but there was a furious, tantrum-prone child in there, too. The trick was drawing it out only part of the way, and not getting them all shot.

“You’re just like they promised – maybe even more. Alright, sure, we can be direct.” He stroked a fingertip along the massive, gleaming silver gun in his lap. It would have looked more at home in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hand. “I’m here to offer you a deal. Why would you waste your time with the white trash Lean Dogs when you could join us?” He made an expansive gesture with his free hand.

“You?”

“My friends and I.” He plucked a business card from his pocket and flicked it onto the desk.

Ian didn’t reach toward it, but he recognized the yellow, triangle-composed flower design he’d seen on TV: Abacus Consulting.

~*~

Vince came jogging up the sidewalk to meet Ghost. He’d left the parking garage and taken up a post on the corner opposite the building, out in front of Cook’s Coffee. He’d been trying, not at all successfully, to calm Leah Cook’s mother.

“Ghost.” Vince huffed the last few feet and pulled up beside him. “What the hell’s going on in there? A bomb?”

Cops were ushering pedestrians farther down the sidewalks, away from the buildings. Behind him, one was collecting the Cooks, feeding them platitudes and hurrying them out of the blast range.

No one had tried to move Ghost. “That’s what Leah said, when she called, but we have no idea. There’s hired guns in there. Professional tac gear, long guns. The bomb could just be a cover for a raid.”

“Jesus. Jesus Christ.”

A fire engine lumbered into the intersection, its wail deafening a moment before it cut off. A fireman hopped off the back and headed their direction.

Before he reached them, Ghost said, “I’ve got three guys inside.”

“Of fucking course you do.”

“They’ve already sent hostages out. Let’s hold tight, and see what they can do.”

Vince sighed. “Bikers are playing SWAT guys now?”

“These aren’t ordinary bikers.”

~*~

The gunmen moved softly into the room. Leah could hear the brush of carpet, and the creak of their gear, though their actual footfalls made no sounds.

She pressed her fingers to her lips to keep them from trembling, and concentrated on keeping still, keeping silent. Listening.

“Over there,” a low, masculine voice said. More creaking, more carpet brushing.

A commotion, then. A bang. And a scream.

Isobel. They’d found Isobel in the trash can.

“No, no, please!” she cried.

Leah could hear her thrashing and kicking. The can toppled with a plastic clatter.

Leah’s lungs squeezed, and her heart leapt. Oh God, oh God.

“Please! Stop it!”

Gabe shouted, “Let go of her!”

She heard him moving, shoving a chair, trying to rush to her aid.

Then a gunshot.

Isobel screamed.

Gabe let out a grunt of pain.

Black spots crowded Leah’s vision. Oh God, oh God.

She’d never gone for those shooting lessons; didn’t have her own weapon. She had some Mace in her purse, but that was back at her desk. She had nothing, was only small, and non-threatening, and trapped here in a nightmare, the fire alarm cycling again and again.

But she had to do something. Couldn’t crouch here and hide anymore.

What would Ava do? What would Maggie do?

Old ladies were old ladies not just because they slept with bikers – bikers had chosen them, and they’d chosen bikers, because they were tough enough to handle that life.

She let her hand drop. Took a breath. And crawled out from under the table.

~*~

Carter stepped over the slumped body of a young man in the hallway just past the stairwell. He didn’t know if he was dead or alive, or his friends, either, but he didn’t have time for that. They’d just heard a gunshot, and a door stood open partway down the hall. Tenny and Reese slipped through it, and Carter followed, heart in his throat, hands sweating inside his gloves, on the stock of the rifle.

It took him a moment to make sense of the tableau that greeted them. When he realized what was happening, his world narrowed down to one point: Leah’s face.

Her chin trembling, her eyes shiny, but her voice steady. Her empty hands held up, palms presented to the three men in black who were squared off from her.

One of them held onto a young woman in a blue dress; she was shivering and crying.

A young man in a suit lay sprawled across the carpet, groaning, hand clutching a wound in his thigh that was rapidly bleeding all over the place.

“Please,” Leah was saying. “We’re unarmed. We just wanted to leave the building. We don’t have any money. Please.” Her throat jumped as she swallowed. Her gaze shifted toward him, and widened – with fear, he realized. She thought there were now six goons in the room with them; couldn’t recognize him behind a helmet and goggles.

“If you want a hostage,” she said, “take me. I’ll go quietly.”

Oh, baby. His chest hurt, sharp pain, driving the breath from his lungs. No.

“But please leave them alone. Please get some help for Gabe – I’m afraid he’s gonna – gonna bleed to death.”

“Shut up,” one of the men barked, and took a step toward her.

Carter lowered the rifle, settled his sights, and shot him in the back of the neck, right between his helmet and his vest collar.

Blood sprayed forward, a thick gout like a fountain, and he staggered forward; hit his knees, fell face-first on the floor, twitching.

The other two were shouting, turning, but Tenny and Reese had them. Carter registered the glint of a knife, heard the muted sound of a suppressed gunshot.

Carter propped the rifle on his shoulder, shoved the goggles up onto his helmet, and said, “Leah.”

Her face went blank with shock. And then crumpled. She ran at him, already crying, and hit him like a missile, arms tight around him at once. Pressing her first sob into his collar.

“Oh my God,” she choked out. “Oh my God, you’re here.”

Carter looped his arm around her and held her back, dropped his face into her hair, briefly, breathed her coconut shampoo, and the clean skin of her scalp. Alive. Safe. And so, so brave.

“You’re here,” she repeated.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here.”

~*~

Reese pulled off his belt and knelt beside the wounded civilian – who gasped and tried to scramble back from him. In as reassuring a voice as he could manage – he wasn’t practiced in this sort of thing – he said, “I’m here to help.” Brushed a weak hand aside and tied the belt off above the wound as a tourniquet. “You shouldn’t walk.”

“I can carry him.” Reese glanced up to see a pale, trembling young man in a suit standing above them. His expression was determined, through the fear.

“Good. Get him out. Carter can help you.”

Carter, still with an arm around Leah, nodded. “What about you guys?”

“We need to find Ian,” Tenny said, straightening. He’d bent to wipe his knife clean on the dead man’s pants leg. “He’s still here.”

Reese stood, and nodded. “We’re fine. Go.”

Carter didn’t argue. Whispered something to Leah, who nodded and wiped her face, and then moved into position to help lift the wounded man.

Reese turned full toward Tenny. “The knife. Really.”

Tenny grinned at him, all sharp white teeth beneath the gleam of his goggles. “You aren’t going to suggest this is actually a challenge, are you?”

Reese stared at him – but couldn’t deny it. As far as troops went, these weren’t the best.

“Don’t spoil my fun.” His grin widened an impossible fraction. He patted Reese’s cheek with a gloved hand and headed for the door. “Come on, then.”

Reese sighed…and resisted the urge to smile himself.

~*~

“You have holdings in New York?” Luis asked.

Ian didn’t grace him with an answer. If he knew what sort of wedding he’d had, then he knew that he had holdings in New York.

Luis made an impatient sound. “I came here today to enlighten you about your opportunities.”

“I thought you came to blow up my building.”

Luis grinned – but the impatience glittered, still, in his gaze.

“Is there in fact a bomb?”

“If you cooperate, then you’ll never have to find out.”

“I thought this was an opportunity.”

“It is.” Voice tight, now. He wasn’t in control; even though he had the guns, and the goons, and had taken over the building, he couldn’t pin Ian down mentally, and that was getting to him. “You aren’t like the Dogs. You and I both know it. You lack their inconvenient scruples and hang-ups about certain necessary evils. You’re a businessman, a true one, and you’ve clearly done quite well for yourself.”

“Why, thank you.”

“You’re more like me than you are like Ghost Teague. If you align yourself with me, with my colleagues, you have the chance to make gains the likes of which you’ve only dreamed of.”

“I have plenty of wealth, I assure you.”

“But some things are more appealing than wealth, aren’t they?”

“Such as?”

“Power.” The word dripped lust. His eyes shone. “I’m offering you a chance to be a part of something extraordinary. Businessmen from all walks working together – no longer competing, but cooperating. No shootouts, no sabotage, no hits and vendettas. Just wealth, and power, enough for everyone.”

“Let me guess,” Ian said. “All I have to do is hand the Dogs over to you on a silver platter.”

Luis grinned. “It would be helpful.”

Ian studied him, could almost taste his desperation. He said, “If you have them, and you have the chance for riches and influence, why would you want me?”

Luis blinked.

“Just because I can take out the Dogs for you?”

“I–”

“Or because you’re not reliable enough for them, and you think bringing me along will sweeten the pot?”

Luis studied him in turn a moment. His grin became a snarl. “Because we’re so much alike, you and me. You’ve been fucked. It feels good to be the one fucking for a change.”

Ian knew that it was a stab at his past, but that Luis wasn’t talking about sex in regards to the present, not at all.

A flicker of movement in the outer office caught his gaze, and he was careful not to linger on it. The goons had been facing out, but faced in, now; they hadn’t noticed it.

“You know,” Ian said, “I did use to think that. But I suppose I’ve grown. Fucking is a fleeting, visceral pleasure, to be sure. But it fades. It leaves you hollow. I’ve found that it’s much better to love, and to protect. That’s what feeds the soul.”

Luis frowned. “What–”

Pfft.

Pfft.

Suppressors were so civilized. Ian loved the way they kept gunshots from being loud and rude.

The two guards fell, boneless, dead, seconds after a fine mist of blood bloomed from their throats and into the room. Red mist sprayed across Luis’s face, and he blinked, startled, and turned.

Ian lunged forward, across the desk, never more grateful for his height and length of limb, and stabbed a letter opener into the back of Luis’s hand. The one holding the gun.

He screamed. The hand spasmed, and the gun fell to the carpet.

The black-clad figure in the doorway cracked his gun across the back of Luis’s head. Luis slumped down in the chair, unconscious.

“Well done,” Ian said, panting only a little as he eased back in his chair. Alec’s hand touched him on one side, and Bruce’s on the other. They would be cross with him for being so reckless.

The figure in the door was joined by a second, both lean, their black clothes and gear ill-fitting. The first pushed up his goggles, grinning, to reveal big, blue eyes, creased with mirth. Charlie Fox’s pretty brother.

He glanced down toward Luis, his bleeding hand, and in his true accent said, “I’m impressed.”

Ian winked at him, pleased when it drew a blush. “Me, too, darling. Shall we go down now?”

Forty-Five

A paramedic had draped a blanket across Leah’s shoulders. It was a warm afternoon, but the blanket’s weight was a comfort, and she found herself shivering and drawing it tighter around herself as she walked, slowly, down the sidewalk into what had been roped off as the safe zone outside of a potential blast radius.

“Leah!” Her mom crashed into her, and wrapped her up with a surprising amount of strength for someone so slender.

Leah hugged her back, breathed in the comforting, familiar scent of her perfume. But she still buzzed inside with numbness.

She’d stood up to three armed men, and offered to be their hostage. Had tried to talk them down.

And then Carter had been there, and he’d killed one. And he’d walked her out, but then he’d disappeared; entrusted her to Tango’s gentle hand on her shoulder, guiding her down the sidewalk. And then the paramedics, and now her mom, crying all over her.

She didn’t think she’d know if she was okay until she saw Carter again.

“Leah.” Her dad, strangely choked. He reached them and put his arms around both of them together. “Oh, thank God.”

Behind her, she heard Ghost talking to someone. “…bomb sniffing dogs?”

“Yeah, just as soon as we get the building clear – oh, someone’s coming out.”

She twisted in her parents’ grip, and managed to look back toward the building, still within the shelter of their arms. It didn’t feel like shelter; felt like it was suffocating her.

She glimpsed three figures exiting the glass front doors, Ian’s long, auburn hair unmistakable in the sunlight, streaming over his shoulders. She recognized his husband, Alec, and his bodyguard, Bruce. They showed empty palms, and made a beeline for the officers on the scene.

Reese and Tenny had found them, then, though there was no sign of those two, in their ill-fitting black uniforms.

She didn’t realize her legs were giving out until her dad said, “Whoa,” and gripped her more securely. She was dizzy, then. When her head cleared, she was sitting on a city bench down in front of the still-boarded-up Bell Bar, and her mom was pressing a fresh latte in a travel cup into her hand. She drank gratefully, and could feel the sugar and caffeine go to work almost at once.

Her mom sat down beside her. “We were so worried, you have no idea – and Ghost showed up – and everyone outside was talking about a bomb – maybe we shouldn’t sit here. Should we go home? Honey, are we safe?”

Her father answered in soothing tones.

Leah sipped her latte and watched the churn of activity. An armored vehicle went past, SUVs labeled “K-9 Unit.” Pedestrians, onlookers, milled and gossiped.

The fire chief went past in his red, white, and tan cruiser. When the car was past, Leah saw a familiar figure standing on the far sidewalk. Carter was back in his jeans, blue t-shirt, and cut.

He looked both ways, then crossed the street to get to her.

It felt like she took her first deep breath in hours as he walked toward her. The numbness ebbed – gave way to a bone-shaking relief, and…yes, a joy. How she could feel joyful after what had just happened, she didn’t know. Could only chalk it up to being alive, and loving, and being loved. The memory of his breath warm in her hair, and his arms strong around her.

Heedless of her parents, she stood, let the blanket fall off her shoulders, and opened her arms to him. He didn’t even slow; walked right into her space and enfolded her, his arms tight, his hand gentle at the back of her skull.

She was aware of her mother saying something soft, and of her parents drifting away down the sidewalk, giving them a moment.

She wanted to kiss him, and reassure him – be reassured in turn. But for now, she could only cling to him, soak up his warmth. She thought the smell pressed into the skin of his neck might be gunpowder.

He breathed out shakily and said, “I love you, too.”

~*~

“There was no bomb anywhere in the building,” Ghost said that evening, all the lamps blazing in the common room, Evan dealing out drinks as fast as they could drink them – which was fast. “The bomb squad went over every inch, and said they’ll look again. For now, it looks like the scare was just a way to create chaos and get Luis inside.”

“Dramatic little shit,” Mercy said with a snort, taking another sip of his Scotch. “Couldn’t just have a back-alley meeting like a regular gangster.”

“That would imply he was meeting a regular back-alley gangster,” Ian said, plucking lint off his sleeve with a superior expression. “Which I assure you I am not.”

“Pretty sure nobody was thinking that,” Aidan quipped.

Ian sent him a cool look – one tinged at the edges with a true smile.

“Fielding got prints and mug shots off the goons, and said he’d run them through the database,” Walsh said. “A few of them had tats from several different organizations.” The Money Man, Ghost knew, was displeased with the lack of order now, in the aftermath. The immediate threat had been stopped, but there were still loose ends: missing girls, criminal groups at large, out for blood. “This isn’t over.”

“No,” Ghost agreed, “not by a long shot. But it is for tonight. I say we all grab some sleep, and we’ll start fresh tomorrow. See what we can do in the daylight.”

For his own part, he wasn’t expecting to sleep at all. He envisioned sitting up in the kitchen, smoking, sipping whiskey, trying to piece together a tapestry from all these crazy balls of yarn they kept seeming to uncover.

He earned some agreements; Carter got up quick, anxious to leave, off to Leah’s no doubt.

Ghost caught Ian’s gaze and said, “I’ll walk you out.”

Ian nodded, coat draped over his arm, and leaned in to say something to Alec, who nodded.

They went outside, and fell into step; Ghost was conscious of Bruce, and Alec, following at a discreet distance. The moon was out, shining on steel warehouse roofs, and on the river.

They didn’t speak. Ian didn’t ask where they were going – Ghost figured he knew. His expensive shoes clipped across the asphalt, crunching occasionally on a stray bit of gravel, as they made their way down to the big trucking warehouse.

The rolltop doors were cinched tight. Ghost let them in through the front office – locked with a key – and took him back to the makeshift cell they’d set up for their prisoner.

An old, rusted metal cattle trailer sat parked in one corner, its rear door padlocked. The slats weren’t large enough to get more than an arm through. There was a bucket of water, and an empty bucket inside to act as makeshift toilet.

They approached, and peered through the slats; light fell in stripes across Luis Cantrell, slumped down in the front cover, arms resting on upraised knees. He glanced up at them, eyes gleaming like mirrors in the shadows. He didn’t speak.

“Have you told the police you have him?” Ian asked.

“No, and I’m not going to.”

“Vigilante justice. I like it.”

Ghost snorted, remembering an apartment in New York, and Ian kicking his chin up, and saying he’d do it himself. “Thought you might.”

Ian turned toward him, and Ghost glanced over, found him deeply troubled in a way he hadn’t shown inside the clubhouse, in front of everyone. “He knew things about me – things that I don’t share freely.” His throat jumped. “I suspect he knows things about all of us, and I want to know why.”

“I do, too. I’ll be asking him that, when we start with the questioning.”

Ian nodded, and cast one last look at the prisoner. “I suppose I’m lucky,” he mused. “I had every reason to turn out just like him.”

“No,” Ghost disagreed.

“No. I had a few dark angels on my side.” He smiled, fleetingly, and pressed Ghost’s shoulder as he passed. “Goodnight, Kenny.”

“Goodnight, Ian.” The door thudded shut. To Luis, he said, “Get ready to sing, little bird. You’ve got a lot to answer for.”

In a flat voice, Luis said, “Will you let me live if I do?”

“Oh, no. You’re dead either way. But one way I put a bullet in your skull. The other, I let Mercy make gator food out of you first.”

~*~

Reese took longer than was strictly necessary in the shower, scrubbing the stink of a dead man’s clothes off his skin, working all the knots from his hair. He was pleased, warm inside with it, glad of a job well done. Fox had clapped him on the shoulder and said so, and, rather than the blank, cold sense of having done his job, he’d felt something more like pleasure. His mouth had tugged, and he’d realized he wanted to smile.

Threat neutralized, Luis captured, civilians saved – that was a whole new pleasure, one he’d never expected back in his days with Badger’s crew – and the promise of much more work on the horizon. For all that his muscles were pleasantly tired, he was eager, too, ready for more.

He shut the taps off when the water got cold – because he was someone who enjoyed hot showers now, the way the heat soothed the tension from his body and left him loose and relaxed.

He dried off, combed his hair, wrapped a towel around his waist, stepped out into his dorm–

And found Tenny waiting there, sitting at the end of his bed.

He’d showered, too; his hair was damp, and he wore a tank top, and soft, plaid pajama pants. He worked his fingers together in his lap, but didn’t seem otherwise nervous – at least, not as nervous as he had been lately.

Reese waited a moment, and then moved to sit beside him. He didn’t touch him at first, wasn’t sure…But some instinct tugged him to action. Not so much a conscious thought, because he still lacked the finer points of social interaction.

But this wasn’t a social interaction. This was him, and Tenny, and there wasn’t much he had to think about anymore, when it came to them.

He reached to place his hand gently at the back of Tenny’s neck. Tenny’s mouth opened on a soft, rushing exhale. Reese moved upward, scratching up his nape, burying his fingers in soft, damp hair, cradling his skull.

Tenny lowered his head down to rest on Reese’s shoulder. The skin of his temple and cheek was warm, baby-soft. He let out another breath, and his spine bent as that bare bit of tension left his body.

They sat like that a long moment. Reese wanted to kiss him, but not desperately; was content to pet his hair, and the side of his neck, surprised by the pleasure he found in that simple touch. He’d never been someone who wanted to touch others, before.

Tenny said, “There’s something I want to tell you – but not yet. Soon.”

“Okay.”

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

“Yes.”

Tenny laid a hand on his thigh, on the towel that covered it. “My sweet idiot,” he murmured.

And that filled Reese with warm pleasure, too.

~*~

Leah answered the door with her hair tied up in a loose bun, wearing flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt. She was the loveliest thing Carter had ever seen.

Neither of them spoke. He stepped inside, shut the door, and locked it. Then he reached for her, just as she stepped into him. He caught her face in his hands; smoothed his thumbs across her cheeks, shiny in a way that he thought meant she’d been crying. He hadn’t kissed her on the sidewalk, before, but he did now. A slow, firm press; felt her lashes flicker against his cheeks while his own eyes started to sting.

It was quiet, the apartment still. He’d thought he would be desperate, that they’d paw at one another and tear clothes off.

Instead, he pulled back, pressed their foreheads together, and they breathed, in and out, in and out.

She smoothed her hands up and down his chest, between the halves of his cut, an absent, soothing touch. “Have you ever done that before?”

“Put on a dead guy’s clothes to infiltrate their infiltration?” he tried to joke.

She flicked a humorless smile that he could just see, blurred by their closeness. “Killed somebody.”

“No. Don’t ask me to feel bad about it.”

“I won’t.” She pulled back a fraction. “If you won’t apologize for what happened.”

“But–”

“The club is dangerous. The world is dangerous. I’d rather have the club danger, and you in my life, than believe the lie that I’m safer if I’m not involved.”

He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Why did you stand up to them?”

“Because I couldn’t stand by and watched innocent people get hurt.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.” He passed his thumb over her cheek again. He never wanted to stop touching her. “Do you know how brave, and stubborn, and beautiful, and wonderful you are?”

She gave him the softest look. “Do you know you’re all of those things, too?”

He sniffed, and told himself that he wouldn’t cry – though he knew she would hold him if he did.

He pulled her in close to his chest, reassured by the flutter of her pulse against his stomach, where they were pressed together. “I want to tell you that things will get better. But I think it’s gonna be crazy for a while.”

She stroked his back. “I figured. Good thing your old lady’s pretty crazy, too, huh?”

He kissed the top of her head. Full of warmth, and gratitude, and hope, which seemed so odd, after the day they’d had.

He supposed that was what it meant to be a Lean Dog – why he’d stayed one, all this time, and wanted to be one, still. Under the wild parties, and the loud tailpipes, the danger, the risk, the sacrifice; the scorn of a city, and the fear of a populace. There was something real. Something old as stone and twice as solid. A sense of taking life into one’s hands: grabbing it by the horns – by the handlebars.

It wasn’t a burden. Wasn’t falling into lockstep. It was freedom. The freedom to choose what happened next. What wars were waged; what causes were championed. The freedom to live on your own terms. With your brothers. Your lover. Your family.

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. And felt like he’d finally come home, at long last.

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