“Is that Mimi?” Ripper pointed over my shoulder. I swiveled and looked behind me. A pair of headlights bobbed up and down as a car bounced over the uneven lane that Hannah and I had followed toward the main road.
“It’s got to be.” I turned back to Ripper and clutched at his shirt. “Listen. The woman is unhinged, and she has a gun.”
Ripper pulled a face, his expression telling me that I had absolutely nothing to worry about. “Darlin', I got a gun.”
“Mimi drugged us and took us prisoner,” Hannah broke in. “She shot Hector, and we don’t know if he’s alive or dead.”
“Levi and I found Hector yesterday evening. Bullet grazed him, but he’s gonna be fine.”
A weight lifted off my chest. “Thank God.”
He frowned, watching the approaching car. “If it comes to it, I’ll deal with Mimi.” He tilted his head in the direction of the road. “Let’s take cover behind those junipers and bitterbrush.”
We ran toward the road and crouched down out of sight.
Ripper tugged on the collar of my white spa robe. “Looks like Mimi held you prisoner in some fancy-ass hotel.”
“She kind of did,” Hannah said. “She lives in a big mansion way out in the middle of nowhere. She still has electricity and hot water and good food.”
“What’s her deal?” Ripper asked.
“She’s a wealthy woman who happened to be staying in her vacation house when the flu hit,” I said. “Her staff died. She’s been alone for months—”
“Except for her two cats,” Hannah interrupted.
“Except for her two cats,” I agreed. “I think that the isolation and loneliness wore her down. She’s losing her mind. It’s tragic actually.” I laid a hand on Ripper’s chest, felt the firm muscles beneath my fingers, tangible proof that I didn’t have to face the post-pandemic world alone. “I don’t believe she started out as a bad person. She just doesn’t have what it takes to deal with the new reality.”
Mimi was adrift, lost without her anchor, a fragile woman, unable to cope. Not too long ago, I’d been afraid that I, too, was weak and fundamentally flawed. Now I knew better. Ripper had helped me discover my strength. Without him, would I have been as helpless as Mimi? Maybe at first, but eventually I would have found my way.
Despite everything she’d done to Hannah and me, I pitied Mimi.
Ripper’s dark eyes bore into mine, seeing the plea behind my words. “Unless she gives me no other choice, I won’t hurt her, Mac. She drives on by, I’ll leave her in peace. All right?”
Nodding, I buried my face in his chest. I breathed in his familiar scent: soap, leather, and a hint of exhaust combined with his own distinctive musk. Home. In his arms, I was safe and seen. “I love you.”
His arms tightened around me. “Love you, too, Mac.”
I drew back, remembering. “Sahdev. The Wilcox Brigade took Sahdev. Did you see them bring him to Valhalla?”
“Think so. Dwight and Darryl took off after some headlights. When they came back, there was a man in the front seat of one of the pickups. Didn’t get a good look at him because they pulled into the garage, but it had to be the doc.”
“Do you have a plan yet to get him back?” I asked.
“Working on it.” Raising his gaze, he held up a warning hand. We fell silent and hunched over as Mimi’s car slowly glided past. When her car reached the intersection with the main road she paused, as if torn between turning right or left. Her head pivoted from side to side. Finally, she turned right onto the road.
Ripper pulled the walkie-talkie from an inner pocket of his cut and called Levi.
“You ready to roll?” he asked.
“You found them?” The relief in Levi’s voice was palpable. “Is Hannah okay?”
“Yeah. They’re both fine. Listen up. We’re about two miles past where you discovered the jeep. Be ready for trouble. The woman who took them prisoner is looking for them. She drove off in the opposite direction, but she might be back.”
“On my way.”
Ten minutes later, the jeep trundled into view. Ripper stood to signal Levi, who pulled onto the side of the road and leaped out of the cab. Hannah flew toward him, almost knocking him over when she jumped into his arms.
“We gotta move.” Ripper swung onto his bike, and I climbed on behind him. “We’ll talk back at the house.”
Levi and Hannah pulled out first. Ripper followed close behind. I kept twisting around, imagining that I heard Mimi’s car sneaking up behind us—afraid that she’d force Ripper’s hand—but we made it back to the house without incident.
Kyle burst out the door and swept me up in a bear hug. “You scared the crap out of us, Kenz.” He swung me around, my feet dangling a foot above the ground, until I gasped for breath and pounded on his chest.
“Put me down, you big goof,” I laughed.
Ripper cocked a brow, grinning at Kyle’s exuberant greeting. Hard to believe that just weeks ago they were at each other’s throats. Their animosity had withered and died, thank God. The world was a scary place, and I needed my tribe.
Kyle gently set me on the ground and kissed my forehead. “Welcome back, sweetheart.”
“We didn’t scare you on purpose, you know,” Hannah said, both arms wrapped around Levi’s waist as they mounted the steps into the house. “The stupid Nazis took Sahdev and we got lost running away from them.”
Hector lifted his head and whimpered when we entered the house. Hannah and I ran to his side and dropped to our knees, murmuring sympathetic words and gently stroking his fur.
“What happened to you guys?” Levi demanded, taking a seat on the sofa.
“The Wilcox Brigade boxed us in,” I said. “Sahdev backed the jeep into some trees and told Hannah and me to climb out the back and run.” My throat ached at the memory of his bravery. I swallowed hard, but couldn’t keep the tremor from my voice. “He let the brigade take him so we could get away.”
Leaning forward from his seat in a beat-up leather recliner, Ripper held out a hand. “C’mere.”
I stood and climbed onto his lap. I shifted around to face the others, running my palm up and down Ripper’s forearm while I told them about our misadventure with Mimi.
“Kenzie broke us out.” Hannah gave me credit for our escape. “We barricaded the door and made a rope from the bedsheet. We’d stashed our backpacks under some rose bushes—Kenzie’s idea—and we grabbed them and ran, following the driveway toward the main road.”
“Just before dawn, we saw the headlight on Ripper’s bike.” I threaded my fingers through his. “We didn’t know if it was Ripper or Tuck, but we were getting nervous about Mimi chasing us down, so we decided to risk signaling him.”
“And you know the rest.” Hannah stood, yawned, then plopped onto the sofa, lifting Levi’s arm and wriggling underneath it to cuddle against his chest.
“So what are we going to do to rescue Sahdev?” I asked.
“And Bear.” Kyle perched on the arm of the sofa.
“Been giving that a lot of thought,” Ripper said slowly.
I turned around in his lap to study Ripper’s face. In the excitement of our reunion, I hadn’t noticed the dark smudges beneath his eyes or the lines of fatigue etched onto his face. If circumstances required, he’d push himself beyond the point of exhaustion to take care of the people he considered his own.
Ripper had claimed me, but that possessiveness, that protectiveness, ran both ways, didn’t it? I traced a fingertip over the grooves that bracketed his mouth. He gazed down at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes.
“When’s the last time you slept, I mean really slept, not just resting your eyes while you stood watch?”
He shrugged, dismissing my query.
I caught hold of his chin, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Don’t you shrug off my question, Mr. Solis.”
Startled confusion yielded to humor in his expression. “Should have warned me that you’re so bossy, Ms. Dunwitty.”
“Too late t
o do anything about that now. You’re stuck with me. So give. When’s the last time you slept?”
“It’s been a couple of days.” Kyle answered for him.
Ripper shot him a dirty look.
“Rescuing Sahdev and Bear is our number one priority.” I stroked his cheek to get his attention. “You’re in charge of the rescue. The planning. The execution. If we’re going to succeed, we need you in peak form. We can’t have you with a fuzzy brain or dragging ass because you’re sleep deprived.”
“I’m holding up fine,” he protested.
“Fine isn’t good enough.” Kyle leaned forward. “Like Kenzie said, we need you at your very best.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s early in the day, a little after six. How about you go to bed and catch five or six hours of sleep? You’ll be up before noon. Gives us plenty of time to start working on our plan.”
“Please, Ripper,” I said quietly. “You can’t take care of us if you don’t take care of yourself, too.”
Staring into his face, I saw the moment his reluctance gave way to grudging acquiescence. He sighed, and the harsh lines of his face relaxed. “All right, but you’re coming to bed with me, Mac. I missed you, and I wanna fall asleep holding you.”
Warmth blossomed in my chest. This tough guy—this badass biker, this man who embodied all my alpha-hero fantasies—missed me. And he wasn’t ashamed to come right out and admit it. Tears welled in my eyes. His eyes widened with concern at the sight.
I shook my head. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just happy to be back home.” He nodded, then wrapped his hands around my hips and lifted me to my feet. I held out my hand toward him. “Take me to bed.”
“Never gonna say no to that.” He took my hand and led me to the back bedroom, where we’d spread our sleeping bags on the bare mattress. We stripped and lay down. Ripper hauled me close, an arm tucked around my waist as we spooned. I snuggled into him, resting my head on his bent arm.
How long had we been separated this time? Not even a day and a half, but it felt like an eternity.
“Mimi planned to keep Hannah and me,” I whispered. “She didn’t know that I’d do whatever it takes to get back to you and to bring Hannah back to Levi.”
Ripper’s arm tightened around my waist. “That’s how it was with me when the deputy took me prisoner in Medford. I’d pull the sun down from the sky and set the earth on fire if that’s what it took to make it back home to you.”
I shuddered, remembering our close call, then rolled over so Ripper and I were nose to nose. “Jason. The deputy. The fire. Pastor Bill. And now Mimi. We’ve come within a hair’s breadth of losing each other too many times. I’m done with it.”
Ripper brushed my hair back from my forehead, then dragged his knuckles over my cheek and across my jaw. “Can’t say I’m particularly fond of it myself.” His voice was a deep rumble that I could feel through our joined chests.
“Good, because it’s not happening again.”
He cocked a brow. “No? What you got in mind?”
“I’m not going to give fate a chance to mess with us. Not when we’ve had such a run of bad luck. So, when you make your move to take Valhalla, I’m going to be right there next to you. I’m not going to stay at the house, hoping for the best, while you put yourself in harm’s way.”
When Ripper opened his mouth to reply, I laid a hand over his lips.
“I mean it. I’ll follow orders and stick with whatever plan you come up with. But I have to help. And I have to be at your side.”
Ripper’s dark brows slanted, and his eyes bored into mine while he weighed my words. After a moment, he lifted my fingers away from his mouth and pressed a kiss against my palm. “Used to think I could keep you safe by keeping you out of the fight.”
“That theory’s been shot to shit,” I said.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I got an idea about how to take Valhalla. We could catch them unawares, use a sniper rifle to pick off one or two of the men, but the others might kill Bear and Sahdev before we storm the ranch house. Instead of an outright assault, I wanna gain access to the place, get the lay of the land before we move. Tuck knows me. He knows what I did for the club. The Wilcox Brigade might just see me as a valuable recruit. If we act like we go along with their bullshit, they just might welcome us into their fold.”
“Us?”
“Yeah. Us. Me and my old lady. You willing to go undercover and infiltrate a bunch of Nazis?”
THIRTY-TWO
Kenzie
Ripper pulled the Road King onto the side of the road and drained the fuel tank, stashing the gas can out of sight behind a boulder and under some sagebrush.
The two-way radio crackled to life. “Tuck just pulled onto the main road, heading west,” Levi announced from his perch overlooking Valhalla.
“Copy that,” Ripper replied. He swung his eyes to me. “You ready?”
If I chickened out, if despite all my brave protestations, I really wasn’t up to a covert mission among Nazis, we still had time to back out. Ripper could push the bike into a nearby grove of trees, and we could hide until Tuck passed us by. Ripper wouldn’t reproach me if I changed my mind, but he’d hesitate before involving me in another plan.
Nope. Time to pull up my big-girl panties and carry my weight.
“I’m ready,” I said firmly.
Ripper pulled me close, his fingers digging into my ass. He kissed me fast and hard. Clinging to each other, we turned our heads at the sound of an approaching motorcycle.
“Game on.” He drew his gun from his shoulder harness and pushed me behind him, as if preparing for trouble.
Tuck’s red Harley rolled to a stop. He cut the engine and climbed off the bike, laughing and shaking his head. “Ripper! What the fuck are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Ripper smiled like they were long-lost friends and clapped Tuck on the back. “Good to see you, Tuck.” He drew me to his side. “My old lady and I been looking for a quiet place to hole up until things calm down.”
Tuck’s gaze roamed up and down my body, assessing me in a way that made me want to squirm. Hannah and I had sexed up my appearance, hoping to make me pass as a credible biker chick. I wore a skintight, black tank top over a red lace bra. The bra had been left behind by the mother whose house we’d taken over. The cups were one size too small for me, so my breasts spilled out of the top, creating eye-popping cleavage that the skimpy tank top did nothing to disguise.
My fingers flew to my throat, and I stroked my newest accessory, a sterling silver necklace that grazed my collarbone. Large block letter beads, strung along a silver chain, spelled out the words PROPERTY OF RIPPER.
I’d gasped when Ripper casually handed me the necklace after we woke up from our morning nap.
“Been waiting to give this to you. I put it together the same time I made your birthday necklace.” As I gaped at it, he took the necklace from my hands and fastened it around my neck. I jumped up from the bed and studied my reflection in the dresser mirror. Ripper stepped up behind me. Resting his hands on my shoulders, he met my gaze in the glass. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“I think so,” I said haltingly, aware that information gleaned from my favorite motorcycle club romance novels might not jibe with reality. In the books, when a biker offered his girlfriend a vest emblazoned with “Property of,” she invariably huffed with indignation and declared that no man owned her. The very idea was insulting and repugnant. Until it wasn’t. Until she understood what the words meant in biker culture. Then she proudly wore the “property of” patch, and the couple lived their happily ever after.
Ripper grinned. “You’re wondering if it means the same thing in real life that it does in your romance books, aren’t you?”
I nodded. One of these days, I needed to wring Kyle’s neck for showing Ripper my ebook library and for telling him that I had a thing for bad-boy bikers. I’d caught Ripper reading Property of Mayhem once, and his smirk when he glanced up to meet my morti
fied eyes still made me blush.
His expression grew serious, and his hands tightened on my shoulders. “It means that you’re mine. That I’ve claimed you as my old lady. That I trust and respect you. That I’ll protect you with my last breath. Before the pandemic, it would have meant that you could count on any Janissary to stand between you and harm, but now...” His voice trailed off and pain flashed in his eyes.
I touched the necklace, running a fingertip over the letters, before lifting my eyes to his once again. “I love it. I’m proud to be yours.”
A smile erased the tension in his face.
“As long as you realize it cuts both ways,” I added. “You’re mine, too, Mr. Solis.”
“Think I’ve been yours since you blasted me in the face with pepper spray,” he said.
I bit my lower lip, suppressing a laugh. “The classic meet cute.”
When we emerged into the living room, Kyle greeted the new necklace with raised brows. If he had offered me a “property of” necklace, I would have clobbered him. Levi and Hannah exchanged a wide-eyed glance, but said nothing.
Now, with Tuck’s unwelcome gaze raking over my body, I couldn’t resist touching the beads, drawing his eyes to the necklace that declared me off limits. He winked at me, and I forced myself to smile.
Tuck glanced at the Road King, then at Ripper. “Where’s your Shovelhead?”
“Laid it down when an elk jumped onto the road. Bent the frame. The Road King belonged to Chimney. Chim and his family were staying at their cabin near Mt. Hood. Flu got him and his boys. His old lady was immune. She gave me his bike.”
“We lost too many brothers to the fucking flu,” Tuck said, shaking his head.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Ripper agreed, not a hint of deception in his voice. “What are you doing out here, Tuck? Any of the other Sabers survive?”
“Nah. I’m hanging with a bunch of new friends.” Tuck scratched his belly, eyeing me again. “You gonna introduce me to your old lady?”
“Yeah. This is Mac. We met back in Portland during the early days of the flu.”
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