by Kati Wilde
I’m still floating a few minutes after he leaves, listening to the radio and practically dancing around the kitchen.
Until a surprised “Oh!” and heartfelt “Thank freaking God!” freezes me in place.
I glance over at the kitchen entrance, where Minerva’s standing and looking at me as if she’s stunned—and pleased—to see me.
Which is a little odd, considering that I was scheduled for work today. And she’s not supposed to be here until later in the afternoon.
I eye her carefully. “Are you okay?”
She looks okay. But she always looks okay. Great, actually, because she works the retro look like a pro, with sleek black hair and ruby red lipstick, and her eyeliner game is on point even at three thirty in the morning.
“Am I okay?” Now she laughs, hanging her big polka-dot purse up on the hook by the door. “That’s what I was going to ask you! I wasn’t even sure if you’d be here. Were you with Bull? Please tell me you were with Bull.”
I can’t see any reason not to. The silence the Hellfire Riders demanded only included their deal with Osprey—and somehow she already knows where I was, anyway.
“I was with Bull.” It won’t be the last time, either.
“Oh thank God!” She pretends to collapse with relief against the counter. “Because that call Monday night was so weird. And I tried to call you back on that number but got nothing. So I kind of freaked out and went to your house to check on you.”
My lips round with realization. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” She gives me a baleful look. “So I found your car there, and your purse spilled all over—with some condoms right by it, which was extra weird. But I didn’t find you sick in bed.”
Heat climbs my cheeks. I really hated lying to her. “Because I wasn’t in my bed.”
“Yeah, I figured that out. After calling up every hospital in the area, because I thought maybe you collapsed in the garage. And then I freaked out for the rest of the night, wondering if I should report you missing. Because you did call in sick. Then in the morning, Nancy mentioned that she saw Bull kissing you behind the counter.”
The nurse who walked in on us. My face gets hotter. “He did.”
“Well, since Bull didn’t come like usual on Tuesday morning, either—even though he couldn’t have known you called in sick and weren’t going to be working—I put two and two together. I figured he dragged you off to take care of you.” She arches perfectly pencilled eyebrows. “And do other things to you after you got better.”
I press my hands to my burning cheeks. “It was something like that.”
“Good.” Still half-sprawled across the counter, she sighs and props her chin on her fist, looking at me with an expression caught somewhere between embarrassment and worry. “I have to tell you… At first, I put two and two together and got five.”
I give her a quizzical look.
“I called Raphael’s office on Tuesday morning,” she says and my heart begins thumping against my ribs. “Because I hadn’t talked to Nancy yet and I was still freaking out, and I wanted to find out whether he was there or out of town. But he was there so I figured he couldn’t have grabbed you.”
My stomach feels tight and sick. “Did you talk to him?”
“No. Just a secretary. I pretended that I had a boss with an unexpected layover in New York and hoping to meet with him. But of course she said Raphael was too busy, blah blah blah. And I thanked her and hung up. I figured that would be okay.”
It probably will be. Even Raphael can’t monitor everything. Or follow up on every odd call.
I hope.
Watching me, Minerva bites her lip. “You don’t think a call from here would tip him off?”
“I don’t know.” I really don’t. “Worrying that it might sounds crazy. But—”
“Raphael’s crazy, too.”
“Yes.”
And now I’m thinking of that black SUV. I told Bull it was probably nothing. It probably was nothing. But should I have let him check it out?
No.
Because either it was nothing, or it was Raphael. And I don’t want Bull anywhere near him. I still don’t think Raphael would hurt me.
But he’d kill someone who loved me and who tried to protect me from him.
And there was someone who drove by when Bull followed me into Reggie’s back parking lot. I didn’t think much of it then, or really notice what kind of vehicle it was, because there’s not much traffic this early but there’s still a car now and then—and because I’d been focused on Bull. I hadn’t been thinking of Raphael at all.
Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking of him now. It’s probably just paranoia.
Unless it isn’t.
Hesitantly, Minerva asks, “Do you think everything is okay?”
I’m not sure. I’m still working it through. Slowly I say, “When I got home, my purse was on the kitchen counter.” At the time, I assumed Woodridge had picked it up and gone through it after grabbing me, but Minerva just said that she found my purse in the garage after he’d already taken me to Bull’s place. “Did you put it there?”
“Yes.”
That should ease my mind, but it doesn’t. Because—“And you said you found the condoms, too?”
“Yeah. I put them by your purse. Along with the razors.”
And the razors had been there.
The condoms hadn’t been. I’d assumed Woodridge had swiped those. But he couldn’t have.
Which means someone was in my house after Minerva left.
Sudden fear skitters like an icy spider down my spine. My voice is thin and high when I ask her, “Can I use your phone?”
“Of course, honey.” She hands it over and watches me, her eyes dark and worried.
I don’t have Bull’s cell number. And I spend a few frustrating minutes trying to look up David Masters or William Masters in the online white pages before I abruptly realize that their home number is probably an unlisted one. Pop would never make it that easy for someone to find him.
Which might also help protect them from Raphael. Unless that SUV had been his. Then he could just follow Bull home.
I’m probably panicking for nothing. But suddenly all I can see is their beautiful log house going up in flames. And Bull can take care of himself, I know it—but he wouldn’t expect Raphael to go after him. He’d expect Raphael to come after me.
My heart thundering, I look up from her phone. “Would you mind taking over here for an hour or so? I just want to run out to his place and warn him to keep an eye out.”
A frown pulls at her red lips. “You’d go by yourself?”
“I’ll be in my car with the doors locked. I’ll be fine. Can I take this?” I hold up her phone.
That eases some of her worry. “Of course. You call here if you have any trouble, okay?”
“I will.” I shove the phone into my back pocket and head for my purse. “Maybe I’m overreacting. But I know I’ll be worried sick if I don’t at least tell him.”
Minerva follows me. “Maybe you are overreacting,” she says. “But after what Raphael did to your family, maybe it’s better to overreact than not to act at all.”
That’s my feeling, too. I pause at the door, glance back at her. “Will you watch to make sure I get to my car?”
“You know I will.” Her teeth flash in a quick grin. “You should take one of those, too.”
She nods toward the wall above the prep counter, where an assortment of long steel knives hang on magnetic strips.
“Good thinking,” I tell her, and select a chef’s knife with an eight-inch blade that I hone to a fine edge every morning.
Minerva grabs her own knife as we walk to the door, then stops to watch me cross the dark lot.
“Remember!” she calls after me. “If you run into Raphael, cut downward and away from your body. Safety first!”
I truly couldn’t be more fortunate in my friends. As tense and worried as I am, I’m laughing as I unlock my car. And maybe che
cking the back seat to make sure Raphael’s not lying in wait is also overreacting.
But safety first.
Bull
If good news at four in the morning is rare, then I figure the odds of hearing good news at three-thirty is a hell of a lot worse. And when that call comes from the Hellfire Riders’ warlord, who was responsible for making every trace of Osprey vanish, the chances that it’s good news sink straight to zero.
I’m on my front steps when the call comes in, but I don’t continue on into the house. His calling means I’m probably about to leave again.
But the call’s not about Osprey, as I assumed. And Blowback’s first question has my balls shriveling with cold dread.
Without any preamble he says, “Is your girl with you?”
“No.” I’m already heading back to my bike. “Why?”
“His name’s Raphael Wainwright. You ever hear of him?”
My heart’s a jackhammer against my ribs. “Fuck no. Should I have?” Because he says it like maybe I should have. And I remember Sara mentioning his army of lawyers. “He a big name?”
“If you’re on Wall Street. I only ask because I wanted to know if you’d recognize him. I’m texting a picture.”
“Why do I need a goddamn picture?”
And my jackhammering heart just fucking stops when he says, “Because he flew into Bend yesterday. So where’s your girl?”
“At Reggie’s.” Thanks to the meetup with Osprey, I’ve got more weapons than usual stowed in the saddlebags on my bike, but I’m not taking any chances of being caught without a gun on hand. I tuck a semi-automatic pistol into the back of my belt. “I’m heading there to get her now.”
“Do that. You’ll be taking her to your place?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. Me and Lily are coming your way. You get her home and we’ll plan the rest from there.”
A plan to hunt down fucking Raphael Wainwright. I swing my leg over my bike and fire up the engine.
I give a second’s thought to calling Reggie’s and warning her, but looking up the number will take too fucking long. No doubt Sara’s all right. I just left her and she’s so damn wary. Even if Raphael showed up at Reggie’s, she wouldn’t open the door for him.
So I’ll just get there as fast as I can.
My engine’s a thundering roar as I hit the road. I open up the throttle, racing along the dark ribbon of asphalt, my bright headlamp the only light in sight.
That’s why I don’t see him coming. Don’t hear him coming, either, not over the thunder of my engine. A faint gleam of red in my side mirror—the glow from my tail light glinting off a chrome grill—is the only warning I get that a big vehicle’s right behind me.
There’s no avoiding what happens next. The fucker hits my back tire—
And I go flying.
16
Bull
A man my size isn’t supposed to fly. But landing’s even harder.
So hard I don’t remember much of it. Just some tires screeching. Feeling something pop in my right shoulder. Hearing steel drag over asphalt and seeing a shower of sparks. Agony shooting through my left ankle like something took a bite out of it.
Now the fucker turns on his headlights. His rig’s about a hundred feet down the road from where I’m sprawled in a ditch—all the way over beside the lane opposite the one I was riding.
I don’t know how the hell that happened, considering that in the split second between realizing he was behind my bike and him hitting me, I bailed out of my seat—but I was aiming for the ditch on the other side of the road. Somewhere in there I must have been whipped around and tossed in this direction.
And I’m not moving real fast now, because not everything’s working like it should. I manage to sit but I don’t get much farther upright. My right shoulder’s out of joint or broken. I’m not sure which because everything from my neck to my fingers feels like it’s been through a shredder. My ankle’s throbbing like a son of a bitch and I’m not sure what’s going to happen when I put some weight on it.
But bailing probably saved my life. Because as his reverse lights flare and the SUV starts backing up along the road, he’s dragging my Harley with it. If I’d still been on the motorcycle, I’d have been dead for sure. My beautiful FXR is nothing but a broken wreck wedged right up against his front tires.
Fuck. I spent three years restoring that bike. Seeing her twisted up under that rig hurts more than my shoulder does.
And if I didn’t already have reason to kill him, I would now.
As he stops the vehicle even with where I’m sitting in the ditch, it’s clear the murderous intent is mutual. Wearing a fucking suit and tie, he climbs out of the rig—and there’s not much to read on his face, but he’s carrying a tire iron. Thank fuck it’s not a gun, because I don’t think I can move fast enough to dodge a bullet—and my own weapon went flying when I did. I can see the pistol lying farther down the road, right at the edge of the blacktop. About fifteen feet away.
Close enough to see but not close enough to reach. And my hurting isn’t over yet.
Because that tire iron means it’s real damn personal. You don’t beat a man to death when it’s not.
That he’s making it personal might give me my only chance, though. I can take a few hits from a tire iron, use my arm to block the blows. It’ll likely break some bones, but better a few busted bones than a bullet to the head. I just gotta last long enough to get to my weapon.
I could use a distraction in a big way, though. Something to give me a few extra seconds to reach my gun.
But his focus never wavers from me when he stops in the middle of the lane. He’s a smooth-looking, handsome fucker, that’s for sure, like he might have just stepped out of a magazine spread. Good thing I know that Sara prefers her men rugged and massive, with a dick the size of a redwood tree. Otherwise I might be feeling real insecure right about now.
Without a word, he swings his arm like he’s throwing an underhand pitch, and a small box comes flying my way. A package of condoms lands at my booted feet.
The fuck? Shaking my head, I eye him again. “Is this foreplay? Because I gotta tell you, man. You’ve got that rich city boy look down pat, but you’re still not pretty enough for me.”
“These were in her home.” His voice is as smooth and cold as he is. “Did you have her?”
Did I have Sara? It takes every fucking bit of my control to keep from lunging at him simply for referring to her in that possessive way. And knowing he was in her house?
Gives me just one more reason to kill him.
But I only say easily, “I figure that’s her business.”
Because I’m not sure whether to piss him off or not. Some men, that’s the way to go. They lose their shit, they open themselves to attack. But some men, they lose their shit, and it’s like trying to take down someone on PCP. You can break their legs and they’ll keep on coming.
I can’t tell what he is. Except fucking unhinged. If someone goes looking into his life, I bet they’re going to find pieces of people in his freezer.
“Did you have her?” he asks again.
Yeah, I think I want him pissed. Might as well be two of us. “You mean, did I kiss that little mole on the inside of her right thigh before I licked her pussy until she came all over my tongue? Or do you mean, did I fill her up with my fat cock and ride her while she screamed for more? Yeah, I had her. I had her mouth, I had her cunt, and I had her tight virgin ass. But I sure as fuck didn’t use any rubbers. I pumped my cum deep inside her and I figure in about nine months, she’s going to be having a baby with pretty blue eyes just like mine.”
That doesn’t piss him off. Or it does, and he doesn’t show it. Either way, that’s bad fucking news. Someone that cold is going to be a lot harder to goad into losing his focus.
But maybe I won’t need to.
Two headlights appear down the road, swinging around the curve about a half mile away. Someone coming from town. Not Blowback an
d Zoomie, though that would be the best-case scenario. But even they don’t ride fast enough to have gotten here yet, and from this distance I can tell it’s a car, not a pair of motorcycles.
Grinning, I ask him, “You figure that’s a cop?” because I doubt he’ll know that budget cuts in the county mean there’s only one deputy on duty this time of night, and that deputy sure as hell doesn’t patrol these back roads. “You better get on with killing me or get going.”
Unless he’s crazy enough to kill whoever’s coming, too. Because no doubt, that person’s going to stop. What they’re about to come upon will look a hell of a lot like an accident, and there’s one thing that’s certain about back roads and small towns: anyone driving by is going to pull over and try to help.
Maybe a city boy doesn’t realize that. Or maybe he does, and when they pull over he’ll go after them with the tire iron.
It’s a shitty thing to hope for. But it might give me time to go for my gun and save us both.
I’m thinking Raphael’s intending to kill them, too, because he doesn’t step out of the lane, even though he’s right in the path of that oncoming car. The driver’s already slowing and dimming the high beams.
And he’s smiling.
He’s smiling, and my stomach fucking turns inside out when I realize what he’s already seen. The SUV’s headlights are shining through the car’s windshield, illuminating Sara’s frantic expression. Everything goes abruptly silent, her hybrid engine shutting off as she slows to a stop a few yards from where he’s standing. She’s not looking my way, because my bike’s smashed up under his front bumper, and her face is crumpling with grief and terror even as she throws off her seat belt and opens her door.
Fucking hell. She’s only ten feet away from him—closer to him than I am to my gun, which is in the other direction. To go for it, I’d have to move farther away from her—maybe allowing Raphael a moment to get his hands on her. “Get back in that car, Sara!”
My harsh shout swings her wild gaze in my direction. It takes a second for her to find me in the ditch.