“There is absolutely nothing here except dirty bikers and dirty gang bangers,” Susan continued. “Of course, those bastards are what keeps this job interesting. It’s a shame that the cops can’t just go in, drop a few bombs into their little club and put us all out of our misery. I bet if those ugly bikers went away, the drug gang would go away too. You know how awful those types of people are.”
Anger surged through Chloe, but she bit her bottom lip to help defuse her instinct to do something impulsive. Just because Susan rubbed her the wrong way wasn’t reason enough to punch her.
“So why did you move here?” Susan asked again. One corner of her mouth curled upward and her eyes narrowed speculatively. “Are you crazy or something? Is that why you moved to shithole Bair, Nebraska? Only someone escaping the loony bin would move here willingly.”
Out of everything Susan could’ve said, she’d had to use the word crazy. It was a taunt Chloe couldn’t ignore. She could handle a confusing weekend and a shitty morning, but what she couldn’t cope with was her sanity being called into question. She wasn’t crazy until someone pointed out that maybe she was.
Chloe walked over to the chair and kicked it out from under Susan’s ass. The nurse went down, chin first, which hit the surface of the table. She let out a cry of pain as blood gushed from her mouth. No doubt, the bitch had bitten through her viperous tongue.
Chloe leaned over her. “You say one more derogatory remark against me or the Men of Hell and more than your tongue will need stitches,” she said softly. “From now on, you’ll only say nice things about us, or nothing at all. Do you understand me, Susan?”
Susan stared at her in pure terror through wide, pain-glazed eyes. Tears ran down the woman’s cheeks, but Chloe was immune to the sympathy they should’ve invoked. She had no pity for people who pissed her off. When Susan nodded jerkily, Chloe smiled and eased back.
“Excellent,” she replied. “You asked if I was crazy and I hope I answered your question. Don’t forget that I know where you live, Susan, so let’s keep this between us besties, all right?”
Again, Susan nodded, terror and pain mixing equally on her face.
Chloe raised her voice. “We need some help in here!”
A second later, a doctor rushed into the room. “Oh, my God! What happened?”
“She just slipped,” Chloe said, schooling her features into a mask of concern. “I opened my soda, took a drink, and heard her hit the table. It was awful.”
“Aw, Susan,” the doctor said. “I think you’re going to need stitches. Come with me.”
The doctor slipped his arm around Susan’s shoulders to help her out of the break room. Chloe couldn’t help but wink at her as she passed.
* * * *
After the fervor of Susan’s ‘accident’ had died down, the rest of the work day blew by quickly and Chloe’s last case of the day was a tractor accident where a man had impaled himself. Once the spike had been removed, they’d had to do an exploratory surgery to make sure no internal organs had been damaged. She’d put in an hour of overtime and was one of the last people to leave for the day. As she exited the hospital, she saw Dax sitting on the hood of her Mercedes. His bike rested benignly beside her car.
The little thrill of excitement that shot through her confused the hell out of her since she’d half convinced herself that her response to Daxton Squire had been a figment of her imagination. There was no explanation for how her nipples turned into aching pebbles of excitement or how her pussy slicked the closer she walked toward him.
“How long have you been here?” she asked as she unlocked the car doors and tossed in her purse.
“Long enough to wave at all your co-workers.”
“Hmm,” she said. “How’d you find me?”
“Your car kind of stands out.”
She pursed her lips as she looked over the black Mercedes. “I suppose it does. This car wasn’t my choice. My grandfather insisted when I graduated.”
Dax whistled. “Nice grandfather. Should I volunteer to be your boy toy? I wouldn’t mind a new Harley SuperLow.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re not here for light sexual banter?”
He rose from the hood of her car and crossed his arms as he studied her. She couldn’t help thinking he was measuring her up for some reason.
“One of my club Brothers was killed Saturday night,” he said.
Panic flooded through her. She stepped up to Dax and placed her hands upon his folded arms. “Is Romeo okay?”
He cocked his head. “Romeo is pissed off, but fine.”
Relief crashed through her, leaving her a little dizzy and a little guilty. A club Brother had lost his life but all she cared about was that it wasn’t her man. “Who?”
“Babyface. He was a prospect.”
“I’m sorry, Dax. What happened?”
“He was murdered.”
“Shanks?”
“How do you know about the Shanks?” he demanded.
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Really? You think I wouldn’t know about Romeo’s enemies?”
“Up until this moment, I half wondered if you were involved.”
“What?” she gasped. “I would never hurt Romeo, or the club.”
“I don’t know anything about you, Chloe, except you’re a stalker. Why wouldn’t I suspect you?”
She was getting a little tired of people labeling her as obsessive, crazy and a stalker. Hadn’t Dax listened to anything she’d said last night? “I told you, I’m here to repay a debt.”
“Yeah, one Romeo doesn’t even remember.”
She frowned. “He doesn’t remember? But… He was so kind.”
“Kind? Are you sure you have the right Romeo?”
“Of course, Dax.” She waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter if he remembers. I still owe him. But if it wasn’t the Shanks, then who was it?”
Dax didn’t say anything. He just stood staring at her—measuring her. Her heart sped up as their eyes met, locked. His brown eyes weren’t as dark as hers—milk chocolate to her near obsidian. He searched the depths of her soul. She wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but she hoped he figured out she wasn’t here to hurt Romeo. Finally, he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, glancing away from her.
“We’re going to have a little meeting with their leader later tonight, but I don’t think it’s them. This killing was…brutal. Precise. The Shanks are more killers of opportunity.”
“Is Romeo in danger?” she asked. She had to know. If he was, it changed everything.
“There was a message sent, telling us to get out of Bair or we’d all be taken apart piece by piece.”
A chill swept through her. Someone was threatening her man. Or…men?
“Why are you here, Chloe?”
“I told you why I came here.”
“For Romeo?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, as if he’d expected that answer. “Stop following him. Whoever killed our prospect targeted us, waited for him. It was an ambush. I don’t want you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
She lifted her chin. “I can take care of myself.”
He took a step closer, crowding her. He tried to intimidate her with his size, but all it caused was a thrilling shot of lust to wash through her. “Listen, Chloe, this isn’t a fucking game. Babyface came back to us in pieces. You should go home, little girl. Go back to the money you seem to have grown up in.”
He left her standing there, marched toward his motorcycle and put his helmet on. He straddled his bike then looked at her. Once again, their gazes met. Held. For a moment, heat flashed through his dark orbs. He stared at her hungrily and an answering call rose in her blood. Then he started his bike and took off with a roar of its powerful engine. She watched after him until he was long gone, and still she hesitated in the near empty parking lot.
She’d known Romeo would need her, and this time it was real, not just an obsessive love-induced hallucina
tion. Chloe unlocked her car and slid behind the wheel. The engine purred to life, and during the whole ride back to her apartment, she couldn’t help comparing Romeo with Nathan. She hadn’t met the leader of the Men of Hell—at least not yet—but already she knew Romeo was completely different from the doctor with whom she’d had a previous tangent episode. It was over Nathan that doctors had bandied about the word obsessive and co-workers had whispered ‘crazy’ behind their hands. She’d lost her job, her self-respect, and it had brought her grandfather back into her life.
For a while, she’d even believed them. She’d taken their drugs and had stayed in a posh resort while she recuperated from her mental break, wondering all the while why someone hadn’t done this when she was thirteen. Shouldn’t a child who’d been abused by her mother need the same tiptoeing care? No one had figured it out then, just as no one understood now, and on the heels of that realization, Chloe had checked herself out and chucked her meds down the toilet.
Shaking the memories away was the only way she could cope. Once inside her apartment, she set her purse down and hurried into her bedroom to pull out the file on the club she’d taken from her grandfather’s office. She read the assembled data until she arrived at the information on the drug gang operating in the small town. The Shanks didn’t seem very well organized, mostly relying on brute strength and threats as they peddled their prescription drug trade. They dabbled in meth and pot, but they were noted mostly for trafficking Oxycontin and Vicodin along Interstate 80. The trade route was one reason why the Shanks and the Men of Hell didn’t get along. Bair sat in a prime location, equidistant between Denver and Omaha.
Dax said they were going to hunt in the Shanks’ end of town, so she laid out a street map and looked over where that was exactly. At first glance, Bair didn’t seem all that big. The newer section was divided by the interstate, with the Men of Hell’s compound about two miles south. Their bar, the Whiskey Lick Her, lay on that stretch of road. That long drive was nothing but farmland. On the northbound side of the interstate lay the rest of the town. Just past the obligatory gas station, McDonald’s and crappy motel were the majority of small businesses and homes, including the hospital she worked in. She guessed it made sense for the pill pushers to be firmly settled into that area. The report stated their leader, a man named Mendoza, ran the junkyard just outside the town limits.
What if this Mendoza lay in wait for Romeo? What if there was an ambush, gun sights aimed directly on the MOH as they roared into their area? Harley’s weren’t exactly known for their stealth-like engines.
Dread settled in the pit of her stomach, gnawing at her insides like a carnivorous beast. What if Romeo was shot? What if he died? She had to do something. He needed her. Her gaze landed on her medical bag at the bottom of her closet. No doubt she’d be arrested for half the stuff she had in there, but it wasn’t as if she’d stolen the medicine to make a little extra cash. She’d put it together for this very purpose.
Mind made up, she quickly changed out of her after-work clothes and hurried into her closet. She chose black stretch jeans, a black T-shirt and low-heeled boots for the night, before pulling her hair back into a ponytail. From a box under her bed, she pulled out her gun, a SIG Sauer Mosquito with a threaded barrel. She popped in a magazine and chambered a round before screwing on the sound suppressor. She flipped on the safety and laid it on the bed while she buckled on her custom-made gun belt, then she slipped the weapon into it. It rested on the small of her back, too bulky to be comfortable, but its presence was nonetheless soothing. She pocketed another full magazine, grabbed her medical bag then headed out the door.
Chapter Six
Great hulking wrecks of twisted metal and rusting car shells rose up in the moonlight as monolithic sculptures. Romeo, Dax, Boone and Gabby drove up to the fenced gate that should’ve been closed and locked at this hour, but stood wide open in a blatant invitation.
“This is a trap,” Dax muttered, pissed off that he couldn’t keep his president from leaving the safe confines of the compound. How could he do his job when the head honcho didn’t heed him?
“I know,” Romeo said. He flipped out his kickstand with his foot and rose from his bike. He yanked off his helmet and set it on the seat. The other men followed his lead.
“Stay here,” Dax ordered Romeo.
Romeo gave him an incredulous look. “You fucking kidding me?”
“This is colossally dumb of us walking into Mendoza’s territory.” Dax pulled his gun from its holster. “You can bet he’s looking at his video monitor saying hello stupid fuckers, come right on in and die.”
“Gabby said quit your whining,” Boone said.
Both Dax and Romeo frowned at Gabby. They hadn’t heard a word from the big man.
As soon as they crossed into the junkyard, a smattering of bullets pinged all around them, bouncing off various objects. Thumps on the ground where other shots hit the dirt were like fragments of meteors. Sounds of weapon fire and the whizzing of the deadly orbs came too close to their heads. The acrid scent of old grease, rust and gunpowder permeated the air. Everything seemed to happen at once. Romeo cursed and ran. He and Dax headed one way while Gabby and Boone dashed to another route. The junkyard became a maze, and the bright moon wasn’t helping them hide.
“God damn it!” Romeo growled. “They have the high ground.”
“Yeah, well, this is their fucking place,” Dax replied sarcastically.
They dove behind a crane, and Dax stuck his head out to survey the area. A body popped up along one of the ridgelines and he took aim and fired. The man grunted and fell back. One down, but how many more to go?
“We just want to talk, Mendoza!” Romeo shouted.
Shadows moved and a flow of bullets punched the area above Romeo’s head, showering him with debris.
“Shit!” Dax cried and grabbed his friend to fling him to the ground. “Guess Mendoza doesn’t want to talk.”
“Yeah,” Romeo said. “Ah, Christ, that hurts.”
Dax reared back and stared in horror at the wet stain that grew on Romeo’s upper arm. It had missed his cut by a sliver.
“Fuck, you’re bleeding.”
“No shit,” Romeo muttered.
Dax tried to press his hand to the wound, but Romeo just knocked it away.
“Doesn’t matter. Just a minor wound. We need to find Mendoza.”
A splattering of shots fired again, and Dax clamped a hand on Romeo’s good arm to drag him over to a pile of flattened cars.
Dax ducked his head around the corner of the heap of metal. “I can’t see Boone or Gabby. We need to get you to the hospital.”
“Fuck the hospital. I need to make sure the Shanks didn’t kill Babyface.”
“You can’t question anyone if you’re dead,” Dax said harshly.
“I’m fine, Dax.”
“Of course you’re not fine! You’re fucking shot!”
A series of sounds echoed through the junkyard. Pop! Pop, pop, pop. Silence.
Dax cautiously peered around the car again. “What the fuck?”
“What is it?” Romeo asked. He then looked too.
Dax stared in disbelief at Chloe as she calmly walked toward them, dressed like she came from The Expendables, all in black with her ponytail swinging back and forth in time to her steady gait. In one hand, she clutched a gun with a silencer as she cautiously looked around. In the other hand, she held a black canvas bag.
“Why the hell is she here?” Dax wondered.
“Who is she?”
“That’s Chloe.”
“My stalker?” Romeo grinned. “I think I’m in love.”
Dax threw him an exasperated look. He didn’t have time for this right now. He quickly suppressed the jealousy that surged through him at Romeo’s statement. He had no reason to feel anything but annoyance and anger that she’d disobeyed his command.
Chloe spotted him and sashayed her cute little ass over to them, as if she were taking a night-time stroll th
rough a park. As soon as she was close enough, he grasped her arm and yanked her behind the car tower.
“Ow! What the hell, Dax?”
“There are men shooting,” he snarled. “Did you not listen to a word I said?”
“I took care of those men,” she said calmly as she removed herself from his tight grip.
“What do you mean you—?”
“Romeo, you’re hit!” she cried. She scrambled over to him to survey the bullet in his arm. “It’s still in there.”
“I know,” Romeo said through tight lips. Pain bracketed every line on his face. “Hi, I’m Romeo Barrigan. Nice to meet you. I hear you’re my stalker.”
She threw Dax the same kind of exasperated look he’d given Romeo. “I’m Chloe Matsumoto.” From the depths of the bag she carried, she produced some gauze. Stamped in red across the package was the word ‘sterile’. She pulled apart the edges and removed the pad inside. Romeo winced as she applied pressure to his wound. “I’m going to take care of you, okay?”
“In a chop-my-legs-off maniacal way or in a medical capacity?” he asked warily.
“Right now in a medical way, but we’ll see how it goes,” she replied, winking.
Dax wanted to gag. Seriously, was she flirting right now?
Romeo blinked and smiled. “Great.”
Dax rolled his eyes.
“How did you find us?” Dax asked. He kept his tone angry to let her know he wasn’t very thrilled at seeing her.
“You said you were going to question the leader of the Shanks,” she answered softly, still focused on Romeo’s wound. “I knew the leader, Mendoza, operated from the junkyard. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”
“It’s like pulling teeth with you,” he muttered. “Every question you answer has new ones popping up. How’d you know about the junkyard?”
At that moment, Boone and Gabby suddenly appeared behind her. Gabby held a moaning man in his hands. Blood dripped from his obviously shattered kneecap.
“Someone shot the fuckers,” Boone said. His gaze flickered questioningly over Chloe. “This one is still alive, so he should do well for interrogation. Who’s she?”
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