by Sybil Bartel
“You didn’t flinch when he killed Rip,” she blurted.
I didn’t know what I was expecting her to say, but that wasn’t it. And she didn’t say it, she accused it. “Neither did you.” And that should’ve given me a clue who the fuck she was, but I was too busy trying to read what the hell she was hiding behind her locked expression.
“He deserved it.”
“For shooting Candle?” I wasn’t fucking naïve.
“For being an asshole.”
A glutton for punishment, I kept fishing. “Because he knew who you are?”
She didn’t answer.
I gave her an inch and acknowledged her earlier statement. “That wasn’t my first dead body, chica. You know I was in the Marines.”
She didn’t even blink. “What did you do?”
I studied her for a second before answering. “Sniper.” I was proud of my service. I’d protected my brothers. The Marines had trained me well, but I didn’t broadcast that I was a killer. That was between me and God and the US government.
Her eyes bloodshot, her hair disheveled, she stared back. Then she nodded once. Without a word, she turned back to the window.
I didn’t know the first thing about this woman, but I did know this. A silent Kendall Reed was a dangerous slope.
THE FANCY, EXPENSIVE PLANE BANKED back over land and started its descent. I hadn’t spoken a word since the Irishman had put us in the air. My head was fucking killing me, and God help me, I wanted a drink because, despite everything that’d happened, all I kept thinking was sniper. Sniper.
He was a killer.
The Cuban Boy with the disarming smile and face of an angel was a goddamn killer.
No wonder Candle had told me to go with him. Forced, actually. Which I was still pissed about. But what was I supposed to do? Rip must’ve seen my branding. I knew that’s why Candle had killed him. I hadn’t escaped my past. I was surrounded by killers.
I shivered in the cold cabin, then I smelled his scent a second before a blanket was draped over my lap. Looking up, I caught the bottom half of what looked like a cross inked on his giant bicep.
None of his earlier anger touched his expression. “We’re about to land.”
I swallowed past the sudden dryness in my throat and nodded.
He turned all business. “I’m going to drop you off. Then I have some work to do.”
“Drop me off where?” I was so tired, at this point, I almost didn’t care. Short of more alcohol to drink myself into a twenty-four-hour nap, I wanted some Advil and a shower. I didn’t give a shit that Rip was dead, but the metallic smell of blood lingered every time I inhaled.
André hesitated, then sat back down in his seat. “There are apartments above my office.”
I half snorted, half laughed. “Let me guess, you don’t want me at your place.” I should’ve been glad, but I stupidly wasn’t.
“You’ll be comfortable in one of the apartments.”
Comfortable. Right. “I was comfortable at Candle’s.”
Looking like he was trying for patience, he inhaled. “I’m sure you were, chica.”
The plane touched down smoothly and glided to a stop.
André was out of his seat before the Irishman cut the engines. “Thanks, Roark.”
The Irishman pulled his headset off and tipped his chin at André then glanced at me. “Ma’am.”
What a joke. “Kendall,” I corrected. “Thanks for the ride.”
He didn’t comment, he just stared. Even though his eyes were blue, they looked just like André’s. Like they’d seen too much, held too many secrets, and like he’d cut you down faster than you could blink if you crossed him. It was the exact same look Candle had.
André shouldered my bag and opened the door. I followed him out like I flew in a private jet all the time, but I’d never even flown. I grew up in a world where a meal in a restaurant was a pipe dream, let alone a damn plane ride.
André scanned the tarmac then held open the passenger door of a waiting black SUV.
“Looking for someone?” I asked sarcastically as I got in the front passenger seat.
His gaze cut to mine. “I don’t know what I’m looking for. That’s the problem.” He shut the door.
I tried to focus on anything besides where I was or who I was with, but the interior of the vehicle smelled so much like André, I couldn’t stop myself from inhaling and closing my eyes.
I still had my eyes closed when he slid behind the wheel, cranked the engine and threw it into drive. “You got anything to say about that?”
Nope. Not a word.
André exhaled. Then he shoved the gear shift back into park and turned to me. “Kendall.”
Goose bumps crawled up my spine, and I fought from closing my eyes. Decima, I silently whispered. “What?”
“Look at me.”
I knew he was alpha. All alpha. I’d seen him wield a gun and a dead body and take charge and not even flinch when gunshots were fired. He wasn’t just capable, he was trained, controlled and calculating. But until that very second, until those three small words that meant nothing separately, I’d never been on the receiving end of André Luna’s dominance.
A shiver spread across my skin, and a deep-seated need I carried hidden like a disease relaxed. I drew in a breath, a real breath, then I didn’t just look at him, I turned toward him and waited.
His stare intense, he dropped his voice. “Put your hand up,” he commanded.
My stomach knotted. I raised my hand.
No hesitation, he laced his fingers though mine.
My breath hitched as awareness shot through my body.
He brought our combined hands to his chest, dead center. “I’ve got over two hundred and fifty confirmed kills. I was trained in interrogation tactics, and I have information that could not only destroy careers, but lives.” He squeezed my hand. “I will never divulge any of it. As God is my witness, I’m making you the same promise.”
I tried to pull away.
He held firm. “I think you’re in witness protection, and I think Tarquin Scott has something to do with it.”
I jerked my hand away.
He let me go. “If you have a handler, you need to contact them.”
Panic choking me from the inside out, I managed to force words out. “I’m not in witness protection.” It wasn’t a lie.
“Where did you go to high school?”
His voice, the question, it was so casual and so out of left field, that I paused. “Ocala High.” My hesitation was all the confirmation he needed.
Grave, resigned, he nodded once. “I know a fabricated background when I see one, chica.”
The car closing in on me, panic in my veins, I reached for the door handle and my shaking hands fumbled.
His strong, muscular arm reached across me and grabbed the door. “You don’t need to run. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I sucked in a breath and pushed back into my seat to avoid his touch. “I need air.”
Without letting go of my door handle, he upped the fan on the AC. “I need to know if you’re in any real danger. You don’t have to tell me who you are, but I need to at least know if there’s a threat coming at us.”
The lies started tumbling out. “I’m no one. I’m not hunted or wanted or any other dramatic excuse you can think of. Candle killed Rip because he wanted to. That’s what Candle does. He’s an asshole biker with no morals.” Every word tasted bitter.
Measured and slow, he let go of the door handle. “Amoral assholes don’t send their women off to keep them safe.”
“He just wanted me out of his way.” I could feel his stare, but I didn’t look up. When he didn’t comment, I stupidly opened my mouth again. “Everyone wants me out of their way.”
“Why is that?”
I looked him square in the eye. “Because I’m a bitch.” I had to be.
“There’s lots of adjectives I’d use for you, chica, but that’s not one of them.” He threw the
Escalade in drive and gunned the engine.
I exhaled, stupidly thinking I was in the clear.
He pulled into Miami morning traffic. “Want to know what the front-runner is?”
“Does it matter?” He was going to tell me anyway.
“You’re defensive.” He glanced at me. “Know what that’s a sign of?”
“You’re a shrink now?” My head spinning, my equilibrium off, I hated his prying as much as I craved the interaction with him. If that wasn’t fucked-up, I didn’t know what was.
“No, but I know what it means when someone’s closed off.”
“Good for you,” I snapped, stupidly spoon-feeding his theory.
He drove with the same confidence he carried himself with. “You’re just sinking yourself further, chica. Every word out of your mouth is giving me the sweet taste of affirmation.”
“Since when do you need your ego stroked, Cuban Boy?”
He chuckled, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “I don’t.” His phone rang, and he answered it through the car’s Bluetooth. “Luna.”
“It’s Tyler. I’ve got—”
“You’re on speaker,” André warned.
“Copy that. You have a call that came through the main number. Do you want me to put it through?”
André frowned. “Who is it?”
Tyler paused for a half a second. “Scott. He says it’s urgent.”
My stomach twisted into knots. “Put the call through,” I interrupted.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tyler answered. “Hold on.”
André glanced at me, but I couldn’t read his expression. Then Candle’s voice was booming through the car’s speakers and I was distracted.
“I need to talk to Kendall, right fucking now.”
Shit. “I’m here.”
“We’re both here,” André interjected.
“You’re didn’t answer your phone, Kendall,” Candle accused. “Turn it the fuck on.”
“Watch your tone, ranger,” André warned.
I scrambled for my phone in my purse, but I knew what I’d find.
“Fuck you, marine. Kendall, call me back, privately.”
Goddamn it. “I had the ringer turned off. What’s going on?”
“Luna,” Candle barked. “Take me the fuck off speaker and give your phone to her.”
“No can do.” André calmly maneuvered through traffic. “Tell us what’s going on or I hang up.”
Candle growled, and I could almost see him rake a hand through his hair.
Anxiety coiled around my chest like a vise grip because I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say. I’d been living on borrowed time for years. “Just say it.”
“Motherfucking shit.”
“Candle,” I snapped.
“Rip’s a goddamn pussy, and I’m gonna bring him back to life so I can kill him all over again.”
My eyes closed, my fists clenched, and my jaw locked. Every muscle in my body froze except my heart, it kept pounding against my chest. I thought I would die. I was going to die.
Candle’s voice dropped in utter apology. “Kendall.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. I knew that tone. I was dead. My soul had died years ago, but now my body was going to follow. I’d known this day was coming. I knew I didn’t have a choice. I should’ve lived a thousand lives in the time I’d had, but I didn’t. No bucket list, no joy, no love, no nothing. I never did any of it.
Like a mechanical version of myself, my voice spoke. “It’s okay, Candle.”
“Goddamn it, baby, I’m fucking sorry.”
“What did Rip do?” André asked.
“He talked,” I whispered.
“He didn’t just talk,” Candle spat. “He sang like a fucking bird.”
“To who?” André demanded, as if he knew what we were talking about.
“The whole goddamn chapter. I can’t fucking contain this. I can’t kill everyone, Dee.” Candle slipped and used my real nickname.
André’s piercing gaze cut to mine. “It’s past time I know what the hell is going on, but I’m gonna let Kendall tell me that when we hang up. In the meantime, I’m assuming her safety is compromised.”
“Good fucking assumption,” Candle answered belligerently.
“Drop the fucking attitude, Scott, and tell me how much time I have.”
Candle didn’t drop the attitude. “As long as it takes for an entire MC chapter to track her car to the airport, asshole,” he ground out. “Then they’ll hold a gun to the head of some minimum-wage desk fuck until he tells them your flight plan. After that, they’ll tear up the road getting to you. You do the math. Three, four hours if you’re lucky.”
André swore in Spanish. “Then what?”
“Then they kill her for the bounty on her head.”
André’s biceps flexed as he gripped the steering wheel. “How much?”
“Dead or alive?” Candle asked.
André’s frown deepened. “There’s a difference?”
Bile rose in my throat. There was a big difference.
Candle exhaled a string of cuss words. “One million alive. Two if it’s just her head.”
JESU-FUCKING-CRISTO.
Two million.
A two-million-dollar bounty on her fucking head. Literally. A mental list of who’d be willing to pay that kind of cash started scrolling through my mind, but I was coming up short on the why. Drug dealers didn’t pay that much. The mob would just kill her. The cartel would put out a double-priced hit like that, but not that much.
Candle kept talking. “If a single fucking hair on her head is harmed, I am holding you responsible. I will hunt you down, Luna, and I will fucking cut you,” he threatened. “Do you understand me?”
Fucking pendejo. He should’ve told him what the hell was going on. “Calm the fuck down. Did Rip know who I was?” Because they could easily track me to my office.
“I don’t know what the fuck he knew, but her car is known and it won’t take long to figure out who flew you two out of here.”
Okay, I had a little bit of time. They wouldn’t connect Roark to me right away. Unless they coerced someone on the ground at the airport. Then we were fucked. “How many members are still left in your chapter?”
“It’s not my chapter you have to worry about. The Lone Coasters have chapters up and down the East Coast, and everyone’s poor as fuck right now. They’ll jump on that two million.”
I glanced at Kendall, but she’d gone completely silent.
“What are you doing at your end?” He needed to contain his brothers.
“I’ve been locked up six months. What’s left of my chapter has fucking imploded or gone rogue.”
In other words, nothing. “Fine. I’ll handle it. Where can I reach you?”
“She has my number.”
“Copy that. I’ll be in touch.” I started to hang up.
“Luna.”
“What?”
“Just get her out of town. Give me a week or two. I’ll discredit Rip.”
Two weeks? I couldn’t walk away from my business for two hours, let alone two weeks, and I didn’t sit around for anyone. “I’ll handle it.” Whatever the hell it was, I’d take care of it, and her. Because that’s what I fucking did.
“You don’t have enough manpower to go up against the LCs,” he warned.
“What I lack in head count, I make up for in training.” My men were all disciplined ex-marines. “Make some calls on your end. Find out how far this has spread. Get back to me in an hour.” I hung up and turned the Escalade around to head toward my condo as I dialed Roark.
“Miss me already?”
I didn’t laugh. “You busy?”
“I’m always busy.” Air traffic control chatter sounded in the background.
“Can you make one more Daytona trip this morning?”
The chatter quieted on his end. “You need to go back?”
“I need to send one of my men. I’ll pay for fuel.”
; “You’re not paying for shit. I’ll make the trip, but I need to be in the air within the hour.”
“Thanks, I owe you. Tyler will be there in twenty.” I hung up and dialed Tyler.
He answered on the first ring. “What’s up, boss?”
“Change in plans. Head to the airport right now. Roark will take you to Daytona.”
“Same parameters?”
I’d texted him from the plane and told him before he brought Kendall’s car back to do recon on Candle and find out where he went, who he talked to, and what the hell he was up to besides burying a couple of bodies. Now, I didn’t give a shit about being stealth. I wanted Tyler there to find out for myself how fucked this whole situation was.
“No,” I answered. “Head to Candle’s and shadow him. Let me know what you find out. He’ll fill you in on what’s going on.” I glanced at Kendall and tipped my chin. “Here’s his number.”
Kendall gave him Candle’s number.
I started checking the rearview mirrors every few seconds for a tail. “Call me with an update as soon as you have one.”
“Copy that. Where will you be?”
“Off the grid.” The two-million-dollar bounty didn’t leave me much choice.
Tyler paused. “Something you want to tell me?”
He knew I would never walk away from my business unless it was serious. “Candle will tell you what you need to know.” I hoped.
“How long are we talking about?”
“A week.” Max. If it took any longer than that to sort this out, then it was beyond my scope and I’d have to tell her as much. “Who’s in the office?”
“Everyone’s on assignment.”
“Anything I need to know about?” I usually had a hand in every assignment. I kept tabs on my men and the clients, and I checked each open account daily. I shadowed the men randomly, I took clients of my own, and I watched everything because that’s how I ran my business. I wasn’t paid the big bucks because I passed shit off. But now I was going to test just how strong of a business I’d built.