Page 2 of Bombshell

Call my momma? To come pick me up at a bar? No way in heck. I wasn’t about to send my momma into an early grave. She’d be madder than a wet hen, and it didn’t matter that I was twenty-one years old—I was not telling her I was at a bar. I had worked two jobs for over two years to be able to afford my own apartment just to get her out of my business.

“Your momma, Dolly. Call her. You need to leave. Now.”

Typically, I would do as I had been told. Not pitch a fit and be difficult. But he was asking something of me I could not do. Not today or in fifteen years. At no point in my life was it gonna be okay to tell my momma to come pick me up at a place like this. I could, however, call Pepper. She’d come and get me.

“Okay,” I replied. “But my phone is in my purse, and I left it at the booth with Bolt.”

Bolt was one of his friends, he let Canyon boss him around. Which was why he was watching my purse—Canyon had told him to.

“Fuck,” he growled.

His body had gotten so tense that I started to apologize for being a problem when he moved me over and then stepped in front of me, shoving me behind him.

I stared at his back, not sure if he now wanted me to stay here or leave.

“You lost, Abe?”

I didn’t recognize the threatening sneer in Canyon’s tone. I shivered. That didn’t sound like the man I knew at all.

“Tread carefully,” the other voice replied.

Whoever he was, I couldn’t see him due to Canyon being six foot two, and even with my heels on, I was only five-six. And oddly enough, the other guy’s first name was my best friend’s surname.

“Don’t think you can come inside my territory and make threats,” Canyon said, holding out his arms, as if to show him something. “This place is packed with Crowns.”

A low, amused chuckle came from the other man, and I tried to peer around Canyon’s body to see who that voice belonged to. There was something familiar about it. It felt as if I knew that voice.

“Perhaps prison slowed your already-addled brain,” the man said in a deep drawl.

I stopped trying to see him then. My heart began to speed up, and my eyes swung back to the leather vest covering Canyon’s back. Had he said prison? As in Canyon had been in prison?

“The building is surrounded by Judgment, and the parking lot is filled with the rest. Did you really think I wouldn’t come for you when they let your sorry ass out?”

My hand flew to my mouth as I covered the gasp. This was bad. My eyes scanned the area that I could see. Men stood with their hands on the guns at their hips. As if, at any minute, the place was going to erupt in gunshots.

“You really want to do this? After five years?” Canyon asked.

“Yeah, it seems I do,” the man replied.

He seemed much more relaxed about this entire thing. Although I couldn’t see him, his voice never rose. The tone didn’t change. He could have been having a polite conversation.

A gunshot rang out then, and I screamed before grabbing Canyon’s vest and burying my face in it.

“The next time you reach for your gun, I’ll put the bullet in your skull,” a deep, menacing voice said.

Trembling, I closed my eyes tightly, trying to decide if this was a dream, or if I should run for the door, or if I should start asking the Lord for forgiveness now, in case I didn’t make it out of here alive.

“Gage Presley?” Canyon’s tone made it hard to tell if he was asking a question or not. He seemed shocked. The tremor of fear I detected in his voice didn’t make me feel better about any of this.

Who was Gage Presley?

“You were locked up,” the familiar voice said with amusement. “Not living under a fucking rock. Surely, you know about The Judgment’s connection to the family.”

Canyon’s arm reached back, and his hand wrapped around my arm. I wanted to jerk it free and run. Maybe scream at the top of my lungs for help.

“I thought it was a rumor.”

“You thought wrong,” the scarier-sounding man said.

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