Page 115 of Ruthless Reign

I didn’t miss the look he gave me. The you-owe-me look that I knew meant that if I was even a minute late for any of our monthly dinners, I’d never hear the end of it.

Mitch had his phone out and was dialing his wife again within seconds.

Damien crossed the floor and extended his hand to Gregory.

Gregory only looked at it, disgust written in his features. “As a favor to my daughter, St. Vincent, I’ll shelter your people, but that doesn’t make us friendly.”

Damien dropped his hand. “Understood. I’ll leave it to Mitch to coordinate the details with you then. Mitch.”

Mitch nodded.

My dad had me wrapped up in a tight squeeze before I saw it coming, his signature Paco Rabone scent heavy in my nose. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Be safe, bug.”

My throat felt thick at the nickname he hadn’t used since I was in middle school. It was what Mom used to call me, too.

And then he was gone as quickly as he came, leaving me feeling both free and trapped.

Guilty and shameless.

They shouldn’t have split up.

On the surface, breaking into two groups taking two different routes sounded like a good way for at least one group to make it to the destination unimpeded.

But—because there was always a but—if you looked hard enough, splitting up meant less men available to defend in case of an ambush.

And it had been four days.

With any luck, my da still wouldn’t have replenished everything I destroyed at the storage unit, but I knew he didn’t believe in luck. So, it was likely he’d already replaced most of it, if not every last bullet by now.

“Expecting company?” Kaleb asked me from the front seat of the Bronco, his cool metal eyes cutting back to me every few seconds when he really should be paying more attention to the streets around us.

“Yes,” I answered. “And so should you be, mate.”

His jaw clenched, but he continued without another retort. His gaze shifted from me back to the road with double the amount of scrutiny he had moments before.

Behind Kaleb’s Bronco, a nondescript minivan followed. In it were a few other Saints bound for Damien’s place.

The rest of them, with Damien at the helm, headed for the autobody shop. He’d see them there safely and wait for Kaleb and Hardin to return with their mother later tonight for a meeting with Damien’s brother from Thorn Valley and his top guys.

If this Diesel St. Crow had as many men available as I overheard Damien say to his sons, then they might stand a chance. And once he joined them, the other smaller gangs who’d been holding out on them would likely follow once they saw inflated numbers on their side.

“Fuck, there’s construction up ahead,” Kaleb said, tapping the map on the dash screen to check for another route around it.

“Go through it.”

He narrowed his eyes on me in the rearview, throwing a hand out to indicate the road ahead. “I can’t just go through it. Look at that shit. The road’s all blocked off.”

“Just go through.”

There were no workers, only orange pylons and wood blockades and a couple flashing lights.

This had my da written all over it.

But maybe I was being paranoid. He had no idea of our route or Damien’s plans to travel tonight. He’d have had to set up several roadblocks just like this one to force deviation that might work in his favor.

“Take the next left and use that road,” Becca said, pointing at the screen. The one-way that runs up from here to Pattinson Ave.

“You shouldn’t deviate,” I tried one last time. “Those are just wooden roadblocks and pylons. Go through them.”

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