Page 122 of Ruthless Reign

He answered on the second ring. “Damien?”

“Hey, D, what’s your status?”

I could hear shouting in the background. The rev of engines. Something wasn’t right.

“Phones are compromised,” came Diesel’s breathless reply and then to someone else, “Get that fucking shit out of the road!”

Ma took the phone from Dad, pulling the receiving end closer to her mouth. “Diesel,” she snapped down the line. “What’s happening?”

“We met some of your friends,” he said in a dangerous tone, and I could tell he was moving away from the noise to hear us better.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“You’re on speaker,” Dad explained. “What do you mean you met them?”

A frustrated sigh came through the other end. “They must’ve figured you’d reach out to us, Damien. We were ready to go hours ago but we can’t leave.”

My blood fucking boiled in my veins.

“What?” I snapped.

“We can’t leave,” Damien repeated. “They slashed all the tires. Every fucking one of them. We’re working to replace them, but two of the three roads out of Thorn Valley are completely barricaded with a fucking city block worth of scrap metal, busted glass, and trash. Like they just dumped a whole goddamned trash barge onto the roads. We’re working to move it, but?—”

“And the other road,” I interrupted. He said two of the three ways out of the town were blocked.

“The bastards are manning that one. They have snipers up in the apartment buildings and a roadblock set up. Looks like they made some kind of a deal with Thorn Valley PD. Fuckers are going to regret it when this is over.”

I wondered where they might’ve gotten that idea?

I pinched the bridge of my nose, the pounding in my chest moving to thud behind my eyes as my skin heated.

“You can’t push through?” Ma asked.

“Not without losing men. I’m sorry, Sloane. We’re doing everything we can to get out.”

Everything that didn’t involve destroying Thorn Valley. Diesel wouldn’t destroy his town or allow any harm to come to the people in it. After everything that happened there last year, they’d accepted him as an unofficial mayor. He’d made promises. Promises not to allow any violence or violent crime into the town while he ran it.

It’d been going well. The people felt safe. He wouldn’t jeopardize that, and we couldn’t expect him to risk killing innocent people to get out. Not when this wasn’t his fight to begin with.

“Keep trying,” Ma said.

“You know I will,” Diesel replied. “I’ll contact you from a burner when there’s anything new to report. Don’t call me on this line again.”

The line went dead when he was done, and Dad snatched the cell back from Ma to curl it into his clenched fist. “Fuck,” he muttered through his teeth.

“How’d you guess?” Becca asked, and Aodhán turned to her. “Because it’s what I would’ve done if I knew the Saints had other chapters nearby.”

“Or you told them we had help coming,” Dad said in a lethal tone.

“He didn’t,” Becca bolted to her feet despite Kaleb trying to get her to sit back down. “He saved my fucking life out there today, Damien. All you’ve done is put it at risk.”

I flinched. It was a low blow, but maybe one Dad needed to hear to get him to shut the fuck up and pay attention.

Until an hour ago, I wasn’t sure I could ever trust Aodhán, either. But he saved Pikey in the minivan. Kaleb said he might’ve saved him when he shot down the Son about to absolutely stomp on his still-healing chest wound.

…and he saved Becca. Brought her back to us.

Killed his own men to do it seemingly without blinking.

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