Page 73 of Maverick

“Thank you.” Tears formed in my eyes even as I rushed towards the black truck because these women were strangers a few weeks ago and now they were treating me like the one thing I never really had.

Family.

Mabel was also like family. I was starting to form a life of my own. A life and a family for Sophie and me, and that was pretty damn great.

Chapter 37

Maverick

“This shithole is where the pretty boy has been staying?” Rebel’s face twisted in disgust as we rolled up to a shitty motel on the ass end of Las Vegas. “Seems unlikely.”

“You doubt my tech prowess?” Slate clapped Rebel on the back, on brow arched in an intimidating glare.

“No, but this place? The whores only like this place because they rent the rooms in thirty-minute intervals.”

“He ain’t wrong,” Rocky said, and shook his head. “But it’s kind of perfect. A place this has no security or surveillance cameras. It’s off the beaten track, so who the fuck would recognize him here.”

“And it took us fucking forever to find him, so it worked.” My mind was still on Grace and how odd she’d been acting lately. Something was on her mind, and it was something she didn’t want to share with me. Later, I told myself. “What’s the plan?”

Diesel pushed both hands against the glass doors of the motel wearing an angry expression. “Room 212, it’s around back. The fucker’s been staying here the whole damn time.”

“Let’s go.” I was eager, maybe a little too eager, to get my hands on that son of a bitch. He’d made Grace’s life a living hell for years and who knew what kind of damage he’d done to the bright light that was Sophie. I stopped and turned to face my brothers. “What?”

“You don’t go in first, I told you it was a bad idea that you come with us,” Diesel ordered. “I don’t want this fucker leading with bullets.”

I laughed. It had taken some persuasion, but finally my club president relented. He knew how much catching this fucker and making him pay, meant to me. “Unlikely. A bully like that only goes after people he knows he can beat.” And I would love a few minutes alone with him to show him what it was like to fight a real man.

“No arguments here, but he also might react like a caged, desperate animal. I’ll go first,” Diesel said.

“No, you won’t.” Rocky put a hand to Diesel’s chest. “I’ll go first.”

I expected Diesel to argue, but he simply nodded, agreeing a little too easily. “Yeah, fine.”

“Okay, now that we’ve figured that out, let’s go. The last thing I want is for him to see us coming.”

Rebel snickered. “Do they even have windows in this place? Seems like it used to be a prison instead of a motel.”

I practically bounced on my toes I was so fucking eager to get in there and end this shitshow. “Let’s go!”

“Come on,” Rocky said with a laugh. “Before Maverick goes in half-cocked. Never thought I’d see you so worried about the competition.”

“He’s not competition. He’s an abusive asshole who deserves to have every bone in his body broken before I toss him in the ocean.” My fingers tingled with the desire to rush ahead of my brothers and do just that. But I held myself back.

“Noted. Okay, come on.”

We climbed the cement stairs that had seen better days as a unit, leaving Slate downstairs just in case any unexpected visitors decided to drop by. Rocky balled his big hand into a fist and banged three times.

There was no answer.

He knocked again, harder and louder. “Open up!”

There was still no answer, and my heart kicked against my chest, my anxiety crept up. “Did the receptionist say anything about him leaving?”

“Nope. Said he leaves late morning and returns early evening every day like clockwork. Except today.”

“Shit.” That couldn’t be good. “Move,” I ordered Rocky, barely giving him a chance to step aside before I kicked the goddamn door off its hinges. “Fuck. Shit. Goddammit!” My brothers crowded around me to see what I saw, an empty room.

It was a fucking mess, filled with discarded fast-food containers, cigarette butts, and two messy full-size beds. But that wasn’t what alarmed me. Oh no, it was the photos. Dozens of photos—of Grace and Sophie, of me and the guys, even of my grandma—and they were everywhere. “What the fuck?”

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