Page 31 of My Temptation

“When did you lose consciousness?” Jax asked.

“Covered Beth when he shot but slammed my forehead off the fucking floor.”

Cam shifted his attention to Kyle. “You ever hear about it?”

He shook his head. “Never came up in any shit I found either.”

“He thinks there’s one.” Brody put his hands on his hips. “That means until he finds it, she’ll be alive.”

Striker slowly faced Brody, and while anger was dominant in his expression, fear simmered just below the surface. “No way to know that.”

Brody watched him closely. “Can’t let you go after her.”

“You can’t stop me.” He pushed away from the table. “But I’d like to see you try.”

Kyle slapped his hand against Striker’s chest while Brody spoke quietly. “We are not your enemy right now, and we want this bastard almost as much as you do. I promised you we’d keep her safe, and we failed.” Brody’s voice hardened. “We will find her and bring her home to you.”

“I failed. I was distracted with her behind me. Saw him pull the fucking gun but was afraid of her getting caught in the crossfire, so I held back. I should’ve shot the bastard,” Striker admitted.

“Don’t second-guess it, brother.” Brody put his hands on his hips. “You have good instincts. If it was safe to fire, you would’ve.” He twisted his neck to look at Jax. “You wanna lay out the plan so far?”

Striker replied before Jax had the chance. “The plan is to tear apart this fucking town until I find the bastard and then end his life slowly. Like I should’ve already done.”

“We’re civilians, brother. I can’t protect you from any consequences if you follow that plan.”

“Don’t care about any fucking consequences.”

“Beth will.” I spoke for the first time, knowing Beth’s opinion needed to be shared. She did what she did in an effort to save him, and she wouldn’t want him to do anything to jeopardize himself or this team. “She’s going to need you, Striker, and not just to find her and bring her home. She’s going to need you to be free after we do that.” I stood and leaned over the table. “If you can’t keep it in check for yourself, then keep it in check for her.”

He studied me for a long moment before jerking up his chin and shifting his attention back to Brody, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was willing to give us a chance to find her as a team.

But I had no doubt that he would go rogue if we didn’t make progress and make it quickly.

And then all bets were off.

9

MILA

With my adrenaline pumping, I stared at the computer screen in front of me but once again found nothing useful and cursed. “Dammit, where the hell would he take her?”

Kyle glanced my way. “Keep looking. We’ll find something.”

“It’s been too long.” I shook my head while typing on the keyboard. “He’s had Beth for hours.”

Taking a deep breath, I scoured social media sites for any information that may have been posted by or about Max Skinner.?? But we hit walls and were operating on borrowed time.

Glancing up, I watched Striker pacing in front of where Kyle and I worked. His skin was pale, and I knew from what the others said that he’d lost a lot of blood, but he’d demanded to be released from the hospital and was waiting for us to find any direction to send him so he could do what he did best. Track. But unfortunately, we kept hitting walls.

When Kyle leaned forward and whistled, I rolled my chair beside where he sat. “Well, well, well, look what we have here.”

“Jesus,” I whispered, staring at pictures of what looked like a supply of everything someone would need to survive for years.

“What the hell am I looking at?” Striker barked when he moved to stand behind us.

“Seems Rick Skinner is planning for the apocalypse. He thinks the world’s ending, and he’s built himself a bunker.” Kyle pointed at some pictures. “That’s the inside.”

“What’d you find?”

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