Page 45 of Necessary Evil

“Shouldn’t you guys…” Lucy began.

“No.”

“Hell no.” Warden shook his head.

“Not unless we want our balls cut off.” Sentinel grabbed his helmet and headed for the door.

Ryder paid in cash and turned to leave. Everything might have ended peacefully, but then one of the idiots slapped her on the ass. Without a wasted movement, she back-kicked the man in his stomach. When he bent over in pain, Ryder whirled and punched him in the jaw. The force of it took him to the floor. Ducking the other guy’s wild swing, she thrust an uppercut under his chin that clocked his mouth closed. He staggered back. She finished him up with a roundhouse kick that flung him into two guys seated at the counter. They shoved him off them and he sank to the ground.

“Sorry about that,” she apologized to them, tugging down her shirt.

“Are you done?” Evil drawled.

Ryder looked around the bar. There might have been a few more takers, since none of those fuckers liked to see a woman show any amount of power. But the owner took a shotgun from behind the bar and racked it.

“Get out.”

“I’m going.” Ryder turned her back on the man with the shotgun and side-eyed a few of the jeering bikers.

“Bring that shit over here, bitch.”

Let it go, Ryder.

“How rough do you like it?”

Take a step closer and you’ll find out.

But if Ryder could behave, so could Evil. Still, this whole bar could burn down with everyone in it and the world would be a better place.

It looked like it was going to remain at the level of just talking smack. Ryder, to her credit, sauntered past him without another glance behind her. Evil guided Lucy between them. If the bar’s patrons spilled out into the parking lot in a brawl, he wanted to be able to stuff her into her car, where she would be safe.

Lucy let out a huge breath. “Well, that was exciting.”

Evil handed her into her car and gave her the address for Meyers’s office. “We’ll be right behind you. Don’t get out of your car until we get there.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

“Because I want everyone to know you’re with us.”

Lucy sighed. “All right. You’ll be right behind me?”

Evil nodded but waited until she was safely out of the parking lot before he got on his bike. If trouble was going to happen, it would have done so by now.

“Think we’re going to have a problem with the Blood Zombies?” Ryder asked. It was one of their patches who had grabbed her ass.

“I don’t think so. The other guy, maybe. He’s an officer with the Pyros.”

“Who the fuck are the Pyros? I didn’t recognize the colors,” she said, starting her bike.

“White supremacists.” Evil shrugged. “They like to firebomb black churches. Hence the name.”

“Douchebags. Bring ’em on.”

Evan didn’t think they’d have the stones to firebomb The Blue Line, but he’d put a warning in Jules’s ear to watch out for them just in case they connected the garage to him. Long shot, but better safe than sorry. Maybe he’d contact the Judge and see if there was any interest in putting the Pyros in the ground.

Evan gave them the signal to ride, and they all roared off and soon caught up with Lucy. Sentinel and Ryder buzzed by her on opposite sides while he and Warden took up the rear. He wondered again if he had any business bringing Lucy into this life. But they’d spent two years avoiding the attraction between them, and at the very least they had to get that out of their systems.