Page 36 of Filthy Hot

The three of us leave the house without a response. I don’t even bother looking behind me as I turn toward my bike. I climb on, start the engine with a roar, and don’t even attempt to keep my tires from squealing as I ride away from the house and toward the bar.

I am over an hour from Pineville.

If someone is already there, I am fucked. Completely fucking fucked. And so is Kyle. If anything happens to her, it’s on my head. Just looking into her eyes, I know she has been through a lot of shit. She doesn’t need more. Not from me.

The rumbling of the bikes behind me is in the near distance, but I don’t slow down. They can catch up to me. I ride. Hard and fast, just like I’m going to fuck Kyle later.

Once I know she’s okay.

Once I know that the Southern Mafia has not tried to use her or anyone else at Sal’s as leverage.

Once I know she is safe.

The Southern Mafia had been fucking with Sal, that’s been made clear. They’ve been demanding he pay them for a while, but I didn’t think they were ready to strike yet. But as I ride closer to the bar, a thought flashes through my head.

What if they were watching us.

Sure, the Dark Horse MC thought we were one step ahead of them, but we got started a little too late. If they had been watching Sal, that means they were watching him talk to us.

They watched us show up, hash out plans for the expansion. Watched us cross the Texas border and head straight for what we thought was their headquarters. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re completely stupid.

They’ve been around since before the Dark Horse MC. They’re an old establishment. They probably have more than one meeting place. So, as much as I want to believe we’re so much smarter than them, we fell right into their goddamn trap.

When I pull up to the bar, I notice the parking lot is empty save for Kyle’s car. None of the strippers' cars are even here.Fuck. Instinctually, I want to charge into the bar and start moving room by room, looking for Kyle.

I don’t.

Instead, I wait the whole two minutes it takes for Atomic and King to appear. Climbing off my bike, I stand next to Kyle’s car and glance through the windows. There is nothing that would raise alarm. Everything looks exactly how it did the last time I saw it.

When Atomic and King turn their engines off, dismount from their bikes, and reach my side, I don’t have to explain to them what has me pausing from entering.

“You got enough ammo?” King asks.

That’s a double-edged question. Because clearly, your gun can have enough, but a person never can.

“I have enough that I can get through whatever is thrown our way once we walk into the building,” I state.

Atomic laughs, but it quickly dies. “No other cars, not Sal's or even the bartender’s. I don’t like this.”

I hum and jerk my chin toward the building. There is a moment of silence in which none of us moves, the stillness around us a little too much. It almost feels like it’s a silence so deafening that it’s causing high-pitched screeching in my ears.

I’m not sure if the others hear it. If they do, they don’t say anything. Slowly, without speaking, we move in unison toward the back door of the bar. Atomic reaches for the handle of the door first, turning it as he attempts to tug it open.

“Locked,” he grumbles.

“I could shoot it open,” King suggests.

For whatever reason, that makes me laugh. “The front is probably unlocked,” I say, lifting my hand and pointing toward the front parking lot.

Wordlessly, we move simultaneously, as a single unit, to the front of the building. This time, King reaches for the handle of the front door and turns it before he tugs on it. The door opens, slowly.

Atomic is the first to step inside, and maybe I should fight him on that, but I’m not sure I want to be the first to see whatever is in there waiting for us. The impending doom is too much, a black cloud that threatens to choke me.

“It’s empty,” he calls out.

King jerks his chin toward the open doorway. Clearly a sign that it’s my turn to step inside. I move through the door, holding my breath as I step into the empty bar. It is empty. Really empty. Too empty. You can feel it. Nobody has been here.

“What the fuck?” King hisses as he steps up beside me.

---