Page 72 of Run From Me

“Good. Her tuition should be taken care of, but if they need anything else, let us know.”

Tank’s father had died a few years ago, and like all things, medical care was enough to sink any good, hard-working family. The fucking system was broken, and until we could take over the world and fix it, this was our little perfect world.

A little hand snaked into mine, and I hid the joy that wanted to push right through my focus and derail my next vendetta.

I nodded for Tank to follow me into the shop as I held onto Cali’s hand tighter than needed, but she wasn’t fighting me. I wasn’t fighting me. I needed to keep her safe even if I wasn’t accepting the why of it all.

We never let anyone into our living area, but the shop? Everyone was welcome.

“Let me get things settled. Rusty? You good too?”

Tank had to ride with Rusty until I could give him back the bike. Poor guy. But while I had them here, we needed to do a little cleanup. There were still too many Viper thugs sitting at my girl’s door.

“Yeah. Sure. The night’s still young. Want us to grab a few more guys? A bunch of us were headed to May’s.”

I shrugged. “We shouldn’t need more than us but go grab something to eat and meet me back here in an hour.”

We shared nods, and they were off into the night.

“What little adventure, Xander?”

I just shook my head and led her past all the metal. Past the couches and pieced together set up in the back of the shop for anyone to crash or hang. We followed Zeid as he held the door into our private garage.

“Rouge has your bike at the garage. He made sure they got any evidence out of there the second shit looked sketchy,” Zeid gestured toward the empty space.

“Yeah. Any word on who was behind this?”

Zeid’s eyes flicked from Cali to Rylee.

“Why don’t you two go get them to bed. I’ll let you know when I find anything. Right now I’m keeping tabs on the dead Vipers they’re finding. Cali, you getting called in for this shit?”

I looked down at her. I’d almost forgotten she had a job. One that I’d exploited only days ago. Fuck.

“You—”

She put her finger over my lips.

“Shh, sweetie. The adults are talking.”

I gave her a deadpan look before grabbing her wrist and dragging my tongue over her finger, sucking it in my mouth.

I could see her nipples harden through the thin shirt and the even thinner dress below.

“Jerk,” she said, before looking back at Zeid. “No. That’s not city limits. I can’t cover up those deaths. Whoever organized this shit knew what they were doing.”

Zeid ran his hands through his hair.

“Fuck, she’s right. I didn’t even think about it. It’s unincorporated. There are probably cops from two different jurisdictions showing up there, and ours aren’t the ones that would be taking the lead.”

I nodded and lifted Cali into my arms.

“Enough business. Off to bed, ladies.”

Rylee was already half asleep on Cas’s chest while my little Sparky looked like she was ready to gut me.

“I’m not tired.”

I smiled down at her as I headed for the door to our private apartments behind the highly secured door that would bring me a lot of peace tonight when I had to go handle more shit.

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