Page 19 of Grave Games

“Exactly.” Tyr nodded, his lips curling back in a snarl. “He has a problem with me and how I run things? Fine. Get the fuck out. But that’s not the choice he’s making. He’s making a choice to betray us. So you tell me, Tom. What should we do about people who make the decision to betray us—who have never been loyal to you or me—when we’ve all dedicated our lives to committing our loyalty to this club, to this brotherhood? To thisfamily?”

Tomahawk’s tantrum face abated, and righteous anger began to trickle in. “We show no mercy.”

“Damn right.” Tyr pounded his fist on the table. “No mercy.”

“No mercy.” The chant gained strength and took on a life of its own. As the words rang through the marble and cinderblock front room, I knew with everything in me that if anything happened to Shiloh, I would absolutely show no mercy to my enemy.

All I had to do now was convince Shy that the enemy wasn’t me.

Chapter Seven

Death By Snow Shovel

Shiloh

Carrying a snow shovel on the L was just as weird as I thought it would be. Luckily, I didn’t have to be at work until four, which meant I skipped both morning and evening rush hours on the public transit, so stares from my fellow commuters—what few there were—was totally manageable. I also made sure I arrived at Buzzby’s an hour before my shift so I could dig out my poor little pickup, in part because I was worried about its battery, and in part because I didn’t want any help from a certain customer who habitually showed up after the sun was down.

Romeo.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to think of him.

I wasn’t an idiot. Clearly the man had some connection to the biker world, even though his clothes had led me to believe otherwise. The man who’d approached us—Radar—had said Romeo wasn’t wearing his colors. I knew enough about biker slang to know “colors” meant a cut or jacket that declared what club the wearer belonged to.

Club, I thought derisively, not bothering to stifle a snort as I shoveled heavy, plowed snow and ice away from my truck. That was just a euphemism forgang. Every biker was a damn dirty gangbanger on wheels, and not one of them had ever bothered to grow up beyond the frat house, party-hound age. They scoffed at the law and thought they were somehow entitled to crap on everybody else because they could ride a two-wheeler. BFD. Chimps could be trained to do that much. They weren’t special. They weren’t rock stars. They were dangerous, self-important bullies, and some of them could even fall under the category of domestic terrorist.

I hated them all.Hated.

Except…

Romeo hadn’t approached me as a badass biker who thought he was entitled to own the world, or at the very least own the highly exclusive real estate that existed between my legs. What had Radar said? Romeo had been dressed like a civilian, maybe even kicked out or excommunicated, or whatever. So, what did that mean, exactly? Maybe Romeo wasn’t a biker anymore?

Maybe.

And maybe pigs could fly.

Wishful thinking wasn’t going to keep me safe from a world I’d sworn to stay far away from, I thought, grimly trying to break up blocks of plowed snow that had been packed like concrete around my truck’s front bumper. I’d had one terrible brush with that world when I was eighteen, and I considered myself lucky to have gotten out alive. If I never saw Romeo and his perfect, angular jaw and sea-colored eyes again, it would be too soon.

“Well, this is a surprise. I thought your shift didn’t start until four.”

My blood turned as icy as the compacted snow I was trying to break up.

Holy crap.

I’d manifested Romeo just by thinking about him.

Turning slowly—mainly because I didn’t want to turn at all—I faced Romeo as he climbed out of his truck and headed in my direction. Before I even knew what I was going to do, my hand flew up, palm out.

“Stop right there. Don’t come any closer.”

He stopped, his breath making vapor trails in the icy breeze. “You gotta be kidding me. What did I do?”

“Youknow.” I straightened to full height and gripped my snow shovel with both hands. “You’re a damn dirty biker, and I hate all bikers.”

“Just so you know, that’s discrimination.”

Was he fuckingkiddingme?

“But I’m a big enough man to not hold that against you. I get that you have your reasons.” With a one-shoulder shrug, he turned to the back of his truck and hefted out a snow shovel. “By the way, how are the gloves working out?”

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