Page 19 of Kade

“Guys.” Channing slid his hands in his pockets, waiting with the others. “Shall we do this?”

Yes. Right. Track down Maddy needed to commence.

I tipped my chin up. “Let’s go.”

Everything else got shoved down, way down inside of me.

We crossed the street, returning to the funeral home where we were parked. He dropped his voice, shoving his hands in his pockets. “If she’s fighting…”

My gut tightened. I didn’t like hearing that possibility, but it was within the realm of possibility. She wasmydaughter.

I bit out, “Then we’re getting her into a training program, and we’ll monitor her closely.”

He nodded, his shoulders relaxing a little. “She’s got the bloodlust. Same as we did growing up.”

I gave him a look, raising an eyebrow.

He met my gaze, and the tops of his cheeks flushed before he looked away.

He wasn’t going to admit it and I had to wonder about that. Why not? Why wasn’t he going to admit it?

Because westillhad the bloodlust. Maybe it was there to act as a distraction from the last week and what we were going to deal with tomorrow? Maybe I was leaning on it for a slight reprieve from burying my father tomorrow. Either way, our bloodlust was here. Right now. In both Logan and myself. He was every bit as excited as I was to head off into whatever the fuck we were going to find ourselves in. Into the fray? Into the chaos of Fallen Crest? Into what?

I didn’t know, but I was buzzing.

I should’ve been worried about it.

I just wasn’t.

8

MASON

When we arrived, it was clear that the place Maddy had gone wasn’t just an underground fighting ring for people her age, like it had been back in the day. There were all ages, including adults. The fighting was something entirely different as well.

Weapons were allowed in the ring. The betting was out in the open. I recognized a bunch of gang tattoos.

Channing groaned. “Fuck. I know a good portion of these guys.”

I cast him a look, thinking he was referring to the guys he tended to hunt down as a bounty hunter.

A group stood to the side wearing Red Demon cuts and we were walking past a whole line of Harley motorcycles parked in the front. This was all sorts of bad.

Logan moved in close, nudging my elbow. “People are recognizing you.” More than a few heads turned our way. I clocked it too.

“If you see a phone, grab it,” I told him, as well as Matteo and Nate.

“No.” Channing halted us. He held up a device. “If anything happens, I’ll hit this button. It’ll jam every cell within three miles. All of my guys have it. We use it when we have a high-risk bounty.”

Nate shook his head. “Monroe, fuck. I don’t know if that makes you scarier or if we should be comforted.”

I grinned, feeling exactly the same. Logan eyed the device like he wanted to eat it.

Matteo was frowning, looking around the place. He hadn’t been around for a lot of our escapades in high school, and he hadn’t been close enough for a lot of the shit we did in college either. This was new to him.

“Can we talk about some sort of game plan? We’re all, uh, not exactly young anymore. Some of us are hitting our forties.”

“Pushing forty,” Logan clarified, shooting Nate a smirk.

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