Page 11 of Treachery

Her words, once again, slammed into him, this time with the force of a hurricane.

Oh fuck…no, no, no!

She’d heard him, that morning after the party, when he was giving the shit to Cluster because the nosy asshole was asking too many questions about shit he had no business asking; he hadn’t been read into the assignment Frost had given him, not all of it at least. Cluster knew Locust was bringing Nadia around to keep an eye on her, and he knew about the money. The asshole put the clues together. Frost wanted it kept close to the chest, probably because he knew brothers like Patriot and Horde would have a problem with it. In the beginning, Locust hadn’tgiven a shit what or who he was supposed to do; he was loyal to the club above all else. It wasn’t the first time Frost had pulled him in for unsavory recon, but it had been the first time the target of the recon was a woman.

He'd fallen for Nadia on fucking sight; the picture Frost had given him did not do her justice, and he’d known immediately he was in fucking trouble. But…loyal motherfucker that he was, he couldn’tnotgo through with it; his prez had given him orders, and he was a faithful soldier.

And that morning, in the kitchen, with Cluster pestering him, talking shit about Nadia, and with his own guilt and anger about the whole fucking situation, he’d shot off at the mouth. He hadn’t meant a goddamn word of it—yeah, he was talking about using Nadia to get to her brother, which had been the truthbefore, but none of that shit about her, being with her, how he felt about her, had been true.

He lovedthe fuckout of that woman, couldn’t imagine his life without her in it—he’d fucking tear out his own heart and present it to her if she asked him. Fuck, he needed that woman like air and blood and water. The same woman who’d just demanded the Unchained leave her alone; thathewould leave her alone.

How was he supposed to do that when his very soul cried out for her, his heart only beating for her, his body only craving her? He wasnothingwithout his Nadia, his everything.

Speechless, his heart in his throat, he moved to follow after her, to beg her to hear him out, to give him a fucking chance to make things right. But before he could take a single step, a massive hand grabbed his arm, halting him in place.

Growling, he turned to chew the ass off the motherfucker who’d dare to keep him from getting to his woman, and looked into the glinting ice eyes of Frost.

Desperation filled Locust’s muscles, the urgency, the need to move flooding his veins with adrenaline. He couldn’t stop the thought that, if she left the compound, he’d never see her again. He couldn’t let that happen.

He jerked his arm, but Frost held fast, grunting at the effort.

Locust growled, “What the fuck? Why’d you stop me, I have to get to her?—”

Frost gave a hard shake of his head, cutting off Locust’s words. “No.”

Locust flinched at the command in that single word, then the rage nipped at him.

“What the fuck do you mean ‘no,’” he barked, snarling at the man he had a hard time respecting in that moment.

Frost pulled himself up to his full 6’7”, and stared down at Locust with such menace it nearly peeled the flesh from Locust’s bones. “I saidno, fucker.” He pointed to the door through which Nadia had fled, and spit, “That woman is no longer our business. She gave me what she could to help us find her brother, and now wewillleave her alone.”

Before Locust could open his mouth to object vehemently, Frost cast an icy glare at him, then waved Red over.

“Here,” Frost said, tossing an old cell phone to Red, who caught it and stared down at it with furrowed brows. “That’s Ratchet’s. His sister gave it to us.”

Locust stiffened. Nadia had that? Where? Why hadn’t he found it during one of his many searches through her house? The first time he’s stepped into her house, he’d marveled at how small but how comfortable it was. No larger than 900 square feet, the house was two-bedrooms, one bathroom, and had a kitchen-dining room combo. The living room was small, but it held everything a person would need to relax; comfy-looking couch, 60-inch flat screen on the wall, and all the streaming channels—his girl loved her fantasy TV shows. That first night,after he’d fucked her into a stupor, he’d done his first round of searches. It wasn’t a cluttered, overstuffed mess, but it was definitely a lot to search through to find something that could be as small as a flash drive with bank account numbers on it, to something as big as a duffel bag with stacks of benjamins in it.

That first time, and all the times after that, had revealed nothing about Ratchet, where he’d taken the money, or if Nadia was in league with her step-brother. But Locust knew, to his very bones, that Nadia had nothing to do with Ratchet…and if he’d fucking said something about it before, maybe he wouldn’t be standing there, his heart bleeding onto the floor, wanting to tear his prez’s fucking face off.

Unaware of Locust’s need for violence, Frost continued to Red, “I figured you could do your nerd magic on it and see what the fucker was doing when he was using it. Dig through everything—hell, I want to know what the fucker ordered on DoorDash. Just make sure there’s not somethin’ on there that could tell us where the fuck he went.”

Red flipped the cell over, his gaze drifting over it. “It’s a prepaid, but it should still have the SIM card, so I might be able to see if he ordered McDonalds or Panera,” he remarked, a slight curl in his lips.

Frost grunted, shaking his head. “Just get it done, chuckles,” he snapped. Shit, the man was edgy as fuck lately—the patch over from Bone Dogz was taking its toll, and the man Locust knew to be a good, honorable man, had become a grumbling, easy to anger bear, who was willing to cross a few too many lines to get what he wanted. The shit with Nadia wouldn’t have happened before the Bone Dogz contacted him. Yeah, Prez had sent him on infiltration and trap missions for the club before, but he’d never ordered Locust to target a woman.

Then again, at any time, Locust could have said no, though he’d get a beat down for it, or he could have offered anothersolution—fuck, he could have just gone in and bugged her house when she was at work, but he’d taken one look at her picture, and he couldn’t fucking help himself. He’d wanted to meet the chocolate-eyed, curvy goddess in the photo, and once he had, he’d fallen, headfirst, into a no-win situation.

And now he was reaping the consequences of his choices.

From beside him, Red gave a humorless, “Ha,” at Frost’s words, before tucking the cell into his jeans pocket, and heading back out the clubhouse door. The man used to exclusively use his room at the clubhouse, but recently, he’d been hunkered down at his own place off compound. Locust had no idea where, but he could guess the kinky fucker got up to all sorts of dirty shit there.

Turning his attention back to Frost, he didn’t miss the flash of something like regret in his eyes before it was quickly replaced with the hardass expression Frost usually carried.

“My office now,” Frost commanded, turning and heading down the hallway to his office without giving Locust a chance to argue. Not that he would; he wanted to tear Frost a new one for keeping him from following Nadia, but he also knew he couldn’t just disregard what his president ordered.

Yeah, loyal to the club at all costs, huh? Cost you Nadia, didn’t it, fucker?

Biting back a curse, he followed his prez into his office, shutting the door behind him.

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