Page 43 of Property of the Hellfire Riders

As the chairs scrape back and the members start filing out, I catch Hawk's eye.

“The hell are you doing?”

“What?” I ask innocently, but he's not buying it.

He narrows his eyes, but after a beat, he jabs a finger at my chest. “You better not let your dick do your thinking when on patrol. Got it, Tank?”

“I got it.”

“You know I’m counting on you to keep your brothers in line.”

“And you know that’s what I’m good at.”

Hawk leans back in the chair, rubbing his temples. Vance stands like a still shadow beside him, mindlessly playing with his pocketknife. The one Hawk made from him. I have one as well.

“I understand that we’ve got a little problem upstairs right now,” Hawk says, “we need to find out what she is and who sent her first. I don’t want any more surprises. We bring in the wrong kind of attention now, and we’ll have more than just the Dead Demons on our ass.”

“What has she said to you?” I ask.

Hawk shakes his head. “Nothing. She seems to be working hard at playing the role of an obedient girl. But there’s no way she is or was with the Demons.”

“You still think she’s a cop though?” I ask.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? And we’ve led her right into the heart of our operations,” Vance adds.

“Better to keep the enemy close,” Hawk mutters before he smiles. “I don’t know many feds that will let you fuck them though.”

I narrow my eyes, but Vance never looks away from his knife.

“She’s playing us,” he says.

Hawk shrugs. “Maybe I like games. Besides, she’s a distraction I need right now as much trouble as she might be; Tank to her to one of our fields. The location of which would be good intel for whoever wants to take a hit. So we wait. If no one does anything great. If someone tries to mess with the crops then we’ll have a pretty damn good idea who she’s working with.”

“That was too big of a risk,” Vance hisses.

“We have hundreds more north of here. I want to know who's trying to get under our skin.” He looks at me expectantly. “Well? You're gonna stand there and jack off or get to work.”

“What do you want me to do about Izzy?” I ask.

“Keep her close; find out what she’s after. If she tries leaving then fucking follow her.”

“Got it.”

Hawk stands then. “Make sure you do.”

I turn and head for the exit, Vance right on my heels. As I walk, I run my hand through my hair, trying to think about what the fuck I’m going to do.

I stareat the empty apartment.

Great.

She’s not in the goddamn apartment.

I can already hear Hawk cussing me out that we lost her. Nothing appears out of place. The food Vance got for her is still out on the table, snacked on. I walk over and feel the temperature of the takeout box, it’s still warm which means she hasn’t gotten far.

But there’s no Izzy to be found.

Fuck me.

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