Page 71 of Kilo's Edge

“Shit!”

His arms were wrapped around my waist and he gave up all pretenses of trying to keep from hugging me as I poured on even more speed. If we passed a fucking cop right now we were goners, but I could see headlights in my mirrors. The faster they caught up to us, the more time they had to fuck us up. The others weren’t going to be able to help until we got out to the desert. We couldn’t have a shootout on I-10.

A vehicle pulled up on my right and I risked a glance over, then swore as I saw a man in a ski mask. The only reason I was able to even see it is because he was drifting into my lane, side by side with me. There was less than a foot between us. “Subtle,” I muttered. Code shifted his head, burying his right cheek against my back and I grinned. He was a smart fucking kid. He was making sure that the sicarios couldn’t see his face.

The SUV swerved toward my bike again, and I ground my teeth together as I veered onto the paved shoulder to avoid getting clipped.

“They think splattering us all over the freeway won’t kill us?” Code hollered. “Dipshits! If they want her alive this isn’t a smart play!”

I agreed. Neither of us were wearing helmets. Shit had happened too quickly to bother. It was a good thing that the guys had stuck a million bobby pins into Code’s wig or it probably wouldn’t be staying on right now. One of the club bunnies had picked up all the supplies that OD would need for tonight’s deception. She’d assured OD that this would work since Code had a bit longer hair. It was sort of floppy on the top, so we’d just rammed the pins into his head, ignoring his cursing and the punches he threw.

We were coming up to a semi. “Duck!” I shouted, then swerved under the trailer and came out on the other side, riding on the far left shoulder. It was a dangerous fucking risk. One wrong move and we could have ended up under the semi’s back tires, but it worked. And the fucking SUV wasn’t going to be able to get through that big rig to get at us. It gave me a few minutes of relief as I coasted along with the truck. My eyes narrowed as I saw the exit I needed coming up.

“Kilo,” Code warned.

“I see it,” I said, but not loudly enough for him to hear over the road noise. Focusing on the plan forming in my mind, I waited. I only had one chance to do this right.

“Kilo!”

I gunned it. The bike lurched forward and I swerved in front of the semi, then across three more lanes of traffic and barreled down the exit ramp. The sounds of blaring horns followed us as we sped off into the night. I chuckled as I saw the SUV shoot past the exit. “Stupid fuckers.”

The smile slipped off my face as two more SUVs and a truck took our exit. “Shit.”

“Well, at least you lost one of them,” Code called out.

“They’ll catch up,” I replied in a grim tone.

“Remind me again why our guys were up ahead waiting for us?” Code asked.

Ignoring him, I dug my phone out of my pocket and slapped it onto the mount on my bike. It was dark as fuck out here now that we were racing away from I-10 and our destination was more a set of grid coordinates and not so much a location. The coords were already typed into the app and I was searching for that damn cut off that was going to bring us out onto shitty dirt roads. That was going to slow us down a lot. I needed every minute of our lead to keep ahead of the fuckers following us. I hadn’t even seen our own guys following and hoped to hell they were back there. I didn’t want to take all these fuckers on with just Code.

The phone screen lit up with a phone call. It was Lockout. Shit. Why was the president of the Viking’s Rampage calling me now? That couldn’t be good. There was the cut off. Glancing at the phone, I made the turn, revving the engine as the tires slipped on the loose sand. I managed to muscle the bike into staying upright as I took the corner too fast.

I went to punch at the phone screen to connect the call when we were rammed from behind. “Dammit!” I growled, gritting my teeth as my bike started the death wobble from hell. There was no saving it. I kept a neutral grip on the bars, eased off the gas, and leaned into the handlebars but between that hit and the sand we were going down.

A shout was pulled from my chest as the heavy ass motorcycle landed on my leg and I slid along with it, trapped. I hoped like fuck that Code had managed to fall clear of the bike and the road. If he got run over because I couldn’t keep my bike upright, I was never going to forgive myself. Dust billowed as I slid to a stop. It wasn’t even possible to pinpoint what hurt because it was like my body was one big area of road rash. But nothing was broken and I was alive. That was a mercy in itself.

I shoved the bike off my leg and staggered to my feet. Looking around in the dark, I searched for Code. He was running toward me, dress long gone. He’d probably pulled it off the first second he could and dropped it. We hadn’t quite made it to the location, but it was close enough. It was dark out here, and there was no one around for miles, which was the whole point. We pulled our weapons and watched as the SUV that had rammed us idled a couple hundred yards up the road. They were assessing us. Just like we were observing them. Only they had the upper hand. For now.

“This is why,” I told him, “we didn’t have the guys waiting. We didn’t even make it to the meet up spot.”

Code nodded his head, his gun in his hand. “Yeah. Okay. Never question Ruck. Got it.”

I chuckled. “He does have an uncanny ability to sense trouble and see all the damn outcomes of a fight before they even happen.”

Whatever happened next, we’d need to stall until our guys caught up. As much as I wanted to grab my phone and call Lockback, there wasn’t time. All I could do was hope that he was just updating us that they were at Roger’s. I had to trust that this was going to work out. My hand tightened on my gun grip as the SUV started a slow roll toward us.

CHAPTER 30

Camila

There was no holding back the gasp of pain as I came back to consciousness. I should, so the jerk who had me didn’t know I was awake, but my head was shattering. I tried to move my hand to feel my temple to make sure it was still there and didn’t have a crack slicing through it, but neither hand would move. Peeking open my eyes, I saw that my hands were bound in front of me with a zip tie.

I’d been dumped on the floor and was lying on my side. My cheek was pressed to the floor and my temple was throbbing like a shard of glass was impaling me. I wondered whether I’d hurt myself in the initial fall or if he’d thrown me on the floor so hard I’d hit my head then. Not that it really mattered.

He was on the couch nearby, muttering to himself as he held his phone to his ear. “Useless fucking people. Can’t even answer phones. What’s the point of instant communication if you won’tanswer your damn phone when a guy has the fucking thing you want?” He scowled over at me.

I wasn’t sure if the dirty look was because I’d shot him, dug my thumb into the bullet wound and hurt him further, ran, or because he somehow was blaming me that my kidnapper wasn’t taking his call. Maybe a mix of it all, since his glare was deepening by the minute. Or perhaps he was just hoping I’d never wake back up.

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