Page 19 of The Devil's Ice

“And it’s all just sitting there? Unprotected?”

“Basic security stuff. Wolf will say that Kinney doesn’t even want his own MC brothers to know about it, so there’s no guard. Kinney relies on the cabin’s remoteness to keep things safe, and his thinking is that if it’s clearly run-down and getting worked on to make it liveable, then people will just assume that it’s a shack with no really value. Makes no sense for a crappy cabin to have state-of-the-art security systems all over it, right? Wolf is going to be very,veryclear that there’s a cool million just sitting there all on its own, justbeggingto be carried off.”

Ice twigged immediately, and he gave a rare smile. “You don’t say?”

“Uh-huh. Naturally, Wolf will talk about Kinney’s fictional cabin quite a bit, so long as he can bring it up naturally.”

“Of course.”

“With The Hellions’ financial situation as dire as it is, there’sno waythat Viper will pass up this kind of easy money.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“And so when Bale talks to his man inside about what information Wolf is passing on, the guy who’s so high-up that he’lldefinitelybe in the know about opportunities like this, it’ll be really odd if the CInevermentions this. Right?”

“Right. I mean, he wouldn’t be able to report every single conversation that Wolf has with Viper, but it’d be weird if this kind of huge opportunity didn’t come upat all.”

“That’s what we thought. And if the CI doesn’t mention the deal, thenwhat elsemight he not be telling Bale? Or…”

“Or,” Ice finished. “What else might Bale not be tellingus.”

They locked eyes again, more grimly this time.

“So,” Ice said softly. “You and Wolf don’treallytrust Bale and his CI, then?”

“Ice.” Scars ran his hands through his hair. “In a situation like this, me and Wolf trust me and Wolf.” He looked down at Wolf’s cut again. “And you.”

**

Ice left the meeting room, feeling better than he had in two weeks. As he’d followed Scars out into the hallway, it had come to him suddenly and in a blinding flash just howbadlyhe needed to be useful, to be of service. To his MC, to his brothers, to his Presidents (bothof them, because in his mind Wolf and Scars held that title simultaneously). The fact was that as much as he regarded himself as solitary and removed, as cold and implacable, he was lying to himself about that in some ways. The truth was that he was part of a family of brothers, and he was fiercely driven to protect them.

Oh, he’d always excelled at Enforcing, of course, but he’d always thought that it was because he was violent and cruel. He intimidated people with relish, and left men bleeding on a floor without a backwards look, and he could snap a man’s neck without so much as a blink. Zero regrets, no guilt or shame.

But maybe it wasn’t rage or violence that drove him on in those moments. Maybe it was because what he was doing was in service to his MC, and doing what he did kept them safe. Maybe he was an excellent Enforcer because he wanted to protect his family, and he was motivated to go to any and all lengths so thattheydidn’t have to. Maybe that wasalsowhat had made him an outstanding SEAL, a brother-in-arms who never backed down or away, never left a man behind, never flinched from his duty, no matter how bloody or savage.

Or maybe he was just a fucking monster.

He was musing on this new perspective of himself when he saw Vix come in to start the day shift. Over the past week or so, he’d noticed that she’d switched from nights, and he couldn’t say that he really blamed her: it was the easiest way to avoid him, since he was often at the gym during the day with his personal training clients. At nights he’d bounce at Satan’s for a bit of extra cash, so she was pretty effectively staying the hell away from him, even though shehadto be hurting financially. Tips were way better at midnight than at noon, for goddamn sure.

Well. Time to makethissituation right too. If it was at all possible for him to do so.

Next stop on the Apology Tour: Victoria Station.

She looked up and saw him; right away, she turned smartly and marched her pert little butt down to the staff room. Ice followed her, feeling creepy and gross like a stalker, but he decided there and then to apologize. He thought about the little spitfire more than he could believe – mostly during the long hours when his parents had dragged him out of sleep and out of bed – andthatmade him think that he didn’tjustmiss her hot body and richter-scale orgasms.

He missed her perfume, its fresh, pure scent, like something from a summer morning that he’d forgotten long ago. He missed her devastating eyes, how she could level him with a glance, how they flashed when she came hard against his body. He missed her lips –bothsets, if he was being honest – and he loved how they wrapped around his cock, butalsohow she smiled at him as he teased her nipples, andalsohow her pussy tasted on his tongue. He missed looking across the bar at her as she worked, and seeing how every man in the place stared at her, their eyes following her every movement – all the while knowing thathewas the only one allowed to touch her, to see her naked, to be inside that astonishing little body.

He missedher. And he was such a fucking idiot, that he hadn’t even contemplated whatthatmeant until he’d hurt her.

Ice opened the door and saw that she was alone in the room. She was fixing her lipstick and her hair, adjusting her tight, sheer blouse over her breasts. She huffed a bit at his entrance, shook her blonde head, started on her eye liner.

“Vix?”

She carried on resolutely running the black pencil over her lids, probably more thickly than she intended.

Ice walked up behind her, and she finally met his gaze in the oval mirror.

“What?” she snapped. “What do you want?”

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