Page 48 of The Devil's Pair

“I mean…isthis a great surprise?”

Briley opened her mouth to say something – and truly, she didn’t know what that might be – when Wolf came into the bar. He shot a ferocious glare around and jerked his head towards the conference room. Without a word, without even looking at each other, every member of The Road Devils promptly left their posts, places, and tables and followed Wolf down the hallway. Rebel reached for the kitchen phone to call the guys over at The Garage and Blue Dragon Ink to drop everything and come to the bar.

“Oh, shit,” Dux muttered. “Briley, I’m really sorry but we’ve got to get to that meeting. It’s not voluntary, and anyway, Wolf only calls us all together when something really big has happened.”

“And considering everything,” she said wryly, accepting a glass of water from Cole. “It’s bound to be about Michael. Right?”

“Almost definitely.” Drake looked down at her, thinking. “This might be a while. Darlin’, why don’t you drink that water, rest for a bit, and if you get tired and we’re still in the meeting, you go to our place and wait for us?” He fished a key out of his jeans pocket, set it down on the table. “Here.”

“I don’t have a car, though,” she said, rummaging through her purse for her phone. She opened the text app, ready to type. “What’s your address for the Uber?”

“Don’t worry about any of that. I’ll run over to Blue Dragon and ask Zoe to drive you,” Dux said. “She’s working over at the tattoo parlour right now, so I’ll just have her come get you as soon as she can.”

“Also,” Drake added. “We have a home security system, with an alarm. I’ll text you the code so you can disarm it when you get into the front hallway. Then grab something to eat, or hang out and watch TV, take a nap, whatever. Just relax while you wait. OK?”

“OK.” Briley sighed, sank a bit deeper into the chair. “That sounds good. Thank you.”

“You sure you’ll be alright here?” Drake said as his brother hurried out of Satan’s to go talk to Zoe. “I mean… something’s clearly up, and so we’re worried about you. Do you want Elle or Violet to come and sit with you?”

“No, they’re going to be busy holding down the fort while Cole and Rebel are in the meeting.” She smiled up at him, and yet again, his heart did a back-flip at her stunning beauty. “And anyway, I’m fine. I’ll just hang out for a few minutes, then I’ll go with Zoe to your place. What I came to tell you can wait a bit longer, trust me.”

Like… about five months longer.

Drake looked up as his brother shot back into the bar, nodded over at them.

“OK, darlin’,” he said, tapping the six-digit alarm code into his phone and sending it to her. “Zee will be here soon, so just sit tight.”

Briley smiled again, then watched Dux and Drake head across the large bar area, and disappear down the hallway. She glanced at the code he’d texted her, set her phone on the table, and absently reached for her ice water; as she did, her elbow hit her purse and launched it to the floor with a dramatic half-summersault. The entire contents of the purse flew everywhere– lipstick, wallet, tissues, airplane peanuts, keys, who-knows-what-else – and she rolled her eyes and cursed under her breath as she scrambled around on her knees, collecting everything up again.

By the time she’d stuffed all her belongings back in the bag, Zoe was standing there with the car keys, looking as impossibly tall and beautiful as Briley remembered her. The women embraced, and off they went. As she settled into the passenger seat, Briley was suddenly exhausted, and very glad that she had a sofa to subside onto while she waited to deliver the news to Dux and Drake that there were two babies on the way… and now the three grown-ups involved had to make some pretty big decisions.

And with a bit of luck, and with a spirit of cooperation, they’d be making decisions together about these kids for a while –like maybe about twenty years.Ifthe men wanted to be part of this, of course.

**

The Road Devils trooped into the conference room, with Drake the last one in and shutting the door behind him. There was a tense hush, and not just because of Wolf’s abrupt calling of the meeting.

At the front of the room, between Wolf and Scars, stood Matt ‘King’ Kingston.

And all the men assembled knew thatthatwas never a good thing.

“OK,” Wolf said tersely. “You all know that King bein’ here is never a great thing to have happen…”

“Thanks, Connor,” King said, his voice rumbling out of that massive chest. “I’m feeling the love.”

Wolf managed a strained grin at that. “Sorry, man, that was a pretty shit openin’ statement. Why don’t you just take the floor and tell the boys what you told me?”

“You got it.”

King stepped forward, and to a man, they remembered –yetagain– that in a room of fucking badasses, and trained-up killers, and hardcore alphas, King remained… well. The king. He was literally and figuratively head-and-shoulders above any and all of them, even Ice, and nobody looking at himeverthought any different. Compared to King,everyonewas a rank amateur, and for the hundredth time, The Road Devils thanked Christ that this man was on their side.

“So.” King paused, gathering his thoughts. “First let me apologize for not getting here sooner. I know that the whole fucked-up mess with the cult in Utah was a few months ago, and you guys have been waiting on some information, especially after Ice, Cain and Holt rumbled the whole Michael and Crusher connection. Denton and I actually had a really hard time finding solid intel, and I don’t need to go into the why’s or how’s. Just know that we wanted to besurewith what we found before I showed up here to report to all of you. Now we’re one-hundred-percent sure, so here I am.”

The men stared at him fixedly, already hating everything about this.

“You won’t be surprised to hear that the Right-Guardian’s name isn’t really Michael – it’s actually Darryl Webber. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, he had a junkie father and a mother who sold herself to pay the bills, because Dad couldn’t hold a job and kept spending the benefits checks on coke.”

“Cutting to the most relevant part of Webber’s life, at least as far as it concerns all of us, he and Crusher Alcott were high school buddies. Both on the football team, hung around the same crowd, got drunk together up at the lake, all the usualteenaged stuff. They stayed in touch for a while after Alcott joined The Hellions, but Webber never Prospected for the club. He left school and pretty much immediately started selling drugs – Denton thinks that his Dad hooked him up – and he seemed to make a pretty good go of it, at least for a while. Denton isn’t totally sure when or how Webber got into pimping, but he strongly suspects that it was through Mom.”

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