Page 9 of Ruthless Bonds

Chapter Two

Alora

An hour later, I turned off my headlights and guided my car onto the side of the dirt road. A thicket of trees provided enough cover that passing cars wouldn’t notice us.

Dylan cleared his throat, and I shot him a glare. He avoided my gaze and reached into the backpack he had brought. He was lucky I hadn’t stabbed him in the neck for sneaking into my car.

He sighed, his shoulders drooping. “I fucked up.”

The urge to console him was strong. Any other time, I would have told him everything was going to be OK.People make mistakes. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

When I looked at him, I still saw that cute little kid I had practically raised on my own. The one who’d try and protect me when Ray thought he could use me as a punching bag, the one who’d beg for my world-famous PB&J sandwiches because he loved them so much.

But he wasn’t that little kid anymore. He hadn’t been for a long time.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

He owed the wrong people a lot of money. Bad people. The kind who would kill your family in front of you if you didn’t pay them.

That was the only reason I was sitting in the carwith him, about to do something I’d promised myself I would never do again.

“I didn’t know I was spending so much. They kept giving me credit, and I kept winning. But it all went to shit. I lost it all.” His head bowed in defeat.

“How much?” I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white.

“A lot.”

“How much, Dylan?”

“Twenty. Twenty thousand.”

My heart fell to the bottom of my stomach.

He was fucked.

And Dove and I might be too.

My hands trembled as I pulled out the black leather gloves and the face mask. The men he owed money to were dangerous.

Mafiosos.

That was why he’d taken the money from me. But it wasn’t nearly enough. The motorcycle club he’d rolled with had set him up on this mark. According to the MC president, inside this seemingly boring suburban house on Maple Drive on Long Island, there was a safe that contained over a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry.

Dylan had already cased the place. The only entry point that didn’t have a security sensor was the basement window. No way Dylan was fitting through that tiny space. But I would. It would be tight, but I’d squeezed myself through tighter.

The owners were out of town. No pets or older children left at home. The neighbors were keeping an eye on the place, but they weren’t of any concern to us this late at night. I would go through the basement,disarm the security system, and let Dylan in. The safe was in the master bedroom on the second floor. We would grab the jewelry and get the hell out of there. Dylan would fence the goods, pay me back the money he had stolen, then pay back the mafiosos. The rest would go to the MC president, which was fine by me.

The plan was simple enough. But every plan was always simple until everything went to shit. Like the last job I’d done with Ray, where he’d left me trapped in an underground parking garage with the police coming.

“This is the last time I’ll help you, Dylan.” I turned to face him. “Look at me.”

He met my gaze for a brief moment, then faced back to the front. I’d seen that look in his eyes before.

Shame.

I couldn’t let him keep getting away with this.

“This is the last time you drag me or Dove into your shit. You know I love you. I would do anything for you.”

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