Page 4 of A Brother's Secret

“Copy that, Mister. Mali, move – slowly.” I moved forward, hands up and went past the end of the bar and the upraised section of counter. I slipped out into the dark dining room with its chairs overturned on the tops of the tables and Kyle followedme.

“Front door, you can unlock it, girly.” I swallowed hard and moved to the front door, my back itching between my shoulder blades as I unlocked the deadbolt then bent slowly to lift the bolt out of the floor holding it closed.

“Up top too,” the mansaid.

I reached up and slid the brass boltdown.

“I’m going to put my gun away before we go out on the street,” Kyle said and the man raised the shotgun to his shoulder and took better aim. I turned, chest squeezed down tight, and swallowed hard. Kyle lowered his gun and tucked it into the back of his waistband.

“That your bike in my alley?” the man demanded.

“Sureis.”

“You didn’t trip any of the alarms earlier, just the one in the basement. I’m inclined to believe you when you say you’re not looking for trouble but rather running from it. Still, I’m reportingthis.”

“Understood.”

“You got a head start. Don’t let me catch you ‘round here nomore.”

“You won’t,” I breathed.

“Now get the fuck out,” the man ordered.

I went out the door and glanced back at the gold leaf lettering on the glass, one-zero-one-three, just the address. I swallowed hard and Kyle let the door shut behind us. He grabbed me by the upper arm and towed me purposefully around the corner and into the alley.

“Put this on,” he demanded, thrusting a helmet at me. I took it dumbly, and hands shaking put it on my head. He got onto the matte black Harley-Davidson like he knew exactly what he was doing, and started it up. I swallowed as he leaned it up off its kickstand and onto its wheels.

I was staring up the alley at the blank brick wall at the end, every single one of my runner’s instincts on high alert. I could feel it without seeing, they were close. A wolf on the scent, the pack closing in. Kyle’s voice shattered the illusion of calm, the resoluteness with which I had stared down my fate starting to crumble within his presence.

“Mali, keep it together, get on!” he demanded over the chug and thrum of the motorcycle. I got on behind him and put my arms around his waist. His presence here was a game changer. Resist, and he would die with me, and I didn’t want that for him. Knowing he was out there, knowing he was safe, had kept me going on some of the darkest nights of mysoul.

He twisted the handlebars and the throttle and pointed us down the mouth of the alley. He looked both ways and pulled out onto the street. I looked back at the bar we’d come out of. The hanging shingle above the door proclaiming it to be The Cormorant Bar and Grill. The man with the shotgun stood in the front window talking into his cell phone, shotgun at his side, keen blue eyes whipping over us and the bike and I swallowedhard.

“He’s on the phone with the cops! He’s reporting your plate!”

“Don’t worry about it!” Kyle called back. “I got this, you’re safenow!”

Safe. Me…

Yeah, right.

I cursed when the whoop of a siren went up, god, not even a block away. I would rather die than spend a night in a cage with real bars. The imaginary box and prison I’d been living in for so long was one thing, but there would be no way my gypsy heart would survive in a cage of concrete and steel.

“Kyle…” I said urgently and he turned at the next light, stealing down a different alley that branched into a ‘T’ and turning right down it, carefully walking the chugging beast between dumpsters and trash cans, through stinking puddles, even as the rain soaking us lessened and a fine mist started tofall.

“Tight, Mali. Hold on tight,” he ordered and I settled up, fetching close to his back, arms wrapping around a waist that was far more solid than I’d ever remembered the boy being… because he wasn’t a boy anymore, no more than I was the girl he’d known.

He nosed out of the alley, looked both ways, and turned left up the one-way street. He blended us back into city traffic, which was light this time of day, and headed for the freeway.

Probably eight blocks from freedom and the open road – our luck ranout.

“Shit!” he swore and I caught his worried gaze in the side view mirror. I glanced in the glass itself, diverting from the sliver of his face to the scene behind us and met the grill of a big, black, SUV; GMC spelled out backward in angry red letters.

“Not today, Satan… Not. To. Day.” I muttered and gripped Kyle hard, jerking my chin down once. He swerved out between cars and twisted down on the throttle. The motorcycle wailed like a possessed beast, tires spinning on the wet pavement before lurching forward. The wind roared, my hair whipping out and streaming behind me. I heard a crash behind us, the scream of metal as the big black SUV bullied its way between cars, knocking them out of itspath.

Oh, man, did they ever have a hard-on for me? Well, I had a lady boner right back, the adrenaline coursing through my veins, the helpless anger spiraling out of control, the barely suppressed rage blowing its lid… and I had a big, black, shiny fucking target for all of it right behindme.

I tore a page out of my favorite sci-fi series playbook, that if someone was trying to kill you, that you go on and try to kill them right back, and so I lifted the compact black handgun out of the back of Kyle’s waistband.

I twisted fiercely, holding onto him with one arm, sitting up straight, letting the wind push my arm out and back, my hair whipping forward, lashing my cheek as I sighted down my arm and fixed my gaze on the giant black target. I tried to fix my aim on the indistinct images of the men in behind the windshield’s glass, their features hidden by the glare of the sun through leaden gray clouds.

I pulled the trigger, the gun belching smoke and flame, fighting the kick as it reverberated down my arm. I hit, the bullet pinging, and I just kept firing, pulling back on the trigger over and over and over again. The SUV swerved, hitting the curb and rocking, tipping in slow motion onto its side before skidding and sending sparks out from beneath it, the image of it growing smaller and smaller the further we pulled away. I twisted back around and kept the gun out, clutching around Kyle, bracing my arm across him as he pulled us up onto the ramp across the damn bay bridge, leaving Indigo City in thedust.

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