Page 36 of Beast

“Who’s Janet?”Piper hopped off my lap and I got up and reached for her hand as we crossed to the counter together.Hawke snickered softly, and I glared at him.He stopped, but I could still see the amusement dancing in his eyes.

“Janet is the woman who likes to sleep with Thor but won’t take him seriously.”Hawke grinned.“I’d say she’s playing hard to get, but I don’t think she has any intention of getting got at all.”

Thor grimaced.“Ouch.Maybe I’m just using her for sex.”

“Sure.Keep telling yourself that.Better for your ego.”I reached around Piper and turned off the camp stove burner.

“So where are we going?”Piper poured coffee into four cups and carried two of them back to the table.I grabbed the other two along with the jars of creamer and sugar and followed her.

“Ace set up a rally point in that hotel you were heading to.We’re taking the top floor so we have lots of room and some privacy for meetings.He sent one of the prospects with a van to pick up the band and ferry them there.Joker, our medic, will meet them at the hotel.He can take care of any minor injuries they have.”

“Wow.”Piper looked impressed.“You guys are really organized.”

Hawke shrugged.“Sometimes you don’t want to wait in a crowded emergency room, and sometimes you don’t want anyone to know where you are or how bad you’re hurt.Joker may not be a licensed doctor, but I’d trust him with my life.He just doesn’t have quite as much fancy equipment as you see in a hospital.”

“Ace is working on that too, though,” Thor pointed out.“Plans on adding a clinic to the clubhouse next summer.”

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket and moments later both Hawke and Thor pulled theirs out as well.The network must have been restored.I used my thumbprint to unlock the screen and pulled up the list of missed text messages, reading each one at a glance.The last one elicited a low whistle from me.

Piper tilted her head, and I turned to the phone so she could see it.Her eyes grew wide as she realized the implications.

Chapter Nine

Piper

I read the message again.Rattler and Deuce had managed to intercept the guys who ran the bus off the road.One was dead -- he’d pulled a gun on the bikers and paid the price.Self-defense was a reasonable argument in court, but I doubted it would ever come to that.They’d taken the second guy prisoner and were headed to the pen with him.

I suppose I should have been horrified at the casual mention of murder, self-defense notwithstanding, but it could easily have been Jose or one of the other guys in the band lying dead on the road, so it felt justified.That guy wouldn’t run any other innocent people off a rain-soaked highway.

As for the guy who was still alive, I knew in my gut that interrogation was just a fancy word for torture until he spat out whatever information he had.If he was smart, he’d give everything up right away.I had the feeling Ace wasn’t a guy to be toyed with, and like his dead partner in crime, this guy had deliberately run a bus full of people under the protection of Riptide MC off the road, endangering their lives.He didn’t deserve mercy.

I wondered if Drake had any idea what kind of hornet’s nest he’d stirred up when he put that hit out on me.

Hawke and Thor both muttered as they stared at their phones, and Beast moved his back to reply to the message.The three of them lifted their heads at the same time, exchanging a look I didn’t quite understand.

“Time to get on the road.”Beast tucked his phone back into his pocket and motioned me to stand.

Hawke and Thor nodded, getting to their feet.“We’ll get to the rally point with you and see how Ace wants to play this.We don’t think Drake knows where you are, but no point in taking chances.”

“They targeted the bus because they thought I was on it, didn’t they?”I looked from one biker to the other.

“Yeah, they did.”Beast took my hand.“But it’s not your fault so don’t go there.”

He was right.This one was squarely on Drake’s shoulders.I looked around the cabin, trying to focus on something else.“Shouldn’t we clean up a bit first?Someone left it in great shape for us.”

“That’s why we have prospects.”Thor grinned.“They get to do the grunt work.We need to move fast, before Drake realizes we have one of his minions.”

Beast packed what little we had back in the saddlebags and Hawke held the door open so he could wheel the bike back outside.They didn’t waste any time getting organized.Within minutes, we were back on the road with Hawke in the lead and Thor bringing up the rear.I clung to Beast’s back, feeling right at home.I’d probably spent more time like this in the past weeks than anywhere else.Except in his bed maybe.We definitely spent a lot of time there.

* * *

Before long we pulled up in front of a hotel with my father pacing across the entranceway.Beast stopped and let me slide off before he followed Thor and Hawke over to the side where a number of bikes were parked in a row.

“I thought I’d lost you!”My father grabbed me in a bear hug before I managed to get my helmet off.“Ace said Beast wasn’t responding to calls or texts, and what with the bus getting run off the road…” His voice trailed off.

“I’m fine.The storm.It cut off cell service.”I wriggled in his tight grasp, and he immediately loosened his arms slightly, but he didn’t let go.I could get used to this.It was kind of nice having my father worry about me.

“I thought you’d be safer over on this side of the country.I was wrong.Damn, was I wrong.”

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