Page 3 of Lockout

Sighing, I nodded. It made sense, but I wanted to see my niece. I’d only gotten to see her once and it had been such a quick trip, I hadn’t gotten nearly enough snuggle time in.

“What’s going on?” Smoke asked, getting us back on track.

I may as well tell him the truth. It didn’t matter if I lied. Smoke would tell Lock I was home, and that damn biker would pry the information out of me anyway. Better to be upfront so that Smokehouse would know to keep an eye out, so that my sister and their baby were protected. Because the LoS could try to get to me by going through her.

Dani and Smoke gave each other a silent look. I knew that look. They already knew something was wrong. I was so glad that my sister had found such a strong, capable man who loved her. I’d never liked her former husband, Eli. I loved Smoke like a brother already. However, I knew that if I didn’t tell them everything, they were going to tag team me until I had.

It tookme about twenty minutes to explain everything to Dani and Smoke, and another hour to convince them that I wasn’t going back to the clubhouse with them. I refused to put them in danger, and that was exactly what would happen if I went to stay with them. I just wanted them aware of the threat, so that Lock and Priest would know to beef up security for everyone’s sake.

The LoS wasn’t going to stop coming after me just because another MC was protecting me. Hangman wasn’t going to give a shit. If he decided to follow me to Tucson, then nothing wasgoing to stop his crew from targeting me. My only hope was that the FBI moved on the information they had and put those bastards in jail. I wasn’t hopeful that it was going to happen. Not soon anyway. The task force was going after the main chapter in D.C., but there were so many other chapters around the country that could mobilize if that happened. If they didn’t get Hangman, I was still in danger.

And it would take a massive, country-wide operation to arrest the officers of each chapter. And we weren’t there yet. We didn’t even have everything we needed to arrest the D.C. chapter officers, let alone the others. And if the task force arrested them first, the rest of the chapters would be untouchable. Once they had that head’s up, there’d be no way to gather the evidence we needed. The element of surprise was what was working in our favor right now.

The knock on my door, an hour after Smoke took Dani home, wasn’t even unexpected. I didn’t bother to check who was on the other side. I already knew. Opening the door, I frowned at Lockout.

He looked just as delicious as I remembered. His hair was a touch too long, tousled from the ride over, and those hazel eyes I couldn’t get out of my mind were glaring at me.

“Hi, Lock,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning against the door jamb as if I didn’t have a care in the world. What he didn’t know—hopefully—was that my heart was slamming against my chest just from seeing him. I wanted to throw myself in his arms and let him take all my worries away. But that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t done anything to deserve being put in the crosshairs of the LoS. Him or his club.

They were good men. They had families. Hell, even Butcher and Toxic had old ladies now. Lock, as far as I knew, was the only one left who was single. My throat dried out at the thought that maybe he’d gotten an old lady in the time I was gone. It’d been awhile. It was possible. Though I would think Dani wouldn’t have kept that to herself if he had.

The man was drop dead gorgeous. Dangerous. But damn sweet when he wanted to be. Though he was a bit bossy. I supposed that came with the territory when you lead a group of guys as tough as The Viking’s Rampage. I couldn’t completely blame him for that. But he sure did like to bossmearound and I wasn’t a member of his club.

My eyes dipped down and I swallowed hard at the way his t-shirt clung to his biceps and ripped abs beneath his cut. It wasn’t fair. Having all that power, that damn attitude of his,andbeing ripped and hot? Definitely not fair.

But I had to pretend he didn’t affect me. Because for all I knew, he just saw me as Dani’s annoying sister. The one he had to keep safe because otherwise his brother’s old lady would be upset. It didn’t matter that we’d kissed. He was a passionate guy. The others liked to refer to him losing his temper as goingfull lockout, which was how he got his road name. I was pretty sure I’d never seen him lose it completely, not judging off the way they described the things that happened when he did. But I did tend to push his buttons. It was fun, and to be honest, sexy. Sue me. I liked riling the guy up, because he twisted me up inside. It was only fair that I returned the favor.

I smirked at him, cocking a brow as his jaw muscle started to twitch. It made me want to scrape my teeth over the area. Or bite him in a claiming kind of way, but I also knew it meant I was skating on thin ice with him.

“Keely,” he growled, scowl deepening as he said my name. “You have some explaining to do.”

My insides melted as he shoved his way inside my home.

CHAPTER 3

Lockout

Smoke had found me the minute he and Dani had gotten back from their weekly check of Keely’s home. I’d offered to have Riptide put cameras up over there, but she’d refused and said that no one would be messing with her place. I’d let the subject drop and she’d left.

She’d been gone for well over the six months she was originally supposed to be away. Closer to a year now. And fuck if that wasn’t getting to me. Two days after she left, I had Rip install a program onto my computer that allowed me to hack into her laptop. I’d watched her sleeping far more than I was comfortable admitting to anyone.

I was just watching over her. She was Dani’s sister and therefore connected to my MC. I watched over my own. Didn’t matter if they walked out and left us in the dust for months on end. It was our job to help people out. At least the people we chose to help.

And now Keely was back. And Smoke said she thought some people were after her. He’d told me everything she’d told him, but there were gaps. Some shit was missing from her story.

Turning, I faced her. There was worry in her gorgeous dark blue eyes. I frowned when I noticed that there were smudges underneath them, like she wasn’t sleeping well.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Hello to you, too,” she snapped.

It set me at ease to see she hadn’t lost that fire. I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for her to answer my question.

She sighed and waved toward the couch. “We may as well sit down.”

Shaking my head, I started pacing. “Tell me what’s going on, Keely.”

She sank down onto the couch and dropped her head into her hands. By the time she looked back up at me, my worry for her had me ready to kill something. “I’m in trouble, Lock.”

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