Page 187 of Fearless

He made an evasive move, but Mercy was too large, too quick. He grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up off his feet, turning him, bringing his other hand up to grasp Ronnie by the throat.

A passing group of girls gasped.

“Whoa!” someone shouted.

“Oh my God!”

“Dude, check that out.”

“Mercy,” Ava hissed. “You have to put him down.”

Mercy wasn’t paying attention. He grinned into Ronnie’s face, tendons standing out in his arms as he lifted the shorter man up so they were on eye level. “Let me explain something to you, Ron,” he said, voice low and velvet, dark and Cajun-flavored. “That girl over there? She’s too good for you. She’s too good for me, too, but I’m smart enough to know that, and thank God she gives me the time of day. You? You’re stupid. So try to get it through your skull what I’m about to tell you. If you dare insult her ever again – you so much as give her a dirty look – you’ll be in a wheelchair. You touch her, and you’ll be in a pine box. Do you understand? I will fucking end you.Leave her alone.”

Then he threw Ronnie, tossed him backward onto the sidewalk so he landed with a sharp yelp sprawled on his back across the concrete. Ronnie, as it turned out, wasn’t stupid. No defiant look, no saving face; he scrambled, gasping, onto his hands and knees, crawling, then running away as he finally lurched to his feet.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Ava scolded as they earned dirty, startled looks from the passing crowds. But her heart was thumping in her throat, the hair standing on end at the back of her neck, and she really wanted to dive into his arms and feel his solid strength against her.

Mercy’s jaw could have cut glass. “Oh, yeah it was.” He was staring after Ronnie, brows tucked low over his eyes.

Something shiny on the sidewalk caught her eye. “His phone,” she said, stooping to pick it up. “You knocked it out of his pocket or something.” She scowled. “I ought to look through it and see who the hell he’s been texting so much.”

As Mercy came to stand beside her, she did just that.

And the bottom dropped out of her stomach.

They waited almost two hours for anyone to leave the Carpathians’ clubhouse, both of them having to go into the Chinese takeout place they were parked in front of to take a leak and buy sodas. Finally, three bikers left, headed into town, and it was more promising than they’d hoped: Larsen, his VP and sergeant.

Ghost dropped his cigarette out the window, started the truck, and followed at a careful distance. In their 2002 nondescript Ford, they went unnoticed, sliding around the corners in the heart of the city as the three men in wolf cuts drew the alarmed glances of pedestrians.

Larsen and his boys led them into a transitional neighborhood, where tumbledown bungalows were being renovated into posh city dwelling for the hipster elite and the moneyed college students, to a small khaki-colored house with brick-red trim and a lawn company-maintained yard of tidy round shrubs and cropped grass. There was a BMW parked in front of the single-bay garage, so Larsen and company parked on the street, making a big show of taking off helmets and gloves. Larsen shook out his blonde hair with obvious relish, loving the way the woman next door was watching them goggle-eyed as she watered her veggie garden.

Ghost parked behind a Subaru across and down the street a hundred feet or so. “Camera,” he said, opening his hand for it.

Aidan pulled the Canon from its bag in the floorboards, ensured the telephoto lens was in place, and passed it over.

Ghost put it to his face and the lensed clicked and whirred as he adjusted the focus.

The front door of the house opened as the three Carpathians approached, and out stepped a young man in real Polo everything, face screwed up in a black scowl.

“Mason Junior,” Aidan said, and cranked his window down, leaning toward it to see if he could catch a hint of conversation.

Turns out, it wasn’t hard.

“What the fuck are you idiots doing here?” Mason asked, hands landing on his hips as he took a stance on his front stoop. “I told you not to come around here.” He made a sweeping gesture to the street.

“Then answer my calls sometime,” Larsen shot back. “I’ve been calling you all morning.”

Mason sneered at him. “I don’t have time to babysit you, Jasper. I told you to leave a message with my secretary, and I’d get back to you.”

Larsen stepped in closer and their voice dropped, just aggressive murmurs and hisses from this distance. The massive meatnecked sergeant at arms folded his arms and took up a guarding pose at the edge of the yard, scanning the street with slow head turns.

The camera fired, a volley of rapid shutter snaps.

Ghost said, “Like I needed another reason to want this kid dead.”

Ava was glad to hand the phone over to Collier. The weight of it burned her hand, sent rippling numbness up her arm. She shuddered as she passed it into the VP’s hand and then rubbed her palm against the leg of her jeans, trying to work some feeling back into it.

Collier frowned as he scrolled through the outgoing texts she’d discovered on Ronnie’s dropped cell.

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