Page 196 of Fearless

“Do you like your job?” Tango asked. He had one of those pleasant, soft, almost-bright in a subtle sort of way voices. He was the oil, and Aidan was the vinegar. The salad dressing needed them both, the smooth coating and the abrasive acid.

Carter shrugged. “No one likes jobs, I don’t guess.”

“Really?” Aidan’s dark brows went up. “I love mine, man. I get to play with bikes all day.”

“I’m not a mechanic,” Carter said, shrugging again. He shoved his feet in his shoes, licked frosting off his fingers and bent to do the laces.

“You could learn,” Tango said. “Or not. Dartmoor’s diverse. There’s lots of different things you could get in to.”

Carter froze, head lifting. His pulse pattered in the ends of his fingers, high in the tops of his ears. “Are you guys…offering me a job?”

From the back hallway, Aidan’s father, the indomitable patriarch of the whole club with that gaze that could bend rebar, stepped into the room, arms folded loosely across his chest. “I’m offering you a chance to mop the floor for me for the next couple of months, take out the trash, go on beer runs.”

Carter felt his hopes sink.

“And if you do that worth a shit, then I’m offering you a job…and a chance to prospect.”

The hope took a U-turn, one he’d never expected to mean anything to him.

“I appreciate what you’ve done for my family,” Ghost said, “twice, now. I’m not just offering you a paycheck, kid. If you play your cards right, I’m letting you join that family.”

Aidan almost smiled, seeing the wonder steal over the kid’s face. Carter Michaels, star of Knoxville High, fallen so far he couldn’t even see the old ladder to the top anymore, was listening to Ghost, and he was wondering if he could allow himself to love the idea of prospecting this club.

Carter’s blue eyes slid over to land on them at the couch, silently asking if this was legit, or some sort of trick.

“Think about it,” Aidan said, as his phone rang and he fished it from his pocket. “Not like you’ve got anything else to look forward to.”

He pressed the cell to his ear. “Yeah?”

Breathy, quick, frightened voice: “Aidan. It’s Greg.”

Aidan sat up, tension tightening his limbs. He kept his voice low and controlled, though, as he got to his feet. “Greg. Hey, man, what’s up?”

Tango sat up straighter.

Ghost’s eyes came over, sparking with interest.

Carter watched, still wondering.

On the other end of the line, Greg took a deep breath and let it rush back out across the phone. “Can we meet? I’ve got some things I want to tell you.”

Bingo. Fucking jackpot. Intel, hand-delivered, and all of it Aidan’s doing. This was good for the club, sure, but this was a personal win for him, too. This was him proving useful to his brothers. Taking initiative.

He resisted the urge to pump his fist in the air and said, “Somewhere we won’t be bothered. Tango and I’ll see you at the high school in a half hour. The parking lot by the practice fields.” Where no one would expect an MC rendezvous to take place. Neither law enforcement nor the Carpathians would be looking for them there.

“Yeah. Sure.”

When he hung up, Aidan looked at his father and heard the pride ringing in his voice. “Our rat’s feeling chatty.”

Ghost nodded. “Good job.”

High praise coming from the boss man.

Thirty-Eight

“Light layers, I’m thinking,” Maggie said, bringing an armload of t-shirts from the closet to heap alongside the others on Ava’s bed. “It’ll be warm down there, but the bugs will be bad.”

“Right…” Ava said, staring at the small backpack she would take, mind spinning, thoughts refusing to sync up. This was it, she realized, that moment the stopwatch inside her had been ticking toward all along. She was running, fleeing, hiding, flying face-first into a world she could only imagine.

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