Page 97 of Price of Angels

“Loads,” Michael said. He repeated, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Yeah, you said that.” Ratchet sighed, glanced down at his splashed boots, made a face. “Man, these are pretty new, too…”

“Have a prospect polish them. Ratchet.” He levered some authority into his voice. “Can you run a license plate for me?”

The club secretary could do just about anything you asked him to, given the right time frame and the right snack inducement. He nodded. “Yeah, what for?”

“It’s just for me, personally. Ghost doesn’t need to know about it.” Meaningful eye contact, driving home the point.

Ratchet sat back in his chair. “Oh.”

Michael imagined none of them had ever heard him do anything that wasn’t an express command from the president.

First time for everything.

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ This needs to stay between us. Just get the vehicle info for me, and if anyone ever asks, I’ll say I looked it up myself. No one ever has to know you were involved.”

Ratchet frowned.

“I’m not asking this for the club. It’s personal.” From his cut pocket, Michael withdrew the plate number of the rusted Buick, a Snickers bar, and a crisp new twenty that he placed on the desk beside the laptop. “Please,” he said, swallowing and hating the way the word got stuck in his throat.

Ratchet thought about it another second, then nodded. “Done. I’ll call you when I know something.”

Michael nodded. “Thanks.”

Seventeen

“Be at work an hour early tomorrow,” Michael said one night, in the hot and pulsing afterglow.

Too exhausted to speak or form a rational question as to why, Holly had agreed, nodding before she’d nodded off.

But now it was an hour and fifteen minutes before her shift started and she was standing on the sidewalk outside Bell Bar, hands in her pockets, nibbling at her lip in quiet worry, wondering why he hadn’t told her the reason. This was probably another shooting lesson – he’d told her she would need practice – and she’d dressed accordingly: tall cowboy boots with jeans tucked inside, Vols sweatshirt with fraying cuffs she’d been picking at her with nails, her jacket zipped over it.

She heard Michael coming before he pulled into sight, the roar of his Harley traveling through the pavement and up the soles of her boots. It hit her in the stomach and she smiled to herself. The sound of the bike triggered a sensation a lot like the pass of his hand, a subtle tightening in the pit of her belly.

He was in his cut today, very Lean Dogs official in all his black leather and his chunky boots with the spur straps. He parked at the curb in front of her, took off his helmet, set it on the handlebars; a small, routine gesture for him that was attractive to her in a way she didn’t understand. Something about his fingers, their assuredness of movement.

“Hi.” She wished she had a pet name for him suddenly, a sweet word to offer that was just his in her vocabulary. She wanted to step off the curb and kiss him, too, but she wasn’t sure if he’d go for that.

Turned out, she shouldn’t have worried. He joined her on the sidewalk, put a hand at her waist, dropped his head to press a fast, sure kiss against her mouth. He smelled soap-and-sunshine clean. His lips were soft on hers.

Holly wanted to clutch at the front of his cut and hold him to her, but instead she said, “So what are we doing? More gun practice?”

As he stepped back from her, he gave her one of his small smiles. “No, not today.”

He took another step back, and over his shoulder, Holly saw a black truck leave the flow of traffic and pull up at the curb behind Michael’s bike. The driver door opened, and a dark-haired woman climbed down, folding the long halves of a wool coat around her middle.

Ava Lécuyer.

Holly felt the first stirrings of panic. “Michael, why is she here?”

And she was walking toward them.

“I asked her to come,” he said. “I thought–”

“Youasked her–” She grabbed his hand and dug her nails into the back of it. “Michael,” she hissed, “why would you do that?”

He gave her a blank look. “So you can have lunch with her. So you can have a friend.”

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