Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Edge gave me a long, thoughtful look. “If someone’s chasing her, and she crashed on our track…there’s eyes on this shit show now.”
“Too late to sweep it,” Nitro muttered.
Jax nodded. “Someone was already watching. The chatter on local comms jumped during the crash. Spike in scanner traffic. We have maybe twelve hours before some asshat from the feds comes sniffing.”
Edge scratched the corner of his jaw. “Kane’s not going to like guests at the compound when they come with heat.”
“I’m not taking her to a safe house,” I said before any of them could suggest it. “Don’t even start.”
“So you have considered a safe house,” Edge said, dry as the desert.
“I considered it for half a second and threw the thought in the trash,” I snapped. “She stays at the clubhouse. We built this place to hold under pressure. We have men twenty-four seven, cameras, steel, and the kind of lock work that makes a locksmith sweat. If someone wants her, they’ll have to come through us.”
Jax lifted his brows. “Through you.”
I didn’t bother to deny it.
“She stays here,” I repeated, voice like steel.
Edge nodded. “She can sta—”
“In my room. With me,” I interrupted.
He blinked. “Wasn’t suggesting anything else.”
Nitro’s lips curved. “She in your bed already?”
I gave him a flat stare. “She will be. But not for that.”
Edge and Nitro traded a look like men who had just caught a scent of gasoline. Edge’s grin went slow and feral. “Didn’t say it was. Just saying…your voice got real possessive real fast.”
“Fuck off,” I muttered.
Nitro’s mouth twitched. “He didn’t say he disapproved.”
Before I could respond, Jax snapped, “Could we get back to business?” He tapped the Helix drive back into its case and sealed it with a fresh strip from a roll in his desk. “I’m going to build it a sandbox with training wheels. Give me a day. Maybe two. I’ll pull at metadata from the edges, see if anyone’s pinged it for location or sent heartbeat checks. If there’s a signal, I’ll isolate it. If there’s a map, I’ll draw it.”
“Good,” I said. “And if you get even a whiff of someone sniffing our way, you tell me first.”
“We’ll go from there, but I’ll be honest, brother. While this shit is above my level, it’ll go a lot faster if I had some help.”
Edge cocked his head. “Got someone in mind?”
“Deviant,” Jax replied without hesitation.
Deviant was another tech genius who belonged to an MC in Tennessee we had very close ties with. The Iron Rogues’ road captain, Storm, had been a friend of Kane’s since childhood. And one of their enforcers, Racer, helped manage Kane’s tracks and races in that state. He was a brilliant driver, one-of-a-fucking kind, and he also happened to be my brother-in-law. We’d traded help many times and trusted them almost as much as we did each other.
“I’ll run it by the prez,” Edge conceded. “And let him know we have a situation bigger than a stray with pretty eyes. He’ll want to look her in the face before he cosigns your plan.”
“Not tonight,” I said. “She needs to rest.”
Nitro shoved off the wall. “And you need to babysit.”
“I need to make sure she’s safe,” I snapped, stepping out before I could decide to put a hole in anyone who didn’t agree.
The hallway outside Jax’s office was dim, lined with framed photos of championship nights and charity runs and an old panorama of Kane and Edge standing on either side of their father in front of a junkyard Chevy that won trophies it had no right to win. The clubhouse was filled with its usual nighttime sounds—laughter in the common room, a pool ball cracking off a break, a low run of bass from somebody’s speaker—but underneath was a thick thread of alert I only felt when things were turning.
The Redline Kings was more than a motorcycle club, it was a brotherhood. We were family—by choice, not by blood. Our bond was forged with loyalty and trust. To the club, and to each other. We stood together against our enemies. A threat to one brother meant they were facing the wrath of the whole club. So it wasn’t surprising that tension was already in the air, and the boys felt the storm coming.
My angel would have a solid wall of protection from the MC, but most importantly, I wouldn’t let anyone touch her. And although she didn’t know it yet, I was pretty fucking certain I wouldn’t be letting her go.
The walk back to the clinic was fast. I didn’t like leaving her alone, even if Cage had secured the building.
5
AXLE
Cage stood just outside his office when I pushed through the front door into the reception area. He didn’t glance up as he scribbled on a paper chart. “She’s stable. No concussion. You’re lucky.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” I said.