“Good,” Ghost said. “We’re in the right spot. He’ll want out before rush hour traffic hits.”
Carter knuckled his sunglasses farther up his nose – the sun had warmed his face, sheened it with sweat, and the Ray-Bans kept trying to slide down. It was nearly May, and the afternoon waswarm. Bees and flies droned behind them, in the verge, and, staring down the long, straight stretch of four-lane highway, he spotted his first heat mirage of the season.
Most of the club was parked along the shoulder on either side of the road. They’d brought a van, just in case, and Evan leaned against its rear doors, arms folded, eyes shut and face tipped back. He looked asleep.
Carter checked the time on his phone – again. He’d promised Leah he would be waiting when she got off work, and he planned to be. Hopefully, after this, he wouldn’t have to worry about her quite so fiercely. Things felt far from settled, but, like Ghost had said: it would be good to cut the head off this particular, local snake.
“Someone’s coming,” Mercy called, farther down the row of gleaming bikes.
Carter lifted his head, and he saw a faint glimmer, a wink of sunlight on metal, distant, but coming closer at speed.
“Might not be him,” Roman said.
“Yeah, but unlike you, I don’t like taking chances,” Ghost said. “Everybody fall in.”
Bikers strode out onto the pavement, lining up, stretching from one side of the road to the other, blocking it totally. Carter felt Mercy’s shoulder brushing his on one side, Aidan’s on the other, and as the car became a black Tahoe, and drew ever closer, he felt something swell inside his chest. A sweeping, giddy tide of positive emotions. He felt taller, felt stronger, felt – unstoppable. Apartof something. A wicked man was bearing down on them, and he stood shoulder-to-shoulder, as an equal, among his brothers.
The Tahoe continued toward them – and then slowed – and then stopped. The driver leaned out the window – a hired driver, a bodyguard, a thick-necked young guy with a black suit and sunglasses. “You can’t block the road!” he called.
Ghost said, “Tell your boss to get out of the car.”
A long, tense moment passed – but Carter wasn’t worried. They had them beat on numbers, on weapons. Nothing could touch them now, standing in the middle of the road, the Lean Dogs protecting their city. It always sounded so pretentious and over the top when Ghost said that:our city,my city. But he could feel it now; Knoxville was the Dogs’ to protect, and everyone else’s to lose.
The rear door of the Tahoe opened, and Mayor Cunningham climbed out – not florid and enraged. No. Bleary-eyed, still, no doubt nursing a hangover from lunch. And pale. Terrified. He surveyed all of them, and Carter felt the pathetic loathing of his gaze when it briefly touched his own.
He finally fixed his glare on Ghost. “You ruined me.”
“No,” Ghost said, evenly. “You ruined yourself.”
~*~
At five, Leah shut down her computer, gathered her things, tossed a distracted goodbye to her coworkers – she hadn’t been able to focus since hearing about the mayor on the radio – and headed for the elevators.
Only to pull up short when she saw Carter standing leaned up against the control panel.
“You’re here!” she blurted, too loudly, pulse going wild immediately.
He grinned – and she thought he was trying to be coy, but landed on delighted, instead. Boyish and happy. He reached up and flicked the plastic visitor badge he’d clipped to his cut pocket. “I checked in with security and everything.”
She hesitated, and wasn’t even sure why. She had the sense that if she went right to him, unchecked, she would kiss him, and have trouble stopping, and she wanted to know, first, how bad things were.
Not very, if his smile was anything to go by.
“Sounds like you had a busy day,” she said, fingers clenching on the strap of her bag. He looked like a dream – likeherdream – and she felt like the sort of swoony high school girl she’d never been.
“You listened to Mad Mike?”
“All of us did. Gabe had it going on his phone.” She took a breath. “How worried should I be? About…everything?”
“Well, considering Mayor Cunningham is currently cooling his heels in a holding cell right now…”
She gasped. “They arrested him?”
His smile slipped. “Fielding says the charges might not stick because there wasn’t a warrant for the audio, and the police weren’t the ones who recorded it, anyway. But he’ll definitely have to resign, now, and he knows not to mess with us.”
She had the sense there were things he hadn’t told her yet, and knew he couldn’t do it here, with Isobel and Rochelle packing up at their desks, still.
But life with the club meant taking the wins when you could, and celebrating them heartily. She closed the distance between them, and stood up on her toes, ready for the kiss he pressed to her mouth, shivering gladly in response to the fingers he trailed down her throat.
