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I move away from the door and put some clothes on. One of the prospects brought my stuff over from the clubhouse sometime during the night, and one of my guys must’ve brought it into the bedroom while I was still asleep. Once I’m dressed, I pull my red hair back into a tight bun, ballcap ready if I need to cover it at a moment’s notice, then join my men in the living room.
As soon as they see me, however, the atmosphere changes.
It becomes tense, loaded with secrets yearning to be revealed. But their soft smiles and warm gazes confuse me. What did I just walk into?
“Hey,” I mumble, suddenly shy.
Sky crosses the living room and comes over to kiss me. He takes his sweet time, wrapping his arms around me. He holds me tightly for a while as I breathe him in, deepening the kiss and finding comfort and reassurance in his embrace. “Everything okay?” he asks me.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I reply. “You’re the ones who left me in there, having a little pow-wow out here.”
“Sorry,” Kendric rushes over to kiss me as well.
Raylan isn’t far behind. “Good morning, darling. We had to be up early. There are things we set in motion last night, and we have to get back out on the road.”
“Oh. I see. But they know you have me; they know you took me,” I blurt out, alarm bells ringing everywhere in my head.
As if summoned, Sky returns with a cup of hot coffee, sweetened with sugar and a splash of milk, just the way I like it. “Relax, honey,” he says, half-smiling. “We know how to dodge BOLOs in this town. We’re losing the club gear and the bikes. We can blend in.”
Only now do I notice that my men no longer look like the ruggedly handsome bikers who kidnapped me and took my heart along for the ride. They’re still handsome and then some, but they’re wearing plain slacks and dark grey long-sleeved tee shirts, black boots, and trucker ballcaps.
“Your piercings,” I whisper, staring at Sky and Kendric, in particular. Raylan opted to hold on to his ear stud for a while longer. “They’re gone.”
“Safely put away,” Sky says. “We’ve got a couple of pickup trucks and a sedan waiting for us at the base of the mountain. Ariana, we need to move quickly and see what’s going on in the city.”
I nod slowly. “I get that. I just … What happened at the clubhouse?”
“A full-on raid,” Sky replies, his brow slightly furrowed. “They went in hard and picked everybody up. They smashed through Shiloh’s door. It wasn’t pretty, but everyone’s okay. In lockup. Not saying a word until our lawyers get there.”
“Wait, they arrested the whole club?”
“No, just the few we left behind. The others know how to keep a low profile. We all ditched the bikes and the insignia for the rest of this mission,” Sky says. “Instructions were sent to each member and prospect, each partner and collaborator. Everyone’s on board. The pieces are all in place; we’re the only ones missing.”
I nod slowly and take a long sip from my coffee, wishing I could just disappear in their arms again. Maybe then the world would vanish for good, and it would simply be the four of us making love through the night and sleeping through the day. Granted, I’m emotionally and physically exhausted. A complete shutdown sounds good right now, but I know I’d be up and running again in three days, tops, eager to go back to work and to keep building my own dream.
“I overheard you earlier,” I say as we settle around the coffee table. I’m on the sofa with Raylan’s loving arm around my shoulder while Kendric and Sky take the opposing armchairs. “What is it that you need to tell me?”
“You won’t like it,” Sky warns me.
“Try me. I might surprise you,” I promptly reply, but there is already a thick knot tightening in the pit of my stomach. Deep down, I know what this is about and I’m not sure I’m ready to face it.
Sky runs his fingers through his black hair, the subtle curls at the top quick to rebel against his hand, then gives me a steady, apologetic look. “Ariana, your father has knowing ties to the Black Hand. He’s not some ignorant patsy in this whole thing. He may not agree with what Masterson wants to do, but he doesn’t have much of a choice, either.”
“No,” I promptly reply. “No way. He’s my dad, Sky. I’m his daughter. He wouldn’t let anybody hurt me.”
“He doesn’t get to decide anymore,” Sky insists. “It’s why we took you away from him. We wanted him open and desperate enough to reach out to the Black Hand. And he did precisely that weeks ago. Masterson, like you said, has been watching the club for a while already. He was waiting for an opportunity to secretly snatch you away from us, with no intention of ever taking you back to your father.”
My blood runs cold. “Are you saying my father wants me dead?”
“I’m saying your father brought the Black Hand out of the shadows, well aware of the consequences,” he replies.
“We do not question his love for his only daughter,” Raylan chimes in. “But we have irrefutable proof that he’s so deeply involved with the Black Hand that he has lost all control. We’ve been mounting evidence against him for months now, but we needed him to reach out to them, to bring them out of the shadows. With Masterson, he did precisely that.”
“You used me as bait,” I mutter.
Kendric shakes his head. “No. As leverage. We didn’t imagine the Black Hand would have so little regard for your life. Normally, with your dad as a member, they would protect someone like you in such circumstances. They could’ve sent in their mercenaries, of which they have plenty, to simply barge into the clubhouse and take you back to your father.”
“But they didn’t do that,” a heavy sigh leaves my chest.
