Page 20 of Hades

Falcon and Raven never had an easy life. Their folks bailed early and it was just the two of them, so trust didn’t come easy. I’d earned it through years of loyal friendship, and I didn’t take that shit lightly.

Except the part where I wanted to claim his sister as mine.

“I’ll take care of her, brother.”

He nodded. “I’m gonna go say bye.”

“Protect your balls,” I called out, knowing Raven had thirty minutes to build up a good cloud of anger.

He flipped me off.

I told myself everything was going to be okay, but when Slate approached me with a serious expression, doubts crept in. “What’s up?”

He held up a phone. “Gimme yours and take this. It’s clean and not registered to anybody. Use this to call us and receive messages.”

I handed him my phone, knowing he’d keep it safe. “What’s going on?”

“Just being safe,” he answered easily. Too fuckin’ easily if you asked me. “We got three different safe houses ready just to make sure you’re safe. Been digging into Kozlov and bribery is his go-to move, by any means necessary so I ain’t taking no fucking precautions.”

I nodded even though I didn’t know what the fuck that meant and I didn’t ask because my focus was on the road ahead, the enemies behind us, and long days and nights alone.

With Raven.

Chapter Eleven

Raven

The drive to the cabin was long and quiet. I took my car and Hades followed behind. When I’d asked why we were traveling separately, he’d muttered something about how it was better to have options in case we needed to get away. That did nothing to ease my anxiety. My hands shook so bad as I gripped the wheel. I refused to admit how fucking terrified I was, or that Hades was right to insist we leave Steel City. It was the right call and I knew it, but I didn’t have to fucking like it.

The cabin and the land it sat on was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen in my life, even in the middle of the night. The log cabin was a gigantic wooden beast with picture-perfect windows and a sturdy looking porch. But even better than that was the patch of forest surrounding it and the small lake just beyond the trees. The moon was the only light when we first arrived and instantly, I felt safe and at peace. The cabin itself was enormous, far too big to be a safe house. “What is this place?”

Hades flashed a wide grin. “Usually it’s a rental property owned by the MC, but for now it’s our safe house.”

“A rental property?” I knew the club had plenty of legal businesses, but this seemed risky.

“It’s owned under a bunch of shell companies and shit,” he sent me a boyish grin. “Some people have a problem renting from bikers, so we made it palatable. There’s no way it’s traceable back to the club.”

“Smart,” I grinned, looking around the place with wide eyes. “It’s nice.”

“And it’s remote, which is good. I have this if you need to reach out to Macy. Or Falcon.” He held up a phone before setting it on a nearby coffee table.

“I wondered why Slate took my phone. Is there something else I don’t know?”

“Probably,” he answered while he checked the doors and windows. “But I don’t know what it is either. Probably best for now.”

I scoffed. “How do you figure?” Having more information was always better than having less.

“Because we’d have to worry about that on top of everything else while we’re up here, and there’s not much to do other than think. Overthink.”

It was a fair point. “I guess this means I get to flex my kitchen muscles.” The kitchen was well stocked with a six burner stove and one of those fancy double door fridges.

“You have kitchen muscles?”

I nodded once. “I do.”

“Lucky me,” he grinned and I swear, I felt that grin all the way down to places I shouldn’t.

I shook off the bout of lust that caused a light sheen of sweat to cover my skin and focused back on Hades. “I need to get changed, which room can I have?”