Page 14 of Sparrow

He’s right. But I do have a bat and a very serviceable set of brass knuckles on hand.

Hey, I didn’t realize I was walking into a fight.

“Be careful,” I mutter, avoiding his question.

“Yep,” he snaps. “Now how the hell is Arden Rossi?”

I nearly don’t tell him. Nearly keep the secret to myself, just because I don’t want his hands all over it. Then I realize how stupid that is. Orion’s one of my best friends, and I would trust him with my life.

He’s also the best fighter I’ve ever met. And I’m going to need him if we’re going to get Arden out of here.

“My sister’s stepdaughter.”

His shock is so intense I can hear it crashing through the darkness.

“You have a sister?”

“Yes,” I snap. “And now isn’t exactly the time to discuss her. In case you forgot.”

I spin around to stare at the cottage again, looking for any guards and trying to decide how we’re going to do this without making too much noise, but Orion is evidently not finished with the conversation.

“You’ve known me for ten years, Mars, and you never thought to mention your sister?”

He hisses the half-accusation-half question into my hear, his breath hot, and I flex my fists, ready to turn around and punch him.

“I had other things on my mind!”

“Things other than a sister? For ten years?”

Okay, it’s a valid question, especially since Orion knows my little brother, who’s part of the club and is often at the garage, though he owns a ranch outside of town and has never been as committed to the MC as I’d like. Still, he’s around enough for Orion to be friendly with him.

Which makes it probably even wilder that neither of us has ever mentioned Helen.

That doesn’t mean this is the time to answer it.

“Who the fuck is the girl?” he asks suddenly, changing subjects as quick as a jackrabbit.

It takes me a moment to catch up, and then another to decide how much I actually want to tell him, and then I remember that I need him for my plans to work.

Which means I need him to buy in.

So I give him enough to make that happen.

“My sister’s married to some gangster in the city. He’s got a daughter, must be about twenty-one, twenty-two now. Helen’s known the girl since she was about ten. Last time I checked, they were a happy family. I guess something happened.”

Orion pauses for too long, and I turn to look at him, trying to see through the dark to where his face is. I haven’t told him everything, of course. Arden isn’t just my sister’s stepdaughter. She’s a girl I know from family gatherings and weekends in the city when I was there to get supplies or make contacts. I go to the city often for parts and research, and when I do, it’s easiest to stay with my sister.

Despite the fact that her husband walks on the wrong side of the law, and has never made me feel welcome.

His daughter, though...

Arden has always been warm and bright, a laugh caught on her lips and a smile in her eyes. But she doesn’t make herself the center of any conversation. She hangs back, peeks around doors. Keeps her mouth shut.

Hides if she thinks you’ve seen her.

I’ve always wondered what made her so frightened of everyone–why she tried so hard to dampen her sunshine–but it wasn’t my place to ask. And when it comes down to it, I was never in the city long enough to actually ask her.

But it does make me wonder even harder why she’s out here in the middle of nowhere, in a cottage that belongs to a club that doesn’t seem like they follow any moral code.