Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(106)

Gabriel was still for a moment, his eyes on me but not really seeing me. Not the me in front of me, anyway. I had a feeling he was seeing the me in that room. He shook himself and he was back here, nodding once and setting to work. Not before clasping my chin in his hands and bringing our foreheads together. “This is not your f*ckin’ fault, Becky. None of it,” he promised.

He waited for my nod before he continued his first aid in silence.





Chapter Twenty-Five





“She who walks the floors of Hell finds the key to the gates of her own Heaven, buried there like a seed.”

-"Underworld", Segovia Amil



Gabriel patched me up.

Then I was questioned relentlessly by Luke and the sheriff about the explosion. I’d grown up with a distrust of law enforcement, even the hot ones, so I lied my effing ass off.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Captain,” I said sweetly. “I was walking, minding my own business, and then the car went boom.” I shrugged.

I knew the men approved of my story since the corner of Cade’s mouth turned up and Brock full-on grinned. Gabriel’s granite expression didn’t move, nor did his grip on my hand which was bordering on painful. The sheriff, a balding, older, and very tired-looking man, had eventually put his hand on Cade’s shoulder talked in hushed tones and then literally dragged Luke off the premises. I was guessing Cade had the older one on payroll.

That was totally dope.

I wondered if we could figure out a way to get me off my parking tickets.

I didn’t get to ask because I was spirited away to biker church, which had no crucifixes in sight, only a grim reaper etched into the long table. Very apt.

Then I recounted my phone call, word for word, to the room of grim-faced bikers. They’d all stared at me in varying degrees of fury.

I considered myself a strong woman. Only recently had I come to believe that was true after the events in that room, but I was getting there. The weight of their stares proved too much, as was the memory of my two newest friends almost dying.

I looked at my hands. “I’m sorry. I know I brought all this shit here, almost got Rosie and Lucy killed—”

“Stop,” a male voice growled.

I glanced up to Gabriel. He was hard-faced, but wasn’t the one who spoke.

It was Bull, the scary large one with a lot of tattoos who barely spoke but had a crazy wife who spoke enough for the both of them.

“None of this shit is on you,” he told me, his voice excruciatingly gentle for someone I thought would have been on a watch list somewhere. “This is on them. The f*ckers who made the bomb, placed the bomb, and pressed the button. No one else. We clear?”

I nodded. “We’re clear, Rambo.”

Gage shook his head and grinned at me. That weirdo grinned whenever everyone else was grimacing, and grimaced whenever everyone else was grinning.

After that, I’d been kicked out of the war room so men could talk battle plans, I guessed. The women and their delicate ears were obviously placed outside.

Gabriel set me on the sofa beside Lily, who reached out to squeeze my hand. “You feel sleepy, nauseous, or get dizzy, you f*ckin’ tell someone. None of this staunch woman, crap. It’s hot as f*ck everywhere else, but not here,” he ordered.

I nodded, though the motion hurt. I didn’t tell him that, I was a staunch woman after all.

He leaned forward to press a hard kiss on my mouth before disappearing into the war room.

I looked around the room.

Evie locked eyes with me, smoking. “Well, babe. You know how to make a f*ckin’ entrance,” she stated mildly.

Maybe I was concussed, but I grinned. I had the biker queen’s approval.

All it took was a car bomb.



The men appeared not long after Amy had sucked down her third cocktail. I was totally jonesing for one, but I resisted.

Rosie and Lucy were mysteriously absent. I had an inkling that their non-biker significant others had spirited them away somewhere.

I’d so like to see how they’d managed that.

Cade stood at the front of our strange little crowd, his face grim. “We’re on lockdown,” he declared.

All women groaned, and Amy let out a string of curses that so didn’t go with the while Upper East Side princess thing she had going on.

“Lockdown?” I asked Lily. “Please tell me that isn’t what it sounds like.”

Instead of Lily answering, Gabriel pulled me closer to his side. “That’s exactly what it sounds like,” he murmured. “You not leaving and going somewhere where you’re in danger.

I swallowed and tried to ignore the panic at being locked anywhere. Unable to leave.

Nope. Not happening.

“We’ve got some major shit going down,” Cade continued, oblivious to my incoming freak-out. His gray eyes touched his wife. “Shit that will not come anywhere near our women. Or our kids. But shit that is dangerous. Players who won’t hesitate to hit our hearts. Which is you.” He hadn’t stopped looking at his wife. “As evidenced by today’s events. Luckily, we got warned.” His gaze flickered to me. I barely noticed it.

I had one word replaying on my mind.

Lockdown.

“So we’re going to make sure these players are wiped from the face of the earth. We just need to make sure you stay safe while we’re doing that.”