Reaper's Stand (Reapers MC, #4)(95)

“I’ll go,” he said to Hunter. “You take care of my girl for me, and I’ll make sure we got your club’s back.”

Hunter seemed surprised, and I saw Ruger and Horse exchange a glance I couldn’t interpret.

“Appreciate that,” Hunter said, turning toward Skid. “You need anything more from me?”

“Naw, I got it.”

“I’ll head back to the house,” Reese said slowly, although I could see it was killing him to leave Em. “Call me when she wakes up? I’ll come back and see her before we take off.”

“Sounds good,” Hunter said. “And Pic?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll take good care of her. I promise.”

“Gonna hold you to that.”





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN




The plane touched down at eleven that night.

I’d fallen asleep on top of Reese, which was comfortable and wonderful and probably more than I deserved, but I figured I’d take advantage while I could. He seemed to want me with him, and I even felt a slight stirring of hope at one point. Maybe I hadn’t killed everything between us when I pulled that trigger?

Then I wrestled my head out of my ass, because I couldn’t afford to let hope distract me.

Still, there was a noticeable change in attitude toward me after we got back from the hospital. Nobody had been at Em and Hunter’s place initially—apparently they’d cleared out in anticipation of a police raid.

A raid they’d expected because of me.

The combination of my silence and the fact that I’d saved Em had gone a long way toward rebuilding the club’s goodwill, and nobody bitched when Reese announced I’d be coming with. That meant everything, because if they found Jessica, I needed to be there for her. If they didn’t, I had other, less pleasant work ahead of me.

Now it was one a.m. and I was sitting in the dark. Waiting. We’d gone to a warehouse in the middle of bumf*ck San Diego, which was apparently very similar to regular San Diego, but with more shootings and gang activity. It’d taken quite a bit to convince Reese to let me join them for the actual attack—I think he’d planned for me to hang with the women at someone’s clubhouse or something.

Fuck that.

We’d compromised when I swore to stay outside in one of the vehicles (an anonymous-looking cargo van—something I was starting to think was MC standard issue) unless they called for me. Puck stayed, too. During the time we’d been stuck out here, he hadn’t said anything to me. Not. One. Word. I hunched down in the darkness, praying for something to happen. Anything.

I still wasn’t sure who our targets were or where the rest of the men had gone—we had about thirty in our group total, a mixture of Reapers, Silver Bastards, and some other club of locals who were apparently their allies. None of them wore their distinctive colors and everything was very hush-hush. All of them had ignored me completely, except for Puck, who radiated resentment at being stuck with babysitting duty.

Fair enough, because I was starting to resent his silent ass, too.

After what felt like hours, Puck’s phone vibrated. He answered it, grunted a few times, and hung up, turning to look at me with a frown marring his handsome features.

“They need me inside,” he said. “You’ll have to come, too—can’t leave you out here by yourself. Keep quiet and don’t say, do, or touch anything. Understand?”

I felt like telling him that he was young enough to be my son, and I wasn’t f*cking stupid. Instead I said, “I understand.”

Another grunt. Some day he really was going to have to learn some real words, I decided.

We stepped out of the van and started around the side of the building. Around the corner we found a door guarded by a man I didn’t recognize. He opened it for Puck silently, eyeing me with suspicion as I followed the prospect inside.

The warehouse surprised me.

I don’t know what I was expecting . . . Maybe some kind of big, open space with catwalks and spotlights, and an evil genius laughing maniacally in the background.

A hairless cat or two?

Instead, dim security lights showed an interior that looked less like a crime lord’s fortress and more like a Costco. There were long stacks of boxes and bins and pallets forming alleys, some of them piled nearly to the ceiling. A perfectly normal forklift was parked near the door. It didn’t even have a machine gun mounted on the roof or anything.

Puck pulled out his gun and started down the second row of pallets, which my active imagination immediately pointed out would operate like a cattle chute. You know, the long, narrow paths they use to guide animals to their deaths in slaughterhouses?

Not a happy thought.

He crept through the darkness and I followed him like a good girl. Then I tripped on my own shoelace, somehow doing an elaborate dance and shuffle to stay upright without making a sound.

When I was stable again, I dropped down into a crouch to fix the lace. Puck kept moving ahead, oblivious, and there was no way I could stop him without making a sound. Which was worse? Making noise or getting separated?

Making noise seemed more likely to get us killed.

Sucked to be screwing things up less than five minutes into the operation. Kneeling down gave me a whole new perspective on the situation—specifically a perspective low enough to see through a gap in the pallets that was only about two feet high, and maybe eighteen inches wide. On the other side of the gap I could just make out a . . . Oh shit. That was a body over there—not one of the bikers, he wasn’t wearing the right kind of clothes.