Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6)(30)
I allowed my mind to wander as we zoomed away from the carnage. I didn’t know if the sicario with the rotten jaw, Phil Din, had been sent to get me or Pippa—or both. Slayer said he was keeping his ear to the ground for chatter, but I didn’t have much faith in that, unless Din was about to Snapchat his favorite gangster hand signals.
Either way, ol’ Phil had obviously been sent by Jones to check up on me and perhaps make my hit for me if I was falling down on the job. All the giant goon had to do was to see me with Pippa, and he’d instantly know I’d lied to Jones about not having been able to find her. More than likely, though I’d never met the guy before, he’d put two and two together after seeing us at archery together. Yeah, and humping behind the UXO shed.
I was living on borrowed time. I could bury Pippa, and feel like a shitsack for the rest of my life. But I’d known my time in the business was short. The career span of a sicario was something like two, maybe three years. I’d been doing it for Jones for almost two. I was thirty-f*cking five years old. I’d worked for the Taos DA’s office before the fateful misunderstanding that altered the course of my life forever. I could never go back to New Mexico, but how would I elude Ortelio Jones?
Lincoln wrote “neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations,” which in my case were probably true accusations, “nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
My duty was to Pippa Lofting. I’d passed the bar with flying colors but was now prevented from practicing law. The smartest thing I could’ve done was to return to Jones and tell him I could find no tux rental girl.
But I couldn’t leave Pippa to the wolves. And I couldn’t go to her with my hat in my hand, offering nothing. And I certainly couldn’t go as a sicario who decapitated guys and hung them from bridges.
I was rude, screwed, and tattooed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
PIPPA
Every one of their rides was an adventure.
That was the claim of the Run-a-mucca organizers. By the time we hit Vegas, pipes rumbling, leather streaked with dust, stomachs growling, I believed their advertisement.
It was the most exciting, invigorating thing I’d ever done. We started out from the Bare Bones’ Citadel hangar in a small group. Ford Illuminati, Prez of the club, rode front door with his wife Maddie. Lytton and June, Tuzigoot and Brunhilda, and Faux Pas and Sapphire were the middle of the pack. Fox and I were the tail gunners.
I’d never ridden two up with anyone before, and it was a high. My boots on the pegs, the incessant vibrations between my thighs, and most importantly, my arms wrapped tightly around Fox’s torso. I knew it was way too much exposure for me. As a WITSEC witness, I wasn’t allowed to be outside of contact with Randy Blankenship for more than three days. But I shut off my cell so I was off the grid of GPS tracking, an even bolder thing to do. Randy didn’t know I was a biker’s old lady—or was I? What was I to Fox other than a handy snatch, a Bone Licker?—but he knew I worked for them. I was taking a risk he’d call me, like for an update on my new weed venture which I think actually amused him. He might put two and two together if he heard about the famous annual Winnemucca run.
I knew I was living dangerously. But it felt good again, like the old days with Russ Heston at the Coast Guard. I knew Russ was playing a risky game with some cartel, and he referred to it often, like a spy. Vague news had just come into Pure and Easy that Fox had completed some kind of mission for Ford. Maddie made references to it—as instructed, I was staying at her house. I knew it had something to do with the Ochoas, our rival out at Show Low. I was learning not to ask questions, but it gave me a dangerous thrill to have my arms around a man who had been up to some badass business. Maybe it wasn’t in my nature to fly under the radar in WITSEC, knitting and renting tuxedos.
I could feel every sinew in Fox’s torso, and I even dared to brush my fingers against his nipples under the thin cotton of his tank top. We rode through giant swelling waves of almost blistering hot air, although some slopes were still carpeted with electric blue desertbells and richly purple fivespot wildflowers after a good decent rainy season.
When we stopped in Vegas, I was alive with craving for the buff, ginger hitman. I was shocked when he paid for a separate room for me at the Venetian. We spent all night partying as a group, but he didn’t necessarily sit next to me or seek me out. I was floored. It even seemed that Maddie was looking at me quizzically. I went to my room much earlier than everyone else out of sheer confusion, clutching a bottle of Blue Nun. I almost turned on my phone to text someone, anyone. Then I remembered. The only people I was allowed to talk to were in the same hotel.
The next morning, though, Fox sat next to me at the buffet breakfast and looked at me, it seemed, with glowing eyes. Maybe he was just as hungover as I was. That Blue Nun was garbage.
“We’ll be in Winnemucca in eight hours,” he said with a smile. “Then I’ll take you to dinner. Enough of this crowd bullshit.”
I was more confused than ever. But Duji was standing now, making a speech about giving Gollywow something called a Fast Riding Award. I guessed that Gollywow had gotten to Vegas before everyone else because there were lots of congratulations and jokes.