She frowns, completely unfazed by my insinuation or mood. “No, I was busy getting the numbers for church. Pearl gets crazy if things aren’t completely spelled out.” She closes the computer and walks out with me side by side, because we’re both looking for two things. The bikes, and one is here but the other one isn’t.
My jaw locks tight. “Would Onyx take Shine without her bike?”
Skye shakes her head. “What the hell for? No, if they’re going somewhere together, they’d both be on their own rides.”
I get on my phone to my VP. “I need ten riders, I’m heading toward Tucson, I want them on my tail by the time I hit the fucking highway, and they better come fucking loaded, and someone better bring my bat.” I send a message to Ryker and Capone, letting them know we’re heading their way. Presidents of the Rivalry, the Larussios’ motorcycle club, they should know we’re riding into their territory and what’s happening right under their noses. All the better if they want to join forces and help.
Skye’s mouth is partially open. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I’m pretty sure I know where Onyx went and if I’m right, I need backup.”
“Tell me!” she says. “Pearl’s going to want to know, Hawg. She has that right.”
“I think our girl’s headed over to talk to the VP of the Scorpions, on her own without a fucking one of our crew. Get Pearl and Carver up to speed.” I open up the door to the clubhouse for Skye. “Stay with the ladies, I’m heading out.”
“Stay with the ladies my ass, we’ll be right behind you. The crew left to babysit us better know how to keep up.”
I jump on my bike and kick it into gear. I swear when I find that woman….
I can barely see the onramp of the freeway when the roar of my crew behind me rattles thunder in my ears. You mess with me or someone we protect, and the Royal Bastards will put you in the ground. I just hope that Onyx and Shine haven’t been hurt when we get that pleasure.
Because if what I suspect is true, and the Scorpions are running drugs for the fucking DeRosas of Vegas whether the Larussios gave them a clear and unfiltered message to stop, we’re going to have a full-blown MC and mafia war the likes that this desert has never seen.
I get why the DeRosa family would run under the radar, they have to eat too, but to do that after what happened between the Larussios and the DeRosas in Vegas, they’ve got to have a death wish. There are other ways to make money for them that doesn’t infringe on the Larussios’ territories or demands. After the beatdown they got from the Larussios, you’d think they’d run the other way.
The Royal Bastards are going to be right in the fucking middle of it going head-to-head with both the Desert Riders and the Scorpions, because those two groups have become each other’s biggest allies of late and our worst enemies.
Onyx is a hell of a driver. I have no clue how much of a head start she got or if Shine is with her or running alone. It just makes me accelerate faster. If the cops stop us, we’ll have to just hope it’s someone on the payroll of us or the family. Then it will get sorted fast, otherwise we’ll be screwed and worst of all delayed.
But I can’t worry about that right now. I accelerate, pushing harder, the dry dirt whipping my bare arms as we ride through the desert that’s baking at a hundred and one.
The tightness in my chest knowing Onyx is heading for trouble without me burns hotter than the actual heat, like indigestion of the worst kind.
And there are two things the Larussios won’t condone. Trafficking and kidnapping women and the DeRosas stepping into their property. The Desert Riders and Scorpions have picked the wrong club to mess with because if these women aren’t ferocious enough on their own they have the Larussios, the Rivalry, and The Royal Bastards covering their asses.
But only if one of us gets there in time.
13
ONYX
The Desert Riders don’t have a camp between Phoenix and Tucson anymore. They’ve long since pulled up permanent stakes after the feud with the Rivalry, the MC club out of Vegas.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t still run through these canyons. My jaw clenches, knowing I should have found Pearl and Carver. They run these canyons at least a few times a week and would know every single shortcut, cop stop or hideout the Desert Riders or Scorpions have.
But I know the approximate vicinity of where the Scorpions are. Some small club tucked in the canyons. At least the info I got last week gave me that. I have to believe that either the Scorpions or the Desert Riders took her, and my money is on the Scorpions since her ex was running dope for them.
Who knows, maybe it’s both. Either way, but I’ve got my money on the Scorpions and soon their VP is going to be talking to me. The camera and all the alarms back at the club would have alerted us to an intruder long before they got there. Shine had to have gone willingly. Someone lured Shine out, held somethingover her head to get her to leave the safety of our club and go for a ride with them.
I’d put good fucking money on that.
It’s cooler in the morning, but still, now that the sun is up, getting hotter than hell. I keep riding another hour and I see the peak and turnoff that sounds like what my informant described last week, hoping to come in the back way, but already knowing that at some point, their guards are going to see me, and I’ll be patted down and taken to the prez or the VP or to some unknown place where they hold prisoners like me.
Maybe that’s where Shine is. Hopefully she’s still safe.Please let her be safe. It’s the mantra I’ve been rattling around in my head the entire ride. The rumble of bikes coming in from every direction spins up so much reddish-brown dust into the air that it’s hard to see until they’re right in my face. The Scorpion colors stand out vividly in front of me. “Get off the bike,” one of them growls.
I do as I’m told.
Slowly getting off, standing my bike up, and removing my helmet so they get the message. I’m not scared of you.Stay calm, levelheaded.You have what they want and we’re just going to make a little deal.
