Page 11 of Ruin

I wanted to make sure the trap hadn’t extended to encircle them as well.

Then again, I wasn’t going to be able to do that if I didn’t evade the police.

I veered off at the next exit, changing my plans again, and sped through the streets, looking for an alley dark enough to hide me. When I saw one, I screeched around the corner, cursing myself for making so much noise and knowing damn well that I didn’t care. Time was of the essence, and I didn’t have a lot of it.

I swerved to a stop in a smaller alley that split off from the first, in a space behind a restaurant that was nearly too small for the bike itself. Then I hit the lights and peered through the space between buildings, watching the main highway and praying some more. This wasn’t my territory. It had been once, but these days, it belonged to Devil.

I’d be dead if anyone from his club found me here.

But if the cops found me, I’d be in jail, and that wasn’t much better.

I needed the cops to pass me by so I could get the hell out of here and get home. And now that I thought about it, it would probably be better if I wasn’t out there on the highway riding my own bike, which they might now be looking for.

My eyes shot to the parking lot in the distance, considering, and I saw an old Mustang there. Beat up and dented, definitely in bad shape, but old enough that it would have an old-fashioned starter rather than one controlled by a computer.

In other words, a car I could hot wire.

I left the bike and rushed toward the ‘Stang, crouched over and avoiding the pool of light from the single streetlight in the parking lot. When I arrived, I found the car unlocked—dangerous, in this sort of neighborhood—and jumped in, yanking my switchblade from my pocket on the way. One quick jamming motion, a rotation of the wrist, and a pop, and the starter was free, leaving the wires behind it dangling in the car. I hesitated for a moment, trying to remember which wires I needed to hook together, and then heard Tinker himself telling me, in my head. He’d taught me a long time ago how to hot wire and then said he hoped I wouldn’t need it, but that it might save my life one day and was something every man should know.

He’d had no idea, I thought.

Then I set to work.

Five minutes later, the car roared to life, and I screeched out of the parking lot, leaving my bike behind. I hoped it would be here when I got back, but that wasn’t my biggest concern right now. My much bigger problem was getting home and making sure Saraya was safe, then figuring out how we were going to rescue Mandy.

A voice in the back of my head told me that I also needed to worry about the rest of my men, who were currently waiting for my signal and probably right in the path of the police. I woke my phone up and pulled up the messaging app, thinking I’d text them, but an incoming text interrupted me.

Wait. Looking through the phone, I realized it wasn’t an incoming text. It was my phone letting me know that I had old texts. Lots of them. Starting with that first one from Saraya and ending with one from Gemini about half an hour ago. I scanned through them, growing more and more worried as I went. The first one from Saraya said that there was someone in the house. Then there was a long silence, followed by a text from Gemini telling me what had happened—an attack right in my own clubhouse!—and that Saraya had stabbed the guys trying to kill them.

Gem had finished the job, and the guys were lying in the parking lot in front of the clubhouse. Devil’s guys.

Of course they were, I thought. Because he’d laid a trap for me and then gone after Saraya while he thought I couldn’t stop him. He’d outsmarted us, and none of us had had a chance.

The last text was the most worrisome. They’d gotten away from our clubhouse on foot, going after the motorcycle Gemini kept in another garage. Smart. But he was wounded and worried that he’d been holding her back.

So he’d sent her forward without him. Given her his keys and his gun and sent her into the night on her own while he stayed back on the road, waiting for her.

Go to Brock’s place, the text read. That’s where we’ll end up.

I threw the phone down in my lap and hit the gas pedal, cursing under my breath. I’d thought things were bad before, but now...

Saraya was out there on her own, on foot, and heading for the old bike Gem had stashed in some guy’s garage. I knew the house, and I knew that the guy wouldn’t protect her if it came down to it. He wasn’t part of the MC. His house also had to be at least five miles from our clubhouse. Five miles without any protection from Gemini, who was also on foot and by himself somewhere behind her.

If she got to the bike and got back to Gem before anything happened, they’d head for Brock’s.

If.

I was an hour from them, no matter how quickly I drove. Too far away to help them if anything happened. I’d been so intent on getting Tinker away from Devil that I’d never even considered that Saraya was the actual target, and that Devil might have guessed we’d set him up and sent someone after her. Now I’d lost Tinker and Mandy, and Gemini and Saraya were separated and in danger.

I cursed some more, slammed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and started praying again.

CHAPTER 9

SARAYA

I SPRINTED ALL THE way to the garage Gemini had told me about and arrived there completely exhausted, all the adrenaline in my body spent.

Once I saw the building he’d described, I fell against the wall, nearly sobbing with relief and fatigue, my legs shaking and my heart pounding. And then I stopped to listen. I hadn’t seen anyone on the road, but there was a 100 percent chance that they were looking for me, and they could have been anywhere. Hiding in any alley I passed. Down a block and just past my field of vision. Hell, they could be sitting right here, somehow knowing that I was going to head to this exact building.