Page 38 of Tank’s Weakness

I shrug. “I looked it up earlier. I had to know what to expect.”

Erica chuckles. “You little nerd.” She looks back at Officer Evans. “What about self-protection? Should she arm herself?”

I shake my head. “I don’t like guns. You know that.”

“It’s not that you don’t like them, you just don’t know much about them and have never spent time around them. We could go to the range, and you could try shooting for yourself. It’s not as scary as everyone makes it out to be,” Erica says.

Officer Evans jumps in. “I recommend getting something to protect yourself. Pepper spray at the very least. Tasers and stun guns are legal to own and carry in the state of Florida, so both of those would be a solid option if you don’t want to take the firearms route.”

This is insane. Am I really contemplating getting something to protect myself from Blaine?

As my thoughts spiral, Officer Evans flips to the front of her notebook and pulls out a business card. She slides it across the table.

“Here, take this. Call me if anything changes or you need help.”

“Thank you,” I say as I stand.

It wasn’t the ideal outcome, but I knew that this was how it would end up. I just hope that Blaine doesn’t force my hand again where I have to put this card into use.

Tank

This shit is for the birds.

Typically, I love going on runs. I fucking love riding my bike for hours on end. Nothing but me and the open road. Then the ride home always has a layer of danger. We have to watch our backs ten times closer and make sure we obey every traffic law. Never breaking formation. The last thing we need is to be pulled over.

Today, though, everything is different.

I don’t know how one run could go so wrong. It’s been a series of unfortunate events. When we left the clubhouse earlier, everything was fine.

Then Taz’s bike started cutting out. Thankfully, we had enough people, so we left him behind and continued on, only to be stopped later when Mac got a flat tire. We had to pull over and call the Lotus MC out of San Antonio and tell them that we were running behind because of issues.

As it turns out, according to Fang, they were also having one hell of a time. Only they got stuck behind a five-car pileup and were sitting in the middle of traffic waiting for the road to clear. All things considered, they were having a worse time than us.

I can’t imagine sitting in stand-still traffic with a car loaded down with drugs.

“This is a fucking nightmare,” Gunner mutters as he takes a seat next to me.

To kill time, we decided to head to a burger joint not far from our meetup location. I’ll give the place credit, they were fast as fuck bringing our food out. Right when Bear was finishing up his plate, his phone rang, and he stepped outside.

“Tell me about it,” I sigh.

“I heard from Mac. He finally got rescued,” Bear says as he sits back down.

“I bet Smoke wasn’t happy having to leave the clubhouse to do pickup duty. Not when he had the kid today and Kelly was meeting a potential client,” I add.

Gunner grunts in agreement.

“Actually, that was Smoke. Sloane took the trailer and Gunner’s truck. Picked up both Mac and Taz herself,” Bear says.

Gunner groans. “I should have known that Trouble would have found a way to involve herself.”

“Your girl loves us,” I tease.

He raises his hand and gives me the middle finger, making me laugh.

“Seriously, though, are we going to make it home tonight? Should we get a room for a few hours and crash while we wait?” Bear asks.

I tip my head back and groan. The last thing I want to do is stay in a hotel, even for a couple of hours. I hate staying in beds that aren’t mine. That’s a lie, I hate staying in beds where I know nothing about the type of people who have stayed there before.