Page 69 of Riding Bare

I tell him yes, and he says he’ll meet me at the gas station at the edge of town. Leaving the house, I climb on my bike and start the engine with a roar. I get the fuck on the road and head straight for the gas station.

I’m not sure what awaits me when I get to Vegas—when I get to this building and see my woman’s abandoned car. Because that’s exactly what the fuck it is. There is no goddamn way she just didn’t come home.

My heart races and my palms sweat with each mile I ride closer to the gas station. My mind is spinning a million miles a minute. When I pull up to the gas station, I park the bike around the back before I go inside to talk to Eddie, who I know runs the counter at night.

“You good, Dare?” he asks the moment I step into the convenience shop.

I jerk my chin in his direction. “I’m good, just wondered if I could leave my bike in the back for a few hours?”

Eddie smirks. “Anything for you, brother,” he murmurs.

Taking a hundred out of my pocket, I slide it across the counter. “Get you another one when I get back, yeah?”

He slides the money across the counter and shoves it in his pocket before he jerks his chin. “You got it. Anything exciting tonight?”

I almost tell him the only exciting thing will be possibly gutting a fucking Russian asshole, but I don’t. That’s a conversation I don’t want to get into right now. “Nothing worth mentioning. I just need to take a ride with Officer Lee.”

“Need anything for the road?” he asks.

I hear a car pull up, turn my head, and see Lee is there. I couldn’t eat or drink anything right now if my life depended on it. I take a step backward and tell him that I don’t need anything, then remind him that I’ll be back later before I turn and jog out of the shop.

I jump into the passenger seat and look at Lee. He arches a brow, no doubt confused as fuck about this. I told him the basics, but it wasn’t everything. I doubt he even knows I’m married.

I touch the map icon on the car’s screen, then quickly type in the address. “Let’s go. I’ll tell you the story on the way.”

A few moments later, we’re on the road, and I’m telling Officer Lee the basics of how Chassis and I got together, got married, and how she basically fucking vanished with her brother.

CHAPTER

FIFTY-FOUR

CHASSIS

When the rental pickup truck pulls into a sandy dirt-and-rock driveway, I look around. We’re only about an hour out of town, but I’ve never been this far north of Vegas before. I’ve been to Vegas, Prescott, and Los Angeles.

That’s as far as my traveling journeys have taken me. Which makes me wonder how in the hell my brother has been here before.

Gauge shifts the truck into Park, then touches the button to turn the ignition off. Reaching out, I curl my fingers around his wrist to stop him. He turns his head, his gaze finding mine.

The last hour has passed in complete silence. I have a feeling he wants to get the fuck out of this truck so he can call Dad and Amos, something he doesn’t want to do in front of me for whatever reason. Probably because this entire situation is my fault and he doesn’t want to make me cry by calling me an idiot to my face.

“How do you know this person, and what are we walking into?” I softly demand.

His lips twitch into a smirk. “Don’t worry about how I know her. Just know Heleni is a good person. No worries on any of that.”

Heleni.

I almost ask him who the fuck that is and how the hell he even knows her, but something catches the corner of my eye. The door to the blue ranch-style house opens, and I watch a woman walk out. A woman I would have never guessed my brother would ever be attracted to in a million years.

This Heleni woman is no biker babe.

She’s wearing a long skirt that sits low on her hips with a floral design printed all over it. Her top is a flowy crop top made of linen or a gauzy fabric. When the sun hits it, she’s clearly not wearing a bra—it’s completely see-through. Her long, light-brown hair skims her elbows, and she wears it long and straight.

I open my mouth to ask him who the hell this woman is, but I don’t get the chance. She walks closer to us, lifting her arms as she waves her hands back and forth, and my brother is finished with me. His focus is only on this woman.

My hand falls from his wrist as he pushes the door open, climbs out, and marches directly toward her. I watch as he reaches down, wrapping his arms around her, and then my brother spins her around.

I stare in complete shock.