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When two familiar forms stepped into the open area, one of which was holding a tissue to his nose, with a backpack hanging off the other shoulder. For a moment the man’s eyes caught hers, resignation made her heart clutch as he was trailed by a half dozen of the men ranked from prospect to enforcer.
* * *
Mike could hear Preacher Girl moving around behind him in the kitchen. The new mom attempting to recharge without discussing his request for clean linens and the screams from his child that probably woke the baby. Creek had yet to come home and there was no way his tech savvy ass wasn’t researching the AMBER ALERT blaring through every phone in the state.
“Hack sent me a message,” Preacher Girl said as the microwave beeped from the water she’d put in there a few minutes ago.
A hard lump filled his throat, he prayed the woman wouldn’t get in his way. It was one thing to have the cops after him, Hack would show no mercy if he so much as stepped on the woman’s shoelace and made her trip. He wasn’t sure if he could do much more beyond locking her in the nursery, but feared what might trigger him to engage the muscle memory engrained deep inside him.
“He’s tied up with MC business I guess,” she said.
“It’s all good, I’m about to check out,” he said making sure he wasn’t tipping his hand. Checking out could be crashing for the night or disappearing. Either way he had to figure a way to get his baby across the border and Montana had a ton of woodlands where a person could slip through without even so much as a thought to the fact you’d crossed over. Then he could make his way to another country or claim asylum in the country that didn’t believe in the death penalty unlike the state of California. Moratorium or not, his training might trigger a federal trial and that was where he was at. He’d be happy to serve the time after Sydney turned eighteen or twenty one. Hell, he’d take the needle, chair and firing squad then, but not before. She still needed protecting and her mother proved she couldn’t or wouldn’t do that.
Mike figured his time was up and he better head out. In the bedroom he doubled checked his go bag, he was just about ready to go to get Sydney when he turned to see Hack standing in the doorway.
“Whatcha doing?”
“Overstaying my welcome, you know what they say about guests and fish.”
“It hasn’t been three days,” Hack countered the man unwilling to give him the rope to hang himself.
Mike started checking off options, but reinforced for the cold, the new windows meant jumping out one wasn’t going to happen and the man filling the doorway blocked his other exit. He was trapped and S.O.L. at this point. The road was ending in a way he couldn’t handle. There wasn’t any chance of rushing Sydney out of the place without her waking in terror and adding another layer of trauma to the little girl who’d already had her light stolen. The action could snuff it out forever.
“Enough, Hanover, we need to talk. Outside, Preacher Girl is trying to get some sleep, guess the baby woke up ahead of schedule, you know anything about that?”
“Porsche stopped by, put in a pole and blasted music,” Mike said keeping his bag strap over his shoulder as he followed the man, knowing he wasn’t in the place to ghost. “You know I outrank you, Captain.”
“Not here,” Creek repeated his own words back to him with a harsh succinctness showing he hadn’t needed to even slightly think about the reply.
Threat assessment mindset made the two men standing at a distance beside their motorcycle be registered immediately by Mike. Creek knew he’d see them as that even without visible weapons. Two other sentry guard sets were on the East and West side of the home. The only thing on the North side was Creek and himself. While one on one they probably could match up pretty well, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a convergence of the six sentries he’d caught on duty around the house.
“Upping security I see,” he said hoping to break through the cold statue of a man on a mission. “Creek, what’s this about?”
Creek stepped inside the oversized garage and held the door open. The look one most see moments before their death. Glancing over his shoulder Mike had to make a choice, knowing his options were less than A and B as he stepped inside and bristled at the sound of the door latch clicking in place. While a few bikes were in the garage as well as an older car, it was the plethora of tools and workspace telling the story of the work being done out there. A faint smell of oil and gas comingled with paint thinner making Mike’s nose twitch with the harsh contrast from the fresh air of nature just beyond the door.
Creek walked over to a stove, threw some wood inside it and lit the fire. “That will keep us warm while we have a talk.”
“What’s this about?” Mike asked doing his best to play off the elephant in the room. “I’ll buy you a new mattress, I didn’t know she was wetting the bed again.”
Creek stood like a statue with a nodding head, the quiet warrior assessing in the same manor Mike just had.
“There’s a disturbing trend when it comes to your daughter and knowing her,” he said as the man’s phone began blaring making Mike suck in air, he watched as his brother in arms reached into his pocket to silence the siren without even glancing at the phone. The man knew what was flashing on the screen. A noose was tightening around Mike’s neck, choking off more than air making him pray for the sweet snap and release. “I’m not giving you a choice anymore. Time’s up, I need to know what is going on with Sydney? You put me in a shit place Hanover.”
Part of him wanted to spill the burden onto another, but the man had a newborn and young wife. Things he hadn’t considered when he chose him as a harbor in the storm. A backlash could wrap him up and pull him under the wave, drowning him in years of heartache and misery. Once the words were spoken, his friend could no longer claim ignorance to what had happened. Reasons and excuses not enough, the moment the first alert hit his phone and he didn’t call in the law he was culpable.
“That’s none of your business, Creek. Like I said, I’m day old fish in need of leaving, I’m getting my kid and heading out, sorry for crashing.”
Spinning around he headed toward the door only to be snatched by the back of the neck and twisted around. Tendrils of pain shot across his back when he was slammed into the wall and his chest caved in from the flat of Creek’s palm to the center.
“What the hell have you brought to my door Mike?” he snarled.
Instinct taking over as Mike turned into a trapped animal. His fist flew wildly, but with enough force he made contact with Creek’s jaw sending him back a few steps. The man’s obsidian eyes narrowed a millisecond before returning the blow. Endorphins rushed with sweet abandon through his body as days of pent up fear, rage and worry about Sydney spilled like a kicked bucket. What had been a slow anger he could control, spiked into a blinding rage with the same amount of release from landing a blow as receiving one. His body accepting the abuse to release the tension of the last few days. The first hit might as well have been the hammer crashing into the primer inside his mind. His body shifting into a mini-gun hanging of the side of a Blackhawk. Going blow for blow with reckless abandon as if he were laying suppressive fire during evac in a FUBAR’d mission.
Heart thundering, he lunged at his friend only to have the SOB, drop to a knee and catch him right at the hip with his shoulder. Flipping him ass over tea kettle as he landed flat on his back with a hard thud. Creek then slammed his elbow in his solar plexus shoving all the air from his body before sending one more hard blow to his nose. Stars flew in his eyes as the sting of the hit splintered across his face making him roll to the side and hold his hands up in surrender as he searched for oxygen through the metallic air of his bleeding nose.
“Stop! I’m done. That fucking hurt, Creek, shit.” He spit a mix of bright red liquid onto the floor.
“Tell me what are you running from. We saw the AMBER ALERT.” Hack was breathing hard and leaning onto the work bench. “I checked the channels, you are on leave, but once it’s up they’re going to join in the hunt.”
