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I swung around to go back to my chair and slammed right into the man behind me. I glanced up, ready to apologize, and caught my breath at the blank look in his black eyes. The way his gaze moved up and down my body made my skin crawl. It wasn’t sexual. It was something darker and more dangerous, a silent threat conveyed through a look. He looked like the kind of guy that would get off on hurting someone weaker than him, like a high school bully.
His attire identified him as a biker, but instinct warned me that he wasn’t anything like the men I knew. Something about him unnerved me, and then I realized that I was staring.
“Excuse me!” I rushed out with a nervous smile while trying to disguise my inexplainable fear.
Sensing that I was about to step around him, his hands came up to grasp my arms. “You can bump into me anytime you want, sugar.”
His voice was cracked and craggy like a man who’d spent the last twenty years smoking four packs a day. I didn’t smell cigarette smoke on him, though. In fact, he didn’t smell as bad as he looked. He might have been handsome, but it was hard to tell with all the swelling and bruising on his face. There was also a deep, diagonal cut on his high cheekbones surrounded by dried blood.
The condition of his clothes was telling. He’d either been in an accident or a fight. I refrained from looking him over more closely, afraid that he would get the wrong impression. I tried to pull free, but his grip tightened.
“Please let me go,” I said in a low tone, not wanting to make a scene. “We’re holding up the line.”
Thank God he didn’t look behind him, because there was no line. I felt overwhelming relief when his hands dropped away, allowing me the opportunity to escape. Not looking back, I returned to my chair, hoping that someone would come out to get me soon.
Chapter 17
Doc
“Son of a bitch!” I snarled, pacing back and forth once the sweep of Wild Bandits’ bodies hadn’t produced Bronx. I wasn’t the only brother exposing how they felt either. Bull had punched the van several times in a fit of rage, leaving fist-sized dents in the side of it, and Savage had lost control and kicked his bike over, which he’d regretted almost immediately because a brother’s bike was cherished and an extension of himself.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Sax swore, kicking at the ground and sending a cluster of rocks flying like fucking missiles into the field beyond.
He’d just barely missed hitting Loco and Frenchie, who were returning from dragging a couple of bodies into the tall grass and out of sight from the road. Right behind them came TJ and Oz, along with two of Trip’s brothers. Six Wild Bandits and no fucking Bronx. Thankfully, none of our guys had been seriously hurt.
Demon, LD, Murphy, and Trip were huddled together, snarling and making hand gestures that revealed the extent of their frustration and anger. The ambush that we’d planned hadn’t gone as expected. There’d been a helluva lot more Wild Bandits than we’d counted on, and we’d ended up in a full-blown battle, which Bronx had managed to escape. Ending the second in command and sending his body back to New Mexico would have sent a message that we were done dealing with their shit.
“They were expecting us.”
All eyes turned toward Trip. I’d already suspected as much, but hearing it from someone else solidified my thoughts.
“So what are you saying? That we have a traitor?” Snake snarled. His face was swollen and bloody from the beatdown he’d taken when he’d been double teamed by two Bandits.
“Someone tipped them off,” LD growled.
I wondered if he was aware that he still gripped the bloody knife, his preferred method of killing, in his hand. I could tell by the way his gaze moved around us that he was searching for a sign that it could be one of us. LD was the kind of brother that had a particular look that could make a man piss his pants. I’d seen it happen more than once.
