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“Should we break out the ordinance, L.T.?” Tex asked, half jokingly, but half not.
Chris eyed the procession. “Wouldn’t do any good, Sundance. But somehow I doubt they’re making a play in the middle of the day. Besides, I don’t have anything they want.”
Hawk narrowed his eyes. “Looks like they got something you want, Shooter.”
Tex and Chris looked more closely and finally saw what Hawk saw. “Motherfucker,” Chris growled and stalked out into the gravel parking lot. Hawk and Tex flanked him on both sides.
Only two bikes rumbled into the lot while the others hung back, lining the side of the street. Chris watched in seething anger as Slick got off the back of Jack Prior’s Dyna Super Glide. He nearly shattered his own molars as Jack took Slick’s arm at the elbow and marched her toward him. Slick was appropriately contrite, keeping her eyes on the crushed rock at her feet, rather than look at him.
Jack reached into his cut and brought out a paperback book, handing it over. The book itself was of little interest, Chris noted, but pulled out the bus ticket stub tucked between its pages and examined it.
“Caught your house mouse trying to scurry away,” Prior announced. “Maybe she needs a stronger cage.”
Chris glared at Slick, who still did not look up. “Thinking about it.”
“Needs to stay where she’s put. I told her the way it is, but she needs to hear it from you.”
“I’ll make that clear,” Chris ground out between clenched teeth.
“See that you do. I got better things to do than round up wayward old ladies.” Jack turned and stalked back to his bike.
Grudgingly, Chris bit out, “Thanks, Jack. I owe you.” The smile that reached Jack Prior’s glittering eyes said he knew Chris owed him. Big. And there was no doubt that Prior would come to collect. Soon.
When Jack and his minions drove away, Slick finally risked a glance at him. “Chris,” she entreated softly.
“Save it,” he snarled. “Get your ass in the office.”
“I-”
“Get. In. That. Fucking. Office.”
Hayley’s breath caught and she skirted around the three men, practically running for the door.
When the three men entered the garage after her, Hawk took a seat on a stool, and Chris grabbed the edge of a workbench and flipped the whole thing, scattering tools and parts all over the concrete. The bench itself rolled end over end until it crashed into the wall.
“God damn it!” Chris roared at the ceiling.
Tex calmly slid his phone out of his pocket and fired off a text while Chris picked up a wrench and flung it at the wall. He finally turned toward the office and took a step toward it but Hawk slid off the bench and planted himself between the pissed off ex-Ranger and his wayward old lady.
“Nope,” Hawk declared, shaking his head. “Not yet.”
Chris stopped short and took a moment to get over the shock of one of his men routing him. “David,” Chris said quietly. “Do not put yourself between me and my woman.”
Hawk widened his stance. “Move me.”
Chris’s eyes lit with fury and he shot forward, hitting the big Sioux at his center of gravity like a freight train.
************************
Hugging herself around the middle, Hayley stood in the corner farthest from the door and listened to crash after crash outside in the garage. She was too terrified to go out there. She didn’t know who was fighting or why. She had heard the Buzzards leave, but maybe the President had stayed. Suddenly the door swung open and Tex sauntered into the room, closing it behind him. She peeked around him as he closed the door but couldn’t see anything. Tex shut the door and stalked over to Hayley. She flinched as he grabbed her backpack from her and opened it. He dumped the contents out on the desk. He studied the shoes and the scrubs intently, then rifled through her other clothes until he came up with the prepaid. He gave her a withering look and turned it on. He thumbed through the phone’s log, then turned it over, examining every inch of it.
“What-” she started to ask, but it came out cracked and too soft to be heard. “What’s going on?”
Tex continued to stare at her. “Hawk and Shooter are going at it.”
Hayley’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”
“I’m sure you’ve had occasion to notice the lieutenant has a nasty temper.”
Hayley looked from Tex to the door behind her. “He-” She swallowed convulsively. “He wouldn’t hurt me.” Such a thing did not sound like the Chris that she knew but she couldn’t deny the continual sounds of disaster raining down outside.
“Hurt you? No,” Tex stated. “He wouldn’t hurt you. Would he chain your ass to that chair until his shift’s over? Then take you home and chain you to a dining room chair to eat? Then chain your ass to the bed and fuck you stupid until all you remember is his name and that you belong to him? He might. It’s sure as fuck what I would do if you were mine and tried to sneak out of town.
