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Her innocent act would have to have been flawless to take both of them in. Ink took a deep breath and tried to think clearly. He wasn’t a sucker. She couldn’t have fooled him that deeply. Did it matter? Even if their moments together had been real, when it had counted, she’d failed. Rather than turning to them for help, she’d betrayed them and bailed.
The officers had gone off to confer and came back a few minutes later. They’d announced that she needed to be brought back to the Clubhouse for questioning. She wouldn’t have the option to refuse. Tek was tracing her phone to get a location.
His Dark Son Brothers were nothing if not efficient in a crisis. Already the entire Clubhouse had been swept for bugs. The three listening devices they’d found matched the make and style of the ones Jade had tossed at Hannibal.
That was the thing that didn’t make sense to Ink. If the Russians had something on her to make her betray them, why hadn’t she completed the task? Giving the bag to Hannibal guaranteed she would be found out. Was that part of the plan?
Hannibal sat next to him with a grunt. “I’m worried about her.”
“Why? Because she’s not answering your phone calls or texts?” The bitterness in his voice was cutting. His Brother didn’t deserve the attitude, but Ink didn’t care. He had every right to be bitter. It’d been Hannibal’s pushing that made him vulnerable to her in the first place.
“That’s part of it. But you didn’t see her before she pulled away. She was too emotional to be driving.”
He was worried about her safety? “Why the fuck do you care if she was too emotional to drive?” The ‘after she betrayed us and our Brothers’ hung unsaid in the air between them.
“Because she might be on the side of the road in a ditch somewhere. Hurt and alone. Doesn’t the idea of that bother you?”
Ink ground his teeth. The image of her bleeding in a wrecked car flickered through his thoughts. He clenched his fists and tried to ignore the fear that rose to challenge the numbness that had settled over his heart. She shouldn’t have the power to worry him after what she had done.
“I don’t think this is her fault,” Hannibal’s words were almost a whisper.
Ink slammed his first on the bar. “Not her fault? We all have choices in life. She chose to help that piece of shit Eric over us.”
“Maybe, or maybe they threatened her with something else. We won’t know unless we ask her.”
“What else could they threaten her with? She told us she doesn’t have any family or close friends. If she was the one in danger, did she think we wouldn’t protect her?”
“Jesus Christ, Ink, listen to yourself. We’ve only known her for less than a week. Yeah, we shared more with her than we usually do with any woman we’re with. But it’s not like we told her about the darker stuff. Or that our Brothers handle threats every day. All she knows is that we’re tattoo artists who used to be in the military. She has no clue what being a Dark Son means.”
Ink grunted, not wanting to acknowledge that Hannibal had a point.
“For all we know, they could’ve threatened to hurt us if she didn’t do what they said. And she might have been dumb enough to fall for it.”
Ink leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes in frustration. He didn’t want to see the sense in Hannibal’s words. It was easier to hold on to the idea that she’d betrayed them for no good reason. If she was a conniving bitch, it would kill that sense of hope that kept trying to rear its ugly head. Hope was nothing but a poison pill for the soul.
“So what, if she gives us a good enough sob story, you expect me to take her back with open arms?”
“I don’t know.” Hannibal ran a hand over his tight cropped hair. “But I do expect you to be willing to listen.”
Ink shook his head. He couldn’t imagine a story that would give him back the ability to trust her again.
“I’ve got her location,” Tek called out to the room of men. “She was parked about ten minutes away for the last hour. About five minutes ago, she started moving towards Denver. I’m able to track her real time now.”
Hawk stood up and looked around the room. His gaze stopped on Hannibal and Ink. “This could be a trap set by Petrov to get us to follow her. We need to be alert for an ambush en route or wherever she leads us. I want every Brother available on this ride. Keep your heads on a swivel.” He took a breath, as if hesitating. “The plan is to give her a non-negotiable invite to talk to us and give us the full story. Don’t hurt her unless it’s necessary.”
Ink swallowed, his President’s cold words driving home the stark reality of what might happen. He nodded his acceptance of them.
Hannibal gave him a disgusted look and shook his head. “You might not be willing to listen, but I will.”
The coldness inside of him grew. “And if after she tells her story I still don’t want to trust her?”
“I guess then we’ll see.”
Ink watched as his closest friend, for over a decade, walked away from him without a backward glance. Hope really was the ultimate poison. It might destroy every good thing in his life because he’d been stupid enough to take a chance on it.
Chapter 28
When I was a child I played ‘the floor is lava’. Parkour just took that to the next level.
