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“South side’s good too.”
“East side has building needing one more load of sandbags.” Venus gave her report. “Found weak spot at basement entrance to rec building. Probably would be OK but considering it is basement…”
“Yeah.” Thorn’s voice came over the radio. “Sending Red and Grease with a load of sandbags. Everyone else, meet us there. We’ll knock this out, then head back inside.”
Reinforcing the recreation building took another thirty minutes. Venus was right. It would probably have been fine, but she had a keen eye for detail. If she said she’d feel better about more sandbags, I’d never question her.
As we walked back to the main clubhouse -- which was a converted fire station -- I nudged Venus. “Why not think about patching over to Bones? You can be with your family and still be part of a club.”
She gave me a side eye. “So you’re going to let women patch in, eh?”
I shrugged. “Want to know? Put in a request to patch over.” When she scowled, I grinned. She’d make a great addition to Bones. Thorn might try to kill me for poaching his members, but I was confident I could at least fend the other man off.
Venus pointed at me. “You walk thin ice, Ice.” She grinned. “But I will think about it.”
Once back inside the clubhouse, we situated ourselves in the common room just outside Ripper’s office. The man hadn’t moved from there except to take a piss for the last twenty-four hours. We sipped beer and joked with each other, passing the time as the wind picked up in small increments.
“Lookin’ like the bitch is slowing down,” Ripper murmured. “She’s an hour behind schedule from the forecast models.”
“More fuckin’ rain.” Thorn shook his head. “Need less rain. Not more.”
“Deck stacked against us, prez?” Tobias raised an eyebrow at Thorn. I shook my head. Definitely felt like a stacked deck to me.
“What deity did you piss off?” I grinned at Thorn. The president of Salvation’s Bane flipped me off.
“Wasn’t me. Probably that fucker El Diablo.” Thorn snorted. “He pisses off everyone.”
We all got a chuckle out of that. Lord knew, the president of Black Reign was a force to be reckoned with. He’d inserted himself and his club into our world pretty firmly. Hell, one of his daughters was married to one of our enforcers. Sword was constantly having to run the man off.
Even after all these years, he still baited Sword. Since Magenta had accepted El Diablo fully into her life, there wasn’t any reason for El Diablo to suddenly turn up on our doorstep when there was a problem. Magenta talked to him daily and went to Florida several times a year with her and Sword’s children to visit with their grandfather.
I’d discussed it with Cain on several occasions. While Cain still hated the man on principle, he agreed with me that El Diablo did it just to fuck with Sword. And Cain. I thought it might go deeper even than that, though. El Diablo saw all of us as his family. He’d never admit it to anyone other than his wife, Jezebel, but the man worried about our clubs and the people in it.
Thorn’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and frowned, turning the phone for me to see the name that flashed on the screen. “Speak of the fuckin’ devil,” he muttered as he stabbed the screen, answering the call.
“El Diablo. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Thorn!” A male voice came over the speaker phone.
I sat up straighter and frowned, meeting Thorn’s gaze. Something was wrong. El Diablo, the former assassin for the largest, most powerful crime syndicate in the world, sounded… fucking terrified. Then, the bastard uttered the most chilling words I’d ever heard spoken in my life.
“Thorn, I need your help.”
Chapter Two
Dawn
I was in so much trouble. And I was starting to get scared as shit.
My father had told me to stay in Kentucky. I was supposed to go from Lexington -- where I went to school -- to Somerset to stay at the Bones compound. But after the last couple of days, I needed my family. Especially my mom. I knew if I could make it back to the compound, Dad would be pissed I’d disobeyed him, but he and Mom would hug me, forgive me, and keep me safe from the hurricane. And everything else. I just wanted to come home and never leave again. And I was Goddamned sure never going to date again.
Black Reign and everyone in it was the only family I’d ever known. My mom and dad had adopted me when I was four and I’d been safe, protected, and coddled ever since. I don’t have much memory of what my life was like before, but I knew I never wanted my life to be any different than what it was now.
