Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6)
Read Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6) Online
Authors: Layla Wolfe
Tags: #Motorcycle, #Romance
A hitman on the run from his past.
A chemist with no past.
Their faith will be tested in incredible ways.
The Bare Bones #6
by Layla Wolfe
Copyright © 2016 Layla Wolfe
Kindle Edition
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Cover art by Red Poppy Designs
Cover model Scott King
Edited by Claudia Morfit
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
A hitman on the run from his past.
A chemist with no past.
Their faith will be tested in incredible ways.
Alpha bad boy
Fox Isherwood
has crafted a new life for himself as a cartel hitman. To prove his loyalty, he is sent on the most impossible mission of all—to murder an innocent woman.
Pippa Lofting
isn’t her real name. As a federally protected witness, she is a non-person, unable to contact any of her loved ones. She can’t send a text or even visit her dog. She’s created a new existence in Pure and Easy, Arizona, home of The Bare Bones MC. Caught up in the whirlwind thrill of their gritty, fast-paced life, Pippa believes she might be ready to love again when buff, inked ginger Fox appears in town. He is stunning, a macho man for all seasons, and he brings out the best in her—as far as she remembers.
But passion is the last thing on Fox’s mind. The Bare Bones has ordered him to investigate a rival pot plantation, find out why they’re sending spies. When a hitman starts tracking Fox, the heat is on. Will Fox become the hunter or the hunted? And Pippa’s going to need everything he’s willing to give, because she needs…
SHELTER FROM THE STORM
Publisher’s Note:
This is Book #6 in the Bare Bones MC series. This book is a stand-alone and can be read out of order, but the series is best read in order to gain the full experience. This is not your mother’s contemporary romance. Daring readers will encounter violence, gun play, garden variety BDSM, and a HEA. It is not for the faint of heart. It’s a full length novel of 60,000 words with no cliffhanger. Recommended 18+ due to mature content and possible triggers.
The Bare Bones #6
by Layla Wolfe
FOX
Nogales, Arizona
“R
un!
Hijo de puta,
run!”
I had to blink and look twice. Not just because a shower of cocaine was raining down on me from above. My quarry, El Baño, had shot out a bunch of ceramic
chollos
stacked over my head. This turned out to be where they were hiding their coke, as I found out when I painfully tried to rub it out of my eyes.
“I mean it!” said the guy crouched down with me behind the crates of Mexican flowerpots. “If you run out that door, I’ll distract him.”
“Oh, wouldn’t you like
that
?” I sneered. I was in no position to sneer, really, but I had no idea who this guy was. I knew I’d come woefully unprepared for this shootout with members of the Presención cartel. Thinking I’d just be taking out El Baño, alone in a darkened warehouse at one in the morning, it had suddenly turned into the grand opening of a new Disneyland exhibit, complete with fireworks and exciting, heart-pounding rides.
I’d only brought my Springfield .45 semiautomatic with me. I could have easily strapped on my assault rifle, but I’d left it behind in my Harley’s custom saddlebags. I thought I’d go in, pick off El Baño from sixty, maybe eighty yards. Instead I must’ve walked into the middle of a major deal. Guys were popping up right and left. Like a whackamole game, whenever I hit one guy, two more would spring up in his place.
Already I was shot in the arm. Bullets cracked overhead, zinging by me, thumping when they hit a column behind me, or embedding in the eighteen-wheeler parked there. I’d tried to use a dead beaner as a breastwork, but that guy was soon so riddled with holes it was like hiding behind a sieve. That’s how I wound up behind these pottery crates with this other guy who also seemed to be aiming at El Baño, so named because he’d once left eight guys for dead stacked up like firewood inside a porta-potty.
I wasn’t about to give my quarry up to this Johnny-come-lately, especially not a guy who looked like he’d stepped out of
Saturday Night Fever
. I’m not kidding. This guy had a polyester shirt emblazoned with an eagle, and the airplane collar was so big he could’ve landed it at JFK. But he wasn’t flying under the radar with his shiny white belt. He looked more like a soap opera actor than a
sicario
, and I’d been in the business long enough to know all the players. “You want to take the credit for burying El Baño.”
He shrugged. He had a very thick but proper Mexican accent. He didn’t seem at all stressed that ceramic pigs stuffed with cocaine were exploding above our heads. “I am only thinking of your health. You only have that Springfield that is almost out of ammo, whereas I’ve got a spare AK under my blazer.” Indeed, under his white linen
Miami Vice
style blazer, I could see the outline of an assault rifle. If he knew I was almost out of ammo, so did the beaners. “Plus, you are hiding behind a crate filled with terra cotta gangsters. I, however, have chosen this new shipment of a sturdy
lavabo
to hide behind.”
How did this stylish hitman know that I knew Spanish? And why was he so maddeningly correct in his assessment of my predicament?
“Hey
pendejo!
” bellowed one of El Baño’s enforcers. “
Me cago en tu puta madre!” I shit on your whore mother!
He punctuated his enthusiasm with a burst of semiauto fire.
I had to crawl even closer to my new protector when another
chollo
shattered overhead, raining down white and black pottery shards on my head.
The slick
sicario
finally showed a twinge of irritation. “There is no room behind this sink for both of us!” He popped up to let loose a shower of .45 rounds on the cartel members, then just as quickly crouched down with me.
He said, “Look, you are hit. You have just enough rounds to get you through that door, if they are not distracted by me.”
My skeptical legal-minded brain was working overtime. “You just want to get the credit for the hit.”
His eyes widened with surprise. “I just want to get credit for staying
alive
! Now go!
Vaya con Dios!
”
I persisted. “How will I find you?”
His smile was a dazzling display of capped teeth. “How can you miss the likes of Santiago Slayer?”
Maybe Slayer gave me the confidence to make a run for it across the empty expanse between the sink and the door. Maybe it was the fresh downpour of bullets that zinged our way. I knew the worst bullets were the ones you didn’t hear, and as I hauled ass out the open warehouse doors like a true yellow coward, I didn’t hear a thing. Just a loud but dull roar in my head, like a tape loop of synthesized meditation music at a spa.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
What a fucking clusterfuck!
I literally dodged a few bullets as I made a beeline for my Harley. I think I surprised a beaner kid who was being just as yellow as me, hiding away from the main action inside the warehouse. Luckily his rounds went wild, and I plugged him with one of my last two Springfield rounds. He went down holding his stomach like a guy uttering a Wilhelm Scream. All dramatic, but, ultimately, dead.
I was off almost before I pushed the engine button, my boots searching for the foot pegs. I’d kept my leather chaps on before sneaking inside the warehouse, but now I didn’t have time to slap on my lid or goggles. I just thrashed it out of there.
It was kind of embarrassing that killing the baby gangster was my main claim to fame in that botched hit. I should’ve eyeballed the scenario a lot better than I did beforehand. I only saw El Baños’ red Mustang out front. If I had bothered going around the corner of the warehouse, I would’ve seen more vehicles.
It was a basic mistake that had almost cost me my life. Ortelio Jones, my boss, was going to be unbelievably tweaked, especially if it came out that that nancy-boy Santiago Slayer had done the deed. And why had I never heard of Slayer? Because he’d been acting in a Mexican
telenovela
the whole time? And I’d only managed to put down that kid and probably a couple more enforcers inside the warehouse. I hadn’t even
seen
El Baño.
Regardless, word of my failure was probably already winging its way to Ortelio Jones, just as surely as Santiago Slayer’s bullets were winging their way toward El Baño’s head. It was only a matter of time before Jones ordered me back inside the borders of New Mexico, my danger zone. Jones knew I couldn’t go back inside those borders. He’d been hinting that he was holding it over my head, too. Just little things, you know the unfunny jokes cartel kingpins make.
Things like, “Ha ha,
abogado
. Maybe you’d enjoy vacationing in the Land of Enchantment.” “Very good one,
abogado
. Too bad you’ll never be able to see the Carlsbad Caverns again.” And “next time you screw up, you’re getting a one-way ticket to the Billy the Kid Museum.”
Regardless of my desire never to set foot in the Billy the Kid Museum in the first fucking place, I knew that Jones was good for his word. He’d just followed a diligent reporter who posted updates on him, tracked her like a hound. She knew Jones was getting close to her hideout, and kept tweeting her reports just the same. He shot her in the face, then used her phone to tweet the photos as a warning to her followers.
Maybe I wasn’t the best
sicario
in the world! After all, it wasn’t what I’d trained for, what I had degrees in. It wasn’t my dream job when I was a kid. I was a white guy—
very
white, according to the SPF level of my sunscreen, the bright ginger shade of my hair—operating in the dark underbelly of the Sinaloa cartel’s world. I thought I did pretty well for Jones. I’d racked up eleven high-profile kills since coming to work for him over a year ago. Not bad for someone whose hair blared out like a searchlight from a mile away, one reason I usually wore a slouch beanie in public.
