Twisted Mercy (Red Team Book 4) (4 page)

He gave Max the password. Max typed it into a note on his phone, knowing Greer had real-time access to his phone. “Let me know if anything doesn’t stack up with her,” Pete said. “I’ll let you know what King says about your pay incentives.”

CHAPTER THREE

“Hey,” Hatchet said when JT, the vice president of the WKB eastern region, accepted his call.
 

“Hatchet. I’m surprised to hear from you.”

“Where are you?” Hatchet asked.

“Somewhere east of nowhere in Nebraska. Why?”

“I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to you before everything blew up at the fair. I thought maybe we could meet up. I got something I’d like to propose.”

Took JT a minute to respond. “Come to the clubhouse in Omaha.”

“No. Come back to Wyoming. What I want to show you is here.”

“Yeah, not interested.”

“I think you will be. I know where King stores his bank. If you don’t want to dip into it, it’s cool. I get it. But at least you should see the kind of business he’s running. I think you gave up too easily.”

“King’s got Feds protecting his business.”

“They’re not protecting us—they’re after Pete. And I’m telling you, I got a key to the side door.”

“Why are you turning on Pete?”

“He’s bad for the western region, bad for the WKB. The sooner he’s gone, the sooner the Feds go, too.” He’d put off making this call for too long. The shit that happened today was the kick he needed. Pete had crossed him for the last time.

“I’m not too anxious to get in bed with King—or make an enemy of him.”

“Once you see what I have to show you, you’ll know your options are wide open.”

Another delay. “I can’t get back there for a week or so. When I’m in the area, I’ll call.” He disconnected the call.
 

Pete was weak, Hatchet thought, a slave to his hell dust—and to King. JT was strong and ambitious. All he had to do was lure him back to the compound, show him the things he’d found in the tunnels, and let nature take its course. New management would be in charge of the western region soon. And he’d be back in office, too.
 

And best of all, Mad Dog would die.

* * *

Hope dug out a fresh bra and tee while Mad Dog was gone. She changed in the shower building after locking the door behind her so no one could follow her in. She washed the cuts she could reach, then splashed some antiseptic on them. She threw her tattered clothes in the trash. Mad Dog’s T-shirt almost went into the trash, too. She took a last sniff, then decided not to toss it. She could wash it and hand it back to him. Sometime. When it quit smelling so good to her.

This was stupid, she scolded herself. She didn’t know if he was on her side or not. Surely he wouldn’t smell so nice if he were an enemy, would he? Exasperated, she dropped his shirt on the bench and picked up her brush. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, then splashed water on her face. Feeling somewhat human again, she collected her things and stepped outside.

Mad Dog was there, leaning against the brick building, a leg propped up against the wall. A tear in his jeans exposed his muscled thigh and the top of his knee. As she remembered sucking in his scent from his T-shirt, a warm color rose up her cheeks. He arched a brow at her, the only expression she could see behind his glasses.
 

She turned away from him and walked to her truck. Opening her bag, she shoved his tee and her things back into it. He headed over to the driver’s side. He still had her keys. She was going to make a point of getting them back the next time they stopped.
 

“Let’s go,” he said.
 

“Where?”

“You wanna be the club wrench. I’ll show you to the old wrench’s digs.”

Mad Dog drove them to the other side of the compound. The wind billowing in through the open truck windows was blow-dryer hot. The WKB grounds were no paradise. Big steel buildings were scattered haphazardly across a wide, barren field. Piles of tumbleweeds clung to the northern sides of the buildings.

Mad Dog parked in front of an old Quonset hut tucked against a small farmhouse. The front and side yards were a gravesite for old bikes and inoperable vehicles. In all, a prime spot for mice and rattlers, but she didn’t mind. She wasn’t one for flowers and manicured lawns. Give her some old junk she could tinker with, bring back to life, and she was all in.

Hope looked at Mad Dog, and when he felt her prolonged gaze, he took his glasses off to look at her as well. Hell’s bells, she wished she knew whether he was a good guy she could trust or a bad one she needed to stay away from. His eyes were definitely more brown than green. They gave nothing away, which only heightened her wariness.
 

Men with nothing to hide hid nothing. Men with everything to hide hid everything.
 

She held out her palm. “Keys.” He ignored her, getting out of the truck as if she hadn’t spoken. She got out to stand with him in front of her truck’s bumper. Grasshoppers snapped and clicked as they jumped around the dry field. She held her hand out again. “I mean it, Mad Dog.”

He was still shirtless beneath his black leather club vest. His vest might once have been a jacket until he’d ripped the sleeves off. Threads from the jagged modification lay over his shoulders.
 

He held the keys over her palm, but didn’t release them. He leaned toward her as he said, “The best thing you can do for yourself is get in your truck and drive outta here.”
 

She searched the madness in his eyes for the threat in his words, but couldn’t find it. “Maybe. But it isn’t the best way to find my brother.”

His brows lifted. She realized what she’d let slip. “You aren’t gonna find him if you’re dead.”

“And I’m not going to find him if I quit looking, either.” She took the keys and shoved them into her pocket.

“Some things don’t need to be found.”

She ignored that as she walked toward the sad little buildings. Her brother probably didn’t even know he had a sister. Maybe he had other family, half- or step-siblings. Maybe he hadn’t grown up alone, as she had.
 

Maybe it was less a question of whether Randall needed her as it was of her needing him.

“How long since anyone’s lived here?” she asked, distracting herself from that pit of useless thoughts.

Mad Dog shrugged. “Not since the last wrench passed. The shop has been used by some wannabe mechanics. It’s pretty torn up.”

So was the house. Time had worn off most of the paint, along with some of the siding and any shutters it might once have had. The screen door hung a little askew, and banged against the doorjamb as the wind shifted.
 

She looked at the Quonset hut, which had an old garage door at this end of the wide steel building. Half its windows had been broken out and patched with plywood planks that weren’t weathering well. There was a door on one side of the garage door and a window on the other.

Turning around, Hope sent a look around the sprawling WKB campus. There were a dozen buildings nearby. She wondered if Randall lived in one of them or if he just came here to train; her friend had not been clear on that.
 

“What are all those other buildings?”

Mad Dog looked around them before bringing his gaze back to hers. “Buildings.”

She gave him a frustrated look and lifted up the garage door. It rattled as it rolled back on the warped metal tracks. An ancient bird’s nest was tucked into one corner of the front wall. In front of her, a big yellow spider plopped to the ground, making an audible sound. Hope stared at it in horror as it scurried into a shadowy crevice in the old concrete. Mad Dog was watching her. She didn’t look at him.
 

Instead, she stepped into the dim interior of the steel hut.

A thick layer of dust coated everything. The place looked as if it had been ransacked. Shelves were on their sides. Toolboxes were overturned. Tables with broken legs sat at odd angles. Newspapers were crumpled and tossed about the floor. Scrap parts were heaped in piles.

The biker followed her into the dim interior like a giant shadow—quiet, still, and close. Midway through the long building was a door that led into the house. She opened it and stepped into the kitchen. It had an ancient beige fridge with rounded corners that stood only as tall as her shoulders. The piece was probably museum-worthy. The stove was a stylish ’70s goldenrod. The porcelain farm sink was so cracked and worn it looked yellow. She wondered if any of the pieces worked or if there was even electricity to the place.

She reached for the room’s light switch, but Mad Dog stopped her, his hand swallowing hers as he tucked it against her stomach. He bent down to speak quietly into her ear. The rough, rumbling growl of his voice spilled down her neck, lifting gooseflesh across her skin.
 

“I wouldn’t, until an electrician can check it out.”

She pulled free from him and moved into the small living room, irritated by her reaction to him—and at its lingering effect. Something about him woke the nerves at the surface of her skin, making them open and hum. She rubbed her hands over her arms to silence the tingles, reminding herself she wasn’t attracted to him. He was too big. Too rough. Too dark.
 

Too much like her father.
 

And there it was, the thought she’d been trying to tamp down.
 

She’d been five when her father had come for her brother. Her parents had never lived together, as far as she knew. He’d made occasional visits to her mother, but never to see his daughter. In fact, most times when he came, she’d been hurried away to stay with a friend of her mother’s.
 

She sighed. No way could she wish reality away. Her life was the result of the decisions she’d made, like the one she’d put in motion the day her father took her brother, twenty-one years ago. The moment she’d dreamed of then was coming true now: retribution would soon be hers.

She looked over her shoulder toward Mad Dog, once again wondering if he were friend or foe. His tawny eyes watched her. Still no reading them. No matter. He’d be useful to her either way.
 

Besides the kitchen, the little cottage had a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. The double bed looked as if it had been a favorite hangout for stray cats and strung-out bangers. Really, the whole place needed to be demolished.
 

She took a deep breath and kept herself from looking at the biker who shadowed her, sucking all the air out of each room. She didn’t want him to know this was overwhelming to her. She knew he’d shrug and tell her to go. Good thing she’d brought camping gear. At least she’d have a clean place to stay until she could extract her brother.

She walked back into the Quonset hut and made a circuit of the rubble that had spilled or blown into the haphazard piles. “So, how does this work? You and me?” she asked as she faced Mad Dog.
 

He crossed his arms and spread his legs. His gaze did a pass over her body. He was the only one who hadn’t pawed her with his eyes as she stood half nude before him and all the others earlier. The look he gave her now heated her nerve endings again.

He shrugged. “I guess you’re my old lady now. I can bang you whenever I want. And I get to beat the shit out of anyone who makes a move on you.” His pierced eyebrow lifted. “Win-win for me.”

Hope frowned. He didn’t look as if he’d just been handed a win. “So our association means I’m safe here, then?”

“Fuck no. I can’t be with you all the time. It only means I’m guaranteed retribution within club rules if the guys do something I don’t like.”

Retribution
. Maybe they had something in common after all. She looked away. “Have you been a member long?”

“A while.”

“Do you live somewhere in the compound?”

“No.”

Great. She seriously wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. Better not expect anything more than his protection—and even that seemed iffy. She looked at him again, wondering what the cost for his protection was going to be…and when it would kick in.
 

He met her gaze. It had to be a trick of the light in the shadowy Quonset that his eyes darkened. He unfolded his arms and took a step toward her. “You should leave, Hope.”
 

The raspy drawl of his voice was as inadvertently appealing to her as his scent.
“I can bang you whenever I want.”
His words swept through her mind, leaving a chill of anticipation. He wasn’t her type, she reminded herself. She gravitated toward men who were his polar opposite, fairer in coloring, men whose biggest muscle was their brain.
 

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

An approaching motorcycle broke into their tense standoff. The rider was the same guy who’d helped Mad Dog at the clubhouse earlier. He shut the bike off and parked it. “Brought her a bike to work on. Pete wants to see what she can do.”

That was far more in line with the entrance challenge she’d expected. She actually looked forward to the test.

Mad Dog lifted his chin. “She can’t do a damned thing until this place is cleaned up. Go grab all the hang-arounds you can find and get to work,” he ordered the kid.
 

She hadn’t been expecting the help. “Thanks.”

“If they don’t finish getting this place in shape today, make them come back tomorrow.” He dropped his glasses back in place. “I’ll see you around, I guess. If you’re staying around.”
 

“I’m staying.”

“Right. Well, you got my number. Call if anyone bothers you. I’ll check back with you later.”

Hope held his gaze longer than she should have. She didn’t want him to leave. And she worried about what would happen when he returned.
 

He walked out of the shop and into the sunshine. The bright afternoon light spilled across his sculpted arms and the wide span of his shoulders. She told herself she wasn’t sorry to see him go. It was best this way. His protection was dubious. And left alone, she’d have the freedom to explore the campus and begin her search for her brother.