I scheduled the appointment, but I could tell she would back out.

“I’m almost done, Calla. Then we’ll go to the clubhouse,” Gigi called. My heart sank, because I’d managed to forget about that for a while.

I was just about to go lock the door when the bells on the door jingled and I looked up to see a teenage boy wearing a leather cut with a probie patch.

“Where’s Cage?” he asked. I stared at the patch and then at him as alarm bells went off in my head. He was young, sure, maybe sixteen at most, but he was also a Heathen.

“He’s not here. You can check next door.” I tried to sound casual.

“Not going into a Vipers clubhouse.” He pointed to the Heathen patch. “Can you call over for me?”

I glanced down at the phone and back up at him, the confusion no doubt obvious in my eyes.

“You’re new,” he said.

“Very.”

I held my breath until he said, “I’m Eli. Cage’s brother.”

Eli, not Troy. “Oh. Oh, okay. Is he expecting you?”

“Definitely not.” He paused and looked at me, but I didn’t see any kind of connection there, and maybe he didn’t know that the Heathens had me on some kind of hit list. “You Cage’s old lady?”

“We’re friends.”

He put his tongue in his cheek and pushed it out. “Cage doesn’t have women friends.”

“Maybe you don’t know him all that well.”

He smiled, the way only a teenage boy could when the devil was at his door. And then he said, “I’m in some trouble. He said I could come to him, but I lost his phone number.”

“He’ll be back soon.” In truth, I’d debated pulling out the cell phone to call him, but I decided that I liked Eli’s vibe and didn’t have anything to worry about. Although I really didn’t understand the Heathen thing. Unless . . .

I pointed to his jacket. He looked at the patch and back at me.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I really just want to talk to Cage.” He glanced behind him. “You want me to lock this up?”

Gigi called, “A few more minutes, Calla, and then Rocco’s coming to grab us!”

Okay, that was good. Although it made Eli tense up. “Yeah, just hit the lock, okay? I’ll talk to Gigi about letting you hang out here until Cage comes back.”

I should’ve been bone tired, but I was buzzing. Maybe I’d crash soon, but for the moment I was just fine.

And really, I should never say or think anything like that and tempt the universe, because shit went to hell in the next few moments.

“Yeah, that’ll work. Gonna hit the head.” Eli went to use the bathroom and I was about to go talk to Gigi when the glass door shattered inward. I ducked behind the counter to avoid the flying glass.

There was a bat. I held it in my palms, wondering if I should get up or not.

In the end, that choice wasn’t mine. Someone grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me up, but since the counter was between us, the hold was awkward. I managed to pull away, my shirt nearly ripped off in the process. I held one hand to my chest, the other firmly curled around the bat as I focused on the leather-wearing Heathens in front of me.

My first thought was that Eli had somehow played me, but I dismissed that quickly. My instincts had been sharpened since I’d let Jeffrey Harris take advantage of me.

“Where’s Cage?” one of them demanded.

I found my voice. “You could’ve just knocked.”

The biker grinned, but it wasn’t friendly. It was predatory, and I chilled. “Come here, sweetheart.”

I held up the bat. He held up a gun, and I froze. And that’s when gorgeous Holly came in, swinging a shotgun wildly. She was distracting enough in just a T-shirt and striped barely there underwear, her hair as wild as the look in her eyes.

“Get the fuck out of here,” she said in her clipped British tones. She sounded so proper even when she was cursing, and for a moment it almost worked. The Heathens blinked at her; then the biggest one smiled and stepped forward, still holding his gun as he went to grab Holly.

Holly walked toward him and fired. It hit the big Heathen in the thigh and he howled in pain. She shot again, toward the other men, who cursed, grabbed their friend and dragged him backward through the shattered glass of the door.

Everything after that happened so fast. I unfroze, because Holly buckled to the ground, holding the shotgun and rocking a little. Eli came out and cursed and told me, “Gotta get out of here before the cops come.”

I thought he was talking about himself, but he pointed to Holly and me. “I’ll take care of some of this—get her to the back.”

While he killed the lights, I bent down as sirens rang in the distance and focused on Holly. “Holly, listen to me.” Holly’s eyes were vacant as she looked at me. “Holly, we’ve got to get out of here. Just give me the gun.”

But Eli was pulling it from her hands instead. “I’ll get rid of it and the carpet. Get out of here.”

The idea of handing a scene-of-the-crime shotgun to a teenager went against everything I’d ever known, but I did it anyway. “Holly, come on.”

I pulled her up and the three of us went out the back, grabbing Gigi, who seemed to be in shock as well, and locking the door as we did. Eli disappeared into the woods and Holly and I went through the alley silently and into the clubhouse. Once inside, I looked her over. She had blood splattered on her shirt. I ripped it off her as Bear came out and said, “All right. A show.”

“Police are after her,” I snapped. “She shot a Heathen. Alarms are going off next door.”

Rocco was next to me, demanding, “Why didn’t you press the alarm?”

“I didn’t know there was one,” I told him. Holly mumbled something. “And Cage’s brother’s getting rid of the gun.”

“Cage’s brother?” Rocco repeated as he grabbed the T-shirt and lit it on fire.

There was a knock on the back door. “That’s him.”

“He can’t come in here,” Bear protested, but I was beyond listening. I let him in and Bear went from angry to relaxed in seconds. “Hey, Eli.”

Eli stood in the doorway. “I got rid of it.”

“Good job, kid,” Rocco told him.

“Not a fucking kid.”

“Right. No. Come on—I’ve got an idea.” Rocco motioned for him to come inside, and after a long moment’s hesitation, Eli did. “Go wait in Cage’s space, all right? Take Holly.”

Eli led the tall woman by the elbow. She turned around toward me before she allowed that, though, and she squeezed my hand.

* * *

Halfway through the demo of the tunnel, several Heathens came charging up the hill.

“Better than Havoc,” Preacher muttered to himself as he drew his knife with the pearl handle, the one rumored to have come from the founder of the club. The knife he’d taken by force from the last president of Vipers nearly twenty years earlier, when he’d had enough of the man’s shit.

The knife he’d killed the man with, in the middle of the clubhouse, and left him lying in the middle of the floor, daring any of the others to step forward and fuck with him.

A balls-to-the-wall move—one he’d been too young and stupid to even consider not trying. Impetuousness had served him well back then. These days, he believed thinking things through was a man’s best friend.

Back then, a few of the guys had come forward to challenge him. They were no longer in the club, but he’d left them among the living. But the former president . . . after what he’d done to a woman, the daughter of a member, there was no way Preacher could look in his face daily or pretend to take orders from him.

You didn’t fuck with women or children. That was a rule he drilled into his MC members’ heads. The Heathens didn’t live by those rules, and because of that, he had no problem at all taking their lives.

Cage came over to him and looked at the dead bodies at Preacher’s feet. Three bodies in all, but one of them was moving.

“I’d have called if I couldn’t handle it. Go back to your explosions,” Preacher told him.

Cage just shook his head and left, muttering something about crazy motherfuckers.

* * *

An hour later, they’d buried the two Heathens and blown the drug tunnel to the sky. Cage and Preacher left the other Heathen handcuffed to his own bike, C-4 in his pockets and the remains of the tunnel next to them.

It wouldn’t take care of his father and Troy—not immediately. But the fallout would throw enough suspicion on the Heathens to keep them busy for a while. It would also deplete their drug supply, and their cash flow. And hopefully, make them several more enemies.

All in all, a good night. Until he saw the flashing lights two blocks before he and Preach got to the clubhouse and pulled over. They checked their phones and saw the alarms—Cage realized they’d been out of range.

Preacher dialed, a hand on his shoulder to keep him from bolting, because Calla was the first thought in his mind.

“Started in the tattoo shop? What the fuck?” Preacher growled, then hung up and made a few more calls, cementing their alibi for the night before they drove past the shop and into the clubhouse.

Of course, the goddamned police chief was only too happy to see them.

“Looks like a brick was thrown in the window. Seems like the shop was closed at the time. We’re just being extra cautious.”

“And I certainly appreciate that, Officer,” Preacher told him as Cage slid into the clubhouse, his heart pounding out of his chest. Bear pointed and he took the stairs two at a time, slammed the bedroom door open and found Calla, pale but unharmed, sitting on the bed. She’d been curled up and started when he’d burst in, but she met him halfway. He scooped her up in his arms and just held her close. She was trembling but holding him tightly.