by Isabel Wroth
Heart banging against her ribs so hard it hurt, Dillon made it all of ten feet before the phone shoved in her back pocket started to croak like a frog.
One trill was all it took to douse the fury licking at her flesh in a numbing rush of fear.
For whatever reason, that was the ringtone the shadowy man programed into her phone, and with her gaze bouncing around the wide-open space like a rubber ball, looking for the shine of a sniper scope, it took her three attempts to get her shaking thumb to move across the screen so she could answer.
“Yes?” she whispered, unable to speak any louder. Elka went nuts at her hip, barking out a rapid-fire warning to whoever was coming up behind her. Dillon didn't turn around. She couldn't. Not even to order Elka to calm down.
He had to speak up to be heard over the violent barking, but his voice remained as dead and emotionless as before. “I thought I was clear in my instructions, Duchess.”
There were so many places where he could have concealed himself. Nearly lost to her own paranoia and terror, Dillon couldn't do anything but stand there and shake like a big, half-naked target. She had nowhere to hide.
“I did exactly what you said,” she forced the words to form even as her tongue felt swollen and too dry to speak.
“You said, 'Drive to Austin, go to the Perdition MC compound, deliver this message directly to Nasa, and your job is done.' You didn't say I had to deliver the message face to face. He was watching me through the cameras. He saw it.”
A long sigh filtered through the line, and Dillon could practically feel him looming over her, that knife in his hand, pressing against her cheek as he impressed upon her the consequences of failure.
“Give him the phone, Dillon,” he eventually drawled. “Our deal is done.”
Without turning around, Dillon stretched her arm back, offering the phone to whoever was within reach. As soon as it was out of her fingers, she practically ran for the truck before the Reaper had a chance to change his mind.
Dillon got in and shut the door, her violently trembling hand immediately going for the keys still stuck in the ignition.
Elka leapt in through the passenger side window as Dillon went to turn the engine over, but all that happened was a sputtering click.
She tried again, and again, looking up in time to see the huge wrought iron gates that looked strong enough to withstand a direct hit from a tank and not buckle, slowly rolling shut across her only exit.
“Much as I don't look forward to telling you this, you're not going anywhere.”
Elka leaned over Dillon to face the window, lips peeled back to expose every single one of her pearly white teeth.
Dillon looked to see a tall, lanky redhead, holding up a tangle of wires in his hand with an apologetic look on his face.
At any other time, it would have thrilled her to see the guy's throat work nervously in response to the look Elka leveled on him, but not today.
Today, Dillon was trapped, surrounded by strangers, and there was nowhere to hide.
“Shit, I think my balls just ran for cover up my ass,” the redhead muttered, wisely taking a few steps back.
CHAPTER TWO
From the moment the blue Bronco rolled past the open gates to park in front of the garage, Nasa had been watching. He'd seen the woman and her monster of a dog get out, fearfully looking around like Jason Voorhees was about to pop out from behind the oak trees and whack her.
Taking note of her short shorts and the enormous sweatshirt she had on, Nasa had his finger on the button to call the bomb squad, just in case she had a vest of explosives on under there.
No doubt, the woman was gorgeous. At least six feet tall, with an edgy haircut that kept her wheat-colored hair out of her face. A closer look revealed sharp features and velvety brown eyes. Tiger eyes, blazing defiantly from a face that could have launched a thousand ships.
A quick search using his facial recognition software got a hit on her name, and Dillon DeLoughrey didn't have so much as a parking ticket attached to her driving record.
A six-foot-tall blonde woman wasn’t exactly what one would normally envision when thinking of a suicide bomber, but the readouts from his sophisticated security system tagged her heart rate at a million miles an hour. She was terrified, and people that scared took stupid chances.
Never in his life had he expected her to whip off her hoodie to show him and the rest of the club the harsh message written across her body.
He'd sat in his chair in the basement, struck dumb for a minute, slow to move. By the time he'd leaped up and ran upstairs to demand answers, she was already heading for her vehicle.
Nasa shouted at her to stop, but if she heard him, she gave no indication of obeying, and none of the guys made any attempts to reach out and stop her themselves.
Not with the huge fucking dog she had, eyeballing them with her teeth exposed, eagerly daring them to get close enough to bite.
There weren't many reasons why a woman had a dog like that, and the scars covering almost every inch of Dillon's back suggested her reason was as ugly as those scars.
It was the familiar sound of frogs croaking that stopped her cold. Nasa watched her shoulders leap up around her ears, her entire body trembling when she lifted her cell to her ear.
She spoke too softly for Nasa to catch everything she said, but he moved when she reached out blindly to offer up her phone.
Confused as hell, he took it, shock compounding shock to hear the voice on the other end.
“You know, I went through quite a bit of trouble to ensure my little Duchess hand delivered a message to you, and you couldn't be bothered to come outside to meet her? Tut, tut, Nasa. Your manners are sorely lacking.”
Rage turned his vision red to hear that creepy, dead-ass voice in his ear. “Fuck my manners, and fuck you, you coward. Sending a woman to deliver your bullshit message? You too scared to come down here and face me now that all your buddies are in jail, is that it?”
“You know better than to try and bait me, Nasa. It won't work,” Ghost sighed in a mockery of exasperation.
“For some reason, it disappoints me that after all this time, you still don't know the truth.”
“I've disappointed you? I knew you were a psycho, but you really are out of your goddamn mind—”
Ghost went on as though Nasa hadn't interrupted, “I thought I could kill the proverbial two birds without actually bloodying my stone, but perhaps I was mistaken. She's a remarkable woman, my Duchess.
"If I were capable of remorse, I'd be sorry to have inconvenienced her. I told her to deliver my message to you, and I see I failed to specify 'in person.' I'll have to chat with her about that further.”
The tiny bite of annoyance in Ghost's voice made a shiver rip through Nasa, envisioning the results of whatever chat Ghost would have with Dillon.
Nasa didn't know her from Eve, but he wouldn't wish one visit from Ghost on his worst enemy, let alone two.
“You fucked up by not being specific, and it's her fault for not following directions? Seems like a personal problem there, asshole.”
“I suppose so,” Ghost conceded, now sounding bored. “You should know, if she leaves your compound today, she's dead.”
Nasa made a sound of unfettered rage, earning himself another patronizing tut from Ghost.
“Calm yourself, brother. I have no plans in motion for her myself, but she's unknowingly strayed into my territory. An innocent mistake, but my remaining brethren feel differently and are preparing to act in their usual fashion.
“Despite being damaged goods, blonde women bring in well over six figures to the right buyer. The dog will do a good job at protecting her, perhaps give her a chance to get away, but one never knows.
“If my message wasn't clear enough, or didn't pack enough punch, I suppose I'll have to find some other pressure point to ensure you stop looking for my sweet little wifey. One of the babies, perhaps? It would be a shame if they suddenly went missing.”
The wo
rld spun in a dizzying circle of immediate, panic-fueled fury. It took every ounce of self-control not to crush the phone in his fist as his body turned to stone.
Nasa didn't yell, he didn't rage, but the voice that came out of his mouth sounded like it belonged to a demon from the blackest of pits.
“I swear to god, if you touch a single hair on any of their heads, I will never stop. I'll focus every resource at my disposal to destroying you.”
“Your choice, brother. Stop looking for Wren, or say goodbye to someone else you love.”
Before Nasa could rip the psychotic fucker a new asshole for daring to call him brother, Ghost hung up, and Nasa was left to stand there, wondering how the hell Dillon could have possibly crossed paths with a serial murderer or the Leviathans.
She sure as fuck wasn't leaving, not until he had answers to the million and one questions he had, chief among them, who’d given her the scars on her back.
That last part shouldn't matter, but it did. It really fucking did.
Too keyed up, Nasa couldn't turn off his demon voice, and getting her out of the truck and into the compound without anyone losing a hand to her monster dog turned out to be incredibly difficult.
Not even relaying Ghost's threat of death if she left the property seemed to sway her.
It was Top who finally managed to say the magic words, “Honey, I know you're scared outta your mind right now, but you gotta know the enemy of your enemy is your friend, and all you got here are friends.
“We've been tracking down the guy who gave you that message to put a bullet through his eye, and any information you can give us will only help that goal be realized.
"Nobody here is gonna hurt you, but if it'll help you throttle down, it'll be just you and me in the conference room. The boys have shit to do.”
Nasa gave a jerk of his chin to acknowledge what Top was telling him, grinding his teeth to keep quiet.
*****
It took Nasa all of ten seconds to get from the conference room to his basement, the rest of the brothers trailing after him, talking in muted whispers.
Nasa sat down at his command center just in time to hear Dillon's sultry murmur float through the speakers of his system.
“If that ginger doesn't put the guts of my truck back together, my dog will eat him.”
Top chortled as he pulled up a chair and got comfortable, stretching his long legs casually out in front of him.
“It's probably already done, but if not, it will be by the time we're done talking.”
Raid leaned in close enough for Nasa to smell his hippie-dippie aftershave, his eyes narrowed in focus on the screens of information Nasa had compiling about Dillon DeLoughrey.
“You thinkin’ she's another one of the women Ghost uses to get what he wants?”
Nasa opened his mouth to say he hadn't abandoned the possibility, but Roar gave a grunt.
“She doesn't look like any of the women the feebs pulled out of the W.”
“She might not be recruiting kids to be sold into slavery, but that doesn't mean she's not working for or with Ghost.” Nasa ground his teeth as he pulled up as many angles as possible to see all of Dillon's face.
It made no sense that Ghost would send her here. Why would he give a shit if his brethren killed her?
“Yeah? Well, she must not be very good at it then.”
With his mouth full of popcorn, it took Nasa a moment to translate Roar's observation.
“Men are weak, Roar. We get distracted by a pretty face that makes our dick hard.” Nasa was certainly distracted.
Torn between whether or not Dillon was here to provide intel to Ghost, or if she truly was a victim in need of their help.
“I was gonna ask you when you’d started carrying a baseball bat around in your pocket.” Roar chuckled, getting crumbs all over the carpet.
“She could be a spy, but any spy worth a damn wouldn't have scars like that. She either got caught by whoever she was spying on, or her people beat the fuck out of her for failing to deliver the goods. Ipso facto, she's not real good at being a spy.”
That... that was a fair argument. Declining the offer Roar made to share his messy snack, Nasa sat in his command chair with his eyes glued to Dillon's face, recording everything to review later.
“That is one big beautiful bitch,” Top said to Dillon. The club president even smiled at her as he folded his hands over his stomach, like they were just two people shootin’ the shit. “Don't often see a Doberman that size. She purebred?”
“No,” Dillon answered, clearly not willing to elaborate further. Her fingers dug deep into the beast's hide, but neither she nor the dog seemed inclined to relax.
“How'd Ghost get past her?” Top asked patiently, too patiently. There was no sense of urgency to his questions whatsoever.
The audio on the cameras picked up the thick swallow Dillon gave before hoarsely answering.
“You call him Ghost?”
“It's what his people call him, but it's appropriate,” Top replied.
“So far as we can tell, he has no identity, can slip in and out of buildings like he's made of smoke, follow targets without being seen, and leaves bodies in his wake without so much as a molecule of himself behind.”
When Top fell quiet, Dillon seemed to remember he'd asked her a question.
“He told me he broke into my house while I was out on errands and drugged Elka's dog food. I had a glass of wine before bed, the bottle was open in the fridge. He must have drugged that too, because I didn't hear him come in my room or feel the needle.”
She pushed the sleeve of her sweatshirt up to show Top the red mark in the crook of her elbow.
“When I came to, he was leaning over me with a bright light shining in my face. I couldn't see anything but his shadow and the knife in his hand.
"I thought he was going to rape me before he started cutting into me, but other than terrifying me, he was... polite.”
Nasa listened to the details of Ghost’s attack, each one wrenching his heart in a familiar way. His guts writhed like snakes as he imagined Ghost leaning over Dillon as she slept, visions of the crime scene photos of what the sick sonofabitch had done to Susan and Pike superimposed now on Dillon.
Instead of seeing Susan's butchered body and sightlessly staring eyes, Nasa pictured Dillon lying there, staring at nothing, her beautiful face splattered with blood, twisted and frozen in terrible pain.
Nasa watched Dillon's already fair skin turn almost gray with fear, her eyes went glassy as she relived the terrifying moments she'd spent thinking she was going to be violated and murdered.
Right as Nasa thought she was a breath away from snapping, her enormous dog turned around and lifted her muzzle to Dillon's shoulder.
“That's not just a protection dog. It's a service dog with some kind of emotional support training,” Raid commented thoughtfully.
Roar garbled out a completely unidentifiable question around his current mouthful of popcorn.
Raid grunted in disgust. “Chew with your mouth closed, you sick bastard.”
Roar gave Raid the finger and swallowed his food. “I said, how do you know?”
“Athena volunteers at the pitbull rescues around town,” Raid told them all, rubbing his hand back and forth over his short beard while he studied the interaction between Dillon and her dog.
“She's started helping the handlers evaluate the dogs as potential service animals for kids with special needs.
“Watches videos and training info all the damn time. It's hard not to pick shit up. I remember her going all woobsy over some video of a kid having a massive panic attack and her service dog practically plastering the kid to the floor to help calm her down. Like that.”
Raid gestured at the screen where they were all raptly watching Dillon struggling to keep herself from hyperventilating.
It didn't take her long to calm, but Nasa found himself wildly disturbed. The vibrant, beautiful woman on his screen held onto her dog like it was
the only friend she had in the world.
Was that the case?
More importantly, why did it matter to him?
“Bet James Bond never needed an emotional support attack dog,” Roar mused.
Saint gave an exasperated sigh. “Dude, James Bond isn't a real person.”
“I know that, fucker,” Roar fired back. “I'm just sayin'.”
“You have any idea where you crossed paths with a biker gang that runs drugs, weapons, and deals heavily in human trafficking?” Top asked in his blunt manner, urging Nasa to loudly shush the rising argument brewing behind him about spies in the movies versus reality.
Dillon froze in the process of rubbing her cheek against her dog's slick, shiny coat. An expression of horror twisted across her face.
There and gone so fast, if he hadn't been focused on her face, Nasa would have missed it.
“No. I live an extremely low-risk life and don't go into town, except to meet clients. I flip homes and turn them into safe-houses.
"Until today, I certainly haven't socialized with any biker gangs, and I would honestly rather die than stay here.”
Nasa shot off a furious text to Top, insisting he refuse to let Dillon go anywhere, but Top didn't even twitch as it went off in his pocket.
“How'd you get all them scars?” Top asked casually, rocking back in his seat. Leather creaked as Nasa and the rest of the brothers leaned forward, closer to the monitors to hear Dillon's answer.
An angry flush painted her cheeks red, and up went her chin. “My scars are my business. I'm ready to leave now.”
Top gave a thoughtful sound, and a slight shake of his head. “I know you've had a helluva bad day, darlin', but I don't think you appreciate the enormity of the trouble you're in.”
Sparks practically flew from Dillon’s eyes as she narrowed them at Top.
“What part do you feel I don’t appreciate? The one where a man broke into my home, drugged me, and went into intricate detail of how he planned to murder me if I disobeyed him?”
Nasa winced in sympathy for Top, imagining if the old man had used that tone on Ever. Despite Dillon’s lack of fiery red hair, it seemed to be getting the same results.
