She got out of the SUV, scanning the garage. It could—and did—hold fifteen cars, and she wondered whose they all were. Then she remembered that Anderson Tanner was a billionaire—and now her sister was too.
So these cars belonged to them.
No one could get in or out of this garage except the way she’d come in, or by using the elevator in the corner. She collected her daughter and her overnight bag from the backseat and hurried toward the door. Upon arriving, she pushed the button, but nothing happened.
Panic hit her in the chest as a loud sound filled the garage. She spun toward the door she’d entered, which had already been lowered and secured. But the sound of a rumbling motorcycle engine being gunned over and over could still make it through the door.
Her heart raced, and Navy started to cry. “I know, baby,” she said, not sure if she should cover her daughter’s ears or hit the button again. She tried to do both simultaneously, her own tears sliding down her face.
Mercifully, the elevator opened a moment later, and Sami stood there, a worried look on her face. Karly rushed into the elevator, but Sami didn’t push the button.
“What is going on?” She peered into the garage, and Karly tugged her back into the elevator.
“Let’s go,” she said, still crying. The sound was still so loud, she couldn’t even hear her own voice.
“Andy, there’s someone on the south side,” Sami yelled, falling back and punching the button to take them to the penthouse. “We’re on our way up.” Sami took Karly’s bag from her, pure concern and fear on her face. “You’re okay now,” she said, her voice too loud once the door slid shut and the car began to move.
“Karly,” she said sternly, and Karly looked at her. “You’re okay now.”
She nodded and wiped her tears with her free hand. She was okay now, but what about later? She couldn’t live behind the protections of the penthouse forever. This was her sister’s home; not hers.
She didn’t feel okay. She felt unsettled and scared. She wanted Maverick to be with her in the fortress of an office building, not out on the streets with thugs like whoever was threatening her with his bike in the garage.
What felt like only moments later, the elevator doors opened and Sami led her down a hall and through a door. “We’re in,” she said, though Karly couldn’t see Andy anywhere. She took Navy from Karly and said, “Come on, baby. I have a new toy for you.”
“Sami,” Karly said after her as Sami left the utility room. Karly didn’t want to leave this room, because it had no windows and she finally felt safe. She knew the main living area and kitchen of the penthouse had a wall of windows from floor to ceiling, and she didn’t want to be exposed out there.
“I’ll take care of her,” Sami said over her shoulder. “You go talk to Andy. He’s right out here.”
Karly took a big breath and reminded herself she was the adult here. She could do this. She’d survived her husband’s death. She’d birthed a child without anyone in the room but doctors and nurses. She’d had loads of help from her family after that, sure. But ultimately, it was her and Navy at home in the evenings, and Karly had taken good care of her. She could do this.
She found Andy at a desk in front of that huge wall of windows, but thankfully all the blinds had been closed. “Hey,” he said as she approached. “You were right. There was a single biker here. I have footage.” He barely looked away from the mass of screens in front of him. “And we’re four minutes away from being completely locked down. Floors one through six are already done. No one’s getting in, Karly.”
Fresh emotion balled in her throat, and she nodded. She also wouldn’t put anything past the Motorcycle Club across the lake. She couldn’t get Tyson’s words out of her head.
Have you ever thought about what your husband was doing on the lake that night he died?
He worked for us.
Karly looked at the screen Andy indicated, her thoughts rotating so quickly. Sure enough, the camera showed a man on a motorcycle, revving it over and over. He seemed to be staring straight into the camera, but he wore sunglasses and a black bandana over his head, so she couldn’t tell if it was the same man who’d cornered her in the convenience store that afternoon or not.
But she didn’t mistake the huge hawk on his back as he turned and gunned his bike up the ramp.
“I couldn’t close the gate, because he put something in front of the sensor.” Andy pointed to the ground, where it looked like a jacket had been left.
“Those are his cuts,” Karly said, pulling in a breath. “No way he’d leave those behind.”
“What are cuts?” Andy asked.
“It’s a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off,” she said, staring at the wad of clothing on the ground. “And the members take their cuts seriously. They either make them or buy them, and they put patches and stuff all over them that represent them. He’ll be back for those.”
“Let him come back,” Andy said. “He can’t get in the building.” He kept pointing at things on the screen and explaining, only stopping for a moment when a cool female voice said, “Floors six through sixteen are locked down.”
Karly marveled at the technology in this building and Andy’s ability to control it all from a few screens and keyboards on this long desk.
Exhausted, she moved around the desk to a nearby couch and lay down. A few minutes later, Sami emerged from one of the hallways and joined her, sitting up and letting Karly rest her head in her lap. “Navy’s sleeping, sissy.”
“Thank you,” Karly whispered as Sami stroked her hair off her forehead.
“Are we locked down?”
“Yes,” Karly said, the robot woman having confirmed a full building lockdown a minute or two ago.
“And we have a panic room here, Karly,” Sami said. “And enough food and water for a long time. You’ll be okay.”
Karly let her eyes drift closed, but she knew sleep wouldn’t claim her immediately. She couldn’t help worrying about Maverick, though she had serious doubts about being able to keep him as her boyfriend. It simply wasn’t safe, and she had a daughter to think about.
She started to weep again, the very idea of calling things quits with Maverick making sadness seep through her in uncontrollable waves.
“Do you want to tell me more about this secret boyfriend?” Sami asked, her voice filled with kindness. “Maybe we could help you figure out what to do.”
Karly sniffed, sensing movement around her. A moment later, Andy asked, “Do you want some tea, Karly?”
She sat up and accepted the teacup from him, a grateful smile crossing her face. Steam lifted from the mug, and the earthy scent of the green tea calmed her. “So I started seeing Maverick Malone after Mia’s wedding.” She sipped the tea, her eyes locked on Sami.
But it was Andy who said, “Maverick Malone?”
“You know him?” Sami asked, looking back and forth between her husband and Karly.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “He runs Ruby’s, for one, and I own three motorcycles.”
“You own three motorcycles?” Sami asked, the level of incredulity in her voice making Karly want to laugh. In any other situation, she would have. Her sister and Andy had been married for six months and dating for much longer than that. Working together for years—almost a decade. How had she not known about his three motorcycles?
Of course, Karly hadn’t known her husband was working for an outlaw Motorcycle Club late at night, and the smile slipped from her face.
“Yeah,” Andy said. “I have one downstairs. The rest are actually stored at Ruby’s. Maverick has storage space you can rent. His club does rides for fundraisers for B.A.C.A., and they’re active in the community. There was a whole write-up on him and the Sentinels a couple of years ago.”
“Really?” Sami and Karly asked in unison, and Andy nodded. “I’m sure I can find it online.”
“I believe you,” Karly said. “He did say those were the kinds of things they did. Apparently, there’s a r
ival club across the lake in Grand Central. The Hawks.” She remembered the cold-as-ice feeling of Tyson’s eyes in the convenience store.
“They said Derrick worked for them. You know, when he’d do the late-night lake crossings.” Her voice sounded like a ghost of itself, but she couldn’t make it stronger.
“That can’t be true,” Sami said. “There were just people who needed a way across after the ferries shut down for the night. They closed ridiculously early on the weekends.”
Karly met her eyes, not wanting to say the words gathering in her mouth. But she did let them out. “I don’t know what’s true anymore. What I know is I really like Maverick.” Her heart skipped a beat. “And I didn’t think I’d ever want to date, or find someone else, or anything.” She tried to shrug, but it didn’t come off right.
“And I know the Hawks have claimed me, and that makes it dangerous and impossible for me to be with Maverick. And I have Navy, and I can’t do dangerous right now.” Tears filled her eyes again, and the green tea couldn’t distract her enough before they fell.
“Claimed you?” Andy asked.
Karly nodded, letting her tears streak her face again. She sniffled and wiped them. “At first, they told Maverick that Gramps had been a Hawk. I asked him about it, and he acted weird. So I think that’s true. And then, earlier today, one of the Hawks told me he couldn’t risk having me talking about what Derrick did for them on the lake. That he worked for them, and that they owned me because of it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know everything about how Motorcycle Clubs work, but Maverick’s told me enough to know that if we stay together, that’ll basically be like him causing a war between the two clubs.”
“The Hawks are outlaws,” Andy said, tilting his phone toward the couch. “So a war between an outlaw Club and a law-abiding Club would be…bad.”
Bad wasn’t a strong enough word, but Karly remained silent. Her thoughts turned “bad,” and she couldn’t help thinking about the predicament she’d gotten herself into because of a pair of striking blue eyes and all those delicious tattoos on Maverick’s arms.
In her fantasies, she got to see how much of his body they covered, and she always traced her fingertips along every line while he kissed her.
Clearing her throat, she focused on the situation right in front of her, her dreams dissipating into fog when she realized she would never get to do those things. Never get to see all his ink. Never feel his skin beneath her hands again.
Because she was going to break up with him. She had a sleeping infant down the hall, and she couldn’t put Navy at risk. She wouldn’t—even if Derrick had. Karly wouldn’t.
* * *
Sometime later—could’ve been hours or minutes—Karly woke to the screaming alarm system in the penthouse, along with a red flashing light painting stripes along the ceiling.
“Perimeter breached,” the robot voice said as if delivering the weather. “The door on the southeast corner has been breached.”
Karly gathered a scared and crying Navy to her chest, grabbed her phone from the nightstand, and stumbled out of the bedroom where they’d been sleeping.
Andy and Sami were both at the screens already, talking over one another and the robotic voice that continued to detail where the breach was.
“The police are on their way,” Andy said loudly over everything. “We need to get to the panic room.”
“There’s no one in the building,” Sami said, scanning, scanning, her eyes almost wild. “They just threw something through the door.”
Andy straightened, his face turning white. Karly didn’t want to see what was on the screens, and she rocked Navy on the other side of the desk.
He pointed and looked at Sami, and horror filled her face as she covered her mouth with her hand.
In that moment, the alarm quieted, though the red light continued to flash. “The police will arrive in eight minutes,” the woman said.
“Do we have eight minutes?” Karly asked, not really wanting to lock herself in the panic room. Andy had explained a bit more about it after she’d stopped talking about Maverick, and once someone went in and locked it down, it couldn’t be unlocked on either side for two hours.
Two hours.
Karly felt like she’d lived two lifetimes in the past two hours.
“They’re waiting,” Sami said, and Karly’s blood ran cold.
“Who’s waiting?” She started around the desk to see the screens, and Sami actually tried to block her.
“Turn them off, Andy,” she said. “She can’t see this.”
He managed to get them to go dark, but not before Karly saw several figures on one, standing in the parking lot where employees would park when they came to work on Monday.
That was on the opposite side of the building, and Karly strode away from the bank of computers and the wall of windows that overlooked the park and the lake.
“Karly,” Andy called after her. “You don’t want to see this.”
Of course she didn’t. But they were waiting, and if they had something to show her, she might as well get it over with.
Her phone rang, and it was an unfamiliar number. She answered it anyway, but she didn’t say hello.
“Can you see him?” a man asked, and Karly hurried to pass Navy to Sami as they walked down the hall together. She detoured into a bedroom and closed the door behind her so Sami wouldn’t come in.
At the windows, she parted the curtains and looked down into the parking lot. From twenty stories up, she had a birds-eye view of the whole town—including the dozen or so motorcycles in the parking lot.
“Do you see him?” the voice barked again, and Karly startled.
“Yes.” Numbness spread through her at the sight of Maverick standing in the middle of a group of five men, several feet forward from the others. He held his head high, and his hands loosely at his sides, as if he were waiting for a bus. Like nothing bad was going to happen. He wore his full leather chaps over his dark jeans, a pair of black boots, his leather jacket, and his cuts over that. He was stunning and magnificent, and Karly wanted nothing more than to run downstairs and into his arms.
A sob choked in her throat as the moment lengthened.
“Your grandfather didn’t ride with us,” the man on the phone said. “But your husband was our lake transport. A mole. A rat. This is what we do to people who try to come against our club.”
Before the last syllable landed in her ear, several more motorcycles and men entered the scene from all directions, similar to the situation at the convenience store.
A man kicked Maverick in the back and he went down. Karly screamed, unable to hold it back. Sobs poured from her as she stood there and watched five Sentinels get beaten and kicked.
“Stop it,” she yelled into the phone. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just stop it right now.”
The beatings stopped. The men backed up, leaving her a view of the six law-abiding Sentinels on the ground. A couple of them moved. Slow motions that indicated their pain and anguish.
Maverick didn’t.
Helplessness filled her.
“You belong to us,” the man said. “You say nothing to anyone. Not the police. Not your fancy-pants brother-in-law with his alarm systems and locks. And you never go to Ruby’s again. Never see this Sentinel scum again. Are we clear?”
Karly’s tears prevented her from answering, and a man strode forward, his leg lifting as if he’d stomp on Maverick’s skull.
“Yes,” she cried out. “Yes, we’re clear. Yes.”
The man backed up, and motorcycles peeled away, leaving five bikes and five men in front of the building.
The call ended, and Karly let her hand drop limply to her side. “Get up,” she whispered. “Please, Maverick. Get up.”
He still didn’t move, and she rushed toward the bedroom door, nearly colliding with Andy in the hall. “We have to help him,” she sobbed. “Help all of them.”
He caught her around the shoulders and he
ld her tight against him. “We can’t help them,” he whispered. “The police will be here in two minutes. I’ve called an ambulance already.”
“No.” Karly shook from head to toe, and everything in her life felt like it was shattering all over again. She sank to her knees, sobbing. “No.”
Chapter Twelve
Dark shapes flit around me, never really taking shape. The stench in this clubhouse makes me recoil and reach for the bandana I keep in my jacket pocket. I cover my mouth and keep moving, uneasy about leaving the rest of my guys outside.
Everything about this Hawk nest has me glancing around. Finally, I get shoved into a room where Daddy sits on a couch, a woman in front of him. He’s clearly plastered, and this isn’t going to end well. Or even start well.
Something beeps in a steady rhythm, and I look around, trying to find it.
“You know by now we don’t have a claim on the Addler family,” Daddy slurs, his breath the source of rancidness in this place.
“Yes,” I say, keeping my eyes locked on his face. He can’t seem to focus on me at all.
He slaps my shoulder, but it feels like a mistake. Like he meant to touch my face. Something. Someone pushes me forward, and since I let them cuff me with my hands in front of me, I can’t get my balance fast enough, and I fall into Daddy.
He growls and shoves me back, and the cool kiss of a gun barrel meets my ribs.
“But we have claim on Karly Lydell,” Daddy says, much more lucid now. “Her husband was on our payroll.” He nods to someone in the shadows, and a mean-looking woman emerges with a ledger. “He took bribes to keep his mouth shut and his eyes closed as to what he was transporting across the lake. His wife could know. She’s off-limits to you. To any of us. We have eyes on her all the time, and we’ll know the moment she squeals. And if she does, then she’ll really squeal.” He starts laughing, a cruel high sound that his hyenas echo back to him.
My heart sinks, sinks, sinks as I look at the ledger with dates, times, people, drugs, and cash documented in it.
Karly is beyond me now. The beeping intensifies, and all I can think to do is keep her safe.
Making A Move (Rebels 0f Forbidden Lake Book 6) Page 8
