some slippery woman I did not trust to finagle a confession from a killer.
So yeah.
Great day.
Great week.
Great last seven months.
Awesome.
But I had D.
And Mad.
And Molly.
They just were hundreds of miles away and had no idea all this was happening to me.
Not even Diane.
“Meow?” Ashes called.
Translation: Where are the treats?
I should not feed him.
He wasn’t even mine.
And Ashes was getting fat.
I went to my huge-ass stash of cat treats.
It seemed I was incapable of not doing bad things.
Especially if, in the end, they had some slim chance of making someone happy.
Mr. Allen
Rebel
Present Day
It happened when I was on Speer Boulevard, about to take the bridge over I-25 to get to my place in the Highlands.
First, two bikes passed me on either side, moving in together in front of me and slowing down.
Then, I saw movement to my left and sensed it to my right.
Looking side to side, I had a bike at both.
“Shit,” I whispered, lifting my foot from the accelerator while taking in the identical patches on the backs of the leather jackets of the riders in front of me before I glanced in my rearview.
Two more bikes behind me.
“Shit,” I hissed.
I should have known. Hank was not all in with what I was doing, and Eddie was definitely not in.
Not to mention, I’d heard talk on the set. Something was going down with Benito and the Chaos Motorcycle Club, and it’d been going down for a while. There were even some folks who’d been there when it all kicked off years ago, when the Club had interrupted production to save some girl from her porn debut.
Benito would not like something like that.
And apparently, he didn’t.
Also apparently, they didn’t like that he didn’t.
And word was—flying in the face of all that was holy with motorcycle clubs—Chaos being true to their name was tight with certain cops.
Shit.
I looked left and caught the sunglassed eyes of the biker beside me. He took his hand from the grip and made some motions.
I was not paying attention to the hand motions.
I was staring at his face.
I grew up with bikers. My dad was a biker. My oldest brother was a biker. They were not in a club.
What they were, were assholes.
But not a single one of Dad or Gunner’s friends were that flat-out, drop-dead gorgeous.
Shit, shit, shit.
He looked forward and he was no less fabulous in profile.
Great.
He also edged his bike toward my car so I had no choice but to pay attention to the road, and not his handsome face, and move from the center lane into the right lane.
Then I held my breath in order to stop myself from screaming when the two bikes at my sides forced me into the exit lane and onto the exit ramp to I-25, both of them riding partially on the shoulder (on one part of this journey, one side of that shoulder being narrow with a short wall protecting a drop off to a freaking highway), but mostly tight to my sides.
They were going to kill themselves with this shit.
Once safely merged onto the highway, I turned my head left and pounded on my window, doubtful he could hear it over his pipes.
Somehow I got his attention, and when his sunglasses fell on me, I shouted, “I got it, asshole! Just lead!”
My window was closed. His bike was loud.
He still jerked up his chin.
What he didn’t do was stop caging me in.
Motherfucker.
In this manner, they guided me onto 6th Avenue and all the way down that long, heavily trafficked, three-lane bastard into the foothills. I lost my side bikes on the small mountain town roads that led to back country roads, the guy to the left going forward to lead the pack, the guy to the right falling back.
It did not make me feel cozy and happy when we hit a gravel road, in the middle of nowhere, that was winding and ended at a remote cabin that did not look like it was set up to play its role as a vacation relaxation station.
More like where Jason might show with an ax.
The bikes stopped.
I stopped, cut the ignition to my Subaru, tossed open my door, hauled myself out, slammed my door and advanced fast on who I was guessing was the leader of the pack.
The guy who’d rode to my left.
He was off his bike when I got there.
He was also taller than I’d have guessed.
He definitely rocked that leather jacket.
And he had a great head of thick, dark hair that was overlong. So