Silas (Dirty Aces MC #4) - Lane Hart
Prologue
Cora Walsh
* * *
A few weeks ago…
* * *
I never thought that there could be anything worse than being invisible.
Then a stranger, a man hiding his face behind a motorcycle helmet, finds me cowering in fear on the floor of a rich man’s pantry. He points his gun right at me and makes the split-second decision that I am so insignificant, I don’t deserve to live.
“Should I kill her?” he coolly asks aloud.
The worst part isn’t that he wants to kill me. No, the worst part is knowing that he could take my life, and no one would care or miss me – certainly not my parents. I had always been a thorn in their sides, their daughter by birth but a huge letdown since I could walk.
Thankfully, though, a deep voice stops my would-be murderer. “No, you shouldn’t kill her!”
Another helmet-headed man appears next to the one who was so quick to end my life, pressing his gun to the floor so that it’s no longer pointed at my face. “Who are you? Do you work for Harry?” the lenient one demands. “Well? Answer me!”
I startle at his raised voice, and it takes several seconds for me to swallow down my screams while the sensible man is distracted. He glances over his shoulder, for whom I’m not sure, while I try to figure out what to say to get out of this kitchen alive.
“I’m-I’m just a-a chef,” I stammer. “He-he forced me to c-come here and cook for him! I swear! Please don’t hurt me!”
“Shh, calm down. We’re not going to hurt you,” he promises, but I have a hard time believing him. “I’m looking for a girl with red hair who was with Harry,” he explains calmly. “Did you see her?”
I think back, remembering the woman with multi-colored hair at dinner before shaking my head no. “He was with a woman earlier at dinner, but her hair wasn’t red.”
“What color was it?” he asks.
“I can’t remember.”
“Try!” he shouts at me.
“I only saw her for a second! I think…I think her hair was a lot of colors, okay? Maybe blue, green and purple all mixed together, but I’m not sure!”
“That’s Jetta. It has to be,” he says with what sounds like relief. “Jetta’s still here,” he tells his friend. “She has to be. We need to keep searching.”
“Fine. What do you want to do with her?” the lunatic asks, pointing his gun at me again as if he would enjoy pulling the trigger.
“Leave her. She’s safer in the pantry,” the calmer one says to him; then to me, “Stay here and don’t come out until we tell you to. Got it?”
“Y-yes,” I reply with a nod, my teeth chattering in fear as I wrap my arms around my knees that are pulled up to my chest.
“Let’s go,” the cool-headed one says to the other. He starts to shut the pantry door again when someone else in the kitchen yells, “Incoming!”
“It’s us! Hold your fucking fire,” a masculine voice calls back before more men in helmets crowd the room and hold a conversation.
“Everyone whole?”
“We’re good. Took out three guards around the side yard and back. You all have any trouble?”
Took out? Oh god! Does he mean…they killed the guards?
Another helmet-head peeks into the pantry. “Who is she?” he asks.
“Chef apparently,” the calmer one says right before a loud blast goes off, what could only have been a gun! The scream I had tried to push down comes bubbling free before I can stop it, thinking the next shot could be going in my face.
“What the fuck, Nash?” someone grumbles as if scolding a small child.
“It was another guard,” a man responds. “We need to get out of here and spread out before more come and trap us inside!”
“He’s right. Let’s move,” another suggests.
“We’ll come back for you soon,” I’m informed before the pantry door is shut, leaving me in the darkness, not knowing if I’ll ever see the light of day again.
Chapter One
Cora
* * *
A few weeks later…
* * *
My parents used to say that if trouble were just a needle in a haystack, I would somehow be able to find it.
They weren’t wrong.
Every time I turn around, I’m being smacked in the face by another one of my bad decisions. And this time, it’s landed me yet again in a police station.
“Miss Walsh!” a man in a dark suit says when he finally strolls into the cold interrogation room with a coffee mug in his hand. A scowling woman dressed