“More than stick your dick in me, that’s for damn sure.” As soon as the elevator doors opened for the underground garage, I used the grip I still had on Grant’s shirt to shove him one-handed toward the Riot member I knew was on guard there. “Make sure he gets back to his place. Don’t let him follow me.”
“Roger that, boss,” he replied. One burly hand landed on Grant’s shoulder and made him look like a child being hauled off by his father. “Come on, man. Let’s get out of here.”
There was some scuffling and exclamations behind me as I stormed to the spot my bike was parked in and yanked open the locker on the wall to pull my helmet out. “Lore!” Grant’s broken yell nearly had me turning around to throw myself back on him. “Fuck, get the hell off me! Lore, don’t—fucking let me go, asshole!” The men’s yells echoed off the concrete walls of the garage and filled the space with testosterone-flavored aggression.
Slamming the helmet on my head only muffled what was quickly becoming a yelling match as the guard wrestled Grant to the ground. I tossed my riding jacket on, zipping it up with jerkymovements before throwing my leg over the bike’s seat. The roar of the Ducati’s engine drowned out the rest of whatever skirmish broke out by the elevator, and I peeled out of the parking spot toward the ramp leading up to the exit.
Hang on, Patty. I’m coming for you.
Taylor insisted on an SUV and an escort to take me to the club. I met him halfway after another heated but short phone call, and let a Riot member on patrol catch up with me. The biker came to a stop beside me about five minutes from the condo where I waited in a public parking lot, knowing I would never hear the end of it from Taylor if I didn’t. He must have been in contact with Taylor before I even left. The rider flipped his visor up. and Kent’s familiar blue eyes wrinkled at the corners in a smile. The Bluetooth in my helmet chirped to indicate an incoming call.
“Hey, boss,” his voice came through the speaker as he followed me out of the lot onto the empty street. “Can we avoid driving like bats outta hell tonight? I’ve got a raging headache.”
“Maybe lay off the whiskey, bro. And I don’t think either of us wants Taylor on our asses if we don’t make it to the club in less than fifteen minutes, so no can do on the tame riding.” We pulled up to a light as it switched to green, and I gunned the engine to dart off ahead of Kent. “But I promise to at least stay off the—woah, shit!”
An SUV suddenly swerved into my lane, and I narrowly avoided becoming a bloody bumper sticker. Kent echoed my surprise through the speaker, cursing up a storm when he got boxed in a few cars behind me. “Motherfuckers don’t know how to drive or what?” he complained loudly.
Something about the cars with us on the one-way street didn’t sit right with me. The way they intentionally drove in a patternthat kept Kent separated without a chance to pass felt too... coordinated. It wasn’t uncommon to have drivers meandering down the streets in Vegas; with so many tourists, it was a given that half the people on the road didn’t know where the hell they were going. The one in front of Kent slammed on their brakes without warning, causing him to swerve into the other lane. No turn signal, no road to turn down, nothing.
“These guys are trying to—“ Another SUV just pulled out in front of me from a parking lot like it was actively trying to hit me. “Fuck, watch out! They’re trying to take us out!” A passenger in the car ahead rolled down their window, and something metallic flashed in the morning light. “And they have guns!”
Jerking my handle hard to the right, the silenced bullet almost hit my front tire as the car in the other lane sped up. This situation was quickly spiraling out of control, and my brain was reeling from the shitstorm we were getting pulled into. “I’m hanging up and calling Taylor. Take care of yourself!”
I didn’t wait for his response before disconnecting. The car behind me almost clipped my back tire when I revved the bike and hopped the curb onto the blessedly empty sidewalk. Shocked faces stared at me through a restaurant’s window when I roared by. If I were lucky, someone would actually call the police on this bullshit. The club was still about ten minutes away, and a couple of turns if I rode straight there. More bullets pelted the sidewalk where the bike’s wheels had just been.
That told me one simple truth: whoever sent these guys had instructions to take me alive. And they had some massive balls to come after me in broad daylight.
The first right turn was coming up quickly, and I blew past it and launched myself off the sidewalk into the intersection where the light had just turned red. Of course, the chasers ignored the laws of the road and ran through the intersection too, surrounded by a cacophony of angry honking and yells fromdrivers hanging out their windows on the crossroad. The SUV swerved past me on the left and jerked across to cut me off where I was about to drive over a crosswalk.
“Fuck!” I snarled into the helmet and slammed the brakes on the bike. Smoke came from the tires as they squealed on the pavement, and I swerved into an alley to my right just as another SUV sped by. Revving the engine, the bike flew down the narrow space to the opposite end that spat me out on the next block just as another two cars peeled around the corners on either end of the short road.
Well, I could probably take out at least one with the element of surprise.
Gunning the throttle, I whipped the bike around and drove straight at the car coming from my right, down the wrong way of the street. Through the glass I assumed was bulletproof, I could see the moment of indecision flash across the driver’s face as he made the split decision to crank his wheel and hit the brakes. Perfect.
With the agility of my fox primal and added strength as an alpha, I hopped up on the seat to crouch and kept the throttle open. This was still gonna hurt like a bitch on my ankles.
The driver’s mouth very clearly formed the words ‘what the fuck’ through the passenger window as I sprang from the seat to land on the bike's left side, boots skidding on the asphalt as I twisted the bike’s handles all the way to the left and used its momentum to whip the whole fucking thing around my body. In my partially-shifted form, it still took every ounce of my strength to send the bike hurtling through the air to crash into the side of the car, the deafening sound of metal crunching and squealing loud even in my helmet. At the last moment, I leaped on top of the skidding car and over, landing hard and rolling to my feet as it ploughed straight into another parked car. The entire passenger side of the vehicle now crushed in, with mybike embedded in its side and effectively blocking most of the road from allowing the other car to pass. Its driver slumped in his seat, the airbag deployed and deflated in his lap as his head lolled forward and blood dripped off his nose. Tires screamed from the other side, and the acrid smell of burned rubber stung my nose moments before the other SUV rammed into the other side, and I dove out of the way and onto the sidewalk.
The Imperial March rang in my earpiece at what was arguably the worst possible moment. But Taylor was the type to just keep calling until I answered. “What?” I snapped.
“What the actualfuck, Lore! Where the hell is Kent? He said some cars came after you!” he yelled. “Where are you?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the wreckage and unmoving drivers inside them. “Yeah, two cars that were following me are currently wrecked in the middle of the road, and another three have been trying to run us over since about four blocks away from the condo. I’m probably a half-mile south of the Merrow.”
“Shit! Well, there’s more, so–” The warning was cut off by the familiar roar of speed bikes coming from my right. “Backup is coming in five. Can you get here by then?”
“I’m on foot. And it looks like I have more guests.”
I yanked the shotgun from my back with a snarl and pumped it, aiming down the barrel at the motorcycle roaring straight toward me on the sidewalk. The buckshot scattered across the rider’s chest and shattered his full-face helmet, sending him howling as he let go of the handlebars. Pieces of the visor slashed his face, and blood streaked from one of his eyes squeezed shut. His bike wobbled, and he lost control of it entirely, falling over on its side to smear him across the concrete.
“Fuck, Lore!” Taylor’s angered yell through the helmet’s comms set my teeth on edge. Guess he heard the gunshot. “Get the fuck out of there! Take the alleys and–”
I had already thrown the gun back over my shoulder and turned on a heel to the closest alleyway, hoping there was an emergency escape leading up to one of the rooftops. My pursuer’s bike squealed against the asphalt in protest as he whipped it around to follow me, smoke coming from the back tire as he followed behind. I had to get out of this very public street before someone called the cops on us. While they sat comfortably in the pocket of Red Riot when it came to underhanded dealings, it was an unspoken rule that open shootouts like this were not going to be brushed under the rug so easily. Especially with the Italians butting in where they were not welcome. They were an unknown value, and the LVPD was going to throw everyone in cells and ask questions later.
Like fuck was I ever going into a cage again.
As if some divine entity was watching out for my ass, a ladder hung just above a closed dumpster about twenty feet from the alley’s mouth. Taking a running leap on the dumpster’s lid and another bounding step, I reached out with both hands to catch the lowest rung and pulled it down with my body weight.Clang, clang, clang!The metallic clatter bounced off the brick walls, and I hurried up the ladder to the first landing mounted on the side of the building. More clattering and shaking of the escape had me looking over my shoulder to find the bike’s rider right on my heels. My foot jerked just out of reach as I pulled myself onto the platform and swung myself around the central poles to the next ladder. All I could hear in my helmet was my own heavy breathing, the call likely put on mute by Taylor so he could yell out orders without including me in the chaos. I had my own shit to deal with right now.
