“We know,” my brother and I said in unison.
“I’m going with you, then,” Brutus said. “Someone has to?—”
My brother pointed at him. “You already have your orders from your president to cover our asses with your businesses in Redd Valley so that we can sniff out what the hell is happening in our own territory. You want me to go get Cap?”
Brutus’s teeth pulled back into a snarl.
“Can it,” I said before he could make a sound.
“Hey, Brutus,” Ghost said as he stuck his masked face into my room. “We’re all about to leave. You coming?”
I looked up at Bee. “Yeah. You coming?”
His brown eyes panned down to me before he placed his hands on his knees and dipped down to my level.
“You better watch your damn back out there, Anna,” he grumbled. “Because if I come back and you’re hurt in any way, you don’t move from this house until I give the command, because this is my territory so long as Cap says it is. Your home or not.”
And before I could get another word in edgewise, he stalked out the door while slamming his shoulder into my brother’s in the process.
“Real big of you, Bee!” I called after him.
I practically felt the middle finger he fed me down the hallway, even though I couldn’t see it.
16
ANNA
It wasn’t until my brother spoke that I got ripped out of my trance.
“Eat up, we have to leave soon,” he said as he made a swift exit from my room.
I half expected another fight to break out, and I held my breath. But after my lungs screamed for air, I released it as I perched on the edge of my bed. I pulled the tray into my lap and stared down at it. A tray that was so obviously made for me.
He made me breakfast?
No, he makes everyone breakfast.
But he brought me breakfast.
Because you’re lazy as fuck. Eat.
I shook my head softly and gobbled it down, forkful by forkful. There was no time to waste, especially since someone had been taken from our territory. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Did the trafficking ring know we were all the way over here? Were they taunting us?
Was Brutus right about us not being safe here?
I shook my head and downed the orange juice before I set the tray off to the side. I pulled on a long pair of my socks that came all the way up to my knees, then grabbed my riding bootsfrom the floor of the closet. Lacing them up was easily the most arduous part of getting ready for a ride, but I never rode without being fully covered and protected.
Even if it was still technically summertime.
I took one look at myself in the mirror and realized I chose all black clothing. I tried not to think too much about it. Brutus looked good in black, though. It was weird seeing him in other colors. Any colors, really. But then again, if he patrolled businesses out in the open, then he had to be able to blend in.
And Brutus certainly didn’t blend in well.
After discarding my tray in the sink in the kitchen, I made my way out to my front yard. He held a helmet out for me while his second-in-command, Dozer, sat straddling his bike as well.
“Get on,” my brother said simply.
I took the helmet from him and slipped it on. “Yep.”
