BILLIONAIRE BIKERS: 3 MC Romance Books (15 page)

FLINT

"You sold her out!"
I bellow into the phone.

              "Yeah, well, plans change," Lesher's infuriatingly cool voice replies from the other end of the line. "And so do budgets. This thing I've got planned is going to cost a fortune, and we both know I only have one. So why not sell a little information on the side?"

I clench the phone in my hand until I hear the plastic creak. In the next instant, I unleash the full force of the vocabulary I usually keep in check around Ana—at least, I'm good at keeping myself in check so long as we're not in the bedroom.

"You motherfucker!
I will kill you for this. I'm going to put a fucking bullet
right through—"

"Go ahead," he invites me. Lesher sounds as monotone as ever, but something small in his inflection makes me think the bastard is enjoying this. "Put that bullet right through the back of my patch. You know the one—it looks like yours."

"Fuck you," I seethe. I feel like any power I had over the situation is being stripped from me with every jibe. "Do you think this is a fucking joke?"

"Or were you going to kill me like that one guy, what was his name?" Lesher continues. "Richards? So not at all."

"Who is she?" I demand. "What the hell is she running from?"
What the hell am I about to ride into battle against?

              The other line goes quiet as Lesher considers his answer. "She's the daughter of Octavian Ryan," he says finally.

              "Is that name supposed to mean something to me?"

              "Probably not. You're like all the others in the club, you know?" he asks rhetorically. "You pretend to be hard. You pretend to be bad. But when it's time to pull the trigger, you don't have the stomach for it." I hear it as the poison enters his voice, and I realize that beneath that marble veneer, Lesher truly resents the other members of the club. Why keep with it, then? What does he have to gain?

             
Money,
I realize. The theory isn't fully formed, and I don't have time to reflect on it now. But a master criminal like Lesher Vance has a lot to gain from a group of broken rich men who have tentatively bound themselves in brotherhood. If he plans to steal and extort from those he's let closest to him, what depths won't he sink to? What hope do I have of negotiating with him for information now?

              "I'm waiting," I say aloud.

              "Octavian Ryan is a drug kingpin," Lesher replies.
"The
drug kingpin. His daughter disappeared from an arranged marriage a few months ago."

              Disappeared. From an arranged marriage. I wonder if the keyword here should make me feel anything other than absolute conviction that I will find her and bring her back to me, at any cost. In the biker world, encroaching on another rider's territory was a sign of war.

              But Ana isn't anybody's territory. And if it's war the underworld wants, I'm ready to wage it, even if all I win at the end of the day is Ana's freedom to choose once more what is right for her.

"Rumor was that a rival cartel had kidnapped and killed her," Lesher continues. "Only problem was, no body was ever found, and no demands for her return were ever made. And that isn't the only problem
Anastasia
Ryan had going for her story. She was spotted recently in a bar in rural Nebraska with a rider in black. Different hair color, same girl. Lucky for us, none of the idiots who were sent in after her that day could remember what patch you wore, otherwise we'd all be dead."

"I'm not promising anything. Not to you." I'm already mounting my bike, blood pumping with the thought of pursuit, but there's only one detail missing to Lesher's account. The rest I can fill in for myself…as soon as I am reunited with Ana again. "Where do I find her?"

"Fuck off, Carter. That's all I'm telling you."

"Lesher." I bite down on the name, nearly clipping it in half. "What if I told you I would help fund whatever little heist it is you're planning in its
entirety
if you told me where Ana is?"

"I never said it was a heist," Lesher says. "At the very least I never said it was little."

"Going once. Going twice."

"Better not be fucking with me on this one, Carter. This is Octavian Ryan and his cronies we're talking about."

"Something tells me your conscience will forgive you for betraying the trust of a few friends."

"Yeah," Lesher grunts. "Right. You better listen up, Flint, because I'm only going to tell you once. I don't know where Boyd's taken her."

"The fiancé?" I ask. Lesher grunts again.

"There's a warehouse near your location they've used in the past for pit fights. Fought there myself a few times. The warehouse is run down, and I doubt they use it as an active facility, but let's just say I've made Boyd bleed there a time or two before. It's more than likely that's where he's taken her to get picked up."

I listen intently to his description of the location. Barons don't usually ride by GPS, but rather by references and landmarks, especially when operating predominantly in a strange city with a piece of shit burner phone. Lesher knows this, and gives me the barest hint of where the warehouse might be before clamming up again.

"Next time I see you, you're a dead man," I promise.

"That's fine. Send me a check by mail. I'll pick it up back at the clubhouse,
brother."

The line goes dead before I can respond. I dump the phone dispassionately on the pavement, not even bothering to hang it up, and crush it beneath the heel of my boot. I ride over it for good measure on my way to retrieve Ana.

I have a lot of business to conclude. And then, I'm going to make it my business to have Lesher Vance thrown out of the RBMC. We'll see how well he handles himself when he's finally, truly, going it alone.

#

This time when I point my gun, I make sure it's loaded.

              It didn't take long to locate the abandoned warehouse on the outside of town. It didn't take long to find Boyd.

The moment I throw open the door, I find them. Boyd What's-His-Fuck—I didn't get the name from Lesher, and I don't care to waste brain space with it—lurches up from the shipping crate he's occupying, dragging Ana with him. I notice her dress is torn, hanging off one shoulder slightly. Anger boils up inside me so potent that I actually clench my trigger finger a little and steady my arm. The barrel is trained directly on the jilted fiancé, but of course I can't fire while he's holding the sliver-thin knife to Ana's throat. She grasps at the arm he holds wrapped around her neck; I notice that a diamond engagement ring has been forced on her finger. What were his intentions for her inside this warehouse? Definitely not a wedding.

If I thought I was angry enough at Richards the first time I laid eyes on him to shoot him, you can imagine how I feel about this acne-scarred son-of-a-bitch I have in my sights now.

              "You can't have her!" Boyd shouts. "She's run from me for this long, but she's done running now! Aren't you, sweet Anastasia?" He takes a demonstrative inhale, sampling her scent, and I see Ana turn her face away from her captor as far as she can. "She was promised to me by Octavian Ryan. Her
father."

             
"I don't pretend to know how things stand in the hellhole people like you like to call the
underworld
, but trading women like commodities is called slavery," I reply. "And you're in Robber Baron territory now, kid. You don't get to own shit unless the MC gives you permission."

              "What the hell are you talking about?" Boyd laughs coldly. "You crazy fucker. You think I care that some
biker
thinks he can get into a dick-measuring contest with me? Do you know who I am?"

              "Flint," Ana begs. "I'm sorry, but it's all true. Please understand why I couldn't… I couldn't tell you…"

              "Doesn't matter," I interrupt her needless apology as I level my gun once more. "Save your breath so you can spit on his dead body once I'm through with him."

              "I thought you weren't going to kill anyone tonight," she says.

              "Changed my mind. Want to try and talk me out of it?"

              "Fuck no," Ana replies.

              "Shut up!" Boyd bellows. "The two of you! You think being Octavian Ryan's daughter makes you hot shit? You're
mine
now!" I can almost feel the press of the blade myself, and wince as I watch it press against her skin harder, drawing a necklace of blood as red as her ruined dress. Ana cranes her head away instinctively once more, and when her eyes narrow, I can see the pure hatred at the man boiling over inside her. Her gaze drags across mine, and then across the room, and I follow it in complete obedience to her signal. There, I see a plastic can of gasoline. Even in the dim moonlight filtering in through a hole in the warehouse roof, I can see the shadow of liquid contained inside it.

              "Boyd?" Ana says. "Go fuck yourself."

              I shift my stance, training my gun on the canister and fire in the same moment that Ana drops her body weight and falls through his arm. She kicks behind her viciously, and I see Boyd's knee bend at a sickening sideways angle as he falls. Ana barrels toward me as an explosion rocks the warehouse, and a blinding flash gives way to a rush and roar of heat. She throws herself against me, and I drop the spent gun, my arms coming up to receive her. I yank her off her feet and turn to run out the open door of the warehouse as Boyd howls behind me, until the roaring inferno overtakes him as well.

              It strikes me, momentarily, that my actions have just inadvertently caused me to take a human life. But an eye-for-an-eye is Robber Baron 101, and if the men who were after Ana all along saw her own life as forfeit to their gains, then he can go straight to the hell I just sent him and I won't ever lose any sleep over it.

              "Rescue lucky number three," Ana gasps breathlessly as I set her down outside the burning building. I turn to study the mounting blaze. The warehouse may be abandoned, and the neighborhood that surrounds it unoccupied, but it won't be long before the rest of the city notices the light pollution getting out of hand in this quarter.

              "I suppose there are some things we need to talk about," she continues.

              "Not here." I turn to look at her. I know that by the light of the fire my gaze matches my namesake, but she meets me with an equally serious expression. I reach out to her, cupping her face, letting her know that there is no conversation I won't be a part of in the near future. I have a lot to learn about Anastasia Ryan.

              I watch as she pulls the engagement ring off her finger and stares at it long and hard. "You want to take it with you?" I ask.

              "I want to plant it as evidence," Ana replies. I watch as she tosses the ring down atop the ash heap, before toeing it with her shoe and burying it for another pair of eyes to discover. "I think that's where I went wrong last time. I didn't fake my death convincingly enough. Think the story will hold up better a second time around if I leave a clue to tip them off?"

              "No idea," I reply as I draw her into my arms. "But I'm willing to find out."

              "Yeah?" She tilts her chin up at me. Our gazes lock, and for a moment I can't think of anything to say. Finally, I settle for a question that's been pressing on me foremost ever since my conversation with Lesher.

              "What's your natural hair color?

              "Blonde." She sighs, blowing the hair from her eyes. "I'm probably due for another dye job."

              "Yeah," I agree. "I like redheads better."

              "Do you?" she asks mockingly. "I haven't heard you specify how much you like one in particular yet."

"Give me twenty-four hours," I reply. "And if I still haven't dumped you off somewhere by then, I'll say it."

              "Fine," Ana concedes as she strides ahead of me quickly. "Hurry up. I can hear sirens in the distance. You want to be out of here before the firetrucks and police arrive, don't you?"

              "Where are we headed?" I ask, amused as I follow after. I feel a similar urgency to get back out onto the road, to discover just how much things are liable to change moving forward. "And don't even pretend that you're driving."

              I plant a hand between her breasts and push her back by her chest plate as I resume my seat behind the handlebars of my soot-stained bike.
Going to have to hose her down later
, I think as I tug the handle, and the headlight flashes on.

              "East," Ana says as she wraps her arms around my waist.

              I turn my head back to take her in over my shoulder. "You just want to skip ahead a time zone so that I'll tell you that much sooner that I love you."

              "You said it, not me," she replies before the roar of the engine drowns out our exchange and we start off. We aren't even a mile before I feel her lay her head against my shoulder, burying her cheek against the patch that adorns my back. I reach down and squeeze the knee beside my own.