RUNNING GAME (A SECOND CHANCE SPORTS ROMANCE) (94 page)

Most of the information in the file came from the interrogations of a few captured club members, all of whom were released with no charges filed. Oddly, the files were missing notes on
how,
precisely, the bikers had been captured.

But their stories filled in some of the gaps.

The club was a shadow of its former self. Whoever the new leader was, he had steered the MC away from running drugs. These days, the club was making its money in armed protection. Bodyguards, concert security, asset retrieval. It was an above-board business as far as the case file was concerned, but people used to say the same thing about that little pink strip club in Phoenix up until the shootout…

What a strange niche to carve,
I thought to myself as I sipped my coffee.

When it was clear that they had nothing to do with the disappearances, the police tied up their resources elsewhere: chasing known coyotes in the area. With the girls nowhere to be found on the north side of the border, eyes shifted south.

Mexico…

This is where the Devil’s Dragons dropped out of the case. For all the noise they’d made coming into Tuscon, they left quietly in the middle of the night.

Something wasn’t adding up here.

Something to do with these
specific
girls…

Lost in thought, I bit the tip of my pen. There was something here that I was missing right in front of my eyes… and I suspected that I wasn’t going to learn it by
reading
this case file.

Why did they come to Tucson?

And why did they vanish again?

The waitress returned, carefully placing my lunch down between the pages on the table. I hurriedly shifted papers out of her way, thanking her and politely asking for the check. If I were going to make heads or tails of this today, I would have to hit the road again, and fast…

I needed answers, and I wasn’t going to find them in Tucson. The lieutenant would be
pissed
, but maybe, just maybe…

I needed to go to El Paso.

G
etting
to El Paso had been the easy part. It was only four hours past Tucson, and I’d arrived while the sun was still shining above.

The hard part was finding what I was looking for…

It would have been effortless to head straight up to the local authorities and request information on the Devil’s Dragons, but that could have gotten messy. I was out of my jurisdiction and my lieutenant would quickly learn that I was asking questions in the wrong city… and that was a conversation I was intent on pushing back as far as I could.

That left the slower option: relying on my wits and hitting the streets.

I put my honed skills to work, following Sergeant Thompson’s guidance as I dug up what I could on the renegade club. The locals weren’t too eager to answer the questions of a detective, which made me wonder why they were protecting the club…

But I got what I needed.

I always did.

It was dark outside by the time my unmarked car crunched gravel in front of the old bar on the edge of the city. My knuckles went white around the steering wheel as I took a few deep breaths.

This was their base.

Hunter might be in there.

The last time I’d seen him, things had gone sideways. I’d lost my lover. My father had been wounded. People had been arrested… and others had died. I’d spent years trying to free myself of the guilt. As it turned out, the raid wasn’t spontaneous. The sheriff’s department had been planning to take down the Dragons for months before that fateful morning. The assets were in place long before my father discovered me missing… Before he checked the GPS tracking app he’d installed on my phone.

I wasn’t the reason the raid happened… The Devils had sealed their fate when they started trafficking drugs up from the border.

My presence there with Hunter did nothing except speed up the inevitable.

I stepped out of the car – a Crown Vic, just like my father’s. The police lights were tucked away behind the grill instead of planted on the roof for all to see, but under all that white paint she was all business. Patting the hood affectionately, I gave the Interceptor engine a silent moment of gratitude for bringing me this far.

My life changed that fateful morning…

Fitting, perhaps, that it was clearly going to change again tonight.

At least this time, I could see it coming.

Silence fell the moment I stepped into the bar. An endless sea of eyes glared at me from bar tops, pool tables, and the countertop straight ahead. All of them belonged to rugged, weathered bikers or the slutty women of all ages that had given them company.

I marched straight to a free chair at the bar, ignoring how the patrons parted menacingly, closing off behind me as I took my seat.

“Whiskey sour, please,” I asked the bartender. She was a fiery little redhead, frozen in the middle of wiping a grimy glass as she glared daggers my way.

With narrowing eyes and not a syllable uttered, the bartender placed the dirty tumbler down and went straight for the bottom-shelf shit. For the garnish, she made a big show of spitting in the drink before sliding it my way.

“What the hell is this?” I snarled.

The redhead flattened her palms on the bar, leaning forward to grin wickedly: “We don’t serve your kind here.” To punctuate the point, she jabbed a thumb towards the window, and the parked Crown Vic outside.

I rose from my chair, preparing to retort, when a smooth voice called out from behind: “…Elmira. That’s no way to treat our guest, is it?”

The bartender froze again, glancing over my shoulder. Similarly, I stiffened up, locking onto the redhead’s eyes as she glanced my way with a mixture of equal parts confusion and irritation.

I knew that voice.

That was the voice that had haunted my dreams for eight years…

“Give her the Van Wrinkle and the Green Spot this time, Elmira. Use one of the clean glasses… and try to not spit in it.”

“Jack Daniels is fine,” I retorted, unwilling to take my eyes off of her own. The last time I’d seen this man I’d frozen in panic… Now that we were finally in the same room again, it was the same old song and dance…

“Jack in a whiskey sour? You always liked it a little rough, didn’t you?” I felt his breath near my ear, and a shiver slipped down my spine.

“Some things never change,” I murmured.

“True…” he chuckled, placing a strong, steady hand on my hip.
God, I missed that.
“But some things change for the
better…
”

Hunter spun me around in the stool, forcing me to face him. His piercing blue eyes drilled straight into my soul.

He was right – he
had
changed for the better.

Hunter was built even bigger now, his refined, sculpted physique imposing above me. Another inch of height added to his impressive frame, and broad, powerful shoulders filled my vision, sucking the breath straight from my lungs.

The ripped, worn shirt exposed his tremendous biceps, including the dragon tattoo that snaked authoritatively down one arm.

His expression was harder as well. A short layer of stubble cast a shadow across the hard edges of his chiseled face, and a thin scar glided from his temple down across his cheek.

For a fraction of a moment, I nearly caress the scar out of some place of loving concern… but I pause my hand halfway towards his face.

“That’s a story for another time,” Hunter laughed, knowing me so well even after all these years.

My face flushes red, and I feel heat rising from my core. Embarrassed, and all too eager to hide my developing arousal, I cast my eyes down to his chest. They land on the emblazoned patch above his heart, threaded into the leather – the emblem of the Devil’s Dragons MC.

But there was something else here. A single word that changed everything…
President.

I’m in deep shit…

Elmira slid the drink my way. Hunter and I had been so focused on each other that, for all we know, she could have pissed all over that drink right in front of us and I wouldn’t have known it.

“Hello, Hunter,” I murmured softly.

“Hello, Sarah,” he replied with a smile.

In that second, I sensed a change in the atmosphere of the entire bar. With the exception of the bartender, the entire crowd visibly relaxed.

Did… did they
know
about me?

“Can’t help but notice that you’ve joined the force, just like Daddy,” Hunter tilted his head lightly. “That might just be the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. From bad girl to good girl… Tell me,
Officer…
how can I be of some service?”

“Not officer,” I replied. “
Detective.
”

“Detective?” His eyebrows rose, and a soft smile slid across his face again. “Well now… you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“I try,” I grinned back.

Hunter lifted his chin, his eyes still locked onto mine. His voice rose to fill the room: “Ladies and gentlemen of the Devil’s Dragons, I would like to introduce a dear, old friend of mine…
Detective
Sarah Buchanan.”

Murmurs drifted among the crowd. It was clear to me that most of them
had
heard my name before, and that made things rather interesting. Apparently, Hunter hadn’t quite gotten over me either…

“
Sarah
here is a welcomed guest of the club,” Hunter continued. “Any preconceived notions of a detective among us come to a stop
now
. Am I perfectly clear?”

Glasses raised everywhere. Even Elmira begrudgingly lifted a beer, her eyes still shooting daggers my way.

“Perfect. Now then, I believe my associate and I have some… catching up to do. If you’ll excuse us.” He turned to Elmira quickly. “Oh, and to celebrate… I’m buying the full house a drink. The next round’s on me.”

The room erupted in a cheer as he led me by the arm through the crowd, drink in my hand. With the quiet exception of the redhead behind the bar, there wasn’t a dissenting voice in the entire bar.

His word was law.

If I was his guest, I was welcomed here.

He thinks that
I’m
the one full of surprises… but what the hell happened? The Hunter I remember was a young upstart in an established motorcycle club… Now he’s calling the shots.

Hunter and I stepped outside into the brisk El Paso night, and the merriment quieted as the bar door closed. While I took a swig, I glanced over at the unmarked Crown Vic wishing it was a bit more inconspicuous. Maybe I’d get it some old lady hub caps to hide the exposed steel wheels…

“Can we go somewhere more private?” I asked.

“I was thinking my place, once you’re done with that,” Hunter grinned. “The club’s going to want answers soon on why there’s a member of the force in our midst… they’re nice and liquored up tonight. Hopefully not
too
liquored up, since we’re always on call for a job… But there’ll be questions in the morning. Lots of questions.”

I nodded, kicking back another swig. The whiskey sour certainly didn’t
taste
like it had been desecrated, and for that, I was thankful.

“I have questions too,” I replied. “I’m not here for pleasure… there’s some business to attend to.”

“Well,
Detective…”
Hunter chuckled, taking a step towards me. I could practically feel the same youthful, hungry energy crackling between us… just as it had eight years ago.
“Finish up your drink and follow me. I’m not far from here…”

I glanced down at the whiskey sour.

“Are you asking me to drink and drive?”

He smiled mischievously. “Last I checked, you weren’t the kind of girl who got tipsy on a couple sips. I’ve seen you drink three hundred pound bikers under the table… I’m asking you to accept my hospitality. It beats the hell out of sticking around here, especially with my bartender’s… fragile sentiments towards you.”

I realized that I hadn’t paid for the drink, and turned back towards the door. With the motion, my gaze turned inside, and I could spot the bartender glaring at us over the drinks she was pouring.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, his hand grasping my arm. “It’s on the house, remember? Just finish that up and let’s hit the road. I’m not far…”

W
hile riding his steel
, rumbling hog, Hunter led me a couple of miles away to his place – a small, single-story house off of a dirt road.

Flicking lights on as we entered, he directed me towards the den. “Coffee? Or another drink?”

“You pick,” I smirked. “It’s going to be a long night.”

“Well aren’t you optimistic,” Hunter noted coyly. “Give me a minute. Make yourself at home.”

I did as suggested, sitting down on the single sofa in the room. It brought back memories of that receded sofa in the strip club floor, and I wondered if he thought of that last night together every time that he sat here.

The wafting smell of fresh coffee came into the room, and I felt a little invigorated.
Oh good, he’s behaving…

However, I knew Hunter. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when he came in with a pair of double-shot whiskey neats instead, impishly handing me one without a word.

“You just like the roasted coffee bean aroma for ambience, right?”

Hunter laughed. “Something like that.”

My former lover pulled the coffee table in the room closer, propping up his boots on it as he took a swing of the drink.

I followed his lead, watching how effortlessly he slid into this role. The last
second
that I’d seen him, he had looked like I’d ripped his heart to shreds… and then he’d ducked out of that window and out of my life. For all he’d known, the police could have been right on his tail…

If any of that was on the mind of this cool, confident man beside me, then he didn’t show an ounce of it. There was a scarily comfortable air between us, as if the pains of the last eight years had been nothing but a bad dream.

Worse than that, he
knew
it. His gaze fell upon me, transparently telling me that he could sense my apprehension and my fear…

“Well now, Detective…” he began, setting the drink down on the surface in front. “Let’s get business out of the way. What brings you out to El Paso?”

I blinked in confusion.

It hadn’t really occurred to me that he’d go straight for that. All these questions, all these concerns about the time we’d spent apart…

“Business…” I murmured, realizing that he was getting to me. His leather jacket was discarded again, and those rippling muscles were clearly out on display. I couldn’t help but trace his rugged, hardened physique with my gaze.

I wondered if coming here had been a mistake. Spit in the drinks or not, I was probably safer back at the bar…

“Yes, business…” He repeated, a faint smile curling at the edges of his lips.
The smug bastard could see the effect he was having on me.

I swallowed quickly.

“You’ve come to my town for something, and we both know this isn’t a social visit. I want to know why
you’re
here, and how you found me.”

“Tell me you’re smarter than that,” I toyed.

“Right,” he answered calmly. “The girls.”

“The girls?” I asked, sipping my drink. Selfishly, I needed to know how useful Hunter would be to my case. My memories painted him as being particularly sharp and perceptive, but if he was going to be a proper ally in this case…

“You’re not the first detective to sit here asking me questions about our little investigation in Tucson,
Sarah
… I’m not interested in playing games here.”

“So, that
was
your investigation,” I confirmed aloud. I fought how my core warmed as his voice trickled over the syllables of my name. “But why you? Why them, and why now?”

“You
know
why,” he answered quietly, his eyes stern as he regarded me coolly. “That’s why you came here.”

“Your sister.”

“That’s right,” Hunter nodded calmly. “Eight years ago, the Devil’s Dragons MC helped me find her. In exchange, I joined the club as a junior enforcer…”

“You never told me much about her,” I pressed. “That might help me here, with this.”

Hunter’s haunted gaze turned inward.

“My sister… she was vacationing in Cancun when they took her. She was always so careful, always sticking to the safer, touristy places… The bastards took her and her best friend right out of their damn hotel room. We never found the other one, but we
did
find my sister…”

“
Who
took her?” I asked.

Hunter’s gaze darkened. “The fuckers call themselves
Víboras Verde,”
he explained. “The
Vipers of the Green.
They’re a Mexican cartel, one of the rougher ones. Until then, they’d only dabbled in kidnappings…”

“Sex trade?” I asked, as respectfully as I could.

“None other. Turns out, there’s plenty of money to be made in selling pussy to discerning buyers, and there’s a lot less overhead compared to the drug trade. No fields of illegal plants, no chemical labs, and if you set up somewhere nice the product comes to you…” Hunter laughed mirthlessly. “We found her before she could disappear into that particular hell… but she was never the same again.”

I reached forward, placing my hand on his. His posture didn’t change, but his fingers absentmindedly parted around mine.

“What did they do to her?”

“She never told me the details. Poor girl abandoned her life and disappeared into the world. I hear from her sometimes…”

I nodded, unsure of what to say.

“I… I’m sorry, Hunter.”

He smiled sadly, refocusing our topic.

“So, this cheerleader kidnapping thing absolutely stunk of their handiwork. I reached out to some contacts and confirmed my suspicions… With the new passport laws and all the goddamned violence there’s less tourists heading down into Mexico. The cartel has been getting bolder every day. They’d started placing manpower across the fence. Began abducting people from
this
side of the border…”

“So you went after them,” I stated.

Hunter nodded. “I grabbed my men, and we high-tailed it to Tucson. It’s a little outside my network, but we’ve got relations with the underground scene out there. I knocked on some doors, and we started our own investigation from
our
side of the law.”

“And you attracted attention.”

“Damn right we did,” he smiled nostalgically. “Police sure do have a tenuous grasp on logic…
‘Sure, these biker guys look suspicious. Showing up AFTER the disappearances and making a big ruckus… OBVIOUSLY they’re the culprits!’
”

“You don’t think that looked a bit strange?” I asked, taking another swig of whiskey. “You guys came out of nowhere and started rattling cages.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Hunter chuckled. “Either way, we got results. Confirmed a few things. Got a few leads. Hell, I even approached the local authorities against the better judgment of the club… I was rewarded with a nice fat threat of an
obstruction of justice
arrest if I stayed in town.”

“They didn’t believe you?”

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on with that police department, but they instantly dismissed my findings. Maybe they couldn’t get over the fact that a bunch of renegades could run a better investigation than their prized officers…”

Hunter glanced at our empty drinks and stood up, stretching briefly. A moment later, he returned with an open bottle of Jack Daniels, halfway refilling our glasses before setting it down on the coffee table.

We ceremoniously clinked glasses together, both taking heavy swigs of the whiskey.

“So, what did you do then?” I asked.

Hunter thought on his answer for a moment. “With all the police and media attention in Arizona the Cartel shifted their focus east. We chased our lead, caught wind of their people nosing around the border in New Mexico and Texas. Figured we could do some good work back here…”

“So this is your usual base of operations?” I asked, glancing around the house. “And the bar? That’s yours?”

“Both temporary gifts, thanks to some free bodyguarding to a pair of clients with real estate out here,” he noted. “It’s a temporary situation. Texas isn’t exactly where the Devil’s Dragons want to call home.”

I wanted to ask about that, but there were more pressing things to know. “You’ve been chasing these people for a while,” I thought aloud. “It’s a lot to risk when you don’t have the support of the law.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck about the law,” Hunter answered with conviction. “Not since the law intervened in club operations and took away the love of my life…”

Involuntarily, I swallowed.

I was the love of his life?

He seemed to realize what he’d said, because Hunter immediately downed another mouthful of his liquor.

“I told myself that I didn’t need them,” he quickly followed up, adjusting the topic at hand. “If they weren’t willing to have my back when I practically brought them the answers to their problems, then I figured they could at least stay the fuck out of my way.”

I leaned forward, unable to clear my head of what he’d just said.
Hunter thought I was the love of his life…

“But now
you’re
here,” he whispered.

With a glance, he read my thoughts.

A sly smirk crossed his lips.

“I
knew
you still carried a torch for me,” he murmured as he leaned forward as well. “There hasn’t been a goddamn day that I haven’t thought about you, Sarah…”

I felt a pressure in my chest as I maintained my ground, unwilling to pull away from him. Our gazes were locked onto one another, our lips tantalizingly only a foot away…

All those years that we’d been separated by distance, mystery, and the hardships of life… and now, my beloved Hunter was
right here
, achingly close…

“You know that I never stopped loving you.”

I dug down deep, finding the strength to move past that comment… no matter how hard it was to do so. I tried to steer my headspace back to the case at hand, back to business.

“You know where the cheerleaders are?” I asked him matter-of-factly.

For a split second, Hunter almost looked disappointed. His eyes mischievously flickered with something hidden, and he leaned back slightly.

“No, Detective, I have no idea where your missing pretty little white cheerleaders are,” he quipped. “Although it’s safe to say that you probably won’t find them by now… I think they’re long gone… Used up… Dead, if they’re lucky.”

I always knew when Hunter was hiding something from me, and it was written all over his eyes. As cool and apathetic as he was trying to play this, I could tell that he was holding something back…

And it made me angry.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I insisted.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play this game with me, Hunter,” I warned him, the glass of whiskey long forgotten on the coffee table. “You’re sitting on something solid, something that can turn this thing around for me. I
know
you are. Why won’t you tell me?”

His eyes darkened. “Sarah, I’m only doing what I’ve
always
tried to do… protect you. Whatever you think I do or don’t know, it’s for your own good. I won’t let you get hurt out here.”

I jumped up from the couch, my hands in the air. “This is classic
you
, isn’t it?” I shouted. “I try to reach out to you, to be real with you, and you just wall me out. I told you last time that you’re a damned big block of ice…”

“Ah yes, I remember that one. You
did
always have such a way with metaphors,” Hunter observed slyly.

“It’s like when we were kids, and you were joining the Devil’s Dragons! I tried to convince you I could handle it, and you tried to shut me out… just like you are now!”

Hunter rose from the couch, his eyes fierce and uncompromising. “
Everything
that I have
ever
done between us has been to keep you safe,” he told me. “You’re playing with matches in an oil field, Sarah. This road you’re on, trying to find out what happened to those girls… you’re gonna get burned out here. For fucks sake you’re pretty enough that they’ll probably take
you
too, and if you think what they do to women is bad, you should see what they do to cops… I can’t let you go walking into danger like this.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded, flashing him my angriest look. “I’ve come all this way to see you again, and I’m not leaving without answers even if it means I drag you out of here in handcuffs. Tell me
everything.
”

Hunter drew close.

“Fine. If it matters so much to you… if that’s the
real
reason you’re here… then I’ll do it. I’ll tell you everything I know. On one condition.”

I steeled myself. “What’s the condition?”

Before I could react, his lips crashed against mine. I felt myself swept into the heavy embrace of his hard, comforting arms, and for just that kiss, I gave in.

I gave in
hard.

After what felt like years, I pulled back, gazing at him with a glance that was meant to be scathing. However, I suspected it was more
vulnerable
than anything else.

“I can’t do this,” I told him.

“That hasn’t stopped you before…”

Indignantly, my surprised eyes narrowed to slits. “Fuck you, Hunter.”

Hunter drew closer, his arms wrapping around me again. I felt my resolve weaken against the warmth of his body, and the pleasure of being in his embrace again…

With a savage grin, he whispered:

“That’s the idea.”