Page 193 of Beyond the Badge: Nox

“Where are you headed?” Nox asked.

“None of your goddamn business.”

“Liyah is my business.”

“Once again, you’re fuckin’ wrong,” the big man declared as he strode down the sidewalk to the driveway. He glanced at Nox’s Harley, snorted and shook his head. “Goddamn wannabe!”

“Why the fuck would I want to be like you?” Nox yelled out.

That had the massive man spinning on his boot heel and charging Nox. He tried to brace as a big fist headed in his direction. He tried to duck out of the way, but was a fraction of a second too slow to avoid the sledgehammer that slammed him right in the face.

* * *

Nox worked his jaw,wincing from the pain. It was already swollen despite waking in Malcolm Moore’s driveway with his wife pressing ice to the point of impact.

“Are you okay?”

While he “rested” on the pavement, he had blinked up at her with his brain still rattled. “Is this Heaven?”

“No, it’s our driveway.”

“So, it’s hell then,” he had concluded, carefully sitting up and taking the Ziplock bag full of ice from her fingers.

“I’m so, so sorry he did that. He can be very passionate.”

“You call that passionate? I call that assault.” He had slowly climbed to his feet, testing his balance since his brain had been knocked loose.

Cait Moore had her bottom lip grasped between her teeth and a worried expression on her face.

“Your husband needs to learn how to control his impulses.”

“He’s better than he used to be.”

“Well, that’s a fucking relief,” Nox said dryly, pressing fingers to his face and testing to see what hurt and what didn’t.

Nothing like being cold-cocked by a man thirty or forty pounds heavier than him. Add in the element of surprise.

He shouldn’t have let his guard down. A mistake he wouldn’t make again around a man so “passionate.”

He slowed his bike to take the turn into the motel where he last saw T-Bone and Saint. He wasn’t sure if they’d be there since they hadn’t been the morning after the “massacre” when he and his BAMC brothers went looking for them.

Of fucking course, finding them couldn’t be that easy. Once again, no one was parked in front of the end room and T-Bone’s, Saint’s and Liyah’s vehicles were nowhere to be seen. Nox took that as a sign that the duo had figured out he’d been stalking them and decided to move elsewhere.

If they discovered he’d been watching them, it made Nox more certain than ever that it was one of them who tailed him back to The Plant. Even though he lost whoever it was that night, all they had to do was come back to Rockvale, find a good hiding spot and wait for Nox to return to figure out where he lived.

If someone was determined to find out that info, it really wasn’t that difficult since he had no choice but to come and go from The Plant. The only other option would’ve been to move and that wouldn’t be practical.

So,yeah, his gut was telling him that T-Bone was the one who took Liyah. But why?

Revenge? Retaliation? Easy opportunity?

He hoped like fuck that the asshole hadn’t had any of his sketchy clients lined up and ready to take advantage of Liyah in whatever state she was in.

If that motherfucker allowed…

Nox’s nostrils flared and he squeezed the handlebar tighter, imagining it was T-Bone’s neck.

Taking her had earned that lowlife a death sentence. No judge, no jury, no trial. And he was pretty damn sure Magnum would be the executioner.

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