Page 73 of Hawk

I forced myself to drive normally until I reached the shopping center.

“I’m here,” I said, pulling to the side of the parking lot like he’d said. My car was going to be the only one there, and while that was terrifying, I could understand why he wanted me to park there. Just like the way Snake had stayed hidden in the alley the last time, they’d be more likely to take the bait if I was off on my own.

“Okay, Chance is already in the parking lot, and we’ll be pulling in soon. Go ahead into the store and stay there until I tell you to come out.”

I knew Hawk expected me to go into the yarn store, but the lady who ran it was a retired schoolteacher who’d opened the store more as a hobby than anything else. I couldn’t bring this kind of trouble to her door.

Not that I wanted to bring trouble to anyone, but I knew the guy who owned the record store. He was a firefighter who worked at the same station Andy did, and I figured he’d be better able to protect himself if need be.

“I’m heading for Phoenix Records.”

“Sounds good,” Hawk replied.

I got out of the car and hurried down the walk—just in time because as the door closed behind me, I heard the roar of motorcycle engines coming closer.

I’d come in with a plan. I figured if Cody was working, I would go in and tell him what was going on. But what I hadn’t expected was for there to be multiple teenagers in the store shopping.Crap. This was a bad choice.

I pulled out my phone and held it so it would look like I was on a call—not just talking to myself—and moved as far away from everyone as possible.

“Hawk?” I said softly. “There’s a bunch of teenagers in here shopping.”

“It’s okay. We have a group of bikers here now. They’re all down by your vehicle. Kat has identified one of them as Snake. They’re talking to someone in a van that’s parked next to your car. We’re about to take them down.”

“Okay.”

“You just stay in the back of the store, out of sight, until I give the all-clear.”

I looked up to see a girl of about seventeen looking at me. I forced a smile, and she smiled back before going back to flipping through albums. There was a sign on the very back wall that saidRestroomwith an arrow. I figured that was about as out of sight as I could get, so I headed in that direction.

I was about to go in when the back door opened—and the very last person I wanted to see stepped in. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he lifted one finger to his lips while he used the other hand to pull back his vest, showing me the gun tucked into his waistband.

He gave me a hard look, then shifted his gaze to the young girl I’d shared a smile with a minute ago—then back to me. The message was clear: keep my mouth shut, or she gets hurt.

He pushed open the back door and motioned for me to go out.

Hawk

“I don’t like this one bit,” I grumbled. I sat in the car, watching as the bikers chatted with some people in a cargo van that had parked right next to Mika’s car. A big boxy white van that was perfect for both kidnapping and transporting innocents, and we had no way of knowing if anyone was in there or not.

“I know, but this isn’t our operation, Hawk,” Gator said in an attempt to calm me. “We only got to be involved at all because Chance knew there was no way you would allow Mika to do this without you.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t have.” I’d wanted to take down the bikers the second they rolled in and parked between Mika and his car, but Chance had wanted to wait. Now we had no idea who was in the van. That was why I told Mika to stay out of sight. I didn’t trust my soft-hearted boy not to put himself in danger to save someone else if there were hostages in the van.

“Axel, Maddox, and Knox are here, and we could have easily handled them when it was just the bikers,” I pointed out, like Gator didn’t know that.

“Yep, we could have, but it wasn’t our call. The good news is Chance has men everywhere.”

Gator was right. Chance was a good agent. He’d sent one guy to block the alley to make sure none of the Iron Jackals got away in that direction, and then just to be safe, he had three more blocking the entrance to the highway just up the road. The feds had let them escape their clutches in New Mexico, but Chance had no intentions of letting that happen on his watch.

“I know. But I don’t like Mika being anywhere near this.”

Finally, after what had only been a few minutes but had felt like an eternity, Chance’s voice came over our earpieces. “Move in, move in.”

Gator and I were out in a flash, guns drawn, headed their way, as were my guys and Chance and his agents.

“Federal agents, don’t move,” someone yelled.

I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks studying pictures we had of the Iron Jackals, and I looked at each of the faces that stood before us and saw most of the members of the gang. But none of them were the one I was looking for. My first thought was that maybe he was hiding in the van, but then an alarm sounded on my phone, just as Kat’s voice yelled into my earpiece. “That’s Mika’s panic button! He's no longer in the store.”

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