Page 42 of Her Brother's Keeper

Maren’s alarm went off, waking us both!

I was still on top of the covers, Maren snug beneath them and still snug in the cradle of my body, her phone screeching that it was time to wake up. She reached a hand out from beneath the quilt on her bed and pulled it off the nightstand, silencing it.

“Morning, Angel,” I murmured and she froze.

“Holy shit, you’re still here!” she whispered harshly.

“I think I fell asleep,” I muttered.

“This is not good! What about Sage?”

“Shit, uh, he up yet?” The toilet flushing across the hall said that yep, the kid was up.

I rolled off the bed, and onto the floor and stayed there, frozen to the hardwood and area rug beneath Maren’s bed.

“Morning, Sage!” she called out.

“Whatever;” was his grumpy sleepy reply. His door shut and I sat up, pushing quietly to my feet. I brushed my lips against Maren’s who was trying like hell not to laugh, and I slipped downstairs grabbing my jacket and cut off the hook by the front door and slipped outside. I pushed my bike down the frozen pavement for like half a block before getting on it.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out to look.

Maren: OMG that was close!

Me: Sorry, Angel. Didn’t mean to fall asleep. Try 2 have a good day at school. U work tonight?

Maren: Yes, I do.

Me: Ok, B careful.

Maren: You too. Call me later?

Me: U know it.

Maren: XoXo

Me: :)

I fired up the bike which was cranky about the cold; the brisk as fuck ride better than any cup of coffee at waking my ass up. It being Monday, I had the day off. It was my Sunday, and I had some shit to do. I felt guilty as fuck that Maren was going to have to go through the wringer at least one more time, but I really needed to talk to Cell and Reaver. They were the best men for the job when it came to putting the fear of God, the devil, and anything and everything in between, into a man.

As luck would have it, Cell and Blue were throwing their shit into the back of their pickup when I pulled up into the club’s lot, I pulled up right behind their massive cage and pulled the bandana off my face, calling out: “Hey Cell! You got some time for me later tonight, brother?”

Cell raised one of his ginger eyebrows at me and said, “Yeah, man. Be back around seven; that cool?”

“Yeah, gonna try and get Reave’s help with it, too.”

“Now I really wanna know what’s up,” he said and Blue nodded deftly from across the bed of the truck, curiosity written all over his expressive face.

“See you at seven,” I said and got out of their way. I needed to get into a hot shower and phone up Reave.

***

“Okay, where’s the fuckin’ fire at?” Reaver asked dropping into a seat at my table out in the barroom. Duracell dropped into the one across from Reaver’s and I leaned forward.

“Maren’s got a bullying problem that’s way out of pocket, some ex-boything of hers is fuckin’ terrorizing her on top of all the other shit she’s going through. Threatening her with all kinds of rape. I heard it myself when her car died last week.”

Cell and Reaver exchanged a look, “Kid’s a minor, what do you want us to do about it?” Reaver asked, but I could tell his interest was piqued.

“Who fucking cares, the kid wants to act all big and tough? Let’s show him what it’s like to roll with the big dogs,” Cell said coolly, leaning way back in his seat, tipping the front legs off the floor.

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