Page 71 of Ricochet

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Is this the mother-daughter trip we never saw coming?” Lenora led the way off the cramped flight. The last minute, one-way ticket from Iowa to Baltimore had been dirt-cheap and provided the worst seats available. But Adelia didn’t care. It was the most comfortable place she’d had able to sleep since Tex told her to scram from the Mayhem compound.

Even after she woke,Adelia didn’t care that both her seatmates evil-eyed her for flopping her arms over the seat dividers and probably snoring. A girl needed her beauty sleep, especially when she had been running from a motorcycle gang that knew her better than anyone.

“I’m sure this is the trip you’ve always dreamed of—taking me to hunt down someone in our network.”

“Well, this is more likely something I would’vewanted over say…” Lenora waved her hand as they merged into the airport’s traffic of business professionals and travelers with roller bags. “Hell, I don’t know. My mother never did anything cutesy with me.” Her upper lip snarled. “And I didn’t want her to either.”

“You know you always wanted to do mani-pedis.” Adelia looked at her metallic purple polish. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t tell anyone ifyou took a moment to relax from the raging bitch act.”

Lenora pointed toward concourse signs, and they merged with a different flow of people. “Aren’t you a sweet child?”

Lenora’s cell phone rang from inside her black leather bag, and she pulled open the silver-studded flap to quickly check the caller. “It’s for you.”

“Me?” Adelia took the phone and noticed Lenora’s matte gray nail polish.Maybe a mani-pedi wasn’t off the table, but she had no plans to talk to Tex right now. “No way.”

“It’s your —”

That was a D.C. number. Adelia tugged the phone back and swiped to take the call, pressing it to her ear, breathless and conscious of Lenora’s scrutiny. “Colin?”

“Where are you?”

With a question like that, Adelia expected it to be sharp or angry. But Colin’s voice carried a breathof relief, and even though they were walking through a packed airport, her eyes slipped shut. She could picture his head dropping back and broad shoulders relaxing. “I need to take care of a few things —”

“That’s not a location.” His voice rumbled, so deep and determined that the palm of her hand vibrated. Mayhem might have been hunting her, but Colin would find her unless she begged him off.

“I talked to Lenora, and what the hell is going on with—hell, I don’t know—Mayhem’s banks?”

Adelia hooked her arm around Lenora’s elbow, mouthing, “What did you tell him?”

She waved Adelia off. “Whatever I needed to.”

“Adelia,” Colin snapped, “stay with her. I’m coming to find you. Then we’ll talk, sort everything out. It’ll be fine.”

There was no way that would happen.What could he do? AskMayhem to stop?Even if she and Lenora learned something from their meeting with Silvio, Adelia didn’t plan on leaving much in terms of actionable information for a group that walked the line like Delta. She was Mayhem, through and through. That wouldn’t change, even as they were coming to kill her. Colin had so much good to do. He didn’t need to be mixed up with the likes of her.

“Why the hellaren’t you saying anything?” he asked.

Her eyes pinched shut when he grumbled in that way that warmed her heart. “When the hell did you get so bossy and grumpy?”

“Since the girl I couldn’t get out of my mind left me hanging.” He grumbled. “Whatever you two are up to, whatever shitshow you’ve got yourself into, I promise you, I have seen worse, done worse.”

“You haven’t.”

“Feels like you’retrying to protect me from something, sweetheart, and I’m telling you. Don’t.”

Colin was a mind reader. Lucky her. “How about this? I’ll call you later.”

He snort-laughed. “How about this? Bullshit. I’m coming to find you. Stay with Lenora, and I’ll see you later.”

“No—”

He hung up, and she scowled, double-checking the screen, hating to admit that the bossy, protector act did a little somethingfor her. Mayhem was filled to the brim with bossy protectors. But Colin was different. She didn’t know how or why, but he made her feel good.

“Taxi stand, over there.” Lenora angled them past baggage claim and into a short line.

Adelia was still floating from her conversation with Colin when they slid into the back of the cab and Lenora directed the driver to the Baltimore docks.

“No, ladies,you pretty broads don’t wanna go there.” The man twisted in his seat and ignored the taxi honking behind him “Gimme someplace else to drop you off or get another cab to take you there.”

Lenora grabbed her leather bag and pulled out a wad of cash. “Yeah, that’s where you’re taking us. And not that anyone will ever ask, but you never saw us.”

“So it’s going to be like that.” He held up his handthen grasped the dollars smacked into it. “And away we go.”

---