Page 8 of Pickle

Nolan,one of the men Hyram introduced me to when he first brought me to the clubhouse, is standing guard outside the room where Frankie and Teeny are staying. He nods at Hyram and swings open the door as we approach. Frankie watches her brother set me down just inside the room before he pushes the door closed behind me.

“What’s wrong?”she asks, quiet enough not to interrupt Teeny’s snuffly little kid snores on the bed next to her. The tablet playing Bluey’s theme song continues bopping along, but Frankie sets it down and carefully disentangles herself from the sleeping preschooler.

“Something happened?”Concern is obvious in her hushed question.

“There’s a man prowling around.Hyram spotted him through the kitchen window while I was getting water for you and the kiddo.” I don’t lie to clients about danger, even when I know it’ll scare her. Frankie’s an adult, and she has the right to know what’s happening in her own life.

“Is my brother—”She bites off the worry, a sob catching in her throat.

Hyram wasn’twrong when he told me his sister was the sweetest woman alive. She’s impossibly softhearted. So much so, that it’s almost unbelievable to imagine her as the wife of a motorcycle club officer. Even her daughter’s got more sass than she does, and the kid’s three years old.

“I’msure he’s fine. He’s got Malik and Rurik with him. Probably that Malachi guy, too, since he was around earlier,” I assure her.

Soft buzzingfrom her silenced phone on the bedside table catches her attention, and she tiptoe dashes over to it.

“Arlo,are you on the way here?” she cries. I can’t hear the other end of the conversation, but I assume he says yes. Her shoulders drop as the panicky tension releases at hearing from her husband.

Their conversation continuesas I check the room to ensure it’s secure. The only point of entry is the bedroom door, and we’re on the third floor. I already know there’s no likely way to scale the building to get through the window. I go back to where Frankie paces while she talks to her husband. The roles have flipped, and now, she’s the one assuring him that she’s safe and not to worry.

Once they’reoff the phone, I confirm with Frankie that he’s on the way and will be here soon. Knowing how far Darrow is from Lexen, I don’t doubt the man is breaking land speed records to get here. To keep her mind—and yeah, okay, mine, too—off what’s undoubtably happening somewhere on property, I turn on some mindless cooking competition reality show and sit down on the bed beside her.

A big partof me wants to be out there with Hyram and the other guys, making that dirtbag pay for what he’s done, but I force myself to hold my position and guard Frankie and Teeny. No matter what, I’ll keep them safe until her husband and Hyram give the all clear.

CHAPTER NINE

Pickle

“Get his legs, Shadow. Row, grab the rope.” My instructions are followed immediately, all of us working to get Vance Mitchell secured.

“Really a fuckin’letdown how easy you made it to capture you, Shitbag,” Row grouses. Once upon a time, Row had been Staff Sargeant Malachi Murphy, and tracking had been his specialty. Until a roadside bomb, encountered during a humanitarian mission to assist digging clean water wells in a war-ravaged nation, rang his chimes and nearly killed him.

I never served,so I didn’t get the chance to see him in his prime, but even now, he naturally gravitates toward any task that has him solving puzzles or hunting down information. Mitchell being so easy to apprehend is clearly an affront to my road captain.

“Wha…?”The man being bound to the metal folding chair, in the special room we reserve for just such events, garbles through his own blood and spittle. Look, I promised Arlo I wouldn’t deprive him of his husbandly right to take apart the guy piece by piece. I did not, however, promise I wouldn’t take my own pound of flesh from him. Frankie is my sister, after all.

“You pickedthe wrong one when you set your eyes on my sister, asshole. But never fear, you won’t be making mistakes like this one ever again,” I promise. His eyes narrow, no doubt anticipating a scenario where he walks away from this with a beatdown and nothing more. I smirk, knowing the reason he won’t make this mistake again is because after tonight the only thing he’ll be making is food for worms.

“Where’sthe sorry piece of shit who thought he could take my wife from me?” Arlo’s normally quiet baritone thunders down the stairs and has me grinning with delight. Now that he’s here, this can all end, and I can put all my attention where I really want it to be. On claiming Thyrie.

What follows istwo hours of madness. Arlo, Row, Rurik and I take apart Vance Mitchell at the seams. Figuratively and literally.

When there’snothing left but cleanup, Arlo leaves to wash himself clean of the mess and get to his wife and daughter. I can’t fault him, but it means one less set of hands to deal with the aftermath of what wound up being a very, very messy lesson taught here tonight.

Typically,I don’t mind the role of club janitor, but tonight, everything in me focuses on getting upstairs to Thyrie before she decides the job is done and takes off. I know Arlo plans to bundle up his girls and get them home, so Teeny can wake up in her own bed tomorrow.

“Relax,brother. She’s not gonna leave. And if she does, Malik’s man can track her down just like he did the last time,” Malachi teases.

“Track who down now?”Thyrie’s amused huff is a balm to my nerves, even as I panic at the sight we all make right now, surrounded by blood and gore. This isn’t something a man wants his woman to see. Especially not when the dead body we haven’t finished preparing for dumping lying right there in front of us all.

My spitfire isn’t fazedby the gory scene. She steps into the room and pulls the armored door closed behind her.

“How’dyou get through the basement door? It’s coded,” Rurik challenges.

“You’re notthe only one who knows tech,” she responds, her eyes never leaving mine. “Besides, just because I haven’t entered your sacred spaces before now, it doesn’t mean I didn’t make it my business to know how to get in here if I needed to. Can’t very well protect someone if I can’t get into every single place they might need protected in, now can I?”

“Yeah,but there’s a no girls allowed rule,” Row pouts.

Thyrie hasthe good grace not to laugh at his childish complaining, though she does give my brother a sweet smile.

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