Page 41 of Cost of Courting

“He said it. This guy, this Benson, could be the guy. The one we’re after. Or we might tip off the real guy and lose him again.”

“We have to be sure,” Edric says sternly and pulls on gloves.

“What’s going on here?” Bailey asks with a frown. “Who are you guys looking for?”

“Just something personal,” I say quietly. The last thing I want to do is lie to Bailey, but he doesn’t need to know this.

A cold breeze blows through the abandoned building, and the old metal machinery creaks. There’s less life in it now that Anchor is dead.

I burst out laughing at my own thoughts.

“Who are you looking for, and why is Tiger important?”

“Don’t worry about it, Bailey. You don’t want this, remember?” Edric says quietly and looks at me, warning me to keep my mouth shut.

I purse my lips. I’m not in agreement about keeping our secrets from pack members, but Edric has a fair point, they aren’t pack yet.

“Look, Bailey, it’s good. We have it handled. Let’s just get rid of soft hands here and go home and see if we can convince Selene to go on a date with us.”

Bailey doesn’t believe us, but he’s smart. I can see that. He also takes the bait. “Selene is not going to go on a date with us.” He grunts and drops into a crouch, looking all sexy and dangerous. “You know there’s going to be payback. Retaliation. You should probably have thought about this.”

I dance towards him, but he side-steps away from me, wary and hostile still. I stop and grin at him. He glares back even harder, those sexy blue-green eyes are like lasers screaming his disapproval.

Without the civilised Bailey mask, the tough as nails biker is shining through. His knuckles are bruised from his turn at Anchor, and he’s stripped out of his top, showing an expanse of tanned skin covered in ink that I want to explore with my mouth.

This version of Bailey is hot. He’s irresistible. I can’t keep my eyes off him.

This version is the one that I just know our little crazy princess would love. I know Mael is afraid that she wouldn’t be able to see past the brutality, but I know her with my heart, and she would take one look at us, and it wouldn’t matter.

Still, unless we’re prepared to push Mael into a zone of insecurity, she’s not going to know.

More’s the shame because I would like to show her this side of me that she doesn’t know. She got a hint of it when we were younger, but since then, it’s matured.

Turned deadly.

We’re not the same people she used to know.

Not entirely.

Edric comes over with a cleaver and starts dismembering the body. I smile and tilt my head at Bailey. “You going to help?”

“Fire. Petrol. Gone,” Bailey says with a shake of his head. “Work smarter, not harder.”

I glance at Edric. We’d be putting our lives in his hands. Edric shrugs.

“All right, Baby B, show us how it’s done.”

“Don’t call me that.” Bailey lifts his phone out of his pocket. “I need cleanup.”

Well, this ought to be interesting.

The factory burns tothe ground. We’re far enough away not to be found by any cops or firefighters. In fact, the Despair MC deliberately kept the cops and firies busy until the building was no longer salvageable. They won’t find the body.

The club has an interesting method of making sure that no remains can be accidentally found. The intense smaller fire got rid of the body. Once that was mostly gone, they burnt the property. The whole thing took maybe two hours and got rid of all the evidence.

Anchor’s phone is on a fruit and veg truck heading across the country. His stuff is missing. It’s like he packed up and just walked away from his life.

No one will look for him. He will go undiscovered.