Page 33 of Devil's Due: Sarge

“Text your brother. Let him know where we’ll be if he gets here before we’re done eating.”

She nods and pulls her phone from her purse, rattling off a text while we walk the block to the pizza joint.

We’re forty-five minutes and three quarters of our way into a meatball and green olive – ladies’ choice – when three younger guys decked out in stereotypical cowboy hats, long-sleeved button-downs, jeans with big silver belt buckles, and cowboy boots, each one practically a clone of the next – walk into the restaurant. Finlay waves them down. They walk over to where we’re seated with jovial smiles on their faces, tipping their hats first at Greer, then at me as they shout their hellos to Finlay. Then each of the three men reaches across the table to snag a piece of pizza, finishing it off.

The leader of the cowboy posse introduces himself. “I’m Lance, Fin’s brother. I appreciate you wanting to help my sister out,” he says in his thick Texas twang. “It won’t be easy, but I think between the four of us, we can tip her car right.”

“Uh…” Finlay starts. “It appears you’ve forgotten how to count, but there are six of us.”

“Ain’t no job for a woman,” one of the cowboy clones drawls.

“Really, Kyle? Just whatisthe job of a woman?” Finlay asks the cowboy clone.

Greer swats at my arm. “I like her,” she says. And I just shake my head and laugh because yeah, a woman like Greerwouldlike someone like Finlay, another woman with lady balls.

For her part, Finlay doesn’t even bother to argue with the man anymore. She stands from the table, snatching up the bill. “I got this,” she says.

“No.” I use two fingers to snatch the paper from her hand. “Greer and I invited you out. Our treat.”

She looks to Greer, pointing to me. “Seriously? I’ve been ondateswhere I had to pay. Don’t let this one go.”

Greer smiles, mumbling something I can’t understand because Lance and his clones are shooting off variants of “Good man.”

While she leads the group back out to her car, I pay for the drinks, pizza, and tip the waitress before heading out to join them.

Despite what they think about it not being the job for a woman, the damn car is heavier than it looks, and takes all six of us to tip it back on its wheels. It still appears drivable, but the whole side’s going to need bodywork. From tail light to headlight, crushed. Glad it’s not our car.

“Why don’t you get in and try to start it?” her brother, Lance, orders. “We gotta get back to work. Took our lunch hour to come help you and we’re gonna be late getting back.”

“That’s no problem,” I say. “Greer and I will make sure she gets back to where she needs to go, or if she needs a tow, we’ll see she gets that too.”

“That’s kind of you, brother,” Lance says. And with us having been out here the past hour trying to flip the car, I think he’s earned the right to call me “brother.”

Finlay gets in and starts the engine. She made sure to take pictures of it on its side, and pictures of the mess of the rest of the town, for insurance purposes, before we ever started to try to flip the car back over. Smart girl.

“Do you want us to follow you back to make sure you get home okay?” Greer asks. “We don’t mind.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” she replies. “But thank you for asking.”

“Let me give you my number,” Greer says. “In case you need us, or in case you just want to talk.”

Finlay and Greer exchange numbers, and then Finlay steps in to give each of us a hug goodbye. “Good luck with reuniting with your family,” she says as she gets in her car, shutting the door. Then as she drives away, she sticks her hand out the window to wave goodbye at us.

We didn’t tell her the real reason we found ourselves in this part of Texas, but implied we were here for Greer to reunite with her family after a long estrangement. Which is essentially the truth.

And fuck, I don’t want to worry her, but I clock a group of motherfuckers coming out of a bar the very moment Finlay drives off. And there’s no way they don’t see meormy cut. Large. Imposing. The Devil’s Hangmen. The Horde rivalry goes back farther with the Hangmen than it did with the Lords. Both our clubs started out west here—well before I’d ever heard of the Horde. Once I patched in, I got the whole sordid history. The Hangmen are a large reason the Horde pushed east… and there’s no chance of mending fences like with the Lords, especially not now.

These men are bad—not badass…bad… to the core. And somehow, I have to get Greer out of here untouched because these men wouldn’t think twice about using her body as a party, no matter she said ‘no’ or not.

I drape my arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close to my body. If we’re lucky, they just want us out of town. We get to the truck; I’ll be happy to oblige. But I’m not naïve enough to believe they’ll let us get to the truck.

From two sides, they begin closing in. Circling us like a school of bull sharks, aggressively waiting to strike. “Baby,” I whisper in her ear, although doing it by kissing her. They don’t need to know I’m tracking them, too. As we continue toward the truck, I drop my arm from around her shoulder to her waist in order to conceal my hand digging into my pocket to retrieve my keys and discreetly as possible, slip them into hers. “When I tell you to run, you run as fast as you can to the truck.”

“Wha—” she starts to ask louder than is safe for us. I cut her off with another kiss.

“Don’t look, but there are men all around us—men from a rival club. They get you, they’ll hurt you.”

“What about you?” she whispers.

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