Page 91 of Merciless

“Holding me back right now really ain’t a good idea, Char.”

“You go in there guns blazing, you won’t be helping Roxana. You’ll be making her an orphan.”

“Way better than it being the other way around,” he bites back.

I tighten my grip on his arm, hard enough to really make him feel it. He needs that bite of pain right now to focus him and pull him out of the dangerous headspace he’s currently in—a headspace that’s going to get him killed. “This is just a battle, not the war. If you fall here, you’ll be leaving your daughter, Ax, and the club to clean up the Gatekeepers mess.”

It takes him a moment, but he calms just enough to see reason. “Goddammit, woman. Always with the sound arguments.”

I ease the pressure of my hold. “I know this is your daughter caught in the crossfire, but the best way to ensure her safety, for us to win out here, is to lock down your emotional responses as much as possible. You need to treat this as you would a rescue mission for one of your clients, with reason, strategy, and patience being at the forefront. Don’t forget that Priest has targeted her purposely, intending to get this precise reaction from you, to manipulate you into slipping up. He thought he could force your hand by taking me. Roxana is him turning up the intensity ten-fold. If you react the way he wants, he wins.”

“All right. I hear you.”

“Good,” I say, releasing him. “We do this together now.”

He nods.

That’s as far as he gets, before Wraith calls to us.

We hurry back to the window and discreetly peer through into the front lot of the motel. A BMW that I’m instantly able to ID as Roxana’s from the license plate Cal showed me earlier, tears into the lot.

But it’s not alone. There’s a Harley riding right behind her, escorting her, it looks like.

“What’s he doing here?” Wraith grunts. “Jesus Christ, how hard is it to stick to a plan?”

I take in the patches on the rider’s leather cut. “Road Captain.”

“Yeah, Runner,” Cal confirms. “Must’ve been in the neighborhood.”

“Ax would know, either way. Why didn’t he update us on this change in the situation?”

“Lack of discipline and precision,” Wraith mutters as he shifts his weight and readies his rifle to react at any moment.

“He’s pissed as hell, that’s why,” Cal says. “Didn’t trust nobody else with his woman’s life.” He hisses through clenched teeth. “Not even her own father, meaning he’s pissed at me.” He shakes it off in the next second, doing what I advised. “That’s a problem for later.”

“Agreed.”

“You ready?”

“No choice,” Wraith says in that clipped and efficient tone of his. “I’ve got a hostile sighting. Coming in hot.”

Roxana and Runner have barely parked when a gray, unmarked van barrels into the lot, tires squealing in its haste.

Wraith reacts within a split second, firing off a shot right through the windshield. The impact shatters the entire thing and we look to see the driver inside now a lifeless heap with half his head blown away.

“Jesus Christ, that was a hell of a shot,” Cal comments.

Wraith doesn’t respond, deep in concentration as the other three in the van rush out and take cover behind it.

While they’re in the lot, it’s the only source of cover, because Wraith evacuated the rest of the civilians before we arrived here in an effort to eliminate collateral damage.

Runner covers Roxana as he rushes them toward one of the ground-level motel rooms.

“They’ll become sitting ducks inside any of those rooms,” I warn Cal.

“He’s moving for the closest cover,” Wraith says. “But, you’re right, it won’t last.”

We watch Runner shove Roxana inside one of the rooms and shut the door, then bolt back toward the three guys by the van.

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