Page 12 of The Belle and the Biker

"I'm very friendly with some federal prosecutors. You pass up on what I'm offering you, and your friends might find themselves under a microscope. I don't think they could survive that level of scrutiny. And they wouldn't be your friends much longer when they find out why all their clubs are being shut down. Lengthy prison sentences. Property being seized."

"Did you know I kept all those voicemails you left for my mother?"

"You what?" he bellows.

Rage rises inside me, choking me. "The ones where you threatened to have her framed and thrown in prison and me put in foster care if she ever told anyone that you were my dad. The ones where you called her a washed-up whore and said I wasn't your son and told her to stop bothering you for child support." The ones that drove her to drink herself to death.

My hands are involuntarily clenching into fists. If he were here, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from putting my fist through his face.

"Well, those were obviously faked." But he sounds a lot less confident.

"That'll be up to the national media to decide, won't it? If I even sense a hint of unusual law enforcement interest in the Iron Ride, I will have a new full-time job on the media circuit, exposing you for exactly what you are."

"You fucking ungrateful little weasel. I'm offering you the opportunity of a lifetime, and you dare to threaten me?"

"Emerson. Get this through your thick, stupid skull. I am irrelevant when it comes to your run for senate. You've got your picture-perfect TV family. If anyone finds out I exist, tell the truth for once in your life. Say we're estranged. Leave it at that. And stay the fuck away from my club, or I will expose every dirty little secret that you thought you had hidden away."

I hang up the phone, turn it off, and storm back to my motel room. It'd be a bad idea for me to drink any more at this point.

I'm up early the next morning, stopping at a greasy spoon diner, ready for another long ride. Maybe it'll do what yesterday's ride failed to accomplish—clear my head. Calm the rage that's boiling inside me.

The waiter is flicking through the channels on a wall-mounted TV when I see something that makes me drop my fork. Savannah is standing in front of crime scene tape, talking to a reporter.

What the fuck? That's only a couple of blocks from Savannah's apartment, and it's in our territory.

I pull my phone from my pocket. Damn it. I forgot to turn it back on this morning, which happens when I'm in a lousy mood. When I look up, the waiter has changed the channel. He's standing with his back to me, refilling the coffee.

"Put it back on the news!" I order him, turning on my phone.

He turns around. "Why don't you go take a—" When he sees who he's talking to, he looks at my cut with all its patches and goes pale. "Free meal, on the house?" His voice rises to a squeak. He quickly changes the channel.

Savannah's still talking to the reporter in her cultured Southern accent. And her full name is running along the ticker tape on the bottom of the screen.

A man was shot to death yesterday evening, just outside our territory. Savannah saw it; she was out walking her dog when it happened. The shooter saw that she was watching, turned, and pointed the gun at her. He fired a shot after her as she ran for her life. She dodged into a business and locked the door behind her.

"Fuck," I snarl, and at the same time, my phone lights up with half a dozen messages.

I'm so angry right now that if Savannah was with me, I don't think I could stop myself from throwing her over my knee and spanking her, not in a sexy way. She's standing there giving her full name and showing her face to the world. She witnessed a murder, and now the killer knows her name, precisely what she looks like, and that she's a Hell's Kitchen resident and waitress at a local bar—all information the reporter helpfully announces.

Jesus. Is the reporter actively trying to get her killed? Why doesn't the guy just draw a fucking map to Savannah's apartment while he's at it? Hand out copies of the door key?

I throw a twenty on the counter, even as the waiter tries to tell me it's on the house. He's talking to a slamming door as I run for my bike. I quickly call Axl, who curses me for waking him up but tells me that Savannah is fine. Then I ride back to New York like the hounds of hell are on my heels.

CHAPTER5

Savannah

"Yes,you will have a bodyguard, and yes, it has to be Crash."

It's the end of my shift, and we've retreated to the Bone-breakers office because of the bar's din. With Crash and Axl, two huge bikers, in the office with me, along with Tawny and Axl, there's not a lot of room left. Tiddlywinks, who is too stupid to be afraid, stares up at the men from the safety of my purse, panting happily.

I give Axl a dirty look, but it's a waste of a good glower. Over the years, the man's been shot, stabbed, and survived an IED and roadside ambush when he was overseas. My dirty looks fizzle and fade right off him. Also, my neck's getting a crick from glaring up at him.

"Why him?" I demand.

Axl tips a bottle of Guinness back and drains half of it in one long swallow. "Why not him? What's your problem with him?"

Well, that's getting awfully personal.

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