Collapsing back against the wall, I bang my head twice, preferring the physical pain to the emotional.

“You’re saving her life.” The detective pauses while more texts from Oz and Razor come in. “You’re doing the right thing.”

God, I hope so, because I’m nothing without her.

Violet

BILE RISES UP my throat and sweat breaks out along my hairline. Justin’s going to kill me. I know too much, he’s figured out I’m recording them and they never intended to let me leave. “I gave you the account numbers. I did what you asked, now you uphold your end of the agreement.”

Skull steps into the hallway and he’s deadly serious. “She did what we asked. The numbers are legit.”

Legit? My head flinches back. “You already had the numbers?”

“Some of them, but we couldn’t get them all. That’s why we involved you, but knowing a few of the account numbers lets me know if you were giving me bogus information or not.”

Screw this. I kick Justin’s kneecap, his body jerks and he loosens his grip on me and I yank away from him, then draw back. Like my father taught me, I keep my thumb tucked outside my fist and I punch the son of a bitch in the nose. Blood squirts everywhere and he yells out a curse. “What did you do that for?”

His words catch me off guard and I blink as I try to catch my breath. “You weren’t letting me go.”

Justin straightens as he pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and holds it to his nose. “I was going to get you a fish to take home. Jesus, women are crazy.”

Little dots appear in my eyesight and I sway with the fuzziness in my head, but then I laugh. A loud laugh. A weird laugh. A crazy laugh. A fish. He stopped me to give me a fish.

“Follow me.” Justin goes out into the store as he continues to apply pressure to his nose.

Skull appraises me, and while I expect him to give me crap for hitting his son, he merely says, “Your father would be proud of you today—working to bring peace to your club.”

“Yeah, he would be proud.” But not for what he thinks. And with that, I leave.

CHEVY

MY BODY IS on fire. The blood pulsating through my veins is liquid fire. Violet is in my arms and she’s soft and warm and smells so damn good I’m about ready to explode. While on my lap, she gives me this smoldering, under-the-eyelash look of seduction as her fingers playfully wander under my shirt.

She’s going to kill me.

I lower my head, lightly brush my lips against hers, and when she gently presses back, my hands curl into her waist. Soft giggles from her and my temptress pulls back once again. “We have company.”

We do and someday I’m going to kick Oz’s and Razor’s asses for not giving us time alone.

“It’s not like you would find privacy anywhere anyhow,” Razor says like he’s reading my mind. “In case you haven’t figured it out, Pigpen and Man O’ War are on a ten-minute rotation of checking in on us. Their instincts are telling them that this is bigger and badder than their wildest guess.”

The local police arrested Eli and Cyrus this afternoon on charges of speeding and resisting arrest. Neither of them broke either of those laws, but it’s the only way Detective Barlow could talk to them without tipping the Riot’s hand of what’s about to go down.

I didn’t know that was going to happen. In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t know. Not sure I could have seen this through thinking my grandfather and uncle would be sitting behind bars with their reputations on the line.

But then Violet shifts and her long, silky hair slides against my arm. I turn my head, nuzzle my nose behind her ear, inhale her sweet scent and brush my lips to her skin. She cuddles closer, which is almost impossible with how she’s sitting on my lap.

Across the yard, the clubhouse is lit up against the black night and pissed-off. Pigpen’s been tearing through the cabin, the yard, the clubhouse like a toddler on the warpath. No one besides me, Razor, Oz and Violet understands why Eli and Cyrus were arrested. Until the Riot make their move against Eli and are thrown in jail, no one can know why.

The four of us are in Violet’s bedroom at the cabin. Oz and Razor sit at opposite ends of the window seat. I’m cradling Violet on the bed. Like a calming pendulum, she brushes her fingertips slowly up and down my arm. It’s a reminder that she’s safe, that we’re alive, that we are together.

We’ve been quiet since Louisville. Violet wore a recorder, she got the information the police needed and now we wait for the Riot to mess up and the police to do their job.

Violet watches the fish Justin gave her swim in slow, methodical circles in the glass vase she placed him in when she returned to the police trailer. It was the only thing she could find in the cabinets that would work.

“Why are you keeping it?” I whisper in her ear, but Oz and Razor glance over. The room is too quiet and we’re all too hypersensitive from today to not hear even the most hushed sound.

Violet lazily lifts one shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“Have you considered it’s bugged?” Oz asks.

She smiles and one by one, including Oz, we all smile, too. It’s been a long day and we’re full of paranoia.

“Forget I asked,” he said.

“Never,” she replies. “I will remember and remind you of that question until the day I die.”

Until the day she dies. I wrap my arms tighter around her and she places her head on my shoulder. There’s no humming anymore, and as long as she’s around, there won’t be. “Seriously, why keep the fish?”