“Don’t talk to me that way!” Mom shrieked.

He was back to me. “Evie, are you okay?”

“I have friends around me.”

“Your man?”

“I’m told he’ll be fine.”

“Let me talk to my daughter!”

“I gotta go now, sweetheart,” Rob said. “But I’m gonna call a little bit later. Please, answer when I call, and just to say, it won’t have anything to do with your mom.”

“What does that mean?” Mom demanded.

Lottie was motioning to me, so I said, “I’ll think about it, Rob. Good luck. And good-bye.”

I was about to take the phone from my ear to disconnect, but I didn’t when he said softly, “Love you, Evie. You’re a good kid. From the minute I met you, wished you were my own.”

Tears filled my eyes again and my voice was husky when I replied, “Thanks, Rob. That means a lot.”

“Take care of you and I hope we speak soon.”

“Okay.”

“’Bye, sweetheart.”

“’Bye, Rob.”

On that, I disconnected and focused on Lottie.

“She didn’t do the block so maybe the stepdad isn’t a total dickweed,” Pepper muttered.

I heard her but more, I heard Lottie say, “Eddie’s got you in.”

My heart jumped, and before I could lose the will to go forward with all this, my mouth moved.

“Let’s roll.”

I grabbed my bag off the kitchen island and marched to the door, feeling bodies close in on all sides.

So I stopped, looked around, and I was right.

Bodies were closed in on all sides.

“You guys can take off,” I said carefully to Pepper, Ryn and Hattie, going carefully because they all were wearing determined expressions. “Thank you for, well…everything today and it sounds lame, but truly, I’m really so sorry this got out of hand the way it did. Now you need to go home, chill out, and this can be Lottie, Tex, me and hottie biker guy.”

“I’m going with,” Ryn stated.

“Me too,” Pepper decreed.

“I’m not leaving your side,” Hattie declared. “Except, of course, when you talk to your brother, if the cops won’t let me in, but I’ll be waiting for you in reception after you’re done.”

Hattie really was all kinds of cute.

Axl was in for a world of goodness.

I didn’t focus on that.

I started, “I really don’t think—”

“Clue in, Evie,” Ryn interrupted me. “This is how it’s done, sister.”

I stared at her.

I stared at Pepper.

I stared at Hattie.

I looked to Lottie.

She was smiling.

I didn’t have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, but from Lottie’s smile, it seemed Ryn was correct.

This was how it was done.

“You said something about rolling?” Lottie prompted.

I nodded, turned and barely took a step when I was brought up short by hottie biker guy standing in front of the door with his long legs planted and his arms crossed on his wide chest.

When he caught my eyes, his deep voice rolled out.

“Guts me to do this, you bein’ on this tear, and I don’t know you, but seems like it’s been a long time comin’, I still gotta say we do not have the go-ahead to ride.”

“I’ll take responsibility for Evie makin’ this play,” Tex said.

Aw.

I loved Tex.

“Not sayin’ she can’t make this play,” Dutch said to Tex. “Just sayin’ she’s gotta make it when her man lifts the house arrest.”

Say…

What?

House arrest?

“Are you being serious?” I asked.

His gaze came to me. “After I got shot, found my woman tied to a chair in a warehouse with her face lookin’ like yours, I set a man on her to look out for her with the simple instructions to keep her safe in my crib, and he did not follow those instructions, I would not be happy.”

“Danny’s more enlightened than you,” I probably lied.

“You do know I know your man?” Dutch asked, and in so doing, sharing that he knew I was lying.

I tried a different tack.

“Please?”

“Babe…”

Gah!

Another “babe”!

“I feel you,” he went on. “Sounds like your family is the pits. But need to remind you what you been sharin’ with your biologicals. You got kidnapped today.”

“You’ll keep me safe. Tex’ll keep me safe. And when we get there, we’ll be in a place crawling with police. I couldn’t be safer than there.”

Dutch didn’t respond.

“Please?” I tried again.

Dutch stared at me.

“I need to do this,” I whispered. “And I need to do it before I lose the courage to get it done.”

He continued to stare at me before he muttered, “Fuck,” pulled out his phone, engaged it and then said into it, “We’re riding. Evan has something to say to her brother. We’re heading to County.” He then disconnected and leveled his eyes on me. “Shit goes down, you do as told. Don’t make me regret this.”

I smiled at him.

Big.

And through it, I said, “I won’t. I promise.”

He studied my smile, his expression changed to something that made my nipples tingle, then he wiped it and said, “Let’s ride.”

Mag

“I’m feeling a more active role in this situation,” Lee Nightingale stated.

“Lee—” Mitch began.

Lee looked to Brock. “Your woman was kidnapped.” Then to Tack. “Your woman was kidnapped.” And finally to Mitch. “And your kids were kidnapped. Now, my woman was kidnapped, twice, so I suspect our shared experience with this kinda bullshit would lead us all to a place we…did not…fuck around.”

“No one’s gonna fuck around, Lee,” Brock assured.

“All right, we’ll just break up on the understanding we always got. You do what you do and me and my men will do what we do,” Lee returned just as his phone rang.

Rush’s phone was ringing too.

Lee ignored his.

Rush didn’t do the same.

“Your boys, or Chaos, or Hawk’s soldiers do anything to fuck with bringing down Cisco,” Mitch began, “and bringing him down clean, I gotta say, respect, but there will be issues. Tony was a good man. Tony had two kids and his wife was pregnant when he was capped. And Cisco is a thug who somehow managed to convince people he’s a boss and none of us at this table are unaware of what that’s meant on the streets of Denver.”

Before Lee could respond, Rush’s low conversation ended and he rapped his knuckles on the table, getting everyone’s attention.

And Mag did not feel good about the fact Rush’s eyes were aimed at him.

“That was Joke,” Rush said. “There’s a convoy rolling out of your condo. Seems your woman engineered a sit-down with her brother.”

Instantly, Lee nabbed his phone.

Mag blew out a sigh.

Then he stood.