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“How old are they?” I’d been picturing cute little toddlers but if they were allowed to decide which parent they wanted to live with, they had to be older than that.

“Teenagers. They’ll be sixteen this fall and are all excited about getting to drive. Now that’s something that scares me.”

“Teenagers!”

He grinned. “Yeah. Major reason why we’re not doing this once we get back to Georgia.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Guess I’ll just have to get my fill while we’re on the road then.”

“What about you? Anything juicy in your past, besides dating the heir to a mafia family?”

“Nope. Other than hunting down my father once I was old enough, my life’s been pretty boring.”

“Hunting him down?”

I explained that my mother had no idea who he was, and I’d had to go the DNA route to find him. “So we’re actually not that close. We’ve visited once, and we keep in touch by email and phone calls, but when this happened he was the only one I could think of who might be able to help.”

Beast let out a low whistle. “Must have sucked growing up without a father.”

I shrugged. “Mom did the best she could, but yeah. I really envied the kids who had two parents.”

The waitress came back with our food and placed it down in front of us. “Anything else?”

“No, we’re good, thanks.”

We stopped talking while we ate. I was impressed that Beast managed to polish off the enormous pile of food on his plate in the time it took me to eat my bacon and eggs.

The waitress came by and refilled our coffees without being asked.

It felt so normal, I almost managed to forget about Drake and the death threat.

At least, I did until my cell phone rang.

* * *

Beast

I watched Piper pull out her phone and glance at the number displayed on the screen. “My boss. I forgot to call and let them know I wasn’t available.” She hit accept and put the phone to her ear. Her eyes widened, and her face went white.

I grabbed the phone from her and held it up to my ear. A man’s voice spewed out of the speaker, detailing the horrific way he planned to torture her before he killed her. I disconnected the call and looked over at Piper.

“That was your ex?”

She shivered. “I think so. He said it was, and it sounded like his voice.”

“And call display said it was your work calling?”

“It did. I don’t understand.”

“Your scumbag of an ex had this number, did he?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but that wasn’t him on the call display. I wouldn’t have answered if it was.”

“Tech guys can spoof a call to make it look like it came from somewhere else. Scammers do it all the time. Anything on this phone you can’t afford to lose? Like your father’s number? Mother? Friends?”

Piper chewed nervously on her bottom lip. “Just a few of the contacts. My father. My mom. Work. That kind of thing.”

“You okay with me pulling your contact list, and destroying the phone?”

“You can do that?”

“Not me, but Shadow can. He’s the club’s tech expert.

I’m going to call him on your phone. He can grab your contact list, then delete everything.

Once he’s done, we’re going to smash this all to hell.

We’ll get you a new phone when we stop for clothes.

You can tell him which contacts you want, and he’ll turf the rest. If Shadow can access phone data just by being connected, chances are this Drake asshole has someone who can too.

Let’s hope that call wasn’t long enough for him to pinpoint our location. ”

I didn’t like the way that call had put the fear back on her face. I made a quick call to Shadow and explained what was going on. He instructed me to pull the SIM card out and burn it before I trashed the phone. Overkill, but I liked it.

Piper sat quietly until Shadow completed his work, and I killed the call. “I’m sorry.”

I frowned at her. “For what?”

“I knew Drake had that number, and I meant to tell you and get rid of the phone but then I just forgot.”

I captured her hand and held it in both of mine. I detested the fact that I could now feel it shaking. “You don’t have to apologize to me. I am here to keep you safe. That’s my job, and even if it wasn’t, I would kill any asshole who tried to harm you. Got that?”

She nodded silently.

“Good. Then let’s get out of here.”

I threw some bills on the table, making sure to leave a good tip but not a great one. No reason to remember us after we were gone. I shrugged into my cut and led the way outside.

Standing beside my bike, I pulled the SIM card out and casually dropped Piper’s cell on the ground, crushing it with the heel of my boot.

Placing the SIM on top of a metal post, I flamed it with a lighter and watched it shrink and melt under the heat.

Satisfied there was no way to revive either, I picked up the shattered remains of the phone and used a shard of the plastic casing to scoop up the smoldering drop that was all that remained of the SIM card.

Seeing the glimmer of a smile on Piper’s face as I tossed the useless lot in the trash can on the sidewalk made it all the more satisfying.

I slung a leg over the bike and waited for Piper to climb behind me.

I had planned a straight run back to Georgia but on the off chance someone managed to tag our location with that call, I decided to detour and take a more Northern route.

It would add a couple of hours to the trip, but it had the plus of being on less traveled roads.

If anyone was following us, they’d be easier to spot.

After that nasty start, the day got better. The sun shone down on us, and the road was high and dry. I spotted a bargain store in a mid-sized town in New Mexico in the early afternoon and pulled into the parking lot. Piper slid off the back of my bike and stretched.

“You okay?” I knew she’d be stiff. She wasn’t used to spending hours at a time riding on the back of a bike.

“Just sore. I’ll be okay. It felt so good, with the wind blowing past and all.” She bent down to touch her toes and winced.

“I wanted to put as much distance as possible between us and where we ditched the phone.” I frowned.

“From now on we’ll stop from time to time to stretch our legs.

” I could feel the effects of the long ride, but I’d learned to ignore minor aches and pains a long time ago.

Being an ex-SEAL gave me an advantage in that area.

“There must be a restroom in there, right?” Piper gazed at the bargain store.

“Let’s go find out.” I held out my hand and she placed hers in it.

“You have a thing about holding hands, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “Probably. Started when the twins were little. If I made them hold my hands, I was less likely to lose them in a crowd. Some people put harnesses on their kids. Some of us just hang on to them. I guess it became a habit.” I gave her hand a little squeeze. “Don’t want to lose you.”

“Not a lot of chance of that.” She tilted her head. “Do you think Drake managed to trace that phone call?”

“I’m going to give Shadow a quick call and see. We can pick up a new phone for you while we’re here.” I held the door open for her.

“Won’t he be able to trace your phone? If he knows I’m with you?”

“First thing, I don’t see how he’d know you were with me. Second, my phone is on a secure, scrambled network. No one is hacking or tracing it.”

“Oh, wow.” She looked impressed.

“Restrooms are that way.” I pointed to a sign hanging from the ceiling. We worked our way to the back of the store, and I made note of the position of the phone counter and the women’s section. We reached the restrooms and I let go of Piper’s hand and watched her disappear into the ladies’ room.

Pulling my phone out, I glanced around to make sure no one was close before calling Shadow. “Anyone trace that last call to her phone?” I didn’t waste time on niceties.

“No. But they’ve been trying to ping it since. Did you make sure it was out of commission?”

“Yeah.” A picture of the mangled mess I’d tossed in the garbage flashed through my mind. “Melted that SIM card thing too.”

“Good. I’m trying to run a backward trace on the pings, but they’re encoded. It’s going to take a bit of time.”

“We’re in New Mexico, should have a new phone for her shortly. When we do, I’ll give you a shout for those contacts.”

“Sounds good. I’d suggest she just put absolutely necessary ones in for now. Friends she isn’t going to call right away, we can deal with later. Might be an idea to make this one a burner. Get rid of it when you get here.”

“Good plan.”

“And, Beast, if you can, get a second cheap phone and let me program it to her old number. Put it on a truck or whatever you can manage that is heading in the opposite direction from you. Hopefully the assholes will pick up on it and waste time chasing off in the wrong direction.”

I chuckled. “You’re a devious fucker, Shadow. I’ll do that. You manage to find anything out about this Drake asshole?”

“Negative. Just that he’s the heir to a mafia don and has managed to stay out of jail so far.”

“Typical. They let the underlings take the rap if something goes sideways. No hint as to why he’d put a hit out on Piper?”

“Nothing. No mention of her on the dark web at all. Strange. Usually there would be something, if only details of the hit contract.”

“Huh.” I looked up as I heard the door to the restroom open. “Be in touch soon.” I ended the call.

“Who was that?” Piper watched me put my phone back in my pocket.

“Shadow. Just letting him know we’d have a new phone for you soon. He suggests getting a burner, just put in numbers absolutely necessary for now. We can get you a permanent phone with your friends and family in it once we’re safely back in Georgia.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Since you have the super secure one maybe we use yours for everything, and just put your number and my father’s in there in case we get separated for some reason?”

“That makes a lot of sense.” I appreciated that she was taking this threat seriously. “Let’s go get the phone, and you can pick out some clothes and stuff.”

We ended up with a cheap Android phone, and some girly stuff that I didn’t look at too closely. My pants were tight enough, what with the semi hard-on she inspired just by being near me without adding to the problem.

Back outside, I handed the new phone to Piper and stuffed the rest of the items into the saddlebags. If we kept this up, I’d have to buy bigger ones. I wasn’t used to having a passenger on a road trip. “Hang onto that. We’ll pull off up the road a bit and call Shadow to set it up.”

“Why not do it now?” Piper frowned.

“Because there’s a lot of networks in a town, and we don’t want to chance any of them hooking into your phone before we get it secured.

If we’re out on the road, less chance a hacker will stumble across it.

” I held out my hand and she gave me the phone back.

I plugged it into the battery pack I kept handy and put them both into the other saddlebag. “We also need to charge it.”

“Right.” Piper rolled her eyes. “I knew that.”

I pulled up a map on my phone. “There’s a pullout about twenty miles up the road. We can stop there, have something to eat and get your phone set up.”

“How much longer will it take us to get to… where is it we’re going? I know it’s in Georgia but I’m not sure where.”

“It’s a little town south of Atlanta. It will take us a couple more days to get there. We stop for meals and sleep.” I didn’t mention the fact that I was enjoying our alone time, and didn’t want to rush back to the club and have it end.

“How long does it usually take you? When you’re on your own?”

“Normally, it takes me about 30 hours riding, coast to coast, but I don’t want to push it this time. So, a day and a half. Two at the most. I just grab takeout to gobble down and cat nap when I feel tired.”

“So I’m slowing you down.”

I shook my head. “The point is to keep you safe, not to go as fast as we can. We’re doing just fine.

While we’re out on the road, the club and your father’s team can spend their time trying to figure out what the hell is going on without worrying about you.

Now that your ex can’t track you with the phone, you’re going to be even harder to find.

If they can’t find you, they can’t hurt you. ”

Piper looked doubtful. “True, I suppose.”

“And just to make it more fun…” I pulled the second cell phone out and turned it on. “I sweet talked one of the workers into plugging it into the charger while we were shopping. It should be good for a couple of hours at least.”