Page 41 of Dirty Salvation

Silence sat between them for a couple of minutes. It was a fine line between saying too much and having the law look at you, and not saying enough implicating you had secrets and then having the law look at you.

While he and his brothers continued the search for the few stragglingRebelswho had gone to the wind, Rider needed the Armado Springs police department to be watching in any other direction other than at his club.

"Not much I can tell you. As I said, me and my boys been busy. Coulda been anyone."

"Hmm."

"We finished here, sheriff? I'd like to get back to work."

The sheriff sighed, placed the empty mug on the desk and rose on a groan as if his bones hurt from the cold, straightening his gun belt before zipping up the police issue black bomber jacket with the fur around the collar.

Rider followed suit by standing, he grasped the hand Charlie offered.

He didn't feel bad for lying to him, what the good cop didn't know couldn't be held against him. This town needed good law upholders, even if Rider and his outlaws weren't among them.

It was all about balance. Rider did things his own way and Charlie Timmons by the law book but in the end, the results were usually the same. Save for a few unmarked graves nobody needed to know about.

"You know where to find me if you suddenly have a reawakening of your memory, Rider. And if I were you ... just a word of advice, I might clean my bikes, you know … DNA carries in soil and dirt, and the Rebel's compound was like a swamp."

His eyes shrewd held Rider's, who only rose a dark eyebrow, grinned wide and innocent, gently rubbing his face scruff.

"Told you already, got nothing to do with us." and the fact they'd already hosed the bikes, paying good attention to the wheels, days ago, not a speck of dirt was on the hogs once the prospects were finished, who was to say the Renegade Souls were ever over the Westbank area at all.

Rider was fucking meticulous with check-lists. He'd already covered every eventuality to their burn party. No blowback, he'd promised.

The only part of the plan that had deviated was Zara and that other kid who was deep in the child service system now as far as he knew.

Zara. A tic worked his jaw watching the sheriff leave through the door and signal to two officers over by the shop talking to Capone and Grinder. His entire plan had changed the moment he'd seen her, without a fucking thought he'd endangered all his club, ‘cause if the cops got wind she'd been a part of theRebelsfor the last years, and suddenly she was here, wouldn't take long for all those pointed fingers to aim at his chest again.

And he’d do anything he could for her still if that happened.

While he wasn't gonna ask his brothers for a vote for what he did with Zara, she fuckingstayed, it was the end of it, he did need to have a meeting to fill them in on where he was at and why.

Likewise, if he didn't fully understand his reasoning’s yet, she stayed.

He'd never gone above and beyond to get pussy before, it had usually just fallen into his lap and if he'd been horny at the time he'd used it well, abused it long, but discarded it again soon afterward.

But she wasn’t just pussy. That was the thing. Never was.

Zara's appearance was fucking with his head, making him do things he'd never think of to do before.

Like, take care of her.

Tell her everything was gonna be okay, that he’d make sure of it.

That meant executing Hades as soon as he caught up with that shithead.

He thought of the place she'd come from and wished he'd burned it to the ground twice over.

Over the last couple of days, she'd told him she could take care of herself. And to an extent he believed she could after the horror he was imagining she'd endured. She was like a shadow around his club, primarily sticking to the parameters of his room, never talking to anyone else. Rider was beginning to worry she was making a prisoner of herself and pondered what he could do to pull her back.

For four nights, he'd slept on his own bedroom floor, she hardly said a word to him save for saying yes or no if he asked if she wanted food. As it had for the past days thinking of her hiding stung his chest.

Rider brooded for a while, long after the local law had taken themselves off his property. With the gates locked behind them, he sat in the cold office, giving some thought to his Zara situation.

He was knee-deep that he didn't hear approaching feet.

"Everything good, Prez?" Asked Texas framed in the doorway after he'd rapped his knuckles on the frame to grab Rider's far-away attention, his cut worn tight to his white pristine long sleeved shirt and copper toned tie.