Page 13 of Drifter (Redemption Riders #2)

I fist the memory card in my hand, nearly crushing it, as I tell Hawk about the incident.

“Give it to me. We need to see what’s on it.

It might give us an idea of what her father is looking to accomplish,” Hawk states.

We walk into his office, where Etain is diligently working away on the shop’s financial accounts.

She’s so engrossed in what she’s doing that she doesn’t even notice us.

Hawk shakes his head with a grin as we move past her.

Hawk’s been talking about adding on an office for Etain but has been dragging his heels on doing something about it.

I think he likes having his woman close and hopes Etain will forget he ever mentioned it when she first started working for the club.

Personally, I don’t think Etain gives a shit because she likes being with Hawk as much as possible.

They are sickeningly sweet together, and I’m happy as hell for both of them.

Hawk has made sacrifices to get our club off the ground.

Not only financial, but personal ones as well.

He prospected under Guard for a time, then spent the better part of two years finding a home for the club.

He found a property and a town that we could afford, then raised the money to get the shop started, and finally renovated the shack that we called a clubhouse into a functioning, newly restored building for the men to call home.

We did a lot of the work ourselves, especially Hawk and me.

Risk with Satan’s Pride has his own construction company, and he put together a plan and blueprints for the reno.

He also got the materials at cost for us, which saved us a ton of money.

We were four men in a room, some on cots and others in sleeping bags in the few functional rooms we could inhabit when we moved in.

Now, each man has a space to call his own, and there is a large community room equipped with a pool table, dartboard, and big-screen television.

Hawk has a private office at the very end of the hall across from the gym we just finished.

The kitchen is the last room we tackled, mainly because we’re men and none of us loves to cook.

We grill, so most nights we have burgers on the barbecue, but after a solid year of that, the kitchen became a must. We all take turns making breakfast in shifts.

None of us are great chefs, but we manage scrambled eggs and bacon.

Etain takes pity on us and often comes by early and makes us pancakes and includes fruit and vegetables in our meals.

The biggest treats, though, come from Sasha, whether she knows it or not.

Before Etain and Hawk were a couple, Sasha would bring her car in for regular inspections, and along with her car, she would bring homemade muffins, cookies, and desserts of all kinds.

The guys would pray her car would break down so she’d have an excuse to come in.

In the lean years, we couldn’t afford to go to the diner all that often.

Since Sasha and Etain have become friends, Sasha doesn’t come around but always sends treats in with Etain and Hawk.

Back then, Sasha was avoiding me as much as I was trying to ignore her.

A futile effort on both our parts, because the more I tried to deny my feelings for her, the more frustrated I got.

I was busy convincing myself that I wasn’t good enough for the sweet woman who is Sasha.

I didn’t notice the hurt she was enduring.

I’m still feeling the guilt of not having stepped in sooner to deal with her father.

“Are you ready?” Hawk asks, pulling my attention back to him as he loads the memory card into the drive.

“Yeah.” I take a breath and wait for it to load.

As Hawk clicks through the photos, they seem innocent enough at first. There are pictures of Sasha walking in the streets of the town near the shops close to the garage.

I recognize the local grocery store and photos of her coming and going.

It’s not until we’re about twenty pictures in that I see photos of Sasha in her living room.

Those aren’t too bad, but then it gets stranger.

There are photos of her silhouette in her bedroom, where it’s clear she was changing for bed.

Those are bad enough, but then I see close-up shots of her doors and locks and her window latches. “Fuck me!” I curse loudly.

This causes Etain to take notice of Hawk and me. She gets up from her desk and comes over to us. “What are you looking at? Porn?” she jokes. But as her gaze hits the screen, she sees what we see, and her face grows pale.

“Oh my God! Are they planning on kidnapping Sasha?” she whispers, her voice shaking.

“Over my dead body!” I exclaim. I turn to Hawk. “I gotta go upgrade her security.”

“Go, brother!” he urges. “I’m sending Motown into the city to see what he can find out and paying another visit to the PI.

Maybe he needs a little more incentive to jog his memory.

Something tells me that he didn’t tell us everything.

Then I’ll get Orion a copy of this shit.

I suggest we get hold of Simon and let him in on what we’ve found.

We may need him to get us into his father’s office to take a look around. ”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “Shit’s worse than we thought.” I stare directly into Hawk’s eyes. “I can’t lose her.”

“Not fucking happening!” he replies with steely determination.

“Do I tell her what we found?” I look between Hawk and Etain.

It’s Etain who answers. “Yes. She’s stronger and smarter than you know. Sasha won’t like it, but it’ll mean she’ll keep her guard up.”