Page 29

CHAPTER 29

Kilo

“ H eads up,” Merc called out to us. He was standing by the window, watching the street. “We’ve got company.”

“Shit, that didn’t take long,” Bolo muttered.

Code had just finished getting into his dress and wig and hiding his pistols.

“Twenty-three minutes and forty-seven seconds,” Flir mumbled to himself.

I stared at him, shaking my head. “What?”

“Oh. Nothing,” he replied.

“That’s why I was so pissed that another asshole showed up,” Ruck said with a sigh. Ruck really wanted to be able to stage up at the spot we chose out in the desert, it would give us a nice leg up, but he wasn’t willing to leave Code and I alone here to deal with the sicarios in case they don’t take the bait. So they were waiting here with us and it was making our president a bit irritable because it meant that later, once Kruzman’s men did take the bait, we’d be on our own for a short time. Now or later, it didn’t matter to me, but Ruck was calculating all the risks and this was the lesser of the two evils.

“At least it kept the guys occupied for a bit,” Overdrive pointed out.

Ruck just gave him a look that said he didn’t find that very useful. “Now we’re off schedule. Everyone grab your shit. We’ll be going out the back as soon as Kilo and Code take off.” He looked around at all of us. “Don’t let them out of your sight.”

“Roger,” Bolo said. He and Ruck were going to be driving the SUVs. They had the challenge of keeping close enough, but not being spotted.

I just had to drive. Glancing over at Code, I asked, “You ready, Kid?”

“Yeah,” he replied, a determined set to his jaw. He wasn’t thrilled about wearing the dress, but he was more than happy to play the rest of this part. He wanted to be included.

“Once you’re out of the house, don’t talk. No one is going to believe that deep voice came out of Camila,” Ruck ordered.

“Sure thing, Prez,” Code said with a grin.

Ruck moved over to the window, taking Merc’s spot and narrowed his eyes. “On my mark.”

My muscles tensed, ready to make the mad dash to my bike outside. I hope like hell these fuckers weren’t going to just open fire on us. We had a theory, though. If Kruzman was doing this for money, he wasn’t going to want Camila dead. At least not yet. So we were banking on the fact that there would be a no kill order in play here.

“Go.”

I shoved Code as he stumbled his way out the door. His legs were getting caught up in the damn dress. I’d told OD to get a shorter one, but he claimed the hairy legs would give too much away. Grabbing Code by the shoulder, I helped him keep his feet and propelled him forward at the same time.

He let out a muttered curse, but followed orders and didn't speak loud enough for any of the shadowed figures surrounding us to hear him.

A muffled shout went up. Our plan worked. We’d surprised the hell out of them and managed to get on the bike without a single bullet hole, something both Code and I were grateful for. He barely had the chance to set his hands on the tank in front of me before I was gunning the engine and taking off into the night.

“Fuck!” he shouted.

It didn’t matter anymore, the wind carried away his voice. I didn’t bother to glance over my shoulder as I booked it toward the freeway. His cursing was all I needed to know that they were behind us. Now all we had to do was make an asshole clenching ride out to the spot we’d picked. I doubted very much that they were going to go easy on us. They were probably going to try to force us off the road. I said a silent prayer for my bike. I loved her and the last thing I wanted was even a scratch on her. But I was willing to do whatever it took to make this happen. Even totaling my favorite machine.

“Hold the fuck on,” I shouted at Code.

“What?” he yelled over the wind.

“Hang the fuck on, Kid!”

“Shit!”

His arms were wrapped around my waist and he gave up all pretenses of trying to keep from hugging me as I poured on even more speed. If we passed a fucking cop right now we were goners, but I could see headlights in my mirrors. The faster they caught up to us, the more time they had to fuck us up. The others weren’t going to be able to help until we got out to the desert. We couldn’t have a shootout on I-10.

A vehicle pulled up on my right and I risked a glance over, then swore as I saw a man in a ski mask. The only reason I was able to even see it is because he was drifting into my lane, side by side with me. There was less than a foot between us. “Subtle,” I muttered. Code shifted his head, burying his right cheek against my back and I grinned. He was a smart fucking kid. He was making sure that the sicarios couldn’t see his face.

The SUV swerved toward my bike again, and I ground my teeth together as I veered onto the paved shoulder to avoid getting clipped.

“They think splattering us all over the freeway won’t kill us?” Code hollered. “Dipshits! If they want her alive this isn’t a smart play!”

I agreed. Neither of us were wearing helmets. Shit had happened too quickly to bother. It was a good thing that the guys had stuck a million bobby pins into Code’s wig or it probably wouldn’t be staying on right now. One of the club bunnies had picked up all the supplies that OD would need for tonight’s deception. She’d assured OD that this would work since Code had a bit longer hair. It was sort of floppy on the top, so we’d just rammed the pins into his head, ignoring his cursing and the punches he threw.

We were coming up to a semi. “Duck!” I shouted, then swerved under the trailer and came out on the other side, riding on the far left shoulder. It was a dangerous fucking risk. One wrong move and we could have ended up under the semi’s back tires, but it worked. And the fucking SUV wasn’t going to be able to get through that big rig to get at us. It gave me a few minutes of relief as I coasted along with the truck. My eyes narrowed as I saw the exit I needed coming up.

“Kilo,” Code warned.

“I see it,” I said, but not loudly enough for him to hear over the road noise. Focusing on the plan forming in my mind, I waited. I only had one chance to do this right.

“Kilo!”

I gunned it. The bike lurched forward and I swerved in front of the semi, then across three more lanes of traffic and barreled down the exit ramp. The sounds of blaring horns followed us as we sped off into the night. I chuckled as I saw the SUV shoot past the exit. “Stupid fuckers.”

The smile slipped off my face as two more SUVs and a truck took our exit. “Shit.”

“Well, at least you lost one of them,” Code called out.

“They’ll catch up,” I replied in a grim tone.

“Remind me again why our guys were up ahead waiting for us?” Code asked.

Ignoring him, I dug my phone out of my pocket and slapped it onto the mount on my bike. It was dark as fuck out here now that we were racing away from I-10 and our destination was more a set of grid coordinates and not so much a location. The coords were already typed into the app and I was searching for that damn cut off that was going to bring us out onto shitty dirt roads. That was going to slow us down a lot. I needed every minute of our lead to keep ahead of the fuckers following us. I hadn’t even seen our own guys following and hoped to hell they were back there. I didn’t want to take all these fuckers on with just Code.

The phone screen lit up with a phone call. It was Lockout. Shit. Why was the president of the Viking’s Rampage calling me now? That couldn’t be good. There was the cut off. Glancing at the phone, I made the turn, revving the engine as the tires slipped on the loose sand. I managed to muscle the bike into staying upright as I took the corner too fast.

I went to punch at the phone screen to connect the call when we were rammed from behind. “Dammit!” I growled, gritting my teeth as my bike started the death wobble from hell. There was no saving it. I kept a neutral grip on the bars, eased off the gas, and leaned into the handlebars but between that hit and the sand we were going down.

A shout was pulled from my chest as the heavy ass motorcycle landed on my leg and I slid along with it, trapped. I hoped like fuck that Code had managed to fall clear of the bike and the road. If he got run over because I couldn’t keep my bike upright, I was never going to forgive myself. Dust billowed as I slid to a stop. It wasn’t even possible to pinpoint what hurt because it was like my body was one big area of road rash. But nothing was broken and I was alive. That was a mercy in itself.

I shoved the bike off my leg and staggered to my feet. Looking around in the dark, I searched for Code. He was running toward me, dress long gone. He’d probably pulled it off the first second he could and dropped it. We hadn’t quite made it to the location, but it was close enough. It was dark out here, and there was no one around for miles, which was the whole point. We pulled our weapons and watched as the SUV that had rammed us idled a couple hundred yards up the road. They were assessing us. Just like we were observing them. Only they had the upper hand. For now.

“This is why,” I told him, “we didn’t have the guys waiting. We didn’t even make it to the meet up spot.”

Code nodded his head, his gun in his hand. “Yeah. Okay. Never question Ruck. Got it.”

I chuckled. “He does have an uncanny ability to sense trouble and see all the damn outcomes of a fight before they even happen.”

Whatever happened next, we’d need to stall until our guys caught up. As much as I wanted to grab my phone and call Lock back, there wasn’t time. All I could do was hope that he was just updating us that they were at Roger’s. I had to trust that this was going to work out. My hand tightened on my gun grip as the SUV started a slow roll toward us.