Page 10 of Lost Lyrebird

Because war is coming.The Greenbacks are preparing to face the Escarra Cartel, and figuring out how far the arm of the Cartel extends is paramount.

The Thirteen Devils aren’t all they appear to be.We suspect some of them are cartel men—or in bed with them.One in particular is another Monster from my past I plan to take care of while I’m here.Veneno, Veno for short.He is back to his old ways, trafficking women after being released from prison when his case was overturned.

But his payback will come later.

It’ll be my last job before I take a sort of retirement and revel in the splendor my hard work has provided.It’s something I’m looking forward to, the closure of this chapter of my life, an opportunity to finally put the past behind me and do all the things I’d dreamed of, once I was free of this debt, my past, and the remaining questions I had for Finn.

I want to travel around the world unburdened, with a new identity and a clean slate.

After another hour and another handful of roasted sunflower seeds, I decide to circle the building to see if I somehow missed him.As a fresh wave of salt floods my mouth, I reach forward to start up my 1998 Honda Civic, which is part of my cover.But that’s when I hear the sound I’ve been waiting for—the unmistakable rumble of a Harley.

I shut off the car and inch further down into my seat.My glasses shield my eyes, but I still make sure the brim of my baseball cap shades my face.

All too soon, I see him driving up a small incline a quarter mile south of me.As I take him in, my brain sort of short-circuits.

He’s now a personified vision of everything that makes a woman weak in the knees.

Long, dark hair.

Leather.Ink.Goatee.

Not the G.I.Joe I remember.More like an aged version of the biker I thought I’d willed back into existence five years ago.

He has the kind of facial hair that separates the men from the boys.Like his hair, it’s speckled with gray; a harsh silver and black combo that you rarely see on a man who still has the face and body of a thirty-nine-year-old.It’s a premature gray that runs in his family, something his father had too.

Even though he’s wearing mirrored shades, I can make out a few familiar features—straight brows, a perfectly proportioned nose, and the kind of jaw that would give Brad Pitt a run for his money.

He’s wearing a gray Henley and well-worn jeans, along with his cut—a leather vest with his club colors.One gloved hand hangs loosely on the handlebar, the other rests on his thigh, giving off the impression that the death machine beneath him is practically driving itself.

It’s a softail with ape hangers, painted deep green, teeming with custom parts and finished with chrome and gold highlights.The details speak of a love for the open road and loyalty to the brotherhood he’s now part of.I hate to admit it, but the bike’s beautiful.The sight of him on it is a pretty picture I may never be able to scrub from my brain.

What’s odd, though, is there’s no seat beyond the one he’s sitting in.No sissy bar.The seat is small and made of brown leather.To the average person, it wouldn’t say anything.To a biker or someone versed in their world, it says a whole hell of a lot.

It’s symbolic.

It clearly states that company is not needed or welcome.I mentally throw a brick wall in front of that thought before it goes anywhere.I don’t give a shit.

He’s my way in, a means to an end.I remind myself.

Meanwhile, Finn McCown, known to his HOC friends as Goose, aka the abandoning bastard whose heart I’d like to impale with my six-inch heel, parks the bike in the lot across from mine.He backs in close to the building, facing me.When he finally stands, he reveals his lean but strong body and height, six feet to the mark.

As I watch from across the street, he bites the fingertips of his leather gloves and pulls them off before shoving them into his pocket.Lifting his corded arms, he rakes his fingers through his hair, slicking it away from his face.

It’s sexy as hell, and I flinch from the pinch it ignites in my chest.

Fuck.This man.Fuck him.

He has no damn right to look this good.

In a fair world, he’d have a mangled face, marred and mutilated, to match the vital organ he shredded years ago.But no.Instead, men who go around breaking hearts age to perfection, while the women they leave behind walk around with ice in their veins, impenetrable walls surrounding their hearts, for fear of being made the fool a second time.

For a moment, he looks up into the cloudless sky.There’s nothing but a few birds.Then he warily scans his surroundings, giving me a glimpse of the man I remember and all his rough edges, the tension held in his thick shoulders, the hard set to his strong jaw, like he doesn’t trust the world around him, or is worried about an attack he can’t see coming.

It shouldn’t please me, but it does until he pulls off the aviators.

I can’t see their color from here, but I know it well.Blue.Sometimes azure.Other times navy.

They bewitched me the first time I saw them.Shattered my resolve when I was seventeen, when I tried to put some distance between me and what I knew I couldn’t handle.A man who was way out of my league.