Sour Cherry(25)

My club had dragged me into the middle of a cartel war.

“So the guys I met with weren’t Hell’s Angels.”

“If what you saw is true, then no.” Cooper stood then turned his back on me.

I watched him from behind, following the planes of his back beneath his shirt and the strong muscles flexing when he moved. Verbalizing my thoughts as they went through my head, I tried to make sense of what this all meant in the long run. “They took the package from me. Hell’s Angels must have come asking why they didn’t get their stuff and Ryder pinned it on me. That’s why he wanted to meet with me back at the clubhouse.” I collapsed back onto the bed. “He thinks I stole from him.”

My anger deflated with a wave of exhaustion. “This whole thing is about some brown box I gave to them. How was I supposed to know they weren’t real Angels?”

“What’s the package?”

“I don’t know.” When I sat up again, I ran my hands through my hair. “Must be something worth killing for. Drugs, maybe?”

“Whatever it is, we need to get you somewhere safe. I can’t protect you 24/7 with these guys on the loose. They believe the CIA abandoned them back in Afghanistan and I’m a part of the CIA. They’ll come after you to get to me if they have to.”

I prickled with the implication that I was someone he needed to protect. I’d done just fine without his or the CIA’s help against my brethren for two years. Then again, they hadn’t been trying to kill me during that time. That fact didn’t change just because they wanted me dead. “I can take care of myself. You, on the other hand, need me—”

His cell rang.

I only caught pieces of his whispered conversation, but it didn’t sound good.

Pacing back and forth across my room, Cooper nodded to himself and responded with short, clipped answers. I’d never seen him so worked up before. After another few seconds, he hung up. “I have to go.”

“Now?”

“Take my bike back to the warehouse. I’ll meet you there tomorrow morning and we’ll figure out where to go from there.” Desperation coated his words and my anxiety found power again. Cooper stepped into me and captured my lips with his.

A shiver rushed down my spine with the passion in this kiss, so different from our others. Almost as if Cooper felt he’d never see me again. Dread knotted in the center of my stomach and I clung to him like a life preserver. What if this was our last kiss? Our last time together?

When he pulled away, I struggled to catch my breath. My lips tingled with the love they’d just received and grew cold in his retreat. “Be careful,” I told him.

“Get to the warehouse.”

In the next moment, an echo of the front door closing reached me in the bedroom and was followed by utter silence. My shoulders sagged in defeat and I rubbed my face with my hands. Groaning to myself, I pushed my way into the spare bedroom to find what I’d originally come home for.

What I found rekindled the fire burning in my chest. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

The entire spare bedroom had been ripped apart. Stuffing from the futon lay in puffs all over the carpet, my computer sat in pieces on the desk. Even the curtains had been torn down and the mounts detached from the wall.

All because of a small brown box.

I waded through the mess toward the back of the room where an extra closet housed my father’s belongings. Cooper had said Kenyon Williams had been the best agent for the CIA when it came to undercover work in the MCs. Well, there had to be some proof somewhere.

An hour later, I found myself cross-legged on the dismantled carpet, flipping through pictures of better days. As a child, my father was distant and seemingly uncaring, but he’d done his best to raise a redheaded hellraiser single-handedly. I settled on one photo specifically of the two of us at Disneyland for my tenth birthday. My dad carried me on his shoulders in this one, his tattooed vulture and eight ball clearly visible on his wrist, an exact replica to mine. It’d been the last time we’d taken a family vacation. Who knew ten days later I’d never see him again.

Nothing in his possessions backed up Cooper’s claim. In my heart, I wanted to believe him. My whole life I’d seen my father as a badass, a man who protected what was his and gave his life to the club rather than his family. What if it’d all been a lie? The idea he’d been looking after millions of families rather than selfishly protecting his own filled my heart with pride, but where was the proof? Cooper had reason to lie to me so I’d help him, but somehow, in my gut, I just didn’t think he’d go that far. The evidence of my father’s involvement had to be here somewhere.