André pounded on the bedroom door. “Open up, it’s important!”
I grabbed Siren and kissed her quick. “You’re not goin’ anywhere. Give me a minute.” I threw on jeans, opened the door and my phone started vibrating. “André, I don’t have time—”
André held his phone out to me. “It’s the lawyer, Barrett. Said he couldn’t reach Blaze or you. It’s urgent.”
André gave me a knowing look as I snatched my own phone off the nightstand and glanced at the display. Blocked. Shit. I held my finger up and answered my phone because I knew who it’d be. “Yeah?”
“You got a problem,” Candle said wearily.
Goddamn it. “Hold on.” I took the phone from André. “I’m in the middle of somethin’, Barrett.”
“No kidding,” Mathew Barrett quipped in his superior fucking voice. “Maldonado’s dead. Got shanked before he had breakfast.”
Siren started to walk away. I held the phone in my shoulder and grabbed her around the waist. “And I give a fuck, why?”
“Gee, I don’t know—maybe because he put a hit on your girlfriend.”
“What girlfriend?” I spun Siren and zipped up her dress.
“Sorry,” he said dryly. “Correction, Sergeant Blaze Johnson’s wife.”
“What?” I faked proper outrage. Siren pulled away but I slipped an arm around her.
“Don’t bullshit me, Mr. Talerco.”
“I’m handing you back to André. Give him all the details. I’ll contact Blaze.”
“I already tried calling them. Neither he nor Layna are answering their phones.”
“Did you expect ’em to? Nothin’ says ruin-a-honeymoon like a call from your lawyer.” I handed the phone to André and looked down at Siren. “We’re not done talkin’. Wait here for me.” I kissed her temple then released her. Holding my phone back up to my ear, I went out on my balcony. “I’m back, what’s up?”
“You make me wait again, I’m done doing you favors.”
“Extenuatin’ circumstances. What’s up?” I wasn’t about to let on that I already knew Maldonado was dead.
“You picked the wrong fight, my friend.”
I watched the sun begin its rise out of the ocean. “I didn’t pick any fight.”
“Tell that to Carter.”
Having just been inside Siren, her scent all over me, the mention of Randy’s name made me snarl. “I can handle Carter.”
“If it were only him, I’d agree.”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” Just then, the distinctive sound of pipes, lots of pipes, came roaring down my driveway.
Candle let out a sigh of resignation. “That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t say I never warned you.”
“Candle,” I snapped. “What the fuck?”
“Give Carter what he wants and your debt to me will be paid.” He hung up.
I rushed into the house. “André!”
Siren stood up from the where she was sitting on the bed. “I hear them.”
André came into the bedroom as I flew to my office and started flipping on the monitors. “Go arm the system,” I barked at André.
Using the keypad in my bedroom, André armed my alarm system but it was too late to close the gate at the end of the driveway. The three us watched my security camera feeds on the monitors as seventeen armed bikers pulled up to my house.
Wearing a fucking cut I’d never seen him in, Randy was lead.
“Motherfucker. Randy’s a Lone Coaster?” Jesus fucking Christ. I was so intent on beating the shit out of him last night, I didn’t pay attention when he’d fucking called Candle his Sergeant-at-Arms.
“He’s the son of a Lone Coaster,” Siren said quietly.
André gaped at me. “What’d you do?”
“It’s not him.” Resignation cut through Siren’s voice. “They want me.”
Motherfucking fuck, fuck, fuck. I turned and took her face in my hands. “They are not gettin’ you. I promise.” I looked at André. “What do we got?”
“Is she LCMC property?” he asked, almost reverently.
I said “No” at the same time Siren said “Yes.”
I rubbed my hand over my face. This was what Kendall had been trying to tell me. Goddamn it, I’d been so fucking stupid. LCMC was three-hundred strong, at least, with connections in so much shit, I didn’t even want to know. It was why I’d gone to Candle with the Maldonado problem. I knew he was LCMC. I knew he’d have resources I couldn’t tap.