Page 26 of Sly (Dragon Riders MC 5)
“Unless it’s pertinent and we know no one’s going to get hurt, no. We’re not.”
I balked. “But I thought you guys—”
Hannah held her hands up. “Look, they’re already curious about your brother, and that’s enough for them. We don’t need to be throwing gasoline on an already ravaging fire and distracting them from what’s really important.”
Joanna nodded. “Which is getting Skeleton off the streets for good.”
I slumped deeper into my seat. “You guys have a point.”
Hope reached for a chicken wing. “Can we eat now, you guys? I’m starving and our food’s getting cold.”
Joanna eyed me carefully. “Promise you won’t say anything to your brother.”
Without a second thought. “I won’t. You have my word.”
Hope handed me a plate. “Good. Now, let’s stop talking and start stuffing our faces. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”11Sly“Son of a fucking bitch,” I hissed.
I slammed my shoulder into a door that didn’t fucking budge, and the pain ricocheted all the way down my spine. Three warehouses. Three of them. By myself, with no backup, and no plan if I ran into this motherfucker. But everything seemed good at this first warehouse. Pulling up to the facade of the place, there had been no lights on. There were no electrical wirings that suggested someone had taken up residence here. There weren’t even bike tracks or footprints of any sort in the dust and the mud that coated this place.
So, I headed to the second site after clearing the first.
The drive to the warehouses was sobering, but they only served to make me angrier. Maybe if I could clear these warehouses within the next thirty minutes, I could get out of here with enough time to take Tara somewhere and make this up to her. I gnashed my teeth together as I tried hashing out a plan. If I was going to make it, that meant I could only spend fifteen minutes clearing this next warehouse.
Which was why I sped all the way down the road to get to it.
The front of the building looked much like the first: crawling with vines, massive amounts of water damage, and black spaces interspersed along the outside plaster that made it look like this place succumbed to a fire or some shit. Either way, I clicked on my flashlight and held my gun poised in front of me.
Ready to shoot someone if they popped out.
I crept as silently as I could up and down the hallways. I cleared corners and opened doors that had locks that had already rusted over due to time. And the place reeked horrendously of mold and mildew.
“Ugh. Gross,” I murmured.
I rolled my aching shoulder as I came around the last corner of the building and—surprise, surprise—there wasn’t a soul in this place. And I still had five minutes to go. I burst through the back door and wrapped around the left side, my head on a swivel and my ears trained to take in and process any sound it heard.
Though, the only sounds greeting me were bats flapping their wings and the trees groaning and swaying to the dominance of the wind.
After clearing the second warehouse, I hopped on my bike and sped in the opposite direction. I had five extra minutes on my side, which meant I might actually be able to do this. So long as this third warehouse didn’t give me any fucking trouble, I’d be able to report back to Link and get my ass back to the bar with enough time to fully and completely make this up to Tara.
Which was very important to me.
When I pulled up to the third warehouse, though, I saw something I hadn’t seen at the first two. I saw bike tracks. And they weren’t mine, either. My eyes darted around as I quickly lifted my gun in front of me, but I disregarded the spotlight. I knew how to silence my footsteps. I knew how to make myself invisible. And since I didn’t hear anyone booking it through the woods due to me riding up on my bike, my guess was they were still here.
Either that or the evidence of them was.
I breathed in slowly through my nose and out through my mouth as I approached the front door. I held my breath, double-checking the sounds around me to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. Then, I slowly eased the door open.
Which had already been kicked in by someone else.
He’s definitely here.
Inching into the foyer of the massive warehouse, I kept my eyes peeled. I kept my ears trained and tuned into what was going on around me. One false move and I was dead. And that wouldn’t do anyone any favors.
I resisted the urge to call out, though. To spook whoever the hell it was in this place so I could track their footsteps. I mean, for all I knew, they could be stalking me. Or lying in wait until they had a perfect shot of my fucking head.
