Page 14 of Tanner (Dirty Misfits MC 5)
Before he pulled out his phone.
“Finn! It’s me. Police are heading your way. The one I just passed is maybe ten minutes out? Get everyone out of there. Set the place on fire, if you have to.”
My eyebrows rose. “On fire? What!?”
He held up his hand, silencing me. “You know what I mean. Get out of there and meet us at our emergency location. Brooks is there now. He arrived a few minutes ago. Uh huh. Yep. See you there soon.”
I leaned up a bit. “Where’s this emergency location?”
He didn’t answer me, though. All he did was rev his engine before we got back out onto the road.
“Will I be able to make phone calls at this emergency place?” I asked.
Tanner shook his head. “No. It’ll require all cell phones being turned off. No technology of any sort that can be tracked will be allowed here.”
I shook my head. “That isn’t okay. I need to keep in contact with Cheyenne. She always calls if she needs me. A-a-and I’m supposed to start a new job tomorrow. As a vet office secretary. I can’t stay with you at this place, wherever it is. I have a life I have to live.”
“It’s a life you won’t have if you don’t listen to me. So, we’ll place our phone calls before we get there.”
“No, I want you to pull over. I’m getting off.”
He chuckled. “Not a fat chance in hell.”
“Let me off your bike, Tanner!”
“No!” he roared.
He pulled off into an alleyway before he put down his kickstand, slid off his bike, and turned to face me with his fiery eyes. “I don’t know what the hell kind of situation you think you’re in, but those assholes know where you live. They know you have a daughter with me. They know we have history. And right now, me and my crew are the only thing standing in between you and Cheyenne being slaughtered. You got that?”
Tears rushed my eyes. “Yeah, okay.”
“And I know you think I’m kidding or blowing things out of proportion, but we almost died back there. That gunfire? That shoot-out? They were coming for you. They want you. And they won’t stop until they get you unless we kill them first. That’s how ruthless they are. Got it?”
I wiped the wetness away from beneath my eyes. “Yeah, got it.”
He nodded. “Good, because I’m not discussing this again. So, shut up and let me get you to safety. All right?”
I curled my lips over my teeth as he hopped back onto his bike, and I steadied myself as much as I could without holding onto him so I wouldn’t have to touch him.
How the hell did I end up in this position?
“How did they know about me?” I asked.
Tanner pulled onto the main road and sped up. “What?”
“How did they know about me? We haven’t so much as talked to one another since you graduated. How would they know to find me?”
He stayed silent for a while before he finally answered. “I was drunk one night and told the wrong person about a girl I loved back in high school. I told this particular person about the matching swan tattoos we got on a whim, and that was apparently all the information they needed to start their hunt for you.”
“Uh huh. And how long ago was that?”
He stiffened. “About five years ago.”
The world went silent at his words. Five years? I’d been hunted down like an animal for five years, and I didn’t even know it? The thought made me sick. The idea made me angrier than I’d ever felt before. And as the city fell behind us, giving way to forests I didn’t know to exist out here in California, my worry for my daughter mounted exponentially.
If they had been watching us for that long, did they already know where she was?
Seven
Tanner
I thought we were clear. I thought we were in the black. But the second I hit the deserted road that led straight to our other compound, a man cruised out of the shadows and pointed his bike toward me. He quickly drew a gun and pointed it at us as we rushed him head on. And without thinking, I pulled the gun off my hip and aimed it at his head.
Before putting one bullet right between his eyes.
“Tanner! No!” Summer exclaimed.
The man collapsed in the middle of the road on top of his bike and I had to swerve in order to miss him. Summer cried behind me, and I did my best to try and calm her down as we raced by the man’s dead body.
“Try not to look,” I said.
“You killed him!” she shrieked.
I peered over my shoulder. “Yeah, before he killed us.”
She pointed. “Look out!”
A gunshot rang out and zoomed by us, and I wondered who the hell taught these idiots how to shoot. The pain in my calf was practically gone due to the adrenaline coursing through my veins, and I aimed my gun in front of me before I took out the man at his knees. We sped by, and with each Black Nutsack asshole that popped out of the woods, I wondered if they had already found our compound.
