“Bathroom. Wash. Sit in front of a large fan then.”

I repeated his words, and I felt Hawk hovering over me.

“Bren.”

“What?”

“Give the phone to Dad, then go to the bathroom. You have someone there with you? Where’s Cross?”

“He’s at the house.”

“Okay. Anyone else there with you?”

I looked and said, “Everyone.”

“Okay.” I heard him bite off a slight laugh. And he repeated, “Let someone go with you to the bathroom, and give the phone to Dad. Okay? I’ll make sure you’ll get your phone back. I promise.”

I had no argument. I trusted my brother.

I turned to Hawk, knowing I was speaking like a zombie, knowing I wished I were feeling like one. “I need you to go to the bathroom with me.”

She was nodding before I started speaking. “I will. I’ll do that.”

I looked at my phone, then her.

Her hand closed over mine, the same one holding my phone. She took it from me. “I got this, too.” She was smiling at me, trying to reassure me. She reached behind her at the same time, and I saw Brock take my phone.

I was okay then.

They’d handle it.

I could go and wash now.

For some reason, I felt dirty, and it was dirt that would never wash off.

CROSS

I was in a shoving mood, so when Jordan and I got to Coug r Lanes, I was disappointed to see the doors had been propped open. We swept through, and the entire fucking lobby was filled with bounty hunters. And Trundle. He waved from behind the register, but even he looked stressed.

We took one step inside, but a crazy-looking lady was in our way. Her hair looked electrocuted and she stopped in front of us, a finger up in the air. “When your girl chills out, you tell her that there can only be one of us. That said, if you hurt her, I will take your entrails out and eat them with chopped liver and garlic.”

“Bonbon! Leave them alone.” Brock came over, literally standing in front of Bonbon, who sniffed and went away. He cursed under his breath, shaking his head. “Hey. Sorry about her.”

I didn’t give a fuck. “Where is she?”

He motioned to the offices. “We got her in a room. Her brother was pretty adamant about making sure it’s a cool room so she can calm down. We set her up with a fan, but I gotta say,” he shifted closer, “she looked eerily calm.”

Jordan snorted. “Looks are deceiving with Bren.”

Brock eyed him. “I guess.”

A few of their other guys came over, but Brock said to me, “Her dad had set up camp here.”

Jordan swore, turning away.

Brock continued, now giving him the side-eye, “Bren seemed surprised at first, then she snapped. He and I got into it, just a little back and forth. There’s a timetable on the deal moving forward against the Red Demons. They’re looking for the witness.”

“What?”

I was here for Bren, not for this shit.

“Only reason I’m explaining any of this is because things are tense and amped up. If the Red Demons don’t find this witness, then a ton of them will go away for a very, very long time. They’re getting desperate. Pulling Derrick Monroe and having him do babysitting duty on his own daughter tells me how desperate they are.”

I still didn’t give two shits about any of that.

“Get to the part where she stabbed him.”

Brock eased back, his head tilting to the side. “She just snapped. I really mean that. Went ballistic. She tossed his computer in one go.”

Jordan snickered.

“Came back and tossed his papers. She was doing a third trip when she was going for his phone. He moved in, grabbed the phone, and touch—”

“He touched her?!” I was simmering.

He nodded, easing back yet another step.

More had joined our group. Hawk. An older lady and man. Another crazy-looking chick, with gray and red hair. She had large glasses shoved up over her head, like a bandana holding back her hair.

I rubbed my forehead, needing to get my own stuff settled.

Bren would be tail-spinning. I already knew it.

Fuck.

Fuck!

“Okay. What did Channing have to say, and where’s her dad now?”

Hawk moved in. “I took her to the bathroom, helped wash her up because she had some blood on her. Then I’ve been with her in the office until you got here.”

Brock clasped her on the shoulder, dipping his head to her. “Channing had a word with their father on her phone, then Monroe handed it over and took off. I’m assuming he went to the hospital, or maybe not. Demons have their own medical people, so he probably went there. Channing just said to keep her tight, that you’d be coming for her, and to hand off her phone to you.” He dug it out of his pocket, extending it to me.

I pocketed it, sharing a look with Jordan.

He was moving his head left to right, mirroring how I was feeling. He moved in, intending only for me to hear. “This is insane. Her dad’s shit? All the crap she’s been through, and now this?”

Yeah.

I wasn’t happy either.

Brock overheard, and his eyebrows pulled low. “This is the Red Demons. We’re not their most central location, but they have a good stronghold here.”

“Where?”

He started to answer, then stopped. “No. I’m not doing that.” He moved aside, gesturing to their offices again. “Get your girl. Take her home. When she’s good, she can come back.”

Jordan snorted. “That’s not how we work.”

I gave him a dark look, and he shut up.

No. That wasn’t how we worked, but at this point, we didn’t need to broadcast it.

We were in. We were being pulled in.

The dad showed up at Bren’s workplace. Bren snapped, and now, we’d see this through, no matter where it would take us. That’s what we did. And fuck, I hoped that wherever this took us, whatever we had to do to help Bren move on from whatever made her snap, that it did not mean we’d be taking on that entire MC.

“We’ll get Bren and go.”

“Hey.”

He called to us as we took a step through their group.

I looked back.

He had both eyebrows raised, halfway up his forehead. “Tell me you’re not about to do something seriously stupid.”

Jordan smiled, moving to block me from his view. “Don’t worry. We’re not about to do something seriously stupid.” He turned around, met my gaze, and I knew we both were thinking the same thing.

We were about to do something seriously stupid.

BREN

Apparently, I still had issues with my dad. Go figure.

I knew those feelings were there, just not how strong they were. They were packed in there, layer upon layer of them, and fuck, if I hadn’t a clue how to get that shit out. No way was I heading back to counseling. I couldn’t handle the first stint I’d been court-ordered to do.

I needed to work out. Fight. Maybe drink. Fuck. That’d get it all out of my system, or so I was telling myself that when Cross and Jordan came into the office.

No words were shared. They weren’t needed.

Jordan moved to pick up my bag and vest.

Cross walked toward me and looked me over, then handed me my phone.

After that, we filed out of there, moving through a large crowd of everyone in the lobby. I didn’t look at the booth where my dad had been sitting. I didn’t know why, maybe I didn’t want to see if he’d left anything, or if there was still blood there. A big fucking boulder sat in my stomach and lodged up just underneath my rib cage. It wasn’t moving, and I was already detesting the feeling of it and the reasons it was there.

We got outside and all of us headed for Jordan’s truck.

He got behind the wheel. Cross and I jumped in the back, just like in high school, just like last year.

God.

That felt like a world away—when, in reality, it’d only been a few months. Half a year, to be exact.

Jordan slid open his window. “Where to?”

I nodded to Cross. “Call my brother. Find out where he thinks my dad might be staying.”

Cross had automatically shifted, pulling his phone out, but he paused at the end of my statement. “You sure about that?”

I was more sure about that than anything else.

He read my face and nodded. “Okay.” Then he began dialing, hitting it on speaker.

A second later, Channing answered, “You got Bren?”

“I do.”

Silence.

From Channing, “She’s sitting right there?”

Cross’ hand curled tighter around the phone. “She is.”

I couldn’t imagine what was going through my brother’s head, but his tone came back sounding bleak. “And she’s going after him?”

“We are.”

Channing made an audible grunt. “Fine. Shit. I’m going to regret this, but fine. I’m assuming you’re calling because you guys want to know where he is?”

CROSS

Bren took the phone from me. “Where is he?”

I flinched, hearing how gravelly that came out. There were threads of pain interlaced with agony, and that had everything in me in pain. I felt a fine slit being cut down the middle of my chest, with hands digging in to further pull it aside, exposing my organs.