Chapter 8 Full Throttle #2
"Nothing." But his eyes drifted to where Axel was laughing with Blade across the room. "You two seem happy."
"We are."
"Good." He nodded, almost to himself. "That's good. Axel deserves—" He stopped, shook his head. "He deserves someone who sees him. The real him."
"So do you."
The words were out before I could stop them. Tank's eyes snapped to mine, something startled in their depths.
"What?"
"Nothing." I smiled, innocent. "Just that everyone deserves that. Right?"
He stared at me for a long moment. Then something shifted—not quite acceptance, but awareness. Like a door he hadn't known existed had suddenly become visible.
"Right," he said slowly. "Everyone."
He turned back to Jake's engine, but I caught the furrow in his brow. The way his hands stilled for just a second before resuming their work.
Seed planted, I thought. Someday, maybe, he'd let it grow.
The celebration died around midnight.
I was pleasantly drunk, leaning against Axel on one of the worn leather couches, when Hawk emerged from the back with a look that sobered me instantly.
"Church. Officers only." His voice cut through the remaining chatter. "Now."
The temperature in the room dropped. Axel's arm tightened around me before he stood, pressing a kiss to my hair.
"Wait here."
"What's going on?"
"I don't know yet." His jaw was tight. "But I'll tell you as soon as I can."
He followed Hawk and the others through those heavy wooden doors. They closed with a thud that felt like a portent.
I waited. One hour. Two. The remaining members drifted off to bed, but I couldn't move from that couch—couldn't shake the sense that something had shifted, that the brief peace we'd found was already ending.
When Axel finally emerged, he looked ten years older.
"What is it?" I stood, crossed to him. "What's wrong?"
"Intel came in." He ran a hand over his face. "About why Devil's Dust has been so untouchable. Why Viper keeps making moves no one should survive."
"Why?"
"He's got protection. Law enforcement." Axel's grey eyes met mine, and I saw something there I'd never seen before.
Fear.
"Not local cops—that we could handle. This is federal, Kai. FBI." The word landed like a bomb.
"Someone in the FBI is protecting a trafficking operation?"
"Looks that way. We don't have a name yet, but the intel is solid—Viper's been feeding information to someone in the Bureau for years. In exchange, his operations stay off the radar. Investigations get buried. Evidence disappears."
I thought about Slash, about the warehouse, about Jake tied to that chair. About the trafficking Axel had mentioned—girls, kids, whatever paid.
"How do we fight that?" I asked. "How do you fight the FBI?"
"Carefully." Axel pulled me into his arms, held me tight against his chest. "Very carefully. And not tonight."
"But—"
"Tonight, I just want to hold you." His voice was rough. "Tomorrow, we plan. Tonight, I need to remember why we're fighting."
I let him lead me upstairs. Let him undress me slowly, reverently, like I was something precious. We curled together in his bed, skin against skin, his heartbeat steady under my ear. I was almost asleep when my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it. Almost let it go to voicemail, because nothing good ever came from unknown numbers at two in the morning. But something—instinct, fate, the universe's sick sense of humor—made me reach for it. "Hello?"
Static. Then a voice I hadn't heard in eight months. A voice I'd given up hoping to hear again.
"Kai."
My blood turned to ice.
"Tyler?"
Axel stirred beside me, instantly alert. I barely noticed. The room had narrowed to the phone in my hand, to the impossible sound of my brother's voice.
"Listen to me carefully." Tyler's voice was low, urgent, nothing like the easy charm I remembered. "Don't trust anyone with a badge. Anyone, Kai. Do you understand?"
"Tyler, where the hell have you—"
"There's no time. I'm coming to you. Stay at the clubhouse, stay with the Phoenixes, and stay alive until I get there."
"What are you talking about? What's going on?"
"I'll explain everything. I promise." A pause. In the background, I heard traffic. A horn. He was on the move. "I never meant to leave you alone this long. I was trying to protect you."
"Protect me from what?"
"From what's coming. And it's coming soon, Kai. Sooner than your new friends think." His voice cracked, just slightly. "I'm so sorry, Kai. For all of it. Just—please. Trust me one more time."
"Tyler—"
The line went dead. I stared at the phone, heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. Axel was sitting up now, tension radiating from every line of his body. "Kai. Who was that?"
"My brother." The words came out hollow. "My foster brother. The one who's been missing for eight months."
"What did he say?"
I turned to look at him. In the darkness, his grey eyes were sharp, worried, already calculating threats and angles.
"He said don't trust anyone with a badge." My mouth was dry. "He said he's been protecting me. He said he's coming here."
Axel went very still. "Your brother knows about the FBI connection?"
"I don't know." My mind was racing, spinning through possibilities, none of them good. Tyler disappearing the same time Viper started making moves. Tyler warning me about badges hours after Phoenix learned about federal protection. Tyler knowing I was with the Phoenixes when I'd never told him.
"I don't know what he knows," I said. "But I think—" I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't voice the suspicion that was crystallizing in my gut.
Tyler hadn’t been missing? What if he was involved?
Axel's hand found mine in the darkness, squeezed hard. "We'll figure it out," he said. "Together."
But sleep didn't come. Not for either of us.
I lay awake until dawn, listening to Axel breathe, waiting for my brother to walk back into my life and explain why he'd left in the first place.
And wondering if the answer would destroy everything I'd just found.