TWENTY-EIGHT
Cain
“I heard you were the one who got Debrov,” Grinder said, toking on the joint and blowing the smoke to the ceiling.
Cain raised his handcuffed wrists and took a drag from his half-smoked joint.
“Yeah. That case was more complicated than I initially thought.” Remarked Cain, recalling the bail-jumping pedophile he’d caught over a year ago. “The pervert had twenty cousins identical to him. It was like playing whack-a-mole.”
The biker snickered. Grinder’s family was infamous in their industry. Cain had crossed paths with some of them over the years. A few hours had passed while they talked shop.
It was a strange hostage situation.
No torture as yet.
After a few cracks to Cain’s face, Rider left Grinder guarding him. They’d been talking ever since about their shared interests in hunting down scum.
Bounty hunting and tracking was a highly competitive business. There would never be two trackers who swapped trade secrets. It’s every hunter for himself. The less shared, the more money they earn. But forums were abuzz with stories of the high-stakes cases.
“I read about your old man’s case years ago.”
“Swainson,” Grinder smirked. “Dad dines on that story like reading The Night Before Christmas every year.”
“So the fuck would I,” replied Cain, whistling through his teeth with respect for the man. “Thirty hunters couldn’t find him. The guy was a ghost, and your father caught him red handed before he boarded a private jet to Ecuador. Every recruit at my place mentions it.”
“You have many working for you?”
“A fair few.”
“What about Damon Deluca? What does he do for your company?”
Ah, the chit-chat portion of the interrogation was over then?
“Damon is more of a follower than a doer. He does whatever I tell him to do. But you know that. You’ve already looked into me.”
Grinder’s bearded mouth stretched with a smile as he finished his smoke. Cain followed suit and leaned forward to stub it out.
“We’ve looked some.” Grinder confirmed, “But it’s always better when you tell me straight up first.”
“I was the one who came here, remember? You didn’t catch me or hunt me down.”
“I could, though.” He boasted.
“You could try, old man.” Cain counted even toned, “but you’d fail.”
“Yeah? You think so?”
“I know so. I don’t get found unless I want to be found.”
They both laughed.
“Well, isn’t this a cozy scene? Two trackers having a good old laugh together.” As the sweetest voice on earth spoke from the doorway, Cain’s brain chemistry exploded. Harper stood there, her deep-seated scowl on her face, her suckable lips thinned.
It had only been just over thirty-six hours since he’d seen her last, and his heart had been fucking withering without her near. Now, it pumped like a maniac within his rib cage as he sat up taller, eyeing her like she was the only meal he wanted in his mouth for the rest of his life.
She was staring at him while she took steps into the basement of the Renegade Souls MC headquarters. The steps he ate up with a wet tongue.
Fuck . She was magnificent.
The type of woman he didn’t know existed outside of his mind.
But there she was, staring him down like she was his enemy.
But Cain knew different.
They weren’t enemies and never had been.
When she was close, he smiled and saw that it made her falter.
“Did you do that to his face?” she asked Grinder sweetly. Cain flashed another grin. She gave a fuck about him. He felt it in his skin.
Grinder only shook his head. “Not me, princess.”
Cain spoke and pointed to his busted lip. “That was your dad when I told him I was here to claim you. The black eye was from your brother.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Which one?”
“The lunatic one.”
“Knox.”
“Come here, sweet baby.”
She scoffed and rolled her pretty eyes, standing with her hands on her skinny hips like she’d forgotten placing those hips in his hands while he railed the orgasms out of her.
“Did you hit Knox back?”
“No, he’s your brother. Come here, little girl.”
“That didn’t stop you from pointing a rifle at Zane.”
“What’s that now?” asked Grinder.
“Oh, he didn’t share that during your little chat?”
Cain grinned again. Fuck, she was a firecracker and likely to get him killed. He didn’t even mind, not now she was so close he could inhale her scent.
“That was just a picture. My sniper was long gone.”
“Oh, how lovely.” She snarked, and he licked his lower lip.
“Harper, come and sit on my knee.”
“You realize you’re a hostage, right?”
“I do.”
“Then hostages don’t get to dictate what people do. You can’t demand I come there and sit on your lap. Not when I’m so fucking pissed at you, Cain.”
“I know you are. Let me make it up to you.”
“Not likely.” She scoffed, looking so damn edible he wanted to take big bites out of that pouting bottom lip.
It hadn’t gone unnoticed about how Grinder was watching them. Cain didn’t want any conversation with Harper to be in sight of anyone, but he had to work with what he could.
She looked like she’d been crying, with dark circles underneath her eyes like she hadn’t slept at all, and he frowned. He’d never wanted to take care of anyone so fucking badly until she came onto his page, and now it was all he thought about.
She folded her arms, still staring at him, but he saw vulnerability as she gnawed on her lower lip.
She was waiting for his next move.