Street (Devil Daddies MC #5)

Chapter 1

Street struggled to open his eyes, but the silence that surrounded him provided the final push.

He looked up into filtered sunlight coming through the rafters above him.

Raising a hand to his aching head, Street discovered he’d clenched a fistful of dried grass.

Instantly, he shook it away. What the hell? Was he in a barn?

Levering himself up onto one elbow, Street stared at the stacks of hay bales and the shimmering dust motes that danced in the sunlight.

No rev of motorcycle engines or car horns sounded around him.

He was definitely not in the city any longer.

Sitting up, he struggled to push away the throbbing headache so he could concentrate.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to center himself.

Get it together, Street.

“Hey. I thought you’d sleep for a few more hours.”

Street turned his head toward the sound as he opened his eyes. Instantly, his vision spun. “Fuck!” he said, groaning. He relaxed slightly as he spotted the brown-eyed woman who had rescued him.

“Yeah. Probably not a good idea to look around too much. Thank goodness you’d only had a bit of that spiked beer before I got to you. You would have woken up in the hospital with a lot more wrong than a headache, I’m afraid. Or maybe not woken up. The Ravagers don’t mess around.”

A flashback to the previous night popped into his mind.

Street had visited a known Ravager hangout to gather information for the Devil Daddies MC.

Already on edge in enemy territory, a crash had distracted him from the beer bottle in his hand for a split second.

The young woman’s whispered warning from behind the sheltering drape of her long hair had alerted him that he was in trouble.

He processed the new information that this wasn’t the first time the rival MC had drugged someone on their turf.

Pissed, he growled, “The Ravagers did this?” to confirm his suspicion.

“Or their associates. You must have really pissed off the motorcycle club.”

Searching his brain to remember the name the manager had called her, Street said, “Rosa, right?”

The petite woman moved to perch on a hay bale close to where he sat on the ground. “I’m impressed you remember. I guess I shouldn’t be. You seemed to figure out most of the threats in that bar quickly. Unfortunately for you, not all of them. Were you there gathering information?”

“Just checking out the bar,” Street answered cautiously. “Any idea why the Ravagers would target me?”

“Wow! You think I’m stupid, huh? Not a nice way to view the woman who saved your ass back there.”

Even with the worst headache ever, Street regretted trying to fool her.

“You know who I am?” He studied the thin brunette with deep dark eyes that seemed old for her age.

He suspected immediately she hadn’t led an easy life—at least not recently.

Street understood that lives took sharp turns sometimes.

Five years ago, he’d left the military and jumped on a miserable, corporate path to working himself into a grave.

Thankfully, he’d realized his soul died a bit more each day he sat behind a desk.

He’d chosen a change. Street suspected Rosa had not.

Pull back on the protector urge, Street. He forced himself to focus as she answered.

“I went through your bike while you were napping. You’re Street. Cool biker name. With the Devil Daddies MC.”

Of course, she’d rifled through his saddlebags to find the cut he’d stashed there before heading into Ravager territory. “Yeah, I’m Street. Where are we?”

“An old farm outside of town. I was friendly with the owner, but he passed away a few months ago. I guessed his son would only be interested in selling. This isolated spot was the first place that popped into my mind. The Ravagers won’t find us here.”

Street studied her, trying to think. The headache and the lingering fogginess from whatever drug they’d used to spike his beer still scrambled his brain. “Thanks for getting me out of there. I need to send word to my MC.”

“I plugged your phone in to charge. I’ll get it. And some water.”

Watching her walk away felt completely wrong, but he kept himself from protesting. Street forced himself to struggle to his knees and then pushed himself up to his feet. Wobbling unsteadily, he counted his effort as superhuman and collapsed onto the bale where Rosa had sat.

Why is she helping me?

The Ravagers would exact their revenge on anyone who dared to interfere with their plans. Rosa wouldn’t be safe in town with them around. Resolve stiffened his spine. He would make sure she was okay.

“One hundred percent,” her quiet voice announced as she walked through the open barn door, waving his phone to clarify she referred to his battery strength. She handed him a cold bottle of water and two tablets. “Ibuprofen.”

“Thanks.” Street popped those into his mouth and drank half the cool liquid in thirsty gulps. “Do you mind hanging around while I talk to the MC president? I’m having trouble remembering details.”

“Of course. Then I need to make plans to disappear. You can stay here for as long as you need to. I’ll go pick up a few things and get on a bus out of town.”

“Rosa, you can’t go back to your place. The bar has your address, right?”

“Yes. I’m stealthy. I can’t leave without something,” she told him.

“Is that item worth your life?” he asked, trying to stress to her the risk she’d run.

Rosa hesitated for a few seconds and nodded. “I won’t abandon…. Something important is waiting for me.”

“Then I’ll help you figure out how to retrieve whatever you need so badly. You saved me. I won’t let the Ravagers hurt you. Sit down with me. Can you find Diablo?” Street asked. “I can’t focus on the small print.”

Without saying a word, she held the phone up to his face to open it. In a few seconds, she pressed the call button and handed the device back to him.

“Turn on speaker for me, Rosa.”

She tapped a button, and Lucien’s voice blared into the quiet barn, “Where the fuck have you been, Street? We’re all gathering to come find your ass.”

“Aw, you’re worried about me,” Street said, grinning despite his discomfort.

“Talk, Street.”

Street had no problem recognizing the tense tone of the MC’s Enforcer.

“Hi, Wraith. Sorry. I’m currently sheltering in a barn—somewhere.

The Ravagers drugged my bottle of beer. Thankfully, an employee saw the bartender drop a pill in my drink and alerted me to get out of there.

She’s here with me. Say hi to Rosa, everyone. I have you on speaker.”

“So, you’re snuggling with Rosa while we’re imagining you dead in a ditch?” Vex snapped. His name was well-earned. Vex had a wicked temper that matched his fiery red hair.

Beside him, Rosa stiffened. Before Street could answer, she snapped, “If you consider snuggling as holding your friend on the motorcycle while outwitting a horde of pissed-off bikers, then, yes.”

Street controlled the grin that threatened to curve his lips. His firebrand didn’t need another reason to get pissed off. That claim, his, repeated in his mind. What was it about this woman that called to him?

“Vex, my head hurts too much to argue with you, but needless to say, you owe Rosa a huge apology for being an ass to someone who saved my hide last night,” Street stated firmly.

“Tell us where you are,” Lucien demanded.

“I’m not sure. I just regained consciousness.”

“Ten miles out of town on South Highway 82. There’s an abandoned farm with a gravel driveway and a battered red mailbox that says Stewart.” Rosa provided the information in an even tone that didn’t hold any of the previous animosity she’d directed at Vex.

Smart woman. Snapping at Lucien was not a wise move.

Street liked this Rosa more with every moment he spent with her.

The fact that she’d saved his ass and ridden his bike through conditions anyone would have found difficult only made him realize how lucky he’d been to have her around.

His pounding head had already started to ease.

“Lucien, Rosa can’t return to her apartment. The Ravagers are going to be watching it. They know who she is and where she lives. Could you send someone to grab some stuff for her so she can get out of town?” Street asked. Rosa tensed beside him.

“We owe her that much,” Wraith said. “I’ll take some backup and head there now. Text me the address and a list of what she needs. Rosa, I’m on a bike so only the most necessary items I can carry easily when they attack.”

“One thing is my priority. Everything else can be replaced,” she assured him.

What did she need to retrieve so badly? He had a feeling that would tell him anything he needed to know about Rosa. He wouldn’t ask while several members of his MC were listening though. She’d text from his phone.

“Street, drink more water than you think you’d ever need. You need to flush whatever substance they gave you out of your system,” Razor, the MC’s doctor, ordered.

Street lifted the bottle to his lips and guzzled down the rest. “On it, Razor. I ordered a bottle of beer: under the stupid assumption they couldn’t spike that. A glass crashing on the bar floor distracted me. They must have dosed me then.”

Rosa nodded. “The bartender dropped a small, white pill into the bottle when you turned. That was the second time I’ve seen them do that. The first guy didn’t fare well.”

She didn’t have to add that she’d obviously decided to help the next victim. “You should have left when you saw that once,” Street said, surprised at his stern tone.

“You’re not my dad. I needed that job.” Her defensive tone told Street a lot.

Lucien’s voice captured his attention, “We’re on our way. Try not to kill each other before we get there.”

When the line went dead, Street pulled up Wraith’s number and started a text message. “Give him your address and what you need.”

“How’s he going to get in?”

“Don’t worry about that. Wraith is a problem solver.”

Shaking her head, Rosa entered the information and returned the phone to him. Curious, Street glanced down and froze. Her address was in the worst part of town. She only asked for one item—a stuffed black panther.

He didn’t look up as he kicked himself. That statement about him not being her dad.

The stuffie. Was she Little? A flare ignited inside him.

This immediate draw he felt to a total stranger had baffled him.

Now, that attraction made more sense. His Daddy side had reacted before his drugged brain could process Rosa’s hidden appeal.

“Don’t make a big deal about it. Inky is the last thing I have from my childhood. I won’t abandon him.”

Her defensive expression told him not to say any more about Inky. “Understood. Can I get some more water? Did the old man leave any food?”

Her shoulders relaxed back into position, and he breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Having to ask for help from a bunch of guys she didn’t know for something they might make fun of was gutsy.

If Inky wasn’t of dire importance to her, she wouldn’t have given the stuffie a second thought.

Suddenly, he cared about the fate of the stuffie way too much.

The heat of her slight body next to him drew him toward her.

Street locked his muscles in place, fighting his attraction to this woman. He didn’t want to scare her.

“What do you think about canned meat or microwave mac and cheese?” she asked.

“Sounds like a complete meal.”

She grinned at him. “Maybe even a feast.”

“Lead on, Rosa. I’ll cook for us. The guys will take a while to get here. Wraith will circle around for a bit to make sure no one follows them from your place.”

Rosa nodded as she led him into the sunlight.

Street shielded his eyes from the bright light as he glanced around at the quiet farmstead.

A cottage badly in need of paint, a barn that had seen better days, a well house, and the dead skeleton of a rusted-out tractor.

“I don’t have anywhere to be on a time schedule. My job is toast.”

“What will you do? Do you have a car near the bar?”

“No. I don’t have anything like that. I walk or take the bus when I have the money to spare.”

“That’s not safe, Rosa,” Street said, picturing what that neighborhood must be like after dark.

“They’ve robbed me enough that they know I don’t have any money,” she said, shrugging as if the threat was no big deal. Her acceptance of living in danger tore him up inside. But her eyes shifted from his, cluing Street in that she hadn’t told him everything.

“We’ll talk to Lucien about getting you a job.”

“You owe me something,” she said, challenging him.

“Do you want money?” Street asked, watching her closely.

“I want Inky. Then maybe you could get me a bus pass to get out of town,” Rosa said.

Immediately, Street wanted to keep her close so he could protect her…. And, he didn’t want to lose her. “I’ll make sure you’re safe, Rosa.”

She twisted her lips into a grimace. “For some people, living threat-free is a pipe dream.”

“Let’s fix some food. Everything gets better with a full belly,” Street said. When she agreed with him quickly, Street guessed hunger wasn’t a new problem for her. Noting her dull eyes, he vowed to find out her story and provide some hope for her future. Right now, her only goal was to survive.