Page 53 of Single Mom's Biker Brigade
“Talk.” Hawk’s fingers twitched.
He didn’t order me around like that often, and the single word came with a barking command I’d heard so often as a soldier that I responded on instinct. “If they set the fire, it looks like they didn’t intend on an escape. But if that’s the case, a warning shot makes no sense.”
“Could be the door jammed on its own. Like Callie said.” Hawk rubbed a hand over his cheek and then around the back of his neck. “You think they wanted to see if we’d show?”
“Maybe. Might be curious to figure out if we’d come for her.” A light, boyish laugh from Cody unknotted some of the tensionriding shotgun on my shoulders. “Or they wanted confirmation it was really Callie.”
Seven fucking years and someone still thought that Callie could be used as leverage over us. Or it was all a coincidence.
Right. I snorted at myself.
Hawk turned toward the truck. I followed, keeping track of every movement around us.
Colt looked up when we reached them. Cody sat between his knees with his back curled and his bandaged arm in his lap. He studied the firefighters continuing to do their job and the line of men circling the lot with hands close enough to weapons to draw attention.
“Are you vigilanties?” Cody glanced back at Cody. “They’re good guys too, but they don’t follow the law. Mom doesn’t like them.”
Callie made a noise that almost brought up a smile. Course she wouldn’t like vigilantes.
She pushed to her feet and crossed to me, lifting her chin with every stride. “What did you find?”
I hesitated just long enough to make her eyebrows go up.
“Do I need to go look for myself?”
She would too.
I showed her the picture, one hand ready to steady her when she went pale and wobbled. She batted my hand away, her inhale quivering before she locked her spine.
Hawk crouched beside Cody. “Hey. You doing okay?”
Cody shrugged, a tiny, barely there wince twisting his lips when he moved his bandaged arm. He pointed at me. “He’s fast. Like Flash.”
“Yeah, he is.” Hawk held the kid’s gaze. “We’re going to move you and your mom somewhere safe. That okay with you.”
Cody shifted to look at Callie.
She shook her head. “No.” straightening to her full height didn’t give her much of an advantage but it probably made her feel better. “We’re not going anywhere with you. I’ll call…” Her lips rolled together and she pressed her hand to them. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Callie.” Hawk managed to keep calm, but the vein pulsing in his temple showed a break in his facade.
“I said no.” Her eyes cut to me, then back to Hawk. “I’ve been keeping us safe without any help from the club. I can keep doing it.”
Colt stood, bringing Cody up with him. “Your shop is burned to soot.”
“Thanks, I noticed.”
“Someone shot at you.” Colt pushed forward a step, both hands on Cody’s shoulders.
“Or at you.” She crossed her arms and leaned forward. Her braid fell over her shoulder, and moonlight danced on the wrench tattoo beneath her ear. “There’s no proof that had anything to do with me. You all were here long enough for word to get out and someone to try a lucky shot. I’m not going to your property. I’m not putting Cody in the middle of club business.”
“He’s already in the middle of it.” Colt shifted his weight to compensate for the way Cody leaned into him. Poor kid.
The way his gaze shot back and forth said he didn’t know what to do. He pressed his back into Colt but his hands trembled and he kept lifting them, almost reaching for Callie.
Colt took a breath. “Whether you like it or not, whoever did this made him a variable. That doesn’t go away because you want it to.”
A charge burned the air between them and lifted the hair on my arms.
