Page 52 of Single Mom's Biker Brigade
I dove for Callie and Cody, wrapping one arm around them and spinning all of us around before the second shot cracked through the air. I didn’t have time for subtlety, but I went for careful as much as possible as I shoved them behind a truck and covered them with my body.
Fuck. I’d checked the roofline, the alley, and the broken windows already. Twice. I did it again, even though I knew I wouldn’t find anything. Whoever took a potshot at us would do so from outside of my view.
My hand landed on Callie’s shoulder and stayed there. She wrapped Cody up in her arms and turned so he remained completely shielded. Her breaths came out hot and fast, the weight of them on my neck a reminder of what I still had to lose. Not again.
I raised my head enough to check the roofline again. First the hardware store, then the feed store twenty yards away and on the other side of the street. Dark windows. No movement.
I tracked the trajectory backward from where the first shot landed high in the brick wall. It had to have come from the south. That was the only explanation for the echo I’d heard.
The other men who’d ridden in with us spread out in a clean, practiced formation. No one crossed another man’s line.
Even the deputies who’d come to check out the fire fell into formation with us. Years of running our crew meant he’d put in a hell of a lot of hours with the locals for situations just like this. Instead of stripping our guns and immediately calling us guilty, we had a fair shot of being heard.
Hawk stood ten feet from me, his phone at his ear and his back against the ambulance. He glanced my way, eyebrows going up.
I held up two fingers and pointed south, at the only building that gave even a prayer of offering a line of sight to make that shot.
Hawk nodded and spoke into the phone.
Colt crouched near the rear of the truck, one hand on Cody’s shoulder and his body angled outward, putting himself between the kid and the alley. Just like Callie.
I hadn’t needed to hear Callie’s admission to know the truth. The two were mirror images of each other. All the way down to the crooked grin and tousled hair.
Colt was a father.
Damn. It shouldn’t hurt. Happiness for him overtook the ache in my gut, but it lingered.
With a look at Colt, I ducked away, running the forty feet to the alley. I turned sideways and shuffle-stepped when it narrowed,avoiding chunks of broken asphalt and the dumpster rusted to the point it looked like a bad wind would turn it to powder.
I rushed in low along the right wall, checking the blind spot the dumpster created first before moving on to the far end of the alley.
It opened up onto an empty service road. I tilted my head to hear better, but no engines or voices cut through the soft crackle of wind in the trees.
Whoever fired must have taken off. It’s what I would have done. The question was whether they’d shot to kill or to warn.
I ducked into the alley and double-checked the trajectory. I’d never been wrong, but there was a first time for everything and I refused to let Callie take the hurt for my screwup.
The angle confirmed it. Though the shot had come close, a shooter positioned in this area would have had a clean line to the cluster we’d made next to the ambulance. They could have taken the shot then. They’d waited. And they’d shot a hell of a lot higher than necessary.
Who? My hands fisted. I curled my fingers and walked the alley slowly, taking in every square inch. On the other side, a glint of lighter colored wood on the utility pole caught my attention. I turned on my phone’s flashlight and knelt for a better look.
Carved into the wood at knee height were four shallow cuts. Three straight lines and a scythe-like curve overlapping them. The same fucking symbol I’d found on Callie’s apartment right before she left.
Fucking Hellhounds. They’d put that mark on anything they considered interesting, signalling territorial interest without all out war.
I took a picture then stood and crossed to the group.
Hawk ended his call when I stopped beside him. “Perimters secure.”
I grunted and showed him the picture. “Found this.”
His face went still, a coldness I’d not seen in years settling over his features.
“It’s fresh.” I pocketed my phone.
“They knew you’d find it.” Hawk eyed the alley, the darkness in him shifting to a cold, brutal anger that matched the hardness settling in my chest.
No one fucked with us. Andno onewas going to bother Callie again. Not under my watch.
