Page 3 of Cash’s Trouble

“I have my car, you know,” I protest.

“Safer with me.” That’s all he says in response.

Cash’s Harley is heavy, black and chrome, its engine vibrating through me. I climb behind him and place my hands cautiously at his sides. He glances over his shoulder. “That won’t keep you on.”

My cheeks warm despite everything. I wrap both arms around his waist and flatten my palms over the hard planes of his stomach. His body goes still for a fraction of a second before the engine rises and we pull away. Wind flows through my hair as Cash takes us through Ransom and onto the river road. He rides fast enough to leave town behind, but every turn is controlled. Each shift of his body moves mine with it, pressing my thighs around his hips and my chest to the patch my father despises.

Fear still sits under my ribs. So does the memory of Doran’s hand on me. But Cash is solid between my arms, and the knowledge that somebody would have to go through him to reach me feels dangerously close to trust despite what my father told me about these men. The Kingdom Come compound lies beyond town behind tall fencing and heavy steel gates. Motorcycles line the gravel beside a long clubhouse, and light spills from an open garage where men in cuts turn at the sound of Cash’s bike. Weapons are visible without apology, holstered at waists or laid beside tools on a scarred workbench. The gates close behind us.

Cash kills the engine. I release him reluctantly, hoping he can’t tell how much my hands resist leaving his body. When I climb off, he keeps one hand at my hip until I’m steady, then steps between me and the brothers approaching from the clubhouse.

A tall, dark-haired man comes first. PRESIDENT is stitched across his cut, with KANE on the opposite side. He looks at my bruised wrist, then at Cash. “Inside. The sheriff’s on his way.”

Cash’s hand settles at the back of my waist, not pushing, only claiming space around me, and my body reacts to the touch once again. Headlights sweep across the closed gates before we reach the clubhouse steps. A sheriff’s department SUV stops outside, blue lights dark but unmistakable, and my father’s silhouette appears behind the windshield. This should be interesting. It’s the one place my father would never willingly set foot.

CHAPTER 2

CASH

The sheriff comes through the gates looking like he’d rather burn the compound to the ground than ask Kingdom Come for anything. I can’t blame the sheriff. King bought people’s silence, buried trouble and made every case against us collapse; a few months of Kane’s leadership don’t erase thirty years of trouble. He parks beside the clubhouse, his hand resting on his holstered weapon as he walks. Judge stands beside Kane, Tank near the garage, and the others give him room without pretending he’s welcome.

Lilly-Rose stands beside me with red marks around her wrist. I keep seeing Doran’s hand there and remembering the instant I let the SUV go because leaving her alone was never an option. I’ve watched her for months: coffee before the bank opens, hair loose on Fridays, her gaze finding me through the bank windows. I stayed away because getting too close to the sheriff’s daughter would cause more trouble than it was worth. But seeing two men touch her burned through that distance.

The sheriff’s gaze lands on the bruise. His face changes, the father breaking through the lawman, and he reaches for her. “Let me see.”

“It’s just sore, Dad, not broken.” Lilly-Rose gives him her wrist anyway. “Cash checked it.”

“Start at the beginning,” he says.

She tells him Doran used Corbin’s name to try and convince her to come with him, grabbed her and tried to force her into the SUV. “You’re certain it’s him?” the sheriff asks.

“I’ve seen him drinking with Wade. He knew when I left work and where I parked.”

The sheriff’s anger turns calculating. “Corbin has access to duty schedules and every case I reopened after King died. I’ve been rebuilding the case with investigators outside my department. Kane, your father paid a lot of people to look the other way, and I intend to clean house.”

Kane’s voice is flat. “I’m aware of the past and of my father’s actions. But do you think your chief deputy ordered the grab?”

“Wade Corbin spent years making sure every investigation touching this club went nowhere. When King died, the useful leaks and payments stopped. He must know I’m close.”

Kane put me in charge of the club’s money after he took the gavel. I haven’t found Corbin’s name, but King rarely paid for a bought badge without keeping insurance. I just haven’t found it yet.

Lilly-Rose absorbs it without flinching. “So he takes me and makes you stop investigating.”

“That’s what it looks like.” The sheriff’s jaw tightens. “I should’ve seen it sooner. I just didn’t think he was capable of this.”

Kane steps forward, not offering comfort or excuses. “My father taught Corbin that his badge had a price. If that’s why those men reached for your daughter, Kingdom Come carries part of the debt.”

“Your father carried it.” The sheriff’s eyes harden. “But don’t use this to clean up the club’s name. You might not be your father, but you can’t hide what this club is.”

“Wasn’t planning to. We’re still the men you’ve been trying to put away, and protecting Lilly-Rose doesn’t put us on the same side.”

Honest opposition suits both men better than false friendship. I look at the sheriff. “Okay. Tell us what you need.”

The sheriff wants to take her home. I see it before he speaks, but he looks at the closed gates, the brothers spread across the yard and the garage full of bikes, tools and weapons. This is the one place in Ransom Corbin can’t enter quietly or control through a radio call.

“My house is known, and I don’t know which deputies he has access to or how much of the department he’s compromised,” the sheriff says. “I need time to bring the outside team in and lock him out of anything connected to the investigation or to Lilly-Rose. Until then, she stays here if that is acceptable to you.”

Lilly-Rose turns toward him. “You could ask me.”