Page 7 of Raw & Reckless

There’s a beat of thick, electric silence on the other end, as if he can already sense who’s calling.

“Layla?”

5

PHOENIX

Ihave my phone pressed so tight against my ear that the plastic bites into my skin. Still, I listen intently to the shallow, choppy breaths of the woman who has somehow become my sole obsession. She hasn’t spoken a single word yet, but my gut knows it’s Layla.

I’m standing inside the Rebel Kings clubhouse war room with Onyx, the club’s Sgt. at Arms, right beside me. Onyx instantly senses the stark, rigid tension radiating off my frame. His rugged features harden, making the jagged scar slicing vertically through his left eye stand out even starker against his skin.

“Layla?” I say again, my voice rough and fractured. “Are you somewhere safe?”

My muscles are trembling so violently from sheer, unadulterated panic, that I nearly stumble off my chair in a desperate attempt to stand. Onyx is there in a fraction of a second, moving with silent, predatory grace to flank my right side, letting me know without a single spoken word that he’s right here for backup—no questions asked, no hesitation.

Finally, a tiny, broken sound comes across the line. “I… I, um…”

Her voice shatters, and she lets out a muffled sniffle. The sound rips straight through my chest, shredding whatever restraint I had left and flooding my veins with a furious, surging wave of adrenaline.

“Where are you?” I demand, keeping my tone as steady as I can manage.

She takes a shaky, shuddering intake of air, and I instantly soften my tone, encouraging her. “Take another breath for me, little Moonflower. Just breathe. Where are you?”

“The… the payphone across from the library,” she whispers out.

I pull the phone away from my face for a split second, tilt my head back toward the ceiling, and curse viciously, letting out a hot, ragged breath. I hate that she’s out alone in the dark without me. I hate, with a burning, white-hot intensity, that I left her at all. I assumed she’d be safe enough in the fortress that is her brother’s house, but clearly, the bastard pushed her past her absolute breaking point.

I slam the phone back to my ear. “Stay right there. I’ll be there in two minutes, and I’m staying on the line with you the whole damn time. Do not hang up.”

I pivot on my heel, lunging for the keys to one of the club’s heavy-duty pickup trucks hanging on the rack, but Onyx cleanly intercepts them from my trembling hands, his grip unyielding. “Payphone by the library,” I grunt to my brother, my chest heaving.

Onyx gives a single, sharp nod, his jaw clenched as he follows me out the double doors and straight into the gravel parking lot. We tear out of the compound, tires kicking up dirt before screaming onto the asphalt as we rocket through town at a reckless speed.

“Are you still there?” I bark into the phone, needing to hear her voice to keep the panic at bay. I coax her to talk to me, and even though her words are broken and sparse, it’s enough. Just hearing her breathe tells me she’s alive, and right now, that’s all that matters.

My thoughts are racing at a hundred miles an hour, bouncing wildly between self-loathing hatred for abandoning her and a heart-wrenching, paralyzing worry. But I shove every bit of it down into the dark, locking it away. There’s only one mission that matters now: getting to Layla.

“We’re almost there,” I tell her, gripping the dashboard so tightly that the plastic groans.

Onyx aggressively downshifts as we turn down the final stretch of road leading toward the library. The sudden sweep of our truck headlights cuts through the gloom, brilliantly silhouetting three dark figures as they jump out of a blacked-out van idling near the curb.

“Fuck,” I mutter, a dark, primal rage erupting in my gut. “I didn’t think they’d be back this soon.”

“Who?” Onyx demands instantly, his eyes narrowing on the targets.

At the exact same time, a sharp gasp echoes through the phone against my ear.

“Don’t panic,” I instruct Layla, my voice dropping into a low, commanding register. “Stay right where you are behind that booth. I can see you. Be brave, little Moonflower.”

Onyx’s face remains remarkably stoic and unreadable in the dashboard light, but a sudden flash in his good eye holds a million silent questions about why I just called a woman I barely know something so intimate. I cover the mouthpiece with my palm, turning to look dead into his eyes.

“The bastards behind our hijacked shipping lines tried kidnapping her earlier today,” I spit out, swallowing hard past the thick, choking lump of self-hatred for leaving her unprotected.

“Her…?” Onyx asks, his voice chillingly calm.

“Agent Davis’s sister.”

Onyx gives a slow nod, showing zero surprise, zero disappointment, and not a single flicker of hesitation. He’s loyal to the death, and he doesn’t need any further explanation.