Page 6 of Driven By Impulse

Hanna poured three cups of coffee and placed a plate of cold chicken on the butcher block. “I imagine it’s been a while since you guys ate.”

This, she could do. When there were logistics involved, Hanna could put one foot in front of the other and come out on the other side with all essential organs intact. When it was a matter of emotions, well, that was where it all got much, much trickier.

And Ash Rhodes brought out just about every emotion there was.

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Niccolo Castiglione, captain of The Princes Motorcycle Club, a protective detail that blurred the lines between the law and vigilante justice, was much harder to read. She knew he had been injured in a deadly fight with his own father, a head figure in a west coast mafia family, not long after they had met, and she had to admit that in the last year, he looked worse for wear.

He still had that hauntingly beautiful appearance he’d had the previous year, dark eyes, long dark hair, strong cheekbones, and even stronger fingers, each overlaid with rivers of rich ink, and powerful enough to make Hanna…curious.

But now, his face seemed almost too angular, and dark circles framed his eyes. Hanna knew a thing or two about restless nights, and it seemed Niccolo had had more than his fair share.

“Hanna, please,” she said finally. “Despite everything, I really do appreciate you coming. I…I’m a little out of my depth here.”

Ash reached down and grabbed her hand, squeezing so quickly she could have imagined it, if she wasn’t innately tuned in to everything about him.

Except, of course, she was.

And she always had been.

“I’m going to loop Jinx in,” Niccolo said to Ash, then turned to Hanna. “He’s our…tech specialist.”

Hanna raised a brow. “So he’s a hacker?”

“White hat only, if you please,” a cheerful voice popped over Niccolo’s phone. “You could say I’m like the Robin Hood of…online information gathering.”

Hanna grinned despite herself. “So, a hacker.”

“A useful resource,” Ash corrected. “Tell us what we need to know.”

Hanna sighed. “Three days ago, I helped a woman named Grace Iverson leave her husband.”

She could feel a tension headache already beginning to bloom, and it made even the soft light of the kitchen too bright, but she had promised Grace she would keep her safe, promised her that there was light at the end of the tunnel.

“Her husband is Bryce Iverson, of Iverson Oil and Building.”

Ash froze next to her. “Hanna, tell me. Tell me this isn’t about him.”

“About who?” Niccolo and Jinx asked at the same time.

Ash pushed back from the counter and stood, and it was entirely the wrong time to be thinking the wrong thing, but Hanna couldn’t help noticing how much bigger he was standing in her kitchen now than he had been when they were teenagers. Ash had become the man she had always imagined he’d be, strong, broad, powerful…

And right now, very angry.

“Fucking Magnus Ralston Junior…”

“Not the name I expected you to say,” Jinx quipped from the other end of the phone.

“Not the name I expected either, Sheriff.” Ash glared at her. “You kept that out of your report when you called.”

Hanna squared her shoulders and tried to keep her calm. It didn’t matter how many years passed, Ash always brought out some fierce, fighting spirit inside her that just didn’t know when to quit.

“Magnus Ralston Junior is dead,” she said matter-of-factly. “Last year. Heart failure.”

Ash took a deep breath, and the room descended into the kind of silence Hanna was sure existed only in the waiting room to Hell itself. “Han…”

“I didn’t go looking for trouble this time, Ash. I swear it.”

“Tell me why that’s so hard to believe.”