Page 125 of Ride or Die

Wheeler cracked a rueful smile and leaned on the doorframe. “Figured. He saved us, that last time and many others—he wouldn’t tell that part.”

Riley swallowed. Of course he wouldn’t. He’d never take the credit.

“I won’t get into the gory details, but Saint saved our asses a lot. More than we deserved.” He smelled like coffee and tobacco.

“Saint was commanding officer of our unit. We were hand-picked out of special forces and put together to do all sorts of things. Rescues, extractions… ‘other tasks as assigned.’” His face twisted at the description.

She nodded. They’d all seen some bad shit, she’d figured that much out.

“As we got better, we got more work. Advanced. Off the books. We cleaned up messes that other teams left, we got them out of bad situations, and we were making a name for ourselves as fixers. But it got political.” His mouth tugged down.

“Our last job was a shitshow. Saint argued that we shouldn’t take it. That the intel was bad. That we needed time off—it didn’t matter. We went.

“And it was as bad as we thought. We were tired and burned out, making mistakes all over the place. And the intel. Worse than bad. We’d been set up.”

Her heartbeat was loud in her ears, and she didn’t want to hear the next part. She thought she heard the engines stop.

“I looked for them for two days. I ran from tree to tree, knowing that we were trapped and if I didn’t find them they’d die, and if I did find them, at least then we could die together.”

She bit the inside of her cheek.

“I’d made peace with that.”

“Jesus, Wheeler, you don’t have to tell us this,” Kristi whispered.

Memories flashed across his face. Riley reached for his hand.

“I finally found them, strung out, hungry, tired. They didn’t know about the other force closing in behind us.”

Kristi listened, still and quiet. Riley tried to keep her tears back.

“Part of the setup. Politics higher up the chain, it had nothing to do with us. Saint made a call that he knew would get him court-martialled but might just save us all.

“I disagreed, he did it anyway. And it worked. We got out, I didn’t bleed to death, and the four of us made it out of that awful forest alive. But it cost Saint everything. His entire career, everything, ended that day.”

Riley gripped his hand tightly, and he glanced at it.

“Don’t cry, doll. My point is that we’ve all been through worse, and sometimes you have to wait. It’s worth it. We’ve survived far more than a few bikers. Saint works best under pressure.”

She snuffled and tried to wipe her cheeks. He leaned forward, pulling her and Kristi into a hug. She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing hard.

“Thanks, Wheeler,” she whispered.

“As far as distractions go, that was a good one,” Kristi allowed.

His laugh rumbled through her, and she stepped back.

It was far too quiet.

Chapter 39

Saint

Walking away from Riley felt like being sawed open, all the nerve endings exposed to the cool air. Her quiet pleading rang in Saint’s ears, and he cursed the god-awful timing of the fucking bikers. He knew this was a risk.

He left the shop but stayed in view of the open door, as best he could. Just in case.

One by one, each bike quieted. Gravel crunched too loud as Ryan, Bruno, and Scott-fucking-Cooper set foot on Saint’s property. He wanted to let Aaron blow them out of the water simply for the trespass, but he couldn’t do that. Not today.