Chapter 14: HAWK

Chapter Fourteen

HAWK

Juliette: How is the ride?

Me: Ryder in trouble.

Juliette: Again?

Me: You’re one to talk.

Juliette: Miss you, babe. Come home soon…

M y brother is out of his fucking mind if he thinks I have any interest in the skinny mixed race woman he has in Brinley’s custody. Every time I’m away from home my mind remains thoroughly fixated on Juliette. I miss her.

I can’t be too angry with Ryder for taking me away from her since this incident in the desert requires immediate action from the club. But I question the necessity of this detour.

“I don’t have a bike,” Ryder says.

“Brinley rides,” I tell him. “Get her keys and borrow the bike. It’ll be easier to get rid of than one of ours.”

Ryder readily agrees. It’s a lot easier to toss a bike you haven’t put blood, sweat and tears into fixing up. He heads to the back and spends a few minutes extracting those bike keys from Brinley and saying goodbye to that tiny woman he found out in the desert.

Ryder… Despite his view of the world, he’s always had several fine ass women chasing after him and if I allegedly stole any of them, he quickly replaced them with one to three more. I am way more focused on my wife, the club, and my family than the past. Can’t blame Ryder for clinging to parts of it. I’ve heard it’s what happens in prison.

“I got her address,” he says, showing me Brinley’s bike keys as he walks back in my direction.

“Great. Did she give you a plan?”

“She poisoned him. We scout the place, see who’s kicking around. You can walk the neighborhood, find a newspaper and see if there’s an obituary.”

“Or I could use my phone. You weren’t in prison that long. What’s his name?”

“Seth Overton.”

I look it up.

“No obituary.”

Hawk’s eyes flicker to mine, nervously.

“Fuck.”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” I reassure him. Truth be told, I’m only here because when Ryder needs me, I’ll be there. It doesn’t matter what he needs me for. It doesn’t matter what I have to tell Juliette. We’re not just brothers. We come from the same mass of cells, separated only by our experiences. Protecting my brother’s life feels just as important as protecting mine.

“He was religious,” Ryder admits after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. “He would have had an obit.”

“You didn’t think to look this up earlier?”

He had to have had this woman in his custody for at least a day, although I don’t know when she made her grisly confession.

“I was distracted,” Ryder says, taking a swig of his flask.

I hate when he misses obvious details like this. We have to get to Southpaw and this will only make our job harder.

“By liquor or pussy?”

“Fuck you,” he says, shoving the flask away, but unable to hide the flush across his freckled ass face quite so easily.

“I’m serious.”

“She’s not just some pussy.”

“She’s something, or we wouldn’t be going on a quest to find her husband.”

He ignores me. Ryder has always been insanely jealous. I don’t know why.

“He could still be dead.”

“When the fuck have we ever been that lucky?”

“You met a woman who let you within ten feet of her. That’s lucky.”

“If I didn’t need you…

“You would kick my ass. Now let’s go. Wherever the fuck we’re going.”

Ryder leads, which I regret after the first three miles. He swerves all over the road and if we weren’t out in the middle of fucking nowhere in the Southwest, we would have state troopers all over our asses. Couldn’t get away with this shit in Illinois or Missouri, that’s for fucking sure.

Maybe this woman will get him to stop drinking, the way Juliette helped me.

Just better hope Ryder doesn’t screw it up. I’ll remind him not to bring up any race talk he might have learned in prison if he wants things to work. Dust picks up the closer we get to this town. By the time we drive past the large sign saying Welcome To Dripping Springs, the only thing I’m dripping in is sweat.

I can’t believe it’s this hot, this late. We only have a few hours of possible surveillance until daylight and despite my brother’s pretense that he has this shit entirely under control, I think he’s in way over his head with this murderous woman.

I was in way over my head with Juliette. Then again, I left the dirty work to someone else. Not Ryder’s style. He was already a bit of a control freak before prison, but the rigid schedule he must have had in federal prison has turned him into something much deeper than a control freak. It’s hard to admit that he’s not the same man who went in. The old Ryder would have never hunted down a woman’s ex like this out of the blue…

But he’s my brother and he needs me. It’s neither my place nor my desire to disagree. For all Ryder’s flaws, even the drinking, he’s damned loyal. If nothing else, this woman will be safe with him.

We stop two blocks away from the house we’re meant to watch. Ryder parks behind a conveniently large maroon Chrysler Pacifica with a bumper sticker saying “Kids Up In This Bitch!” Looks like something Tylee would have on the back of her car, if Isaac could convince her to drive something responsible.

I park my bike next to his. He wobbles on his way off. I hit him in the shoulder.

“Pull your shit together. How much more did you need to drink?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Judging him won’t help. I put my arm around Ryder’s shoulder.

“I know we’ve been drinking since we were kids and you’re fighting demons I can’t even imagine but… that girl back there. If you care about her, one day, you’re gonna have to choose.”

Ryder’s throat visibly tenses, but he doesn’t answer me directly.

“Her street is that way.”

He didn’t start a fight over my suggestion, which is much better than I expected. We walk along the dark streets together, weaving through cars and moving in sync without any words. We rarely need to talk when running surveillance together. Makes it much fucking easier to get shit done with Ryder than with anyone else.

I sense his movement changing in the darkness as we draw closer to the house. Without seeing the number, I know where we need to stop. I can feel Ryder’s attention fixated on the house and that strange sixth sense between us lights up my awareness. There’s a black Cadillac Escalade parked in the driveway of the modest ranch-style home.

There’s also a light on in the kitchen and from our position outside, we can both see the person inside.