Chapter 12

CHAPTER

TWELVE

PIKE

When we came in, the Open Road was popping, and I curled my hand around Natasha's hip, tucking her to me as speculative eyes landed on her. It sent a curl of rage into my stomach that bordered on irrational that other men dared to look at her. I wanted to keep her to myself even after having her not even an hour ago. I couldn't even explain what was possessing me right now. This whole business today with Eli and this unknown quantity with this Victor character was just fucking with my head. Natasha was really the only thing keeping me sane. Touching her grounded me in the here and now, keeping me from traveling back in time to a nightmare. Tightening my grip on her as we moved into the crowded space, I ensured my claim was clear.

Natasha was mine.

The Road was open to the public and not as rough around the edges as the Pit, but it could still be rowdy depending on the night. It was a Friday, so the floor was packed, and the tables were full. Dancers were up on stage, lights lit, and drinks flowed. The strippers up on the stage worked the poles, swinging their bodies up and around to loud hoots and cheers. The clientele here was drawn from Haverboro and Morinrock, but the Road was technically the Brotherhood's clubhouse. It sat on property they owned on the edge of town where the noise wasn't as overwhelming. There were buildings for living quarters and offices—a step up in the MC world. Old man Marsh was quite an innovator. It was only lately that I'd come to the Road at all. The Cobras tended to stick to their territory, but we were welcome under the new agreement.

Smoke swirled as we moved forward, and bodies jostled against us. I angled my body and growled at the offender, and body bumped the fucker back away from my girl. Could they not see us walking? Natasha shot me a look, those eyes twinkling under her chocolate lashes in a way that I could tell that my irritation amused her. Everything about her was a turn-on. Even here, my cock was hard for her.

"Easy," she murmured, her voice a soothing balm. "It's fine." The situation between Eli and Victor wrecked my nerves. The guards at the house had babbled in Russian until they'd decided to split their forces, and one of them had followed us to the Road in a fancy black SUV. I couldn't even really be mad about it. Natasha's safety was more important than my pride.

We pushed through the crowd and grabbed a beer at the bar before heading to the back, where Maddox and Dimitri were seated in a booth. Maddox spotted us first, his eyes narrowing slightly before he raised his hand in greeting. Dimitri followed suit. His expression was neutral but curious. My Cobra cut would have caused a riot in the past, but now most didn't blink, and I even saw a few familiar faces among the crowd.

"Hey," Maddox said, his voice low and rumbling. Have a seat. It's nice to see you again, Natasha." Maddox was gruff but polite, which gave him points. Of course, he'd have Dimitri to contend with, too, if he was a dick to his family. Maddox had learned some manners from Helena since she'd been back.

Natasha slid into the booth first, and I followed, draping my arm possessively around her shoulders. Maddox glanced at my hand, then back up at me, a faint smirk on his lips. On the other hand, Dimitri looked like he wanted to gut me.

"Nat," Dimitri frowned at me. "How's the new digs?"

"Cousin." Natasha leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Good to see you. They're nice. Max has good taste." She acted utterly unaffected by his mood, but I knew she picked up on his discontent. I smirked at him. He could disapprove all he wanted, but it wasn't going to change jack shit.

"It's weird that you call him Max," Dimitri grumbled. I knew that Dimitri's estrangement from his brother had only ended, and he certainly didn't have the relaxed attitude towards his brother that Natasha did. She shrugged as if she couldn't care less, but I knew she knew some of the history behind the two brothers.

"That's between the two of you. He's been kind to us," Natasha said unbothered, taking off her jacket and sipping her beer. I understood Dimitri's issues with his brother, but that didn't need to affect Natasha. I watched her for a minute, mesmerized by the curve of her cheeks and the bow of her lips.

"You mentioned that you had news?" Maddox prompted, interrupting and eyeing Dimitri with concern as he drew my attention back to him and away from Nat.

I leaned against the booth cushions and tried to ignore the squirm of discomfort in my gut that came when I talked of my brother.

"I did." It was time to get on track with this meeting. There wasn't any getting around to talking about it with them, no matter how much I didn't want to since I needed them both for the next part of my plan. "This afternoon, I told Cross to get off my tail since I figured if someone wanted to make a move, I needed to make it easier on them," I began. Their faces pinched in displeasure, almost in sync. Maybe they were spending too much time together if they could manage that level of twinning. I chuckled to myself.

"You sure can be a dumb fucker," Maddox groused. "You're lucky we like you, but I guess it worked by the creepy smile on your face." He threw some peanuts in his mouth. "You're still alive. Quit beating around the bush already." One of the things I appreciated about Maddox was his dry sense of humor.

"Remember I mentioned that I thought Eli was alive?" Maddox set the beer bottle down so hard that liquid sloshed out of the top as he sat forward, focusing solely on what I was saying. "Well, he is."

"No joke?" Dimitri asked, but I realized it wasn't a question because what could you say to this news?

"Just wait," Natasha interrupted. Let him tell the whole story." Hurriedly, I explained how Eli had appeared in the alleyway, the few details he had given me, and the ones I'd managed to pick up. Both men looked shell-shocked, which mirrored my complicated feelings.

"That's crazy, man. Right? Fucked up." Maddox rubbed his chin as he did when thinking or worried. "You're sure it's Eli? Like a hundred percent?"

I didn't blame him for being skeptical. These weren't bad questions, and he wasn't wrong. The whole thing was crazy. My childhood had been beyond fucked up, and losing Eli had broken me even further. His return was amazing news, but I was reeling to come to terms with the idea that I'd inadvertently left him behind, but at least he was alive. That was something, right? I could work with it. We could work with it.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure." I tried to inject some confidence into my voice. I mean, I was as sure as I could be. He was so little when I last saw him. "He has the same scar and the same mannerisms. It's hard to explain exactly, but I recognized him." I shrugged. Something about the way Eli carried himself spoke to me. A sense of rightness told me it was my brother, but I could be wrong. There was that niggling common sense of practicality or logic that told me that maybe some dickwad was playing me.

"And this Victor person? He's some old pal of your brother's?" Dimitri's eyes glittered black over the table, hard as onyx. "He's the one that killed those people? That's the story?"

"Yeah, some guy he knew, I guess. Eli said that when they hung out, he confided in him about how we grew up so it would fit. He said he'd try to stop him, but he specifically said that Victor was trying to return to his good graces." That was the weirdest part, and I could tell by the other looks that the other men shot each other that they agreed. "Eli said Kent was probably next on his list, which is where we could catch this dickweed."

"Ok, it's a bonus that we have advance information. I'm not sure we can trust it, but any information is good," Dimitri conceded. "There have been killing pairs. Let's say that there are two of them. They could be working together." I hadn't thought about that, but it could be a potential scenario. I had been thinking that it wasn't Eli at all but some random person. My brain was all over the place.

Maddox gave me a concerned look. "Dimitri isn't wrong. Maybe if there were two people, they would have gotten the information somehow from Eli. Maybe that isn't him at all." So, Maddox was thinking along the same lines as me. He said the quiet part out loud. I took a long drink of my beer as Nat's hand found mine and squeezed. "But, let's go on the assumption that it is," he continued. "That's what you think, right?"

"I'm not sure what to think. I'll be honest: both things are just as plausible as Eli or maybe more plausible, but …" I shrugged. "Fuck me if I know."

"Let's just say we go with this opportunity, and Kent is the next target. It would make sense, right? We could put surveillance on Kent," Dimitri offered, diverting the conversation away from the hypothetical and back to the practical. I could tell Dimitri was already running the scenarios through. Ultimately, I wanted the killings to stop — at least in Morinrock. I didn't give a fuck if these particular people were dead, but I didn't relish being the suspect or having them splayed out in town. I could skip all that. Dimitri spoke again, "This guy, Victor, he's been clever this whole time. No evidence has been found in the murders, right, Nat?"

"Right. He's been very thorough when leaving bodies about wiping evidence. Either that or the Morinrock PD is incompetent." Maddox snorted loud enough that I could hear. It wasn't a secret that they couldn't find their asshole with a whole roll of toilet paper. "Ronnie did suspect two people could be following Pike, and she will start looking for information on this Victor person. If anyone can find something, it'll be her. If we have a shot at catching him ahead of time at a site, then we need to grab hold of it." Nat was steely calm as she answered. Every day, she impressed me in some new way. My girl was no weeping violet.

"Surveillance is great. That was my thought. It'll have to be stealth, but I also have a tracker on Kent. I've had one there for years," I confessed. "I like to know where he is. He has allowed boundaries, but I get an alert when he leaves them." Dimitri looked at me with sudden interest.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I thought he killed my brother. I wasn't going to let that shit go," I spit out. My back teeth ground against each other. "He abused the fuck out of us." I wished I had a smoke, but for some dumb reason, I'd given it up. Instead, I rubbed the back of my neck, my skin crawling as I thought about the hell Eli had suffered after I'd been carted off to relative safety, numb with grief at the thought of my brother sinking beneath the waves, choking on the water.

"I'm impressed. That'll make it easier."

"Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't give a shit if someone killed Kent."

"We know that for fuck's sake," Maddox said. "Don't be dumb. God, I'm going to need another beer for this." He threw up a hand to signal someone at the bar. "Ok, so we have a tracker, but let's set up surveillance on this creep. Video, I guess. Do we know what this guy ‘Victor'," he threw up air quotes. "Looks like?"

"Nope, not yet. Maybe Ronnie will get a hit on Victor in the system. He could have been someone Eli met that way," Nat answered. We were hoping that Ronnie would pull through and give us an edge. A clue on the mysterious Victor would be awesome.

"Okay, well, sounds like an old-fashioned stakeout, I suppose." Dimitri sounded positively gleeful.

"Great, sounds so fun," Maddox rolled his eyes. "But yeah, we got you. You got everything we need to set this up, Dimitri?"

"Yeah, I do. Once that tracker shows he's gone tomorrow, we'll slide on in there and set it up. We'll need Enzo." Dimitri tipped his beer towards Natasha. "He's good at that shit."