RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (best books for students to read txt) 📗

Now, here she was, in the same room as me, just a few feet from me.

But there were more than a few things standing between us.

Nolan was just one of them.

“Freeman’s a half mile down the road with a small army ready and waiting,” I told her, hating that it had to be one of my first sentences to her. I didn’t want to talk about any of this. I didn’t want anything between us and this reunion, between my want and need for her. But we weren’t out of the woods yet, nowhere near to being free and clear, so shit like that weren’t luxuries we had available to us.

“I know.” She maneuvered herself to glance at her watch, while ensuring she didn’t take her hands off Nolan. “Twelve minutes until I need to make contact again.”

“Fuck,” I muttered.

She grinned. “Just couldn’t stay in the shade, could you?”

“Well, we didn’t know Nolan was tied to what you’ve got going on with Freeman. You could’ve been more specific. We thought they were separate entities again, the safehouse hit being the end of their partnership.”

“So did I,” Nolan ground out.

“Shut it,” Willa snarled, grinding the muzzle of her gun into the back of his skull.

Jeez, she weren’t making my hard-on no easier to handle.

“How did you get past him and his guys?” she asked.

“I can be stealth when I need to be.”

“Especially when he’s got me at his back,” Mason spoke for the first time, coming up on my side and making himself known. He’d been hanging back, flanking me, and watching my back. But now we knew the Nolan situation was already contained inside, there was no need.

Willa’s eyes flicked over him, taking him in, recognition there. “Mason,” she greeted.

“Shadow,” he returned with a half-smile. That was as much emotion as he’d let himself show when he was on mission. He gestured at Nolan. “I’m assuming there’s a reason he’s still breathing?” he commented, perceptively.

“I need intel.”

“Intel?” I asked.

She sighed. “This situation is bigger than either of us believed.” She went to go on, to explain, but I saw her hesitation with Nolan being right there listening.

I snapped my fingers at Mason. “Brother.”

“Yeah,” he said, knowing me well enough to get it without me needing to spell it out.

As he strode over toward them, Willa eyed me in question. I gave her a chin lift to let her know it was all good, to trust me. She nodded and released Nolan, allowing Mason to take over with subduing the asshole.

I crooked my finger and she came my way.

I felt her at my back, as she followed me out of the bedroom, into the hallway outside.

Her closeness.

Her heat.

Fuck, my body was lit up with hundreds of livewires firing out of control.

When we’d made it far enough away out of earshot, I turned.

She was right in my space.

Before I could even draw in my next breath, she was throwing her arms around me.

“Oh my God!” she breathed against my chest, clutching me so tight to her. “I’d hoped. I’d hoped so hard, but I wasn’t sure that you were… I can’t believe you’re here. Slade, I… you’re here.”

I wrapped her up in my arms. “I know, darlin’. I know.”

I breathed her in, felt her, reveled in her. I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want any space between us, emotionally or physically. But we had no choice. This shit had to end first.

Forcing myself to pull away, I stepped back to put some distance between us. I took a beat, then scrubbed my hand over my jaw and got down to it, asking, “What’s going on? Rick said you’re working Freeman. Why? What’s he got on you?” I knew she wasn’t somebody who’d remain a prisoner for long. She had her ways. It meant something big was going on, something she needed to stall for, to play along for.

The sober look in her eyes had me tensing. “You,” she revealed. “You and your club, your town.”

“What?”

“That militia of his is bigger than I thought. He has a whole other unit on standby. If he doesn’t believe I’m working with him, he’ll attack Warlow and massacre your club and every single person living there, including innocents.”

I shifted my weight, trying to take in that fucked-up threat. “What does he want from you?”

“He wants me to partner with him and use my extensive network of contacts to facilitate the building of a ridiculously ambitious empire he’s intent on forming. The Strikers Rising thing was a ruse. He has no interest in forming a new motorcycle club. His plans are much bigger and deadlier than that.”

“Jesus.”

“I need to get intel on the commander leading this second unit he’s got waiting in the wings. Right now they’re doing recon on an arms dealer, and Freeman intends to unleash them upon him to force his hand into giving Freeman a piece of the black market pie. If he achieves this, he’ll become far too powerful, and far too quickly for us to stop. If I can reach the commander, I can stop it from happening, and stop them from then being redirected to come at Warlow and Titans.”

“Who’s this arms dealer?”

“Tony Rockford. I’ve heard of him, but I don’t have any leverage over him, or any specific details to act on.”

To say the name rang a bell was an understatement. “I do.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “You have an in with Tony Rockford?”

“One of my brothers does.”

Her eyes lit up. “Excellent. Have your brother contact Rockford, tell him just enough of what’s going on to make it clear that he’ll need your cooperation to stave off Freeman’s campaign. That way you can use him to get intel on that commander, or maybe even apprehend him. Together you can stave off Freeman’s plans to wipe both his business and Warlow out.”

“We.”

She eyed me in question. “What?”

“You keep saying ‘you’. We’re together on this.”

“I can’t. I have to stay with Freeman.”

“No fucking way is that happening.”

“Slade, I—”

I grasped her