TWO
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
—SINNER’S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL
“Axle’s gotta die.”
Zane “Tracker” Colton drew his weapon from beneath his cut, the leather vest worn by all outlaw bikers, in response to the words uttered from the shadows. His eyes fixed on the lean, dark-haired man across the street, the object of a hunt that had taken far too long and covered too many miles. Zane preferred silence in the moment before an attack—time to reflect and consider the ramifications of his actions—but Jagger had always been a yapper, and as president of the Conundrum Chapter of the Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club (MC), Jagger had the prerogative to yap even if his vice president disagreed.
“You got nothin’ to say?” Jagger dismounted his motorcycle and motioned for their biker brothers to do the same. “How long have we been chasing him? How many times did he slip through our fingers? You could show a little excitement that our MC will finally be avenged.”
“One year. Three escapes. And yeah, I’m fucking thrilled we’re finally gonna off the bastard who hurt your girl,” Zane replied. “But I keep it inside.”
Once a senior patch member of the Sinner’s Tribe MC, Axle had betrayed the club and threatened to kill Jagger’s old lady, the biker equivalent of a civilian wife. Even after the Sinners had forcibly removed Axle’s Sinner’s Tribe tattoo and left him for dead, Axle not only lived to tell the tale, but joined the Black Jacks, the Sinners’ biggest rival for outlaw biker dominance in the state of Montana.
“You keep everything inside,” Jagger said. “One day it’s all gonna become too much and you’ll explode. Man like you needs an outlet.”
Man like you needs to mind his own business.
If they’d been alone, Zane would have said the words that burned on the tip of his tongue. Friends since they were five years old, he and Jagger were brothers in all but name. But Jagger was president of one of the most powerful outlaw MCs in the state, and any public display of disrespect could erode his power base if it wasn’t immediately addressed. And right now, before a hit, the last thing Zane needed was a broken nose.
“Gimme thirty seconds with Axle and I’ll dance a fucking jig.” Zane nodded toward Big Bill’s Custom Motorcycles, Paint, and Artwork shop, still brightly lit and open for business, although the sun had almost set. “He’s inside now. Ready to move?”
Jagger signaled to the four Sinner brothers who had accompanied them on their road trip. Axle had too much information on the Sinners to be allowed to run free, especially now that he’d patched over to the Jacks.
Hunting him down hadn’t been easy, but Zane, a.k.a. Tracker, hadn’t earned his road name by letting weasels like Axle get away. They had followed him all over the state, ending up almost where they started, only one mile outside the border of the town of Conundrum, the base for the Sinner’s Tribe.
Zane crossed the street and took up a position to the left of the front door. Jagger joined him on the right. T-Rex, a junior patch member of the MC, blond and built like a linebacker, ran to cover the back door, and the remaining three Sinners took up guard positions in the near-empty parking lot.
“There’s a camera above the till and four civilians inside.” Gunner, the club’s sergeant-at-arms, peered through the window. As the tallest member of the MC, all brawn and bulk, he had the strength and level head to handle the job of keeping order in the club. “Two ladies … one very, very hot redhead and a tiny blonde with more piercings than I got girls begging for my attention,” he murmured. “There’s also a geeky guy with glasses, and a big older dude who I’m guessing is Big Bill.”
Damn. Zane hoped the girl wasn’t too hot. He had a weakness for redheads, and right now, he couldn’t afford any distractions. Not that he would do anything about it. He’d tried getting it on with a couple of redheads and every encounter ended in disaster. His mind would fill with visions of Evie—the girl he had loved and lost. And then he would remember their last night together and his gut-wrenching despair when her father, the town sheriff, found them together. And yet that pain was nothing compared to what came after.
He gave himself a mental shake. Memories of Evie were a distraction he couldn’t afford. Especially now, at the culmination of their hunt.
“Fuck.” Jagger lowered his weapon. “Too many witnesses. We’ll have to wait until he’s outside.”
“We don’t have time.” Zane pointed to the sea of headlights coming down the mountain pass. “Black Jacks. Same number of bikes we saw at the bar in Columbus last night. We need to get in and out before they arrive.”
“You and I’ll go in, grab him, and pull him outside,” Jagger said. “Gunner can deal with the civilians. T-Rex and the brothers can keep the Jacks distracted if they get here before we’re done. Keep your face clear of the camera.”
Jagger pulled a ball cap from inside his cut and tugged it low over his face. Zane followed suit, although with his dark hair just brushing his shoulders and his skin deeply tanned, he was more readily identifiable than his clean-cut friends. Sure, the cops would know from the cuts they wore that Axle had been offed by the Sinners—the Sinner patch, a skull with wings and stars, was emblazoned across the back of every cut. But if the authorities couldn’t make a positive ID, they’d be less inclined to come banging on the Sinner clubhouse door, especially now that the Sinners had a friend inside the Conundrum sheriff’s office.
Jagger pushed open the glass door and Zane followed him inside, skirting the rows of shiny new motorcycles dominating the shop floor and staying out of the direct line of the camera.
“Nobody move.” Zane raised his gun to Axle’s back and then caught the gaze of the redhead behind the counter.
In that moment, his thoughts crystallized and shattered.
All but one.
Evie.
Except for a new softness in her face, and a rounding of her curves, she looked exactly as she had the night he left Stanton. From her long, thick, red-gold hair, to her perfectly proportioned oval face, and the full sensuous lips he had dreamed about kissing night after night. Her delicate nose turned up slightly at the end, accentuating her softly angled cheekbones, and her lush body was meant to fill a man’s palms. Her eyes, now wide with fear and confusion, sparkled with the same emerald green. Her beauty hit him like a fist to the gut, stealing his breath and rendering him incapable of speech.
And unable to pull the trigger.
Unfortunately, Jagger appeared to be having the same reaction. Evie had been his friend, too. The three school friends had bonded over broken families, childhood disasters, and teenage woes until the night Jagger held a good-bye party and Zane ran away.
“Evie.” Jagger spoke first, recovering fast as yappers always did, using the nickname he and Zane had given her when they first met on the school playground.
She frowned, little creases forming between her brows. “My name is Evangeline.”
Jagger touched his cap as if to remove it, and Zane hissed a warning. “Camera.”
Her gaze snapped to him and Zane pulled his hat lower as nine years’ worth of longing turned into nine years of pain. After fleeing their hometown of Stanton, Montana, wanted for a murder he didn’t commit, he had gone back for Evie—albeit three years later—only to find her with a child and another man: Mark, the two-bit loser who had panted after her in high school. As he watched her with her new family in the school playground, where he’d first fallen in love, bit by bit and day by day, his heart hardened, and he promised himself he would never think of her again.
A promise he had yet to keep.
“It’s me.” Jagger turned his back to the camera at the till and lifted the visor of his cap.