Bear, page 3
“Who’s that?” Axle asked, startling him.
Bear followed his teammate’s line of sight and saw what looked to be a rental car pulling into the parking lot. “Good question.” He glanced at Roxie to make sure she wasn’t coming near the new arrival. Until they had a chance to assess the level of danger they were in, he didn’t want her around anybody who could pose a threat.
Gauge jogged over to the car, grinning as his brother Oz got out. Axle clapped Bear on the shoulder and caught up with Gauge to greet his former teammate, who had once led a task force that was the government’s first attempt of a blended group composed of federal agents, operatives, and military personnel. The pilot project code-named Orion had had too many people trying to call the shots, so the concept had never taken off. Their one and only assignment had been to protect Scott’s former nanny after Marco Collins had been arrested, but some of the higher ups had wanted to use her to draw out the notorious mafia hitman, The Shadow. The man they now knew as Thad Howes.
Bear and Roxie needed to have a long talk about that psychopath and the bombshell she’d dropped after the explosion, but until the local PD finished doing their thing, that conversation had to wait.
That failed Orion project had ultimately laid the foundation for the Bang Shift. Bear and his crew only worked with the feds when the government hired them to take out high-value targets they couldn’t be linked to, but that didn’t mean Bear’s group of mercenaries blindly trusted the system. Every one of them knew what it was like to be stabbed in the back by those who were supposed to be protecting. Some had even learned that lesson a long time ago. Bear sure had.
Now that Oz was here, Bear wasn’t sure if that complicated things or not. Oz knew the history of The Shadow, but he was also running unopposed for county sheriff. That could either be a good thing or a bad thing for them. Problem was, the Bang Shift didn’t know where his true loyalties fell at this point. Just because he was Gauge’s brother and Axle’s former teammate, and he’d personally hunted The Shadow, didn’t mean he’d skirt any red tape for them now if needed. Bear hoped Oz’s past desire to capture the elusive criminal would play in their favor because no way in Hell were they going to leave it up to the authorities, regardless of how they personally felt toward the very institution. Every branch of law enforcement had tried—and failed—to capture that man for well over a decade. After attacking the Bang Shift on their home turf, none of them would stop until that man was six feet under.
“Hate that we’re meeting again under these circumstances,” Oz said as he walked up to Bear. He stuck his hand out, and Bear shook it. “Anybody hurt?”
“Nope. Just pissed.”
“What happened?”
Bear’s gaze shot to Gauge. His teammate gave a slight shake of his head, indicating that he hadn’t said anything or that Oz hadn’t asked his brother first.
“Don’t really know, man,” Axle said. “There was an explosion in the fifth bay.”
Oz’s brow lowered. “A blowtorch get too close to a gas tank?”
“No one was back there,” Gauge said.
“What was?”
“We’re not sure, yet,” Bear said, keeping his voice even and his expression blank.
“That’s fucking bullshit,” Oz whispered heatedly. “I want to know right now what’s going on. I gotta know if there’s a threat to the other citizens in my county.”
“Not your county yet, brother,” Axle said matter-of-factly.
Oz shot him a steely stare. “Election’s less than a month. You really wanna play it like that?”
Axle lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “Just stating a fact. It’s not your jurisdiction until the people have spoken.”
Oz gritted his teeth and turned to Bear. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You want to pitch in or do a photo op for your constituents? ’Cause you can’t have it both ways. Not on this.”
“What the fuck is going on?” he asked, but this time there was no heat to his question.
“Seriously, man, we haven’t even had a chance to put our heads together. After the explosion, Blade called the rest of the team while Gauge called the law. Once y’all do your thing, we’re gonna try to figure it all out.”
Propping his hands on his hips, Oz glanced around. “Who’s that talking to your sister?”
“Just a local getting new tires,” Axle said.
“Nobody,” Bear barked at the same time. Blade immediately looked at Bear, and then walked over to join their group, followed by Roc.
Oz quirked an eyebrow as the group of guys converged. “I’m not the enemy here.”
Bear wasn’t so sure.
Oz shrugged. “I’ll need a statement from her.”
“Check back after you're sworn in,” Blade said with a smirk.
There was zero humor in Oz’s laugh. “She’s a witness.”
“To what? A gasket getting blown?” Roc asked with a careless shrug.
Oz looked at Roxie, and Bear automatically stepped to the side, blocking his view. His teammates shifted, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him.
“Maybe,” Oz said, his voice lowering. “Or maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and whoever was behind this plans on tying up loose ends.”
The Shadow had never bothered with witnesses before, but his connection to Roxie complicated things. If Howes wanted her dead, he could’ve just killed her a long time ago. Then again, they’d had that GT4 for months. What if he’d been waiting until she came into the shop to take her out along with the Bang Shift? Kill a bunch of birds with one seriously loud stone? But for that to make sense, the man would’ve had to know when she was going to be here. Her car wasn’t the greatest, but it wasn’t as if it was always in the shop. The only real problem she’d had over the last two years was with her tires…
The air slowly left Bear’s lungs as he considered all the flats they’d fixed for her. She’d gotten a fuck-ton of them. They were old and well past their prime, but now that he thought about it, she was either ridiculously skilled at running over every nail in a ten-mile radius, or someone was doing this to her tires.
Someone who wanted to slowly screw with her.
But why now? If it was all connected, Howes had known Roxie for at least nineteen years. Something must’ve set him off.
“She’s not a loose end,” Hunter said as he walked up. “Looks like a compressed gas cylinder fell under the hydraulic lift the GT4 was sitting on. I’m guessing when it lowered, that sucker popped.” Hunter glanced at Bear, the look telling him just how much Hunter was talking out of his ass.
“GT4?” Oz whistled. “Hope you have enough insurance to cover the damage made to that thing.”
“We got it covered,” Bear said. Money wasn’t the concern. Finding The Shadow was. The others hadn’t figured out Roxie was meant to be the at the shop this morning, and possibly the target. Bear needed to inform the others of this latest development and do whatever he could to keep Roxie safe, while also keeping the police from questioning her about what she knew.
An idea came to him about how he could accomplish both, but he knew it was one she was not going to like.
At fucking all.
Chapter Three
By the time the boys in blue began to leave, Roxie was ready to find that Bailey’s Xan mentioned this morning and drink it sans coffee.
“You hungry? We could go get something to eat,” Shelby said, nudging her shoulder.
“Or you could quit pretending you're staying glued to my side because of my sweet, southern personality.”
“Girl, no one would mistake you as sweet. How about tacos?”
Roxie rolled her eyes. “Seriously, you can stop babysitting me now. I don’t even know if my car was damaged. It’s not like I can drive away.”
Gah, she hadn’t really thought of that before now. She couldn’t even afford the tires the guys had hounded her about. How the hell could she come up with the money for a new car if hers was trashed?
“Oh, please. This is a tiny town. You could walk practically anywhere within thirty minutes if you were determined enough to pound pavement. Besides, I know I could use a margarita.”
Her friend definitely knew how to sweeten the pot, but Roxie shook her head. She needed answers before she went anywhere. Even though the shock of Thad’s car being here had started to wear off, she’d still like to know if he’d been into the shop or if he’d just shipped his car here because the garage was the best at restoring automobiles.
After the last police cruiser pulled out, Teddy raised his arm and crooked his finger, asking—no, ordering—Roxie and Shelby to follow them into the garage.
Roxie grunted as she rose from the patch of lawn she’d been sitting on and rubbed the pieces of grass sticking to her still damp pants before following Shelby.
As soon as she walked into the bay she’d pulled her car into, the tension in Roxie’s shoulders fled. Whatever damage had occurred from the explosion had been confined to one area, and her car looked to have been shielded from the blast. “Thank heavens.”
When a hand landed on her back, she jumped, though she knew that touch intimately.
“Sorry,” Teddy murmured. “We’re gonna be meeting in the conference room.”
“Oh, okay. Are the keys still in my car?” she asked, moving around to the driver’s side. “Yep. I’ll just get out of y’all’s hair, then.”
Teddy crossed his arms. “You misunderstood. You’re coming with us.”
Roxie opened her mouth, but no words came out. When she tried again, the only thing she uttered was, “Why?”
“We’ll get into that in the meeting. Let’s go.”
Roxie glanced at her car, wondering just how well the new tires would sound peeling out of here.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said, his voice a deep rumbling growl.
“Too late,” she muttered before shooing him away and following him as ordered. She should’ve taken Shelby up on that margarita offer when she’d had the chance.
Everyone had already gathered inside.
Blade patted the chair next to him. “C’mon, doll. You can sit by me.”
Teddy grumbled something under his breath, but Roxie smiled at Blade as she walked toward him. “Always the flirt. Where’s your fiancée?”
“She had a fitting in Little Rock this morning. She’s on her way back, now.”
“The wedding will be here before you know it.”
Blade’s playful smile turned into one that Roxie knew was more genuine. She was happy Blade and Anna had found their love. As she looked around the room, it was hard to believe that just a couple of years ago none of these people had been in relationships. Now, there were weddings, engagements, live-in relationships, and all kinds of romantic entanglements. All the hot men of the Bang Shift Garage were spoken for now. All except one, and she’d tried her best to claim that wild beast a long time ago.
Her best hadn’t been good enough.
Some days, she regretted ever letting him touch her that night. Other days, she fed off those memories to get her through some lonely evenings. Having sex with Teddy had been both a blessing and curse…but more of the latter and much less of the former. For a woman who hated focusing on regrets in life, it was an odd feeling to always fight.
“You know what we really do here,” Teddy started, drawing her attention to him. It was obvious the man wasn’t talking about tune-ups and wheel alignments.
“Is that a trick question? It didn’t sound like a question,” Roxie hedged. Just because she knew these men weren’t just mechanics, it didn’t mean she sat around talking to them about their other occupation. What she knew, she’d first learned from Xan, and then during some girls’ nights, where Anna, Shelby, Maya, or Heather had inadvertently filled in some blanks when they’d consumed just a bit too much liquor. As for the rest? Well, it didn’t take a genius to connect the bullet-created dots, especially when Roxie had gotten caught up in their messes a time or two. She’d never asked questions, though. Plausible deniability and all that shit. Since she hadn’t gotten her intel directly from any of the sources, she refused to get her friends in trouble for blabbing.
“Roxie…” Teddy warned.
“I mean, yeah. Y’all are a bunch of badasses who make things happen. So?”
“The explosion wasn’t a random accident.”
“Okay, if you need me to keep quiet, then mums the word.” She mimed zipping her lips and tossing the key. She had bigger problems to deal with anyway, like how she was going to deal with seeing Chad’s father again. Even though they’d never lived together as a family, he’d popped in every now and then, visit his son, and give her some money to help with expenses. He surely hadn’t won any awards for being best daddy, but then what little visits he’d made had come to an end. Last time she’d seen him was when Chad had been seven years old. The man had just up and disappeared. Why was he back now?
“You were here when it happened. As far as we know, whoever did this could’ve been watching,” Hunter said. “The last thing we need is for you to be on his radar.”
“Oh, she’s on his radar,” Teddy said, his gaze cutting to her. She frowned at him, not understanding. “Right after the explosion, Roxie told me Thad Howes is Chad’s father.”
“What the fuck?” Axle breathed.
Blade stiffened beside her.
“No way,” Gauge said, gaping at her.
“What?” she asked, looking around the room. “So you had his car here. Why do you care? I mean, maybe it’s not even his.” Even as she said the words, she knew it was crazy talk. GT4s were rare, and she remembered how happy Thad had been he’d gotten one in green.
“It was his,” Heather said. She was perched on Roc’s lap. “I double-checked the spelling of his last name in the scheduler.”
Blade turned to Roxie. “You and Chad need to go into hiding until we get this figured out.”
She almost choked on her spit. “Excuse me?” Now that the shock had worn off that Thad might be in town, she felt the way she always did about him—that he didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of her life…or Chad’s.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Axle said. “It’d buy us some time.”
She shook her head. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I ain’t goin’ anywhere except maybe to eat some tacos and drink a margarita or four.”
Shelby winked at her.
“There’s something going on here that I don’t think you fully understand,” Gauge said.
“Well then, it’s about time y’all enlightened me, don’t ya think?”
“There’s a hitman called The Shadow. He’s been eluding authorities for years. We’ve recently learned his real name is Thad Howes,” Blade said, and squeezed her shoulder as if to comfort her.
Roxie blinked at him…then she busted out laughing.
“This isn’t funny,” Teddy said.
When she finally caught her breath, she said between small bouts of chuckles, “I beg to differ. There is so much to unpack here, but…hitman? Yeah, okay. I could’ve told you my baby daddy doesn’t know how to shoot blanks.”
Shelby snorted. “At least your car isn’t the only thing that’s gotten pregnant around here.”
Still smiling, Roxie knitted her brow, not quite understanding where Shelby was going with that.
“Don’t,” Blade said with a smirk. “Not everyone gets your crude mechanic jokes.”
Shelby continued, “Because it was fucked long before you ever brought it in here.”
“Jesus, always the comedian. Can you be serious for one second?” Axle said to his sister as Roxie giggled again.
“She started it,” Shelby grumbled.
“Roxie, you have to be protected.” But the way Teddy looked at her felt as if there was more meaning behind his words than what he’d actually said.
“From Thad? I hate to break to you, honey, but the man’s known where I live for a long damn time. It’s not me who’s been doing the avoiding.”
Was that pity that just flashed in Teddy’s eyes? Roxie gritted her teeth, annoyed that the man’s initial reaction was sorrow and not something more caveman-like. Was it too much to ask that he be possessive of her instead?
“The man’s a killer.”
“Um, pot meet kettle. All y’all take money to off people. What makes him so different?”
“He works for the mafia.”
“Not gonna name names, but he ain’t the only one in this town with a connection to organized crime.” Do not look at Roc. Do not look at Roc.
“Regardless, it’s a good idea for you and Chad to lie low for a bit,” Blade said slowly, not even hiding the fact that he’d glanced at Roc.
“Let’s say I believe he’s a hitman for the mafia. How long have you known about him?”
“His name? Just a couple of months.”
“And how did you come across it?”
Teddy glanced around the room before looking at her again. “Luc Grasso.”
“The mafia dude that wants to bone Heather?” she asked incredulously.
Roc growled.
Heather gasped and bit her lip.
“So let me get this straight. A group of mercenaries wants to kill a killer because he kills the wrong kind of bad people, not the same type of baddies they kill, mind you. And they get this intel from a man who wants the girlfriend of one of the mercs, who could be taken out by said killer, freeing up the girl he obsesses about. Not to mention the fact that this group of contracted fighters also has more than one member with links to crime syndicates that could be considered rivals to this very generous man who shared this little nugget of information. Oh, and the name just so happens to be the same as Chad’s father’s name, a man who’s known exactly how to find me and my son but has chosen not to for the last eleven years. Did I miss anything?”
