“Kelly,” I gasp once, painfully, loudly.
He snatches my hand and pulls me to the far side of Jake’s car, away from the oncoming traffic. We reach the large barrier that blocks the Motorway from suburban homes and local roads. Standing between the cement wall and the passenger side of Jake’s car, Kelly takes my shoulders and glares. “You’re letting your mind run away from you, Mac. It’s likely just an empty tank and he’s hitched a ride to get fuel.”
My lungs ease a fraction at the sliver of hope Kelly offers. But when I look over his shoulder at the car, I see blood. A large smear of it decorates the headrest of the driver’s seat. Panic surges. “Oh no.” The words emerge as a breathy moan.
“What?” Kelly turns, following my line of sight. “Fuck.”
The ground tilts. I fall against Kelly, and he grapples with my sudden weight. He turns me around and pushes me up against the passenger door of the car, propping me upright. “What kind of trouble is Jake in?”
My head is fuzzy as I sort through every dangerous altercation we’ve been involved in recently, which is a lot when I take the time to think about it.
“Mac!” Kelly barks.
I shake my head. “None. There’s nothing I can think of.”
“There has to be something.”
“There isn’t.” Every situation we’ve been caught in hasn’t directly involved either of us. “Not since, well, not since that one time at The Bar when we were being shot at.”
“Who was shooting at you?”
“The King Street Boys.”
Kelly steps back, my response a shock. “Babe, fuck. That’s the biggest gang in Melbourne. What were they doin’ shootin’ at you?” Then his blue eyes flare with horror. “Oh shit.”
“What?”
“Jonah,” he breathes.
“Jonah?”
“Jake Romero is Jonah, isn’t he? I fuckin’ knew he looked familiar. He ran with Fox back in the day. He’s a member of the King Street Boys.”
“Was,” I correct.
“Is,” Kelly disputes with a harsh word. “Once you’re in, you’re never out. They own you.”
“You’re wrong. Jake got out. He’s out.”
Kelly shakes his head as he tugs his phone from his back pocket. “Babe, don’t like repeatin’ myself. Jake is not out,” he says as he dials. “He might think he is, but the King Street Boys never forget.”
Someone answers on the other end.
“Fox,” Kelly barks into the phone. “Need you.” He rattles off our approximate location without waiting for a response and hangs up.
“That’s your big plan? Luke Fox to the rescue?” I huff and stalk around to the driver’s side of Jake’s Charger. “What, do you think—” I break off as I bend, looking again through the car window. The keys. They’re right there, dangling in the ignition. I straighten quickly, looking at Kelly over the roof of the car. “You think Fox might have some idea of where Jake is?”
Kelly’s massive hands come to rest on his hips. He has his mean face on, the kind designed to scare the big bad bogeyman in the dead of night. “Oh, he’ll know.”
“So why does he have to come all the way here? Ask him now.” My voice rises from frustration when Kelly starts shaking his head. If I can just get an idea of where he is, I can get in Jake’s car and drive there right now. “Just get Luke back on the phone and fucking ask him, you fucking asshead!”
“Cool it, Yosemite Sam,” he says and my eyes narrow. “You do realise you’re pregnant, don’t you?” It’s all I can do not to rip the side mirror from Jake’s precious car and peg it at Kelly’s head. “That thing can hear every word you say.”
“Thing?” My voice is a shriek and his brow lifts. “Thing? I’m not giving birth to an alien!”
He has the audacity to appear dubious. “I’ll guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
My hands curl around the side mirror. “Just call Fox,” I command with gritted teeth. “Now.”
“Babe,” he begins.
My eyes narrow.
“Fuck’s sake,” he mutters with an eye roll. “Fox is going to tell me where Jake is and then he’s going to take you home.”
My instinct is to protest with a tantrum so wild you could see it from space, but I lock it down, eyes flicking to the dangling keys in the Charger. I look up quickly, meeting Kelly’s piercing blue gaze as I find my calm. “You’re right,” I concede. “I’ll go with Luke. I need to think of the baby.”
He nods as if there’s no doubt he was ever wrong. Conceited tool. If he knew me as well as everyone else did, he wouldn’t believe a word I just said. But he doesn’t. More fool him.
“Come stand over here,” he orders, nodding beside him. Traffic is starting to build on the motorway but it’s still light. It’s Sunday. The usual early morning commuters are fast asleep, appreciating another day off, while I stand here on the roadside, tired, frustrated, scared, and about as pregnant as a girl can get.
It grates to do what Kelly says, but I do it. I might not know him all that well but if he’s anything like Casey, he’ll likely come over and drag me back where it’s safer. And if he does that he’ll see the keys and take them and that can’t happen.
Kelly is leaning against the concrete barrier, eyes cold and focused toward the oncoming traffic. I can literally see his mind ticking over. I reach his side and follow suit, leaning against the same barrier beside him and fold my arms. “The King Street Boys have him.”
It’s more a statement than a question, yet he answers regardless. “Yes.”
“What are they going to do to him?” I don’t want to know the answer, but it’s a question that needs to be asked. I need to be prepared. To know what I’ll be walking into.
“If he refuses to go back? They’ll kill him.”
Jake won’t go back. I know him better than anyone. He would rather die. “We’re wasting time. Standing around waiting isn’t helping him.”
“Wrong. It’s keeping you safe. And right now that’s what Jake would want above all else.”
Damn the man. He’s just like his brother.
Ten minutes later, Luke comes thundering down the motorway. The rumble of his engine roars to a crescendo as he pulls over, directly behind Kelly’s bike. He yanks out his keys, pockets them, and rips the helmet from his head, revealing mussed hair and grim eyes. “I already know,” he says before either of us can say a word.
“Leander?”
Luke’s answer is a harsh nod.
“Where is he?” Kelly barks.
With them both distracted, I start inching back to the Charger, my ears cocked for the location as my booted feet fall slowly on loose gravel.
“Somewhere along the Dockside Wharf,” he answers as I reach the car door. Almost there.
“You need to take Mac—” Kelly breaks off. He’s seen me. “What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?”
“I’m—”
“No.”
“You can’t—”
His arms fold across a chest as vast and as rippled as the ocean. “I can.”
“Screw you,” I hiss and grab for the handle. I’m inside with the engine growling to life before he can get around the back of the car. The car tears off on to the road before I even pull the door shut. Gravel and dust flick out behind me. The back tyres spin under the wild acceleration and rubber burns, leaving behind a cloud of smoke that envelops both Kelly and Luke. It clears in a heartbeat as I slam the car door closed and risk a glance in the rearview mirror. They’re not wasting time; both are already swinging legs over their Harleys.
I plant my foot, eyes searching for the next upcoming exit. The Dockside Wharf is back in Sydney. I need to get off this motorway and re-enter on the other side, heading north.
MITCH VALENTINE
I tug the radio from the loop in my belt and speak into it with a low voice. “Is everyone in position?”
I’m crouched behind a rusted blue shipping container, a bullet-proof vest strapped tigh
t to my torso and black Ray-Bans in place to cover my eyes from the early morning glare. The sun is beginning its ascent and casts a warm orange and pink glow across the horizon. I notice none of it as I scan the building layout in my hand one last time, mentally checking off each team’s position as they report in.
Once done, I fold the sheet of paper and tuck it into the back pocket of my jeans. Nerves stretched taut with tension, I raise the radio to my lips, ready to give the go head when the growl of an engine rips through the eerie stillness. I cock my ears. The noise isn’t that of passing traffic. Instead, it’s getting closer until the thunderous roar is all I can hear.
“Goddammit,” I bark tersely and get on the radio. “Hold position.”
This sting is the biggest operation Sydney City Police have undertaken in years and one fool’s inattention at the Dockside gates has the potential to bring the whole thing crashing down around our ears. I’ll have their badge for this.
Leading this operation is a huge break for me. Teams from both the homicide and narcotics division have joined forces to put these criminals out of action for good, and I’m the one in charge. After almost two years of covert intelligence and undercover work to build evidence on every known member, this will be the biggest notch on my belt as detective for the Sydney LLC.
Fury grinds my jaw as I palm my gun and shift to the corner of the shipping container. I peer around the side and every drop of blood in my body turns to ice.
Dust kicks up as the Dodge Charger slides to a halt at the warehouse entrance, my goddamn little sister at the wheel. She looks like Fright Night dressed all in black with dark liner smeared beneath her eyes.
“Mitch,” comes the voice of Tate Donavon from behind me. Tate is my partner, has been since the beginning, but I’ve got lead on this operation and despite him doing his best to keep his resentment under wraps, it emanates from his skin with tense body language and terse words. “I’ve got Kelly Daniels on the line.”
I speak without taking my eyes from Mackenzie ‘Death Wish’ Valentine. “I don’t have time for girly catch-ups right now.”
“He says it’s urgent. To do with Mac.”
I snatch my phone from his hand. “Speak.”
Kelly doesn’t waste time. “Mac is coming your way.”
How he knows Mac was headed this way, or that he even knows my current location, is beyond me right now, but there’s no time for questions. “No shit, Sherlock,” I snarl, my fingers tightening on the phone. “We’re at Dockside Wharf and I’m staring right at her, so your warning can go suck a bag of dicks.”
“Go get fucked, Valentine.”
“I don’t have time to trade petty insults. Casey was supposed to have her on lockdown at the party.”
“He did but Grace was sick so he uh …”
“He uh what?”
“He passed that particular duty to me before they went to bed so he could take care of his woman.”
Fuck. My. Life. “Really?” My voice is so snide my eyes water. “Then you’re fired.”
“That slippery bitch was hell-bent on chasing down Jake and tried to steal my fuckin’ Harley,” Kelly cries into the phone as if his whole world had almost ended. “And that’s not all of it. I have worse news and even shittier news,” he goes on to mutter unhappily.
“What?”
“She knows the King Street Boys have him. That’s why she’s there.”
My fist curls so tight around the phone I hear the device crack. “How does she know that?” I hiss, furious. We know they have him. He agreed to be bait in return for immunity against past crimes. We have the entire Dockside surrounded right this second, and my little sister is about to get caught in the crossfire.
This means Operation Strike is about to go down in a blaze of career-ending flames. “What’s the shittier news?” I dare to ask, wondering how it can possibly get worse than this.
“Luke and Jake were tight. Like brothers,” he says, imparting useless information that I already know. “Luke knows they have him because his older brother Leander knows. And you know what that means.”
It takes less than a second to connect the dots. “Bingo,” I mutter, referring to the leader of the Sentinels.
“Not just Bingo. The whole fuckin’ MC is coming. They’re armed and they’re fuckin’ riled.”
My eyes drift close for one single, heart-pounding moment. I’ve got the King Street Boys on one side, the Sentinels bearing down on the other, and half of the Sydney police force bunkered down in wait. War is coming and it’s going to be a bloody shit show.
My eyes fly open, lighting on Mac as she pushes open the driver’s side door of the beautiful Dodge Charger. “Tell the Sentinels to stand down!”
Kelly’s voice is grim. “It’s too late for that.”
There’s nothing left to say. I hang up the phone and tuck it in my back pocket.
“Valentine,” comes the voice of Tate from behind me again. I turn my head. He’s holding out his radio. My own has been buzzing while on the phone. “It’s Inspector Burns.”
Inspector Keith Burns. My boss.
“I don’t have time for another conversation. I need to get my sister out of there.”
“That’s the thing,” he butts in urgently. “You can’t.”
“What do you mean I can’t,” I bark, snatching the radio. I speak into it as Mac puts one booted foot on the ground. Then the other. She does it with purpose, her chest rising as she breathes in and stands. “Burns.”
“You need to let her go,” he orders me. “Snatching her out in the open will blow your cover and years’ worth of work.”
“Sir,” I hiss, my voice low, my rage unleashing as Mac steps forward and swings the car door closed behind her. How in the hell did she get her hands on Jake’s car? We knew the King Street Boys were following him. He was supposed to pull over, pocket the keys, and lift the hood as if suffering engine trouble. Intel told us they planned on snatching him last night, right before a huge shipment of drugs was due to arrive in the docks this morning. Our plan had been to give them the best opportunity possible to do so, helping us narrow down their exact location, and then lay in wait.
We have this operation fine-tuned to the minutest detail, including Plan B’s for every possible scenario. Except we aren’t prepared for Mackenzie Valentine and a goddamn war. “That is my little sister out there.”
“It’s too late, Mitch. You have to let her go. She can handle herself.”
“Sir—”
“Let. Her. Go.”
“I can’t let her walk in there!”
“Goddammit, Valentine!” he shouts, setting my eardrums ringing. “I’m not asking you. That’s a goddamn order, and if you defy me I’ll demote you to traffic duty for rest of your godforsaken career!”
I ignore his threat. My sister’s life is bigger than this. “The Sentinels are bearing down.”
“What the!” he shouts. “How far out are they?”
KELLY DANIELS
Mitch is beyond pissed, and I can’t blame him. We know about their Operation Strike. We’ve known for months. And we honest to god planned to stay out of it. We’ve been wanting to put the King Street Boys out of action for years, but having the Sydney police do it for us is just the cherry on our cupcake. Except they got Jake involved. And now Mac. And that is not okay.
Mitch hangs up on me. I shove my phone into the pocket of my jeans and look sideways to Luke. We’re stopped at a red light, both of us seated on our bikes and helmets in our laps. “She’s already there.”
His curse is loud and pained. “Fuck!”
The crescendo of what sounds like a thousand Harleys roar from behind us. We both turn. The Sentinels, my brothers in arms, are building. Bikes are coming in from the left and right to form a giant convoy of retribution as they thunder down the street toward us.
I get on the phone for one last, quick phone call.
Casey answers with “What the hell is going on?”
“War,
” I answer, my voice terse. “And Mac is caught right in the middle of it.”
TRAVIS VALENTINE
I wake to the buzzing ringtone of my phone, and our giant Rhodesian Ridgeback, Rufus, licking my face. “What the …” I push him away with a sluggish hand. He returns. “Stop it.”
“It’s because you’ve got a chocolate handprint on your cheek,” Quinn mumbles from beside me, her face smushed into the pillow.
“How the—”
“Sam,” she answers before I can even finish the question, referring to our foster son. He should be tucked up in bed at this early hour but with consciousness now thrust upon me, I can hear cartoons from the living room. He’s up and clearly has the blessed sense not to come in and wake us. God, I love that kid.
I swipe a hand across my cheek. It comes away with smears of chocolate and dog slobber. “Oh gross.”
“Don’t you dare,” Quinn warns as I go to wipe my palm across the sheets. Her face remains smushed into the pillow.
“How did you even—”
“Because I’m a mother now. We see everything.”
My phone blares on as Rufus comes at me again, tongue lolling and big eyes wounded because I’m repeatedly shoving him away. Chocolate is bad for dogs, right? But he’s hardly going to drop dead at my feet after a few licks. I eye him carefully, holding his massive head back as that giant tongue comes for my face. He doesn’t look ill.
Quinn rolls over, her big brown eyes blinking open, cheeks flushed a deep pink, and the imprint of our bedsheets lining half her face. Her white-blonde hair is a fluffy cloud of fairy floss around her head after she curled it for the party last night with something that resembled a giant stainless steel dildo.
“Are you gonna get that?” she mumbles.
“Ugh.” My eyes slide to the mammoth clock on the wall. It’s a round marble affair that required both Casey and I to lift in place. It’s secured with serious bolts, but I still eye it every morning with trepidation. The little hand points to the five and the big hand is on the twelve. Who the hell is calling me at five a.m.? On a Sunday no less. My one sleep-in of the week.