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“Chicago,in one place too long usually means problems for me”
“Why are you back?”
“Figured I’d been gone long enough I wanted to come home for a while”
“Missing family?”
Rick snorted and took a drink of beer “I think we both know better than that We don’t have family Except each other”
Bo tipped the top of his beer to Rick’s “A families is e had But we did have each other Hey I’ time You kno it is”
“I know” When you got arrested you were on your own If you disappeared, the gang figured you were either in jail or dead No one bothered to check up on you You were fa If you left, you were history End of story
“So are you back for good?”
“Maybe”
“Interested in rejoining the club?”
“Maybe”
Bo nodded “So that means yes”
Rick smiled over the rim of the beer bottle “Maybe”
Bo laughed “You’re such a dick I’ll have my people check you out Make sure you’ve been where you say you’ve been Not that I don’t trust you”
“But nobody gets into the Hellraisers—or back in—without being investigated I know” And that’s why Grange had set up a phony background for hio and the prison record he’d just told Bo about If there was one thing the Hellraisers loved, it was a badass with a reputation And Rick wanted to make sure he had the rep to ease back in Which was probably why Senator Vargas was pissing hi Not exactly a club filled with choirboys If Rick had a daughter riding with the Hellraisers, he wouldn’t be too happy about it, either Not that he was ever going to get married and have a kid But if he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t allow her to run with a group like this
“In the round check should only take a day or so If you want back in, that is”
“I ht What are the Hellraisers into these days?”
“Mostly trouble”
Rick laughed “Just et back in the gang again, especially with Bo at the helh to her to figure out her angle
Ava Vargas stared at herself in the mirror of her bedroom
“I don’t think leather is a good look forherself decked head to toe in leather jacket, chaps, and boots
“Are you kidding? You’re hot” Lacey came into the bedroom and studied Ava, then shook her head “I’d kill for boobs like yours”
“These things are what I’ht?” She plucked at the clingy spandex that seemed to want to ns on the Vegas Strip Her breasts were large enough She didn’t need to advertise their existence
“All the girls wear their tops like that Trust ht in”
That’s what Ava was going for, wasn’t it? To fit into this biker gang that her best friend Lacey had immersed herself in for the past year The one that had ripped Lacey away froed her best friend’s life, her personality, everything
A year ago, Lacey had been a graduate student She and Ava had done everything together But then Lacey had met a biker and had all but disappeared from Ava’s life Lacey had quit school and beco with her boyfriend Even worse than that, she’d become a slacker, and that wasn’t Lacey at all
And Ava would know, because she and Lacey had been friends since kindergarten They knew everything about each other They’d been in each other’s classes all through school, and rooraduate degrees, they’d shared an apartrees And that’s when Ava had lost Lacey to the biker world
Ava had completed herback to school, saying she was “over it”
There was so some kind of cult? And had Lacey drank the Kool-Aid? With Lacey so out of touch and unwilling to co poetic about the new guy in her life and singing the praises of life riding on the back of a Harley, Ava figured the only way to find out as going on in Lacey’s life was to join it
So she’d started hanging out at the biker joints over the past couple months—especially since it was the only way she could spend time with Lacey She’d meet her at bars and clubs that catered to the bikers She didn’t see anything unusual going on there, other than beer, pool, seneral mayhem Still, Ava wasn’t convinced Because the Lacey she saw there was sodifferent from the one she’d always known
She had towere froht now, Ava just wasn’t certain that was the case She was a little suspicious of Lacey’s boyfriend, because as soon as Lacey had started up with this gang, she had packed up andAva that life in the biker gang was nomadic and it didn’t seeested Ava find another roo ties just like that
And that wasn’t like Lacey at all Lacey arm, family-oriented, and friendly They’d been thick as thieves since childhood
Ava didn’t want another roommate She didn’t need one, could certainly afford the place on her own
She wanted her old friend back Or at least she needed to know that Lacey was okay, that the decisions she made were her own Because whenever she saw Lacey—infrequently as that was—there was just so in her eyes