Chapter 15: Never Asked

Bronco wrenched the phone out of Misty's hand and read the screen.

"Who is this?" he said. "Who did you send it to?"

Misty did not answer.

He backhanded her across the face, and she hit the floor by the stove.

I was on my feet before I knew I had moved.

The whiskey bottle sat in front of me, still half full.

I swung it with both hands and broke it across the side of his head.

Bronco staggered and dropped the phone.

He roared and caught my jacket, and we crashed into the table together.

The chain skittered across the boards.

I clawed it into my fist.

He got his knee on my ribs and his hand around my jaw.

"You lying bitch," he said. "Both of you, I'll put you in the ground next to her."

The door banged open.

The prospect with the shotgun came in, and the others came behind him.

"Boss?"

"Grab her!"

Then every light in the cabin went out.

The dark was total, and in the middle of it I heard a sound I had never heard from the road captain of the Iron Saints.

It was a bellow.

The back door came off its hinges, and something very big hit the prospect with the shotgun and took him into the wall.

The gun went off into the ceiling.

Bits of plaster rained on my face.

I kicked up with both boots and caught Bronco in the stomach, and his weight left me.

I rolled and got up.

"Misty!" I yelled. "The urn! The mantel!"

"I've got it!"

A beam of light cut across the room from a prospect's flashlight.

It showed Ronan with his shirt torn and a fresh cut over his eye, holding a man up by the throat with one hand.

He put the man's head into the doorframe.

The man slid down and stayed there.

"Roz," Ronan said.

"Here."

"Go!"

Bronco was on his knees by the stove, groping for the shotgun.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Chased by the Biker Shadow from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.