Tony eased onto a bar stool in front of the counter, rubbing at his neck. “Bo, I get it. You gotta protect your trail. But it had to be Ray. Red told me he was sniffing around that day.” Swinging to look at Dakota, he added, “And speaking of Red, she wants you to call her. We need you at the studio.”
Dakota deflated, smoothing her palm over the countertop. “I just don’t know right now.”
Bo crossed his arms, leaning against the countertop. “When’d you get in?”
“Yesterday. Saw Red, checked in at the studio.” He received a mug of coffee from Dakota, blowing on the steaming liquid. “Didn’t tell anyone I’d be coming here, though. Red still doesn’t know you’re here.”
Bo nodded, some of the tight anxiety in his gut uncoiling slowly.
“How the hell did you know to come here, then?” Dakota sounded incredulous. “What are you, psychic?”
Bo grinned. It would be fun to have her around, for longer than this extended sleepover. “I texted him. Told him where to find me.”
She sipped at her coffee, narrowing her eyes at the two of them over the mug. “So now what?”
“Club’s still under a lot of heat,” Bo said. “You better not say a damn word about showing up here, Tony.”
Tony shook his head. “I’m not stupid, Bo.”
Bo squeezed his shoulder then headed for the bathroom. After a quick piss, he came out to find Dakota and Tony relocated to the couch in the living room, sipping on coffee. He sat on the armrest next to Dakota, eyes riveted to her creamy ankles resting on the coffee table.
“I’m not gonna stay long,” Tony said, setting his mug down. He stood and stretched, heading for the wall facing the parking lot. “I’ve got a lot of shit to catch up on at the studio. Gets harder to waste three days in jail when you’re my age.” He laughed, peering out between the blinds, letting in a few shafts of sunlight.
“Would help if you didn’t get locked up, old man.” Bo laughed, but it died when he caught the low hum of approaching motorcycles. His body was like a radar for other hogs, and he quieted to get a sense for where they were, if they were approaching.
“Bo, you sh—“ Tony started, but was interrupted by the rapid-fire tsst-tsst-tsst of bullets, a fine spray pelleting the face of the apartment. Tony let out a strangled yell.
Glass burst and metal shrapnel whizzed overhead. Bo leapt, covering Dakota with his body, pulling her to the floor. Dakota screamed into his chest, clutching on to him. He forced a barrel-roll into the coffee table.
The gunfire stopped and motorcycles roared, growing more distant. Bo lifted his head a moment later, Dakota shivering in his arms. He looked around cautiously, hesitant to confirm his worst suspicion.
Tony’s body lay lifeless in front of the window. Bo scrambled to standing, approaching cautiously, finding his friend’s body riddled with bullets.
Dakota breathed heavily behind him. “Is he okay?”
Bo balled his fists, turning slowly toward her. Something gnawed at him, a sharp pain in his side. He might have gotten shot, but the adrenaline was so high he couldn’t truly tell yet. “Babe…he’s gone.”
Dakota hiccupped, and then a sob escaped her. She brought her knees to her chest and cried, looking more lost than he’d ever seen her. “What the fuck, Bo? What the fuck?”
Bo swallowed a knot of emotion, looking around the apartment. “We gotta go.”
She shook her head. “No. Where are we supposed to go? We can’t just leave him here.”
“Babe. We gotta go.” He hurried toward the far wall, where he’d been stashing his stuff in a corner. As he walked, the pain spread through his hip. He looked down, his dark shorts an odd shade of black. He winced, but there was no time to tend to it now.
Their hideout was discovered. It was time to hit the road.
Dakota curled into a tight ball, staring at Tony’s lifeless body. “We can’t leave him.”
Bo threw as much of his shit as possible into the backpack, stepping into a pair of loose, dark jeans. The workout shorts stuffed inside were uncomfortable, but maybe the extra pressure would help whatever injury he’d sustained. “Come on. Pack something and let’s go.”
She sniffled, running her arm over her eyes. “Bo, this is too fucked up. Where are we gonna go? Right into where they’re waiting for you, and will kill you? Come the fuck on.”
“We’re going to the clubhouse.” It was the only option, the only place he could go after this. “You’re not safe here either, now. So you gotta come with me. Please, Dakota.”
She shook her head, a new round of sobs emerging. “I can’t.”
He ran to kneel in front of her, grabbing her by the shoulders. “I’m not leaving you here. You’re not safe here anymore. You have to come with me.”
Her watery eyes appraised him, and after a moment she nodded, so imperceptibly he thought he’d imagined it. He helped her to her feet. “Pack whatever you can. Fill a bag. But hurry.”
She shuffled off into the bedroom, hands fisted in her hair. He heard her rummaging around in there while he frantically grabbed the last few things he could think of needing—his new toothbrush, some avocados from the fridge—and then slipped his gun into the waist of his jeans. He winced, pain shooting through him. He looked down at his waist band and saw a tiny bloodstain at the side of his waist.
“Fuck.” He shrugged a loose t-shirt on, followed by his leather jacket. He poked his head into her bedroom. She’d just tugged a loose shirt on over dark leggings. A backpack lay mostly empty on top of the bed.
“What can I help you pack?”
She nodded toward the bathroom. “Go grab my stuff from in there.”
He raced into the bathroom, grabbing as many toiletries as he could, and came back, stuffing them into the backpack. She had shoved a few more items in there, and after a bit more hunting, she zipped the bag up.
He grabbed her hand, guiding her into the kitchen. “Any valuables you need to take or hide?”
She laughed bitterly. “None to speak of.”
He slung his own backpack over his shoulder and headed for the door, pausing to look over at Tony. He grimaced, pulling Dakota close.
“I can’t believe he’s dead,” she whispered, tears clogging her voice.
Bo kissed the top of her head. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.” They headed out of the apartment, locking the door behind them, and then thudded through the hall toward the parking lot. Bo beelined for the motorcycle, which he’d hid in a thicket of tall bushes near the building. He wheeled it out slowly, his breath growing more labored the more he exerted himself.
Once the bike faced the parking lot, he slung a leg over, making the Harley roar to life. He helped Dakota stow their bags into the back bag of the bike, and then she hopped on, cinching her arms tight around his waist. Pain zipped through him, stealing his breath. Something was seriously wrong—but now was not the time to look into it.
“Not so tight, darlin’,” he gasped, patting her hands. She loosened her grip and he took a shaky breath, focusing on a dull patch of the asphalt parking lot. Had to get his bearings before they zoomed off. Make the pounding in his head lessen even just a little bit.
“Come on,” she said after a minute.
“I’m going.” He popped the kick-stand and revved the bike. They lurched into motion, the whoosh of air helping to clear his mind. After a minute the pain dulled to distant throb. He’d been hit, no doubt, by one of those bullets. Maybe just a glaze, or maybe something way deeper. There was no way to tell without really examining the wound, and seeing down into your own hip was hard. He’d been shot enough to know that most bullet wounds felt the same.
He eased onto the side street leading to Dakota’s apartment, then stopped to wait for a right turn onto the main thoroughfare. NO bikes around, no tail…they were in the clear, for now at least. No doubt those guys had tailed Tony, quietly and secretly, and gunned the place down just to make a point. If they’d really known Bo was inside, they would have stormed the place and taken him for dead. But this attack seemed more like dick-swinging; a statement that would make its way back to Bo, one way or the other.
They weren’t done hunting him.
***
Dakota pressed the side of her face against Bo’s back, tears brushed away as soon as they touched the wind whipping around them. Anger roiled alongside confusion, and the roar of the motorcycle only stoked her further.
Where the fuck are you even going? What is happening?
The thoughts rolled like a marquee through her head. The boulevards and traffic around her were a distant blur as she fought to process what she’d just witnessed. A drive-by shooting. The words alone made shivers run through her, despite the dry heat.
Bo slowed to a stop at a red light, dropping his feet to the road. He turned to look at her. “You doin’ okay?”
“No, I’m not doin’ okay,” she spat, the venom and mocking in her tone surprising even her. Leave her to stew on the back of a bike for ten minutes after a murder and things got ugly. “What the fuck kind of life do you lead, anyway?”
He deflated a little, but otherwise didn’t react. “This shit isn’t normal. I told you, they’re hunting me.”
“Yeah, and at what cost? Innocent people like Tony?” She scoffed, unwrapping her arms from him, not wanting to even touch him. “Why don’t you just turn yourself in?”
He didn’t turn to face her but the air grew tense around him, like the air before a thunderstorm. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, I know perfectly well.” She crossed her arms defiantly. “You’re a fugitive, and my life has turned to shit since you showed up.”
The Harley roared forward and she grabbed onto him instinctively, tightening her arms around his waist. He’d taken off extra fast, maybe because he was pissed. He shifted beneath her, but she remembered a moment too late that he’d asked her not to hang on so tight.
Bo swerved a little in the upcoming traffic, a maneuver that made her breath draw tight into her throat. He straightened but then drifted to the right, heading for the curb. She furrowed a brow, wondering what this new style of navigation was, until she realized he wasn’t in control.
The front tire of the bike bumped the curb, grinding metal against cement until the wheel caught the lip and launched over the side of the road. She opened her mouth to scream but it happened too fast for anything to come out—a flash of green, the crunch of metal, the heavy fist of fear in her chest that preceded the sickening crunch into a tree on the side of the road.
Dakota flew from the bike, sailing onto the slick grass like she’d been ejected from a roller coaster. She landed hard, the breath escaping her, pinching her eyes shut for a long time before she felt brave enough to open them.
She groaned a little, testing her limbs, finding everything okay. She opened one eye, then another—no bones jutting through skin. No ribs poking out into the late morning air.
She drew a shaky breath and pushed herself up onto her elbows. The bike leaned against the tree like maybe he’d sat it there intentionally. Bo lay sprawled on the grass not far from her, on his back, looking limp as a rag doll.
Dakota scrambled to her hands and knees, rushing over to him. She shook his arm. “Bo. Are you okay?”
His head lolled to the side, dirt streaked along his face. She swallowed hard, tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth, and shook him again. “Bo. Come on. Wake up.”
She scanned his body for injuries, anything that might have knocked him out from pain or otherwise. He looked whole but scuffed up. His jacket splayed open, revealing the light button-up underneath. A strange stain at the bottom corner tugged at her attention. She leaned forward to inspect it and then gasped.
Dark blood seeped from somewhere, enough to stain the edge of his shirt and the right pocket of his jeans. Fear streaked through her, mouth hung open with disbelief. She pushed up his shirt a little, peering to find the source of the wound.
She lifted the waist of his jeans and a gnarly gash greeted her, dark bloody and jagged. It was a bullet wound, though she’d never seen one up close before. It had to be—there nothing else that could have injured him like that on their tumble.
Panic overtook her, mind swirling with a thousand possibilities. She’d never handled anything like this before—hell, she didn’t even know how to handle a concussed person, which probably he was. Maybe she should call Red. Bo needed this club brothers, and she was the only way to reach them. Otherwise, what? She’d leave him here to bleed out? Or wake up alone and confused?
You could leave now, you know. The suggestion was a dark whisper in her head. Just leave him and get away now. Let him deal with it. This is his mess.
If she left now, she could bolt. Just escape town, find a new job, start over somewhere else altogether.
Los Angeles wasn’t doing her too many favors so far. She could just cut her losses and get the fuck out of dodge.
She squeezed his shoulder, scanning his face for some sign of life. The dark stubble on his jaw highlighted its model-grade squareness. His cocky lips were in a thin line, and for a brief second she was desperate to see him smile again, to elicit a laugh from him.
“Bo.” She swallowed a knot of tears in her throat, dragging her fingers over his shoulder. “Bo, I’m so sorry.”