The mood around the table on Ryder’s back deck was a lot more somber than it had been the night before when we were preparing to go after The Hand at Kadia. Now, after our failure, we were all brooding and angry.

We were also worried and frightened, but none of us had the stones to admit it.

The men surrounding me all had women to protect. Some had children. Caleb and I were the only ones without someone, but this wasn’t about him. Me not having someone made things easier in a normal situation, and even I was having a hard time processing the shit storm we’d just created.

I’d just created. I was the one who’d pushed Ryder to act, and I was the one who’d made the plans for the Kadia takedown. Had they not all listened to me, we wouldn’t be in this position.

Ryder’s knee was bouncing anxiously. “We’re going to have to spread the word to the rest of the members to once again be vigilant and be aware. The Hand is easy to spot, but we all know he’s worked with others before. I wouldn’t put it past him to team up to take us down.”

“Maybe we should be considering the same thing,” Caleb muttered.

Ryder glanced up at him. There was fury in his dark stare. “We can handle this on our own.”

Caleb shrugged. “I was just saying.”

“Well, don’t,” Ryder growled.

We all shut up about it after that. Clearly, the boss was in no mood for this shit. Then, he looked at me after a few minutes of tense silence and asked, “Have any of your old contacts reached out yet?”

I shook my head. Ryder had asked me to apply more pressure to my old contacts about The Hand and where we might be able to find him now that he knew we were after him. If we were going to make another move, we would have to do it quickly. The more time we gave him to plan was detrimental to us. We had to act quickly.

“Nobody is willing to share any information about him,” I told Ryder.

“Push them harder.”

“I’ll try.”

Sabian cleared his throat. “Don’t give me shit for saying this, Ryder, but this is the time where we have to stick together. Any cracks in the foundations and everything will come falling down around us.”

Ryder pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I know.”

“We want him as bad as you, boss,” Jax added.

Axel got to his feet. “We need to put him down. My babies and Ellie are at risk because of this asshole. We’d be fools to think he won’t try to use our families against us. He saw how riled up we got over Hyde. He knows our weaknesses. We need to find his.”

“If he has any,” Sabian muttered.

Ryder blew out a sigh. “He’ll have them. He’s only human.”

“He’s insane,” Sabian said. “He’s totally off his rocker. The only thing that matters to him is keeping his own head on his shoulders. He doesn’t give a fuck about anybody else because he doesn’t have the capacity to care about anyone but himself. He’s a psychopath.”

“Maybe,” Ryder said.

Jax shook his head. “Not maybe. He is. I’m sure of it.”

I scratched the back of my neck. “Great. We’re after a killer who’s hell-bent on putting us in the ground, and there’s not a damn thing that will slow him down.”

The sliding patio door opened, and we all looked up as Dani stepped out. She was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved black button-up. She had her belt on with her detective’s badge pinned to it, and her gun was on her hip. She turned to face us and stopped when she realized we were all staring at her. “Oh. Hello, everyone.”

We all muttered weak greetings in return.

Dani walked over to where Ryder was sitting at the head of the table and stood behind his chair. She placed her hands on his shoulders and began rubbing gently. It was as she looked down at him without his knowing that I realized something was wrong.

“Dani?”

She looked up at me.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Ryder twisted around in his chair to look at her. She chewed the inside of her cheek. “There’s something I have to tell you, and you’re not going to like it.”

Ryder took her by the hand and guided her around him. He nodded for her to take the open seat beside him. She sank slowly into it, and the way she moved with such care had me nervous. Ryder rested his hand on her knee. “What is it, baby?”

Dani looked around at all of us.

I put my hands on the armrests of my chair and made to stand up. “Maybe we should go.”

Dani shook her head. “No. Sit. This will concern all of you. It will just be hard for Ryder to hear.”

Ryder’s jaw was tight. “Tell me.”

She looked him in the eyes. “I pulled video surveillance on the club while I was at work today and ran some facial recognition. I was hoping to get more information or a name on The Hand. But the scans pulled up someone else’s information who was at the club that night.”

“Whose?” Ryder pressed.

Dani sighed. “Jason’s.”

This tidbit of information was like the pin being pulled from the grenade. I looked around at the others at the table, and they all looked back at me. Jason? At Kadia? What the fuck was going on?

Ryder hadn’t said anything or moved an inch. “So he’s alive. This should be good news, shouldn’t it?”

Dani nodded. “It is good news that we know he’s alive after months of not knowing where he was. But …” She trailed off. Then, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, gathering her detective persona around herself like a protective shield. “He was selling Zandra, Johnny. He was getting his supply from The Hand. It’s all on the tapes.”

“That little fucker,” Ryder hissed.

I leaned back in my chair, reeling under this new information. “You’re sure about this, Dani? Jason hasn’t shown his face in nearly five months, and all of a sudden, he pops up at Kadia the same night The Hand is out of prison? And he’s selling? This just doesn’t add up.”

“I know,” Dani said weakly. “But I know what I saw. It was him. I know this is shitty news and not what you wanted to hear, but I have a lead.”

Ryder perked up at this. “Who?”

“Jason was on the dance floor trying to chat up two girls. By the looks of things, he tried to get them to take some pills from him. They shooed him away, and he went back to The Hand. I watched the tapes to see what went down when you all went outside. The same girls in the alley are the ones he tried to sell the drugs to. They might be able to tell you more about him. What state he was in if nothing else.”

Ryder looked instantly at me.

I held my hands up. “Don’t look at me, man.”

“You drove them home,” he said simply.

“Yeah. So?”

Ryder tipped his head to the side. “So you know where they live.”

“Don’t get shit confused, Ryder. Those girls don’t want to see my face ever again.”

Ryder shook his head. “I don’t give a fuck what they want or don’t want. You drive over there and ask them about Jason.”

I turned to Dani and gave her an imploring look. “Dani, can’t you go talk to them? They’ll respond better to a female detective.”

“Sorry, Derek, but no. I don’t think they would. Me showing up would only involve the law, and I know you guys don’t want that. If you want to handle this on your own, you’re going to have to do as Ryder says and go talk to these girls. Do you think there’s any chance they’ll open up to you?”

I frowned. Penny would rip a strip off me as soon as she saw me standing at her front door. But Evelyn might be willing to cooperate. I sighed. “There’s a chance. Yeah.”

Ryder nodded at the patio door. “Then, get the hell out of here and go talk to them. And don’t come back until you know more about my nephew.”

I groaned and stood. Dani gave me an apologetic smile as I walked to the patio door. None of the others said a word. The mood was too tense for any smart-ass remarks on my behalf.

I got in my truck in Ryder’s driveway and pulled out onto the street.

There was no way these girls were going to be okay with me showing up at their place after I had explicitly told them they never had to see me again. I was going back on my word, and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.

My apprehension was jumbled with eagerness.

I couldn’t deny I was glad to have an excuse to see Evelyn again. She’d been on my mind all day, which was incredibly frustrating because I should have been focusing all my thoughts on The Hand and how to bring him down. But I couldn’t. I wanted to daydream about her long brown hair and bright green eyes. I wanted to wonder what her lips would feel like on mine or wrapped around my cock.

I shook my head at myself. “You have more important things to think about then getting sucked off by a pretty girl.”

A really pretty girl with nerves of steel.

The drive to the apartment flew by, and I found myself standing at the front doors of the building with my hands in my pockets. I read the plaque outside the building with unit numbers and names and found one labeled “P. Gardener.” I buzzed, and an elderly woman answered. I apologized for ringing the wrong unit and continued scrolling the list until I found another initial that might stand for Penny. It read “P Fields.” I buzzed that one, and a familiar female voice said, “Hello?”

I hadn’t thought this through. I had no idea what to say to get them to let me up. There was probably nothing I could say. If they were smart, which I suspected they were, they would be on high alert from the night before and would not be letting anyone up to their apartment. So I kept my mouth shut and didn’t say a damn thing.

“Hello?” Penny asked again. She sounded a little annoyed this time. “Hello? Oh, fuck this. Stupid kids playing—” She cut off midsentence, and I assumed she had hung up.

Then, I stood around like an idiot waiting for someone to let me in.

Which I knew was going to take a long ass time because I wasn’t the sort of guy anyone wanted to let into a building based on how I looked. I looked mean. It helped me on the streets but not so much in situations like this.

If I was patient enough, some dumb asshole was bound to let me in. Then, I would knock on unit 312 and scare the hell out of two girls who had already been dragged through enough shit and try to convince them to talk to me about the stupid kid who had tried to sell them drugs.

Damn it all straight to hell.