Rowe (Henchmen MC Next Generation 4)

“Stay out of it,” I demanded, reaching for my helmet.

“Far be it from me to stand between a man and his own idiocy, but let me demonstrate something for you,” he said, then jumped forward, jabbing a fist into my shoulder.

It wasn’t even a hard hit.

But with my weak lower back and the fact that I’d taken off my supportive brace made it impossible for me to absorb the impact and stay on my feet.

If it weren’t for Pagan grabbing the sides of my cut to steady me, I would have toppled over my bike and crashed onto the unyielding ground on the other side. Probably fucking up my back for life, like he’d said.

“Take your stubborn ass back inside. You will heal eventually. And then you can charge into action again.”

I couldn’t explain.

Billie was Pagan’s niece, even if it wasn’t through blood. They were a family in all ways that counted. I couldn’t tell him I’d started things up with his niece.

Hell, it was the whole reason I’d rejected Billie in the first place.

There weren’t a lot of rules in the club.

No drugs.

You treated women with respect.

And you kept your fucking hands off the princesses.

Sure, Niro had broken that last rule when he’d gotten with Andi. But that was a different thing. Niro had been in love with her since they were kids. Everyone had seen them settling down together. There’d never been any worry that Niro would hurt Andi.

They wouldn’t have that assurance with me.

I was an outsider.

They’d just barely started to get to know me.

Sugar would have my fucking head on a pike if he knew I’d touched his girl when he’d entrusted me with her.

“If you want something to do, I think Brooks is going over all the paperwork Chris dropped off earlier.”

Good old Brooks, making the rest of us look like slackers.

What else was there to do?

I got to work. And I kept an ear peeled for information about Billie.

“They were so fucked up,” Seth said when he made it back before the others. “Willa, Luna, and Gracie were out cold even through all of us walking through the apartment.”

But what about Billie?

It wasn’t that I wasn’t worried about the other girls, but they weren’t the ones with a stalker. A stalker who was undeterred by the new security system and the ever-present guards around.

That was some ballsy shit to show up again.

Which wasn’t good.

The problem was, there was no lead.

The letters were similar to the old ones. The only difference was that instead of hand-drawn art, there were pictures taken of Billie as she moved about her day.

Billie in her van, smiling at something Dezi in the passenger seat said. Billie teaching her yoga class, in some position that had her perfect ass stuck up in the air. Billie carting a box of whatever she’d made and sold on her website to the post office.

I wasn’t alone in thinking it was even more creepy to have the pictures than the so-called art.

Which was why there were two men sitting on Billie’s apartment around the clock. One was inside, one was outside.

I figured, eventually, it would come around that they would tap my shoulder to take a shift inside with her.

I just had to bide my time.

Even if it was killing me.

And it was. Little by little. Each memory was eating away at me as one day turned to two, then two to three.

“Incoming,” Brooks called, coming inside from the yard.

“Who?” Fallon asked.

“Judging by the cocky entitlement, I’m assuming that missing cousin of yours,” Brooks said, shrugging.

“Valen?” Seth asked, jumping up.

“Yeah, him and someone else,” Brooks agreed. “He’s talking to Wolf now,” he added, going into the kitchen. Likely to put on the coffee.

Valen was a bit of a legend among his cousins, despite the fact that most of the guys who had patched in were older than him. There was just an air of mystery surrounding the cousin who had taken off on a bike to drive across the country and do God-knew what for not just weeks or months, but years.

I’d never really gotten to know Valen. Malc and I were several years older than him, so he hadn’t really been in our circle before he’d taken off.

The man who walked into the clubhouse was different than the boy who’d left town. Where he’d once been tall and scrawny, he had fleshed out, clearly either hitting the gym or simply doing some sort of manual labor to make ends meet while he was on the road. He had dark hair like both his parents, but it was kept a little longer on the top than it used to be. And where he’d left town with exactly one tattoo—one he’d gotten on his eighteenth birthday—he was back covered in them. They snaked up his arms and the sides of his neck, and likely a lot of places hidden by his simple black jeans and tee. There was also a scar on his neck that hadn’t been there before. One that looked relatively new since it was still pink.