Heavenly Hacked (Reckless Bastards MC 5)

“Working. What are you doing?”

“Trying to get this stubborn woman to tell me what she’s hiding from me.”

“What a bitch,” she deadpanned and turned the volume up on her music. I would have pushed the issue, but the doorbell rang.

I wasn’t expecting any company and I didn’t think anyone in Vivi’s life knew where she was. Then again, I had no idea if she even had anyone in her life. “I’ll get that, don’t worry yourself.”

“I won’t,” she shouted over the music in her ears.

“What’s so funny,” Gunnar asked when I opened the door with a chuckle, his adorable little sister smiling up at me from her car seat.

“Nothing. Come on in.”

“Thanks. Take this,” he shoved a frilly looking diaper bag into my arms with a grunt. “Damn kid needs a lot of shit.”

“Wait until she’s a teenager.”

“Yeah, thanks for that asshole.”

“Anytime. Beer? Should you be drinking with a kid?”

Gunnar grunted again and set the baby carrier down on the coffee table. “I don’t drink with her. She watches me drink and I wipe her ass. It’s kind of our thing.”

“So?”

“Beer me,” he said, bent over his sister and removing at least ten thousand different straps that kept her safe in that wicked contraption.

I was already on my way to the kitchen. “Any preference?”

“Something dark,” he shouted back.

“What about you, Vivi?”

“She’s gone,” Gunnar called out, sounding amused.

With two beers in hand, I went back to the living room and found that Vivi had slipped out. “She say anything?”

“Not one word.”

Figured. I wasn’t worried that she’d run off, mostly because I had her key fob. And her steering wheel. “What brings you by?”

“Cross says he might have a lead on those burned out pot fields. Needs you to dig and see if you can find any link to Roadkill.” Cross had been sure it was Roadkill MC from the start, but we had no proof. Yet. “Just do your digital voodoo shit.”

“I’m on it. How are things going with Maisie?” I nodded to the little girl, kicking and squirming in her seat when Gunnar picked her up and plunked her my arms.

“Being a single parent is hard as fuck, man. I give respect to women who do this shit, but I get it. She’s adorable and I fell in love with her the minute Mom put her in my arms. Every day something is different.” Gunnar sighed and his shoulders fell. “It would be nice if I could find someone trustworthy and not afraid of the MC to look after her.”

That was a problem for pretty much everything when you were in an MC. Girlfriends, housekeepers and any other personal care help was hard to come by because people feared the lifestyle. Feared retaliation from criminal wrongdoing and all other variety of bullshit that had no bearing on our lives. Mostly. “You need a professional agency or a personal recommendation.”

“Yeah thanks, Sherlock. I just need to fucking find someone but enough talking about me. How are things with you and Vivi?”

I took a long pull from my beer and told him what I knew. And what I didn’t. “She thinks I’m either working the government against her, or with Roadkill, but I can’t figure out how they’re involved or why she even thinks they are.” It was getting under my fucking skin that she wouldn’t tell me. Hell, she shared my bed but couldn’t share this.

“Do what you gotta do to find out, man. It could help figure out what the fuck Roadkill has been up to.” I knew Gunnar wasn’t trying to be a mercenary, that the club always came first. But it still pissed me off. “And the bullet in the windshield of that hippie mobile?”

I’d told him about our escape from the stakeout. “Another story involving Vivi spying on Roadkill at their HQ.” I wanted to be pissed off at her, but she probably had a point that my presence hadn’t helped in that situation. “Can’t confirm or deny it was Roadkill but it’s a safe bet.”

Gunnar nodded thoughtfully but I knew what was on his mind. He wanted me to do whatever it took to get that information from Vivi. And I would but it would be on my own time. “Keep her close. And get that info however you can.”