Adrenaline Rush (Death Chasers MC 4)

“My relationship is my motherfucking business,” I say in a growl.

“Relationship is a very loosely used terminology at this point, don’t you think?” he fires back.

“Going to act like you’re a damn saint?” I grind out, taking a step toward him.

His eyes narrow as he meets my step, taking one of his own.

“The point is, I think you’re freaked out for nothing. Eve’s practically lived at this hospital while Dash has been down,” Axle states. “Jude’s right.”

“No,” Jude says, drawing both of our attention to him as he cracks his neck to the side. “I’m not.”

He casually tosses his phone to me, and I snatch it out of the air. My eyes fall to a crispy mechanism of some type in the desert…

“I’m not really sure what I’m looking at,” I confess, my brow furrowing as I force myself to remain as calm as possible. “What do you mean you’re not right?”

He’s too calm for anything to be wrong.

His eyes level mine. “It’s a customized horn with an internalized—”

“Spare me the technical gibberish. What the fuck is this?” I ask as I toss his phone back to him.

He catches it as he narrows his eyes. “It belonged to that fucking clown van Sarah owned.”

“How did it get charred on the desert floor?” Axle asks as he takes a step forward, leaning over Jude’s shoulder to get a better look.

“Make that call. Get your girlfriend’s phone tracked now,” Jude tells him very calmly, even as he lifts his own phone.

Axle curses. “Maya would have called me if—”

“If she thought you’d rush to her aide and get yourself killed? She’s more protective of you than that,” Jude counters before I can.

Axle starts to argue, closes his mouth, and angrily lifts his phone, likely dialing this special crew his very scary powerful girlfriend keeps on payroll.

“Why wouldn’t she call in a team?” I ask Jude. “Maya, I mean.”

His eyes level mine. “Because Maya is too green to know what to do. She has someone handle shit like this, and she shuts down emotionally when there’s a severe crisis going on. She shifts into whatever survival mode comes into play. She’s been coddled during her corrupt-yet-pampered lifetime, and someone else has always made the truly hard decisions. Kara will be of more use in the gritty times than Maya. Maya’s default has her being a self-sacrifice sort of girl. Kara’s a determined survivalist.”

Axle abruptly stalks between us, and Jude arches an eyebrow at me.

“Something he knows too well,” he adds as he gestures his head toward Axle. “Better follow him if you’re going to save your girlfriend and kidnap her later.”

“I take it you’re not coming?” I ask as Axle throws open the door to the stairs and starts quickly sprinting down them.

“Not my fight. I’ll call some guys to meet you. Have fun with all that,” he says as he pushes off from his perch. “I’m going to go visit Dash and see what ridiculous thing Eve has knitted him today.”

I don’t have time to spare on confusion, and I dart down the stairs as well, jumping over the railing and landing on the next level.

By the time I reach the outside, I’ve almost caught up with the beast that is Axle.

“Got enough ammo on you?” he calls over his shoulder as we both quickly sprint across the hospital parking lot.

“Depends on the size of the party we’re crashing and the artillery we should be expecting,” I’m quick to point out.

“I have a location. Nothing more than that,” he gripes. “We just need to stall for twenty minutes before Blackbird operations gets a team to her. Jude calling in some Calvary?”

“I’ll tell him to have them bring bigger guns and more ammo,” I answer to the next words that would be out of his lips, as I quickly fire off the text.

JUDE: Not my first blind mission. Already did that. Aim small…miss small. Don’t say I never taught you anything.

“What’d he say?”

“Something dicks say in response to intense, serious situations when they’ve lost their fucking minds,” I grumble as I pocket my phone.

I really wish I’d given Kara a fucking phone.

Chapter 29

KARA

It’s like one of those really awkward movie scenes that has people rolling their eyes when the heroes who have no business being heroes…

That’s how I explain this moment.

The gasps, and shush sounds, and slipping against the wall like that’s going to hide us better…things of this nature. We’ve even done some crawling inside this massive warehouse on our way to the elevated mezzanine.

What’s below us? You know, the usual. A bunch of gun-toting, suit-wearing men laughing and cutting up in some areas. Some are serious and glaring at everyone else. Some appear bored, but you can see the keen observational undertones in their appraising eyes as they flick them around the room, taking in the other groupings.