Ride Hard (Raven Riders 1)

The light from the porch stretched to where the men stood in his driveway. They turned to look at Dare.

“By the book,” Caine said, adjusting the cap on his head. Today’s run had been a protective detail to escort a woman and her two teen daughters to western Pennsylvania. The family had been under Raven protection for half a year since the mother learned that her longtime boyfriend had been abusing the older of the girls. When the girl finally came forward, the scumbag boyfriend threatened and intimidated all of them until the Ravens had finally gotten involved, providing a protective shield that enabled them to live their lives¸ seek justice via the often glacially slow legal system, and stand up to the abuser. The guy had been convicted and only awaited his sentencing hearing now, which gave the family the ability to make a clean break and a fresh start out of the area. The Ravens were only too glad to help, since the law often didn’t, couldn’t, or wouldn’t.

“No issues,” Phoenix agreed as they moved toward the house. The black doo-rag wrapped around his head made the jagged scar running from his eye into his hairline appear more pronounced. “We got them settled in and checked that the security setup in their new place was online.”

“Good,” Dare said, “that’s real good.” The goal of the Ravens’ protective services wasn’t just to create a human shield between the innocent and the evil, but to help their clients feel safe again in the wake of whatever jeopardized that feeling in the first place. That meant they often put resources into securing their homes, especially when there were children involved. Dare knew what it was to be a kid who lived in fear and stayed awake at night to be ready for what seemed like an inevitable boogie man to jump him when he least expected it. He didn’t mind going the extra mile to try to give other kids the security he never found until he was an adult. Because fears developed in your most formative years died hard, slow deaths. Dare would know. “Come on in,” he said.

His friends followed him in and crashed on the brown couches in his living room. The first floor was decorated in earthy hues—browns, dark greens, warm beiges, and fiery clays. “Decorated” was probably too strong a word for it, though. While the house was furnished, Dare had never spent any time hanging pictures or curtains or doing much else to give the place any personality beyond a cabin where a guy probably lives. He’d put more time into outfitting the detached garage where he worked on his bikes than he had to the interior of the house. He grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and passed the bottles out to the guys as he joined Maverick on one of the couches.

“Everything was quiet along the route,” Phoenix said. “Put out some feelers like we talked about. My contacts aren’t hearing anything involving us, so we’re good for now.”

Dare nodded. “Ike said the same thing about the situation in Baltimore. The biggest issue there right now is that the Church Gang’s demise left a power vacuum that several groups are hoping to fill. It’s apparently open season on the remaining Churchmen.”

“Maybe that works to our favor,” Maverick said, raking a hand through his blond hair. “The fewer of them who survive this, the fewer people in Baltimore who ever knew Cora and Haven existed.”

“Amen,” Dare said, clinking bottles with Mav. The mention of the women made Dare realize he had news of his own to share. After the way his body had reacted to Haven earlier in the week, he’d stayed the hell away from her, but that didn’t mean he could keep his nose out of her business—not until he better understood what kind of threat her father might pose to her and the Ravens as a whole.

“We need to keep an eye on Baltimore,” Caine said in a quiet voice. “Power plays are filled with their own problem. We have skin in that game whether we want to or not.”

“Roger that,” Phoenix said, peeling the label from his bottle.

Nodding, Dare took a long pull on his beer. “I finally got some intel today on Haven Randall’s father,” he said, gaze scanning over each of the men. “Midlevel criminal with regional contacts in important places and expansionist ambitions. Right now he’s pretty much an equal-opportunity thug, meaning he’s into a little bit of everything. Fact that he’s known as far north of some of our contacts in southern Virginia says we gotta keep our eyes on him. I’m digging for more.” Hard to imagine someone as sweet and innocent as Haven emerging from that background, and it made her seem even stronger to him that she’d escaped it—just like Dare had once done, now that he thought of it. Like Butch Kenyon, Rhett Randall wasn’t someone to underestimate or fuck around with.