Ride Hard (Raven Riders 1)

Cora shook her head. “I’m sure he was just worried about you.” She gave Haven a reassuring smile. “Anyway, focus on the bright side, you checked a whole bunch of things off your list last night. You wanted to live, and you did.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Searching for her notebook, Haven found it on the nightstand. She opened it to the first page, scanned the list, and placed check marks next to everything she’d done. It was silly, she knew it was, but didn’t she deserve a little silly? Because she’d never been allowed to have silly or frivolous or just for fun before. “Hmm, should I give myself credit for kissing a lot of guys, since I kissed Jeb on the cheek?”

Tapping a finger against her lips, Cora hummed. “Tough call.”

Chuckling, Haven wrote a check mark next to it with a question mark, then she turned the page to the more Dare-inspired “to-do” items. None listed his name, but things like have an orgasm with a man had definitely popped into her head after she’d spent that night fantasizing about kissing him. Among other things. And that one got a check mark, too.

“Look at me go,” she said with a wry laugh as she closed the book and tossed it onto her pillow.

“For real. We’ve been on our own for just a few weeks and look how I’m corrupting you. You taught me math and how to cook, and I teach you how to get drunk,” Cora said with a wink. When Cora would come to visit after Haven had been forced to drop out of school, they’d work on Cora’s homework together. Haven had always been good at math, so it allowed her to feel like she was contributing something to their friendship and still getting to learn.

Haven shook the memories away. She was tired of walking the straight and narrow, and absolutely fed up with being scared to take some chances—because as much as throwing up sucked, it wasn’t anything like being backhanded, or locked in the shed out back, or forced to play waitress to her father’s rowdy weekly poker games, groping and lurid commentary included. So she was done being afraid to live. “Well, Cora, if this is being corrupted, then I don’t want to be good. Not anymore.”

“SON OF A bitch,” Dare growled, tossing his cell phone on his kitchen counter. He’d had a few people digging further into Haven and her father—and now Dare knew exactly what the fuck Haven had been hiding.

There was a reward out for her capture and return. A fucking reward. Initially set at fifty thousand dollars, it had been recently expanded to a hundred grand. A hundred grand that incentivized every lowlife scumbag from Georgia to God only knew how far to be looking for Haven Randall.

Which was likely why the Church Gang had picked her and Cora up in the first place. The description of the women and their truck, which thankfully was no longer in the picture as a possible point of identification, had been blasted far and wide. Some gangbanger probably thought he’d hit the jackpot.

Now the question was, had the Churchmen gotten in touch with Rhett Randall or his people? Were they, even now, in possession of information that could lead them to Baltimore? And, from there, to the Ravens themselves?

“Fuck,” Dare bit out, pacing in the silence of his kitchen. Anger and worry roared through him in equal measure. Haven had been at the compound for more than three goddamned weeks. If Randall knew that the Church Gang had had the women in custody and lost them, three weeks was plenty long enough for all kinds of pieces to be moved into place. Which meant the net could be a lot smaller than Dare had believed.

That reward changed fucking everything.

He grabbed his cell and jabbed at the speed dial number for Maverick. He cursed when voice mail picked up, then waited for the beep and said, “Mav, we’ve got a problem. I need the officers at the clubhouse as soon as we can get everyone together. Hit me back when you get this.” With every additional call he placed and voice mail he left, his frustration ramped up until he wanted to punch something.

He’d been out in the garage most of the morning trying to forget his fuckup from the night before by immersing himself in a rebuild he’d finally gotten some parts for, so he hopped in a quick shower, hoping it might take the edge off his mood. No such luck.

Problem was, there wasn’t anything likely to chase away the black cloud hanging over his head as long as he needed to confront Haven—and that was exactly what he needed to do.

No sense putting off the inevitable. Besides, he’d do them both the one kindness of having this conversation in private.