“I have a better chance of catching Dalton Andrews,” she said out loud to the cat.
Lily had met the movie star when she had visited some friends. He had made the news last year when his wife had succumbed to cancer, leaving him a widower. She would give herself a couple of years to get over Train, and let Dalton Andrews get over the famous fashion model, before she asked Lily if she could hook them up.
“What do you think, Gollum?” She nodded in the dark as if the cat agreed with her ludicrous plan. “I could buy you all kinds of toys if I nabbed him.”
Giving up trying to fall asleep, she turned on a movie that she had watched dozens of times. She was asleep before the first fight scene, tossing and turning as Dalton Andrews and Train fought in her dreams. She could see herself cheering the two men on.
Just as she thought Train was winning, another man grabbed him from behind.
Killyama woke up terrified, gasping in fear. She almost fell out the bed as she searched for her cell phone on the nightstand.
It took five seconds for Sex Piston to answer. “Bitch, do you know what time it is?”
“You don’t sound like you were asleep.” Killyama could hear Stud grumbling in the background, telling Sex Piston to hang up the phone.
“I wasn’t,” she snapped, her voice coming and going as if she were struggling for the phone. “What do you want?”
The terror of her dream was ebbing away like most nightmares do when you wake up. She should have washed her face before she made the call. The shock of the cold water would have saved her from making a fool out of herself.
“Do you need me to come over? Are you okay? Give me time to get dressed—”
“No! I’m fine! I just need you to do something …” Feeling ridiculous, she was also too afraid to go back to sleep until Sex Piston did what she wanted. “Uh … Could you go throw that Ken doll away?”
Silence meant her request.
“Sex Piston?”
“What’d you snort?” The sound of Sex Piston and Stud tussling for the phone stopped.
“Nothing! Just do it. And don’t throw it out in the kitchen trash. Make Stud throw it away outside.”
Again silence.
“Listen, I know it’s crazy as fuck, but just do it, okay?”
Sex Piston’s long drawled out “Okay” had Killyama gritting her teeth.
“Thank you. Tell Stud I’m sorry for bothering him.”
“I will. You know I’m never letting you play with Star’s dolls again, right?”
“Believe me; I won’t be going near them.” Killyama started to disconnect the call. “Sex Piston!”
“What!”
Killyama winced. Sex Piston had cruised past concern for her friend’s mental state and had moved on to aggravation.
“Make sure you don’t forget the head.”
19
“Good luck!” Stud hit Train on the back as he lifted his helmet to put it on. Train buckled the strap as the man he was beginning to think of as a friend took his own motorcycle.
He had called Stud and asked him for help getting into the race after Shade had told him that Lily and Beth were planning to take a mommy day off to watch Stud race with Sex Piston and her crew.
He had raced when he had first started riding a motorcycle, wiping out more than winning. He had stopped when he had entered the service and hadn’t picked it up again when he was discharged. It didn’t provide the same excitement he had grown used to after he had been picked for a secret unit controlled by the president.
Members from several different military branches had been hand-selected to try out once a year for the unit. Each current team member also had to be re-invited to try out, with over two hundred candidates chosen to compete. Only twenty-four would be picked for the elite unit. Train had made the unit each time. Hammer had made the team five years before he had and had continued to get picked.
The last time they had been called out, they had rescued a group of four men taken hostage. When he arrived to gather intel, Hammer had informed the fellow members that it would be the last time he would try out if asked.
Losing Jonas the year before that had been a shock. The members had always joked that Jonas and Hammer were attached at the hip. Losing two high-ranking members hurt.
When Train had asked Hammer why he was giving it up since Hammer had lived and breathed the American flag, he had evaded the question, saying he was giving the young guns a chance to make the unit.
Train had figured out the why when he had read Crash’s reports. Jonas had quit the unit when Killyama had begun bounty hunting full-time in the business the three of them had formed. He wanted to be there to protect her from the caliber of fugitives she had been chasing the previous year.