Ride Hard (Raven Riders 1)

A creak on the hall floorboards and a quiet knock on the door.

“What?” Dare yelled, annoyance clear in his voice.

The door eased open. And there stood Haven with a plate in her hand. Wearing another Harley T-shirt she’d borrowed from him this morning with that pair of jeans he loved on her so much. Her face absolutely ashen. “Bunny saved you some breakfast,” she said, her voice small.

Dare wanted to smash the plate over his own head. Because everything about her demeanor right now suggested she’d overheard what he’d just said. “Thanks,” he said, willing her to meet his gaze as she settled the plate on the corner of his desk. She wouldn’t.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, quickly backing out of the room.

Dare rose. “Haven—”

“It’s okay,” she said, closing the door. All the way this time.

“Fuck,” Dare said. He stepped toward the door, torn between the business they needed to get done and going after the woman he’d just wronged in a fucking horrible way. And that was when he noticed the plate—along with the bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast sat two peanut butter cookies. He sagged against the wall and dug his hand into his hair.

“Go make that shit right,” Mav said.

He wanted to. Fuck how he wanted to. But Phoenix needed to place his call in less than ten minutes. And this arms deal was the most important thing right now. Or it should be. No, it was. For all the Ravens’ sake, this shit needed to go down perfectly. Which meant Dare needed to get his priorities straight and his head screwed on right.

Gut in a goddamned knot, he threw the entire plate in the trash. “Eyes on the prize, Maverick. Got it? Now, Phoenix, place the fucking call.”

DARE DIDN’T THINK they’d be here again so soon—at the Hard Ink Tattoo building in downtown Baltimore. It was a big, red-brick monster of a building that had clearly been some kind of old warehouse or factory back when Baltimore still had a decent industrial sector. Once L-shaped, only the long side of the L remained, the short side having been destroyed when the Hard Ink team’s enemies had attacked them a few weeks before, killing two of the Ravens’ own.

The chain-link gate swung open, letting Dare, eight other Ravens on bikes, and a truck full of product into the gravel lot behind the building. The moment gave him a whole lot of déjà vu.

But it couldn’t be helped. Phoenix’s call with the Iron Cross had gone about as well as they could’ve expected. Dominic had pushed back against their demands but finally acceded to their ultimatum on their betting activities and a competitive price on the guns. They’d thrown in more ammo than they’d planned, in order to maintain the appearance that they were meeting them halfway. And both parties wanted it done quickly—the deal was going down at nine o’clock tonight. In just three hours. All that remained was letting the Iron Cross know where the exchange would take place, which was part of why they’d come to Baltimore, and to Hard Ink, early.

As they parked and dismounted their bikes, men spilled out the back door of the building. Dare gave a wave as he hooked his helmet on the handlebars, and then he and his guys closed the distance to where their new allies and friends stood to greet them.

“Welcome back,” Nick said, extending a hand to Dare.

“Just wish it was purely a social call,” Dare said, shaking the other man’s hand. Tall with dark hair and pale green eyes, Nick was the team’s leader and the guy Dare had gotten to know the best when they’d been here a few weeks before.

One by one, Dare shook hands with Nick’s teammates, his guys following suit. There was Shane McCallan, with his Southern accent and pretty-boy good looks; Edward Cantrell, who went by the nickname Easy, a tall, built African-American man who was probably the guy Dare knew least of all; Derek “Marz” DiMarzio, their tech guy, who had provided them with all kinds of useful information about the Iron Cross and Haven’s father’s organization today; Beckett Murda, a big mountain of a guy with a badly scarred eye and an always-serious expression. Nick’s brother, Jeremy, and Jeremy’s boyfriend, Charlie, hung back from the group. They weren’t part of Nick’s Special Forces team, but from everything Dare could tell, they’d been integral to the fight the vets had waged. Jeremy gave Dare a wave.

“Good to see you doing better, Jeremy,” Dare said. The guy had been through brain surgery a few weeks before when he was injured during a fight with the team’s enemies—an injury that was still apparent in the form of a scar visible through his recently shaved brown hair.

“Thanks,” Jeremy said, his expression reserved. Dare knew Jeremy felt some responsibility for the deaths of Harvey and Creed when the building collapsed, but Dare had put that blame where it belonged—on the lowlifes who bombed the building in the first place. And that score had been settled as far as Dare and the Ravens were concerned.