She hadn’t asked for much since they got married, but now that she had, there was no way Grier would let her down.
There was no funeral for Hamilton, no urn to cherish, no casket to bury. The FBI turned his body over to his family back in Chicago, a family he’d hated and run away from, a family who didn’t appreciate the beauty of this man.
Fiona stood at the front of the room, whiskey glass in hand, and looked out at the men standing and sitting who’d come to pay respects to Hamilton. The grief had given way to fury, but she owed Hamilton this tribute, these words.
“Damian Hamilton was one of the best of us. He took his oath when he was sixteen, and from that day forward he was Screaming Demon, inside and out. No brother he wouldn’t have died to defend, no risk he wouldn’t have taken for the club.” She swallowed back the lump in her throat, blinked away the tears. “Max always said there was something about Ham that made him special. His loyalty. His compassion. The badass that came shining through when we needed him. I say there was not something special about Damian Hamilton. Everything about him was special.” She lifted her glass and a tear slipped down her cheek. There was so much more to say. Hell, she’d recite the dictionary if it meant she didn’t have to say her final goodbye. Hamilton. Her friend was gone, and the reality made her guts hurt.
The woman was gone. She’d left sometime in the night. Coward. Traitor. Bitch. Those were the words Fiona had ascribed to Mia Giovanni. She’d put out another order early, after she’d finally convinced Grier to tell her what had happened. Not only were they to find Sedotal, but she’d also charged Sage with bringing Mia back. Whether he did it or not would determine if she let him live. There was no way Hamilton’s death would go unanswered. And Fiona didn’t give a damn who answered for it.
Because she couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye, she closed her eyes, pictured Hamilton and drank her cup dry. She walked out of the bar, out of the clubhouse, her .38 hidden under her shirt, a .22 strapped to her thigh under her dress, and a .45 in her purse. Someone was going to die today.
She drove home, thinking. Always thinking. Hamilton was gone. Grier was out with Sage searching, and the guys all had their orders. But Fiona had nothing to do but wait, to decide who she let live and who would die.
She drove to the house, changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, tied her hair back and opened the garage. Her bike sat ignored in the corner under a drop cloth. But today, she wanted to ride. She wanted to drive away from her thoughts, to outrun her anger.
She rode until the wind burned her skin until she had to stop for a drink. She pulled into a service station and parked the bike in front of the attached restaurant.
The place smelled like fried food and burgers and its red leather booths and black and white checkered floors were pulled from an era gone by. More importantly, the place was full, and she slipped in unnoticed among the clinking of silverware, the murmurs of conversation, and the bustling waitresses. Just what she needed.
She took a seat at the counter and ordered a soda. Her cell buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it. She wanted food and to be left alone. She didn’t turn to look at the man next to her or the family in the booth at the corner. Didn’t care about the couple arguing at the table or the woman yanking her toddler behind her to the bathroom. She cared that Hamilton had died, and her heart hurt.
The morning had slipped by her and now the afternoon wasted away as she sat at least two hundred miles from home. And it wasn’t like she didn’t have choices. She could just ride away. The need for revenge would fade. She could go back to Belize, be there in a couple of days… hold London. Disappearing from there wouldn’t be hard. Or she could go back and see this through, take care of business, avenge Hamilton and make them all pay. Shamefully, as a mother she wanted her baby, but the call for retribution was too strong. She needed it.
Her stomach and heart ached with equal intensity, and she stood. Time to head back, to her real life.
As she started her bike, she took a glance down the road. Two hundred miles from home. What the hell was a Screaming Demons truck doing here? And she knew it was one of theirs from the horned skeleton emblem on the mud flaps. Max had created the design himself. Instead of turning toward home, she pulled out behind the truck.
Another hundred miles and two left turns later, the truck turned into a warehouse lot. Fiona watched from the curb. Two guys, neither old enough to drink and probably not to even drive, came around the back and lifted the door. The taller, stockier of the two climbed inside and disappeared into the darkness. A minute later, he reappeared with Mia, bound by zip ties, eyes hidden behind a blindfold that looked suspiciously like a sleep mask, and gagged with a bandana that had seen better days. The guy on the ground lifted her down and they took turns pushing her toward the warehouse.
Fiona watched them push a code into a keypad then go inside. “Well, I’ll be damned.” If she believed in signs or the afterlife, she might’ve believed Hamilton had led her here, but she didn’t. Mostly. Instead, she snuck inside the gate on foot. Hid behind the truck and pulled her .38.
She hadn’t stumbled into the middle of a mystery. She’d uncovered the Omen hideout. One of them anyway. And a Screaming Demon truck. And she had an idea.
She slid around to the driver side. Her plan would either work, or she’d die. Today, she didn’t particularly care which.
Grier pulled up beside Fiona’s bike. Sage had started tracking her phone as soon as Jim called and said she’d walked out of the service for Hamilton. And Grier had stayed back, letting her have this time alone, but keeping her always in sight.
Right now, he just couldn’t believe his eyes. She’d run the stolen truck through the front of the warehouse. Straight through. Then, like some kind of modern-day Annie Oakley, she’d burst from the cab, gun in hand, and started firing.
Grier ran in behind her. He didn’t call out to her but threw down some cover fire of his own as she rolled behind a crate. He flanked her on the left as she peeled around the box. “What are you doing here?”
“Following you.” He listened for movement, for the reloads, for more than the groan of the guy caught between the truck and a wall.
Fiona slid to the right behind another crate. “They have Mia.”
Grier looked over the top of his hiding spot then dropped down when a shot whizzed past his ear. Fuck. They could certainly use a few extra Demons. “We should fall back.” When she lifted her brows at him, he fired wildly over the top of the crate without standing. “It means—”
“I know what it means.” She snapped the words at him. “We can’t leave her here.”
No, they couldn’t. But they also couldn’t stay where they were while the place filled up with more guns, locked and loaded, aiming at them. Fiona glared at Grier as he motioned her toward the opening the truck had ripped through the wall.
“I’m not leaving her.”
Which meant Grier wasn’t leaving either. It also meant they needed to get somewhere safer, somewhere they could regroup. He checked the clip in his gun. Shit. They needed to regroup somewhere with shells for a couple of .38s.
Thank God for technology. He ripped off a text to Sage then covered his head with his arms and moved toward Fiona. He followed her to the other side of the truck and around toward the front.