She turned to him and snapped accusingly, “D and Mad brought donuts.”

And they did.

There was a big LaMar’s box open on the kitchen table. D was biting into a chocolate-covered Bavarian cream, the cream oozing out the side, and Maddox was taking a swallow from a coffee mug, a half-eaten cinnamon twist in his other hand.

Rush knew his girl wanted to cook for him and was not pleased her shot was thwarted again, but he was glad for the quick breakfast.

He had to get home, shower, put on clean clothes and meet his dad and brothers at the Compound to roll out for the sit down with Valenzuela. A sit down he was looking forward to, seeing that asshole cowed and listening to him share he was slinking away.

That said, he’d prefer it if they were alone so he could explore that top and the stretch of flesh from the valley of her tits to lower belly it exposed. At least for a few minutes.

He figured fifteen of them would do it.

His mind went off all of this when he took in the look on Rebel’s face.

“Baby, I’ll eat your biscuit sandwiches tomorrow,” he assured.

“Yes,” she spat, turning her glare to her brother and his man, “you will.”

“Yo, bro,” Maddox greeted, completely unaffected by Rebel’s snit.

“Hey, man,” D said with his mouth full, also obviously unaffected.

He tipped his chin up at them and went to Rebel.

Sliding his arm inside the robe-like thing, he stopped with his hand at the small of her back and pulled her to him.

“I gotta go anyway, babe. Slept in. Need to get home, shower, get to the meeting.”

She glared up at him a second, then lost the glare and nodded.

After she did that, she rolled up on the toes of her bare feet and touched her lips to his.

When she rolled back, she muttered, “I’ll make you a travel mug of coffee.”

She went off and did that.

He went to the box of donuts and selected a cinnamon roll.

He ate it while she made his coffee. Rebel then wrapped up a chocolate-covered in a napkin for his second course and followed him to the front door where they made out too briefly before he lifted his head.

“Talk to them,” he ordered.

“I will. Be careful,” she ordered.

“I will.”

She smiled up at him, pressed close a second then pulled away.

He took the donut, he already had the coffee, and he walked the much shorter path to Essence’s back drive to get to his truck.

He ate his second donut and drank Rebel’s kickass coffee as he drove home.

Rush wasn’t thinking good thoughts as he rode his bike into the forecourt of Ride, heading toward the Compound and seeing Mitch Lawson and Slim Lucas standing with his dad, Hop, Shy, Snap and Hound.

He parked and swung off his bike, getting stiff chin jerks from a pissed-off-looking Mitch and a grim-looking Slim before they got in their unmarked cop car, started it up and pulled out.

He made his way to their huddle and stopped at his brothers, seeing their faces looked grim too as they watched Mitch and Slim pull away while High rode in.

“What’s goin’ on?” he asked.

Tack turned to him. “Cops got an anonymous phone call yesterday identifying those skulls as Crank’s, the other one Tyrone Spader, the man the police suspected of killing Black.”

Rush could not believe this shit.

“Valenzuela?” he asked.

Tack shook his head. “This stinks more like Chew.”

Rush glanced back to the forecourt before turning his attention again at his dad.

“Mitch and Slim didn’t look happy,” Rush noted.

“That’s more about the fact they know we took those two out, and they’re not fans of that,” Tack said. “But both of them were done before DNA matching was prevalent, so they don’t have any on file to confirm the IDs. Neither had kids. Crank’s ex hated him almost more than we did, think she burned everything that was his after he was taken out. But both have relatives. They could find them, take some DNA, make IDs that way. The issue with that is, even if they do, and they can tie them both to the Club with motive, there’s nothing else they got and nothing else to get. They can’t even know who to press charges against. The only brothers out are the brothers who weren’t in back then. They now know who’s dead. But it ends there.”

“That’s it? It ends there?” Rush asked.

“Mitch and Slim say we can expect to have search warrants served, Ride, Compound, probably our homes,” Tack replied.

“Shit,” Rush muttered.

“Nothin’ to find, Rush. A waste of everyone’s time,” his father assured.

“In other words, Chew did this to be a nuisance,” Rush remarked.

“In other words, yeah,” Tack replied. “That.”

“What a tool,” Rush muttered.

“Lawson and Slim gonna get over it?” High asked, having been briefed through murmurs while Tack and Rush were talking.

“Not thinkin’ this is a huge surprise for them. Havin’ it confirmed doesn’t make them happy, but they know what they’re dealing with.” He looked around his brothers. “Now let’s not give Chew what he wants from this. Wasting our time. We got a meet. Everyone’s got their job. We need to roll out.”

Rush turned in order to do that, but he stopped when Hop caught him by the shoulder.

He looked into his brother’s eyes.

He got a squeeze, and that was it.

Hop moved away.

But the minute he did, Hound moved in to do the same thing.

That was when the heat started to drift through Rush.

Hound let go, High moved in.

The old guard done, Shy moved in.

Then Snap.

The same weight landing on his shoulder, the same eye contact.

They knew he was sitting that meet with his father, they knew why, and they were all in.

Rush felt that heat remain, warming him through along with a weird sensation in his throat as he moved to his bike.

Both were sheer beauty.

He swung on his bike. Fired it up.

And then Chaos rolled out.

When they arrived, Ally Nightingale, Hank and Lee’s little sister, was in the conference room of her private investigations offices chatting with Knight, Rhash and Daisy Sloan, Ally’s receptionist, but more importantly on the Denver scene, Marcus Sloan’s wife.

Ally had her feet up on the table, ankles on those long legs crossed, a pair of high-heeled shoes on her feet even the most committed man would feel in his dick, and she was laughing her ass off.

She was older than Rush, taken, as in married with children, but if she wasn’t and there was no Rebel, she’d have been his type (barring the fact she was a brunette) and he’d have gone for a go. Ballsy. Smart. Knew what she wanted. Badass. And she had a heart bigger than Colorado.

The minute his father and Rush walked in, her eyes came to them.

“Have you seen it?” she asked.

“What?” Tack asked back.

“Valenzuela’s sex tape.”

Rush felt donuts grumble in his gut.

“Not yet,” Tack answered.

“It . . . is . . . priceless. I sent a choice snippet to Luke’s phone,” she shared, lifting up her cell in her hand. “He said he’s not talking to me for a year.”

Rush chuckled, though he thought she got off easy. Luke Stark, Lee’s righthand man, seeing that, could have threatened much worse and carried it through.

Knight got up with a smile on his face to shake Tack’s hand, then his eyes came to Rush. He did a thorough scan, read the situation, and the smile was different when he took Rush’s hand.

Rush held his eyes, returned the firm grip and let go.

“Good to see we can hit a meet that’s gonna include Valenzuela with a smile,” Rush muttered.

“Dawn of a new day, my man,” Knight replied.

“Marcus and me made a sex tape,” Daisy shared as she got up, and Tack and Rush shook Rhash’s hand. “Though, that gets out, it’ll make my honey bunches of love even more of a legend.”

That might be true.

Rush still didn’t want to see it.

“Have fun dethroning the pretender,” Daisy bid as she strolled out on her own brand of fuck-me shoes, but hers would be proudly worn by a stripper.