his road name by letting weasels like Axle get away. They had followed him all over the state, ending up almost where they started, only one mile outside the border of the town of Conundrum, the base for the Sinner’s Tribe.
Zane crossed the street and took up a position to the left of the front door. Jagger joined him on the right. T-Rex, a junior patch member of the MC, blond and built like a linebacker, ran to cover the back door, and the remaining three Sinners took up guard positions in the near-empty parking lot.
“There’s a camera above the till and four civilians inside.” Gunner, the club’s sergeant-at-arms, peered through the window. As the tallest member of the MC, all brawn and bulk, he had the strength and level head to handle the job of keeping order in the club. “Two ladies … one very, very hot redhead and a tiny blonde with more piercings than I got girls begging for my attention,” he murmured. “There’s also a geeky guy with glasses, and a big older dude who I’m guessing is Big Bill.”
Damn. Zane hoped the girl wasn’t too hot. He had a weakness for redheads, and right now, he couldn’t afford any distractions. Not that he would do anything about it. He’d tried getting it on with a couple of redheads and every encounter ended in disaster. His mind would fill with visions of Evie—the girl he had loved and lost. And then he would remember their last night together and his gut-wrenching despair when her father, the town sheriff, found them together. And yet that pain was nothing compared to what came after.
He gave himself a mental shake. Memories of Evie were a distraction he couldn’t afford. Especially now, at the culmination of their hunt.
“Fuck.” Jagger lowered his weapon. “Too many witnesses. We’ll have to wait until he’s outside.”
“We don’t have time.” Zane pointed to the sea of headlights coming down the mountain pass. “Black Jacks. Same number of bikes we saw at the bar in Columbus last night. We need to get in and out before they arrive.”
“You and I’ll go in, grab him, and pull him outside,” Jagger said. “Gunner can deal with the civilians. T-Rex and the brothers can keep the Jacks distracted if they get here before we’re done. Keep your face clear of the camera.”
Jagger pulled a ball cap from inside his cut and tugged it low over his face. Zane followed suit, although with his dark hair just brushing his shoulders and his skin deeply tanned, he was more readily identifiable than his clean-cut friends. Sure, the cops would know from the cuts they wore that Axle had been offed by the Sinners—the Sinner patch, a skull with wings and stars, was emblazoned across the back of every cut. But if the authorities couldn’t make a positive ID, they’d be less inclined to come banging on the Sinner clubhouse door, especially now that the Sinners had a friend inside the Conundrum sheriff’s office.
Jagger pushed open the glass door and Zane followed him inside, skirting the rows of shiny new motorcycles dominating the shop floor and staying out of the direct line of the camera.
“Nobody move.” Zane raised his gun to Axle’s back and then caught the gaze of the redhead behind the counter.
In that moment, his thoughts crystallized and shattered.
All but one.
Evie.
Except for a new softness in her face, and a rounding of her curves, she looked exactly as she had the night he left Stanton. From her long, thick, red-gold hair, to her perfectly proportioned oval face, and the full sensuous lips he had dreamed about kissing night after night. Her delicate nose turned up slightly at the end, accentuating her softly angled cheekbones, and her lush body was meant to fill a man’s palms. Her eyes, now wide with fear and confusion, sparkled with the same emerald green. Her beauty hit him like a fist to the gut, stealing his breath and rendering him incapable of speech.
And unable to pull the trigger.
Unfortunately, Jagger appeared to be having the same reaction. Evie had been his friend, too. The three school friends had bonded over broken families, childhood disasters, and teenage woes until the night Jagger held a good-bye party and Zane ran away.
“Evie.” Jagger spoke first, recovering fast as yappers always did, using the nickname he and Zane had given her when they first met on the school playground.
She frowned, little creases forming between her brows. “My name is Evangeline.”