Groom of the goddess Artemis

Jackson Taylor was just climbing into bed when his cell phone went off. Not his personal phone, though, and not his phone for King’s Men. No, it was his third phone, the one that Jack used for the specific purpose of staying in contact with Ace Cuddy. Right away, Jack’s whole body went into high-alert mode. Code Red, man, and no lie.

He grabbed the phone, stared at the number for a second. Yeah, it was Ace – which was good, Jack supposed – but everything else about this call was potentially bad.

The arrangement was that Jack called Ace, never the other way around. Ace stuck to texts, and they never said more than ‘OK’ as Ace agreed to a meeting time and place that Jack proposed.

Also? How did Jack know for sure that it was Ace at the other end of the line? Maybe his cover had been blown, his phone taken… and the voice that would come out into Jack’s ear would belong to one of Ace’s Fallen Angels MC brothers, looking to see who the hell their President had been talking to secretly.

If that was the case, then Ace was a dead man. And as much as Jack hated the nasty little dickhead, he didn’t want him dead because he’d been blackmailed by Matt ‘King’ Kingston to be an informant for King’s Men.

Jack’s conscience was crystal clear about using Ace to get the information that King’s Men then used to break up drug, kidnapping, and sex trafficking rings run by Kirk Jensen, scumbag extraordinaire… but he wasn’t sure how good he’d feel about being directly responsible for Ace having his head blown off over a phone that Jack had personally given him.

Muttering a curse that doubled as an oath, Jack swiped ‘accept’.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Jack?”

Jack relaxed a tiny bit at Ace’s voice, pitched all low and careful, but definitely not in any pain. OK, so this part was good… though now Jack was all tense about why the hell Ace felt the need to whisper down a phone at him at one a.m. on a Wednesday.

“What the fuck, man?” Jack said.

“I know, and I’m sorry. But shit’s going down, and you needed to know right away.”

“Go.”

“Shay Alcott.”

Jack paused, already mentally packed and in the SUV, heading north. “Damn. Really?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“It’s already done.”

That startled Jack, and he wasn’t the type to startle all that easy.

“What – you’re in Montana?” Jack said, pissed that Ace was only telling him this now. “You were supposed to tell me what was happening before you went up there to grab the woman.”

“No,” Ace said. “I’m still in Denver. Some other guys were sent to get her and bring her back here. Some boys out of Vegas that Kirk outsources on occasion. I just found out two minutes ago that they’ve already got her, and they’re heading here as we speak. They should be in Denver in about seven hours.”

Jack found that he was taken aback for the second time in less than a minute.

“I thought it was supposed to be you to handle this?” he said. “You and The Fallen Angels?”

“Yeah, I thought so, too. But Kirk had second thoughts about us doing the job.”

“How come?”

“Seems that Shay teaches in a damn small town up in Montana, and it occurred to Kirk that having a bunch of one-percenter motorcycle club members stroll on up Main Street in a town of less than twenty-thousand might be a bit eye-catching and memorable. In all the wrong ways.”

Jack paused again. Well, yeah, actually. If Ace Cuddy, and Joker Kane, and their asshole MC brothers showed up Smalltown, Anywhere, they’d attract attention. Hell, those boys might as well stomp around carrying signs saying, ‘You know we’re here to cause shit’.

And if Shay Alcott’s disappearance was noticed so soon after a real, live version of ‘Sons of Anarchy’ had mysteriously blown into town and back out again? Any cop worth his or her salt would make the connection. No way Kirk Jensen would risk that kind of exposure.

“Right.” Jack sighed. “I guess the guys that Jensen sent were able to blend in better than your boys would.”

“I guess so.”

“Right,” Jack repeated, running his hand through his dark hair. “And is she OK?”

“I dunno. I haven’t heard otherwise.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Jack stared at the clock on his bedside table for a second. “So, eight a.m.?”

“More or less.”

“She’s coming to your clubhouse?”

“Yeah. Then we’re taking control of the situation, and we’re moving her. Where, I don’t know yet. We have a few safe houses scattered around, so maybe one of them.”

“Is anybody going to miss her?” Jack asked. “It is Christmas break at the school, right? Is she supposed to be somewhere?”

“Nope. She has no boyfriend, no interest in her brother, no parents. As far as Kirk’s people were able to figure, she was spending the break all alone.”