Twisted Mercy (Red Team Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

smelling so good to her.
    This was stupid, she scolded herself. She didn’t know if he was on her side or not. Surely he wouldn’t smell so nice if he were an enemy, would he? Exasperated, she dropped his shirt on the bench and picked up her brush. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, then splashed water on her face. Feeling somewhat human again, she collected her things and stepped outside.
    Mad Dog was there, leaning against the brick building, a leg propped up against the wall. A tear in his jeans exposed his muscled thigh and the top of his knee. As she remembered sucking in his scent from his T-shirt, a warm color rose up her cheeks. He arched a brow at her, the only expression she could see behind his glasses.  
    She turned away from him and walked to her truck. Opening her bag, she shoved his tee and her things back into it. He headed over to the driver’s side. He still had her keys. She was going to make a point of getting them back the next time they stopped.  
    “Let’s go,” he said.  
    “Where?”
    “You wanna be the club wrench. I’ll show you to the old wrench’s digs.”
    Mad Dog drove them to the other side of the compound. The wind billowing in through the open truck windows was blow-dryer hot. The WKB grounds were no paradise. Big steel buildings were scattered haphazardly across a wide, barren field. Piles of tumbleweeds clung to the northern sides of the buildings.
    Mad Dog parked in front of an old Quonset hut tucked against a small farmhouse. The front and side yards were a gravesite for old bikes and inoperable vehicles. In all, a prime spot for mice and rattlers, but she didn’t mind. She wasn’t one for flowers and manicured lawns. Give her some old junk she could tinker with, bring back to life, and she was all in.
    Hope looked at Mad Dog, and when he felt her prolonged gaze, he took his glasses off to look at her as well. Hell’s bells, she wished she knew whether he was a good guy she could trust or a bad one she needed to stay away from. His eyes were definitely more brown than green. They gave nothing away, which only heightened her wariness.  
    Men with nothing to hide hid nothing. Men with everything to hide hid everything.  
    She held out her palm. “Keys.” He ignored her, getting out of the truck as if she hadn’t spoken. She got out to stand with him in front of her truck’s bumper. Grasshoppers snapped and clicked as they jumped around the dry field. She held her hand out again. “I mean it, Mad Dog.”
    He was still shirtless beneath his black leather club vest. His vest might once have been a jacket until he’d ripped the sleeves off. Threads from the jagged modification lay over his shoulders.  
    He held the keys over her palm, but didn’t release them. He leaned toward her as he said, “The best thing you can do for yourself is get in your truck and drive outta here.”  
    She searched the madness in his eyes for the threat in his words, but couldn’t find it. “Maybe. But it isn’t the best way to find my brother.”
    His brows lifted. She realized what she’d let slip. “You aren’t gonna find him if you’re dead.”
    “And I’m not going to find him if I quit looking, either.” She took the keys and shoved them into her pocket.
    “Some things don’t need to be found.”
    She ignored that as she walked toward the sad little buildings. Her brother probably didn’t even know he had a sister. Maybe he had other family, half- or step-siblings. Maybe he hadn’t grown up alone, as she had.  
    Maybe it was less a question of whether Randall needed her as it was of her needing him.
    “How long since anyone’s lived here?” she asked, distracting herself from that pit of useless thoughts.
    Mad Dog shrugged. “Not since the last wrench passed. The shop has been used by some wannabe mechanics. It’s pretty torn up.”
    So was the house. Time had worn off most of the paint, along with some of the siding and any shutters it might once have had.