Wild Hearts (Novella) Read Online Free

happened?”
    Risk passed down the beers that Saxby kept handing to him. “It’s the military, dude. We aren’t going to know shit.”
    Rath took the beer and swigged half of it back. “
I’m
going to know shit. I’m going to find out who the Wolf is. Then we’re going to have a little chat.”
    Julian popped the top off his own bottle, bouncing it against the roof to land on Rath’s knee. Probably on purpose. “After we spend a few months on our Hogs forgetting about all this, right? Don’t tell me you’re changing the plan.”
    Rath fell back against the seat, his mouth in a hard line. “No, we’re going. I need fresh air, freedom, miles of asphalt between me and this defuckle. ’Sides, it’s too hot to go back to Mexico right now.”
    Julian and Rath had bonded over their Harleys, and Risk had bonded with both of them over their dysfunctional childhoods. Not that they sat around whining. It was just something you knew when you met someone who’d been through the same shit you had. The same way Risk would see a military guy and know the hell he’d been through, even if he wasn’t in uniform.
    Knox tossed his empty beer bottle in the sliver of a garbage can. “I’d rather have lost a limb.”
    “Yeah, you lose a leg, people feel sorry for you,” Julian said. “You die, you’re a hero. We’re failures.” He threw up his hands. “
Tanto nadar para ahogarse en la orilla
.”
    “And what’s that mean?” Knox asked.
    “Basically that we spent so much effort to swim only to drown right by the shore.”
    Saxby’s usually laid-back expression tightened as he jabbed his finger at Knox.“You think losing a limb is better than this, you’re fucked in the head. Spend one day in a wheelchair having people either ignore you because they’re uncomfortable, or give you a pity look, and you’d change your mind.”
    Knox held out his hand as a shield. “Whoa, brother. You can step down from the soapbox. I got your point.” Risk could see the moment Knox realized that Saxby’s diatribe was fueled by the war injuries of his cousin Chad. Knox’s expression shifted to contrite, not one he wore often. “Sorry, Sooch.”
    Saxby gave him a nod. “We need to keep this in perspective. Getting angry or wishing for grievous bodily injury isn’t going to help a damned thing.”
    “But finding out the truth will,” Rath said. “The Wolf gave us false information. He—or someone he worked for—wanted El Martillo taken down a notch. Or scared into submission. Or at least they wanted the U.S. to get out of bed with them.”
    The boys sank into that possibility, all going quiet. “That makes some sense,” Risk said at last. “Someone wanted Miguel and his wife dead, and they wanted the U.S. implicated.”
    The limo came to a stop, and Risk realized they hadn’t been paying attention to where they were going. He felt all of them snap to attention, the energy bristling in that small space. They were in the back section of a mostly empty parking lot. The driver put the vehicle in park and got out. Rath’s hand was on the door handle, already pushing it open.
    The driver pulled the door open the rest of the way, and a man Risk had never seen approached the open door. Risk could feel every one of them tense into fight mode, though the man’s body language appeared nonthreatening. The guy was tall and lean, dressed as a civvy but with a whiff of military to his bearing. He was probably early thirties and had obviously orchestrated the whole limo thing.
    Bracing his hand on the roof, he leaned in, meeting each of their gazes. “My name is Chase Justiss. May I join you, gentlemen?”
    “You a reporter?” Risk asked. “ ’Cause we got nothing to say.” Nothing they
could
say, bound by confidentiality as they were. No one was willing to chance treason to clear his rep.
    The man shook his head with a slight smile. “Definitely not a reporter.” He liftedhis jacket to show that he wasn’t armed or wired.