“Her and Nash,” he replied, and saw some of the tension ease out of her shoulders.
Since outlaws weren’t allowed to have kids, the very pregnant Bethany and the few children in town were forced to stay out of sight during Enforcer visits. They hid in a tiny concrete bunker below the freezer in the restaurant. At one time, it might’ve served as a cellar for the kitchen, but it was now Foxworth’s hidey-hole.
“Good. The last thing we need is another bloodbath.”
Sloan nodded grimly. Two months ago, a West City crew had showed up at the gates seeking shelter and aid. Reese hadn’t exactly thrown open the doors with glee, but she’d given them a place to bed down along with food and booze. Only problem was, one of them got it into his head that he needed a woman too, and instead of asking, he’d tried to take young Sarah against her will. Another teenager had shot the Enforcer dead, and the ensuing clusterfuck had left Arch dead, along with one of Connor’s men.
Charlie, one of Reese’s Enforcer allies, had tried to bargain for his life, but Sloan had known that if they let Charlie and the others go, one of them would’ve spilled the beans and Foxworth would’ve been torched.
Sloan had itched to kill them immediately, but he’d waited until Reese gave him the order. He’d always wondered if people realized that giving the order was always harder than pulling the trigger. And it broke his goddamn heart, because he knew just how heavily each kill weighed on Reese. But the thing about Reese was that she wasn’t afraid of making the tough calls, even at her own personal expense, and that was the reason Sloan would follow her until he died. Why he’d do everything in his power, even if he had to come back from the grave, to protect and help her in whatever way he could.
“Why don’t you fuck her and be done with it?”
Sloan turned to find Rylan approaching from his left. For a man that big, Rylan had a boxer’s agility, which he’d used very, very effectively to pleasure Reese last night. Watching the two of them had been the most erotic experience of Sloan’s life, he realized with a jolt.
“I’ll hold your hand if you need it,” Rylan offered.
“No.”
“‘No’ what? No, you won’t fuck her or no you don’t need me to hold your hand?”
“All of it,” Sloan answered.
He stepped off the curb of the broken sidewalk and headed toward the soldiers. Rylan followed closely. Both men kept their arms loose at their sides in case they needed to draw a weapon.
“Search it all. I’ve got nothing to hide,” Reese was informing an unhappy-looking Enforcer.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He seemed pissed that she was being compliant, but also unsure if it was a bluff.
Sloan got it—people who were hiding things generally didn’t roll out the welcome mat.
“Sloan, this is Eric. He’s part of the senior guard out of West City.”
Shit. Sloan didn’t like this. The deals they had in place were with lieutenant Enforcers that outranked the senior guard: Nestor, Hal, and Charlie, though their ties to the latter had been severed the moment Sloan put a bullet in Charlie’s head. The presence of this new guy made him uneasy.
Reese caught his eye and added, “He’s aware of our arrangement with Nestor and has assured me that he’s not here to change that. They’re just following up on a raid that apparently happened at one of their ammunitions depots.”
Sloan rocked slightly on his heels, trying to look casual and nonmenacing. At well over six feet, it wasn’t always easy. “Heard about that. Must’ve been bandits.”
Eric scoffed. “Right. A band of misfits rolled up to an ammo depot, took a huge cache of weapons and equipment, and disappeared.”
“A bunch of bandits tried to rape one of our women a couple months back. We came across seven of them who were ransacking a town about three clicks north of here,” Sloan offered helpfully.
“And where are they now?” Eric sounded skeptical.
“Gone is my guess,” Sloan answered. “They tend to scurry off like the rats they are.”
“And you think they scurried off to rob my ammo depot?”
“Maybe. I can’t even begin to speculate about what those assholes might do.” Sloan shrugged, but he could tell that Eric wasn’t buying the bandit scenario. As he shouldn’t—bandits didn’t perform coordinated raids on heavily fortified compounds. They searched out the easiest prey, snuck in, stole shit, and ran off.
Eric swung his assault rifle off his shoulder and raised a hand to motion his team forward. “We’ll be searching everything,” he informed Reese.
“Be my guest, but I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your guns up,” she said with a touch of impatience.
“Gates. Main Street. Park.” Eric used the tip of his rifle to point out each part of the town to his men.