“A frozen breakfast. Now get out of my fridge,” came the agitated reply.
Rolling her eyes, Alexa closed the bottom door and opened the upper freezer door. A few frozen meals remained. She hated that her mother’s diet consisted largely of microwavable food, but considering that the stove was often covered in crap—like today, for instance, when there was a huge bag of . . . something sitting on it, the microwave was often the only accessible means she had of cooking anyway.
Between her mother’s habit of stacking things on the stove and her smoking, Alexa was terrified that her mom was going to accidentally start a fire and get trapped inside the blaze by the mountains of junk. A fire had broken out in their place when Alexa was fifteen. Luckily, Tyler and Maverick had been at the house that day and had been able to put it out before it damaged much more than the kitchen, but Alexa still sometimes had nightmares about it. Sighing, she lifted the bag off the stove and put it on the floor.
“Now it’s in the way.” Her mother appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing a floor-length black maxi dress and a pair of flip-flops. She’d pulled her hair into a neat, low ponytail and put on a pair of earrings and a matching necklace.
“It’s not safe to put things on the stove like that,” Alexa said.
Waving a hand, Mom shook her head. “It’s not like the stove can magically turn itself on.”
Alexa didn’t take the bait. “Better safe than sorry, that’s all. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to do it today, but tomorrow I will come back with groceries and do a little cleaning for you.” Do a little cleaning was code word for get rid of as much stuff as I can without causing you to have a panic attack, and her mother knew it.
“You don’t have to do that,” her mother said as she tried to stack a few of the dirty dishes from the counter into the too-full sink.
“You know I don’t mind,” Alexa said. It wasn’t exactly the truth. There had been a time when she first moved out of her mother’s house when she’d sworn to never deal with hoarding again. As a kid, not even her bedroom had been safe from storing the unneeded and unwanted things her mother brought home. At one point, she’d lost the use of her bedroom closet because she’d put all the stuff her mother kept dropping into her room in there until it was filled to the top.
“Still, I don’t need you to take care of me. I’m fine on my own. Always have been.” Mom shuffled to the kitchen table and retrieved her purse from the back of a chair. Grocery bags filled with things Alexa couldn’t make out buried the table next to the chair.
Her mom’s words were a lie and they both knew that, too. “Well, I like to take care of you, so it’s no problem. You letting me help makes me happy.”
For just a moment, her mother gave her the softest, most sincere smile. “You’re a good girl.”
“I try, Mom.”
“I know.” Her mother came right up to her and did something she didn’t do often—she hugged Alexa. “My baby.”
Closing her eyes, Alexa soaked in the unusual show of affection. After Tyler died, her mom had become anxious about being touched. She only seemed to tolerate it from people she knew well, and even then, she allowed it infrequently. Just another of the issues that had manifested as she’d tried to cope with Ty’s loss. Unlike her mother, Alexa never had the luxury of falling apart because someone always had to hold Cynthia Harmon together. More often than not, even when Tyler had still lived, it had been her.
“You ready?” Alexa asked quietly.
“I hate doctors,” Mom said, pulling away.
Alexa nodded. “I know you do.”
“But whatever. I’m ready. The sooner we leave, the sooner we get back. I don’t want to miss my shows.” As she moved toward the kitchen doorway, her purse caught a cracker box stacked in a recycling bin on the floor, causing an avalanche. “Just leave it,” she said when Alexa went to right the pile.
“Okay,” Alexa said. She stepped over the mess. She could deal with it tomorrow. Besides, there were only so many battles she was willing to fight today.
CHAPTER 6
The Ravens rolled into Baltimore under the cover of darkness on Friday night, the warm, humid air crackling with the electricity of an approaching summer storm. They’d ridden in six groups of five, each set of riders set to converge on one of two agreed-upon meeting points from different directions to hopefully make their approach less noteworthy. Maverick wasn’t usually one to believe in fate or any of that bullshit, but it was at least lucky that the weather might offer them some additional cover.
Maverick pulled his Harley into an underground parking garage about four blocks from their target, the Iron Cross headquarters, joining two groups that had arrived before his. A box truck waited nearby to carry any acquisitions home. Their engines rumbled inside the subterranean space, but it was far enough away to be secure, to give them a place to wait, and to make sure their efforts were coordinated with the team meeting in the second location.
Their plan wasn’t particularly sophisticated—they’d converge at one time on the location from two different directions. Infiltrate the building via multiple entrances, acquire any assets inside, and then set the place on fire, leaving the Iron Cross with nothing and pulling the rug out from underneath their efforts to take control of the city’s underworld. More than that, their loss of power would encourage the city’s other criminal elements to pick them off like sitting ducks—exactly what’d happened to the Church Gang. Hopefully the Feds would take care of the rest. And if they didn’t, the Ravens just might have to come back for more. And put these fuckers to bed once and for all.
Maverick dismounted as Dare did. They tugged off their helmets and joined the guys milling about at one end of the lot.
The cold, hard press of his handgun in the small of his back felt too damn familiar. He usually only carried when they were actively involved in a protective situation with a client, but lately it’d been one shit storm after another that’d demanded they ride hot. It was hard as hell in Maryland to get a license to carry, but the Ravens had a friend and ally in the sheriff’s department who’d helped a number of them get a permit over the years because of the protective work the club did. Not that a permit would’ve been important for a night like this, because carrying without one would be the least of the lines they were crossing.
“The storm will work in our favor,” Mav said.