Free Heart of Steel (Demon Riders MC Book 2) by Evelyn Glass Page B

businesses the Riders are running.”  Rick doesn’t need to finish his thought.  They all know where this is headed.  Anything that Lance printed would be devastating for the motorcycle club; it could mean the end of it altogether.  It made Elyse even madder at the man that she’d thought she could count on as a friend.
     
    “So what are we waiting for?”  Dane plants his hands on his hips, determination radiating out of him.  “We go get Lance, and we make him disappear.”
     
    He says the words so simply that it takes Elyse’s breath away.  She knew that Dane wasn’t a boy scout, but she hadn’t been prepared for the fact that he could talk so naturally about killing someone. 
     
    “You can’t be serious!”  She stares at him, open-mouthed.
     
    “Calm down, Dane.  We can’t just go in there all guns blazing.”  Rick’s voice is calm, but he shows no hint of being surprised at Dane’s reaction.
     
    “Why the hell not?  He’s the one who started all of this.  He should be the one to face the consequences.”  Dane zeroes in his attention on Rick, as if he’s forgotten that Elyse is even there.
     
    “By facing the consequences, you mean that he deserves to die?”  Elyse fights to keep the panic out of her voice.
     
    “If he wants to destroy the club, then he has to go.  That’s how this works, Elyse.  You’re not naïve enough to think that I carry a gun to shoot deer.”  He gives her a look that cuts her down to her core, but she refuses to show how hurt she is.  She knows that Dane is talking out of anger and hurt; they would talk about his angry words to her later.
     
    “No, I’m not naïve enough to believe that.  But I’d also like to think that I know you well enough to know that you won’t just shoot someone for doing their job!”  Elyse meets his fury with her own, refusing to back down.
     
    “Their job?  Is that how you see this?  He’s going to destroy the club, Elyse.  For fun.  Don’t you get that?”  He looks at her in confusion, as if she’s completely missing the point.
     
    Elyse takes a deep breath, calming herself, knowing that the two of them shouting at each other isn’t exactly conducive to finding a workable solution.  “I do get it, Dane.  Why would I have come to you with this information if I didn’t?”  She touches him gently on the shoulder, and his eyes soften slightly at the contact.  “But I can’t let you hurt him.  No matter what he’s planning on doing, I can’t let you do that.”
     
    Dane gives her a shocked look.  “ Let me?” 
     
    “First, Dane in karate, you think you can take me?”  Elyse raises an eyebrow at him, only half-joking.  She had been trying to break the tension, but her lame tease doesn’t seem to have done anything helpful.
     
    “Why do you care about what happens to him?”  Dane’s question tells her that he’s only really listened to part of what she’s said.
     
    Elyse sighs deeply, wondering how she ended up in the middle of the woods, in the dark, explaining to an angry biker why it was wrong to kill people just because you don’t like them.
     
    “Because he may not be my favorite person in the world, but that doesn’t mean I’m okay with something terrible and permanent happening to him.”  Elyse crosses her arms over her chest, staring Dane down.  “If anything happened to him because of me, I would never be able to forgive myself.  That’s just how I’m wired.”  Elyse sighs deeply, suddenly feeling exhausted.  “Even if I didn’t have scruples, Lance’s family is basically made of money.  His family is all over the society pages; they’re Portland royalty.  If anything were to happen to him, nothing would stop the police, the Feds, and God knows who else from crashing down on the club with the full force of the law.  Besides, even if Lance was…out of the picture,” Elyse winces at the euphemism and the fact that she was even talking about it,