Free Devil's Ride by Kathryn Thomas Page B

couple of days. I had just returned to bed, luxuriating in my still rare, but increasingly more frequent sickness-free mornings, when my phone rang. I picked it up but didn’t recognize the number.
     
    “Hello?”
     
    “Alex? It’s Cain. I —”
     
    I killed the call the moment I recognized his voice. There was nothing that man had to say that I wanted to hear. The phone rang again almost immediately and I pressed the button to ignore the call. A moment later, it rang again, and once again, I ignored it. For the next five minutes my phone rang almost continuously. I first set it to vibrate, then silent, so I didn’t have to listen to it buzz. It was always the same number and I finally turned the phone off just so I didn’t have to see the screen light up anymore.
     
    When I finally crawled out of bed an hour later, I turned my phone on. It said I had thirty-five missed calls. That was just from when the phone was on. There was no guessing how many I missed after I turned it off. The phone signaled that I had a voicemail. I actually had seventy-one and my mailbox was full.
     
    The moment I heard Cain’s voice on each message, I deleted it. At about message thirty, I stopped listening and was deleting messages as fast as my phone would allow me. I wasn’t even finished with my deleting when the phone signaled another call from Cain’s new number. I debated ignoring it, but decided he would just keep calling until I told him to leave me alone. I dropped out of voice mail and accepted the call.
     
    “Thank god! Don’t hang up!” Cain cried.
     
    “You can just go fuck yourself!”
     
    “Alex, please! I just want to know if you are okay. Things have gotten out of control and… I just need to know if you’re okay.”
     
    “Great! Peachy! Just another great day when someone tries to kill me! A woman died yesterday because of you. Or me.”
     
    “What? What do you mean?”
     
    “The new bartender, the one that replaced me? You remember her? They shot her, Cain. Four guys came in and gunned her down in cold blood. They probably thought it was me. Because of you, a woman is dead.”
     
    He was quiet a moment. “I’m so sorry, Alex. I never meant for any of this to happen. Things have gotten out of hand. You need to come to Dallas where —”
     
    “I’m not going any place with you. Not now. Not ever.”
     
    “Alex! I can’t protect you there. The Bulls, they’ve lost it. They hit us yesterday and killed three of our guys. We’ve been on lockdown all night. We pulled all the family members together into the clubhouse for protection. I was on guard last night and that is why I couldn’t call.”
     
    “Whatever,” I said. I couldn’t care less about his excuses.
     
    “I don’t know how they found you. It should’ve been impossible. I haven’t told anyone about you or the baby. Only Thad knows that I have something working in New Orleans, but even he doesn’t know what. I got a new phone, a prepaid, in case they somehow had hacked into my phone records or were eavesdropping on my calls.”
     
    “Well, you don’t have to worry over me anymore. We’re done. Finished. I never want to see you again.”
     
    “I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. I’ve dragged you into a mess that I never intended to. But can we put that behind us at least until we get this shit sorted out? For the sake of the baby? After that, if you never want to see me again, I guess I can accept that. But please, Alex, let me protect you and the baby.”
     
    “Protect me? You have to be shitting me! It’s because of you that I’m in this mess!”
     
    “Don’t you think I know that?” he cried in despair. “I never intended for this to happen! Nothing like this has ever happened before! I don’t understand what is going on! None of us do. The Bulls are being too bold. We can’t predict what they will do next. That’s why I need to bring you to Dallas. I can’t protect you where you