Road to Peace Read Free

considering they’d agreed she wouldn’t come here without him. “Cricket? Why are you here?”
    She raised her head and he saw red. Her bottom lip was cut and she raised a bloody washcloth to her mouth, and her eye was black and swollen.
    “What the fuck happened to your face?” he bellowed.
    “First, you should see the other guy,” she quipped.
    “Not funny,” he growled.
    One of the Club’s soldiers, Flea, walked out of the kitchen and handed Cricket a bag of ice.
    “Thanks, Flea,” she said, settling the ice against her mouth.
    Flea smiled. “No problem, babe.”
    Hatch growled and stalked to her side. “Cricket.”
    She sighed. “It’s okay, Con.”
    “You’re beaten to shit, Christina, it is not okay!” he snapped. “Now tell me what the fuck happened.”
    “I was walking into work and Matt jumped me… and not in the good way.”
    “Are you shittin’ me?” he growled. “Where the fuck was Pug? Or Mack?”
    She grimaced. “Mack’s off tonight and I hadn’t gotten to Pug yet. I didn’t see Matt as I was walking in—”
    Hatch raised his hand to stop her from giving him some shitty excuse as he pulled out his phone just as it rang. Booker calling .
    “Have you seen my sister’s face?” Hatch demanded.
    “Yeah, brother.” Booker sighed. “I take it she’s at the compound?”
    “Yeah.” Hatch dragged a hand through his hair. “Her ex was layin’ in wait.”
    “We know,” Booker said. “She doin’ okay? Dani’s worried about her…Cricket was pretty freaked when she left here.”
    “Seems to be.”
    “Okay, good.”
    “She’s done, Book,” Hatch continued. “No more workin’ at Blush.”
    Cricket gasped. “You can’t do that!”
    “Yeah, I’m okay with that, brother. I’m gonna have guys tendin’ bar for a while, anyway,” Booker said. “We got the asshole here. You okay with us takin’ care of him for good now, at least until you get here?”
    Hatch had given his sister a long lead to deal with Matt, but now it was the Dogs turn to take care of the problem once and for all. Hatch glared at her. “Yeah, man. Take him the fuck down. I’ll swing by when Cricket’s sorted.”
    “On it.”
    Booker hung up and Hatch slid his phone back into his pocket.
    “You can not dictate my life like that, Connor,” she snapped. “I moved out for that very reason. I need that job to pay my rent. And since I’m going to school during the day, bartending means I can take care of it all. You also promised you’d let me deal with Matt.”
    His blood boiled. “And he fuckin’ hit you. Again. We’re done, Cricket. It’s our turn to deal with him.”
    “What you failed to ask was what happened to him ! I nailed him, Con. Took him to the ground, just the way you taught me! Yes, he got a couple hits in, but I really did make him hurt worse. His balls are probably the size of watermelons right now. You can’t just arbitrarily run my life like that!”
    Hatch shook his head. “Not up for discussion.”
    “You’re worse than having an overprotective father,” she complained.
    Hatch was the oldest of five kids. His mother was dead and his father in jail by the time he was twenty and, since they had no living relatives, he’d taken on the responsibility of raising his siblings, rather than letting them end up in foster care. Cricket was the baby…and the only girl. At twenty-four, she was seventeen years younger than him, but she acted like she ran the family. She’d recently moved into Knight’s old lady’s condo.
    Knight was a soldier in the Dogs of Fire MC, probably Hatch’s closest friend…if he had friends. Knight’s wife, Kim, was loaded and had made Cricket an offer she couldn’t refuse. Hatch hated the idea, but he’d conceded because it was a secure building with a doorman, and Knight had reinforced the security system not so long ago.
    Hatch shook his head. “You can come work at the shop until you find something else.”
    “ Hello . School. Daytime,”