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persuaded to release her free and clear after a ‘chat’ with Connor and Demon. The Horde’s reputation these days was again formidable; Sherlock couldn’t imagine anybody being stupid enough to think they could storm the Hall without an army at their back and survive.
     
    He was of a mind that women who came to the Horde like Maria and Shaylee were the best, most reliable girls. They had lost their rose-colored glasses long ago, and they understood the value of the club for them, and vice versa. They knew their place. A man could let his guard down a little and enjoy a woman’s company if he didn’t have to look out for her claws to sink into his kutte. So he was surprised to get attitude from Shaylee.
     
    “You know how this works, Shay. Don’t get bent.”
     
    Looking up at him, she smiled brightly and nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. See you later?”
     
    Before he could answer, he saw Hoosier, Bart, Connor, Lakota, and Trick walking single-file to the Keep. He had to go. He bent down and kissed Shalyee’s cheek, which still had a pink scar from her ex-pimp’s fist. The heavy flowers of her cologne filled his nose and didn’t play well with the lingering traces of his hangover. “Yeah. I want to get my hands on your bare ass.” He smacked her again, and she gave him a playful swat.
     
    Setting the ladder back up where she’d had it, Sherlock took his coffee, went around the bar, and headed to the Keep.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    Trick had come back from his trip looking good—healthy and tan, and in good spirits. His life was back on track; he’d gotten married in the spring and knocked his wife up right away. They’d had this summer honeymoon where he’d taken her and her daughter to see her parents for the first time in years and to see his grandfather, too. And he was building again. He looked good.
     
    It had been eight months since he’d been released from unreported custody. He’d never yet spoken in even the barest detail about what he’d endured during almost two months locked away, out of sight, but he’d come out of it looking like a prisoner of war—which he had, basically, been—and it had taken him months to return to some kind of normal. Looking at him here in the Keep, Sherlock thought that he was only just now really back to normal.
     
    Sherlock had done some deep searching while Trick was locked away, trying to find a crack in the government wall between him and the club, but he’d been buried so deep that all Sherlock, or Bart, for that matter, had ever come up with was wall. They’d almost given up hope when La Zorra had stepped in and pushed her way through that wall.
     
    They had to be careful how much digging they did into La Zorra. She had a crack tech staff, better than either Sherlock or Bart, and she would know if they went snooping where she didn’t want them. It was a strange place for Sherlock to be. Until the past year, he’d often bragged, in certain circles, that there was nothing he couldn’t hack. If information had been made digital, he could get it. He’d gotten his virtual hands deep in the private pies of the government, the biggest corporations, you name it—and not only American governments or corporations. He’d felt invulnerable. And then he’d hit that wall.
     
    He knew he could get up La Zorra’s skirts, too. Sometimes the temptation to see what she was hiding almost got to be overwhelming, but the downside was too great. If nothing else, he’d fuck his brothers up royally, and that was all the reminder he’d needed to leave La Zorra alone.
     
    That fucking tungsten wall DHS had had Trick behind, though—that tormented Sherlock in his sleep. He’d hacked the goddamn NSA before. Sure, he’d had to tiptoe, and back out in a hurry, but he’d gotten in. Yet he hadn’t even found a hint of a vulnerability when he’d been trying to help Trick.
     
    And still, Dora Vega had managed to find him and free him.
     
    There was so much scary