“Well, there was that,” Dawg agreed with a vein of amusement behind the words. “But that’s not the only reason we’re here.”

“I’m already aware someone tried to break into her room.” Thank God for Eli and Jed. Brogan wasn’t certain Doogan would have told him, if it had been left up to him.

“Well, there was that,” Dawg repeated. “But once again, not the only reason we’re here.”

“Then why the fuck are you here, Dawg?” he snarled back, his hand clenching on the truck door to keep from ramming his fist in the other man’s face.

He’d get the first strike, but he doubted he’d leave unscathed. Then Eve would just be pissed as hell at him. And if he did manage to get her to let him touch her again, he’d be too sore to do much.

Dawg chuckled. “You see that look on his face, Rowdy?”

Rowdy grinned, his arms crossed over his chest, the smile amused and mocking.

“That’s the ‘I’d love to try to kick his ass, but if I do, she’s gonna be too pissed and I’m gonna be too sore to love her later’ look.” Natches snickered knowingly. “I’d tell him to join the club, but he’s not quite paid his dues yet; what do you think?”

Rowdy shook his head. “Nah, not yet. We’ll make him wait awhile just for being a prick about us showing up and all.”

“The three of you are fucking insane.” Brogan moved to step into the truck.

“Pull out before we’re finished and I promise you, I’ll make your life such hell that you’ll beg me to let up on you. And I can do it, Brogan. I promise you I can do it.” Arrogant assurance and self-confidence filled Dawg’s expression as well as his voice.

Brogan gripped the door hard enough that he could feel his knuckles turning white as he glared back at the three men.

“I don’t like your endangering my sister’s life, and if I could have steered her toward some nice, safe, simpleminded little farmer or accountant to ensure her safety, then I would have done it. But you’re what she wants. So I’m trying my damnedest to help you here.”

“You made her promise to stay the hell away from me,” Brogan accused him furiously. “That’s not helping me, Mackay. And that was only after threatening my fucking career if I didn’t stay the hell away from her.”

Rowdy and Natches turned to Dawg incredulously.

Brogan bit back a curse as he just ignored them.

“And I knew damned good and well she wasn’t going to keep that promise.”

The acknowledgment had Brogan narrowing his gaze on the other man.

“Then why do it?”

“Because she’s my sister,” Dawg grumbled irately. “And I needed time to finish what I was doing to protect her before she drew any more attention to the fact that she was most likely the only weakness you had. You weren’t doing anything to keep her out of your bed.”

“But you couldn’t come to me.” Mackay’s arrogance and stubborn independence reminded Brogan of a crazed bull staring at a red flag.

“You’re too close to Doogan. And if you weren’t, then we knew your partners definitely were,” Dawg informed him, his tone hardening. “Until Doogan asks one of us for help, then he’s getting nothing from me that he can use to pull me into his bullshit without a hell of a compensation package, Brogan. You know that bastard as well as I do, and you know damned good and well he’d use us up, then throw us to the wolves when he was finished.”

Brogan had no idea Dawg knew Doogan, let alone that he knew him so well.

“Agreed,” Brogan growled.

“What I’ve done instead is work from where it counts,” Dawg informed him. “That motorcycle touring club is bullshit. A bunch of veterans riding around sightseeing? Give me a fucking break,” he jeered. “I know exactly what it is, what it was started as, and what it will always be now that it’s established. Just as I know there’s not a chance in hell you’re going to be pulled into the inner circle of that group, no matter how long they let you carry that title of ‘leader,’ without our help.”

Brogan stiffened, his gaze going between the three men as suspicion rose inside him.

“Tell me what’s going on,” he demanded, suddenly certain these three men were the exact reason he’d never been able to break the ice where the club was concerned.

Brogan had known there was far more to that club than he’d ever been able to figure out. Just as he’d known that many of the tours they’d taken came far too close to the known locations of small militia groups rumored to be operating from those areas.

“Not without that compensation package,” Dawg growled.

Brogan shook his head. “Fuck Doogan. He’ll come to you; I promise you that. I don’t need Doogan to do my job or to protect Eve any more than you need him to tell me what I need to know.”

Dawg glanced at his cousins, each man meeting his gaze, communicating as only men as close as they were, who had fought together and worked together in the operations that they had been conducting in the county, as long as they had, could communicate.

Finally Dawg nodded before turning to him. “Your thieves aren’t in the motorcycle club, Brogan. And the files that have been stolen don’t have a damned thing in them that tie them together. What they do have, though, is the ability to draw three men out of hiding who were working with Chandler and Dayle Mackay in the Freedom League. Twenty years ago, Chandler was stationed at Fort Knox when a transport hauling more than six million in gold bullion was hijacked. Rumor in the Freedom League was that the gold was hidden by one man and the location of it supposedly encoded in a set of files at Fort Knox in case something happened to him before it could be recovered and used to fund the League. Timothy managed to acquire the files and we found the gold. What we don’t have are the three high-ranking military officers Chandler was working with.”

Brogan stiffened in sudden outrage. “You mean I’ve been busting my ass for two and a half years for nothing?”

Dawg grinned. “Well, you did get Doogan here. And you obviously drew the attention of the three we’re looking for. Unfortunately, now Eve’s drawn their attention as well.” He glared at Brogan for that. “It was suggested to Doogan that he pull us into this, because we’re the only chance he has of recovering the gold or arresting the traitors involved in it. When Doogan refused to come to us, and decided to find the answers without us, then we let him. Don’t doubt that you’ve done your part, despite his machinations. You’ve done exactly what we would have wanted you to do if we had been working together. But when Eve became involved, I had to adjust the plan a bit to ensure she was protected.”

“You’re the bastard Donny said has the information Doogan wants and will help only if Eve was involved with me?” Son of a bitch, and they called Timothy and Doogan game players?

“Not quite.” Dawg rubbed at the back of his neck as he grimaced in irritation before propping his hands on his waist and blowing out a hard breath. “We didn’t know who that was until last night, after Eve went missing from the restaurant. He came to us then.”

Brogan looked between the three men, more amazed that they had been able to accomplish drawing that contact out without raising red flags with Doogan, or with him.

“Who is he?” Brogan demanded.

Dawg shook his head. “You have enough. Get Doogan on board with the program. We want those packages. Full immunity, no matter what we have to do from here on out, no matter the investigation or the agent conducting it. Because I’m telling you, we’re getting damned sick of being pulled into the agency’s bullshit, threatened, our families endangered, and our freedom placed on the line because the agents in charge are too damned arrogant to accept defeat, or to acknowledge that they don’t know what the hell they’re doing once they get in these mountains.”

He was right, and the fact was that Doogan wasn’t the only agent with the opinion that just because a man was from the backwoods Kentucky mountains, then he was somehow not as smart, as quick, or as capable as one born and raised in the city. Or in Doogan’s case, the boardrooms and drawing rooms of the ultrarich.