Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 133511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
I shook my head, frowning.
“I’m serious about Mel.”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
“How ’bout this—I’ll take it one step at a time, see how it plays out.”
Gage cocked his head. “You’ll do what needs to be done?”
“Don’t I always?”
“Always have before. There’s more.”
“What?”
“This morning I saw someone I recognized,” he said, his tone grim. “Someone who will recognize me.”
“That’s no good. Passing through?”
“It’s possible,” he said. “He was by himself. Could be a coincidence.”
“Who was it? Anyone I know?”
“Unlikely—this shit went down before your time. Few years back, we had a hangaround whose girlfriend worked at The Line. Turned out he was a snitch, and it’s ’cause of him and that bitch of his that Bolt served time. She set him up—they were working with the Feds. The snitch pulled a runner. Called himself Hands, no idea what his real name is.”
“You don’t think it’s a coincidence he turned up here?”
“I got a bad feeling about it,” he admitted. “Can’t think of a good reason for him to be in Hallies Falls. If he’s still workin’ with the cops, he may be targeting Marsh and his boys now. Much as I hate the fucker, last thing we need is LEO sniffing out the cross-border trade and shutting it down. Throw in the fact that he could blow my cover and we got a big problem.”
No shit.
“You didn’t just call me because of a party,” I said flatly, forcing my body to stay relaxed. Gage shook his head, looking almost regretful.
“Hopin’ it won’t come to that, but we can’t let him talk. Assuming he’s even here—could be he was passing through. But if he’s after Marsh, odds are good he’ll be at the party tonight.”
“Pic know?”
“He knows we have a complication,” Gage replied. “Couldn’t risk giving any details—when Bolt hears, he’ll lose his shit, so I’d like to handle it before that happens. It’s on you and me. I see him at the party, you’ll have to find a way to get him out of there without raising suspicions. On the bright side, Rance is ready and waiting—we get Hands, we’ll haul his ass to Bellingham for questioning. After they get as much info as they can, they’ll take care of him for us.”
“It’s never simple, is it?”
“Never has been before, so no reason to expect it to start now,” he said, shrugging. “I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“You sure you’re up for something this heavy? I know you take a big risk every time you come over here, but they catch you with Hands, you’ll go away for a long fuckin’ time. Doesn’t matter how much money we give Torres, he wouldn’t be able to cover up something this serious.”
“Then I won’t get caught,” I said. “Whoever does the job takes the same risk, and it’s not like I have kids.”
“Yeah, but it sounds like you’ve got something goin’ on with Melanie.”
“I didn’t see Horse or Ruger turning soft when they met their old ladies.”
“I don’t see them in this hotel room, either.”
“I’m here,” I told him, my voice steady. “The club comes first—that’s the way it is. We’ll handle this situation, no worries.”
“Gotcha, brother.”
• • •
Talia’s friend—a brown-haired girl named Sadie—was wrapped tight around me, squealing as we tore down the highway. Her fingernails were long and red like talons, and they were currently digging deep into my stomach. For reasons completely beyond me she seemed to think this was sexy.
Gage was ahead of us, leading the way to the Nighthawk Raiders’ clubhouse, Talia on the back of his bike. The girls were already wasted when we’d pulled up to their place. Sadie had done her best to crawl inside my pants while Gage disappeared into the bathroom with Talia for a quickie. I could hear her screaming “Harder, Daddy!” through the door the whole time, so I guess it was good we sent Gage after her instead of me—according to Sadie, Talia thought “old guys” were hot.
I had every intention of sharing that little tidbit with all the brothers back home, too.
Now we’d reached the Nighthawk clubhouse, an old commercial building on the northern edge of town. A chain-link fence lined with razor wire surrounded a large, open parking lot to one side of the building.
We parked our bikes on the street, away from the line of club bikes in front of the building. A couple of prospects were lurking around outside. They didn’t particularly impress me. Neither did the club’s motorcycles, for that matter. Most of them were dirty and a couple were flat-out rat bikes. Back home, our prospects would be all over that shit, shining up the chrome and making sure everything stayed clean.
No fuckin’ pride.
Loud music poured out as we walked toward the large rolling gate into the fenced area. Talia dragged Gage along proudly, like a cat with a particularly juicy mouse. Sadie was giggling and hanging all over me. Much as I wanted to hate her, she didn’t strike me as nasty like Talia—just young and fucking stupid. I could already see her in a few years, all played out and broken-down. Girls like her didn’t last long in this life, not if they couldn’t find themselves a good old man.