Arsen

by Kathryn Thomas

  Quinn thought about Michelle’s words and how she described how she felt about Arsen. Maybe she was in love with the guy.

  ***

  Arsen watched as the binding gum was mixed with the MDMA powder. They were almost done with the run, and after the gum was mixed, they would spray the mixture with the blue dye and then press it into tablets.

  As he watched the drum turn, he wondered if he had made a mistake telling Quinn he was in love with her. She seemed a little put off this morning, and now that the rush of passion had faded, he wondered how much truth was in what he’d said.

  There was no denying he was falling for her, but was he in love with her? That was a harder question to answer. She twisted him up like no woman before her, even Holly. He loved Holly, but somehow what he was feeling for Quinn was different. He couldn’t put his finger on just how it was different, but it was. It was like the difference between a lake and an ocean.

  When he looked at her he wanted to fuck her blind, while cuddling and protecting her at the same time. It was that second part that set her apart from Holly, and every other woman. He felt a protectiveness for her, not possessiveness, like he had with Holly. Holly was his woman and nobody was going to take her away. With Quinn he felt that as well, but there was more, something deeper. He would have fought any man for Holly, but he would fight the devil himself to protect Quinn and keep her safe.

  He snorted as Kelly approached from setting pelletizer to press their tablets, pulling his thoughts back to the business at hand. The mixing of the binding gum was almost complete. Even as the thought entered his mind, he heard the click of the relays that signaled the dye was being applied. It took about twenty minutes to dye their product, then it would be time to start making tablets.

  “How’s it look?” Kelly asked as he moseyed to a stop beside Arsen.

  “The dye is being applied now.”

  Kelly nodded. “Biggest run we’ve made in a while.”

  “Yeah. But this thing with the Horsemen has driven business to the Advocates. This, or larger, may be our new normal before long.”

  Kelly shook his head. “I remember when your dad was making this in a storage building. We’re selling more molly in a couple of months than we used to in a year.”

  “I know.”

  “That Quinn chick, I hope she knows what she’s doing. We’re on the cops’ radar now.”

  Arsen shrugged. “We’ve already seen a small uptick in sales with just the website redesign. That’s only been live, what, two weeks? It takes time to get noticed. Remember when we first went live with the site? It was weeks before we got our first sale.”

  Kelly grunted. “I’m not sure how I feel about this.”

  “What?”

  “It’s like we’re less of a club and more of a business.”

  Arsen chuckled. “You got something against making money?”

  This time it was Kelly who chuckled. “It’s not that.”

  “What then?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Kelly, if you have something to say, say it. If one of the founding ten can’t say what they’re thinking, then nobody can.”

  “Okay. I appreciate everything you’ve done for the club. Even before you took over as President, you were giving good advice to your dad. We’ve grown richer than I would have believed possible. But sometimes I feel like we’ve lost something along the way.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “I don’t know that either. I guess I feel like I should be in Phoenix helping track down those Horsemen bastards.”

  “You’re free to go as soon as we get this batch in the pelletizer. Look at it this way. You had a job before. Could you have gotten off and ridden with the club?”

  “I could have taken vacation.”

  “If they approved it on such short notice. You have to work somewhere. We all do. But you, me, Zane, Phil, all of us, we’re working for the benefit of the club. I know this MDMA run is a pain in the ass. I wish I was in Phoenix right now myself. But the club has to come before any one brother. Some of us had to make a sacrifice for the club. This time it was you, and me. Next time it may be someone else. But you’re still doing club work, work that benefits us all. Nobody thinks less of you for staying behind. If you even suspect one of them does, you have my full support in setting their thinking straight by whatever means you feel are justified.”

  Kelly chuckled. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I just feel so fucking useless, standing here running these fucking machines, when I could be helping track down the fuckers who killed Greg and Chet.”

  Arsen put his hand on Kelly’s shoulder. “It’s because you’re here, running these fucking machines, that everyone else could go track down the fuckers who killed Greg and Chet. We have a reputation of delivering, on time, every time. We worked hard for that reputation, and it’s worth protecting. What you’re doing is arguably more important than being in Phoenix.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way.”

  Arsen gave the older man’s shoulder a firm squeeze. “That’s just because you’re pissed off that you’re missing all the fun. If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll have Phil save you one.”

  Kelly chuckled. “Yeah, maybe so. If I think we’re going to run out of Horsemen before I get a shot at one of them, I may take you up on your offer.”

  Arsen chuckled. “You got it brother, you got it.”

  ***

  Arsen and Quinn watched as Nelson and Thom upended the tablets into the feed hopper for the bagger then pressed start. The machine whirred then clicked, then began to move. The first bag stopped at the filling station and the numbers on the counter blurred before stopping at 5,000. The machine sifted, the numbers would reset to zero, then start over again as the previous bag was sealed. Two seconds later, the machine sifted again, the first bag would fall into a slide where it slid into a catch tote as the next bag as sealed. The machine could bag their MDMA order in less than three minutes, by far the fastest part of the process.

  Three minutes later, the machine stopped, the counter showing 3,254. “Not bad,” Arsen said, stepping up and pulling the partially filled bag from the machine.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Destroy it.”

  “Why don’t you save it for next week?”

  “Because we don’t keep the drugs around. What we made today leaves tomorrow morning first thing. I don’t want to keep anything around that would tip anyone off what we make here besides bath beads.”

  “Doesn’t that cost a lot, throwing product away like that?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Thirty-five hundred tablets? About a hundred twenty bucks in raw materials. This batch is about average. I always aim to make a little extra so we don’t short anyone. The loss is factored into our cost.”

  “What do you do with them now?”

  “I pour them into our toxic waste tote. In there, they’ll dissolve in a few minutes and just be another part of the chemical soup.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Watch,” he said with a grin. He picked up the tote with the thirty bags and carried them to the mixing machine where he carefully laid the bags in the bottom of the large drum. Once the bags were in place, he maneuvered the huge tote of Epsom salts into place and used the machine’s lift to dump them into the machine.

  “The bags are completely air tight, so that should defeat a drug dog. The salts hide the packages.”

  “I have to ask. How are you going to get the bags out? Do you dump the salts back into the tote?”

  “We could do that. We might have to this time. Normally we’ll just jog the machine. See those stirring paddles?” he asked, pointing to the large metal bars arrayed around the drum. “We’ll slowly jog the drum and the paddle will lift the bags right out for us.”

  “Jog?”

  “Move the drum manually by pu
shing a button while the door is open. Normally, once we have the MDMA out, the molly is sent out for distribution and we make a run of salts, since the drum is loaded anyway. Now that everyone is gone, I guess we’ll have to empty and wash cycle the drum. Or maybe we’ll come back a day early and make a run of salts like normal. I don’t know yet. Something I have to work out.”

  She eyeballed the drum and realized the drugs were under at least three feet of salt. Nobody would ever find it there unless they knew to look. The Blades seemed to have thought of everything. “Who’s making the delivery tomorrow?”

  “Zane and Chet are delivering to the Advocates and I’m taking a load to the Bastards.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Can I go?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ve been doing business with the Dirty Bastards for years, and I don’t expect trouble, but if something were to go down, at the exchange is where it’ll happen.”

  “What do you expect to happen?”

  “Nothing. But when that much cash and drugs are in play, that’s when shit will happen if it’s going to. Drug bust, someone in the Bastards crosses them, who knows?”

  “Don’t you normally send two or three guys?”

  “Normally. More if it is a first time buy. But the Advocates and Bastards, I trust them. If it were anyone else, not so much.”

  “So let me go. You’re sending two to the Advocates. I can watch your back.”

  “You know how to shoot a gun?”

  “Well, no, but they don’t have to know that.”

  He chuckled. “Point.”

  “Come on, let me go. You’re leaving town right after that and I want to spend the last few hours with you before you leave.”

  “And if the cops show up?”

  “Then I’ll tell them you picked me up walking along the interstate and I didn’t know anything about drugs. Come one, Arsen, please?”

  “We’ll have to go in the car, but it’s still a long ride.”

  She smiled at him as she slowly licked her lips. “I love long rides,” she purred. “Why the car?”

  He chuckled. If it were anyone other than the Advocates or the Bastards, her going would be out of the question, but he was confident enough that the Bastards wouldn’t try to fuck him that he could let her off at the truck stop and she could wait inside until the exchange was done, then he could pick her up again.

  “Because I can’t carry 100,000 tablets by myself on the bike.”

  “Then I can go with you and wait in the car with the motor running. That way if anything happens?” She shrugged.

  He had to admit the idea had merit. He trusted the Bastards, but only so far. Having someone in the car would help keep them honest. “Okay, fine. You can wait in the car. Can you look tough?”

  She gave him her best ball busting, take no prisoners, bitch look.

  “Maybe some sunglasses will help,” he suggested.

  Chapter 41

  It was raining again as they pounded east in Arsen’s Cadillac CTS V. It was a good thing he’d planned to bring the car anyway. He loved his bike, but riding four hours in the rain sucked, no matter how dedicated he was.

  They’d just passed Wilcox, Arizona, when Arsen’s phone rang, trilling over the speakers in the Cadillac. He touched the screen to answer the phone.

  “Arsen.”

  “We took out four this morning,” Phil’s voice said.

  “Tell me one of them was that Stacy bitch or Todd Yuggers.”

  “No such luck. We did have to kill a woman when she tried to pull a gun on us.”

  “You taunt the bull…” Arsen began.

  “You get the horns,” Phil finished. “We found them holed up in a rent house. Four men, three women. One of their old dealers rolled on them. They are not popular, even on their home turf. You offer a couple of Franklins and people fall all over themselves to help.”

  “What happened to the other women?” Quinn asked.

  “Quinn wants to know what happened to the other women,” he repeated so Phil could hear.

  “They were scared shitless so we made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Get out, keep their mouths shut, or have their brains blown all over the back wall. They took the deal.”

  He looked at Quinn who was nodding in approval. “Keep it up. Any other leads?”

  “Not yet. It’s only been a day. Cut me some slack. Jesus!”

  Arsen chuckled. “Keep it up. Any idea how many people we’re after?”

  “Word on the street is we got all but about twenty. That’s not counting the assholes who didn’t have the good graces to die when we shot them.”

  “So that leaves thirty-seven?”

  “Give or take. Less the eight or so still in the hospital. Call it twenty-five to track down. I thought we’d save those still in the hospital for last. We can’t get to them.”

  “Understood. Good work. Keep on them until I tell you stop.”

  “Are you going to tell me to stop?”

  “Only if they call it quits and turn over Stacy and Todd, along with those responsible for killing Chet, Greg, their old ladies and my family. If they do that, then I’ll consider it.”

  “They’ll never agree to that.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll kill them all.”

  “That works for me.”

  “Just keep it clean. I don’t want anyone going to prison over this.”

  “The team was in and out in ten minutes. Nobody saw nothing. Gage is a total hard ass. He shot the woman without a blink. I was about to ream his ass out, then I saw the gun. We need to put him on delivery. He’s so easy going you wouldn’t know it, but you do not want to fuck with that guy. He’s the real deal.”

  “We’ll talk about it when I get there tonight.”

  “Looking forward to you and Zane joining the party.”

  “So am I,” Arsen said with a grin. “Anything else?”

  “No, but I knew you’d want to know.”

  “Okay. Keep me in the loop. See you in about six hours.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to go,” Quinn said quietly after Phil was gone.

  “I have to. The brothers are putting their asses on the line for the club. I can’t do less.”

  “I know how it works, but I don’t have to like it.”

  “No, you don’t, but it’ll be over soon.”

  “I don’t know how. Until you kill every last one of them, we’ll never be safe. All it takes is one guy with a gun.”

  He looked at her and gave her a cold smile. “I know.”

  “This is only going to end when every member of the Horsemen is dead, isn’t it?”

  “Almost certainly.”

  She looked out the windshield, watching as the wipers thumped. “I guess I can live with that,” she said after a moment.

  The meet was scheduled for noon, and at eleven-thirty Arsen pulled the Caddy to a stop in the rest area in Lordsburg, across the interstate from the Love’s Truck Stop, so they could switch drivers. Just like they always met the Advocates at the end of the runway in Yuma, the truck stop was the standard exchange point for the Dirty Bastards. There was plenty of traffic flowing in and out and a large parking lot that allowed them to get some distance from prying eyes.

  “Make a left and stay on this road until you see the Love’s,” he instructed. “Pull in there and stop,” he ordered then tapped on the screen, selecting a number from his contacts.

  “Mason Trucking.”

  “Mason, it’s Arsen. I’m at the Love’s, but I’m in my car, a white CTS.”

  “You pussy,” the voice chuckled. “Afraid of a little rain?”

  “No, but I couldn’t haul your order by myself on a bike.”

  “Where’s your regular crew?”

  “On other business.”

  “I’m about five minutes out. I’ll meet you at our regular spot.”