Serving the Bad Boy: War Hawks MC

by Carmen Faye

  I was no longer in the mood. I didn’t have the patience for someone clamoring for a place among the rich and famous. I was done knowing have truths and limited details.

  “Tell me everything you know, or I will find a way to find it out for myself. If you don’t, anything I learn about you that you don’t want going public is fair game to the highest bidder or authority,” I said, stopping in place and giving him my sternest look. “You said I didn’t know who Tarek was, who is he?”

  He sighed heavily again and looked around where we stood by his car. It was just a parallel space on the street. There were people passing by, but it was New York – no one was paying us any attention.

  “Is he really a foreign prince? No, he is Ali Poole, isn’t he?” I asked sarcastically.

  Graham only shook his head. He chuckled softly and wiped his brow with the back of his palm.

  “Oh, Annie, your second guess was fairly close,” he said, still laughing softly.

  “What? He’s related to Ali Pool?” I asked hesitantly.

  “He’s the last living relation he has left,” Graham said softly, looking around to be certain we still weren’t drawing any attention. “Tarek is Ali’s younger brother.”

  ***

  Tarek

  “I didn’t imagine getting you here would be as easy as a woman,” Hamilton said. “Was she planted under Graham by your brother?”

  “I was actually wondering if she was yours,” I replied. “I assumed you hired her to get under my skin at just the right moment.”

  Hamilton’s face twitched only slightly at this information. The movement was nearly imperceptible, but his smirk wiggled just a little bit at his surprise. He had as much knowledge of Annie as my brother seemed to.

  “Well, then Analise Beckwith may be of no more use than any other pretty face, I suppose,” he said, eyeing me cautiously.

  “If she isn’t yours and she doesn’t work for Ali, how about we just leave her out of the picture,” I said feeling relieved and disappointed all at once.

  She hadn’t been lying to me and may have actually had feelings for me. However, I had doubted her at the first suggestion, and now I had no way to find her again if I made it out of all of this alive.

  That ship had likely sailed.

  “I have no further need for her, so she is out of my mind completely,” Hamilton replied. “You and Ali have been my goal.”

  “So I gather,” I said. “Trouble is, if you brought me here to get anything about Ali out of me, you will be greatly disappointed. He won’t come; I can take care of myself. And, I won’t tell you anything. I make it a point to stay out of the details of his work.”

  “Then, you wouldn’t know about his private research? His latest and greatest achievement?” he asked, looking at me as if he expected my answer to change.

  “Not a thing,” I replied, sitting back in my chair.

  I wondered if he was referring to the Man 1 files, but I certainly wasn’t going to let on that I had information about anything.

  “Well, I know that he had private research that he was planning to unveil at the TRU Body Gala, that my men were supposed to collect. Instead, they returned with a blank dossier and a treatment sample that my lab deduced was only water,” Hamilton said, his voice growing angry in tone and his face seeming oddly happier and somehow more menacing.

  He made me think of a horror movie clown with no makeup. He smiled at everything, but there was something terrible behind that grin.

  “Sounds like he was tipped off to your plans and switched everything,” I calmly replied.

  That was likely of what happened. Hamilton may have been a powerful man, but no one had more eyes and ears in the city than Ali. No one made a move in his industry without him knowing first.

  “Perhaps, but then, why send you?” Hamilton asked. “He wasn’t attending. His research apparently was never going to be presented. If he knew my men had staged a robbery of the attendees only to have their true purpose be thwarted, why still place you in the line of fire?”

  It seemed like a rhetorical question, so I remained silent this time. He let his guard down and scrunched his face in thought for a moment. In doing so, he swiveled from side to side in his chair and folded his hands together before him, tapping his pointer fingers against his lip.

  “Why still send his younger brother into the threat of danger, death even?” Hamilton continued, seeming to be genuinely bewildered now.

  I continued to play dumb, but I knew why Ali had sent me to the gala. I was supposed to take down a single attacker sent to steal the research he was scheduled to present. Instead of one thief, there were many gunmen.

  I wondered if Ali had an ulterior motive. Did he know there was truly a larger attack planned? Had he known I would be able to get out alive?

  “I can’t speak for Ali. With him, everything is a lesson. I just live life as it comes,” I replied.

  Hamilton thought on the conundrum of my purpose at the gala before dismissing the matter temporarily.

  “That is past now,” he said, sitting straight in his seat as if returning a meeting to order. “I have you. I have Ali Poole’s motivation and reason for success. I just need to decide the best way to dangle my bait.”

  “I already told you,” I reminded him,” he won’t come for me. We have an understanding.”

  “I don’t think you understand anything,” he replied. “You will soon. First, I want to have you examined. I want to see how far your brother’s research has come.”

  “So, I am Man 1,” I asked without thinking because of his comment.

  I had misunderstood him, though. He looked at me taking humor in my error and began to laugh, his volume rising.

  “Man 1? No, you are not man one. From what I understand, you are a sort of understudy,” Hamilton said, shaking his head and hands at me. “Ali is Man 1. He is testing on himself with research that will change the face of medicine. In fact, there will likely never be need for any other pharmaceutical product. “

  “What do you mean I’m an understudy?” I asked.

  “You are his only living relative. You are the only partner or beneficiary to any of his businesses or research. You are to take his place if his research fails, and I can assure you, if what I have heard is true, he will not fail,” Hamilton stated. “Your brother is a genius, an amazing medical and business mind. His soft heart for family holds him back from his potential.”

  “What do you mean? How could he greater meet his potential? From what you’ve said it sounds like he has created some sort of cure-all,” I replied.

  “He wants to make his research public domain and work with the government to provide free distribution,” Hamilton said angrily, for once with his face reading the same as his emotions.

  His eyes and nostrils flared, and his smile had contorted into a hate filled grimace. He stood and slammed his hands on the table and leaned over me, spit flying as he talked.

  “From the rumors I have heard about your brother’s findings, he is going to completely shut down the industry. He won’t even profit off his success, which is the larger problem. No, if I were him I would limit the production and limit sales to a select few. That is exactly what I will do. Sell it to the highest bidding government. Let them use it all on their soldiers and have war. The highest bidder will return to keep their men with a supply,” he said, losing himself in his thoughts.

  “What are you talking about? What has he created?” I asked, feeling concerned. “A cure-all? Shut down the industry? No one has that power. There is no such drug.”

  I was in the presence of a foaming mouthed madman. His wild eyes turned to me.

  “Your brother has come up with a formula for regeneration, a chemical solution to many of life’s problems,” Hamilton began to explain excitedly. “In its topical form, it heals cuts, burns, scrapes, and other minor irritations in minutes. Its concentrated pill form can heal broken limbs and failing organs in days. A body could be rid of abnorma
l cells and cancer within a week, maybe two if the disease has progressed to the upper stages.”

  “So, are people going to be indestructible? We can live forever now?” I asked, my mind reeling at this new information with disbelief. “I don’t know if that is a discovery the world is ready for. I don’t know if that is something you should try to put countries to war over.”

  “That is not for you to decide,” he said, snarling at me. “Not that there is much you can do. Your brother has already created it, though it is not some sort of immortality drug. Not truly. No, his wonder drug can keep your heart beating, lungs breathing, and body moving. Sadly, any sort of trauma to the brain is unsalvageable. It is a different type of tissue all together and does not seem to respond like the rest of the body, and as I understand it, your brother has only completed one human trial. It was on himself.”

  “Ali is Man 1?” I asked, wondering the true depths of what my brother had gotten into and how far he was willing to go in the name of medicine.

  Chapter 15

  Annie

  “I can’t imagine someone placing their last living relation, their only brother, in the line of danger,” I said.

  I had joined Graham in his sedan after his revelation about Tarek.

  “After all we have been through together, why wouldn’t he tell me?” I wondered aloud.

  “It’s a well-kept secret. Much of Ali Poole’s staff don’t even know,” he replied.

  “Well, how do you know about it?” I asked.

  “Perry Hamilton informed me after I had ingratiated myself into his service,” he said shrugging.

  “Well, how did he know?” I asked, feeling that every answer was only leading to more questions.

  “If you have enough money, I suppose there is a way to find out just about anything on anybody. Everything gets sold to the highest bidder, including people and information,” Graham explained. “If there is something a guy like Ali Poole or Perry Hamilton can’t buy, they can pay enough for more extreme methods of attaining it.”

  I just sat silently as he drove, letting this new information sink in. The complexities that had been so vague about Tarek before were suddenly clear. He wasn’t just putting his life on the line for friendship or pay. He was protecting the last true family he had.

  It didn’t shed any light on the secrets that Ali seemed to be keeping. It still made no sense that Ali would risk his brother’s life as he had over the years, particularly regarding a debt that was less than change compared to the wealth he had amassed.

  “So what is going on between Ali and Perry Hamilton?” I asked since Graham seemed to have no problem sharing information.

  “I know I look like another bad guy in all this, but I’m really not, Annie,” he said, looking at me as he slowed to a red light. “Hamilton has always paid me to leave a door unlocked here or there or leave an additional uniform in case he needed to plant a server on my staff. I don’t ever ask why as long as he pays. I don’t want to know.”

  “But the money is somehow worth the risk?” I asked with shock and disbelief.

  “The money took me from a chef at someone else’s restaurant to my own sit-down spot. The money I have earned from small favors that look like careless busboy mistakes has expanded that restaurant into catering, put a better roof over my head, and kept enough money to pay you and the rest of the staff. And before I made a name for myself - at a time when I thought I would have to give up my dream and close,” he said, defending his actions. “To be able to do what I live and keep the woman I love around, yeah, it was worth it.”

  I could feel him looking to me again once he had finished what he was saying and turned onto another road. I’m sure I should have felt flattered by parts of what he had said, but I only felt angry and disappointed in him.

  “What you are saying is that you didn’t have the patience to make it on your own and you hoped the money you made would buy my love?” I spat accusingly.

  “I’m saying I have always loved you and wanted to make a life for us and a name for myself. There is nothing wrong with that,” he argued.

  “No, but there is something wrong with the way you went about it. There is something fundamentally wrong with your character if such selfish reasons were your motivation,” I replied. “You are a good guy, but you made a bad decision, regardless of the reasons.”

  He stopped talking to me and continued to drive in silence. I wasn’t sure if I should try to say anything to smooth things over. I didn’t know that I wanted to; I meant what I said.

  I thought about Tarek might be going through at that moment and all that had been done to place him there. He never seemed to have any personal gain in mind. He had a rough life and wanted help to cling to the things keeping him on track, his business and his older brother who had apparently taken care of him his whole life.

  He gave the impression that other than his outlaw motorcycle ways, he had no desire for all that he was tied into but had even less choice to get out. Now, I knew that was because he felt obligated to his brother.

  “Graham, everything is going to be okay,” I said in a calm, firm tone. “You and I are going to fix this, all of it.”

  “Fix it? No, you never should have been put in danger. You and I are leaving. I’m done with being in the middle of the wars of the wealthy. It’s a world unlike what you and I know. Everything is done in the shadows. Every move you make stabs someone else in the back. Everyone has an agenda, and anyone who is not among the wealthy elite is expendable,” he ranted. “I can do enough favors to work my way into that crowd, but I’m not willing to give my life for it.”

  We sat in silence as we rolled to a stop at another red light.

  “I won’t spend my life being a puppet on egg shells, trying to be part of the upper crust,” he added softly.

  “We need to find a way to undo all that has been done,” I said, blindly staring ahead.

  “We need to leave before things get even more tangled and messy than they have,” he replied.

  “No,” I said loudly. “I know you were acting under someone else’s instruction, but that doesn’t excuse you. You had a hand in all this, and you need to do what you can to right the wrongs.”

  “Annie, don’t be a fool. This is so much bigger than me. All I did a was a few small things giving Hamilton’s men access to a few things here and there. He could have just as easily paid anyone else or found some other means to his ends,” he said, defending himself and his actions. “Going back and interfering now is asking for a death sentence.”

  He was driving more wildly. His face was losing color and appeared panicked.

  “You could ask anything you ever wanted of me, Annie, but don’t ask that. I won’t do it,” he said, looking over at me again. “Wouldn’t it be just as well for us to start over somewhere else?”

  “You mean wouldn’t it be easier to just run away and leave a mess you helped make for someone else to clean up,” I asked accusingly.

  He pulled over and sat silent. After a long moment he unfastened his belt and turned to face me in his seat. He reached to take one of my hands in his own. I was hesitant but decided to let him.

  “I know you have had a lot dumped on you very quickly,” he said, clearly trying to approach matters delicately. “I can tell you have feelings for Tarek Poole and that a lot of what you are saying comes from a place of concern for him just as much as it does with the situation itself. I get it, but you don’t know him like you think you do. If you come with me, I can tell you whatever I know about him, his brother, Hamilton – the works. Then, you can decide what you want to do, but my mind is made up. The very least I can offer you, if you still want to go, is to go in with at least as much detail as I have. If you still really want to go back to Hamilton and try to rescue him, I’ll drop you off on my way out of town. I won’t wait; I am leaving today.”

  ***

  Tarek

  “Ah, Tarek,” Hamilton said, rising from his chair at the conference t
able. “I wish you had at least some new information to offer. I hate when things have to get messy, but your only use to me is as bait to make your brother willing to trade or give me his research, formula, and any existing supply of his treatment.”

  “If his miracle cure is all that you say it is, its value to the world is worth far more than my life would be to him. He knows it, and he knows I know it,” I said. “He knows I won’t waste time hoping he will come for me.”

  For the first time, I truly felt that my life was at stake. This man was willing to kill me on a mere chance that my brother would be like him and choose personal gain over the greater good. I knew my brother well enough to know that he had never been this type of man. He never would be. He had seen how life could be when even one person chooses to live selfishly, and he had seen what could come of a community when one person chose to live selflessly. We both had.