by Wild, Nikki
Talon had all the advantages.
Talon had more men, men who had enjoyed a full night’s rest without a long interstate drive. They were better equipped than mine. It was their turf, and they knew how to defend it.
Fuck.
Riding in full force with weapons, rested or not, was a bad call on my part. It would send the wrong message.
I needed diplomacy.
I needed humility.
I needed to ride in there alone and ask for a meeting.
It was my only chance to gain his ear without shedding blood. Granted, that might still happen, but if it was the only real card that I could play…
I knew my men to be fiercely loyal and protective, and they’d only let me go alone to see Talon over their dead bodies.
Or their sleeping bodies...
My Dragons and I took to the highways again.
A few speed cops tucked away behind overpasses and bushes looked like they were taking interest in us, but we kept on the safe and narrow throughout the long ride, keeping speeds to five over the limit.
The night spun above us as mile after mile flew by under our tires. Just as the sun was rising behind us, Los Angeles loomed ahead. It had been a long, long time since I’d been to this crazy city.
Just like that famous rock song from the Nineties had proclaimed, the city was a character all of its own – a constant companion to those it sheltered. I always felt the gaze of Los Angeles upon me when I was near. In those famous words, “The city, she loved me.”
Or maybe I’m just sentimental.
My men were goddamn tired, and the first order of business was getting them a place to crash while I slipped away.
Half an hour later, I was booking rooms at a sleazy little motel on the edge of the city. Everyone was exhausted from the ride, and just ready to crash and catch some sleep.
I was pretty fucking tired too, but there were much more important things to do.
The plan was to give it thirty minutes, let everyone pass out, and slip away unannounced. I figured that one or two of them might notice, but that I could get away without the proverbial alarm sounded.
That… didn’t exactly happen.
My eyes shot open, and I glanced over at the alarm clock in a panicked daze.
Aw, fuck.
I’d been asleep for two hours.
As quietly as I could, I stepped out of my motel room and made my way to my bike. I fired it up, the rumbling engine filling the parking lot with noise, but nobody in leather came crashing out to stop me.
It was time to go see Talon.
Alone.
With the late morning traffic, getting across the city was an absolute bitch and a half. My motorcycle was a little too thick and rugged to pull the old in-betweener trick on the lanes, and I wasn’t sure I’d want to do it even if it could. The drivers here were all too quick to flip between lanes, and the use of blinkers appeared to be optional.
I kicked my own ass over falling asleep. For all I knew, Sarah had been in serious fucking trouble for hours…
It didn’t help that she wasn’t answering her phone. At least it wasn’t going straight to voicemail. That meant that it was still, you know, intact.
I brushed the negative thoughts away.
Talon was a vicious fuck, but he had a certain sense of chivalry towards the women. If she’d already went to him, she might be in some trouble…
But she’d still be alive.
That was more courtesy than I figured Talon might be willing to give me.
I was riding into danger alone.
No backups.
No weapons.
No plans.
My one hope rode on the fact that he’d accept this as a brief olive branch and at least tell me that she was okay. The bad blood between us was just that – between us – and from what I knew of him before, he was at least somewhat reasonable…
I’d only been to the Port of Los Angeles twice, accompanying my old leader Eduardo and the rest of his outlying Devil’s Dragons. Eduardo had come to pay his respects to his friend, technically his boss.
This meant that I knew the way.
My destination was Terminal Island, one of the major regions of the sprawling port – which dominated over forty miles of coast. If Sarah came here, she was bound to run into some men in Talon’s pocket…
The thought made my blood boil.
I rode through Long Beach and through Seaside Freeway, fighting the traffic and the shipping trucks every step of the way. When I finally came to Terminal Island, I noticed a surprising lack of security and passed on through.
This doesn’t bode well…
Riding through the port on a motorcycle wearing the leathers of the Devil’s Dragons drew some attention. I could see dockworkers glancing my way with confusion, and I noticed a couple of them acknowledge me with suspicion.
They were my ticket in.
Sure enough, I spent less than ten minutes later riding through the port when I soon heard something over the thrum of my engine. Stopping and killing the bike, I heard distant motorbikes coming my way…
Here comes the welcoming party.
I had stopped in something of a large intersection between walls of storage crates and warehouses. It wasn’t much longer before a large group of bikers – easily thirty or forty – came a-rollin’ on through.
Patiently, I watched them perform their little intimidation tactics. They boxed me in with a circle, riding around me and trapping me in the intersection, loudly cheering and jeering at the sight of their unwelcome guest.
But when they caught notice of my emblem, the taunts turned more malicious. The circle started shrinking, and guns came into view…
The motorcycles had built a makeshift ring, making escape all but impossible. The crack of a whip sounded over the roar of engines. I knew what was coming next…
Him.
From between the rumbling engines he came, stepping into sight just as the bikers killed their bikes. The sound of his black boots crunching against the asphalt crackled into the air; against his black jeans, two silver chains bounced and lightly clanged; his leather jacket bore the insignia of the Devil’s Dragons, the word “President” blurred from age in its stitching; long, curly gray hair flowed down to his shoulders, shifting with his footsteps.
This man was Hell incarnate.
I’d hoped that the intervening years would have taken their toll on the Devil’s Dragons dark, malevolent founder. Built tall and broad with fists the size of bricks, I could see that I had been painfully mistaken. As he coiled the whip and slipped it around his shoulder, I could see that his age only served to underline his viciousness and wickedness.
The diabolical biker president was still as formidable a force as ever, and that didn’t bode particularly well for me.
My old enemy came to a casual stop in front of me, chewing on something in his mouth. He spat out against the concrete, turning to lock his burning eyes onto me.
“Long time,” he muttered angrily.
I offered a sly smile.
“Hello, Talon…”
Hunter
Talon led his brigade inside the port, his band of vile bikers serving as my large-scale escort towards his main complex. I rode with his men on either side, following him as he led our improvised little parade on his own chrome motorcycle – outfitted with the best a bike can have.
Passing between shipping docks and walls of storage containers, I rode towards a raised building in the distance, overlooking the port by the water. Smaller buildings and warehouses stood at the foot, visible across the water.
I was led to one of these warehouses in particular, just beneath the main building. There, I parked and descended my bike while my distant Los Angeles cousins did the same around me.
They did so enjoy their intimidation tactics.
Talon walked ahead, leading the entire swarm of us towards the main, raised building. Clicking his fingers, a pair of his men rushed through a nearby
door and raised the electronic shutter from the other side, lifting the wall and revealing a hidden bar at the foot of the place.
My eyes slid upward as I was escorted in. Strong, solid steel legs held up that raised building with a metallic, rusted staircase leading up to the top, wrapping around a square column.
Said square column looked like an elevator, as I was shoved into the bar. It sat along the edge of a wall with a pair of biker guards placed at the front.
He clearly didn’t want people getting up there without proper clearance.
The bikers took their places at bar tops and around pool tables as Talon walked forward, climbing up into what appeared to be a large, raised chair built mostly out of motorcycle parts.
It was his throne.
As soon as he was in a comfortable slouch, my enemy turned to me with a haggard grimace. That look on his face spoke volumes to the contempt that he held me in.
With such a simple glance, he painstakingly reminded me that I was surrounded by the vast majority of his club, alone, no weapons to call my own, and the gravity of a very old grudge weighing down upon me…
“You have five seconds to explain what the fuck you’re doing in my port,” Talon growled, cracking his knuckles, “or else it’ll be just like old times…”
“My woman is on her way here,” I explained calmly. “Her name is Sarah. She–”
“Your woman, eh?” Talon replied quickly. “She was already here poking around my port. My men brought her to me, and she told me some interesting stories…”
Fuck.
The damned woman hadn’t even stopped for a fucking power nap. She’d driven straight here and somehow found her way to Talon… I already gave her a lot of credit for being resourceful, but this was a new record.
“Where is she now?” I asked cautiously.
Talon grinned malevolently.
The fucker enjoyed his position of power over me, and it was as plain as goddamn day.
“You think that I’d hurt her?”
I had to quickly make a choice.
“Maybe,” I answered calmly. “If she mentioned my name, then just maybe…”
Talon let loose a long and hearty laugh, before covering his mouth with a large fist as he coughed violently for a few seconds.
“You have my word that she’s safe, although if I’d had time to properly check into her claims before she left…” Talon grumbled finally. “I sent your woman’s pretty little ass away, but you’re lucky that’s the only thing I did…”
Relief washed over me, but it made me wonder.
Sarah… what did you tell him?
What did you do?
“The entire thing raised a question for me, however. This stranger in my territory knew your name, she knew my name, she knew my Devil’s Dragons… I find it hard to believe that you would let a mere woman hear my name. How exactly did she come by that kind of information?”
If there was one thing that Talon hated, it was people knowing who he was…
I needed to run damage control, quickly.
“Viboras Verde,” I spat out. “Sarah was with me when we counterattacked the cartel. She helped me save those cheerleaders and the undocumented girls. It was all over the news.”
Talon tilted his head.
“I’d heard some stories, yes. You have a bit of a hard-on for fucking around with the cartels, don’t you?”
“They took my sister,” I replied.
Talon nodded, rubbing his beard between a thumb and two fingers. “So they did… and you struck when they came back. You’re saying that Sarah was there?”
“She was,” I replied proudly. “She even found records of their operations. My Dragons and I have been swatting the fuckers down everywhere that they’ve turned up since.”
Talon’s face curled into a grin.
God, I always hated it when the fucker grinned.
“And I suppose that’s how your woman became intimately aware of your little shit-stain club, and us by association…”
I knew that the only way to deal with a man this dangerous was to put everything out on the table. Someone as cold and calculated as Talon always knew more than he let on, and trying to keep information from him was blatant disrespect at best… and worth a bullet at worst.
“Sarah is a private investigator,” I told him clearly and plainly. “I’m helping her work through a case that brings her this way.”
“A private investigator, you say?” Talon chuckled. “I had no idea…” Whether he was pulling my leg or not, there was no telling, and that’s just how he liked it.
“Sarah is searching for a shipping container that went missing from this port. This client of hers seems to have a lot of interest in it…”
“You’re wasting my time,” Talon grimaced. “You aren’t telling me anything new, including why you are here.”
“Talon, you pride yourself on information,” I replied as evenly as I could manage. “You like to know everything about what’s going on in your circles… every container that comes through this port… every client who wants to send seaside business through Los Angeles…”
He merely watched, waiting for the point.
“You can see then why I would find it strange that you didn’t know the container belonged to Soroka Sarkonov.”
That got a reaction.
Talon’s eyes flared in abject anger as he ascended from his throne, standing his ground above me with indomitable fury. He could barely stutter out his words.
“What… did… you… just… say?”
“Soroka Sarkonov owns that missing box,” I crossed my arms. “Sarah knows it too, but she doesn’t know a fucking thing about Sarkonov. She doesn’t believe that she’s in any danger. I tried to stop her, but she came here without me.
“I’m here to bring her back, no questions asked, without another word about this fucking container. We both know that anyone who gets mixed up with Sarkonov is dancing with the Devil.”
Talon slowly lowered himself down to his throne again, although his villainous slouch was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he sat forward, carefully watching me.
“Sarkonov? I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he insisted darkly, eyes glinted with malice.
Fine. Be that way.
I’ll play your little game.
“Don’t believe me, then,” I shrugged lazily. “I’m telling you who owns the container, and we both know you don’t want to be on the wrong side of this woman. Who do you think she’s going to blame for her shit going missing? The port authority, or you?”
The biker president stroked his beard some more, leaning back further into his throne. He considered these words thoughtfully, and I was left to stand in the midst of his people and wait uneasily for his response.
When it didn’t come, I spoke up again.
“I respect your position despite our…”
I fumbled for the right word.
“…Differences. We both know that you’re higher up the food chain, but I find it surprising that you’d be willing to work with Soroka… unless you didn’t know.”
Talon glowered at me, studying my expression.
That’s the moment that I knew.
“So it was a surprise,” I confirmed. “Holy shit. Soroka Sarkonov sent a container through your port and it didn’t blip your radar.”
He stiffened in his seat, his face a mixture of surprise and anger. “Why are we having this fucking conversation?”
“Because the woman carrying my child won’t listen to reason, and what’s the first thing she does when I tell her a fucking dangerous arms dealer is involved with her case? She drives straight fucking here.”
Talon laughed heartily again, obscuring more coughing. One of his bodyguards reached for a hand-rag for him, but he waved it away.
“Your woman has some real balls, Hunter… Got some information out of me I wasn’t trying to give.”
“Sounds like her,” I smiled.
Talo
n composed himself and gazed down at me with a mixture of irritation and amusement. I watched the cogs spinning in his head as the scales slipped back and forth.
Which one is going to win out?
“I know your missing container,” he finally explained to my surprise and relief. “We were supposed to load the crate onto an eighteen wheeler, but the crate disappeared.”
“It disappeared? Is that the story you’re going to tell Soroka? You’ve got guards posted on every damn exit. Tire shredders. Steel gates.”
“I didn’t say the crate left the port,” Talon growled impatiently. “I said it fucking disappeared.”
“So where the hell is it, then? Crates don’t just disappear off your goddamn dock unless you want them to disappear.”
“Remember your place, boy,” Talon growled menacingly, his voice creaking in his lungs. “Unless you want a second reminder of what happens when you forget where you stand…”
Before I could respond, his expression changed.
A mischievous glint appeared across his face as his eyes settled on the wound that he’d given me… the constant reminder that stretched down one side of my face.
“Maybe I can even you out a little,” Talon thought aloud, his irritation becoming very, very clear. As he began playing with a knife, I realized that I was pushing him too hard. “Such sloppy work I did before on the first one. I can even touch up the old scar, maybe…”
It was time I went for a different angle, before things started getting dicey. I didn’t exactly like dicey, especially not with this guy…
“Look, Talon. We both know who’s paying Sarah to look into this. Soroka wants information about your chapter of the Devil’s Dragons and she didn’t come to you for it… She’s paying my woman through one of her proxies, and that means she thinks you might be involved in making that container disappear, as you put it.
“That means that you’re now a dead man walking… Maybe I can help you.”
“You want to help me?” Talon suddenly roared, rising from his seat. “You arrive on my territory unannounced, barely behind that vapid bitch of yours, prowling through my port looking for a fucking box? And you have the audacity to pretend you are useful to me?”
