Tough Love (The Nighthawks MC Book 6)

by Bella Knight

  “Can’t help who you love,” said Herja. “If it rocks or it sucks, a woman’s heart stands firm.”

  Wraith sat up straight, then stood. “I’m going home,” she said.

  “No, you’re not,” said Herja.

  “Didn’t bring the bike,” she said, whipping out her cell phone. “I’m gettin’ an Uber.”

  Ivy waddled up, laughing. “Damn Ace,” she said. “Man won’t stop making fat jokes.” She saw Wraith fiddling with her cell phone, tears in her eyes. “What?”

  Nina smiled at Ivy and then gestured to Wraith. “One for the road?”

  “Hell, yeah,” said Wraith. Nina poured them all shots of cinnamon apple juice, and they took the shots.

  “I’ll follow your cab,” said Herja, “Hell, cancel the Uber and ride with me.”

  Wraith’s face lit up. “Sure. Where we going?”

  “You told me once you had to pretend to be a hooker to have your man,” said Herja.

  “Fucking humiliating,” said Wraith.

  “So, we kidnap him,” said Herja.

  Wraith’s eyes lit up. “Let me call the Uber back,” she said. “I have a nefarious plan.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Ivy. “Nobody goes to jail.”

  Herja laughed. “Wouldn’t be a Friday night without a little trouble.”

  “Good God,” said Nina, “that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Saber was in the process of taking out a drug dealer. Not just any drug dealer, but one that sold high school girls online, to get cash to fund his purchase of meth from a cooker in the desert. Saber had a pretty good idea where the cooker was; he was looking to crash the whole party. They were also making meth candy; the girls helped bag and tag the suckers and star-shaped candies with little stickers of a smiley face with bloody fangs. They were selling it in high schools, themselves. Oddly, the girls all lived in cookie-cutter houses and went to a very nice high school. Saber was furious with Dingo (the pimp and drug runner), for dragging those girls over lines he was relatively sure they wouldn’t have crossed without him.

  Dingo was on the corner near a laundromat behind a huge apartment building. He had brown hair, tipped with blonde from the sun that curled over his shoulder. Accentuated by blue eyes like chipped marble, and a short-shorn beard.

  Wraith tilted her head. The whiskey made her feel loose and a little dangerous. “I can see it, a little,” she said. “Girls see a movie-star look, and get caught up in stuff that gets way out of control.”

  Herja looked at her and smiled a kind smile. “Idiots,” said Herja. “Don’t they respect themselves?”

  “I think respect is the last thing on their minds,” said Wraith. “Saber’s team has them buying high-end shoes, purses, stuff like that. One girl is smart; she buys used, fixes them up, and sells them as new.”

  “Gotta love them Vuitton and Louboutins,” said Herja. “Still not worth the price of a human heart.”

  “Shit, that’s deep,” said Wraith. “Fucking go get my man,” she said. Wraith slipped around the corner, and ordered the Uber.

  Herja stalked over to Saber, slapped him, and started screaming at him in Old Norse. He responded by screaming at her in Vietnamese. Dingo the drug runner took out a Glock and used it to wave the two on.

  “You two bad for business,” he said. Neither one of them paid attention to him. Herja slapped Wraith, twice; the sound was like the cracks of gunshots in the alley. She stalked away, boots stomping on the pavement. Saber followed her.

  The Uber arrived, two blocks away. Wraith started to get in, then looked back. Saber got in next to her, and the driver left in a spin of exhaust.

  Saber rubbed his face. “Herja’s in town, I see. She hits like Mike Tyson.”

  “It’s Ivy’s last night at the club before she quits to have the female linebacker she’s having.”

  “Sorry I missed it,” he said.

  “You didn’t,” said Wraith. “She’ll be there for another hour.”

  “Good,” he said. “We’ve got to do this hard. I come back with bruises and scratches, then it’s fucking believable.”

  Wraith raised her eyebrows. “Maybe we should skip…” She was interrupted by Saber kissing her, hard. She kissed back, equally hard, very willingly bruising her lips. She pushed back, then came up for air. “Change of address,” said Wraith. The driver smiled; he could see it in the rear-view mirror.

  He had her bra nearly off by the time they tumbled out of the Uber. They slid up the stairs, Wraith holding it on with just her elbows. Wraith put in the complicated code, and fell in. They entered, and Saber kicked the door shut behind him.

  Wraith ripped off his gray, soft shirt, ripping it in the process. She ripped off his undershirt, too, putting holes in it. She slammed him against the door, then bit his lip. She scraped her fingernails down his chest, nipped his nipples, one at a time. She did it with her teeth, drawing a tiny bead of blood.

  “Fuck!” said Saber. Wraith unbuttoned his jeans, and used her own boots to pull off his. He pulled off her jeans while she kicked off her own boots.

  She leapt, and pinned him to the wall, her legs around him. She screamed as he plunged himself inside her. She set the pace, hard and fast. He turned, kicking off his jeans, and put her back against the wall. She put her hand against his face, then reached back.

  She very deliberately, clawed his back. “Fuck!” he said again. She twisted, turned, bucked. He came with a thundering roar, and she came with him, riding the waves.

  He lifted her, and dropped her down. She took his hand, and led him to the shower. They had slower sex under the hot water, with long kisses and beautiful touches. They kissed for so long they had to keep coming up for air. She bit, licked, and stroked him until he came again under her hands.

  Saber slid down the side of the shower and sat, and put his head in his hands. “Those fucking girls,” he said. “And, I mean that literally. They will do absolutely anything someone asks them to do on a video camera. Every single one of them is just past her eighteenth birthday; they’re asked to join a ‘sex club’ in exchange for bling at their birthday parties.” She knelt and held his hand. “That’s all technically legal, the sex on video stuff, because no one touches them except each other.” He looked at her with blank eyes. “They get paid per welt or bruise for some of the things they do. It’s past kinky, into ugly.” Wraith stroked his face. “Then, this drug lollipop thing. They’ll get destroyed, every one of those pretty little girls, all for what? A few handbags? A pair of fucking shoes?” He snorted. “I mean that literally as well. They wear the shoes, and only the shoes.”

  “Any closer to moving up the chain?” asked Wraith.

  He snorted. “We’ve got them. Raid happens tonight. That’s why,” he said, kissing her gently, “I’ve got to go. My bruises and cuts will be talked about, I’m sure. Keep him at ease, teasing me.”

  He stood and turned off the water. She stepped out and handed him a towel. He took a little gel and greased down his hair as she dried him. He put on his ripped clothes and kissed her again, as she dripped onto the carpet.

  “Finally make it home,” he said, “when the after-action reports go in. But, I don’t trust those jokers not to fuck it up. Some hothead from Atlanta is on the team, and if he fucks it up for us, I’ll have to go under again.”

  “So,” she said. “You gotta go. Keep yourself safe.”

  He put a feather-light kiss on her lips. “Don’t stay up for me. Just… be you.”

  “Always,” she said. He melted into the darkness of the stairwell. She closed the door, adjusted her towel, and went to get another towel for her hair.

  Saber used another Uber to get within a few blocks of the laundromat. “Fuck,” he said. Dingo wasn’t there. He circled, looking for the man. He found Dingo in a liquor store, grabbing a bottle of Wild Turkey.

  “Fuck,” said Dingo. “That woman get you good! You got blood on your shirt, man.”

  Saber looked down. “She bit me. And clawed me. Th
at woman a hell cat.”

  “What the fuck was she yelling?” asked Dingo. Saber grabbed two ice-cold beers from a beer chest as they threaded their way through the aisles.

  “I dunno,” said Saber. “Don’t know that much of her language. She’s good when she’s pissed, though,” he said.

  “Gotta get a girl like her,” said Dingo.

  “She’d be hard on the other girls,” said Saber. “Fuckin’ hard on them. And, they got a no-face-bruises rule.” He pointed to the swelling on the side of his face.

  Dingo bought the whiskey and two shot glasses. Saber bought the beer and held one to the side of his face. “Guess we could get one pretend to go crazy,” said Dingo.

  “That woman, she’s not pretending,” said Saber. “She’s a man-hater, in sex it’s like fucken banging a razor. But, she’s good. Get you all riled up. Even better, you got some novelty bruising at the end.” He leered, which made him doubly uncomfortable, talking about both Herja and his wife like that.

  They exited the store. “We gonna get a lotta candy,” said Dingo. “Got the girls ready with the labels. They gotta new one, a vampire skull rabbit.” He opened the top of his whiskey, took a drink.

  “Dat’s weird, man,” said Saber, pretending to have trouble popping the top off his beer bottle. “Fuckin’ weird. We gotta pick up the shit?”

  “Use your bike, man,” said Dingo. “Fuck. I forgot. Your saddlebags aren’t for shit.”

  “They old,” said Saber. He’d traded out his roomy Harley saddlebags for some very old ones Henry found for him online. They had seen better days.

  “Yeah,” said Dingo, taking another hit of whiskey. “Let’s go get the stuff.”

  They walked to Dingo’s van. Saber could see that the man had shaking hands and bloodshot eyes, and his pupils were dilated. He’d been sampling his own product again.

  “Hey, man,” said Saber, “if I drive, you can drink more whiskey. Just tell me where to go, man.”

  “’Kay,” said Dingo, handing over his keys. “We out in the desert. On the way to Boulder Shitty.” He laughed at his bad joke.

  Saber unlocked the van, and Dingo climbed in on the passenger side. Saber climbed up, and put his beer into the tiny cooler Dingo had in the van for that purpose.

  “You gonna drink those?” asked Dingo, taking another swig.

  “Celebration,” said Saber. “Job well done and all that shit. Add a lollipop or two, be chilling.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” said Dingo.

  Dingo led them to a road that seemed to lead nowhere. Saber slowed. The meth lab was actually two trailers stuck together, end to end, on a side road in the middle of the desert.

  A wide woman in a red dress that made her black skin even darker sat out on the porch. “You folks lost?” she asked. She had a bag of Jolly Ranchers in her hand. Saber watched as she reached in, unwrapped one, put it in her mouth, and chewed it like gum.

  “Jason sent me,” said Dingo.

  “P-Dawg,” said the woman. “An’ I be Wren.” She laughed crazily. “’Cause I’m so small.”

  “P-Dawg,” said Dingo. “Tell ‘em Dingo here to see him.”

  “P-Dawg!” screamed Wren.

  A man twice Wren’s size wrestled with the door, getting himself out with effort. “Damn, Wren,” he said. “That candy be for product, not yo fat ass.” He took it from her, and she flipped him off.

  Dingo stepped forward. He was swaying because of the whiskey. “Fuck,” he said. “Jus’ give us the stuff, man.” He took out a fat roll of bills held in place by a woman’s hair scrunchie.

  “Yo girls charge too much,” said P-Dawg. The man with the black, sweaty skin had gold everywhere —neck, rings, teeth. “But it be good bizness for me. How much yew want?”

  “Want me two duffels.”

  P-Dawg laboriously counted the money. “Be ‘nuff here for a duffel and a half.”

  Dingo stepped forward. “What the fuck?”

  “Price done went up,” said P-dawg. “Bizness been good.”

  Dingo raised his voice, and his right fist. “Be good money there, homie,” he said, emphasizing the word. “We grew up on the same damn street, and you treat me this way?”

  “Fuckin’ A,” said P-Dawg. “It all about bizness.”

  The DEA team had rolled up in silent trucks with no lights, out of the circle of light from P-Dawg’s trailer, following Saber in. They had met in the distance, and hiked in, in black pants and tactical vests that blended into the night. Saber had taken out his gun and attached his badge to his belt on the driver’s side of the van, opposite the two arguing men. He caught the hand signals, and stayed crouched by the front wheel.

  “DEA!” shouted Hanger, the idiot from Atlanta. In one motion, P-Dawg grabbed the shotgun in a holder under Wren’s table and cocked it.

  Saber shot him in the chest as the boom of the shotgun rang out into the night. Hanger stood their stupidly, unwilling to duck or get out of the way, so he got it full in the chest and neck.

  One agent said on a bullhorn, “Come out with your hands up! We have you surrounded!” as Saber tackled the still-weaving Dingo, and put the cuffs on him. Another agent rushed up to help the bleeding Hanger.

  Saber then rushed forward and took Wren down, as she wrestled to rack the shotgun again. He got her hands behind her and put a twist-tie on her wrists.

  The lab cooks spilled out. They were put in handcuffs. Saber went in, and found several tweakers. One played the same note on a harmonica over and over as he rocked back and forth. Two men were having sex in a chair. They seemed oblivious to the agents swarming in. Saber separated the sweaty men, both thin from drug use, and cuffed them too. He finally found their pants, and helped them into them.

  Saber took Danvers, and Angel and Hildr (both Valkyries with the LVMPD) with him, to get the girls. The girls worked, and some of them lived in the huge apartment complex near the laundromat and liquor store. The bedrooms were done up in high-thread sheets and decor Saber had called, “upper-class sex slave.” All with huge king-size beds and mirrors on the walls and ceilings. There were computers with cameras always open and on.

  They had two, three-bedroom apartments on the second floor, separated by a hallway. The agents took out both apartments simultaneously. Hildr with Danvers and Angel with Saber. Some girls did the crying thing, others were stony-faced. They showed their badges to the cameras, and the incoming orders stopped.

  They all got medical attention, which netted some surprising results. At least four of them were hooked on Dingo’s brand of candy, but three of them were stone-cold sober. They were led away from the hospital in handcuffs, on their way to the station to be booked for distributing methamphetamines. Their fingerprints were all over the little baggies.

  Saber did interviews and paperwork until dawn. Conine, who everyone called “Clothesline,” gave Saber shit for not rushing to help Hanger.

  “You were two steps behind him,” said Saber. “What was I gonna do that you weren’t doing?”

  “You couldn’t have seen me,” said Conine.

  “You smell like your aftershave,” said Saber. “Try not wearing so damn much of it.”

  He made it home well after dawn, after stopping off for cheese sticks, fries, and a shake at Sonic.

  Wraith met him at the door. “Took the morning off,” she said. “I can do my paperwork here.” Then, she held him as he cried.

  One Shot Deal

  “Mistah Geary?” asked Ghost, wiping off her hands with a soft cloth. She walked toward him with a definite waddle.

  “Jerry,” said the man, covered head-to-toe in Harley leather. “I heah you got yoself the most bee-yu-tee-ful garage.”

  Ghost smiled. “Yes, sah, we do.”

  “Well, let me see my Sugarbell.”

  Ghost thought for a minute. “Yo Harley be Sugahbell?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he said. He was tall, with strawberry-blonde hair, watery blue eyes, a goatee, and thin lips. “She is ready, isn’t she? I
told my Uber driver to leave.”

  “Yes, sah, she is. Come right this way.”

  It was the turning to show him his trike that saved both their lives. The shot went wide, hitting the roof and taking out a light.

  Ghost knew a gunshot when she heard one. She pulled Jerry to the ground, landing halfway on him. A wrench came sailing out of the garage. Ghost turned her head to see its trajectory, and saw it hit a weasel of a guy in brown leather, with a gun in his right hand. The wrench hit his arm with a resounding crack.

  Bonnie scores, thought Ghost. Killa threw her own weapon, a knife she kept in her boot. It hit the man’s knee and went partway in, as she threw it from a crouch. He howled from both injuries.

  Rana threw herself off her bike, slid the gun out of her back holster, and shot the man in the shoulder. She had considered the Valkyries, but she was a transplant from Oklahoma that wanted to go on rides, not train to use every weapon imaginable. She’d already done that in the army; she got out for a reason. She held up a hand like they used in the military. The “hold” sign; a closed fist, and said, “Hold!” as Sam, Tito, and Bear poured out of the clubhouse, guns drawn.

  “Shooter down! Call 911, we need a bus.” She ran toward the shooter, gun still drawn.

  Bonnie moved to stand over him with a huge wrench in her hand. The guy was moaning, his arm obviously broken, a knife in his leg, and a bullet wound to his right shoulder.

  “Bonnie,” said Rana. “You met me two days ago, remember? Ivy and Ace gave me the Nighthawks jacket?”

  “Yeah,” said Bonnie.

  “This guy is going to the hospital, then jail,” she said. “You bash him now, you go to jail, too.”

  “Yeah,” said Bonnie. “Don’t care so much at the moment.”

  Rana saw movement behind her. Killa had run forward to help Ghost and Jerry stand up.