Expose

by C. D. Breadner

  The guy was blubbering his thanks, and Tank doubted that the guy heard a single word. Tank grabbed the scrap of paper with some swanky city address, then moved away from the door. The prick was behind the wheel so fast Tank had to back up to avoid having gravel thrown at him as the guy peeled away. The trunk was even still open.

  "What about the kid?" Buck asked from the other side of Jayce.

  "We take him to Markham PD. Downey knows who to call, and we'll let her know she'll need to send all the backup she's got just to be safe." Jayce's answer was a good one.

  "Who's he riding with, then?" Tiny asked, shoving his handgun in his waistband. Tank did the same before approaching them. "Fucker just took off with the cage."

  "Oh yeah. Shit." Jayce scratched his head and circled the kid to squat in front of him. "You understand what I'm saying, kid?"

  Big brown eyes just blinked as the kid chewed his lip.

  "That's a no," Tiny muttered.

  "You wanna ride on my bike?" Jayce pointed to his Super Glide, then mimicked holding the handlebars and steering before pointing to his chest. "You wanna ride on my bike with me? Is that okay?"

  The kid looked to the bike, and something clicked. His whole face lit up and he grinned, nodding emphatically.

  They all had to chuckle at that. "I'm on Jayce's team the next time we play charades," Tank declared, adjusting his riding gloves. He'd yanked them on in a hurry.

  "Let's get off this fucking road," Buck suggested, striding for their bikes. "There were gunshots, after all."

  Jayce got the kid up on his bike behind him, wearing a spare helmet that was too big, but it'd have to do. The kid was basically vibrating with excitement, his grin not dimming in the least. Tank hoped that was sign he hadn't been messed with yet.

  His bike rumbled to life, and he tightened the straps of his helmet properly, then followed Buck and Tiny out onto the road again, next to Jayce. It was slower going on the gravel, but eventually they reached blacktop and were flying. Due to the kid, they kept it to the speed limit, or close enough, anyway, and when Markham came into sight there was a relief that he felt release like shedding a coat. No one was tailing them.

  As long as that luck held, the trailer folks had no idea what was coming.

  Their four bikes backed up to the curb in front of the police station, parking diagonally in sync. "Tank and I will take the kid in," Jayce said, stowing the helmets away. "You guys hang out here?"

  "Sure." Tiny always was an agreeable sort. He leaned on his ride and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Buck just nodded, leaning on a light standard.

  The stone steps were the wide, far-spaced kind. Tank followed the kid and Jayce. The Prez's hand was still on the kid's narrow shoulder, and the kid seemed cool with it. His hope that the little guy was okay grew more stable.

  The front desk officer looked up, then down at this papers, then up again and balked. Not too often that two Red Rebels walked into the cop shop, and never with an unknown child.

  "Sheriff Downey around?" Jayce asked.

  The officer nodded, picking up the phone without a word. "Sheriff? You have visitors."

  Jayce tugged the kid's shirt and led him to the chairs. He climbed into a chair without hesitation, feet swinging back and forth.

  "Tank?"

  He turned at his name, then irrationally sucked his stomach in a bit and straightened his back. They all likely did that when Sheriff Downey appeared. He was happily involved but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate an attractive woman. Her no-nonsense manner was a further turn-on.

  "Sheriff," he greeted her with a nod. "We have a bit of a tip for your department."

  She frowned, then caught sight of the kid. "Who's that?"

  Jayce joined them then. "We found him. There's a trailer out at Shady Palms Court that your department should look into. We saw a car pull up, collect the kid and stow him in the trunk. We got the kid back, we had to interfere for that. We let the car go but it was a 1992 Cadillac Escalade, gold."

  Tank rattled off the license plate for her, too. He'd remembered enough to look for it.

  "What is this trailer, Jayce?"

  Jayce's face got that angry, cold look again. "We think there's a group there involved in human trafficking. Terry at the scrap yard has seen vans dropping off kids from time to time, other cars come by and drive off with them." Now Jayce dropped his volume and stepped closer. "Call this an anonymous tip. But we think they're connected to the Mazaris. So if you move on it make sure to bring everything you've got and be on alert. These are the assholes that beat up Gertie."

  Downey was already nodding, biting her lip. "Okay, I get it. Draw me a diagram of the court and which trailer you're talking about." Now she eyed up the kid. "You think he's been ..?" She left the insinuation hanging there.

  Tank shook his head. "He wasn't scared of us. I don't think he speaks English, but when he understood that we needed him to ride on the bike with us he was downright excited."

  That made Downey give a small smile, too. "I bet." Then she was a cop again. "Write it down, leave it with me. Anonymous tip it is."

  Tank nodded to Jayce and followed Downey to her office. On a sheet of yellow lined paper he drew what he could remember of the trailer's position and wrote out the color of the siding and trim. Then he left it with her, since she was already on the phone with the Department of Children and Family Services.

  They kept the Bakersfield address. Whoever was buying kids was going to get a fucking visit.

  There were spiders under his skin. He still felt like there was something else they needed to do, but that was trace adrenaline buzzing through him. He needed a drink, he decided as he followed Jayce out of the station. But first he needed to see his woman.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  With a happy grin, Rose was loading the fridge with bottles of beer. She rarely drank it, but her grizzly bear of a man could have four like they were nothing but water. So she left a whole shelf just for that and tucked her bottle of wine into the door. That had been standard practice the last few weeks. She'd even bought a roast to cook for supper that very day since she actually owned a roasting pan. There were even potatoes, onions, and carrots to throw in with it.

  The knock on the door was strange. She had a moment of worry since she wasn't expecting people, and her heart actually sped up, making her chest feel tight. Then she shook it off and headed for the door, looking out the peephole first. She wasn't stupid.

  At first the sight on the other side of her door made no sense to her. She knew these people, but they were so out of context she wondered if she hadn't eaten something spicy before going to bed and was in the thralls of a bizarre dream. Gloria Trestle, Brandi Tanner and Jennifer Marks were in her hallway, grinning and giggling as they waited for her to open the door.

  She backed up from the door, heart starting up again after a short pause. The panic was unexpected, but she didn't want them here. She wasn't one of them anymore, they'd been apart too long.

  Yet these were her friends, and a smaller part of her really wanted to catch up. See someone from outside of Markham, get some news of the outside world. Her isolation was self-imposed, but that didn't mean it was entirely comfortable to her.

  The chain and deadbolt were engaged, as Tank always demanded when he was gone. She unclasped the chain and threw the knob on the bolt, then opened the door, finding herself smiling. Apparently she wasn't crippled by nerves after all.

  They were squealing as they nearly bowled her over to engulf her in an overly-perfumed group hug. She let them hold her, their enthusiasm contagious. She was giggling along with them and inviting them in. They chattered all down her hallway about the drive and asked her if this town was as much a dump as it looked and how the hell she'd managed to stay here so long since there apparently wasn't even a mall in Markham.

  She just smiled and followed, locking the door again and letting that old familiar sisterhood wash over her. The four of them had all travelled club to clu
b for a while, but the girls wanting to only go to larger cities didn't really suit her as she got older. She couldn't explain it; she just didn't like how a person got swallowed up in a big city, like they were so inconsequential in the grand scheme of life.

  They hadn't understood, but, obviously, they hadn't held it against her. Here they were now, on a stopover on their way up to a club in LA they'd arranged to spend a few months working at. Of course they asked her to come along, and she declined.

  From the entry she watched them take in her living space. Gloria, the loudmouth, vivacious blonde, loved the wall color. Jennifer, the sweet one with her jet-black hair and slightly goth look loved the zebra chair. And Brandi, the brassy one with a sharp wit and biting commentary wanted to know where the men were at.

  They all looked at her in unison, expectantly, as she was chuckling. Then she watched them all freeze, eyes growing wide. Their attention was on her face, on the scar.

  She'd absolutely forgotten. Rose never even thought of her scars around Tank and he never pointed them out to her either. They were healed, months old already, but her oldest friends in the US of course noticed them right away.

  Her hand went to cover the spot on her cheek, bringing the one on her forearm into focus as her floppy sleeve slid up.

  "Fuck, Rose. What the fuck?" That was Brandi, and she was striding forward to catch hold of Rose's arm, pulling in out to inspect the mark. "Christ, what happened?"

  She squirmed, but Brandi didn't relinquish, and soon all three were crowded close. It was hard to breathe; she needed the window open.

  "This looks like a burn," Jennifer eventually said, wide green eyes coming to Rose's.

  "I was working," she started, sounding hollow to her own ears. "I was at the club one night, got booked for a private dance. The guy threw acid on me."

  They all hissed in a collective gasp and Gloria touched her cheek. "Jesus, that must have hurt."

  Rose nodded. "It did."

  "They get the guy?" Jennifer nearly sounded like she was following the plot of a movie. Although, it was a movie she cared about greatly.

  "Oh yeah, they did," she assured them with a dry laugh. "He's not a worry anymore."

  "Good." Brandi was nodding. "Fucker deserved it. What you thinking, Rosie? You going back to work?"

  She shook her head and freed her arm, covering it back up. "I doubt it. There's this spot on my cheek, arm, and my breast got some too. It's all too ugly, and I'm not interested in fulfilling someone's kink."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Not sure, Gloria. Mom's place is paid up for a couple months, but my rent is up in two weeks and I can't make the next payment. I'm fucked."

  "Shit." Jennifer pretty much summed up her life perfectly.

  "Yeah."

  "I hate to kill the sympathy party, but I gotta pee like you wouldn't believe."

  Rose laughed and directed Brandi to the washroom, then asked if anyone wanted a beer.

  "Beer?" Gloria wrinkled her nose. "You drink beer now?"

  Rose shrugged and headed for the kitchen. "It's a beer kind of town. I do have one bottle of wine, we can start with that."

  "Ummm, sweetie. Is this thing real?"

  She turned before the kitchen entry to see Jennifer holding her new Glock between her finger and thumb like a reptile of some kind. She knew it wasn't loaded because the clip was still on the coffee table.

  Now Gloria was crossing her arms, planting her feet and jutting her hip out. Bloody hell, not the hip jut. That meant both feet had been put down.

  "Tank thought ..." Fuck. They didn't know Tank, either.

  "Tank?" Gloria made it sound like she was really saying Charles Manson. "Who's Tank?"

  "He's ... he's with the club that owns the bar I was dancing at."

  Now Gloria was perplexed. "A biker?"

  "Really?" Jennifer's eyes got wider.

  "Is he your boyfriend?"

  She looked from Jennifer to Gloria, almost at a loss. "He's ... he's someone I'm with. I ... care about him."

  "You're fucking a biker?"

  She scoffed at Gloria. "What's with the judgments?"

  Gloria's face softened. "It's just … your tastes can be a bit confusing."

  "Not this time. He's different."

  Gloria shot Jennifer a look and they exchanged knowing eyebrow lifts. That just pissed her off.

  "I'm not twenty anymore. I know when someone is good for me and when someone isn't."

  "Is any of this good for you? You have a gun on your coffee table!"

  Brandi joined them on the heels of Gloria's outburst. "Holy shit—is that a Glock?"

  "Yes," Rose answered wearily. "In light of the acid attack, Tank gave me a gun so I'd feel safer. I doubt I'll ever use it, but it actually does make me feel better."

  "Who's Tank?"

  "Oh, he's a biker that Rose is fucking."

  "Really? Awesome!" So different, Gloria and Brandi.

  "It's not just that. I ... I like him."

  "You do?" Sweet Jennifer's movie turned from a thriller to a rom com just like that as she set the handgun down. "When can we meet him?"

  Shit. This was tricky. Did she want them to meet? She couldn't think of a reason why not, but there was some mysterious trepidation. Maybe it was the look of disdain on Gloria's face. "You can meet him ... today. I don't know. He's likely going to stop by at some point later today."

  "Why is he called Tank?" Brandi asked, flopping into the zebra chair.

  "He likes country music. His real name is Trevor Williams, but he's as big as a tank. So they call him Tank Williams."

  There was a pause, then Jennifer started giggling. "Oh my God. That's so cute."

  "He's not cute," she argued. "He's incredibly sweet, but that's beside the point."

  "Only one more detail is important," Brandi cut in, raising both index fingers in the air. "Does he have the skills and the equipment?" She moved her fingers together and then further apart. "You don't have to confirm how many inches, just tell me when I've got the size right."

  "Jesus, Brandi."

  "Whatever, Gloria. What's the issue? That he's a biker? Because strip club owner sure worked out well, didn't it?" Brandi dropped her hands. "If he makes you happy, awesome. You deserve it. Get it, girl. But we are going to somewhat reserve judgment until we've met the big guy. I'm an awesome until proven asshole kind of person myself."

  Rose had to grin. "I know you are. And he really does make me happy. He's funny and goofy and gorgeous and I love—" She cut herself off, eyes wide.

  Gloria rocked back on her feet, just a little. "You love him?" she finished, tone softer.

  "I think I do."

  Jennifer clapped her hands and jumped up at down. "Oh my God! Rosie's in love!"

  Brandi was stunned but smiling. "I just thought you were knocking boots regularly. I didn't know you were in lurve."

  Rose shook her head, feeling an involuntary smile cracking through. "Oh God, I am. I really do love him."

  "Go get that wine," Gloria instructed. "Then come back and tell us the tale of Tank Williams."

  Chapter Thirty

  He used his key in the deadbolt, and when the door opened all the way he got a bit pissed. "English!" he called out. "I told you to put the safety chain on if I'm not here. You're not Annie Oakley yet." He was shutting the door and walking down the short hall past the kitchen to her living room, chuckling as he spoke. Then he stopped in the entry, not sure what the hell was going on, but it looked like a Playboy Bunny convention was being held in Rose's living room.

  Two blondes and a stunner with jet-black hair were taking up various pieces of furniture, with Rose sitting cross-legged across from the sofa, her back against the wall under the window. At his arrival everyone had apparently decided to freeze and stare at him.

  The three strangers were all smiling broadly at him, which made him feel naked, for some reason. He smoothed a hand down the front of his flannel, wondering how presentable he was fo
r company. He'd been riding down dusty roads and turning in a pedophile courier. Clearing his throat he put on a smile. "Hello."

  The one with jet-black hair clamped a hand over her mouth, looking to Rose. "Oh my God," she squealed. "He is cute."

  Tank frowned as Rose stood and approached him. "He's not cute," Rose muttered sharply. "He's handsome."

  Now he was really confused, but she took it all away by wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him, right there in front of what he assumed were friends of hers.

  The adrenaline buzz had him strung out, but she, so soft and warm, gave him another edge he really would have liked to work out with her, but not with all these people here. It didn't matter. He was hard anyway, despite the audience, and without thinking he kneaded her ass in one hand. Jesus, he loved that ass.

  A throat was cleared, and Rose fell back to flat feet while smiling up at him like a temptress. The little minx even dragged herself bodily down his front, rubbing against his hard-on as she went. He had to dig his hands into her hips with a growl, which made her smile broader.

  Another throat was cleared, and Tank realized the girl with black hair was staring open-mouthed, the one with nearly-white blonde hair was smirking, and the dishwater blonde looked downright appreciative. He swallowed, then said with as much charm as he could muster, "So, you gonna introduce me to your friends?"

  "Oh yeah," she said smugly, turning in his arms and planting her ass against his cock. His hands found her hips again, and it was all he could do to keep a straight face. "This is Jennifer," she said, motioning to the dark-haired one. She smiled and wiggled her fingers in a wave. "That's Gloria," she said of the smirking one, and the one with platinum hair was introduced with a "That's Brandi."

  "Ladies," he said with a nod. "Can I talk to you in private?" he asked, over Rose's shoulder.

  She nodded, and he turned down the hall to her bedroom, hearing her right behind him. He shut them in her room and before she could get past "They just showed up—" he was kissing her again. Adrenaline was a bitch to get rid of if you didn't work it out properly, and it would take either a fight or a fuck to set him back to rights. She'd made the choice for him when she kissed him like that.