by Jade Kuzma
“And what has he told you?”
“What has he told me? Nothing. I’m only his girlfriend. Even if I was married to him, do you think he’d give me all the details on the drug operation he has going on? Do you think he’d invite me to the meetings? Do you think he’d give me the details so potential rivals could threaten me? If anything, he’d be doing me a favor by not telling me anything.”
I put my mug to my lips but realized that my coffee was already gone. I let out another frustrated sigh and closed my eyes.
“Why?” I said. “Why the hell am I doing this?”
“Because you know what kind of man Emerson is. You know he’s a bad dude that needs to be put away. It’s not just the drugs. He’s giving Ivory a bad reputation. He’s affecting the real estate in this town, your livelihood. If Emerson keeps this up, he’ll turn Ivory into the drug capital of the entire region.”
“Okay, okay. You made your point.”
I opened my eyes up and it almost looked like Whitaker cared. A sincere look in his usually intense eyes, he took another glance to make sure nobody was listening then leaned forward across the table.
“I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” he said. “Playing the part of Emerson’s girlfriend for so long. I know it’s taking a toll on you. But if you don’t do something soon, you’re going to have to keep it up for a lot longer.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do then? Do you want me to pester him about his operation until he lets me in on it? Emerson doesn’t trust anybody. I can’t get the information you’re looking for.”
“I’ve got an idea.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. A small piece of dull metal less than half the size of a button. I wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t holding it out to me.
“This is a receiver,” I said. “This will pick up any conversation in a ten-foot radius. Plant this on Emerson and I’ll be able to record all of his dealings.”
“I told you, I don’t know anything about his meetings, including where or when they are.”
“But you’re around him enough to know that he does have these meetings. You’re in the man’s bedroom. You’re in his closet. Put this thing on his collar. It’ll stick and he won’t notice it.”
“I’m only in his bedroom when he’s in his bedroom. He’ll notice I’m doing something if I try that.”
“Kristen, if you do this, this will be the end of it. You can go back to your normal life. Emerson will be locked up. He won’t even be able to blame you. With so many people gunning for him, you’ll be the last person he suspects.”
Habit. That’s what it was.
I’d been working for Whitaker for so long that I’d gotten used to it. To think that there’d be an end to all of this sounded unbelievable. I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought.
“I know you,” he said. “I know that you’ll do everything you can in Ivory’s best interests. This is it. It’ll all be over if you can plant this on him.”
He held the small piece of metal on the tip of his index finger. I stared at it and shook my head.
“You know, when you came to me a year ago and told me to do this, I didn’t know what to believe,” I said. “Then I started seeing it for myself. A man like Emerson is business savvy but he’s not that good. I’ve lived in Ivory long enough to not want to see him change this town for the worse.”
Whitaker had a focused look in his eyes. The kind of focus that made me understand just how serious this situation was.
“Are you going to do it?” he asked.
“…Even after all this time, I still wonder if I should trust you.”
“You know you can. Remember—”
“I remember. And I trust you. For now.”
I kept staring at the small receiver on his finger.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid…”
I swiped it from him and examined it.
“It’s sensitive,” he said. “Somewhere on the collar of his jacket or shirt will work. It’ll work anywhere on his chest but you want to put it in a place where he won’t see it.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
The waitress arrived with Whitaker’s coffee. The stoic man took a sip and almost smiled at me.
“We don’t have a lot of places like this where I’m from,” he said.
“They don’t have diners in the place you’re from?”
“There are diners. None like this though. Ivory… Ivory is quaint. I can see the appeal of it.”
“Maybe when this is all over, you can stick around.”
“I doubt that. There’s still more work that needs to be done.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“The clock is ticking but you don’t have to do anything immediately. I suggest you take a break for a bit. Relax. Don’t stress yourself out too much. Just do it the next time you and Emerson are together.”
Whitaker gulped down the rest of his coffee then stood up from his seat. He dropped some money on the table and pulled out his phone.
“I’ll contact you if anything else comes up. Stay on alert.”
He walked away before I had a chance to say anything more. Just like that, he was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.
“I’m always on alert,” I muttered.
The waitress returned, that smile still beaming on her face.
“Have you decided on what you were getting?” she asked.
“Sorry… I… I just realized I’m not very hungry.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Anything you wanna talk about?”
“No, I’m just… I’m just a little stressed that’s all.”
Seeing the smile on her face was enough to make me chuckle.
“You know what I do when I’m stressed?” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I do what everybody else in Ivory does. I head out for a drink.”
“A drink…”
I looked out the window and something came to me.
“…That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.”
I had a lot on my plate dealing with Emerson and Whitaker. I figured I would get my mind off of it by dealing with someone else on my mind.
Chapter 7
SEBASTIAN
I let the rest of the club take the opportunity to make sure that they were willing to go through with it. Ezra was the one man who had serious priorities he had to take care of, with his restaurant booming with business just down the street. I called another meeting and everybody else didn’t hesitate in stepping back inside of the meeting room. It wasn’t often that we spent this much time in church but today was an exception.
“We’ve got a week,” I said. “It might seem like a long time but it’s not much. We need every second to plan this out to make it count.”
“Considering how coy you’ve been with everything, I think you’ve been planning this for a long time,” Roman said. “You didn’t just decide to do this overnight.”
“I’ve got the idea but it’s gonna take perfect execution to pull this off.”
“No shit,” Hunter added. “That goes without saying. Security cameras. Armed guards. Steel doors. Attack dogs. A rich motherfucker like Emerson will do everything he can to protect his money.”
“You’d be right. But I was there at the negotiations. I know everything that’s going on.”
“Those negotiations were a long time ago,” Roman said. “You sure things haven’t changed since then?”
“Changing things would only make things more complicated for Emerson. People know better than to try and take his money. They’re not stupid enough to try.”
“Except for us,” Aden said.
I gave him a smirk. Despite the seriousness, we all managed to smile about everything. If I was confident I could pull this off, the rest of the MC could feel the same way.
I moved to the side of the room and pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper. I laid it on the table for them to see.
“What’s this?�
�� Hunter said.
“It’s a map,” I said. “This is the layout of Emerson’s mansion.”
“How the hell did you get a hold of this?”
“Ezra works in real estate. A place as big as Emerson’s has to get city approval. It’s on record. All you have to do is look for it.”
Everybody leaned in closer to get a better look at the picture.
“All of Emerson’s cash is delivered right here,” I said. “A small outhouse near the side of his mansion. Every single car that moves in or out has a security escort with it. There’s not a single dime that comes in that isn’t being recorded or being guarded.”
“Great,” Hunter sighed.
“That’s not all. Security cameras are monitoring for a half-mile radius. A squirrel runs around in the grass and they can see it. And that’s not to mention the security doors.”
“The security doors?”
“Every door needs a security keycard to get into. Only authorized people are able to open that door.”
“And that’s where the money is?”
“Behind the armed guards, that’s where the money is.”
“All right, all right.”
Hunter was talking the most. He seemed more enthusiastic about it than everybody else. Always a hustler at heart, Joker never lost his focus when it came to money.
“So we have to get through a security escort, security cameras, a secured door and armed guards to get our money,” Hunter said. “How exactly are we gonna do that?”
“It’s simple,” I said.
“Oh, simple. Well, that makes me feel a lot better.”
“Emerson is hosting another party that night. A fancy gala where these rich motherfuckers can jerk each other off over how much money they’re making over the drugs they’re moving. Roman and I will be inside, scoping the place to make sure that nothing is happening. You’ll be inside, too, Joker.”
“And what will I be doing?”
“We’ll need a key to get through the door. Roman… You counted the men on patrol. All of the armed guards that were wandering around the mansion.”
“I don’t got their routes down but I saw enough to get an idea,” Roman said.
“Roman, you and Hunter will work together to locate one of these men. Roman, make sure that nothing happens. Hunter, you can make the pull right?”
“If any of these guys are holding a key, I can get it,” Hunter said.
“And what about me?” Aden said. “What am I doing in all of this?”
The big man raised an eyebrow at me. He crossed his arms and made them look a lot more swollen than they already were.
“Mercy,” I said to him. “You and Soul will be on the route. Patrol the escorts moving in and out. Follow one of the cars. As soon as it’s out of range, you take control of one of the escorts.”
“How will I do that?”
“By force if you have to. But trust me. These men working for Emerson are only doing it for the money. Put a gun in their face and you won’t have to squeeze the trigger to convince ‘em that Emerson isn’t worth dying over.”
Aden nodded in approval. At this point, there were no objections.
“As soon as Joker and Roman get the keycard, we’ll all head outside and hitch a ride on the escort. We’ll get access and get inside.”
“They’ll be watching on camera,” Roman said. “Emerson has to have a remote on that place.”
“True. But the cameras have blind spots. Every camera does. We mask up, hit the place hard, take what we need and then we’re out. Get out of range and we dump all the evidence. I’ll talk to Ezra about rigging all of the evidence so that its destroyed.”
The three of them were all staring down at the blueprint on the table.
“Any questions?” I said.
“Robbing the richest man in Ivory,” Hunter sighed. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“You can back out any time you like,” Aden responded.
“Hey, this is the richest score I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve got faith in Sebastian to see this through. You trust him, too, don’t you?”
Aden looked me right in the eye. He hesitated for a second before nodding.
“I trust him,” he said.
“And what about you, Rock?” Hunter said to Roman.
Roman. The one man who was more loyal than anybody else. I knew I didn’t have to do much to convince him to see things from my perspective.
But he just kept staring at me like something was wrong. I got the same strange feeling I had earlier. Shit bothered me more than I wanted it to.
“Rock?” Hunter said again.
“Yeah,” Roman said, his eyes locked on me. “I trust him.”
“All right. I’ll go over the finer details with Ezra when he gets the chance. We’ve got a week, boys.”
The meeting ended and everybody headed back into the clubhouse. Aden left to go to the gym that he worked part-time at. Hunter decided to head to the casino to waste his time. Before Roman could leave, I grabbed him by the arm.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re hesitating. You don’t trust me?”
“Nah, I trust you. Emerson will get what’s coming to him. I’d tell you to pull this shit off just on general principle.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“Listen… I haven’t been spending as much time with Mia as I should be.”
“You don’t have to explain shit to me. Go do what you have to do.”
I patted him on the shoulder then watched him leave the bar. The clubhouse wasn’t empty but with all of the other club members gone, it felt like I had the entire place to myself.
“What are you up to?”
I turned around when I heard the voice behind me.
The old man looked a lot crankier than usual. He wasn’t wearing the gaudy suit he normally had on. Just a pair of slacks and a white polo shirt that didn’t do much to hide his gut.
“Murph,” I said. “Didn’t know you were here.”
“Yeah, nobody knows I’m here. I only helped build this damn place.”
Murphy was one of the original members of the West Devils, back before any of the current patches were even born. He had more stories about the Devils and the Hades Pub than anybody else. You could tell he’d seen some shit just from the look in his eyes. You wouldn’t have thought it though considering he was just an old man who was long past his prime.
“You planning something?” he said.
“I’m planning something. I’m always planning something. That’s just what a Devil does.”
“You’ve been awfully quiet these past few months.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be getting in trouble soon enough.”
“The Devils never went looking for trouble. Trouble always had a way of finding us. That was years ago though. Things changed. Things are different.”
“What are you saying, old man?”
“I’m saying that the days of the outlaws and true one-percenters in Ivory are over. Shootouts in the streets. Fist fights and barroom brawls every night. People respect that patch. You gotta give them more reason to respect it.”
He dug his finger into the patch on my chest. His sudden seriousness made me confused as to what he was getting at.
“Where is this coming from?” I asked.
“I know you’re up to something. Whatever it is you do, just remember one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The people in Ivory look up to you. You’ve got a reputation to uphold.”
“Yeah… I know.”
Murph sighed and turned around. I watched him shuffled toward the back of the clubhouse where he spent most of his time. After the life he lived, he needed as much time as he could to relax.
I moved to the bar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from over the counter. I poured myself a glass. Before I had a chance to put it to my lips, I was interrupted.
I turned and saw the one sight I never expected to see it. But damn that shit was welcome.
A pair of jeans that hugged her curves just right. That top of hers was the same. She had these pink lips that were perfect even without any lipstick on ‘em. I guess it helped that her skin was so pale. Dark hair cascaded down around her face.
Kristen sauntered toward me like she was floating on a cloud.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she said.
“You make it sound like I was a fucking alcoholic.”
“Nobody drinks this early.”
“Look around, Kristen. We’re in a bar and people are drinking. Plenty of people drink during the day. How do you think I stay in business?”
“I think Hades stays in business in a lot of different ways.”
I rolled my eyes at her and pounded my whiskey down. I wasn’t mad at her. I could never be mad at her.
“Did you come here to scold me? Tell me that I’m risking cirrhosis?”
“Actually, I… I wanted to talk.”
“Talk?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. She glared back at me but it wasn’t enough to hide how red her cheeks were becoming.
“Save it,” she said as she put hands up. “It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, I think it is what I think.”
I slowly inched toward her. She kept her hands up and pushed my chest.
“Stop. This is serious, Sebastian. We… We really need to talk.”
“Okay. Fine. Let’s talk.”
“Not here. Is there somewhere more appropriate we can speak?”
“I’ve got a room in the back—”
“I was talking about another club or a restaurant, you pig.”
“Oh, right…”
I looked Kristen up and down. I was thinking all of the wrong kinds of thoughts. But just being around her was enough to satisfy me.
“…I know just the place.”
Chapter 8
KRISTEN
Sebastian and I were something. We had something. A long, long time ago. But my mind had never been clearer that day I walked away from him. It was the right decision. I felt that way then and I feel that way now.
