THE DEVIL’S BRIDE

by April Lust

  I was taking from the Storm’s Angels MC, and I was shocked at the lack of security around their drugs. They kept separate stashes in several old buildings throughout the city, usually behind unlocked doors with one or two guards on duty at all times. The problem with live guards, though, was that they took piss breaks and naps. It wasn’t a problem for me, but I was pretty sure Mason Crawley, the president of the MC, wasn’t too thrilled about how much heroin I’d lifted over the last six months from his essentially unguarded stashes.

  There wasn’t much light inside the building. Despite the stories that Storm’s Angels had paid law enforcement to turn the other cheek, they still maintained almost complete darkness and secrecy around their safe havens. That tactic, however, only drew more attention from those of us sharing the streets with them. I saw the interior clearly in the yellow-orange light spilling in from the streetlamps outside. I took a back stairwell to the third floor, where the drugs were held in a small room, probably once an office.

  The heroin sat in densely packed bags taped closed on top of an old metal desk. My pulse quickened at this point in the job, when I was confronted with the stash and had to force myself to take much less than I could have carried. I could have stuffed several bags in my black cargo pants and backpack, but if that big of an amount were missing, it would have been readily noticeable. Instead, I only grabbed two bags, taking them in my gloved hands and stuffing them in my pack before anyone had a chance to notice I was even there. My take wouldn’t be missed until it was time to deliver. Only then would Mason realize he was short, usually leading to the guard taking the fall for the missing drugs.

  I faded back into the night and made my way to Skull’s office.

  “You asked me to bring it to you directly this time. Is everything okay?” I unzipped my bag and placed the two bags of white powder on the desk in front of him before sitting down.

  “Everything’s fine,” he answered in his composed voice. He patted the bags and nodded to the larger gentleman standing by the door to his office.

  His bodyguard walked over and picked the bags up off of the desk.

  “Go ahead and deliver those,” Skull told him, waving him off with perfectly manicured fingers.

  After the big guy left the room, Skull turned to face me in his desk chair. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. He laced his fingers together. I stared into his dark eyes. His black hair was slicked back. His tanned, chiseled face stared intently. His jaw muscles worked as he clenched his mouth shut. I looked at the black suit he wore over a deep red shirt with a black tie. A necklace hung from his neck with a long tooth dangling from it.

  “Clara,” he said, and paused to look me over.

  “Yes, sir?” I was used to his eyes taking in the sight of me. I wasn’t used to being called to deliver drugs directly to his office. In the five years I’d been working for him, he’d only asked me to deliver anything directly to him the first few times, to make sure I could handle the job ahead of me.

  “You came straight here from the warehouse,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “Were you followed?”

  “No. No one even saw me. You know that,” I told him.

  “I guess I do. I just get paranoid sometimes. You are stealing from the most notorious MC in the city. I’d hate to think what they’d do if they caught you,” he explained.

  “Well, they won’t catch me,” I argued defiantly.

  “I know,” Skull admitted, taking a sharp breath between his teeth. “That’s why I’m giving you this next job.”

  “But we’ve barely put a dent in Storm’s Angels’ supply,” I argued. “What gives?” It wasn’t like Skull to pull me off a job before it was completed. Usually, anyone pulled from work for him wound up in a dumpster or in the river somewhere.

  “What gives is we’re about to put a huge dent in their supply. I’ve got intel that they have a massive stash sitting in the basement underneath their HQ. Of course, this stash is heavily guarded, unlike what you’ve told me about the smaller stashes hidden throughout the city,” he explained.

  “Wait, you expect me to break into the headquarters of the most notorious MC in the city and sneak down past their state-of-the-art security system to get to their basement and raid their supply? Then, I’m supposed to get out without getting caught, or worse?” I asked for clarification.

  Skull nodded with a sly grin on his face.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Maybe, but I’m also very confident in your abilities,” he told me.

  “Another thing, why do they have all these stashes in satellite locations if they have their main stash at HQ? Why don’t they have it all at HQ?” Something didn’t sound right here.

  “The story is they’ve started consolidating since the thefts. Apparently, you’re cutting into their profits and their business. They’ve got to pull it all in to make sure it’s safe,” he explained.

  “I don’t know, Skull. It smells fishy to me. If they are moving their drugs into safer places, it seems to me HQ would be the last place they’d want to put it. That would just lead rivals like us to their location. It would be suicide for everyone,” I argued.

  “I mean, if you don’t think you can do it…” he said with a shrug.

  “I didn’t say that.” I chuckled. He was just bluffing anyway. I knew he was as likely to hand that job over to someone else as he knew I was to turn it down.

  “I agree with you, though,” he said out of the blue. “It seems unlikely that Mason would actually pull his drugs in like that. I could see him shuffling things around into other safe havens, different locations, in an attempt to throw us off track. I don’t see him drawing attention to HQ like that.”

  “Unless it’s a trap,” I suggested.

  “Yeah, I guess, but the intel comes from reliable sources, which is why I’m inclined to trust it. First, I want you to get in there, find the heroin, and bring back a sample so we can verify it’s there before we send folks in. If he’s going to make a bold move like this, I want all of his drugs. Let’s go ahead and take him down instead of fucking with him the way we have been for the last few months.”

  I was shocked by the bold change in approach. “I like the sound of that,” I told him. It meant I didn’t have to deal with Storm’s Angels anymore.

  “I thought you would.” His eyes sparkled while he spoke.

  “Is that all?” I asked with a yawn.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Good job tonight, Clara.”

  “Thanks.” I started to get up from the chair, but he stopped me.

  “In fact, I’m really proud of how far you’ve come,” he said. “I’m impressed with the work you’ve done against Storm’s Angels. Their president has a pretty nasty reputation, and a lot of people wouldn’t want to go up against them.”

  “I’m not going up against them. I’m sneaking behind their backs,” I said with a grin. “Goodnight, Skull.” I walked through the door to his office and started making my way back to my apartment.

  On the way home, as the color of the sky began to lighten, ahead of the sun, I thought about what Skull had said about how far I’d come. He’d found me on the street, barely more than a kid.

  I was at the city market, a set of farmer’s market style stands set up just on the outskirts of downtown. It operated daily, with vendors selling fresh fruits and vegetables as well as countless handmade crafts. It had its own crowd, mostly throwbacks to the ’60s and ’70s, young adults born decades late. It was a great place for street kids to buy or work for their own food.

  I hadn’t been interested in working at the time. I knew if I wanted anything, my lack of skills left me with one real option. I had to take what I wanted or needed.

  I reached for an orange with my dirty fingers, and a perfectly clean, tanned hand clasped my wrist.

  “What are you doing?” a stern voice asked me.

  My first instinct had been to run, but when he didn’t let go, I looked up into his dark, sparkling eyes
. He grabbed a bag of oranges, paid for them, and handed them to me. I simply stared at them and blinked.

  Then, I tried pulling away again. He’d given me what I wanted, and it was time to make an exit, but he wouldn’t let me go.

  “No, dear, these come with a price,” he said with a wide grin.

  “I don’t have any money,” I told him. “Keep them.”

  “No, it’s not money I’m after,” he added.

  “What, then? Sex? You’re not getting that either,” I snapped, and tried to pull away again, but he just would not let go of me. Then, it occurred to me that the people walking by could see what was going on, and I did not want to draw attention to myself.

  “Let me tell you what I want,” he said, walking me out of the market and away from the people bustling by us.

  He’d been wearing that same black suit, dark red shirt, and black tie. Over the years, I wondered if he didn’t just have a closet full of the same outfit somewhere.

  “What do you want?” I snapped.

  “I want you to work for me,” he told me calmly.

  “I’m sorry?” He let go of my wrist, but I didn’t run. Instead, I stood in front of him rubbing my aching wrist.

  “You heard correctly,” he answered. “I want you to work for me. I want to teach you how to do that very same thing you did in the market, but I want you to be the best at it.”

  I glanced back at the market and back at him.

  “You want me to steal for you?” I asked. Up until that point, I’d never considered that anyone would want to hire a thief.

  “I do,” he answered with a smile.

  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him.

  “Listen, I can teach you how to do it professionally,” he explained.

  His eyes looked deep into mine. I couldn’t look away. Before he said anything else, I could already feel in my bones that he was offering me something bigger than just a job.

  “You’ll be provided for while you work for me. You won’t have to worry about anything. You want oranges? You can have all the oranges you want while you’re in my care,” he explained.

  Care? At the time, I couldn’t remember the last time someone had used that word in relation to me. He hadn’t been made to force my hand since.

  The sun had just started to crack the horizon when I made it home from Skull’s office. I had my newest assignment, though I didn’t trust his intel. I knew I could do it, but I didn’t expect to find anything. Since that day at the market five years ago, our relationship had reached the point where I didn’t have to wait for instructions before I went to work. I figured I’d sleep off the daylight and go after Storm’s Angels that night.

  Chapter 1

  Mason

  “I’m putting everyone on high alert status,” I announced to the members sitting around the boardroom table at HQ.

  I looked around at the stern faces staring back at me. We all came from different backgrounds. Some of the guys grew up on the streets. Others had run from the quiet, sterile suburban life to find something with more meaning. And we had members who hit every point in between, including military vets who hadn’t been able to find a place among the normals after returning home from war.

  “We’ve lost a lot of money because of this thief. We were hit on the south side again last night,” I explained. “Whoever it is, they’re good. No one sees or hears anything. They strike in the blink of an eye, when you turn to investigate a noise, when you step away for one moment to take a piss.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Mason,” Alec said, raising a hand. “But at least I checked the bags when I returned. Something told me to.”

  “That’s good,” I complimented him. “That’s more than we’ve been doing. See, we don’t know when they’re hitting us. Most of the time, we don’t realize it until we’re delivering the drugs. I’m surprised no one has been shot over this yet. For that, you can thank the reputation I’ve built for this MC. But it won’t be long before they start asking for more concessions than just a lower rate.” I leaned on the table, hoping they all got my meaning without having to have it spelled out.

  I’d worked too hard since taking over as president of Storm’s Angels to start losing customers because some little punk ass thief thought they could pull some bullshit on us and steal our drugs. So far, though, it felt like everyone else was just dragging their feet on this matter. They were all waiting on me to figure something out, instead of just trying to keep a better watch over our satellite stashes.

  “What do we do to stop it?” Mick asked, giving me a knowing look. That was why he was my right-hand man. He already knew I had something in mind. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have called a meeting.

  “I’ve already put the word out that we’re moving the drugs back to HQ.”

  A murmur rushed through the room as all of my senior members looked at each other. Mick smiled and nodded. We were on the same page.

  “Why weren’t we made aware of this?” Liam asked.

  “For security purposes, I reached out to the community myself to spread the word,” I told them.

  “You paid a crackhead, didn’t you?” Mick asked, laughing at me.

  “I may have,” I answered with a smile.

  “This isn’t some joke, Mason,” Liam said, standing angrily, planting a hard finger down on the table.

  “I never said it was, Liam.” I rolled my shoulders and cocked an eyebrow. “But let me ask you something. Whose ass is on the line here? If shit goes sideways, who do you think has to answer for it?”

  “Each and every one of us,” he snapped back.

  “I don’t think so. When your mouth gets you shot because the dope isn’t there, who has to answer to your family, Liam? Who was supposed to have your back in that situation? Who was supposed to make sure we delivered what I promised to deliver? Who?” I slammed my fist down on the table.

  Mick put an arm on Liam’s shoulder and pushed him back down into his chair. He shook his head when Liam looked back to see who it was, letting him know it would have been a bad idea to try to resist or start anything with him.

  I sighed and shook my head at what I was about to tell them. If they didn’t like the idea that I’d gone behind their backs to put the intel on the street, they really wouldn’t like the next piece of information I had to share with them.

  “Also, in the name of security, I have had our heroin stashes shuffled around to other locations. Only the men guarding them know where they are, and they’ve been paid nicely to keep their mouths shut, even if asked by any Angels. The only people who have access are myself and Mick.”

  A wave of protests rippled through the room. I held a hand up to get everyone’s attention.

  “I know what I’m doing is unorthodox. I know it’s not a popular choice. Once we solve this problem, I’ll loosen my grip, and we’ll start doing things the way we always have, but don’t think I won’t do anything I have to do in order to protect the MC. And that’s what I’m doing right now,” I explained.

  “Where are the drugs, Mason?” Liam asked.

  “Safe under lock and key,” I replied.

  “Guys, we haven’t even heard the plan,” Mick announced. “You all want to fight, and we don’t even know what the hell Mason is doing.”

  “Fuck, he doesn’t even know,” Liam chimed in.

  Mick grabbed Liam by his salt and pepper mane and slammed his face into the table. “Watch your mouth, old man,” Mick threatened.

  “Mick. Liam. Are you two finished?” I asked sternly.

  “I am if he is,” Mick said.

  “You’re the boss, Mason.” Liam held up his hands in submission before wiping his bloody face on his old t-shirt.

  Sometimes it felt like I was in charge of a bunch of children. Everyone else, of course, simply sat and watched the spectacle unfold as Liam decided to test me once again. If he hadn’t been around since the early days of the MC, I would have booted him first thing upon taking the president’s seat, but he
had contacts we needed if we were going to continue to prosper.

  “All right, guys, if we’re done showing our asses, I’d like to tell you the rest of my plan. The reason I put it out there that we’re moving our drugs to HQ is so our thief will come to us.”

  “So, we’re planning a trap?” Alec asked.

  “We are. Whoever is doing this is good, Alec. They get in and out without making a sound, and they leave absolutely no trace of their presence. They don’t want us to know who they are. As both Mick and Liam have found from talking to some of the other organizations out there, no one even knows about the operation,” I explained for everyone’s benefit.