Steel and Justice hopped out of their truck, and she slid out of the SUV. Ash joined the men near the doors.
The tall man held out a hand to her, which she shook. “I’m Axel. Good to meet you, Ms. Calhoun.”
Evidently, Steele had filled him in on the ride over. “Thanks.” She’d never been one for small talk, so she didn’t even try.
Axel stood roughly six and a half feet tall with penetrating dark eyes, wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and something between a beard and a five o’ clock shadow on his cheeks.
None of the Horsemen were ugly. Weird. When she’d been assigned this case, she’d seen some surveillance photos of the Raptors. Calling them homely would be a nice way of putting it.
“Why don’t we talk in my office?” Axel walked to a nearby door and held it open. Ash trailed Justice and Steele into the room. The smell of motor oil lingered in the air. There was a metal reception desk outfitted with a cash register, a coffee pot, and a water cooler, as well as a few steel chairs and an end table covered in old magazines.
Both Steele and Justice sat down while she stood in the corner. No one was at her back, and she didn’t get too comfortable in case they had something nefarious in mind.
Axel shot a glance at a young woman working on a red sedan twenty or so feet away. She was tall and thin with short black hair streaked with purple and shaved on one side. The woman appeared to be in her twenties and wore a pair of black overalls and Doc Martens speckled with lavender and silver.
“Dani, I’ll be a couple of minutes. Knock if you need me.”
“Will do,” she called.
Axel shut the door and got right down to business, which Ash appreciated. “Steele tells me you’re a merc working for the DEA through Cole Security.”
A lot of ex-military worked for security firms after they’d completed their tours because those jobs tended to pay better. “Yeah, I worked in intelligence while I was in the Marines, and Cole recruited me after I finished my tours.”
“How’d you get picked for intelligence work?” Justice watched her intently.
“One of my instructors recommended me.” Ash wasn’t convinced the recommendation had been a compliment. She had a feeling she’d been singled out due to moral ambiguity and general sneakiness. “I joined a special squad, and I can’t say much more about it.”
“What do you do for Cole?” Axel leaned against the front desk, angling his body to face her.
“I scout for them, tracking down persons of interest and such. Then they send in a heavily armed extraction team.” She cracked her knuckles. “Sometimes I get in on the action.” If she played better with others, they’d probably call her in for more of those group missions. Ash loved a good takedown—maybe a bit too much.
“What do they want with the Raptors?” Steele asked.
“It’s the Drug Enforcement Agency. What do you think?”
Steele glanced at her, and she could see censure in his gaze. Well, she answered to Cole and nobody else. As a contractor, she had the freedom to take or leave jobs and work—more or less—on her own terms. She liked not having an overbearing boss.
“Don’t know unless you tell us.” Axel seemed to be a patient man, thoughtful. Actually, none of these men fit her expectations of what outlaw bikers should be.
“Big picture? They’re after the Tres Erre cartel. I’d imagine the first step in squeezin’ them is to shut down their supply lines in the United States.” Not like the DEA sat down and rolled out their strategy for her, but she could piece it together and figure it out for herself.
All three men looked at each other, having a silent conversation she couldn’t quite grasp.
“From what I understand, the cartel is the real target, and the Raptors are a means to an end for you.” Axel scratched his chin.
“Yeah. How can you help?”
“We’ll talk about it in a moment.”
She gritted her teeth, resenting his high-handed tone.
“Before we do, it’s important you understand somethin’. The Horsemen steer clear of law enforcement when we can, but we’re in a real bind this time. So we gotta do things we don’t wanna do to get out of it.” Axel crossed his arms over his chest. “Steele says the two of you were childhood friends.”
It was a bit more complicated, but her personal life didn’t figure into this equation at all. If it did, she would’ve walked away from Steele the second she clapped eyes on him. Only she’d have beat the tar out of him first.
“We knew each other, yeah.”
“And we can trust her?” Axel turned to Steele.
Steele considered this a moment before he answered. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Trusting me has never been the problem,” she said pointedly.
Steele grimaced.
Axel’s eyes flicked back and forth between them as if trying to suss out what the deal was, but he didn’t ask. He glanced at Justice, and they seemed to have a wordless conversation.
“And do you vouch for her?” Axel asked.
Steele hesitated a second and then nodded. “I do, and I take full responsibility for Ash.”
The men all nodded, and Ash knew she’d missed something.
Axel turned his attention back to her. “Okay then. Our information comes with a price.”
“Of course, it does.” Criminals always demanded payment. Cole offered cash to informants as an incentive, and she’d made her share of deals with the lesser of two evils over the years. She let all the contempt she felt for Steele show on her face as she spoke to him. “How much money do you boys want to do the right thing?”
“We don’t want a dime,” Axel said. “You may not believe this, but we’re the good guys. This club helps people.”
“How?” They couldn’t be serious with this good guy shtick. Outlaw biker clubs dealt in drugs, prostitution, gun-running, and any number of other sins. They were bad guys—less horrible than the cartel, but only incrementally. They should all be rounded up and taken to jail.
“We believe in vigilante justice,” Steele said. “Sometimes the law doesn’t help the right people, and we come in handy during those kinds of situations.”
For a moment, she thought they were joking, but nobody laughed. Three pairs of unblinking eyes stared at her. Holy shit. They were serious about this good-guy routine.
“Then what do you want?”
The president cracked his knuckles and glanced around the room. The brothers nodded as if giving him a wordless go-ahead. “Immunity for me and mine. We gotta…connection to the situation. One you might find helpful.”
Now they were getting down to it. A long, uncomfortable silence stretched on, and she waited for one of them to fill the void. No one spoke up.
“What kind of connection?” She eyed Axel.
“We’ll tell you after an agreement is drafted—between us, you, and Cole. The DEA never even gets a whiff of this. Understood?”
She bit the inside of her cheek. The last thing she wanted to do was protect guilty parties. Anyone involved in buying or selling drugs was part of the problem as far as she was concerned, but she didn’t get to dole out the punishment.
Sometimes these thorny decisions really sucked ass, but deals had to be cut with some of these lowlifes. Especially if they were interested in the shot-callers—the ones who made the decisions, got the most profit.
For a moment, Ash was torn. She could tell them go to hell and watch the club instead. Sooner or later, the Horsemen would lead her to the information, but it’d be the harder way to go.
“We got a deal?” Axel stood and offered her his hand.
She stared at it, unwilling to shake until she got more information. “Tell me first.”
“Deal first, and then we talk—and I want it in writing.”
Ash met Axel’s dark eyes, and she didn’t see any wiggle room in their black depths. Aw, fuck it. Big picture, right?
“Fine. I’ll call my boss, and he’ll fax over an agreement.” Ash nodd
ed to the fax machine in the corner of the room. “Give me the number.” He scribbled it down on a piece of scrap paper, and she tucked it into her pocket for safekeeping.
Axel crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll run this by the rest of the brothers, but I don’t foresee any problems.”
“Works for me.” Ash headed to the door. She’d had a long-ass day, and the foul odors from the abandoned house still clung to her skin and clothing. What she wanted more than anything was a hot shower…and to get the hell away from Steele for a few hours.
“After we sign, we’ll talk tomorrow. In the meantime, we’ll put you up for the night. Steele, can you get her squared away at Hades?”
“Sure thing, prez,” Steele said.
Ash bit the inside of her cheek. She didn’t want another encounter with Steele, but she didn’t bitch about it. It’d only prolong the meeting.
“Fine. See you all tomorrow.” She turned to stare at Steele. “You comin’ or what?”
Steele headed for the door, and the other bikers all exchanged a questioning look. She’d bet anything they wanted to know exactly what her relationship had been with Steele.
Fuck ‘em. It was none of their business.
***
Twenty minutes later, Steele handed Ash room key number ten.
They stood in the Hades lobby together. Steele could’ve handed this task off to a hellion, but then he wouldn’t have had an excuse to talk to Ash.
Since they’d left Seventh Circle, his conversation with Ash had been stilted, overly polite. He’d somehow become fucking tongue-tied, and that never happened to him around women. He normally flirted his way into their panties without much effort, but not with Ash.
Steele wasn’t trying to get into her bed, but he hoped he could talk to her at least, maybe try to make things right between them—though he doubted it would ever happen, especially after what he’d done.
But he still had to try.
“Do I need to sign anything?” He noticed when she spoke, she focused on something else—his forehead or the wall behind him. She never looked him directly in the eye.
Steele stepped closer to her, trying to make her see him, acknowledge him in some way. “Nah, no books on this one. You’re helpin’ out the club, so room and board is included. You can stay here as long as the job takes.”
“This ain’t necessary. I get a per diem amount every day.”
His pocket buzzed, and Steele glanced at the message. Duke wanted to know if he’d broken any of the cuts open. He thumbed an I’m fine message and turned his attention back to Ash.
But she’d already headed for the door. He ran to catch up with her on the sidewalk. “Need any help with your bags?” Fuck, he sounded as desperate as a prospect trying to chat up his first hellion.
“Nope.” She grabbed a couple of rucksacks from the trunk of her vehicle and slung them over a shoulder.
“Are you hungry? We could get a bite.” They had a lot to hash out.
Steele wanted to say “I’m sorry.” He should’ve apologized at Abe’s funeral, but the words had gotten stuck in his throat. It seemed like such a weak-ass thing to say. And it didn’t come anywhere close to covering the damage Steele had done.
“I don’t feel like eatin’ after rollin’ around in the filth.” Ash headed for the room. As she reached the door, she glanced back at him. “Steele, I’m here to do a job, and that’s it.”
“I know.”
“Good.” She unlocked the door and tossed her bags on a nearby chair.
He saw her point. They had some sticky issues to sort through. Steele was relieved he’d gotten a second chance to rectify some of the damage he’d done.
Now, he just had to convince her to listen to him.
Steele stepped closer to her, but she held a hand out to ward him off.
“You’re too close.”
“Okay.” Steele backed off but handed her a business card.
She plucked it from his fingers, taking great care not to touch him.
“I run Inferno Firearms up the block. I work there with Daisy Weston-Grant. She’s, uh, married to one of my club brothers,” he babbled. “You’d like her, she’s a former Marine too. We all worked together—me, Daisy, and Coyote—until…well, you know. I got an apartment in the Brimstone Arms complex a couple streets over if you need anything. I also wrote my cell number on the back.”
“Thanks.” Without another word, Ash slammed the door and locked it.
Dazed, Steele stood there, staring at the grain of the wood since it was up close and real personal.
He had the strangest feeling she wouldn’t be giving him a call.
***
“Yeah, that went real well.”
Steele turned to see Justice leaning against his Harley in the parking lot. He had a wide smile on his face. Evidently, he’d retrieved his bike from Inferno right after the meeting and decided to annoy the hell out of Steele for sport.
“How long you been there?” He hadn’t even noticed his brother in the parking lot. But Steele should be used to it. As a teenager, he’d been more aware of Ash in a room than anyone else.
“Long enough.”
“Good for you. What the fuck do you want?”
He walked over to Steele and nodded to the closed door. “Answers. I ain’t ever seen anyone of the female persuasion act that way around you.”
“Which way?” He hoped Justice would get bored and find someone else to harass. Steele blew past him and started hoofing it down the street to his shop, where his own bike would be waiting for him.
“You know exactly what I’m talkin’ about.” His brother paced him, matching his strides. “I think she wants to rip your head clean off your neck.”
“Really? Because I think she’d rather shoot my balls off and mount them over her fireplace.”
“Why? Women are usually all over you…at first.”
Steele didn’t answer the question and kept hiking.
Justice tried again. “Is this an after sort of situation? You fucked her, and now she hates your ass?”
The only sound was boots on concrete.
“I thought you might need to talk is all.”
Steele didn’t believe the bullshit for a second. All of his brothers were a bunch of nosy bitches, and the club loved to gossip.
“I don’t.”
“Fine, keep your secrets, but I bet you could use some weed.”
“Don’t need any weed,” he grumbled. “And why the fuck are you bein’ so friendly?” He stopped walking and glared at Justice. They’d hung out in a group before but never alone. Steele spent most of his time with Coyote, Daisy, and Cowboy. Who the fuck knew who Justice hung out with?
“’Cuz you need a friend, and I take those club commandments real serious. ‘Honor the brotherhood by always being willing to help another brother out,’” he quoted.
Steele thought about protesting but gave up. Fuck, he could use some relaxation. He was wound tighter than a top.
“Fine, let’s do this, but I’m not tellin’ you a damn thing.”
“Whatever you say.” Justice pulled a baggie of weed from his back pocket. “Get your bike, and I’ll meet you at Perdition. We’ll do this up right.”
The next thing Steele knew, they were seated in the pinball room in the back of Perdition. The last time he’d come here, he’d been with Coyote. They’d had an all-day gaming marathon—winner bought the loser dinner. Yo had won, of course, and proceeded to eat the biggest steak Voo had ever cooked.
Steele shook it off. He couldn’t think about Coyote right now.
The room had three big screen televisions. Justice had found a good episode of American Pickers, and it played on one of the screens. There were a couple of pinball machines along the wall, as well as gaming systems like Xbox and PlayStation.
They’d finished playing Call of Duty, Black Ops III. Shooting imaginary folks had felt damn good. Like the firing range earlier, it’d taken the edge off Steele’s anger.
At the moment, he had a basket of hot wings and a bottle of Shiner Ruby Redbird in his hand. Steele was feelin’ no pain…actually not much of anythin’ else, really. It was the best he’d felt in days. He and Justice were passing a bong made out of a plastic Dr. Pepper bottle back and forth.
“So what the fuck’s goin’ on with you and this girl?” Justice asked.
If Steele didn’t know better, he’d say his brother had set his ass up. Justice had a high tolerance for this shit, but Steele rarely toked. The combination of beer, weed, exhaustion, and dealing with Ash had knocked him on his ass.
“You tryin’ to take Voo’s job? ’Cuz the VP vets all the old ladies.” Steele bit into a buffalo wing.
“Nah, curious is all.”
Justice had a basket of potato skins on his lap. They looked damn good, and Steele wished he’d ordered some, too.
He hadn’t felt like eating much lately, and right now, he was ravenous. He finished off the wing and chucked the bones on a nearby napkin, then pressed a hand against his growling stomach.
“Damn. I could eat the north end of a southbound polecat.”
“Steele….”
“I call bullshit on you.” He pointed a finger at his brother. “You don’t care, but Axel does. He put you up to this.”
His brother took a long swig of beer. “Fine. You got me. He caught a whiff of somethin’ in the meetin’ and wanted me to track it down. Anythin’ we need to worry about?”
“Like what?”
“A woman scorned. She’s got the vibe, man–hot, kinda scary, and way too interested in you.”
“She’s interested in me?”
“Focus.”
“And you think I fucked her?”
“No offense, but it’s what you do. A lot of women in this town hate you because you’ve left them high and dry. ”
Steele wanted to argue, but the man had a point. Actually, he left them hot and wet….and alone. He’d spent most of his life screwing and discarding women. Steele gave them the speech and tried to minimize the damage, but not all of them got it. And he sure as shit wasn’t going to explain it before he banged them.
Ash was the only one he’d wanted and couldn’t have. And he’d needed her for a long fucking time—since they were kids. At her sweet sixteenth party, he’d given Ash her very first kiss. Steele had been watching her, dreaming of her for months before it had happened.
Wild Ride (Let it Ride Book 2) Page 17
