Hot Extraction: SEALs, Marines, and Infantry - A Military Romance Boxed Set

by Kathryn Thomas

  “Leo’s right. You have to let it go. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I can’t live with this,” Will said softly.

  “You can,” Leo said softly. “If you will let yourself.” He paused, giving Will time to think. “Will, I can understand you wanting to leave the club. If that is what you want, then go with my blessing. But know that I would be honored to call you brother.”

  Will looked up, meeting Leo’s eyes for the first time. “The honor would be mine,” he said softly.

  “Then stay. Help me take back the club. Help me avenge the deaths of those agents. Help me make the name Lima 6 mean something again.” He paused again. “Will you stay and help me?”

  Will sat quietly for a long time. “Yes… I’ll stay.”

  Leo pulled Will into a hug and slapped him on the back. “Thank you brother.”

  Jamie wiped at her eyes again. “How? How are you going to take back the club?”

  “I’m taking the gavel. I’m taking the gavel and I am returning the club to its original charter. Anyone involved in the running of drugs will be stripped of their colors and banished from the club. Those that were involved in the deaths of the agents will be severely dealt with. This is my home, and I will protect it… or I will die in the attempt.”

  “How can I help?” Will asked.

  “Just be ready to tell what went down. I’m going to start making some phone calls to those you believe I can trust. I need you to tell them what happened. Leave nothing out.”

  “What if you are wrong? What if you can’t trust these men?” Jamie asked.

  “I won’t lie you… this is dangerous. If word will gets back to Ron he will probably try to have Will and me killed. Maybe even you. Would I be wasting my breath to suggest you leave town for a few days?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what I thought. She always been this stubborn?” he asked Will with a ghost of a smile.

  “You have no idea.”

  “It would be better if Ellen were to leave town. Or at least bring her here, with Jamie, so they can watch each other’s back. Does she have a gun? Can she shoot?”

  “No, and I doubt it.”

  “If she won’t leave town, get her a gun and show her how to use it.”

  “I’ll give her mine.”

  “No. I have an extra one at home… give her that one. I have already lost one friend, someone that left someone special behind. I don’t want to lose another.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next day Leo made his calls. He started with his most loyal friends, and slowly worked his way outward. Will’s list had closely mirrored his own internal list of those he could trust. As he worked the phone, he was surprised to find out that most of his brothers knew what the club was doing. Some from the list that he thought would be disturbed by the muling operation were not. Ron had them convinced that they weren’t actually muling the drugs, only that they were allowing safe passage under escort. They had been seduced by the easy money and tried to rationalize it by saying were actually killing fewer people while still keeping the town safe.

  He tossed his phone the table in disgust. Ten… of the forty one members, he had ten that he felt he could trust with the truth. He suspected another twenty or so would come around once they heard the true story on the killing of the DEA agents and the news that the club is actually muling, but he needed backup on his side before he tried to win over additional members.

  “Bad?” Jamie asked as she leaned into his back and kissed him on the neck.

  “Ten. Twelve if you count Will and me. Ron is feeding them a line of shit about how they are just allowing passage through Lima 6 territory. But everyone else is either in the know and didn’t care, or is actually involved. This just disgusts me. I thought I knew these men.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Tonight, after the bar closes… can we meet there? Will is going to tell his story. But I need your promise to stay out of what happens. You shouldn’t even be there, but we can’t very well throw you out of your own bar.”

  “I understand. Sure, you can use the place. It will be nice to have someone in there again. Then what?”

  “Then… I don’t know. I may lose even more brothers. But with those that I have left, we will try to pull those that are not involved in the muling into the fold. If I can get a majority, I will call for a vote of no confidence on Ron.”

  “Do you think he will go?”

  “He will either go... or I will kill him myself.”

  “That’s murder…”

  “This is fucking war.”

  “And you’re okay with this?”

  “I have never been so sure of something being right in my life.”

  “Good… because this is right.”

  ***

  “Okay, Leo… what is it you wanted to tell us?” Boggs asked. “And where is everyone else?”

  “This is just between us. Those of us here are the ones that don’t like the fact that Lima 6 is providing ‘protection’ for the drug running. You don’t like where the club is going. I agree. We are going against everything we stood for from the moment we moved our first load of dope. But there’s more. Much more. I know we are not running some kind of protection service, but actually moving the drugs and—”

  “You say that Lima 6 is actually involved in the shipment of the drugs? Do you have any proof? And if you do, what do you plan to do about it?” Boggs interrupts.

  “Yes. But there is more than even that. I need you to tell you some things first. The hit on Tuck and Two-Tone. I suspect that was Ron.”

  The assembled men rumbled in disbelief. “How do you know this?” Boggs asked again.

  “Without informing the club I pulled Carlos out.”

  “Carlos, the snitch?”

  “That’s right. He contacted me and wanted to know why we hadn’t pulled him and his family out.”

  “That was a club decision. So he could keep feeding us intel for the intercepts.”

  “Except he wasn’t. He hadn’t been in contact with Ron, me, or any other member of the club since he informed us of the hit.”

  “Where’s Ron getting his information?”

  “That’s a good question.”

  “Where’s Carlos now? Can we talk to him?” Wade asked.

  “I dealt him to the DEA for his safety.”

  “We will burn us all!” Allen cried, his eyes bugging.

  “I don’t think so. But even if he did tell DEA about us, it’s just information. He has no proof we acted on it. But before I could turn him over to DEA, I talked to him, getting a carrot to dangle in front of DEA so they would take the deal. After the hit in this very bar, the Prieto Cartel has not hit us again. He also told me that he heard the Lima 6 problem had been taken care of, that the cartel had a new pipeline and we wouldn't be bothering them anymore.”

  “Why didn’t you bring this to the club, then?”

  “Because it is always possible Carlos was mistaken. He admitted that it is possible something happened that he hadn’t heard about since he was hiding from the cartel. And at the time… I found it so hard to believe.

  “But now?”

  “Now… not so much. Will!” Will stepped out of Jamie’s office and walked to the table. “Everyone knows that Will and I don’t get along anymore, right? What you don’t know is that was all staged. Will has been helping me.”

  “Helping you… how?”

  “I confronted Ron after talking with Carlos and his answers were too pat, too thought out. He had already thought of his cover story if confronted and, to be honest, I didn’t buy it. But I also knew that after that, I was dead to him. So Will and I staged the whole thing, the fight over his girlfriend, everything, so he could get close to Ron. And he did. Close enough that Ron pulled him into an intercept.”

  “But he’s just a prospect!” Wade pointed out.

  “Yeah. But there’s more still. You heard the story about the agents… how it was
all an accident, how the cartel opened up on them and our guys just got caught in the crossfire. Will was there. He’s going to tell you what really went down. Will.”

  Will cleared his throat. “That was only my second intercept and I still didn’t know what the hell we were doing. Those of us in the bar, me, Lucas, Gigolo and Carson, rode out on our bikes because we didn’t have time to get back to the intercept vehicles. Anyway, when we arrived, Ron handed us our guns… but then we just stood there on the side of the road. It wasn’t long before this Dodge Durango pulls up. Ron flags it down and it just stops. I’ve got my gun up at low ready, but everyone else was pretty casual about the whole thing. They sent me around to the back of the truck and, sure enough, there were all these drugs in the car.”

  Will paused while he shuffled his feet, his eyes low. “Then the DEA showed up. Two SUV’s and six men. They pile out and shout that we are all under arrest. I nearly shit myself. Then…”

  “Go on, Will. I know it’s hard, but they have to know what happened,” Leo encouraged.

  “Then, the cartel guy starts to pull his pistol. The DEA shoots him… then our guys opened up on them. The fucking glass shattered right by my head… I panicked and fired off a short burst before I ducked back behind the truck. Then it was over.”

  “Holy shit…” Boggs breathed.

  “On Will’s first intercept, he called me and told me when and where. I waited. Three intercept vehicles went out, but only two came back. That made what Carlos said sound more plausible. I didn’t know we were muling at the time and I wanted to know where the other vehicles were. On his second intercept, Will didn’t know it, but I followed him. I wanted to stay behind and see where the drugs went. I was too far away to see exactly what happened, but I could see enough to know what he says is much closer to the truth, and there was too much gunfire, for Ron’s version to be true.”

  “Fuck,” Boggs said. “Ron has to go. To allow the drugs to pass, much less muling, without a club vote, was bad enough… but this… What do you propose, Leo?”

  “I’m taking the gavel... with your support.”

  “That’s what this is about? Taking the gavel?” Jeff asked.

  “No… this about taking back Lima 6. But I want to do it the right way. I want to call for a vote of no confidence on Ron. If you have another person in mind to lead us, that’s fine. We can put them up for a vote. But whoever we put up against him, Ron is going to come after.

  “You’ve got my vote,” Wade said. “Seems like you had Ron pegged from the beginning.”

  “No… but I know right from wrong, and what we are doing is wrong.”

  “You have my vote too,” Boggs said.

  Each of the men voiced their support for Leo until only Jeff was left. “What about you Jeff. Do you have someone else you would like to nominate?” Leo asked.

  “No…” he said with a slow easy smile. “Hell… I’m sorry I missed you kicking his ass the last time. I’m in.”

  “So after you take the gavel, then what?” Boggs asks.

  “Then… we clean our house. I’m willing to overlook knowing about the muling, or passage, whatever you have been told, but those actively involved… they have to go. No voting, no mercy. They either leave… or they are removed.”

  “And those that killed those agents? We’re just going to let them walk away?”

  “No.”

  “What about him?” Jeff asked with a nod at Will.

  “Are you willing to let the club decide your fate?” Leo asked him.

  “Leo…” Jamie began but he held his hand up, silencing her.

  Will pulled himself up as if coming to attention. “Yes.”

  “Are you brothers okay with that? Full club vote on what to do about Will?”

  “If we’re not?” Wade asked.

  Leo swallowed hard, knowing he may be about to lose the most important thing in his life. “Then his fate is already decided.”

  “Leo! No!” Jamie screamed.

  “This is club business and none of your concern!” he roared.

  Jamie felt like she had been slapped as she reeled from his words and what they meant. Feeling light headed and out of breath, she gulped air, trying to hold herself together. Before she could gather her wits, Boggs spoke again.

  “Full vote.” The other nine members nodded in agreement.

  “It’s decided then,” Leo said.

  ***

  Will had left Leo with the rest of the members and escorted Jamie to her office. “It’s okay,” he said as he comforted her, holding her as she sobbed into his shoulder, her fits wadded in his shirt.

  “Get the fuck away from me, you bastard!” she screamed as Leo walked into her office.

  “I would like to explain…” he said softly.

  “Get out!” she screamed again.

  “Jamie… let him speak.”

  “No! I never want to speak to you again! You’re not murdering my brother!” She wanted to say more but couldn’t breathe.

  “I’m sorry,” Leo murmured as he turned to go.

  “Leo… Wait! I want to hear what you have to say,” Will called as Leo began to turn.

  “I came to tell Jamie that I’m sorry she had to see that,” he said, his head down, his shoulders slumped, as if bearing a great weight. “I had to show them that I wouldn’t play favorites, that I would be fair. I am going to have to do some ugly things if this works, and I had to show them that I had the resolve to carry them out.”

  “Like murdering my brother!”

  “No. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You said his fate was decided!”

  “It is. He is a prospect and not bound by the same rules as a brother. He would be banned from ever being a brother. He would be outcast and dead to us.”

  She tried to understand what Leo was saying. “You weren’t going to murder him?”

  “No. I promised you I wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “No… I placed him in that situation. I will not let him forfeit his life for my sins.”

  “Is that what will happen to the others that were there? The outcast, thing?” she asked, trying to dry her eyes.

  “No.”

  “You’ll kill them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if the club votes to kill Will?”

  “Then they will have to kill me too.”

  “But if they vote to banish him, outcast him, whatever?”

  “Then I will have to let that stand.”

  She could feel her tears starting again, but now they were tears of relief. “So, the worst that can happen is he will be banned from Lima 6, forever?”

  “Yes… and he will not be allowed to attend anything that we are involved in.”

  Jamie flowed into Leo’s arms. “I was so scared,” she gasped through her tears.

  “I know,” he said as he held her tight. “Do you forgive me?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Will you forgive me for not trusting you?”

  “Nothing to forgive,” he said, holding his emotions as tight as he held her so Will wouldn’t see him cry in relief.

  ***

  Over the few days the “cleaning crew,” as they dubbed themselves, worked to bring other brothers into the fold. They proceeded slowly, methodically, being careful to not let word out what was happening.

  As the days turned into a week, a rumor spread through Vallecito that Lima 6 had gone bad and was working for the cartel. The clubs already strained relationship with the town grew even worse and they began to be shunned. Some was subtle, such as when people that Leo had a good relationship with before would no longer speak to him unless spoken to, and were quick to excuse themselves. But other displays of disdain were not so subtle, with people occasionally giving up their places in line and leaving if a Lima 6 member arrived.

  Ron began to isolate himself from the club, keeping his lieutenants close but ignoring club members not in his inner circle.
Board meeting were a thing of the past and he began to make decisions unilaterally without consulting with the board or taking votes.

  Jamie was dying on the inside. She had been a respected member of the Vallecito business community, but her standing in her peers was being damaged by her relationship with Leo. If they only knew what was going on… but she couldn’t say anything without putting the cleaning crew in danger. She could survive the downturn in her business in the short term, but it jeopardized her growth plans, and if it continued it could force her to make some serious decisions. Decisions she didn’t even want to contemplate.