“Two to three hundred kilos.”
Knight’s jaw dropped a little as he quickly did the math. “That’s a little over eight million, Hank.”
“Like I said,” Hank assured him, “total reprisal.”
Knight nodded. “Alright. Let’s delve into the details.”
For the next two hours, Hank told his elder everything: all the places things might go wrong and what he had in place to deal with those possibilities.
Afterward, Knight sat back from the keyboard. He leaned back in his chair, looking at the white painted slats and exposed beams of his roof. “This really is far more than I expected from your operation, Hank, far more. And as you suggested, it’s well within the bounds I gave you. From this point, until we have a hand-picked crew for the pickup, you are a ghost in this matter. If even a breath of this is whispered into Orlin’s ear, the whole club could be in trouble and war could be imminent.”
“I was thinking the same thing, especially since I am going to be required to maintain my position and standing with Orlin before vanishing completely out of his world,” Hank agreed.
“You have an exit plan?” Knight asked.
“Yes, a good one, and a backup,” Hank said. “I’ll need a half-mil from the proceeds, after. Is that agreeable?”
“No,” Knight told him, sitting up to his desk again and putting his forearms down on the surface, “but a full mil would be.”
“That seems a bit much,” Hank mumbled.
“It’s not,” Knight told him, “and both Howey and Margaret would agree with me. This is going to hurt him and cripple his confidence in his staff and procedures. This will likely put an end to several of his enforcers as he searches for the hole in his security. You are going to need to exit cleanly. A mil is going to come in very handy once Orlin gets to searching his hacienda for mice.”
“Alright,” Hank agreed. “What I don’t use I can always bring back.”
Knight nodded at the large man’s doubt regarding his own worth in this matter and smiled. “So, the lower the profile you cast around here for a while, the better. Maybe you can talk that little red filly into a ride with you up the coast and some one-on-one time away from club politics. She’s a good one, by the way. Probably a keeper, just so you know up front. You haven’t been looking to be tied down in the past, so consider yourself fairly warned.”
“Think she’s casting a loop then, do ya?” Hank grinned.
“Nope,” Knight told him. “I think you will be, once you’ve spent some time with her. How are you with cash?”
“Drug running pays pretty well. I’ve got quite a wad in my pocket, and more in hidden stashes for just-in-case emergencies,” Hank assured him. “Rent is paid up for a year, gas and electric has a nice budget of pre-paid monies. I think I’m ready for either hibernation or clean getaway riding, whichever is required.”
“No temptations of keeping the lifestyle? No qualms about the plan?” Knight asked.
“Hell no,” Hank told him, clenching his fist. “In fact, it’s taken quite a bit of restraint not to cross your boundaries and put a large hole in Orlin’s head — him and that fucking Ernando. But, this isn’t about me; it’s about Howey and Margaret. So, I’ve kept to the objective and the boundaries. The sooner we’re done though, the better.”
Knight studied him. “Your cool thinking under highly emotional situations is the reason I asked you to do this and not one of the others. Anything else?”
“Not really. Like I said, I’ve got some notes in there you can read as you like. Basically, they are mental debates and theories regarding my exit plan, the drop hijacking, and the rest of our goals.”
“Then, welcome back, and we’ll start moving this forward. Good job. Very good job,” Knight told him. “Let the man out there know I need at least another two hours of “Do Not Disturb” time.”
“No problem,” Hank said, and he left the office.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cynthia was more or less a wreck when she got home. She couldn’t concentrate worth shit, and had to put her laptop down and admit that she was not going to get what she wanted to get done today. She was well ahead of schedule, so a few hours off weren’t going to kill her.
If her phone didn’t ring soon, the suspense might kill her, though. How long could a fucking meeting with Knight take, for crying out loud! It wasn’t like they could be discussing matters of state or something! Well…they couldn’t, right? If Hank was an important member of the club, he would have shown up more often than this.
There was a standing officer’s meeting on Tuesdays at seven o’clock, which she usually rode down to in order to hear the outcomes announced. They were things like when the next weekend day run was happening, and where, an any news on the large run that was coming up in April, which was only seven weeks away now.
Sequoia National Park was the destination. The more she heard about it, the more she knew she was in. The plan was for a whole week, but she could ride up, spend a few days in a hotel getting some work done, and then ride back down with the group.
She really loved that about her job. As long as she had her laptop and Internet access, it really didn’t matter where she was. She could be in Sydney for all her clients cared, just as long as the manuscripts were polished and ready for the publishers on time.
Anyway, she never saw Hank at any of these meetings or waiting for announcements at the bar below. Nothing. She was sure she would have remembered, him too.
Larry obviously knew him and was even close friends with him, which in Cyn’s mind was a huge green light for getting closer to Hank. She liked Larry and respected his view and evaluations. This might have had something to do with Larry’s evaluations often coinciding with her gut feelings about someone.
One night, Derrick was mouthing off about how you never knew if a brother was going to watch your back until the moment the shit hit the fan, and Larry leaned to her and said, “I would never trust that asshole to watch my back, or yours,” confirming her own thoughts about Derrick.
“I think I would be more worried about him than the possible threat,” Cyn replied with a grin.
Larry wasn’t smiling when he agreed and said, “True story. No matter what he says, or how well he says it, you would be wise to remember that Derrick Unger is only concerned about Derrick. And if he ever perceives that you have done him a wrong, he’ll talk about it incessantly to anyone who will listen. He’s never actually rolled over on anyone in the club, but he’s said enough that it really doesn’t matter.”
Cyn studied Larry’s face. “It sounds like there is a story attached to that.”
“There is, and eventually Derrick will come back around and begin his triads about it, too. Then he’ll probably get his ass kicked a few more times, and lay off it again for a while.”
Cyn tried to make sense of this. “If he’s gone that far, well, why is he still a patch-holder?”
“Because the one who is directly affected by these tirades and loose lip conversations with cops and detectives hasn’t pressed for tribunal. If he had, Derrick wouldn’t be here, I can guarantee that. Also, Derrick and Daphne are responsible for bringing in most of the new blood over the last year, including you.”
“I would have found this place the next weekend anyway. I was had already planned on exploring the rural routes east of my place,” Cyn told him. “What do you think of Daphne?”
Larry thought about this and said, “Nice ass, great tits, and unfortunate taste in men. She’s a rumor hound, but mostly harmless and sometimes quite useful. She doesn’t hang on men that aren’t hers. She hasn’t cheated on Derrick that I know of. She worked weekends here as a waitress for almost two years — took it seriously, worked hard, never expected an ounce of leniency because we were her friends. Consequently, she made very good tips and earned a greater level of respect from the club in general.”
“Good,” Cyn said. “Good, because I really like her. She’s fun to be around and has a great sense of
humor, though a little dirty.”
“If I recall, you aren’t a virgin in that area of humor,” Larry told her.
Cyn had laughed at that — but she wasn’t laughing about another hour going by with still no phone call from Hank.
“Shit!”
Then her phone rang, and she pounced on it like a tigress. “Hello?” she managed to say in a distracted, almost bored voice.
“Oh, I must have the wrong number,” Hank’s voice said. “You sound much too bored. I’m looking for the woman who just dove onto her couch for the phone, nearly bounced back on the floor, and could barely answer but managed to do so under an explosion of tousled hair. Is she around?”
Cyn used her hand to flip her hair back out of her face and looked wildly around. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Not around, I take it,” Hank continued to tease. “That’s a shame. She and I could get along really well. Phenomenally, in fact.”
“Seriously, where, the, fuck, are, you?” Cyn said, getting up and looking out her front window.
“Across the street, lass.”
“How the fuck did you know where I lived?” Cyn asked.
“Well, because you live right across the street from me. Isn’t that a coincidence. I saw your red bike in your drive just as I was turning off the road to run up to my place. I figured I would walk down and knock on your door, but when I got to the street, I changed my mind. I decided it would be better to give you a heads up and avoid the stalker theories before I came over. But that diving lunge for the phone, that was quite unexpected.”
“Saw that, did you?” She smiled.
“Couldn’t miss it even if I tried,” he said. “Quite the voice actress as well. That is, if you were going for the, I don’t really care if he calls or not, since I already have a full life, performance.”
Cyn bit her lip. “So are you just going to stand out there, giving the play-by-play? Or are you going to join the game, cowboy.”
CHAPTER FIVE
She saw him now, and she watched him cross the street with that road god stride of his to the bottom of her drive, where he said, “It looks like quite a game. I think I can make a good showing of myself, though. Any particular rules involved, or is it free play?”
“If it comes off, it stays off,” she told him with much more boldness than she felt. “And hesitant kissing is an extreme foul.”
“A game of boldness and strong movements. Definitely where my skills lie,” Hank declared.
“Passive groping is another foul which could end the game,” she warned him.
“Only authentic desires displayed by clear and distinct actions. Sounds like high risk but with fantastical rewards,” he said as he came up on her porch. “Nearly there. Anything else before I throw myself to the wolves?”
“If you bother to knock, the game will be called on grounds of mental incapacity,” she told him with a laugh, she and hung up in time to see him come inside, tossing his own phone toward hers on the couch. Before she could think of what to do, he swooped her up into a kiss with more ease than she had ever experienced before.
She had already changed out of her lace-up leather vest and into one of the large t-shirts she wore around the house like short dresses. This was normal work attire for her, but it also meant she was only wearing the shirt and a pair of panties. With his display of willingness to jump into her game and the state of arousal she noticed he was in as he came through the door, she felt the likelihood of remaining clothed for another two minutes was minuscule.
So rather than attempt to defend, she attacked.
She squirmed suddenly in his cradling arms, enough to break free and fall to the floor, where she spun and pounced, grabbing his leather vest and yanking it back onto his arms, forcing him to shrug out of it or be tied up by it. Then she kissed him furiously while pulling his t-shirt from his pants, yanking it up as soon as their lips parted.
As he pulled his t-shirt over his head, she grabbed, yanked on, and unbuckled his leather chaps, which, due to their weight, fell quickly around his knees. She laughed and bounced away to her hall.
With more ease than she had imagined, he barely broke stride as he pulled off his boots and slipped from each leather chap side. He came at her with increasing speed and serious determination in his worldly green eyes.
“Meep!” she squeaked, and she ran for her bedroom door.
She almost made it, and in fact, she thought she would because she didn’t hear him behind her, but he caught her up, spun her around, and pulled her t-shirt up her back as she spun. It was quite the maneuver, she decided, and one she wasn’t going to get out of without being mostly nude.
“Shit,” she hissed, but again, instead of retreating and accepting the lost, while she was still bent down, t-shirt tented up and tangled around her arm pits, she attacked.
She grabbed, pulled, and then yanked, unclasping his belt buckle. She almost had it completely undone before he stepped backward, twisted his hips, and yanked up her t-shirt, twisting it around her face so she couldn’t see and tangling her arms, until they were tied up, pinned, and lifted straight up over her head.
Then his hand pressed her against the wall, and he suckled her breast with no hesitation, and certainly no foul.
“Oooo, let me go!” she squealed, and began to squirm around, trying to get out of this helpless, tied up position she had gotten herself into.
She thought he was about to let her go, but instead he pulled her down and hard while stepping quickly into her room with her bent over and running to keep up. Then his hand grabbed hold of her panties, and with two quick jerks he tore them from her body.
“Hey!” she screeched.
“Hey yourself,” he replied, and then with a spinning twist he tossed her onto her bed while removing the t-shirt from her.
She rolled onto the bed panting, then got up on hands and knees to face him.
“Fine,” she said with challenging eyes. “You win, but next time, you had better watch yourself. I’ll be ready for you.” She smirked. “Now, come get your prize.”
He looked her over, very closely, and she wasn’t used to being examined quite the way he took her in. Then he finished with his belt and removed his pants to display a seriously aroused cock, hard and thick.
When he came forward to the bed, she moved quickly to meet him. After all, he had won the tussle and she wasn’t a poor sport. The thrill of meeting his lips and then having him explore her tongue with his own was very sensuous. Her body responded in ways she hadn’t felt for a very long time. His hands on her were deft. His caresses rubbed her down, setting her on fire from deep mutuality. She moaned and slowly danced with her hips and breasts, pressing herself against him with growing passion. She pulled him into her, running her hands through his hair, his thick black mane of hair.
“You’re lucky I didn’t have my knife,” she teased with a low, playful murmur.
“No, you’re lucky, because you might have won, and then you wouldn’t get this,” he said, pushing her back. She landed with a bounce on the mattress.
She laughed and was going to get back up when he grabbed her ankles and pulled her ass back to the edge of the bed, where he knelt on one knee and, without preamble, dove his tongue into her pussy.
She groaned with released need. “Oh, shit, yes.”
With those worldly eyes of his, she would have expected him to be good at this, but she wasn’t quite prepared for what really good cunnilingus skills would do to her.
He moved from inciting her lips and vulva to ravaging her clitoris, and back to her lips and vulva, with perfect timing. His abandonment of her clitoris didn’t feel like a tease because her arousal level continued to grow toward climax no matter what he did, it seemed.
His timing was bewitching. Just as part of her would express a desire to be stimulated with that amazing tongue of his, his tongue was there, stimulating it, and just as another part of her lips would begin to feel that sucking would now be the thing to
do, before the spark was a real desire, his lips were there, sucking and pulling in just the right way.
“Oh shit, that is good,” she moaned, rubbing her hands through her hair and cupping her breasts with pure lust and growing need.
Then she discovered the man had magic hands. He inserted two fingers into her, working them past the knuckles, spreading her open, and fucking her all in concert with his mouth, which was now inciting her clitoris to rise and become harder than she ever recalled it being.
“Fuck!” she gasped as his fingers begin stroking into her with a rhythm that had her hips and ass squeezing and rising, twisting and yearning, only seconds after his entry.
“Sweet mercy,” she panted as she felt a rising, unexpectedly swift, luscious and beautiful orgasm.
Outlaw's Wrath - An MC Brotherhood Romance Boxed Set Page 27
