by K E Osborn
We sit back as he rides closer to the location. He parks, then starts a stealthy walk. Clever. I was starting to question whether he had the sense to do that or not after watching his ride.
“He’s coming up on the trackers now,” Neon exclaims.
We all watch Blake’s footage intensely as he approaches. Neon flicks something on his laptop, and audio comes through. The rustling of Blake’s clothes makes up most of the sound, along with his heavy breathing. He needs to rein that shit in if he wants to be more covert.
Blake rounds a shipping container, sliding up against the side of a warehouse. The side door is open, and he steps over to it. Anxiety ripples through me as I don’t know who might be inside, but what I do know, is seeing who it is could possibly change the face of the Houston alliances for good.
Far-off voices echo, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Blake slows his breathing as I hold mine. He slowly peers around the entry to the warehouse where the voices are coming from.
I count seven men, all unpacking boxes. My skin prickles, they’re wearing camo greens. Standing back directing the men is none other than the captain himself, Hawke Hernandez, leader of the Bayou Militia.
My lip curls. My fists ball at my sides. Everything in me wishes I were there right now, so I could race in and tear Hawke a new asshole for taking advantage of our agreement, of letting us believe we had an understanding.
This fucker thinks he can underhand us, he has another thing coming!
Hawke calls out to his Sergeant, Malik, to unload the next box. Malik lifts the box, then hands it off to two of his infantrymen. The picture goes blurry for a moment, and my muscles tense, a muffling noise echoes down the line, then the picture comes back into focus. Blake is aiming the camera for us, he’s angling it straight at the infantrymen with the box.
“In the box is the tracking signals. I think Blake reads that on his cell, too,” Neon clarifies.
The infantrymen pull out a brick of our product.
“Test it,” Hawke instructs.
The soldier slices open the packaging.
It’s hard to see from this distance and angle, but something falls onto the floor.
On Neon’s screen one of the trackers moves slightly.
“What the fuck is that?” Hawke blurts out loudly.
Suddenly, Blake turns and bolts.
Yeah, good idea kid.
Get the hell out of there.
Adrenaline surges through me as all our eyes stay transfixed to the screen in front of us.
Men rushing and car doors slamming behind him echo in the distance as Blake slides in behind some wooden crates, taking cover. He’s hiding. That little fucker better not get caught. It’s hard for us to see much as he crouches, trying to keep himself low, but with the audio, we can hear running footsteps and yelling men surrounding him.
I have no fucking clue what’s happening.
“If he gets found, they’ll think he’s involved with the trackers. That the club set them up. They’ll kill him,” I warn.
Texas rubs his chin. “Lucky the kid doesn’t know enough about the Militia to understand that just yet.”
“Hey, you! What are you doing here?” Hawke calls out.
I clench my eyes shut and screw up my face. “Sorry, kid,” I murmur.
“I heard all the commotion, I thought something was going down,” an unknown voice calls back.
Someone who is definitely not Blake.
“Well, some shit’s going down all right. That product had a tracker in it. We need to get the fuck out of here. So turn your pasty white ass around and go do the job I told you to, soldier.”
“Yes, captain.”
More running footsteps, doors slamming, and car tires screeching pierce down the line.
Blake finally starts breathing normally again after a few minutes, then the video begins to move. He cautiously edges out from behind the crates making his way to the warehouse, which now appears empty, barring the boxes that were there.
The camera starts lifting, and Blake’s face comes into view. “They’re gone. If you want me to leave now and come back, don’t say anything. If you have any instructions for me, call now, and I’ll do whatever you need me to.”
I glance around the room at my brothers. “We could get our packages back, but if we take them now and Hawke comes back to retrieve, he’ll clue in someone was there. Four packages, if they’re all there, they aren’t a big enough bank breaker to worry about compared to the time Blake would get if he’s caught with them in his possession on the way back here. We know Hawke took them. So, now we can go have a little chat with him about it.”
“Agreed,” Texas replies.
Chains nods.
Then all the brothers give me the go-ahead.
We watch, wait, then Blake spins, slowly walking toward the exit. “I’m heading back, taking the no call to mean we’re all good. Hope you saw all that well enough. See you soon.” Blake starts jogging and races off for his ride.
I move back over to my seat. Neon mutes Blake’s video, but keeps it on so we can witness his ride back to us. Make sure he’s okay. Last thing we need is for the Militia to get him on his ride back here to the clubhouse.
“Okay, so we have a couple of options. We either go in hot. Serve out justice for stealing from us when we had an agreement, or we go in civilly and find out why the fuck they think it’s okay to steal from us. I’m open for discussion.”
Fox lifts his chin. “Why don’t we do both?”
I narrow my eyes on him. “Explain?”
“Go in with a sign of force, but our aim is to talk. We don’t want a war if we can help it. We go in asserting ourselves, letting them know we’re pissed, but we can be reasonable, and talk to them when we have their attention. If they’re willing.”
It makes sense and is exactly what I was thinking.
But I want the guys to think I’m not going to come in here, make all the decisions without discussing it with them first. We’re a team. A brotherhood. A family. Sure, sometimes I’ll make a call for us all. But this, this affects all of us.
I want a consensus—all or nothing.
“Brothers, do we all agree?”
“Aye,” rings around the chapel, and I bang my gavel. “Good, ‘cause I don’t know about you guys, but I’m feeling stabby. I wanna go in and show them we mean business before I tear strips off Hawke verbally.”
“I’m looking forward to this. I’m in need of a good fight,” Ax grunts.
I snort. “Remember, I don’t want any deaths, accidental or otherwise if we can help it. We’ll cause noise, a little pain, but no body count, that’s not the aim of this. Got it?”
“Are we all going?” Neon asks.
“Anytime we head into Militia territory, we need safety in numbers. The more the better.”
“You want me with you?” Fox asks.
I need to think this through.
Someone needs to stay back—mind the clubhouse.
If shit really blows up, I am going to want someone who can not only take care of the ladies, but who can deal with Zero too. Fox asked because he knows just like I do, he is that man.
“You better sit this one out, Fox. You have things to do here. People to look out for.”
He bows his head. I think half in understanding, half in thanks.
“Right, let’s mount up. Hawke and his men will be heading back to their camp. Let’s go pay them a nice warm visit.”
WRAITH
Riding my bike is like the best fucking rev-me-up in the world. It’s amazing the emotions riding a bike will put you through. It’ll energize you. It will elate you. It will clear your darkened mind. Riding is the best natural medicine on earth, and right now that elixir is coursing through my veins. I don’t need a doctor or a shrink, I just need that fucking horsepower between my legs, and the road beneath those two spinning wheels.
Luckily, the Militia camp isn’t too far away from our clubhouse. With us all ca
rrying right now, getting pulled over by the heat would be bad. But we need to go in to their camp with authority. With assertiveness. We have to show them we aren’t going to roll over and take their shit.
As we pull down the street, their camp’s coming up on the left. I signal to Slick to pull up. We will need to walk the rest of the way—we don’t need them hearing us coming. We slow, pulling off and jump off our rides, gathering in a tightknit group.
“We go in. If they shoot at us, we shoot back, but don’t aim to kill. Injure only, okay?”
“Got it,” they all reply.
“Neon, you ready?”
He drops his chin pulling out some weird fucking gadget. “This should break through their security system easily.”
“Right, let’s do it.” I gesture for Neon to head off first. He leads the single line formation as we run alongside the tall metal fence. The barbed wire running the top perimeter reminds me of a prison camp. Neon scans his gadget over the security access point, and the lights flick to green. The gates begin to open, and we file in a long line, drawing our guns.
“Who opened the gate?” someone calls out.
It pulls back revealing us to the Militia who are in the compound. They all widen their eyes, throwing their hands in the air. None of them have weapons on them as we race in, our guns aimed directly at them.
“Where. Is. Hawke?” I call out.
They all point toward the main building. They’re all around eighteen and look terrified. These young men must be new infantry. New recruits to their cause.
We rush inside the building as a bullet flies past my head.
“That was a warning shot, Wraith!” Hawke calls out as his soldiers rush toward us completely weaponless.
Oh, so they want to use their fists?
Well, I for one, am happy to oblige.
“Hand to hand, brothers,” I call out as a soldier tries to sucker punch me. I duck, weaving around him, then land a jab right in his ribs. He leans over, winded, as another swoop-kicks my legs out from under me. Fucker. My legs turn to jelly as I fall on my ass. The soldier picks up a chair, preparing to smash it over my head, when Kevlar tackles him to the floor. The wooden chair splinters off into tiny pieces as I jump from the cold concrete, dusting myself off. Kevlar lays into the soldier as I take off after another in my efforts to get to Hawke.
The asshole’s on a landing, a level up, glaring down from above like a creeper—someone who lets his underlings do his dirty work.
The soldier punches straight for my face, but I block it, sideswiping it away, landing an uppercut to his jaw. His teeth crunch together with the force causing his front tooth to crack. He spits out a line of blood as he stumbles to the side.
The urge starts to kick in.
My need.
My addiction.
I want to finish him off. I would like nothing more than to choke an asshole and watch the life drain from his body right now.
But that’s not what this is all about.
So, I slam my fist into his nose, knocking the asshole out for good measure.
Suddenly, someone grabs me from behind, an arm racing around my throat in a headlock. I try to throw them over my back, but it’s of no use. He’s too big. He squeezes, cutting off my airway.
“Enough!” Hawke calls out as my frantic eyes focus on him.
My guys stall their fights with the infantry soldiers. The soldiers stop, stand back, as I signal to my men to halt as well, even though I’m still in a headlock, albeit less of a chokehold now and more like a restraining gesture.
“Get your man to let me go, Hawke,” I call up to him.
He waves his hand through the air, and the asshole behind me lets me go. “What I want to know, Wraith, is why the fuck you and your men felt the need to storm in here to try and tear my place up? I thought we had an understanding?”
Gritting my teeth at his blatant bullshit, I pull out my gun and aim it directly at him. “We have a deal on the table, Hawke. You get a percentage of the Snow White tablets and that puts us in business together. So why the fuck are you stealing from us?”
Hawke signals to Malik. His sergeant walks over to me with his hand open and the smashed tracker in it. “This yours?”
I snort out a response. “As if you didn’t know?”
Hawke rubs his chin as he edges down the metal staircase. “Honestly, Wraith, I didn’t. A seller came to me offering cargo. Said it was pure. I said I’d try it to see what it’s like. If it’s good, I’d get more. It started with one brick, then it was upped to three.”
Rolling my shoulders as he approaches me, I study him carefully. “You only have three?”
He stares at me blankly. “Yeah?”
I turn to Neon, his expression conveying exactly what I’m thinking—Hawke didn’t steal from us. He’s just a puppet in this fucked-up game someone else is playing.
I turn back to Hawke. “Who’s the supplier?”
“I’m not letting you in on this, Wraith.”
“Hawke, that’s our product. Some fucker stole it from our trucks.”
“Nah, I don’t want to get involved in this dispute.”
“Why?”
Hawke takes in a deep breath. “Because I’m having some apprehensions about the supplier and the damage he can cause me.”
My nails bite into my palms as a heat flushes through my body. I narrow my eyes on Hawke knowing exactly who he’s talking about.
There’s only one man in Houston who has the hardest of criminals running scared of him.
The Baron.
I turn my head, looking at my brothers. “I know who it is. Let’s go.”
“Don’t include me in your war, Wraith. I mean it,” Hawke spits out as I turn heading for the door.
“Then don’t accept stolen goods when you don’t know where they come from, Hawke.”
He exhales. “We’re good, right? Our deal still stands?” he yells as I walk out the door not answering him.
Kevlar steps up to my side. “We are keeping our deal with them, right?”
“Oh, fuck, yeah. I just need Hawke to stew on that for a little while.”
Kevlar grins. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yeah, but he’d no doubt do the same to us.”
We hop back on our rides to head back to the clubhouse.
Now we know the Baron is stealing from us, and handing our product off to our frenemies, my next step is to figure out why.
“So, it’s pretty clear to me this can only be the Baron,” I tell my brothers as we sit in the chapel.
Ax rolls his shoulders placing his gun on the table for emphasis. “I say we find the fucking lunatic and end him… painfully.”
“While I want that more than anything, we need to think about why he’s trying to start shit between the Militia and the club again. Obviously, the Baron knew sending the packages to them would cause a reaction from us. Was he hoping we would go back to war?”
“I’ll do some digging, see what I can find out,” Neon offers.
“Do what you can. I want to know what his motives are. He holds a grudge because of Cherry, but I feel like there’s something we’re missing.”
“In the meantime, pres, do we stop our shipments? If we are gonna get robbed, then should we stop it completely, so we don’t keep losing?” Slick asks.
I rub the back of my neck. If we do that, it stops cash flowing into the club. “We need to talk to Cherry, see if she’ll get another shipment of tablets made up for us. If we can do that, get that source of income coming in, then yeah. We stop exports for now, other than the tablets. But, when we ship the tablets out, I might get you, Slick, to transport. I don’t wanna use someone else and risk the Baron sliding in on that, too. We need to get our own legitimate-looking pharmaceutical truck happening sooner rather than later.”
“I’ll talk to Cherry. Organize a night we can get the tablets ready. I’ll also get onto buying that truck,” Neon adds.
“Get it done. For n
ow, everything outgoing stops. We cut this asshole off before he starts something we can’t fucking rectify.”
“Here, here.”
“Okay, it’s been a long-ass day, let’s go out, unwind, and relax for the evening. Tomorrow is a new day with new damn challenges.” I bang the gavel on the table.
Everyone stands as I stretch out my weary body. I want nothing more than to have a good feed, a drink, and to sit down staring at Prinie’s ass for far too long than is inappropriate. But that’s a bad idea. After last night, she’ll be dirty with me. I want to fix that situation, but talking to her will inevitably make the situation worse.
What I should do is check in with Finley. See how things are progressing with Zero. So, pulling out my cell, I send a text.
Me: Any news?
I hit send as my brothers all leave the chapel, the air falling silent.
Finley: Hi Wraith. Hope you’ve had a good day. You bikers are always so straight to the damn point. To answer your question… no, there’s no news on Zero’s case, but health-wise Zero’s recovering. He’s strong, Wraith. He’s going to be just fine.
I roll my eyes. So damn formal even via text message.
Me: Thanks.
She thinks I’m straight to the point, can’t get much straighter than that.
Finley: You’re an ass…
Me: Yep.
I chuckle under my breath as I hit send, then shove my cell into my pocket. She knows I wouldn’t have anyone else representing Zero but her. She’s a member of our team. If anyone can find a way to get him out of there, it will be Finley. She’s totally fine with me giving her shit. The thing is, she’s just as good at giving it back. That’s how I’m sure she’s the right fit for this club.
Walking out of the chapel, the smell of dinner lingers in the air. I’m not sure what the girls are cooking up for us tonight, but it has my stomach growling. Striding over to the farthest table in the back, I take a seat and people watch. My brothers sit together drinking, letting the spoils of this evening’s fight wear off them.
Cherry’s sitting with Chills and her baby while Kevlar stands in the doorway talking on his cell. I’m sure he’s discussing with Ethan everything that’s happening with Zero. If it was him who tipped off the Sergeant, I owe Ethan a huge fucking favor and even a thank you. I never thought I’d see the day I’d owe Ethan any-fucking-thing. That man has had it in for the club for as long as Kevlar has been a member. I don’t know why the sudden turnaround, but I’ll take anything to help Zero out.
