Special Agent Monaco blinked at me before she drew a deep breath in through her nose.
“If our theory pans out, Officer Riley, then we’ve got a bigger issue than drugs.”
“That’s code for ‘you haven’t found any other drugs except the one load,’” I said.
“Enough,” my captain said. “Get back to your office, and I’ll deal with you soon.”
“I just want to make sure everything is being done well. I’ve worked with both the FBI and the DEA before. I watched the FBI’s case unfold completely, and four murderers walked because of corners that were cut because of ‘theories.’ If all of this is true and it’s really this serious, we can’t risk this happening. There aren’t just lives in these gangs to save, there are lives in this town to save.”
I watched my captain’s face soften slightly, and I knew my words hit him in his gut.
“That’s all,” I said.
“My theories always pan out, Officer Riley, make no mistake of that,” Monaco said.
But for some reason, her words didn’t do anything to settle my gut.
Chapter 3
Snake
Church was called, and everyone was eager for the information Fox, and I had. We both pulled up to the mechanic's shop where Mac and everyone else would be waiting, and I saw Talon kiss my sister. My fists tightened around the handlebars of my bike while the two of them got hot and heavy, and I could see Fox grinning at me from the corner of my eye. I was happy the two of them were happy, but that didn’t mean I had to enjoy the sight of them kissing. That didn’t mean they had to flaunt their shit out in the open for everyone to see.
Didn’t the two of them know that the fuck a bedroom was?
I felt my entire body tighten as I threw my leg over my bike.
“Get a room!” Fox called out.
The two of them stopped kissing, and Gemma giggled before she blushed.
I watched Talon kiss her forehead before she waved at me. She made her way back to the lodge, and I stood there and watched, making sure she made it back safely. Talon was watching her as well, and I felt a sense of replacement crawl over my skin. I was the one who looked after my sister. I was the one person that had been important in her life.
Until Talon happened.
After church, I needed to blow off some steam. I needed a woman to lose myself in tonight. The tension was clenching my muscles, and I felt my fingers cramping with how tight I was clenching them. I knew a good fuck from a woman who jiggled against me all night would do me some good. I knew that a woman painting me in her makeup while she choked on my cock would erase the bullshit I just saw take place.
To me, Gemma would always be that pigtailed little girl in the tree reading a fucking book until the sunset over the damn trees.
“What the fuck did you see?” Mac asked as we walked in.
“Damn. Can’t even sit down for this?” I asked.
“The compound was quiet,” Fox said. “I mean, some members were coming and going… you know, casing and shit. But there was nothing to hold up the chatter you heard.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nope,” I said. “Not a fucking thing.”
“Then why the hell did you call church?” Mac asked.
“Because there was a damn DEA scoping them out,” I said.
“What?” Hawk asked.
“You heard me. And that motherfucker was parked in the woods. Sitting there without their fucking lights on. They were hidden so well I almost didn’t fucking see them.”
“Did they see you?” Talon asked.
“The fuck kind of question is that?” I asked.
“A decent one. Did they see you?” Mac asked.
“No. No one did,” I said. “But if they’re casing the Saints like that, then they’re still casing us.”
“I haven’t seen anything,” Hawk said.
“And I haven’t seen them on our usual routes,” Talon said.
“Did you not hear me? This fucker was in the damn woods,” I said.
“We heard you,” Mac said.
“What the fuck is up with this bullshit? How the hell did we pull off this shit with the truck and the drugs and have the DEA land in our laps like this anyway?” Hawk asked.
“It’s an interesting question. Why don’t you ask Mac?” I asked.
“Yes, all this shit has gone sideways. But if you remember, Hawk, we did all this shit to dig Syd out of all the trouble she’d found herself in,” Mac said.
“Oh, so this is Syd’s fault. You gonna blame this shit on Emery, too?” Hawk asked.
“No one’s gonna blame your daughter for things,” Fox said.
“Well, I don’t hear any of you coming to Syd’s defense!” Hawk growled.
“Because Mac’s not wrong,” Talon said. “Syd coming into town is what got the DEA in town in the first place. And you know all the government needs is probable cause to-”
“Fuck probable cause!” Hawk exclaimed. “We followed you into the trenches, Mac. We pulled off putting a truck full of fucking drugs out front of the Saint’s compound to get the DEA off the Iron Souls and Syd and put them onto the scent of the Saints. Who are prostituting women and killing off their own fucking crew members? How the fuck did this spiral against us!?”
“I didn’t think the DEA would fucking case every damn road from here all the way down to fucking Mexico. I figured they would take the win, especially with the shit job they did with the Iron Souls, and run for the hills,” Mac said.
“So… what?” Hawk asked as he stood up and walked towards Mac. “We just sit back, cram ourselves into the lodge, and hope for the fucking best? You think Beast gives a shit about the DEA? He’s fucking lost his damn mind, and we’re sitting fucking ducks!”
“Enough!” Mac roared. “That’s enough, Hawk.”
We all fell silent as Hawk’s chest panted with fury.
“We’re all stressed, and it’s a tight cram, I get it. And I’m trying to fix this while I keep everyone safe. It’s spiraling, and we just have to stay out of the eye of the storm.”
“How can you stay out of the shit you caused?” I asked.
It was a question that halted the entire room into fucking silence. But it had to be fucking said. It was Mac’s call to set up the Saints.
“We can all agree our two biggest issues are The Devil Saints and the DEA. Right?” Mac asked.
We all nodded as we watched our president gather his thoughts. But then, Talon opened his mouth.
“Who the hell are we supposed to take care of first?”
And again, the entire room was dead fucking silent.
“Talon, can you hack the DEA again without getting caught?” Mac asked.
“That’s risky as fuck,” I said. “You don’t have to be a tech genius to know that.”
“Snake’s right,” Talon said. “But I can try and see if there’s anything new. Anything to give us a head’s up as to where their heads are at.”
“Good. Snake and Fox, I need you guys to stay with the DEA. If you see any of those unmarked black sedans, you follow them to the ends of the earth. See if you can find out anything by following them. Keep a low profile and for fuck’s sake, don’t get caught,” Mac said.
“We’ll start tomorrow,” I said.
“I don’t get caught,” Fox said.
“Don’t get cocky. Shit goes sideways when people get cocky,” Hawk said.
“Hawk, you’re in charge of keeping people in the lodge calm. You’re better with those scenarios. Like your father was,” Mac said.
“I’ll do my best. Once I can get over my own shit,” Hawk said.
“I’ll try to tap into my other sources and see if anyone else has heard anything else,” Mac said.
“That all?” I asked.
“That’s all. Church is over,” Mac said.
I couldn’t get out of that damn mechanics shop fast enough. The stress was boiling my veins, and I could feel my heart slamming in my ears. I needed
to wet my cock with the juicy pussy of a woman with shit self-esteem and makeup as thick as her thighs.
“Wanna ride tonight?” Fox asked.
“I said I’ll start tomorrow,” I said. “Right now, I’m headed to the bar. I need a drink.”
“Want some company?” Fox asked.
“Nope,” I said.
“Well, be careful. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Don’t worry, I will,” I said.
I hopped onto my bike and rode into town, leaving all this bullshit in the background. All this shit my sister was caught up in was rattling me to my bones. Every move I made and all the times I kept my distance while she was in college was to protect her from all this. I shunned her and Talon’s shit when they were younger because I didn’t want her caught up in this mess. She’d endured enough living with the parents we did. She was the intelligent one. She was the good one. She was the one that was supposed to get out of this bullshit town and make something of herself.
She wasn’t supposed to come back and hop right onto Talon’s cock.
The thought alone made me sick. I needed a few beers to relax me and a soft body to grind my chest against. I needed a woman who wanted my face buried in her large tits who didn’t mind me slipping a hand down her shorts in public. Every single time I woke up in that damn lodge, I was reminded of the fact that Gemma was there. I was reminded of the fact that her eyes had officially been opened to the grisly life I led with The Road Rebels. I was reminded of how hard her life would be now that she’d chosen some fuck up like Talon, and I was reminded of the bloodshed she saw when Beast gunned down his own damn wife in front of our mechanics shop.
I was reminded of how unphased she seemed by all of it when she saw Talon holding Calista’s lifeless body in his arms.
And then, all that shit just reminded me of the horrors she saw growing up. The fights I couldn’t shield her from and the crackling beer bottles that rained down on her smooth skin. The death she experienced at the hands of two toxic individuals that didn’t even try to do their best when it came to us.
All of it reminded me of the shit protector I really was versus the protector I had tried to be.
I needed every single fucking trick a woman could throw at me tonight, especially with the thoughts that were running through my head. The thoughts that plagued me at night. The dreams I wished were realities, and the realities I wished were nothing but nightmares.
I needed a woman to take me away from what I knew was coming. The war that was on the brink of wiping us all of the face of this planet.
The war was closer than we all thought.
I could feel its presence prickling the back of my neck.
Chapter 4
Laiken
DEA Special Agent Monaco didn’t do anything to settle my gut, so independent research was the next thing on my list. I pulled all the files they had surrounding this case, and I was shocked at the volume of information we had. I pulled out file after file on motorcycle gangs in the area. The Devil Saints and The Iron Souls and The Road Rebels. There were pictures of several Saints members with faces circles and named scribbled off to the side. Names like ‘Beast’ and ‘Roadhouse,’ and a picture of a little girl with her face circled and a question mark beside it.
I pulled out folders on a gang called The Iron Souls and saw the dates on them were much earlier than the stuff on The Devil Saints. There was so much information that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take it all in. So, I color-coordinated all the files with neon-colored paper clips and went to town.
I organized the files based on dates to help me paint a trail. The very first document was filed over a year ago, and it was on a motorcycle gang called The Iron Souls. I read file after file on their drug-running antics. I read how the DEA caught up with them and was only a foothold away from putting all of them behind bars. I read testimonies of individuals who were turning on their gang. Feeding the DEA inside information to get closer to the Souls.
Then, I came across a picture. Actually, it was multiple pictures. Of the same woman. Her face was circled in all of them, and the acronym ‘POI’ was crossed out next to it. I came across the first picture that must’ve been taken of her because it had her name beside it.
“Sydney,” I said.
I found pictures of her holding the hand of a little girl. I found pictures of her riding on the backs of motorcycles. I found pictures of her standing on a porch as a guy in a leather jacket mounted a bike. I saw more pictures of her and that little girl in a hotel, obviously in another part of the country.
Maybe California? It looked like California.
But ‘POI’ was crossed out. That meant she was a person of interest at one point, but no longer was. Why did that happen? Why was she a person of interest in the beginning?
“We thought Sydney was our link to The Iron Souls.”
I turned my head to look back at my captain. He was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes fell to the mound of paperwork I had in front of me, and he grinned at the color-coated paper clips.
“Creative,” he said.
“Easier to get things back in their proper boxes,” I said.
“Sydney was a latecomer to the Souls,” he said. “We figured she would be the easiest to roll over, so they surveilled her. They tried to find her connection to The Iron Souls. They needed someone who could confirm and prove the routes The Iron Souls were running drugs through.”
I picked up the picture of her standing on the porch waving to the guy in the leather jacket.
“That was taken before they dropped her as a person of interest. She took her daughter-- the young girl in these other photos-- and fled to this man’s house. His name’s Hawk. He’s part of The Road Rebels.”
“Why is she no longer a person of interest?” I asked.
“Couldn’t pin anything on her. She was just joyriding with the Souls. She didn’t know anything about their routes or their inner workings. Turns out, she wasn’t even a part of their gang. Not officially. They spent all their time chasing a bad lead.”
“But it led them into The Road Rebel’s territory,” I said.
“She was actually the person who tipped off one of the DEA agents to a deal going down with The Devil Saints. She’s the reason we have the open drug case on The Saints, to begin with.”
“So, she’s not a person of interest, but an informant?” I asked.
“She’s been quiet. Went dark when the heat got taken off The Road Rebels. My guess is that man in the leather jacket is her little girl’s father, which ties her to The Rebels. The DEA has the same theory, but there’s no evidence to back that up. She didn’t designate a father on her daughter’s birth certificate, and we can’t get a paternity test done without having a legal reason to do so.”
“And since the heat’s on The Devil Saints right now, just busting up in there and asking for one’s illegal,” I said.
“Yep. And right now, the focus needs to be on the Saints. The drugs found outside of their compound were way too closely cut to the shit crawling across the border,” he said
I searched through the mounds of papers until I found the part of the timeline he was talking about. There were pictures and schematics of the truck. A breakdown of the chemical makeup of the drugs in the truck. A side-by-side of these drugs compared to the shit being smuggled over the border.
“It was cut within one percent,” I said.
“Yep. Pretty close.”
“But that cartel. The one you’re comparing it to… they’re exact. Every time.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“A lot of their drugs ran up into the Los Angeles area. I’ve seen multiple overdoses. I practically have this chemical breakdown memorized. It’s deadly, but it’s always the same breakdown. I’ve never seen it deviate more than 0.2 percent.”
“There any way you could pull that kind of paperwork for us with your former connections?” he asked.
&
nbsp; “I could try. Let me process all this information, and I’ll make a call,” I said.
“Right now, there’s a feud brewing between The Rebels and The Saints. But no one knows why. There’s aggression. There are rumors flying around of The Saints chartering in shit like grenades and automatic rifles. They’re gonna get sloppy because that’s not what they run. The Saints, they’re ruthless. They prostitute their own women, marry off their children young, own half the strip clubs in this area, and use the women to smuggle in drugs. They don’t dabble in guns.”
“You think they’re teaming up with the Rebels?” I asked.
“Nope. I think The Saints are gunnin’ for war. The Rebels and The Saints have a long ass history of violence and hatred. It started decades ago, when fraternization between the two communities happened, and shit blew sky high.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The Road Rebels have existed for about sixty years. The Devil Saints were born out of their gang. There was a disagreement in how they would run things and a group of them left to start their own gang.”
“The Devil Saints,” I said.
“They’ve been at each other’s throats since. The Rebels see The Saints as pathetic wimps who don’t live by a code, and The Saints see The Rebels as pushover pussies.”
“Great,” I said. “Sounds fantastic. But when the DEA busted The Devil Saints, they could’ve just taken them down right then and there. Why didn’t they?”
“When they saw how similar the chemical makeup was, they figured they could kill two birds with one stone.”
“Of course they did,” I said, sighing.
“I know how you feel. It’s bullshit, and I’m ready to arrest those good-for-nothing sons of bitches. Beast-- their President-- is getting aggressive. Rumor has it he killed his own fucking wife in cold blood.”
“Beast… I saw that name earlier…”
“The big one in the main Devil Saints pictures.”
I dug around for it and pulled it out so I could study his face.
“Any evidence that he killed her?” I asked.
“Nope. All rumors and speculation. But the wife has been missing since. What we do know is this. The bust happened, and the DEA saw an opportunity. Now, they’re surveilling The Saints big time in order to score not only them but their cartel connections. But by the way you talk, it doesn’t sound like a cartel connection at all.”
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