GIVE IN: God's Hellfire MC

by Naomi West

  “Probably wonder why we brought back,” Avery said, dropping a telephone book sized file on the conference table. “This is the accumulation of everything we know about Efraim Petrov. We've been going back through this stuff day and night since we sent you into Witpro, trying to find something we could use to put him away.”

  Kaci and I both nodded. We knew she'd been doing everything she could to bring us back home.

  “The problem, it turns out, is that we'd been looking at it all wrong. We'd been looking for ways to prove that he was illegally selling his arms and somehow hiding it off the books, coming up with fake serial numbers, fake figures. All of that. Every time the Port Authority would do an audit on a Petrov Arms truck, we'd get jack shit, though.”

  She picked up another much slimmer folder and tossed it on top of the yellow pages thick one. “That right there, guys, is the information we got from Gov and Micah when we first all came into contact. I was going back through the files and I realized something didn't seem right, so we started going back through the information we'd obtained from the Port Authority on the comings and goings. Turns out, the trucks he's using aren't his own. We didn't realize it, until we started to match the times and dates you'd given in your accounts of the robberies with the shipment dates that the PA had. None of the trucks you robbed were coming in marked as Petrov Arms, they were under a host of other subsidiaries and shell corporations.”

  I cocked my head to the side. I hadn't ever really thought about it, before, since I'd just been knocking over the trucks Gov's contact had been giving us. We didn't really need to know which companies he was using to run them with. That part hadn't mattered to us.

  “Which explains a whole lot of things,” Agent Brumfield continued. “We think he's stamping guns with serial numbers he already has in product, and hiding the costs and proceeds off books. What you were stealing, guys, wasn't from the main stash, what he sells legally to wholesalers and governments. They were guns that manufactured illegally to be sold overseas. Nothing ever shows up on his audits, or in his tax documents for Petrov Arms as a loss, because they were never there to begin with.”

  “So,” Gov asked when Avery paused for a moment, “you're telling us, we weren't cutting into his company's profits at all? Like zero? Zip? Zilch?” Avery nodded in agreement. “We were stealing guns specifically made to be sold to people under the table? That they all had serial numbers linked to honestly bought guns?”

  “Precisely. You never would have noticed they were fake because you didn't have access to the ATF's database.”

  Efraim had a solid plan, I had to admit. I mean, if anyone saw the guns, they wouldn't immediately think something was up unless they had the numbers in front of them. I leaned forward, my chin propped up on a fist. “Alright, but what can we do to help you? What do you need from us?”

  “We were hoping,” Avery said, looking around at the table of FBI agents, “that you could help us pick out some of the trucks he might be using. We've been able to dig through his finances and figure out a financial structure using public records, but we think there's still gaps in our information. That said, some of our CI's have let us know that he's moving something, and soon. Maybe as early as tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Lemme get this straight,” Kaci said as she leaned forward and looked around the table. “You want us to go down to the ports and point out which ones we recognize?”

  “Nail. Head. Got it,” Avery said.

  Kaci looked to me, and I just shrugged. “Seems simple enough.” I turned back to Avery. “When? Right now? Tonight? I'm down.”

  Avery flashed a bit of a smile. “We can start as soon as you're able.”

  The meeting convened after that, and Kaci and I climbed back into the Tahoe with Avery. This time Avery hopped up front in the passenger seat, and left the back to me and Kaci. She and I snuggled up together, not giving two shits about whether or not there were two federal agents playing chaperone.

  About an hour later we were down at the docks, with Avery and her driver using their federal authority to muscle past the guards. The sun was low in the sky, but the port didn't look like it was close to shutting down. Ships were still loading and unloading, and would be all through the night.

  We cruised around the lot, the windows up, blocking any outsider's view of it. The agent carefully drove along the roadway, careful of any intermodal haulers coming through. Finally, we came to a stop as we approached a ship Avery thought might be used for the shipment out.

  “That's it,” she said as she handed me a pair of binoculars.

  I rolled down the window a little and peered out from the back, the binoculars pressed to my face. The tractor looked familiar, but I still bit my tongue. I'd been so cocky in the past, so full of my own ego, and had made so many wrong decisions.

  “What do you think?” Avery asked.

  Without saying a word, I slowly shook my head. I just couldn't afford to be wrong. I lowered the binoculars and passed them off to Kaci. “Here, babe, you take a look. You saw the truck as well as I did.”

  Kaci looked at me uncertainly. “You sure?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Your memory's as good as mine, right?”

  She nodded and bit her lip, put them to her eyes. She spent even longer than I had, finally agreeing with me. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I'm pretty sure that's the one.”

  “You sure?” Agent Brumfield asked.

  I grinned. “Yeah,” I said, kissing Kaci on the cheek, “she's sure.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Micah

  We were back in shitty motels with bad sheets. Kaci and I had both petitioned Avery for something a little ritzier for our first night together, but it really didn't matter in the end. The scratchy cloth of the linens and covers might as well have been silk for all we cared as we lay beneath them, naked and covered in sweat.

  “Goddamn I missed you,” I said as I stroked Kaci's face. “Every night, every morning. I couldn't think of anything else.”

  She leaned in, kissed me, and grinned. “I took up reading books on old wars to try and get you out of my mind.”

  “Old war books, huh? Did General Sherman's march to the sea make you forget me?”

  “Not for a second,” she replied. “Now, D-Day and the beaches of Normandy, though . . .”

  I pulled her in and kissed her again, over and over. “How about now?” I asked between kisses.

  As she laughed and squirmed in my grip, the room's phone began to ring from her side of the bed.

  “Stop it, Micah!” she squealed under the barrage of my lips. “I gotta get the damn phone!”

  I let her break free of my grip and roll over to pick up the handset. “Hello?” she asked.

  My eyes traveled down the curve of her back, the swell of her hips. I was already getting hard again just looking at her, remembering how she'd felt moments before.

  She put the phone against her shoulder. “It's for you, babe. It's Avery.”

  I got up and padded around to her side of the bed, still completely naked. I put the offered phone to my ear. “Yeah, Avery?”

  “There he is,” Avery said, her voice unusually chipper and upbeat, “the man of the goddamned hour. How you feeling? You guys enjoying yourselves, yet?”

  I felt Kaci's long fingered hand wrap itself around my length. I glanced down and saw her lick those full lips in their perfect cupid's bow as she slid across the bed and closer to my manhood. Apparently, she was ready for another round, too. “Uh huh,” I mumbled.

  “Just calling to give you guys an update. We took the information with your statement up to our bosses, and they've authorized us to start putting together the information for a search warrant on the company that rig from last night belonged to.”

  Kaci was swirling her tongue around the crown, now, and I'd leaned back a little as the pleasure began to flood into me, muddling my thoughts. Still, though, I tried to focus on Avery's words without letting her know what
we were doing.

  “We're ninety-nine-percent sure that this is going to be it,” Avery said. “We'll put this fucker away with everything you two have given us.”

  “Oh,” I said, my voice sounding ridiculous to even me, the owner, “that's real nice.”

  “It's fantastic news! Don't you get that?” Avery asked. “Wait . . .”

  I groaned low as Kaci slipped her lips completely over the head, taking me into her mouth.

  “Are you two . . .? Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. I'd say get a room, but for Chrissakes, Micah. At least don't do it while I'm on the phone.”

  I cracked a grin. “Don't blame me, Agent Brumfield. She started it.”

  “Whatever. It's almost over, Micah. Talk to you soon.” She hung up the phone, crashing it down loudly in my ear. On purpose, I was sure.

  “Good news?” Kaci asked as she stroked me and beckoned me back into bed.

  “Yeah,” I said as I crawled into bed with my woman, pinning both of her thin arms to the mattress. “We'll talk about it later, though. After.”

  Despite the tenor of the conversation I'd had with Avery, and how confident she seemed, I was still secretly worried. I knew this wouldn’t be the end of Efraim. Not by a long shot.

  # # #

  Kaci

  Micah explained to me what was all was going on, about the warrant, about the company they were now looking into. It all sounded great on the surface. A win for the good guys, even if we were anything but.

  “You don't seem as happy as Avery did on the phone,” Micah said, stroking my cheek. We were still naked in bed, and I could feel the heat rolling off his body like a furnace cranked up to full blast. “You okay?”

  I turned and kissed his fingertips, then sighed. It was so wonderful to be back in his arms, to be back in New Orleans. Even the smell of the place, which was fucking awful, seemed like a good thing. The river rising up, filling my nostrils. And the hot sun, with all the mosquitoes and muggy air, beat the Hell out of Seattle's drizzly weather day in and day out.

  “No,” I said after a moment, “I'm happy that they might have a chance at getting him. That's good, you know?”

  “But, still . . .” Micah said, pulling me into his arms.

  “Still,” I agreed as I laid myself against his chest. “Romeo's gone.”

  “Yeah,” he said. holding me closer and tighter. “I know. Efraim took a lot from both of us, didn't he?”

  I turned my head, kissed his broad chest, took a deep breath of his skin and musky man smell.

  “I love you, Kaci Sizemore,” he said after a while. “I'll love you till the stars burn out, and the world ain't nothing but darkness.”

  I smiled, tears forming up at the corners of my eyes. They were the same words he'd said the first time he confessed to loving me. I'd believed him way back then, but not quite as fully as I did now.

  He brushed my long auburn hair with the flat of his hand, kissed the top of my head.

  “We're gonna make everything right,” he said. “I promise you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Micah

  “I fucking knew there was going to be a catch,” I said under my breath, shaking my head at how unsurprising this all was. “I just knew it.”

  “What was that?” the FBI tech asked as he wired me up with the listening device beneath my shirt and light jacket.

  “Huh?” I asked. “Oh, nothing, man. We almost done?”

  “Almost.”

  I was sitting in the back of an FBI van, inside the parking garage of Petrov Arms down in Baton Rouge, two days after Avery had given me the good news over the phone.

  Turns out, the case wasn't as airtight as they thought it would be. At least, the US Attorney's Office didn't seem to think so. For something this big, with so much money and creative accounting going on, so many go betweens and no video of the Bear touching the money, they needed proof. Real proof.

  And that meant a confession, on tape.

  I'd raised my hand to volunteer so fast you'd have thought I was Billy the fucking Kid.

  There wasn't much of a plan, this time. No warning for Efraim, either. Just a rough idea of confronting him, getting him talking, and get him to admit what had been going on.

  “All set, sir,” the FBI tech said. “Just a few tests and we'll be go.”

  “Good deal,” I replied.

  We ran through the short set of tests to check the connection, and placement of the microphone for best pickup. This had to count, and had to be good.

  “We've got him on visual,” one of the men up front said. “Agent Brumfield's truck has him spotted.”

  “Guess it's time,” I said and, with my chest wired up like some bad 80s sci-fi movie, I hopped out of the van. I walked around it and out into the lane between the parking spots. Up ahead, I could see Efraim Petrov with his cellphone pressed to his ear. Flanked by two bodyguards, he was headed to his Mercedes with briefcase in hand. Looked like it was the end of the working day for the Bear.

  He didn't glance my direction, and neither did the guards. I still hadn't had a chance to swing by my house and pick up my clothes, so I'd had to stick with my used car salesman get up. Kaci had mentioned she kind of liked it. Said it felt like she was getting a new man in her life.

  I approached his car as he was just about getting into it and came to halt. At this distance, I'd be a sitting duck. “Hello Bear!” I called out as he beep-booped the alarm off and unlocked the door. “Efraim Petrov!”

  Efraim stopped, his hand hanging in midair. “Excuse me?” he asked with his thick Russian accent as he turned back to me. He glanced at the two bodyguards, who were watching him for instructions. He nodded. “Do I know you?” he asked as the two security guys started to walk quickly towards me, hands stuffed inside their jackets.

  “What?” I asked, my eyes solidly on the two likely-armed men coming my way. “Don't recognize me from the park a few months ago? Came to you with a deal?”

  Efraim raised a hand as he barked a command in Russian. The bodyguards stopped in their tracks, not more than ten feet away. Just like attack dogs. “Yes, I think I remember you. Mr. Marlow, correct? Micah Marlow?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “What can I do for you today?” he sneered as he looked me up and down.

  “Came here to talk about my grandpa, Quentin Marlow.”

  He made a face and shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know this man.”

  “Sure you do,” I said. “You sent some of your lackeys after him because you thought I was coming after you.”

  He laughed. “Oh, yes,” he said, clapping his hands together a single time. “The fat FBI agent who hated me so much. I remember him, now.”

  I gritted my teeth together and balled my fists at my side. “You had him killed as a message to me.”

  The Bear shrugged. “Why would I do that, Mr. Marlow? What do you think I am? Someone like you?” He switched to his sarcastic American accent. “An outlaw Billy bad ass?”

  I took a step forward, my fists still at my sides.

  His bodyguards took a half step back and drew their pistols from beneath their coats.

  “I know who you are,” I said. “I know you a hundred times worse than me, or I could ever be. I know you sell guns all over the world, I know you run sex smuggling operations, I know you sell to anyone willing to pay. But you're not going to fucking get away with.”

  He shrugged again, his hands out in front. “So fucking what, Mr. Marlow? Why do think I won't get away with it?” He laughed. “You think this is, how do you yanks say, my first fucking rodeo? I'm Efraim fucking Petrov, Marlow. I'm more connected than you'll ever imagine, with more people protecting me than you could ever conjure up in your tiny American brain.”

  I grinned, knowing he'd said enough. “Know what?” I asked. “You're probably right.” And, with those words, I did the sensible thing. I turned around on my heels and walked away.

  Behind me, the Bear just laughed. “That's it, Mr. Ma
rlow. Scurry away to your little suburban home. See if I won't find you,” he said, before switching to Russian and speaking another command to his security guys.

  # # #

  Kaci

  I grabbed Agent Brumfield by the shoulder. “Something's wrong,” I said, “get him out.”

  We were all in the security van at the other end of the parking structure from where Micah was squared off with the Bear. A camera they had trained on the pair of them, though, showed in almost perfect resolution what was really going on, though. Between that, and the feed coming in from the mic on Micah, we saw and heard everything that was going on.