Ink's Devil: Satan's Devils MC Colorado Chapter #5

by Manda Mellett

  “So our stakeout is off?” Sparky catches my eye and grins. Guess he might also have plans for later.

  Demon looks at Beef. “I’m not happy. I want to know who’s fuckin’ with us. Cops have Tits Up in their sights, and may well have gotten info we haven’t dug up yet.”

  Mace completes Demon’s thoughts. “They may only end up with a dealer. A bit player who’s too scared to talk to them. Someone will be behind this, I’m fuckin’ certain, and it’s more than just one or two fuckers outside our club.”

  “They catch someone, he might make a plea bargain,” Hellfire challenges.

  Beef gives a slow nod. “That depends on who he can give up. Snitches don’t last long inside.”

  “But you are saying we should stay clear tonight?” I ask, my brow creasing. It doesn’t settle easy with me to sit back and let others do what I see is my job. Protecting my club. Like my brothers, I hate drugs and the problems they cause, but it’s understandable the cops want to be involved and catch the dealers. Getting whatever’s being sold off the streets would look well on their record. Conversely, there’s a very good personal reason why I’d be happy to not be out with my brothers tonight.

  “We leave it to them?” Rusty is obviously reading the VP’s words the same way as I am.

  Sparky’s eyes roll. “They couldn’t find their assholes with a flashlight and a map,” he states. “Leave it to them and whoever it is might get away.”

  “They’ll know we won’t let others handle it for us,” a voice interjects. “If they expect us to sit on our hands, they don’t know who they’re dealing with.”

  Beef grins and nods at Pal. “I didn’t let on I’d overheard, obviously. But I told them we were doing what we can to stop this shit going on. In legal ways, of course, protecting our premises and businesses. That we’re beefing up security at the strip club. They sort of huffed and exchanged glances at that. They weren’t going to admit to getting a SWAT team ready, but hopefully they’ll have their eyes out for Devils and we won’t be caught in their crosshairs.”

  “Or we’ll be rounded up if they catch no one else.” Like any one-percenter, I know the risks of getting too close to the cops. I start to be certain we’ll be stood down tonight and that evening with Beth could be back on the cards.

  The VP gives another grin. It’s not a very warming one. “Oh, we’ll be there. Just not where they expect us. My fear is this is organised crime, and we’re not faced with someone who’s stupid. I’m certain the dealer will have an escape route ready. My proposal is we go along and block any way out. Hopefully we can nab him ourselves and bring him back here. Our methods of persuasion,” he takes a moment to jerk his head toward Mace, “are probably more effective than those of the cops.”

  Mace’s answering expression is even more chilling than Beef’s smirk. I happen to think that’s a much better suggestion, even if it means I’ve again lost my chance to be deep in Beth’s cunt tonight.

  “So no one’s being stood down,” Beef surmises, and then looks around, but as could have been predicted, there’s nothing but nods and murmurs of agreement.

  “I want the fucker here,” says Mace, cracking his knuckles. “I want to give him payback for fuckin’ with the club.”

  “Twenty years would do that if he lasts that long inside,” Demon observes, then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look, I hear you, but I just want him and his crew off the streets. If that means letting the law deal with him, well, that’s one less body we’ve got to bury.”

  “When you put it like that,” Thunder grins, “it almost sounds better. Hate digging fuckin’ graves.” He murmurs the last almost to himself.

  “You’re suggesting if we get him, we pass him over to the cops?” The road captain’s face is creased in confusion.

  “No, Sparky. But what I don’t want is us to be caught spiriting him away. It can’t look like we’re protecting him.” Demon frowns. “That’s my only objection. If it comes to that and we’re seen moving him, I’d prefer to hand him over. I don’t want anyone risking this club just to get up close and personal with our revenge.”

  “I don’t like it.” Pal grimaces. “We’ll get a reputation for helping the cops.”

  Beef hits the table with his fist. “Don’t fuckin’ care. As you well know, Pal, Tucson has helped the authorities out a time or two. We don’t want a gun battle behind Tits Up. So what we’re doing is staying out of sight to intervene if necessary. They’ll be going in loaded and armed. Just stay out of the line of fire and make damn sure nothing comes back on us.”

  “What about the bowling alley and the tattoo parlour?”

  Demon glances at his VP. “Beef and I talked this through. The cops’ focus is Tits Up, which makes us suspect they’ve had a tip off. Somehow, I think the SWAT team expects the strip club to be where the head honcho will turn up tonight. They must have something to convince them it’s worth their time.”

  The VP takes over again. “Tits Up is where they’ve got their eyes tonight, so we’ll have ours there too. We’ll keep a presence at the other locations, but the aim is to be visible and make it too hot for anyone to make a buy. Their customers won’t want to face a Devil, so hopefully they’ll move on.”

  “So at Tits Up,” I just want to make it clear, “we block the escape routes. If SWAT loses him, we pick him up.”

  “Or them. We may be wrong assuming it’s just one man. He may have protection with him,” Beef confirms, “but that’s the essence of it. Pick him or them up, or herd him or them into the loving arms of the cops.”

  There are a rumble of chuckles at his description. Yup. I expect the cops will get very up close and personal with whoever they catch.

  We thrash around the details for a while until Prez and the VP are confident we all know our roles. Then the gavel comes down and we’re dismissed.

  “What do you think about going in when we know the cops will be there?” Sparky asks me as I go to get myself a beer after the meeting.

  “Couldn’t care less one way or another. We know the area like the back of our hands, the SWAT teams are probably working from Google maps.” I chuckle. “I know of at least one escape route that’s not shown. It’s not wide enough to be called an alley, but there’s a gap between buildings a thin man could squeeze down.”

  “Hmm.” He frowns. “Must admit I’m worried about stray bullets heading our way.”

  A hand claps down on my shoulder. “That’s why I’m making sure everyone wears their Kevlar vests.” It’s Thunder, who’s clearly in his sergeant-at-arms role. “Handguns only, nothing else. For self-protection. And we shoot anyone dealing, not cops.”

  My eyes widen. Hell, if bullets start flying and a cop goes down, if it was from one of our guns… Christ, I don’t even like to think of the implications.

  Thunder nods as though he’s reading my mind. “I expect the SWAT team to be closer to the action, using a pincer movement to catch the dealer red-handed. We don’t care about catching him in the act. It’s possible someone will spot the cops and double back. We’ll be there to nab them.”

  If the cops do make an arrest, hopefully Cad will be able to discover who they’ve caught and we can try and track who’s behind it back from there. With any luck though, we’ll get him, or them, ourselves and do our own questioning.

  According to Wills and Sparky backed up by the camera footage, any dealing that takes place is when the club’s been open a few hours. We aim to get there by eleven, so we can take up our positions well before we expect any action to start.

  It’s not often nowadays that we do more than most citizens do, get up, go and do an honest day’s work, come home, drink, fuck and party, then go to bed. A few hours later get up and do it all over again. So to be sitting checking guns and ammunition, going over plans, and making sure everyone knows what role they’re to play gets the adrenaline rising. I find myself slipping back into the mindset I wore as a Marine.

  Like all my brothers, I’m sick to death of s
omeone fucking with us, and with any luck, tonight, it stops. Either we’ll get the bastard or the cops will. One way or another they’ll be off the streets. We can go back to running businesses clear of the drug trade and the mess that goes with that. At least we’ve got a heads-up about the police operation, and Beef was able to warn them we’d be around. Doesn’t sound like much can go wrong.

  “Hey, Leatherneck. You found your temper yet?” Mace plonks himself down beside me. He takes some ammunition out of his cut, checks it, then puts it back.

  I don’t apologise for snapping at him earlier. “Looking forward to seeing some action tonight?”

  “Yes and no. Yes, as I want to take down this motherfucker. No, because I’m worried about the cops. They’re a bit too close in my estimation.”

  I know what he means. “Take care, Mace,” I warn.

  He now takes out his phone and checks the time, then replaces it. He’s fidgety. I know how he’s feeling. “So, this bitch, Beth. Twice she’s stayed over.”

  I look at the ceiling, then back down. I could give him shit or admit the truth. “Reckon you might have to get used to seeing her leave in the morning.”

  “Like that?” His eyes open wide.

  “Like that,” I confirm.

  “Cad run a check?”

  I raise and lower my shoulders. “Don’t think there’s anything to find. But I asked him to look into her father. Something’s not right there.”

  “But she’s not involved?”

  “Nope.” My eyes narrow as I challenge him.

  “Ink…”

  “Mace,” I say as I start to stand, and lean with my hands on the table. “It’s early days and I don’t know where my head is as yet. Don’t fuck it up for me, okay?”

  He stares intently, then nods and huffs. “Your funeral, Brother. Just be sure what you’re getting into.”

  Why is it that Mace’s caution has made me more determined? They don’t know her like I do. I grin, as I follow my brothers out to the bikes. No, they certainly will never know her like I do, as I’m the only biker who’ll be fucking her.

  “Night’s warmer.”

  “Above freezing, that’s for sure,” I reply to Sparky. The weather’s looking up, Beth will be able to have that first ride tomorrow.

  And after that? Well, she can ride my cock. Then I may broach the subject of us giving a relationship a try.

  Demon circles his hand over his head, engines start and exhausts roar, then we’re rolling. Me with a smile on my face and, as I’m thinking of Beth, a semi-hard dick in my pants.

  A large number of motorbikes arriving at the strip club isn’t unusual. Sometimes we have a new dancer who brothers want to check out, or, when we had a permanent manager, visiting artistes to pull in the crowds. Something perhaps Wills and Sparky will get back to arranging once they get themselves better organised.

  We don’t need to be discreet or hide our arrival, it’s only after that there’s a difference in our normal procedure. Rather than all the brothers disappearing inside, I and some of the others peel off to take up our assigned positions.

  There are cops, I can see them, but only because I was looking for them. I act nonchalant as I pass them, going to my allocated spot, a back-stop position should the dealer escape and come in my direction.

  We’re early, of course. There’s currently no action. Sparky, who’s my backup tonight, leans against the wall while I take the stance and mentally prepare like all those times I stood on guard, staying motionless but hypervigilant for hours. Once trained, you never forget.

  We don’t speak, we just observe.

  A man shuffles past us, kicking an empty crumpled can out of the way. He’s a user, not a dealer, and from the twitching I see as he passes me, he’s in desperate need of a score. His arrival confirms we’re in the right place. Sparky nudges me to check I’ve noticed but doesn’t say a word.

  I wait to see what the police are going to do, but there’s no commotion. Unless they’re making a silent arrest and their victim no audible protest, they’re at least being clever. If the dealer turned up to find no customers, he’d know something is wrong.

  Another figure appears, this one it’s hard to tell whether he’s a dealer or customer, but he takes up a spot, unbeknownst to him, near the hidden cops. They leave him alone too. I know they need to catch the right person and hopefully with drugs in his hands.

  Now another. A tall, slender man in a hoodie. A customer for sure. The way he’s walking shows he’s nervous. His head is down as though he doesn’t want to be recognised and he’s carrying a bag.

  Sparky nudges me. “Dealer?”

  I return in the same almost inaudible voice Sparky had used, “If it is, he’s new. Christ, I can see him shaking from here.” The bag is dangling at arm’s length as though the man’s carrying a live snake.

  Damn it. If this is the dealer, it’s a small player and not the top man himself, he’s far too nervous to be that. Maybe the real culprit got word of a possible bust but didn’t want to lose sales, so sent a new minion instead. That’s what it looks like to me.

  There’s something about the gait of the slim man that’s familiar. As he passes under a light, I get a flash of blue from under his hoodie.

  Immediately, I know who it is.

  Immediately, I know I have to stop her.

  Everything about her screams that I’m right to think what she’s carrying could mean she’ll be looking at a long stretch in jail, and from what I know of her, she’d never survive. How the fuck is she involved in this?

  In a flash, I estimate distance and calculate there’s a chance I can stop her before she gets too close to the cops. I rise like a dark avenging angel…

  “What the fuck, Ink?” Sparky grabs at my arm. “Leave him to the cops…”

  But I shake him off with a violent blow that throws him back into the wall. Then silently, I move up behind her.

  “Get out of here, Beth,” I snarl quietly, while covering her mouth with my hand. As she relaxes and realises who I am, I release her.

  “Ink?” she whispers, turning. “I can’t, I—”

  “I think you’ve got something of mine.” The other man we’d noticed earlier moves out of the shadows twenty yards away. He’s still some distance from the cops.

  Without thinking, I take the bag from her. “Get out of here, Beth,” I repeat in the most commanding whisper I can summon, the tone that she obeys in bed.

  Now relieved of her burden, she turns and flees.

  “Bring it here.” The click and the reflected light bouncing off the weapon shows I’ve got a gun aimed at me.

  Yeah, if she was carrying the small holdall like a snake, so do I. If she was delivering his stock for the night, then I’ll do it for her. Then he can go make his sales and the cops can pick him up. All this goes through my head in an instant. The bag feels heavy, unless I’m totally wrong about the contents, it’s a fuckload of shit I’m about to turn over. No wonder he’s keen to get his hands on what Beth had brought. How the fuck is she involved in this?

  But there’s no time for second thoughts. Hand this over and disappear. I step toward him and hold the bag out.

  The area is floodlit.

  We’re surrounded by cops.

  It happens so fast. The dealer was so focused on me making Beth’s delivery, and I was so intent on giving her space to get away, I’d forgotten the imminent danger for one moment. One, dreadful, life-changing moment. Now, I’m lying face down on the ground, a knee in my back, and my hands rapidly handcuffed behind me.

  Then I’m pulled to my feet, searched, and have my weapons taken away.

  The dealer, if my suspicions are right as to who the man is, well, he too is subjected to the same treatment.

  As I’m led to a police car and pushed roughly inside, all I can wonder is how the fuck this evening has ended like this, and whether this is the last night of freedom I’ll ever have. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck and fuck. My head spins with the rapidity with whic
h I went from a free man to a prisoner.

  I’m a Devil. They’ll throw the book at me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Beth

  When I entered Connor’s old room and flicked on the light, I went to the closet. There’s a musty smell from old shoes. I move the clothing aside and then find packages piled up against the back wall.

  Where had they come from? How did they get here?

  The heel of my hand hits my forehead. Connor hadn’t been bringing an empty box in to collect his stuff. No. He’d obviously brought these in and left with the garbage that I thought his old Xbox and games were.

  I might never have come across anything like this before, but there’s only one thing he’s got stored. Here. In my home. In our mother’s house. Drugs. Oh, shit no.

  I sit back on my heels, not even wanting to touch the Saran-wrapped blocks. I’m no expert and don’t know what type, it could be anything. But it’s highly illegal, and to me seems one hell of a lot. There are ten packages in all, and Connor had asked me to deliver two of them. I want nothing to do with this.

  And what’s he planning on doing with the rest? Storing them here indefinitely? Using me as a… what do they call it? Drug mule?

  I feel sick as realisation goes through me and puzzle pieces start to fall into place. If this is what Connor is involved with, that he’s really in danger becomes more believable. Has he stolen the drugs from someone? Is he now supposed to be giving them back? Or are they his, and he’s using me?

  What’s does he plan to do with the rest?

  Taking his words at face value, he’ll be dead if I don’t do what he’s asked. His story is now far more credible.