by Naomi West
“Okay, but I still want to make sure it’s known that I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Duly noted. Now slow down on the wine, or you’re going to be the next one in a headline,” she giggled. “‘Reporter staggers home; hits on every man she sees.”
“I would not!”
The two women laughed as they talked about Alexa’s family reunion coming up and that one guy at the office who always seemed to have his fly down. When it was finally time to leave, Alexa gave her a very serious look. “Be careful out there, okay?”
“Of course.”
Piper got in her car and checked the pet tracking app on her phone. Tank was right where she expected him to be, at his clubhouse. It was a place she was desperately curious about. She had driven by a few times, but she didn’t dare get too close. There were almost no windows on the first floor, which meant she couldn’t find out what was going on inside, even with binoculars. The top floors seemed to be divided up into apartments of some sort, and there was never much to see up there besides some random guy changing his shirt. The little blue dot on her screen began moving away from the clubhouse even as she watched it. “What are you up to tonight, Tall and Tattooed? I think I’ll go find out.”
She fired up the engine and intercepted his car on Main Street. Traffic was thick with folks heading home for the night, and she felt she looked like she was just part of the crowd. But her heart jumped in her chest when the Barracuda swung off the road without so much as a turn signal and onto a side street. Piper had never seen him go through this part of town before, and she slowed down a little as she followed him.
Tank was driving fast for the neighborhood. For a moment, Piper doubted herself. Had Tank figured it out? Was she about to get herself into some deep shit? Something that would be far more than just getting a story for the paper? Well, she was too far in to get out now. When the biker turned again, she stayed on his tail.
The Barracuda took off with a roar down an alleyway. “Shit!” Piper did her best to follow him, but she knew she had been discovered. She shot down the alley and then turned in the opposite direction, letting Tank think he had thrown her. There was no telling what he might do to someone who had been following him, especially if he had any clue just how much spying she had been doing.
“That’s all right, big boy,” she murmured to herself as she headed for home. “If you’re that concerned about someone following you, then I must be right. Something big is about to happen, and I’m not going to miss it. Thanks to technology, I don’t have to.” Piper was in serious danger of getting pulled over for speeding, but she had too many things to do to pay attention to street signs. She flew to her apartment.
Her fingers shook as she dug through her closet for a camera, one that had a better range than the crappy one on her phone. “I should have done this a long time ago,” she chastised herself. “I knew I would need it. Now I’m wasting time.” Fortunately, the batteries were still charged from when she had attended her cousin’s wedding. She quickly swapped out the memory card for a fresh one. Piper grabbed an extra bag out of the back of her closet, one she had been waiting to use, and headed back to the car.
The app showed the little blue dot down near the docks. Piper studied the map for a moment, not wanting to go in unprepared. She planned out her route and where she would park, and headed out.
There weren’t any streetlights out here past the city limits. It gave Piper a shiver of anticipation, but she was more excited than scared. She was about to find out some real information; she just knew it. Slipping her car into the shadows and grabbing her equipment, she crept along the abandoned docks until she was about fifty yards away from the location the GPS showed her. She could just see Tank’s car as well as numerous other vehicles. They sat waiting, and it was just as dark over there.
Ducking behind a shipping container, Piper got her equipment ready. She had her camera, but she knew that wouldn’t be enough. The listening device she had picked up online a while back had been something she had always hoped to need for one of her stories for the paper, but of course she didn’t need to spy to get an interview with an elementary school teacher who had come up with a new after-care program for her students. It had sat in the back of her closet for quite some time, and there had been a few moments when she had considered selling it.
Now, she pointed the parabolic dish toward the Chrome Kings and waited. She had been expected a ship to come slipping in on the dark water, its lights off as it tied up and offloaded the goods. Instead, a large truck came in from the road. As soon as it pulled onto the dock where the cars were waiting, two men jumped out and quickly unloaded the back.
Piper adjusted her grip on the listening device, pressing the attached headphones against her ear to make sure she didn’t miss anything. But there was very little that came through beyond the opening and closing of doors, a muffled greeting, and the shuffling of various boxes and crates. It was too quiet, which only made her more suspicious. Were they expecting someone to be listening? Did they always take these kinds of precautions? She had no way of knowing.
With the big truck unloaded, the cars and trucks belonging to the Chrome Kings zoomed off into the night. Piper remained in her spot behind the shipping container, not even daring to turn on the screen of her cell phone to see where they were going. She couldn’t risk getting caught, not when she had nothing to show for her efforts yet.
When the sound of engines had faded into the distance and Piper couldn’t hear anything more than the water slapping gently against the piling, she stuck to the darkest shadows as she made her way back to her car. Once she was safely locked inside, she once again checked the GPS. It would have been more exciting to do things the old-fashioned way, where she had to do all the tracking herself, but this was much more efficient. She gave them some time before getting back out onto the road.
On the other side of town, not far from where the Kings had their clubhouse, the cars had once again assembled. They were now unloading their trunks and trucks into an old warehouse, one that would have looked abandoned if it hadn’t been for the lights that shone through the grimy windows. The men made quick work of it and left. Piper managed to get a few pictures, but she didn’t get a chance to turn on the listening device again before they once again took off toward their clubhouse.
Piper hesitated for a moment. If she continued to tail them, she might be able to catch them talking about their business. That would be some pretty good evidence. But there was also a warehouse just sitting there, waiting for her to walk in and find out what was inside. She hadn’t noticed anyone on guard duty, and there was a reason she had been watching lots of videos online about lock-picking. Piper checked her watch and gave the gang another half an hour before she grabbed a small case out of her glove box and advanced toward the warehouse.
The doors had been shut and locked, and the windows were either locked or screwed shut. Still, the place was an old one, and the Chrome Kings hadn’t bothered to upgrade to modern security measures. Piper had worried that electronic locks or laser sensors would keep her mission from being a successful one, but she smiled to herself as she quickly picked the padlock on a double door around the side of the building. She could get in and get out without anyone ever knowing.
Inside, Piper didn’t dare to turn on the lights. She hadn’t seen any other signs of life in the vicinity, but there was no point in pushing her luck. Shutting the door carefully behind her, Piper waited for a moment while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Soon enough, she could make out a labyrinth of stacked boxes and crates. She slipped through them quietly, taking note of just how much stuff was here before trying to see what was inside them. Her adrenaline had been pumping all night, but she got one final, heady shot of it as she pulled a small flashlight out of her bag and began her search in earnest. By tomorrow morning, she would be the biggest name in the news industry.
7
Tank
After shaking off the car earl
ier in the night, Tank tried to tell himself that everything was fine. Neither he nor the other men had seen any other evidence of someone following them, and that had to be a good sign. The transfer between the Chrome Kings and the Red Devils had gone smoothly, far better than he had imagined. Demon’s men had accepted the money without question and had even helped to unload everything so it would go a little faster. They wanted to get off the docks just as bad as Tank did, and he was glad for that. This wasn’t the time to linger around and make friends.
He watched his rearview carefully on the way to the warehouse, but once again he saw no evidence that his shadow had come back. Maybe he was just being paranoid after all. This was one hell of a business deal, and it meant everything to him that it went without a hitch. The Kings would have plenty of money, his men would be satisfied, and it would continue to cement his place as president. Even so, he informed his men to keep their policy of silence at the warehouse, even once they were away from the Red Devils. It was better to be safe than to have some loudmouth give them away, just in case.
Back at the clubhouse, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. They parked their bikes and headed immediately for the bar area, smiling and ordering drinks in celebration.
“That was perfect!” Chain enthused as he slapped Tank on the arm and sloshed his beer a little. “I gotta tell ya, I don’t think we’ve had a more exciting mission in a long time. Sure, it’s fine to do a little shakedown here and there, but this was something much bigger. Made me feel alive!”
“That’s what I was going for,” Tank replied half-heartedly. “And hey, we’ll get to do a lot more of this in the future. I have a feeling the Red Devils will be interested in continuing the deal.”
Someone pressed a cold beer into his hands. Tank indulged, knowing he should be just as happy about the night as everyone else, if not more so. But something just wasn’t right. Even when Rita sauntered over and pressed her stunning body up against his, whispering something dirty in his ear, Tank couldn’t get enthused.
Tar pulled him aside. “You doing all right? You don’t seem yourself lately.”
“I’m not.” Tank didn’t mind admitting it to Tar, even if he wouldn’t say so to anyone else. “I can’t shake the idea of that car that was following us.”
“You got rid of him, and we didn’t have any other problems,” the older man pointed out.
Tank nodded. “That’s true, but who would go to the trouble of following us like that only to give up when I shook them the first time? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe it’s someone who’s just not that good at shadowing,” Tar offered.
“Or someone who already knew where we were going, and they didn’t need to know the exact route to find us again later.” Tank absentmindedly ran his palm across the dark stubble on his jaw. He had been concerned ever since this agreement with the Devils had happened. It was almost too good to be true, something that was never a good sign. “There’s a possibility the Devils are up to something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet.” Tank tightened his fists. That was what bothered him so much. He always had the answers, or at least he knew how to find them. But he couldn’t put his finger on any of this, and the car that had tailed them tonight was the first solid proof he’d had that anything was wrong at all. It had confirmed his hunch, but it hadn’t done much more than that.
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much. There are a lot more of us than there are Devils, and they’ve had plenty of chances to pull something off if they wanted to. Hell, they only sent a few guys with their truck, and there were a shit ton of us. They could have filled that truck with men, taken us down, and driven off with our money.”
That was something that had crossed Tank’s mind as well, but fortunately it hadn’t been the case. “I think I’ll run out to the warehouse, just to make sure everything is okay.” His mind was swiftly running through scenarios, including one in which the Devils robbed everything back out of the warehouse after they had already been paid for it.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, you stay here. I don’t want anyone thinking something is up, not until I know for sure.” He glanced around the room. So far, the Kings were too engrossed in their merrymaking to notice that their leader couldn’t quite relax. “If anyone asks, you can cover for me. Say I went off with a woman or something, I don’t care.”
He slipped out to the garage and got back in his car. It was quieter than his bike. Gliding through the night, he wondered what the hell was going on with him. He had never been the type to be paranoid. It would be a good thing for the club if everything was fine at the warehouse, but it would also prove that he was being overly suspicious.
Reaching the warehouse in no time, he felt a little bit of relief in his shoulders when there were no vehicles pulled up to the overhead doors of the building, loading up all the goods they had just acquired. The lights were off, and there was nobody in sight. He paused at the entryway to the parking area, shaking his head at himself.
But then a flash of light shone through the window. It only lasted for a fraction of a second, short enough that it made Tank look around to make sure there weren’t any cars in the area, their headlights reflecting against the glass. Nothing. The only vehicle was one that had parked on the darkest side of the building, one he thought he recognized.
Tank pulled over and turned off the ignition, pulling out the gun he always kept at his side. For a moment he considered contacting Tar, but he didn’t want to give the culprit any chance to get away. As he crept closer to the warehouse, he listened carefully. There were no voices, and he only saw the one light, indicating that there was only one person inside. No matter who it was, he could handle this.
He moved around the building, wanting to know first how the intruder had gotten in. It wasn’t hard to discover, since the padlock on the rear door lay neatly next to the side of the building. Tank left it there and slowly pushed the door open.
The warehouse was as they had left it. Nobody had started emptying the place, but that didn’t make him feel much better since there was definitely someone in here. He could see the flashlight just on the other side of the room, and he maneuvered around a few stacks of crates to get a little closer.
His gun was at the ready. He could pop off this son of a bitch and be done with it, but he wanted to know why this was happening. As he drew closer, he could clearly see the outline of someone standing in the corner. The flashlight must be in his mouth, since his hands were busy rifling through one of the boxes of electronics. Every few seconds, he would grab a camera, take a few pictures, and then set it down again to continue going through the goods.
But as Tank took another step closer, he realized that it wasn’t a man at all. It was a woman! If he hadn’t been sneaking up, he would have cursed out loud. What the fuck was a woman doing here? Had a rival MC sent her, thinking she could use her feminine wiles to get away if she was caught? Well, they would certainly learn that lesson the hard way. He tucked his gun back into his holster.
Tank charged. Her arms went out to catch her balance and failed as she fell under his weight. The woman went down easily, hitting the concrete with a thunk. The flashlight fell out of her hands and rolled in a lazy circle on the floor. She struggled underneath him, kicking and punching and thrashing uselessly. She made an effort to scream, the breath barely able to come out of her lungs with Tank’s weight on top of her. He slapped a palm down over her mouth anyway.
“Might want to quit wiggling,” he warned roughly. “I think I might like it.” He couldn’t see much in the dark, but there was definitely something intriguing about the woman as she tried to get out from underneath him. He could make her pay for her crime right here and now, stripping her clothes and fucking her hard like she deserved. But no, first he had to figure out what she was doing here.
Tank felt a surge of excitement in his chest. Finally, after all his worrying and wondering,
he knew that he had been right. Someone was definitely interested in finding out more about his deal with the Devils. What was even better was that he knew it was someone he could handle, and he could do anything he wanted with her. He snatched up the flashlight and shone it in her face.
She flinched away from the bright light, her arms moving up to cover her face. But he had already seen her, and there was no mistaking who he was looking at. With white-blonde hair and big brown eyes, he was pinning down the same woman he had met in The Dive less than a week ago.
“You!” Anger took over him as he pinned her arms behind her back. “I should have known you were trouble, asking all those questions. Well, guess what? Now it’s my turn.”
8
Piper
Piper’s head throbbed, and her vision was a tangle of light and dark. She blinked rapidly, her mind reeling as she tried to understand what was going on. All she knew was that it was bad. There was a massive weight on top of her, one that felt like a mountain, one that she knew wouldn’t move anytime soon. His hand was heavy on her mouth, and she stilled when she heard his threats.
As her mind slowly cleared, she realized who had her in this compromised position. He didn’t need to announce his name. She should have known that Tank would be the one to find her. She had been too confident, brashly thinking that she was just too good to get caught. But she most certainly had been.
“I think I know where you got your name,” she rasped, trying to catch her breath. “You weigh a ton.”
“Don’t try to be funny with me!” he snapped, squeezing his grip on her wrists. “Piper, was that your name?”