I took in the crease between her eyebrows and the stubborn set of her jaw with a wry grin. “You’ve been thinking about it all day? Huh. Could’ve fooled me.”
There was just enough light coming in from the street lamps for me to see the flush as it worked its way up her chest.
“Now who’s making it all about sex?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “I’m serious, though. If we could just find a chink in their armor, we could exploit it.”
“Darlin’, the king of bikers himself wasn’t able to figure it out. What makes you think we’ll be able to?”
Lauren gnawed at the corner of her lip, no longer consumed with thoughts of getting me naked but with outsmarting the Sons.
It was a damn shame too because I’d just warmed up to the idea of a quickie before Zane and Dakota arrived.
Coincidentally, the change of heart occurred right around the time my stomach started growling, and I remembered why I’d missed dinner. After a late afternoon nap to recharge, I’d found myself handcuffed to our bed with a gorgeous redhead straddling my thighs.
The headlights from Zane’s truck hit the back window, and I bit back a growl before getting out.
Dakota waved weakly before limping over, and I looked to Zane to fill in the blanks.
“Had a little run-in with a broken bottle,” he said as if that suddenly explained everything.
Lauren asked the next obvious question. “But you’re wearing shoes. How did that happen?”
“Well, I was wearing shoes, but I took them off, and when Bear pulled the gun on Zane, I didn’t think and just jumped out of the truck to run after—”
“In the truck,” I hissed. “Now.”
As soon as the doors closed, I turned to the backseat. “Bear pulled a fucking gun on you, Detective?”
Zane winced. “It sounds worse than it was.”
“I find that hard to believe. And Dakota, care to explain why the fuck you took your shoes off on a surveillance mission?”
“Yeah, I took them off so I could get my pants down—” She clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Told you they were hooking up,” Lauren exclaimed with a giggle.
I leaned over the seat and into Zane’s view when it became apparent he was avoiding eye contact with me. “Sweetie, you wanna tell me why your wife needed to take off her pants and how you ended up on the wrong end of Bear’s gun?”
His jaw tightened. “Thought I told you not to call me your bullshit pet names, Sullivan.”
“And I wouldn’t be forced to resort to that had you not used your surveillance time to screw your wife, pumpkin—”
Zane moved forward with a growl, only to be stopped by Dakota before he could batter my face. “Hey there, Big Guy. Sun’s getting real low.”
She began petting his arm as though he were a kitten before turning to me. “I know how it sounds, but Bear’s not the one behind this. He said that the Sons have eyes on my mother—that they have eyes everywhere.”
I nodded and turned back to the dark house in resignation. “In that case, we’ve all been wasting our time. Rogers is dead.”
“How do you know that?” Lauren asked. “Maybe he’s just sleeping.”
“Only one way to find out. Masterson, you coming with or do you need more time in the ‘calm down corner?’”
“You keep running your mouth, and you’ll be in the calm down corner,” he muttered before climbing out.
“I’m guessing he means dead.”
Dakota’s lips pinched together in response.
“Alright, great. You two stay here. Maybe listen to the radio… see if Celia’s found anything…find a way to stop the Sons. You know, whatever feels right.”
Zane was waiting by the back gate with his gun drawn when I approached. “You thinking it’s just like Rangel?” he asked, acting as though he hadn’t just been on the verge of ending my life.
I nodded and whispered, “Probably, because why should we be given even one goddamn break?”
Zane picked the lock on the back door, neither of us bothering with gloves or making any attempt to conceal our identities. We both knew what lay on the other side of the door.
The house was eerily quiet, minus the sound of steady dripping from a faucet in the kitchen. For a fucking giant, Zane crept silently down the hall, keeping his gun up as if expecting an ambush at any second.
Instead of taking the lead, he paused outside the first closed door and looked to me. I nodded, and we entered an empty room.
Empty as in nothing but the carpet and bare walls.
We moved to the next and found the same. By the time we reached the master suite, I knew this was nothing like Rangel.
Rogers had known he was a dead man when the surveillance cameras caught him and had packed up shop to run.
Zane checked the master bathroom before re-entering the deserted bedroom with a shake of his head. “Does he really think he can outrun them?”
I paused when it hit me and began moving back down the hall. “But there was still furniture in the living room, right?”
“Christ,” Zane croaked when he flipped on the light.
Rogers’ wife sat in what looked like a dining room chair on the other side of their large entertainment center, her chin resting against her chest as if she was napping.
The position had kept her hidden from view of anyone coming in through the back door. Even without a drop of blood anywhere on her, it was obvious she was dead.
“Drugs?”
It was the only thing that would explain the lack of blood. The Sons hadn’t bothered giving Rangel’s wife a quick death, so why change things now?
I looked at the gag in her mouth and back to Zane, struck again by the sound of a dripping faucet coming from the kitchen.
“The gag,” I said at the same time he concluded, “Rogers is still here.”
We lifted our weapons and moved into the kitchen. The Sons might’ve given the Mrs a speedy trip to the underworld, but they hadn’t extended the same courtesy to him.
“Oh fuck,” Zane murmured, bringing his fist up to his mouth.
It looked like something out of a slaughterhouse.
My former sergeant had been stripped of his clothes and hung by his belt from the wrought iron pot rack bolted into the ceiling.
As if there’d been a concern that he might survive, they’d gone ahead and sliced from throat to groin, eviscerating him. Blood dripped steadily from the organs hanging from his body, mimicking the sound of a leaky faucet as it splashed onto the counter and floor.
My phone vibrated against my thigh.
Lauren:
911. We need to go now.
“We need to leave.”
Zane nodded, lowering his hand. “Do we—fuck, do we call it in?”
I stared at him in silence, waiting for a punchline or grin—anything that would give me some indication that he wasn’t as stupid as he looked. “Call it in?”
“Yeah, we can’t just fucking leave him like this.”
“Sure,” I said casually. “Let’s call it in and explain how we picked the lock to find them like this. I’m sure we’ll find a way to explain how our fingerprints are all over the fucking place; you know, when we’re sitting behind bars!”
“A simple no would’ve sufficed, asshole.” He shouldered past me and out the back door.
“What?” I called after him. “You’re the guy who does his job like a good Boy Scout, and I’m the guy who’s keeping us out of a cell. Takes all kinds, right?”
Zane stopped right before we reached the truck and hissed, “Look, I’m not a fucking criminal. I didn’t grow up in this world, so I think it’s safe to say that I’m a little out of my goddamned element here. If you could just cut me a little slack or, I don’t know, give us some fucking clue as to what we’re all doing, it’d be great. Okay… pumpkin?”
The sharp retort died on my tongue when I saw Lauren’s face through the window.
“What happened?” I asked as I climbed in.
Her jaw settled into a hard line, and she shook her head. “Jimmy called. The Sons knew we’d be busy here, so they torched the storage facility. Any evidence that might’ve helped us find them is currently up in flames. Did you get anything in there?”
I ground my molars together. “They got Rogers… and his wife. As the list of things we don’t know keeps growing longer, can anyone here tell me what we do know?”
Dakota looked up from her cell phone with a grin. “Kate got something. They were reviewing the hospital tapes from the night my father was shot.”
“And?” I waved my hand, silently urging her to get to the point. Every second we spent sitting here was another second that the Sons had to come up with new ways to fuck with us.
“Does the name Kyle Barton ring any bells?”
Zane let out a heavy sigh. “Barton’s in with them?”
Barton…
The name briefly registered as the rookie who’d pulled me over a couple of years prior. Instead of hauling me off to jail for drunk driving and indecent exposure, he’d let me off with a warning. Other than the one encounter, the name meant nothing to me.
By now, it seemed as if everyone in the department was on the Son’s payroll.
“You know him?” I asked.
He nodded. “Worked undercover together. He was also at our wedding, probably gave the Sons all the intel they’d ever need, too.”
“I’d say we could track him down, but it’s pretty fucking apparent that if he isn’t already dead, he will be soon enough. So, back to square one with absofuckinglutely nothing to go on.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Lauren said slowly. “Dakota and Zane were able to figure out that Bear isn’t the one behind this—”
“About that,” Zane spoke up from the backseat. “At the clubhouse, he had his armed guards with him. Tonight, he was all alone, though. There’s still a chance that he’s working against Silent Phoenix.”
Using my thumb, I cracked the knuckles on my left hand before moving over to the right. While I did it, I tried to piece together everything I’d learned from watching Grey over the years. “If he was working against the club, then he would’ve killed you both tonight.”
“The Sons have killed off anyone who could be used as a witness against them.” Lauren’s eyes widened. “Bear’s not the traitor.”
I shook my head. “He’s trying to find the rat, but the Sons have eyes everywhere. It won’t be long before they figure out that it’s not business as usual at the club.”
“And then he’ll be their next target,” Zane added.
“If they have eyes everywhere, we need a blindspot,” Dakota mused. “Some way of moving without being seen.”
Lauren drummed her fingers against the armrest. “She’s right. What is it Bear told Celia? We keep letting them lead us into traps, but what if we led them into one?”
I pulled my lower lip between my thumb and forefinger, wondering what in the hell we could try that hadn’t already been done before.
We sat in silence, each of us fighting to come up with a way to defeat the giant. The fatal flaw in every one of our plans was the fact that we were being watched. It was why Grey had never managed to gain the upper hand.
I felt like the answer was staring me right in the face.
“I’ve got it,” I exclaimed suddenly. For the longest time, I’d approached the Sons the same way Grey had. I’d seen them as just another club looking to encroach on Silent Phoenix territory. They weren’t motivated that way, though.
If we stood a chance in hell at surviving this, I had to stop thinking like a biker and go back to the eleven-year-old kid who’d sworn he was going to be one of the good guys.
“They’re watching our every move. So, we use someone they’ll never see coming.” I turned to Lauren. “Darlin’, as much as it pains me to say it, we need Jimmy.”
I flexed my left arm, struck by the truth in the Sun Tzu quote spanning the length of my forearm.
All warfare is deception.
We’d seen what they wanted, now it was time for a little sleight of hand.
* * *
“I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this,” Zane muttered for the one-millionth time since I’d given him the plan.
“C’mon, Big Guy,” I said, feigning a pout similar to one I’d seen Dakota make when she wasn’t getting her way. “I’m doing this for us. With our fingerprints all over the goddamn place, you would’ve ended up someone’s bitch in prison and well, let’s be honest, I don’t like to share.”
He inhaled deeply through his nose before turning to look at me. “One of these days, Sullivan, I’m gonna break you in half.”
I grinned and doused the inside of a kitchen cabinet with gasoline. “Oh, you tease!”
His jaw tightened. “Jesus Christ, do you ever stop?”
“Can’t stop, addicted to the shindig. Chop Top, he says I’m gonna win big. Choose not a life of imitation… something… something… something reservation,” I rapped before moving into the living room.
Celia looked at her watch when I entered before lowering the mask covering her nose and mouth. “Sunset in twenty minutes.”
“You hear that, Big Guy?” I called back into the kitchen. “Sun’s gettin’ real low.”
Zane muttered something vaguely threatening in response.
“You know, he’s gonna destroy you, right?” Dakota said from behind her military-grade gas mask. She continued delicately pouring fuel onto the couch as if she was watering a damn garden.
It was like something out of a post-apocalyptic thriller.
I’d insisted on the full face shield, thinking it’d keep her quiet while we worked. Obviously, it wasn’t working.
“And then when we find Dad,” she continued. “I’ll have to tell him, and then he’ll kill Zane. It’ll be a disaster.”
“Don’t worry.” I clapped her on the shoulder. “He’s gotta be able to catch me first. Where’s Red?”
Celia pointed toward the back door. “She said the fumes were getting to her.”
I frowned. She had the same mask as Dakota and Jimmy had assured me that nothing was getting through.
“I tried talking Dakota into getting some air too, but—”
“But, we’re almost done, and I’m wearing the mask thingy,” she argued. “Remind me again, how is burning this place to the ground part of the plan?”
“Cap, sweetie, we’re destroying evidence. Evidence that would look really bad for me and Big Guy should the cops decide to show up. Your mom’s right, you need to stop huffing the gasoline and get some fresh air. By the way…”
I was going to straight to hell, but couldn’t resist. “How’s the old foot doing?”
Her cheeks reddened, and she turned her back to Celia before flipping me off, mouthing, “You’re a dead man.”
“What happened to your foot?” Celia asked as I made my way down the hall.
“You should ask Zane,” I called over my shoulder. “I hear he has in-depth knowledge of the situation. From what I understand, he went deep undercover. Really penetrated the fortress of, uh, mystery.” At Dakota’s snarl, I added, “Alright, good talk, kids. Five minutes. Let’s finish strong… or high—whatever.”
The bedrooms reeked of accelerant, but I forced myself to enter each one, ensuring that everything was in place. Rogers and his wife lay awkwardly against the large whirlpool tub in the master bathroom, their bodies still stiff with Rigor Mortis.
It had taken both Zane and me over an hour to move them, neither of us keen on the idea of the girls seeing the Sons’ handiwork up close. Celia had already dealt with one dead body in the last twenty-four hours, she didn’t need another one.
I’d helped clean up more than a few messes for Grey over the years but never imagined I’d be covering up a double homicide for the Sons.
If we wanted to come out on top, we had to stay one step ahead. With or without our fingerprints, there was still a trail leading back
to us.
I smiled at the thought of the Sons second-guessing themselves when they realized we were here, wondering if we’d found something they’d missed. Some clue that was going to lead us right to their front door.
It was time they had a taste of their own medicine.
To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.
They burned down my storage facility, I was simply returning the favor. Tit for tat.
As planned, everyone was gathered on the back porch by the time I came out. “Alright, time for phase two.”
Beads of sweat appeared on my forehead just as a wave of nausea swept over me. I barely made it over to the rose bushes before I was vomiting up what little food I’d eaten throughout the day.
Once I finished, I ran the back of my hand over my mouth and placed my palm against the brick siding to steady myself before dropping my mouth to the garden faucet. I lapped up the cool water, swishing and spitting until the bitter taste of bile no longer coated my tongue.
“It’s alright,” Celia said softly, rubbing in between my shoulder blades. “It’s going to work.”
I waved off her concern as I straightened. “Think the fumes just got to me. Let that be a lesson to all of us. Don’t do drugs, kids. Anybody got a breath mint?”
Lauren seemingly came out nowhere, throwing herself into my side with a terse, “Are you sick? Should we call it off?”
The dizziness persisted, along with a feeling of weakness in my legs. I wrapped my arms around her body, anchoring myself just as much as her. “Calm your tits, darlin’. I’m fine.”
Her chin rested against my chest as she looked up at me with eyes that seemed overly bright. “Are you sure? What if they figure it out? They’ve already taken so much from us. My mother… Grey—”
“They won’t,” I assured her. She’d been a nervous wreck since we’d come up with the plan, even though this was the last place the Sons expected us to be. “Is Jimmy ready?”
She nodded. “He said to text as soon as it caught. Kate’s got the truck in position.”
I crushed my lips to her forehead. “Good. Last thing we want is the house burning down around us and no getaway car.”
Savior: Silent Phoenix MC Series: Book Five Page 24