“There’s my wolf.” Angelica slaps the table and stands. “Good luck. If you need assistance, you know how to find me.”
Angelica gives me what I am sure is her best-winning smile and saunters out of the building.
Right now, she needs me, but there will come a day when I’m a threat to her, and she’ll try to take me out.
Today is not that day.
JAX
The clubhouse is full of MC, whores, and a few old ladies. Just about everyone has come to greet me as their new president. Hook is at the bar, nursing a whiskey. Something’s on the man’s mind as he avoids conversations with other members and keeps to himself. Reaper watches me like a hawk, hoping I’ll fuck up, and he’ll get to put me down. Tank has a club whore on his lap and is grinning like he’s won the lottery.
I approach Hook, who gives me a sideways glance.
“Prez?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Woman problems.”
“Well, fuck me. Didn’t realize you had a steady fuck.”
“Wouldn’t call it that. But I like her, you know?” Hook frowns as he stares into his drink.
“Pussy whipped?”
One side of his mouth dips down, and he raises his eyebrows. “Must be. Fucking women, hey?”
“Need to talk about it?”
“Fuck, no.”
Hook straightens up and says, “Got some info on the Felders. It’s not much.”
Cocking my head to the side, I ask, “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“It’s not much.”
“My office. Now.”
I gesture for Reaper to follow, and Tank sees us moving, so he sets his whore on her feet and joins us. I sit behind the desk, and they all filter in. Tank closes the door.
“Tell us,” I state.
Hook folds his body into a chair and looks bored. “Father was army. Real name, Jamison Felder. Mother is Raquel, she lives in Springfield with a boyfriend. No sign of Ann or the father.”
“Did you talk to her?” asks Reaper.
“Not yet.”
“Why the fuck not?” asks Tank.
“I only got this intel yesterday. So cool your fucking jets, Tank. I don’t answer to you.”
“No, but you do answer to me. Take Tank, pay her a visit. See what she knows,” I order.
Hook nods and gives Tank a death stare. “Let’s go. Now.”
“What? I was about to get my dick wet.”
“Maybe the mother will help you out,” I tease.
A predatory smile goes across Tank’s face, and he nods. “I like the sound of that.”
Hook stands. “You’re a sick motherfucker, you know that, Tank?”
“What? Nothing wrong with a little bit of fun.”
“Tank, go wait out front,” orders Reaper.
“Fine.” Tank ambles out and slams the door.
Reaper looks at my Sergeant at Arms. “Hook, I’ve known you a long time, what gives?”
“Fucking nothing. It’s a low man who forces a woman.” He scrubs a hand over his face and looks at me. “I’ll get it done.”
“I know you will.”
“Reaper, he goes nowhere alone. Yeah?”
Reaper looks from Hook to me. “I got him.”
Hook punches him on the arm on the way to the door. “And Prez, you watch your back.”
I frown slightly at his retreating form and wait until the door is closed before I ask, “Do you know who he’s fucking?”
Reaper looks at me surprised. “He’s got a woman?”
“Yeah.”
“First I’ve heard of it.”
I nod and point at the chair opposite me. “Petrov put money in our off-shore accounts. He’s got a hard-on for his wife. What’s so special about her?”
Reaper shrugs and sits. “Fucked if I know. As far as I can tell, she’s another female. The shipment of illegals should be here tomorrow. The new holding facility is good. Soundproof to boot. There are twenty cages to detain them. Much better than the last place.”
“Good. Weed out the virgins, let the boys have free run with the others. How’s the new scout doing?”
His lips turn down. “She’s not as good as Karen, and she’s got a love affair with the horse.” Horse is slang for heroin.
“Should make it easier to control her?”
Reaper shakes his head. “I think we need another scout.”
“Dispose of her. Pick a club whore, one who can be cleaned up. Have her hang out at the bus shelters for new talent. We get more for young, white females, so make sure she presents nice.”
Reaper nods. “Done.”
HOOK
Fucking Tank is excited at the thought of raping Raquel Felder. The fucker looks like a kid on Christmas morning. I park my bike around the corner from her house and wait for him to pull up next to me.
He turns off his bike and looks at me. “Is this her house?”
“No, she lives around the corner. We’re walking the rest of the way.”
“What the fuck?”
“Use your fucking head. If we rough her up, we don’t want to advertise us being there by parking in her damn front yard.”
Tank grins at me. “Yeah, you’re right. Good call, man. But I figured we’d kill her.”
“We’ll not be killing anyone.”
Tank looks taken aback. “Why not? If she gives us the information we want, why not kill her?”
“Do you want the Wraith coming after you?”
“Ahh… so you want to use her as bait?”
These bikers have no sense of decency. Women are tools to be used, traded, and disposed of. I nod at him, and he smiles.
We walk to her front door, and there’s no one in the neighborhood. A few curtains open as we walk past, but no one comes out to eyeball us. I knock hard on her front door, and within a few minutes, a guy opens the door.
“Yes?”
“Is Raquel home?” I ask.
“No.” He doesn’t ask us any questions. He simply stands there staring at us.
“Do you know when she’ll be home?”
“No.”
“You her boyfriend?” asks Tank.
“Why do you want to know?”
Alarm bells are going off in my head. This guy has one hand behind the door and isn’t even flinching at the sight of us. I take a step back, but Tank takes a step forward.
“We’re friends of hers, maybe we could come in and wait?”
“No.”
Tank’s face curls up in anger as he forces his way inside. The guy sidesteps him and hits him hard with a baton. Tank goes down, and I’m left there open-mouthed, wondering what the fuck I should do.
He opens the door wider. “Come in, Flint. Let’s have a conversation.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I ask as I close the door behind me.
“Jamison Felder, better known as the Wraith.”
“How the fuck do you know who I am?”
He kicks the passed-out Tank, who stays down and out. “The FBI did a search on me, and it led me to you. Five nearly six fucking years, do you even know who the good guys are anymore?”
I run a hand through my hair, fear snaking its way up my spine. “If you know who I am, do they know?” I ask, pointing at Tank.
“Doubtful. Help me tie him up.”
There’s a gym bag in the front entry. He opens it, and it looks like a serial killer’s preparation kit. There’s zip ties, gaffa tape, knives, guns, rope, and more. Felder rifles through everything and pulls out the zip ties and gaffa tape. I put the tape on Tank’s mouth while he ties his hands and ankles together. He goes back to the bag and pulls out a syringe filled with a clear liquid, then injects it into Tank.
“Much better, he’ll be out for hours. Come into the kitchen, and we can talk.”
“You’re fucking CIA, aren’t you?”
Felder smiles and keeps walking. He has two cups sitting on the kitchen bench and pours us both a coffee.
“Are you rogue?”
The man’s eyes go steely. “I did what I needed to protect my family. By the way, Raquel and her new boyfriend have moved and won’t be coming back.”
“I need to give them something.”
“Them?”
“The MC.”
He nods and looks thoughtful as he takes a sip of his coffee. “What you need to do is get close to Petrov.”
“I’ve been fucking trying.”
“Who’s the new president?”
“Jax Broad.”
“He’s a lifer. Father was in, yeah?” I nod. “What’s he like.”
“Worse than Hammer.” I pick up the coffee cup and take a sip.
“Sorry, Flint.”
“What for?”
“It wasn’t in the coffee, it was in the cup. You should be feeling pretty tired soon. When you wake up, take some Advil and drink plenty of water. The headache can be horrendous. Make sure you hydrate.”
My legs feel like jelly, and I fall to my knees. “W-What the fu─” My tongue feels thick, and I fall sideways, my face hitting the cold tiles. I can’t get my limbs to move.
“You’re lucky I found out you were FBI. Otherwise, you’d be dead. Let me do what I have to do. There’ll be no MC or Russian mob left for you to investigate. Keep out of my way, Flint.”
I want to rage at him, tell him I have a job to do, but as the fog clouds my brain, I feel my eyes close, and darkness overtakes me.
WRAITH
Tank is tied to a table and plastic lines the floor. It wasn’t easy getting his hulking frame onto the table, but the pulley and winch helped. I carved into Flint a little and left his body in an alley not far from the Harbingers of Death’s clubhouse. They should find him sooner rather than later.
It’s been five hours since I injected him, and he’s only beginning to stir now. A groan emanates from Tank, and he tries to move his head, but it too is immobilized. The man’s eyes flutter open, but I have a light pointed directly over him, so he groans some more and closes them. This is the part I like best as they try to move and realize they can’t. First, one hand and then the other are lifted as he tries to get up off the hard surface.
I shift the light and peer over him. “Hey, Tank. Comfortable?”
He opens his eyes and looks at me, then tries harder to move his body. I grin down at him and shake my head.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m the Wraith, the guy you’ve been looking for.”
“Where’s Hook?”
To mess with him, I say, “Dead.”
The man flails around furiously, and I pick up a knife and lean over him. Tank’s eyes go wide, and he stills as I touch his cock with the tip of the blade.
“Why am I n-naked?” he stammers.
I grin down at him and stick the knife into his chest a little. “So, it’s easier to cut into you.”
The color drains out of his face, and he licks his lips. “M-Maybe we can come to an understanding?”
I tilt my head to the side and shake it. “I don’t see how. I’m going to kill you, your new President, the VP, and then I’m going after Alec Petrov.” I chuckle at him, and he begins to try to get out of his binds again. “Oh, stop it!” I laugh harder. “Maybe I won’t kill you? Maybe you do have useful information?” I say with eyebrows raised.
Tank stops moving and nods repeatedly.
I look around the room and tap the knife to my chin. “You can scream as much as you want here. No one will hear you.” I push the blade into his shoulder, blood pools around the base of the knife.
Tank shrieks like a woman.
“Oh, come on. Big guy like you? Suck it up, princess.”
“P-Please d-don’t!” Tears run down the sides of his face as he blubbers uncontrollably.
Slightly disgusted with him, I snicker and wait for him to calm down.
“I’ll tell you anything,” Tank pleads.
“The problem is, Tank… you have nothing I want.”
I’ve pre-cut some lengths of gaffa tape, so I stuff a rag into his mouth and place tape over it. He tries to thrash around, but in the end, I have him subdued. Tank is so terrified I can see the whites of his eyes. There’s a CD player in the room, so I turn it on. The Grinders hard rock album fills the air. I bop my head to the music and pick up another blade. This one is surgical sharp—it’ll slice through anything. I press it under the hollow of his neck and drag it down to his belly button. When I look at his face, he’s out cold.
Well, fuck! That’s no fun.
I pick up the smelling salts and hold it under his nose. Tank’s eyes flutter open, fear emanating out of him.
“Come on, stay with me,” I tease.
I plunge the blade into the side of his stomach and draw it up to the first incision then do the same to the other side. Blood runs down the sides of the table, and Tank tries, fruitlessly, to escape. The pain he’s in causes him to blackout once more, and again, I hold the salts under his nose. The big man sobs as he wakes.
“You know it’s rare for me to have this much fun. Normally, I torture people for information, but you have nothing I want. And let’s be honest with each other, Tank, you were going to hurt my wife. My ex-wife. Weren’t you?” He shakes his head from side to side, and I grin down at him. “I said, let’s be honest.” I look down at his stomach and pat him on the chest. “Wanna see something cool?”
Peeling back a fold of skin, I reach in and enjoy the warmth of him as I pull out a length of intestine and place it on his chest. Tank begins to seize and arches on the table. Years of torturing people leads me to believe he’s having a heart attack. No matter, I keep pulling things out. The insides of a human being are slippery and warm, and it makes me feel good and fuzzy all over as I keep up my investigation.
One day I’m going to find something different, one day I’m going to find what I’m looking for.
HOOK
My eyes don’t want to open, and as I reach up to touch my face, pain courses down my side from my shoulder. I groan and let my arm drop.
“It lives,” says the gravelly voice of Reaper.
I open my eyes, and pain pierces my brain from the overhead lights and causes me to shut them immediately.
“Lights,” I rumble.
I hear the flick of the switch and try again. The pain is still there, but now it’s bearable.
“Sunglasses?”
Reaper takes the ones off the top of his head and hands them to me. I put them on, blocking out more of the light.
“What happened?”
“Advil? Water?”
“Fuck, Hook! What happened? You’ve been out for about twelve hours.”
“I don’t fucking know. My head is pounding, man, and my shoulder feels fucked up.” I try to sit up, and more pain scorches through my leg.
“Let me help you.”
Reaper grabs hold of my good arm and helps me get into a sitting position. I’m on a gurney in an unfamiliar room.
“Where the fuck am I?”
“Found you in an alley. Thought you were dead to start with. This is an old friend of Jax’s, a vet who helps us out from time to time. An MC wannabe.”
I nod. There are many who hang around us, wanting to be part of a tribe. Unfortunately, this MC is bad. It’s rotten from within.
I look down at my leg, and it has a bandage around it, and I feel my shoulder with my other arm. It’s all plastered up too.
“What the fuck?”
“Someone stabbed you in the leg and the shoulder. Vet says they missed all the vital bits. You were lucky.”
I rub my eyes. “I don’t feel lucky. I feel like shit.” I exhale, and my ribs hurt. What the fuck did Felder to do me? “My ribs?”
“You have a boot imprint. Vet says they ain’t broken.”
“Where’s Tank?”
The gurney is next to a wall, so I lean my head back and rest it there. “We went to the wife’s place, and a guy answered the door. Tank charged in, and I followed. After that, it’s all black.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Yeah.” I straighten up and look around for my clothes.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to get back to the house. We need to find Tank.”
“Man, you look like shit. Stay here, we’ll go.”
“Fuck you, Reaper. I’m coming.”
He shrugs at me and walks behind a curtain and comes back with a gray tracksuit.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding? A tracksuit? What’s this, junior high?”
Reaper goes back behind the curtain and throws my cut at me. “Better?”
With no small amount of effort, I dress and then look down at my feet. “Boots?”
The door to the room opens, and a rough-looking old guy comes in. “Ah, you’re awake. You shouldn’t be moving around, you’ll bust those stitches.”
“I’m good. Have you got my boots?”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t be moving around.” The vet frowns at me and goes behind the same curtain Reaper did and comes back with my boots. “How’s the head?”
“Hammering.”
He reaches into his pocket and hands me a pill bottle. “Only Advil, but they should help.”
My mouth is parched, and there is no way I’m going to get these down without some water. I put on my boots but don’t do them up, it’s way too much effort. When I look up at the two men, the vet is holding out a bottle of water.
I take it with a smile. “Thanks.”
He sneers at me. “Come back in a few days, and I’ll take the stitches out. If you don’t bust them open first.”
Reaper had the good sense to have a car ready and waiting. I give him the address to Felder’s wife’s place, and after he calls for backup, we drive over. Tank and my bike are still in the same spot we left them. Pulling up at the house, there’s already six MC members waiting, one of whom is Jax.
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