“Yeah?”
“Smoke, gonna need you to get on over to the clubhouse when your shift is over,” Ghost demanded.
“You have something?” I asked, knowing it had to be about the Russians, otherwise he’d never bother me at the end of a shift.
“Yeah, brother. We found their rathole and have eyes on them until we can get there.”
“Fuck!” I glanced around wondering if I could possibly scoot out early, but the alarm sounding suddenly took that thought away. “Fuck!” I shouted into the phone again.
“We aren’t rolling without you, get the job done, then we’ll go get the other job taken care of.”
“Right,” I replied as I hung up and ran to jump back into my gear.
“They’re trying to kill us tonight,” one of the men grumbled.
“Grab some caffeine on your way, ladies!” I shouted to everyone. “They don’t get any easier because we’re tired!” That was the truth, because it would be three more hours before I would be able to head to the clubhouse thanks to the fire that took longer to put out than it should have.
When I rolled up to the clubhouse, Ghost already had the men on their bikes and ready to go. Tuck, Wren, BigMac, Shorty, Phoenix, and Chief were all geared up, along with Hold ‘Em and the newest prospects, Reefer and Mouth, who were bringing up the rear with the box van just in case we needed to bring presents back to the compound.
“My boy came through,” Tuck called out, then snickered. “Actually, it was his woman who found them, but he told me I better give him credit because he didn’t want you boys knowing he’d been shown up by a woman – again.” Everyone laughed. Normally, I probably would have too, but this wasn’t the time for humor. The sweet vengeance I’d been craving was so close I could almost taste it on my tongue.
“I’ll send her a care package with a ball gag in it so she can shut him up for a while,” I called out as I grabbed the coffee Ghost handed me and downed the damn thing in one go.
“You okay to ride? It’s been a long night for you,” he suggested.
“I’ll be fine. Let’s go get shit taken care of.”
I had texted Poppy that I had club business to handle after work and wasn’t sure when I’d be back. I promised to make shit up to her, but honestly, I was starting to get nervous that she would end up giving up on me before long. We had a couple fantastic days before I needed to pull this last shift. I’d give anything to be going home to do it all over again instead of this, but we’d never be able to have that kind of security until this was finished. I needed for this to be laid to rest with Bender and my sister.
Our route was taking us a longer way to where the assholes were hiding out in plain sight in Goldsboro, North Carolina. What could have been just over a four-hour ride was going to take us just under six so that we could stay off the radar for as long as possible.
“Are you sure about this route?” I asked Wren, impatiently after we first took off. A few years back, we had all upgraded our helmets with Bluetooth capability, and recently upgraded to the Sena 30K. It worked out just fine for our group of 12. The prospects weren’t bluetoothed in, so we only had 10 people on comms. It was easy enough for our small group to stay in range too, which meant we could actually talk, plan, and strategize on the way.
“I’m positive. They’d be stupid not to have eyes on the direct route from Cedar Falls to Goldsboro. If we took 77 to 74 and 40 they’d know we were about to ride right up their asses. This way, we come in quiet. Once we get in a little closer, we’ll split into smaller groups and come in at several different angles. We should still be within Bluetooth range rolling into their general vicinity minus a few spots where it’ll get dicey due to distance.”
I knew he wasn’t wrong. We’d tested the Bluetooth capabilities thoroughly before. We could get a mile apart if we had ten or more riders hooked in. If we scaled it back to essentials, and gave each team leader comms while keeping everyone else silent, we could stretch it to just under a five mile radius. It wouldn’t matter anyway, because by the time we got close enough, we wouldn’t be using the comms to talk if we could help it since the signal was easy enough to jack into if you knew to watch for it.
Ghost’s voice came over the comms a few minutes later, interrupting my thoughts. “We’ve been told there are fifteen men on site. That means they’ll have us outnumbered. A few of our guys from Sierra High are in route too, but they’re further away than we were. Since they got the intel and mobilized first, we should be rolling into town around the same time if everything goes according to plan. They’re bringing six men they had to spare with them.”
“Six?” I questioned. We had twelve, ten strong not counting the prospects so that evened things up, but still I would have thought they’d have sent more.
“They have shit going down in their own backyard, and a few men are out of town on personal shit,” Ghost confirmed.
“Who?” I asked, suddenly worried I may end up shot in the back by one of our own brothers.
“Walker won’t be here. He was ordered to stay behind and help clean up the mess he made.”
I wanted to laugh. I’d bet money the asshole slept with the wrong man’s woman down there and was now causing a boatload of trouble for the club as a result. It didn’t matter though. Right now, I had more important things to consider. We knew that there were about 15 men at the facility we would be raiding, but I wondered if there were going to be any civilians.
“Any civies there?”
“Unclear,” was Ghost’s response.
“How is it unclear?”
“There may be an underground extension of the place they’re using. Quickshot wasn’t able to get solid info on that before we rode out.”
“That means we could be walking into way more than 15 men,” I pointed out.
“It’s possible, but unlikely.”
‘Possible, but unlikely’ sounded like a bad plan to me, but one we would all go through with anyway, because I wasn’t the only one wanting it to be over and the assholes responsible to be put to ground. After what happened to Bender and Sophie, we all knew that women and children weren’t off limit targets for these guys. They’d take them out just to cripple us emotionally before they slaughtered our men. It would work too. When we finally approached Goldsboro, Ghost came back on comms to direct us to our meet point with the Sierra High guys.
“What is this place?” I asked as we rolled up to a small farm on the outskirts of the town. There was a pretty decent sized house with a wide wrap-around porch centered on the property, but off to the back right, there was a barn where it appeared our Sierra High guys were loading their bikes.
Sweet, the Sierra High President, walked up to us before anyone could answer. “One of Angel Girl’s biker bitches moved here with a boyfriend. She’s letting us use the garage to store the bikes. Figured it would be better to take the vans as close as we can get rather than alerting them to the presence of a motorcycle club rolling up on their asses.”
I glanced around the property again, not exactly liking this change in plans. Sweet must have noticed. “I swear to you, the chick is legit. She’s been with Jamie a long time.”
“She must have left S.H.E. if she’s out here on her own though,” I added for clarification.
He nodded his head. “She’s on a break, though she has been in contact with the women about possibly starting a small chapter of S.H.E. over this way.”
“Jesus, lady bikers are branching out, huh?” Wren asked giving Ghost a playful punch in the shoulder. “Taught that girl well.”
“Hush your mouth, the way your daughter’s growing up, she’ll be asking to join them soon.”
“That’s not even funny,” Wren told him and proceeded to hop back on his bike and ignore everyone’s laughter as he moved his bike over toward the barn.
“What’s that about?” Sweet asked. “Thought he admired Jamie.”
“He does. His daughter thinks it’s okay to have boyfriends already though
,” Ghost told us, snickering at the prospect of a biker dad faced with the boyfriend issues.
“You still have more girls coming up,” I reminded him.
Ghost paled. “They’re not ready for boys yet. Won’t be until I’m cold and dead in the ground either.” He turned to all of us then to emphasize a point he was about to make. “That shit ain’t happening today, boys. We’re going to head out and kick some ass. We’re not worrying about taking names or prisoners this time. We already know everyone involved is going to be in that building.”
“Why don’t we just level the fucking thing with explosives then?” Tuck asked.
“We know their biggest source of income right now is coming from trafficking women. If we level that building and find out later that there was a lower level full of innocent captives, how are we all going to feel? It could have been Shep’s mom and sister held there. It could be any one of the women in our lives we love, including the ones too young to think about being in that situation. Let’s get in, and be watchful, just in case. But while we’re there, we show no mercy to those Russian fucks.”
“For Bender!” Someone yelled.
“For Soph,” I added, only to have everyone chime in that this attack would just be for both Soph and Bender. It was for their son too, because one day we all wanted to be able to look Brantley in the eyes and tell him that we got justice for him, for his family.
Chapter 14
Two hours later, we had everyone geared up and ready for war with the Russians. When we got to the closed down manufacturing plant, I immediately saw our biggest hurdle in all of this was going to be in keeping shit quiet. They were holed up in an old manufacturing plant that had been closed down, but the plant was sitting right alongside State Rd. 1915 with nothing keeping nosey people driving by from seeing or hearing what was happening.
I glanced over at Wren as we made our approach, getting as close as we dared in the vans. “Did you know it was situated like this?”
“I knew. We don’t really have much choice in the location, brother.”
“Shit!”
“This is why we need to get in, take care of business, and get the fuck out of there,” he admitted.
“We’re going to be lucky if we get in and out without anyone ending up heading to the slammer.”
“Let’s fucking hope not.”
There was a wooded lot that was for sale to the east of the property. We rolled the vans in there and made sure the vehicles were parked with their engines facing out for the quick getaway we were no doubt going to need. We also made sure they were hidden in the trees and the prospects were made to stay with them so that we had someone who could pull up in case we had any wounded we needed to load in quick fashion.
As soon as we had the vans squared away along with the prospects and their orders, the rest of us took off, getting into position as the sun began to set. We had to wait until all of our men were in position. The guys from Sierra High had pulled in the tree-lined lot to the west of the building and were coming in hot from that side. We had a few of our men break off to come in on the rear. We were literally surrounding the building. It was a good thing we did too, because what we hadn’t been expecting was that they were loading up their vehicles and ready to head out.
“Delivery bay opened. Looks like they’re planning on heading out.”
“The fuck you say?” I yelled into my comms. There was no way that was happening. “Prospect, bring van 1 around and block that entrance. You let those fuckers get through you, and you’ll never patch in.”
“Jesus,” Shorty hissed next to me. “Poor prospect is probably pissing his Levi’s right about now.”
“As long as he does his fuckin’ job, I don’t care how wet he makes his pants.”
“Move in,” Ghost called out. “Can’t wait any longer.” As soon as we started moving in, it became obvious why it looked like they were about to head out. There was a truck in the bay that hadn’t opened yet, and I caught a glimpse inside just before the asshole tried to seal her up. It was full of women.
“Trucks are full of women,” I called out quietly over comms so everyone would know to watch their aim. Then, I popped off a round in the man’s head who had just closed up the truck. I didn’t bother reopening it yet, because the women were safer where they were for now. Instead, I moved to the cab of the truck, and watched as Spike popped a round in the bastard there who had been about to start the truck. I grabbed his gun and ammo, then tucked it away as I kept going.
“Truck two, clear,” Wren called out over comms for himself and Stone.
“Truck one, clear,” I answered back knowing Spike and I had just taken out the players in the room and truck around us. That meant there were probably four down of the fifteen we were expecting. That was if there hadn’t been any others hiding below ground. Clearly, they’d had the women hidden somewhere, so it was possible we would be seeing a whole lot more action.
“Breaching north door,” Ghost called out. There was a resounding boom in the air as the explosives they used to blow the door did the job.
“Breaching west door,” Battle’s voice reverberated through the comms. Battle was one of the men in the Sierra High Chapter. He’d been with them for about eight years now, and was the reason the guys were using strip framed charges that targeted the area better than the way we used to do things. Battle had been demolitions in the military before he was retired early and sought out the comfort of a new band of brothers. Heavy, Shorty, and Six-Pack were with him.
“Breaching South door,” Tuck answered back.
“Breaching East,” Grim announced a half a second later. When he didn’t report casualties, I knew Chief was okay too.
We had Ghost, Sweet, Phoenix, and Hold ‘Em on the north door since it was the only exit point on the backside of the building. All other entry points had two men breaching each door or truck bay. That kept us spread out, but able to maintain the exits at the same time.
“Two down on truck 1,” I called out.
“Three on north door,” Ghost chimed in, followed quickly by Wren. “Two down on truck 2.”
“One down on west door, one rabbit headed east,” Battle called out.
“Two on south door, we got your rabbit,” Tuck answered back.
As we moved further into the building from the loading bays, I noticed movement to my right, between the truck bay I was coming out of and the one I knew Wren and Stone were still in. The man there was headed in, gun drawn before I popped him full of lead and moved the fuck on. “Another down between loading bays,” I stated quietly enough that comms picked it up, but my voice didn’t carry far. That brought us up to 12 bodies dropped. That meant, if our intel was correct, there should only be three men left.
Wren and Stone pulled up on our rear and started clearing our side toward the south door. Grim and Chief moved toward the north door, clearing shit as they went. Ghost and Sweet split off to the right, heading toward the west door while Hold ‘Em and Phoenix moved toward Grim and Chief. Once we all cleared the entire building it quickly became clear that we were still missing a few men who should have been there.
“Someone go open up one of those trucks and let’s get those women talking. They had to be storing them somewhere, which means there could still be more men.”
“Already on it,” Wren answered back.
I moved further out from the middle of the room where we’d all converged after clearing the room, and that’s when I finally happened to look up. “Scatter!” I yelled just before a fucking grenade was dropped from the rafters.
I shot the bastard, but it was already too late by then. Luckily, the damn thing rolled just far enough away from where the men had done exactly as I had said and scattered, that I didn’t there would be any major injuries on our side. Still, just to be sure that didn’t happen again, I scanned the rest of the rafters. There were no more men hiding in them, which meant we still had two bodies unaccounted for, and I didn’t like the fact that Ivan
Stasevich wasn’t among the men we’d already taken out. He was the one who had ordered the hit on an Aces High MC family in order to shake us up and get us to turn over Shep’s family.
“The women say there’s an access in the men’s bathroom to the downstairs level. There’s barely any room to stand down there according to what they said. It’s more like a root cellar, but a couple of the girls aren’t on the trucks that were with them.”
“They think the assholes are down there helping themselves to the merchandise?” I asked Wren.
“That’s exactly what the women thought. One of them was reportedly a virgin that Stasevich wanted to break in himself. The other was a labeled a mouthy bitch who needed to learn a lesson,” Wren repeated what he’d been told.
I was already moving toward the bathroom in question in the northwest corner of the building. “Smoke!” I heard Ghost calling out to me, but I didn’t halt my movements. “Smoke! Damn it! Stop. Heavy and Grim could both use some patching up back there.”
“I’m not the only one trained in first aid here,” I told him as I continued on.
“No, you’re not. You’re also not the only one who lost someone to these assholes. We need to be able to question Stasevich. There may be more women out there.”
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me right now?”
“No, I’m not. I need to know you can handle your shit down there. Otherwise, you need to stay up here and patch up your brothers while we get the two assholes who are left.”
“I can handle myself,” I assured him. I wasn’t sure I was being completely honest with Ghost and myself at that point, and judging from the look he threw my way, he wasn’t so sure himself. Still, Tuck stayed behind to patch the men up instead.
As soon as we were down in the tunnel, it took an immediate left and led toward a room that was clearly cut out just beneath the center of the building above us. The floors were natural earth, and the walls were as well. At least someone had been smart enough to actually brace the place properly to keep it from caving in on them, though from the looks of it, there was a portion of the carved out hallway that looked as if it had taken some damage from the grenade that went off above us. Loose soil was spattered all around and there was a clear fracture of the wood bracing the ceiling up above us.
Redemption Duet (Aces High MC - Cedar Falls Book 0) Page 39