by Claire Marta
“The pretty blonde package is safe,” the MC President rumbled down the line. “She and the male she’s with are currently tucked in their hotel.”
“She is with someone?” Iosefa asked. Half rising from his position on the bed, he stared at the phone in alarm.
“A suit,” Stone scoffed. “Fairly good-looking… for a human. She didn’t seem to mind, anyway.”
“He’s probably one of her team members,” Malik said, trying to convince himself. “She works with a partner when she’s on assignment.”
“Maybe,” Stone hedged. “Undercover assignments have different requirements. Sometimes you work together. Sometimes you’re on your own. Crime makes strange bedfellows.”
Malik looked across the pillow at Iosefa. “It certainly does.”
“We’d know if she was involved with a male,” Iosefa pointed out. “We’ve been following her long enough. We know her routine. She’s not dating anyone.”
Stone chuckled, his amusement rippling across the country. “This is Vegas,” he reminded him. “People come here to gamble and hook up. They don’t have to know each other to fuck. They only have to want it.”
Malik’s stomach knotted with anxiety. This was not what they wanted to hear.
“Look, guys. If she’s foolish enough to come to tomorrow night’s fight, I will personally keep an eye on her. Not that that will be a hardship with that perfect ass. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m knee-deep in a shitstorm that needs to be dealt with.” That said, the biker ended the call.
“Well, bless it.” Malik blew a frustrated breath. “At least we know that Casey is safe. As long as there is life, there is hope, right?”
Iosefa looked as assailed with doubts as he felt.
Wanting a woman who didn’t want them was a recipe for disaster. He tried not to think that their relationship was doomed from the start, but it was certainly starting to feel that way.
CHAPTER TWO
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Las Vegas, Nevada
“Hey there, sweet thing.”
Growling under her breath, Casey flashed the owner of the voice a tight smile when she came out of the bathroom. With her whole team using the hotel room as a base of operation, locking herself inside had been the only way to have a moment of privacy.
Mendez was grating on her nerves. Partnered with him on this assignment, she was not enjoying a moment of it. Special Agents in the ATF, they’d had a tip that an illegal weapons auction was taking place here in Vegas. They had worked for months searching for the source. Now, with the help of an informant, they had a date, place, and time.
“Don’t think about trying anything when we get there, Mendez,” Casey warned, switching off her mobile and stowing it in her travel bag. Her conversation with her roommate back in New York had not gone well. Morgan confessed that she’d had too much wine and freaked out during a scary movie. When she’d given the guys she was counseling a drunk call, they’d kicked down the door coming to her rescue.
Casey ground her teeth, causing pain to slice up her jaw. She didn’t trust the men that her friend was hanging out with. There was something about them that rubbed her the wrong way. Their odd behavior combined with the fact they lived in a fucking fortress screamed bad intentions to Casey. She was certain Morgan had no idea what she was getting herself into.
Or what she’d let into their space like fucking vampires.
Malik and Iosefa were guarding it, Morgan had told her. Keeping it safe. From robbers, maybe. But what the fuck about them?
“Andersson, stop daydreaming and get your ass in this.” Special Agent Ryan, the senior member of the team, held up a dress bag. “You need to look the part you're playing. Once you're done making yourself look pretty, we’ll need you to put on the wire.”
Sucking on her teeth, Casey plucked the garment from his paw-like hand and eyed it with suspicion. She knew that Rogers, their boss, was hell-bent on preventing her from advancing through the ranks. The son of a bitch seemed to have made it his personal crusade. This Mr. Rogers was one of the good old boys. A woman’s place was in the kitchen or beneath a man. It was no wonder he’d been divorced twice. His idea of keeping Casey contained was sending her on shit assignments like these. The only woman on the team, she was supposed to play arm candy. It didn’t matter that she was top of her class in everything. Her skills were overlooked because of her gender.
Huffing a breath, she returned to the bathroom.
The dress was worse than she imagined. Fuck-me red and nearly too tight to zip, it clung obscenely to every curve. The neckline dipped low and showed far too much of her cleavage.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Casey swore long and hard. The others were going to have a field day with this. Resigning herself to a night of fighting off passes, she coated her lips with a red slash of lipstick. A lick of mascara to her lashes made her blue eyes sultry and a few brushes of her golden hair made it shine.
When she exited the bathroom, wolf whistles echoed around the room.
Mendez stared at her with a look of male interest. “Wow… you look sexy.”
Clothed in a suave black suit, he cleaned up well himself—not that she would ever tell him that. Casey lived and breathed her work. She had no time for personal entanglements. Getting involved with a fellow agent was something she’d be wise to avoid.
Finding the matching red heels in a box, Casey slid them on. “Uh-huh, great. Just remember to remain professional at all times and try and pop your eyes back into your head before they fall out.”
Dressing up was not her thing. She was used to being one of the boys. Fitting in rather than sticking out. The other agents in the room were looking at her in a more sexual way, and she hated it. If Rogers had intended to alienate her from her teammates, he’d made a good start. Being able to do it from his office in New York made Casey’s blood boil.
“Got something special for you,” Fitzgerald told her, handing her what looked like a tube of red lipstick. “One click left closes it. Two clicks will open a speaker that you can place near your ear once you’ve used the code word asking for instructions. Let’s see how it works.”
The lipstick was already closed. One firm click left, and the speaker went live.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Fitzgerald chuckled through it. “I gotta say, I think you and Mendez make a cute couple.”
Casey rolled her eyes and shut the damn thing off.
“You all know your assignments,” Ryan barked from his position in a comfy high-backed chair. “Do not screw this up.”
He and Fitzgerald were maintaining communications in a van a mile from the event. Casey and Mendez would be inside, working undercover with local Special Agents Collins and Thompson in a joint ATF operation. Illegal arms shipped from Casey’s jurisdiction in New York were supposed to be auctioned off tonight as a side attraction for an illegal underground fight. The fight alone would draw a crowd. The arms auction had attracted criminal elements from all over. Mafia, gangs, motorcycle clubs, paramilitary—anyone looking to be better armed and even more dangerous.
Casey found her long warm coat to keep out the November cold. Mendez called down to the valet before leaving the room. He and Casey would leave first, traveling separately to maintain their cover. A rich couple looking for a new thrill. The fight would bring others like them looking for something on the dark side of what Vegas had to offer.
The cage fight event was being held at a biker bar thirty minutes outside the city. It belonged to one of the notorious local biker clubs, the Death’s Head MC. They were rivals of the Hell’s Fury MC, who had two of their members fighting tonight.
Casey imagined it was going to get pretty bloody and messy when both clubs locked horns. The international buyers there for the arms auction would be somewhere close. Possibly in another building on site.
As they stepped out of the elevator into the fancy foyer of the hotel, Casey scanned the area out of habit. Due diligence had saved her ass
a number of times. Even at rest, she was aware of her surroundings at all times. She might fall asleep on the sofa but she never went to bed without checking locks on windows and doors.
Their rental car was waiting for them when they exited the building. Casey had been itching to give the sleek silver Porsche a test run since they’d collected it, but Mendez—being the man—was supposed to drive. The valet handed him the key.
Clicking the button, her partner moved to swing open the passenger door. “After you, darling.”
Forcing a smile, Casey swallowed the retort on the tip of her tongue. She had to act her part tonight. Be sweet and submissive while trying not to gag. Her cover name was Candy. It sounded too sugary sweet which made her wonder which one of them had chosen it.
Slipping inside, she fastened her shoulder harness. Mendez closed the door, cocooning her in the smell of new leather.
Checking her small shoulder bag, she pushed the lipstick aside, then the packet of tissues and a small bottle of hand sanitizer. A couple of sealed tampons were nestled at the bottom. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need to use them for plugging bullet wounds.
Casey focused on their task ahead. Their assignment was Gregor Davydovich, the member of the New York Bratva who’d accompanied the shipment to Vegas. The local ATF Special Agents were focused on the shipment itself and the buyers who’d come.
“Maybe we can go for a drink after this is all wrapped up,” Mendez murmured once he was buckled in behind the wheel. Turning the key, he started the engine and slipped smoothly onto the street.
Keeping her eyes on traffic, Casey sighed. “Look, Mendez, nothing personal, but I don’t fraternize with colleagues, either on the job or outside it.”
“From what Ryan says, you don’t fraternize with anyone. I’ve been told you're the untouchable ice queen who doesn’t know how to be a woman. Just an agent.”
Great. Someone had started that bullshit again. Casey clenched her jaw in annoyance, pretty sure by the end of the night it would shatter from the constant force. Just because she didn’t tumble into bed like other women didn’t make her a bitch or a lesbian. It wasn’t that she didn’t find men attractive. It’s just no one had ever sparked enough interest for her to pursue it. The only men who had captured her attention were a couple of watchers from the Citadel. Iosefa and Malik. Coffee manwhores with actual groupies, if you could believe that shit.
Half the world knew who they were by now. She’d learned about their fifteen minutes of fame while trolling the internet news at breakfast. Runner killed at MacArthur Park. Local psychic predicts more deaths, she’d read. Strange sightings in the night sky. Bigfoot hunters claim aliens among us. But what took the prize was CityBeats Cowled Crusader Post Goes Viral. Fangirls fight over who buys him coffee.
Just coffee? She was pretty sure they were offering the Samoan more than that.
Iosefa (aka “The Cowled Crusader”), Malik (his Egyptian “Sidepiece”), and some of their testosterone-fueled friends had begun following Morgan after her roommate started doing home visits to the Citadel to counsel two of its members. They’d stepped things up when a homeless man was killed in an alley near their apartment. They insisted they were just keeping the neighborhood safe.
Casey called it stalking.
The Citadel was a former military academy, undergoing renovations to turn it into some kind of communal living space for thirteen single men looking for wives, from what her best friend had said. A grad student in psychology, Morgan Leviss had been counseling a couple of them, Zac and Aiden. All of the ones that Casey had met were just as good looking as Morgan’s two.
She didn’t trust any of them further than she could throw a stick.
And two of them were in her fucking apartment. What were the odds that they’d respect her privacy and stay the hell out of her room? If they so much as touched anything, she was going to have their balls for breakfast.
Mendez made small talk as they drove. Casey knew he was trying to get her to open up but she was tighter than a clam when it came to personal stuff on a good day. Tonight was far fucking from it.
Christ on a cracker. She was itching to get this over and get the hell home. She needed to see if Malik and Iosefa had gone into her room. Been in her stuff. Touched her things.
Found her toy drawer.
Fuck a duck.
She took in a deep breath and forced them from her mind. Jesus H. Christ. She couldn’t afford the distraction—not when it could get someone killed.
Mendez took the hint and stopped trying to engage her, thank fuck. He turned on the radio, filling the silence with classic rock. The lights of the city faded behind them as they headed into the desert.
Casey noted a landmark road sign. “We’re making good time.” She glanced at the thin gold watch on her wrist. “Let’s hope the others aren’t too far behind us.”
They passed by the Death’s Head MC compound, enclosed by a barbed-wire fence with the clubhouse sitting a quarter-mile off the road. Another mile more, and they pulled into a side road that bordered The Snake Pit, a biker bar owned by the Death’s Head MC. They followed it behind the building and were stopped at a gate by the edge of the back parking lot, manned by two heavily armed men.
The club enforcers did a thorough search of the vehicle before waving them through. The thin beams from the pole-mounted safety lights cast long shadows on the gravel road. A half-mile long, it led them to another parking lot, this one massive and filled with bikes and vehicles parked outside a huge corrugated metal building the size of an airplane hangar.
Mendez was careful to park the car a little away from the rest. As the driver, he was responsible for returning it undamaged. His paycheck wouldn’t cover the cost if it was.
Casey climbed out before he could round the vehicle and help her. A flutter of nerves beat in her stomach, but she shut the sensation down. Emotions would only get in the way.
“Shall we?” Mendez offered her his arm.
Sliding her own through his, she plastered a smile onto her face and walked towards the building. Voices were loud from within, shouts and music mingling. Two beefy bikers stopped them at the door, sweeping them with metal detectors and patting them down. Casey barely held in her growl when the one searching her got handsy and squeezed her ass.
She turned on him like a tigress. “Watch what you’re touching!” she snarled, blue eyes flashing lethally.
The men chuckled, giving her a leer.
“Time of the month,” Mendez told them with an apologetic shrug.
Casey waited until they’d been shown inside the building to pull him aside. “My attitude has to immediately mean I’m on my period?” she hissed, furious that she had to whisper where no one but their team could hear. “What kind of crap is that?”
“I was covering your outburst,” he said tightly, looking concerned. “You're not acting like yourself.”
No, she wasn’t. Her mind kept drifting home. Her space was being invaded and there wasn’t a goddamn thing she could do about it until this assignment was over.
“My head's in the game now,” she promised.
A thick crowd ringed a metal cage where the fight would take place. The Russian they had followed here was known for betting and indulging in blood sports. She was more than certain they’d find him somewhere among the throng.
A roar went up.
Craning her neck, Casey tried to see what had grabbed the excitement of those gathered. Mendez took her hand, leading her closer to where the action was taking place. Two hulking men were battling it out behind the chain fence. Blood was dripping from the blond’s nose. The dark-haired male had a split lip. Their muscles tensed and bunched as they fought, their corded arms glistening with sweat. Casey watched, mesmerized. Broad shoulders and attractive, both of them were stunning. Maybe it was the primitive violence, but she felt her lady-parts tingle with need.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” a voice boomed through the speakers. “We have something to add flavor to this
evening's entertainment. A fight to the death!”
The crowd roared, most of the noise coming from members of the Death’s Head MC. The cage’s door was swung open. The fighters paused as two new additions were tossed helplessly inside.
Casey’s breath seized in her chest. Agent Ryan fell to his knees. A blooming red bruise mottled the side of his cheek. Fitzgerald was in a worse state, cradling an arm at an odd angle. His battered face had one eye swollen shut.
Fuck. They’d been made.
Mendez’s fingers tightened on her wrist when she took a step towards them, a silent warning to not do anything impulsive.
Knives were thrown into the middle of the ring between them and the original contenders.
Scanning the sea of faces, she searched desperately for the local ATF agents who were supposed to be there looking for weapons. Had they been taken, too? Were she and Mendez next?
“Well, that went to shit quickly,” a biker muttered beside her.
Glancing up, Casey took in his muscular frame. A tattoo of a dragon coiled menacingly around his bulging biceps, flames shooting from its open mouth. His cut identified him as President of the Hell’s Fury MC.
Looking higher, she found a ruggedly attractive face and a pair of amused green eyes.
Inclining his head, he murmured in her ear. “You’re safe,” he whispered. “For now. As long as you don’t interfere. You and your partner need to head for the door. We’ll get your guys. You get your pretty ass out of here.”
Crap.
Casey froze, her mind reeling with questions. She and Mendez had been made, just not to the wrong people. How the fuck did Hell’s Fury MC know about them? Why were they willing to help two Feds escape from the Death’s Head MC arena? What about the arms auction? Had their informant gotten it wrong or was this all a setup?
Why wasn’t she upset that a sexy, WWF-sized leather-clad biker thought her ass was pretty?
Before she could move, the man-mountain charged forward. As if on cue, one of the fighters in the cage leaped into action. Kicking down the metal gate, the second one grabbed her teammates by the scruff of their necks. All hell broke loose. Fists swung and bodies went flying.