And judging by the faces around me, I’m not the only one. Jase sits to my right, Elliot to my left, and Tommy and Luis are across from me. Everyone’s on edge, but everyone’s handling their shit. There’s a thread of controlled excitement binding the five of us together at this table, and we haven’t even started to talk.
And I have a feeling it’s because we’ve finally gotten sick of hiding, of running, and following orders and waiting around. For once, we’ve made our own decision. We’re not going to follow orders anymore. We’re going to fight this war, on our own terms. And we’ve brought the fight back home.
“So,” Elliot says, lounging back in his chair like we aren’t all being chased by an international drug syndicate and a lethal biker gang. “Who wants the table? Julz? How’s that vengeance going?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s on a low simmer.”
“Well, crank that shit up to eleven. We don’t want crying Julz. We want crazy Julz.”
I smile thinly. “I’ll work on my personal development between now and tonight,” I quip.
“Tommy? How’s that DEA intel coming along?”
Tommy licks his lips, shrugging. “I don’t have any hard evidence, but I’m pretty convinced that Fitzsimmons was the one who gave your location away in Miami. Which is why he doesn’t know I’m here.”
Elliot nods. “Luis,” he says. “Bring any fun toys in your jet for us?”
Luis smiles wickedly. “Maybe I got a rocket launcher and twenty-four IEDs. Maybe I don’t.”
Elliot narrows his eyes. “If you have a rocket launcher, I want to use it.”
Luis slaps the table with his open palm. “The rocket launcher is mine. I’ve got AKs for you civilians.”
“Who you calling a civilian?” Elliot asks.
“You are a civilian,” Tommy pipes up. “I, on the other hand, should be allowed to be in charge of the rocket launcher.”
“Maybe we should figure out what the fuck we’re going to do in the next hour and forty-five minutes,” Jase interjects. He’s the least congenial of all of us, and I can’t blame him. He’s deeply worried. I can see the cracks starting to appear. He’s tired, he’s jumpy, and he’s pissed the fuck off.
“We hit them where it hurts,” I say. Four pairs of eyes turn to me. “The clubhouse. Tomorrow. It’s Sunday tomorrow. They’ll all be there for church.”
Jase looks apprehensive. “We don’t have any weapons here.”
Luis pokes his thumb towards the front of the house. “They’re in the garage,” he says.
“Oh,” Jase says. “Well.”
“Remind me again why we’re meeting this FBI agent at a sex club?” Tommy asks. “Like, why do we need her?”
Jase rolls his eyes. “Because she can get us off.”
Luis grins, Tommy laughs, Elliot sucks his cheeks in to stop himself from losing it, and Jase looks at the ceiling. Even I’m struggling not to laugh.
“Oh, Jase,” I say, squeezing his shoulder. “You walked right into that one.”
He shakes his head, trying to compose himself. “Because she’s offered to talk to her boss and see if the FBI can’t do something for us.”
“Why didn’t you call her earlier?” Elliot asks. “Couldn’t she have helped us six months ago?”
“She was undercover,” Jase says. “I didn’t know where she was. She’s been back in the field office for a few weeks. Used to be DEA. As soon as I told her about Fitz she started telling me about his dirty operations.”
Jealousy stirs in my stomach. She must have called him for him to know this.
“She told you Fitz was dirty weeks ago?” I ask. “And you didn’t say anything?”
“She said she had a hunch,” Jase replies. “She didn’t have any evidence. But DEA agents don’t wear Rolex watches and drive Beamers unless they’ve got rich families. And this guy’s family is broke as fuck. So someone must be paying him off. Isobel thinks it’s the Cartel paying him money to work both sides of the line.”
“They have hot bitches at this sex club?” Luis asks.
Elliot looks offended. “Don’t call them bitches,” he says, nodding his head towards me.
“Why?” I shrug. “I want to know if they have hot bitches, too.”
Tommy looks confused. “Why are we meeting at a sex club, anyway? Won’t they notice us fully clothed and packing heat?”
Jase looks exasperated. “Look,” he says. “The whole point of this place is security. No weapons in. No wires. For anyone. You check your guns at the door, and you get scanned. So it’s the safest place. At least, the safest place for an FBI agent who’s meeting four of America’s most wanted fugitives.”
Tommy clears his throat.
“And one badass biker from Venice Beach,” Jase adds. Tommy smiles, but the gesture doesn’t reach his eyes. He looks pained.
“How you want to handle your dad, man?” Jase asks Tommy quietly.
“I’m getting him out,” Tommy says. “I know what you’re all thinking, but he’s not like the rest of them. He’s not.”
Viper is one of the most notorious Gypsy Brothers, but I have to agree with Tommy. He’s not the same as Dornan and his sons were. There are men with questionable morals and then there are men like Dornan Ross.
“He knows I’m DEA,” Tommy blurts out. “He’s known for years.”
Jase’s eyebrows almost hit the roof. “Seriously? How do we know he’s not gonna stab us in the back?”
“Because he’s already gone,” Tommy grinds out.
Jase sits back in his seat. “Are you fucking kidding me, Tommy?”
“No kidding, brother.”
“You told your dad you were DEA, and you didn’t tell me?” Jase asks him. “I thought you trusted me, Tommy. You’re like my brother.”
“I trust you now,” Tommy replies. This is the first time I’ve seen Tommy get into a heated discussion. “I didn’t trust you when you came back from lockdown, Jason. You were a fucking psycho, and you know it. If Julz hadn’t turned up, who knows what you’d be doing now.”
“Enough,” Jase says. “Viper gets a pass. If I ever find him doing anything that could threaten us, I’m putting him to ground myself.”
Tommy nods his head in agreement.
“You ever shot a machine gun, pretty lady?” Luis asks me.
I snort. “Please. I lived with Elliot for three years. I can shoot better than he can.”
“Well, all right then,” Luis says. He pushes a piece of paper into the middle of the table and we all lean in on our elbows for a better look.
It’s building plans for the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse. A thrill shoots through me as I listen to Luis detail all of the entries and exits, the fire escapes and basement hatches, and Tommy leans in to highlight the best places to pack explosives.
It’s happened so quickly, it’s almost like it isn’t happening. This morning, hours ago, I was crying into a comforter, wondering if I was going to get ambushed and shot if I dared take a shower. And now, I’m back in LA—we all are, this band of misfits with a common cause: to take down the Gypsy Brothers MC and the Il Sangue Cartel, once and for all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JASE
I remember the day Dornan Ross locked me up and left me to rot.
He’d just returned from taking Juliette to the hospital. She’s alive, she’s alive, that’s what I kept telling myself. Pop won’t let her die. He can’t. She knows where the money is. Even I didn’t know where Juliette’s father had hidden the money Mariana had siphoned from the Cartel’s bank accounts over a period of almost ten years.
I remember the way the gun felt too heavy in my hand, loaded with a single bullet. My dad, fucking psychopath that he was, had already shot John Portland for sleeping with his woman. He shot him in the dick. I can still hear him groaning, the way his blood soaked the ground around him.
What a way to die. I can’t imagine anywhere worse to bleed out, as a guy. It was a deliberate choice of shot for my dad—fuck Dornan�
�s woman and it’s the last woman you’ll ever stick your cock inside.
I still think about it sometimes, when I look at Juliette and see her father’s face. It’s harder to see now, with the way she changed her cheekbones and her nose to slip under Dornan’s radar when she blew back into town, looking for vengeance. But I can see him there. I still look at the woman I love and am haunted by the fact that I killed her father. I mean, he was going to die anyway, but it still makes me hate myself that it was me who planted a bullet in his brain.
I don’t know why I’m thinking about this now. Maybe it’s because I’m watching Juliette as she looks out of our bedroom window and realize that she and her father have—had—the exact same shaped skull.
Maybe I’m just feeling guilty today.
“I never thought I’d be happy to be back in Los Angeles,” she says, staring out of the window to the Hollywood sign in the hills.
“Come away from there,” I say, tugging her hand. “Your hair’s like this big homing beacon.” I smile as I say it, ruffling her long red strands with my fingers.
“I don’t want you to come to this meeting,” I say. “No lies. I’m being honest. I don’t know which of these fucking people we can trust, Julz, and I don’t want you caught in the crossfire. I want you to be safe.”
She puts her hand on my cheek, stepping forward so I have to take a step back. She pushes me until I’m backed up against the bed, pressing my shoulders so I sit down on the edge.
“And I’m coming to the meeting anyway,” she says, smiling sweetly as she straddles me. I’m hard almost instantly; I don’t know if it’s our impending doom or the way her t-shirt hugs her tits, but I want to fuck her more than I have in a long time.
Maybe it’s because there’s an awesome chance that we’re both going to die tonight.
I bite her nipple through the thin t-shirt material and hear her gasp. That’s enough for me. I grab her and set her on her feet in front of me, ripping her jeans and panties down to her ankles. Smiling, she kicks them off, getting back into my lap. I unzip my pants and palm my cock, precum already leaking all over the tip. There’s no time for foreplay. No time for getting my tongue onto her clit and making her nice and soaked before I slam balls-deep into her tight cunt. There’s just no time.
Greedily, I pull her hips closer with one hand, lining my cock up with her pussy with the other. “Sit,” I demand, and she does, crying out loudly as she takes all of me in one go. Her eyes go wide as I fill her up, and it takes every single bit of self-control I possess to stop myself from flipping her over and pounding her into the mattress until she screams.
And now she’s in my lap, my hands itching to leave bruises all over her pale flesh. Her pussy squeezes my cock so tight it hurts, and just when I think I’m going to come, she slows down. She stops.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, my cock impatient, my mind very much aware that we’ve got about three minutes before we have to leave for the meeting at The Black Heart.
“Nothing,” Julz pants, kissing me with a hunger that makes me want to fuck her so hard she screams. It’s good that she’s on top of me, because if she was underneath me, I doubt I’d be able to restrain myself from pounding her pussy until she begged me to stop.
“What’s The Black Heart?” Julz whispers, planting kisses down my neck. Sucking. Oh. She’s leaving her mark. Something about the way she’s making sure she’s imprinted on my skin makes me almost unload in her right this second. My cock twitches, but I grit my teeth and breathe, breathe it out, calm the fuck down.
“Can we talk about this later?” I grind out, lifting her hips and letting her fall. She locks her knees around my hips so I can’t maneuver her anymore, squeezing her pussy walls tighter around my dick.
“Jesus,” I say. “Keep doing that and I’ll be coming inside you right now.”
She smiles, bringing her mouth to mine, kissing me like she’s about to fucking eat me. I let my hands go to her tits, pinching her nipples so she gasps.
“Something happened to you,” she says breathlessly between kisses, “and you’re going to tell me. Maybe not today. Maybe not for a long time. But, Jason, you’re going to tell me.” And I can’t argue, because she starts bouncing on my cock again and I can’t say any words, especially not harsh ones. Goddamn her. It’s an excellent strategy, as far as strategies go.
I swallow thickly, groaning as Julz picks up her pace. All I can do is sit back, my fingers around her hips, as she sets the pace. As she controls this. Of course, I could flip her over with my little finger, but I can tell she’s getting off on this, more than she’s gotten off in a long time. Maybe the threat of us dying tonight is enough for her to focus on having one last mind-blowing fuck.
“What happened at The Black Heart?” Julz asks again, and this time I do stop her. I flip her over, so I’m on top of her, my cock as deep as possible as I place a hand on each of her knees and start thrusting.
“Oh, FUCK,” she yells, loud enough for the entire place to hear as she fists the sheets on either side of her. I slap a hand over her mouth to shut her up. Her eyes fly open as her pussy tightens around me and her eyes roll back in her head. She comes as soon as my palm tightens around her face, her hips lifting up from the bed as her whole body locks, and the way she’s wrapped around my cock sends me over the edge. I come inside her, shuddering as wave after wave milks my cock of everything it’s got.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JULIETTE
Isobel Sazerac is beautiful. I hate her immediately.
She’s got chocolate-brown hair that falls in loose waves around her face, stopping at her shoulders, and high cheekbones with skin the consistency of a dewy peach. She wears lashings of dark eyeliner that makes her blue eyes pop—real blue eyes, as far as I can tell—and has long fingers that look like they should be playing piano, not scrawling case notes and shooting target practice at the range. Or whatever the fuck it is FBI agents do.
Maybe it’s because I take one look at the way she greets Jase and I know they’ve screwed before. Probably in this club. Maybe because she’s hot as fuck, dressed in matching black silk bra and panties and standing in front of the three of us, her hands on her hips. Elliot and Tommy are on watch outside the club, which leaves me standing between Jase and Luis.
“Strip,” she says, and I’m suddenly reminded of a scene just like this, when we had to strip in front of Pepito and the Skullz Cartel members to prove we weren’t wearing wires.
“Seriously?” I ask. “Your bodyguard just scanned us with that thing and took all our weapons. We’re not wearing wires.”
She shrugs, apparently not perturbed by me in the slightest. “I don’t make the rules,” she replies. “You don’t have to strip, but if you don’t, they won’t let us past the cloak room.”
On either side of me, Jase and Luis are undressing. Rolling my eyes, I do the same, folding my jeans and black t-shirt in a neat pile at my feet. I leave my boots on. I might need to kick somebody’s face in if they try to rub against me in there. I’m suddenly acutely aware of the scar tissue that trails from underneath my breasts all the way down my side and over my hip bone. There used to be seven horizontal scars there, then a beautiful tattoo that Elliot inked to cover up said scars. Now, there’s just marred, uneven flesh that looks like it’s been melted off with a blowtorch. Thanks, Dornan.
“What about your tattoos?’ I say, turning to press my fingers against Jase’s massive Gypsy Brothers brand that adorns his back. Luis has one too. We’ll be spotted in no time. Two rogue Gypsy Brothers hanging about, mere miles from the clubhouse where bikers are assembling, hungry for our blood. Great.
The bodyguard next to Isobel steps forward with a stack of black material in his hands. As he hands one of the pieces to each of us, I see that they’re black satin robes. Thank Christ for that.
Five minutes later, Luis and I are standing in the corner of a large room that reminds me very much of an upmarket strip club, with a lot more fucking. There are
people fucking on a pool table while a small crowd gathers around them and watches. There’s a woman leaning against a stripper pole on an elevated stage with another woman’s head between her thighs, and a guy taking that girl from behind. Further up, there’s a blindfolded guy getting face-fucked by a line of waiting erections of varying shapes and sizes. As I’m looking around the room, I’m not sure if I’m kind of aroused or completely confused about what’s going on in here. I’ve never been much of a voyeur, but some of the people here are extremely attractive.
I’m so preoccupied by what’s happening in the distance that I don’t see the dick in my face until it’s almost too late. Well, it’s not really in my face—more like at my stomach height—but this one-eyed monster is pointed right at me. Which is very unsettling. It’s attached to a large, very nicely built guy with shaggy blond hair and dimples.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, admiring me openly. I haven’t bothered to knot my robe in the front since everyone else here is completely naked, so my underwear is visible in the slit the gown makes down my middle.
“Are you a natural redhead?” He stares pointedly at my panties.
“Not even slightly,” I say, flashing him a mouth full of teeth. I grab Luis’s hand, turning so I’m facing him and away from monster cock. “Help me,” I say through my teeth, smiling and raising my eyebrows at him. Luis tries his hardest not to crack a smile, pulling me towards him until my head rests against his shoulder. I stay there for a moment, waiting until the guy’s gone, and then Luis pushes me gently. I straighten my hair and decide now’s a great time to knot my gown shut. “What do you think he wanted?” I whisper, watching as monster cock finds a willing victim. I tilt my head, blinking in disbelief as someone actually attempts to suck that thing into their mouth.
“I think he wanted to take you to the candy shop,” Luis says, and I can tell he’s trying so hard not to laugh. “Let you lick the lollipop.”
I elbow Luis, refocusing my attention on the door where Jase and Isobel disappeared. I’m not worried about Jase cheating on me, but I am worried about Isobel still having the hots for him. She looks like she knows a good thing when she sees it. And Jase is definitely a good-looking thing.
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