Taking Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 1)

by Wild, Nikki

  “Boss?” He glanced over my way. I could see the concern on his face. He wasn’t looking to hurt a woman.

  I raised my glass. “I think maybe you should humor the girl…”

  Victor climbed off of his bar stool and gave Hannah a quick smirk. “A spar? What, you into street-fighting?”

  “I like punishment,” Hannah shrugged. “Just promise you won’t go easy on me.”

  I followed the two of them outside, still swirling half my beer while the rest of the Dragons exchanged glances and trailed behind. They fanned out in a half-circle around the front of the bar as Victor and Hannah took the center, a few strides apart.

  Standing along the center of the circle, I took another swig from my beer bottle.

  “Alright, sweetheart, let’s see what you can–”

  She dove forward with a punch, hitting Victor along the jaw. He staggered back half a step before shaking his head and dodging a quick jab.

  “You’re tougher than you look!” He laughed.

  “Shut up and fucking hit me,” Hannah grinned impishly, fists up, shifting her weight back and forth on her feet.

  Victor glanced over my way.

  “She’s a big girl,” I shrugged. “Take her out. When she double-taps, that’s it.”

  “If you say so, boss,” my Dragon grinned as he assumed a relaxed stance, fists raised at the ready.

  “You’re never going to hit me like that.”

  “No?” Victor chuckled. “I’ve been in more brawls than you can imagine, little girl.”

  “Then you’ve had plenty of time to learn the wrong form,” Hannah smiled. “Looks like years of bad practice under your belt. You’ve got pretty fucking terrible posture.”

  “You’ve got spunk, kid,” Victor chuckled.

  Hannah didn’t back down, and simply smiled.

  “Go ahead. Try and hit me.”

  Victor ignored her goading and stayed defensive, waiting for her to try to lash out again. He began circling around, and she followed suit, until they were two animals prowling a cage.

  “Well, this is interesting…”

  “Dammit, Grizz!” I flinched, not realizing my quiet, solemn second-in-command was at my side. “You’ve always fucking sneaking up on me like that! Give a fucker some warning…”

  He ignored my complaints, his pale eyes focused straight ahead on the two sparring partners. “She’s not wrong. Her form is better. Your sister knows what she is doing.”

  “You think so?” I turned forward again.

  “Hannah is going to destroy him. You should call this off.”

  “If she’s as good as you seem to think,” I smiled confidently, “then I have got to see this shit for myself.”

  Grizz shook his head.

  Victor abandoned the defensive tactics and dove forward with a quick jab. Hannah dodged effortlessly, switching to defense, and allowed him to throw a few more punches her way.

  The biker hopped backwards, but Hannah matched his moves and hopped forward, launching a strong kick to his abdomen that winded him in an instant.

  The Devil’s Dragons rose in a cacophony of cheering and jeering. Most of them were panning Victor, while a small vocal minority had taken up behind Hannah.

  “You kicked me?”

  “I said ‘sparring,’” Hannah clarified with a smile. “Didn’t say you had to keep with the punches. Next time, try listening.”

  Victor staggered to a stand and steeled himself, waiting to see what she’d do next. When she relaxed, a wicked smile crossing her lips, he started breathing a little heavier to reclaim his lost oxygen.

  “You can give up now, you know.”

  The biker chuckled wearily. “Giving up after one solid hit? Not a chance.”

  “Your loss, either way,” she chuckled.

  Victor gave a shout and charged forward, taking Hannah by surprise. They crumpled down to the ground, but Hannah wound up on top, throwing a few punches to his head.

  The biker brawler deflected, defended, and absorbed a few hits before taking a few solid ones. Fueled by pain-soaked anger, he drove a fist into her chest, returning the favor and separating her from his body.

  “Damn!” She groaned, clutching her stomach as he slowly crawled to a stand. Hannah was one step away from curling up on the floor as the crowd descended into more cheering, although they couldn’t make their minds up.

  “You still think she’s a shoo-in?” I asked Grizz.

  “Watch,” he replied cautiously. “Look at her. She’s already won.”

  I glanced over at my sister, although I wasn’t seeing whatever he was. If anything, I saw her in pain, and was tempted to call it all off right there and then.

  Until…

  “Kick me,” my sister groaned stubbornly.

  “Hmm?” Victor asked, confused.

  It was clear that he was still recuperating from the blows she’d delivered to his head.

  “I told you to kick me,” Hannah groaned again, lifting her face from the earth.

  There it was.

  In her eyes, there were the flames of defiance. Whatever she had in mind, it was going to cost him if he accepted the opening…

  Victor laughed, taking a step forward.

  If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would have never believed it. It happened so goddamn fast: Victor swung his foot back in a long but quick arc, delivering a punishing boot to her ribs…

  But that didn’t happen.

  As he swung his foot back, she pushed up from the ground, and as his foot swung forward she latched her arms to his leg and carried his momentum a foot or two higher…

  High enough to send him straight onto his ass.

  Victor dropped as Hannah fell to the ground on top of him, rolling quickly away. Filled with anger and adrenaline, the biker propelled himself up to his feet…

  …Just in time for Hannah to have already gained her footing and jump into a spin-kick, delivering a heavy, powerful blow to the side of his head.

  Victor blacked out on the spot, dropping to the earth with a definitive thunk as the crowd went completely wild.

  Several of the bigger bikers moved forward to pull their fallen friend from the ground as Hannah flipped her hair out of her face and cast me a quick glance.

  “Told you, little brother,” she smirked victoriously. “I know how to take care of myself.”

  “Jesus, Hannah, that was some Matrix bullshit…”

  The bikers parted as she walked by, taking the beer from my hand. “You wondered where I’ve been for the last few years? I’ve been busy… learning to keep anyone from doing what they did to me ever again. I’ve picked up a some martial arts, marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat with and without a weapon…”

  “No fucking kidding,” I smiled proudly.

  She smirked again, stepping back into the bar while the others followed suit. A few of my Dragons looked almost scared of her, while most just looked impressed.

  “Your sister is a bonafide badass,” Ricochet told me, clasping me on the shoulder. “No wonder you’ve been trying to find her all these years…”

  I grinned a quick response as he swept into the crowd of bikers strolling inside, helping to carry Victor’s limp form, but my smile faded when I made eye contact with Grizz.

  My solemn, insightful second-hand man had been quietly observing Hannah. When his pale eyes turned back my way, I didn’t like what I saw in them.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked him the moment we were alone. “What do you see?”

  “Bad things,” he shook his head.

  I crossed my arms. “Might want you to give me a little more to go off of than that…”

  Grizz sighed heavily. “I’m not sure I like this one… Kin or not. She’s keeping secrets. You need to be watching her.”

  “If you were anyone else Grizz, I’d put a fist through your face for saying that,” I told him, “but I value and trust your judgment. Keep an eye on Hannah for me, but you’d better fucking respect her w
hile you do it. She is my sister.”

  “Duly noted,” Grizz replied.

  I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket as my boot hit the first step back into the bar, and I paused to dig it back out.

  “Hunter here,” I replied coolly.

  EagleEye’s voice came down the line. “Hunter, I finally have the information that you were looking for.”

  Relief washed over me. “Damn, am I happy to finally hear from you. No offense to your skills and all, but I’m honestly kind of surprised it took you this long.”

  “It wasn’t as easy as you led me to believe.”

  “What, cracking into the port?”

  “That part was fine,” she quickly clarified. “Their infrastructure is as antiquated as any I’ve ever seen. Accessing their filing systems was a cakewalk. It was the container itself that represented… problems.”

  I glanced up towards the open doorway to the bar, noticing the noise that was still happening. Suddenly, Grizz stepped into view. When he saw the look on my face, he merely nodded and closed the door behind himself.

  “Gotta admit, your tone doesn’t exactly inspire confidence,” I responded quickly. “What kind of problems did you run into?”

  “The name of the container was a forgery.”

  “Figures.”

  “Half the time I spent working this was determining that proof. The other half was following it up the chain.”

  “Up the chain?” I asked. “What are we talking about here? Are there a lot of people on this? An organization, maybe?”

  “No organization,” EagleEye calmly confirmed, “but a lot of mystery. Whoever owns that container wants nobody to find them under any circumstances.”

  “What are you telling me?” I asked.

  EagleEye sighed deeply. “Hunter, I haven’t seen this kind of security over a single box before. Whatever is in that thing can’t be good.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “It probably is,” she replied. “There was nothing in the records indicating that it had ever been opened. There isn’t a soul in that port that knows what’s in there, or who owns it.”

  “But you know,” I pressed forward. “You followed it up the chain. You know who owns that thing.”

  “I do,” she replied. “And maybe that should be the end of it. You can hang up right now and I’ll forget you ever asked about that container.”

  “My girlfriend is chasing after this thing. I’ve got to know what we’re dealing with here, and how deep this shit goes.”

  “Is that your final answer?”

  “This isn’t a fucking game show,” I told her, starting to lose my patience. “Are you going to give me a goddamn name or not?”

  The line went quiet for a moment.

  “Soroka Sarkonov.”

  My vision went fuzzy in an instant, and I became very, very aware of my breathing.

  Oh god, no.

  “I take it that you grasp the gravity of your situation now.”

  “Yeah… I’ve only heard stories, but the few times that name came up were in some very dark circles,” I replied.

  “Whatever stories you know, I can probably confirm them,” my associate replied over the line.

  “I understand Soroka Sarkonov to be one of the deadliest and most dangerous international arms dealers in the world,” I told her. “Death and destruction follows that goddamn name. She’s so far up the fucking food chain I thought she was a myth.”

  “She’s real, Hunter,” EagleEye told me. “She’s not an organization, or a crime syndicate, or even a group. She is a single woman, a very dangerous woman who lets others do her dirty work. She calls them her proxies… And I can only imagine that she is very angry that her container has gone missing…”

  “Did you get any leads on the container?”

  EagleEye paused. “Hunter, once I realized who I was dealing with, I trashed all of my equipment and bought this burner phone… But it wasn’t enough.”

  A silence fell over the line.

  What the hell does she mean it ‘wasn’t enough?’

  “Are you there?”

  Her distant voice came through. “I’m going off-grid, Hunter. Don’t try to contact me again. But before I go, I have a message for you.”

  “A message from who?”

  “From our friend, Soroka…”

  I paused for a moment, then held the phone tighter against my ear.

  “Go ahead…”

  “Soroka says that you need to help Sarah find the crate. If you don’t, she’s going to kill her… slowly.”

  Before I could respond, the line went dead. White hot anger mixed with cold fear. Nobody threatens my woman. Nobody threatens my unborn child. I’d find this fucking container, and when I returned it to its rightful owner, I’d show her just how big of a mistake she just made.

  Soroka Sakonov just made an enemy.

  Sarah

  My morning sickness and pregnancy symptoms had been really starting to act up, although I hadn’t let Hunter see any of that.

  I stayed tired.

  My breasts were always tender.

  Peeing was constantly on the agenda.

  Wicked food cravings were my life.

  I kept my shit together because I had a case to solve, a biker to scrutinize for fatherhood potential, and a long-lost sister to said biker baby daddy thrown into the mix.

  Life was getting pretty strange.

  Unfortunately, it turned out that Daddy’s friends trying to dig up information on the Port of Los Angeles were coming up with dead ends. They confirmed that a major chunk of the port was under the thumb of the Los Angeles Devil’s Dragons, but that was nothing I didn’t already know.

  Which reminded me that I hadn’t quite gotten around to telling him about Hunter and this pregnancy…

  As far as Daddy was concerned, Hunter disappeared from my life eight years ago, after he narrowly escaped a police raid that claimed the lives of some of his club members. He knew that I never quite got over my childhood love, but when I threw my life into following in his footsteps, concern soon swelled into pride.

  I shuddered to think how that situation would change when I finally dropped the bomb.

  Unfortunately, involving him in my case hadn’t produced much in the progress department. I was no closer to finding that stupid storage container.

  I was starting to think this whole trip might be a bust…

  On top of that, my fears with Hunter continued unresolved. We got along pretty great, except when it came to the case. His resistance to stepping into Talon’s territory was getting old, and that was seriously holding me back.

  Sure. Hunter had told me some pretty spooky stories about the guy.

  But he couldn’t be all that bad.

  What was the worst that he was going to do, have us thrown out? It was a huge port. There was no reason that we couldn’t just sneak back in and do a little investigation under nightfall.

  At least there was Hannah.

  Hunter’s sister was fucking awesome. She impartially listened to my complaints without spitting them back out to her brother. Years apart had made her pretty good at the business of keeping secrets, and she made a good sounding board for some of my troubles.

  Hannah understood my need for independence. Hell, she even encouraged it. She told me I should keep looking for this container no matter what. If I was going to make it in this world, I needed to be sure I could do it with or without Hunter… It was an interesting but welcome perspective, balancing out from Hunter’s notions of what I should and shouldn’t know, and what I should and shouldn’t do…

  I knew that he didn’t quite oppose me on my desires to pursue the case, but I was just waiting for the day that he decided to go off the deep end with it.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  Having adopted the habit of taking a drive to clear my head during frustrations over the case, I was just paying out at a diner for lunch when I got the phone call that would change
everything.

  Something loomed in the air as I glanced at the caller ID, but I ignored my gut reactions and took a deep breath.

  I picked up the phone. “Hunter?”

  “Princess, something’s happened. You and I have got a serious fucking problem on our hands.”

  There was something about the tone in his voice that was new. The only time that I’d ever heard him this rattled was when Hannah went missing in Mexico…

  “What is it?” I asked tentatively.

  Hunter took a deep breath against the other end, and then hit me with the bad news:

  “You have to drop this case.”

  “What?” I was dumbfounded.

  There was no way that I was doing that.

  “Hear me out,” he pleaded down the line. “We just found out who owns that missing box, and I’m gonna be taking care of this one without you.”

  “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

  “I wish I was, babe. Honestly, I do. But you’re gonna have to walk away from this one. I want you out of here by tomorrow. I have a safehouse you can stay at until everything blows over. I’m scared of what might happen to you.”

  No way, I told myself.

  Is he just trying to keep me dependent?

  “This is coming from the guy who struck down a Mexican cartel twice,” I reminded him, shoving my doubts back down for the moment. “I thought you were fearless. Where the hell is that indomitable spirit?”

  “Princess, I’m alive today because I know when to fold ‘em. You’re putting yourself and our baby in some seriously deep shit. I’ll take care of this, and once I do, I’ll come back to you…”

  He did sound legitimately alarmed. Either he was acting, or something had shaken him. “Let me ask you something, Hunter… who the hell scared you this bad?”

  Hunter took a deep breath.

  “Your detective’s missing container belongs to Soroka Sarkonov, an international arms dealer. I know the name means nothing to you, but Soroka is more dangerous than you can possibly imagine.”

  He seemed rattled, but how dangerous could she really be? Who was one woman in comparison to the Viboras Verde?