Alphas Rise: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 1)

by Jamie Magee

“You don’t care about your property?” the officer pushed.

  “This dump should have been knocked down and rebuilt a decade ago.”

  “But instead, you let a guest of yours reside there,” he asked with a narrow stare.

  “Holden is a nasty son of a bitch. We never wanted him here in the first place. It was clear to us that he was a twisted psycho. Unfortunately, we are too hospitable to ask people to leave so we do so by dropping hints, like giving them a shit hole to crash in. Oddly, Holden liked it. Must mimic where he came from before he surfaced here.”

  The officer shook his head, nearly smiled. Reveca could see the irony flashing across his eyes. Clearly he didn’t care for Reveca talking about an undercover comrade of theirs the way she was, but he couldn’t say that. Couldn’t say that whatever evidence Holden had managed to get on the Club was now null and void thanks to his confession.

  That notion, and the notion that Reveca had managed to put two more officers in the hospital with that ‘accidental’ car crash the other night, was surely what inspired this raid. They were striking back. Men. They always needed to protect their pride.

  “Knock it down,” the officer yelled as he stared at Reveca, and then turned to help his men.

  “This is bullshit,” Talon growled under his breath as they all watched the door crash down, saw flashlights moving in and out of every room.

  Reveca had whispered a few words across her lips; she was calling a fierce storm into existence. She not only wanted to make this raid as difficult as possible on them but she needed it to speed things up. She only had a few hours before she had to get Cashton back to the Veil.

  “Looks like whatever witchling you wanted me to bring home, babe, is going to camp out a few more nights with whatever nut jobs have her.”

  That idea flipped Reveca’s stomach. In her mind they had already been there long enough and the last thing she needed was to wait for someone else to come out of the fog of a trauma to give her a lead.

  Lawmen. She had to wonder if they would even care if they knew what damage they had done with this meaningless raid.

  “They don’t have anything,” Judge said as he stared down that commanding officer, diving into his thoughts. “This was a hail Mary, they barely got it past the judge and if they come up empty-handed all their asses are in a sling.”

  “Which is why they are making arrests for the hell of it,” Reveca said as she saw the van in the distance pull out. The loud crack of thunder and flash of lightning was doing just what she wanted it to, causing them to rush.

  There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Thames and Echo had managed to free all those in the Club from making it in that van. Those in it, they were those that were just passing through. They were the sacrifice that was needed this night. Now the Sons would ensure their stay in the system is brief—that act built their allies and ensured that the news hit the streets that being on the good side of the Sons was the only place you could reside and hope to survive.

  At this point the officers were throwing anything and everything they could out front to be searched.

  “Son of a bitch,” Talon said as he stared at the army green duffle bag that had landed next to a few other bags.

  “That solves that mystery.” Judge said with a shake of his head.

  “What?” Reveca asked.

  “Babe, we don’t need that bag to leave here,” Talon said keeping his dark stare locked on it, refusing to let anything break his line of sight, or concentration, including explaining himself just then.

  Reveca pulled in a deep breath, let her eyes close just slightly then started to whisper a spell, a prayer, an invitation.

  Moments later, four alligators crept out from under the house.

  Reveca met their stare to offer a silent thank you, and let the gratitude for their presence swell within her.

  Right then, before anyone could even understand what happened, the gators attacked the pile that was on the ground. They took the very bag that Talon was staring down in their deadly jaws and fought over it as they pulled it toward the bank.

  The officers started to cuss, even pulled out their guns. Reveca had cast an energy net around her slithery friends. It was doubtful that any of those wayward panicked shots hit a fatal mark on the gators. All the same, every bullet bounced off them as they charged for the bank just beside the home. The largest one still had his catch, the strap of the bag in his massive jaws.

  The infuriated officers chased them, shot into the water over and over.

  Talon and Judge started to laugh, a bend over try not to cry laugh, which earned them heated glares from the officers.

  “You must have found Holden’s stash of non-perishables. Sardines maybe?” Talon said when he managed to halt his laugh.

  The officers blew him off and went back inside determined to find anything else they could, even if it meant doing as Reveca said, tearing down the house.

  The storm was building on the wind. The lightning was near mesmerizing as it spider-webbed across the sky.

  “What mystery did you just solve?” Reveca asked.

  “We didn’t,” Judge said. “Just figured out we shut down that clinic for no reason.”

  Reveca looked up at both Talon and Judge. Most times she didn’t know much about what the boys did with the scripts or what went down. The plan was to always keep her free and clear from it so she could get them out of trouble with conventional or less conventional ways if it ever came to that. She knew the process though, and in most cases, from sitting in Church, she knew if something went way wrong.

  The filled scripts were taken to a sterile house, or clinic. Educated, trained mortals sorted the meds and repackaged them. Basically, the Sons would find a pharmacist that would rather make four times what they were making at Walgreens and only work a few days a week. Fast, easy cash.

  The Sons never really touched the scripts, they just managed the process. They’d stop by the clinic as the drop was loaded, and then they’d be there for the buy.

  There was more than one sterile house, more than one truck, more than one everything, and the order that the Sons would utilize the houses and trucks would change often. So often that it never really seemed odd to others if a truck or bikes were around a drop point or traveling down a back highway. It was too random for attention to be drawn to it.

  Just as randomly, they closed down clinics, let the pharmacists go, and found new ones. They did that for several reasons. For one, it changed things up; it also allowed no one to get in too deep. The educated mortal pharmacist could do this gig for hot second, pay off their student loans, buy a house or car, then move on with a legit life—all ties with the Sons severed. In most cases their memory was also washed.

  Maybe three months ago, drops started coming up short at this one clinic, a rather new one.

  “Holden never went to the clinics,” Reveca said with a furrowed brow. As far as she knew that was the truth, and the idea that Talon would let him near one didn’t sit right with her.

  One thing about Talon was, at times, he became bored, too, would kick up dust, dare someone to charge him. He’d promised her he’d never do that with this deal they had set up, knew it meant a lot to her to help others.

  “Right,” Talon said putting her hand in his, squeezing it. “That’s why I didn’t think he was the reason we were short on the drops. He was a last leg escort and always left with the other guys.”

  Some of the Sons would linger on the side of the highway, wait for their truck to pass by. A few would ride out before it, while others would linger behind it. Depending on how long the run was, they would pass off the lead a few times. At the end of the path the truck would be parked in the swampy brush and left there. At the same time, other Sons, usually Talon, would meet for the exchange of money.

  “So how did he get a bag of repackaged scripts?” Judge asked.

  “I don’t know. That was one of our bags, though.” He glanced down at Reveca. “We’ll have to figure
out what’s inside of it.”

  “You think he was working for both sides?” Judge asked. “You think he was trying to get the buyer and not us? Took that as evidence against them?”

  “If we never came up short I would believe that,” Talon said. “But we did. If he were setting them up they would have been short on their end. He could have been just trying to set us up for a raid and never got around to it.”

  “I hate him,” Reveca breathed.

  Talon put his arm around her, pulled her to his chest, let his lips touch her temple. “You’ll have your revenge, somehow, someway.”

  “Running low on time, boss,” Judge said as he looked back toward the lot. Most of the cop cars there were gone, or making their way to the swamp house. The rush of the night was starting to fade but they would surely linger a bit longer.

  Right as he said that, a violent crash of thunder nearly made them all jump out of their skin.

  “You see anything?” Talon asked Judge.

  Judge’s gift was complex. Most times what he saw was more like what he felt, a gut instinct. Getting in someone’s head, that was harder than he’d like it to be. People have natural barriers up around their thoughts. Sometimes those barriers are lies they tell themselves, others it’s just the way they think that affects what Judge can see.

  When he looked, really looked into someone’s mind and dug around, it would give him wicked headaches, so bad that sometimes he’d have to get over that just to remember what he saw. It wasn’t as bad for Thames. He pushed thoughts in most times, didn’t try to see them through the person’s point of view.

  Talon was sure one of those headaches of Judge’s was coming on now. The way Judge was squinting his eyes, as if the absent sun was shining on him, was a warning sign. Judge’s gift always gave the Sons an edge, and it was one they tried not to push unless they had to.

  “They found Black,” Judge said with a near silent groan, doing his best to block the pain he was feeling.

  “Found or planted?” Reveca asked.

  No matter what his answer was, that discovery just pushed the Sons further into this hell. It meant that the Sons were the last one invited to this party, that the lawmen, either undercover or in the wide open, knew of a drug that the Sons were oblivious to until recently. The lawmen were always the last to know about a drug. Knowing that made Reveca question how the Sons had missed something so obvious.

  “They legit found it there,” Judge said as he let out a long breath. “They’ve heard rumors about it but have never seen it,” Judge said and smirked. “Suit man over there is rather ticked that Holden never told him about it.”

  “Can we get that?” Talon asked Reveca just under his breath.

  Reveca wasn’t sure, but she was going to try. Her gray eyes searched the tree line carefully. That same plea she sent out to her slithery friends was sent above to her feathered ones. She heard a crow squawk along with the thunder and smiled. “Possible,” she said to Talon.

  Talon put his hand on Judge’s back, gave him a proud pat. “Head back to the house. Get Thrash and Shade to get the boat ready if they haven’t already.” Talon looked up. “It looks like it’s going to pour any second. It’ll be hard for anyone to see Reveca leaving.”

  Judge nodded, stared forward for a second then started to make his way back like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Reveca and Talon waited for a moment. When the wind picked up they started to make their way back, too. The point was to lure Blackwater out; he was the one that was holding the evidence of Black. He was the one that would want to rub that in Reveca’s face.

  “Miss Beauregard,” he yelled over the thunder.

  Reveca kept walking, keeping herself in Talon’s embrace, basically pretending that she was frightened of the storm that was due to rip open the skies at any moment.

  “You need to see this,” Blackwater said keeping his pace just behind her, looking rather desperate about keeping up with their long, quick strides.

  Reveca let him follow until she was merely a short sprint away from her front porch then turned to face him. The wind whipped her long hair off her shoulders, and her eyes shimmered with the erratic lightning.

  “You have assured me countless times that your club is clean, that you have nothing but drinkers and smokers.”

  “And?” Reveca said with a glance above. She wasn’t looking at the sky, no, she was making sure the watchful eyes of her feathered friends were clearly on her.

  “Do you want to explain this?” Blackwater said as he opened his palm. There he displayed a small clear bag. Two black pills were in it, small, round, nearly flat.

  “What’s that? Expired aspirin?” Reveca asked purposely flinching with the latest eruption of thunder.

  Blackwater didn’t have a chance to answer. Three crows soared down from above. One took the bag, and before Blackwater had a chance process that, another landed on his shoulder and bit his ear, and the other landed on his near-bald head.

  This took place within a matter of seconds, and as it happened, the sky opened up and thick sheets of rain started to pour down.

  Reveca ran, with Talon at her side, to her porch…grinning ear to ear, sending her heartfelt gratitude to the feathered friends that answered her call.

  Chapter Two

  By the time Reveca and Talon reached their porch they were both drenched from the rain.

  She wanted to laugh, wanted to let that joyful emotion break free from her, knew it would be good medicine, exactly what she needed to shake off how uptight she had been for days, but she held it in. Tried her best to look like a ticked off, soaked girl.

  Talon snaked his wet arm around her waist. Against her ear he said in a deep seductive whisper, “Have I ever told you how sexy you are when you call power forward. When that gratitude shimmers across those eyes of yours.”

  Her elbow playfully jabbed back into his gut. He was making it hard for her to look put out at the moment.

  Talon’s fingertips edged under the rim of her jean shorts, just barely. “Too bad you have to take Cashton home. We could have fun in this storm, just like the old days.”

  “You are insatiable,” she said as she stared forward.

  “Me? Ha! Calling the kettle black. We got the angry sex out of the way, now we can go roll around out there in the field, get nice and slick, dirty as hell. I want to hear you laugh just before you cum. I want to see my woman one with the nature she adores.”

  She had to bite her lip. Hard. That twist of emotions was ripping her gut into shreds. Before this hell started tonight she was ready to face King, get a few things straight. Tell him that it wasn’t her fault that he had been absent for ages, it wasn’t her fault that she had no choice but to make a life.

  She planned to demand that he tell her exactly where he had been. She had to hear his sins, had to have them as a weapon, one she could use each time she felt this guilt build up.

  Talon wasn’t acting any differently than he always had. The pair of them had always been wild. They’d had every kind of sex there was in every place you could imagine, but that was only a fraction of the time they spent together. He was more than a lover, always had been. Therefore she should not have this sick feeling crawl up the back of her throat when he joked and taunted her to go down well-traveled paths with him once again.

  She never had a chance to offer a comeback; Blackwater was storming up to her porch.

  With her enhanced vision, Reveca could see through the night, see through the sheets of rain, all the way back to the swamp house. The other officers were packing up as fast as they could; some had already pulled away.

  Blackwater wasn’t even trying to act like he wasn’t utterly pissed.

  Blood was coming from small cuts on his head and his collar was ripped.

  “What did you do to piss Mother Nature off?” Talon derided. “What did you do, take a bath in bird seed?”

  “You want to get me a towel?” Blackwater said with a glower.
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  “No, I don’t,” Talon said as his arm tightened around Reveca.

  “You afraid your woman is going to say something about you? Flip on you? Do you think your presence keeps her in line?”

  Talon laughed hard, so hard that he did let go of Reveca for a second. “You have got to be the stupidest lawman there is! Do you seriously think that anyone tells Reveca what to do or when?”

  Blackwater shook his head. “Her mother was much the same.” Blackwater puffed out his chest. “Her mother was also well known as a witch amongst her inner circles.”

  “You got a point, Blackwater?” Reveca said coldly.

  “I do,” he said with a glare. “Like mother like daughter. Twice tonight wild animals saved this MC from immediate arrest, destroyed leads that would shut this entire organization down.” He pursed his lips. “That drug, it’s hot right now. Brand new. Said to make a man invincible, triples their strength—enough so that one good embrace could shatter bones if they’re not careful.” He stepped up. “Odd, isn’t it? A new drug out. One that was found here, and there is a murder that has a victim that suffered from such bone breakage.”

  “How is that odd? You came here looking for a gun. Seems like what killed your victim was the internal damage. You found your weapon.”

  “No, I didn’t find shit. Your birds took it.”

  “My birds?” Reveca repeated just so he’d hear how stupid that sounded.

  “Yes. You used whatever hoodoo magic your mother practiced to cover this up tonight. That’s fine though, because right now, you have two choices. Either you let me in on this, fifty percent of all your profits, or I’m arresting you on the spot for tampering with evidence. And from there I will build my case, and keep adding to the charges that I care to dream up.”

  “I didn’t tamper with shit.”

  “And I have claw marks on my head. Now, you tell me what is more believable—a bird snatching evidence from my hand or a desperate woman not wanting to go to jail for the first time in her life.”

  Reveca just glared, didn’t let one iota of an expression come to her. The only movement she made was clutching Talon’s arm which was now back around her waist. She knew he was ready to punch Blackwater, rip him in two for even considering threatening Reveca in his presence.