She swiped at a bead of sweat on her forehead, her thoughts returning to him, her nightmare in leather. A quickie, a one-night-stand. Not an easy conquest, but rather the easiest. The idea had gotten under her skin. Her body still hummed thinking about it. The memory of Bracken working his tongue against her had her panties wetter than a sand bar at high tide.
He redefined the term “a fighter and a lover.” She knew he was a badass, had had her suspicions about his prowess in the bedroom, but he far exceeded anything her eager imagination had worked up.
What transpired that night would go down in the history books, specifically the one titled Unable to Stand After the Boom-Shakalaka of One-Night Stands. Who’d have expected the arrogant biker’s sole focus to have been on her? Nothing wrong with a woman grabbing a slice of pleasure, even if he’d done all the grabbing, right? A one-time deal. History, that’s what it was. Period. Foolish to wonder about what might happen next.
Next? Mother of all Marys, she didn’t even like the infuriating, antagonistic man. The aftermath of his attentions—namely, the uncomfortable lingering beard-burn along her unmentionables—had her wondering at her attraction to him and why she continued to fantasize about round two.
Wake up, girlfriend. Boom-yucka-yucka was all you were getting back in Savannah. And yucka was putting it mildly.
She frowned, then came to the same conclusion she’d been battling since beginning her run. It was going to take a hell of a lot of dedication and training to pull this win off. Absolute discipline, commitment and hard work. Not such a far stretch, as those were the qualities she lived her life by. Along with loyalty. Family. Love.
On that front, she’d hock Robert’s engagement ring and send the money to Pop ASAP. Tide them over financially, even if only for a little while. After the stunt Robert had pulled, he deserved it. She deserved it.
Then, she’d set out to do since she’d first fell in love with MMA—become a featherweight champion. She’d show her family, herself even, that Huntley Rey Wittaker could brawl with the best. And win.
She felt the tension that’d accompanied like a bad headache vanish and her optimism return. Now all that remained was for McBadass to resurface from biker land and follow through on his promise. For her training for the Belles to really begin. For her to witness first hand if his punch was as lethal as his caresses.
* * *
“Didn’t expect to find you working on a Wednesday,” Stefan commented, as Huntley popped the cap off a Corona.
Yeah. Bite me. She knew damn well Kaleigh had told him she’d picked up her extra shifts. “Lime?”
Stefan shook his head. She pushed the beer across the bar and casually surveyed the room from beneath her lashes.
Three days without a word was bad, but a whole week?
The situation in Savannah was quickly deteriorating. Though Pop had dodged one bullet and made a monthly loan payment from the ring money she’d sent, another had struck closer to their hearts. Pop had found a bag of pills in her older brother Aiden’s car. Four years clean flushed down the drain. She needed something to grasp hold of. Some promise it’d all be fine in the end.
“He’s been tied up at work,” Stefan interrupted her thoughts.
“Who?” she replied, schooling her face into her best dumb-as-they-come expression. Judging by Stefan’s raised eyebrows, he wasn’t buying what she was selling.
“You training?”
She frowned. Balancing the additional hours with her grueling training schedule had been a struggle. Her punch still sucked, with no one to pinpoint exactly what she was doing wrong. Fortunately, the ad had generated another trainer—an expensive one, who was meeting her at the Warehouse after her Friday night shift.
But that was none of the busybody’s business. The fact that Stefan was flirting with her while putting the moves on Kaleigh was reason enough to keep their conversation to a minimum. Sharply, she replied, “I’m sparring with a few guys from the Warehouse and a few more fighters from the gym.”
Not the best way to prepare for a major fight.
Stefan only nodded and took a sip of his drink.
Irritation laced with a healthy dose of curiosity had her subtly scanning the Warehouse once more, confirming what she already knew—Stefan was flying solo. Where the hell was Bracken? And why did his absence rub her as raw as his beard had? Wuss. Just ask.
“Is he really that good?”
Stefan smirked. “What do you think?”
Her cheeks warmed.
“He’s the best. An all-around excellent MMA fighter, but he can knock a guy out cold with a single punch. His haymaker is legendary.”
She didn’t doubt Bracken was kickass. Hell, his swift, sure movements in her apartment spoke volumes—and despite her best intentions, her mind kept wandering back to that night. But the man was just that, a one-night wonder. Nothing more, it seemed.
Kaleigh did say that he worked security with Stefan. But how likely was it the he was he off doing security work for seven days straight? By the looks of things, Stefan had plenty of time on his hands. Huntley took a dry cloth and wiped down the bar.
Cheering erupted from inside the Hall and Huntley grimaced. A big crowd—which meant big tips—was gathered inside, watching two favorite local heavyweights battle it out. Damn it. That gig would mean tripled the tips in half the time—the Hall bar was that busy during fights. Both money and time were at a premium right now. Whatever she could do to save and send home. Whatever it cost her to win, right?
A guy at the end of the bar waved urgently, thinking it’d be quicker to get a drink out here than inside the Hall. Probably right, buddy. Spread the word. Huntley folded her towel across the rack and hurriedly tended to him. Which was why when she returned, she was only half paying attention to Stefan, and only half heard him mutter something that sounded like “Moy droog.”
It may have been a foreign dialect. But common sense told her that based on the source, it was likely gibberish. Curious, she turned away from the cash register and watched him tuck his cellphone away.
“I told him to get his ass in gear and get on over here.”’
“You were talking to him?” The busybody. “Call him back. I have a trainer starting on Friday.”
Lines creased across Stefan’s forehead. “Since when?”
With a fake see-ya-around-sucker smile that wiped the arrogant look right off his face, she headed down to the other end of the bar.
What? Did he believe his guy was the only game in town? Fortunately for her, he wasn’t. The stakes were higher now—she had to win. Her family needed her and no way in hell was she going to let them down. His guy was a no show. A one-night stand that left her standing in place instead of moving forward. Wasting her time on naughty memories and false promises instead of getting her punch up to par. Whatever it took, she was going to make this new trainer, Jeffrey, a boxing expert with a few titles under his belt, work.
Scooping up an empty beer bottle, she tossed it in the trash. Goodbye, McBadass. I’ve waited around for you long enough.
Chapter Six
Bracken glared down at his hand. No good, it was still fucking shaking. He slowly raised the cup to his lips while hot coffee cascaded over the rim and down the side of the mug, dripping onto the shithole motel’s carpet. Most people thought blood was bright red, not a black coffee color. But most people didn’t have blood on their hands for any extended period of time. Etched into the fine line of his hands and jammed under his fingernails, deep into his goddamn soul. Buried there. Scarring him. No matter how often he’d scoured himself raw, it remained branded onto his flesh like a gunpowder burn.
One more meeting with Mayhem’s Last Stand to go.
Then he’d be dead. Well, his alias Juan would be, anyway—though nothing about dealing with the Mayhem was certain.
/> Shit, the last thing he wanted to do was get reacquainted with a brother. But Truman was a smart fucker, and one who might just have a different perspective on what’d gone down in Flagstaff. Besides, he’d know where things stood with the methamphetamine shipment. Nothing unnatural about Juan, who’d been first laid up in the hospital and then out of town “recovering,” reaching out to set up a rendezvous.
Hell, in the weeks leading up to Flagstaff, hadn’t Bracken himself shown Truman how to reconfigure the floorboards, dashboards, the freakin’ engines on the vans? Thick as thieves, they’d been. In the drug-running business together.
But friends? No fucking way. Rumor had it that the Truman had a body count that’d rival any mafioso. Yeah, the seasoned biker’s conflict resolution skills left something to be desired. He didn’t resolve an issue, he slaughtered it and buried it six feet under. Though Bracken had never witnessed him in action, the Mayhem crew was fond of recounting his kills. Dangerous was too mild a word to describe the guy. He’d been the perfect cover—no one had doubted Bracken’s identity while he was riding alongside Truman. He was just another mean shitkicker, quick to temper and quicker to fight.
And holding true to their unspoken bro code, back in Flagstaff, when push came to shove, Truman had saved Bracken’s life.
He took a long swig of coffee, ignoring the burn as he swallowed it back. Call it professional intuition, instinct, or a goddamned hunch, but the perceptive bastard might know something more about Pres’s dealings with the elusive kingpin.
Fuck those desk jockeys at I.A. This was a matter of pride. Self-respect. Like a dog with a bone, persistent as fuck, Bracken wouldn’t rest until he got the job done. No matter what.
Hell if his investigation was dead in the water just yet.
This bullshit with his hands, the sleep deprivation, his demons within, would have to wait. Though the reward of some quiet solitude up at his cabin in the mountains kept him grounded. Yeah, plenty of liquor and downtime would help wind back up what’d been shaken loose.
His phone vibrated on the long desk along the wall, as if to remind him of the business at hand. Bracken put down his cup and wiped the coffee from his fingers. His cell was barely to his ear before Stefan demanded, “You showing up at the Warehouse on Friday?”
“Nope. Taking a brief hiatus for some R&R.” If you could call being cooped up in a shithole hotel waiting for an alleged murderer to arrive relaxing.
His partner mumbled something incomprehensible before he responded. “You’re gonna screw this up royally if you don’t get things squared away. Think you can seduce a fine woman like Huntley, disappear, and expect her to let you back into her life with open arms? What the hell, you gonna tell me next you got a puss-ass pedicure? The shit’s going down here. Get your ass back to the Warehouse, fuck that bitch silly, and get in position.”
Phone courage or had Numbnuts grown a set since Bracken had been gone? “Listen carefully. You talk to me like that again and I’ll ruin my goddamned pedicure when my foot gets up close and personal with your ass.” He caught himself before adding “and leave Huntley out of it.” Stefan’s unhealthy fixation with her got under Bracken’s skin but he’d keep that little show of weakness to himself.
Bracken tore back the worn brown curtain in his motel room and peered out into the deserted parking lot.
“Or are you playing the ladies-love-a-challenge card? Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and all that baloney?” Bracken heard the silent accusation in Stefan’s voice—how Bracken was going rogue and doing things his way again. A year of being partnered up, of being Bracken’s outside contact, you’d have thought Numbnuts would have figured out by now that although he might be spearheading this new assignment, it wasn’t—and never would be—his show.
Though it didn’t hurt to let him think so, Bracken kept reminding himself.
“Uh...you there?” Stefan cut in. “You’ve got a real four fifteen personality, Rambo. I.A. wants you locked up, a year for every skull you’ve cracked. In the past year alone that’s...”
“Cut the crap or goodbye.”
He heard Stefan stutter on the other end. “We operate as a team. You got to keep me in the loop, man. A glorious bust like this will benefit you and me both.”
“Jeez, you sure are swell, Stefan. So glad you have my back,” he retorted sarcastically.
As for Huntley, all Bracken had wanted to do was put some distance between him and her, not the other way around. The memory of Huntley on that bike, then splayed out on the coffee table...fuckin’ hell, like that was going to happen. Like wet concrete, the moments they’d spent together had cemented into his head. Except instead of weighing him down, they were keeping him sane.
“She’s hell-bent on training, you know. Ambitious. Wants to win. Quite the pretty firecracker. Better be careful and hurry the fuck up or this thing is gonna blow up in our faces.”
“Relax. She’ll do whatever I need her to do.”
Stefan was silent on the other end. The guys on the force, including Numbnuts, knew little about him. That’s the way Bracken rolled; his personal shit was just that, personal. The last thing Bracken needed was for Numbnuts to find out how Bracken had bedded not one but two women, the night after he’d been in their friend’s bed. How he hadn’t promised the friend, a fellow detective, anything, hadn’t given her anything but a good time. How he was an insensitive selfish jerk. How one, two, ten women, never amounted to much. Temporary pleasure. His endless quest to fuck away the pain.
That’d been six months ago. Abstinence had become his own twisted form of penance for hurting a woman he respected, for becoming more like the biker he pretended to be day by day. Hell, the beard had made it easier, made most women more skittish than usual around him.
Six months without sex.
No wonder his hands were shaking.
And you passed on a prime opportunity with Huntley.
Bracken grabbed his mug and took another sip, before continuing, “We’ll get our bust. We’re going to bring down this kingpin before he even gets his hands on the delivery. So buck up, and stop your whining. Hard, rough and mean—that’s what life’s about. The sweet bubble you’re living in is one motherfucking delusion.”
“Dickhat.”
Good, message transmitted loud and clear. But knowing Stefan’s thick head, he added, “Better both you and Huntley figure that out, and sooner rather than later.”
“Jesus. You’re a cynical bastard, aren’t you? She’s working Wednesdays and Fridays in case you change your mind. I think you’re overestimating her attraction to you.”
“Huntley’s going to have to wait.” He caught his reflection in the mirror over the desk. He looked like some hardcore punk, with his greasy hair and dirty threads. A few steps worse than the biker that Huntley believed he was.
Exactly the kind of guy Truman was expecting.
He couldn’t wait to wrap things up, then clean up. But first things first. “Later,” he told Stefan, then hung up on him.
This time around, Bracken was making sure he had some outside intel on the Mayhem. Specifically, details about their arrival back into Nevada with the load of methamphetamines. Murder and mayhem didn’t finance a motorcycle club. Now drug running, that was a different story. Didn’t that bastard of a MC president know it, too? The fucker had to go and get himself killed before Bracken could get a bit of alone time with him, properly introduce himself to the asshole and secure his confession.
He’d been on the verge of making the biggest heroin bust in decades, and all had gone to shit. Bracken had gotten himself in good and tight with the MC, to the point where he was included in on the trade going down out in a field in Flagstaff. Money for a van loaded from floorboards to ceiling with heroin, stacked in the back and not concealed inside its body like he’d been previously led to believe. The biker crews,
the Mayhem and a rival gang, the Pitbulls, stood to make a huge profit acting as the middle men between the drug labs and an unidentified kingpin out to singlehandedly dump so much heroin out onto the streets of Sin City, the place should have been nicknamed the Mile High City. The fucker was smart, kept his hands clean, his identity hidden, and used the bikers as his money-hungry minions.
But the kingpin had gotten away, the heroin had hit the streets, and a freakin’ epidemic had grabbed Vegas by the throat. Bracken could have understood the chief’s hard-on to nail him—if he was the fucking asshole responsible. Nothing struck a nerve with cops more than a cop turned bad.
And the fact that their one witness, the Mayhem president who’d set the whole thing up, who’d kept the identity of this buyer to himself, couldn’t be brought in for questioning.
“Bled out from gunshot wounds to the leg,” Bracken had been told. From the two shots he’d put in the murdering, drug-trafficking slimeball? No way. Pres had delivered the goods, then had been silenced, his corpse riddled with bullet wounds. Stupid shit.
Flagstaff should have been the perfect bust. Bracken had sent Stefan a text with the time, location, even the goddamn plate number on the Mayhem’s transport van.
Though the MC crew had arrived an hour and a half early to an empty field. Pres positioning himself in the driver’s seat of the van. Five men, with Truman and Bracken in the back, waiting for the signal that money had been exchanged and that they could begin moving the heroin from the Pitbull’s truck into the van.
Then, things headed south.
The Pitbulls arrived an hour early. So the timing sucked all the way around. Fifteen minutes later, while Bracken was putting the last bag of the heroin into the van, Pres gave the kill order. Shots ricocheted off the van and littered the field. Both crews had been packing weapons. If Truman hadn’t knocked him away from the van, Bracken would have been dead. Minutes seemed like hours until the Pitbulls realized they didn’t stand a chance, and took off.
Out for the Count Page 9