Thunderclap (Steel Infidels MC) (Bad Boy Romance) (Steel Infidels Series Book 4)

by Burke, Dez

  Our situation can’t go on like this forever.

  I’m freaking out, and she’s passing out.

  The stress is killing us both.

  Tomorrow, we’re having a talk. I’m going to put everything out on the table.

  Whatever shit happens is going to happen anyway.

  How much worse can it be?

  I’m almost afraid to find out.

  ***

  I wake up before dawn and automatically reach for Lila. Her side of the bed is empty.

  And cold.

  Panic grips me immediately.

  “Lila?” I call out.

  The house is still and dark. There aren’t any lights on, not even in the kitchen where she sometimes hangs out in the middle of the night to do God knows what on her laptop.

  Throwing back the thin sheet, I walk into the kitchen without taking the time to put on clothes. Her laptop and cell phone are missing from the normal spot on the breakfast table in the corner. I open the front door and see that her car is gone, too. My heart starts racing in my chest as I run to the bathroom to see if her things are still there.

  Nothing is missing except her makeup bag.

  And her purse.

  Everything she needs to make a quick exit.

  She left everything else behind. All of her clothes, her personal things, and me.

  Especially me.

  I can’t believe she took off without saying a word. Not even a ‘fuck you Sam, you’re going to jail, asshole,’ as she slipped out the door.

  Deep down, I felt something was wrong last night. Her every touch told me she was getting ready to run. And that she didn’t want to go.

  Why the fuck didn’t I say something to stop her?

  I was always thinking and hoping we would be able to work things out before it was too late. Waiting for her to open up and be honest. Tell me everything so we could both stop playing this fucking game and fight our way through hell to be together.

  Maybe she thinks I couldn’t forgive her.

  Now she’s gone and I don’t know how to get her back.

  I still can’t believe this is happening.

  Hurrying back into the bedroom, I dress quickly and reach for my cell phone on the bedside table. Out of habit, I turn it on and check for messages. There’s only one message. From Lila:

  “Goodbye Sam. I’m sorry.”

  Immediately, I hit her number and the call goes straight to her voice mail. The automated message says her mailbox is full.

  “Fuck!” I yell.

  I’m not going to let her just walk away.

  This isn’t over.

  ***

  I unlock the door to the tattoo shop and flip on the lights. After crawling under my desk, I reach around and feel with my fingers for the surveillance bug.

  It’s gone.

  Shit!

  If I had doubts that Lila was gone for good, I don’t now.

  How the hell did she get in here without breaking the lock?

  Obviously she’s had a set of keys all along to the shop. I wonder how many times she’s slipped in and out of here to switch out bugs or sift through our financial records. She probably made copies of every piece of paper in the shop and listened in on all of my conversations with customers.

  Now she’s taking all of that information straight to the ATF.

  She’s probably there already, unloading a carload of incriminating shit on me and the rest of the Steel Infidels. I bet she’ll get a big promotion or at least a raise for fucking me over. Her bosses should be pleased with a job well done.

  I can see them all now. Standing around the coffee pot in the office break room, laughing about how she sucker-punched a bunch of dumbass North Georgia bikers.

  The facts can’t be denied any longer.

  She outsmarted me, and now we’re all fucked.

  It’s time to head home so I can tell Jesse that I failed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lila

  I check in my rearview mirror to make sure I’m not being followed before pulling up in front of a small house I rent in an older neighborhood in Atlanta. The house sits at the end of the block and is hidden from the street by a line of tall overgrown shrubs. Any other tenant would complain about the lack of upkeep on the house. For me and my purposes, it’s perfect.

  The owner and I have an arrangement that suits us both. I pre-pay six months of rent in cash at a time and hand-deliver the utility payments to her every month. In return, she stays out of my way and doesn’t enter the house unless I’m there.

  The house is untraceable back to me on paper, and that’s why I like it.

  As far as my co-workers at the ATF know, I live in a cheerful one-bedroom apartment two blocks from the downtown Atlanta office where I work. When I moved in, I furnished the apartment with all of the latest millennial accessories in case anyone decided to drop by unannounced.

  A shiny espresso machine with matching red cups sits on the counter. Photos are scattered around the room of me and nonexistent friends doing fun activities, like hiking in the Sierras and white water rafting. It was easy to pull the photos off the Internet and Photoshop my face onto someone else’s. If anyone visited my apartment, they would assume I live a normal life.

  That’s why I rented a second, secret place.

  The house is the only place where I feel comfortable. I converted one of the large bedrooms into an office and filled it full of hacking gear. I’m a sucker for tech gadgets.

  The room is my sanctuary.

  As far as I’m concerned, it’s nobody’s business what I do in my free time even if it is illegal.

  I don’t hurt anyone and I only hack for fun.

  There’s something about the thrill of breaking into a computer system that I can’t replicate, even with dangerous undercover work.

  I tried to stop years ago. It didn’t work.

  So now I do it quietly and all alone in a dark, old house at the end of a run-down street.

  Unfortunately, this time I can’t work alone.

  I desperately need help.

  I unload the boxes of evidence against the Steel Infidels into the house and put them on the table. After picking up and putting down my cell phone a dozen times, I finally gather the courage to dial a number I haven’t called in a very long time.

  He picks up on the second ring.

  “Erik?” I say. “It’s Delilah.”

  There is dead silence on the other end, and I wonder if I’ve dialed the wrong number. It’s been a long time since we last spoke to each other.

  “What’s wrong, love?” he finally asks. “Are you in trouble?”

  “Not yet, but I will be.”

  “What do you need?” he asks. “Name it.”

  I’m weak with relief. Thank God Erik is willing to help.

  “I need a team to clean up some audio and video tapes,” I say. “I could do it myself, but I’m running short on time. I have to turn them in to the ATF Monday morning, so we only have the weekend. Can you help me?”

  “Do you really need to ask me that?” he asks. “I would be rotting in jail if it wasn’t for you. I’ll pull a team together. Give me a few hours. Do you have a location for us?”

  I give him the address of the rental house.

  “See you tonight,” he says before hanging up.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sam

  Jesse and Trish are sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast when I walk into the house.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Trish teases. “Rough night? You look like hell.”

  Jesse takes one glance at my face and puts down his coffee mug.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “Lila’s gone. She left in the middle of the night without a word.”

  “Did you guys have a fight or something?” he asks. “You said things were going good with her.”

  I pull out a chair and slump down into it. Trish pours a cup of coffee and silently hands it to me.<
br />
  “Things were going great,” I reply. “Or so I thought. Obviously I was wrong. We didn’t have a fight. In fact, last night was fantastic. Couldn’t have been better. Too fucking bad it was all part of her act. Has been the entire time. She outsmarted me.”

  “Are you sure she’s gone for good?” Jesse asks.

  I nod. “I’m sure. She took her laptop and a couple of personal things. Left all of her clothes and everything else back at the house. On her way out of town, she swung by the shop and picked up the surveillance bug. I’ve already been there this morning and it’s gone. The bug was still under my desk yesterday when I checked.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Jesse says. “How did she get into the shop? Was the deadbolt lock broken?”

  “No. She must have duplicated the keys somehow. She’s so damn smooth I wouldn’t be surprised if she lifted them off me and made copies without me even noticing. There were plenty of opportunities.”

  “Did she take anything out of the shop? Papers? Bank statements?”

  “I didn’t take time to check. Hell, I don’t know what she did or didn’t do. Who knows? She’s gone now and we’re screwed. We need to call Flint.”

  Trish is standing quietly at the sink listening to our conversation.

  “What’s going on?” she asks. “What bug? What aren’t you two telling me?”

  Jesse lets out a long sigh. He stands up and walks over to put his arm around her shoulders. Pulling her tight against his chest, he kisses the top of her head.

  “Nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart,” he tells her. “I’ll take care of this. Go on upstairs and feed Missy while we call Flint. I’ll tell you everything later. Okay? Everything will be fine. We’ve got this.”

  She nods, but I can tell she’s worried. As she should be. We all have a right to be worried. A hell storm is about to rain down on the Steel Infidels any minute.

  I take a sip of coffee and wait until she walks down the hallway before speaking.

  “Listen Jesse, I’m sorry,” I say. “I know I let the MC down and the family. For Lila to do something like this completely shocks me. And I know what you’re going to say. That I shouldn’t have trusted her. And you’re right. She fucked me over. I honestly did not see this coming.”

  He gives me a long look. I wait, expecting him to give me a good cussing out for being such an stupid idiot. I deserve it. Instead he grips my shoulder and squeezes.

  “Let’s call Flint,” he says. “He’ll know what to do next.”

  He punches in Flint’s number on his burner phone and puts him on speakerphone so we both can hear.

  “Jesse,” Flint answers when he picks up on the second ring. “Why are you calling so early? Something wrong?”

  “Lila has left town,” Jesse says. “She picked up the surveillance equipment on her way out when she split. Sam is here with me now.”

  “Fuck!” Flint yells through the phone. “I knew this was going to happen. Sam, did she say anything to you before she left?”

  “No,” I answer. “She slipped out in the middle of the night. I didn’t even hear her leave.”

  “We need to find her fast,” Flint says. “Maybe we can stop her and coerce her into our way of thinking before she goes into the field office. If she isn’t there already.”

  “Stop her?” I ask. “How? We can’t stop her. She’s hours ahead of us. I’ve called her a hundred times and her phone keeps saying her voice mail is full. What are you suggesting anyway? That we snatch her off the street? And then what?”

  I glance over at Jesse and he looks down at his coffee mug. There’s something he’s not telling me.

  “Lila is an immediate threat to us now,” he says. “To the MC and to the family.”

  It takes me a minute to comprehend what he’s suggesting. I stare at him, not exactly shocked but horrified all the same.

  “You mean stop her as in physically stop her? You would hurt her?”

  No.

  They wouldn’t do that.

  At least Flint might not. Jesse would do it without a second thought if he had to. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to protect the MC and to keep the family together. Especially now when we have the kids to look after.

  “We’ve talked about this before,” Jesse says. “You knew this was always a possible outcome if things went bad. And things couldn’t get much worse than they are right now. She’s every bit as dangerous to us as Big Roy and the Liberators were. And we all know how that ended.”

  “Lila is a fucking federal agent,” I say. “We can’t kill a fed. There has to be another way. Find her and let me talk to her. Just give me one more shot. I can convince her to come around.”

  “Hell no!” Jesse says in frustration. “It’s too late for that. That ship has already sailed. Flint, can you talk some sense into him?”

  “Sam is right about one thing,” Flint says. “Before we do something irrational, we need to find her. Right now we’re wasting time. I’ll see if one of my guys in Atlanta can track her down. I’ll also put someone at her field office to see if she enters the building and at her apartment. If we cover all of her bases, she’ll be sure to show up somewhere before noon. Since today is Friday, maybe we’ll be lucky and she won’t go into the office until Monday. That would give us the weekend to track her down.”

  “Since when do we know where she lives in Atlanta?” I ask.

  “Almost since the beginning,” Flint answers. “I told my guy to keep digging into her background. We couldn’t find out much. Only where she lives and the office she normally works out of. And where her parents live. It’s really surprising though how much we couldn’t find out about her. No friends, no pets, no activities. Basically she doesn’t have a life outside of work.”

  “What’s her address?” I ask.

  “Don’t even start with that shit,” Flint says. “The last thing we need is you running off half-cocked and doing something stupid. Let me and Jesse handle it from now on.”

  I keep my mouth shut.

  Flint is right.

  The way I’m feeling right now, there’s no telling what I might be capable of.

  “What should we be doing in the meantime to cover our asses?” Jesse asks.

  “Alert all of the guys,” Flint says. “Call Toby and tell him to make sure everything is secure on his end with the suppliers. The merchandise needs to stay far away from us right now. It’s time we informed all of the girls about what is going on, too. Even the Sweet Butts. If ATF agents decide to make a surprise visit and come bursting through the doors, they need to be prepared. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ATF raided us before the end of the day.”

  “I’ll head on back to the shop and double check everything,” I say. “Call me the instant you find out something about Lila.”

  “No, I’m not calling you,” Flint says. “I’ll call Jesse. This is out of your hands now, Sam. I’m sorry. You have a thing for her. We get it. But you need to get the fuck over it. Frankly, I don’t want to hear another damn word from you about Lila.”

  “I’ll call the guys and then go over to the clubhouse to break the news to the Sweet Butts,” Jesse says. “It’s time to batten down the hatches and get ready for Hurricane Lila to blow back into town.”

  “This is a damn nightmare,” Flint says. “Kendra is going to kill me when she finds out I didn’t tell her about everything earlier. I’d better go grab her now before she heads out to the vet clinic. I’ll call you later with an update soon.”

  Flint hangs up the phone.

  I down my last sip of coffee and stand up.

  “Don’t you dare do anything stupid,” Jesse says. “Trust me. She’s not worth it.”

  Yes, she is.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lila

  I wait by the front window and watch for Erik and his team to arrive. When they pull into my driveway, I hurry out into the darkness to greet them.

  “This way,” I say to the group of muscular men in ti
ght t-shirts piling out of the two cars. “Feel free to put your equipment anywhere you want. None of the rooms are off limits.”

  They quickly unload their equipment and file into the house to start setting up.

  I wait for Erik to pull the last box out of the trunk. Even after all this time, he still looks exactly the same, only a few years older. Tall and big, with long wild hair, blue eyes, and a trimmed beard. A real life walking, talking Thor.

  He walks up to me and engulfs me in a big, warm hug. My eyes unexpectedly fill with tears and I blink them back. What the hell is wrong with me lately? I cry over everything. It’s been so long since I’ve seen my mentor. I knew he wouldn’t let me down.

  “Still as beautiful as ever, I see,” he says. “Don’t worry. We’ll get this done with plenty of time to spare.” He pulls back to look at me closer and tugs a loose strand of hair falling over my forehead.

  “I like your new look and hair color. It reminds me of the girl I used to know. The boring librarian look you’re rocking these days at the ATF is quite scary.”

  “I know. At least it keeps everyone off track about me.”

  “You always were a smart girl.” He slings an arm around my shoulder. “So bring me up to speed on the mess you’re in now, Delilah. Don’t leave out anything.”

  “First, I want to thank you for coming,” I say as we walk up the steps to the house. “I didn’t have anyone else to call, and you’re the smartest person I know.”

  “I’m glad you called. So does this have anything to do with the undercover investigation you’ve been working on?”

  “How do you know about that?” I ask.

  “Surely you realize I keep tabs on everyone in our old group? I had a feeling you might need my help one day. Think of me as your guardian angel.”

  “I always did. Too bad my parents didn’t feel the same way. I refused to speak to them for months when they filed the restraining order against you and the rest of the group.”

  “You were seventeen, Delilah. A minor in the eyes of the law. As a parent, you would have done the same thing. They were only trying to protect you.”