“Adam’s right,” Bill said, putting the fax down on the bar. “It ain’t the girl’s fault. But it’s better that she has a new security team. We’re gonna need all hands for Joey. This is going to be dangerous. We’ll be going against a rival gang and we’re going in on Echo Lane. If the Stealers don’t get you, someone else might. Anyone who can’t do the job, who can’t follow orders, should leave now.”
No one moved. No one spoke. A room full of men armed to the teeth. Men who were afraid of death and pain, men with wives and children, they would all go. Adam looked at the room around him, at his brothers. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he had signed the Kane contract. Back then his biggest worry was one of his men hitting on Dakota Kane. But Adam had been the unstable element. Back then he had trusted himself more than anyone else; he had been so sure he could resist the charms of Dakota, but she had pulled him in and, even now, he missed her and wished that she were close.
He never would have dreamed that signing the Kane contract would have brought him to this moment. His own body sore and bruised, his best friend kidnapped, and Scarred Angels standing at the edge, about to tip over into a war. It had all been about the money then, but now it was about everything else. It was about love and loyalty and doing the right thing. Those were abstract concepts, not worth dying over, but these men in front of him were the real deal. They were family and they would fight for each other.
But what about Dakota? Could she ever be part of the family? Would his men ever go to bat for her like they did for each other? Adam’s heart was wrenched at the thought of what she was thinking. She had found the picture and the note, the threat written on there. She didn’t trust Adam or Scarred Angels anymore and the worst part was that Adam couldn’t blame her. The club had done what it always did in times of crisis: it had banded together. But when they came together, it meant other things and other people had to be pushed away.
If only Adam had been there to talk to her, to promise her that he would keep her safe and rescue Joey. He could do both. He was sure of it. But she was gone now, in hiding with her new security team. It’s better this way, Adam thought. If Dakota knew what they planned, she would want to come along, and there was no way that Adam could have brought her to Echo Lane. No, let her stay where she could be safe, where Adam wouldn’t have to worry. He could focus on getting Joey back and then he would fix everything with Dakota. Right now, it was time to prepare for battle. To put on armor and ready his weapons, Scarred Angels was going to war.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Echo Lane. They told stories about the place when Dakota was in high school, stories of girls who went there looking for drugs and never came back out. People would later claim to see these girls hooking on street corners, another person sucked into the game. Dakota had never believed them. They always involved a friend’s cousin’s brother’s ex-girlfriend; they were too far removed to be real. But Echo Lane itself, that was a real place, a bad place.
In high school they used to drive past it. They would skirt past the edges of the dangerous neighborhood, seeing how close they could get, what they could see, what stories they could bring home. They had been spoiled tourists, ogling at the poverty that existed alongside their mansions, golf courses, and stables. It had been tasteless, but as teenagers they hadn’t known better.
Even in her charity work, Dakota had little to do with Echo Lane. The people there considered themselves past hope. It’s the saddest thing in the world, Dakota thought, when there isn’t even the hope that you might make it out. That was where Dakota was going, to Echo Lane, alone.
Was this incredibly stupid? Maybe, Dakota figured, but it was the fastest way to end all of this. If all the Soul Stealers cared about was money, then giving them a lot of it should convince them. But she knew what she was doing wasn’t right. The Soul Stealers were bad and she was going to give them a lot of money to fund their bad deeds. Was that fair, the cost of her and her father’s life against what this money could give the Stealers? Maybe they weren’t all bad. Maybe they could be like Scarred Angels and go straight.
In the end, Dakota had weighed the negatives and the positives. The Stealers had kidnapped Joey to turn Scarred Angels against the Kanes. If not sorted out soon, this could cause a gang war. There would be casualties, jail time, innocent people would get hurt. Funding the Soul Stealers might give them more money to buy guns and drugs, or it could be money they used to go straight. Either way, she could trade it for Joey and get the name of who was paying them to attack her family.
She hadn’t heard from Adam, but she didn’t expect to. He would never choose a client over the club. No matter how much he liked that client or how good the sex was, he would never put her before them. Adam Kane was kind and good, but before all of that, he was loyal. He owed everything in his life to Scarred Angels. Those men were his brothers and he would wage a war for them, a war that could see Adam as a prime target.
That was the other reason she was driving her car farther and farther from the center of the city. Adam wouldn’t just be involved in the war; he would be a general. In a fight of gang versus gang, it would be the leaders who would be the most vulnerable. The Soul Stealers would want to cripple Scarred Angels quickly; the best way to do that would be to take out their leader and their heart: Adam Mendel. If this money could save Adam, there was no limit to what Dakota would have spent.
The streets around her were getting worse. There was trash piled up on the corners and few lights on the houses. Men and women sat idling on stoops, flares of light going up in front of their faces as they lit up whatever they were smoking. The streetlights were weak, and every other one was either out or broken, some still lying in the street where they had fallen. Dakota slowed as the potholes in the damaged street grew worse and worse. Echo Lane, how the wealthy of the city had tossed it aside, claimed it a lost cause. There were still people living here, people who needed help, but would never get it.
Was giving this money to the Soul Stealers the right thing to do? What would happen to this neighborhood if they were given all this money? Would it just make the place worse? Would it increase the violence and the drugs? Dakota had always thought she knew what the right thing to do was. Charity was good for all, except when it wasn’t, when it went to the wrong people, when it only made things worse.
I won’t forget, she thought to herself. Whatever money she gave to the Soul Stealers, she would give three times as much to this neighborhood. She could come here every day and make sure the money went where it should. She would make it better. And hopefully this would end the war before it began. Adam wouldn’t have to trade Dakota and her father in for Joey. If she did this, he wouldn’t have to make that choice.
She wished Adam were there with her. Not that he would have let her go, he would have forbidden it, and Dakota understood why. Echo Lane made The Black Mark look like a Hilton. It was beyond dangerous. In Echo Lane, Dakota couldn’t be sure the cops would come if she called them. No, Adam would have convinced her to stay home. He would have put her in his house, set the alarms and the locks, and he would have gone. Dakota could have stayed safe. She would be curled up, eyes stuck on her phone, waiting desperately for him to call.
Adam would have known how to handle the Soul Stealers; he would have all of Scarred Angels behind him. He would never go alone; he wouldn’t have to. Dakota was envious of the brotherhood that Scarred Angels shared. She was an only child, and while she had many friends, she hadn’t bothered to ask any of them to come; she knew none of them would. They talked about being best friends for life, but none of them would have traveled into this lion’s den with her.
She wiped an errant tear away. Don’t be sad; be angry! She counseled herself. The Soul Stealers had done something that was equal parts genius and foolish. In kidnapping Joey they had driven a wedge between the Kanes and their protector employees. It was an undefeatable wedge. No amount of money would have convinced Scarred Angels that losing one of their brothers was wor
th it. No amount of money could make things okay between Scarred Angels and the Kanes. But they had also made a lifelong and dangerous enemy. Scarred Angels might have been working hard to go straight, but that transition hadn’t made them weak, or easily pressured. When pushed, they would still push back.
No amount of money could repair the rift created by the Soul Stealers, the rift that had separated the Kanes and Scarred Angels. But money could do one thing in this scenario. It could get Joey back and maybe, just maybe, it could reveal the identity of their erstwhile killer. However much the attacker was paying the Soul Stealers, Dakota would double it. And all she needed was the name.
She had her sale’s pitch ready to go. The Soul Stealers were paid a certain sum of money to kill her and her father. Killing the two of them, no doubt, involved a lot of work, time, and money. There had been plans, necessary to avoid arrest after, transportation, whatever. Dakota, for her part, would pay them double and all she would need was the name of who had paid them. That’s it just a name, twice as much money, and all they would have to do is speak. From there, the money would be theirs free and clear.
She hadn’t brought the money with her; she knew better. That morning she had gone to several banks and within a few hours she had one million dollars in a red duffle bag. The money, in cash, was in a storage locker at the airport. Dakota had a time stamped photo of the money. She would show them the picture and then, when she had what she needed, she would give them the pass code and the Soul Stealers could open the locker and get the money. Once she had her information, and confirmed it was the correct name, she would give them another million the same way and they would part ways. If it were more than two million, then so be it. There was no amount of money she wouldn’t pay for her family's safety.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Adam looked at his men, all of them. Every member of Scarred Angels who could walk was here, all of them armed to teeth and ready for war. His entire life, Adam had wanted to join Scarred Angels. The only pleasant memories he had of his father was sitting and watching the older man work on his bike. Adam could still remember his father’s grease stained fingers, the knuckles, and the hard, calloused hands. The only time his father was a real father was when he was working on his bike. He and Adam would spend hours together, his father pointing out the million different pieces of the bike, and Adam, so desperate to please him, had memorized every one.
Then it was the same with his uncle. Bill stayed away from the hard drugs. He was a hardworking, quiet man. On that fateful day when Bill had come to rescue Adam from the Kane Home for Young boys, Adam had been terrified. He remembered his uncle as a constant thorn in his father’s side. Bill was the name that was cursed in the house. His father was always talking about Bill and how he thought himself so much better than the rest. Then Adam had met the man himself, quiet and imposing.
But even as a young boy, Adam knew the reason his father hated his brother was because Bill refused to give them money. His father would call and beg, lie, and bargain for cash and while Bill was willing to pay the electricity or buy school clothes for Adam, he refused to give outright cash. Bill was well aware that the money requested wasn’t for a field trip for Adam; it was for crack and he refused to enable them. Bill would call and try anything to get Adam’s father into rehab, or to rescue Adam from the house. But Adam’s parents wouldn’t hear of it. They refused to quit the drugs and they refused to give up their son. And eventually, just as predicted, the state had come for them and Adam and the family had been ripped apart.
Scarred Angels was how Adam and Bill finally connected. After school, Adam would go to the garage where his uncle worked and he would watch the older man meticulously take apart a complex machine, find the problem, and put it back together. Adam helped, how could he not? He had been trained from an early age. In the garage, he met the other members of Scarred Angels. He met Joey’s father. Members of Scarred Angels had picked him up from school, had made him dinner, taught him how to drive right. From the age of eleven all Adam wanted was to be a member, to always have these brothers in his life.
Now they all stood before him. Adam felt like a general, but a woefully prepared one. He was their leader now. He would have to be the one to tell them to go. He would tell this man to go here and another to go there. Who would live, who would die, no one could say. It wasn’t up to fate; it was up to Adam. He didn’t know what he would do if one of them fell, if someone died because of the decisions he made.
He should have tried harder to figure out who was hurting the Kanes. At the time, he had left it to the police. People would say what they wanted about cops, but he knew when a family like the Kanes was on the line, the police would stop at nothing until the killer was captured. Adam had assumed that his job was protection and nothing more. But he was protecting the Kanes against a specific target and they hadn’t done enough to figure out who the attacker was. And now they were going to war.
And what about Dakota? Sweet, kind, gentle Dakota. Dakota was the kind of person who snuck out at night to get toys for a crying boy, who actually worked at her charities, who worked to make the world a better place. But it was more than that. Yes she was kind, but she was also sexy. Still he could remember the touch of her skin, the way it felt to be inside of her, the cries she let out in the throes of passion. Dakota, standing by his workbench wearing only an old t-shirt of Adam’s, he could still see her, the sunlight glinting off of her hair.
Did she think he would ever hurt her? That he would ever allow anyone to hurt her? Never. Not even Scarred Angels, the group he was sworn to above all others; he would never allow them to hurt her, to trade her in. Not that they would have. Scarred Angels would get Joey back, not by trade, but by war. They would find the Stealers where they rested and they would root them all out. They would burn their clubhouse to the ground and salt the ashes. But they would never have traded an innocent life.
Is that what Dakota thought? That her life was in danger, that Adam might hurt her? Didn’t she understand how precious she was to him, how important? But he looked over his sea of men and knew they were just as important. It wasn’t an either or scenario; it was all of them. They were all going to survive. It was the Soul Stealers who would fall.
They were in a garage warehouse that belonged to the gang. It was where they kept their bikes and some of their illegal items they didn’t want the police knowing about. The garage was outfitted like a bunker, but tonight they weren’t going to stay safe at home; they were going to go out and hunt the Stealers down. Adam felt a nudge on his shoulder. It was Bill, reminding him there was work to be done and Adam needed to do it.
Launching himself up on a cement platform Adam looked out at the men assembled before him. He knew them all, men he had ridden with, fought with, partied with, and mourned with. He looked at them all and then, clearing his throat, he said to them, “Tonight isn’t going to be easy, and it isn’t going to be safe. Echo Lane is bad; the Stealers are worse. There will be fighting and bloodshed and death. But they have one of our own, and we will not permit that to stand. Much will be required tonight, but I know we have what we need. If any one of you isn't prepared for this, isn’t ready for what we’re about to face, then leave now, because our plan needs each and every one of you to work. Everyone has their assignments and everyone must stick to them. If you think you can’t handle it, then walk out this door and know it’s the right thing to do.”
No one moved.
“Joey has been my friend since we were both in school. When the Stealers took him, they thought they could break us. They thought they could tell us what to do. They thought they could rule us. But we are Scarred Angels and no one rules us. Anyone touches us, we will strike back against them a thousand times worse. Let’s ride.” The men around him cheered as Adam descended from the podium. He stopped, looking at his uncle and the older man put one hand on Adam’s shoulder, and then Adam moved on.
He checked the pistol in its holster, and the shotgun a
ttached to the side of the bike. He strapped his helmet into place and heard his bike roar to life beneath him with the sound of four other bikes. He was the advanced guard. They would go, scope the place out, and find out how many men and guns, how many buildings. They would formulate the plan of attack and the rest of Scarred Angels would follow.
He thought of Dakota one last time, imagining her kiss, the feel of her skin, her laugh. And then he banished her from his mind. Dakota was too sweet and kind; he couldn’t think of her and do what he needed to do. He needed to be tough and resilient, and cruel if it called for it. He needed to be iron and stone. He needed to be judgmental thunder brought down from the heavens. He needed to cause fear in who he was about to meet. But he couldn’t do that and think of her. He needed to turn off the Adam she loved and turn on the Adam that men feared.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Dakota had called the Stealers that morning; she had told them she would meet them at nine o’clock that night. It was eight fifty-five and she was only a few blocks away. She was deep in Echo Lane now; the only sounds were the occasional roar of an engine and shouts, cries and screams. There was no laughter or light, only darkness. She could die in here she knew that. She could be kidnapped and ransomed; she could be kidnapped and never seen again. Her only consolation was that she was worth more than the money in the storage locker. If things got really dicey, she could promise them more money, any amount of money they wanted; they could have it all as far as Dakota Kane was concerned.
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