Undercover in the Dark

by Ann Jensen

  Something was off with the article. Max had plenty of experience with cover ups. This reeked of that. The details gory enough to satisfy the public but lacking any real depth.

  “Could this be another cover?”

  Cami shook her head. “Everyone wants her dead though they are pretending to try and capture her.”

  The article was dated over a month ago. “And they don’t have any leads?”

  “Nope. I think hunting her down was one of the things Agent Devin w-wanted me to d-do.” She wrung her hands and Max felt guilty for dredging up bad memories.

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. While it was tempting to keep pushing and get every piece of information he could on Avery, she was obviously uncomfortable. He would study what she had already given him before pushing for more.

  “Thanks for doing this. I’ll look this over and take it from here.” Max smiled and changed the subject. “So what do you and Tek have in mind for tonight? I’m trying to figure out how big poofy skirts and sweaters fit into some sort of kink.”

  Cami smiled and twirled in her skirt. “Max, you don’t want to know what kind of dirty things a bad boy is gonna do with a good girl tonight after he takes her to the malt shop for an ice cream.”

  Max chuckled, glad she wasn’t looking nervous anymore. He held up his hands. “You’re right. But thanks again for this.”

  After she skipped off, Max read the file poring over the details. The more he read, the more things didn’t match up. He had only met her the once but that brave vibrant woman was not the kind of coward that would shoot her partner in the back in cold blood.

  He studied the evidence gathered against her for trial. On the surface it was bulletproof. The timeline was odd. If this was right, she would have barely had enough time to kill her partner then end up chained in that basement. The prosecution was claiming she was hiding out with the slaver before fleeing the country but had left the murder weapon in her apartment. The accounts that held her dirty money were too easily found. All of it was just too perfect.

  Evidence, in his experience, was nothing like on TV. It was messy and hard to get. Leaps of logic were necessary, along with a touch of luck, which would often take investigators months to put together to have enough evidence for court. In less than a week, these detectives had collected enough concrete proof to put her away for life.

  Something was off.

  Did he care if she was a dirty agent? Yeah, he had worked with too many of those in his career. Back then he hadn’t known better or had a choice. Taken straight out of Marine bootcamp into ops so black he hadn’t known who he was working for half the time. Young and dumb, he had almost lost his soul to those assholes.

  He needed to know the truth about his Wildcat before he could even think of stopping his search.

  Chapter 5

  If you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel just light that bitch up yourself

  * * *

  Avery sat gathering her thoughts in the midafternoon sunlight in the front seat of her crappy stolen car. The tattoo parlor in front of her was the last one on her list for Colorado, but she tried not to get her hopes too high. She took a moment to look herself over in the mirror and barely recognized herself after the last month on the run. She had changed in so many ways. It wasn’t her hair, which was now back to her natural dark brown or the weight she had dropped while on the run. It was the tightness in her features, which were the result of the many moral lines she had crossed to stay alive and free.

  Being an undercover agent had given her the skills she needed to survive. Had you asked her a year ago if she would break into a federal prosecutor’s house to steal a case file or rob multiple drug houses to get the money she needed to survive, she would have laughed. Now those were just a few of the crimes she had committed.

  Kidnapping and torturing the truth out of the FBI agent who, she was pretty sure, had set her up, was starting to look like a viable plan. If she couldn’t find her mystery rescuers, and if she couldn’t get the information she needed from them, it might be her only option. Hiding forever, letting the assholes who had set her up get away with it, wasn’t in her DNA. Stupidly, at first, she had trusted the system. Four attempts on her life and two dirty transport guards intent on raping and killing her had destroyed that optimism.

  Dark Ink was the last place on her list of tattoo shops in Colorado who could have done the hyper realistic artwork she had seen on the men who had rescued her. Even a year later, every detail of the tattoo on blue eyes’ arm was fresh in her mind. If she found him then she might find the evidence she needed to clear her name of her partner’s murder. Hope was all she had.

  Avery swung her legs out of her car onto the pavement, pulling up her thigh-high boots before standing. A 1% Motorcycle club that had its hands in everything, both legal and illegal, ran Dark Ink. Her outfit had been carefully picked to play into the stupid, sexist stereotypes those kinds of men expected. Women were arm candy, only good for sex. So her skirt was short, her makeup heavy, and her top tight.

  If this was the right place she would have to convince them to give her the name of the man with the tattoo and men loved to brag to women they wanted to fuck.

  The shop wasn’t what she expected on the inside. White, black and chrome it was a clean and modern vibe with just a hint of retro. The color in the place came from large photographs of gorgeous people with tattoos covering their bodies.

  Excitement bubbled in her stomach as she thought she recognized the style. A few of the artists looked up from their stations when she walked in, but quickly went back to work. The hot factor for the men both working and getting tattoos was crazily high. A bored young woman with tattoos crawling up her neck and onto her face sat reading a magazine at the front desk. If this girl was more than a few months over eighteen, she would eat her boots. Avery’s luck with women wasn’t nearly as good as it was with men, but she approached the desk with a smile.

  “Hi!” She kept her tone light and bubbly. “I’m thinking about getting a tattoo. Can you help me?”

  The girl looked up with a raised eyebrow. “Let me guess. You want a flower or dolphin on your ankle.”

  “No.” Avery tried not to let her annoyance at the snotty comment show. She stepped to the side of the desk and leaned forward as if sharing a secret, making sure the position displayed both her ass and cleavage to anyone looking. “I want, like a super realistic motorcycle. You have anyone who does work like that here?”

  “Yeah, but he has a nine month waiting list for new customers.” The receptionist was obviously unimpressed by her act but as expected, Avery noticed several of the men checking out her ass.

  “Oh, I’m willing to wait if the person is skilled enough. I’d love to see the work and maybe talk to the artist to get an idea of what they can do.” She shifted her weight a bit and felt the fabric of her skirt riding a little higher.

  A male chuckle from behind her let her know she was having the desired effect. “Let her look at Ink’s book, Gia.”

  The man’s velvet smooth Louisiana accent sounded familiar. Avery looked back over her shoulder to see a gorgeous black man staring hungrily at her ass. He sat with a tattoo gun in one hand and his phone in the other. The artist wore the black vest that men like him called a cut. Obviously one of the Dark Sons who ran this place.

  She winked. “Thanks.”

  His eyes flared with what she assumed was interest before she turned back around. Perfect, she had a possible in to their Club if it turned out she needed more information.

  The girl at the desk looked surprised, but shrugged. “Sure, Boss.” She reached under the counter and pulled out a photo book almost three inches thick and flipped pages using a tab. “These are some of the motorcycles he’s done. You can look at them over there.”

  The woman nodded to some comfortable looking black leather chairs against the wall. Excited, Avery nodded her thanks and took the book to sit down. She’d looked through so many tattoo
books over the last month that she shouldn’t get her hopes up, but something inside her said she was about to finally get a clue.

  Some of the ink in the photos was so impressive it was hard to believe they weren’t photos. She flipped a few pages and barely contained her whoop of excitement as a photo of the very tattoo she dreamed about was displayed across the page. All her work was about to pay off. She would get the identity of the sexy forearm in the photo no matter what.

  “Got your text, Hannibal. You need help with something? I was about to take off for the Clubhouse.” The Texas drawl pulled her back in time.

  You need help with that filly?

  She wrenched herself out of the memory, knowing now that she was definitely in the right place. The man standing next to the well-muscled and tattooed black man who had been checking out her ass was the picture of bad-boy cowboy. Despite the ink that covered his body and his Dark Sons cut, he still exuded an almost wholesome country vibe. Shaggy blond hair and a face made for smiling, he probably had women lining up at his door. She preferred a rougher cut of man, but she could appreciate the appeal.

  Hannibal nodded to his phone, then at her. For a moment she thought they might recognize her. “Nah. Got a potential customer for you.”

  This must be Ink. It was an obvious nickname for a tattoo artist. She wondered what the story was behind Hannibal’s nickname. Was he a cannibal or something? The cowboy tattoo artist gave her a saucy wink before looking down at his friend’s phone. He gave a broad smile that was almost feral.

  She wondered if Hannibal had snapped a picture of her ass on display. Men only got that look before sex or violence, and she wasn’t up for either.

  He strolled over to her with a predatory glide and looked down at the page she held open in her lap. “Not many women want a tattoo quite so gritty.”

  It took her mind a minute to kick into gear. She couldn’t blow this chance. The pieces fell into place. If these two had been part of the men who rescued her, then they would have access to the information she needed. Rumor was that all the Dark Sons members were ex-military. The men that day had acted as a unit. Was it possible she had a motorcycle club to thank for saving her and all those women?

  “I like it. It’s sort of primal and modern at the same time.”

  He chuckled. “It’s one of the bikes from “Mad Max”. You ever see the movie?”

  Had she, please, she loved the classics. “I hope you’re talking “Beyond Thunderdome” because the others aren’t tattoo worthy.”

  “Well, aren’t you just a surprise?” He smiled. “Come on back and we’ll get you set up.”

  Wait. What?

  “I thought you had a waiting list.” Was she going to actually get a tattoo? She loved the look of tattoos, especially this man’s work, but had always avoided getting one. Identifying marks when you were undercover were a no-no.

  “I had the afternoon off, but for you I’ll make an exception.” His eyes roamed her body with an amused twinkle.

  “Oh. And it’ll be just like that one?” she asked. The man behind the tattoo had haunted her fantasies for way too long. How she could find a man attractive – whom she had never really seen – was baffling. Unfortunately, her dreams had been filled with alternate endings to their wrestling match. Ones that left her wet and aching.

  “I can do that. Where do you want it?” His voice held a hint of a dare, like he expected her to back out.

  She wouldn’t back down. Where could she put it that clothes would cover it, but she could still enjoy looking at it? The idea of having a matching tattoo with the man she had been hunting for the last month had excitement building in her core.

  “My hip.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Sensitive spot, think you can handle it?”

  “Oh, I can handle anything you can dish out.” It probably wasn’t the smartest response. She was trying to make him think she was harmless. Sometimes the fire she had inherited from her mother slipped out.

  “I’m sure you can.” He shook his head. “What’s your name, sweetness?”

  Biting back her instinct to rail against the crappy endearment, she gave a smile that probably held too many teeth. “Cat. You can call me Cat.”

  It was probably stupid playing off the nickname they had given her. But this man was so focused on her assets she doubted he would recognize her, even if she still had the red hair and fifteen extra pounds cushioning her body.

  “All right, Cat. The tattoo will take at least two sessions but we can lay down the outline today.”

  Putting back on her ditzy persona, she pushed a bit. “I won’t mind two sessions with you. Any way I could see the other tattoo in person? The picture’s great but it would be so cool if I could see what the color’s going to look like in person.”

  He offered her a hand up from the chair, and she took it. Avery gave him what she hoped was a seductively pleading look, and his lip twitched in a smile.

  “I think that can be arranged.”

  Finally, things were starting to go right for her. She would find her way into their little boys’ club and get the information she needed to clear her name.

  Chapter 6

  If the words don’t add up, it’s usually because the truth wasn’t included in the equation.

  * * *

  Max growled as he kicked down the jiffy stand of his Harley. Two hours. Two fucking hours since he had received the text from Hannibal that upended his day.

  Hannibal: We found your girl.

  The picture attached had been a gorgeous view of Avery bent over the reception desk at Dark Ink. Her ass cheeks poked out from the bottom of a barely-there jean skirt. The woman he had been obsessing over had been looking back at the camera as if daring someone to come push that fabric higher.

  If he hadn’t been leading the escort of a shipment of electronics for the Minetti family, he could have been here in less than thirty minutes. Instead, his nerves had slowly frayed as he waited for backup to come take his place, hoping Hannibal and Ink could stall her. If she wasn’t still here, he might do something regrettable. While he was at the wishing for miracles stage of things, he hoped his kinky Brothers hadn’t resorted to extreme measures to keep her here.

  He needed to know she was all right, but more than that, he didn’t want her hurt any more than she already had been. No matter what his subconscious sent into his dreams, he knew the likelihood of them connecting in a more personal way was slim.

  Dark Ink, like most tattoo parlors, was busiest in the evening, and almost every station had an artist and customer filling its space. Hannibal was sitting at his station. The big shit-eating grin on his face let Max know she was still here, but something was up. Neither Ink nor his Wildcat were anywhere in sight.

  Max tried to rein in his frustration. His obsession with this woman had grown worse in the last few days as he pored over the information Cami had found. The twenty-seven-year-old woman had been on the fast track to becoming a superstar agent within the DEA until she supposedly went dirty just over a year ago.

  Fuck, he of all people knew it was easy to lose your way when undercover, but the more he read, the more convinced he was she’d been set up. Max had helped build enough false cases to recognize one when he saw it. Everything was just a little too perfect. All the evidence lining up with the crafted story. Nothing out of place. Real life was messy, and you often had to interpret and make leaps of logic from the evidence. Rarely did you have everything you needed. But then that could be wishful thinking on his part.

  Regardless, for his own sanity, he needed to see her. He never left anything unfinished. Not being able to find her had been like an itch under his skin. Once he figured out what to do about Avery, it would settle everything from the mess last year. Deciding if he would help her or not would depend on what she had to say about her situation.

  “Where is she?” Years of practice and undercover work meant he could keep his voice calm even when his insides were a mass of emotions and con
flicting desires.

  “Ink’s keeping her busy in the back.” Even with his slow drawl, the man sounded insufferably smug.

  Max clenched his fists and took a deep breath. “Keeping her busy?”

  Hannibal’s smirk showed he heard the jealousy hidden behind his calm words. “She came in for a tattoo, figured giving her some ink was a great way to pass the time.” He leaned back on his stool. “You’ll never guess what she picked.”

  Max remembered every blank inch of Avery’s caramel skin. That she would come in for her first tattoo while on the run seemed far-fetched. What scheme did she have going on? Did she know that the Dark Sons had been involved in her rescue? He crossed his arms, not in the mood for the southern man’s games.

  “What?”

  Hannibal nodded towards his arm. “Your bike.”

  The information hit him like a punch. The startlingly realistic Harley on his arm had been a collaboration between him and Ink. It was a nod to his new name and his love of motorcycles. He had earned his Mad Max road name the first time his Brothers saw him riding motocross. Doing tricks and avoiding obstacles while on a racing motorcycle was the only time he felt alive. The speed and tight control needed over his bike and body while racing allowed no other thought to enter his mind. It was an occasional few hours where he had the freedom to forget his past and live in the moment.

  He wished he had discovered the sport when he was an out-of-control teenager. Instead, his actions had led him to where he had to choose between jail and the Marines. Bootcamp was where Uncle Sam had found him. His moral flexibility and anger made him perfect for what they wanted. Even though they said, ‘Once a Marine, always a Marine’, he never claimed membership with those men because they didn’t deserve to be associated with what he had done for his country.