Burnout: A Legal Heat Novella

by Sarah Castille

  Skinner raised an eyebrow. “You can’t make an agreement on his behalf.”

  “But you can.” She leaned forward, a bubble of excitement flaring in her belly. “I know you’ve got someone inside. He could get a message to Jason, obtain his consent. He could get him out…”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Her bubble burst and she deflated. “But Ice…”

  His eyes widened and he jerked back as if slapped. “Ice?” Skinner snorted. “Goddammit, he has his finger in too many pies.”

  “You know him?”

  “Waste of one of the best damn cops I ever knew,” he grumbled. “Now he thinks he’s some kind of Robin Hood. One day his meddling is going to get someone killed.”

  Hope flared again, and she gripped the edge of his desk, ready to ride the roller coaster again. “Or save someone.”

  “If we did have someone deep undercover…” He lowered his voice, and Sophie held her breath so she didn’t miss a word. “And I’m not saying we do. Getting that information in and out and arranging an extraction could risk exposing such an undercover agent, or worse, get him killed. He would have to be worth it.”

  Sophie could almost taste victory, but she quashed her excitement and struggled to maintain a professional calm. “You know he is. I only had a brief look at the file, but the chief constable of the Investigative Division will know all the details. Jason is very well connected. He could bring a lot of people down. Save a lot of lives.”

  “You’d never see him again,” Skinner said. His gaze seemed to penetrate, shuffling through her motivations.

  “I won’t see him again if we don’t do this, but at least this way I’ll know he’s alive and justice will be served.”

  His lips twitched at the corners. “Good to know you’re on the right side.”

  “I’m a police officer.” She stood, her body thrumming with a confidence and conviction she hadn’t felt in years. This was what she was meant to do, where she was meant to be, who she was.

  Sophie Nichols, police officer. With a little streak of wild.

  And since she did have that bit of wild, why not ask for one more thing? “I have one more request.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to Skinner. “A real missing person. His name is Sam Logan. He was separated from his brother in foster care about twenty-five years ago. I want to find him.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I want to leave the MC.”

  Ace sipped his beer, keeping his gaze on Ice keeping watch at the far end of Rusty’s Blues Bar on Granville Street. If things went bad, he was pretty sure he could take Ryder despite his injury, but Ice was a whole different ball game.

  Ryder froze, his glass halfway to his lips, his beer vibrating to the steady beat of FitnessGlo’s Biker Blues, playing through the speakers. “No one leaves. You made a life commitment when you pledged to join the MC.”

  “I made that pledge to Hades MC. Not to the Rogue Riders.” He hated relying on technicalities. He was a straight-up kind of guy, but he’d thought long and hard about his future for the three days he’d been laid up in bed, and he’d come to the conclusion that if he wanted a chance at the kind of stable life he had craved as a child, with a woman like Sophie, he would have to give up the club that had been his family for almost ten years.

  “You’re gonna throw that at me, brother?” Ryder’s eyes narrowed, and guilt speared through Ace’s chest. After Ryder, Ace, and a group of like-minded brothers broke from Hades MC to form their own club, they had struggled to gain a foothold in the already crowded underground black market. In the interests of getting the club up and running quickly, Ryder had dispensed with the formalities of patching in brothers who had already been through the process when they’d patched in to Hades.

  “It’s not personal, brother. I just got a need to do something different with my life. You bury as many friends as I have, and you realize how short life really is. When I decided to follow you out of Hades, I didn’t see a future beyond the club. I was happy to live the life, stick it to the man, and turn my back on civilian law. And then I met Sophie. She’s everything we stand against, and she’s everything I want.”

  Ryder gave an irritated huff. “You want to leave your brothers for a woman?”

  Ace’s pulse kicked up a notch, and he placed his glass on the worn, wooden table. He’d picked this bar for the meet because it was always crowded, with a mix of students, bikers and locals, the odd suit, and musicians hoping to be discovered in the weekly jam sessions. Ryder wouldn’t get heavy with so many witnesses around. “I want to leave for me. The system failed me when I was a kid. Social services, the cops… no one gave a damn. I think that’s what drew me into the life. But I’ve met a woman who believes in the system. So much so that she went back to them and pleaded her case even after we offered her an alternative. It gives me hope.”

  “Some might see that as a betrayal,” Ryder said evenly.

  “I haven’t betrayed the club.” Ace curled his hand into a fist, his nails digging into his palm. “But I have betrayed myself. I’m a builder, Ryder. Before I joined Hades, I was apprenticed to a carpenter. I worked with my hands, created things that would last. I need to do that with my life. I don’t want to be another casualty like all the friends I lost, and the way the club is going now, I can see that happening. You’re a good leader. And I believed in your vision for the club, but it wasn’t going to happen with brothers who knew nothing but the old way. You need to start something new. You and Ice. Maybe Kickstand and the prospects. Start from the ground up. Build something that’s all your own.”

  Ryder heaved a sigh. “I thought you were the builder.”

  “I am,” Ace said. “But what I want to build needs a foundation that’s going to last and a woman who’ll work by my side.”

  For a long moment, Ryder didn’t speak. Ace curled his hand around his glass. In a fight, anything could be a weapon.

  “It will set a bad precedent if I let you walk,” Ryder mused. “We’ve only just got the club going.”

  “I gave ten years of good service to Hades.” Ace wiped his palm over his jeans beneath the table. Christ. He’d never sweated so badly in a meeting. But then he’d never veered off the path that had led him to biker life. And he’d never defied his president. “It’s not like I joined the club to try it on and decided it wasn’t for me. And the brothers you’ve got with you now… they’re good guys, but they’re not my guys. Except for you and Ice, the friends I had are all dead or in jail.”

  He’d had his first thoughts about walking away after Arcade’s funeral, but leaving the life was no easy task. He’d had no idea what he would do or where he would go or how he would manage without the MC at his back.

  But Sophie had changed everything. She inspired him. Made him want to be more than the man he was. She made him see a future where he wasn’t always looking over his shoulder. He could build something that would last. Give rather than take. She gave him hope, happiness, and the determination to pursue the dream of a young boy who had closed himself off to the possibility of love.

  Ryder drummed his thumb on the table. His gaze flicked from Ace to Ice and then back again. Ace’s skin prickled and adrenaline pulsed through his body. He’d never been able to read Ryder, and he had no idea if Ryder was about to shoot him or shake his hand and say good-bye.

  “I don’t want you in the MC if you don’t want to be here,” he said finally. “Nothing more dangerous than a brother who isn’t committed to the club. I wouldn’t be able to rely on you to have your brothers’ backs. I wouldn’t trust you not to turn rat.”

  “I would never—”

  Ryder held up a hand, cutting him off. “You’re one of the most loyal and honourable men I know. Just the fact you sat down with me and laid all your cards on the table tells me you would never betray the club. But the brothers don’t know you the way I do. And because we’re a new club, everyone will be watching. If you want out, we
need a reason for you to walk away. And no one can know.”

  Emotion welled up in Ace’s throat. Ryder was good man, a great leader. He’d made a mistake patching in the legacy Hades members, but Ace knew Ryder would find a way to fix the problem. He always did.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Ryder said.

  “Lay it on me.”

  Ryder’s face tightened. “If we run with it, you might never be able to ride again.”

  Ace’s breath left him in a rush. He’d bought his first bike when he turned sixteen, upgrading as he made more money until he could afford the Harley he needed to be considered as a prospect for Hades MC. His bike was his life, his freedom, as much a part of him as his arms and legs… He stiffened his spine, firmed his resolve. If his bike were the only thing that stood between him and the new life he wanted to make, and the girl he wanted to make it with, he would give it up.

  “Okay.”

  “You might also lose a leg.”

  “Christ, Ryder.” Ace threw himself back in the chair. “What the hell kind of plan is that?”

  Ryder shrugged. “It’s one that depends on how good a cop Sophie really is and how well she can shoot a gun.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Heart thudding, Sophie grabbed her duffel bag containing two hundred thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills and slid out of her car in the parking lot of the North Vancouver Sulphur Works. Despite the darkness, the iconic twenty-five-meter-high, 160,000-ton outdoor stockpile of sulphur was clearly visible, a neon-yellow beacon marking the edge of Coal Harbour. She’d heard rumours about the smell allegedly emanating from the sulphur pile, but aside from a faint whiff of rotten eggs, the air was dominated by the scent of fish and seaweed as a cool breeze blew off the ocean.

  She checked her phone yet again for a message from Ace. He hadn’t answered her texts or calls since she’d left him at the clubhouse three days ago. She had no idea if his injuries had gotten worse, if he was angry she’d walked out when he was asleep, or if he was disappointed she had turned to the police to help her save Jason.

  Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t around. He wouldn’t be happy with what she planned to do.

  “Can you hear me?” she whispered into the stillness. The “wire” the police had given her was unlike anything she’d seen on television. Lacking any actual wires, the transmitting device fit into her phone, and the receiver was the barest sliver of metal affixed to her ear.

  “We got you, but keep the noise down. You don’t know who might be watching.” Dan, her handler for the exchange, had been brusque and efficient when he’d prepped her, and not at all reassuring about her chances of success at retrieving Jason. Although the undercover officer, deeply embedded in the Red Dragons, had managed to convince the Mountain Master, head of the Red Dragons, to accept her offer to pay a ransom to free Jason, Dan told her these scenarios usually went wrong. Even with a SWAT team standing by to move in after the drop, he calculated her chances of success at less than thirty percent.

  Not what she wanted to hear.

  Her phone buzzed and she checked the message.

  “They want me to go inside,” she whispered as she read the message from the Red Dragon contact.

  “Don’t go in,” Dan barked through the earpiece. “That wasn’t the deal. You agreed on an outdoor exchange. If you go in, we won’t have a visual. What’s to stop them from killing you both? You’re a witness to a crime. Stay outside. Make them come to you.”

  Sophie texted her position to Jason’s captors. A minute later, she received another text threatening to cut off Jason’s fingers.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “They’re going to hurt him.”

  “Stay outside.”

  Sophie gritted her teeth and clutched the duffel bag. A minute passed. Then another. The next text was so vicious it ripped the breath from her lungs, and she was running before her mind had even processed that she had moved.

  She thudded the door open and whispered, “I’m inside.”

  Dan shouted an unsupportive “fuck” into her ear as the door closed behind her.

  Still, she had her weapon, a small .22 strapped to a holster on her leg. Although the Red Dragons had been particular about the details for the exchange, they hadn’t told her to come unarmed.

  Taking a moment to orient herself in the suffocating darkness, she took a few deep breaths and then called out, “Hello?”

  A light flashed. And then another. A spotlight came on, illuminating a figure slumped in a chair.

  Her pulse kicked up a notch, and she tried to shield herself from the glare with her free hand. “Jason?”

  She took a step forward only to fall back when a hand clamped on her shoulder.

  “You come alone?”

  Deep and rich with a hint of prairie twang, the voice behind her was not what she had expected from a member of the Red Dragons.

  “Yes.”

  He tugged the duffel bag from her grasp. “Money’s all here?”

  Sophie nodded. “Two hundred thousand dollars in unmarked hundred-dollar bills.”

  “Wired?”

  Her breath caught in her throat, but before she could lie, his hand slid through her hair, and he deftly plucked the receiver from her ear.

  “Not very discreet.” He dropped the device and crunched it under his shoe on the concrete floor, sending bile rising up her throat. “Transmitter in the phone?”

  Unwilling to give out even the tiniest bit of information, she stiffened and clamped her lips shut.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Hand it to me.” Sophie shuddered and dug the phone out of the duffel bag, then moved to hand it to him.

  “Don’t turn around.” He plucked the phone from her hand, and suddenly she was totally and utterly alone.

  Sophie’s heart thudded so hard she feared she would break a rib. Worse was the deafening rush of blood through her ears that signalled her fear was getting out of check. For a moment, she wondered what would have happened if she’d let the Rogue Riders handle everything. No doubt she would be home now baking pies and watching television. The police, however, had no qualms about using her as bait since her connection to Jason had convinced the Red Dragons her offer to ransom him was legitimate.

  Feet thudded over concrete and she heard the scrape of gravel. Oh God. More gang members. Two, maybe three, behind her and not just one as she had hoped.

  She heard the click of the phone’s plastic casing and then a laugh. “Lookit this piece-of-shit transmitter. It’s from the dark ages. I’ll bet it doesn’t have a range more than fifty meters. I think they musta been trying to get rid of her.”

  Puzzled at the hint of concern laced with the anger in his voice, Sophie looked over her shoulder.

  “What did I say about turning around, sweetheart?”

  Sweetheart?

  “We’re gonna pat you down now to make sure we don’t have any accidents. Unless you want to tell me if you’ve got another wire or any weapons on you.”

  “Go to hell.”

  The man chuckled. “He did tell us you were a bit of a firebrand. Arms out. You know the drill.”

  Sophie didn’t move. “I’ve done everything you asked. Now I want to see Jason.”

  His voice dropped low in warning. “You aren’t in a position to make demands.”

  She pressed her lips together. Resisting was pointless at this stage, and yet she couldn’t go down without a fight, fruitless as it might be. “You touch anything you’re not supposed to touch and I’ll slice off your balls.” Ace’s threat had sounded pretty damn effective when they’d been at the beer store. She hoped it sounded as menacing coming from her, despite the lack of expletives.

  “Harsh words for a pretty girl.” He positioned her arms out to the sides. “I promise to be good.”

  And he was. The pat down was perfunctory at best, but he did find her weapon and the knives she had hidden up her sleeves in contravention of police policy. But after seeing how effective they could be in taking
even someone as strong as Ace down, she’d made her illegal purchases at a pawn shop on Granville Street and been back in time to be wired. Good cop Sophie had become a little bit bad.

  “Did you check the money?” The second voice was familiar, slightly higher in tone, younger. Her fear-fuzzed brain struggled to place it and came up blank.

  “Into the light while we count the cash.” The hand on her shoulder directed her forward, and she walked toward the man in the chair, trying to make out his features. Was Jason hurt? Alive? But the light was too bright, and all she could see was the barest outline of a man surrounded by darkness. Unmoving.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She was terrified.

  He could see her face, white in the darkness, her eyes luminescent as she tried to make him out. And yet she walked resolutely toward him. Unarmed, unwired. Nothing but courage and determination to drive her forward.

  And love for her brother.

  How would it feel to be loved like that? To know there was someone on the earth who would give up everything to save you? A lifetime of foster homes meant he’d never known that kind of love. Not from a family. And without that foundation, he’d never found it with a partner.

  Given time, maybe he could find it with Sophie. But they’d never really had a chance. And scaring her to death wasn’t going to help resolve the issues between them.

  Hopefully she’d stay long enough for him to explain. And then she’d have to shoot him.

  Her steps slowed as she drew near. He knew the exact moment she could make out his features, the dawning of recognition, confusion, and then fear.

  “Ace. What are you doing here? Where’s Jason?”

  “Safe. Kickstand took him to the hospital. He was starved and dehydrated, and they’d roughed him up a bit.” He cringed inwardly at the lie. Jason had been beaten to a pulp and was near death when they’d found him, but she didn’t need to know that. His Sophie had been through enough.