Roderick Read online

  "I haven't really stopped to look into it," I admitted truthfully.

  At that, he nodded. Like he approved. Like I had maybe earned back some of the respect I lost by being overtaken by one person.

  "If you want to handle this, you're going to need stitches and some antibiotics. Can't exactly trace down leads if you're in a hospital bed septic from that dog's filthy fuckin' mouth. I'd have Pagan do it, but I think this is beyond his expertise even."

  "Nothing is beyond my.. oh, fuck. That's ugly," Pagan declared, coming in from the kitchen, eyes moving to my arm.

  And if Pagan thought it was ugly - when he had been beaten nearly unrecognizable a lot of his life, then it probably was bad.

  "I'll drive him," Pagan declared, knocking into my good shoulder as he moved past. "Did you really get jacked by a woman?" he asked, making me suddenly realize I would never live this down. Not even if I got the guns back, made amends for the screw-up. All my brothers would ever remember about me was that one time a chick stole from me.

  Oh, well.

  That was a worry for another day.

  "Seriously. It looks all kinds of jagged," Pagan continued the fifteen-minute-long running monologue about the severity of the dog bite as he drove me to the hospital, dropping me off to go find parking.

  I barely made it into the triage room before I was shuffled right back out, tucked into a room, a nurse coming in immediately to saline-rinse the wound while she waited for the doctor to pop in.

  By the time she did, my arm was blissfully numbed, a suture kit was opened on a tray, and I had gotten my first real look at the wound, bits of flesh ripped off, gone forever.

  "It's gonna be a wide scar," Pagan said, coming in behind the doctor as she picked up the needle.

  "He's not wrong," she agreed. "I have a good hand for stitches, but not even I can make this look pretty."

  "This fuck is pretty enough. He can use some ugly," Pagan declared, pushing a soda bottle in my hand. It wasn't until I took a long swig that I realized why he was gone so long. He had not only hit the vending machine, but had gone to the liquor store to spike my soda with whiskey.

  Figuring that if there ever was a reason to have a drink in the middle of the damn day, this was it.

  By the time the doctor was done, stitching my arm in what was almost a zig-zag pattern, talking to me about rabies shots - which I declined. The dog wasn't rabid, just spoiled and badly trained.

  I did take the prescription for antibiotics, though.

  "And once that whiskey wears off," she added, giving Pagan and I a knowing smile, "you might want something to take the edge off for the first day or two," she told me, handing me a script for painkillers. The good kind.

  I didn't need to fill them.

  With all the injuries Pagan had gotten over the years - and everyone else for that matter - there was a big enough supply of pain meds to last a few years at the compound locked away in the vault.

  "I'll take them out," Pagan said as we climbed back into the SUV. "The stitches," he clarified when I stared at him blankly. "No need to go back unless you get infected."

  I wasn't worried about the stitches getting pulled out.

  That was a problem for two weeks from now.

  When I was hopefully done tracking down leads, had the guns safely in Henry's hands, hopefully without getting mauled again.

  Back at the compound, Jstorm and Alex were set up in the living room, legs crossed on the couch, the coffee table lined with coffee and energy drinks, ready to pull an all-nighter if necessary.

  "I kinda like that it was a woman," Alex mused as I walked up to them.

  "It would be boring if it was a guy," Janie agreed, shrugging.

  "Did you say she got into the passenger seat?" Alex asked, looking up from her fancy glowing laptop.

  "No. She got into the backseat behind the driver."

  "So, it's not a one-man operation then," Jstorm mumbled, typing. "Interesting. I wonder if the girl who snatched the package was the one in charge or simply the least likely to get noticed and fastest runner."

  She was fast.

  From me to the SUV in seconds. And it was a long ass driveway.

  "You seriously can't give us anything more than long, dark hair and a great ass?" Alex asked, brow quirked up in a way that suggested she thought I was being a ridiculous man, only noticing the sexy parts of her.

  "I never saw her from the front or side. I'd say five-six maybe. Not skinny like you two, but not heavy either."

  "So she is average height and average build with the most common hair color," Alex mumbled, shaking her head.

  "We're better off going on the cameras in the town," Jstorm shot back.

  "Yeah, I mean... great ass isn't going to help us track her down," Alex agreed, and I had a feeling I was being excused.

  Knowing that until I had a direction to go in, it was useless to sit around worrying about it, I got up, moving toward the kitchen, making myself a sandwich, aggravated each time the gauze wrap around my arm rubbed against the edges of each stitch.

  "Ugh, that bastard," Lou grumbled, walking into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.

  "Boss again?" I asked, knowing that if she was grumbling, that was usually who it was about.

  "He has an issue with the fact that my newest catch had a broken nose. Like it was my fault he accidentally got his face slammed in the door. What happened to you?" she asked, jerking her chin toward my arm.

  "Dreadlocked dog," I grumbled.

  "Oookay then," she said, shaking her head as she made her way toward the doorway.

  And just like that, I remembered something.

  Something Adler said about Lou having her own contact for weapons, someone with a smaller operation.

  "Hey, Lou," I called, making her turn back, brow quirked.

  "Yeah?"

  "Your arms-dealer," I started, watching her stiffen, knowing she didn't like being a rat, "wouldn't happen to be a woman, would she?"

  The surprise in her eyes was all the answer I needed.

  TWO

  Livianna

  Adrenaline was sparking off the edge of each nerve ending as the door slammed behind me, the boxes thrown carelessly over the back seat and into the trunk, landing with a thunk and rattle as the guns found their new resting spots in their taped-together boxes.

  Taped together.

  What luck, huh?

  I'd been expecting to have to fumble with a bunch of separate boxes, slowing me down, making an actual altercation a real possibility.

  It wasn't that I was worried about one per se, but whenever possible, I liked to avoid black eyes and busted ribs.

  The car peeled off, making my stomach drop down even as Astrid half-turned from her position in the passenger seat, smile tipped up slightly.

  "He was kind of cute, don't you think?" she asked, head tipping to the side to watch me as I righted myself in my seat, flattening my hair as the heat from the vent made my cold cheeks, nose, and fingertips prickle and ache as the chill warmed out of them.

  "I didn't really notice," I told her, shrugging.

  "Oh, fuck off. You noticed. All that yummy caramel skin. You noticed."

  "I saw a biker jacket and a dog feasting on human flesh. And the boxes. That was it. I didn't really get to ogle anyone."

  Astrid's hazel eyes rolled. "What is the purpose of life if you can't take a second or two out to eye-bang a hot guy?" she shot at me.

  Astrid liked men.

  Mostly looking at them, hitting on them, and then never following through.

  And the men, well, they certainly liked Astrid right back.

  She was gorgeous in her somewhat rocker-chic way with her long bob of coppery brown hair, her tendency toward leather pants and tight shirts with no bra that allowed you not only to see nipple but the little barbells that poked out of them as well.

  And she just had that vibe.

  That sensually confident vibe.

  Men didn't see sex in layer
s like women did. If they could, they would know the second she stabs her little claws into them that there was no way she was going to end up on her back in their bed

  Sex, attraction, lust, men.

  It was all a power play for Astrid, built on a lifetime of fucked up shit that made her always feel powerless.

  Little girls didn't stay little forever.

  Hurt little girls didn't hold bruises on their flesh for the rest of their lives, wrapping their pain in fear and shame.

  No.

  They became women with claws and teeth and a thirst for blood.

  Even innocent blood.

  Though, if you asked Astrid, the concept of an innocent man was an oxymoron.

  No man, not even the one in the seat beside her, was someone she'd call innocent.

  And, in his case, I'd have to give her that one.

  Camden was, well, Camden.

  Tall.

  Dark.

  Handsome.

  Lethal.

  Mute.

  The thing is, he didn't even need to speak, to regale you with his war stories, to make you aware of how dangerous he was, how bloody his hands were, how not innocent he was.

  Everyone vibed.

  Astrid sex-vibed.

  Camden death-vibed.

  I was half surprised that plants didn't simply wither and die when he walked past them.

  "He was hot, right, Cam?" Astrid asked, watching the side of his face.

  Watching because she knew he would never answer with words.

  He didn't.

  Couldn't, maybe.

  We had no idea. If he was mute because it was a medical condition, or that he simply chose not to speak. All we knew was he didn't. Even in all the years he and I had been working together, I had never heard a peep from him other than a hiss of pain when he took a knife in the fleshy bit right between this third and fourth rib.

  Cam's head turned slightly, giving her a half-raised brow and eye-roll, something we both knew to mean something to the effect of You've got to be fucking kidding me or I'm not involved in this conversation.

  Astrid huffed, falling back into her seat, facing forward.

  "He was hot."

  "There will be other hot guys for you to toy with," I assured her. There always were.

  It was kind of lucky - kind even - that she only toyed with the hot ones. The ones who got enough ass that they didn't find themselves overly put-out by her eventual rejection. She didn't go for the easy targets, the shy guys in the corners, the middle-aged, balding, waistband-bursting divorcees. She wasn't cruel. Just impulsive. Compulsive even at times.

  She couldn't help herself.

  And she had come so far since I'd gotten my hands on her that it felt unfair to try to push her too hard too fast.

  Someday, she would get control over it.

  But that was not today.

  And I couldn't be annoyed that she was more concerned about the biker we'd just robbed than the fact that the job we'd been hired to do was almost done after several long, frustrating weeks.

  "We're ditching this car on the next right," I reminded Cam even though he had a better memory than even I did.

  I was just hyped up still.

  I'd been hiding in the damn bushes for nearly an hour, half worried about losing a toe or fingertip to frostbite if someone didn't show soon.

  We'd been expecting more men, to be perfectly honest.

  Two or three at least.

  It was why Cam was driving and I was on the property even though Camden was a faster runner, a stronger fighter. At least when it came to men. He was bigger, stronger.

  But me, I was the tits and ass.

  Maybe I shouldn't have felt comfortable admitting that. Maybe it should have made me feel like I was setting feminism back a couple decades.

  But the fact of the matter was, nothing worked quite as well at disarming a group of horny guys than a good ass or nice tits.

  Like it, lump it, it was the truth.

  And, as far as I knew, there was no hornier set of men than bikers.

  Except maybe college frat assholes. But in my book, those were boys, not men. So they didn't count.

  Camden pulled the SUV into the rental lot, cutting the engine and waiting.

  Astrid shifted in her seat, dragging her jacket back around her body, pulling the hood down low over her face as she reached in her pocket to find the wipes. As we all did, wiping down any hard surface we knew we had touched.

  See, you didn't just steal from a Henchmen.

  Not just because they were criminal bikers. Because, well, let's be honest, bikers weren't exactly known on the street for their brains. But because The Henchmen MC had the unlikely distinction of being connected to one of the biggest paramilitary organizations in the country. Which was saying something. Because there were a lot more of them than any normal civilian realized.

  Hailstorm was a force to be reckoned with.

  Largely in part, in my opinion, to the fact that it was run by a woman.

  Women in male-dominated positions were fearsome creatures.

  I would know.

  They worked harder, dug deeper, they learned twice as much as the men they were in competition with would, trained until their bodies broke, put them back together with some elastic bandages and Bengay, and trained again.

  Because we knew that at any small sign of weakness, we would be targeted. Hard.

  So we had to be the best. We had to employ the best. We had to never show weakness.

  So Hailstorm, run by Lo, was not some whiskey-sipping, clubwhore-banging, biker gang.

  They were highly trained men and women with specialization in everything. Including lifting fingerprints.

  They'd find the car.

  Of course they would.

  I would bet that within two hours, Lo would have called in her protege, had her on her laptop hacking into city cameras.

  They'd find the SUV, search it for clues.

  And we were going to leave as few as possible.

  So we wiped it down. We made sure our faces were obscured before we got out of the car, we grabbed the box, tossed the key in the lockbox out front since the place was closed, and walked to our waiting car.

  They'd look into the rental records.

  And find some chick who looked vaguely like Astrid had supposedly rented the car for the day. With a pre-paid visa card.

  No links.

  No nothing to go on.

  Lo and her team were good.

  So was I.

  So was my team.

  Even if it was small compared to her massive organization.

  "Let's switch," Astrid said as we got to the sides of the blue sedan Cam had owned since forever, just a clunker with no record tracing back to any of us to use when we needed it. "I want to stretch out," she added, reaching for the door to the backseat.

  "We lucked out," I told Camden an hour later after Astrid had passed out in the backseat, her jacket bunched up under her head like a pillow, her legs curled up toward her chest protectively. She always slept like she was expecting someone to attack. Her fist was closed around a pocketknife, the metal worn to lackluster from her constant grip on it.

  Cam's head nodded at me as he turned the heat down a bit, cracking his neck.

  Cam hated to be hot.

  Almost as much as Astrid and I hated being cold.

  There was no such thing as balance in our world. When it came to a battle of wills, one or two of us was always the odd man - or woman - out. Some nights, he woke up in a ball of sweat. Other nights, Astrid and I woke up shivering.

  "We can unload it a few days after we get back, get paid finally. I hate having a job hanging over our heads."

  Even if it was a small one.

  Just one gun.

  I didn't get out of bed in the morning for just one gun. It was a waste of time and energy.

  But, for whatever reason, this guy was willing to pay ten grand for a gun that would only be worth h
alf that.

  And since it cost us jackshit by stealing it, we were ten- or more -k in the black.

  I wasn't a thief by trade.

  I dealt in arms, weapons, something trustworthy, steady, able to bring in a good income to someone who had forged the right connections.

  I never stole from other arms dealers.

  It was bad for business.

  But the fact of the matter was, there was only one Frank Wesson Double-Trigger anywhere in the world available. And it was being given to Henry Cranford by The Henchmen MC.

  Desperate times, as they say, call for desperate measures.

  They made honorable arms dealers steal from each other.

  Because, quite frankly, Manuel - who was buying the gun from us - was not the kind of contact I wanted to lose. He brought in too much money, too many connections.

  So if there had to be a bit of dishonor among my colleagues and me, so be it.

  Besides, it wasn't like we were stealing food out of their mouths, out of their wives' and babies' mouths. It was a well-known fact that The Henchmen, despite looking from the outside as being a somewhat humble biker organization, had bank. Reign paid his men a hefty salary for keeping the place safe, for going to war with him should it be so necessary.

  I imagined getting their crew cut down to almost nothing several years back also helped each man get a larger cut.

  So they would be just fine if they lost the guns. Even if they lost the client because they lost the guns. There were plenty of other collectors or organizations to reach out to.

  They had their hands just about everywhere.

  But so did I.

  So did we.

  Because for me and mine, we didn't have generations of contacts to pull from, solid reputations to stand on.

  We just had us, the three of us, who no one had known about more than six or so years ago, at least not in the arms-dealing capacity.

  Camden had a past.

  Though since he didn't speak, I could never learn it.

  I had one too, but never as a boss.

  So we needed to claw our way up.

  We scooped up the scraps none of the bigger arms dealers - like The Henchmen - wanted to touch. The small-time guys. The scared wives who wanted a gun to protect them from their estranged husbands. The wannabe gangster who had dreams of creating the next big street gang. Hell, even the damn preppers. Those paranoid freaks who thought the government wanted to take their guns away, so they wanted to stockpile them somewhere, have them be untraceable, so if the real, registered ones got taken, they would still have ones to defend their double-wides with.