Page 56 of Angel

Keys, being the twisted sonofabitch that he was, got each of the tags engraved with each member’s road name as well as WARNING: you’re close enough to read this, so you’re close enough to die.

To ensure a measure of stealth and anonymity, the club would be taking two SUVs instead of their sleds and they would be leaving their cuts behind. Unknown to the club outside of the officers, Keys had recently purchased a Ford Transit 250-Cargo Van and retrofitted it to be a computer lab on the go. He would be parking several miles out from the Pythons’ clubhouse with Bear to run their comms. Bear was not happy about staying behind with Keys, but someone needed to watch Keys’s back and, as their medic, it did not make sense to put him in harm’s way when they did not need to.

Based on the latest satellite intel, there were only fifteen heat signatures in the clubhouse. Since there was no way of telling male versus female, they would treat all fifteen signatures as hostile until confirmed otherwise.

They planned to do a soft breach, which meant a stealthy entry, of the clubhouse at exactly twenty-three-thirty, as that was when the last set of Labor Day fireworks was due to go off.

The remaining club members would be breaking up into three teams.

Steel was running Alpha team. They would breach the south wall by making an entry hole using detonating cord. Cage was on Alpha team along with Starbucks.

Lucky had Beta team. They were in charge of catching any rabbits—or runners. Angel was on Beta team with Grumpy. As a sniper, it was her job to get to high ground and secure the exterior for exfil.

Bulldog was in charge of Charlie team. They were breaching the main doors and would take the most direct fire if detected. Ghost, Ranger, and Pumpkin completed Charlie team.

While no one had seen or heard from Scar or Ivy since the funeral service, Bulldog had high hopes that they would show too.

Angel looked down at her watch. It was only fourteen-twenty. With a sigh, she squared her shoulders and put on a smile for the crowd that would help complete their alibi. It was going to be a long day.

CHAPTER 10

“Lucky, got one coming at your nine,” Cage heard Angel murmur through the radio piece in his ear. Seconds later, Lucky confirmed, “He’s down.” Cage wasn’t sure if Lucky took out the Python or if Angel did with her M24 rifle. Cage did not know how Keys had outfitted them so well and, frankly, he did not want to know. Though a part of him wondered if he looked at the club’s construction company’s books closer, if he would find an invoice for det cord.

Star, a former Marine Raider, applied the yellow cord filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrateto the outside of the concrete wall. The det cord was an effective way to cut through just about anything. Done correctly, it could also be a fast way of making a big hole. As the Pythons now knew they were under attack, silence was no longer a priority.

At Steel’s signal, Star blew the wall.

Bulldog’s team was taking heavy fire at the front of the clubhouse but holding their own. Most of the Pythons were so drunk, per Bulldog, that their shots were going everywhere. Cage, Steel, and Starbucks would be coming up from behind to provide Bulldog’s team relief.

Cage had never been part of an assault team of this magnitude before. He’d been trained in the Navy, yes, but the weapons on a submarine were far different than being handed an AR-15 and told to breach a facility. After Ohiopyle, Ghost and Ranger, with Bulldog’s blessing, had been offering training sessions to any of the club who wanted refreshers or different training. Ghost, a former SEAL, and Ranger, a former Army Ranger, worked extremely well together. The two of them had a bro-mance between them that Cage and the others often made fun of.

As they climbed through the building’s new entrance, Cage was grateful he was paired with Steel because, true to his namesake, the man was cool under pressure.

The adrenaline flowing through him and the hyperawareness was very familiar to Cage. The anger, however, was new. He’d known since his first day at boot camp that joining the military would mean that one day he might have to take a life. And he had. It might have been at a distance where he never had to look the person in the eye, but he knew the destruction their weapons were about to cause. He’d never hated the enemies of the United States as much as he hated the Black Pythons who had threatened his girls.

Ironic that the first people Cage actually wanted to kill were the same civilians he’d spent his military career protecting.

Steel’s orders had been clear: none who wasn’t a patched member of the Black Pythons was to be harmed and King was his.

Keys’s voice came over their earpieces. “Steel, you have two heat signatures to your left. Looks like maybe a storage room.”

Steel signaled Star to go check it out. As a Marine Raider, he was used to solo missions and watching his own back. Still, Cage wished they’d had one more member to their team so they could split off into pairs. His training, at its core, was the buddy system.

They had entered into a large room that housed a bunch of mattresses on the floor. From the array of sex toys, drug paraphernalia, and clothing strewn about, Cage had to wonder if they’d breached the Pythons’ sex room—and then he had to quickly wipe that thought from his brain or risk being scarred for life. He did not want to know what these poor walls had been subjected to. Keys had reported a while back that a very meager amount of the Pythons’ money came from making amateur porn videos. Nothing like what Crisco had been up to. The Pythons videoed themselves having sex with their patch whores and uploaded them to common porn sites like PornHub. Cage spotted a tripod in the corner and guessed that the Pythons used their phones to record the videos.

As Star went left, Steel and Cage went right down a long hallway. As Steel stood guard, Cage cleared an office room they came upon. He locked it on his way back out and then broke the exterior handle so no one could enter again, even if they had a key.

Steel and Cage moved on.

Gunfire and fireworks echoed all around them. While the fireworks were keeping the gunfire from being too obvious, Cage did find it distracting.

Angel’s voice came over the earpiece, warning Grumpy of a rabbit at his six.

It might be misogynistic of him, but a part of Cage was grateful that Angel was outside the building, high up in whatever perch she’d chosen for herself, and not in the direct fight. Cage knew Angel was capable. He knew she was strong and could kick ass. He did not doubt that. And yet…there was a small part of himself that was glad she was a safe distance away.

He’d never felt that way before about any of his brothers. It had started to occur after he’d realized he loved her. Was it self-preservation on his part, knowing that the chances she could be harmed were minimal and therefore Cage didn’t have to worry about the pain it would cause him if she was injured? Possibly.

Bree was also on his mind though. Hell, he knew some of his siblings and their spouses didn’t even fly together so they didn’t risk orphaning their children. Yet he and Angel were in the middle of a full out gun battle with a deranged group of outlaw bikers.

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