Page 3 of Resurfaced Passion

The four-story building was all but empty. He didn’t know what it had once been, only that this was the place he met Brex every few weeks, depending on what the old man needed from theSouls.

“Reaper, son. How’s it going?” The balding man with his overly large gut greeted him like they were old friends. He always got a weird vibe from the way the old man raked his eyes up and down Reaper’s 6’2 frame.

Reaper wasn’t surly by nature; he just didn’t suffer fools lightly and didn’t like two-faced fuckers who would smile at the same time as sticking in the knife.

He’d known a few of those in his time and recognized it clearly with Brex’s demeanor. The man was a snake in the grass. But while he had money to burn, the RS would happily take it from him.

He offered a hand and they shook briefly.

“Can’t complain.” He parked his ass on a table and folded his arms, the leather of his thin jacket creaking, while Brex squeezed his bigger bulk into a leather backed chair. The office space they were in boasted zero windows and was no more than eight feet wide, so he figured they were doing the transaction in a broom closet.

“What do you need?”

“Straight to business. I like that, son.” He chuckled nasally. His watch dog stood outside the door but didn’t step inside.

“Actually nothing. I’m here to close my account, so to speak.”

Reaper arched his brow under his skull cap. Say what now? For as long as he’d been with the Renegade Souls, and it was coming up on five years now, this rat in the garbage paid over the odds to hide all his dirty deeds and secrets in one of theSoulsunderground bunkers, midway up the mountains.

Impenetrable. Untraceable. And safe from prying eyes and law enforcement, more to the point. Especially those who would bury the mayor for discovering the dodgy deals he was involved in with other politicians. Not to mention the prostitutes he paid into the tens of thousands each year and not from his own pocket.

It was genius when you think about it. No one would ever suspect the upstanding mayor of ever having anything to do with the biker club, not when his officials tried hard to have them closed down.

Anyone in the outlaw lifestyle would see Brex for his true self. The mayor was shady as fuck and slimy with it. Reaper wouldn’t trust the guy as far as he could launch him over a fence.

But he’d take his money.

“Is there a reason behind this sudden switch?”

He smirked. “Let’s just say I was given a better offer of protection.”

With no concrete reason why, the Russians came to mind rapidly.

His gut instinct said it was Grigori trying to undercut, undermine and generally be a pain in the dick for Rider. Thebratvaunderboss didn’t know when to quit or realize he’d been shown leniency to leave on his own two feet and not in a body bag.

Reaper shrugged. He could care less. It was one less fuckwit to deal with. He unzipped his jacket and brought out the padded brown envelope. Held it in mid-air just out of reach.

He waited until Brex brought out his own envelope from inside his blazer and handed it to Reaper.

He wasn’t dumb. He counted that shit first. It was all there. Ten grand on the dot.

“This settles up, correct?”

“Yup.” He tossed over the contents of Brex’s lock box as requested.

Reaper turned on his boots and headed for the door.

“Seems the tides are changing, son.”

Swerving his head he could have told the fat oaf he was not his son and then punched him in the throat. But Reaper was a calm man.

Most of the time.

He stayed silent and waited.

Assholes always had to have the last word.

“With who runs things around here, I mean. Times a changing. It’s no longer theSouls.”

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