Page 71 of The Lies We Tell
“Good. Now go be my hero,” she says with a smile that I’ll take with me.
One kiss turns into two, then three. “Go,” she whispers against my lips.
Fifteen minutes later, I pull into the parking lot and line my bike up in my spot. “What gives?” I ask King. “I thought you were of a mind that the women were the police’s problem, not ours. And that at best, I could only lightly follow up with Vex. Now you’re putting the full club against it?”
He tips his chin towards the corner of the clubhouse, where Gwen stands with Clutch. “Gwen caught wind of what was going on and said in no uncertain terms that Clutch and I better deal with it.”
Feminine laughter has me looking in Gwen’s direction. “I think you’ll find what I said was ‘you’d better pull your fingers out of your asses and do something about it before I castrate the pair of you with a dull butter knife blade.’”
Bates, our enforcer, laughs. “I can get you a better blade than that, sweet cheeks.”
King slaps the back of his head. “Don’t encourage her, you fucker.”
“So now it’s a club priority?” I ask.
“Only so far as them being here is affecting my city, and I want those fuckers gone.”
I wish I could introduce him to Briar. Change his mind on the why of doing it.
Someone kicks the clubhouse door open, and we all turn to see Spark walk in, his face like thunder. He slams his keys down on the bar and scrapes a chair out from beneath a table before sitting down in a huff.
“What have they set up so far?” Niro asks, ignoring Spark’s arrival.
Vex points to something on his laptop. “They bought this lot. Easy to secure and already fenced around the perimeter. Plenty of space to build if they want, but it has a large warehouse and an office building that’s more of a cabin.”
I tap the table. “How do we know for sure it’s the Brotherhood’s?”
Vex changes screen to a complex flow chart. “Shell companies. I’ve been trying to track as many of theirs as I can. Keeping an eye on real estate sales, anything with their name connected. This one’s allegedly an auto supply importer. Anyone with half a brain would realize an importer of cars wouldn’t set up a warehouse so far away from either import location, like ports or actual buyers of the products.”
Switch looks to Spark. “What do you think?”
He’s thoughtful for a moment, then sheds whatever was bothering him. “I think we give them notice that they won’t get a minute’s peace in our state. We go destroy the warehouse. Raze it to the ground. They got no other building, they can’t move any of their shit here until they build a new one.”
King nods. “Agreed. Can we make it look like an accident?”
“Fuck,” Bates says with a grin. “Was looking forward to a face-to-face meet and greet.”
Spark shakes his head. “Knives in case of emergencies only.”
“Bastard,” Bates mutters, and people chuckle.
“Think we’ll see when we get there,” Spark continues. “If we can save anyone, we will. Otherwise, if it’s empty, maybe start a gas leak. Fuel explosion. Depends on what raw materials they’ve got in there.”
“Let’s do it,” King says.
“Like taking candy from a baby,” Bates says later as we park over the rise away from the warehouse a little after one in the morning. Switch pulls the van alongside. We brought it in case we find any of the women.
“Me, Niro, and Clutch are taking the rear,” King says. “Saint, Vex, and Halo, you guys take the west side. Spark and Bates, you take the east. Switch, you stand guard out here. Meet the rest of you inside.”
Spark uses night vision binoculars to take in the landscape. “Don’t see cameras yet, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have them. Or proximity sensors. For all we know, an alert just went off in some command center. We need to move fast.”
Vex hands earpieces to King, Spark, and me. Not sure why he picked me out of our trio. For all he knows, I’m an army chaplain, and there’s a Navy SEAL standing right next to me. But I take it. It’s trust in me, that I won’t let my brothers down. I place it in my ear. “You hear me?” I ask, and King nods.
“Ready?” I ask Vex and Halo.
Both nod.
Halo leads us down behind the back of the building so we can approach from the east. We leave King, Niro, and Clutch at the rear and follow the wall. There’s limited light, but a flicker of something close to the ground catches my eye. “Wait,” I command.
