Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 136(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 136(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
“So…” Echo drawled with a smirk. “Was I right?”
“About what?” I grunted.
“You falling for a wannabe arsonist?” He laughed, and I scowled.
“That’s funny because…?”
Echo looked over at King, his smirk back in place. “Gonna have to tell Stella I was right,” he practically crowed. Then his gaze returned to me, and he tilted his head, studying me. “Gotta say, Blaze claiming a firebug is a little cliché.”
“Shut your mouth, E,” King growled. “Unless you wanna lose that pretty-boy face of yours.”
Echo’s eyes darted from our prez to me, and when he clocked my dark scowl, he pressed his lips together as if suppressing a laugh. One more word and I was gonna do exactly what King had suggested.
When he didn’t say anything else, I focused my attention on the door. I didn’t want to have to share all this shit more than once, so we all waited in awkward silence until Wizard strolled into the office with Ash—our secretary, who was a lawyer and handled all the MC’s legal shit—and a couple of our enforcers, Rebel and Tomcat.
“I take it you’re going to explain about the warehouse and the woman you brought here?” King asked.
Before I could answer, Echo snorted, and I glared at him. “More like kidnapped.”
King shot him a look, and he shut up, but as he leaned back into the cushions, a grin spread across his face.
“What’s going on?” King asked me.
After I explained the situation, Rebel whistled softly. “Damn. That’s seriously fucked up.”
“No shit,” I grunted. Shifting my gaze to Wizard, I asked, “Was the roommate a client?”
Wizard nodded and opened his laptop, setting it on the conference room table where he’d sat when he showed up. “Yeah. Pulled her file from the skiff room server.”
I scowled and clenched my hands into fists. “Can’t expect everyone who comes to us to be completely clean, I get that. But how the fuck did this bitch slip through our deep dive into her background?”
He tapped a few keys, and his eyes scanned the screen. “Wasn’t thrilled with her history or the people she associated with, but she was mostly just a random chick with nothing that indicated she might be running from a drug ring. Claimed to be tryin’ to get away from the ex, and since he has a long list of assault charges, her story was plausible.”
“Why didn’t we find out where she got the money to pay us?” I muttered.
Ace piped up. “That was my call. I did ask Wizard about Jason since he was obviously in the ranks of this drug ring. When he told me the guy was low on the ladder, I figured the likelihood of her getting anywhere near product or money was extremely low. Still not sure how she could have gotten her hands on either. So I sent it to King for the green light.”
“Do we know where she is?” I asked, frustrated with Ace’s answer even though it made sense.
Wizard tapped some keys on his computer and shook his head. “We used Ink’s connection with the DeLucas to find her a place. I’ll have to get the information from them.”
One of our recent patches was related to a New York crime family run by Nic DeLuca. They had a branch of The Family in the south, mostly in Georgia, not far from Riverstone. The connection had turned into a great working relationship since both of our organizations had skills the other lacked but needed.
“She opened her legs for far too many lowlife motherfuckers. Not just gangs or drug pushers, that includes dirty MCs. There were too many risks that she would be recognized in our circles. So The Family erased her through their channels.”
“Get Ink on it,” I ordered, then looked at Ace. “She pay cash?”
“Yeah, but the bills were new and sequential. Wizard and I can follow the money.”
“Do it.”
They both stood and were already throwing theories at each other by the time they walked out the door.
Once they were gone, Ash tapped his fingers on the table impatiently. “Tell me about the warehouse. How much shit was destroyed?”
I winced. “Pretty much everything in the filing rooms on one side of the building.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“We have digital duplicates of everything,” King reminded him.
“I know. But being able to hand over paper copies has saved our asses when someone like the IRS has come sniffing around. Kept them off our servers, and the idiots never suspect that the ‘originals’ could have been tampered with.”
King nodded. “Get some prospects to reprint and organize the files.”
“Will do,” Ash agreed. “And we’re still keeping the fire off the record?”
I grunted in affirmation. “Can’t trust the cops we don’t know. Any of them could have their balls in a vise by that organization.”
“I’ll talk to the sheriff,” Tomcat offered. He was a former Navy pilot and had been in the academy with the county sheriff’s brother. The officer, Bruce, was a pretty straight arrow, but he respected the fuck out of Tomcat, and they were good friends. So when Tomcat patched, Bruce did his due diligence and checked us out. Since it was handy to have law enforcement on your side—sort of—we gave him a little more access than we would give most outsiders.