Chapter 9
Colt
When Olivia walked away, I honestly thought she was joking. She didn’t look me in my eyes when she said that phrase. I figured maybe she was being sarcastic. It wasn’t until she reappeared half an hour later with the guard at her side that I understood she was being serious. I watched anxiously as the guard unlocked the holding cell door, and I tossed him a playful grin.
“Enjoyed the stay. Where do I go and pay for my nights?” I asked jokingly.
“Here are your rules,” the guard said.
“Wait, rules? What rules?” I asked.
Olivia stood there, grinning, and I wondered what the hell she had just done to me.
“You are required to check in with Agent Banks every day. If you miss a phone call or drop off the grid for twenty-four hours, a BOLO for your bike and a warrant for your arrest hits the docket. You’ll be dragged back here, except you won’t be thrown in a holding tank,” the guard said.
“Straight to jail with you until a trial date,” Olivia said, smiling.
“Is this your idea of a deal?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I said I’d work to cut you lose. You never specified the conditions that surrounded you being set free. Sounds like you’re a shit negotiator.”
The guard stood beside her, chuckling. As if he had been in on this shit as well. My eyes ran up and down both of them, but I knew this was my only shot. Twenty-four hours? Seeing her face to face right now bought me twenty-three to get shit figured out.
“Does this count as our check in for the first twenty-four hours?” I asked.
“Now you’re getting the hang of it,” Olivia said, giggling.
Holy fuck. That giggle. Soft. Sweet. With a bit of a snort at the end. Oh, that was my weakness. A woman with a tender laugh. And the soft snort punctuated the dancing sound. It rang in my ears as my eyes connected with hers and I waited until her giggles settled down.
“It does. I won’t even escort you to your home. I need to get back to my office and start preparing things. My hope is that you’ll contact me in the morning. But, you’ll have twenty-four hours from the time you walk out of this police department to get in touch with me,” Olivia said.
“That means I’ll need your number,” I said.
I watched her reach into her breast pocket and pull out a small card. She handed it to me between her fingertips and I saw a few things scrawled down. Two numbers and what looked like an address of some sort.
“The top one is my office number. The second is my cell number. And that is the address of where I’m staying. You can check in with either of those, but I reserve the right to specify seeing you if I feel something is up,” she said.
“See me,” I said.
“You heard the woman,” the guard said.
My eyes darted over to him before I slipped the card into my pocket.
“Anything else for my walking prison sentence?” I asked.
“The clock’s ticking. Might want to get a move on it,” Olivia said.
Her and the guard escorted me out of the building and I saw an officer walking my bike up to the curb. Olivia didn’t even look back as she made her way to her car. I watched her as the officer handed off my bike to me. The keys were already in the ignition, and normally I would have looked over my bike to see if there were any dings.
But, my eyes were trained on Olivia as she walked away.
I watched her make her way for a car. An old car. A Volkswagen with a damn hatchback. The thing was ugly as fuck, to be honest. Yet somehow, it shouldn’t have shocked me. It worked, and that fit Olivia. She struck me as the kind of person that didn’t need fancy, or even new, things. She simply needed things that worked and she dealt with the rest. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from her. Away from her slender frame and the slight blossom of her hips. The way her feet glided with every step. It didn’t even look as if she touched down onto the pavement. Just skated across it, like an ice princess or some shit.
“Good luck,” the officer said.
I whipped my head over to see him and I watched him shake his head. I had no idea what the hell he meant by something like that, but I didn’t have time to figure it out. I slid my leg over my bike as Olivia struck up her car. I heard the belt of the car screeching as she backed out and cut it tightly to the left. My eyes connected with her through her windshield as she rode past, her hand coming up to give me the slightest wave.
I turned my head and watched her car drive off, noticing that one of her taillights didn’t work.
I cranked up my bike and tore out of there as quickly as I could before someone changed their minds. I wasn’t going back to my place. I was going straight to the damn clubhouse. I’d call all of the guys when I got there. The lodge felt safe. Like protected land. And I needed that shit after being holed up in a cell with puking prostitutes and drugged-up college frat boys.
Fuck, they were idiots.
Twenty-three hours and forty- five minutes. That was the amount of time I had to figure shit out before my first check-in with Olivia. And the second I thought about her presence in my life, I felt my cock harden against my jeans.
“Really? Now?” I murmured.
As I rode through the desert, tearing through the dust, my mind wafted back to her. Time and time again, my thoughts were taken up by her. Something about her was intoxicating. She had a draw about her that pulled me into her orbit whether or not I wanted to be there. Those emerald eyes of hers that turned to jade whenever her emotions crept into the situation. That long black hair that would look beautiful against the crisp white of my fucking bed sheets. Oh, and those legs. Long. Lean. Everything about her was petite in all the right ways except for that attitude of hers. She was sassy. Observant. Intelligent beyond anything I had ever encountered.
She took up my thoughts as I parked my bike at the clubhouse, and I was shocked when I saw everyone’s bikes already sitting there.
“Colt!?”
I heard Duke’s voice off the porch and I ripped my keys out of my ignition. I watched him jump off the porch and come barreling to me before he hit me with a hug I hadn’t experienced in ages. He wrapped his arms around me tight and patted my back, not letting go as the rest of the crew came and stood on the porch. Dean. Jace. Maverick. Jagger. Thor. All of them, watching the two of us.
“How the fuck did you get out? I was just getting the guys together to finalize our plans,” Duke said as he released me.
“Well, I work quicker. Come on. I need to tell you guys what’s going on,” I said.
All of us went back inside and I felt Dean’s gaze hot on my back. I knew what that meant. He wasn’t all too sure I hadn’t made a deal with some Devil in order to get my ass out of there. We all walked into the living room as Jace shut the door behind him. And as all of their eyes fell on me, I tried to find the best way to sum all this shit up.
“Nice to see you’re okay,” I nodded towards Maverick.
“Yep,” Thor said.
“What the hell happened in there?” Duke asked.
“How are you here?” Dean asked.
Everyone fell silent as my eyes slowly panned over to our leader. Our President.
The man Duke and I thought was losing his head in all this.
“A DEA agent came to see me.”
“Fucking shit,” Dean spat.
“Before you fly off the handle, she knows the club is innocent from the shootout. There was an officer killed on the scene, and she knows none of us did it. She also knows there was another club involved. She also knows we know who the big players are in the cartel, so she cut me a deal. She got me off on all the charges, and I check in every twenty-four hours with her. We help her snag the major players in the area, our names stay clear of any charges,” I said.
“A DEA agent,” Duke said.
“Yeah. Apparently, the police has a lot more on us than we figured,” I said.
“I’ll have to have a talk with them,” Maverick murmured.
“You made a deal with a federal agent on our behalf,” Dean growled.
My eyes whipped over to him as I tried my best to keep my cool.
“I trust her,” I said.
“You trust a federal agent?” Jagger asked.
“And she trusts me, yes. It’s the reason why she was willing to work on this deal in the first place,” I said.
“Or, she’s desperate for information you can feed her and she’ll turn on us the second she can,” Dean said.
“She’s not like that,” I said.
“Did you spend some quality time with her or something?” Dean asked.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “Look, I can’t explain it, but something in my gut tells me that she is somehow on our side. That she understands us.”
“She’s a fucking federal agent!” Dean yelled. I shot up to my feet and faced off in front of him. Duke quickly jumped between us and put a hand on both of our chests.
“Dean, calm the fuck down. I trust Colt’s analysis of her. He has never been wrong when it comes to someone. Remember that broad Jagger hooked up with back when Colt first found him?” Duke asked.
“Split second decision on her character and he was right on all counts,” Jagger said.
“I’ve had the entire day with her. We’ve been going back and forth since early this afternoon. I don’t know why she has a personal investment in this case, but she does. She’s a hell of a body language reader. She’s better than me,” I said.
“That’s not possible,” Thor said.
My eyes whipped over to the hulking giant of a man.
“Well, it is now. I didn’t say a damn word to her about anything and she pieced things together as if I was squealing like a damn hog. She’s good, and she’s a good person to have on our side. Because if we don’t, she’s fucking dangerous,” I said.
“Befriending the enemy. Nice tactic,” Dean said.
“She’s not the enemy. We have a common goal in all this. She wants to take out the major players right at the neck. Apparently, the DEA has arrested drug dealers with the Roja Diablos cartel all over the damn nation. She just got done with a case in Southern California before she got sent here. They’re sending her all over the damn country to lock this shit down. And according to her, the dealers won’t roll over on their bosses. They’d rather sit in jail than risk the torture the cartel will bring down on their heads for talking,” I said.
“She’s told you a lot. Think she’d tell you anymore?” Jace asked.
“I think she would. I think it’s smart of us to work with her,” I said.
“That’ll be my decision to make,” Dean said.
“With all due respect, it’s a vote for the club to make,” I said.
My eyes connected with Dean’s and the entire room fell silent. I had no idea what had gotten into him over the past few months, but I wasn’t letting his bullshit notions get me tossed back into that holding cell. I did trust Olivia. Whether that would prove to be a mistake or not was a consequence I was willing to own up to of my own accord. But, having someone as loose-lipped as her about the investigation would work in our favor.
Dean had to see that.
“DEA, right?” Thor asked.
We all whipped our heads in his direction, and I had to admit I was shocked. I’d never heard him speak this much ever. Much less in a meeting.
“What’s on your mind, big guy?” I asked.
Thor shrugged. “Don’t trust her.”
And that sent the group fucking spiraling.