Michelle and Quinn were alone, packing shipping boxes as the other women pulled orders. Arsen and the brothers were busy, neck deep in the MDMA run, and she was dying to tell someone what Arsen had said last night. He’d made no mention of his words this morning, and though it might be her imagination, she felt like his gaze was more gentle this morning.
“Arsen told me he loved me last night,” Quinn said, plunging right in.
“He what?” Michelle squawked, pausing in her task, a bag of beads in her hand hovering over the box.
Quinn grinned, delighted in Michelle’s reaction. “He told me he was falling in love with me!”
Michelle frowned as she went back to her task. “Seems a little quick, don’t you think? It took him almost a year to say the same to Holly.”
Quinn shrugged, Michelle’s pessimism bringing her down a little. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love before. How long did it take you to realize that Zane was the one for you?”
Michelle grinned. “A couple of months or so, but I didn’t admit for a long time.”
Quinn grinned. “It’s been almost that long since he found me on the Interstate.”
“Do you love him?”
“Maybe. I know that I feel something for him, but since I’ve never been in love, is it love? I don’t know.”
Michelle grinned. “You sure it’s not lust?”
Quinn giggled. “Maybe. Why?”
“Because word gets around. I’ve heard from more than one source Arsen knows how to please a woman.”
Quinn giggled again. “I can confirm that. He made me come so hard last night I made a mess. You should have seen the bed this morning.”
Michelle grinned. “Zane and I have had nights like that. Arsen’s a pretty straight up guy. It’s been almost two years since Holly, and he has been faithful to you a longer than I would have given him credit for.” She shrugged. “I hope it works out for you two.”
Quinn nodded. “So do I. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, anything.”
“How do you know you’re in love?”
Michelle giggled. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t. I’m not saying I won’t, I’m saying I can’t. I can’t describe it. If you’ve never experienced it, I can’t describe it to you. It’s like a warm bath on a cold night, or a cold drink on a hot day. It’s that feeling you have after a good hard fucking, but without the sex. It’s peace, and warmth, and excitement and contentment, all rolled up together. If you’re in love with someone, you’ll know it. When they aren’t around, you find yourself thinking about them, and when they are around, you don’t want to be away from them. You think of them before you think of yourself. You would rather do something for them than do something for yourself.” She shrugged. “But that doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel about Zane.”
Quinn thought about Michelle’s words and how she described how she felt about Arsen. Maybe she was in love with the guy.
***
Arsen watched as the binding gum was mixed with the MDMA powder. They were almost done with the run, and after the gum was mixed, they would spray the mixture with the blue dye and then press it into tablets.
As he watched the drum turn, he wondered if he had made a mistake telling Quinn he was in love with her. She seemed a little put off this morning, and now that the rush of passion had faded, he wondered how much truth was in what he’d said.
There was no denying he was falling for her, but was he in love with her? That was a harder question to answer. She twisted him up like no woman before her, even Holly. He loved Holly, but somehow what he was feeling for Quinn was different. He couldn’t put his finger on just how it was different, but it was. It was like the difference between a lake and an ocean.
When he looked at her he wanted to fuck her blind, while cuddling and protecting her at the same time. It was that second part that set her apart from Holly, and every other woman. He felt a protectiveness for her, not possessiveness, like he had with Holly. Holly was his woman and nobody was going to take her away. With Quinn he felt that as well, but there was more, something deeper. He would have fought any man for Holly, but he would fight the devil himself to protect Quinn and keep her safe.
He snorted as Kelly approached from setting pelletizer to press their tablets, pulling his thoughts back to the business at hand. The mixing of the binding gum was almost complete. Even as the thought entered his mind, he heard the click of the relays that signaled the dye was being applied. It took about twenty minutes to dye their product, then it would be time to start making tablets.
“How’s it look?” Kelly asked as he moseyed to a stop beside Arsen.
“The dye is being applied now.”
Kelly nodded. “Biggest run we’ve made in a while.”
“Yeah. But this thing with the Horsemen has driven business to the Advocates. This, or larger, may be our new normal before long.”
Kelly shook his head. “I remember when your dad was making this in a storage building. We’re selling more molly in a couple of months than we used to in a year.”
“I know.”
“That Quinn chick, I hope she knows what she’s doing. We’re on the cops’ radar now.”
Arsen shrugged. “We’ve already seen a small uptick in sales with just the website redesign. That’s only been live, what, two weeks? It takes time to get noticed. Remember when we first went live with the site? It was weeks before we got our first sale.”
Kelly grunted. “I’m not sure how I feel about this.”
“What?”
“It’s like we’re less of a club and more of a business.”
Arsen chuckled. “You got something against making money?”
This time it was Kelly who chuckled. “It’s not that.”
“What then?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Kelly, if you have something to say, say it. If one of the founding ten can’t say what they’re thinking, then nobody can.”
“Okay. I appreciate everything you’ve done for the club. Even before you took over as President, you were giving good advice to your dad. We’ve grown richer than I would have believed possible. But sometimes I feel like we’ve lost something along the way.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s bothering you?”
“I don’t know that either. I guess I feel like I should be in Phoenix helping track down those Horsemen bastards.”
“You’re free to go as soon as we get this batch in the pelletizer. Look at it this way. You had a job before. Could you have gotten off and ridden with the club?”
“I could have taken vacation.”
“If they approved it on such short notice. You have to work somewhere. We all do. But you, me, Zane, Phil, all of us, we’re working for the benefit of the club. I know this MDMA run is a pain in the ass. I wish I was in Phoenix right now myself. But the club has to come before any one brother. Some of us had to make a sacrifice for the club. This time it was you, and me. Next time it may be someone else. But you’re still doing club work, work that benefits us all. Nobody thinks less of you for staying behind. If you even suspect one of them does, you have my full support in setting their thinking straight by whatever means you feel are justified.”
Kelly chuckled. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I just feel so fucking useless, standing here running these fucking machines, when I could be helping track down the fuckers who killed Greg and Chet.”
Arsen put his hand on Kelly’s shoulder. “It’s because you’re here, running these fucking machines, that everyone else could go track down the fuckers who killed Greg and Chet. We have a reputation of delivering, on time, every time. We worked hard for that reputation, and it’s worth protecting. What you’re doing is arguably more important than being in Phoenix.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
Arsen gave the older man’s shoulder a firm squeeze. “That’s just because you’re pissed off that you’re missing all the fun. If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll have Phil save you one.”
Kelly chuckled. “Yeah, maybe so. If I think we’re going to run out of Horsemen before I get a shot at one of them, I may take you up on your offer.”
Arsen chuckled. “You got it brother, you got it.”
***
Arsen and Quinn watched as Nelson and Thom upended the tablets into the feed hopper for the bagger then pressed start. The machine whirred then clicked, then began to move. The first bag stopped at the filling station and the numbers on the counter blurred before stopping at 5,000. The machine sifted, the numbers would reset to zero, then start over again as the previous bag was sealed. Two seconds later, the machine sifted again, the first bag would fall into a slide where it slid into a catch tote as the next bag as sealed. The machine could bag their MDMA order in less than three minutes, by far the fastest part of the process.
Three minutes later, the machine stopped, the counter showing 3,254. “Not bad,” Arsen said, stepping up and pulling the partially filled bag from the machine.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Destroy it.”
“Why don’t you save it for next week?”
“Because we don’t keep the drugs around. What we made today leaves tomorrow morning first thing. I don’t want to keep anything around that would tip anyone off what we make here besides bath beads.”
“Doesn’t that cost a lot, throwing product away like that?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Thirty-five hundred tablets? About a hundred twenty bucks in raw materials. This batch is about average. I always aim to make a little extra so we don’t short anyone. The loss is factored into our cost.”
“What do you do with them now?”
“I pour them into our toxic waste tote. In there, they’ll dissolve in a few minutes and just be another part of the chemical soup.”
“And the rest?”
“Watch,” he said with a grin. He picked up the tote with the thirty bags and carried them to the mixing machine where he carefully laid the bags in the bottom of the large drum. Once the bags were in place, he maneuvered the huge tote of Epsom salts into place and used the machine’s lift to dump them into the machine.
“The bags are completely air tight, so that should defeat a drug dog. The salts hide the packages.”
“I have to ask. How are you going to get the bags out? Do you dump the salts back into the tote?”
“We could do that. We might have to this time. Normally we’ll just jog the machine. See those stirring paddles?” he asked, pointing to the large metal bars arrayed around the drum. “We’ll slowly jog the drum and the paddle will lift the bags right out for us.”
“Jog?”
“Move the drum manually by pushing a button while the door is open. Normally, once we have the MDMA out, the molly is sent out for distribution and we make a run of salts, since the drum is loaded anyway. Now that everyone is gone, I guess we’ll have to empty and wash cycle the drum. Or maybe we’ll come back a day early and make a run of salts like normal. I don’t know yet. Something I have to work out.”
She eyeballed the drum and realized the drugs were under at least three feet of salt. Nobody would ever find it there unless they knew to look. The Blades seemed to have thought of everything. “Who’s making the delivery tomorrow?”
“Zane and Chet are delivering to the Advocates and I’m taking a load to the Bastards.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Can I go?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“We’ve been doing business with the Dirty Bastards for years, and I don’t expect trouble, but if something were to go down, at the exchange is where it’ll happen.”
“What do you expect to happen?”
“Nothing. But when that much cash and drugs are in play, that’s when shit will happen if it’s going to. Drug bust, someone in the Bastards crosses them, who knows?”
“Don’t you normally send two or three guys?”
“Normally. More if it is a first time buy. But the Advocates and Bastards, I trust them. If it were anyone else, not so much.”
“So let me go. You’re sending two to the Advocates. I can watch your back.”
“You know how to shoot a gun?”
“Well, no, but they don’t have to know that.”
He chuckled. “Point.”
“Come on, let me go. You’re leaving town right after that and I want to spend the last few hours with you before you leave.”
“And if the cops show up?”
“Then I’ll tell them you picked me up walking along the interstate and I didn’t know anything about drugs. Come one, Arsen, please?”
“We’ll have to go in the car, but it’s still a long ride.”
She smiled at him as she slowly licked her lips. “I love long rides,” she purred. “Why the car?”
He chuckled. If it were anyone other than the Advocates or the Bastards, her going would be out of the question, but he was confident enough that the Bastards wouldn’t try to fuck him that he could let her off at the truck stop and she could wait inside until the exchange was done, then he could pick her up again.
“Because I can’t carry 100,000 tablets by myself on the bike.”
“Then I can go with you and wait in the car with the motor running. That way if anything happens?” She shrugged.
He had to admit the idea had merit. He trusted the Bastards, but only so far. Having someone in the car would help keep them honest. “Okay, fine. You can wait in the car. Can you look tough?”
She gave him her best ball busting, take no prisoners, bitch look.
“Maybe some sunglasses will help,” he suggested.