CHAPTER 17

Taz

The poor prospect manning the door to the Cowboy’s clubhouse just about passed out when we all came roaring into the yard. I didn’t blame the kid. Over a dozen bikes rocking up with no prior warning was enough to put fear into anyone with half a brain. As we lined up our rides, others came out onto the porch. Maverick slapped the prospect on the shoulder and said something that had the younger man relaxing his stance.

Scout came over to me. “No grandstanding, Taz. Understand me? Let me deal with this and get your girl out.”

“I’ll do my best, prez. But no guarantees on what I’ll do when I see her injured.”

He turned to Mac and Eagle. “You two are in charge of keeping him contained if he loses his shit. Understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

With a shake of his head he turned and started toward the clubhouse. We all fell in behind him.

“Maverick, nice seeing you again. Wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Same here, Scout. Got Viper waiting on us in church, but we don’t want your crew causing trouble while we talk.”

“They’ll behave themselves, won’t you boys?”

Everyone grunted in agreement, except for me. I didn’t like make promises I couldn’t keep. Maverick didn’t miss my silence. “What about the girl’s old man there?”

“He’ll be with me, so not a problem.”

With a nod Maverick turned, and after opening the door, ushered us all in.

“Well, in you all come, then. No girls around, but the bar’s open.”

Ten minutes later I stood behind Scout, who was sitting opposite Viper at their meeting table. Thing was fucking huge, with their insignia carved out of the center of it.

“Prefer to keep this between you and me, Scout.”

“Well, give the man his old lady back, and it can be.”

Viper sat back with a huff before turning his full focus on me. I didn’t flinch, but it was a close call. Hard not to crack under a stare like Viper’s.

“You don’t get to tear through my men because she’s hurt. She attacked us.”

My hands curled into fists. “I saw the footage from the parking lot outside the hospital. She didn’t do one damn thing when one of your men knocked her out by slamming the butt of a gun down on her head.”

“Well, when she went on her little rampage earlier she broke his nose and knocked him out cold. I think justice was served on that one. The rest of her injuries were from my men defending themselves.”

“You’re not making me feel real good about her condition, Viper. What the fuck happened?”

As Scout spoke, Viper trained his gaze back on the Charon president.

“Stone took her out of the lockdown room, Animal was telling him to put her back. Tank came up behind her—” I groaned and rubbed a hand over my face. I knew what had happened. Fuck it all to hell. “Gather you’ve tried to do that at some point?”

Scout barked out a laugh. “Yeah, Taz grabbed her from behind at Styxx. Girl put him on his ass in front of half the club. Gonna be a while before he lives that one down.”

Viper chuckled. “I bet. Well, you can’t be surprised she got hurt when my men tried to stop her, then. She took out three of them before Animal stepped in.”

“What was Stone doing while all this went down?”

“Stone got his name because he’s stone fucking cold. It’s made him one of my best enforcers. Never before have I seen that man show any emotion, but when he first caught a glimpse of Felicity’s face, he showed plenty. Man’s deadly on a good day. With his calm shattered? I’m not risking that shit. I took his guns after he pulled one on Tank earlier. Animal held him back initially, then handed over his containment to two others when he stepped in to deal with her. I’ve got them both in the lockdown room now. Hoping he’ll cool the fuck down by the time we’re finished here.”

“If you’re not gonna let Taz go get her until we’re done, then he’s not going anywhere and we best get this shit done. Long ride home ahead of us.”

Viper’s gaze hardened, as though he didn’t like me being here. But like Scout said, I wasn’t going anywhere that wasn’t closer to Flick, so he could just fucking get over it.

“Fine. You know what we want, and you haven’t delivered.”

I opened my mouth but Scout held up his hand to stop me. I stood back and stayed silent, letting Scout handle things. For now. I respected the hell out of my president, but I wouldn’t let him sell out Flick.

“Gus don’t like MCs much. It’s been a slow process to get him to trust Taz. We were getting there, and had plans in place to speed things along once he had his heart attack. You jumping in and snatching his niece hasn’t helped. He’ll probably flat-out refuse to deal with any of us now.”

“I don’t know, you returning his niece to him should go a long way.”

“Maybe. For us. He’ll never consider doing business with the Cowboys, though. Why’d you want the shop, anyway? Maybe if we know why you want the damn place, we can sort something else out.”

Viper stayed silent for a minute.

“You’re halfway between us and the border. Perfect location. We keep losing shipments on route, we need to break up the runs.”

“You don’t have to use a gun shop for that. Hell, we can find a warehouse or something you can use.”

Viper shook his head. “Nope. That range is sitting on a bunker that no one knows about.”

I frowned. I’d never seen any signs of a bunker being out there.

“And how do you know about it, then?”

“Gus didn’t always own that land. We recently got some information from a previous owner. Enough information that we want control of that place.”

Scout shook his head. “You can’t have it. With Taz claiming Flick, Gus is family. We’ll still push for Taz taking ownership, and we’ll do what we can to help you out with the runs. But the title will not be in Cowboy’s hands. Not that you’d want it to be. What do you think will happen when the feds find out you’ve bought the place? They’ll be all over it, and you won’t be able to move anything through it. In fact, it’ll probably end with the feds shutting the whole place down.”

“Fuck. I hate the FBI. They’ve been sniffing closer lately. Dammit it. Okay, if Taz can get ownership of the place and you let us use that bunker as we want, I’ll accept that. But it needs to happen soon. We can’t keep losing shipments like we are.”

“We won’t move drugs. Weapons are fine, but no fucking drugs.”

“You don’t get to demand that. We need to move both through that place.”

Scout’s shouldered bunched up. I didn’t know why, but he was hardcore anti-drugs. I cleared my throat before leaning down to whisper in Scout’s ear. Viper letting me stay in the room didn’t mean I had permission to actually be a part of the conversation.

“Use the ledger.”

Scout nodded to me before turning his focus back to Viper.

“We got something else you might be interested in. You ever had anything to do with a man by the name of John Bennett?”

Viper clenched his jaw and a tick formed above his left eye.

“I’ll take that as a yes. John was Bulldog, my VP’s, brother. After he and his wife died in the 9/11 attacks, his daughter came to live with Bulldog and his old lady. Then, last year the L.A. mob came after her. Turned out John left some ledgers behind in a bag that missed the flight that he died on.”

“Are you shitting me? Airports don’t keep shit that long.”

Scout shrugged. “They don’t normally. But things were a mess after those planes took down the towers. Somehow, the cart of baggage that missed the flight got pushed aside and forgotten about. Someone did some cleaning up at LAX and found them. Contacted a reporter about it since the fifteenth anniversary was coming up. Long story, short—we got a ledger with your name on it.”

“Is that so? And what? You’ve just been sitting on it all this time? Is this why we’re having more issues with the feds lately?”

The tension in the room was off the fucking charts and I knew it wouldn’t take much to have things explode.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot, Viper. There were several of them and we stashed them all in our safe. Only reason we still have it is because with all the shit that’s gone down since then, we kinda forgot about them. So, if we hand it over, will you not bring drugs into my fucking town?”

Viper shook his head. “Need to keep running powder, Scout. No way around that. I can promise we won’t push it in your town. None of our drugs will hit your streets. But we need to use that bunker to store shipments. I’ll also put the word on my men that no one is to go after Felicity for what happened today.”

“And Gus?”

“He’s safe from us.”

Scout turned to me. “Go out and grab that ledger for me, let’s get this shit done. Then we’ll grab your girl and get back on the road.”

With a nod, I headed out to find Keys to grab it. I couldn’t wait to have Flick back in my arms. I was still unsure of what condition she was in. Although, at least with her being locked up with her brother, nothing more was being done to her.

Taz

Once Viper took possession of the ledger, he stood and led us out of the meeting room. I still had the digital copy we’d made back when we first found the books, so if any of the Cowboys went back on the agreement, the feds would be getting a present. But no one needed to know about that.

“Let’s go get your girl. I’ll warn you, Stone doesn’t want her going with you.”

“He can fucking get over it. She’s my old lady. He hasn’t even seen her in years, he has no claim on her.”

Viper gave a small nod and moved up a flight of stairs. The Satan’s Cowboy’s clubhouse was an old hotel. Three floors of various rooms. Wasn’t a bad setup, especially for a club as big as theirs. Up on the third floor Viper slowed down.

“Our lock-up rooms are up the end here.”

He pulled out a set of keys as he stopped in front of a prospect. “You can head off now. Job’s done.”

“Yes, prez.”

The big guy lumbered away and Viper led us further down to a room with a barred door on it.

“Stone, you calmed the fuck down yet, brother?”

“Yeah, prez. You can let me out.”

“Not until you promise me you won’t go after Animal.”

A growl filled the air. “You know he was rougher than he needed to be with her.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t call him Animal for the fucking fun of it. I’ll let you get in the ring with him later, but you are not to go after him outside of that. We clear?”

“Yes, prez. Crystal, fucking clear.”

“Good.”

With that, Viper unlocked the door and took a step back. It was like looking at a ghost of my past when Stone walked out. Closely cropped hair, messy beard, and hard fucking eyes. He was bigger than he’d been back in the Middle East. Guess he’d spent his time since then bulking up.

“Stone.”

“Taz.” He came to stand right in front of me. “Don’t like my sister being an old lady. She’s a fucking accountant, and should be off somewhere married to a desk jockey and pumping out some grandkids for our folks.”

“That just proves how little you know her. That life would drive her insane in a fucking heartbeat.”

His glare intensified but I didn’t back down. I took him down once before, I could do it again. He was bigger now, but then so was I. And when it came to Flick, I wasn’t gonna let anything get in my way.

“Hurt her, I’ll come after you.”

Then before I could say a word in response, he shoved past me and left.

“Okay, then. That was nice and dramatic. Now, come get your girl and get out of here before something else fucking happens. I’m over the drama today.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. A second later I was rushing into the room. A lump formed in my throat at the sight of my Flick sitting there beaten to hell, but smiling up at me.

“Hear you had an interesting morning.”

“Yeah, you could say that. How about you?”

I strode over to her and pulled her up off the bed and against me. Wrapping my arms around her, I palmed the back of her head to cradle it against my shoulder. Having her warm body pressed against mine finally allowed me to let go of my fear for her.

“Fuck, Flick. You’ve taken ten years off my life today.”

She shuddered against me when I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, avoiding the wound on the back.

“Let’s get home. You right to ride? Because Scout offered to tie you to me if you can’t hang on.”

That got a chuckle out of her. “I’m sure he did, but I can hang on. How far away are we?”

“We’re up in Cutler, about a four hour ride home.”

“Damn. That’s one hell of a ride.”

“We’ll stop a few times. You’ll be fine, but Scout wants to get back home tonight. We brought most of the club with us to come get you.”

She rubbed her face against my shirt. “Really? Why?”

Cupping her face, I tilted it up so I could hold her gaze. “You’re my old lady, my property. That makes you club property, we protect what’s ours.”

Her eyes filled with moisture but she blinked it away. “Is that why you asked me? To give me protection?”

I shook my head. “I asked you because I like fucking you on the regular.”

Then, I kissed her before she could say something else. I didn’t want her thinking so much about my reasons for making her mine. So long as she still wanted to be my old lady after everything that had happened today, things were good.

“C’mon, you two. We don’t have time for you to have your reunion fuck here and now.”

“Damn, Scout, you’re such a giver.”

“Yeah, well, with Taz you gotta be, or we’d be watching our very own live porn show for the next hour or so. Damn man has stamina, that’s for sure.”

Listening to Scout and Viper talk about me like I wasn’t standing right here was pissing me off. “You two done?”

Scout grinned. “If you are.”

With a shake of my head, I turned back to Flick. “You all right to walk or do you want me to carry you down?”

“I want to walk.”

“No attacking anyone on your way out, you hear me?”

With a smirk, she nodded to Viper, then I took her hand and led her out of the room and down the hallway. If I wasn’t so on edge over her injuries, I’d laugh at the way all the men tried their best to get out of our way while watching Flick with caution. In short order we were all back on our bikes, and with Flick’s arms wrapped around me, we took off. For some reason, I was still on edge but I couldn’t put my finger on why. The fact Scout had been fucking strange around Flick didn’t help ease my thoughts.

No matter how late it was when we got home, I knew it wouldn’t be the end of the day for us.