No one stopped Dakota on her way out the building; they watched her with their eyes, following her progress through the empty club and out the front door. Mark, her escort, was gone and Dakota didn’t want to wait for him. She had the keys to her Prius on her keychain. Mark only had a copy. The parking lot was even more empty than usual, the bikers who had been smoking outside gone; only their bikes and stubbed out cigarettes proving they were even there.
Dakota quickly unlocked her car and took off down Delaware Avenue with no idea where she was going. Running away was pointless. Scarred Angels had access to everything. They could track the GPS in her car and her phone, and they had keys and access codes to her house and her apartment. There was nowhere she could be safe from them. She needed to end the contract, unless that would just make them angrier.
Joey, poor Joey. Scarred Angels was right. It wasn’t fair that Joey had been kidnapped and beaten up. It wasn’t fair at all, but Dakota hadn’t kidnapped him and she had no idea who had. The Soul Stealers, it must have been them. It was the Stealers who had been hired to kill Dakota and her father. It was the Soul Stealers who had made mistake after mistake and were now getting desperate.
Dakota was all alone. Her security team was the enemy now. The people she had hired to protect her, the people she had considered friends, were coming for her. Her father was still sick and weak, defenseless. He could be killed at any moment in a trade for Joey’s life. Dakota had trusted Adam and Scarred Angels with everything, with her life. But now what was she supposed to do when the people who were supposed to be protecting her started hunting her?
Would they really do it? John and Dakota Kane were innocent. They had never hurt anyone; they hadn’t started this war and they were stuck in the middle of it. But she knew that wasn’t how Scarred Angels would see it. They would see the mansion and the cars, the wealth and privilege; they would assume that John and Dakota were just a couple of lazy elites who didn’t care about anyone but themselves. The members of Scarred Angels were brothers; they would always put their brothers before their clients.
If only I could figure out who was paying them. Who is the backer, the guy with all the money? All this over money. Dakota had money; she had more money than ninety percent of the people in that city put together. Was all of this over money? She had always assumed that it was something else, something bigger, or at least something that meant more than money. Says the girl who has too much of it, she thought. Then she stopped in the middle of street, as a dawning realization came over her.
“I’m so stupid,” she said out loud to no one. It was obvious how this whole situation could be solved. Who had more money than the Kanes? Not many people, a few kings, a handful of hedge fund managers, and the founders of Facebook. Dakota had been doing this all wrong. She didn’t need to find out who was paying the Soul Stealers. She just needed to pay them more. But how? She heard a honk behind her and was reminded of the fact that she was stopped in the middle of the road. She put her foot on the gas and made her way back out to the suburbs.
***
Marley’s mother, Betty, was a strange bird. She was the epitome of old money. Her family regularly mentioned bloodlines and purity and bragged about their links to European royalty. Even though it was Dakota’s great grandfather who had made the Kane fortune, Betty still referred to the Kanes as “new money”. She was often giving Dakota unsolicited advice about the sort of people she should be associated with and how she could better spend her time.
Betty was also paranoid as hell. Every home and apartment her family owned had a panic room and she had demanded all of her children get their pilot's license and learn how to fly the family jet. According to Betty, the peasants could rise up at any moment and she wanted her children to know how to run when the time came.
The gate was always closed, but when Dakota gave her name and smiled into the camera, the gate swung open and she drove down the lane to Betty’s impressive home.
“OMG, Dakota! Did I know you were coming? Where’s your bodyguard?” Marley asked, meeting her on the front steps.
The mention of Adam was all it took. Dakota could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and she shook her head, both to the clear them away and to answer Marley.
“What happened? Did you break up again?” Marley asked, opening the door and helping Dakota out.
“I can’t get into it right now. Who does your family use for security?” Dakota asked, wiping away her tears and ordering herself to stop crying. There was no time for pity and sadness. The Soul Stealers had Joey; they could be doing anything to him. And then there was the matter of Dakota and her father, her father who was still, at that moment, being guarded by Scarred Angels. She needed to end this, now.
Ten minutes later Dakota was in the working kitchen of Marley’s mother’s house. A hot cup of coffee in front of her, the man across from her drank only water.
“This is what happens when you hire a biker gang for protection, Ms. Kane. They are a dangerous and unstable element. I could never figure out why your father hired them.” The man across from her was just as tall and well-built as Adam. He was African American and dressed in a suit with an earpiece, the image of professionalism. His name was Thomas Christophe. Never Tom, always Thomas.
“It came at the referral of a trusted friend, James Hastings. He’s known my father since college. He’s usually good at this sort of thing. They did a good job, but things have become complicated.”
“Complicated how?” Thomas asked.
“The thing is, I need someone at the house. I need someone to watch the bodyguards. I don’t know what they’re going to do, and I’m worried that just firing them will make them angry.”
“Ms. Kane, I can make a phone call and have ten men at your house in twenty minutes. Ten trusted men, most with military or police experience, and background checks to prove it.”
Dakota wrung her hands. She didn’t know what to do. What if this only angered Scarred Angels? What if it caused them to strike out against her? And then there was Adam, what would he think if Dakota just fired him without talking to him first? Could he ever forgive her for it? But then she remembered what the men at Scarred Angels had said, rich bitch, spoiled princess. Adam was one man; the club was an entity of itself. How much control could he really have? And then there was the note, the Kanes for Joey, she didn’t need to question which one the members would choose.
Dakota nodded and a contract was placed in front of her. She signed it and then called the family's attorney, telling him she had ended the contract with Scarred Angels effective immediately and hired Transcontinental Security instead. The lawyer would handle everything including the call to Scarred Angels telling them they had been fired.
“Give them a bonus for their hard work, whatever you think is appropriate. I know this is sudden, but I want us to end on the best terms possible,” she instructed and then hung up the phone. Thomas had scanned and faxed the contract over while she had made the call and he sat smugly in front of her, no doubt happy about the bonus he would get for signing a family like the Kanes.
“I need something else from you, no questions asked,” Dakota said.
“What is it?”
“There’s a gang in the city, a different biker gang. The Soul Stealers, I need to know where I can find them.”
“Ms. Kane, I’m sure this goes without saying, but you should not involve yourself in a war between gangs. That is a very dangerous position to put yourself in. If you’re in danger, you can tell me and I can help protect you. Scarred Angels should not have involved you in their business, and you should feel no obligation to help them,” Thomas said.
“You work for me, do you not?” Dakota asked
“I do.”
“Then get me the information, or I’ll find someone who will.”