So here I sat bitch, almost to our destination.
“You done fuckin’ around with Katie yet?” Micah asked out of the blue. And at his words the space felt smaller, as if the walls were closing in. I didn’t like the shit with Katie, but the ball was in her court, so to speak. She wasn’t in the headspace for me to push her. Nudge her, yes. Full-out push, not quite. What I did at Remy’s party probably freaked her, but I needed her to know where I was.
“Fuckin’ around?” What the fuck?
“Playin’ this cat and mouse shit. Back and forth. Back and forth…”
I leaned back in the seat, eyes on the road and the two men in front of us. “She’s different since the crematorium.”
“No shit?” Micah asked sarcastically.
“Do you want me to answer, or are you going to keep interrupting me?” I clipped.
“Noted. Go ahead.”
“Before she gave me shit and met me at every turn. Now she’s like a shell of her former self. She’s there, but she’s really not. That time there fucked her up bad, man.” I heaved in a huge breath. “It doesn’t help those fuckers marked her as well. She has to see that shit every time she’s naked. A reminder of that time.” A fact I had to hear from the grapevine, considering she wouldn’t take my calls.
“It was bad. Ensley was the only one she’d let help with the bandages after she was released from the hospital. And I heard her crying more than once in her room while she was with us.”
“I fuckin’ hate this for her. And I don’t know how to fix it. Shit, I couldn’t figure out a woman’s brain before this. Add this shit in, and I’m fucked.”
Micah chuckled. “I don’t know what Ensley’s thinkin’ half the time. When it’s important, she tells me. Other than that, I let it go.”
“Can’t let this shit go, brother. Wish I could but can’t. I’m gonna get in there.” Come hell or high water.
Micah’s hand went to the top of the wheel. “I get you. You’re a man who can’t. Give it time. The way she was with you at the party… Man you were the only one who could calm her. Everyone fuckin’ saw that shit.”
My fingers ran through my hair. “I couldn’t give two shits what people saw. What mattered was her reaction to me. That shit told me that whatever fucked up shit is swirling around in her head wouldn’t stop me from making her happy.”
“Fuck, she’s got you all twisted up.” Micah tried poking the bear, but I wasn’t taking the bait.
“Yep. Is that it?”
The small ranch house we drove by didn’t look like a place where guns were being sold. It looked like a Cleaver house or some shit. “Good cover; man, but how they gonna be able to supply with that small of space?” I asked as we drove by. Cooper and Deke were waiting for us around the corner. We didn’t want the bike pipes to alert them to our presence.
We needed to get eyes on the place or, if it already had eyes, tap into them.
“Underground, or maybe this isn’t the place. They could have a warehouse or somethin’ we don’t know about.”
“Fuck, they’d have to in order to run what we run. How is it we don’t know shit about these fuckers?” I asked, curious.
“Searched for Ace of Sparrows and came up with nothin’. It was like they were ghosts.”
“You catch the cameras, though?” I asked while we passed the home.
“Yeah. I know them. They’re a German brand and probably why I couldn’t find them on the search. Just tells me that these people know what they’re doin’ if their coverin’ their tracks like this. I can hack ’em. Just need to get settled.”
Meeting Cooper and Deke, they followed us to the hotel we were staying at. We weren’t planning on actually spending the night; we just needed someplace secure to do what we needed to do.
Micah and I hauled the suitcases to the room, tossed them onto the bed, and opened them up. Each one was a mini computer system. My man Micah was hellagood with anything electronics. In the Marines, he could do just about anything. Make helicopters of the enemy fall from the sky. Blow up buildings using the enemies’ own products to do it. He was that man.
I had a knack for finding and locating enemy targets. Then disposing of them and whatever they had that needed to be destroyed.
It was why he and I were such a good team. If his eyes didn’t see something, then mine did. And vice versa. We were able to bounce things off one another, our lines of thinking in sync.
Deke yawned loudly and laid on the other bed, stretching out from top to toe. “Man, I could sleep,” he groaned.
“Dick, if anyone sleeps it’s me,” Cooper added, smacking Deke’s booted foot.
“What? I’m the muscle. The muscle needs rest,” Deke fired back.
“Muscle my ass. Fighter or not, I could take ya,” Cooper called him out.
“We get home. Me and you. Grudge match. We’ll see who comes out on top,” Deke challenged him.
“You got it.” They clasped hands, sealing the deal. It would be a hell of a fight, and I wasn’t sure who I’d put my money on at this point. Yeah, Deke fought professionally before he came back to Sumner, but Cooper had Princess teach him, and that woman was something else.
It would be a hell of a fight and something I wouldn’t miss.
Micah turned a knob on the board, and scratchy sounds filled the room.
“Headphones, idiot,” I barked at him.
He turned the noise down then grabbed his headset and put it on. “I know, dipshit. Didn’t think I’d have an in so fast.”
“You’re in?” I asked, grabbing the other set of headphones and putting them on my ears. Sure enough there were men talking. I could tell Deke and Cooper wanted in on the conversation. I opened the side panel of the suitcase and gave them headsets as well.
“What’s this through?” The sound wasn’t the clearest, but it wasn’t horrible either.
We hadn’t put any mics anywhere. That was for fucking sure. We’d only been here a couple hours tops.
“Their security cameras have sound it seems,” Micah said. He hit a button, and a screen came to life.
“Well, now, that looks like a gun runnin’ ring,” Cooper said, looking at the screen before us. Clear, but in black and white.
He wasn’t wrong. On the screen there were four guys all handling different guns. AK47, AR15… Fuck, these motherfuckers even had Russian SKS and Mac10s, a specialized order for sure. The arsenal was impressive, if they weren’t cutting into our business and on our territory.
Four guys were in the space working, breaking the guns down to get ready to transport. We did the same thing, just not in a small ass house. Which meant they were getting stock from someone close. One of our suppliers.
“Forty K and we’re out of there. Nothin’ else,” one of the men with long hair and goatee told the room. “No fuckin’ around. We want in and out. Hear me.”
“Fuck, they have a sale. Now?” Deke growled.
The monitor and sound kept going. “We know, boss. We’re not kids.”
“Then stop fuckin’ actin’ like ’em,” he barked back at one of the younger guys.