“Even with all the shit you did every day? You wouldn’t have left?”
I shook my head. “I had nowhere to go. I taught myself how to read and do math. The only reason we got out was because of Ryker. If Ensley wouldn’t have stolen his number from Mom’s phone, we’d be in the streets. What’s better? That was the choice I had. Stay there or live on the streets. We were so sheltered, I wouldn’t have lasted a few days out there.”
“I get that. You were stuck.”
His fingers started working on my toes meticulously, and a groan escaped my lips.
“They’re all stuck for the most part. Some don’t want to upset their parents or be cast out of the family. It’s all they know.”
His palm massaged my heel. I seriously loved his touch. “Would you help someone who wanted out?”
I lifted my head and looked him straight in the eye. “In a heartbeat. One of my sisters contacted me, and I’m waiting on her call. She says she wants to get out.”
He nodded, seeming to take it all in. “You need help with that?”
My head fell back to the couch. “I have no idea right now. Not sure what the situation is until she calls.”
“You know I’ve got your back, right?” The seriousness of his tone told me he meant that with every ounce of his being. It did crazy things to my body.
And my heart.
I wished the darn thing wouldn’t react to him this way, but there was no way to get around it. His mere presence lit me on fire.
Now what had I gotten myself into?
8
DRYERSON
“Is everything set in motion?” Cruz asked, arms crossed over his chest, directing the entire Ravage Motorcycle Club. Prospects and all. This was a huge undertaking with many of moving parts.
Everything had been worked out to a T, or at least we hoped so. Shit could always go wrong no matter what you were doing. I knew my mission and wouldn’t let any of the brothers down.
“Yep,” GT answered. “It’s as close to eliminating threats as we could be.”
“There’s somethin’ up,” Rhys added in. “I feel it in my bones.”
Cruz grabbed his gun and put it in the holster. “Me too, but we need intel. It’s like they're fuckin’ ghosts.”
“No one can be ghosts for long,” Micah said beside me. We were standing off to the side, our backs against the wall, taking everything in.
“Since you can’t find shit, they are fuckin’ ghosts,” Rhys bit back.
Micah put his hands up in front of him. “Understand, big man. Just pissed I can’t find ’em.”
This seemed to appease Rhys as he put his focus on the group at large. “Vests today,” he ordered, looking to Cruz. “Gut man.”
Cruz took him in. They had some silent communication, and Cruz came to a decision. “Vests. Eyes open.”
We all grunted our agreement.
Walking into an unknown situation was never easy. So many variables could go right or wrong. Thinking in the moment to fix the wrongs was key.
Meeting in a neutral spot was ideal. Jett, the fucker, wanted it on his land. While we wanted in there to find out what he had going on, there was no way in hell we’d walk into a fucking ambush. And that was what we thought it would be.
There was no commonality with these people. There was no connection. We knew nothing of them. We had no idea what they knew about us. They were stealing from us, which was the reason we were here.
“Let’s ride,” Cruz ordered, and we got our shit together, put on the vests, and started to ride.
Cruz was in the front with GT and Cooper at both his sides. Then there was a mass of men; Rhys, Tug, Buzz, Breaker, Deke, Green, Ryker, Ax and Raiden.
We were following behind in Micah’s SUV, which didn’t make me happy when I wanted on the back of my bike too.
Prospecting gets you the dirt shit, but whatever the club needed, I’d do. Same with Micah. No question about it.
While Micah drove, I had the laptop out trying to pull up satellite images of the place we were headed. Not many images, and I wanted current ones. That was a little trickier. It meant I had to actually get connected to the satellite up in space, and they were covered with serious tech. Someone did their homework on how to conceal them.
Micah directed me when I came up to roadblocks. Funny thing was, he’d already have the answer before I even asked. That was how in sync we were.
Not to mention it was a federal crime to hack satellites, so covering my tracks was super important. I was not heading to prison any time soon or ever for that matter.
“They’re already there,” I told him, looking at the image I'd just screenshot, blowing it up a bit to see better. “Four men at the front door on the outside, and looks like bikes and cars in the lot. Nothin’ on the roof.”
“Weapons?” Micah asked, and I tried to zoom in on the men. The images became grainy the closer I got to them. This connection needed some serious help.
“Fuck. Let me try to clean it up,” I told him, and Micah being Micah led me step-by-step in the process. One thing was for sure, I learned a lot from the man.
“Yeah. All I’m seein’ is handguns right now. No heavy. Not even an AK or hell, shotgun.” This struck me as odd. We were fully loaded and had more in the back of the SUV. Rhys was right. Something was going on. I just hoped it wasn’t too late before we figured out what the fuck that was.
Every five minutes or so, I’d go in and snap a few more pictures and try to get shots of their faces. Micah could render them through his database and see if we could get any hits. The ones with the side shots, I could make a 3D of it so we could run it too.
Everything had happened so fast before, and we didn’t get the screenshots of all the men, but I knew I was looking for Jett.
He seemed to be the ringleader of this circus. The leader was always the target, then down the line from there. Tactical. Precise. It was how our team in the Marines got so many high-profile targets.
A new image popped up, and there was Jett. “Got him,” I told Micah and began to move through pulling out the frames one at a time. In doing that I watched him get off his bike and make his way into the building with three men following him along with the four men outside.
“He’s in the building. All of them are in there,” I relayed what I’d seen to Micah.
“Do they have any fear of us?” Micah asked.
“Doesn’t seem like it. Gonna have to change that.” The initial ultimatum was enough. This just added fuel to the fire.
We pulled up to the warehouse, seeing their bikes along with several men outside. I had no visual on the inside but counted nine guys, one being Jett. Swinging the SUV around, we parked on the opposite side of the lot with the bikes leading.
Cruz was the first off, and he looked to me for updates. I gave him what I had, and he nodded.
“Roof,” Micah added into the conversation.
“Huh?” I asked.
“We need to get up on the roof and get a camera down there. We need eyes in case shit goes bad. Since I couldn’t get them in beforehand, this will have to do.” Micah pulled out a spool of wire and two backpacks, tossing one to me. “Let’s head up.”