Lana made a more careful inspection of Hades’s tables. She counted at least twenty bikers, including Kickstand and a few familiar faces from the barbeque, but no James. She shook her head. “Kickstand said he’s on guard duty at the clubhouse tonight so we don’t have to worry about him. Rex is the big, scary one at the end. The guy beside him is his right-hand man, Dawg. The others close to him are Diesel, Punch, Ryder and Bones. The baby-faced guy with the golden hair is Kickstand. He’s the one who told me the Hades crew was coming here tonight.”
Jackie licked her lips. “So cute. I could eat him all up like a
schweinshaxe
. This might be my best wingman assignment ever. A table full of hot biker dudes, endless steins of beer, giant sausages, pretzels, sauerkraut and God-awful oom-pah-pah accordion music. What more could a girl want?”
“We are
not
getting drunk.” Lana shot her friend a warning glance. “And you can’t fraternize with the enemy. We’re here to just observe and snap a few pictures of Rex with his hands, or his dick, up a milkmaid’s dirndl. And if they do recognize me, I might have to act…different. I still have to pretend to be Ice’s old lady or I’ll have Rex’s paws all over me.”
Jackie laughed. “Different. Gotcha.”
They plunked themselves down at a table with a good view of the Hades crowd. Jackie flagged down a waitress and ordered two one-liter steins of nonalcoholic beer and a plate of mini suckling-pig sandwiches. “Remind me to thank that Portia woman for breaking your camera,” Jackie said, her gaze roving over the packed hall. “I’m already having a good time.”
They took turns following Rex whenever he left the table. Lana remarked on his unusually small bladder on her third trip back from the restrooms and Jackie pointed out the correlation between the size of a man’s bladder and the size of…other things. When Rex left the table for a fourth time, Lana groaned. “You want to take this one?”
Jackie shook her head. “I was just at the bar watching him drink shooters from some poor girl’s cleavage. Plus my new friend Hans promised to teach me the words to the famous Oktoberfest song. Maybe I’ll get lucky tonight.” She pointed to a tall, skinny blond in green
lederhosen
. Lana snorted a laugh as she slid out of her chair.
“You’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. There is nothing remotely attractive about a man in short pants and suspenders.” She skirted through the tables, slapping away the stray hands that seemed to take her short skirt as an invitation to cop a feel, and turned down the corridor to the restrooms. Just as she took up her position against the wall, she caught a glimpse of Rex heading through the exit door leading to the parking lot.
Lana’s heart pounded and she pulled out her new minicam. Easing open the door, she peeked around the corner and spotted Rex engaged in a heated discussion with Bones and a familiar-looking man in a dark suit. No milkmaids or frisky
fräuleins
in sight.
Disappointing.
She was about to go back inside when she heard Bones mutter, “It’s Ice.”
Curious, she dashed over to a blue Ford Focus and crouched behind the vehicle to eavesdrop.
“You sure your source hasn’t made a mistake?” Rex growled. “How could a rat get into Hades? I vetted every prospect personally. I know everything about every full-patch brother. There’s no fucking way one of them is a rat, unless he was turned.”
“The source is good,” the man snapped. “He works in the DEU. If you want a name or a picture of your rat, it will cost you extra.”
“Don’t pay him,” Bones growled. “I’m telling you I know who it is. That fucking Ice is always sneaking around, disappearing for hours at a time, losing weapons. Who hooks up with an old lady—especially a hot tamale like Roxie—and keeps her a fucking secret?”
Hot tamale?
And she thought she’d heard all the redhead jokes.
Lana peeked over the hood of the car just as the man in the suit stepped into the light. She recognized him instantly. Rex had met him before. Once at the pizza shop. Another time in an alley downtown. She’d thought it strange someone in a suit would be having clandestine meetings with Rex, but now she knew why. She snapped a few quick photos, hoping there was enough light for her cheap replacement surveillance camera. When she heard the crunch of gravel, she ducked down and pressed herself against the vehicle’s wheel.
“I think you’re wrong about Ice,” Rex said to Bones as they walked past Lana. “But I think we should set a trap wide enough to catch our rat, whether he’s in the inner circle, full patch or a prospect.”
“What do you have in mind?” Bones pulled open the door and polka music blasted into the parking lot.
“We’ll have an opportunity at Kirkland Island two or three weeks from now. I’ve set up…”
Lana strained to hear but a loud accordion riff cut off Rex’s words and then the door slammed shut behind him.
Damn
.
Lana pushed herself to her feet. She had no way of contacting James. On their way out of her apartment, he’d told her his phone had been bugged by the DEU so he used it only for Hades business. Undercover procedures meant he couldn’t have a personal phone.
She drummed her fingers on the hood of the vehicle.
Option #1: Tip off the DEU
. She could head down to the local DEU office in the morning and give them an anonymous tip that James’s cover was about to be blown.
Bad option
. If there was a leak in the DEU, she might put James at risk.
Option #2: Airplane watching
. She could go airplane watching outside the clubhouse and hope James would see her vehicle and storm out to yell at her.
Another bad option
. What if it was Rex who found her this time?
Option #3: Naughty behavior
. She could disobey James’s orders and go to the clubhouse.
Again.
Her stomach clenched, but an illicit visit to the clubhouse seemed to offer the highest chance of success. No one would be surprised to see her, except maybe James. And he wouldn’t really be surprised. Infuriated, maybe. Enraged, possibly. Apoplectic, likely.
Lana sighed. No doubt he would shout and stomp around, but in the end he was all bark and no bite. Although, when he found out she was trying to help him, maybe some biting would be involved—the hickey-leaving kind. Maybe he would want to finish what they’d started the night of the barbeque…
She shook her head. What the hell was wrong with her? If he hadn’t thought it was a mistake, he wouldn’t have given her the cold shoulder after Ryder knocked on the door. And if she hadn’t agreed, she would never have walked away.
Still, she couldn’t let him fall prey to Rex’s trap. She would have to plan her visit to the clubhouse carefully. And since she had two weeks, she didn’t have to rush. Maybe tomorrow…
Decision made, she headed back to the table and spotted Jackie playing beer pong with Hans and his almost-identical
lederhosen
-clad friend.
“We bought you another stein,” Jackie said as Lana slid into the bench beside her. “An alcoholic one. I was getting the feeling you were done with the surveillance tonight. Oh, and I got you a
weisswurst
sausage.” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “The boys here are a little lacking in the meat department, if you know what I mean. The sausage is a poor substitute but the best I could do.”
Lana hefted her stein and clinked glasses with Jackie. “Here’s to finding the perfect sausage.”
“Does that mean we’re officially off restroom duty?”
“Unless we see Rex grabbing a milkmaid and sneaking her outside, I’m done for tonight,” Lana said. “I need to have a little fun.”
Three hours and two steins later, Jackie and Lana jumped on their table with Hans and Jens, and joined the rowdy, table-stomping crowd in a sing-along version of “Take Me Home, Country Roads”.
When they reached the third verse, a hand clamped around her ankle and she caught the flash of Cerberus’s red eyes just before a massive body lifted her off the tabletop and set her firmly on the floor. Eyes wide with alarm, Jackie jumped down after her.
A firm hand on the back and a march through the crowd later, she was up against the wall with a furious Ryder staring down at her.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
She glanced over at Jackie, but her friend was entranced with the lean, hard body and breathtaking good looks of the Adonis in front of them.
“Well, we were singing until you rudely dragged me off the table.”
“That kind of…behavior is not allowed,” he spluttered.
“Well, then you’d better make an announcement because right now everyone in the hall is on the tables,” Jackie batted her eyelashes and a sultry smile graced her perfect lips. “Or, if you were planning on a group punishment, you could start with me.” She twisted her hip and patted her left bottom cheek. “This cheek first.”
Ryder sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes widened as he was hit with the full effect of Jackie, the seductive milkmaid, and the creamy expanse of her uncovered cheek. His mouth opened and closed. No sound came out.
“I think you’ve shocked him,” Lana said. “That or you’ve turned him on so much he can’t speak.”
Jackie’s lips quivered and her cheeks flushed. Lana tried to suppress a smile at the state of her usually imperturbable friend. But then Ryder, with his chiseled jaw and broad shoulders, certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes. No way would he ever prance around in
lederhosen
.
Ryder dragged his gaze back to Lana. “Does Ice know you’re here?”
Lana’s pulse kicked up a notch and she tried to force her alcohol-fuzzed brain into a kick-ass old-lady mind-set.
Old lady. Old lady. Old lady.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “I don’t report to him. I don’t tell him where I’m going to be every minute of the day. I don’t ask his permission when I go out.”
Hmmm. As natural as breathing
. Maybe she was meant to be a biker’s old lady after all.
Ryder folded his arms and leveled his gaze. “You do.”
“I don’t. So just chill. Jackie and I are just here having a good time, same as everyone else. It
is
summer Oktoberfest, after all.”
Ryder shook his head. “You’re Ice’s old lady. ‘You’re his’ means you don’t stand on tables wearing…” he looked her up and down and swallowed hard, “…that…sexy little outfit. Especially not when the brothers are here and Ice isn’t around to keep them in line. They’ll be thinking…things…they shouldn’t be thinking. You belong to Ice and only Ice should be thinking those things.”
Jackie snorted. “I think he’s saying Ice is gonna be pissed he missed out on a fun evening. I don’t speak bikerese so it’s just a guess.”
Lana tightened her lips and glared at Ryder. Yet another biker with attitude. Yet another man who thought he could boss her around. She could hardly wait to be done with this case and get back to sitting in her car, eating celery sticks and watching men cheat on their wives. He made it too damn easy to put on the old-lady attitude—or, maybe, she’d already been wearing it.
“I don’t give a damn what anyone is thinking. I’ll wear what I want to wear. I’ll sing if I want to sing. And I’ll stand where I want to stand.” Her hands found her hips and she gave Ryder her fiercest scowl. “I would have attracted more attention if I had stayed in my seat since
everybody
in the hall is on the tables. Now clear off and let us get back to drinking and having fun.” She poked him in the chest for good measure, despite the fact he could probably crush her with one mighty blow of his fist. The old ladies she had known always poked their men.
Ryder startled and stepped back. A chuckle escaped Lana’s lips. God, if she’d had this attitude when she’d been with Levi, no one would have messed with her.
“I have no fucking idea how he controls you,” Ryder growled, batting her hand away.
“He doesn’t. I’m uncontrollable.” She cocked her head and frowned. “What’s it to you anyway?”
“You’re Ice’s girl. Means I protect you like you were mine. And if you were mine, I’d be taking you back to the club. A table full of drunken bikers, two pretty girls in…those outfits… It’s a recipe for disaster, rules or no rules about touching old ladies.”
Back to the club?
She would have refused point-blank, save for the fact it would give her a chance to warn James about Rex.
She effected an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Take me back to the club. I suspect you would do it even if I said no.”
Ryder’s eyes twinkled. “I was thinking I’d have to throw you over my shoulder, maybe tie you to my bike. Good to hear you’ll come along easily.”
A small sound left Jackie’s lips, a cross between a moan and a whimper. Ryder’s head jerked in her direction and his gaze raked over her body, finally coming to rest on her flushed cheeks. His eyes softened and his voice dropped to a husky rumble.
“We can’t leave you on your lonesome. I’ll ask Kickstand and a few of the boys I trust to keep you company until I’m back. That is…if you’re sticking around.”
Jackie’s cheeks brightened and she gave him her coy, endearing, come-hither smile. “I still have a stein of beer and a plate of
sauerbraten
to finish, so I’m not going anywhere.” She gave Lana a wink then headed back to her table where Hans and his companion were comparing lederhosen length.
Best wingman assignment ever,
Jackie mouthed over her shoulder. She gave Lana two thumbs-up to let her know she would be okay on her own.