The Jetta finally sputtered to life, cutting him off. She hit the gas, speeding across the grass like there was no tomorrow.
But there was a Saturday. And Hades was in it.
James waited until Lana was safely away before walking across the field to the small clearing where he’d parked his motorcycle, a custom Harley Rocker. Life hadn’t prepared him for moments like this. Duty had always been the dominant force driving him forward. From a family background steeped in law enforcement, James had adhered to tradition and entered the police force, rising through the ranks from the beat to drug enforcement, then to homicide and finally undercover. A clear path. But now duty warred with desire and a soul-deep longing he’d spent the last two years trying to deny.
Lana’s scent still lingered on his clothes, her warmth on his skin. But it was her fire that drew him, aroused him. Beneath the flames smoldered a passion he had been—was still—helpless to resist.
He drove the short distance to the airplane hangar and parked alongside the motorcycles of Rex’s closest advisors. He could only hope—with Rex’s entire inner circle present—the discussion would turn to the club’s latest drug-smuggling scheme. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) had assured James his wiretap recordings had given them enough evidence to justify a raid on the club. They just needed an opportunity and some hard evidence.
He stopped at the keypad and punched in the code, then checked his wire. Although Rex had no compunction about announcing the club’s presence to the world with the garish patch artwork over the door, he was almost obsessive about security. The clubhouse was impenetrable, thanks to a state-of-the-art security system. If he ever found out James had been recording his conversations over the last two years, he would kill James on the spot. And if he found out Lana was sniffing around Hades…
James shook his head. Her disguise had been damned good. If he hadn’t recognized her Jetta, even he might not have known her in that blonde wig, her beautiful body hidden under those bulky clothes. He knew from past experience, Lana could talk her way out of almost anything, except with him. Rex would likely have bought her story.
But now he had a bigger problem. If Lana was investigating Hades, he had to stop her. Not only could she compromise his cover, she would likely get herself killed. Problem was, stopping Lana when she was set on a course of action was next to impossible.
The door swung open and he walked inside. The twenty-thousand-square-foot space had been completely renovated and now housed an office, workout area, showers and bathrooms, kitchen, full bar, two lounges, media room, pool table and a suite of bedrooms on the second floor where he, Ryder and most of the single club members lived.
Dawg and Punch were sprawled on the couches in Rex’s office. Bones and Diesel had dragged in a few chairs. Ryder leaned against a wall, his arms folded. Rex, as always, reclined in his oversized leather chair, feet propped up on his desk. All of them were dressed in leathers and black T-shirts, the unofficial Hades uniform.
“She gone?”
“Sent her home.” James took a seat beside Dawg. The high-ranking member of Rex’s inner circle had released his long, wavy brown hair from its usual hair tie, and it brushed over his shoulders as he turned and nodded a greeting. With his long, thin face and slender frame, he now, more than ever, resembled his namesake, the chocolate lab curled at his feet.
“Heard you’d found yourself a bitch.” Dawg barked a laugh. “Never thought I’d see the day. She must have one sweet pussy to take your attention away from the club. I was beginning to think we were all you had in your pathetic life.”
“Just you, Dawg. You’re all I fucking need.” He feigned the usual banter, even going so far as to blow Dawg a kiss, but his mind was on Lana. He couldn’t let her anywhere near the barbeque. It had been hard enough to pull off the old-lady act in the field in front of Rex. How could he keep it up for an entire afternoon? All the old emotions had come surging to the fore, and for a moment she’d been his again and he’d forgotten they’d ever been apart.
“Don’t worry.” Rex smirked. “You’ll get to meet her on Saturday. She’s coming to the barbeque. Ice is afraid of letting her near us, but I have a feeling once that little fireball gets an idea into her head, she doesn’t let go easily.”
A wave of possessive jealousy surged through James, followed by an even fiercer urge to keep her safe. Although there was no future for them, he could damn well ensure she had a future without Rex. Whether she liked it or not.
Rex folded his arms behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “I’ve always liked the wild ones,” he mused.
James’s brows drew together. Although Rex’s infidelity was no secret in the club, he had always kept things discreet, usually taking the women straight to his office and then sending them home. He never talked about them. Never touched them in public. But even if he had, the brothers wouldn’t talk. What happened in the clubhouse stayed in the clubhouse. So what had changed? Had he and Angel split? What about their daughter?
“Won’t be anytime soon,” James spat out.
Rex’s eyes darted to his, picking up the undertone of a threat. For a long moment, they stared at each other. James forced himself to drop his eyes first. He’d worked hard to gain Rex’s trust. He didn’t want to lose it so close to the end of the assignment. And over a girl.
His pulse quickened.
Not just a girl. Lana
.
Rex grunted his satisfaction at James’s tacit acknowledgment of his top-dog status, and nodded as if something had been settled in his mind. “Got a job for you tonight. We got a tip the police are going to raid the mobile home of Punch’s mom and her husband out on the Fraser Highway. We just relocated all the club’s firearms and explosives out there. Need you to collect them. Take Ryder with you.”
“Ryder?” Short, portly and balding prematurely, Punch pushed himself to his feet. “It’s my mom. I should go with Ice.”
“Your mom or her husband probably ratted us out,” Rex growled. “I want to keep you out of it. Ryder won’t dip his dick in the drug trade, but he’s got no problem with weapons. He and Ice will get the job done.” He nodded at James. “You’ll need a hockey bag and a place to store the weapons. I don’t want them on Hades’s turf.”
Damn
. The weapons cache in the clubhouse would have been enough to trigger the raid, but Rex knew the law and was always careful to keep the clubhouse clean.
James’s stomach churned. No doubt the DEU had just heard about the arsenal over his wire. If they decided to confiscate the weapons—which they had done once before on the basis they couldn’t condone leaving illegal weapons in the hands of known criminals—he would be put in a difficult position. That time, James had been able to explain away the loss of a few guns, but the entire arsenal? When Rex called for their return, what would he say?
“You sure you want to send Ice?” Bones said. “Last time you put him in charge of weapons he let them get fucking pinched.”
James drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch, feigning irritation, although on the inside every muscle was locked tight. Bones had been watching him too closely over the last few months. Every job, every pickup, every errand Rex asked him to do, Bones had an excuse to be nearby. Meeting his handlers was becoming a challenge. If the DEU didn’t raid soon, Bones could become a serious threat to his cover.
“It happens,” Rex said dismissively. “If I didn’t trust Ice, he wouldn’t be in my inner circle. Are you questioning my judgment?”
Bones raised his hands and backed off. “Of course not. I’m sure he’ll tuck them safely away.”
Rex and Bones shared a glance and then Rex moved on to the next order of business. He ordered Diesel and Punch to go out trunking to raise some extra cash. Short and stocky, barrel-chested and foul-mouthed, Diesel and Punch could have been twins save for the fact Diesel had a woman’s face tattooed on the back of his bald head and Punch sported dreads that would make even a Jamaican jealous.
James breathed an inward sigh of relief at not being sent out with them. Trunking involved snatching off the street underworld characters with known wealth, locking them in the trunk of the vehicle and driving around until someone paid their ransom…or they died. He had done it a few times and once had almost called for backup when the drug dealer’s family initially refused to pay.
“Got another deal going down in a couple of weeks.” Rex leaned back and dropped his feet off the desk. “We got serious kilos coming in by helicopter. I’ll give you the details later.”
James’s heart pounded. This was it. The break he had been waiting for. The DEU would be able to take down the inner circle and probably a large contingent of full-patch members. With the wiretap evidence he had collected over the last two years, they should have enough to shut down Hades for good.
It would all be over.
Until then, he just had to keep Lana away. And he had to stay focused. Keep his thoughts on the assignment and not on the beautiful woman with liquid green eyes, kick-ass curves and sass to match.
Simple.
Chapter Five
“Chip?”
Jackie held out the chip bowl and Lana shook her head. Jackie knew better than to bring fattening junk food to Lana’s apartment, especially when Lana was emotionally distraught. She was the one who had pulled Lana out of her James-induced doldrums by suggesting they start working out and go into business together. The work involved in merging their PI practices had given Lana the kick she needed to get out of bed and into Jackie’s morning strategy sessions at the local gym.
“I lost over twenty pounds pining for Heartless Bastard over the last two years,” she said. “I’m not about to gain it back now that he’s seen the new, svelte me. I want him to suffer. I want him to regret the day he walked out my door.”
“Chip?”
Lana grabbed the bowl. “Did you bring any dip?”
Jackie shook her head. “I was trying to be sensitive to your new healthy-eating regime when I picked up the snacks on my way over here. Chips, yes. Dip, no. Soda, diet. Oreos, mini.”
“Very thoughtful.” Not that Jackie ever had to worry about what she ate. Utterly gorgeous, tall and tan, Jackie could have held her own on any runway or movie screen. Her hair was a sleek, smooth black curtain that had never seen a tangle. Irritatingly and perpetually slim, she had all the right curves in all the right places and a metabolism that meant her svelte figure could not be destroyed by multiple packages of Oreos or weekly chip binges. Lana did not begrudge Jackie her beauty because her striking blue eyes hid a kindred wild child and thrash enthusiast, and more secrets than Lana had curls.
Lana delicately nibbled her chip. Only one. She would eat only one chip and give the bowl back to Jackie. “Now, if only I could find a boyfriend who cared as much.”
A curious expression crossed Jackie’s face—part longing, part regret—but it disappeared so quickly Lana wondered if she had imagined it.
“From what you told me on the phone earlier, sounds like you found not one, but two, at the sex club the other night,” Jackie said.
“I don’t consider evil, scary biker dudes who threaten to kidnap me and take me back to the clubhouse to do God knows what, to be particularly thoughtful.”
Stretching out on Lana’s worn velvet couch, Jackie sighed. “I think you should call Angel, give her back the deposit and move on. Rex saw you. If he is after you, then not only are you compromised, you also have a professional conflict.”
Lana finished her chip and then ate another, and another, and another.
Damn addictive chips
. She shoved the empty bowl in Jackie’s direction. “I can’t leave Angel in the lurch. She wants out of the biker world and she wants to protect her daughter. Rex threatened to fight her every step of the way if she ever tried to divorce him, so she needs to get her evidence together before she files her divorce papers. I just need one picture of him doing something wrong—infidelity, drugs—anything that makes him look like a bad father and a bad husband. Problem is, I’ve been following him for a week and he’s been squeaky clean.”
Jackie refilled the bowl from the bag of chips on her lap and handed it back to Lana. “Well, if you won’t drop the case, you need to get closer, maybe even into the clubhouse.”
“As a matter of fact, I have an invitation.” Lana shoved a chip in her mouth and savored the crisp saltiness on her tongue. “From the high king himself.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Lana sighed. “I might have acted a bit rashly.”
“You?” Jackie widened her eyes and grabbed at her heart. “Rash? I can’t believe it.”
“Sarcasm is the weapon of the weak.” Lana glared, but Jackie just laughed her off.
“So is self-delusion.”
Lana’s shoulders sagged. “Heartless Bastard does it to me every time. He makes my blood boil faster than anyone I’ve ever met. I really don’t want to go to the clubhouse. But Rex invited me to the barbeque and almost immediately Heartless Bastard said no. Then Heartless Bastard called me this morning—he still has my number, although his showed up as unlisted—to warn me away. That just got my back up. I mean, it’s the perfect way for me to get the evidence I need, and he didn’t even open it up for discussion.”
Jackie rolled her eyes. “Uh-oh.”
“Can you imagine?” Lana shook her finger at her friend and lowered her voice to a deep, menacing James-like growl. “‘You are not going anywhere near that clubhouse’, he says to me. ‘No fucking way.’ He swears a lot now that he’s a biker. I mean
a lot
. He said ‘fuck’ more times in our two meetings than I heard him say in the six months we were together. And his hair is deliciously long. And he wears hot biker clothes. And he has a mouth-watering bike.”