Cold-Hearted (12 page)

Nicole clouded my thoughts. How was I supposed to get anything done when I couldn't stop thinking about her?

I drove to the MC fantasizing about our time in the shower. Her lips over my erection, taking me in her mouth. It was so erotic. I was falling for her—falling for her hard. But was I the right guy for her? I lived in a dark world and she was so bright. The last thing I wanted to do was extinguish her. The restaurant was the perfect example—one night with me and she almost died. If she stayed with me, how much longer could she survive? I could protect her but something always goes wrong. I couldn't take that risk with Nicole. No matter how much I wanted to fuck her brains out.

What the fuck am I going to do?

I pulled into the parking lot of The Burger Joint. A line was forming outside and it was barely noon. Apparently, business was booming. Maybe Rowan was right about opening up a second location. I went inside the restaurant and through the back door.

Zane was sitting at the bar, reassembling his gun and Maverick was nursing a beer. Girls and members from other charters were passed out on the floor. The prospect, Myles, had two girls snoring on top of him. Must have been some party last night.

Zane left his guns alone and slapped me on the back. “God damn, Ash, it's good to see you're okay.”

“Thanks, Zane.” I shook his hand.

Rowan was sitting at a table going over some papers and nodded to me.

“Where's Hammer?” I asked.

Maverick pointed to the meeting room, taking a sip of beer. “He's pretty stressed out.”

“Aren't we all?” I replied.

I opened the door to find the Dark Steel table covered in guns. Hammer was going over each one, making sure they worked. “I'm fucking glad to see you're all right,” he said, taking me in his arms. “When I heard what happened, I almost went out and blew the Mexicans away myself. Thank god, Jasper has a cool head.”

“So what's the plan?”

“Jasper reached out to Miguel of the Los Diablos. He said he had no part in the attempt on your life.”

Of course they would say that. “And you believe him?”

Hammer pointed to all the guns on the table. “Does it look like I believe him?”

I laughed. “Guess not.”

“But Jasper believes him—and I believe in Jasper. But there's no reason we can't go into this being a little cautious.”

I picked up one of the semi-automatics. The weight felt heavy in my hands. I could do a lot of damage with this.

Hammer took the gun from me and set it back down on the table. “The plan is still the same. We meet the Los Diablos this afternoon.”

“What for? They already know that we're cutting them off from drugs.”

“It's all about politics, Ash. We need to explain to Miguel in person. He also needs to apologize to us in person. It's how we keep the club intact. It's how it's been done for years.”

I pulled out my pistol and replaced the clip with a full one from the table. “I'm ready.”

Hammer put his hand on my shoulder. “I don't think you should be coming with us, Ash.”

I shrugged his hand off. “What the fuck are you talking about, Hammer?”

“You're invested in this too much, Ash. I don't want this going south if you can't control yourself.”

“I have my emotions in check. I need to be there in case something goes wrong. You know you can't do this without me. We need all the manpower we can get.”

Hammer sighed. “I wish you were wrong. Round up the other guys and let's get the vans loaded up.”

—

The Dark Steel MC arrived at the abandoned warehouse on the eastern side of town in full force. The Mexicans had ruled the east since before I was born. Dark Steel owned the rest except a small sliver in the middle that went to the blacks.

We parked our bikes and vans into the warehouse and they closed the large steel door behind us. The entire Los Diablos crew was there sitting on their bikes. They looked mad as hell but their weapons were holstered. After doing meets like this for so long, you knew that mayhem could explode at any moment so you had to be on your toes.

I stayed back a ways to observe like Hammer wanted. Even though I wanted to blow them all to hell, I couldn't put my brothers in harm's way.

Jasper got off his bike and met Miguel in the center. They shook hands and embraced. Miguel wore his leather cut and the only hair on his head was a gray-colored goatee. From what I knew, Jasper and Miguel grew up together. But their friendship didn't last when they joined different MC's.

Miguel spoke first, looking past Jasper, right to me. “First of all, I want to apologize for what happened last night to one of your members. When we got the word that you were taking drugs from us, some of my boys went off on their own. The ones involved have been punished severely.”

I looked over the crowd of Mexicans and realized that a few of them were bruised and beaten in the face. A flash of Nicole's beautiful hair crossed my mind and my grip on my bike's handlebars tightened. Whatever punishment they got wasn't enough.

Miguel continued, “I hope that the death of one of my men satisfies your desire for revenge.”

Not mine, asshole.

Jasper nodded. “Dark Steel will take no revenge.” They shook hands again. “We set up this meeting so we could tell you in person that we're getting out of drugs. We know that this will affect you greatly but Dark Steel needs to get out.”

Jasper was handling everything very well. I always wondered why he passed up the president's seat to Hammer. Jasper would have done a great job.

Miguel grinned. “Los Diablos understands. No hard feelings between us.”

“We can help the transition by finding you another supplier.”

“That's very generous,” Miguel replied. “But don't worry, we found one on our own across the border.”

So that's why they've been so friendly at the meeting
. They don't need us anymore either.
This meet could have gone in a whole different direction.

“Good to hear.” Jasper smiled.

I noticed one of the Mexicans in the back staring me down. His eyes burned through me like fire. I returned his stare. “You got a problem with me?” I yelled over.

Hammer looked at me with wide eyes, slowly shaking his head to warn me to stop.

The Mexican in the back walked through the row of his brothers. His head was shaved and tattoos covered his face and neck. He was built like a prized fighter. But I could take him. I stepped off my bike and approached him in the center.

Jasper put his hand on my chest. “We're done here, Ash. Let it go.”

His words meant nothing to me. All I could think about was pounding this guy into the ground. I was going to make him pay for endangering Nicole.

Nobody hurts my girl.

“Let them fight, Jasper,” Miguel said. “It'll be good for them to get some of this aggression out.”

Jasper let me go and I walked to within an inch of the Mexican. I gazed right into his eyes, imagining every way I was going to hurt him. He swung first, but I was quicker—my left forearm blocked his punch. I put all the power in my right fist as I pummeled his stomach. His abs were tough as nails but he bent over and groaned. I laughed at him and he reciprocated with an uppercut to my jaw. My head snapped back and I collapsed to the ground.

Everything was blurry and in an instant, the Mexican was on top of me punching me over and over again. The taste of iron hit my tongue and I spit out a quart of blood. The image of Nicole flashed before my eyes and brought me back to my senses. I flung the Mexican off me and stood up. I put my hands up for defense and began jabbing left and right. I ducked and weaved through his punches, connecting a right hook to his face.

The Mexican staggered backwards, blood running down from his broken nose. I ran forward and shoved my clenched fist right into his skull. The Mexican collapsed to the ground like a bag of bones. The Dark Steel members cheered and even some of the Los Diablos.

My feet could barely hold me up. Zane came to my side and put my arm around his shoulder as he walked me to my bike. Miguel was right—I did feel a lot better.

This job was my life. I had no boyfriend, family, or friends. I spent every waking moment focusing on the task at hand. That's how I liked to live—that's how I got through each day without wanting to kill myself.

“We brought him in Agent Swift,” Malarkey told me. I entered the abandoned building the FBI was using as their headquarters for this district. We weren't usually able to conduct any business in here since being condemned to the closet in the parking garage. But today was different. Things were finally going to go my way.

“Let me handle this one alone, Malarkey.”

“Are you sure. This guy might be a handful.”

I winked. “Don't worry, I got this.”

“Whatever you want, boss.”

I slid my key card in the slot next to the door. A chime rang and I opened it. I went into Interrogation Room 1-B and set my folders down in front of the Mexican with a gray goatee.

“How are you doing today, Miguel?”

“Fucking puta,” he muttered.

“I'm doing fine, thanks for asking.” I sat down across from him at the steel table. Miguel's wrists were handcuffed and a short steel chain connected him to the cement ground. He wasn't going anywhere. I looked over at the two-way mirror, knowing that Malarkey was watching us.

“So the FBI makes the women do all their dirty work now.” He spat through his teeth.

Since joining the FBI, I'd heard it all. Nothing phased me anymore. When I was a rookie, the guys played pranks on me all the time: hiding my clothes while taking a shower, calling me Mr. Swift, and the worst of all—cutting my hair while I slept. They thought they might be able to get me to quit. But I wasn't going anywhere. I liked the way short hair looked on me.

“Miguel, I want to talk about the meeting you had with Dark Steel earlier today.”

“I'm not saying a thing to you,” he replied, seething with anger.

All motorcycle clubs were the same. They all hated the law and never spoke to cops. They would rather go to prison than rat on their brothers. Blah blah blah. But in reality, they ratted out their MC all the time. It was actually pretty easy to get them to cave. All you needed was a little leverage.

“We can play this game all day and all night if you wish, Miguel. But I'd rather just cut to the chase.” I slid the file forward until it was right under his nose. He stared straight ahead, his head not bowing down. I flipped the folder open to a picture of a bloodied waiter on the floor of the restaurant. Miguel didn't even glance at it.

“Do you know what happened at San Giovanni's?” I asked. Miguel didn't respond but a twist of his lip told me everything I needed to know.

“I'm sure you know your guys messed up big time when they left the corpse of one of your men behind at the crime scene. But they messed up even more than that.” I flipped the pages of the file and came to the shots of the shooting. “I bet they didn't realize there was a street camera that caught the whole act.”

Miguel finally looked down at the file. He examined the photos closely and sighed.
I had him right where I wanted.

“We already identified who the other shooters are.” I pulled out the rap sheets of each shooter involved.

“Cut the bullshit, lady. If this was about the shooting, you'd have these guys in cuffs and not me.”

I stood up from the table and paced around the room. “You're a smart man, Miguel.”

Miguel was indeed very smart. I had read his file the FBI had on him. He grew up on the streets after his mother and father were gunned down right in front of him. At the age of fifteen, he joined the Los Diablos and at eighteen, he became their leader. Flash forward forty-five years later and his club owned the east side of town, knocking out all the other Mexican clubs with barely any bloodshed. He never got his hands dirty which was why he was able to stay out of jail all this time.

“I want to offer you a deal.” I walked behind him and continued, “I don't want your club. The Los Diablos aren't even on my radar.” I sat back down at the table to gauge his reaction. “All I want is the Dark Steel MC.”

Miguel's eyebrow arched. “You're full of shit.”

“Cut the attitude, Miguel. We both know you've doing this too long to be angry at the law anymore.”

Miguel shifted in his seat. “What do I get it?”

“Your club will have full immunity. Give me everything you have on Dark Steel and your members won't be charged.”

Miguel pushed the file back towards me. “And what about this?”

“We'll charge the one that died with the murder of the waiter and everyone else will get away scot-free. We all win.”

Miguel folded his hands and sighed. “I want all this in writing and I want my lawyer to go over it.”

I glanced over at the two-way mirror and nodded.
Dark Steel would finally be mine.