Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 27304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
It had better be. Because if Link didn’t come back to me in one piece after claiming me as his woman, there was going to be hell to pay.
10
Link
Scout, Mac, and Dax were waiting for me in the prez’s office. Mac was yelling at someone on the phone from behind his desk while the other two conferred in front of it. I marched up to them, and they both greeted me with a lift of their chin. “What’ve you got?” I grunted.
“Found a temporary campsite about a half mile from here,” Scout offered. “I doubt the guy will go back. But he was stupid enough to try to take on the Silver Saints, so we left a guy to keep watch.”
We turned toward the desk at the sound of Mac’s fist hitting the top. “No one seems to know who this motherfucker is. Some of the other clubs have heard about the bounty, but none of them could tell me who accepted the job.”
“Shit,” I muttered. If we could find out his identity, it would give us a leg up in finding him by knowing his style and preferences in weapons, perches, and hideouts, or if this was a first-time contract.
“Standard response from the county sheriff?” Dax asked.
Mac nodded. “He’ll look into it through proper channels. But he knows what’s going to happen when we catch the guy. As usual, he’ll help clean up the mess afterward, but he won’t join the hunt.”
Dax’s cell rang, and he answered quickly. “Yeah?” He listened for a minute, then his eyes met mine. They were filled with rage, but his mouth formed a grim smile. “Send it to me. Thanks. Let me know anything else you find out.”
“Jinx was doing door duty in the neighborhood on the other side of the forest. He finally found someone who told him a strange motorcycle was parked overnight in a driveway two doors down from him.”
“So what?” I scoffed as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Coulda been anybody. Someone visiting, or maybe the neighbor decided they wanted a new ride.”
Dax shook his head and stuck his hands in his pockets as he rested a hip on the edge of the desk. “The guy said it’s been vacant for a couple of months. The family moved to Europe, and the realtor drives a Camry. He called her, and apparently, she is out of town. It was there this morning and gone when he checked back about thirty minutes after the time when you guys were being shot at.”
Okay, that was a little better, but still not enough to move on.
“So the guy rides? That doesn’t exactly narrow things down for us,” Scout pointed out.
“True,” Dax conceded, though he didn’t look very frustrated. “Normally, I hate my nosy neighbors, but I’ve got to hand it to them. In the right circumstance—”
“Get the fuck on with it,” I gritted, my jaw tight from trying not to roar my command.
“There was an emblem painted on the bike.”
“Was he able to describe it?” Mac asked. “Think he’d be willing to try to sketch it out?”
“No need,” Dax responded. “Mr. Nosy took a picture of it in case it returned and he ‘had to call the cops.’” He opened his phone and pulled up his texts, then tapped a picture and turned it so that I got a good view of the bike and the man sitting on it.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I growled. I was surprised, yet it made complete sense. The design matched the patch for the Hard Aces MC.
Over the past few weeks, I’d been tracking items stolen from the clubs being jumped during runs. I looked for sales of those items on the underground market and whether or not the sales happened within a month or two of the heists. Then I traced the payments. They’d gone to several different sources, but some questionably legal digging led them all back to the same bank account. I had my suspicions on who owned the account, but while my hacking skills were decent, the cybersecurity for this bank was way beyond me. Since Hack wasn’t available to help, I put Benji, one of the prospects, on the task. It had taken him a couple of days, but he’d managed to get in yesterday.
“You get the hard proof it was them?” Mac asked me.
I nodded. “Bank account is registered to the Hard Aces.” We not only had the bank statements but also a trail of the sales of illegal goods that led right back to them. It wasn’t information that could hold up in court, considering how we’d acquired it, but we could send it anonymously to the authorities, giving them cause to raid the compound.
“Makes sense one of theirs took a contract. Their hands are covered in blood and evil shit,” Scout muttered.