The Dirty Dozen: MC Edition Page 5

  “Jamison Felder, better known as the Wraith.”

  “How the fuck do you know who I am?”

  He kicks the passed-out Tank, who stays down and out. “The FBI did a search on me, and it led me to you. Five nearly six fucking years, do you even know who the good guys are anymore?”

  I run a hand through my hair, fear snaking its way up my spine. “If you know who I am, do they know?” I ask, pointing at Tank.

  “Doubtful. Help me tie him up.”

  There’s a gym bag in the front entry. He opens it, and it looks like a serial killer’s preparation kit. There’s zip ties, gaffa tape, knives, guns, rope, and more. Felder rifles through everything and pulls out the zip ties and gaffa tape. I put the tape on Tank’s mouth while he ties his hands and ankles together. He goes back to the bag and pulls out a syringe filled with a clear liquid, then injects it into Tank.

  “Much better, he’ll be out for hours. Come into the kitchen, and we can talk.”

  “You’re fucking CIA, aren’t you?”

  Felder smiles and keeps walking. He has two cups sitting on the kitchen bench and pours us both a coffee.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny. And you know the CIA does not handle any threats within the United States of America, that’s your job.”

  “Are you rogue?”

  The man’s eyes go steely. “I did what I needed to protect my family. By the way, Raquel and her new boyfriend have moved and won’t be coming back.”

  “I need to give them something.”

  “Them?”

  “The MC.”

  He nods and looks thoughtful as he takes a sip of his coffee. “What you need to do is get close to Petrov.”

  “I’ve been fucking trying.”

  “Who’s the new president?”

  “Jax Broad.”

  “He’s a lifer. Father was in, yeah?” I nod. “What’s he like.”

  “Worse than Hammer.” I pick up the coffee cup and take a sip.

  “Sorry, Flint.”

  “What for?”

  “It wasn’t in the coffee, it was in the cup. You should be feeling pretty tired soon. When you wake up, take some Advil and drink plenty of water. The headache can be horrendous. Make sure you hydrate.”

  My legs feel like jelly, and I fall to my knees. “W-What the fu─” My tongue feels thick, and I fall sideways, my face hitting the cold tiles. I can’t get my limbs to move.

  “You’re lucky I found out you were FBI. Otherwise, you’d be dead. Let me do what I have to do. There’ll be no MC or Russian mob left for you to investigate. Keep out of my way, Flint.”

  I want to rage at him, tell him I have a job to do, but as the fog clouds my brain, I feel my eyes close, and darkness overtakes me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wraith

  Tank is tied to a table and plastic lines the floor. It wasn’t easy getting his hulking frame onto the table, but the pulley and winch helped. I carved into Flint a little and left his body in an alley not far from the Harbingers of Death’s clubhouse. They should find him sooner rather than later.

  It’s been five hours since I injected him, and he’s only beginning to stir now. A groan emanates from Tank, and he tries to move his head, but it too is immobilized. The man’s eyes flutter open, but I have a light pointed directly over him, so he groans some more and closes them. This is the part I like best as they try to move and realize they can’t. First, one hand and then the other are lifted as he tries to get up off the hard surface.

  I shift the light and peer over him. “Hey, Tank. Comfortable?”

  He opens his eyes and looks at me, then tries harder to move his body. I grin down at him and shake my head.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m the Wraith, the guy you’ve been looking for.”

  “Where’s Hook?”

  To mess with him, I say, “Dead.”

  The man flails around furiously, and I pick up a knife and lean over him. Tank’s eyes go wide, and he stills as I touch his cock with the tip of the blade.

  “Why am I n-naked?” he stammers.

  I grin down at him and stick the knife into his chest a little. “So, it’s easier to cut into you.”

  The color drains out of his face, and he licks his lips. “M-Maybe we can come to an understanding?”

  I tilt my head to the side and shake it. “I don’t see how. I’m going to kill you, your new President, the VP, and then I’m going after Alec Petrov.” I chuckle at him, and he begins to try to get out of his binds again. “Oh, stop it!” I laugh harder. “Maybe I won’t kill you? Maybe you do have useful information?” I say with eyebrows raised.

  Tank stops moving and nods repeatedly.

  I look around the room and tap the knife to my chin. “You can scream as much as you want here. No one will hear you.” I push the blade into his shoulder, blood pools around the base of the knife.

  Tank shrieks like a woman.

  “Oh, come on. Big guy like you? Suck it up, princess.”

  “P-Please d-don’t!” Tears run down the sides of his face as he blubbers uncontrollably.

  Slightly disgusted with him, I snicker and wait for him to calm down.

  “I’ll tell you anything,” Tank pleads.

  “The problem is, Tank… you have nothing I want.”

  I’ve pre-cut some lengths of gaffa tape, so I stuff a rag into his mouth and place tape over it. He tries to thrash around, but in the end, I have him subdued. Tank is so terrified I can see the whites of his eyes. There’s a CD player in the room, so I turn it on. The Grinders hard rock album fills the air. I bop my head to the music and pick up another blade. This one is surgical sharp—it’ll slice through anything. I press it under the hollow of his neck and drag it down to his belly button. When I look at his face, he’s out cold.

  Well, fuck! That’s no fun.

  I pick up the smelling salts and hold it under his nose. Tank’s eyes flutter open, fear emanating out of him.

  “Come on, stay with me,” I tease.

  I plunge the blade into the side of his stomach and draw it up to the first incision then do the same to the other side. Blood runs down the sides of the table, and Tank tries, fruitlessly, to escape. The pain he’s in causes him to blackout once more, and again, I hold the salts under his nose. The big man sobs as he wakes.

  “You know it’s rare for me to have this much fun. Normally, I torture people for information, but you have nothing I want. And let’s be honest with each other, Tank, you were going to hurt my wife. My ex-wife. Weren’t you?” He shakes his head from side to side, and I grin down at him. “I said, let’s be honest.” I look down at his stomach and pat him on the chest. “Wanna see something cool?”

  Peeling back a fold of skin, I reach in and enjoy the warmth of him as I pull out a length of intestine and place it on his chest. Tank begins to seize and arches on the table. Years of torturing people leads me to believe he’s having a heart attack. No matter, I keep pulling things out. The insides of a human being are slippery and warm, and it makes me feel good and fuzzy all over as I keep up my investigation.

  One day I’m going to find something different, one day I’m going to find what I’m looking for.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hook

  My eyes don’t want to open, and as I reach up to touch my face, pain courses down my side from my shoulder. I groan and let my arm drop.

  “It lives,” says the gravelly voice of Reaper.

  I open my eyes, and pain pierces my brain from the overhead lights and causes me to shut them immediately.

  “Lights,” I rumble.

  I hear the flick of the switch and try again. The pain is still there, but now it’s bearable.

  “Sunglasses?”

  Reaper takes the ones off the top of his head and hands them to me. I put them on, blocking out more of the light.

  “What happened?”

  “Advil? W
ater?”

  “Fuck, Hook! What happened? You’ve been out for about twelve hours.”

  “I don’t fucking know. My head is pounding, man, and my shoulder feels fucked up.” I try to sit up, and more pain scorches through my leg.

  “Let me help you.”

  Reaper grabs hold of my good arm and helps me get into a sitting position. I’m on a gurney in an unfamiliar room.

  “Where the fuck am I?”

  “Found you in an alley. Thought you were dead to start with. This is an old friend of Jax’s, a vet who helps us out from time to time. An MC wannabe.”

  I nod. There are many who hang around us, wanting to be part of a tribe. Unfortunately, this MC is bad. It’s rotten from within.

  I look down at my leg, and it has a bandage around it, and I feel my shoulder with my other arm. It’s all plastered up too.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Someone stabbed you in the leg and the shoulder. Vet says they missed all the vital bits. You were lucky.”

  I rub my eyes. “I don’t feel lucky. I feel like shit.” I exhale, and my ribs hurt. What the fuck did Felder to do me? “My ribs?”

  “You have a boot imprint. Vet says they ain’t broken.”

  “Where’s Tank?”

  Reaper shrugs. “Thought you’d tell us.”

  The gurney is next to a wall, so I lean my head back and rest it there. “We went to the wife’s place, and a guy answered the door. Tank charged in, and I followed. After that, it’s all black.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”

  “Yeah.” I straighten up and look around for my clothes.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We need to get back to the house. We need to find Tank.”

  “Man, you look like shit. Stay here, we’ll go.”

  “Fuck you, Reaper. I’m coming.”

  He shrugs at me and walks behind a curtain and comes back with a gray tracksuit.

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding? A tracksuit? What’s this, junior high?”

  Reaper goes back behind the curtain and throws my cut at me. “Better?”

  With no small amount of effort, I dress and then look down at my feet. “Boots?”

  The door to the room opens, and a rough-looking old guy comes in. “Ah, you’re awake. You shouldn’t be moving around, you’ll bust those stitches.”

  “I’m good. Have you got my boots?”

  “Yeah, but you shouldn’t be moving around.” The vet frowns at me and goes behind the same curtain Reaper did and comes back with my boots. “How’s the head?”

  “Hammering.”

  He reaches into his pocket and hands me a pill bottle. “Only Advil, but they should help.”

  My mouth is parched, and there is no way I’m going to get these down without some water. I put on my boots but don’t do them up, it’s way too much effort. When I look up at the two men, the vet is holding out a bottle of water.

  I take it with a smile. “Thanks.”

  He sneers at me. “Come back in a few days, and I’ll take the stitches out. If you don’t bust them open first.”

  ***

  Reaper had the good sense to have a car ready and waiting. I give him the address to Felder’s wife’s place, and after he calls for backup, we drive over. Tank and my bike are still in the same spot we left them. Pulling up at the house, there’s already six MC members waiting, one of whom is Jax.

  “Thought you were never going to wake up,” says Jax as he opens the car door.

  “With the way my head feels, I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Vet thinks he was dosed,” states Reaper as he looks at the front of the house.

  “Yeah, it figures.” Jax walks toward the house.

  I limp behind him with my arm pulled up close to my chest. Felder may not have killed me, but he fucked me up.

  Sitting at the front door is a brightly wrapped box. Jax reaches down and looks at the card attached to it. It’s addressed to me.

  “Should we open it?” I ask, worried Felder has placed a bomb inside.

  Jax shrugs, reaches down, and pulls the lid off. Inside is Tank’s head.

  “Fuck,” I whisper.

  “Fuck me,” says Reaper as he stares down at the perfectly severed head.

  “There’s something in his mouth,” states Jax as he bends down and pulls it out. Unfurling the paper, he reads it aloud, “Flipped a coin, and you won! But don’t worry, I’ll be coming for all of you soon.”

  Jax punches the front door, hard. “Motherfucker!”

  “We need to go. I’ll take Tank. Let’s re-group at the clubhouse.”

  I nod at Reaper, who seems strangely relaxed. I would have thought seeing his friend’s decapitated head in a box would have rattled him.

  “Yeah,” agrees Jax as he puts the lid back on. “Then you and I are going to visit Petrov. So, for fuck’s sake, put on something more appropriate.”

  “What, my tracksuit not good enough for him?” Jax levels me with a look, and I hold up both hands. “I was going to change.” I look at Reaper. “Can we stop by my house?”

  “Yeah, man. You know you were lucky, yeah?”

  I nod. I was lucky. If the FBI task force hadn’t done a background check on Felder, and he hadn’t gone poking around and discovered I was FBI, I’d be dead too.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Wraith

  I’m watching them from the house across the street. I have the occupant tied to a chair in the dining room. It’s a little old lady named Marjory Brightsight. She told me her name a dozen times, no doubt trying to appeal to my empathetic side. But Marjory isn’t the one I’m after. The two men standing with Flint Armstrong, aka Hook, they’re the ones I want. I watch as they all ride away. Flint in a car being driven by Reaper, VP of those bunch of miscreants.

  Marjory makes a noise, and I look over my shoulder at her. “No need to worry. I’m going now. Do you live alone?” She nods vigorously. “I need the truth, Marjory. You see, I’m leaving now, and there’s no way you’re getting out of that chair without help. I don’t want your death on my conscience. So, I’ll ask again, do you live alone?”

  Marjory shakes her head then nods. With a frustrated sigh, I remove the tape covering her mouth.

  “Well?”

  “M-My daughter calls in on me every night at six, but only on the nights she doesn’t go to book club. Not that I really believe there is a book club. I think she cheats on her husband on those nights. I’ll never understand the youth of today.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “Fifty-two.”

  I laugh openly at the woman. “Fifty-two?” I shake my head and grin. “The youth of today. Okay, Marjory, if I leave the tape off, will you be quiet until your daughter gets here?”

  “I might sing.”

  I chuckle. “That’s fine. No screaming for help until I’m well away. Are we clear?”

  “You’re not going to hurt me? Or ransack my house?”

  “Not today. And Marjory, don’t open your door to strangers. Put in a peephole or chain. You can never be too careful.”

  “I’ve never had a problem before.”

  “And I don’t normally let people live.”

  Marjory’s eyes go wide.

  I wink at her and walk out the front door.

  ***

  I’m dressed as a homeless man, and I’m sitting on the other side of the street from their clubhouse. It’s getting late in the day. They’ve called their members home. So many patched-in MC walk in and out. None pay me any attention. No one wants to have anything to do with the homeless. They avoid eye contact, it’s as though you don’t exist.

  Hook finally arrives with Reaper, however, it’s not for long. No sooner does he limp into the clubhouse, than he and Jax walk out. They get into the same car he and Reaper arrived in and leave. Stumbling to my feet, I stagger down the street, down an alley, and jog to the
car I have parked.

  I’m sure Hook won’t let me kill Jax, but it’s not often he’s surrounded with so few men. I drive in the direction they were headed. It’s an older model Mustang with a horrible orange paint job, so it’s not hard to find it again in the traffic. Like the professional I am, I keep my distance, but it’s not long before I realize where they are headed—the Petrov estate.

  We both take the same exit, but where they take the direct route to his home, I go a different way, so I’m not spotted. I park down the block from the house, but in this neighborhood, I’m going to stand out if I stay here too long. I’m surprised Alec is still here. I would have thought he would have moved on after my visit.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I decide to drive past the main gate. Slowing down, I cast a glance up the driveway and see six guards, all of whom are staring back at me.

  He’s definitely improved security since I was last here.

  Not wanting to draw too much attention to myself, I drive away. I need to plan my next move.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hook

  There wasn’t a lot of time to change and put on a wire. I’ve placed the small device in the bandage around my leg. There was no time to test it, so it’s with a wing and a prayer, I hope it’s working. Jax is on edge. The whole drive out, he was ranting about the Wraith and how lucky I was. Right now, I don’t feel lucky. The fucker stuck me twice while I was out. Sure, he missed everything vital, but it still hurts like a bitch.

  Security at Petrov’s is over the top. They knew we were coming, but getting through the gate was an ordeal. We had to get out and submit to a pat-down. When the guard got to my leg, I held up a hand.

  “Man, I know you have a job to do, but I got stabbed in the leg and shoulder. If you could be gentle, I’d appreciate it.”

  The fucker smiled at me and was rough. Thankfully, he didn’t find the wire as he was looking for weaponry I’d already handed over.

  When we pull up at the main house, Alec is waiting for us outside, a weird, gleeful smile on his face.

  “Jax! You have news?”