Twisted Mercy (Red Team Book 4) (12 page)

She circled her arms around his neck and rubbed against him. Her friend was giving Pete head. Pete was groaning like he could still feel it. “You joining us?”

“Got what we need. Upload complete. Get outta there,”
Greer’s voice sounded in his ear.

“Not this time.” Not fucking ever. He disengaged himself from her grasp. He set Pete’s phone on a shelf by the door, then went outside.

Max sucked in a full breath of the cool night air. Hours still till morning. He pulled another draw of air, then started down the stairs. Rena’s young, haggard face kept floating through his vision, reminding him of another girl, another time. Made the scars on his arm ache.

Greer mercifully kept silent. He knew Max’s history, knew Rena was a rerun of his hell. Jesus, he wished he could just unfuck one small corner of the world. He moved woodenly into the night, heading to his bike, seeking the solace the wind and the dark could give him.
 

It wasn’t as much as he’d hoped for.
 

Instead of a long ride, he pulled up to his cabin and cut the engine, still feeling edgy and restless. Hope’s truck was parked out front. He considered poking his head in her tent to make sure she was also present, then decided against it.
 

He wasn’t fit company for anyone tonight, dogged as he was by so many devils. His house was dark. He sat on one of his weight benches and unlaced his boots. He pulled his vest and shirt off, leaving them on the bench. He emptied his pockets onto the kitchen counter. He was headed to the shower when the faint scent of flowers wafted through the air.
 

 
He sucked in a breath of the sweet fragrance, feeling the dampness that lingered. Hope had showered sometime that night. He leaned against the wall outside the bathroom and lowered himself to the floor. He didn’t want to shower now, didn’t want the sweet smell of her to be washed away. He didn’t know if that scent came from her shampoo or soap or body wash. Didn’t care.
 

All that mattered was that it was the opposite of Pete’s stink. He closed his eyes, seeing the club president shoot up, seeing the zombie Barbies zero in on the hell dust, more dead than alive.
 

The last time he’d been undercover with the WKB, he’d gotten snagged into helping a father get his daughter out of the club. He’d done it. Gotten her detoxed and returned her to her dad. Jesus, at least her dad had cared. But she hadn’t. He heard through the grapevine that she’d gone back in and ODed.

Addiction ran in his blood. His dad had been an alcoholic. His mom’s dependency on painkillers had been her end. His little sister would probably have been a bit of both, had she lived. He ran his thumb over the ridges he’d carved into his skin, an ever-present reminder of what he’d cost the people he loved.

He wasn’t the kind of kid to ease an alcoholic's thirst. He was always fighting, always in trouble at school, sometimes fighting the bullies, sometimes just fighting to fight so his goddamned dad would have to talk to him. He wondered if he’d developed his love of fighting as a defense mechanism against his father’s drunken viciousness, or if he’d caused his father’s problems, or if he’d only worsened his father’s already weakened condition.
 

His fights with his dad had led his mom to her pain pills. That and the debt two children caused, debt that couldn’t be hidden from curious neighbors when his parents could no longer hold down a job.
 

He’d only wanted to help when he’d landed his first paid hacking job. He’d needed money to put his folks into rehab, to get his sister through high school, to fix their fucking lives. He’d only ever wanted to help. And wasn’t that just the fuck of it all, because in trying to help, he’d killed them all.

Greer had said he’d admired him for what he’d done.
“What you did got you a place on the Red Team.”
Max hadn’t told him that the trading system he’d hacked appeared to have never existed. He couldn’t find any record of it or the company that owned it. In every article he’d been able to dig up online, those details had been scrubbed.
 

When he’d asked Owen about it, years ago, he was told it was just part of the clean-up they’d done. There were other anomalies he couldn’t explain. Like why his family had been allowed to keep the money he’d been paid. Or why the terms of his parole didn’t include any restrictions against his working in a tech field or owning a computer.

He knew the team had created a false history for him that showed he’d served ten years of his sentence, getting out early due to a technicality in his trial. He was never tried for the murder of the Columbian drug lord he’d killed at Callum on WKB orders. It was that crime that had sent him to solitary—what Callum called its special housing unit.

It was almost as if everything that happened had happened for a reason. He wasn’t just acting in an undercover role; he’d lived it. He wondered if it had all been a setup. The whole thing.
 

The Red Team hadn’t merely discovered him. They’d fucking made him.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mad Dog was already awake when Hope quietly entered his house the next morning. It was the start of the fourth day in her quest to find and retrieve her brother. She’d been taking things a little more slowly after what happened with Feral. She’d looked for Mad Dog’s hang-around a couple of times yesterday, but she hadn’t seen him. Maybe she’d ask some of the guys if they had.
 

And maybe she wouldn’t. The biker wouldn’t like her nosing around.
 

She looked over at him now, sitting on his futon. His hair was mussed. His beard was scraggly. His eyes were wrecked. She put a pot of coffee on, using her grinds and his machine. She used his bathroom to wash up and get ready for the day. When she came out, he went in.

She scrambled up some eggs and made some toast, thinking food might bring him back to the land of the living. When he came back to the kitchen, he was wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a new T-shirt. His big feet were bare He grabbed a cup and poured himself some coffee, then leaned against the counter and watched her. His little galley kitchen was meant for one person at a time. It was hard to move without bumping into him.
 

“So, you ready to talk yet?” he asked, then sipped his coffee.

She made the mistake of looking at his eyes. She felt as if he could read all of her secrets. She blinked. “Talk about what?”

“Why a chick like you would come to a place like this.”

“It’s beautiful here.”

“Here, yeah. Not on the WKB compound.”

“I like the work. And I needed a place to be, so why not?”

He looked about as convinced as a judge facing a serial offender who swore he’d straighten up. “Tell me about your brother.”

She turned the heat off the eggs, then just stood there, shoving them around the pan. “Like I said before, I don’t know much about him.” She looked at Mad Dog. “He’s twenty-one. My mom wanted him to be named Randall. He may have the nickname ‘Lion.’” Or at least, that was what her friend had told her. Most of the guys on the compound had road names, so if anyone knew him, it was probably by that name.

A tension flickered through Mad Dog. He went still, watched her more intently. He knew her brother—she’d stake her life on it. “You know him, don’t you?”

“Maybe. So why are you looking for him now?” He was watching her from hooded eyes. She didn’t like the direction he was going with his questions. If she said much more, she risked raising red flags within the WKB community and bringing her mom’s fate down on herself.

“What makes you think I’m looking for him?” she asked, backtracking a little.

“Why else would you be here?”
 

“Like I said before, I needed a place to be.” She tried to be ambivalent. “If he’s here, well, then maybe I can kill two birds. Really, I just want to learn more about him.”
 

“What happened that sent you both into the foster system?”

“My dad killed my mom.” Hope fought a wave of loneliness. “It took me a long time to find out where my brother was.” She looked up at Mad Dog. It was crazy she was telling him all of this. She knew nothing about him. It was as if something in his brown-hazel eyes begged her to trust him. Was this how her mother fell under the lure of the man who was her father?
 
Maybe her friend had steered her in the right direction when he sent the note calling out the biker. He’d done nothing to press his advantage over her or exploit the rights the club had given him.
 

She took a deep breath and stepped over the edge. “Will you help me find him?”

“I’ll think about it.”

* * *

The taxi let Rocco out at the motel. Angel was in place in the hotel across the street. Rocco drew a calming breath. After long years of undercover work, he’d learned his eyes pantomimed the thoughts rattling around in his brain, so he filled his mind with the space between words, giving his eyes nothing to say.

Yusef’s wife greeted him as he stepped inside the lobby. Though she smiled, tension was etched in the fine lines on her face. “Khalid. How are you?”

“Well. And you?”

“Very well, thank you. Everything’s ready for you. I’ll escort you to the meeting.” She led him out of the lobby and into Amir’s old room.
 

Yusef and Jafaar were sitting at a small table. Yusef hurried over to greet him. They exchanged pleasantries and small talk for a moment, then Yusef introduced Rocco to Jafaar.
 

Jafaar’s dark eyes measured Rocco, studying him. Rocco made his mind a blank even as he hardened his eyes. “Have we met before?” Jafaar asked in Pashto.

“It is possible,” Rocco answered, using Abdul Baseer al Jahni’s dialect in Pashto. He opened the door, then asked Yusef to leave. Jafaar started to argue, but Rocco cut him off. “It is best if Yusef's knowledge of our meeting is limited. It is safer for him, safer for us.”

“Very well.” Jafaar gestured toward a basket on the credenza by the door. “I have turned off my phone and left it by the door. It would be best if you did the same.”

Rocco bowed his head, indicating his acquiescence. “First, I wish to assure myself that we are secure.” Rocco walked through the modest motel room, opening the closets and checking out the bathroom. An app on his phone tested for eavesdropping devices not belonging to Tremaine Industries.
 

Satisfied none existed, he turned his phone off and set it in the basket. Greer and Max had wired the room weeks earlier when they were awaiting Amir’s return, so it was monitored, but not by unfriendlies.
 

Rocco sat with his back to the far wall, letting him face the windows at the front of the room. Jafaar opened the meeting. “Khalid, as you know, I am new to this post. Yusef has told me how helpful you were in Amir’s absence. We are grateful to you…and yet we feel you have overstepped yourself.”

“In what way?”

“Yusef is an important resource for al Jahni. He is not yours to assist or harm.”

“I have been tasked to ensure security for Abdul Baseer al Jahni’s trade in the US.”

“By whom?” Jafaar asked with cool disinterest.

 
Rocco gave him the name of the firm al Jahni used to manage his security. Greer had set up his credentials, hacking the company’s system to deposit a personnel record for Khalid. “Think of me as an auditor. Per the terms of our contract with al Jahni, we are permitted to provide a liaison at a minimum of three times a year to ensure that not only are your security procedures adequate, but that we are properly being compensated based on a percentage of your sales. My employers felt Yusef was too important an ally to be left without protection here in the States. When your man went rogue, we cleaned up your mess. It is why al Jahni employs us.”

“But al Jahni does not know you.”

“Why would he? He has no need to know me. He knows my employer. However, if al Jahni’s concern persists, perhaps he would prefer to transfer his business from the White Kingdom Brotherhood’s western region to its eastern region?”

“It is an option he is considering. Before we make such a decision, however, I would like to tour the warehouse facilities of the western region. I understand it’s far more secure than anything the eastern region could offer us. I will arrange a meeting for us. They should be able to grant us a tour when we meet for our payment.”

“Very well. And now I need to know what al Jahni plans on doing about the persistent threat posed by the federal agents who have been targeting al Jahni’s trade and his business partners?”

Jafaar’s eyes tightened. “I have been briefed on this issue. It is my belief that the situation was exacerbated by Amir’s personal agenda. I am not Amir. I seek only to ensure my employer’s business is successful. My approach to dealing with threats is much more subtle. Amir tried a frontal attack by hitting the headquarters of the enemy directly, costing us many useful resources. He then tried to turn public opinion against the agents by causing a confrontation in town between them and the western region’s rivals. When that failed, he orchestrated another small war, this on the front lawn of the town.”

Jafaar smiled. “Sometimes, weather can be changed by the wings of butterflies. Amir worked so hard to achieve so little. My approach is very different: let nature run its course. Men are easily diverted by the wiles of a beautiful woman, no? We have a plan in the works that will get us into their headquarters and will let us keep a step ahead of them.”

Rocco leaned back in his seat as he absorbed what Jafaar was implying. He held his chin with his thumb and rubbed his bottom lip with his forefinger. “It can take a thousand years to change weather. We don’t have so much time. Every minute al Jahni’s goods are sitting in place, his risk—and ours—is exponentially increased.”

“Yes. This is true. And it is why knowing what’s happening will help us manage our process more efficiently.”

“When will your butterfly be in place?”

“Soon. Very soon.”