Wild Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 2) (18 page)

It was good. It was so goddamn good. But she couldn't help feeling that his mind wandered as he stayed there with her...and she had a bad suspicion of where it wandered to.

––––––––

A
fter the hot moment with Helen at the rest stop, Beretta dropped her back off at the hospital to go back to work.

“Don’t worry,” she said, as she strutted back into the hospital. “I’ve got a spare pair of scrubs in my locker.”

He hadn’t been worried. As far as he was concerned, she could walk around all day with his marks on her. The more people that knew she was his, the better.

And that was the problem he was having.

She wasn’t supposed to affect him like this. She was, in effect, nothing more than a hostage.

A very
good
hostage. A hostage he’d come to rely on in many ways.

But a hostage.

She wasn’t supposed to be sneaking up in all of his thoughts like this. She wasn’t supposed to be breaking into his heart. No one was. He’d spent years building himself as invulnerable, untouchable, all so that he would never have to go through the hurt he had been through before.

And they were in danger. Rattler could uncover them at any moment and send down a strike team of two dozen meth heads with automatic weapons to tear them apart. He was letting her fuck with his head this much,
this much
, when she might leave again at any time. Or even worse, when she might die at any time.

Just like Maddy had.

And then he’d be broken, again. Alone, again. Destroyed, again.

He couldn’t let that happen to himself. Nothing was worth that.

Not even an ass as sweet as hers.

But she kept working on him—her willingness to go along with their plans, her open desire at anything criminal, the way she clearly thought anything he did was sexual. Her diligence in all her duties, her careful consideration before she acted—unless she was with him. All of these qualities of hers drove him wild. He couldn't get over how much he just fucking
liked
doing all this with her. She was a delight to be with.

These were the thoughts that filled him as he drove to the meet with Ivan. Tank met up with him on the way as back-up, driving the van, their vehicles linking up in time as they passed through the city and made it to the West end of Stockland.

“Went okay at the hospital?” Tank asked after they pulled into the parking lot of the Hell's Belle.

“Just fine.”

“Your girl, she’s all right?”

“She ain’t—”

Beretta was about to say,
she ain’t my girl
.

But she was. He had gone out of his way to make sure that she was.

“She ain’t exactly great,” said Beretta. “Breaking the law is new to her. But she’s doing fine.”

Beretta was going to have to learn to mind his tongue better. It was desperate to betray him, and not just because licking Helen felt so damn good.

“Smart lady,” said Tank. “Tough. Locke was telling them Furnace boys about her at the
Belle
yesterday. The Nurse. They didn’t believe, but ain’t nobody heard from Damage either.”

“Was he spreading it around like we killed him? Did he use Helen's name?”

“Nah. But you know how it works. Like a game of telephone. The message gets mixed. I expect she’ll be a nightmare for all the good little outlaw boys and girls soon enough.”

Beretta snorted at that.

It was turning out to be a hot day. They strolled around to the back of the bar, out of sight of the road, both of them feeling the heat. They took an overturned card table and propped it upright, pouring out the bag of drugs Beretta had gathered from the hospital. All plastic bags and bottles.

Ivan was all smiles as he came out of the
Hell’s Belle
. Deep lines were under his eyes and he didn’t look like he had slept all night. Prowler—the fighter that Tank had bested the night before—was with him. His jaw was wired shut and he had a thick neck brace on to keep his spine aligned.

“Boys,” said Ivan, “I gotta say, you deliver, and you do it fast. When did we talk? When was it? Yesterday evening? Last fucking night? And here you are. Not even noon, and you got Poppa his medicine. I’m
very
happy with y’all.”

Ivan walked past the stash of drugs that had been lined up for him, fingers dancing along the different packages and bottles.

“What’s this? Ketamine? Whoa!” He let out a chuckle, shaking the bag of white dust. “Really spared for nothing, huh?”

“Like we promised. You got our stuff?”

“Yeah, yeah. Prowler, go nab it, yeah?”

Taking a moment to scan Tank up and down first, Prowler obeyed. Tank smirked.

“Your pup didn’t like getting beat,” Tank said.

“Nobody
likes
getting beat,” said Ivan. “But no, he ain’t taking it well, is he? I’ll keep a leash on him.” Ivan winked. “Don’t worry.”

“So you’re getting paid well enough for this?” said Beretta. “No complaints?”

“Hell no. I got a buyer for this stuff. Can’t wait to give it over to him. He’s in Easter County, down South.”

“You’re not going to sell it yourself?”

“What, in Stockland? Nah.” He shook his head. “I don’t dirty my own town like that. You know that. I don’t want any drugs in Stockland. Not even drugs I sell. It’s bad for people. Keeps ‘em from going out and buying my liquor and gambling at my shows.”

Tank and Beretta exchanged a look—news to them. Probably Ivan would not have liked to hear what they were doing with Gallows in the hills.

Prowler returned, pushing two large crates out on a cart. He opened them with a crowbar, showing the insides to the Wrecking Crew members.

Inside were several blocks of C4 plastic explosive. Harmless and inert by themselves, the explosives were capable of being molded into any shape that was needed by its users. But the second the detonator went off, the blocks became explosive dynamos, highly-powerful fireballs of destruction. A baggie full of detonators was provided with the explosives.

“There’s enough there to blow up half the city,” said Ivan. He thought about that. “Well, not really. And don’t try that. I still live here. But you’ll kill plenty of those fuckers if you do it right.”

“Those fuckers, who?” said Beretta. “Who said anything about killing anybody?”

“What am I, stupid?” Ivan had started laughing, but then stopped, seeing Beretta’s face. “I’m
not
stupid, asshole. It’s not like it’s some fucking mystery you want to hit the Copperheads. And if you were going to hit us, you wouldn’t come to us for supplies. At least, I don’t
think
you would. You’re not quite that dastardly. Not yet, anyway. Maybe you’ll get there.”

Ivan popped open the next crate, nodding for them to look inside.

“And hey, I know you didn’t ask for it specifically, but here’s a little cherry on top for you.”

Beretta opened the crate, studying the inside carefully. It was hard to distinguish what it was at first just because there was
so much
to it.

“Is this a fucking machine gun?” he asked.

“Can’t say I never gave you nothing,” said Ivan, grinning wide. “Though actually, I will want that back. That’s more of a loaner, you understand. Can’t really loan out explosives or the ammo, though. Those are yours.”

Tank was studying the gun. “This is a pig,” he said. “This is an M-60. How did you get an M-60?”

“How is anything anything? Don’t worry yourself about the details, Tank. How’d you knock my man out so quick last night, huh? We all got our ways.”

“You’re awfully agreeable,” said Beretta. “Just giving us extra like that. Preparing for it, even. What gives?”

“Yeah.” Ivan’s face went dark. “Thing of it is, Copperheads hit us last night. There’s that new country-western place, with the barbecue and the dancing?”

“
Winston’s
,” said Tank.

“That’s the one. Had a boy out there last night with his woman. Patch holder, four years. Name of Little Frank. Stepped out of the club, and got cut to pieces. Him and his woman both. Now my man, that’s bad enough. That’s wicked. It’s part of the game, though. Understandable. The woman? Taking out his woman like that?” Ivan spit on the ground. “That’s some bullshit. I’m not stupid. I know you’re hitting the Copperheads somewhere. Don’t know where and, hey,” he held up a hand, “don’t need to know. But you fucking give them a little extra for old Uncle Ivan, huh?”

––––––––

I
n the motel room Saturday night, the five of them had been planning the robbery for over two hours. A pizza sat on top of the television, mostly worked through by the ravenous crew. Beretta, of course, had eschewed the pizza for a small packet of hard-shelled chocolates. The danger and the delight of planning the heist had them all hungry for life, which translated into just plain hungry for most of them.

They had just one day to get their plan done. Come Monday morning, the Cartel would be on its way to collect. Helen, though she was terrified still, could not help but feel a thrill of excitement as their plan came closer to possible fruition.

“Okay, so, Tank, you’ll be set up here, along the road.” Beretta pointed to a building on the map that he had made up from extra poster board and the blueprints of the steelworks. “If you’re on the roof, they shouldn’t be able to get at you very easily. You’ll need to be in constant radio contact with us. If they break off or if you’re in trouble, let us know immediately.”

“Trust me, you’ll know.”

“That’s it, then. Everybody knows their part?”

They all nodded.

“Locke,” said Ace. “You sure you can pick the doors open?”

Locke's real name was Dylan Matthew Locke. The fact of him being their unofficial lock pick artist was nothing more than unfortunate coincidence. His time as a thief before deciding that the life of an outlaw biker was for him simply made him the most able among the Crew to open doors that didn't want to be opened.

“Sure?” he laughed. “I'm certain. I'll crack 'em right the hell open.”

“When was the last time you even did anything like that?” asked Tank. “Pick a lock on a door?”

Locke had to think about it; Helen took that as a bad sign. “A couple years, I suppose. But it's like riding a bike. It'll be no problem.”

“I have a question,” said Helen.

She had gotten there late, after much of the plan had already been discussed. They all looked at her, waiting patiently.

“How do you know where the money is?”

Ace shrugged. “We sort of don’t. That’s our biggest problem. I’ve made a reasonable guess, narrowed it down to three locations based on the blueprint.”

“I'm telling you.” Beretta pointed on the map. “It'll be here, in the loading bay. We're on limited time. We should just run straight for it.”

“You in charge, Beretta? Did I miss something?”

Beretta stayed silent, staring at Ace coldly.

“Didn't think so. You're right, we got limited time. That means we got
one
shot at this. So we check everywhere we can think to check.” He looked back at Helen. “We know roughly how much cash they have, and that takes up a lot of volume. We know also that, even with as secure as they want it, with as paranoid as Rattler is, he wouldn’t want to have it in a place that was too hard to get it.”

“Not buried underground or covered in concrete, you mean,” said Helen.

“Right. That’s safe, but not mobile. He’d want to be able to move it out at a moment’s notice. Which is also why we have to move fast. He’ll fight us, but the second he thinks the fight’s turning on him, he’ll turn tail and run with his money.”

“Sounds like you could use more hands to search for it while you’re in there.”

Beretta shook his head. “You’re not going, Helen.”

“She’s been handling herself pretty well,” said Locke. “All the real firefighting would be outside. It should be safe enough.”

“Yeah? Then how about I wear your flak jacket?” said Beretta. “No? Then shut up.”

Locke took another bite of his pizza, shrugging at Helen.
I tried
.

“If everybody knows their part, then that’s it,” said Ace. “Beretta, wrap all this shit up, yeah? Tank, check on the vans one more time. I want them all starting up quick.”

Tank nodded and stepped outside. Helen followed him, wanting to be out in fresh air. She was growing closer to this crew as time went on—there had been no issue with her talking, asking questions, volunteering herself. But, she still had a lot to get used to when it came to the combined body odor of four grown men sweating over a plan to save their lives and their livelihoods.

Locke appeared out the door, standing next to Helen against the window. He had two beers in his hands and offered her one. She took it but sipped only minutely. She didn't want the taste of beer on her too strongly when she kissed Beretta; that seemed unfair to him.

“Hey, so, listen,” said Locke. “I know it’s just uh, you know, a big show between you and Beretta. How big of a show has he put on for you?”

She laughed a little. Was he serious? Was Locke ever serious?

“Are you asking if we’ve had sex, Locke?”

“You’re sharing a room and all, and you seem friendly enough, but you don’t seem, you know...
together
.” He bumped his fingers. “I just mean, if the stress is getting to you, because it’s getting to me, and I can get a room to myself, then maybe you and I can crack open a couple of beers and—”

“You hitting on my woman, Locke?”

Beretta took Locke by the collar and held him up in the air. Locke smiled, disarming, spreading his arms wide.

“So she
is
your woman? You’re still serious about that, huh?”

“At what point should I stop being serious about my old lady, Locke?”

Locke disentangled himself from Beretta’s grip and dusted himself off.

“You know what?” he smiled. “I fucked up. My bad. I’m just horny. I think I’ll go hit on the hotel clerk. At least I could probably
take
her boyfriend.”

He walked off into the darkness, singing softly to himself.