Their warehouse was huge and a fleet of trucks stood outside the building. The Granite Apostles was the kind of MC that focused more on its business than on the community or keeping peace. However, I’d worked with them long enough to know they could be trusted.
Nobody saw or heard me coming. I parked my bike up front and rushed over to the door on the side of the warehouse. Someone had to be in there, keeping guard.
I banged my fists on the door repeatedly.
“Hey! Open up!” I shouted, expecting to be picked up by security cameras at least.
When the door finally opened, it was by a sleepy-eyed guy who looked like a prospect. He was alarmed at first and then recognized the patch on my jacket.
“You’re from Iron Thunder,” he stated.
“Where is Duke? Drag him out of bed if you have to, I need to speak to him. Tell him it’s Ghost.”
* * *
When Duke arrived at the warehouse, it was thirty-five minutes later. I’d been watching the rusty old clock on the wall this whole time, counting down the minutes. The prospect had gone into a tizzy when I first arrived, making a load of phone calls, getting me a chair, offering drinks. But I wanted nothing, just needed to speak to Duke so I could go back home again.
Duke looked like he’d been dragged out of bed, just like I’d requested. He was the President of the Granite Apostles, older than me, and reminded me a lot of Drax. They could have been friends if they’d got to know each other, I thought.
Now he had a skinny chick walking behind him in a lace teddy and nothing else. Her legs were long, bronzed and too thin. Her hair was ruffled and her makeup looked a bit smudged. Not exactly the face I would want to wake up to. In fact, Mercy’s was the only face I wanted to wake up to.
“You better have a good reason for this shit, Ghost,” Duke grumbled as he walked up to me. The girl trailed behind him, looking like she was ready to crash to the floor. I wondered if she was just sleepy or high too.
“I do. I had to come here and speak to you directly, so you are fully aware of the shit going on,” I said.
Duke sighed and shook his head. From this gesture, I could tell he was already preparing to turn down any request I may have had and just didn’t want to get involved.
“Hear me out!” I argued, beginning to lose my patience.
“Let me guess, the Silver Knights has pulled another stunt?”
“Yes. But this time it goes deeper.”
“Listen, Ghost, I heard about the raid at Teasers, alright? I know what’s happening between you guys, but it’s really not my problem. It’s definitely not worth being pulled out of bed at four in the morning for.” Duke was beginning to sound annoyed. But so was I.
“Yeah, we were hoping this war would end with the raid. That was the plan.”
“And it hasn’t? They planning another attack? I heard you guys have Crash.”
“We do. You know he’s Drax’s old lady’s brother, right?”
Duke grumbled under his breath, clearly disapproving of the relationship. Drax didn’t need to hear this.
The skinny bronze girl started twining herself around Duke, licking with her long tongue up the side of his face. I wanted to push her away so he could fuckin’ focus on me.
“Get to the point, Ghost. I don’t need to know the family details. This isn’t a fuckin’ telenovela,” he growled.
“It’s been Eagle this whole time; he’s been the mastermind behind the whole war. Not Crash.”
“Eagle? The VP?” Duke asked, confused.
I nodded. “He got Crash hooked on heroin,” I said.
Then I watched as Duke pushed the girl away and stared at me wide-eyed.
“Eagle got his own president hooked?” he asked. All I had to do was nod and he knew I wasn’t exaggerating.
* * *
Duke and I sat in his office a few minutes later. The girl and the prospect tried following us in but he kicked them both out.
“Will I go back to sleep?” she asked from the door, cooing.
“Do whatever the fuck you want, just not in my bed,” Duke growled and she shut the door. Then he shook his head at me. “Sleeps in my bed one night and thinks she’s a kept woman now.”
I cleared my throat. Talking about women was definitely one thing I didn’t want to do right now.
“Anyway, so you’re saying Eagle planned this whole thing?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. He’s been planning a coup all along and the little fuckin’ spineless weasel that he is, he decided to do it this way. He manipulated us into attacking the Silver Knights, with the hope that we’d take out Crash along the way.”
“Leaving him to become the new President,” Duke added.
I stared at him, hoping I could see some positive sign. Duke had managed to keep his MC out of all territory wars for the past four years, and it seemed like he didn’t want to start now. But their MC had money and resources, connections, and manpower. If there was any Club we needed on our side at a time like this, it was definitely the Granite Apostles.
Duke sighed and shook his head again.
“I want to see him dead too, so you’ve got that right. What he’s done to Crash…to his own MC, goes against all our codes.”
“Yes.”
“But I can’t get involved.”
“He’s coming after us now, but very soon, he’s going to come after all of you. Do you see that? He’s not going to stop at us, he’s a greedy motherfucker. Not right in the head. You won’t be able to sit back and chill for very long,” I said, trying my best
