Prez is standing, a beer in his hand, leaning against the exterior wall, surveying his domain. I feel as much as see his eyes on me as I park my bike and make my way over.
“Sissy bar? Pillion seat? Never thought I’d see the fuckin’ day.”
I grin. “Yeah, tried it out tonight.”
Dart comes over. “That’s not all he’s tried out.” He grins widely as I mime slitting my throat to keep him from spilling more of my secrets. Thankfully, he keeps quiet.
“Utah got us the locations?” I presume they have, otherwise the brothers wouldn’t be getting ready.
“Yeah.” Business-like now, the VP pulls a paper out of his cut. “We’ve got four locations where he might be. Two houses he’s known to frequent, a hotel he’s been seen at recently, and a studio.”
“What about the house we visited? Any chance he’d go back there?”
Prez raises his chin. “We’ve still got that under surveillance. Curtis is still there. So far, he’s not been back, so won’t know we’ve been there.”
“Where are the teams headed?”
“I’m heading to the studio. Lost is taking the hotel. You’re at one of the houses, and Salem’s at the other.” Dart points out the address to which I’ll be headed, and I program it into my phone.
“What about them?” I jerk my head toward Swift and Bolt, who are in conversation with Pennywise.
“They’ll be in the truck and will stay in contact with Utah. If there’s any last-minute information which means our plans change, we’ll adapt on the fly. If any of us gets a hit, then they’ll bring the truck. Wrangler’s going with them as the driver as he knows the locale.”
“She taking that fuckin’ dog?”
He chuckles. “Nah, one of the sweet butts has agreed to look after it. Jeez, Brother. Swift can actually be scary. I think Cindy darn near wet herself when she had to promise not to let him out of her sight.”
Yeah. But Cindy’s a girl. I doubt Swift’s threats would work so well on a man.
While we’d gone over the plans earlier, it doesn’t hurt to go through them again. Whistling, I attract the attention of my team and lead them to one side. I’ve got Niran, who’s solid, Kink, who’s good once his focus is off sex, and Keeper, still a bit green, but not likely to go off half-cocked.
“We capture,” I remind them again. “No shoot-to-kill shots. We want him alive and able to talk.”
“Fucker deserves to die.” Kink’s shaking his head. “Nah,” as I go to speak, he holds up a hand, “don’t worry about me. I’ll play nice.”
“Permission to get one punch in,” Niran requests, his eyes twinkling, white flashing in the dark of the night.
“Granted.” I may get in a few of my own if we end up being the ones to take him in.
As we finish up, Bolt comes around, handing out tiny devices we apparently fit into our ears.
“You’ll be on your own channel else it will get too confusing,” he informs us. “But once someone’s made contact, I’ll feed all comms into one.”
Having made sure my team is up to speed, I wander around the other groups, listening in on the individual pep talks, and raising my chin when I approve, or cuffing assholes, like Reboot, around the head when they don’t seem to be paying attention.
Having done my rounds, I stride back to the prez.
“All good?”
“Seems that way.” My eagle eyes span for anything I might have missed.
“Okay.” Lost holds out his hand. I grab it, pull him in tight and we exchange back slaps. “Let’s get on the road.”
“Ready to roll in five!” I make my deep voice boom out, pausing for a moment to make sure everyone’s heard.
It seems they have. Men start approaching their bikes and getting ready for the signal to ride.
Lost’s team will go first, Dart’s behind him, then mine and finally Salem’s. The roar of all the bikes heading out sounds thunderous—a wonderful sound in my ears. The noise diminishes as groups start to peel off.
I don’t need a map, I know exactly where I’m going. It’s not long before I’m signalling to back off on the throttle. I then make other hand signals causing Niran, giving me a salute in passing, with Keeper beside him to head down a street which will bring them up at the rear of the property.
Kink and I carry on to the front, coasting the last few yards with our engines off. We pull up in the street. Looking around, I see some bushes up ahead. When I point them out, that’s where we head to and park. Stepping back, I nod in satisfaction—a cursory glance from the road won’t reveal our bikes.
Having gone over our plan, I have my skeleton key ready. Token, and/or Utah have confirmed they’ve already disabled the alarm. I stand at the end of the driveway for a moment. The garage door is closed, there are no lights on in the house. Doesn’t mean there’s no one home, of course. One of my hands forms a fist and I slap it into the other’s open palm.
“We’re here.” Niran’s voice sounds directly into my ear. “There’s a back entrance opening onto a yard. It looks like one that will be bolted on the inside. All windows are closed, no lights on and no sign of anyone being inside.”
Don’t give up yet, I remind myself. I’d hoped to be the one coming across Devon. He could still be inside, but it’s starting to look unlikely.
“We’ll open the front door first, then come and let you in.” I can’t get used to just speaking normally and having my voice picked up.
“Copy that,” Niran responds.
“Going in now.”
Sliding out my skeleton key, I approach the front door.
“You sure you don’t want me to try first?
