Torched (18 page)

Usually he didn’t mind when church went long, the club was what he lived for. But he’d gotten back from a week-long run just a few hours earlier and needed to unwind. Alone. As soon as they were done, he was going on a lengthy ride.

“Everything’s pretty much set,” Buddha continued, “but we need to be there at seven on Saturday to help the women set up. So don’t get all fucked up on Friday and oversleep.”

Groans erupted around the table.

“Oh shut the fuck up, it ain’t like we do this every—”

The sound of gunshots stopped Buddha mid-sentence.

“Shit!” Mace yelled, as everyone around the table jumped up and rushed out, pulling their guns as they ran.

Exhaustion must have been fucking with Torch’s reflexes, because he was the last one out. As his brothers sprinted out through the door and toward the gate, he tried to get a look between them to see what the fuck was going on. It had only been a single shot. Christ, had one of the prospects shot somebody?

They all had their guns drawn and pointing in the same direction.

“What the fuck is going on?” he heard Grimm bellow.

“She fucking fired!” That came from Ty, one of the prospects.

Torch pushed his way through Gauge and Squid, stopping in his tracks as soon as he saw who they were all aiming at.

Son of a fucking bitch.

There she was, in all her goddamn beautiful glory, staring right at him.

Livia Ash.

Knee-high leather boots, tight ass jeans, low-cut top, and a red leather jacket that hugged every fucking curve he remembered so fucking well. And those pretty greens just baiting him into getting sucked in. He almost did, before noticing that she had her hands up in surrender, a gun on the ground at her feet.

Shit, had
she
shot at one of his prospects?

“Guns down! Now!” Torch ordered, tucking his own away. “Jesus Christ.”

He didn’t wait to find out who had followed his instructions, instead charging at Liv and grabbing her arm. He pulled her away toward the gate. She didn’t say a thing. He could swear she was trying to hold back a huge grin. What the fuck was wrong with this crazy bitch?

“Torch, you know her?” Buddha yelled over.

“Yeah. Give me a minute,” Torch shouted back.

As soon as they were out of earshot, he spun her around to face him. “What the fuck, Liv? Did you
shoot
at my guys?” he hissed, his blood turning into a thick mixture of rage and lust.

“Hello to you too, Torch. No, I didn’t shoot at those pussies. I shot into the ground,” she said, her calm demeanor doing nothing but riling him up even more.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” he railed, “You could’ve gotten a bullet to the he—”

“I needed to talk to you,” she shrugged.

“Kinda hard to talk if you’re dead, babe. Fuck!” Torch ran a hand through his hair in frustration. This was it, she was coming back to finish him off. He’d called it years ago.

“What was I supposed to do? Your prospects aren’t very hospitable,” she dared to argue.

“I don’t know, announce yourself like a
normal
fucking person?”

She threw up her hands. “Oh! Why didn’t I think of ringing the fucking doorbell? I’m sure there’s one around, right?”

Torch stood there in stunned silence. No, there wasn’t a fucking doorbell. Goddamn it, he couldn’t help but laugh.

This fucking woman.

She smiled back at him, all sweet and innocent like this whole situation was nothing out of the ordinary. “Look, I
did
try to do it like a normal person. I called the number you gave me but didn’t get an answer. It couldn’t wait. You guys are about to be knee-deep in shit and I just came here to give you a head’s up.

Torch pulled a burner from his pocket, one of two that he carried around. It was the phone that she had the number to, he hadn’t been able to get himself to disconnect it on the off-chance that she ever needed to use it. Sure as shit, he’d missed two calls from the same number. “We had church. What the hell are you talking about? What shit?”

“Can we go somewhere private?”

“Babe, what’s going on?” he asked again.

She sighed. “Something’s supposed to go down at the fair—”

“May Fair?”

“Yeah. Really original name by the way.”

“Where are you getting this information?”

“Hold on.” She stepped over to the last bike and picked up a backpack that was laying on the seat.

He hadn’t even noticed the foreign monstrosity that was completely out of place in their lot. That was
her
bike? “You ride?” he asked, temporarily distracted by the thought of bending her over the seat. Naked.

She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Yeah. Some dick made me promise not to ride on another man’s bike, so I got my own.”

Torch raised a brow and smirked. “Oh yeah?”

She walked back over with the bag, not coming to a stop until her body was mere inches from his. All of Torch’s blood instantly went to his cock and it strained against his jeans.

Liv touched his
Vice President
patch. “Moving on up, huh?”

“Been moved up for a while,” he mumbled, trying like hell to think of something—anything—unsexy to make his raging hard-on go limp. No fucking luck.

“Ahem.” Buddha’s sudden appearance partially did it.

Liv hastily pulled away and stepped around him to shake Buddha’s hand. “Hey, I’m Liv. Sorry about the scene, it’s just that this really couldn’t wait and your guys weren’t willing to interrupt the meeting.”

“Buddha. I’m the President.” He shook her hand. His eyes narrowed in on something and he turned her wrist around. She was wearing Em’s bracelet.

Torch didn’t know whether to be ecstatic that she was still wearing it, or worried about how much shit he’d catch for this.

Buddha, still gripping her hand, looked over at him. “Huh.”

Yeah, the bastard knew. Torch gave him one of those don’t-go-there looks.

Thankfully, Buddha decided against pushing his luck. He turned his attention back to Liv. “So, toots… You wanna tell me why you’re asking to get killed right outside my clubhouse?”

“She says we’ve got a problem on our hands,” Torch spoke up. He had no idea why he was trying to talk to her. She was a big girl, apparently determined to prove she had balls of steel or something.

“What kind of problem?” Buddha asked her.

“Can we go inside?” she asked. “I need to show you two a few things, then I’ll be out of your hair and you can decide what to do about it among yourselves.”

Buddha’s glanced back and forth between Torch, Liv, and the rest of the puzzled-looking fools who were staring them down. “Fine. But you better not be selling magazines or some shit.”

“Trust me, you’ll wish I
was
in a minute.”

“Let’s go,” Torch said, reaching around to touch the small of her back and guiding her into the clubhouse. All eyes were on the three of them as they made their way across the lot. “Stay put,” he ordered his brothers, “we might have a situation.”

As soon as they were inside, Liv looked around and led to way to a pool table, where she threw down the bag and started pulling out files. The two men stood back as she emptied its contents.

Torch couldn’t put a finger on it, but there was something commanding about her mere presence, and it had nothing to do with size. Or the fact that she was crazy as a fucking fox. No, it was something about the way she moved. Fluid but determined, rushed but not frantic, familiar yet detached. She had an overwhelmingly calm and confident aura now. It was sexy as fuck.

Her stash unloaded, she turned to face them. “Okay, I’m just going to lay this out. I realize you’ll probably have questions, but let me tell you everything I know first.” Her jaw tensed. “You have a problem with the Serbs. Some rogue members of the Kraja syndicate, to be more specific. You’ve heard of them?”

Torch looked over at Buddha, who had the same confused look he was sure was on his own face. The Kraja? Sure. They’d operated out of Denver almost as long as the club had been around, but there wasn’t any bad blood between them as far as he knew. Hell, he’d only met Viktor Maric—the long-standing leader—once in passing. The Kraja were big city boys, what fucking interest could they have in podunk Linwood?

Alright, she had their undivided attention. Torch nodded. “We’ve heard of them.”

“May Fair,” she continued. “They’re planning on attacking your club during the set-up. It’s supposed to go down at nine, early enough so there won’t be many civilians, but late enough that you’ll all be there—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Buddha cut in. “You’re gonna have to back up a little here, sweetheart. What the hell are you talking about? Attack how? ”

“Jovan Maric’s been making deals and recruiting from within the organization, behind grandpa Viktor’s back. I don’t know what the end game is, or why your MC’s such a threat, but their plan is to gun down as many of you as they can. And for whatever reason, Jovan doesn’t just want to hurt the Serpents, he wants to turn the town against you. The psycho’s
hoping
for collateral damage to make that happen.” Her tone was so matter-of-fact that a sickening thought crossed Torch’s mind.

“Babe,” he growled, “tell me you’re not a cop now.”

Liv frowned and looked at him like he’d grown a second nose. “Would a cop be telling you all this? Come on, Torch. I realize it’s been a few years, but let’s just say that we both play on the same side of
that
fence. I have no respect for hypocrites whose loyalty’s for sale.”

He wasn’t convinced—cops weren’t exactly known to be pillars of honesty—but she was looking him straight in the face, unfazed, and something about that calm aura placated him.

“Here.” She reached for a tablet on the pool table, turned it on, and handed it to him. What looked like a surveillance feed filled the screen. Buddha sidled up to him so they could both watch. Three men entered the frame.

“Where the fuck are the AK’s and ammo?” the one who led the way demanded. “We’re a week out and only have half the fire we need.”

“The shipment got held up, they’re coming today,” the second man replied. “Gor and Drago are on their way to the Springs right now to pick up the ammo.”

“Good. I want it all stored in the Stapleton warehouse ‘til next Friday. Keep somebody there at all times.”

“Got it,” the third agreed. “But you sure this is the way to do it, Jov?”

Jov… Jovan… The rat bastard himself.
“You have a better idea?”

“No, I just… The civilian casualties will bring heat we don’t need.”

“There’s no way this can be linked to us unless somebody talks. Do we have a problem here, Serg?” Jovan sneered.

Serg shook his head emphatically. “No, boss, we’re good. I just wanna make sure this doesn’t create more blowback. Especially with Viktor. If this touches your grandfather, we’re all dead.”

“I don’t give a shit about Viktor,” Jovan huffed. “He’s too stuck in the old ways for this business. The authorities will assume it’s one of their enemies. The heat’ll die down. The point is to turn the people on them. We kill them, they’ll rebuild with the whole fucking town’s support. We
need
casualties or this whole thing’s pointless. Agreed, Marko?”

The man identified as Marko nodded. “Agreed. But I think we should change the time. The fair starts at eleven and the Serpents are always there early to set up. If we go in at nine, there won’t be as many civilians or law enforcement running around. No point in making more work for ourselves either.”

Jovan pursed his lips, then nodded. “Fine. Nine o’clock. I want everybody at the warehouse Sunay morning to plan. Start making calls.”

The video continued to roll until they all walked out. Torch didn’t even need to look at Buddha to know his jaw was probably hanging open too. What the fuck had they just watched? And how the hell had she gotten her hands on it? “Where did you get that?” he demanded.

“And who the fuck do you work for?” Buddha added.

Torch noticed her twirling a large silver ring on her index finger. Her other hand lightly scratched at her collarbone. It was so subtle that his Pres probably wasn’t paying attention to it, but he remembered that tell from way back in Ohio. It was then that Torch realized her cool exterior was masking how skittish this was all making her. She had something on the line here.

“I’m a freelance hacker and I work for myself. That’s all I really want to divulge,” she replied, before turning to face the pool table and flipping open all the folders she’d layed out. “That was recorded last Friday. I’ve been gathering intel since then. However you want to handle it, everything I could find is in these files and on that tablet.”

Torch stepped over to the table and looked at what had to be hundreds of pieces of paper. Buddha did the same. Addresses, photos, maps, mug shots, it was a veritable smorgasbord of information. He’d never seen anything like it.

“I followed them to the warehouse on Sunday and took pictures of every man who showed up.” She picked up a map. “This is a shadow map of the area. All of these little red dots and arrows are cameras and directions they point. The ones with circles around them have rotating three-sixty views. Every area in grey is off the radar, so I would stick to those areas if you go. I installed four of my own cameras across on the buildings surrounding it, the live feed is on that tablet for your viewing pleasure.”