Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
Julian
G rim was waiting for me when I rolled through the clubhouse gates in my pickup truck. The woman who’d interrupted my kill was tied up and silently raging in my passenger seat. Fire burned in the depths of her gray eyes every time she looked at me, and I knew if her hands and feet were free, she’d be trying to murder me, even at the expense of her own life.
I’d called Grim after taking care of Stewart Dukes, letting him know the kill was done and that I had a problem. He hadn’t been pleased, but instead of inquiring while we were on the phone, he told me to get to the clubhouse so we could try to resolve it.
As he glared through my windshield at the bombshell sitting next to me, I had no doubt he had expected any other problem but this one.
He was going to rip me a new asshole for this fuck-up. That was for sure. Never, not in my years in the military or the years since I’d been a member of the SCMC had this kind of thing happened. I kept running over what I’d missed, but as far as I knew, I hadn’t missed anything. I’d scouted the area thoroughly.
But if she was as highly trained as I thought she was, then I wouldn’t have noticed her. Not until she wanted me to. Had she not stepped on that stick, making it break, I wouldn’t have noticed I had company until it was too late.
And honestly, I found it sexy as fuck. I could’ve lost my life tonight, but who the fuck gave a shit when I got to meet someone as fine and dangerous as her?
Shutting the truck off, I pushed open my door and hopped out, my boots thumping onto the gravel lot. The rocks crunched beneath my boots as I met Grim at the front of my truck. He slowly pulled his eyes from the woman in my truck to narrow his eyes at me. “Get her in the basement, then get your fucking ass in that goddamn chapel,” he growled, his voice threaded with a warning to not waste time.
With that, he turned on his heel, heading inside the clubhouse. I scrubbed my hand down my face before making my way to the passenger door of my truck. The woman turned her head, glaring at me with pure hatred, but I ignored her. Gripping her waist, I tossed her over my shoulder, then bound my arm around her thighs to keep her from falling when she tried squirming.
I might have been built lankily, but that didn’t mean I was weak. I just didn’t fill out like some other men. She wasn’t getting free unless I wanted her to be free.
I kicked the truck door shut, then headed inside the clubhouse, carrying her through the main room and toward the basement door. Using my key, I unlocked it, then headed down the stairs, my boots thumping on each step. Once I reached the chair in the center of the room, I leaned over, depositing her into it.
“If you fall out of it and can’t get up, not my problem,” I warned her when she glared at me. I had no doubt if she didn’t have that bandana in her mouth, she’d be cursing me and everyone attached to me.
She mumbled something behind her gag, but I couldn’t understand her. And I didn’t have time to toy with her, so I simply turned on my heel and headed back for the stairs. Her enraged scream was muffled but still pretty loud behind the gag, and I smirked.
If I got the opportunity to play with her once this was all said and done, she was going to be a hell of a lot of fun. I loved a woman with a fiery personality.
Alex was sitting at the table with Grim when I walked into the chapel. Grim pointed stiffly to the chair that Ink, our Road Captain, normally occupied to his right, and I wordlessly dropped into it. Alex slid a hand through his dark hair, frowning at me.
“Care to explain how the fuck that happened?” Alex asked when Grim didn’t speak and just stared me down.
I sighed. “She was hired by him to take me out,” I told him. Grim grunted, then snatched his cigarettes off the table. If this were any other situation, I’d have laughed at his need to smoke the second something stressful happened, but I knew I was treading on very thin ice with him for this fuck-up. “I don’t know how he found out about me. I didn’t have time to question her.”
“Someone like him probably had connections. I called Copper, and he did some digging with Scorpion—” Scorpion was the president of the Texas Charter of Satan’s Worshippers MC and tech savvy as fuck— “and they found out he has government connections. Don’t know how deep his connections run, but he probably found out you were civilian now and did some digging on you since you lived so close to him.”
“We’re running facial recognition on the woman you brought here,” Alex continued as the smoke from Grim’s cigarette rose between us. I waved it away. “We should have a name here soon, as well as some information on her. She seem pro?”
I nodded. “The only reason I noticed her was because she accidentally stepped on a twig. It gave away her position. She had a knife at the ready. Had I not noticed her, my death would have been upon me before I was even fully aware I was dying. She’s definitely a fucking pro.”
“Fuck,” Grim swore, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. His burner phone went off before he could say anything more. He pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the screen, and answered the call. Tossing the device on the table, he said, “We’re here.”
“Your girl is Solace Dukes,” Scorpion said. Alex sighed. Grim reached for another cigarette. His first one wasn’t even completely finished yet. “She’s the daughter of Stewart Dukes—the CEO of Dukesuor. She’s twenty-seven years old. Her parents divorced when she was fourteen. He sent her off to the same institution Julian trained with in the government as soon as she graduated high school. She works solely for him, and he pays her tens of thousands of dollars for every kill. Looks like she pays a lot for care for her mother, who is mentally unwell and requires around the clock care.”
Grim pointed his unlit cigarette at me. “If you were any-fucking-one else,” he growled at me, “I’d put a bullet through your skull for this bullshit.”
“She didn’t even show up in the paperwork you gave me,” I snapped, getting agitated, too. “Had she been in that fucking paperwork, I could’ve done my homework on her.”
“He was a kill?” Scorpion asked before Grim could do something—like put a bullet through my skull. When none of us answered him, he heaved a loud sigh. “Well, the reason she doesn’t show up is the same reason Julian doesn’t. The government made her disappear.”
That made sense. Everything I had was technically under someone else’s name in this club, even if I paid for it. I didn’t have a social security number any longer. My birth certificate was absolutely worthless. Under US laws, I was here illegally, and to any government agency, I didn’t exist.
Understandable the same had happened to her.
“How did you find her?” I asked.
Scorpion snorted. “I hacked into the military’s database. How the fuck else would I find her if she didn’t exist otherwise?”
“We’ve got two options here,” Alex spoke up. “We take her out, too, or we keep her here and convince her to keep her mouth shut about Julian and this club. Scorpion, do you think there’s any love lost between her and Stewart?”
“No clue,” Scorpion told him. “That’s something you’ll have to find out on your own. But if she interfered with Julian’s kill…”
Yeah… she might have cared about him. Fuck .
I leaned back in my seat and scrubbed my hands down my face.
The pretty ones were always the most fucking trouble.