Chapter 35 – Grey
GREY
I went over everything I had to present at the meeting that would start in the next fifteen minutes, bringing the image up on the tablet screen before shutting it down to wait for the rest of the crew and Diesel to arrive.
This was it. The piece we’d been searching for. With a little luck, we’d have the Kings by the balls.
I pressed my palms together, resting on the bar upstairs at Sanctum, pressing my fingers to my lips. There was going to be blood. A lot of it. The fun of the last few nights was at an end. Now, it was time for war.
“Holy shit.” Rook said beside me, choking on his whiskey as he squinted at something on his phone.
“What?” AJ asked, leaning over from his other side to see what he was looking at.
It spoke to the level of stress we’d been under lately that my stomach instantly soured before my brother could even respond.
“Humphrey,” he said, pushing the phone toward AJ. “The bitch bit it.”
AJ’s eyes widened as she snatched the phone from him, scrolling through something on the screen there.
“She what?” Corvus asked from behind the bar, guzzling a bottle of water.
AJ let out a long breath and let the phone fall back onto the bar, looking at Corvus. “She’s dead.”
“What? How?” I demanded, a spike in my gut. Had Carson gotten to her? Was he there when we were there? Was he that close to getting his hands on AJ again?
“We killed her,” AJ added.
“What do you mean, we killed her?”
“Heart attack,” Rook answered. “She was pronounced DOA at the hospital a few hours after we made away with our fancy eggs.”
I looked past him to AJ. “Are you okay?”
She bit her lip. “Fine. Is that bad? I feel… nothing.”
“She was a bitch.” Rook shrugged, finishing his drink. “She wasn’t your family, Ghost, just blood. There’s a difference. You don’t have to feel a damn thing for that woman.”
AJ nodded to herself, subconsciously agreeing. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered doing her in myself after finding out she could’ve saved my dad.”
“There you go,” Rook said, reaching over to give her shoulder a squeeze. “This was you don’t have to get your hand dirty. Did you finish the article?”
“No, why?”
“Her staff dumped her at the hospital and none of them could be reached for comments.”
“They all took off?” I asked, incredulous.
Corvus’ lips twisted into a wicked smirk that looked foreign on his usually severe face. “With all the good silver and artwork, I suspect.” He laughed.
“So you can stop worrying about our DNA being all over the place. No one’s going to be reporting any stolen goods any time soon, Ghost.”
“That’s some fucking luck,” she snorted.
This girl, she still didn’t get it. She wasn’t running with the likes of a wannabe gangsters.
The Saints were all but untouchable. Diesel had seen to making it that way.
This was the weakest we’d been in the history of the gang since the very beginning when the three original Saints split ways.
“We would’ve blocked the investigation before it could be elevated to the feds anyway, AJ.
Not to mention the fact you’re her straight A’s niece and we spent Thanksgiving there.
It would stand to reason our prints would be all over the place. ”
“And the other evidence?”
“We had a party while your aunt was out of town. Like teenagers do.”
She shook her head, but there was a smile on her lips, and I realized I would do anything to keep it there.
“And fuck if it wasn’t the best party I’ve ever been to,” she played along, her thighs pressed together on the stool.
I knew she was remembering it. It’d been almost thirty-six hours since the heist turned fuckfest, but it was still the number one thing on my mind.
I’d had a rock solid hard-on off and on since I woke up the next morning.
A sharp whistle behind us had us all swiveling our seats.
Dies held the back door open across the mostly empty bar, his icy stare fixed on me. “Let’s see what you got, Grey.”
Hello to you, too, Pops.
He’d been easily irritable since what happened to the garden. It had been a shrine to his wife, and he’d tended it meticulously for as long as I could remember. I imagined it was like losing a part of her all over again.
“We’ll be right down.”
AJ slid off her stool, the pink flesh of her forearm looking better today than it did yesterday.
Rook was walking with barely any trouble, and Corv’s nurse finally stopped coming around.
They were all mostly whole again. And I was starting to think a missing eye wouldn’t be the thing that stopped me, after all.
Target practice over the last few days had proved it.
With some minor adjustments, I was just as good as I’d always been.
“What are you looking at?” AJ asked curiously, her brow lifting.
“You.”
She gave me a cheeky look, coming to loop her arm through mine. “Come on, Superman. Let’s go start a war.”
The underbelly of Sanctum was packed with faces, new and old.
In the corner, a few seniors I recognized from Briar Hall stood with their arms crossed.
They were the ones the guys and I identified as potentially strong enough to join our ranks.
They stood tall, trying to appear unintimidated by the battle-hardened criminals surrounding them.
Then there were the other potential candidates. The ones brought in by the others. They consisted of cousins and friends. Brothers and sons. All men who wanted an in with the Saints, and now they’d get their chance to prove themselves worthy.
This feud with the Kings, and the eventual bloodbath it would come to, would be their only trial. Honestly, I counted them lucky. The trials could be far, far worse.
“Where’s Uncle Damien?” Corv asked, scanning the room. “Thought he’d come for the meet.”
My good mood turned rancid in an instant. “Dies said he left town after Becca woke up. Guess he got what he came for.”
“What’s with the hostility? You know he’s got his own fucking chapter to run down south. He couldn’t hang around here forever.”
I shook my head. “Yeah. Right. Just on edge.”
My disappointment rolled off my back. If Diesel was too fucking stubborn to ask for help, then why should I have expected Uncle Damien to force it on him?
This—what we learned today—was a win. And I wasn’t going to let anything ruin it. I’d worked too fucking hard.
Rook snapped at the guys from Briar Hall as we passed and when they jerked back from his shining teeth, he blew them a kiss, settling between two other new faces by the bar to ask Pinkie for another drink.
The newbies gave him a wide berth, casting furtive glances his way as they cautiously sipped their beers.
I leaned into the side of the nearest one. “Just don’t make any sudden movements,” I warned with mock seriousness, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. When Rook turned, drink in hand, he couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, sloshing beer onto the floor.
“Hey,” Rook growled, glaring at the poor guy. “Clean that shit up. This isn’t your mama’s house.”
Diesel clapped his hands together at the head of the long table, getting everyone’s attention. “All right, listen up, if you’re a new implant, get the fuck out. The rest of you gather ‘round. Grey has something to show us.”
The new recruits filtered out as me and the others made our way to the table.
I applauded Diesel’s caution, but the new recruits were hardcore vetted by both Pinkie and myself.
They had no connection to Mav, the Kings, or Carson fucking Bates.
And when it came to blood, they’d be with us anyway.
Pumping up our numbers. Giving us a better chance.
Human fucking meat shields with something to prove.
I waited until the last of them were gone before starting.
“This has got to be it.”
I leaned over the table in Sanctum’s underbelly, pushing the tablet into the middle so everyone crowded around could see it, too.
The aerial view of the factory was pixelated.
A snapshot courtesy of google maps. If it had been on a major road, we’d have better images, but the old metal manufacturing plant was set away from the hustle of Lennox, hovering far onto its outskirts, backing onto the national park.
“I almost passed over it at first, until I remembered Mav’s real name isn’t Maverick.
Took a lot of fucking elbow grease, but I found out his real name is Clancy, and then I went over every factory again.
” I jabbed the screen with the pad of my index finger.
“The lease on this factory is in the name Clancy Moore.”
Diesel nodded at the grainy image. “You did good, Son.”
“We still need to scope it out. I’ve looked everywhere but wasn’t able to find any building plans or schematics for this place. We need to know all the entry and exit points. If there are cameras. Safeguards. We can’t rush in blind.”
“I’ll do it,” AJ offered. “I’m small, and I’m fast. I’ll be in and out before they know I’m there.”
“Fuck no.” It was Diesel who said it, but it was the echo of what the others and I were thinking. “Sorry, Ava Jade, but last time my boys lost you they almost lost themselves, too. I’ll send Mickey.”
AJ’s expression soured, but for once she didn’t argue.
Mickey gave a terse nod from across the table, his already hollow cheeks sucking in as he worked his jaw. “I’ve got it, boss.”
“Go prepare what you need. You leave after nightfall. I want that intel by morning.”
“If you go through the national park to come up on it from the rear, watch for surveillance in the trees,” I called after him, making him stop. “And if you see any trails or anything that looks like the entrance to a bunker, take note of the coordinates.”
Mickey gave another nod and left.
“Have you secured the buyer for the Fabergé eggs and jewelry?” Corvus asked.
“It’s done. We have the cash. The meet with the Mexicans is tomorrow and we’ll have everything we need.”
“You want us there for that?” Rook asked eagerly, but I could tell from Dies’ expression that he was about to decline.
“No. I need you here to keep a lid on things. This is our second rendezvous with Los Diablos. We’ve been a good earner for their illegal sales.
Despite what we thought at the start, I don’t believe them to be a threat.
In fact, they’re shaping up to be a regular supplier.
They’re cheaper than our contacts to the east, and they’ve been in the business since before I was fucking born. ”
“Could be a mistake,” Corvus put in, but Diesel was already decided.
“It’s a risk we’ll need to take.”
I turned the aerial image of the factory around to face me, looking for weak points to exploit in the grainy image. “If this is it, what’s the play?”
“We attack,” AJ answered from my left, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. “We can’t wait for them to hit us first. We don’t have the numbers. We hit them first. Hit them hard. Leave no survivors.”
“ Fuck ,” I heard Rook groan under his breath, turned on by our girl’s penchant for violence. I had to admit, it turned me on when she took control like that, too.
“She’s right,” Diesel announced and a few whispers went up through the crew.
“They might have the numbers, but we have this.” He thumped a closed fist over his chest.
“And this.” He jabbed two fingers into his temple.
“If we plan this just right, we can wipe them from the board with one stroke. Finish it for good.” He pushed himself to his full height. “Get ready, crew. We’ll be feasting on King flesh by the weekend.”