Chapter 11
Army
I’m a wild animal on the hunt. My siren ran. She escaped me…but not for long.
I storm into the office, the door banging open, and Riveria jumps in the chair where she sits with her legs wide open, and her wife Belinda and another woman are taking turns eating her out.
“What the hell, Army?” She pushes the women aside and pulls down her dress while she stands.
Goddammit. Belinda knows who I am in relation to this club, but the other woman doesn’t. I fist my hands and try my damnedest to come across as calm.
“I need to speak to you in private, Riveria.”
Belinda stands and helps the other woman to her feet. “Let’s give them some privacy, honey. We’ll go into one of the voyeurer rooms, and you can watch the show while I eat your pussy until Riveria is finished dealing with her business.”
The two women leave, and I stare after them as Belinda closes the door. “How are you okay with that?” I turn to Riveria, who crosses her arms over her chest.
“Judge much, asshole?”
I shake my head. “No, I never meant it in a judging way. I’m genuinely curious.”
This thought has never crossed my mind before because I’ve never been possessive over any of my partners.
Until tonight. Because the thought of sharing my siren with another…
or even having anyone see her while I do the filthy things I’m craving to do to her makes me want to gouge out the eyes of everyone around me.
“Belinda and I love each other.” Riveria relaxes and shrugs.
“We also love involving other people in our sex lives. It works.” She adjusts her dress again.
“Now, what the hell do you want, because with the orgasm denial you just gave me, I’m either going to need a raise or to be joining my wife and girlfriend in less than two minutes. ”
“It won’t take long.” I motion toward her desk and computer. “I want the name of the woman I was with tonight. She's a new member. Go through the security footage of people arriving to find her.”
Even with masks, the members have to show their face when they check in, so the staff can verify who they are.
Riveria halts when she hears my words. “That’s against company policy.” She narrows her eyes. “Which you know, because you’re the one who created that policy.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I growl. “Give me her name. And while you’re at it, her address.”
“No goddamn way am I doing that.”
“I’m your boss.”
“And you need me, and you damn well know it,” she snaps, then concern covers her face. “What’s gotten into you? Why this woman?”
“Riveria,” I warn. Seeing she isn’t going to budge, I sigh and rake my fingers through my sweaty hair. “I don’t know. But I need to know who she is.”
So we can repeat tonight, and so I can find out why she bolted.
Riveria shakes her head. “That’s the purpose of Masked Night, Army. Let nature take its course. If it’s meant to happen again, it will.”
“It will happen again because you’re going to give me her name and address. Hell, you’re going to give me her complete application.”
Her jaw hardens. “Absolutely not; the application is confidential. Not just information like name, address, and birth date, but there’s the intake interview—which we stress and repeatedly assure our clients that it’s confidential, and that I’m the only one who will see it.
You don’t get to have that just because you want it. ”
“Yes, I do.” I remain calm and pragmatic, approaching this like a soldier would. “Because I own this club, and that information is legally mine.”
“You do not own this club. The Havoc Guardians do, not you explicitly, Army.”
“I’m the legal representative for my organization.”
“I’m not giving the information to you.”
My control snaps. “Riveria, so fucking help me—”
“Stop.” She walks over to me. “I’m not giving it to you when you’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’ll feel the same tomorrow. Give it to me now,” I say through clenched teeth.
She opens her mouth to protest, but the ringing of my phone cuts her off. I consider ignoring it, but it’s the ringtone I have programmed for one of my fellow Council members. Pulling it out of my suit jacket, I see that it’s Digits.
“What?” I bark in answer.
Usually, he would have a snappy retort to me answering like an asshole, but he only says, “You need to get back to the compound ASAP.”
I’m instantly on edge. “I want that information by morning,” I say to Riveria as I stride toward the door. “What’s going on, Digits?”
He takes a deep breath. “I just found Leeva.”
My hand stills on the doorknob as shock ripples through me. Then I yank open the door and sprint down the stairs, and race like a bat out of hell to my truck.
My steps thunder up the stairs to where Digits basically lives his life—his tower. It isn’t exactly a tower; it’s a separate structure connected to the main part of the clubhouse that’s one floor taller.
The heat intensifies as I near the top of the stairs.
Not because heat naturally rises, but because of the million dollars’ worth of computers and tech equipment Digits keeps up here.
The entire floor is packed with it—a wall of monitors like something you’d envision in the Fed’s control room.
Some display surveillance feeds from the clubhouse, others cycle through our various businesses, and the rest run programs for whatever Digits is digging into.
One of those programs has been looking for Leeva for years, even though I’ve told him repeatedly to stop.
Digits lifts his head as I burst into his space. His dark, curly hair is messy, but otherwise he looks good—not the bloodshot eyes and three-day-old clothes he’d been sporting when Slade, Bane’s old lady, and the MC were under threat.
He stands. “Army—”
I punch him in the face.
His head snaps back, and his eyes widen in surprise. Then he punches me right back, because even though he’s our resident nerd, he gives as good as he gets and he’s as lethal as any of us.
But my anger isn’t abated, and I go after him again. Only to be hauled back. I whirl and see its Bane, the big bastard, who manhandles me.
But I’m not deterred. “I told you to stop fucking looking for her!” I shout at Digits, surging at him again, only to be yanked back by Bane again.
I don’t try to break his hold this time; I just glare at Digits, who is supposed to be my fucking friend and someone I view as family.
“I don’t want to know where Leeva is, Digits. Because I can’t have her.”
My shout echoes around the room. My admission isn’t a surprise to them; my closest friends all know of my pain and the reality that stands between Leeva and me.
Digits looks pained, but before he speaks, Ash says from behind me, “Let him explain, Army.”
I pivot to see Ash and Pix joining the party as they crest the top of the stairs.
Ash is tall, like the rest of us guys, not as broad and muscular as Bane or as lean and cut as Digits and me, but somewhere in between.
Pix looks like a tiny pixie beside him. She’s a beautiful blonde with a cute little nose, but you’re a fucking idiot—a dead fucking idiot—if you underestimate her. She’s fast, violent, and bloodthirsty.
“I don’t want to know,” I grit, suddenly needing to be out of here because I can’t breathe.
“She’s here. In San Francisco.”
I halt and look at Pix, who quietly spoke.
She reaches up and cups my face, but the action isn’t sexual or romantic.
She’s a sister to us, and she’s tactile with those she loves and trusts.
And she’s been a close confidante for me over the years when I needed to talk about the pain that ate away at my guts and soul.
“Leeva would never come back.” I shake my head. “She knows her coming home could bring Guerilla back here to claim her.”
Guerilla had been unhinged when he found out Leeva ran from him, and I know that once he recovered from the beating I gave him in the hospital after Leeva had run, he searched for her.
The fact that Digits could never find her all these years, even with his skills and tech, made me relax, knowing Guerilla wouldn’t find her, either.
“If Guerilla does return and tries to claim her, and that’s not what Leeva wants, you know I won’t allow that,” Ash states. “None of us Council members will.”
His words should ease my angst, but instead, they amplify it. Because if Leeva is back, then maybe she came back for Guerilla, because she wants to be with him.
My entire body rejects the thought.
No. She would never want him, not after what he did and made her lose.
But why would she come back after over a decade of being gone?
None of this makes sense.
I turn to Digits and his banks of computer monitors. “Where is she?”
He wipes his nose, the back of his hand coming away smeared with blood. “She arrived by plane thirty-six hours ago. I haven’t been able to find her leaving the airport, so I don’t know where she is. But the private plane she arrived on has already left, returning to where it had flown from.”
“So, she could be anywhere by now.” I don’t know if I’m trying to reason with him or myself. “And what do you mean, private plane?”
Leeva never had money, and the little her parents had left for her had gone to helping her aunt and uncle raise her, since they wouldn’t accept any money from Livewire.
Digits glances at Ash, then back at me, looking wary. “Maybe you should sit down.”
I take a threatening step toward him, but Bane is there again to intervene. He grips my shoulders. “We need you to remain calm, brother.”
I shrug him off and order Digits, “I want all the fucking answers right fucking now.”
He sucks in through his teeth, then nods.
“The plane is registered to Wentzell Global, a multinational conglomerate primarily involved in logistics and transportation: global shipping by air, boat, you get the picture. But over the years, they’ve diversified and have other branches of operations which include pharmaceuticals and medical equipment. ”
Even though I want Digits to get to the point, I know he has a method to his madness with this intel he dug up.
“The company’s headquarters is in Berlin, Germany, and that’s where the plane both came from and returned to, according to the manifest.”
My throat is parched, and I can hardly breathe, thinking that Leeva may actually be here, in the city.
“The manifest…uh…” He grimaces, “There was one passenger on the manifest. Kathryn Wentzell.”
“Then why do you think Leeva’s returned?”
“Because of this.” Digits presses a button, and my heart stops as the largest monitor displays a picture of my little dove.
Her raven-black hair is still as I remember it; in the photo, she’s wearing it loose and wavy rather than pulled back into a ponytail or a severe bun. Her luminous amber eyes look like she’s staring into my soul.
She stands on the steps leading off the private plane; her picture captured by the airport surveillance system Digits keeps hacked into.
But that’s not what has my heart stopping.
It’s the curves. Gone is the too-thin young ballerina. In her place is a stunning, curvaceous woman. A stunning beauty with a body like Marilyn Monroe.
Her shirt is well-tailored and has a deep vee in the front.
Revealing a tattoo between those full, lush breasts.
A tattoo of a Buddhist endless knot.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Leeva is in the city—I know this for a fact. Not because of this picture, caught thirty-six hours ago, of her disembarking from a private plane at the airport.
But because I just fucked her filthy in my private room at Hedon.
“Army?” Pix asks, concerned, staring at me.
Flashes of the night at Hedon intermingle with Grinder’s death at my hands.
I slept with my long-lost best friend.
I slept with my brother’s old lady.
And if anyone finds out, I’m dead.
But that’s not what has me bolting down the stairs, ignoring my friends’ concerned shouts, and then thundering out of the clubhouse and getting into my truck. Slamming my vehicle into gear, I roar out of the compound’s gates.
I’m not running away or running in fear. I’m racing to find that exquisite siren that I need, understanding now how she had felt so fucking right. How she felt like heaven.
How she felt like…home.