“That too.”
The sound of somebody pounding on my door at barely past sunrise is enough to make me consider homicide before I’m even fully awake.
I crack one eye open, stare at the ceiling for half a second, and seriously debate pretending I’m dead. That plan lasts until the pounding comes again, harder this time, followed by Blaze’s voice carrying through the wood.
“Get your ass up. Logan wants you in his office.”
I drag a hand over my face and sit up slow, my head already throbbing from too little sleep and too much whiskey the night before.
The room is dim, the curtains still mostly drawn, the stale scent of last night hanging in the air with leather, smoke, and whatever cheap perfume the club girl I had last night wore.
I plant my feet on the floor, reach for the jeans I left crumpled over the chair, and mutter a few things about Blaze’s mother that he definitely hears through the door.
“Yeah, yeah,” he calls back, not sounding offended in the slightest. “Tell me more while you get dressed.”
I pull my jeans on, grab a black T-shirt from the dresser, and shove my arms through my cut before heading for the door. When I yank it open, Blaze is leaning against the wall outside with a smirk that says he’s enjoying the fact that I look half feral.
“You look pretty,” he says.
“I look like I’m about to throw you across the room.”
“That too.”
He pushes off the wall and falls into step beside me as we head down the hall.
The clubhouse is quieter than usual, the kind of quiet that only happens early, before the day gets moving and the place fills with engines, boots, voices, and whatever fresh chaos is happening.
The old floorboards creak under our weight.
I catch the smell of coffee strong enough to strip paint, and that does more to improve my mood than anything Blaze could say.
“Any idea what he wants?” I ask.
Blaze shrugs. “He asked for you. That’s all I got.”
That doesn’t mean much. Logan asks for all of us when he needs something done, but if he sends Blaze to drag me out of bed, it usually means he wants me moving sooner rather than later.
My first thought is cleanup. My second is that somebody somewhere has done something stupid, and I’ve drawn the short straw.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
We hit the main floor, and I turn toward the kitchen automatically. Blaze huffs a laugh when he realizes what I’m doing. “Office first.”
“I’m not talking to anybody before coffee.”
“You’ll live.”
“That remains to be seen.”
He’s still grinning when I shove past him, yank a mug from the cabinet, and fill it from the pot sitting on the warmer. It’s black, bitter, and hot enough to burn the skin off my tongue if I drink too fast. Perfect.
Logan’s office, sits toward the back of the clubhouse. The door is cracked open when we get there, and I don’t bother knocking. I push it wider with one hand and walk in with my mug in the other.
Logan is behind the desk, forearms braced on the wood, a file open in front of him. Shadow is slouched in one of the chairs against the wall, boots kicked out, looking way too awake for this hour. That alone tells me this isn’t random.
I glance between them. “You start every morning trying to ruin lives, or am I getting special treatment?”
Shadow’s mouth twitches. Logan doesn’t smile.
That’s my first real clue.
I shut the door behind me and take the empty chair across from the desk. Blaze hangs back by the wall, arms crossed, and I look at him once before turning back to Logan. “Well?”
Logan leans back in his chair, his expression giving away exactly nothing. “Need a favor.”
I stare at him over the rim of my mug. “That the word we’re using now?”
“Yes.”
“Then I definitely don’t like it.”
His mouth kicks at one corner, but it’s brief. “Louisiana chapter called.”
That gets my attention. Not a lot, but enough.
We’ve had more contact with outside chapters lately than usual thanks to the Savage Knights mess.
Patch-overs, old grudges, people choosing sides, information moving faster than bullets some days.
It’s settled down now, at least on the surface, but there’s still shit rattling around underneath. There always is.
“Okay,” I say. “And?”
“And they need us to return a favor.”
I take another drink, letting the silence stretch a second. “What kind of favor?”
“The kind where you drive down there, pick something up, and bring it back.”
I wait.
Logan waits me out.
That only irritates me more. “What am I picking up?”
He folds his arms over his chest. “You don’t need to know.”
I bark out a dry laugh. “That’s comforting.”
Shadow finally speaks from the corner. “You asked. He answered.”
I cut him a look. “I don’t remember asking for your help.”
“That’s probably because you’re still half asleep.”
I would tell him to go fuck himself, but I know exactly what he’s doing. Taking some of the edge off before I get too locked in on Logan’s bullshit. It’s almost thoughtful, which is disturbing enough that I decide not to acknowledge it.
I look back at Logan. “You’re sending me six hours out to Louisiana, alone, to pick up some mystery package, and you’re acting like this is completely normal.”
“No extra brothers,” he continues, like I didn’t speak. “No stop to make a social call, no detours, no noise. You go there, you pick it up, and you bring it back quiet.”
That narrows exactly nothing and tells me everything I need to know about how little he intends to explain.
I sit back in the chair and let my mind run through possibilities because if he’s keeping it this tight, there’s a reason.
Cash, maybe. A transfer nobody wants attached to bank records and paper trails. That wouldn’t be the first time a chapter needed money moved without questions.
Intel is another option. A file, a hard drive, names, locations, evidence somebody doesn’t want turning up in the wrong hands. The kind of thing better carried by someone trusted than transmitted over anything that can be intercepted.
Weapons is possible too, though less likely if he’s only sending one bike, one man. Still, it wouldn’t shock me. Guns disappear and reappear all the time in our world, usually with less fuss than people.
Whatever it is, Logan is being too careful for it to be routine.
I set the mug on the desk with a soft thud. “What makes me your guy?”
“I trust you to do what I tell you.”
“That sounds flattering.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
Blaze snorts behind me, and I ignore him.
Logan steeples his fingers and holds my gaze. “Louisiana helped us when we needed it. This is payback. I need somebody who won’t run his mouth, won’t improvise for fun, and won’t bring more attention to this than necessary.”
Shadow lifts a brow from the corner. “So that narrows it down.”
I glance over at him. “You got another joke in you, or you done?”
“Depends. You gonna get more sensitive?”
“I can.”
Logan cuts through before it can go anywhere. “This isn’t a debate. I’m telling you what I need.”
There it is. Not a request. Not really a favor either, despite what he called it. It’s an order dressed better than most.
That doesn’t bother me. Not from him. Logan doesn’t waste words, and he doesn’t hand things out without a reason. If he says I’m the right man for the job, I am. Doesn’t mean I have to like his delivery.
I rub a thumb over the handle of my mug and study him for another second. “How fast?”
“Late Afternoon, you’ll be arriving when it’s dark then driving back overnight.”
“Of course.”
“You’ll need the truck.”
That pulls my brows together. “Truck?”
“Yes.”
That knocks out weapons as the most likely option and slides my irritation up another notch. Bikes are one thing. Trucks are another. Trucks mean space. Trucks mean fragile or inconvenient or both.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Fuel up before you hit the highway. Take the route I marked. Stick to it.”
He turns the file around and taps a map clipped inside. There’s an address on the Louisiana side, directions already highlighted in pen. No names. No details. Just a line from here to there and back again.
Very helpful.
I flip a page and find a phone number written in the corner. “Who am I calling when I get there?”
“Grinder, the chapter president.”
“So he does have a name.”
Logan’s expression doesn’t change. “Don’t get cute.”
I smile without humor. “Too late.”
He lets that go and points to the number. “You call when you cross state line, then again when you’re fifteen out. They’ll be ready.”
I stare at the page another second, then shut the file and toss it back onto the desk. “This all sounds suspicious as hell.”
“That’s because it is.”
I lean back. “Good talk.”
For a moment nobody says anything. The office feels smaller with all that silence sitting in it.
Outside, somewhere down the hall, I hear boots on wood and the faint murmur of voices starting up downstairs.
Morning is waking around us, but inside this room it still feels like the day hasn’t decided what kind of ugly it wants to be.
Then Logan says, “One more thing.”
My attention snaps back to him.
His gaze pins mine, steady and serious in a way that wipes the last of the sarcasm out of the room. “Whatever they hand over, you don’t ask questions till you’re back here.”
I go still.
That right there tells me this is bigger than moving money or ferrying guns. Nobody gives a warning like that over a crate or an envelope. Not unless what I’m picking up breathes, bleeds, or talks back.
Interesting.
I let that thought settle without showing much on my face. “That usually means I’m not picking up a thing.”
Logan says nothing. Which is answer enough.
I look from him to Shadow, then to Blaze, but none of them fill in the blanks. Shadow’s expression is neutral, which for him means he knows at least part of what’s going on and enjoys the fact that I don’t. Blaze looks curious, but not informed. Logan, as always, gives nothing he doesn’t intend.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
“You’ll figure it out when you get there,” Logan says.
“That is not reassuring.”
“It doesn’t need to be.”