Chapter Thirty-Three
Reaper
People.
Blindfolded, handcuffed, dirty and beaten, and wearing ragged clothes and looking far closer to livestock than humans, yet still, they’re people.
I hold up a hand as a warning to my brothers behind me. One finger — caution, and keep your fucking mouths shut.
Then I lean in to Adriana. “We can still make this work. Just remember to sound Russian.”
Her head whips in my direction, and her eyes flare with the same vengeful glare that night we first met, when she told me she was going to kill me.
Her voice is a snakelike hiss. “Are you fucking joking? These are human fucking beings — not guns, not drugs, not fucking cargo… they’re fucking people. ”
“I know. But trust me, OK? I have a plan.”
I don’t, really. More a desperate sense of optimism that flickers beneath the forceful glare from Adriana, a glare that says that she clearly sees me less as the man she loves and more as the conniving criminal I used to be.
Her hand slips around my wrist like a handcuff, and she pulls me further away from the semi.
“A plan? A fucking plan? This is beyond anything we talked about. These are people. I should fucking arrest —” She stops short, but I know where she’s headed.
I know how fragile things are between us right now; I’m not just the man she loves, I’m a biker deep in shit with a Russian gangster suggesting that we use a trailer load of people to bail myself out of trouble.
It’s criminal, and the reflection I see of myself in her eyes isn’t anything I’m proud of.
“Yes, a fucking plan,” I lie while my mind spins like wheels stuck in mud.
Her grip tightens, my brain whirls, and then I grin at her — the wheels are actually turning.
Not well, but there’s grit in the mud and things are moving.
“I promise I’ve got this. It’ll work out for us and work out for them. ”
“This is too much. This is too deep. I mean, is this going to be like Boise, am I going to be caught up in your…” She stops, but looking in her eyes, it’s impossible not to see the anger, the sadness, the thoughts of Vanessa that flicker through her mind.
“This won’t. This isn’t Boise. Trust me.”
She worries her lip between her teeth, while her eyes show a dozen different ways she could hurt me — from leaving me, to turning me over to the cops, to outright killing me. Finally, after a sigh big enough it could power a sailboat, she nods. "Fine, comrade. I’ll trust you. Call me Svetlana.”
Her accent is terrible. But it’s there. And I doubt twenty blindfolded, handcuffed, and utterly exhausted Triad trafficking victims could tell the difference between Adriana and Maria Sharapova.
I take Adriana's hand and we walk back toward the others. Diesel's already peering into the truck, his face gone white as fresh paint. Tank's jaw is working like he's chewing nails, and Mayhem's eyes are wide with something that looks like fascination mixed with horror.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Tank breathes, stepping back from the trailer. "Reaper, what the hell is this?"
"It's exactly what it looks like," I say, keeping my voice steady. "Twenty people. Triad cargo."
"Cargo?" Tank's voice rises. "These are human beings, you sick fuck. We're calling this off. Right now."
"No." I step between him and his bike. "We're not."
Tank's hands ball into fists. "The hell we're not. This is trafficking, Reaper. This is slavery. I didn't sign up to be part of some goddamn human auction."
"Neither did I," I snap back. "But we're here, they're here, and the Triads are coming whether we bail or not."
"Then we call the cops — "
"And what? Tell them we were here to steal guns from the Triads while posing as Russians but found people instead? You want to explain that to the fucking police?"
Tank takes a step toward me, his face red with rage. "I don't give a shit about explanations. These people need help, not whatever criminal bullshit you're cooking up."
"I'm trying to help them!" The words come out louder than I intended. I throw a look over my shoulder at the trailer, but it seems like no one’s heard. Good. "But I need you to trust me. All of you."
Diesel clears his throat. "What's the plan, brother?"
I look around at their faces — Tank still furious, Adriana resigned, Mayhem curious, Diesel waiting. "First, we keep up the Russian act, and we move all twenty of them into the U-Haul. Before the Triads show up."
"Move them where?" Adriana asks.
"The hideout apartment. We hold them there for phase two."
"Which is?" Her voice is flat, professional.
I grin, feeling the pieces click together. "Two parts. First, I make a very important phone call for backup. Second, I need to figure out which two of you look sexiest in uniform."
I give Adriana a pointed look. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then opens them with the resignation of someone about to jump off a cliff.
"Fine."
That's when Mayhem's hand shoots up like he's in third grade. "Oh, pick me! I volunteer!"
Tank stares at him. "You don't even know what he's talking about."
"Doesn't matter," Mayhem says with that manic grin of his. "If it involves uniforms and looking sexy, I'm your man. I've got great legs."
“That settles it, then. Now, comrades, let’s get to work.”