Chapter 11 Notch
ELEVEN
NOTCH
The arguing grew to a dull roar and began aching my head.
Holy fuck, I was tired of these asshats arguing like a bunch of damn schoolgirls.
It was really getting ridiculous, and I was almost beginning to believe these church meetings were just a way to blow off steam without wanking it in the bathroom.
I stormed into the middle of the men and glared at Stone.
Texas wrapped his arm around the man and pulled him back, and then I turned to Asher.
The second the two of them shut up, everyone else followed suit.
“Phone. Now,” I commanded.
I held my hand out and wiggled my fingers, waiting for him to slap it into my palm. And when he didn’t, I got up in his face. I didn’t give a shit what he felt he needed to do or the image he needed to keep. We were all in trouble and we needed answers. Now.
“Either let me see the pictures or pack up and head out and take matters into your own hands,” I glowered.
And with a sigh, Asher handed me his phone.
I walked off into the corner and flipped through things. He was right, too. His phone took nice high-resolution pictures. I flipped through them and zoomed in, taking screenshots of the men’s faces.
“I’m sending myself text messages of these pictures to my phone. Try not to call me for a late-night booty call, yeah?” I asked.
I peeked up at Asher and heard him chuckle.
“Trust me, you wouldn’t have anything on my wife,” he said.
My eyes peeked over at Stone before I went back to what I was doing.
“We need someone on the inside to do this. That’s my idea,” Stone said.
“In order to take down something this size, that’s a smart move,” Asher said.
“We got any idea where the hell these guys are comin’ out of? Where they’re getting these guns?” I asked mindlessly.
“Tianjin.”
I didn’t know who the fuck said it, but it stopped me in my tracks. I whipped my head up and scanned the room to figure out who the hell said it. My eyes landed on one of the Celtic Riders. One of the guys that initially did recon.
I narrowed my eyes at him as my muscles tensed.
“Why not Beijing? Where Yung is stationed?” I asked.
“Fuckin’ beats me. What gave you that idea?” Stone asked.
“We saw a couple of the crates stamped with the city name,” one of the guys said.
I scrolled through all the pictures before I came upon the zoomed ones of the crates.
I fluttered through them at lightning speed, pinching the photo and inverting the colors to try and get a read on things.
Most of the crate pictures weren’t good quality, because they were zoomed in already.
I drew in a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.
Then, I came across it. A fantastic picture of a crate a man had in his hands. I zoomed in as far as I could and right there, in thick black lettering with a box around it, was the word “Tianjin.”
“Yep. He’s right,” I said flatly.
I screenshotted it and sent it to myself and then continued with the faces of the other men. We’d have to call in some serious favors to try and identify who they were. But the entire time I rifled through Asher’s pictures, Maya filled my mind. Her face stamped itself across my memory.
Was it possible she was wrapped up in all this?
“Okay, got what I need,” I said.
“Where’s the picture of the crates?” Stone asked.
Asher promptly handed over his phone as I pulled mine out of my pocket.
Filtering through all of them and trying to separate them into categories gave me some time to process.
Time to settle the screaming voice in my mind.
Was it possible Maya was involved in all this?
Was she some sort of spy? I pulled up the website to her tattoo parlor and it was pretty sparse.
Not a lot of information, though I did see a copyright date at the bottom of the website.
It was established four years ago. And the only employee up on the website was the owner and operator.
Maya. No last name.
It was easy to fake a website. To fake credentials.
But I had two sprawling credentials on either of my arms. She was a tattoo artist. Whether she moonlighted as a spy, I didn’t know.
But she sure as hell knew what she was doing.
Did she work in the U.S. for this gang and was brought in to spy on us?
I mean, it wasn’t like she found me. I found her.
I couldn’t get my brain to clear.
Maybe she wasn’t a spy, but was she tied up in all this? From what I knew about her and the violence she mentioned on occasion back in her home city, it was possible. Maybe her parents had been involved with it at one time? Maybe a friend?
Maybe she had been a target of the gang and fled to save her own ass?
Either way, it made me very nervous with all the questions she had been asking me.
And it made me thankful I hadn’t been honest with her.
Well, partially not honest. I was an EMT at one point.
Hadn’t been for a few years, though. She did keep asking a lot of questions about my life, my past, where I grew up.
What I did for fun. Where I enjoyed going in the city when I had downtime.
Was she fishing for information?
“Notch!” Stone yelled.
I snapped my head up. “What?”
“You not listening or something?”
“Depends. You guys done bickering?”
He rolled his eyes. “You got anything from those pictures?”
“Just the Tianjin evidence. I need to get the face pictures sorted and figure out what kind of favors we can call in to try and identify these assholes. That’s my first step. Once we can identify them, we can find our inside source. The weak link, so to speak,” I said.
“Good. Stay on that,” Stone said.
“What do we do in the meantime?” Texas asked.
My head fell back to the pictures, and I began actually rearranging them.
But the entire time, I wondered if any of them were related to Maya somehow.
If she knew them or had seen them at one point in her life.
If she was innocent in all this but somehow attached to it, did she know what was going on? That they were in town?
Fuck, was she in trouble and wasn’t aware of it?
I bristled at that idea. I didn’t know why I did, but it made me angry.
It made me ready for bloodshed. My nostrils flared as I jammed my phone into my pocket, unable to breathe right.
I closed my eyes and backed myself into the shadows.
I peeled myself away from the church meeting already careening out of control again.
I ran my hand through my hair and tried steadying my thoughts.
Then, I shook my head.
There was no way Maya was involved. All I did was go to a random tattoo shop I’d heard about from several people in the bars I frequented. She happened to be Chinese American and happened to be from Tianjin. That was it.
But if that was it, was I putting her in danger?
By spending time with her, was I putting her in the crosshairs? Like we’d done to Stone’s sister? Stone’s niece? Hayley? The fucking Celtic Riders?
Fuck, I was a walking time bomb.
Church ended with no plans, and I was fed up with shit.
I knew the Celtic Riders were on edge too.
For the first time, the crews segregated themselves, The Lost Boys in the back rooms and the Celtic Riders taking over the kitchen and the living room.
Asher wasn’t happy that Freya went back to be with Bronx.
I saw the worry in Rose’s eyes as tears flooded them.
And while I understood why Stone didn’t want to go down the path of taking out the detective, I knew we’d have to deal with him eventually.
He was a massive part of why we were in this shithole to begin with.
The only thing both crews could agree on in the end was to continue tracking Harry’s movements as well as the movements regarding this new headquarters of theirs.
I put in a few calls to some of the docks we used on occasion, telling them it was urgent for them to keep a lookout on shipments coming from Tianjin.
And while I placed those phone calls, Stone drew up a schedule for all the men to take shifts gathering intel quietly.
And gave explicit instructions for men to be crossed off the list if they felt they had been made.
I was annoyed that Maya might be involved in all this, but I was worried that she wasn’t.
Because if she wasn’t, I might have already put her in danger simply by being there.
I needed answers. My mind kept swirling and I couldn’t concentrate.
I couldn’t keep my attention on what I was doing long enough to call in the right favors to get the facial recognition equipment and software we needed.
“I’m going out for some air,” I said.
“You’re going nowhere,” Stone said.
I slowly turned around, my eyes falling heavily onto his.
“You want shit done?” I asked.
“Yes. So, get back in there and do it,” he said.
“If you want it done right, you’ll give me some time to breathe.”
“Where the hell are you going, anyway? Back to that little tattoo shop of yours?”
“How I gather my breath is none of your business,” I said.
“Notch, you can’t be thinking about the next slash in that bedpost right now. We need you here,” Texas said.
“You won’t have me at all if you don’t let me take a fucking drive to clear my damn head,” I said curtly.
“Do you trust him?” Asher asked.
The guys whipped their heads over to him and scoffed.
“Of course,” Bronx said.
“Always,” Stone said.
“The fuck you asking that for?” Texas asked.
“Then let the man go catch his breath. He’s done a lot for us already.
Backing up my guys with the pictures. Facial recognition shit.
He’s already called the docks. Let the man breathe, even if that means going out and getting someone else’s breath.
Which is none of your business, if you ask me,” Asher said.
“Well, we didn’t ask you,” Stone said.
It was the only time I’d ever disobeyed a direct order.
And I knew there’d be hell to pay for it.
But while Stone argued with Asher—again!
—I slipped out the front door. I made my way for my bike, and with each step my mind settled into place.
I knew exactly how I would approach Maya.
I knew exactly what I was going to say to her.
I had to piece this together and have hardcore answers before I brought this up with the guys, because they were volatile, at best. And an odd sense of protection rose in me that I couldn’t swallow back down. I had to get to Maya. I had to make sure she was okay.
I had to have her in my arms again, one last time.