His Dirty War (Yorkshire MC Romances #6)

CHAPTER ONE

Leah Quinn knew the deal was wrong before the first bag hit the table.

Not because of the weight. The brick landed with the dense, dead thump of compressed cocaine, exactly as it should.

Not because of the smell either. The upstairs room at the Yard already reeked of stale beer, expensive aftershave, cigarette smoke dragged in from the fire escape, Humber damp and the chemical sweetness of whatever the girls had sprayed over the tables before opening.

It was the silence.

Men who trusted each other talked. Men who were nervous talked even more. They filled the air with jokes, insults, football, lies about women, lies about money.

The six men around the pool table had stopped doing all of it.

Leah kept her hands loose at her sides and tried not to look like a police officer pretending not to look like a police officer.

Four months undercover and that was still the hardest part.

Across the room, Drew Sayer cut the tape around the first brick with a folding knife.

He wore black jeans, boots and a plain grey T-shirt beneath his North End cut.

No skulls. No slogans. No jewellery except a steel watch and the ring on his right hand.

The patch across his back was old enough to have faded around the stitching.

Vice President.

The file described him as violent, organised, intelligent and unusually difficult to provoke.

The file had missed the eyes.

Drew looked at people as if every conversation came with a second conversation underneath it.

He sliced the wrapping, touched the powder with the tip of the blade and looked at Gareth Pike, North End's president.

"Wrong."

One word.

The club president did not move. "What is?"

Drew tipped the blade. White dust slid onto the green felt.

"This one."

Owen Pike, Gareth's younger brother and North End's sergeant-at-arms, laughed from beside the window. "You tasting it now, are you?"

Drew ignored him.

Leah did too. Owen had been needling her since the second week she had arrived under the name Leah Trent, supposedly fresh out of an eighteen-month sentence for handling stolen cars.

The conviction existed. The prison record existed.

The solicitor existed. Half the people who had signed the paperwork did not.

The identity was good enough to survive a club search.

It was not good enough to survive a bullet.

Gareth picked up the cut brick, smelled it, then rubbed a pinch between finger and thumb.

Something in Gareth's expression closed.

"Where did it come from?"

"Same van as the rest," Owen said.

Drew's gaze shifted to Leah.

There it was. Not accusation. Calculation.

She had driven the van.

"Hull docks," she said. "Unit seventeen. Like you told me. Keys were where they were supposed to be. Seal was intact."

"Anyone follow you?" Drew asked.

"No."

"You sure?"

"I checked twice."

Owen snorted. "Listen to Jason Bourne."

Leah looked at him. "Jason Bourne wouldn't be carrying your shopping."

One of the prospects laughed before realising Owen was not.

Drew almost smiled.

Almost.

Then the lights went out.

Not flickered. Out.

Leah dropped before the first shot.

Glass exploded across the room. Someone shouted. A muzzle flash burned white through the darkness from the fire escape and two more shots punched into the wall where Gareth Pike had been standing.

Leah hit the floor on one shoulder, rolled behind the pool table and heard Drew yell, "Back stairs. Move."

Another burst came through the window.

Owen returned fire blindly.

"Stop shooting at fucking darkness," Drew snapped.

Leah's hand was already inside her jacket.

No gun.

That was the rule. Her cover could carry one if the club armed her, but she could not arrive with a police weapon and explain it later.

A man crashed against the table. One of the prospects, Callum, clutching his neck.

Blood pumped between his fingers.

Leah grabbed him and dragged him down.

"Pressure. Here."

"I'm hit."

"I noticed. Hold it."

She forced his hand harder against the wound.

A shape came through the broken window.

Boot on sill. Gun first.

Leah saw him for less than a second and moved without thinking.

She snatched the pool cue from the floor, drove the thick end upward into his wrist and heard bone crack. The pistol dropped. She caught it before it hit the carpet.

The man stared at her.

So did Drew.

Leah fired once into the attacker's thigh.

He folded with a scream.

Too clean.

Too fast.

She had just made a tactical shot in a dark room while supposedly being a car thief with a temper.

Drew's eyes stayed on her for half a beat too long.

Then the back door burst open.

"Down!"

This time the warning came from downstairs.

More gunfire.

The Yard was under attack from both sides.

Gareth Pike swore. "Redmile."

Redmile MC had contested the same Humber drug traffic for years without open war. If they were shooting here, something had changed.

Drew grabbed Leah by the back of her jacket and hauled her behind the bar as rounds tore through bottles above them.

Whisky and glass rained down.

"You always shoot like that?" he asked.

"Only when people shoot first."

"That wasn't what I asked."

"Bad time for an interview."

He stared at her.

Then laughed once. No humour in it.

"Fair."

The word irritated her instantly.

A black van screamed into the yard below. Tyres spun. Someone shouted that the rear gate was open.

Drew leaned around the bar, fired twice and ducked back.

"They're not here for the coke," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Because they haven't touched it."

Leah looked toward the pool table.

Five bricks remained stacked in a black sports bag.

The sixth had been cut open.

Wrong product. Ambush. Entry from two points.

Not robbery.

A message.

Then she saw the attacker she had shot reaching inside his coat.

"Drew."

He turned.

The wounded man pulled a grenade.

Leah did not think. She threw herself across Drew as he grabbed for Gareth.

The blast punched the air out of the room.

The windows vanished.

For a moment there was no sound at all.

Just white pressure and a strange floating sensation, like her body had forgotten where the floor was.

Then hearing came back as a high electric scream.

Leah opened her eyes.

She was on top of Drew Sayer.

His hand was locked around her waist.

Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.

He looked at her mouth, then at the pistol still clenched in her hand.

"Leah."

She swallowed. "What?"

"You've got three seconds to tell me where you learned to move like that."

Downstairs, another man screamed.

Drew did not look away.

"Two," he said.