Rook
I slid my phone back into my pocket, regret and determination mingling in my heart and leaving my chest tight with words I couldn’t say and truths that festered.
“Yes, well done, brother,” Levi sneered from where he stood across the small hangar, his shaggy dirty-blond hair obscuring his eyes. I shut the laptops I’d been using to monitor the drone footage of the clubhouse and the two single-family houses the Raiders used as sites to manufacture drugs.
My back was to Levi, but I could feel the penetrating glare he cast my way burning a hole through the Los Cuervos colors on the back of my cut. Grabbing the case I’d stowed my laptop inside, I turned to face his scowl with one of my own.
“No need to be jealous. You’re both pretty, and I love you exactly the same.” I forced a sarcastic smile to my lips, but it never reached my eyes. “He calls all the Crows ‘brother.’ I’m not special.” I moved to walk past Levi, but he darted to the doorway and blocked my path.
A hand met my chest as he shoved me a step back.
“Well, as your actual brother, allow me to jog your memory as to why we’re doing this in the first place.
Consider this your gentle fucking reminder, and keep your head in the game.
” I bit my tongue and resisted the urge to deck the guy I’d met way back when we were both nothing but gangly limbs and empty bellies.
Back when all we had in the world was each other… and one other.
Everything we’d done, what we’d built, the vow we made, and the lies we’d told—it was all for her.
The girl had been just as young, just as vulnerable as we were, lost in a system that had washed its hands of us.
She’d become like an elder sister to Levi and me, forging us into the only family we’d ever really known. Nixon. Then one day…she was just gone.
I gritted my teeth. “You never have to remind me. I’m just as deep in this as you are.
” Smacking his hand away, I walked out to my bike and stowed my gear into a saddlebag.
“Petrov arranged for the traffic cameras to go dark until two o’clock.
You’ve got till then to get as far north as you can.
Are you sure about Demir?” Murat Demir was the leader of the Turkish mob in Vancouver and was a link in the chain of traffickers we’d been hunting down.
I wasn’t sure if Duke and the other Crow presidents knew about Demir’s placement on the pipeline that ran trafficking victims along the West Coast of the US.
I may need to make arrangements to ensure he came up on their radar.
Levi might have loathed every moment he was forced to spend with the Iron Raiders, but he hadn’t been idle.
Once he proved himself to Riot and was initiated, Levi had access to all the Raiders’ business dealings and quickly found exactly what we needed to damn the Raiders and continue our hunt.
The Iron Raiders worked security for Demir’s transport vehicles, making sure his precious cargo wasn’t intercepted en route or otherwise damaged before they could be passed to the next monstrous stage of an atrocious industry.
Now we knew schedules, buyers, and intended transfer points for Demir’s organization.
We were only two men and could only do so much, but our priority always was and always would be finding Nixon first. However, I was well placed to ensure the people who could do something about it would find out.
My work with the Crows had provided substantially different rewards than Levi’s with the Raiders, but there were rewards nonetheless.
I had no idea when I chose to infiltrate Los Cuervos MC that I’d be hitting such an informational goldmine, and I wasn’t anywhere near done gathering what we needed from them yet.
That didn’t mean I hadn’t grown to care for them all.
Levi ensured Bones and Indi weren’t killed the night he attacked the compound with the Raiders, but he hadn’t been able to do anything to prevent the attack from happening without blowing his cover.
My only regret about the night Indigo and Bones were taken was that Ace got caught up in the crossfire.
He was a good man, and I felt a vindictive rush of satisfaction when I watched Cricket kill Pyro on the drone’s camera tonight.
He deserved every ounce of what he got, and more.
“I’m sure,” Levi said, straddling his own bike, which was next to mine. We may have been facing different directions, but we were both on the same path. “You sure about the Crows?” Levi asked in turn, his golden-brown eyes doubtful.
I started my bike, the deep snarling rumble of my engine slicing through the night air.
“I’m sure,” I said, giving my brother a nod.
Los Cuervos weren’t like the Raiders. The things I’d learned about them since joining their ranks had surprised me for about two point five seconds before the implications began to race through my mind.
Our goals were one and the same, and, sadly, so were our motivations.
I wish I had known before I infiltrated their club that we were on the same side all along.
It would make what comes next simpler for everyone. They’d never believe me now.