Chapter Three Samantha
Just as I was adding an extra coat of eyeliner, the doorbell rang, causing me to jump and send a squiggly black line up my temple.
“Fuck,” I muttered before grabbing a tissue and rubbing off the liner.
To say that I was slightly on edge tonight about my first meeting with the Raiders would have been a mild understatement. It pissed me off that
I was letting them have an effect on me. After all, I’d taken down criminals who on paper were a hell of a lot more intimidating than a bunch of small- town bikers. But tonight it all really boiled down to the merging of my past and present.
Leaning out of the bathroom, I called, “It’s open.”
The beep of the security system went off as Gavin opened the door and stepped inside. “I know you’ve moved up to the East Side and all with a house in this posh neighborhood, but you still need to lock your door, for fuck’s sake.”
I grunted and stepped back in the bathroom. “I knew you were coming, dickhead.”
He chuckled as he walked down the length of the hallway to meet me at the half bath. When I looked at his reflection in the mirror, he was doing a sweep of my attire— the practically painted on black jeans, the skintight black top, and the knee- length leather boots.
When he met my eye in the mirror, he winked at me. “Looking good, Vargas.”
“So you won’t be ashamed to call me your old lady?”
He waggled a finger at me. “Wrong terminology. Hang- arounds don’t have old ladies— only full- patched members.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered.
Gavin tsked at me. “Do I need to tell Peterson you’re not doing your homework?”
“I’ve done my homework, asshole,” I snapped, brushing past him out into the hallway. Normally, his ribbing wouldn’t have gotten to me, but tonight was a different story altogether.
I didn’t get too far before Gavin pulled me to him. “You wanna talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Whatever it is about this case that has you spooked.”
A shiver went down my spine at his words, but I quickly recovered. “There is nothing about a bunch of beer-guzzling lowlifes that has me spooked.”
I wiggled out of his arms and once again started down the hall.
Just as I reached to grab my purse, his next words froze me from head to toe. “So a man named Willie Bates means nothing to you.”
My eyes pinched shut as my chest heaved. There is no adequate way to describe the emotional shit storm that hits you when your past and present collide. I didn’t even hear Gavin walk down the hall, but then suddenly he was at my side.
“What do you know?” I questioned in a whisper so low my voice was barely audible.
“Everything.” When I dared to look at him over my shoulder, he gave me a sad smile. “I’d never seen you react the way that you did when Peterson gave us this case, so I did a little digging.”
“Does Peterson know?”
“No. Only me. And it’s going to stay that way.”
Although my heart swelled with the surge of love I had for Gavin and his loyalty, I still exhaled in defeat as I leaned back against the front door.
“From what you’ve discovered, you should request that I be taken off the case.
” When Gavin started to shake his head, I held my hand up to silence whatever argument he had prepared.
“I’m a deficit, and you can’t afford a deficit out in the field.”
He reached out to cup my face. “You could never be a deficit, Vargas. You’re the only one I would ever want to work with. I know that no matter what happened to you when you were eight years old, when it comes down to it, you’ll have your game face on and your shit together.”
Although I hated myself for them, tears stung my eyes. “You really mean that?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I swiped away some of my mascara- blackened tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I can understand why you didn’t. That was some horrible shit done to your father and in turn to you. It’s nobody’s business really.”
Trying to lighten some of the tension in the air, I grabbed both of his biceps and squeezed hard before pushing him away. “Why, why, can’t you be straight?”
Gavin laughed heartily. “You and I make a great business partnership, Vargas, but there’s no way in hell we could ever be married.”
Cocking my head at him, I countered, “Is that right?”
“It is, and deep down, you know I’m right.”
I did know Gavin was right. We were too much alike to ever make any relationship besides friendship work. In the end, we were closer than friends. We were more like brother and sister.
Waggling my eyebrows, I said, “Yeah, well, maybe I wasn’t talking about us marrying. Maybe I meant for us to have hot, sweaty sex.”
At Gavin’s horrified face, I couldn’t help laughing. “Gotcha with that one.”
“So not funny,” he muttered.
“It’s good to know how repulsed you are by the idea of having sex with me,” I teased as I walked down the hall to the bathroom to fix my makeup.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Vargas. It’s not about having sex with you. It’s about having sex with a vagina, period, that wigs me.”
I snorted as I reapplied some powder to cover the tracks of my tears. Gavin appeared in the doorway.
“But regardless of all that, you’re the only woman I would ever consider going straight for.”
I smiled at his reflection in the mirror. “Aw, you can be awfully sweet when you want to, McTavish.”
He came over and turned me around. After bestowing a kiss on my cheek, he winked. “Come on, hot stuff. Let’s go show the bikers how it’s done.”
While I didn’t share his confidence or enthusiasm, I nodded in agreement.
After turning on the security system, I followed him out the front door.
In my driveway was a motorcycle the bureau had provided for Gavin.
On a lowly mechanic’s salary, Gavin wouldn’t have been able to afford the bikes that he owned, so instead, the bureau had gotten him one that would fit in better with his persona, which he of course hated.
“What a hunk of junk,” I teased as I grabbed my helmet off the back.
“I fucking loathe and despise every moment on this piece of shit,” Gavin replied.
“Looks like you could’ve lent yourself some street cred by pretending you had stolen one of your bikes.”
As Gavin slid onto the worn leather seat, he grunted. “Don’t think I didn’t take that angle with Peterson.”
I laughed as I climbed on behind him. My arms slid around his waist to grip him tight. Learning to ride bitch on a motorcycle was something I hated almost as much as having to dress like a hooker.
But Gavin and I had spent several evenings riding together after work to make sure I looked like a natural on the back of his bike. But thosehad been only short trips around the neighborhood and in town.
Tonight would be the farthest I had ever been on a bike.
We sped off into the night, leaving my house, my comfortable life, and my usual .
40-caliber Glock behind. The Raiders clubhouse was a good forty- five minutes north of Marietta, the Atlanta suburb where I lived.
After Gavin started scaring the hell out of me as he careened in and out of the Friday evening traffic, I closed my eyes and focused on the briefing we had had earlier in the day with Peterson.
Tonight was a huge opportunity for our case. Gavin had spent weeks slowly befriending Bishop Malloy, and it had finally culminated in Gavin, or Marley as he was known to Bishop, being invited to a hang out at the clubhouse.
While Gavin was to keep his eyes and ears open with all members of the Raiders, not just Bishop, I was to focus my attention solely on Bishop.
As the sergeant at arms, he would be the most connected to the gun trade not counting the president and vice president.
Because of the type of man he was known to be, I was to pull out all the stops when it came to using my feminine wiles.
While his two brothers, Deacon and Rev, were settled down and married, Bishop was the epitome of a womanizer.
His greatest joy in life outside the club was to flirt and fuck, and my intent was to use that against him.
It was the old adage of a woman driving a man to distraction, and that distraction being used to slip him up and eventually take him down.
When we got off the interstate, the terrain began to change.
We started to wind around curvy roads and climb small hills.
I could see the mountains off in the distance.
It was hard to imagine an MC staking claim in the backwoods, but apparently that was where the Georgia chapter of the Raiders made their home.
I knew where the roadhouse was long before we reached it.
Far off in the distance, I saw a building ablaze with lights, and bikes lining the parking lot.
Gavin surprised me by not turning in but parking away from the others.
But then I remembered something I had read that only fully patched members parked their bikes together, and in turn, those bikes were watched over by a prospect. Everyone else was on his own.
After Gavin killed the engine, he glanced over his shoulder at me. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” I said— a lie, considering that my anxiety had spiked from zero to a hundred just from being on the Raiders’ property. When Gavin chuckled, I knew he saw through my line of bullshit. After he stood up and took off his helmet, he helped me.
“You’re going to be fine, Vargas.”
I held up a hand. “Please. No more pep talking. I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am that we’re not wired up tonight, because I would die a thousand deaths before I would want Peterson or the others to see me so fucking fragile.”
“I promise no one will ever know my ball- busting bitch turned chickenshit. Okay?”
I laughed as I smacked his arm playfully. “Thanks.”
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
We started across the parking lot toward the roadhouse. As I worked to control my breathing, Gavin slid a comforting arm around my waist. To others it would look like a possessive move to show ownership over me, but I knew in his mind he was doing it to try to put me at ease.