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  She was almost there, just sitting on the fence a little bit when it came down to the matter of belief and disbelief. I could tell that, just from her experience with me in the last day, she wanted to believe me. That was good. It meant I might not end up with a knife lodged in my throat.

  But, if I was going to get her to believe me and the truth of the matter, I was going to have to nudge her a little bit. I was going to have to give her everything. Otherwise, none of this made sense.

  “Look,” I said, pausing to lick my lips, “Abram was working for Efraim Petrov. Gov and I, and the rest of the guys, we ain't got shit to do with them. Abram was probably looking for us. Gov, back me up here.”

  Gov, across the table from me, furrowed his brow and nodded slowly. “He's right, Kaci. We don't have any business with Abram, or Efraim Petrov. Not like that, at least.”

  “What kind of business is it, then?” Kaci asked.

  I sighed. “I'll level with you. We've been ripping Efraim off for months, stealing guns from his trucks and selling them around town and out of state. Apparently, though, now he's looking for us. Well, he was till you put a bullet in his bloodhound.”

  She smiled grimly, a tight, mean little expression. Oddly, I kind of liked it, despite knowing full well how I should have felt about a woman smiling like that as she held a knife to my throat.

  “Gov,” I said, “why don't you put the gun down. Alright?”

  “Micah,” Gov said in a warning, that's-not-a-good-idea voice.

  “Kaci, you gonna stab me?” I asked. “Or not? Cause the pearly gates are gonna be there in five seconds, or they're gonna be there in five minutes. For both of us.”

  “Come on, Kaci,” Sydney said, breaking her silence. “These guys didn't have anything to do with Abram before last night. They weren't responsible.”

  She groaned and lowered the knife. She tossed it on the table as I exhaled a deep breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

  I looked down at the knife, checked the handle. “That Grandpa's?”

  “You really need to keep a better eye on your prisoners,” Kaci said.

  I reached up, tentatively checked where the blade's edge had been pressed against the skin of my neck. “Well, you weren't exactly a prisoner.”

  She shrugged and crossed her arms. “Whatever.” She slid down into her seat, a frown on her face. “Now what?”

  “Now nothing,” Gov said. “We move on from Petrov and find a better deal, an easier one. You girls get to go do whatever, or stick around and work if you want. But, we're done.” His eyes shifted from Sydney and Kaci to me, the looking in his eyes questioning. “Right, Micah?”

  I frowned. He was right. Petrov had gotten pretty dangerous all of a sudden. Either they knew who we were, or had a pretty good guess going. Moving on would be the smart thing to do.

  But, shit, if the idea of that fat shipment coming along wasn't nice. It would be the biggest score yet, a real payday that would set the MC up for a long time. We could even take some time off and lay low with the kind of cash we'd make off a job that big. I mean, come on, military grade weapons? Anyone would give their mom, grandma, wife, and dog for that kind of firepower.

  I shook my head. “Nope, we got that truck coming still. And it's gonna be the haul of the century.”

  Gov shook his head and nearly spit on the floor in disgust. “Come on, Micah,” he said. “There's risks, then there's stupid risks like jumping out a plane without a chute. Then there's this shit!”

  I raised a hand, though, as a plan began to form in the recesses of my brain. “I know, Gov, I get it. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? We got this, man, and I even know how we can throw Petrov off the scent while we do it.”

  “What?” Gov asked.

  “Well, normally something like what I got in mind wouldn't work. But, this time around, we got some help.” I turned to Kaci and Sydney and gave them my most winning smile. “Don't we, ladies?”

  # # #

  Kaci

  Personally, I liked the plan. It was bold, decisive, and definitely not what the real Don, the Bear, would be expecting.

  The other two, Sydney and Gov, of course thought it was brash and too soon. Which, I suppose was just a little Debbie Downer way of framing my opinion.

  Sydney and I were gonna pretend to be teenage runaways, which was pretty easy for us both to pull off. Might say we'd been studying up on that role for a while. Once we got down the rode a little while, we'd dose the guy with some chloroform, knock him out, and set 'em for the steal. When the driver came to, there wouldn't have been any bikers from the God’s Hellfire MC around, and no one to pin it on. Efraim, not seeing any major culprit, would move onto hunt down another gang, leaving the F&B MC in the clear.

  Of course, I also liked the plan for another reason: it would put me one step closer to the Bear, Abram's real boss. Even if Micah wasn't in league with the fucker, and now I knew for sure that he wasn't, Quentin Marlow had made it clear that Efraim was untouchable by the cops. He was practically a national fucking treasure, far as they were concerned.

  Figured I could use this heist to my advantage, but I needed someone else in the cab of the truck with me. Otherwise, Micah wouldn't go for the deal. Besides, when it was all said and done, and I was on my way to see Efraim, Sydney would be in the clear with the bikers.

  “Come on, Sydney,” I whined, “you've done worse than this.”

  “What?” she nearly shrieked. “I have not!”

  “That one guy up in Shreveport, when you spiked his drink?”

  Sydney was a couple years older than me, and had been in the game a little longer, too. She hadn't had as rough of an upbringing as me, though, and was still a little soft in certain parts. But, Sydney sure as hell wasn't the pure-as-driven-snow, hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold stereotype she played herself up as.

  One time in Shreveport, a Louisiana city known for its shitty casinos and gambling boats, she'd dosed some guy's drink and took off with all his winnings, all five thousand of 'em, and came south to the city. It was how she'd gotten away from her first pimp and fell in with me.

  She made a face and shook her head. Her little fists were clinched tight in her lap.

  I put my hand on hers, held it tight. “One last job,” I promised, squeezing her hand. “That's it.”

  Her face changed as she finally relented. “Okay,” she sighed out. “But this is it. No more. I just wanna be a bartender from now on.”

  “I know, Sydney,” I said. “I know.”

  “So,” Micah said, “you two are in?”

  Across from him, I could tell Gov was fuming. But, he was a good friend to Micah, and knew his place in the organization. If Micah wanted to do a job like this, even if it was crazy and risky, Gov would bend to it. The guys, I guessed, had voted Micah in. It wasn't Gov's place to second guess. It was just his job to make sure the heist went off right.

  Sydney and I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, speaking for us both. “Guess we're in.”

  “Great,” Micah said, clapping his hands together before getting up from the table with a big grin on his face. “Let's fucking celebrate, eh?”

  I looked at him with a blank stare. Didn't he realize I'd just tried to slit his throat?

  “What?” he asked, clearly confused.

  “I just tried to fucking kill you, Micah,” I said, pointing to the knife. I nudged the tip of the blade with my finger, sending it spinning in a lazy circle. “Like, five seconds ago.”

  “Meh,” he said, waving it off like it happened every day. Which, for him, maybe that was the truth. “You thought I was responsible for your brother's death. I get it. I'd have done the same thing.” He shrugged. “But, you dropped it, right?”

  I shook my head. Sydney shook her head. Gov, even, shook his head.

  “Now who's up for some pool?” he asked.

  Then, he was out the door of the meeting room, with the three of us just watching him as he left. I realized my eyes were fastened to
that perfect ass of his in those too-tight Levis. I shook my head.

  I just didn't get this guy. He didn't want sex, but he'd been rock hard yesterday when he was doling out his punishment. He was too smart by half, but he still took crazy risks. He was the president of an outlaw biker gang that made money by stealing from the Russian mob, but his grandfather was a retired FBI agent.

  Somehow, it didn't add up, at least not in a way that I could see.

  Gov sighed and got up to follow his boss, leaving me and Sydney alone together.

  “Guess we better join 'em,” Sydney squeaked after a moment.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  The next few hours passed by in a flash. We stayed up top in the clubhouse while the real club bustled below us, but I didn't mind. I was tired of the bar life, even after such a short time in adulthood. It just seemed too damned loud, sometimes, especially when you wanted to be able to hear your thoughts.

  We played pool, drank beer, and even toasted to the beginning of a long, mutually beneficial relationship. I kept my eyes on Micah as I drank down my Jager, and he kept his on me. Afterwards, he showed me a couple moves when it came to pool, his big arms reaching around me to demonstrate the proper way to hold the cue. I didn't mind the pointers. Apparently, I'd been doing it wrong the whole time, which was part of the reason I'd always kinda sucked at the game.

  As he helped me sink a stripe that had been in a tricky spot up against the rail, I heard snickering behind us. Micah and I both turned around, confused. Sydney and Gov were sitting in the corner on their barstools, giggling like a gaggle of school girls.

  “What?” I asked, my eyes flashing at them as they kept going. “Spit it out.”

  Gov averted his eyes from my wrath. “Nothing.”

  Sydney stifled a giggle. “You two just look so cute together. You'd make a nice couple, is all.”

  Micah and I exchanged glances.

  I mean, sure, I wanted to fuck the guy, and I was pretty sure he wanted the same. Hell, I even wanted to back when cold-blooded murder was at the top of my To Do list. He was a total beefcake! And with that jaw of his, and those forearms, who wouldn't? But, anything else?

  No sir.

  We both shook our heads and laughed as we took a little half-step apart.

  “No thanks,” we both said at the same time, then grinned a little.

  “Jinx,” I said as I bent down to the pool table with my cue. This time, though, I bent down alone. “You owe me a beer.”

  He laughed as I took my shot at the eight ball.

  He laughed again when I missed.

  Chapter Nine

  Micah

  I reached into my fridge and pulled out two beers, one for me, one for Kaci. We'd cut out of Club Hades earlier than I normally would have, owing my long day doing repairs at Grandpa's. I was beat, and today had been one Hell of a day already.

  I took the beer back into the dining room and slid it across the table to Kaci.

  “So,” I said as I pulled out my chair and slid into it, “just so we're clear, here. You ain't gonna kill me now that we're away from my brothers, right?”

  Kaci laughed and took a swig of beer, her eyes nearly dancing in her head with mirth as she looked at me over the bottle. “Nah, I won't try again. Promise.”

  “Thank God,” I said. “Don't think I could handle twice in one day.”

  “'Sides,” she added, “we got the same enemy now, ain't we?”

  I shrugged. “The Bear ain't really my enemy, though,” I pointed out. “He's just another criminal to me. He ain't gonna go to the cops on this kind of thing, in case they start looking into his other business interests. Hell, I could keep robbing the fucker blind ‘til doomsday, and he wouldn't say a peep.”

  Of course, just because he was a mobster wary of the cops, that didn't mean he wouldn't take other avenues to shut us down. I knew it, and Gov knew it, too. If he was onto us, we'd just have to be more careful in the future. Like, for instance, the kind of precautions we were taking with this job. I just didn't want to tell Kaci any of it.

  At the end of the day, though, I didn't know which was worse: having the cops coming for you, or a Russian mob boss putting you in his sights. One might end up with you in prison three years from now, and the other might end with you dead in a back alley by the end of three days.

  Then, there was the other thing to consider: Kaci.

  Here she was, living under my roof. Me and the guys had taken her and Sydney in. We'd promised them a place with us when this job was over, a home forever if they wanted. And, a biker's word is his bond. Which meant they were as much under my protection now as any of my men.

  Even though I was pushing her into harm's way on this job, I was worried. Worried about how I could keep her clear of future danger, worried how I could make sure she didn't go off half-cocked again like she had in the meeting room earlier tonight.

  And, I'll be damned, but this girl knew how to get into danger. That much was for sure.

  More than anything, though, I needed her to trust me, and I needed her to learn to follow orders. Because if she was going to be an honorary God’s Hellfire member, she had to learn to be a soldier, too. And soldiers listened to their commander.

  But, I knew deep down, you needed to break a girl like Kaci. We did it to the prospects, but those were all guys. With her, it was going to take something a little more . . . inventive.

  And, from the way she'd submitted under my hand the night before when I'd punished her for stripping in the meeting room, I knew just what kind of innovation would work.

  # # #

  Kaci

  “Just so you know,” I said as I worked away at the label on the beer bottle, this time just a plain ol' crappy domestic, “I want the Bear dead. Rommy's ghost ain't gonna rest till I put that man in the ground.”

  Micah laughed a little, but not with his eyes. “Ghost, huh?”

  “What?” I asked. “You live in New Orleans and don't believe in ghosts?”

  “Went to a voodoo thing once, when I was younger. Not my scene.”

  “Well, that ain't mine, neither. Biting the heads off chickens and drinking blood?” I shook my head. “Nah. But, still ghosts are real. Even if you don't believe in them, they still haunt you every day of your life.”

  “Maybe you should just call them memories, then?” Micah asked.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “But ghosts or memories, might as well be the same thing to me. I don't really see how I could live with either, knowing I let Rommy just be a victim.”

  “Well,” Micah said, leaning forward at the table, “then help me. Help me hit Efraim where it counts, in his pocket book. That'll hurt him a thousand times more than killing a thousand Abram Morkov's. Make him suffer, make him pull his hair out. I promise you, we'll take him down, one piece at a time.”

  I smiled, my eyes going from the beer bottle to his face, then down to his hands that were clasped in front of him. Those strong, deliberate hands that he'd used on me the night before.

  There was something about the intimacy of the moment, just then. A feeling that hung in the air, like an electric storm had come in from the coast and was filling the room with its unpredictability.

  “We need to trust each other, though,” he said after a while, and I noticed a certain severity that had crept, unseen, into his voice.

  I bit my lower lip as I glanced back up at him, met his eyes.

  They'd hardened, like the irises had shifted from blue to steel gray. I'd seen that look before, not just in other men, but the night before when he'd punished me for stripping for the other bikers.

  “You need to learn to obey me,” he continued, his lips set in a thin line.

  I realized my breath had sped up, become more shallow, the moment his tone of voice had shifted. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, and I realized I was nervous.

  Me. Nervous.

  I couldn't believe it. The last time I'd been nervous, I'd been in the back seat of a car with my fir
st boy, Scott Taylor. He'd been fast, and it had hurt at first, but the deed had been done. That night, it seemed like my trepidation about sex had fled alongside my virginity.

  But, tonight I knew more was on the line than just sex. This was as much about trust, and if I didn't perform exactly the way Micah wanted, I wasn't going in that truck with Sydney. They'd find some other way to pull off the heist, and I'd be high and dry.

  “Undress,” he commanded, his voice not too loud or too quiet. Just right.

  I realized my hands were shaking a little as I took one more swig of beer and set the bottle on the table. I stood up and reached for the bottom of my shirt and tugged it up and over my head. I began to remove my clothes. Not slowly, or sensually, or erotically.