Page 25 of Damron (Bloody Scythes MC #1)
Chapter fourteen
Carly
I watched from a busted armchair, curled up in my usual campaign blazer and sweatpants, hair a bird’s nest from the night before.
I tried to keep out of the way, but Damron and Nitro worked with the single-mindedness of men who didn’t believe in bystanders.
The table between them was covered with printouts, thumb drives, and three cell phones—one for club business, one for “civvies,” and one that looked like it could detonate a Russian missile silo.
As I watched Damron, I had no doubt what direction our relationship was going to go. A United States Senator could not be fucking an outlaw biker. Plain and simple. There was nothing I could do or change that ideology. That meant, I would have to walk out on Damron a second time.
“Start with the cash,” Damron said, voice raw from too many late nights and cigarettes.
I wondered how many women he’d been with since the day I walked.
It was no secret that a single biker had an endless amount of pussy awaiting.
Women wanted that bad boy even though most could never live or handle his lifestyle.
I’d traded the unknown for the known and fucking hated that I had.
Nitro grunted and grabbed a stack of bank statements, flipping through with blackened fingertips. Every page was a death sentence for someone. I glanced at the top sheet—a spreadsheet with color-coded cells and a column labeled “Wire Transfers, Offshore.” The sums were sickening.
Nitro stabbed a finger at the red highlight. “Right there. Fifteen large, Cayman Islands, routed through a shell in Nevada.” He flicked to the next page. “Then another thirty, same account, next week. Bastard’s laundering it through a consulting firm that doesn’t even have a working phone number.”
Damron nodded, jaw locked. He wore the morning’s stubble like body armor, and the veins on his hands stood out against the battered ledger he thumbed open.
I watched his eyes as he read—quick, ruthless, hungry for the next link.
He found it, traced it with a ragged nail, and tapped twice.
Though he was ten years older, and his life had been much harder than mine, he had a youth about him that made him endearing, almost boyish.
“‘Barnett Tech. Santa Fe, NM. Shipments: agricultural equipment.’” He looked up at Nitro, and there was nothing in his face but contempt. “Who the fuck needs a combine harvester in the high desert?”
Nitro smirked. “Only thing growing out there is weed and bad ideas. You know what this is.”
I did. Arms shipments, masked as farm gear. Textbook.
Damron flipped the page, and a photo slid out—grainy, telephoto, snapped from a moving car.
Giammati, perfect in a pressed suit, shaking hands with a man whose face I recognized only from the board’s “Do Not Engage” wall: Ghost, the Dire Straits’ president, and the man who’d burned down half my life.
The two of them looked like long-lost cousins at a mob wedding. I felt my stomach twist.
“Jesus,” I said, not bothering to keep my voice down. “That’s at the old airstrip. They’re not even trying to hide it.”
“They never do,” Damron said, rolling his neck until it popped. “They count on us being too scared or too dead to show receipts.” He passed the photo to Nitro, who gave it a slow, appreciative once-over.
“Means they’re close to a big move,” Nitro said. “Giammati’s probably paying for the next hit with cash from this quarter’s campaign donations.”
My campaign, I thought. My donors. My goddamn city.
“Show her the manifests,” Damron said. He didn’t look at me when he said it, but his tone left no doubt: I was on the hook now. No more plausible deniability.
Nitro flicked his wrist and a printout landed in my lap.
It was a shipping log, two pages, with a column for “Pallet Contents” and another for “Destination.” Every other entry was labeled “Parts—Tractor,” “Parts—Irrigation,” or, hilariously, “Seeds.” But the weights didn’t match.
One “Parts” pallet was listed at nearly 900 pounds, and I’d bet my remaining career it wasn’t packing spark plugs and fertilizer.
“Confirmed delivery to a warehouse,” Nitro said. “We sent a prospect to peek last night. Place is locked up tighter than Giammati’s asshole, but the guards had Arizona patches.”
The Dire Straits. Again.
I set the printout down and looked at Damron. He watched me with that old, terrifying patience, waiting to see how long it would take for the rest of my illusions to drop dead. When I didn’t speak, he closed the ledger and started cleaning his Glock with a rag and a bottle of solvent.
“Where’s the smoking gun?” I asked, voice dry. “If you want to take this to the Feds, you need more than some blurry photos and fake manifests. You need a direct line from Giammati to the bodies.”
Damron’s smile was so slight it barely counted as a tic. “You still think the Feds are gonna do a goddamn thing? You’re adorable.”
“Just humor me,” I said, heat rising in my cheeks. “You want me to stick my neck out in public, I need it to be worth the guillotine.”
Nitro slapped another photo onto the table.
This one was clearer—two men, Giammati and Ghost, standing by a black SUV, trunk open.
Inside: a stack of matte black cases, the kind they used to ship military-grade hardware.
An unmarked van sat in the background, side door open, and you could just make out the blurred faces of three more men, one holding a clipboard.
Damron’s eyes cut to me. “This isn’t politics, Carly.
This is a fucking war. Giammati wants you dead, or worse, humiliated and out of the race so he can walk into Congress with a clean slate.
You don’t play nice, he’ll come after your friends, your family, your club, anyone who makes you look human.
And Ghost will burn the world just to make sure I watch. ”
I took a deep breath, fingers digging into my thighs to keep steady. “What’s the move?”
Nitro and Damron exchanged a glance. “We could drop it all at the news desk,” Nitro said. “Or we could hit the warehouse, get the gear, and make a mess so loud even the Feds can’t ignore it.”
“Or?” I asked.
“Or we bring it to the debate tonight,” Damron said, voice flat. “Force his hand. If he knows we’ve got dirt, he’ll sweat. Maybe slip up, maybe send someone dumb enough to get caught.”
I almost laughed. “You want me to bait a hit during a live debate?” I was so tired, I nearly considered it. “Fine. But if I get shot again on live TV, I’m haunting you for the rest of your miserable life.”
He smirked. “At least you’d stick around this time.”
Nitro started gathering up the files, careful to stack them in the order he liked—evidence, then manifests, then photos, then the rest. I watched his hands, noting the faint tremor, the way his wrists bore old white scars like vines.
Damron stood and shouldered his cut, then checked the chamber on his Glock before tucking it behind his waistband.
I stood too, smoothing my blazer, trying to will the adrenaline out of my bloodstream. “If we’re doing this, I want a copy of everything. And I want someone on my campaign team briefed in case I get taken out.”
Nitro grinned. “You want Augustine? He’s got a way with computers and a way with knives.”
“Just send someone who can spell,” I said.
“Then you’re out of luck,” Damron deadpanned.
He moved to the door and waited for me to lead.
I did, feeling their presence at my back like a pair of loaded guns.
The clubhouse was quiet—midday, most of the patched guys were either working legit jobs or sleeping off last night’s excess.
I heard the low hum of a Harley being tuned in the garage, and a burst of laughter from the kitchen.
For a second, it almost felt like a home.
We reached the exit, and Damron leaned in, voice low enough that only I could hear. “We’re gonna keep you alive, Carly. Even if we have to kill the rest of this godforsaken state to do it.”
I believed him, and that scared me most of all.
This was going to be a long fucking day.
###
The campaign office was a glass-fronted fishbowl filled with sharks who thought they were goldfish.
The walls were plastered with my own face—smiling, unflappable, composed—on yard signs and glossy posters, each one a reminder of how much I hated seeing my own teeth.
It was noon, but half the staff was already on their third round of coffee, voices pitched to a nervous hiss as they circled the war table with laptops and legal pads.
I paced the back room, which was really just a supply closet that doubled as a panic bunker. You could hear everything through the partition.
“She can’t just ignore it!” Jamie snapped, his voice breaking through the frosted glass. “It’s all over Twitter—#BikerBoyfriend is trending statewide!”
“Don’t say ‘biker boyfriend,’” my campaign manager hissed. “Jesus, Jamie, do you want the Times to pick it up too?”
I kept pacing. My thumb found the ridge of the scar on my arm—the one from the last time someone tried to kill me in public—and I traced it compulsively, hoping the pain would override the migraine that had been building since breakfast. I had destroyed my career by going to Damron, knowing damn well what he would do.
The door cracked open. Jamie and Marcy, the campaign manager, entered, moving in tight formation with a tablet clutched between them.
Jamie’s tie was loose and his shirt was already blotched with sweat.
Marcy looked like she’d slept in her blazer, but her eyes were pure caffeine and adrenaline.
“We’ve got a problem,” Jamie said, skipping all pretense of small talk.
“No shit,” I said, flicking my eyes at the tablet. “Which disaster is it today?”