Page 30

Ghost

W e’re back in our interrogation room in the Savage Legion’s clubhouse.

We were finishing up at Carnage’s hideout when the call came in.

It was one of the prospects, Heather had gotten a call from the clinic saying she needed to get her bloods redrawn.

She’d gone with Brittany, and they only realized too late that it was a trap.

Brittany is in hospital and Heather is with Carnage.

Now I’m trying to get information out of these assholes so I can get my woman back.

We’ve given Joker the once-over, and he didn’t crack like Merc did.

We figure that if we put them together, maybe Merc can show his club brother the benefits of cooperation.

Joker has a split lip and bruising, along with dried blood crusted along his jaw, compliments of an uppercut by Siege.

Merc won’t make eye contact with any of us, least of all his club brother, Joker. He knows he already betrayed his club brothers by cooperating with us and likely doesn’t want Joker to find out about that. Merc just keeps staring at the floor.

Hawk is still cooling in the back lot. They’ve put him in one of the outbuildings and turned the AC on high.

Ain’t nobody wants a dead body to start rotting on our property.

He’s in a body bag waiting for us to figure out what to do with him.

None of us have spoken about him yet because we’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.

Siege is standing beside me with his arms crossed. Rigs is leaning against the back wall. Both of them are more than pissed at the conversation we just had with Carnage on the phone.

Joker breaks the silence first. Of course he does. “Still think you’re the good guys?” he mutters, voice rough. “After all this? After what you did to Hawk?”

Rigs replies flatly with facts none of us can refute. “Hawk made a move on the president of the Savage Legion. You know the club rules.”

“He wasn’t wearing a patch anymore,” Joker snaps. “None of us are.”

“Exactly,” Rigs says, stepping forward. “You’re not Legion. You’re traitors. And traitors don’t get rules.”

I watch Merc flinch at hearing Rigs’ stern words. Merc knows the deal. We all do, including Joker.

“Do you know why you’re still breathing?” I ask, stepping closer. I keep my voice calm and steady. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s because you’ve got something we need. We’re gonna give you one chance to give it to us.”

Joker rolls his eyes. “We’re not snitches.”

“No,” Siege tells him bluntly, “You’re cowards. There’s a big difference.”

I pull a folded print from my back pocket. It’s a photo meant to drive home to them what’s at stake, rather than to threaten or intimidate them.

It’s a picture of Heather, from the night of the gala. She’s in her long dress. Her hair is curled and piled high on her head. Her hands are resting over the soft swell of her baby bump. She’s smiling at me in the shot, and she looks absolutely radiant.

I toss the photo onto the table between them.

“Do you know this woman?”

They both nod. Joker speaks up. “That’s Heather. Of course we know. She’s Carnage’s old lady and that’s his baby in her belly.”

“She used to be his old lady. Now she’s mine.”

Joker’s face takes on a stubborn cast. “That’s still his baby in her belly. You know that, right?”

“When he laid his hands on her he lost any rights”

“Heather’s a nice lady. Carnage hit the jackpot with her,” Joker says.

Merc speaks up in a soft tone, “She used to cook for us. And she was nice to us. We ain’t never had a beef with Heather.”

“But you helped Carnage force her back to him when she didn’t want to be with him anymore.”

Merc finally looks up. His eyes flick to the photo, then away again. Like he wants to pretend he didn’t see how beautiful and innocent she was in all this.

“How do you think Carnage is going to react when she doesn’t warm up to him again? Do you think he’s gonna let her be or force himself on her?”

“Carnage wouldn’t hurt her,” Joker says confidently. Then shooting Merc a worried look he adds, “He’s… he’s obsessed with her, but he’s not stupid enough to do anything to harm her.”

“You sure about that?” Rigs asks. “You sure he won’t break her just to prove he can?”

“That man worships control,” Siege adds. “You think someone like that is gonna handle rejection well?”

I take a step forward, keeping my eyes locked on Merc. “Siege is right.”

Merc’s hands twitch against the restraints. He looks like he’s holding back something.

“You two were in deep with him,” I say. “You know what he’s capable of. You know how far gone he is.”

Merc swallows hard and then opens his mouth.

Joker turns towards him. “Don’t.”

“You shut the fuck up,” I snap.

Siege grabs the back of Joker’s chair and jerks it back sharply. Joker grunts, his jaw locked.

That leaves Merc in the center, wanting to tell us something that might be the difference between life and death for the woman I love.

I kneel down in front of him to look him in the eyes. “You don’t owe him anything now. You owe her. If you let this go on any longer, the next time we see Heather, she’ll be a hollowed-out shell of her former self or in a body bag. You want that on your conscience?”

His voice comes out like sandpaper. “He talked about a fallback position.”

I freeze, waiting with bated breath for him to finish his thought. Siege takes a step closer as well.

Merc keeps his eyes down, like he’s struggling with whether to tell us what he knows or not.

“Before we hit the clinic, Carnage said if things went bad, he’d take her to a place with walls and no windows. Some place that he scouted out weeks ago. He kept talking about it already having food stores. He claimed it was abandoned but that the electricity was still working there.”

“Where was it located? What was it called?” I ask.

“He didn’t say, but one time he called it the Sugar Palace. Said Heather would sweeten up once she saw that hideout.”

My blood runs cold. The Sugar palace. It has to be North Ridge Confections.

We all know that place. Most of the kids in this area went there on field trips as a kid. It’s the only place that could be construed as a sugar palace.

Rigs meets my eyes and he nods once. He remembers too. That’s all I need.

I stand up straight, pull my cut tight across my chest.

“Zen!” Siege barks, his voice echoing through the concrete hall. “Pull every satellite image we’ve got. I want every entry point, back road, sewer line, and shadow near that candy plant mapped as soon as possible.”

Siege turns towards Merc one last time. “You just saved your life.”

Merc doesn’t seem so sure. The expression on his face tells me he’s miserable for having to betray his club leader. The thing is, Joker isn’t losing his mind. He looks strangely blank, like maybe he wanted to tell us but couldn’t bring himself to betray his leader.

The minute we step out of the room and close the door behind us, Tex runs up to us, looking all kinds of fuckin’ freaked out.

“Heads up Prez. Sons of Rage are headed our way. Rock got wind of what happened to Brittany, and he’s ready to kill whoever the fuck did this to her.”

Siege sighs. “They should have left it to us to handle this situation, now that she’s married to a member of our club.”

Rigs rolls his eyes. “Rock ain’t gonna let anyone mess with his only granddaughter.

And Queenie won’t be leaving until Brittany’s well again.

They might even want to take her back with them for a while.

” Glancing at Siege, Rigs tells him, “Brittany was our responsibility. You’d best put in a call to Rock and make nice. You know Tusk has called them already.”

“How bad were her injuries?” Siege asks Tex.

“Pretty damn bad. Carnage slammed her through a piece of glass. Tore her back completely up. Tusk says it’s going to take dozens of stitches to close.”

Siege curses under his breath, pulls out his phone and strolls away to get some privacy to make the call.

I reach out and grab Tex’s arm, giving him a little jerk. “I’m damn sorry about what happened to Brittany, but I want more information on what happened to Heather. Have any of your cop contacts come through?”

“I’ve pulled in a couple of favors. They plan to review the security footage from the lab and then they’ll know more.”

“Thanks, brother,” I tell him before racing back up to the first floor and straight to Zen’s office. I don’t even knock. I just run through the open door and come to a skidding stop right in front of him.

He’s hunched over a huge screen with several others glowing from along one wall. Maps, overlays, city blueprints. His fingers fly across a split keyboard as he tries to track down the information Siege asked for earlier.

Stepping closer, I look over his shoulder at the information he’s scrolling though. “You got anything yet?”

“With that last bit of information you and Siege got out of Merc, I’m almost there.”

“This all looks like gibberish to me. Please tell me you’ve got something actionable.”

Zen drags one screen wide and taps twice. A candy-colored logo fills the screen along with the company name: North Ridge Confections. The map zooms out to show a chunk of forestland just past county lines.

“I found two possibilities,” he explains.

“I was looking for a hideout, this is the one I’d pick.

It was abandoned twenty years ago. No power grid.

No visible traffic in or out for ages. It fell into receivership after current owner’s grandfather died.

It seems he like to keep business properties in his own name. ”

He swipes left. “Old inspection reports show it’s got underground storage, solid insulation, and no visible windows from the north side. If I wanted to stash someone and stay off-grid, this is where I’d do it.”

“That sounds like a really good location for a hideout. Unfortunately, part of the intel Merc gave us was that he had it rigged out like a fucking survivalist’s shelter. Unless he’s managed to hook up an electricity supply, it doesn’t sound like he’d be in an abandoned factory.”

“Yeah, I heard that when I was monitoring the interrogation. That’s why I think this is the one Carnage’s using.”

He pulls up another more modern factory.

I’m practically vibrating with excitement. “This has to be it, right? There can’t be a third candy factory in Las Salinas.”

“Yes, this one is the hideout. I’m sure of it.

Merc said that Carnage mentioned that it still had electricity.

This one just closed down a couple of weeks ago, so it still has electricity.

According to the new factory business proposal they filed with the city planning commission, they elected to store excess stock in the building.

They even hired a night watchman to protect the ground and merchandise until the transition to the new factory can take place. ”

“It all fits with what Merc reported. I’m fucking worried about that night watchman though. How much do you want to bet that Carnage dropped him?”

Zen pulls up a grainy satellite feed. “I hope they bribed him or scared him off, but there is always a chance that something darker happened to the poor fucker.”

I don’t realize my hands have curled into fists until I hear my knuckles crack. If they killed the night watchman, they might kill Heather when she’s no longer useful and when she rejects him. “We need to get to that fuckin’ factory as soon as humanly possible.

Zen glances up again. “It could be a trap. He’s not bothering to cover his trail very well.”

“Or he was never as smart as everyone gave him credit for being, or as smart as he perceived himself to be,” I tell him. “But from what I’ve heard of the fucker, I think it’s best we go in there assuming it’s a trap.”

Zen nods.

Standing there staring at the screen, I memorize the layout of the factory.

It’s a big place, situated in a relatively quiet area.

There is only one road in and out, with forest cover in the back.

There are storage rooms, a production floor, and an upper mezzanine.

It could easily become a kill box, if we’re not careful.

“I’m going back up to meet with Siege and Rigs,” I murmur.

Zen tells me, “They’re in Siege’s office.”

“We need to come up with foolproof plan that covers all eventualities.”

Zen doesn’t answer right away. He hits send on the message to Siege with all the necessary attachments, including the floor plan. Looking up at me, he says, “Agreed. It’s a good thing strategy is our strength.”

“The longer we leave Heather with a raging lunatic like Carnage, the higher the chance she’s gonna be hurt or killed by him. I mean, just look what he did to Tusk’s old lady.”

Zen jerks his chin at me, in a gesture of agreement. “Don’t worry, brother. I know how serious the situation is. So does Siege and the other club officers. They’ll find her. Get your ass to Siege’s office. Shoot me a text if you need anything else from me.”

I slap him on the shoulder. “You take a well-deserved break, before you keel over.”

A voice drifts from the doorway. “Don’t you worry about my old man. I’ve got it covered.”

Lexi strolls into his office, sets his lunch back down on the desk and elbows me aside, so she can slip onto his lap, face first. She tenderly cups his face with both hands and gives him a kiss. I take a step back and leave them to it.