Page 29 of Lockout (The Vikings MC: Tucson Chapter #11)

Lockout

S cowling at my watch, I waited while everyone stared at me. It’d been three fucking days and we still didn’t have a plan. I was starting to get pissed off. And now Rip wasn’t at church. He hadn’t responded to my text.

“I’ll go see what’s holdin’ him up,” Hush offered, shoving out of his chair.

He’d no sooner gotten to his feet than Riptide hurried in. “Shit, sorry, Lock.”

My eyes narrowed because he had that look. The one that he probably got on his face after he came—not that I was going to fucking think about that—but that I knew for sure he got when he had some kind of breakthrough. “You found something.”

He looked over at me as he set his laptop up on the table.

Everyone else was quiet, aware of my volatile mood.

You’d think fucking my old lady day and night for the last three days would have relaxed me.

And honestly it had. I hated to think what I’d be like if she hadn’t been taking the pressure off.

“How the hell do you do that?” he asked.

“What?” I replied.

“You always seem to know-. Nevermind. I found an email.” He shot me a huge grin. When he didn’t get the excitement from me that he was looking for his eyes drifted around the room.

“Big fucking deal,” Toxic muttered. “What good is an email going to do?”

Riptide let out a heavy sigh. “I swear none of you know shit about computers.” He wiped a hand over his mouth as if searching for patience.

“An email gave me a place to start.” He started tapping on the laptop and pages started flashing by on the TV screen on the wall. “Which led me to an IP Address.”

“Enough with the nerd talk,” Butcher muttered. “Just tell us what you found.”

“It’s-”

“In regular English,” Hush said, interrupting him. He grinned in a good natured manner when Rip flipped him off.

Rip sighed and looked disappointed. “Fine. I’ll skip all the exciting shit. I have a backdoor to their operations now. In fact, I know that tomorrow night Hangman has three different operations happening for the Phoenix crew.”

I straightened up, pinning him with a hard look. “You know where they’re meeting?”

“Yup,” he said with a grin. “And how many guys will be there. Shit, I know which guys will be at which meetings and that they’re happening here in Tucson.”

“Okay,” Hellfire said. “That’s pretty cool.”

Riptide pointed at him, looking over at Butcher and Hush like he’d just been validated.

“How does knowing the guys’ names help us?” Smoke asked.

Ricochet shook his head. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” he said, tone full of disappointment.

Smoke punched him in the arm.

“Because then I can do a deep dive on each member of the Legion of Shadow. We know about Hangman, of course, but the rest of them? They’ve been ghosts up until this point,” Rip answered, giving Smoke a smug grin.

“How long will it take to pinpoint his officers?” I asked, leaning forward with my arms on the table. This was exactly what we needed.

“Couple days. There’s a fuck ton of ‘em, Prez,” Rip said with a shake of his head.

“You sure the email isn’t a plant?” Priest asked.

“Yeah,” Idaho added, “what if they wanted you to find it?”

“That way they could set up a trap,” Static pointed out.

Rip shook his head. “I guess it’s possible, but I don’t think Hangman would’ve done that.” His eyes met mine. “This gives me full access to his operation. It’s a stupid fucking move if he did it on purpose.”

“He doesn’t strike me as the stupid type,” I said, leaning back again. The knot in my chest started to loosen. We finally had something. I could act instead of sitting here just waiting for something to fucking happen to my family.

Everyone was quiet for a few moments after that.

“So, what’s our plan?” Smoke asked, looking at me as he broke the silence.

“We hit one group,” Hush said, “and we take out some of their players.”

I nodded. “But if we hit all three, we take out a good number of them and possibly ruin their deals with their suppliers. Not to mention we’re going to draw Hangman in. No way he’s going to sit over in D.C. if we’re decimating his crew here.”

Toxic let out a low whistle. “That’s going to spread us thin.”

“Too thin,” Priest said with a scowl. “Do we have the numbers for that?”

“Even with the Saint’s Outlaws and Berserker’s Rage that’s a big ask,” Ricochet replied.

“How many will be at each meeting?” I asked Rip.

“Ten,” he replied. “Prez, that would hit them hard. They’d only have a handful left here in Arizona, plus their officers.”

“Hangman would have to bring in more help from out of state,” I added, eyes flashing around the room. “That’ll take a couple days at least for the backup to get to them.”

“Fuck yeah,” Butcher said with a sadistic grin. “Can we afford not to take out thirty of these bastards in one blow?”

“The minute we hit them, Hangman is going to know it’s game on,” I said before anyone could say anything.

“Which means we lose the element of surprise. If we can take out a decent chunk of his force, I think it’s worth doing.

But, we can’t fail. It has to be absolute decimation.

Otherwise he’s going to hit back even harder. ”

Priest ran a hand back and forth over his hair. It was a little longer than he usually kept it and I knew it was driving him insane. “Shit. You’re right, Lock, but what about everyone here? The school? The apartments? The ranch?”

“Two people on the school, the apartments, and the ranch. Isla and Butcher will stay here to protect the women and kids.”

Everyone looked uncomfortable. And the fact that Butcher wasn’t automatically bitching about that assignment was a huge red flag.

“What?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“You should stay here with Isla, Lock,” Hush said, finally speaking up when no one else would.

My brows went up. “Why’s that? You think I’m out of shape? That I’ve been out of the fight too long to be useful to you?”

“Goddamn, Lock,” Hush muttered, shaking his head. “You know I don’t. But…”

“But what?” I asked, voice calm even though I was raging inside. I didn’t like the implication. “You think I’m a liability?”

Hush winced.

“Not like that,” Priest said, “but you are.”

I scowled at him. I didn’t say anything, waiting for the explanation.

It came from Rip. “If we’re caught and they get a hold of you?” he said with a shake of his head. “The rest of us will do whatever the fuck we have to in order to get you back.”

“Give whatever we have to,” Idaho said with an intense look.

They were right. Goddamn it.

“Information,” Static said.

“Our lives,” Hell agreed.

“Our asses,” Smoke said, making a face, “literally if we had to.” Everyone stared at him when he cracked a grin. “Just trying to lighten the mood, fuck’s sake.”

“I love you like a brother, Lock,” Toxic said. “Not sure I’d give up my ass cherry for you though…”

Everyone chuckled at that.

“Oh sure,” Smoke muttered, pouting. “It’s funny when he says it.”

Toxic wrapped his arm around Smoke’s neck, pulling him closer and choking him at the same time. “That’s because I’m actually funny, Smoke.”

Smoke wrestled his way out of Toxic’s hold, glaring at the man as he sat back. “Yeah, sure.”

“Besides,” Priest said, “This will be the most vulnerable we’ve ever left the clubhouse. We need to know with absolute certainty that our women, the kids, my girls, are safe. Who else can we trust like that?” He shrugged.

That calmed down my anger quite a bit because they were all nodding at that. At least they didn’t think I was a useless piece of shit. I tapped a finger on the table, something I tended to do when I was thinking. “You all feel the same?”

Everyone continued nodding. Fuck. I was going to have to sit out of this fucking fight.

I didn’t like it. I wanted to lead from the front, not stay behind with the women.

But I made most of them, at one time or another, stay behind and do the same.

I wasn’t above it. Not to mention the fact that they trusted me to protect their families was an honor of its own.

“Fine. I’ll stay behind with Isla.”

“Great,” Butcher muttered. “Who’s going to tell her?”

“She’s your old lady,” Ricochet pointed out.

“Not my decision to make her miss out on the fun,” Butcher shot back. “Why should I have to take the hit on this one?”

“Same as me taking the hit on having to forcibly remove my girl from her ranch,” Toxic told him. “As I remember, you just laughed and said I deserved it.” He gave Butcher a smarmy grin. “Your turn, fucker.”

“Nope, I need to be free of stab wounds for this coming fight,” he muttered.

“Rip,” I said, cutting them off before a fight broke out. “We’re going to need you to dig up everything you can about those meetings and who’s attending by tomorrow morning. If you can make up a profile on their players, we can build our teams around their men’s strengths and weaknesses.”

He nodded. “They’re all meeting with buyers within twenty minutes of each other,” he said. “We’re going to have to have a coordinated attack so that no one has a chance to warn the others.”

“No problem,” Butcher replied. “We’ll just kill them before they get the word out.”

I grinned, my bad mood dissipating as I realized that even if I wasn’t going to participate in killing the fuckers, they were still going to have a bitch of a night.

The LoS wasn’t going to know what hit them.

My brothers were the best of the fucking best and even though the LoS had numbers on us, each one of us was worth three of them. “No problem,” I echoed.

We discussed as much as we were able without the intel Rip still needed to get, then I dismissed them from church. I made my way upstairs and frowned when I saw both my apartment door and Keely’s wide open.

Stepping into my apartment, I searched for her. I found her, ass up in the air, digging around in my closet. “That’s a nice way to greet me.”

She straightened, spinning and gasping all at the same time. I didn’t need the guilty look on her face to know she was up to no good, because I saw the box in her hand.

My eyes narrowed as I reached out and took it from her. The lid was still on the closet floor. “Snooping, Keely?” I asked, voice calm even though all the old feelings that damn box brought on were stirring in my chest.

“I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. Then her eyes narrowed and she glared at me. “Actually, no, I’m not.” She reached out and took a handful of the condoms that were inside the box and then tossed them in my face.

Anger slammed into me full force. Squeezing the box in my hand, I glared at her. “What the hell is your problem?”

“What’s your problem,” she said, stepping forward and prodding me in the chest. “Why do you have like…a hundred damn condoms in a box, Liam ?”

The ballsy woman actually sneered my name at me. “Why you starting shit, Jumper Cables?” I taunted.

She gasped. “This isn’t starting shit,” she snapped. “You asked me to move in here. I was putting my stuff away and found that.” She waved at the box.”

“Did it open itself for you?” I asked.

“Fine,” she huffed. “I opened it.” She scowled and poked me again.

She knew that was a direct line to my temper and she was about to snap the cord. “Not that it’s your business, but Daphne gave me those. Back on my first deployment.”

That took some of the wind out of her sails, but she only calmed down a bit. “Why would your sister send you a hundred condoms?”

“To make sure I used some,” I replied. “I was young and dumb once and I think every man has hit it raw at one point or another.”

She rolled her eyes. “And you told your sister that? Yeah, right.”

“No, Idaho did. Little shit. So, to be sure we were being safe and responsible, she sent us both a lifetime of condoms.”

Guilt flashed over her features, then she stuck her hands on her hips. “And there’s no way for me to verify that.”

“Such a lawyer,” I growled. I pulled my phone from my pocket and hit a number. “Hey, can you come to my place?” I hung up after I heard the agreement.

“Who was that?”

“You ever stop asking questions, Jumper Cables?” I asked her.

“I told you not to call me that,” she snapped.

“I’ll stop calling you that when you stop digging up shit to be mad at me about.”

“I wasn’t digging up anything,” she argued. “This is a logical response to finding this amount of contraceptives in your place. I know bikers are man hoes, but I thought you were better than Smoke and Toxic.”

I arched a brow at her, but I reached out and cupped her cheek, my anger softening because she sounded…hurt. “I haven’t slept with anyone in years, Keely.”

She searched my eyes, then nodded, but before she could say anything there was a knock on my front door. We both turned as Hush appeared in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said, his eyes dropping to the ground where condoms littered the floor like confetti. “Uh, should I come back?”

“No,” I said. “Please tell Cables here that my sister sent me the largest shipment of condoms known to man back in the day on deployment.”

Hush took in my request, then started to laugh. It boomed around the room and I saw Keely start to smile despite herself. “Daph did. She also made sure that the box she sent got searched. She said it would keep him in line.” Hush scratched his chin. “It didn’t work. For him or his brother.”

“Thanks,” I told him.

Hush nodded, then paused as he turned to leave. “Cables?”

“Keely’s new name,” I said, giving her a wolfish smile.

She stuck her tongue out at me.

“What’s it stand for?”

“Out,” I said, not giving him an answer.

I liked that she and I were the only two who knew what it meant, though the others could call her by it if they wanted.

Just like I sometimes called their old ladies by the names they’d chosen.

We weren’t super strict about using the nicknames men chose for their old ladies, though.

Sometimes we did. Other times we didn’t.

Hush left and I looked down at Keely. “Satisfied?”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, staring down at her feet.

I bent down and grabbed one of the foil packets, then pointed to the expiration date. It was well over a decade ago. She blushed further but didn’t say anything.

Using my fingers, I tilted her jaw upward so I could stare into those mesmerizing blue eyes. One thing was certain, she was going to make life interesting. I doubted I’d have very many boring days with her.