Page 68 of The Games We Play

Five guys climb out. Two were the ones hitting on Iris when she was at the diner. I don’t recognize the others. They meet four other men; all of them are heavily armed.

One of them is the guy who got away in the Pines and my worst fears are confirmed. The Russians and the Brotherhood are working together to take our turf.

Saint pulls his gun and makes a move to step forward, and I yank that fucker back against the wall. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

“They have women in that van.” There’s anguish on his face.

“Yeah, and they have bullets in those nine semiautomatics they’re carrying. Lots of them. It’s a suicide mission. Can’t let you go in, brother.”

Saint sucks in breaths of air, his face furious. I can see the internal battle, and I increase the pressure of my arm against his chest.

“If we die today, it helps no one. We need to start getting names to these faces. See what their ties and allegiances are,” I whisper.

Saint nods and shrugs me off. “Where’s the fucking van?”

We peer back around the building. The doors slam on a large shipping container. And I point. “I’m guessing in there.”

“Motherfuckers. What if there are women in there too?” he asks. “We can’t just let them be taken. We need to fight.”

As if they hear us, two of them look in our direction. “Move,” I say, shoving Saint, as I hear their raised voices and the sound of footsteps.

He stands his ground, torn by the right thing to do, so I shove him again. “Don’t make me fucking carry you. Run.”

And we do, racing until we climb onto our bikes and pull out of the lot. I don’t look back to see if they followed. When we arrive in Asbury Park, I lose Saint. Hope the fucker doesn’t turn around, although it’s fifty minutes since we left the docks and I’ll bet that shipment is long gone.

With the knowledge they are trading something through our turf, I race back to the clubhouse. Thoughts of any other kind of conversation come second to that fact.

After slamming my bike into its spot, I leap from it and hurry inside.

“Where’s King?” I ask a prospect.

He points to King’s office. I stride over and push open the door. Clutch is leaning against the wall, and Vex is showing King something on his laptop.

“I just got a bead on those neo-Nazis. They shifted a van into a shipping container. We heard a scream. They’re shipping women. And I saw the fucker who escaped from the Pines that night. Stepped out of a van with—”

“Sit down, Spark,” King says. His voice is measured, my first clue that he’s fucking pissed about something.

“What? We paid the guy. Happened right in front of us. We didn’t go looking for trouble,” I say.

“Yes, you did. You want to tell me why you’re fucking the Irish chick?” King says.

His words hit me like a blow. “I was coming here to tell you about her today.”

Clutch huffs. “Sure you were.”

I stand to my full height and front him. “You calling me a liar?” I hate the insinuation.

“He’s not, but I am,” King says. “I asked you whether you were fucking the Irish chick. I was pretty explicit with the question. You said no.”

I glance over at him, pissed that I have to explain. “Again. I did not lie. You asked if I was fucking Iris. At the time, I wasn’t. That changed forty-eight hours ago. And now I’m here to tell you about it.”

King tips his chin at the chair. “Sit the fuck down.”

I do as I’m told and realize that military life ensured I still take orders, even when I really don’t want to. I know a shit ton about de-escalating, been trained by the government to do it when deployed, but suddenly I can’t bring a single tactic to mind. “Not that who I’m fucking is any of your goddamn business, but I didn’t intend to fall for Iris.”

Clutch huffs again. “Could have seen it coming from the day you met her on that stoop. You looked poleaxed.”

“Like you did the night you carried Gwen out of this office to Prez’s room and then into your own. You looked pretty poleaxed then too,” I say.