“Beer?” he asked. I shook my head, flopping back on one of the sagging full-size beds, propping my hands behind my neck. Hadn’t gotten much sleep last night—might as well relax while I could. From the look on Gage’s face, we’d have a shit storm to deal with soon enough.

“We’re going to a party out at the Nighthawks’ clubhouse in a few hours,” he said, sitting down across from me. “Talia was at the bar again last night. We danced for a while and I bought her a few drinks. Then her brother showed up with his crew and I finally got an introduction. We started talking and I fed him my line about being an independent rider. Bought a couple rounds and the next thing I know, I’m taking Talia to the party tonight. She wants you along for her girl.”

“I’m not gonna fuck her,” I told him without a second thought. Huh.

“Pussy-whipped?” he asked, his voice serious. “Club needs you on this, Painter. You think I wanna screw that bitch Talia? Fuck no, not with a sweet piece like Tinker around. We all gotta do our part, bro.”

I shook my head, frowning.

“I’m serious about Mel.”

“She doesn’t need to know.”

“How ’bout this—I’ll take it one step at a time, see how it plays out.”

Gage cocked his head. “You’ll do what needs to be done?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Always have before. There’s more.”

“What?”

“This morning I saw someone I recognized,” he said, his tone grim. “Someone who will recognize me.”

“That’s no good. Passing through?”

“It’s possible,” he said. “He was by himself. Could be a coincidence.”

“Who was it? Anyone I know?”

“Unlikely—this shit went down before your time. Few years back, we had a hangaround whose girlfriend worked at The Line. Turned out he was a snitch, and it’s ’cause of him and that bitch of his that Bolt served time. She set him up—they were working with the Feds. The snitch pulled a runner. Called himself Hands, no idea what his real name is.”

“You don’t think it’s a coincidence he turned up here?”

“I got a bad feeling about it,” he admitted. “Can’t think of a good reason for him to be in Hallies Falls. If he’s still workin’ with the cops, he may be targeting Marsh and his boys now. Much as I hate the fucker, last thing we need is LEO sniffing out the cross-border trade and shutting it down. Throw in the fact that he could blow my cover and we got a big problem.”

No shit.

“You didn’t just call me because of a party,” I said flatly, forcing my body to stay relaxed. Gage shook his head, looking almost regretful.

“Hopin’ it won’t come to that, but we can’t let him talk. Assuming he’s even here—could be he was passing through. But if he’s after Marsh, odds are good he’ll be at the party tonight.”

“Pic know?”

“He knows we have a complication,” Gage replied. “Couldn’t risk giving any details—when Bolt hears, he’ll lose his shit, so I’d like to handle it before that happens. It’s on you and me. I see him at the party, you’ll have to find a way to get him out of there without raising suspicions. On the bright side, Rance is ready and waiting—we get Hands, we’ll haul his ass to Bellingham for questioning. After they get as much info as they can, they’ll take care of him for us.”

“It’s never simple, is it?”

“Never has been before, so no reason to expect it to start now,” he said, shrugging. “I need to ask you something.”

“What?”

“You sure you’re up for something this heavy? I know you take a big risk every time you come over here, but they catch you with Hands, you’ll go away for a long fuckin’ time. Doesn’t matter how much money we give Torres, he wouldn’t be able to cover up something this serious.”

“Then I won’t get caught,” I said. “Whoever does the job takes the same risk, and it’s not like I have kids.”

“Yeah, but it sounds like you’ve got something goin’ on with Melanie.”

“I didn’t see Horse or Ruger turning soft when they met their old ladies.”

“I don’t see them in this hotel room, either.”

“I’m here,” I told him, my voice steady. “The club comes first—that’s the way it is. We’ll handle this situation, no worries.”

“Gotcha, brother.”

•   •   •

Talia’s friend—a brown-haired girl named Sadie—was wrapped tight around me, squealing as we tore down the highway. Her fingernails were long and red like talons, and they were currently digging deep into my stomach. For reasons completely beyond me she seemed to think this was sexy.

Gage was ahead of us, leading the way to the Nighthawk Raiders’ clubhouse, Talia on the back of his bike. The girls were already wasted when we’d pulled up to their place. Sadie had done her best to crawl inside my pants while Gage disappeared into the bathroom with Talia for a quickie. I could hear her screaming “Harder, Daddy!” through the door the whole time, so I guess it was good we sent Gage after her instead of me—according to Sadie, Talia thought “old guys” were hot.

I had every intention of sharing that little tidbit with all the brothers back home, too.

Now we’d reached the Nighthawk clubhouse, an old commercial building on the northern edge of town. A chain-link fence lined with razor wire surrounded a large, open parking lot to one side of the building.

We parked our bikes on the street, away from the line of club bikes in front of the building. A couple of prospects were lurking around outside. They didn’t particularly impress me. Neither did the club’s motorcycles, for that matter. Most of them were dirty and a couple were flat-out rat bikes. Back home, our prospects would be all over that shit, shining up the chrome and making sure everything stayed clean.

No fuckin’ pride.

Loud music poured out as we walked toward the large rolling gate into the fenced area. Talia dragged Gage along proudly, like a cat with a particularly juicy mouse. Sadie was giggling and hanging all over me. Much as I wanted to hate her, she didn’t strike me as nasty like Talia—just young and fucking stupid. I could already see her in a few years, all played out and broken-down. Girls like her didn’t last long in this life, not if they couldn’t find themselves a good old man.

Talia headed straight for the prospects. “Is Marsh here?”

“He’s out back.”

“This is my friend Cooper,” she said. “And his friend Levi. Keep an eye on their bikes. I find one scratch and you’ll pay, got it?”

The fuck? I could hardly believe what I’d just heard . . . No fuckin’ way she should be talking to a prospect like that—that was business for patch holders. Gage shot me a quick look, as if to say Told you so. The Nighthawk Raiders had really fallen to shit.

The prospect gave me an evil glare as he turned toward the gate, and I couldn’t blame him. We were out of line.

The party wasn’t much better. There was the usual mess of club whores, all fucked up on God knows what. A few old ladies here and there, some loud music. Kegs. The brothers were a bit of a mix—there were a couple who looked pretty solid to me, which matched what we’d heard from Pipes. Most of the others were high as shit.

No wonder they kept running short on product.

As we went to grab some beer, Talia started introducing us around. I noticed the Nighthawk brothers fell into two distinct groups. Those with newer, shinier cuts were falling all over themselves to suck up to her—at least to her face—while a slightly older group with more faded colors kept their distance. I caught a few of them staring me down, and the looks weren’t friendly. The rumors about Marsh recruiting heavily had to be true, because no way this many new members had prospected in. I wondered how the hell things had gotten this far. Something was deeply, deeply fucked in this club.

We wandered over to the keg and pumped ourselves some beer, which Sadie sucked down like her life depended on it. After a while I started swapping cups with her, letting her drink my share, too. They had a couple of fire barrels set up around the back side of the building—also fenced in—and Talia herded us toward a big man standing in the center of a group.