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"Yeah," I agreed, reaching up to stroke a hand down my beard.
"Hell of a woman though."
"Yeah," I repeated, turning away, "I know."
Considering the purple smudges under her eyes that spoke of even more sleeplessness than usual, she was on her game when I walked into that room. She managed to keep me just barely at arm's length for the next fifty minutes, then curled away from me, declaring she had somewhere to be before tearing out of the gym like it was on fire.
"Yeah, that went about as could be expected," I said to myself, reaching up to rub at a bunch of the sore spots she had inflicted.
I walked out with a coiled feeling in my stomach, realizing our classes were done, wondering how shit was going to shake out if she chose not to call, if whatever she had going on was enough to keep her mind occupied, if she could easily just move on.
"Who pissed in your Cheerios?" Sugar asked as I walked into the compound, now empty save for the newer members, everyone else heading to bring their kids home and settle them back in.
"Didn't get a chance to tell them," Pagan said, twisting the top off a beer.
"Tell us what?" Roderick asked, looking up from his cell, eyes clearly excited about anything other than sitting around doing nothing, even if all it was was a chance to pile-on.
"I went to the gym this morning and... who the ever loving fuck are you?" he demanded to know, drawing a gun so fast that the motion blurred.
We didn't even see who he was raising his gun on, but all of us who had them - not including me - reached for guns as we turned toward the doorway to the kitchen where a man was standing, leaning against the doorway, a goddamn sandwich in his hand, looking at a group of armed bikers like there wasn't a worry in the world.
"Are you eating our fucking lunchmeat?" Roderick asked, face an almost comical level of confused by the situation.
And, well, it was fucking strange.
Who broke into an outlaw biker compound, made a sandwich, then just stood there waiting to be noticed?
He looked to maybe be in his late thirties with brown hair pulled up much like mine, somewhat European features, and gray eyes.
"Ya might consider adding some turkey or roast beef to yer selection," he said, bringing his sandwich up to take a bite.
Even with how much I had traveled, I couldn't quite place that accent, meaning it must have been a combination of several different accents. Army brat? Who else traveled that frequently?
"Gee thanks for the shopping advice, Martha Stewart," Sugar drawled in that accent of his, dropping many of his end sounds. "Now we are going to need to know who the fuck you are, where the fuck you came from, and how the fuck you got in here."
Burning questions all, but the latter was the one that was bothering me the most.
Once we had been trusted enough to get such details, Reign and Cash had walked us around the grounds, explaining in painstaking detail all the steps they had taken to ensure that nothing like their ambush that had taken out most of their men could ever happen again. And, thanks to the input from Hailstorm who had insisted on the DARPA glass room on the roof. Hell, there was even a safe room in the basement with enough supplies to weather the end of the world thanks to Duke's obsessive planning brought on by his upbringing with racist, zealot, preppers.
There should have been no holes, no weak spots to exploit.
"Yo," Virgin's deep, smooth voice said, drawing my attention to where he was on the phone. "You, Cash, and Wolf need to get back here. Someone broke in. Everyone is fine." There was a pause, Virgin looking almost a little uncomfortable, something I had never seen on his face before. "Making a sandwich. No, I'm not shitting you. Yeah. Okay." He hung up, tucking his phone away, doing all of this without the aim of his gun moving from a perfect third-eye target. "Five minutes out. Start talking, asshole."
"That's Adler," Roan's voice said out of nowhere, making everyone stiffen, wanting to look at him, but unwilling to look away from the man casually finishing his sandwich.
"Would ya look at that. My reputation precedes me. Who the fuck are ya?"
"Roan. You capped my informant in Turkey ten years back."
"And ya found out it was me. Obviously fucked that one up, eh?" He rolled his shoulder. "Informant, eh? Cop? A cop as a gun-running biker? That one doesn't line up."
"So he's what, Roan?" Pagan asked. "Rival?"
Coming from the gym, I had no gun to raise, so I could look over to find Roan shaking his head, his eyes keen. "Contract killer."
