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Chuckling, I moved back toward the door. "See you in five," I called, moving out to the kitchen to pour her a coffee, putting in some of the creamer she liked.
"Did you have to shake her? Crawl in bed and wake her up?" Astrid asked, looking over, eyes having lost all their sleep, twinkling with mischief.
"You are nothing but trouble there, cariña," I told her, toasting her with my mug for it.
"Figured me out already, huh?"
"Why would you want me and Liv to hook up?"
"Why not?"
"That's not an answer."
"I think you two could have some fun. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Do you always meddle in her love life?"
"What love life?" she shot back, snorting. "Liv is..."
"Liv is what?" Liv asked as she walked in, her hair pulled back, no makeup, but changed into jeans, brown chunky heel boots, and an oversized oatmeal-colored sweater.
"A very quick, very efficient dresser in the morning," she supplied as I handed Liv her mug of coffee.
"I know you're lying, but it is too early to care," Liv declared, chugging down half her coffee in just a couple seconds. "You ready?" she asked, looking at me, waiting for my nod. "Save a donut for me, please."
"Right. Like anyone else likes your bland flavorless crap," Astrid called waving a hand out at us as she used the other to scroll on her laptop.
"She looks hard at work," Liv said as we moved into the elevator, "but she's probably on Instagram looking at pictures of hamsters."
"Hamsters?"
"She is obsessed."
"Why doesn't she have one then?"
"We travel a lot."
"Hamsters are pretty portable pets, no?"
"Not when you have to go internationally," Liv shot back, and she had a point.
We were lucky, The Henchmen.
Our contacts were old, trusted, and did the traveling part for us. The furthest we would have to go would be to one of the coasts. Maybe, once in a blue moon, over the Mexican border. But long gone were the days of having to head to Russia or South America or some shit.
But, it seemed, Liv and her team were still firmly seated in those days.
I didn't envy them that.
First, because it was tedious, never knowing when you might be home or not. Second, because it was dangerous. Incredibly dangerous. Even more so for them, relative unknowns, only three of them against untold others.
"Are you that far off from being able to slow down a bit?"
"Well, if someone's organization didn't snap up every available supplier on this coast..."
"Hey, I just follow orders. Can't hate on me."
"I only hate on you guys when I am on a boat and puking my guts up to try to get to a new contact. Otherwise, I imagine there had to be some dues paying on your - or your president's - part at some point. We all have to fight our way up."
That was true enough.
Granted, Reign had all the contacts, but we'd been forced to pay some dues in the prospect period, but within The Henchmen MC was not the only place in my life that I had needed to claw my way up.
We made it back to the sub shop with two minutes to spare, getting a bit of the runaround until Liv started to throw her attitude around, getting us a name, date, and location.
"No guarantees," Liv scoffed as she shoved the note into her front pocket. "He wants us to travel all the way to fucking Virginia on an off chance with no guarantees."
"It's better than anything else we have right now."
"Have you ever even heard of him?"
"No," I admitted. "But he is just a collector, not some big player."
"True," she admitted, unlocking the door to her building. "But I don't understand why we can't just talk to him over the phone."
"It's illegal," I reminded her. "A lot of people who aren't in the lifestyle get paranoid about phones."
"Stupid TV shows making it sound like everyone has their own personal agent assigned to their personal cell phone," she grumbled, tearing out of the elevator and into the apartment. "We have to go to freaking Virginia," she announced as soon as the door to the loft was opened.
Cam's brows drew together.
Astrid looked up from her laptop.
"Ugh. Why can't it ever be like South Beach or something?"
"Does everyone still have bags packed?" Liv asked, already in work mode. "It's a six hour and twenty-five-minute drive. Which is better than usual, but we should get a move on now. We can get rooms, some rest, then meet this guy in the morning."
"Hey, just a thought," Astrid called, calm, but there was something about her voice that drew my attention to her face, seeing mischief there again. "Maybe only the two of you should go. Leave us here to work on some other leads if they pop up. It's not smart right now for us to put all our eggs in one basket, as the saying goes. We are on a time crunch, you know."
