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Camden pulled the SUV into the rental lot, cutting the engine and waiting.
Astrid shifted in her seat, dragging her jacket back around her body, pulling the hood down low over her face as she reached in her pocket to find the wipes. As we all did, wiping down any hard surface we knew we had touched.
See, you didn't just steal from a Henchmen.
Not just because they were criminal bikers. Because, well, let's be honest, bikers weren't exactly known on the street for their brains. But because The Henchmen MC had the unlikely distinction of being connected to one of the biggest paramilitary organizations in the country. Which was saying something. Because there were a lot more of them than any normal civilian realized.
Hailstorm was a force to be reckoned with.
Largely in part, in my opinion, to the fact that it was run by a woman.
Women in male-dominated positions were fearsome creatures.
I would know.
They worked harder, dug deeper, they learned twice as much as the men they were in competition with would, trained until their bodies broke, put them back together with some elastic bandages and Bengay, and trained again.
Because we knew that at any small sign of weakness, we would be targeted. Hard.
So we had to be the best. We had to employ the best. We had to never show weakness.
So Hailstorm, run by Lo, was not some whiskey-sipping, clubwhore-banging, biker gang.
They were highly trained men and women with specialization in everything. Including lifting fingerprints.
They'd find the car.
Of course they would.
I would bet that within two hours, Lo would have called in her protege, had her on her laptop hacking into city cameras.
They'd find the SUV, search it for clues.
And we were going to leave as few as possible.
So we wiped it down. We made sure our faces were obscured before we got out of the car, we grabbed the box, tossed the key in the lockbox out front since the place was closed, and walked to our waiting car.
They'd look into the rental records.
And find some chick who looked vaguely like Astrid had supposedly rented the car for the day. With a pre-paid visa card.
No links.
No nothing to go on.
Lo and her team were good.
So was I.
So was my team.
Even if it was small compared to her massive organization.
"Let's switch," Astrid said as we got to the sides of the blue sedan Cam had owned since forever, just a clunker with no record tracing back to any of us to use when we needed it. "I want to stretch out," she added, reaching for the door to the backseat.
"We lucked out," I told Camden an hour later after Astrid had passed out in the backseat, her jacket bunched up under her head like a pillow, her legs curled up toward her chest protectively. She always slept like she was expecting someone to attack. Her fist was closed around a pocketknife, the metal worn to lackluster from her constant grip on it.
Cam's head nodded at me as he turned the heat down a bit, cracking his neck.
Cam hated to be hot.
Almost as much as Astrid and I hated being cold.
There was no such thing as balance in our world. When it came to a battle of wills, one or two of us was always the odd man - or woman - out. Some nights, he woke up in a ball of sweat. Other nights, Astrid and I woke up shivering.
"We can unload it a few days after we get back, get paid finally. I hate having a job hanging over our heads."
Even if it was a small one.
Just one gun.
I didn't get out of bed in the morning for just one gun. It was a waste of time and energy.
But, for whatever reason, this guy was willing to pay ten grand for a gun that would only be worth half that.
And since it cost us jackshit by stealing it, we were ten- or more -k in the black.
I wasn't a thief by trade.
I dealt in arms, weapons, something trustworthy, steady, able to bring in a good income to someone who had forged the right connections.
I never stole from other arms dealers.
It was bad for business.
But the fact of the matter was, there was only one Frank Wesson Double-Trigger anywhere in the world available. And it was being given to Henry Cranford by The Henchmen MC.
Desperate times, as they say, call for desperate measures.
They made honorable arms dealers steal from each other.
Because, quite frankly, Manuel - who was buying the gun from us - was not the kind of contact I wanted to lose. He brought in too much money, too many connections.
So if there had to be a bit of dishonor among my colleagues and me, so be it.
Besides, it wasn't like we were stealing food out of their mouths, out of their wives' and babies' mouths. It was a well-known fact that The Henchmen, despite looking from the outside as being a somewhat humble biker organization, had bank. Reign paid his men a hefty salary for keeping the place safe, for going to war with him should it be so necessary.
