Con-man only glanced at him weirdly, keeping the steady work of emptying the cases and cases of alcohol delivered that morning.
“I got the weed and Xanax out of the storage room. It’s locked in the safe under the bar. It’s not enough, we’re gonna need more,” Con-man said distractedly, paying Dev no attention.
“Call Tank’s son at the lumberyard. See what he can get his hands on. You gonna be here when the Oklahoma club arrives this afternoon?” Dev asked, trying to make small talk as he went around the other end of the bar top and reached for a stack of unused burner phones and Mack’s truck keys. He grabbed a dusty old ball cap, an iPad, and a handful of cables and assorted USB adapters kept at the bar.
“Are they the ones comin’ this afternoon?” Con-man asked, pausing from stacking the Grey Goose on the shelf.
“How the fuck should I know who’s comin’?” Dev pivoted around. “What a dumbass question. Don’t you fuckin’ think I got more on my mind than which club’s arrivin’ when?”
He had to let the frustration go, move quickly before he got caught. Diesel was out on a wild errand and currently off his tail. He had to be due back soon, and Con-man’s dumb questions were taking far too much time.
For a guy who lived wild and free for the last twenty-five years of his life, having to dodge constant surveillance was a mind fuck.
Since his cell phone hadn’t rung, he figured Joe hadn’t noticed it missing from his body and maybe even bought the story that he was going to help paint—as if he’d ever do that. Now all he had to do was slide past Trace and the team parked slyly out on the road, watching every move the club made.
Dev got to the truck, adjusting the ball cap over his head, reaching for Mack’s aviators on the dashboard.
He settled into the seat, taking a good long look in the rearview mirror. The disguise wasn’t enough. Mack’s old style army jacket was in the seat next to him. It was awkward as hell, shrugging it on. Dev flipped the collar up to hide his tats.
Bikes rumbled toward the front of the building. His perfect diversion. He quickly started the truck, drove around the side of the building, waiting for the small cluster of bikers to take off.
To the annoyance of every one of them, Dev wormed his way in between the six or seven motorcycles. He kept his head turned away from the surveillance van parked across the street.
In the rearview mirror, he watched as the van stayed parked in its spot. It was shocking to his senses that he’d actually pulled off the plan. He bypassed the motorcycles and took the closest right turn, merging into traffic. He rode on the side streets, driving through neighborhoods, unsure how far-reaching Trace’s company’s traffic light tracking actually went. It took him a good forty-five minutes to go the fifteen miles to the storage unit next to their lumberyard in Duncanville, Texas.
For the first time since his mother had left, a melancholy blanketed his heart.
Fuck knew they weren’t much of a family. Life held very little other than disappointment for all of them. To know both his parents had lost their lives, his father literally and his mother figuratively, due to greed felt like a life lesson he needed to learn.
With a heavy heart, he turned into the storage unit complex and looked at the security box with a sticker stating it was monitored by CCTV, like that was some real threat. Then looked absently over at the locked gate in front of him. Regardless of what his mother said, he had no idea of the code.
He reached out and typed in his birthdate. Nothing happened.
Well, goddammit. It could be anything in any order.
He typed Abi’s then Mae’s birthdays and got nowhere. Then he typed in his mother’s birthdate. Got nothing.
What number would he automatically know?
Why was she so goddamn cryptic? She fucking said so much to him inside that horribly decorated hospital room. Flowers? Who fucking liked flowers on the wall?
He jabbed out his fist, punching the dashboard of the truck out of nothing more than the aggression he used when having to deal with his family’s bullshit.
The old plastic of the dash cracked under his assault. His knuckles didn’t fare well either. They came back bloody and battered. And they fucking hurt.
The hate in his heart made him try his self-proclaimed calling card since he was a boy. 666#. The number Mack and Ace had given him when they claimed he was meaner than the devil himself.
The gate suddenly unlatched and churned open.
He raised a brow. Huh. No doubt Carly Fox knew him well.
Dev drove forward, doing his best to follow the number sequence above the doors.
This storage facility did back directly into the club’s Red Bird lumberyard property. It even arced onto the back where the piles of lumber were stacked high enough to be seen over the storage facility.
Did the club own the storage facility?
What else did they own that he didn’t know about?
