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“Mick!” LJ screamed as his eyes popped open. His back spasmed, catching him in a grip of pain that nearly stole his breath. It was then reality set in. “Jesus, fuck,” he mumbled as he ran a hand down his face, wiping sweat out of his eyes. The drops hit his vinyl floor with a splat. He was dripping wet, as usual.
Been a hot minute since he had a nightmare so violent, it tossed his ass out of the bed. The nightmares themselves were a weekly occurrence, sometimes even more frequently, but most of the time they consisted of waking in a cold sweat with a hammering heart, pounding head, and sick feeling in his gut. Not to mention a slew of traumatic memories running through his mind.
The anger and emotional charge of the evening had to be to blame. Hopefully, Holly hadn’t heard him lose his shit through the paper-thin wall separating his place from hers. Last thing he needed was her pity. Or worse, to have her run over to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself. Six-feet-six inches of near three-hundred-pound man had to shake a floor on impact.
A glance at the clock revealed it was shortly after five-thirty in the morning. Looked like he’d forgotten to set his alarm in the mess of the previous night. Maybe the nightmare was a good thing. Kept his ass from getting chewed out by his boss for oversleeping.
As he rested back against his nightstand to give himself a few minutes to calm, his phone buzzed above his head. Without looking, LJ reached up and snagged the thing off his nightstand. Rocket was calling. LJ frowned. Couldn’t be good. His brother and boss only called this early if there was a complication at a job site or an even more daunting alternative, trouble with the club.
“Hey, brother, you good?” LJ answered slightly breathless from the nightmare.
“No. I’m not fucking good. I’m fucking fucked,” Rocket shot back, his tone full of disgust.
Despite what was turning out to be a serious phone call, LJ couldn’t help but chuckle. Wasn’t often Rocket lost his shit. He was a master at keeping his emotions locked down tight. Came from years working both sanctioned and unsanctioned black ops missions.
“What’s going on?” LJ asked.
“Your girl’s fucking father, that’s what’s going on.”
LJ grunted. Bad news traveled fast. “She’s not my girl.” He recalled the look on her face when he’d called her a child who couldn’t say no to her daddy. “Not even close.”
“What-the-fuck-ever. Sheriff assface has all our jobs on hold right now. You know that casino over in Cherokee, North Carolina? The one that was knocked off two nights ago?”
LJ grunted again. How could he not know? Every news station in Tennessee and North Carolina had run the story every hour on the hour since the robbery went down. Some lucky assholes made off with over two million dollars after a high stakes poker game ended. “Yeah, what about it?”
“Well, our good sheriff got an anonymous tip saying the money was buried at one of our fucking job sites.”
LJ couldn’t help it. He laughed long and hard. “This some kinda prank, boss?”
“Ain’t fucking funny, asshole,” Rocket snapped then his voice grew muffled as though he was holding his hand over the phone. “Sorry, baby, go back to sleep. I’ll get off in a minute.”
Chloe must have made some sort of raunchy comment about getting Rocket off because the low chuckle that floated through the phone was full of heat and need.
“Hey, brother, feel free to do what you gotta do. I don’t mind listening for a bit while you take care of that gorgeous woman of yours. Just make sure the phone is near her, so I don’t have to hear your animal grunts while you’re fucking.”
“You’re a real hoot now that you’re patched in and think we can’t do shit to make your life hell anymore. Don’t get too comfortable, brother.”
LJ laughed. Of all the men he considered brothers, Rocket was the closest. “So this is really happening then? We got a new sheriff with a hard-on for our club, and he’s willing to pull some dirty stunts to break us.”
Rocket grunted. “Looks like it.”
They both knew the tip was complete and utter bullshit. There was no buried money, hell that money was long gone, never to be found again. And the Handlers didn’t deal in that kinda shit. Knocking off casinos and banks was way too risky a game. Getting busted with a few million in stolen cash meant long, hard time behind bars. But how the hell could the club prove they weren’t involved?
They couldn’t, which meant the sheriff was going to spend days combing through and tearing up each of Rocket’s job sites until he was happy with the amount of fuckery he’d placed on him.
