CHAPTER ONE
CAS
My finger curves around the trigger, ready to take my shot. I know it is only a matter of time before I do, so I am ready. Pres didn’t see the look on some of their faces before he arrived, but I had. The Five Aces are pissed and it showed. I saw the rage and hate through my scope before my brothers arrived.
Shifting my position, I test the wind, and make sure I’ve got a clear shot if shit goes down. There isn’t a target I can’t hit, and I don’t plan on starting now. I’m one of only nine women who have operated as a sniper for the Air Force, but they aren’t the only branch of military I was used for. I am small and get around unnoticed, and it doesn’t hurt that I am one of the best shots anyone knew of. I played with the Marines a lot, and it’s actually how I met the men I’m protecting today.
I know no one can see me up here on top of this building unless I want them to, but my brothers know I’m here, and that’s all that matters. I’ve always been at their backs whenever they need me, and I was doing it long before I was in the club. We picked this meeting spot because I told Pres it would be perfect. The west bottoms of Kansas City are always abandoned when the sun sets. Most of the warehouses down here have been sitting vacant for years. I stare at the once-vacant lot before me, that’s now filled with four of my brothers and five of the Five Aces. They might think they have us outnumbered, but I could take out three of them before they knew what happened.
I have no problem sitting here all night; it’s what I’ve trained to do. I can wait for hours. I’ve been in the sand with the sun beating down on me, in the mud and pouring rain, in the fucking Amazon never knowing what was crawling up my goddamn leg.
I killed when I was in the Air Force. Hell, I killed after I got out too, but I haven’t killed for the club. All Pres has to do is give me the word and it’s done. In a heartbeat. In the Air Force I never took my kills personally. You have to keep everything separate, and keep your emotions in check because that’s what you’re paid to do. I took my orders, took out the bad guys, but now things are different. I’ve got skin in this game, so when it’s time to get the job done, it’s not because of a paycheck. Just like when I killed in the field, one less piece of shit in the world, I feel no different about the Five Aces. Taking out a few of them wouldn’t make me lose any sleep, but fuck, dead bodies is what got us into the shit storm. The plan tonight is to only maim if possible, not start a full-on war between clubs.
They’d stolen some of our guns from the firing range Pres and I own together: the range I run. The guns that were stolen are my responsibility, and it just so happens one of them got left at the scene of a double murder. I don’t care what Pres says, it is my fault. They robbed the range in the middle of the night, bypassing our security. Maybe bypassing isn’t the right word, they blew a fucking hole in the side of the goddamn building.
Those guns are my responsibility as the sergeant at arms for the Ghost Riders, and I want them back. The Aces destroyed part of something I poured every penny I had into when I left the Air Force. The range is my baby. I’d reported them missing but that didn’t stop the cops from crawling up our asses, pointing fingers at us for a murder. We tend to keep our noses pretty clean, but the cops always have a hard-on for us. I have blood on my hands, but the blood they were asking about this time isn’t mine.
I want the rest of the guns back, not to mention the one that could be my undoing. We know it has to be the Five Aces. They came looking for guns a few weeks back but Pres refused to sell to them. We’d reached out to the Death Lords who informed us the Five Aces like to work with the Eighty-Eight Henchmen. They are a club that doesn’t play by any rules or show respect to other clubs. They let it be known they weren’t too happy with our hospitality and they’d be getting what they wanted. We let them know they could go fuck themselves.
After everything went down, Pres reached out to them again, pretending to have a change of heart. They agreed to meet up, but I think they only did it to feign interest in the guns, the guns I know they have.
Now here I sit, watching this meeting between my Ghost Rider brothers and the Five Aces play out. I’m only up here as back up in case shit goes down, but I’m itching for a shot. Rolling my shoulders, I try to push some of the tension from my body. I miss the shitty headsets I had in the Air Force, wishing I had ears on the ground. Now I have to rely on gut instinct, and I can tell things are getting heated. I can’t see any of my brothers’ reactions, with their backs to me, but all the Aces are facing me, and it’s getting intense. I train my gun on their VP, and I wait.