Talon (Uncompromising #1)(44)
“Fuck, Candle.” I buried my face in my hand, not knowing what to believe at this point. “Why the fuck are you even telling me this?” He was going to get himself killed by his own damn MC for opening his mouth.
Candle let out a long breath. “Listen, like it or not, I saw opportunity. You wanted Maldonado dead, I wanted him dead. I made some calls but I also asked around. Maldonado wasn’t exactly quiet about wanting revenge on your friend’s new wife so I followed the thread. Layna has a shiny new marriage license to Blaze Johnson. Recently retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant Blaze Johnson has a new employer, Luna and Associates. Luna and Associates booked a cottage on Sunset Key for a week, a cottage that got shot to shit, according to Coast Guard radio traffic. Then the owner of Luna and Associates drove his ass up to Daytona and landed in your lap. Wasn’t hard to connect the dots. If I found the connection, so can someone else. Like I said, I saw an opportunity and made some calls. I handed it over to an outside source but somehow between that call and this morning, that little prick Randy got a hold of it. And I want to know how.”
“He didn’t get a hold of shit, he’s not that smart. It was fuckin’ handed to him.” Everything I knew about Stone Hawkins indicated he’d have no problem handing a live grenade to his own son. He knew whoever took out Maldonado was as good as dead and he didn’t care.
“You’re not fucking hearing what I’m telling you. I didn’t sanction this through the LCs. None of the brothers knew about this. None. My connections are solid. The leak wasn’t on my end, so you got a bigger fucking problem than a little blonde.”
“Bull-fuckin’-shit. I didn’t tell a soul.” Except André and I wasn’t going to let this asshole undermine my trust in him. André was like a brother to me, I trusted him with my life. “It’s your fuckin’ leak. For all I know, Stone’s monitoring every goddamn move you make.” But that wasn’t even close to my biggest problem.
Maldonado’s men would go after Stone.
Stone would cast out Randy.
Siren was with Randy.
My chest constricted. “Nic’s fuckin’ innocent in all this.”
Candle let out a string of cuss words. “Fucking Stone.” It sounded like he punched something. “I’ll do what I can for Nicole,” he gritted out.
“It won’t be enough.” My head was spinning.
“It’ll have to be. You step in it, you’re as good as dead.”
“Now you’re my fuckin’ friend?”
“I don’t have friends. But I owe you.”
There was only one reason I could think of. “Like I had a choice when you told me to give Kendall a job?”
“We all have choices,” he said bitterly.
And I’d made all the wrong ones. Goddamn it, but I wasn’t the only one. “Carter’s a dead man.” And we both knew I was next if he opened his mouth.
“Not my problem. I don’t give a fuck what happens to him but like I said, I’ll watch out for Nicole.”
“What the fuck are you gonna be able to do? She needs to disappear.”
“The same thing I’ve done for Kendall.”
That stopped me short. “And what’s that?”
“Nothing and everything. Watch your back. I gotta go.”
“Call me when Randy shows up for work.”
“So you can kidnap her back and make me have to shoot you myself? Not a chance.”
“I’m not fuckin’ kidnappin’ her. I’m savin’ her.”
Candle snorted and hung up.
André stared at me. “Stone Hawkins?”
“Randy Carter’s his son.”
He let out a low whistle. “And he had his own son order a hit on the head of south Florida’s biggest crime family?”
“Candle said Stone cut him off from the LC years ago, told Carter he had to prove himself to get back in. But Candle swears when I asked him for help with Maldonado, he didn’t use the club or any of the LCs. He said he outsourced it, no one in his club knew about this. He’s claimin’ he doesn’t know how Carter got a hold of this. I’m guessin’ Stone’s behind it.”
André’s expression turned impenetrable and his eyes focused above my head. “How much do you trust Candle?”
“Not at all.”
“I’ve got a plan.”
“THERE’S NO WAY THIS IS gonna work.” We’d gone over his stupid plan half a dozen times.
“It’ll work,” André said confidently, typing away on my computer.
I rubbed my hand over my face and looked at my watch for the thousandth time. “I don’t care how good of a hacker you’ve got, there’s gonna be a trail.” Randy’d had Siren for over two hours and he still hadn’t shown up for work.