Copyright © 2015 Sienna Valentine

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, dialogue, and everything else are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to people or events, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Thanks for reading this novel.  If you enjoy it, be sure to scroll right to the end for some previews of other novels I’ve written.

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CONTENTS

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Also By Sienna

~ PROLOGUE ~

Will sighed and took a quick glance under the conference table at his watch. The voices of the other members of the MC faded into the background of his thoughts. He just wanted this thing to be over. It felt like the Black Dogs had been, well, chasing their tails over this same issue for weeks now, and he was growing tired of it.

Ghost cleared his throat and began speaking. The sound brought Will back to the present. “Look, here’s my thing. It’s not like the cartel has a reputation for throwing fucking tea parties. If we try to set up some UN summit instead of a ground offensive, we’re just gonna get mowed down like a bunch of assholes.”

A few grumbles began around the huge wooden conference table. At its head sat Henry Oliver, president of the Black Dogs MC, who leaned back heavy in his big, comfortable leather chair with a hand over his mouth, listening, thinking. A cigar burned, half-ignored, in a crystal ash tray in front of him. To his right sat the vice president, Douglas Dillon, longtime comrade and war buddy. The rest of the seats were taken by the MC’s most trusted men—Jase Campbell, Ghost McBride, Martin Palmer, Trevor Bones, and Will himself, the MC’s spymaster.

Usually, these types of meetings were reserved for Mondays, after the boys’ weekend blazes left them tired and hungover enough that sitting in an air-conditioned office chair for a few hours seemed appealing. But Henry had called this semi-emergency meeting on a Friday evening, and everyone stirred in their chairs, antsy. Everyone had places they wanted to be instead. But things had begun to stir in LeBeau.

“He’s not wrong,” said Jase. “We’ve heard some upsetting reports from the southern part of the state where the cartels have a better handle on the territory, and it’s not a pretty picture.”

Murders, assaults, arson, robberies… they had all heard the reports. The cartel had come in hard and fast in the big cities in the south. The first calls from shopkeepers getting hassled in LeBeau was what had prompted Henry to make the issue a priority—it seemed to be the first rumblings of a bigger problem. Already, there had been some minor violence against businesses that seemed to have been strategically chosen, stretched along a few of the lesser-traveled highways that ran through the towns of the mountain pass.

Henry raised a palm. “I know we’re all troubled by what’s happening, and Douglas has already reached out to the affected businesses to offer some support. But this is a delicate situation. The cartel is expanding. Now, we can present ourselves as enemies, or we can be allies.”

Douglas added, “We might be able to keep them out of the corridor, if we banded together all our allies and called in most of our favors. Truth is, they’re bigger than we are. We would have to be ready for potentially heavy casualties.”

Will shook his head and dropped a finger on the table. “I’m not okay with that, and you know I haven’t been okay with it since this first became an issue.”

“None of us want casualties, man,” said Ghost from down the table. “Fuck, none of us want the cartel here in the first place. But they’re escalating, and we’re just sitting here with our dicks in our hands.”

“I understand the issue,” said Will, leaning back in his chair. “But I don’t see how adding more bullets to a firefight is going to end it.”

“It ends if those bullets hit their targets,” said Jase, pointing to Will from directly across the table.

Will gave him a sour look. “And what if they don’t?” The table was silent so he pressed on with his point, the same one he felt like he’d been arguing for weeks now. “If the cartel wanted to come in hard and give us no choice but to fold, they could have done it. Instead, it’s like they’re flirting with us. They’ve caused enough of a rumble to get our attention without killing anyone or drawing down the Feds. This is them giving us a chance to make a deal.”

“Or they’re just being smart about their resources,” said Ghost sardonically. He always got this heavy-browed, dark look when he disagreed with Will, and it was there in plain view now. At least the man was easy to read.

Will shook his head. “I’m with Henry on this, still. We have a chance to make a deal that will keep things steady around here, maybe even benefit the MC in some way. We’d be idiots not to take it.”

Around the table, a few men groaned, including Jase and Ghost. Sometimes, Will couldn’t help but feel like the odd man out in the MC, even though he knew damn well he belonged—no, thrived—within its ranks. He found himself thinking of his grandfather, a commander during World War II, wishing he had survived into the present to give Will his wisdom at times like these. But Will was smart enough to know that even soldiers differed from each other. Of course Jase and Ghost wanted to go in blazing; what was the type of men they were. Will knew there were other paths to consider. He was the quiet assassin to their front line cavalry. He held fast against their disagreement.

Henry sat up in his chair and took hold of his gavel. He leaned his thick arms on the table. “All those in favor of arranging a diplomatic meeting with the cartel?”

Will raised his hand. So did Henry, Douglas, Martin, and Bones. As they looked around the table, the remaining men who disagreed shook their heads or sighed in defeat. Diplomacy had the vote.

Henry banged his gavel once on the shiny wooden table. “There it is. We’ll take the weekend and come back to this Monday morning. In the meantime, keep me notified of any developments.”

The room filled with the sounds of chairs rolling and men grumbling, leather cuts shifting against chain wallets and weapon holsters. Will stood up and looked at Jase staring at him from across the table, stern but not angry.

“When are your balls gonna drop, man?” said Jase as he walked around in slow procession behind the others headed for the door. “You never vote for a fight.”

“And you never vote for diplomacy,” said Will with a laugh, landing a punch on Jase’s thick left arm when he approached. “If you’re going to be the trigger-happy one around here, someone else has to be the sane one.”

“I do not want that job!” said Ghost loudly from behind them.

Will shook his head, laughing, and walked next to Jase as they made their way down the stairs and into the clubhouse den. Already, men posted up at the bar and cracked open beers, while others bee-lined out the door and to their bikes outside. “You’d think after all this time I would have taught you that there is more than one way to destroy an enemy, Jase.”