Page 45 of Static

"Can you hold your breath for four minutes?" Rip challenged with a shrug. "Unless you want to go, Smokehouse?"

"Fuck no, I don't want to go down there. Who the hell knows what could come up out of the deep and grab you," he muttered.

"Pussy," Hush chuckled.

"Fuck that. I'll take on any man, any day. But I'm not fucking around with swamps and shit."

"It's a pond," Hell said, shaking his head.

"Whatever. Pond. Swamp. River. Lake. Ocean. All the fucking same. Shit lives in those places I don't want to deal with."

We all laughed at that. Lock looked over at the crane. "We could just fire it up, lift it out," he told Rip.

"And waste time finding out that it's not connected to shit?" Rip shook his head. "This is quicker." He shoved his jeans off and handed his cut to his president before yanking his shirt over his head. "I'll be right back." He clicked the flashlight on and dove in before anyone else could try to stop him. Riptide was a surfer, and former Green Beret. He lived for shit like this. It was the reason he'd volunteered.

"Priest," Lock said, looking over. "Go grab the truck, bring it out here."

"You think the drugs are down there?" he asked.

Lock shrugged. "If they aren't we're going to need to get the fuck out of here anyway and you can bring us back to the bikes faster than we can run."

Priest nodded and took off at a jog. Without a word, Hush followed him, to watch his back.

The sound of water splashing had us all looking down. Riptide was treading water. "There's a fucking shipping container down here," he said with a wide grin. "Cable's attached to it."

"Great," Smoke muttered. "Now get the fuck out of there." Lock looked over at him with an arched brow. "Sorry, Prez," Smokehouse said, since he'd stolen Lockout's line.

"Perfect," Idaho said with a scowl. "Who knows how to operate a crane?" He looked over at his brother. "You flew birds. Any chance you could fire that up?"

"Shit. Maybe," Lock said, scratching the back of his neck. "I'm sure I could figure it out with enough time."

"I can run it," Toxic said, walking over and beginning to climb up into the cab.

"Seriously?" Idaho asked. "I mean, I know you flew helicopters, too, but-"

"He can do a lot of shit I can't," Lock admitted with a chuckle.

We all moved back as the crane roared to life. Toxic maneuvered the machine with confidence and efficiency.

I looked over at Butcher. "How does he know how to do all this shit?" I've seen Toxic do all sorts of bullshit since I've been with the club. Rebuild an engine? No problem. Reciting the differences between cattle tanks and ponds verbatim? Apparently, no issue. Now running a crane? It made me wonder what else Toxic knew how to do and where he'd picked these skills up from.

The truck pulled up behind us as Toxic set a twenty-foot shipping container down in the field. Priest and Hush hopped out and Hush walked over to the door of the container with a crowbar. A few well-placed strikes and the lock on the door crumpled and Hush pulled it off. He opened the door, and we grinned as Rip shone the flashlight inside. There, in the watertight container, were all the drugs we needed to proceed with our plan.

CHAPTER 18

Gwen

Ijerked awake and looked around, confused. Then I remembered the kids and I had come over to Jordan's for a night of movies since the guys were going to be out late. I looked at the clock and frowned. It was two in the morning. I'd already laid the kids down in Jordan's spare bedroom, and we must have fallen asleep on the couch during one of the movies.

Tucking a blanket around Jordan, I made sure she was warm and comfortable before I left her apartment. As soon as I got into the hallway I heard talking downstairs. I nibbled my lower lip. If the guys were back, this could be the perfect time to speak to Static about almost sleeping with him, then actually sleeping with him, and everything in between. Steeling my nerves, I marched down the stairs. I froze on the last one, jaw hanging open as I watched Static, Butcher, and Hellfire hauling in packages of... "Are those drugs?" They'd mentioned something about drugs during church while I'd been there, but I hadn't really thought about it at the time. And certainly hadn't thought they'd bring them here.

Every eye shot toward me.

"Shit," Static muttered.

Butcher dropped the packages and held his arms up defensively. "It's not what you think."

"Yeah, it's an…intervention. For Toxic," Hellfire said.

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