Page 22 of Vapor's Blaze

Now, I know that people being physically coerced will say any damn thing they think the other person wants to hear in order to get them to stop, and that must have been what happened because I can fucking guarantee no member of our club got the idea to muscle into the illegal drug trade, if anything it’s something that we try to stop.

Unfortunately, every brother in the Hellfire Hounds clubhouse is getting worked up at the thought of us muscling in on their drug running. The ignorant fucks should know by now that the Savage Legion are not into running drugs or any other illegal activity.

King’s voice rings out again. “I want eyes on every single member of the Savage Legion. Pick up their whores and squeeze them for information as well. If they’re ballsy enough to hang around the Legion’s clubhouse they’re fair game for interrogation,” King insisted. “I want the names, some addresses, all their phone numbers, Jinx. And I want a schematic of their clubhouse. I know we’ve been after that for years but now is the time to press harder and think outside the box.”

“What about Tracker?” Someone asks.

“What about him?” King retorts sounding angry.

“They’ve got him working at their bar in town. Can he not get intel, maybe get him in with the Legion?”

“No one’s gonna tell my boy a damn thing. And I’m not having him act as a spy. He works off his debt, end of.”

There was silence for a few moments, and again I am reminded that as far as King is concerned, his family is the only thing he truly cares about.

“At the moment they outgun and out man us,” some poor soul pointed out.

Another brother responds, “We can always get more guns, we can’t take on more prospects without clearing them first, because we’d be taking a chance of them slipping in a mole. Those assholes would slit our throats in our sleep if that happened.”

King’s voice turns pensive, as though he was thinking out loud. “What we need are force multipliers. Think of every single thing you can, that will give us an advantage and take an advantage away from our enemy. For example, we need to tap their phones, be prepared to redirect their calls out for help, bug their clubhouse and homes, and lo-jack their cars. At the same time, we’ll need someone on our end checking every day to ensure they haven’t managed to do the same to us. We need a good tech team to manage the tremendous amount of data we’re generating and to separate the wheat from the chaff.”

Someone volunteers, “I can pull together a team.”

I don’t like the sound of that. Until now our surveillance has given us the advantage. It sounds like they may be leveling the playing field in that regard.

King states, “We need more automatic weapons and a sniper rifle in every brother’s hand who knows how to use it. We need every action we take covered by snipers from the highest vantage points feasible. We need night vision, because most clubs don’t have it.”

There is another outburst of the brothers talking over one another. Several people point out that they don’t have money for all the things King wants. He starts brainstorming ways they can turn a quick profit.

After more discussion, King says, “I don’t want anyone caught. We can’t afford to lose brothers while we’re recruiting so hard. We’ll need every single man we’ve got in play if the Legion calls on help from allied clubs. We’ll get us a few medics who don’t know anything except how to keep a brother breathing until we can get him medical help. We need Kevlar vests for every single brother, we need ballistic plating for the cages. I want everyone who’s not riding a bike as protected as possible in trucks and vans. We need to ensure no brother is left alone. Travel in pairs and take alternate routes. We can’t have those fuckers anticipating our movements.”

The men continue brainstorming late into the morning. This is war and every member of King’s crew seems prepared to do whatever they had to in order to win. The only flaw I saw in their otherwise brilliant plan was the execution. They were finally engaging in the kind of high level planning our club did on any given Tuesday. The brothers in our club mostly had military backgrounds, so that kind of planning and execution came second nature to us—and those of us who weren’t ex-military, had been trained by the best. King’s men were a bunch of outlaws and misfits. Based on their past history, I couldn’t see them pulling off even half the things King had in mind.

As the men filed out, King calls his VP over.

“Thanks for the intel, Jinx. I hear you got a helping hand from Trix.”

“Yes, she’s been a star.”

“She’s smart too,” King responded warmly.

Something in my chest freezes when I hear her name. Suddenly I realize that Trix is not only associated with their club, but she’s embedded deep enough to assist them with their missions. Fucking hell, what have I gotten myself into by hooking up with her? I hadn’t gotten around to asking Zen to do a deep dive on her because I thought she was on the periphery. But no matter how I’m starting to feel about her, I know we have to see how far she’s involved.

King adds, “It was also smart to send the prospects to scope those gun shops in Marks County.”

“Yeah, that was my idea. We got a good haul of cash and weapons last night. And since it’s well outside our territory, no one’s going to think we were involved.”

“You and Scrapper really came through for the club and I won’t forget that.”

“Scrapper knows he really fucked up by breaking into the Savage Legion’s bar and is trying his best to make it up to you.”

“Fuck the Savage Legion. When we kill every single one of them, I’ll give that fucking bar to Tracker as compensation for those dirty fuckers making him work off his debt. I fucking offered to pay the damages, and the assholes turned me down. Said Tracker wouldn’t learn his lesson if they let me bail him out.”

“Is that why we’re suddenly pushing against the Legion so hard?”

“It’s one of a hundred reasons, but mostly because they keep getting in the way of us earning a decent living. Anyways, the haul you brought in last night will go a long way in helping us take them out.”

“I know the club needs the guns and cash we took but is there a finder fee for me and Scrapper on this one?”

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