Page 13 of Suspicious

Turning to Alpha, my muscles are taut, and I crane my neck to try to ease the tension. “You sure you’re ready to do this?”

Alpha clears his throat with a slight nervous tension. “We have the opportunity to do this now, Loki. It may be our only chance. We’ve gotta try. I have waitedfartoo long to serve my vengeance on Ricco for what he did to my daughter, to my family, tomy fucking club.Today, we make a stand. We make a statement! LA Defiance has been sitting, waiting, but now we’re fucking fighting back witheverythingwe have.”

My chest floods with adrenaline, and I nod at my president. My friend. My mentor. We’re not just a brotherhood, we’re fucking family. And when Ricco hurt Alpha, he hurt us all. We may be doing this to seek vengeance for Alpha, but this is going to make us all feel fucking spectacular.

Gripping his shoulder, I grin at him, then hoist myself up into the back of the truck. “Give me a couple of minutes to switch them on, and we should be good to go. You just make sure Atlas is in a good headspace. That he doesn’t know what happens when he gets there.”

Alpha smirks, tilting his head. “I already have a story for him… let’s do this!”

Smiling, I turn, making my way through the wooden crates to the front and squat at the first one to find the activation switch. I flick it on, and plug in the cord, seeing the light flash to green telling me the explosive is active. Letting out a nervous breath, I carefully walk to the next crate and repeat the process, then continue the process for all six. When I reach the end of the truck bed, I turn back, appreciating my handiwork, tilting my head. “You good girls better work for Daddy,” I whisper into the ether, hoping like hell that luck is on our side.

Jumping down carefully from the truck, I slowly pull the rear roller door back down and lock it firmly in place. Then, I draw out my cell to check everything is working on the activation app. From what I can see, all six devices are registering and active.

Now, we just have to get them there without any accidents or without a certain driver going rogue. Walking back around the front of the truck, where everyone else is standing, waiting with a now-drenched Atlas, I give a quick head bob to Alpha, and he smirks.

“Okay, Atlas, we’re good to go on our end. The coordinates are programmed into the GPS. All you have to do when you get there is say you have a shipment for Ricco from Tijuana, and they willlet you into the compound to unload what’s in the back of the truck.”

Atlas chuckles. “And in the back of the truck is drugs,isn’t it?”

Alpha shrugs. “Are you going to be able to drive the entire way without stopping and do this one run for us without wanting to sample the product if itisdrugs? We know how much you enjoy that lifestyle.”

Atlas lifts his chin. “After this one drug run, am I free to go…like you said?”

Alpha nods in reply. “Yep. I assure you, after this one run, you’ll be free.”

Atlas swipes his hand through his wet hair and nods. “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

We all glance at Montana, and a slow smile crosses his face as he helps Atlas get up into the driver’s side of the truck.

Atlas glances down at Montana, his old foster brother, and huffs. “I get why you put me through all that shit with the pigs, Noah. What I did to your girl… having to detox these last few weeks has made me realize how fucked up I was. Thanks for giving me the chance to make this up to you.”

Montana’s fingers clench by his sides. It’s easy to see he’s struggling to listen to the bullshit Atlas is spinning, but he exhales and stands taller. “What you’re about to do, Atlas, when it’s done, it will make me feel better about our situation. You do this, see it through to the end, and then maybe you will have started to make it up to me. Just remember, we have eyes on you, so fuck it up, and that will all change.”

Atlas nods his head. “All right. Through to the end,” he repeats.

Montana grips Atlas’ shoulder, then closes the truck door and steps back down onto the gravel. He turns to face us, a wave of relief flowing over his tense shoulders. “We following behind?” Montana asks.

Alpha signals for us to jump into the two black vans, the brothers separating into two groups. Alpha goes in one van, I take the other, and the rest of the brothers disperse between us.

Picking up my walkie, I signal to the other van. “Reaper Two, communications check for Reaper One. Come in, Reaper One? Over…” I talk, making sure I am switched to channel four.

Static noise grinds through the walkie system, and then Alpha’s voice chimes back at me, “Reaper Two, this is Reaper One. We are go. I repeat, we are go. Over.”

Smiling, I glance at Montana. “You ready for this, kid?”

He chuckles back at me. “So fucking ready.”

Tilting my head, I switch the walkie-radio to channel one and pull out my handheld device to log into the internal camera inside the truck so I can see everything Atlas is doing. “Atlas, can you hear me?” I talk down the line. He jumps like he had no idea we could talk to him while he was inside the truck’s cab. The idiot searches around for a few seconds trying to find the walkie, then eventually picks it up and presses the button to talk back.

“Hey, ahh, yeah, I’m here,” he replies.

“Okay, the coordinates are in the GPS in front of you. Can you see them?” I ask.

He glances up, spotting the GPS on the dash and nods his head, having a quick study. “Yep! Got it.”

“All right then, let’s get moving,” I instruct.

Atlas places the walkie on the seat beside him and moves to start the truck. He puts it into gear, and it begins to roll. Then, instantly, he stalls it.

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