Page 59 of Tav

Pixie’s eyes look up to the ceiling, “I’ve only ever remembered it happening two or three times when I was there. The first one was when one of the council members died. One of my contacts would have messaged me if Mercy had passed away so it won’t be that. Another time was when they thought they were going to be raided by the FBI and needed a plan.”

“Fuck,” Marx curses under his breath, “You don’t think they got a whiff of us, do you?”

Pixie tips her head to the side, watching the feed for a moment, as if remembering. “No. The time that happened we weren’t allowed out. Women and children were locked into the big hall with two councilmen. We were to keep quiet. The men even went around handing out candy to the little kids, which made them fall asleep. Us older kids were told that if the government came there was a special drink we would all take and it would take us somewhere safe.” Looking around, she knows she doesn’t have to explain what this special drink was.

“And your dad decided that?” Tank asks, incredulously.

“That’s how the Keep works. The outside is evil, full of devils in disguise. Your soul will go to hell where you’ll be punished for eternity. The outside people are dirty. They’re all murderers and rapists. Ironically, so is the Keep,” Vic answers for his sister.

“How come you turned out so normal?” Rider asks Pixie, his brow raised.

“I’m not an idiot? I don’t blindly believe people just because they have a dick? I’m stubborn? Let’s put it this way, I don’tlisten to salvation advice from someone who marries underage girls,” Blanche says, her voice even, belying the fire in her eyes.

“Makes sense,” Dex replies before something catches his eye. “There you are fucker.”

Hammer can be seen on the screen, jovially joking with a few of the men as they leave the hall, looking so fucking out of place within their compound. The rest of the men are in collared shirts buttoned to the very top, neatly tucked into slacks. They too are wearing white sneakers and at this point I’m questioning if they own shares in New Balance or something. I can’t tell what color the men’s shirts and trousers are, but in contrast to Hammer’s t-shirt, jeans and vest, it makes him stand out like a dog’s balls.

Savage turns to Marx, keeping his eyes on the monitor for a moment before looking at Pres. “When do you want us to grab him?”

“Seeing the compound and the number of people milling around, I say we go in tonight. Blanche, any idea where his room is located?”

Pixie nods, before tapping away at her phone screen. “Just sent you the layout. It’s been almost two decades since I was last there, but I can’t imagine it’s changed much. All ‘outside’ guests stay in the same place. The main office building has a hall that leads to the council members’ rooms. There’s one pokey little room at the end of the hall on the left-hand side. Hammer will be in there. There’s a single door and one window, but the windows only open an inch before they lock. ”

Savage and Dex check their phones, their fingers working on zooming in on their screens.

“You’ll all have your watches and the earpieces to communicate and I’ve got the Tombs Security stash of night vision goggles and a drone I can fit in my pocket.” To illustrate my claims, I unzip the side pocket of my cargo pants, pull out akhaki case and open it, showing it to my brothers who ooohhh and ahhh over it.

“Hold the fuck up,” Sniper rasps in his measured way. “Is that the Black Hornet?” His eyes look like they’re about to pop out of his head.

“Yup,” I reply, popping the “p.”

“No fucking way do you have one of those!” Rider adds, trying to get past Tank’s big body for a closer look. “My buddy was telling me about these. These things cost a fucking bomb,”

“It’s one of Chewy’s perks. She helped an unnamed organization, and they paid her in three of these.”

Dex’s eyes get comically large before he whispers, “Holy shit how much does she charge?”

“Probably not enough for some of the information she finds,” I wink at him.

“OK, so we have a fancy ass drone on the team. Savage and Dex, how many more men do you need?” Marx looks toward the men, who communicate purely with a look at each other.

“I think it’s best to send in a small team,” Savage answers. Marx agrees with the ex Death Riders Pres who continues, “With Tav having eyes on us, that decreases the number we’d need, so I’d say one more. That gives us one man sweeping and two of us dragging Hammer outta there.” Savage looks around at the men in the room.

Sniper steps forward and knowing his background I’d say he is probably the best choice. Quiet, patient, hard to rattle. Marx nods at his MC brother. Savage and Dex look happy too, Sniper is who I’d want watching my back.

“Blanche, what time is lights out?” Pixie gives Marx a funny little smile, “We all know there’s a lights out. No one runs a compound like this and lets people have an ounce of freedom,” Marx reasons.

“You’d be right. Lights out is 10pm, on the dot. The electricity gets turned off at the mains, only the main perimeter alarms are left on. If anyone needs to get up for anything after that, they’re instructed to use a torch.”

“Fucking weirdos,” Fox grumbles, Pixie turning to give the big man a huge smile.

“We go in at 11pm. Rider and I will take first watch on the screens. Tank and Tav you’re next. Everyone else, rest up or get some grub. It’s gonna be a long night.”

Blanche

“How are you feeling, baby?” Tav asks, his warm breath skating over my skin as I lazily wake from the nap I swore I wasn’t going to take.

It’s weird, when I’m on a stakeout I never nap. Put me on the most important stakeout of my life and I sleep like a baby in the middle of the afternoon. I blame having the security of all these men around me. Never in my life did I ever think I would submit to a man, or even ask one for help, and yet here I am, relying on these men to help me take down the evil from my past life. It’s a real trip.

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