Page 61 of Biker's Collar: Property of Scrap

“Life doesn’t have to be difficult, Vickie.”

“This isendinga life,” she says. “It’s different.”

I follow Hakeem all the way to the apartments. We pull into the parking lot behind Hakeem’s complex, obscuring our truckbehind a white Ford F-150, conveniently blocking a parking lot camera that would have otherwise captured footage of our vehicle.

I feel around for the revolver in my inner jacket pocket and Vickie whips out her binoculars. Hakeem keeps his freshest victims in an eight unit apartment complex about twenty minutes north of the strip. He hides these women in plain sight.

When I turn the car off, Vickie leans forward, like something caught her eye.

“He just opened up 215,” she says. “The nephews went in.”

I put my hand on her thigh, patiently waiting for her to tell me Hakeem’s next move. He has a classic routine. The nephews play video games in whatever unoccupied spot Hakeem has in the apartment complex since there’s such a high turnover rate for the girls.

The young men lounge around in there for a while until a man picks them up around 10 p.m. That’s what we observed and I think we can get the job done before then. Vickie shifts her hips as she watches Hakeem move. Just watching her slight, subtle movements gets me rock fucking hard.

“Okay,” she says. “He’s on the first floor now… He just opened 113 and… he walked inside. This man did not just leave the door open.”

Vickie sounds suspicious and disbelieving. I’m finally starting to see her point.

“He left the door open?”

“Hold on…”

I shuffle around the car searching for my pair of binoculars. Confirming what Vickie saw doesn’t make me feel any better. The door is still open.

“We gotta move,” I tell her.

Vickie throws a sharp look in my direction. “Owen. This is an obvious trap.”

“What if it’s not? What if we’re just lucky?”

She looks bewildered. “You have a problem.”

“What?”

I open the door. We’re heading after Hakeem. No question. Vickie follows me, even if she’s clearly still fixing her mouth to argue. She has her hand on the gun and lowers her voice once we’re outside of the truck.

“This is an insanegamble,” she says, throwing weight behind the word ‘gamble’ that clearly, Vickie means to provoke guilt. I shrug her off.

“We can pull it off. Now hush. Stay close.”

Vickie draws her body closer to mine. She might question me, but she trusts me… I hope that lasts through the night. That I can protect her and keep her safe, never giving her reason to doubt me. Consciously, I know Vickie can handle herself, but my male instincts crave nothing more than a nearly sacrificial level of protectiveness.

The open door has officially roused my suspicions. Vickie stays close as I fix the silencer to my gun. Ideally, she won’t need to fire at all. Cleaning up this body will be a lot easier if we use less ammunition and we don’t have any witnesses.

“Where are the others?” she whispers.

“They’re coming. Let’s go…”

Our bodies stay close to the walls. I glance over my shoulder at Vickie every few seconds to make sure she’s safe. I don’t know why I bother worrying about her. She looks focused and she’s holding that gun like she knows what she’s doing. I’m glad I can throw her ass over my shoulder easily.

Vickie follows me to the door of 113 and the two of us walk straight through the door, ready to end Hakeem’s life.

Twenty-Seven

Vickie

Iknew this was too easy. We walk into apartment 113 and there he is with a grin on his face and two legs already out the window. Owen fires and misses. Hakeem jumps out the window and we just have to fucking go after him. I don’t know where the hell Owen’s backup is, but those assholes had better be close.

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