Page 8 of The Devil's Conflict

“Sage isn’t going to be happy if we do because she has to travel soon for a couple of shoots,” King says grimly. “And she’s under contract, so I’ll have to go with her again. Which is shit timing.”

“Where?” Bullet asks.

“LA again.”

“I’ll get a hold of Ruger and let him know that you’ll need the back-up while you’re out there.” Bullet pulls out his phone and shoots off a text to Phantom Kings MC’s President.

“Might need them to come this way if shit goes south,” I point out. We have some strong allies between different clubs across the countries, which includes some 1%ers, including the Phantom Kings, that we can call if things go bad, though I’m not sure where we would put them all.

“I’m going to get in touch with some of them to be ready,” Bullet replies grimly. “Hopefully, we can take care of this shit onour own. Because things are going to get worse before they get better.”

On that we both can agree. But thankfully I’m not afraid of a war like this. I’ve been through far worse and come out the other side. I just have to make sure my skills are up to par, and also work on making sure the bar gets back up and running as quickly as possible.

I’m not about to let Vlad scare us off, and I want that message loud and clear.

FOUR

SNIPER

It’s time to start our own offensive.

Church isfull when I arrive, and as weary as I feel, I know I still have a few more hours ahead of me. The bar was a mess, even though the club’s construction company was there to fix everything that was damaged, it pisses me off to even have to do it.

Which is exactly why I’ve been trying to find Vlad when I have a free moment. Because I want to put a bullet through his skull and end this shit once and for all. But the bastard is a slippery son of a bitch and we still haven’t been able to figure out where he’s hiding, despite searching the entire city. I’m starting to make my way along the outskirts of the city toward the county lines, but it’s slow going with so many different places for them to be hiding.

At this point, I’m certain he’s either living somewhere off the grid, or he’s with someone who can protect him from being found out. Or Dmitri when he was alive. But Cryos has never been able to find any signs of that, so the off-grid theory is looking more and more plausible. The problem is that all around are plenty of forest and places for them to hide. And Vlad is smart enough, just like Dmitri, not to let the majority of his men come and go from where he is. He’s housing them somewhere else to keep his location a secret. We’ve already tried using them to find him, but that never seems to go anywhere.

Now that both of them are dead, we need to move fast before he replaces them and they all go back underground again.

I take my seat to the right of the head of the table, nodding when my brothers call out greetings to me. After I left the Forces, I was happy to be alone, but now, being surrounded by this group of men, I realized that was a stupid idea. I can still be alone when I want to be, but having people around to give me a bit of a social life of sorts, keeps the dark thoughts that swirl around inside my head at bay.

Also helps that with this group and the women they seem to end up with, I don’t have much time to sit and think when I’m having to deal with whatever plan they’ve dug up, or the trouble they get themselves into. I barely manage not to shake my head in exasperation thinking about the night with Eden, Rose, Sage, and Izzy. And up until that night, I was sure Shadow’s bail fund idea was all in good fun, but now I’m realizing that no, we probably are going to actually need it one day. Or just lock them up ourselves.

That certainly has some perks, but I also think they’d figure out how to get out of it and the hell that would rain down on us would be a thousand times worse. I have never been more grateful that I don’t have a woman to worry about because, damn, just dealing with the ones we have is more than enough.Adding having to deal with one of my own? Yeah, no thanks. I’m perfectly happy being a bachelor for life.

The door slams shut as Bullet stalks inside, looking annoyed, but also resigned. I would bet he’s just finished speaking with Rose, his Old Lady, and no doubt he’s probably spent far too much time listening, or arguing, to or with her. Though the way the two of them behave, I doubt if it’s an argument, it will last for long. I haven’t ever seen a couple more suited for each other than those two, and that’s saying something with the way everyone is pairing up around here.

“Alright, let’s get down to business,” Bullet barks, making everyone go quiet. He doesn’t even bother banging his gavel, and I take in the faces around the table that watch him with a mixture of grimness and anticipation. “Sniper, what’s the deal on the bar?” he asks me, glancing over at me.

“Thankfully no one was seriously hurt since the place was pretty quiet. Those sitting closest to the windows got hit with the glass, but it was mostly just scrapes and cuts. One asshole got pissed about it, but quickly shut up when I approached. Apparently, I’m a scary motherfucker or something,” I add with a wry grin. I hear a few snorts, and a lot of chuckles at that. Even Bullet cracks a smirk. “We’ve closed the bar until we’re all fixed up, and Stone and King have guys scheduled to fix it.”

“Should only take a couple more days,” Stone butts in. He’s Rose and Bullet’s oldest son, and while he has his father’s six-two height, bulky muscle, thick beard, and blue eyes, his features are all his mother. “Mostly just waiting on the new windows to be installed since they’re custom, but our supplier is moving fast. Everything inside will be finished by tomorrow.”

“So we should be open again by Friday night,” I finish.

“Any concerns that it’s going to affect people coming or the sales?” Viper asks, ever the Treasurer and money worrier.

I shrug. “Don’t know and honestly I don’t give a shit if it does. We’ve been doing well with the bar in general the last few years, and we have a nest egg for any kind of lull we might get.” Viper nods. “I double checked with Sandy and she’s good to come back. She’s not all that shaken up despite everything. She’s going to ask her friend’s daughter if she’s still willing to come and work, but she’s escaping an abusive ex so I imagine she might not be too keen on working with us, but we’ll see.”

“Cryos,” Bullet says, looking over at our resident tech guy and security expert. And hacker. He was recruited by the government when he was still a kid but now we have him on our side. He’s what I would call a pretty boy; he’s not conventionally tall, being a few inches shorter than six feet. But he has the thick, dark blond hair, and blue eyes that have women tripping over themselves. And he knows it. I find him to be a bit cocky, and if you question his systems or his smarts, he’ll get pissy, but he’s gotten us out of some tight spots plenty of times.

Cryos nods and clicks some buttons on the computer in front of him, putting some images up on the screen at the front of the room behind me. I twist in my chair, and so does Bullet to look up at it. “I pulled the security feed and went over it frame by frame, running my programs and facial recognition. And I was able to figure out who the shooters were, and also track them to where they dumped the vehicle and set it on fire.” He clicks a few more buttons and brings up the image of the car burning in the abandoned car lot. Then he plays a video and we see the light of the fire on the men’s faces. “This is what I used so that I could get names. And they came up pretty quickly.”

“They look like regular foot soldiers to me,” Titan notes, leaning forward. Before being a part of our MC, he was a member of the Golden Skulls in California, and I was wary to accept him at first. That club was a 1%er, and we aren’t about that life, so I wasn’t sure he would fit in here. But he’s provento be a valuable brother. At six feet tall, and a skilled former amateur MMA fighter out there too, he has strawberry blond hair, dark eyes, and a short, cropped beard that give him a bit more of a rugged look. Well, that and the tattoos.

“Two of them are,” Cryos announces, clicking a few more buttons and then bringing up mug shots on the screen. “Meet Bogdan and Maxim Kuznetsov. A set of brothers that originate from a small village in Russia, and joined the local mafia chapter with their father when they were old enough. They’ve been on a bad path ever since. If you name it, they’ve probably done it. They were sent over here when Dmitri was still running things, and from what I can tell, they’re now higher, and not just basic foot soldiers. They get sent on the bigger, more important jobs that need to be messy and fast.”

“Like the one at the bar,” I butt in darkly. Fuckers. I have some bullets of my own to pay them back for that. Probably a bit too dark of a thought, but well, that’s what happens when you go up against bastards like these for years.

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