Page 9 of The Devil's Conflict

“Exactly.” Cryos nods, with a small smile my way. “But it’s this guy who’s going to be the big problem.” He zooms in and brings up a picture of a man who’s about to climb into the back of the getaway SUV. Then, a photo of the man comes up on the screen, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Yeah, this fucker is definitely someone we need to watch. And if he’s in town, we’re going to have to make some key adjustments. Fast.

Someone lets out a low whistle. “Who wants to bet that’s going to be Vlad’s new right-hand man?” Timber suggests, a grimness in his tone. Louisiana-born, he and Viper are our only two black members, but the two of them couldn’t be more different. Dark eyes, military-style short hair, and barely any facial hair, along with an accent that he uses to charm his way through any trouble he might run into, especially with women. Though I’ve also heard he uses it on pissed-off customers at themechanic shop too. I doubt he’s going to be able to use those skills here though.

“You would be correct,” Cryos replies, pulling up some more details. “Meet Nikolai Egorov, one of the most feared men on either side of the pond. Mostly because he’s methodical, and he’s been trained by some of the best men in the Bratva from the time he was a teenager. There isn’t much known about him, but I was able to find that his mother managed to smuggle him out of Russia when he was a child to America. She also managed to avoid detection here until he was fifteen, when his father found them and killed her. But even being in America didn’t keep him out of trouble. He has a sealed juvie record starting from when he was ten to fifteen. Got in trouble for stealing cars, assault, property damage, and at one point, almost attempted murder because he tried to kill a kid for daring to fight back. His father took his son back to Russia after killing his mother.”

“Charming,” Torque says in disgust. Bullet and Rose’s middle son, he’s a carbon copy of his father. Right down to his six-two height, his father’s blue eyes, and his muscular build. The only time I ever find he looks like his mother is when he smirks or gets a wild idea in his head, though that’s not often. Torque is the thinker of the three, and he likes to mull things over. He also runs the Devil’s Garage, which is how our bikes all stay running in such good shape.

“When his father collected him, he disappeared for a while,” Cryos continues. “But then he popped back up again at sixteen in a report from the CIA. I wasn’t able to get it all before coming in here, but I’ll work on it some more. Basically, his father and uncles realized the potential he had and they set out to make him the perfect solider. He took part in a lot of Bratva tasks, including the bombing of a rival’s mansion, and it got him noticed by the Pakhan. From there, he moved up the ranks untilfinally, he became their number one assassin. He’s the kind of guy you call in when you want to take out a problem.”

“So this is Vlad’s way of letting us know he’s not playing around anymore?” Hulk asks with a dark frown on his face. One of our bigger members, Hulk works with Shadow and Viper at the security office. He stands at six-five, with broad shoulders and chest and well-maintained muscles that he spends hours on at the gym. The man is quiet, but when it comes to the club, or those he cares about, he can either be your worst nightmare, or a teddy bear. Especially with the kids. He never served in the military, but he should have because the man is a whiz with small details and his brain is always working. “And if that’s the case, why did he only have him shoot up the bar?” he continues, leaning forward. See? Smart. “I mean, if he’s as good as all that, then shooting up the bar isn’t his MO. He would have blown it up or even tried to actually take some of us out.”

“I think he’s trying to figure out our response and making a plan,” Frost butts in, his expression tight. “If he’s this good, he wants to see how we react and use that against us. This was a warning, and I think there’s going to be more coming.” Former military, with a specialty in tracking, Frost is one cool bastard. Which is exactly why we call him that. He’s a couple inches over six feet, sports dark hair, a cropped beard, and sharp blue eyes, and while he’s not as bulky as the rest of us, there’s no missing the man keeps himself in shape.

His counterpart, Bowie, and one of his closest friends, is the opposite in looks, but the same in personality as well as his training, and he nods in agreement with him. They belonged to the same unit in the military, though not on the same team. At six feet, with forest green eyes, he keeps his head much the same as he did in the military and keeps it mostly shaved. He is one of the few of us who doesn’t have any facial hair. He told meone time that he hates the feel of it, and when he was still in the military, he hated how itchy it got.

“The question is, is he going to go after the entire club as a whole or individuals?” Medic, our resident doctor, muses. It was easy enough to call him that considering that was what he was when he was in the military, and now, he keeps up his license by covering shifts at the hospital when needed. But for the most part, he works with us and patches us all up when needed. He stands at six feet, with dark hair and a dark beard, sea green eyes, and always a smile on his face. The man is far too chipper, considering everything he’s seen if you ask me, but it’s not my business. He’s also big on therapy, so I have to imagine he speaks to someone to help him out.

You know, the healthy way. Not the shit way I’ve always done it by just internalizing it and moving the fuck on. I don’t have time for shrinks trying to get inside my head. It’s dark enough already, and I don’t need any damn light to make it better.

“My bet is he’s hoping that this will drive us into lockdown and put us all in one place,” I tell them, drawing attention. “If you think about it, the man knows that taking us out individually is going to take time. He wants us to be in one spot, including the women and children, and take us all out in one swoop. The women were the targets from the beginning, and we’re running out of options to keep them safe.” It’s a harsh reality, but it’s the truth. A war tactic that has been used for centuries.

“He’s right,” Shadow agrees tightly, the stress of my words clear on his face. I can understand his panic considering his family situation. “Should we send the women away? I can send Quinn to her parents with Macy. Though the doctor said she shouldn’t travel because she’s high risk, but I can drive her there. I’d rather know she’s safe with her family if shit goes south.”

“We will consider that option,” Bullet agrees. “But I know none of the other women are going to go without a fight.”

“Syn certainly isn’t going to after what happened with Vlad before and the dogs,” Stone huffs. “The only place she could go is with the Lanes, but she won’t leave her business, or her clients since they’re all located here. Not to mention, with her being pregnant, she doesn’t really want to be far from home. Her morning sickness is bad, and she can barely stand to be in a car for a ride to town some days, so I can’t imagine a long trip or a plane.”

“Sage could go with her, but she’s going to have to head out to LA soon for her shoot. I’d offer to send Syn with her and Ruger’s crew can help me watch out for both of them, but that is definitely a plane ride,” King warns.

“I could ask Zeb to call Izzy and ask her to come work with him at his shop under some pretense,” Torque offers. Zeb is Izzy’s former boss and a surrogate father to her. I’ve never had any issue with the man, and he’s a famous mechanic in his neck of the woods.

“So that leaves Rose and Eden,” Viper muses. “The problem with Eden is she doesn’t really have a family that she can go to. I haven’t met her parents, but my understanding is they’re not in her life much, if it at all. And I don’t know how it works for her being able to get out of work to send her anywhere.”

“And if she leaves, it might have the judges under Vlad’s control looking in her direction even more, if they haven’t already,” Shadow points out. “And Rose…” He looks at Bullet with a pointed stare.

Bullet shakes his head. “You’d be surprised. If I told her why, and made it clear she needs to look after one of the women, especially Quinn or Syn, since they’re both pregnant, then she’d go without a question. My Old Lady is stubborn as a mule, but she doesn’t play when it comes to the safety of her kids, or those she considers family.”

“Maybe we’re jumping the gun here,” Torque suggests carefully. “I’m not saying we don’t make sure the women are protected at all costs, but what we need to do is ramp up our efforts to find Vlad, and this Nikolai by extension, and we try to make it clear we’re not about to play easily into their hands. Keep the businesses going for now, but we make a statement of our own.”

“You want to do our own shootout?” I ask him drily.

Torque shakes his head. “No, but there’s nothing to say that we don’t go back and give them a small taste of what we can do too. We know some of the places that they’re using, and that the Wild Devils are working with them. Not to mention, we haven’t been able to do anything about that pawn shop downtown that we found in the journal, right? So now we let them know we’re done playing around.”

“So you want us to blow up the pawn shop?” King asks in surprise.

Torque gives him ayou’re an idiotlook and continues, exasperation clear in his voice, “I’m saying we check it out, make sure it’s actually one of the spots they’re using in town to hide how they’re doing their business, and once we do, we do an anonymous tip to the Feds and let them deal with it. Cryos can make sure we send it to someone not on Vlad’s payroll so it isn’t swept under the rug. We gain some time to start looking at other spots, but we show we’re not afraid of them. They go after our businesses; we’re going to go after theirs.”

“And if they retaliate?” Twigs, one of our newer patched brothers asks. The kid is barely twenty-three, six feet tall, skinny like his road name suggests, with boyish features and a thick head of dark hair. The first time I met him I wasn’t sure that he would be able to ride more than a sports bike, but the kid surprised me and worked his way up to being patched. The kid is surprisingly smart, though half the time, his brain spendsmost of his time in his pants, considering the amount of time he spends with the club girls.

“Then we handle it,” Torque replies. “And we also need to increase security at them so we can make sure that no one is sneaking around and getting close enough to do it. And if we have some brothers working on finding these other locations as well, we might be able to get this under control before too much shit hits the fan.”

“But if we involve the cops, we might be attracting the attention of the Feds and send them all underground again,” I warn. “And if we do that, we might lose them and any edge we have.”

“I think we need to be careful about what we do,” Bullet agrees. “Because this has the potential to get bloody and deadly before this is over. I think it’s clear Vlad is done trying to be subtle about things. And he has far more connections and experience than Dmitri ever did, along with having the information Dagger gave them. So he’s going to be coming at things from all angles. We need to try and get ahead of it as soon as possible.”

“We need to find that other journal,” I add. “With everything going on, we haven’t been able to check the bar or the garage to see if we can find it. I think it’s time for us to get back on that too.”

“We’re talking about a lot of things going on when we also have businesses to run,” Shadow points out. “We have a few different jobs coming up on the security front, but we don’t have the manpower. Sniper, you’re the same at the bar since you had to fire that thief. Torque, how's’ the garage? And Stone and King, don’t we have a lot of extra work coming up for the Lincolns, which is also going to spread us thin.”

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