Page 12 of Blaze

One of our recent patches was related to a New York crime family run by Nic DeLuca. They had a branch of The Family in the south, mostly in Georgia, not far from Riverstone. The connection had turned into a great working relationship since both of our organizations had skills the other lacked but needed.

“She opened her legs for far too many lowlife motherfuckers. Not just gangs or drug pushers, that includes dirty MCs. There were too many risks that she would be recognized in our circles. So The Family erased her through their channels.”

“Get Ink on it,” I ordered, then looked at Ace. “She pay cash?”

“Yeah, but the bills were new and sequential. Wizard and I can follow the money.”

“Do it.”

They both stood and were already throwing theories at each other by the time they walked out the door.

Once they were gone, Ash tapped his fingers on the table impatiently. “Tell me about the warehouse. How much shit was destroyed?”

I winced. “Pretty much everything in the filing rooms on one side of the building.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“We have digital duplicates of everything,” King reminded him.

“I know. But being able to hand over paper copies has saved our asses when someone like the IRS has come sniffing around.Kept them off our servers, and the idiots never suspect that the ‘originals’ could have been tampered with.”

King nodded. “Get some prospects to reprint and organize the files.”

“Will do,” Ash agreed. “And we’re still keeping the fire off the record?”

I grunted in affirmation. “Can’t trust the cops we don’t know. Any of them could have their balls in a vise by that organization.”

“I’ll talk to the sheriff,” Tomcat offered. He was a former Navy pilot and had been in the academy with the county sheriff’s brother. The officer, Bruce, was a pretty straight arrow, but he respected the fuck out of Tomcat, and they were good friends. So when Tomcat patched, Bruce did his due diligence and checked us out. Since it was handy to have law enforcement on your side—sort of—we gave him a little more access than we would give most outsiders.

He fed us information we needed from time to time, and if the circumstances were right, he’d been known to look the other way when we needed him to.

“Thanks.”

Tomcat gave me a chin lift.

“Blaze.”

I looked at King, who was studying his computer screen. “How’d she get in?”

One side of my mouth quirked up. “She picked the lock.”

King glanced up at me with a raised brow. “Picked the lock?”

I nodded, feeling a spark of pride even though I should’ve been pissed that someone had broken into our facility. Courtney was a fascinating tangle of personality types. I had a feeling that even in a whole lifetime with her, I’d never unravel them all.

“Told you we needed more security than that fucking fence and some locks,” Rebel groused. He was in charge of securityfor the Hounds—a job he was perfect for after being a SEAL specializing in security.

“I signed the check, Rebel,” King murmured as he leaned back in his chair. “The new system is scheduled to be installed next week.”

Rebel snorted. “Little late.”

“So the bill for the warehouse repairs goes to you?”

My eyes narrowed as my head turned in Ace’s direction. His voice was amused, and when I met his eyes, they were full of laughter.

“Yeah,” I muttered, intending to leave it at that.

“Trying to save us on an insurance premium hike?”

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