Page 95 of Savior

I shook my head. “He’s trying to find the rat, but the Sons have eyes everywhere. It won’t be long before they figure out that it’s not business as usual at the club.”

“And then he’ll be their next target,” Zane added.

“If they have eyes everywhere, we need a blindspot,” Dakota mused. “Some way of moving without being seen.”

Lauren drummed her fingers against the armrest. “She’s right. What is it Bear told Celia? We keep letting them lead us into traps, but what if we led them into one?”

I pulled my lower lip between my thumb and forefinger, wondering what in the hell we could try that hadn’t already been done before.

We sat in silence, each of us fighting to come up with a way to defeat the giant. The fatal flaw in every one of our plans was the fact that we were being watched. It was why Grey had never managed to gain the upper hand.

I felt like the answer was staring me right in the face.

“I’ve got it,” I exclaimed suddenly. For the longest time, I’d approached the Sons the same way Grey had. I’d seen them as just another club looking to encroach on Silent Phoenix territory. They weren’t motivated that way, though.

If we stood a chance in hell at surviving this, I had to stop thinking like a biker and go back to the eleven-year-old kid who’d sworn he was going to be one of the good guys.

“They’re watching our every move. So, we use someone they’ll never see coming.” I turned to Lauren. “Darlin’, as much as it pains me to say it, we need Jimmy.”

I flexed my left arm, struck by the truth in the Sun Tzu quote spanning the length of my forearm.

All warfare is deception.

We’d seen what they wanted, now it was time for a little sleight of hand.

* * *

“I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this,” Zane muttered for the one-millionth time since I’d given him the plan.

“C’mon, Big Guy,” I said, feigning a pout similar to one I’d seen Dakota make when she wasn’t getting her way. “I’m doing this for us. With our fingerprints all over the goddamn place, you would’ve ended up someone’s bitch in prison and well, let’s be honest, I don’t like to share.”

He inhaled deeply through his nose before turning to look at me. “One of these days, Sullivan, I’m gonna break you in half.”

I grinned and doused the inside of a kitchen cabinet with gasoline. “Oh, you tease!”

His jaw tightened. “Jesus Christ, do you ever stop?”

“Can’t stop, addicted to the shindig. Chop Top, he says I’m gonna win big. Choose not a life of imitation… something… something… somethingreservation,” I rapped before moving into the living room.

Celia looked at her watch when I entered before lowering the mask covering her nose and mouth. “Sunset in twenty minutes.”

“You hear that, Big Guy?” I called back into the kitchen. “Sun’s gettin’ real low.”

Zane muttered something vaguely threatening in response.

“You know, he’s gonna destroy you, right?” Dakota said from behind her military-grade gas mask. She continued delicately pouring fuel onto the couch as if she was watering a damn garden.

It was like something out of a post-apocalyptic thriller.

I’d insisted on the full face shield, thinking it’d keep her quiet while we worked. Obviously, it wasn’t working.

“And then when we find Dad,” she continued. “I’ll have to tell him, and then he’ll kill Zane. It’ll be a disaster.”

“Don’t worry.” I clapped her on the shoulder. “He’s gotta be able to catch me first. Where’s Red?”

Celia pointed toward the back door. “She said the fumes were getting to her.”

I frowned. She had the same mask as Dakota and Jimmy had assured me that nothing was getting through.