Page 60 of Havoc

Havoc’s arms relaxed around me, and the tightness in his shoulders clicked down a notch. “I totally agree with everything you said. Going straight to the source is the right answer.” Havoc glanced down at me before adding, “If we work together, we’ll find a way to put Slater where he won’t be able to target any more innocent women.”

Mace stood up and patted his leg, causing Nine to jump up and run to his side. “This situation is bigger and more complicated than I ever imagined when I saw you duking it out with Slater.”

Hacker’s voice rose. “You didn’t mention having a fistfight with Slater.”

“Don’t worry, I kicked his ass.”

Mace chimed in, “The dude sounds like he had it coming, to be honest.”

Hacker’s voice turned aggravated. “I’m not debating whether or not he deserved it. He clearly did, and I probably would have done the same if he’d come after my old lady. The thing is, he’s a fucking cop. They’re all going to be looking to take their pound of flesh outta you for daring to touch one of their own. You do know that, right?”

“Yeah, Storm mentioned that. It’s why he wanted us to hightail it out to the bunker after talking to you.”

“Good plan. Wait for us to come to you. Don’t take a chance showing your face in Griffinsford right now.”

“Roger that. Unless you have something else, we best get going. I don’t know how long it’s gonna take Slater to lick his wounds and come back with his buddies in blue to have another whack at me.”

Mace asked, “What about the phone? Do you want to throw it in the river?”

“Fuck no,” Hacker responded tersely. “I want you to take the battery out and put both the phone and the battery into the floor safe.”

Havoc and Mace looked at each other, a little bewildered.

Mace asked, “You mean the one at the clubhouse? I was thinking me and Nine would patrol the outside of the bunker until reinforcements arrived.”

“That’s a yes on the patrolling and a no on bringing the phone to the clubhouse. Just put it in the floor safe at the cabin.”

Havoc looked confused, “What floor safe?”

Hacker quickly explained, “Knowledge about the floor safe is on a need-to-know basis. You need to know right now, so I’m telling you about it.”

“Right,” Havoc mumbled, sounding none too happy about being left in the dark.

We sprung up and did as we were told. I grabbed the blanket and the toss cushions as the two men laid the sofa on its back and tugged up the area rug. We could barely see that the carpet had a big square hole cut out of it.

Havoc pulled up the piece of carpeting and we saw a big hunk of metal that looked nothing like a floor safe.

“What the fuck is this monstrosity?” he asked Hacker.

“It’s a safe that doubles as a Faraday cage. A unit of my own design that was fabricated on site. I’ve programmed every brother’s fingerprint into the biometric lock.”

Havoc reached down and pressed two fingers against the scanning plate, and we heard something click. He turned the awkward metal handle and pulled the lid up. All three of us gazed down into what appeared to my eye like something you would find on a military base. There were armor chest plates, metal ammo boxes, and lots of equipment I didn’t recognize.

Hacker asked, tense, “Are you in?”

“Yeah,” Havoc replied. “We’re in, but I’m not sure what the fuck I’m looking at here. I’m seeing a lot of things that don’t make sense.”

“It contains personal bug-out items for the club officers as well as basic equipment our club would need to survive a worst-case scenario situation and start over in the event that something happened to our clubhouse again and our accounts were frozen.”

“I know the cabin’s registered in the name of one of the old ladies’ mothers, so I suppose this is a logical place to stow this kind of gear,” Havoc muttered.

“Exactly. Remove the battery from her phone and place it in the ammo box marked for communications equipment.”

Havoc ran his fingers down the line of ammo cases and then tugged one free. It wasn’t locked, so he just popped the metal clasp. “Found it.”

Hacker instructed, “Put Riley’s cell phone and battery in the box and pull out one of the burner phones. That will have to do her for right now, I can clone her SIM card but I want to make sure it’s clean first.”

Havoc handed me a burner phone. It was actually a little kit with a charging cord and prepaid card so I could activate the phone. I watched him dump my phone into the ammo box, shut the case, and drop it back into place. They quickly closed the lid, replaced the square of carpet, and pulled the area rug back into place. I stepped back while they righted the sofa and replaced the toss cushions and blanket. No one could tell by looking what lay just beneath their feet. I knew without being told that this information was not to be shared with a living soul.

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