Page 90 of The Kings of Kearny

Nick had movie-star good looks and could charm the pants off anyone if given enough time, which was why, after just a few years at the Bureau, his department head had started pushing him out in front of cameras. He wasn’t famous by any means. Not yet. He’d only made a few appearances on TV so far, for cases with low visibility at local levels. His boss wanted him to get his legs beneath him, get comfortable addressing reporters and speaking into a camera before he shoved him onto the national stage. Liam probably didn’t even know who he was, and we were betting that Redding wouldn’t recognize him either.

Nick worked in Organized Crime, a section of the Criminal Investigative Division that handled violent groups like the mafia and outlaw motorcycle clubs. It was why he contacted me when I moved to Kearny. The FBI had been trying to slip someone into the area for years, with limited success. The deal he offered me was pretty sweet: work somewhere local, like Charley’s, and keep an eye on things. Every week I’d report to my commanding officer about what I heard and saw. That was it. I didn’t have to get my hands dirty. I didn’t have to do any skulking around or put myself in danger, and all that for a nice salary and a respectable benefits package.

I still turned him down. I’d gotten out of government work for a reason, and at that point, I’d already met several members of the Kings and didn’t want to risk my neck just to fuck over fellow veterans. Nick asked me to reach out if I changed my mind or landed myself in danger, and so here we were.

Did I like that it had come to this? No. But I trusted Nick. I believed him last night when he said he missed the thrill of the hunt. He wasn’t even here officially. The small crew of people he hand selected to come with him knew that this was an unsanctified operation, and they were okay with it. Getting charges to stick to motorcycle clubs was difficult. The club members wouldn’t rat each other out, evidence was usually scarce, and clubs kept lawyers like Katherine Jenkins on payroll to bog down their investigations, bury them in legal fees, and then tear them apart in court.

It made agents angry, lose faith in the system, which was why Nick and company had no problem coming down here to aid a civilian like me in fucking over Redding and the Jokers. I was sure it helped that they’d be stopping a drug operation and preventing a war between MCs in the process. If the Specters and the Bandits got into it, a lot of innocent people would be caught in the cross fire, and the feds must have factored that into their decision to aid me.

Nick being FBI was the reason I couldn’t tell Jennifer what I had planned. She couldn’t know. None of them could. First off, they would have stopped me. Because you didn’t work with the feds. Not if you valued your life. Club members who struck deals with FBI agents had limited life spans. The second anyone found out about what you’d done, you were dead, and it didn’t matter whether you were a fresh recruit or a man with all the influence and power of Liam Larson.

This was why Jakob would end things when I told him what I’d done. Bringing Nick into the area was a monumental betrayal of his trust, and if it ever came to light that I’d called in the feds to fix his father’s fuckup, I’d be kicked out of Kearny faster than you could sayrat. The only reason I wouldn’t be killed instead was because I wasn’t part of the club.

I hoped none of that would come to pass. Nick told me he’d do everything in his power to keep my involvement a secret, and I was trusting him to pull it off somehow.

He shut the café door behind him and strode toward my table. “Hey there, stranger.”

“Hey yourself,” I said, rising from my seat. “It’s nice to see you.”

He pulled the shades from his dark, almond-shaped eyes and wrapped me in a hug. “You too. You look good, Skywalker.”

Skywalker.I’d forgotten the nickname. Back when we’d been sleeping together, he heard a story from my crewmates about me hitting an impossible target “no bigger than a womp rat” and took it into his head that I would fit right into theStar Warsfranchise.

We pulled away, and I smiled up at him. “You look good too. How’s Elena?”

“She’s great, thanks,” he said, taking the seat beside mine.

I dropped down next to him. “When is she due?”

“Two months,” he said, grinning so wide that his eyes crinkled at the corners. “How about you? How’s the leg?”

“Bugging me today. I missed my last PT appointment because of all this shit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Everyone in place?”

He nodded. “We have three in the building across the street. There should be a van pulling up on the curb any minute.”

Right on cue, a nondescript white van parked perpendicular to us.

“I don’t want my face in any of the pictures,” I said.

He pulled the chair out on his other side. It would put my back to the window. “Move over here,” he said.

I switched seats. “Did you find out anything else about Redding?”

“Oh yeah,” Nick said. “The man is a piece of work. They did a good job covering up the attempted court-martial, but his uncle wasn’t as successful burying some of his other crimes.”

It turned out his uncle was a state representative after all.

I raised a brow in question. “His other crimes?”

“Let’s just say that no one will miss this bastard.”

“Not even said uncle?” I asked.

He shook his head. “At this point, I think he’ll be glad to be rid of Redding. He’s gearing up for a run at the Governor’s House, and if anyone finds out that he’s been sweeping his rapist nephew’s crimes under the rug, his gubernatorial dreams will be shot to hell.”

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