Page 38 of Cinder
Axe is your friendly biker with a knife. He can kill quicker with a blade than most men can with a gun.
“The driver didn’t make it,” Bear says. “When the smoke cleared, they were dead, and we weren’t.”
“Do we know where this stash came from and who’s running it?” Ryder asks.
Beast replies, “Matches a stolen cache out of Nevada, from an old cartel warehouse. According to officials, the cache was supposed to be destroyed years ago.”
Gambit leans back in his chair, arms crossed. “Someone lied.”
“Bram ran a search and found a cluster of the same weapons showing up in police reports along the east coast,” Beast adds. “The sheriff is going to look into it further, see if we can’t catch a break from it.”
“Do we know where the shipment was heading?” Ryder asks.
Beast sits in his chair at the end of the table. “The manifesto said New York.”
“Someone’s running product through St. Boniface,” Gambit says. “Using our back roads and river trails, maybe even the docks. Quiet town. No heat. Eventually they’ll figure out it’s the perfect place to stash heat.”
“The fuck they will,” Beast growls. “We don’t run guns, and we don’t let fucking gunrunners use our town as a pass through or a safe house.”
Heads nod and the room pulses with a murmur of agreement.
This isn’t just business. It’s a code the Knights live by. We don’t run guns, and we don’t traffic girls. The only trafficking we do is good old Fantasia. A drug that will make you feel like a million bucks, let you fuck for hours, and not get you hooked on a $200-a-day habit like dope. Better than coke, and kinder to your liver than liquor, our Fantasia trade has made our club rich and kept a lot of other drugs off the streets of St. Boniface. Why fuck with low-grade meth when you can feel real good for longer with Fantasia and not get strung out or addicted?
I know, it’s still a narcotic and illegal, and we’re criminals for harvesting, cooking and distributing it.
But fuck, one bump of Fantasia and you’ll forget that we’re the bad guys.
I scan the room. Everyone’s on edge. We’ve had peace ever since the feds tore apart our closest rivals, the UnhingedPsychos, and put away our previous mayor for corruption. We’ve got a new mayor now. Sawyer Bennington. He’s oily, like a lot of officials. But he isn’t trying to run us out of town or set us up like his predecessor.
But one thing I’ve learned during my time as enforcer for the Knights of St. Boniface, is that peace never lasts.
I look at the weapons on the table, and my gut tells me something big is coming.
“I detected movement on the dark web,” Bram says, pushing his coke-bottle glasses up his nose. “An anonymous supplier advertising clean coastal routes to move contraband.”
“Through St. Boniface?” Viking asks.
Viking is the oldest biker sitting around the table. With long blond hair and a beard to match, he has seen his fair share of war and battles over territory, and his wise old eyes tell me he can see one coming.
He’s also my old man, and I can read him like a book. He can see trouble coming.
We share a look across the table.
Beast nods. “Someone has profited from facilitating undetected distribution along our coastal route.”
“Has?” Bear asks.
“The deal is gone,” Bram says.
“Meaning someone purchased it,” Beast adds.
The Knights keep a tight eye on everything passing through St. Boniface and the 300 miles of coastline either side of ourtown. Meaning if you want to run your contraband along our route, we have to know about it.
In return, we make sure you pass through safely.
No local law enforcement.
No feds.
