Filed to story: Reclaimed Book by Roxie Ray
“Michel’s guys brought the truck in this morning. No sign of any trouble. It wasn’t until we’d unloaded everything, and the truck had gone that I smelled them.”
I nodded. Striker had the best senses of all of my enforcers, on top of his sharp ex-military senses. It was impossible to get anything past him.
“At first, I’d thought it was the cops,” he said. “But the police wouldn’t run a sting like this. I smelled them coming from the woods.”
“The woods?”
“On the backside of the property.” Striker gestured to the tall fence topped with barbed wire. “Went that way to check it out, and these two ambushed me. It seemed like they weren’t expecting to get caught. They weren’t prepared for a fight. I handled them pretty easily.”
I flipped the tarp away from the bodies. Both dragons had deep, long gashes across their chests. Striker didn’t need guns when he was so good with his claws. The scent of rotting flesh assaulted me. I grimaced and covered the corpses again.
“What do you think they were planning?” I asked. “Another theft?”
“No. Look over here.” Striker led me to the back fence. It had been cut through with wire cutters, making a big enough gap for the dragons to slip through behind a few rusty, old cars. In the backseat of one of the cars, the intruders had stashed a half-dozen gasoline canisters.
I rubbed my hand over my forehead. “Jesus Christ.”
“Yep. They didn’t care about stealing the shipment. They wanted to destroy it. And probably the entirety of our warehouse while they were at it.”
“Sean sent them here to wait for the completed delivery, then they were going to torch the whole place. That’d probably get the cops involved, too.”
“And by extension, our clan,” Striker said. “It’s clan names on this property.”
“We need to change that,” I muttered. “Run it through a shell LLC.” There were so many little holes I was discovering in the gunrunning world. Tiny mistakes were ways to get caught. With Harley and Dylan in my life, the cost of getting caught was suddenly a hell of a lot higher.
“What’s our next move, Ace?” Striker asked.
“Handle the bodies,” I said. “Standard procedure. I’ll handle Sean.”
“What do you plan to do? Do you know where he is?”
I rubbed my forehead again. “No. I’ll figure something out.”
“Not before tonight, I hope.”
I grinned at Striker. There was a glimmer of excitement in his usually stoic expression. Everyone in the clan was excited for Dylan’s official introduction, not just me. “Definitely not before tonight. Let’s keep this between us and the enforcers for now.”
“Understood,” Striker said. We walked back to the car. He looked at the trunk and heaved a sigh. “This isn’t exactly how I planned to spend my day.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Hopefully, this’ll be the last time.”
Striker climbed into his car and drove off with a grim promise to meet me at the clubhouse later. I walked into the warehouse. It was a small space, mostly used to store parts for the scrapyard. The wooden crates had been pushed into their usual place against the wall. I grabbed a crowbar and wrenched the lid off one.
All the merchandise seemed to be in place. Handguns and semi-automatics were nestled in the foam padding. I checked the two other crates to be sure, and they all looked untouched.
So, Sean and his guys hadn’t messed with this order along the way. They’d just wanted to destroy it. Usually, I’d let the order wait in the warehouse, but now I’d have to get a few guys out here to transfer the goods to the garage today.
I pulled out my phone and dialed a number that was unfortunately familiar. After four rings, it connected.
“Your little game got two dragons killed,” I said.
“You get what you pay for, I guess,” Sean said with a laugh. “So, you took care of them for me?”
My blood ran cold. The two dead dragons weren’t Sean’s clan members-they were solo dragons, wanderers who had been hired to do this task. But I’d thought he’d at least regret losing the manpower. Instead, their deaths seemed to amuse him. Like this was as good of an outcome as any.
This wasn’t my brother anymore. Sean had become something different. Something cruel and sadistic.
“You’re asking for a fight you have no chance of winning,” I snarled.
“Don’t get so cocky,” Sean snapped back. My dragon sensed his rage in his voice and rose up, as if Sean was right here where we could beat some sense into him. “This was just a little teaser. If you think this is all I have planned for you, you’re a damn fool.”
I thought about what Levi had said-about Sean losing time, losing memories. “I think you don’t have a fucking thing planned. I think you’re desperately chasing after me, like a playground bully.”
There was a long pause on the other line. When Sean finally spoke, his voice was low. “I want you to remember this moment. When I take Lakeview and you’re flat on your back, bleeding out, looking up at the real alpha, I want you to remember this.”
I didn’t need my draconic senses to know he wasn’t lying. He really believed that was our future. “You’re delusional.”
“You’ll see, Ace.” The line went dead.
Rage burned through, and my throat ached with the first hint of smoke. I ripped my phone away from my ear and squeezed it so hard it threatened to crack.
This was Dylan’s day. I wasn’t going to let Sean’s insane threats ruin it.
I hopped on my bike and gunned it back home. I took a long, winding route there, following the narrow two-lane highways into the mountains. The sharp switchbacks and steep turns almost made me feel like I was flying.
By the time I got home, my mood had lifted a bit. It was lunchtime, and as soon as I opened the door to the house, my appetite hit me like a hammer.
“Everything okay?” Harley asked as I walked in.
I nodded. “It’s handled.”
A slight frown flickered on her face, but it was gone quickly. She was dressed in tight jeans and a white tank top that showed off her small waist and the curve of her breasts, and she was busy making sandwiches for lunch. But the sight of her in the kitchen ignited a different kind of hunger.
There was no time to sneak off, though. Dylan was running around outside, throwing a frisbee into the wind and then catching it as it blew back toward him.
Harley followed my gaze to the windows. “He’s antsy. He’s nervous about tonight.”
“I’d be concerned if he wasn’t,” I said with a smile. “It’s a lot of new faces.”
“You think he’s ready for this?”
“He’s ready. He’s tough.” I stepped towards her and wrapped my arms around her waist. “Gets it from his mom.”
My anger was still present, a low simmer, but it was easier to push it aside with Harley in my arms. I’d handle Sean. I wouldn’t let anything ruin this day for Dylan.
The deck doors slid open. I expected to hear Dylan start shouting about his parents being gross, but he was uncharacteristically silent. I straightened as Dylan padded into the kitchen, his eyes downcast.
“You all right, Dyl?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Heard your bike when you pulled up.”
“Got that good dragon hearing.”
Harley laughed. “You don’t need super-hearing to hear that thing pull up.”
