Empire of Savages (Savage Hunt MC #1)

10. Nick

Chapter 10

Nick

Twenty minutes later, Gunnar pulled his Mustang to a stop against the curb of a house I’d never been to before. The neighborhood wasn’t exactly known for its upstanding citizens either. You were far more likely to find a drug deal going down on the corner than a couple of kids with a lemonade stand.

I looked around the street, noting the beat-to-shit early model cars that looked as if they’d been in a number of wrecks judging by the dents and scrapes. “Where the fuck are we?”

“War Chiefs’ cook house,” my best friend said, getting out of the car.

I followed. “War Chiefs?”

“The Devils’ puppet club I was telling you about. Brooks found out that Talon has them cooking meth for the Devils in exchange for protection.” Reaching to the small of his back, Gunnar pulled out the gun he had stashed there and checked it over with an efficiency I appreciated. “Kaash thought they might know a little something about who killed your brother. Plus, we can fuck with their production a little at the same time, and that’s always a bonus.”

Grabbing my Glock, I held it down by my side as I eyed the houses again. I didn’t know who was watching and who wasn’t, but I wasn’t willing to take the risk of being seen with a weapon in plain sight. It wasn’t that I was afraid to go back to prison. It was more that I didn’t want to see the inside of those walls again until I’d done what I came to do.

Gunnar took the lead, walking up the street. I followed behind him, keeping tabs on any movement, anyone lurking behind windows or standing stock-still on the porch steps. Gunnar eventually started across the lawn of one property, the long yellowing grass—so long that it brushed against the middle of our thighs—swaying in the hot breeze. The windows on the house were boarded up tight, but between the boards, I could see aluminum sheeting stuck to the inside of the glass.

Gunnar set one foot on the porch, pausing for a moment to see if anyone was alerted to our presence. There weren’t any cameras mounted out here, so if this was a cook house, they were either stupid or they weren’t concerned with anyone approaching from the street.

A banging sound caught my attention, and I glanced down the side of the house. There was a detached garage down there with a dented and rusted door. Motioning to Gunnar that I was going to investigate, I said, “Use our signal to let me know when to come through the back.”

I stepped back off the porch soundlessly and made my way down the side of the house.

The windows running down the length were covered in aluminum sheeting also, which served to keep prying eyes out of their business, but also made it hard for them to see who was coming. At the back of the house, the yard was as unkempt as the front, except that the grass was shorter. Burn marks scorched the grass, while piles of large, empty acetone containers were stacked haphazardly against the neighboring fence.

My head turned when there was another bang, and I brought my gun up and approached the back door. The screen was banging in the wind, the old hinges doing nothing to stop the motion. Suddenly, a shaft of light from inside hit the dirt and I pressed myself against the wall. Sliding along, I strained to hear any other sounds or voices.

“We’ll get it done,” someone said before something clattered.

“Was that Malcom?” another man asked.

“Yeah. He’s heard from Talon. He wants to double production.”

“We don’t have the manpower for that,” the second voice said.

There was a crash, then, “You think I don’t know that?” the first man screamed. “We’d have to work for a week straight, twenty-four seven to produce enough for La Croix.”

Easing closer to the window, I peered inside a crack in the sheeting.

A man wearing nothing but a pair of workout shorts was standing in the kitchen. Sweat glistened on his bare skin. “How long do we have?”

“Two motherfucking days.” I couldn’t see the other man yet, but I saw a chair being sent into the wall. It splintered on impact.

“Mother fuck !”

The shadow of the man told me he was pacing, his hands cradling his head as he tugged at his hair.

“We’ll produce what we can,” Workout Shorts said. “Work round the clock.”

“We can’t produce what the Devils need in two days, Van! We need a week.”

Van watched the other man pace. “Rich, man, can you buy us more time with the prez?”

The other man—Rich—finally stepped into view. He was a tall motherfucker with tattoos covering both arms and up his neck. With a shaved head and dark eyes with matching dark circles beneath, he looked as if he was sampling the product as much as he was cooking it.

“Talon ain’t giving us more time. Malcom already asked, and if we don’t produce the product they need, we ain’t getting what we need from the Devils.”

Van ran a hand through his hair and scanned the floor. His head jerked up suddenly, and he opened his mouth to shout something when he crumpled to the floor. Rich reached for a gun on the table, but before he could take aim, he’d joined Van on the cracked linoleum—bleeding out.

Gunnar walked into the kitchen a moment later, checking the two men for signs of life and any more weapons before opening the back door.

“Were you just planning on watching all day?” he asked.

I stepped into the kitchen. “You know, you don’t have to approach every problem with force. And what happened to the fucking signal?”

Gunnar scoffed. “Don’t tell me prison has made you soft, Nick. You were always the one to shoot first and ask questions later.”

As I checked the cupboards, I muttered, “Yeah, well, prison taught me to listen before creating the fucking noise.”

Gunnar brushed off the comment, grinning at me. “Where’s the fun in that, Nick? Come on.”

He opened the basement door in the corner of the kitchen, and the intense heat that rushed up was staggering. The smell of ammonia was just as overpowering as the heat. Rap music was blaring from down below, confirming my suspicions that these guys were straight up stupid about security.

“Looks like we found our cook house.”

“I thought you said you already knew it was,” I said, covering my nose and mouth with the top of my t-shirt.

He shrugged. “It was a hunch. Come on.”

Gunnar led the way downstairs, making as little noise as possible even though the thumping beat covered our steps. He motioned me to stop a few steps away from him as he hunched down to take stock. Gunnar held up three fingers, then indicated their location within the room. When he started to count down, I let out a breath and waited. Gunnar moved quickly, taking care of the closest guy while I came up behind him and shot the second. The third man quickly realized he was outgunned and outnumbered, holding his hands up in surrender.

Gunnar grinned maliciously as he approached. “You going to be a good boy and tell us everything we need to know?”

“Anything,” the man said. “Just please don’t shoot me.”

He couldn’t have been any older than nineteen—too young to be involved in this motherfucking life—but who was I to pass judgement. While Gunnar began to interrogate him, I surveyed the bricks of crystal meth lining the shelves against the walls.

“When are the Devils coming for this shipment?” Gunnar asked.

“I don’t know. I just package the stuff. Malcom doesn’t tell me shit.”

“Bullshit,” Gunnar sneered, lowering the muzzle of his gun to the guy’s kneecap, then blew right through it.

The kid screamed, dropping to the rough concrete floor and curling himself around what was left of his knee.

Gunnar got down to his eye level. “I’m going to ask you again, and I hope your answer changes this time. When are the Devils coming for this shipment?”

The guy’s face leached of color as he breathed through the pain. Agonized, he licked his lips and said on a defeated sigh, “Two days. They’re coming to collect in two days.”

“There, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Gunnar asked, gripping the kid by the hair, and yanking him back onto his feet. As soon as the guy opened his mouth in a shout, Gunnar shoved the gun between his lips.

“Wait!” I shouted.

Irritation flashed in Gunnar’s eyes as he rounded on me. “He told us when the shipment was being picked up.”

Ignoring my club brother, I walked up to the kid, motioning for the muzzle of the gun to be removed from his mouth. When the kid could talk, I asked, “What do you know about the hit on Dimitri Sobolev?”

His wide-eyed gaze darted from my face to Gunnar. When he didn’t respond, I pistol-whipped him across the temple.

“I asked you a question.”

His dazed eyes finally fixed on my face. Blood spurted down from the cut above his eye, running along his nose and dribbling off his lips. “Who?” he asked.

Through gritted teeth, I replied, “Dimitri. Sobolev. My brother. What do you know about the hit that was taken out on him?”

“Nothing, man. I haven’t even heard that name before. I swear, Ka?—”

Bang!

Gunnar had moved in a blur, shoving the barrel of his gun back into the kid’s mouth and pulling the trigger. Blood, bone, and gray matter sprayed out on the concrete and wall behind him, the arc of the spray hitting the stacked meth, too.

Gunnar stood up straight and holstered his gun as the body dropped to the floor.

I rounded on him. “What the fuck?” I roared. “We could’ve tortured more information out of him.”

Gunnar kicked the body. “This dumb fuck was a peon. He didn’t know dick.”

I stared down at what was left of the kid, feeling any sense of hope draining from my body. I knew nothing about who had shot my brother, or why, and now, the one lead we did have was in pieces on the filthy floor.

Gunnar gripped me by the shoulder, squeezing gently once, then moved away. “Sorry, brother. I should’ve waited, but I’m just so fucking pissed that the Devils are doing this on our doorstep. You know I have issues with reacting first and thinking after.”

Rubbing the back of my neck, I bit down on my anger. It was more than likely that Gunnar was right about this. What were the chances that this kid knew anything? He was only packaging the drugs, not masterminding the operation.

“Want to fuck with the Devils?” Gunnar asked, grinning back at me from his position near the stacked meth bricks. He was weighing one in his hand, bouncing it up and down gently.

“What do you mean?”

He returned his attention to the drugs. “The way I see it, we have two choices.” He put the brick back. “The first is we come back in two days’ time and wait for La Croix’s men to show up for the shipment, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or we take the lot of it and sell it ourselves.”

“The Hunt don’t sell meth,” I pointed out.

Gunnar turned and gripped me by the shoulder, moving his head closer. “We could keep it on the down-low,” he said softly. “Just you and me.”

I looked around at the product. There had to be at least a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of crystal. Rixon’s stance on hardcore drugs was firm, though—it wasn’t tolerated—and I had no interest in going back to prison if we got caught with it.

Shaking my head, I said, “Not interested.”

For a moment, irritation flashed in Gunnar’s eyes before his expression smoothed out. He gave a self-deprecating laugh and walked over to a container of acetone, toying with the lid. “You know, you’re right, Nick. That was a fucking stupid suggestion.” He fixed me with an intense stare. “Let’s just burn the motherfucking house to the ground.”

Gunnar flipped the lid off the acetone container, kicking it over and letting the clear liquid glug from the hole in the top to spill over the floor. He took another and drenched the bricks of meth, covering the perimeter with a kind of manic glee I’d never seen in him before. I knew people changed while you were on the inside, but I didn’t think I’d see this drastic of a change in the man I considered my best friend.

“Better get moving,” Gunnar told me, taking the lighter from his pocket and flipping open the lid. The rasp of the flint seemed as loud as a gunshot in the basement—the countdown timer to get the fuck out of there. I took the stairs two at a time out of the basement, hustling through the door in the kitchen, past the two bodies and toward the back door. Just as I reached it, there was a whoosh and Gunnar’s pounding footsteps through the kitchen. The flames were so intense I felt the heat of them on my face as they licked through the basement door.

“Run, motherfucker!” Gunnar shouted, pushing past me and out the back door. Following him, I covered my head as the chemicals inside the house started to explode. Loud pops and bangs followed as we took off at a sprint down the road.

Gunnar crowed as we jumped back into his car and pulled away from the curb, the engine roaring.

He gripped the steering wheel lightly as he looked in the rearview mirror. With his free hand, he slapped my chest. “That was some fucking fun, huh, Nick?”