Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“Sorry, I just… I’m not supposed to be here. None of this was supposed to happen.”
“Welcome to life, beautiful.”
The van stops, and a few moments later there’s three quick knocks on the back door before it opens. They don't cuff me or march me through the doors like a prisoner as we enter the bus station, but they keep me centered between them, and someone is always close enough to grab me. In some ways, I’m probably the safest person here right now. Nobody would dare touch me with them around.
The lockers are in the basement. It’s not a big town, so the place isn’t exactly swarming with people. Right now it’s just me and my captors. Eager to get it over with and prove I’m not making things up, I pick up speed down the hall as we get closer to the locker. It’s the third section on the right. I crouch down and put my key in the lock. This is it.
Here's hoping I'm not making a huge mistake.
I open up and reach inside. My fingers close on nothing. My heart freezes, refusing to pump ice through my veins.
“No, no, no,” I chant, crouching even lower and feeling all the way to the back of the locker.
Savage crosses his arms in front of his chest and sighs. “Give it up, Paige.”
“No! It should be here!” I double check the locker number, but why would my key work anywhere else? No matter how many times I open and close the door, it's not going to change anything.
It’s empty.
5
CRANK
“I’m dead,” Faith whispers, falling back into her heels and looking at the empty locker with a thousand yard stare. Either she's an Oscar-winning actress, or she’s legitimately freaked the fuck out, and I'm pretty sure I've never seen her on the big screen. “It—it’s all gone.”
Fuck. This ain’t our first rodeo. Legal or off the books like this one, our job is to track the target down and bring them back for justice. We don’t flirt. We don’t make friends. We sure as hell don’t drive them all over town.
Me, Savage and Poe glance at each other. Pretty sure we’re all thinking the same thing. This bounty has gone to shit, fast.
In the Outlaw Sons, they call us the Pickup Artists because we’re good at two things: women, and our job. Usually those streams don’t cross. I can count on one hand the number of cases I’ve taken that involved a female target.
Not that women can’t be shitty, but usually their reasons are good. Bringing a deadbeat dad back to court to pay child support? No problem. Bringing in a mom because she skipped town with her kid when our city’s flawless fucking justice system decided some abusive asshole should get unsupervised access? Not gonna be me.
“Look up.” Poe points at the ceiling and he's got that look on his face. Any opportunity to mess with something technical, and he's ready.
Spread out down the hall at regular intervals, are small black domes. Security cameras.
“They're not gonna just let us in to look,” I say, but I’m game to try if they are.
Savage scrubs his beard with one hand and sighs. He points his hard eyes at Paige. “You’re sticking to your story? Because this is the time to come clean if you’re leading us on a fucking wild goose chase.”
She looks up, her wide chestnut eyes bloodshot. She nods. “I swear to God. I stashed my money here when I got to this town. I’ve only used—” she looks around, nervous. “About two hundred dollars of it.”
“Fuck. I better not regret this.”
She springs to her feet. “You won’t. Please help me. If we get the money back, you’ll believe me and we can work out a deal, right?”
He grunts.
Shit. I don’t wanna kill the hope in her eyes, but the cold hard reality is that if someone found a stash of drugs or cash in her locker, then they’re long gone. Even if we find security footage, she’s telling the truth about everything, and we get the cash back… there’s not gonna be a deal.
Even a fraction of a million dollars is really damn tempting, but we’re no lone wolves with only our own reputations on the line. We’re full, blooded members of the Outlaw Sons MC. Hellfire would have our asses if he thought we were pulling shit like that. No, there’s no way Savage would take a cut of stolen money and let her go.
But I’d put money on his plan being to find out if Paige’s uncle is playing fast and loose with the facts to avoid paying what the job’s really worth. No, we’re not gonna take a cut of a client’s stolen money, but we’ll definitely fucking bargain to get paid what we’re owed.
Leading her on like this makes me feel like an asshole, but she’s no open book either. All cute and innocent, but we found her on the run with someone else’s money and all she’ll say is that it’s fucking complicated. We’re dancing around each other, nobody being quite honest.