Road Tripped (Satan's Devils MC Utah #1) - Manda Mellett Page 0,38

station has its own screen. There’s a low hum of computers whirring in the background as fans keep them cool. In the corner, his back turned toward the rest, sits Stormy. I notice he doesn’t greet me. I also find I don’t care.

“Okay, question time.” I look down at Swift. “Why do Drummer and all the other chapters think Utah’s got no technical capacity? And no computer experts?” It gets worse, I recall. “Why the fuck do you call on Mouse’s help when you need information? Or,” I wave my hand, “is this all for show?”

“There,” Honor’s voice interrupts, pointing to his screen.

“Got it,” Duty replies. His hands fly over his keyboard. “Tickets sorted.” He then sits back and fist bumps his, what? Partner? Colleague? Lover?

“And,” I add to my list of questions, “what are you doing here?”

Swift nods her head toward Honor. “Part of it is what these two are working on. We sometimes provide aid to a pipeline to help women, and men, escape from abusive partners. They’re currently tracking the progress of a woman and her kid, making sure they get to the next stage of their journey. Duty’s just hacked into the Greyhound database to ensure tickets are waiting for them when they arrive at the terminal. That moves them on safely, with no trace back to them.”

It sounds impressive and far more worthwhile than anything I was thinking. “What else?”

“This is the hub of our operation. If, when, you go out on a case, you’ll be connected back to here. Where possible, camera feed from our body cams will show on these monitors, and you’ll be given the information you need to know.”

“What operations?” I ask, then backtrack. “No, go back to my original question. Why the fuck make Mouse, Cad, Token, and Keys jump through hoops when you’re set up better than they are?”

She purses her lips and gives a slight grimace. “We’re good at what we do, Road. We run a tight ship, as ‘Boy would say. Sure, we can, and do, help other chapters, even when they don’t know. But we can’t have our facilities used for every little enquiry that Mouse needs help with. If they knew what we could do, they’d want to use us and our capability, and at times we’re almost too stretched to help ourselves.”

Mouse has got his own expert hacker on speed dial—a woman who’s married to an Arab prince of all things. I doubt he’d be calling on Utah. My lips thin. But that’s beside the point. Surely chapters should want to help each other out?

But she’s intimated they do, just not openly. Wheels whir in my mind as I try to dredge something up. Something I remember hearing about sat around the table back in Tucson. It couldn’t be, could it?

It adds up. With a touch of anger, I try my idea out. “San Diego? Were you the fuckin’ dicks leading Token around by the nose? Telling Lost his old lady needed protection without explaining why? Giving Token the key to decipher the information?” It might not have happened in our chapter, but Drummer wanted us all to know. None of us like a mystery. “You were the ones who fuckin’ sent up the drone?” That my words have struck home is shown by the way Swift’s lips have thinned. I don’t need the slight raise of her chin to confirm it.

“Goddamn it.” I smash my hand down on the back of a chair.

“That would have been Stormy.” Swift’s tone suggests she didn’t approve. That he helped? Or the way he did it?

There’s more. Could Stormy have…? Suddenly I find myself taking a step toward him. “Did you take out that fuckin’ bastard Lost deserved to have his time with?”

Stormy waves a dismissive hand above his shoulder, but doesn’t turn around. “The fucker’s dead. What more did they want?”

Revenge. And, if I recall rightly, answers about why Alder was so intent on finding Lost’s old lady.

“You motherfucker,” I roar. Everyone in San Diego and Tucson had been running themselves ragged looking for answers, when they were to be found in Utah all along.

Stormy stands and looms menacingly. “You want to fuckin’ take—” His voice abruptly stops and his eyes goes wide as he looks toward his screen.

All the bodies around me have frozen, then as fast defrost. As if summoned by an invisible deity, Honor and Duty stand, then, with Stormy rudely brushing past me, knocking into my shoulder and almost putting me off