heart accelerated and his mouth went dry. He couldn’t think about those kittens locked in those cages, not before he closed his eyes. In desperation, he caught her chin and turned her face up to his, finding her lips and kissing her until he couldn’t think straight, until she took everything away.
THIRTEEN
“Team one will be moving on Sacramento tomorrow night. We want to be finished with everything by three A.M. That’s when the security changes in the buildings we’re burning down. We want them completely in flames and impossible to save but with no loss of life. We’re not touching the building Haley Joico owns. The more Code looked into it, the more it seems as if she took out a huge insurance policy after talking with the Diamondbacks. She expects to profit from a fire.”
Czar looked around the table at the Torpedo Ink members sitting in the large room. The windows, as usual, were open to let in the ocean breeze. “She threw her girls under the bus, allowing the Venomous club to manage them because it gave her a larger paycheck than the Diamondbacks, and now she wants to get out from under them because they aren’t paying her the money they said they would.”
“You dance with the devil …” Ice said.
“Exactly,” Maestro agreed. “She can reap what she sowed.”
“Her building stays standing. We’ll do the managers because the Venomous bikers are pieces of shit and they’re willing to gang-rape one of ours and then turn her over to Holden for a price. Code, we have to have up-to-date information on where those three managers are at all times. We know when the clubs shut down in the early morning hours and who is on.”
“There’s actually six of them: the three main ones and their relief managers, the day ones,” Code pointed out.
“The Diamondbacks did include them in the contract, so we’ll take all six,” Czar said. “They won’t get a pass even if they work days. We need to know everything about all six of the managers: What are their names? Are they married? Any of them have long-term partners?”
Absinthe knew Czar would hate taking out a family man, even if that man was an asshole, unless he beat his woman and children, or worse, was into really ugly criminal behavior such as rape or that of a pedophile, something they hunted on a regular basis.
“None of the six are married. Good thing too, they think they’ve hit the jackpot with their new smorgasbord of women at their clubs. The women have tried to quit, but the Venomous club like to fall back on old habits and they use intimidation to get their way. No one has dared to cross them after they made examples out of the first girls that tried to leave.”
“What did they do to them?” Savage asked quietly.
Absinthe threw him a quick glance. That particular tone didn’t bode well for the six managers.
“Beat the holy hell out of them, raped them, and one was chosen to be a prime example for all of them. She was strung up on the pole in the middle of the stage and whipped to death. They had a lot of fun doing it,” Code said grimly. “I found photographs and video on their phones.”
“Send whatever you found to my phone,” Savage said, his tone mild as always.
Absinthe wanted to say that wasn’t a good idea, but he knew better. Whenever Savage got that tone, and he’d already been close to the edge, there was no holding back.
“We know what we have to do,” Czar said. “Code will give all of team one the necessary information. Team two will take care of everyone on the home front. Transporter and Mechanic, you two pull our vehicles for us, match plates and give them to Code to make certain if a cop runs them everything is on the up-and-up. Same thing with licenses. Alena, you ride with Code. I want you looking completely different. Contacts, hair color, nothing the same. I don’t want Ice and Storm to be able to identify you. We’ll make certain the buildings are empty before you take them down.”
Alena nodded. “No problem, Czar.”
“Mechanic, you make absolutely certain no camera is working. I want them all disrupted. Even if you think Code has shut them down, you disrupt everything for blocks around. Alena can’t be seen. None of us can be identified, but I’m not taking chances if this is in any way an attempt to