Page 12 of Hawk (Road Rebels MC 1)
“All right,” he said, chuckling. “I can do that… princess.”
She giggled and placed a kiss on the tip of his nose, and I could’ve sworn I saw his heart lurch from his chest. He hugged her close, burying his face into the nape of her neck just like he would do me. I watched his back expand with the breath he was taking, memorizing the way she smelled before he finally put her back down on the floor. I knew at that very moment we had to tell her. I didn’t care when, where, or who was involved, but we had to tell her.
We had to tell Emery that Hawk was her father.
He kissed her one last time and put her down before he threw me a look. He came up and planted a barely-there kiss on my cheek, but my hand cupped the back of his neck. I drew my lips up to his ear as I felt his shoulders pull taut, no doubt worried that Emery was watching us.
“Soon,” I whispered. “We’ll tell her soon.”
I felt his forehead press into the side of my face as he smiled. I kissed his cheek lightly before I stepped off to the side, then turned and watched him walk out the door. His leather jacket spanning the length of his back as I hurried for the window. I watched him bring his bike around from the corner, which told me right there the paranoia he was working under. Emery was laying back down on the couch, stretching and groaning as she tried to wake herself up further, but my attention was elsewhere.
My attention was on Hawk driving down the road, leaving us behind at the house while we were being stalked.
“I really need to get his number,” I murmured to myself.
I almost stepped away from the window until a dark movement caught my eye. I looked down the road that Hawk had just traveled, squinting as I tried to figure out what was happening. There was something slowly creeping up the road, rolling down the pathway. I thought someone might be out of gas, or their car might have stalled, and I thought about checking the garage for something I could use to help them with. I was no stranger to car troubles with the rickety mom-van Hawk let me park in his garage, and most of my fondest memories of my father surrounded him teaching me all he knew about mechanics.
The great thing about me owning a shit car was the fact that I knew how to fix everything in it.
But as the vehicle slowly approached, I felt that same bubble of dread waft up my throat. I felt Emery hug my leg, her tired face buried into my side as I ran my fingers through her hair. I allowed the curtain to flutter back over the window, leaving only a sliver I could look through as the looming vehicle slowly rolled up the road.
That damn black sedan was back.
Only this time, it parked itself right outside the house.
Chapter 9
Hawk
Tonight was a very important night. Even though the shipment wasn’t due for another week and a half, I had to go to the warehouse to finalize everything with the truckers. I needed to make sure they were getting paid, I needed to check the schedule and make sure the drivers for the night before the shipment were the ones I requested, and I needed to iron out any kinks that might be happening in the plan. The shipment was never the issue because we always prepared so far in advance, but making sure that preparation paid off was a massive deal.
And it was one that was always tasked to me.
I rode up to the warehouse and was promptly met by the manager. He came over and greeted me with a handshake before he ushered me into his office. I needed to take a look at things: schematics, shipment number, crate numbers, schedules. He had everything laid out for me to make it easier, so I sat down and took my time looking over everything.
I double-checked crate numbers with what I had in my files and triple-checked all the payment records. It was important to us that those involved in helping us got paid their due. It’s how you created long-term relationships when working these types of ventures.
But I had to admit, that black sedan was still on my mind.
I hadn’t seen it while I was driving out of the neighborhood this evening, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t hiding around somewhere. I cursed not leaving my cell number with Syd, just in case she needed to call. I needed to remember to leave something on the fridge for her to see.
It was important that she could contact me in case of some sort of emergency.
“Everything looks good on this end,” I said. “Payment dropped into your account last night, right?” I asked.
“Yep. Asked all the workers, and they all got paid. They were all really happy, too. It was more than we were expecting,” he said.
“Well, we’ve got some discrepancies in our inventory. Nothing to do with you guys, it’s why we’re trying this type of route again. The extra money is to… incentivize the guys to keep their fingers off our things.”
“Understood,” he said. “I’ll pass the word on.”
“I would actually prefer it if you didn’t. I have a feeling the sticky fingers are actually within our ranks, and not coming from the outsiders helping us. I’m heading up this inventory count this time, so if we get all the stuff in and it’s all counted, and here, I can quickly rule out the outside workers without anyone knowing what I’m doing,” I said.
“Make sense. Sorry, you’re having troubles.”
“It happens. I figured the boost in pay would help to incentivize a job well done in a week and a half,” I said.
“It most certainly will. Thank you for your confidence.”
“Not a problem. If this goes well, would you and the guys be open to negotiating some sort of…?”
“Most definitely,” the man said, grinning.
“Perfect. I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll come back through a couple days before everything’s supposed to go down. Make sure you guys don’t need anything.”
“We’ll look out for ya,” he said.
“Oh, and one last thing,” I said. “There’s a worker here, goes by the name of Concrete?”
“Oh, yeah. Works just about every day, thank fuck. He’s a massive hulk of granite, hence the nickname.”
“He’s been hired by us for quite some time to look out for anything that might seem suspicious. Usually, we don’t say shit about this, but you seem like a guy I can trust.”
“You most certainly can, sir,” he said.
“If he reports anything weird back to me, your pay won’t be yanked. We don’t play that game. But he does have the authority to reroute as necessary, and let’s say his… muscles do a great deal of talking when people get in his way.”
I saw the man swallow hard and I knew I had his attention. I wanted to plant as many seeds as I could. Weeding out sticky fingers with outsiders required dropping seeds of information that even a toddler could piece together. We didn’t always work with the brightest of individuals, and if we got the entire shipment with everything intact after all I’d told this guy, I knew Talon, and I had to look towards our own club to figure out how the three boxes of ‘oil’ went missing.
“I understand completely,” he said.
“Good. I’ll be back in about a week,” I said. “There’s gonna be a truck that pulls up. The driver’s name is ‘Oceana.' Our merchandise needs to be loaded onto that truck as quickly as possible. The driver will take it from there. That’s all you guys need to do.”
“Got it. Keep an eye out for anything weird, unload the delivery truck, load up your truck, and send off Oceana.”
“If the driver gives you any other name, load him up with something else. Anything else. I don’t care what it fucking is. If the person driving that truck does not tell you his name is ‘Oceana,' do not give him our shit.”
“You know the driver’s a man? What if a woman tells us her name is ‘Oceana?” he asked.
“Good. I like a man that pays attention,” I said, grinning. “No. It’s a male driver. If it’s a woman, I don’t care if she gives you the right name. The driver has to be male, and the driver’s name has to be ‘Oceana.'”
“Got it,” the man said.
“Perfect.”
I walked down the warehouse
