The clubhouse sat on a corner lot and took up half a block. Made of solid brick and surrounded by tall, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, it was as intimidating as the men it sheltered. Holding the brand new Nikon up to her eye, Talia snapped off a few pictures. They were boring, same as yesterday. Nothing to see.
She grumbled to herself. SAC Ingram wasn’t going to be happy. He wanted results where none was forthcoming. Not for the first time, Talia entertained the idea of just getting out of the car and marching into the concrete jungle to demand answers, but that wasn’t how an investigation was done. No, she needed to exercise patience, especially when dealing with hardened criminals like the Spartans.
She’d read up on all the case files—which were surprisingly few for a band of men who were supposed to be ruthless, cutthroat killers—studied the lay of the land, their past business dealings, their known associations, and the like. All she’d found was a whole lot of nothing. As of roughly ten years ago, the Spartan Riders had kept their noses clean. As far as anyone could tell, they were on the straight and narrow.
That is, until the department got wind of a possible connection between them and the missing women in and around the area. With the rise in human trafficking spreading like a plague across the country, it was a very real possibility that the gang hadn’t so much cleaned up their act as they’d gotten better at hiding it.
The president, one Blake Mahone, was currently working construction as owner/operator. He was wealthy enough, and from the intel they’d managed to gather, he extended the wealth to his gang via job opportunities. Not all of them worked alongside him, though. Some worked retail, others odd jobs. One worked part-time in a family-owned deli on the main street, and a good number of the rest worked in a stereotypical bike shop located on the property. They filed their taxes every year and on-time, had families, volunteered at soup kitchens. Hell, one even coached goddamn little league baseball for the elementary school.
Talia was not convinced that they were the bad guys her SAC tried to sell them as, but she wasn’t convinced they weren’t either. She’d encountered many men over the years—including her own husband—who knew how to hide their truths well. Unfortunately, when it came to her job, the burden of proof was on her. And she would get it. There hadn’t been a case yet, in all her seven years with the FBI, that she hadn’t closed.
If these guys were kidnapping women and selling them into slavery, she was going to make sure they all spent the remainder of their years in an eight by eight prison cell with Bubba breathing down their neck.
Eying the gates, Talia lifted the camera once more, snapped off another couple of shots, then lowered it back to her lap. Her eyes narrowed. What was the point? She was getting paid to sit there and do nothing. To make matters worse, even with the windows rolled down, the sun was slowly baking her alive. She felt like a rotisserie, the sweat dripping down the back of her neck. She was tired, cranky, and parched. Water sounded amazing, but she’d left the company-supplied apartment without checking the weather that morning and brought a bottle of soda instead, and there was nothing worse than a bottle of warm soda.
Considering her options, which were admittedly few, Talia came to a decision that would likely lead to a suspension. Ingram was very clear on his rules, with the main one being to follow orders to the letter.
Talia had always marched to her own drumbeat.
Welp here goes nothin’. With camera in hand, she popped the door open and slung a leg out, ready to take action. Nerves made her stomach flip and flop. She didn’t have a script prepared, so she had no idea what she was going to say once she got up there, but she had to believe—and hope—that the words would come. Otherwise, Ingram might not get the pleasure of stripping her of her job, because she’d be buried somewhere in a shallow grave next to the rest of the Spartan mishaps.
Talia was busy giving herself a pep talk as she rose from the car when the screech of metal cut through her thoughts. She froze, eyes wide as she watched the gates slide open, the first movement she’s seen in days. Excitement flared in her chest, and Talia threw herself back into the driver’s seat, the camera up to her eye, and her finger poised over the button.
A black motorcycle crawled forward, its pipes giving off a sexy purr that danced down her spine and made her all tingly inside. The element of danger was ripe, causing her to sweat more. As the bike rolled up to the edge of the drive, Talia’s gaze traveled to the rider, soaking in the head-to-toe leather ensemble. His face, obscured by a solid black helmet, was stunningly beautiful, she just knew it. With limbs as long as his, that laid-back way in which he reclined in the seat, and the competence with which he handled such a fierce piece of machinery screamed come to momma.
She’d bet women fell all over themselves to get to him. Hell, she felt the urge herself, and she knew he was likely a sex trafficker and worse.
Shaking her head, Talia willed herself to focus on the job at hand and drew the camera back into position, ready to add him to her collection—the first interesting piece, bar none.
She didn’t get that far. Through the viewfinder, she took in the rider’s position, noting that he hadn’t moved an inch since pulling through the open gates.
And, even though she couldn’t see his eyes through the tinted visor, she could feel them.
He was staring right at her.
OMG.
Panic sliced through her like a knife, but Talia forced her finger down on the camera’s button, shooting a dozen or more pictures of the rebel outlaw in front of her.
If she was about to die, at least she’d leave behind evidence of who’d done it. Assuming they didn’t smash it up first.
Hell, she hadn’t thought this through as thoroughly as she’d thought. It was all those days of nothing, she decided, that’d made her sloppy. He still hadn’t made a move and, hoping to lessen the damage, Talia pulled her sunglasses down at the same time she lowered the camera and dropped it into the passenger seat. If there was one thing she’d learned during her training, it was that the eyes were everything. Without the eyes, the chances of recognition were drastically lowered.
They sat there, staring at one another through a few millimeters of laminated glass in what felt like a showdown. Except, this showdown didn’t end in a blaze of bullets. Instead, Talia watched on in amazement and with a profound sense of relief when all the biker did was coast down the drive and speed off down the road.
With a renewed sense of adventure and determination, Talia twisted the key in the ignition and pulled out after him. A smile creased her cheeks as she ripped the shitty wig off and thought of the pictures she was about to get.
Maybe she wasn’t going to get fired after all.
