Outlaw: Screaming Eagles MC (21 page)

Chapter Forty-One

He slept alone on the couch. He heard the sadness in Grace’s voice when he didn’t join her. But he had made it this far without breaking; he could keep going. He wanted her, but he knew he would always want her. Whether she was near or far, he would always long for her. But he knew it was better to stay as far away as he could.

He still hadn’t figured out a plan. He didn’t know how to take down the Screaming Eagles. He was just one man. What was he supposed to do? How could one man take down an organization like the Screaming Eagles. He had no in, no one he could contact. He was stuck and it was driving him crazy.

After the workout and the sex Falcon was beyond exhausted and he fell into a heavy sleep almost immediately.  He dreamt he was underwater. He was trying to walk through the water for some reason, but it was impossible. Every step was a struggle; he was fighting to move forward, but the thick water was holding him back. He needed to get somewhere, there was something he needed to do, there was a door ahead and he reached for it, his arm straining and then he finally reached the doorknob and turned it.

And then he was somewhere else. He was in a club. Everything was bathed in Technicolor light and there was a song playing, but one he couldn’t quite remember the name of. There was a door in front of him and he knew there was something very important behind that door. But he couldn’t open it, because the important this was also a big scary thing and he couldn’t let that thing know that he was here or it would kill him.

He woke with a gasping start sitting straight up on the couch. There was a pale blue dawn outside and Falcon knew exactly how he was going to get the Screaming Eagles. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him when Grace awoke and stumbled out her bedroom in a pair of yoga pants and a white tank top.

“You’re up early,” she said as she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down across from him.

“I know what to do,” Falcon said, nodding his head at nothing in particular.

“What are you talking about?” Grace asked. 

“I want to bring down the Screaming Eagles and I know how to do it. I’m done hiding in this house. I’m ready for a fight.”

“No,” Grace said shaking her head. “You can’t. You were just beaten half to death; you need your rest. You’re just here to get better. Once you're healthy, you need to go into witness protection.”

“I could have gone into witness protection anytime, couldn’t I?”

Grace looked away, “Maybe I wasn't quite ready to send you on your way.” She finally turned to look up him and he could see tears resting on the edge of her lashes. “I guess I got a little selfish.”

“I don’t mind,” he said reaching across the table and taking her hand. “But I need to do something. I can’t hide in this house forever. It’s starting to drive me crazy.”

“So,” Grace said, pulling her hands away. “What’s your genius plan?”

“It’s funny, I thought I had blocked it out,” Falcon said, getting a far away look as he spoke. “It was a couple of months ago. Back when I still just a foot soldier who wasn’t trusted with anything important. We just had a successful raid and we went to a club afterward. I remember it was a really nice club, filled with these beautiful twenty-something girls with long legs and short dresses. We were drinking bottles of top shelf liquor that was all paid for by the boss. It was a great night, one of those times when you feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. The boss was upstairs with his boys in a VIP room and the rest of us were down on the dance floor. I needed to take a piss, so I went up to the VIP section because I knew they had a bathroom up there. It was quieter up there. The walls were thick and it muffled the music from the club. There were all these Technicolor lights making these swirling patterns all over the walls.

I walked past the VIP area in there and I heard the boss laughing. It was such a weird sound and I was pretty drunk so I leaned against the wall to hear better, but it was what I heard next that mattered.”

“What did you hear?” Grace asked, she was staring at him, listening to every word.

“There’s an underground bunker. It’s really well hidden, but it’s in the woods behind the club. If you walk behind the clubhouse into the forest, it’s about fifty feet back into the woods. You know where it is because there’s this old, crumbling house sitting on top of it. The ground around it is undisturbed. That’s what they were talking about in the club: the bunker and what they keep in it. The day after I overheard them talking about it, I went back into the woods to check it out. It’s there. I found the trapdoor underneath what used to be the kitchen. I didn’t go down into it, but I saw the steel door. I know it’s there.”

“So, they have a bunker. That’s not against the law.”

“No, but what’s in it is. There’s a secret stash in there. Not just meth and MDMA, but guns and other weapons. Plus, a lot of evidence from the crimes they’ve committed; the bunker is where they stash all that stuff.”

“Why would they keep evidence? Why wouldn’t they just destroy it?” Grace asked.

“The boss doesn’t do anything himself,” Falcon explained. “He always has his guys do the actual dirty work. It’s future blackmail opportunity. Some guy wants to leave the gang and now the boss has some very good reasons why that guy should stay.”

Grace looked down into her coffee deep in thought. Falcon wondered what went on her head; he wondered what she was thinking about not just then, but all the time.

“So, if this bunker is there-” Grace started.

“It is,” Falcon interrupted.

“Then it’s a good lead, but you don’t need to have anything to do with it,” Grace continued shaking her head, tossing her messy curls over her shoulders. “You’re injured and it’s too dangerous. We need to get you into witness protection.”

“There’s more,” he continued.

“What?” Grace asked.

“I know the leaders of the gang are going to meet there in three days at nine o’clock.”

“How do you know that?” Grace asked, her eyes wide with possibilities.

“Before you arrested him, the boss’s right hand man was a guy named Big Chris. Not too long ago, he asked me to hold his phone while he went to take a piss. It was unlocked when he handed it to me, and I was messing around on it when I opened the calendar. There it was for the world to see,
Meeting with E & big boys @ B.
Meeting with Ernie and the other top leaders in the Screaming Eagles at the bunker. It has to mean that.”

Grace nodded thoughtfully and Falcon watched as her intelligent face began to form a plan. He sipped his coffee and nodded to himself. This was the right thing to do. It might be the last thing he did as Falcon Marks, it might be the last thing he ever did, but he was ready to do it. He might die in a hail of bullets, but if it meant getting the boss behind bars, it would be worth it. He wanted to do it for Sophie; he wanted to do something she would be proud of. He wanted to make the world a little bit safer for her and this was the only way he knew how.

Chapter Forty-Two

“It’s right here,” Falcon said, pointing to a nondescript section of the woods behind the Screaming Eagles clubhouse.

“I thought you said there was an abandoned house on there. None of these maps show any kind of structure and there aren’t any utility lines that go back that far,” Grace said as she peered over the map. It was the next morning and they were trying to figure out the best way to destroy the club. Grace still wasn’t sure if they should go in with sirens screaming and guns blazing, or try and sneak in and focus solely on the top brass.

“It was an old building,” Falcon said and he remembered it as he spoke. “It’s about fifty paces back in the woods. There’s an old path that leads into the woods. It’s barely a path at all, it’s all overgrown with weeds, but there are no trees on the path, no saplings or anything like that. Someone is keeping it clean, but not too clean. There’s a chain going across the path to try and keep people out. I remember I ducked under the chain and took a few steps back and was in a deep forest. The trees were tall, but there was still a lot undergrowth; it was dark and cool in the forest and I followed the path back to this broken down old house. The stone foundation was still there; the wood flooring, weathered and worn, was still there. There were even a few of the walls still standing. But the roof is long since gone as are most of the interior walls.

But when you’re in it, you can see that it had once been a house. You can see where the living room was; there’s a big, crumbling fireplace right in the center of the wall. Past that room, and through a still standing doorway is the kitchen. The trap door to the bunker is in the kitchen. The hinges are hidden near the wall and the handhold just looks like a worn-away piece of the floor. It’s so well hidden. The only reason I found it was my footfalls sounded different when I stepped on it.”

Grace nodded and said, “And this meeting starts at nine, you’re sure of that?”

“Yeah. I remember it being strange since bikers aren't known for getting up early. But it makes sense: you take the leaders out to the bunker while the foot soldiers are sleeping. This way we have no idea what’s hiding in our own backyard.” He shook his head. He had been a fool so many times as a Screaming Eagle. He had been used and lied to and looking back he wanted to kick himself for not noticing it earlier.

“These woods back here are thick. That concerns me,” Grace said, a worried look crossing her face.

“Yeah, the Screaming Eagles parking lot is the only way to get here,” Falcon said.

“But if we park a dozen cruisers in the parking lot of their own clubhouse, they are going to know something is up. They’ll warn the boss and that will give him time to get away and we don’t want that.”

“You and me,” Falcon said as he looked into her eyes. “You and me ride in on your bike. It will be early; no one will be on watch. We can ride up like we’re any two members of the club and then sneak back to the bunker. We can surprise Ernie and hold him while a team takes the clubhouse.”

“Will he be alone?”

“Probably not. But the people with him won’t be his old and trusted lieutenants. All of the men he promoted are in jail. He’s desperate for leaders in the gang. Whoever is with him will be green and we’ll have the element of surprise.”

“Green bikers are still dangerous bikers,” Grace countered. “They might panic and do something stupid.”

“They might, but we’ll have a SWAT team pulling up into the parking lot. We’ll be the ones in charge; they’ll do what we say.”

“It will have to be meticulously planned and we’ll have to do it in such a way that none of the Screaming Eagles see us coming. Two waves make that harder,” Grace said. “Two waves are two opportunities for mistakes.”

“Then we won’t make any mistakes. Look, you and I go in first, there’s no way to screw that up. We’ll both have helmets and we can wear something that blends in. We’ll just look like a biker and his old lady coming home from a rough night and that’s if anyone sees us. It’ll be early, early for bikers anyway; everyone will still be fast asleep when we roll up.”

“And hopefully they’ll be fast asleep when the SWAT team comes in.” She was still shaking her head and looking at the map like it had personally disappointed her in some way. “I don’t like that there’s no real road back to the bunker. Maybe we can take the chain down.”

“It’s grown into the two trees it hangs from. We’d have to cut it and these are thick pieces of chain. It might take a blowtorch to break them and that will definitely call attention to us. Do you not trust me?”

“Of course I trust you,” Grace answered with a flick of her hand. “You’ve been living in my house for a week. If there had been a moment for betrayal I think we passed it a while back. The woods make me nervous. There are a lot of places for people to hide in the woods.”

“Wow, I never would have thought you would be the kind of girl to hate nature,” Falcon teased.

“If it gets in the way of my job, I hate it.”

“But what do you think of the plan?” Falcon asked.

“It’s a good one,” Grace said with an appreciative nod. “You’ve given me so much good information, Falcon. I would have been lost without you.”

“You would have done all right...”

“No, I wouldn’t have. You told me about the apartment, and after they promoted you I got another huge score. The captain keeps telling me I’m doing an amazing job, but it’s all thanks to you.” She looked up at him through her lashes and he remembered the other Grace. The Grace from yesterday who was nothing but passion and sweat and sex. How could she be those two opposites, a tough cop and sex demon, rolled up into one perfect woman?

“Thanks,” Falcon said, turning away to put the cups in the sink. He didn’t know what to do with such honest praise; no one had ever given it to him before.

“I need to run this past my boss, but I don’t think he’ll have any problem with it. We can move tomorrow. You and me first and then the SWAT team. It’ll be the worst double feature the Screaming Eagles have ever seen.” She smirked as she rolled up the map and left to get dressed for work.

Tomorrow. It seemed too soon and an eternity away all at once. Falcon shook his head as he loaded the cups into the dishwasher. How many times had he told himself that this would be it, this would be the last thing, and then something else would come along? He was like the boy who cried wolf, and he was desperate to know if this was going to be the last time. If this would end it.

The last week in Grace’s house had felt like some mirage, a glimpse into a different life he could have had. A life with a nice house and beautiful woman, a life with all of the things he wanted. He could move Sophie in, have her own room with Little Mermaid wallpaper. She could spend the night and stay with him for weeks at a time. He could be a real father and have a real life and a real family.

But it wasn’t real. This wasn’t his life and this wasn’t his home. He couldn’t stay here and after tomorrow he couldn’t have anything to do with Sophie or Grace. If this encounter with the Screaming Eagles was really the end, then Falcon needed to be sure he was ready to say goodbye.