Hard Rider

“You have five seconds to explain what the fuck you’re doing in my port,” Talon growled, cracking his knuckles, “or else it’ll be just like old times…”

“My woman is on her way here,” I explained calmly. “Her name is Sarah. She–”

“Your woman, eh?” Talon replied quickly. “She was already here poking around my port. My men brought her to me, and she told me some interesting stories…”

Fuck.

The damned woman hadn’t even stopped for a fucking power nap. She’d driven straight here and somehow found her way to Talon… I already gave her a lot of credit for being resourceful, but this was a new record.

“Where is she now?” I asked cautiously.

Talon grinned malevolently.

The fucker enjoyed his position of power over me, and it was as plain as goddamn day.

“You think that I’d hurt her?”

I had to quickly make a choice.

“Maybe,” I answered calmly. “If she mentioned my name, then just maybe…”

Talon let loose a long and hearty laugh, before covering his mouth with a large fist as he coughed violently for a few seconds.

“You have my word that she’s safe, although if I’d had time to properly check into her claims before she left…” Talon grumbled finally. “I sent your woman’s pretty little ass away, but you’re lucky that’s the only thing I did…”

Relief washed over me, but it made me wonder.

Sarah… what did you tell him?

What did you do?

“The entire thing raised a question for me, however. This stranger in my territory knew your name, she knew my name, she knew my Devil’s Dragons… I find it hard to believe that you would let a mere woman hear my name. How exactly did she come by that kind of information?”

If there was one thing that Talon hated, it was people knowing who he was…

I needed to run damage control, quickly.

“Viboras Verde,” I spat out. “Sarah was with me when we counterattacked the cartel. She helped me save those cheerleaders and the undocumented girls. It was all over the news.”

Talon tilted his head.

“I’d heard some stories, yes. You have a bit of a hard-on for fucking around with the cartels, don’t you?”

“They took my sister,” I replied.

Talon nodded, rubbing his beard between a thumb and two fingers. “So they did… and you struck when they came back. You’re saying that Sarah was there?”

“She was,” I replied proudly. “She even found records of their operations. My Dragons and I have been swatting the fuckers down everywhere that they’ve turned up since.”

Talon’s face curled into a grin.

God, I always hated it when the fucker grinned.

“And I suppose that’s how your woman became intimately aware of your little shit-stain club, and us by association…”

I knew that the only way to deal with a man this dangerous was to put everything out on the table. Someone as cold and calculated as Talon always knew more than he let on, and trying to keep information from him was blatant disrespect at best… and worth a bullet at worst.

“Sarah is a private investigator,” I told him clearly and plainly. “I’m helping her work through a case that brings her this way.”

“A private investigator, you say?” Talon chuckled. “I had no idea…” Whether he was pulling my leg or not, there was no telling, and that’s just how he liked it.

“Sarah is searching for a shipping container that went missing from this port. This client of hers seems to have a lot of interest in it…”

“You’re wasting my time,” Talon grimaced. “You aren’t telling me anything new, including why you are here.”

“Talon, you pride yourself on information,” I replied as evenly as I could manage. “You like to know everything about what’s going on in your circles… every container that comes through this port… every client who wants to send seaside business through Los Angeles…”

He merely watched, waiting for the point.

“You can see then why I would find it strange that you didn’t know the container belonged to Soroka Sarkonov.”

That got a reaction.

Talon’s eyes flared in abject anger as he ascended from his throne, standing his ground above me with indomitable fury. He could barely stutter out his words.

“What… did… you… just… say?”

“Soroka Sarkonov owns that missing box,” I crossed my arms. “Sarah knows it too, but she doesn’t know a fucking thing about Sarkonov. She doesn’t believe that she’s in any danger. I tried to stop her, but she came here without me.

“I’m here to bring her back, no questions asked, without another word about this fucking container. We both know that anyone who gets mixed up with Sarkonov is dancing with the Devil.”

Talon slowly lowered himself down to his throne again, although his villainous slouch was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he sat forward, carefully watching me.

“Sarkonov? I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he insisted darkly, eyes glinted with malice.

Fine. Be that way.

I’ll play your little game.

“Don’t believe me, then,” I shrugged lazily. “I’m telling you who owns the container, and we both know you don’t want to be on the wrong side of this woman. Who do you think she’s going to blame for her shit going missing? The port authority, or you?”

The biker president stroked his beard some more, leaning back further into his throne. He considered these words thoughtfully, and I was left to stand in the midst of his people and wait uneasily for his response.

When it didn’t come, I spoke up again.

“I respect your position despite our…”

I fumbled for the right word.

“…Differences. We both know that you’re higher up the food chain, but I find it surprising that you’d be willing to work with Soroka… unless you didn’t know.”

Talon glowered at me, studying my expression.

That’s the moment that I knew.

“So it was a surprise,” I confirmed. “Holy shit. Soroka Sarkonov sent a container through your port and it didn’t blip your radar.”

He stiffened in his seat, his face a mixture of surprise and anger. “Why are we having this fucking conversation?”

“Because the woman carrying my child won’t listen to reason, and what’s the first thing she does when I tell her a fucking dangerous arms dealer is involved with her case? She drives straight fucking here.”

Talon laughed heartily again, obscuring more coughing. One of his bodyguards reached for a hand-rag for him, but he waved it away.

“Your woman has some real balls, Hunter… Got some information out of me I wasn’t trying to give.”

“Sounds like her,” I smiled.

Talo

n composed himself and gazed down at me with a mixture of irritation and amusement. I watched the cogs spinning in his head as the scales slipped back and forth.

Which one is going to win out?

“I know your missing container,” he finally explained to my surprise and relief. “We were supposed to load the crate onto an eighteen wheeler, but the crate disappeared.”

“It disappeared? Is that the story you’re going to tell Soroka? You’ve got guards posted on every damn exit. Tire shredders. Steel gates.”

“I didn’t say the crate left the port,” Talon growled impatiently. “I said it fucking disappeared.”

“So where the hell is it, then? Crates don’t just disappear off your goddamn dock unless you want them to disappear.”

“Remember your place, boy,” Talon growled menacingly, his voice creaking in his lungs. “Unless you want a second reminder of what happens when you forget where you stand…”

Before I could respond, his expression changed.

A mischievous glint appeared across his face as his eyes settled on the wound that he’d given me… the constant reminder that stretched down one side of my face.

“Maybe I can even you out a little,” Talon thought aloud, his irritation becoming very, very clear. As he began playing with a knife, I realized that I was pushing him too hard. “Such sloppy work I did before on the first one. I can even touch up the old scar, maybe…”

It was time I went for a different angle, before things started getting dicey. I didn’t exactly like dicey, especially not with this guy…

“Look, Talon. We both know who’s paying Sarah to look into this. Soroka wants information about your chapter of the Devil’s Dragons and she didn’t come to you for it… She’s paying my woman through one of her proxies, and that means she thinks you might be involved in making that container disappear, as you put it.

“That means that you’re now a dead man walking… Maybe I can help you.”

“You want to help me?” Talon suddenly roared, rising from his seat. “You arrive on my territory unannounced, barely behind that vapid bitch of yours, prowling through my port looking for a fucking box? And you have the audacity to pretend you are useful to me?”