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Hawk
Hawk watched as his little bird rode away with fucking Raj. He did not like or trust the fucker. One bright spot was that he had been able to get Wolf on her team. Knowing he had a man he trusted watching out for her had him breathing a little easier.
“She’ll be okay. Law will watch over her.” A rough voice interrupted his musings.
Turning he nodded at Tiny who had watched the group ride away as well.
“I just don’t like that Raj fucker. He’s too fucking slick.”
Hawk sighed and turned back to the open factory doors as Tiny threw a heavy arm around him and laughed.
“She’s safely out of the way in Umhlanga and my girl knows how to watch her back. Stop worrying and let’s get shit done so we can go home. You don’t like Raj and I really don’t like this fucking city.”
Hawk laughed as he followed Tiny back inside. He was right. His woman was strong and knew how to look out for herself. And she had Wolf with her. His brother wouldn’t let anything happen to his woman.
It felt strange riding his bike without his cut. Not just strange, it felt like he was naked. He had been calling on club contacts to collect the shit Gav needed and thank fuck they were almost done. He looked forward to getting back to the factory and pulling his cut back on.
Hours later Hawk glanced over his shoulder at the cage being driven by the prospect and sighed. The kid had the widest fucking grin on his face. At least one of them was happy he thought as they rode back into the open doors of the loading bay.
After offloading all the shit he grabbed a cold beer and walked outside. Taking a deep drink of his cold beer he sat on the steps outside the bay doors staring at the weed and kikuyu infested yard as the light slowly faded. He was holding his phone in his hand and contemplating calling his woman when it rang. He didn’t know the number.
“Hawk.”
There was a beat of silence and then a throat cleared. “Hawk. It’s Raj.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, as such. I just thought I should call and give you a heads up. Your woman is making arrangements to leave the country for the US with her boss, Pixie. I’m not sure what’s going down but I thought you should know. I tried to talk to her but she shut me down.”
It hit Hawk right in the chest and he had to take a breath before he answered.
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll take care of it.”
He didn’t wait, he called her as soon as he finished the call.
And then, once again, he fucking blew it by being a total dick.
He knew the minute he ended the call that he had fucked up. But he would not back down. He couldn’t. Her safety was all that mattered. Her boss was a Maingarde, not to be trusted.
He was still sitting there when Skelly stormed outside.
“Why the fuck would you treat DC like she’s some airheaded bimbo? No, don’t answer that because I will tell you why. It’s because every single bitch you’ve ever fucked has been a fucking air head. Your ex-wife included. Between them those fucking bitches don’t possess one fucking brain cell. Now you’re with a woman with more brains in her fucking pinkie than all of your whores put together and you’re treating her the way you treat them.” Skelly snarled and waved a hand to shut him up when Hawk tried to answer.
“No, I don’t want to hear a fucking word from you. You’re a stupid fucking prick for believing a word that ass wipe Raj tells you. He fucking hates you and this shit he just pulled confirmed my suspicions that he hates DC as well. And now I have to find a way to calm my girl down and get her to stay put and at the same time do this fucking job with Gav. She wants to go home, right the fuck now. Stay off the fucking phone, don’t call her, don’t text her. Not a fucking thing. I’ll take care of this and once we get home it will be you and me, fucker.”
He didn’t give Hawk a chance to say a bloody word as he stormed back inside shouting for Gav. Hawk rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. Yip, he had fucked up. Finishing his beer he chucked the bottle at the bin in the corner and felt a tiny bit better as he listened to the glass shatter as it fell into the bin. He might as well go back inside and help.
They had all the shit Gav required laid out in neat lines on the loading bay floor when he got a call that turned his insides ice cold.
“Prez, we’ve got them. One of the traitors is the Logistics Manager up here, the other one is the Manager of the shipping and imports office in Pinetown. The bad thing is they’re both bitches. We’ve got the one up here in lock up and I asked Hotdog to collect the bitch down there and bring her to you. We’ve checked into everyone. Our brothers are clean. You’ve got the Crow down there. Get her to open that bitch up and extract what we need. We’ll work on the one up here. We’ve found more and Ziggy will send it to your phone.”
Hawk grinned evilly. “Good work, Jagger. DC has been sent to Umhlanga because Doc didn’t want her around this shit. He sent Raj and three of his guys with her. I put Wolf on her, so I know she’s okay.”
“Fuck!” The sound of breaking glass rang through the phone.
“Jagger! What the fuck?”
“Sorry, Prez. I threw my beer at the wall.” There was a beat of silence and then he was back. “Boss, call in our brothers, you need to find Skelly and Tiny and put me on speaker. I have some fucked up shit to share.”
“I’ll call you back.” Hawk ended the call as he beckoned a still pissed off Skelly to follow him.
They were gathered around the small table in the conference room, his phone lay in the centre of the table. Jagger was on speaker.
“We’re all here, Jagger. Go ahead.”
“You asked us to check into everyone and Ziggy got a bee in his fucking bonnet and started searching really, really fucking wide and deep. What he found goes back years. He checked on every single person around DC and they all came back clean, except one. We couldn’t find dick on him and that freaked Ziggy out. So he gave Dollar what he had to hit up his Home Affairs contact and he got back to us about fifteen minutes ago.”
The room was so silent you could have heard a pin drop, if any of them had a fucking pin. Hawk’s heart was beating too fast and his gut was churning.
“Give it to me, Jagger. Don’t drag this shit out.”
Then Jagger gave them news they did not want to hear.
“Colin “Raj” Chetty does not exist. Oh, there are surface documents that makes it look like he does but he really doesn’t. He was born Dinesh Sharma Maharaj, illegitimate son of Ravi Maharaj and his mistress Veda Chetty. Ravi Maharaj is the cousin of Vinesh Sharma, one of the Sharma’s Doc exterminated and he was DC’s grandfather.”
It felt like a stone had settled in Hawk’s gut. He stayed quiet as Jagger continued.
“Dinesh Maharaj was raised in the Sharma gang and quickly rose in the ranks before he suddenly disappeared. The photos we found are very grainy, but even with the fancy suits, sunglasses, short beard and short hair he’s our man. He reappeared as a supposed transfer at the Durban chapter of the Road Warriors MC going by the name Colin “Raj” Chetty. Speedy very quickly transferred him out to the Johannesburg chapter which stopped the questions being asked by his men. Any normal background check would have found that he was legit.”
“What the fuck?” Tiny was frowning heavily. “How did this shit get past you, Skel?”
But Jagger jumped in before Skelly could answer.
“He would have done the usual background check, Tiny. It would have looked totally legit. It fooled us when we checked him out. It was only when Ziggy started digging that we found this shit. It was buried really deep and without Dollar’s connections it would have stayed buried.”
Rage burned in his gut and Hawk had to reign in the desire to pick up his phone and hurl it at the wall. It wouldn’t help his woman who was in the hands of one of her family and club’s biggest enemies. He could now see the bastard’s original play. Claim the club princess, make her his old lady, and then use her to slowly destroy her father, his club and in the end her. It was a masterful plan, but they had failed. Failed because whoever had planned this had not foreseen the strong independent woman DC was.
At the end of the day his little bird’s damned independence had saved her and her club. Turning to Skelly he took control.
“Right. He’s with her right now and pissing her off, a lot. I have Wolf on her and I trust him implicitly. Are the rest of the team trustworthy?”
Skelly nodded. “Yes, they can be trusted.”
“Law is like her little brother and Rico and Skinny would die for her. Raj is on his own but we don’t know if he has help out there.” Shaka spoke for the first time.
Tiny was texting furiously and Hawk knew he was talking to Doc. He left them to it, picked up his phone and quickly ended the call with Jagger and called his man.
Wolf picked up almost immediately.
“Boss, glad you called. This Raj fucker is a dick. Can I fuck him up?”
“He’s the fucking enemy, Wolf. I’m sending Beast with three brothers to take your back. Keep your eyes open, brother. Beast will text when they get there. You keep her safe and bring her back to me.”
“Haven’t let the fucker out of my sight, Prez. Got eyes on him right now. He fucking lied, brother. No way was your woman planning on leaving the country. She was talking about attending a tattoo convention with her boss. Just thought I’d put it out there.”
Hawk nodded even though he knew Wolf couldn’t see it.
“Thanks, brother. We got shit to do this side, I’ll call as soon as I can.”
“No problems, Prez. I’ve got her, no worries.” Wolf assured him.
Hawk turned an pointed to Beast. “Take Sin, Dizzy and Spook, ride to Umhlanga. Wolf will hold him until you get there. Kev will follow in the cage. Load the fucker and his shit and bring him back here.”
Outwardly Hawk was calm. But internally he was a boiling vat of rage that he kept tightly under control. Once he had that piece of shit in his hands, then, and only then, would he let his rage free. Time passed too damned slowly while he waited to hear from Beast. Doc had arrived earlier and just one look at the man made everyone back off. He was beyond angry, his eyes like ice in his stony face.
Hawk looked down as his phone vibrated with an incoming message.
Got him. Woman safe.
Relief shot through him.
“What do we know?” Doc had ice sliding through his voice.
Tiny nodded towards Hawk and motioned for him to answer.
“DC is safe. Beast has Raj, they are bringing him in.”
“Who’s riding with my girl?”
“She’s got Wolf, Law, Rico, Skinny, Beast, Sin, Spook and Dizzy. Kev is driving the cage bringing the bastard in. My woman insisted on escorting them in.”
“My demon child is going to have me in a fucking early grave.” Doc growled as he sat down. “Tiny gave me the short version of what we have. Is there anything else I need to know?”
Skel started explaining and Hawk tuned them out, he had gone over this more than once. Everything pointed towards Speedy teaming up with the Sharma gang. Together they had set up the trafficking ring that operated out of Durban harbour.
Why they had targeted the Iron Dogz MC was still a mystery but they would soon be extracting that information from Raj or rather Dinesh Sharma Maharaj. One of the big men in the Sharma organisation.
It was going to be a very interesting night. And not just for him.
DC
I rode in the middle of the pack as we hit the N2 South and sped towards Durban. Law, Rico, Skinny and Dizzy were riding sweep behind the cage. I rode with Beast, Sin, Wolf and Spook at the front.
Law and Kev had made short work of loading and tying down Raj’s bike. Beast and Sin hadn’t said one word when they wrapped him in duct tape like a damned mummy and threw him in next to his bike. Not one fist had been laid on him.
That was super scary. It meant they had orders to hold off.
Hawk’s orders.
We stayed with the cage through the traffic causing motorists to get out of our way the minute they saw us. The guys weren’t wearing their cuts but they were still darkly intimidating.
When we pulled into the yard at the back of the factory I breathed in sharply. My dad stood waiting with his arms crossed over his chest next to Hawk, who held the exact same stance. Behind them stood Tiny, Skelly, Ice and Kid, all of them with arms crossed. And behind them in a rough semi-circle waited the rest of the brothers, arms crossed. Every single one wearing their cuts. And the ranks of the Iron Dogz had grown, which meant that brothers from the Durban chapter had joined them.
Beast led us to one side of the yard and we parked as Kev turned the cage and reversed until he brought it to a stop right in front of Hawk and Doc.
Beast immediately pulled his cut from his saddlebags and pulled it on, the others followed his example. We silently joined the waiting group. Kev was unlocking the back of the cage and when he opened the doors and Raj in his duct taped mummy form was revealed laughter rang through the still air.
“Getting that shit off is going to fucking hurt.” Someone remarked happily.
Doc turned to the brothers. “Rover, take him and don’t get him too comfortable.”
Then it was my turn.
“DC, conference room, now.”
He walked through the men back into the factory and I followed. He sounded pissed, hopefully not at me.
I sat on a crate and watched as the room filled with officers from both clubs. Hawk was the last to walk in. He took a chair on the opposite side of the room.
Good. I was so not into him right now.
Doc cleared his throat and I gave him what he wanted, my attention.
“We’ve brought in a another prisoner. We need you to do what you do. She’s part of this trafficking ring. She’s the Shipping Manager at the Iron Dogz Trucking offices in Pinetown. The bitch personally prepared the shipping documents.”
I nodded. I knew what he wanted from me.
“Don’t go easy. Break her, any way you have to. I want results tonight. Have a look at her and let me know who you need.”
Fuck. I nodded again.
“The bitch worked for the Dogz, I want one of my men observing.” Hawk growled at Doc.
Doc nodded his agreement then turned to me. “Get on it, now.”
I was dismissed. Not saying a word I left the room and found Law waiting for me.
“I’ve got your saddlebags and found you a room. You’re lucky, no one has crashed in it, yet.”
Wrinkling my nose at him we both grinned as he led me upstairs and down a long corridor to a room at the end. It was a tiny room, only big enough for a single bed and a tiny bedside table. And now I knew why no one had claimed the room, the bed was too damn small. Lucky for me.
“There’s a bathroom two doors down, just lock the door when you use it.”
Damn, sharing a bathroom with a bunch of guys wasn’t good. It would be filthy.
“I’ve had it cleaned for you, so if you jump in now it should still be okay.”
“Thanks, little brother. I have to look in on the woman they brought in. Do you know where she’s being kept?”
“Yes, she’s not where you talked to the other one. Get your scary shit together and I will be back to take you to the bitch.”
He backed out of the room and closed the door.
Dumping my saddlebags on the bed I went through them and drew out black jeans and the same black long sleeved tee I had worn when I had questioned the young woman early this morning. I couldn’t believe it was only this morning that I had been here, it felt as if days had passed with everything that was happening.
I was dressed and had my knife in the sheath in my boot with my gun in a holster at my back when there was a knock at my door. Taking a deep breath I prepared to become someone else. I opened that door in my head and Crow walked out to join me. Law was waiting outside my door and I handed him my mask and gloves.
On the way down I used the bathroom and slid the black contact lenses in, blinking to situate them comfortably. Meeting my icy black stare in the mirror I smiled. Play time.
That’s how fucked up I was inside. I was looking forward to making her talk.
The building seemed strangely empty as we made our way down the stairs and kept going past the ground floor down worn cement stairs into a dank basement. It smelt wet and mouldy. Bare light bulbs hanging from electrical wire led down a wide corridor and off into the depths of the basement. The lights were weak pools of light and outside of those pools darkness lay like a smelly blanket. We passed several doors but kept going.
Law stopped in front of a thick steel door. It had a big lock on the outside along with a heavy slider. No one was getting out of that room without outside help. I slipped my braid into the back of my tee and quickly pulled on the thin black mask that left only my eyes visible and pulled on the black Nitrile gloves.
“Shit, I didn’t bring my jacket.” I muttered.
A big hand holding a black hoodie appeared next to me and I looked over my shoulder. Hawk stood silently behind me, the black hoodie still held out to me. Not saying a word I took it, slid it on and pulled the hood up over my head and was instantly engulfed by Hawk’s scent. Shit. It was almost enough to pull me out of my Crow persona. I forced my humanity to take a back seat and breathed in slowly. Swallowing heavily I nodded to Law.
The door silently opened and a room covered in thick black plastic was revealed. Even the ceiling was covered. It was like being inside a plastic cube. In the centre of the room, cable tied to a steel chair that was bolted to the floor was the woman.
She wasn’t what I was expecting.
A well put together, slightly heavy, middle aged woman sat in the chair and stared back at me with curious eyes. Greying blonde hair was cut in a no-nonsense bob. Her white blouse was silk and the red knee length pencil skirt was obviously part of the power suit she must have been wearing. Her feet were bare and black cable ties were tied around her ankles and just below her knees.
“So you are Doc’s infamous Crow.” Her cultured voice filled the silence. “Must be the lack of height and a fully functioning penis that brought you to this work. What a sad little man you are, hiding behind a mask to torture women who would never otherwise let you touch them.”
Looking behind me she smiled. “And look at that. The high and mighty Hawk Walker got off his latest whore long enough to come and talk to me.”
Then she looked back at me and carried on being what she was, a scared and talkative bitch.
“I have nothing to say at this time. Try again the day after tomorrow, maybe I’ll have something to say then.” And then she smiled, nasty and cold. But deep behind her eyes something flickered and disappeared. That was what I had been waiting to see. Now she was mine.
I turned, walked out and heard Law closing the door but he didn’t lock it because he knew what was coming next. I pulled the mask up as I spoke to Law.
“I need Alien and Shaka, wearing their cuts and some men’s cologne, two bottles should do it and a bottle of tequila. The usual.”
Reaching into his back pockets Law pulled out two bottles of cheap cologne with high alcohol content and handed them to me. I slid them into my back pockets with a grin as Law ran down the corridor and up the stairs to bring Alien and Shaka to me. And the tequila, I could not do a dark job like the one waiting for me without drinking to get through the heavy parts.
Hawk had followed us out and stared at me blankly. He needed to leave, if he did not he was going to see a side of me he would never be able to forget or live with. Crow wasn’t me, but she also was me. Not everyone who saw me work was able to accept and understand that part of me.
“You might want to let one of your brothers sit in on this and take a step back.” I didn’t look at him as I spoke.
“Nope. She works for me. I’ll be in there while you ask your questions, and Ice will be with me.”
He was in for a rude awakening. I didn’t really ask a lot of questions. My subjects talked, they told me what I wanted to know. They kept on talking until I had all I needed to know and then they either went back to their lives or disappeared.
This bitch would most probably disappear.
And it would most probably be me who made it happen.
