I also saw the look of pure anguish on his face as he did it.
Which tells me he’s still redeemable. It’s why he’s my friend.
All these men are.
“Listen to me and listen good, King. You’ve got about an hour. I know you’re at the hospital for Spark and Iris, but you need to get the weapons out of the warehouse. You’ve all got to clean down your homes. Cash. Weapons. Fake IDs. All of it. You need to get Track out of town. Send him and Tessa to Philly, just for now. He was the only one dumb enough to talk on tape.”
“On tape. What the fuck, Saint? What did you do?” He’s yelling by the end. I know he’s going to be tugging on the ends of his dark hair.
“I did what I had to for the women. For Iris. For Br—” I nearly say Briar’s name, but King doesn’t know about her. And I want her to be a part of my real life, not my pretend one. If they know her name, they’ll have a link to me. If they find her, they’ll use her to get me.
“You’re undercover?” King snarls as I slip my cut off my shoulders. I lay it on the bed, feeling naked without it already. I run my fingers over my road name patch.
Saint.
For two years now, I’ve been him and he’s been me. I feel like I’m leaving my best friend behind.
“Doesn’t matter who I am. Just promise me. They’ll come for the club. I blew everything up today so you guys won’t go down for what happened in the warehouse, when we rescued Iris. So they’ll try to close in on what they’ve got.”
“And what have they got?” King asks hoarsely.
“Everything, King. They’ve got everything.”
SAINT
FOUR WEEKS EARLIER
“Davis wants to know when you’re going to be able to wrap this up.”
I roll my eyes at my boss, Derek Weicker, grateful he’s on the other end of the phone and can’t see my contempt. “If Davis had ever actually done undercover work, he’d know that it’s a long timeline to go undercover with an outlaw gang. You don’t join on Monday and then get the keys to all the intel by the weekend.”
“When you become special agent in charge, you get a frontal lobotomy on the ATF that removes details like that. Regardless, I answer to him. You answer to me. That’s how it works.”
“Are you calling because you wanted to debate our organizational structure, or do you have a point beyond requesting an estimate you know I can’t give?”
I catch sight of myself in my cover apartment’s mirror. My hair is so long, it deserves its own shampoo ad. And my beard itches like a motherfucker. The blue eyes that look back at me confirm they both help me get plenty of pussy, but beyond that, I can’t wait to trim this beard back to the scruff I prefer.
I began growing it two years ago when I started hanging with our ATF informant, so the club could get used to seeing my face. It’s when I officially became a hang-around. Then there was the brutal level of hazing as a prospect. Davis doesn’t know half the shit I had to deal with. The worst was probably getting pissed on by the president of the Los Angeles Iron Outlaws chapter, a brutal guy who’s now serving twenty years thanks to information I passed to the FBI.
The president of the New Jersey chapter, Uther “King” Hills, nominated me for my patch. Said he valued my loyalty and counsel. And I got my name from Cue Ball, the now-deceased father of our vice president, Clutch. Said I was the patron saint of fucked-up brothers.
“You’re sounding more and more like one of them,” Weicker notes.
“It’s method acting. I’m tired of this shit too.”
Except ... I’m not.
I used to have a strong moral compass. Joining the ATF after serving with the 720th Ordnance Company felt like a no-brainer. Time spent clearing bombs in Kosovo and Afghanistan made me an explosives expert, and high-pressure undercover work felt like a breeze. Plus, I’ve got friends missing limbs because of land mines and shit. Thought I could take down the explosives market.
Instead, I simply felt like an underappreciated cog in a broken machine.
Time spent with the Iron Outlaws has helped me find myself.
I’ve found the sense of unity I lost when I left the army and never found with the ATF. When you’re sweating beneath all the gear and everyone else is back behind a perimeter, bomb disposal and mine clearing can feel isolating. Even so, you know everyone has your back. With the club, it’s the same sense of belonging that happens when you know each and every man would die for you. And you’d die for them.
Something deep inside me stirs around these men, something I didn’t feel when I went undercover with a group of incels in Portland, Oregon, inciting violence against women. Or when my assignment was joining a Nazi group in Eufaula, Alabama. It was easy to take down those fuckers. It was easier to see the pain they were both inflicting, the harm they caused.
With the Outlaws, it’s been utterly different. I feel like I can breathe.
