Chance Encounter (God's Reapers MC Book 1) (9 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“All units. All units, report to Eighth and Wolf street, continued on channel ten,” the crackling voice of the dispatch operator interrupted the otherwise silent car ride that Olivia and Lance had been sharing. Olivia had been driving down random streets, lost in thought about David, about what she was going to do with him from here on out.

It was Lance who switched to the private channel and said, “This is Sierra Five. We are on route.” His call was echoed by dozens of other cars, as they all began to converge on Eighth and Wolff Streets. Olivia turned on the cherry and siren, as her entire body went numb.

“You know what’s on Eighth and Wolff?” Lance asked her.

“God’s Reapers clubhouse,” Olivia answered. She was trying so hard to keep her voice even that when she spoke it didn’t even sound like her.
Please,
she thought,
not him. Anyone but him.

They were ushered past yellow police tape and onto the street. It was a raid, a big one. There was a SWAT team ready to enter the building, and the commissioner was there, surrounded by dozens of lieutenants. Olivia had never felt more like a little fish in a big pond. There was nothing she could do for David here, nothing at all. She could only stand by and watch.

“Other side of the Wolff. No one comes down here. No one,” a lieutenant said through Lance’s window.

“Yes, sir,” Lance answered. Olivia felt so numb that she wasn’t sure that any sound would come out if she opened her mouth. But she was good at following orders. Her foot hit the gas and her hands handled the steering, as she drove to the other end of the street. Quickly, she and Lance hung up the yellow police tape and stood behind it, ushering pedestrians, news crews, and everyone else away.

Olivia couldn’t help but look behind her. She was trying to find one face in a sea of faces. This was bad, really bad. The raid on the club was a good thing; Olivia should have been happy, but instead she felt sick. David didn’t deserve to be in prison; he wasn’t what they thought he was. But she couldn’t do anything. She was a cop; she had taken an oath to protect and serve. Her entire life she had told herself that she wasn’t someone who threw her entire life away for some boy. That was true, she wasn’t, but she couldn't deny her feelings for him anymore. She didn’t want David to be in jail; she didn't want to have to visit him with a pane of glass between them; she didn’t want to have to pretend like she didn’t know him and forget about him. She needed to know if they had him.

“Go,” Lance said.

“What?” Olivia said, turning back to face him.

“You obviously want to be where the action is. I got this. Go. Just don’t get in trouble.”

“You got this?” Olivia repeated, wondering when Lance ever took the opportunity to do more work.

“Look, Olivia. I’m trying. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yeah...” she said, her voice trailing off.

“Then go. I got this.”

Olivia was grateful. She gave Lance, who finally felt like a partner for the first time, a smile, and then she turned and walked towards the chaos. She walked purposefully, like she had been ordered to walk to a certain place. Lines and lines of bikers stood along one wall, handcuffed to each other, each being processed as they were put into a police van. She searched for that clean-shaven face, his shaggy blond hair. But he was nowhere to be seen. She looked into one of the vans, but he wasn’t there. She checked the arrest list, but he wasn’t there either.

Olivia walked back to Lance, unsure what to think. David hadn’t been here. Luck had been on his side—but for how much longer? This was not going to be good. The club members were going to get mad and retaliate against the police, and it could mean a war.

Olivia spent the day under the hot baking sun, repeating: “Please move along. Nothing to see here,” so many times that the words had lost all meaning. Finally, her shift ended. Exhausted and dirty, with sand in every nook and cranny of her body and uniform, Olivia headed home. She parked her car in the building’s lot and drug herself to the elevator. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and she still wasn’t sure what she was going to do about David Creely. She was desperate to know where he was, but not foolish enough to go looking for him.

The elevator reached her floor, and Olivia slowly walked down the hall, turning at the corner and pulling out her keys to open the door. All of the sudden, she felt someone grab her by her hair and push her head against her still closed door.

“Hi Olivia. Remember me?” David demanded, whispering into her ear. It only took one second for her adrenaline to kick in and all the tiredness fled from her body. Olivia slammed her right foot onto David’s so hard, she heard something crack. He yelped out in pain and loosened his grip, and she elbowed him in the stomach and spun around, grabbing her gun from her jacket and pointing it at David.

He stood in front of her gasping for breath and glaring daggers into her.

“How dare you come back to my house,” Olivia hissed at him.

“How dare I?! You raided my clubhouse today; most of my brothers are in jail on bullshit charges. Was it you who told them to go after us? You the nosy cop who’s always in everybody’s business?” He spat at her.

“I’m doing my job. I made that very clear to you on several occasions,” she responded. “And I didn’t know about the raid today.”

“Bullshit!” David said. “The club is going to blame this on me, Olivia. It’s going to ruin me!”

“Then maybe you should quit the club,” she responded. Her gun was still pointed at his chest, and she tightened her grip on it.

“You were right,” he said, disdain and disgust dripping from his voice. “We never should have slept together. You know the expression, ‘You lay down with dogs, you get fleas.’ I don’t know what I should have expected from some whore cop who goes home with random men she meets at the bar. You understand nothing about loyalty and brotherhood. Don’t ever let me see you again, Olivia. Don’t ever involve yourself in my club’s business. You see something on the street, you keep driving, or I will make sure that you never see anything again.”

David turned and walked away, Olivia’s gun following him as he turned the corner and eventually left down the stairs. Her hands were shaking as she opened her door, slipped inside, and then slammed the door closed, locking all of the locks. She raced around her apartment, closing the blinds on the windows, keeping the lights off. Finally, there was nothing left to do, and alone in the darkness, Olivia crawled into her bed and cried as silently as she could.

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CHAPTER ONE

Just drive.
For so long
that
had been David Creely’s solution to everything. Life got too complicated, or money got too tight—just drive. He would put on his boots and jacket, get on his bike, and just drive. Sometimes he never came back. He could still remember the girl he had met in Columbus, Ohio. She had been a bored secretary who had taken a liking to him. She lived in a cookie-cutter condo, the furniture and décor had come with the place, and she had never changed it in any way. She had so little personality it was scary, but she had been terribly lonely and so David had spent a week eating her food and sharing her bed—until he got up one day for a drive and never came back.

But he couldn’t do that anymore. When he had joined God’s Reapers, he had taken an oath of loyalty to the club. He was a member for life and that worked both ways. The club couldn’t leave him, and he couldn’t leave it—even if three quarters of the members were currently sitting in a holding cell at the precinct.

“
GTG
,” the text had read. It stood for Go to Ground. It was their version of an SOS or a red alert. The text had come in seven hours ago, and David hadn’t stopped driving since it had come in. It meant the cops were there; it meant that people were looking for them. There were several safe houses, but there was no way of knowing which ones the cops knew about. So, for the moment, David was just driving. Driving out into the desert—as far as his gas tank would take him.

The warehouse on Marigold had been raided, as well. Despite all of David’s best efforts, they had found out about it. No doubt they had easily made their way from the fake reception area, past the fake warehouse, and into the real warehouse where the real business happened. It was over for the Reapers; they had been caught with enough illegal drugs to warrant federal charges. Any Reapers that the cops arrested were going to go away for a long time.

He had driven around the town, to the next town over, and into the desert, but he had always circled back, waiting for the AC text—all clear.  It finally came when David was two hours into the desert with no real direction in mind. “
AC,
” the text said. It mean that whatever had gone down was over now, and they were free to pop their heads up out of the sand and see who was left.

“
X
” was the next message. This was the code for the safe house on the outskirts of town. It was a ramshackle shed that had belonged to a member who died with no heirs. He had left the house to the club, and they used it anytime they needed to not be seen. There was no way to know if this was a real message or a trap set by the cops. The text itself had come through on an unknown number, but that part wasn’t so strange since almost all of the members used burner phones. It could be anyone.

David stopped in the middle of the road. There was nothing but desert and rock outcroppings in every direction. He didn’t have to go back; he could just drive. Just keep going, leave this place behind like he had left behind so many. But Marina’s Crest was his home. He could leave, but he could never stay away.

If only Olivia Waters wasn’t in Marina’s Crest. If only he had never met her, never slept with her, never allowed her into his life, never trusted her. She had ratted on the club. David had no proof of this, but it was the only thing that made sense. She must have done it; she was the only cop to have any interaction with God’s Reapers. He didn’t know how she had figured out the warehouse on Marigold Street was where the drugs were stored. Someone must have said something, Hillary maybe. Or maybe Olivia had just figured it out. She was smart; he had to give her that.

As he turned his bike and headed towards the safe house, David thought about Olivia, how she had tricked and used him. They had slept together, and he had foolishly thought that it had meant something, that they had a connection, but clearly they didn’t. He couldn’t understand how she could betray him like that, especially after the night they had spent together. It had been the best sex of David’s life, and she had turned around the next day and destroyed him. If it were up to Olivia Waters, David would be wearing a prison jumpsuit right now, too. It was pure luck that he hadn’t been at the warehouse when the hit happened. They had a sighting on Paul, the junkie who had beat up Joey, and David had gone to investigate. Twenty minutes after he left, the cops showed up. He knew how that would look to the other members. 

David took the long way to the house. He knew there was a bluff that overlooked the area, and he rode his bike up it and looked down at the house. He was looking for cop cars or vans or anything that might tip off that this was a trap, but he didn’t see anything suspicious. There were a handful of bikes outside, but that was it. After waiting half an hour, he finally drove his bike down the long lane. He parked his bike outside and walked up to the front door, surprised that no one had greeted him yet.

“Traitor!” someone yelled, as David opened the door. The wind was knocked out of him, as someone punched him right in the gut. He doubled over and gasped for breath, unsure of what was happening. He felt hands grab both of his arms. David tried to free himself, but the hands on him were strong, and it didn’t take long for them to have him trapped.

“Hey, what are you doing!?” David demanded, and he was answered with a solid punch that landed right in the center of his face. He heard a sickening crunch, and then pain exploded in his head as his nose began to bleed, the blood dripping into his mouth. David spit the blood to the side and looked up to see who had hit him.

“What’s the deal, Angel?” he demanded. Angel was a full-fledged member of God’s Reapers. David had always considered him a friend, but clearly something had changed.

“You told the fucking pigs,” Angel spit.

“No, I didn’t,” David yelled, a hint of panic in his voice. He struggled against the men holding his arms, but they just held on even tighter. “I didn’t tell the cops; I swear I didn’t. Do you think I would have come here if I did?”

“Maybe you’re working with them right now. Maybe they’re just sitting on the other side of the bluff, waiting for your signal.”

“Well, they’re not doing a good job, seeing as how I’m getting the shit beat of me for no reason. I didn’t tell the cops.” Angel shook his head and reared back, David tried to avoid the punch as best he could, but it landed right below his left eye. He saw stars, as pain on top of pain pulsed through him. The next hit from Angel landed right on David’s ribs. Again there was that sickening crunch, and David wondered how many bones had been broken in such a short amount of time.

“Enough,” a stern voice said. David managed to lift his head, and he saw Mike and Rick standing a few feet away from him.

“Thank God,” David whispered. Mike had gotten away, that was what mattered. They still had their leader; everything would be ok. David watched as Mike walked toward him, surprisingly lithe for such a big man.

“David,” he said. But he gave no order for the men who were holding him to let him go. Instead, Mike brought his right hand up and backhanded David across the face. David’s head jerked to the left, and he tasted blood as his teeth cut the inside of his cheek.

“Didn’t Mike...I didn’t rat...swear it.” David’s head hung down, his face and ribs were throbbing with pain. He watched as his blood dripped from his face and pooled on the floor.

“I know you’re not a traitor, David,” Mike said, and the men around the room grumbled. “But I did put you in charge of keeping the cops away from the warehouse. You failed in that task. Let him go,” Mike whispered, and David fell to his knees on the floor. “We put so much faith in you, David, and this is how you repay us?”

David knelt there, his head hanging down. Mike was right; this was David’s fault. He had one job to do—to keep the cops away—and he had failed. Now, his brothers were in jail, and the remaining free members of God’s Reapers were hiding in some crappy shack out in the desert.

“I’ll make it up to you, Mike,” David said. He managed to lift his head and look up into Mike’s eyes. “Anything, Mike. I’ll do anything.

“Yes,” Mike said. “You will.”

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