Opening and closing his fingers into fists didn’t stop the urge Axel had to punch the fucker standing in front of him. He briefly considered thumping Castello too. But argh, they were standing in the middle of the street and already he could hear freaking Sirens. “Cops are coming.”
“I hear them,” Castello’s hands were moving as he spoke, giving signals to his team. Rafe, Sawyer, and Sage took off toward the house. They would gather all the gear, Castello would stay here with Axel, the others could get their asses to the Panthers’ plane.
“What the fuck?” Zeke’s voice dropped low. Filled with fury, it would have made even Castello take a step back if he hadn’t been used to dealing with warriors for years. “I come to town to visit family and you send your new assholes after me to make a point?” Zeke cocked his head to one side as he listened to his father’s response on the phone. “Then get your dickheads in line. Next time they swing a drive by on a house under my protection, I will
not be caught off guard and will respond as I see fit.” He shook his head at Steele when his older brother held out his hand, obviously asking for the phone. “Fuck off,” Zeke growled and stabbed at the screen of the phone. “He says he knew nothing about it.” he muttered to Steele. “I’d want to believe him, except his enforcer was fucking driving the damn pickup.”
“Move.” Rock growled, “We have about thirty seconds before LEOs are here.” The Lynx guys threw their gear into the bed of the truck. “Moran, get you and your guys’ asses to the airstrip ASAP, we have a safehouse south of the border.”
“Yup.” Castello agreed, it was better that they went to Mexico rather than tried to figure shit out here. They needed to be there anyway. Now he just had to deal with freaking cops. Fabulous. “Zack get your ass on the damn truck.”
“No, Sir.” Zack refused, “Not happening, I cover your six, period.”
“We don’t have time to debate this shit,” Rock climbed into a blacked-out SUV. “Get back to the house.”
“Let’s go!” Sage pushed open the door of one of the rentals Task Force Ambra had been using, “Move your asses.”
“C’mon,” Castello gripped Axel’s hand, tugging him in the direction of the house, “I can already see the blues and twos.”
Axel followed Castello and Zack; he wasn’t worried about the cops.
There was nothing they could do to them. “We go around the back, and in through the back door.”
In the back door? Is that an offer?Castello shook his head to clear it of its totally inappropriate thoughts. Nope, sex? That was a thought or discussion for later, not when they had cops breathing down their necks. He took the side street Axel pointed out to him.
Entering the house, Axel pulled the door shut behind them. He barely had a second to scan the kitchen. The table now lay empty of all the equipment and gear. Nothing indicated that a Special Ops team had been there less than ten minutes before. Zack bolted for the bathroom and switched on the shower. He stripped and ducked his head under the shower, kicking his handgun under the counter in the bathroom.
The front door blasted open with one smack of a battering ram, and armed police swarmed into the house. “Drop your weapons, drop your weapons.”
“What the fuck?” Castello grabbed Axel and pulled him behind him,
using the bulk of his own body to once again protect him.
“Boss?” Zack appeared from down the hallway; a towel wrapped around his narrow hips. If Axel hadn’t seen him less than two minutes before he would have even believed that the dude had just been in the shower. “What
—?” Zack lifted his hands in the classic, ‘I am not a threat’ pose. The towel dropped to the floor, giving the cops a full-frontal view of Zack’s dick and balls.
Do not laugh, do not laugh.Trust his second in command to pull a smart ass move like this. Castello bit back a snicker. “We appear to have visitors, brother, cover your dick.”
“Uh,” Zack looked from the gun, which was pointed in his face, to Castello, to the towel and back again, as if trying to decide if it was worth the chance of being shot.
The cop gestured with his weapon, “Pick up the damn towel, asshole.”
“Hey—” Zack started to protest.
“Shut it,” Castello growled. He knew it pissed Zack off to be on the other end of a gun. He wondered if the cop knew how close he was to dying.
Zack was a hell of a lot more deadly with his hands than he ever was with a gun. Trust these cops to be one of the few who didn’t subscribe to the ‘Don’t see them for dust when anything is going down’ storyline. He cursed the nosey fucking neighbors for calling them. “What the hell is going on here?”
A man Castello recognized from their investigations as the Chief of Police, stepped into the room. His eyes appraised every inch like he owned the space. Castello tensed as he saw the man’s lip curl into a snarl when he spotted Axel behind Castello.
“We had reports of gunfire.”
“So, you bust in my door, and come in here looking like SWAT
wannabes?” Axel muttered, quiet enough that only Castello could hear him.
“Kids with BB guns in the park.” Axel increased the volume of his voice but kept his face as impassive as he could manage, trying not to give anything away. He may not be a member of Castello’s team, but he knew the rules of club life. You don’t talk to the police—ever, even if you had done nothing wrong. It was kinda ironic that it was ATF who had finally broken down the barriers he kept in place. ATF who had told him to go after Gavin Kony. But they had offered him something more than his MC family. ATF had offered him a chance to find Krystal and Mikey.
