Shot to Hell (Four Horsemen MC #7) by Cynthia Rayne Read Free Book Online Page A

angling his body to face her.
    “I scout for them, tracking down persons of interest and such. Then they send in a heavily armed extraction team.” She cracked her knuckles. “Sometimes I get in on the action.” If she played better with others, they’d probably call her in for more of those group missions. Ash loved a good takedown—maybe a bit too much.
    “What do they want with the Raptors?” Steele asked.
    “It’s the Drug Enforcement Agency. What do you think?”
    Steele glanced at her, and she could see censure in his gaze. Well, she answered to Cole and nobody else. As a contractor, she had the freedom to take or leave jobs and work—more or less—on her own terms. She liked not having an overbearing boss.
    “Don’t know unless you tell us.” Axel seemed to be a patient man, thoughtful. Actually, none of these men fit her expectations of what outlaw bikers should be.
    “Big picture? They’re after the Tres Erre cartel. I’d imagine the first step in squeezin’ them is to shut down their supply lines in the United States.” Not like the DEA sat down and rolled out their strategy for her, but she could piece it together and figure it out for herself.
    All three men looked at each other, having a silent conversation she couldn’t quite grasp.
    “From what I understand, the cartel is the real target, and the Raptors are a means to an end for you.” Axel scratched his chin.
    “Yeah. How can you help?”
    “We’ll talk about it in a moment.”
    She gritted her teeth, resenting his high-handed tone.
    “Before we do, it’s important you understand somethin’. The Horsemen steer clear of law enforcement when we can, but we’re in a real bind this time. So we gotta do things we don’t wanna do to get out of it.” Axel crossed his arms over his chest. “Steele says the two of you were childhood friends.”
    It was a bit more complicated, but her personal life didn’t figure into this equation at all. If it did, she would’ve walked away from Steele the second she clapped eyes on him. Only she’d have beat the tar out of him first.
    “We knew each other, yeah.”
    “And we can trust her?” Axel turned to Steele.
    Steele considered this a moment before he answered. “Yeah, I think so.”
    “Trusting me has never been the problem,” she said pointedly.
    Steele grimaced.
    Axel’s eyes flicked back and forth between them, as if trying to suss out what the deal was, but he didn’t ask. He glanced at Justice, and they seemed to have a wordless conversation.
    “And do you vouch for her?” Axel asked.
    Steele hesitated a second and then nodded. “I do and I take full responsibility for Ash.”
    The men all nodded, and Ash knew she’d missed something.
    Axel turned his attention back to her. “Okay then. Our information comes with a price.”
    “Of course it does.” Criminals always demanded payment. Cole offered cash to informants as an incentive, and she’d made her share of deals with the lesser of two evils over the years. She let all the contempt she felt for Steele show on her face as she spoke to him. “How much money do you boys want to do the right thing?”
    “We don’t want a dime,” Axel said. “You may not believe this, but we’re the good guys. This club helps people.”
    “How?” They couldn’t be serious with this good guy shtick. Outlaw biker clubs dealt in drugs, prostitution, gun-running, and any number of other sins. They were bad guys—less horrible than the cartel, but only incrementally. They should all be rounded up and taken to jail.
    “We believe in vigilante justice,” Steele said. “Sometimes the law doesn’t help the right people, and we come in handy during those kinds of situations.”
    For a moment, she thought they were joking, but nobody laughed. Three pairs of unblinking eyes stared at her. Holy shit. They were serious about this good-guy routine.  “Then what do you want?”
    The president cracked his knuckles and glanced around the room.