Page 36 of My Reckless Biker

"I mean it, Diesel. Ray being in the hospital doesn't give you a free pass to get yourself killed. You go in smart or I pull you out before you can fuck this up."

I meet his eyes and keep my voice level. "I'll be smart. But Dutch is mine."

"He's yours. Just make sure you come back to tell Sienna about it."

The mention of her name makes tension coil in my gut. She's upstairs right now waiting. Scared probably, even though she's too controlled to show it. Worrying about me coming back even though I promised her I would.

I need to make sure that promise holds.

"Let's move," Clint says.

We head outside where two trucks are waiting, engines already running, exhaust visible in the cooling night air.

Clint, Tate, and I take the first truck. Cain, Holt, and Knox take the second. The drive to the warehouse is going to take forty minutes, and we'll approach from different directions to box them in, cut off any escape routes before they even know we're there.

I climb into the passenger seat and Tate takes the wheel. Clint's in the back coordinating final details over the radio with the second truck. The gate opens and we pull out onto the county road and the clubhouse disappears behind us.

I think about Sienna in that room. About what we did two hours ago. About the way she looked at me after and said be careful like those two words could protect me.

About the fact that I'm going to tell her I love her when I get back because if tonight goes wrong, if something happens and I don't make it, I want her to know.

The drive passes in silence. Tate knows better than to try to make conversation before a raid. Clint's on the radio giving coordinates and timing to the second truck. I watch the road and the landscape passing and feel the adrenaline starting to build, the sharpness that comes before violence.

We're thirty miles out when Clint's phone rings. He answers, listens, says "Copy that" and hangs up.

"Cain's source confirmed Dutch is still at the warehouse," Clint says. "Two prospects with him, both early twenties. They're loading product into a panel van, probably planning to move it before midnight. We're hitting them mid-operation, which gives us advantage."

"What kind of product?" I ask.

"Heroin. Estimated fifty kilos. Street value around two million."

I process that. Two million dollars in product about to go up in smoke. Marrow's going to feel that for months.

Good.

The rest of the drive passes fast, back roads that Tate navigates without headlights once we're close enough that being seen becomes a risk. The warehouse comes into view around a bend in the road, squat concrete building with a metal roof and broken windows, two vehicles parked outside under a single floodlight. Lights on inside, visible through dirt-streaked glass.

One truck. One panel van with the back doors open.

They're here. They're busy. They're not expecting us.

Tate pulls off the road half a mile out and kills the engine. We sit in darkness and I can hear cicadas and the distant hum of highway traffic and my own breathing loud in my ears.

Clint radios the second truck. "Status."

"In position," Cain's voice comes through the speaker. "West approach clear. Visual on two subjects loading product. No sign of additional personnel. Ready on your signal."

"Copy. Wait for my mark." Clint looks at me and Tate. "Same as we planned. Front and bay door. They come out or we go in. Non-lethal on the prospects if they surrender. Dutch doesn't leave vertical."

"Understood," I say, and my voice sounds different to my own ears, flatter, colder, the voice that comes when violence is imminent and everything else falls away.

We exit the truck quietly. Move through scrub brush and scattered trees toward the warehouse, keeping low, weapons drawn, and I'm aware of everything with the clarity that comes from adrenaline and training: the smell of dry earth and creosote, the sound of our breathing synchronized, the weight of the vest and weapons and the knowledge that what happens next is going to be fast and brutal and permanent.

We reach our position at the bay door on the south side of the building. Metal door, rusted hinges, closed but not locked from what I can see. Tate takes point. I'm behind him. Clint covers our six.

My heart is racing now, blood pounding in my ears, and I'm thinking about Ray's face in that hospital bed, about the blood in his driveway, about Dutch smiling while he did it.

Clint radios Cain. "Go."