Saved by the Outlaw: Motorcycle Club / Hitman Romance by Alexis Abbott, Alex Abbott Page B

thoughts, I grunt in response, setting my beer aside and leaning back. “Kill me. We ought to hire a suit to take care of this kind of work for us.”
    “Might not need to,” she says with a smile. “we just got a tip from one of the maintenance workers at James & Son.”
    “You’re shitting me,” I say, sitting up with a sudden smile. I can’t express how done I am with dealing with this paperwork, and I’m eager to get out on the streets again.
    “Apparently he overheard a meeting with the bosses. It’s a definite lead, but you’re not gonna like it. They’re trying to sell to NexaCo.”
    I feel fire burning in my chest, and my hand clenches. They aren’t fucking around. NexaCo is the big leagues.
    It’s a superstore corporation that has branches all over the United States. There’s even been talk of them spilling into Canada, but there’s been a ton of pushback up there. Having a NexaCo in town spells death for any local businesses that don’t have hefty backing from somewhere else. They drive consumer prices into the ground, making competition basically impossible, to the point that NexaCo gets to dictate the prices they pay to their suppliers and shipping companies. They’re single handedly responsible for the fall in farmers’ wages over the past few years, and I don’t want to think about what they’ll do to the workers at the docks here in Bayonne.
    Worse yet, the company employs one of the most highly trained divisions of union busters in the country. So much as a whisper of collective action, and corporate descends on a branch like the hammer of the gods.
    Not in my town.
    “That’s all I need,” I say, standing up and striding around the desk. Eva follows me out the door as I step out into the bar, where a couple of the members give me respectful nods, happy to see me emerge from that lair.
    “Alright, everyone,” I shout, “listen up! James & Son are bringing NexaCo to town if we don’t do anything about it. So we’re gonna go have a chat with them.”
    There’s an angry shout of agreement from everyone in the bar, beers and pool sticks raised high.
    “Eva, Genn, you’re with me. We’re gonna go have a talk with them ‘quietly.’ The rest of you, go make some noise close to Mickey’s. It’s far enough away that if the feds catch a whiff of you, they won’t be paying attention to where the real business is. Just don’t answer any questions if you get pulled over, and remember which of the boys in blue are on our take, got it?”
    “You got it, Prez,” shouts one of the members. A few moments later, half the club is gearing up to get moving, and I take a deep breath.
    This is what I live for.

    * * *
    W e’re riding again , this time for what feels like a more white-collar meeting than our trip to the liquor store. Well, not for us—we normally don’t go storming into realty offices like this.
    Our bikes pull up at an office building with a nice exterior garden plan. It’s got a fountain outside and everything.
    “James & Son Realtors,” Eva says as she pulls up beside me in the parking lot, Genn pulling up a couple of seconds later. “Nice place. Wonder if they’re busy this time of day?”
    “Nah,” I say back, “most of them will be out to lunch right about now.”
    “Good,” Genn says, cracking his knuckles, “I’d like a little one-on-one time with someone right about now.”
    “Only a couple of cars in the parking lot,” I point out. “Whoever brought lunch from home today is going to get a rude interruption, hate to say. Let’s go.”
    We push the door open and let ourselves inside, making a quick and direct path to the nearest open office door we can spot.
    “E-excuse me?” the secretary at the front desk tries to say as we stride past.
    “We’re expected,” Genn says with a friendly smile as we walk by, and the secretary just gapes for a moment before giving up. The balding, white-collar scrub inside the office we make our way to looks up from