Chapter Four

“Hell, man,” Tex drawled. “We notice everybody. I can tell you what every single person in that room is wearing and what they look like… but let’s face it. Mirrie is memorable, no matter if you’re trained in personal security or not.”

“True.” Spider smiled for the first time in what felt like hours. “You guys know who she is?”

“Should we?” Honey rejoined, playing along though she knew exactly who she’d been looking at when she’d spotted Mirrie in her wild ensemble across the café. “Who is she?”

“She goes by the name Miranda Campbell now,” Spider says. “But her real name is Miranda Kane.”

“Kane?” Tex repeated softly. “Like… Sands and Joker Kane?”

“Yeah. Mirrie is Sands’ kid and Joker’s younger sister.”

“So… that makes her Shane MacIntyre’s girlfriend,” Tex said slowly, as puzzle pieces began to click into place.

“How’d you know that?” Spider said, startled. “How do you know Mac and Mirrie?”

“Never you mind,” Tex said roughly. “Lots of people are on our radars, man.”

Honey was silent, since she wasn’t able to talk about King’s Men ops with anyone except her fellow Men, and behind closed doors. The truth was that although Tex had been briefed on Mirrie Kane in a team meeting, Honey had actually been there the night that Shane ‘Mac’ MacIntyre had been taken by The Fallen Angels, and King’s Men had been on a secret protective detail outside Mirrie’s apartment. It had all been an elaborate set-up, of course, with the end-goal being King shooting and killing Trigger MacGee, the Angels’ former President, and the man that Ace had taken over from.

The entire point of that op, of course, had been to blackmail Ace Cuddy. He’d been VP of The Fallen Angels then and King had used Ace’s own gun – which he’d used to murder the President of The Road Devils, a rival MC, and a gun which Spider himself had taken and hidden years before, as a sort of insurance policy – to kill Trigger. Ace’s fingerprints were all over it, and it was well-known whose distinctive weapon it was.

Essentially, King had given Ace a choice: take over as MC President and turn informant for King’s Men about Kirk Jensen’s dirty little deals – or King would make sure that Ace’s MC brothers not only knew that Ace had ‘killed’ Trigger with his gun, but that he was also gay.

Ace had crumbled, naturally, and that was how he’d ended up firmly in King’s pocket. He’d ratted Kirk Jensen and his own MC out, again and again, over and over, and King’s Men and the cops and feds had methodically smashed Jensen’s drug channels, his kidnapping rings, his sex-trafficking circles. People had died – mostly Ace’s own MC brothers, and Kirk’s favorite lieutenants. Kirk had known that someone close to him had betrayed him, of course, and he’d figured out soon enough that it had been Ace.

That was how Ace and Kirk had ended up in that lonely cabin in the mountains that very afternoon, and why Ace had been forced into a corner. He’d pulled the trigger and shot Kirk, but that act had actually been determined the second that Ace had agreed to King’s terms and had turned traitor. It had been inevitable, and now it was like karma and fate and justice and hell had all come knocking at the door at the exact same damn time… and if King and his people didn’t move fast, lives were going to be laid to waste.

Starting with Ace and Spider’s.

“What do you want Mirrie for?” Honey asked Spider now.

“She’ll have to run the café while I’m gone,” Spider said. “I mean, someone has to.”

Honey was quiet again, since she knew that, actually, King wanted Mirrie to go into hiding, too. Oh, her need to disappear was less-urgent than Spider’s, of course, but it was still there. After all, she and Mac were actively disliked by The Fallen Angels, and her father and brother had never forgiven her for leaving the MC family as a young woman. Yes, she’d paid for that freedom, first in blood, then in losing Mac for years to keep him safe, but a debt to an MC could never be repaid, and it could never be walked away from.

But Mirrie wasn’t Honey’s job. She was Mac’s, and Mac was King’s. Besides, the truth was that the MC wouldn’t make harming Mirrie a priority… not when word got out that Ace had killed Kirk Jensen, and when they found the hidden pictures of their President with another man. Their heads were – quite literally – going to detonate with rage, and they’d be unable to think about anything except finding and killing Ace and Spider. Mirrie had some breathing room, for sure, so for now, Honey just nodded amiably.

“Let Tex take a look around then,” she said. “Then you can go get Mirrie. You bring her in here, and talk to her in this office.”

“In front of you?” Spider faltered. “What do I – how much do I tell her?”

“Nothing,” Tex grated out. “Nothing, man. Not until King gives the all-clear on sharing intel.”

“So what am I supposed to say to explain you guys showing up, and me just disappearing? You think she isn’t going to figure out that something’s going on? Especially since she knows about me and Ace, and all the ways that my life intersects with The Fallen Angels’ crap? She’s going to jump to the score, no doubt about it.”

“Let her.” Tex shrugged. “Let her think whatever she wants right now.”