Wild Fire (Chaos #6.5)(17)

That caught Dutch’s attention.

“You know who these guys are?”

Vance shook his head. “I know how these guys are. But you do what you do, and we’ve got Brody looking into who owns that warehouse, running the plates of vehicles I took down, and the guys will be gathering word we pick up on the street. When we get something, I’ll relay that to you.”

Dutch nodded.

“We don’t got a lot of man hours to help you out with this,” Vance warned. “Your brothers gonna pitch in?”

Dutch had already decided.

He was not taking this to Chaos.

First, it’d have to be discussed at the table and voted on. And honest to God, after the nightmare his Club had been picking its way through for decades got sorted, and they finally were free and clear of all the shit that included drugs and guns and porn and whores, kidnappings and death, he did not know how that vote would go.

And he didn’t know how he’d feel if the vote didn’t go his way.

Second, he also didn’t know what he would be asking them to do and how deep it would get.

They weren’t a highly trained, skilled, experienced investigation team, like Nightingale. They were bikers. And they could take care of business, they’d proved that often. But this was not riding close to the bone where your motivation was keeping yourself breathing, your brothers the same and your families safe.

But last, and most importantly, this was his.

It was his and Carlyle’s.

And for some reason he was not currently evaluating, he wanted it to stay that way.

At least for now.

“Don’t know what I’m asking them to do and it’ll need to go for a vote,” Dutch told Vance. “So, until I know, not right now.”

Vance, who had pulled himself into Dutch’s passenger seat when Dutch met him there, gave him a chin lift before he looked beyond him, back toward the warehouse.

And then everything about the man changed.

This made Dutch return his attention to the warehouse.

And at what he saw, he was pretty fucking sure he experienced his head exploding even if it didn’t actually explode.

Because first, she was there at all.

And second, she could get caught on camera, and then just get caught.

“The fuck?” he bit out.

“Seems we’re not the only ones interested in this building,” Vance said.

Yup.

It seemed that way.

It also seemed he told a goddamned bitch of a journalist about a tragic situation with a kid and she was tired of her beat, so she took the information he gave her and was looking into the black market in Denver.

He heard the fury in his tone, even as he watched her and felt his heart start to race, as he said to Vance, “You go, I’ll take care of her.”

“Take care of her?” Vance asked.

“I know her. She’s a journalist. Not thinking she’d nose around this, I told her about it.”

“Shit,” Vance muttered.

“Right,” Dutch agreed.

“You need my help with her?” Vance asked.

“I got it.”

“Take care they don’t see you first,” Vance advised. “They see her before you get her, she can deal. I’ll keep an eye. You get her out of here, then I’m gone. You catch trouble, I’m in.”

She couldn’t deal, he could tell by the way she was moving she had no idea what she was into.

“You got it,” Dutch said, thinking fast and moving faster.

He opened his door just as he heard Vance open his.

Then he moved swiftly.

Trying to stay out of camera range, which Georgiana was wandering close to, he took as direct a route to her as he could.

She was wearing all dark clothing, a knit cap over her hair, fluffing out the dark curls at the bottom, and she was slinking through the night, staring up at one of the cameras.

He approached from behind, and she was so bad at this, she didn’t hear him until it was too late.

He had her, one arm around her stomach, the other hand over her mouth.

She screamed behind it, arched hard and started to struggle, so he hissed in her eat, “Quiet! It’s Dutch.”

She stilled, twisted, he semi-let her go, keeping an arm around her, and his hand lifted so he could clamp down again on her mouth if he needed to.

And for some fucked-in-the-head reason, she caught his eyes in the dim light, hers got bright and happy, as did her entire gorgeous face.

She smiled huge and began, loudly, “We had the same—!”

“Shut it,” he bit. “They’re gonna see. Or hear. Let’s go.”

Only then did he take his arm from her, but he did it to grab her hand and drag her ass to his truck.

He practically picked her up and dumped her in before he jogged around the front bumper, got in himself and started up.

“Dutch, we—”

He turned to her, leaned her way, she reared back at his actions—the way he made them and probably the look on his face—and he ground out, “Serious to God, Georgiana, shut the fuck up.”

“You’re angry,” she whispered, looking surprised at this fact.

But she was wrong.

He was not angry.

He was enraged.

He could not believe anyone would hear Carlyle’s story and use any part of it to further their own career.