Reign (Riders of Apollo #1)

Chapter 17: Peyton Lennox

I would say it's intimidating to enter a room full of bikers but I know that I'm safe, probably the safest I've ever been, in this room.

Roman reaches out a hand and I slip mine into it, his blank face changes into a cocky smirk as I lower myself into his lap. He's staking his claim, I know that much, as he glares at any of the guys giving me too much attention.

"Welcome Peyton, we have some things to talk about. But first let me introduce you to some of the guys. Romeo is tech, you want him to falsify any records or hack any database he's your man."

"Alright, lovely?" He greets and I smile at him with a nod, feeling Roman's tightened grip on my waist. Romeo is cute but too young for me, besides why would I trade in the perfect model underneath me?

"You know Gears, he's treasurer so controls any money that comes in or out of the club, runs the books so to speak. Runner is our resident weapons man, he's an expert on anything from guns to katana blades and knows every way to kill you with them."

"What's your favourite?" I ask him, genuinely curious about the charismatic latino. I have to admit if I met him before Reign I probably would've given him a go but now I don't think he could match up.

"Barrett hunting rifle, long range is a lot more fun."

"Yeah but it's not as pretty as a Walther PPK." He looks at me in surprise.

"You know guns?"

"Of course, I just prefer knives." I slip my blade from my leg holder and toss it to him, he catches it flawlessly and I can feel eyes on me while I watch Runner examine it.

"Is this a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife?" I nod and take the blade back, relieved when I slide it back into it's holster. "Where did you get it?"

"Won it in a game of poker. You and I are gonna have to play in the armoury some time."

"Definitely, I wanna see what you've got."

"Okay, moving on. This is Red, he's our explosives expert, he doesn't talk much but sometimes we can get a little out of him. He mainly only comes out of his house for Church and a few runs where he's required. He's broad Scottish though so most of us don't understand what he's saying."

"TNT or C4?"

"Is that a stupid question? C4 all the way." They look at Red in surprise as I grin at his reply, it makes sense. C4 is easier to control and you need less of it. I like him, he's older - probably Gears' age - with white hair and beard, with focused grey eyes and a little bit of a rounder belly. His voice is chalky but I understand it, I lived in Scotland for a little and fell in love with everything about it.

"This is Blade, you've already met him. He's our newly patched member, works at the bar. And finally we've got Hunter, he's in charge of security and keeps PD in line, basically our liaison with the legal side of things." Even though he's basically a lawyer he's built with stacked muscles and intense features. Dark eyes and dark hair, sharp jawline decorated with a thick layer of hair and his nose looks like it's been broken before.

"Which department do you liaise with?"

"Vice."

"Good, as long as it's not narco you're fine. They're all dirty, most likely HR and would fuck you over in a second. Stay safe."

"Yes ma'am." We all laugh softly at my statement before we get down to business. I'm pretty sure I wasn't invited just for introductions, my purpose here is more likely to be about the HR issue.

"Did you get those files from your Fed?" Bear asks and I sigh softly.

"Halfway there, she can get me the files but I have to go in and talk to her boss. He fancies me and the only way he's handing it over is to me face to face, he'll probably make me go out to dinner and shit."

"You are not whoring yourself out for some paper, Peyton." Roman's growl appears from behind me and I roll my eyes at his statement.

"Good Lord, I'm not going to sleep with him. Not like he can do much anyway." The other guys laugh at that while Roman gets tenser and tenser beneath me. I'll talk to him about this later. "Besides that though, I think I might've cracked down on where they're getting their guns from. I know they stole some from Slasher but they have more guns than that. The Niners have been getting payments of 250K from an offshore account in the Bahamas, I hacked the bank and it turns out it's under the name Blade Romaro, the dead guy."

"So they're getting their guns from the Niners and using an offshore account to store their money. Makes sense, it's harder to track the money from there." Gears chips in and I nod.

"Thing is the Niners would actually be quite easy to access and topple their operation. The other day I hacked into the cameras for the county, they use the same routes on every trip across the border and always drop off the cash and the guns in the same place. They normally only have three men for protection and they drive SUVs, easy to push off the road. The money changes hands every single time at 1:15 am and they only do the runs on Tuesdays since the roads are dead. If you hit that exchange you not only knock out a few Niners but also some HR members, you acquire more guns and money.

Though I'd suggest doing it without flying colours. The Niners find out, you'll bring war onto your side so I'm thinking about getting the Niners to chase their own tail for awhile. I might be able to get them to think that they've got a mole, they won't use the same routes and they'll probably try to close off the deals with HR - cut off their guns, cut off their abilities to operate. They'll be desperate and will reach out to the Mexicans most likely. I have ties in there so we could cripple them. Both of them."

"Damn woman, you are cunning as fuck." Bear finally gets words out after all of them stare at me in varying degrees of confusion and admiration, I thought I broke them for a few seconds there.

"Thank you."