Chapter 64 The Iron Fang Camp
Darius POV
The air at the edge of the industrial park smelled like wet asphalt and stale cigarette smoke, and I stood by the rusted remains of an old shipping container while I watched my men move through the shadows of the camp with a kind of restless energy that always came before a big hunt. We had set up our temporary base in the ruins of an abandoned chemical warehouse on the outskirts of the city, and while it wasn't as fancy as the Harts’ clubhouse with its leather chairs and stocked bars, it had enough room for forty bikes and a secure line that didn't go through any of the local towers. Silas was sitting on the tailgate of his truck a few yards away and he was cleaning a long hunting knife with a piece of oily denim, but his eyes kept darting toward the main gate as if he expected Grayson to come crashing through the fence at any second.
"You need to stop twitching every time the wind blows a piece of trash across the yard, because we already know exactly where they are and the Syndicate’s recovery team is probably pulling them out of that high-rise right now," I told him, and I leaned back against the cold metal of the container while I pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from my pocket.
"I don't like relying on those corporate suits to do our dirty work, Darius, and I especially don't like the fact that we’re taking orders from a guy like Sterling who would sell us out for a tax break if it suited him," Silas replied, and he stood up to shove the knife into the sheath on his belt before he walked over to stand in front of me. "We should have just stormed the clubhouse while Grayson was distracted by the fire, and we could have settled this the old-fashioned way instead of playing these games with fake bank accounts and digital traces."
"If we had stormed the clubhouse, we would have lost half our riders in the first ten minutes because the Harts are still better armed than we are, and besides, the Syndicate doesn't want a bloodbath in the streets that makes the evening news," I explained, and I felt a sense of satisfaction as I blew a cloud of smoke into the damp night air. "The goal isn't just to kill Grayson, it’s to unseat the entire Hart family and dismantle their hold on the docks, and the only way to do that is to make them look like a liability to the board members who actually hold the purse strings."
My phone buzzed in my vest pocket and I pulled it out to see a text from the Syndicate contact we had been working with for the last six months, and the message was a simple confirmation that the penthouse door had been breached and the target was being secured. I had spent a lot of time and money making sure that Jess had everything he needed to frame that baker girl, and it was almost funny to think that the great Grayson Hart was going to lose his entire legacy because he couldn't keep his hands off a human.
"Is it done?" Silas asked, his voice sounding eager and a little too loud for a camp that was supposed to be keeping a low profile.
"They’re inside the building and they’ve got Jess leading the way since he knows exactly how Grayson reacts when he’s backed into a corner," I said, and I started walking toward the center of the warehouse where the rest of the pack was gathering around a fire they had started in a large metal drum. "The Syndicate wants the girl for questioning about the stolen files, but they’ve given us the green light to handle Grayson once he’s been separated from his security detail and his sister’s legal team."
"And what about the bakery? People are starting to ask questions about why it went up in flames so fast, and I don't want the local cops poking around our bike shops because they think we’re becoming arsonists," one of the younger riders named Leo asked as he tossed a piece of broken pallet into the fire.
"The cops go where the money tells them to go, and right now the money is telling them that the fire was an electrical accident caused by faulty wiring in an old building," I told him, and I made sure to look him in the eye so he knew I wasn't in the mood for any more questions about my methods. "We’re working directly with the people who run this city, so as long as we deliver the Harts on a silver platter, we can burn down half the neighborhood and nobody is going to say a word."
I walked over to a small table where a laptop was set up and I pulled up the live feed from the Syndicate’s tactical channel, watching the blurry green images of the hallway outside the penthouse as the team moved into position. I had been waiting for this moment for years, ever since the Harts pushed us out of the northern territory and treated us like we were just some common street gang instead of a pack with our own history and pride. Grayson was always so arrogant with his suits and his corporate meetings, but he didn't realize that the world was changing and that the Syndicate didn't need a middleman who had a conscience or a sense of honor.
"You think he’s going to fight back, or is he going to give up once he sees that his own head of security is the one holding the handcuffs?" Silas asked, and he let out a short, dry laugh as he leaned over to look at the screen with me.
"He’ll fight, because that’s what Alphas do when they’re cornered, but the report says he was looking pretty weak after that storm passed, and I’m betting that family curse is finally starting to catch up with him," I replied, and I felt a cold kind of joy as I thought about the crown of thorns burning into Grayson’s skin while he watched his life fall apart. "The Syndicate is going to strip him of everything he owns, and then they’re going to hand him over to us so we can finish the job and take over the docks once and for all."
I watched the screen as the door to the penthouse was kicked in and the team disappeared into the darkness of the apartment, and I knew that by the time the sun was fully up, the Harts would be a memory and the Iron Fangs would be the ones running the city. I threw my cigarette butt into the dirt and ground it out with the heel of my boot, and then I turned to my men and told them to start their engines because the wait was finally over.