Chapter One
His girl’s throaty rumble filled his ears and got his pulse pounding.
It had been a while since she’d been between his legs. He’d missed straddling her. Riding her hard. Pushing her to her limits.
She had it all. Power, gorgeous lines and ball-tightening speed.
Some men his age went out and bought a Corvette. Some, like him, preferred a ride that would spike his blood pressure and make him feel alive. One that hugged curves taken at high speeds.
His ex, Sasha, might have won his prized Harley in the divorce, but he won his freedom.
The second the ink was dry on the divorce papers, he took the money he had left, rushed down to the local Harley-Davidson dealership and signed his name again. This time on a pink slip for something that would help him get over that painful mess.
A Harley-Davidson FXDR 114 with a custom black and silver paint job to match his salt-and-pepper hair. He also added a custom seat so he could take one of the kids for a spin.
Not that they clamored to ride with dear old dad.
But if they ever did…
His girl, aptly named Silver Foxy, had a top speed of 160 mph and was capable of going zero-to-sixty in less than three seconds flat.
Not that he’d tested it.
At least not that often.
He’d lucked out. Today had been the perfect weather to take a long scenic ride to the DEA offices outside of Pittsburgh, since he’d been jonesing to get his girl out of the garage once winter decided to fuck off. He only hoped it stayed away, but in early April the weather could go either way.
Boiling hot one day, snowstorm the next.
Mother Nature was so unpredictable, she must’ve bought meth from the Demons.
Hopefully with spring arriving, Finn, as the BAMC road captain, would start scheduling monthly or bi-weekly runs. Crew was ready to take to the open road with his brothers.
It would also be good for Nox to get out on his bike, too. That was after they cornered him first for the intervention Axel Jamison had scheduled. Finding the time to get almost all the BAMC members together had been tough since everyone worked different hours and shifts.
But to Jamison—and the rest of them—doing the intervention was priority since Nox needed a little tough love right now and no one was better to do it than his fellow Blue Avengers who considered him family.
Crew found a parking spot occupied with another motorcycle and crab-walked Foxy in reverse next to it before shutting her down.
After sliding off his half-helmet, he hooked it over one side of the handlebars, scraped his fingers through his short hair and threw his leg over. Once his feet were on solid ground, he reached for the sky and arched his back in an attempt to loosen his tight muscles, all while groaning.
Even though he was only in his early forties, that ride alone left him sore and aching. An unnecessary reminder that getting old sucked.
Twenty years ago, he could’ve done backflips all the way into the DEA field office. Today, there might be a bit of a hitch in his step.
Damn, his bladder was also reminding him that it no longer liked to be full.
He hoofed it toward the building so he could take care of his personal business before heading to his superior’s office to deal with official Tri-State Federal Drug Task Force business.
As he reached to pull open the reflective-glass door, it swung outward, and a whirlwind slammed right into him. Even though the woman was petite and about a foot shorter than him, the impact still knocked him back a step before he got his feet back under him and grabbed her by the elbow to set her straight, too.
“Jesus, watch where you’re going!”
Her dark brown eyes narrowed on him and she pulled her elbow from his grip. “I could tell you the same.”
She checked him out as he did the same.
Her well-fitted gray dress pants with a matching blazer emphasized her slender frame. Under the jacket was a lapel-collared white shirt that contrasted with her tawny complexion that reminded him of Rez’s. That meant she was either really into tanning or her skin tone came naturally.
“You were running out of there like your ass is on fire. You need to pay attention.”
“I could tell you the same.”
Her dark brown, maybe even black, hair was pulled tight into a neat bun, and she wore just enough makeup to emphasize her natural beauty.
“The glass is reflective. I couldn’t see you coming,” he explained.
“I could tell you the same.”
Holy fuck, was that the only response she knew?
“I accept your apology,” he said dryly.
One of her dark eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t give you one since you ran into me.”
From what he could tell, she wasn’t in her early twenties, but she also wasn’t out of that decade, either. And for him, she was too young whether she was twenty-one or twenty-nine despite being dick-hardening hot.
“Clearly you’re wrong.”
Her lips curved the slightest bit and her eyes held a gleam he didn’t like. “I could tell you the same.”
Holy fuck. “I’ve got a meeting to get to.” He raised his palm as her mouth opened. “Don’t even.” He noticed she wasn’t wearing any ID, a requirement to be in the building. “Are you supposed to be here?”
That gleam turned into a sparkle that he really didn’t like. “Are you?”
He set his jaw. “Do you even work for the agency?”
“Do you?”
He was done with this ridiculous conversation that wasn’t even a conversation. He didn’t know what the fuck it was. Annoying, that was what it was. And a waste of his time. “I actually have important business here.”
She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “So do I.”
He doubted that. “Then go do it.”
Her eyebrows shot up and any amusement in her eyes disappeared. “I don’t need your permission.” As she pushed past him and booked it toward the parking lot, she called out over her shoulder, “It was not nice to meet you!”
“I could say the same to you!” he yelled back with a shake of his head.
He needed to get inside so he wasn’t late but, damn, he couldn’t resist watching her go.
He’d hit that.
If she wasn’t so damn young.
And he had a roll of duct tape on hand to seal shut that smart mouth.
He wished good luck to the poor fucker who had to deal with her ass. They’d need it.
Thank fuck it wasn’t him.
****
“Do I get to pick Butler’s replacement? Is that why I’m here? To give me some options?”
For fuck’s sake, say yes. Don’t stick me with someone I don’t want and knock my well-oiled team out of whack.
Unfortunately, PA State Police Corporal Ian Butler had to bow out from the task force. His wife was experiencing a difficult pregnancy and was bedridden until she delivered. That meant Butler was needed at home more than ever, both to tend to her, as well as their two other young children. The task force consumed more time than he could currently give.
It sucked but Crew understood that family came first. However, that left him a team member short. The whole reason he sat on the other side of the desk belonging to the supervising special agent in charge of group one’s investigation.
And the man Crew reported to.
“No,” Bob Williams answered.
“I picked the rest of the team.”
“And I picked your newest member.”
Crew stared across the desk, not liking Williams’ tone. It made the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise. The SSA was normally an easy-going guy but something was up. “Do I know him?”
“No.”
That meant this agent was most likely brought in from another field office. “Where’s he from, or is he new to the organization?”
“She’s newer but not quite wet behind the ears new.”
She? He had to choke that down because it almost burst free from his lips and that would not go over well.
He had no problem with women in law enforcement.
None.
Not even a little bit.
He cleared his throat. “How new?”
“She graduated in the top one percent of her class.”
“That means nothing.” And didn’t answer his question.
“To you, maybe, since you weren’t in that top one percent.”
Damn. “I did well in the academy.” Graduating was all that mattered, not being an ass-kisser.
“‘Well’ is a subjective term.”
Jesus. Williams was out for blood today. “When did she graduate?”
“A year ago. She has more grit and determination than a lot of our senior agents.“
Had he walked into a massacre without a bullet-proof vest? Crew had enough gaping wounds now that he was beginning to bleed out. “That’s because she’s fresh and determined to make the world a better place. Once she learns that’s an almost impossible battle to win, she’ll be as tarnished as the rest of us.”
“How about letting her keep that enthusiasm for a while? You could take her under your wing. I see great things in her future and believe she’ll be an asset to the agency, as well as your task force.”
“How old is she?” If she graduated the academy only a year ago, she could be as young as twenty-one. A complete baby needing a whole lot of hand-holding. Right now, he didn’t have to micro-manage his team.
He also didn’t want to.
“She’s young, so I think she would do well dealing with the Demons.”
Dread filled his chest. “She can’t go undercover. They’re,” he bit back an F-bomb, “bikers!”
Williams leaned back in his leather office chair. “They don’t have women hanging around their organization?”
Organization? Williams made them sound like a legit business.
“Not without putting out. Hang-arounds and sweet butts don’t get the pleasure of spending time with those lovely gentlemen without paying a price. I doubt she wants to bend over for a bunch of outlaw bikers. And I’m not talking only one.” Crew shrugged. “Unless she tries to become an ol’ lady. Even if she does that, do you want her having sex with even one of them?”
The reality was, no biker was taking an ol’ lady who didn’t put out. It wasn’t romantic sex, either. Sometimes it was rough, degrading and bordered on abusive.
He’d seen plenty of it on the camera feeds. None of it was hot and all of it was stomach-churning. Sex to the Deadly Demons wasn’t an intimate connection, it was solely for busting a nut.
“No. Find something else for her to do, then. She’ll be an asset to your team no matter what task she’s assigned.”
For fuck’s sake. He’d preferred not to assign her anything at all. They were better off being one member short. “Why are you pushing this?”
“Because you’re down a team member and she’d be perfect for it.”
Perfect was a subjective term. “No.”
Williams’ eyebrows smashed together. “No what?”
“We’re a cohesive team. We’ll be fine with fourteen members.”
“Are you refusing an order? Do I need to remind you that doing so is insubordination?”
Shit. “I haven’t heard an order yet.”
Williams got to his feet, picked up a paper off his desk and sailed it toward Crew. “Here’s the official order.”
It fluttered onto his lap.
Fuck! Crew grabbed the memo, folded it up and stuffed it into his back pocket without even reading it. “How soon does she start?”
Williams’ rounded his desk, opened his office door and poked his head out, calling, “Cabrera.”
Cabrera? Why did that last name sound familiar?
And Crew hadn’t noticed anyone sitting outside Williams’ office when he entered, except for the man’s executive assistant.
Should he stay sitting? Stand? He had no fucking clue what was expected of him. With a grumble, he pushed to his feet and turned to see a woman entering the office, giving Williams a chin lift as she did so.
Not a woman, the woman.
Son of a fucking bitch.
Her heart-stopping dark eyes were laser-focused on him. Crew caught the slightest crinkle at the corners and a twitch of her lips before her expression turned blank.
No fucking way.
“Colin Crew is the group one leader of the Tri-State Federal Task Force that I told you about. You’ll be reporting directly to him.”
She stepped closer and jutted out her hand.
He stared at it for a second noticing what he hadn’t earlier—her very subtle manicure and ringless fingers—before letting his gaze slide back up to her face. But on that trip, he noticed she now wore an ID badge around her neck.
She had probably forgot it in her car.
For fuck’s sake.
“Camila Cabrera,” she introduced herself, then tipped her head when he still hadn’t shaken her hand. “Do you prefer Colin, Crew… or Sir?”
He blinked. What?
He opened his mouth, then shut it to clear his throat as he grabbed her hand, squeezing it more firmly than he normally would while shaking it. He might as well establish his dominance from the start because he had a feeling after their exchange outside, she’d be challenging his leadership.
At every fucking turn.
When she tried to pull her hand from his, he held it for a few seconds longer before finally releasing it. “Crew works. You? Camila or Cabrera?”
She shrugged. “No one calls me Camila except my grandparents. I respond to Cam, Cami or Cabrera. Or even C.C. That’s what my daddy calls me.”
“Good to know,” he practically wheezed, having a hard time breathing after hearing that last part.
Not only did her last name sound familiar, so did the nickname C.C. Even so, his brain was having trouble placing her.
“Well, I look forward to working with you and your team,” she said, a sparkle dancing in her dark eyes.
Jesus fuck, she was going to be trouble. She was going to overturn the fucking apple cart. He just knew it.
He opened his mouth to tell Williams that he wanted someone else to take Butler’s place. Anyone but the woman in front of him.
But just as the words were starting to form, Cabrera turned to the supervising special agent to ask, “When do I start?”
“Today.”
Today? He didn’t even get a fucking minute to come to terms with this whole thing? To prepare his team?
“All right, I have another meeting in five minutes. I just wanted to introduce you two.” He glanced at Cabrera. “Come to me with any problems.”
Go to him with any problems? What the fuck did that mean?
“Will do, sir,” was her answer. She turned to Crew. “Walk me out?”
Hell no. His eyes met Williams’ and he swallowed that answer. “Sure.” He waved a hand toward the open office door, and she stepped through it.
He followed her to the elevator. They said nothing while waiting for the car to arrive and once inside, both stared at the closed doors for the time it took them to reach the ground floor.
They said nothing as they stepped outside into the bright sunlight. Wincing, he pulled the sunglasses from where he had them hooked in his shirt’s neckline and slipped them over his eyes.
If there was a reason she wanted him to walk her out, she sure was keeping it close to the vest.
“Well…” he started, ready to get the fuck out of there.
“I bet you know my father. You seem to be about his age.”
There was no fucking way he was her father’s age. Unless she was conceived when her father wasn’t a man yet but still a boy.
He snapped his gaping mouth shut. “Who’s your father?”
“Williams didn’t tell you?”
Like earlier, he didn’t like the direction of this conversation, either. Not a fucking bit. “Should he have?”
“I figured that’s why you don’t look very happy about me joining your task force. Not because of our earlier run-in.”
“I—” didn’t have a choice, that’s why I’m not happy. Crew shook his head. Telling her that he was forced to accept her as a team member wouldn’t make things any easier for either of them. He didn’t have any choice but to accept the inevitable. “No, apparently he didn’t feel the need to share that information with me. Do you want to share it, instead?”
“My father knows you.”
“He does?” He rubbed his forehead as if that would jumpstart his memory. “Is his last name Cabrera?”
“It is. Normally I’d use my mother’s last name, but we decided to follow the American tradition of using my father’s last name, instead.”
He had plenty of questions about that little tidbit of info but right now he was more interested in who her father was, not why she was using his last name, a normal tradition for people living in the U.S.
For fuck’s sake, should he even care why?
“I’m pretty sure you worked together.”
“We did?” He wracked his brain trying to remember a fellow DEA agent with the same last name.
“I think it was about eighteen years ago. Luis Cabrera. Remember him?”
Oh fuck.
Crew almost swallowed his tongue and a sharp pain shot through his chest.
How the fuck could he forget? Not the part about working with him—because they did work a case together—but the most important part. Luis Cabrera was now the agency’s principal deputy administrator.
And that was a huge fucking deal.
“You’re right. I know your father. But you’re also wrong. I’m not his age.”
A small smile curved her lips. “Hmm.” She took her time taking in his salt-and-pepper hair and beard. “You look like it.”
Jesus Christ. “I went through a rough divorce. Gotta go.” He began hoofing it away from the building and out to the parking lot.
She followed him, somehow managing to stay close on his heels even with her much shorter legs. “I heard your divorce was ugly, but wasn’t it years ago? You haven’t recovered yet? Are you still pining away for your ex?”
“I’m already regretting this,” he muttered, lengthening his strides, hoping to leave her in the dust. “I grayed early,” he tossed over his shoulder.
“From the divorce?”
“From pain in the ass women in general.” And she certainly qualified as one of those.
Luckily he had parked in a visitor spot near the building. That meant he could escape more quickly. He stopped next to his girl and grabbed his helmet.
It hit him then. Who she really was. Like a two-by-four across his forehead.
His chest tightened painfully, and he spun on her. “I not only remember your father, I remember you.” That might have sounded like an accusation, but he didn’t give a shit.
Oh yeah, he remembered her now.
At the time he met her, she’d been an outgoing, mouthy ten-year-old. Also, at the time, she was cute. With pigtails.
The woman before him was no longer cute. And she no longer had pigtails.
He rubbed at the burn growing in his chest.
Her eyebrows rose when she asked, “We’ve actually met before?”
Her attempt at sounding clueless was a joke.
One he didn’t find funny.
“Mmm.” And now, even though she was a damn adult, he felt like a dirty old man for checking her out earlier.
If she was ten at the time—he did a quick figuring in his head—she now had to be twenty-eight or close to it.
Old enough, but also so very not.
He hoped he had masked the panic from his face well enough. He slammed the brakes on his spinning brain. “How’s your father?”
“Busy. But he always makes time for me and I’m sure he’ll be interested in hearing that I’ll be working with someone he knew and worked with personally.”
Just fucking great.
One wrong move and she could run to her father. A man who led an agency consisting of thousands of special agents and intelligence analysts across both the United States and the world.
That man.
A man who could quickly put Crew’s balls in a vice and crush them.
Williams fucked him and not in a way Crew normally enjoyed. And that asshole probably knew all of the info Crew only learned and decided to keep it to himself.
He swung a leg over his girl and settled on the seat.
“That’s your ride?”
He glanced over to see Cabrera still standing a few feet away. “Yeah.”
“Pretty risky. I’d expect someone in your age bracket to ride a trike instead. No problems with your balance?”
Christ. He was only forty-three! Just a distinguished forty-three. “No walker or cane needed yet.”
“Impressive. Nothing like holding onto your youth by your fingernails.”
“Definitely going to regret this,” he grumbled under his breath.
“The day’s only half over. What do you want me to do for the rest of it, boss?”
For fuck’s sake. “Do you have the address for the plant?”
“I do. Williams gave it to me when he gave me my assignment.”
“Report there at 0800 sharp tomorrow morning. Do you live close, or are you going to need to find a place nearby?”
“Since I just transferred from Virginia, the agency set me up at the SpringHill Suites temporarily.”
“Where?”
“Near here.”
Crew shook his head. “We’re based out of Rockvale. I suggest finding a place closer.”
“Have any suggestions?”
He strapped on his brain bucket and made sure it was secure. “Nope. Your first assignment is to figure it out.” He pushed the starter and somehow managed to avoid a sneer when he said, “Welcome to the team.”
He revved the bike, causing Foxy’s engine to roar loudly enough to drown out her answer. With a two-finger salute, he put it in gear and gunned it, leaving her standing in his dust.
