Always Crew by Tijan

CROSS

Bren was drunk.

She was the type of drunk where she wasn’t registering she was still drunk, but she was. She was also damn cute about it. She kept flicking her hand over her nose. She’d scrunch up her face afterward and make a little pffting sound. She was as loud as a tiny kitten. Seriously fucking adorable.

I’d been watching her boss the whole time we were bowling. He was older twenties or younger thirties, but the way he was staring at Bren, a boyfriend would start wondering if he had a hard-on for her, too.

He didn’t. I put my arm around her and he hadn’t cared.

He was more interested in scoping out the rest of us.

Bren said he read her file and he made a call to Roussou. So it made sense he’d want to know about us. We were her crew. That shit didn’t stop in high school, not for us.

But all the other stuff she mentioned. Yeah. It was making me worried.

I scoped out a security system while we were there, so we had ski masks on, pulling them down as we left the truck, and darted to the back door. We didn’t do this. We never had, but there were times at Roussou we needed to go somewhere that we probably weren’t welcome. That was the closest we had to breaking and entering. This was a whole new graduation level, but I’d been watching Bren’s boss all night. I’d been scanning the entire building, and I knew we needed more than just Trundle’s key to get in.

Once he sobered up, he would report it missing the next day.

Brock was smart. I saw that, so he’d change everything as soon as possible, not wanting to risk anyone getting in to see whatever they were working on. That meant we had to move fast. We needed to get in and out even before they thought someone would get in and out, and that Brock guy would be watching Bren. We were the last people seen with Trundle. They were hiding something from Bren. We’d be on the short list of who took Trundle’s keys.

So yeah, tonight was our only night as far as I was concerned, but Bren, I had to make sure she didn’t touch anything. I moved into her, my lips to her ears. “We can’t talk in there.”

She nodded, knowing they could have recordings or video rolling.

I pulled her back one last time. “Go to the office door and wait for me. Follow my lead.”

Another nod. Her eyes were wide and staring at me, but she flinched, her hand flicking her nose.

I suppressed a smile, remembering the mask hid my mouth and smiled anyway.

I loved my girl. A seriously cute drunk.

Then we were in.

The back door opened easy enough, but it was the second door I was worried about.

Bren headed for it, waiting to the side as I darted behind the front desk. I watched. Brock used a code to get in so I plugged that in. And I also remembered when he took his papers to the back.

I lifted up the tray and there was a key inside.

I took it, hurrying to the office doors, and inserted it.

It turned.

Now, inside I wasn’t sure what we were walking into, but Bren did.

She bypassed me, going to an alarm system. She coded in a number. The system’s alarm turned green. We were good to go.

The bowling lanes still had their orange neon strips showing with enough light, so we didn’t need extra lighting. The office was different, though. I reached into my pocket, handing Bren a flashlight, and then we were both moving through the rooms.

Bren went inside the first one. She was sweeping over the desk, so I moved to the larger room, and I didn’t need to go anywhere else. I stepped inside the room, my light catching the image of someone on the wall, and I stopped in my tracks.

I hadn’t wanted this to happen, but here we were.

There were three walls set up around the desks, and smack on the left wall was a picture of Bren’s father. Derrick Monroe. He’d lived a hard life. The fights with Channing, Bren’s mom’s cancer, then the drinking. The drinking had been a constant. He looked like a different man when he came to Cain. Softer. Humble. Beat down. But he was a member of the Red Demons now, so how long he could keep that up was anyone’s guess? I’d done my research, just like I always did.

Red Demons came to Roussou, started messing with Channing, and I knew there could be spillage over to us. There had been, but not enough to be too concerned. Then her dad joined up, and my alarms had been going nuts ever since. It’d been a matter of time before this happened, where Bren’s world would cross paths with them. Now I just wanted to know if she’d been hired with the idea of using her to get to her dad, or they brought her in anyway, and were keeping her out of the shitstorm for her own good? How’d that work with Channing reaching out?

I couldn’t tell, but under Derrick Monroe’s picture were Bren’s and Channing’s. His kids.

Jesus.

This. Right here.

This was why they didn’t want Bren inside.

Her picture was on the fucking wall.

So were the rest of us.

Bren would’ve lost it seeing any of our images up there.

They had strings connecting us to Bren. All of Channing’s guys were under his. His woman’s picture. Her brother’s. There were stickies put up with information about each of us. If we were affiliated or not. All of us were not Red Demon affiliated, but we were crew affiliated. Wolf Crew. WC was put on Bren’s, mine, Zellman, and Jordan’s stickies. Channing’s guys had New Kings, NK, written next to their names. They even made note of who was also bounty hunters for Channing. And the long string that attached Bren’s dad led to Maxwell Raith.

I knew about Raith.

He was the Red Demons’ President. Smart. Ruthless. Dangerous. But he told Channing that he owed his life to Bren and Channing’s father. Beyond that and that their MC was growing fast, I didn’t know much about him. Maxwell’s picture was center in the middle wall. There were pictures and pictures of men underneath, ones I didn’t know.

I took my phone out, starting to snap pictures when Bren came in.

I had to move fast.

I stopped my phone and moved toward her, blocking her flashlight as I did. I grabbed her arm, my mouth to her ear. “You need to trust me. Let me cover this room. Take as many pictures as you can from the other rooms and go to the truck.”

She tried to pull her arm away. She couldn’t say anything. Neither of us knew if her voice would be recorded and recognized, but she growled under her breath, so slight I hoped it wasn’t caught.

“Please.”

She ripped her arm away but left.

And I could breathe easy again.

I couldn’t waste time. I took as many pictures as possible, getting everything on the board. I noted the guy’s picture in the middle of the right wall, and all the images underneath. There were a lot of images under that guy, but after getting everything, I moved to the table.

Papers were picked up, pictures snapped of them, and put back down exactly as they were first placed.

It took me ten minutes, and I didn’t even like that it was that long.

Bren was finishing in the first office. She came out when I did. I swept my light to the third office, but she shook her head. I didn’t know what that meant, but when she headed for the exit, I went to make sure that office was covered. It was a hangout room. Magazines were left opened. A couple books. A camera. I picked up the camera, turning it on and scrolling through the pictures caught.

I didn’t know who these people were, but I took pictures of them just to be safe and as thorough as I could.

I was leaving when I saw headlights sweep the place. Someone was pulling into the parking lot.

I couldn’t think. I had to move.

The door was shut, so I hurried out, hitting and holding a big red button. I was hoping it was the one to man the alarm system. As it clicked on, I was moving through the door connecting to the offices just as I heard a truck’s door open from the front.

I sprinted to the register, slipping the key back in.

The front door beeped open just as I shut the cash register. I dropped low to the ground.

Thankfully, whoever was coming in left the lights off. They moved through, knowing where they were going. I moved to the other side of the front desk, closer to the back door—my destination—as I heard the cash register being opened.

For a second, I panicked. Had I put the key where it’d been?

I froze.

“There you are.” It was Brock. He grabbed the key, shut the register, and I straightened up from my crouch, seeing him going to the office. I moved to the back door but purposely dropped Trundle’s key on the ground just as I moved outside, closing the door.

The lights were turned on in the office as I darted across the lot, merging with the shadows and following the tree line until the sidewalk. I continued, keeping off the sidewalk until I got to my truck. Moving inside, Bren’s face was pale. “I didn’t know if he caught you.”

Everything inside me was locked tight, but I couldn’t talk, not yet. We needed out of there as soon as possible. Turning the truck on, keeping the lights off, I moved forward. Once I took a turn onto another block, I flicked the lights on and headed back to the house.

“Shit!” I could breathe easier now.

She stared at me. “They never gave me a key.”

“I know.” I reached over, taking her hand.

She slid her fingers alongside mine. “You think they’ll look at the security cameras?”

I shook my head. A big fat fucking boulder was sitting in my gut, but I didn’t have anything to make it all go away. “Let’s hope not.”

“What about Justin’s key card?”

“I dropped it on the ground. It’ll look like it came off his shirt, or out of his pocket or something.”

She exhaled a deep breath, moving to face the front again, but her hand never let go of mine.

She held me tight the whole way back.