Page 119 of Cold Bastard
It looked like someone had cleared out in a hurry.
“He’s gone,” Poseidon said from behind me, his voice flat.
I holstered my gun and moved deeper into the room, my eyes scanning for anything useful.
The table had a laptop charger plugged into the wall, but no laptop. A coffee mug sat beside it, still half-full, the liquid inside cold and filmy.
He left recently. Maybe hours ago. Maybe less.
“Check the bathroom,” I said as Poseidon disappeared through the narrow doorway while I crouched beside the mattress, running my hands along the edges, checking for anything hidden underneath.
Nothing. But when I lifted the corner of the mattress, I found it.
A burner phone. Cheap, disposable, the kind you bought at gas stations with cash. I powered it on, waiting as the screen flickered to life.
No password.
Sloppy.
I scrolled through the call log. Most of the numbers were blocked or showed up as unknown. But there was one that appeared repeatedly—a local number, called multiple times over the past week. I memorized it, then checked the text messages.
Empty. Deleted. But the photo gallery wasn’t as I opened it, and my blood went cold. Photos. Dozens of them. Surveillance shots of Brotherhood members. Firestride outside the hospital. Ravage at a gas station. Indigo as he walked into a diner, and Eros leaning against his bike. All of them were taken in the days leading up to the Diamond Creek attack.
He was watching them. Planning it. Coordinating it.
And then I saw the last photo. A group shot. Five men standing outside a warehouse, their faces partially obscured by shadows. But I recognized one of them immediately.
Arizona. And beside him, another man I didn’t recognize. Older, maybe mid-forties, with graying hair and a scar running down the side of his face. The man’s hand was on Arizona’s shoulder, and they were both smiling.
Who the fuck is that?
“Nano.”
I looked up to find Poseidon standing in the bathroom doorway, holding something in his hand. A piece of paper. He walked over and handed it to me, his expression dark. It was a receipt. From a storage facility on the east side of town. Unit 47. Paid in cash two weeks ago.
“Think he’s there?” Poseidon asked.
“Maybe,” I said, pocketing the burner phone. “Or maybe he’s already gone, and this is just another dead end.”
But I didn’t believe that. Arizona was careful. Methodical. He wouldn’t leave a burner phone behind unless he was in a hurry. Unless something or someone had spooked him.
Did he know we were coming? Did someone tip him off?
The thought made my jaw tighten. If there was a leak, if someone had warned Arizona we were hunting him, then this entire operation was compromised. I pulled out my own phone and texted Morpheus the address of the storage facility, along with a photo of the receipt.
His response came back almost immediately.
Morpheus:On our way. Don’t move until we get there.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and looked around the apartment one last time. This place told a story. A man living off the grid, moving money, coordinating hits, staying one step ahead of everyone hunting him. But he’d made mistakes. Left traces. And now we had them. The burner phone. The surveillance photos. The receipt. It wasn’t much. But it was enough.
“Let’s go,” I said, heading for the door.
Poseidon followed, and we made our way back down the stairs and out into the cold afternoon air. As we walked back to the vehicle, I couldn’t stop thinking about the photo on theburner phone. The man with the scar. The way he had been standing with Arizona, like they were partners. Like they were working together.
Who is he? And how deep does this go?TheSocietywasn’t just a threat anymore. It was a network. A coordinated effort to take down the Biker Federation one brother at a time, and Arizona was just one piece of it.
By the time we reached the vehicle, my phone buzzed again.
