“If he pisses himself, you’re cleaning it up,” Copper shouted from the front.
“Oh, shit! I almost forgot,” Batta exclaimed and pulled something from underneath the seat. He maneuvered his big body so he could lean over Tristan. When he was finished, Tristan was wearing an adult-sized diaper over his jeans. Batta smiled proudly. “Piss away, pussy boy.”
I couldn’t hold in my laughter. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“What? It’s genius. I can scare the shit, or piss, out of him and I don’t have to clean it up.”
“Batta! Is that why Evelyn dropped off an industrial size box of those at the house and told Layla she was happy to help?” Copper demanded.
“Well, she has a membership to that new wholesale club, and she gets a senior citizen discount,” Batta explained and we all burst into laughter.
We went straight to the shed when we arrived back at the clubhouse, and I wasted no time getting started. “Listen, I’m fucking tired and so is everyone else in this room. Are you going to tell us what we want to know, or are you going to make me work for it?”
His face scrunched and I realized what he was about to do. “You fucking spit on me and I’ll burn your tongue off with a hot branding iron.” He paused and swallowed carefully.
“Prez, I say we get some sleep and see if he’s more receptive to conversation in the morning,” I suggested.
Copper nodded. “Sounds good. Tell Grant to come back to the clubhouse when you get home. He can guard Tristan for the rest of the night.”
With that, I went home to my girl.
Chapter Forty
Judge
I returned to the clubhouse bright and early the next morning hoping Tristan’s fear had enough time to fester. During my experience in the Marines, as well as the club, I’d learned one thing was almost always true—people wouldn’t talk unless they were scared. And he would be scared if he had any sense because not only was he locked up in a clubhouse full of pissed off bikers, I’d spent the night thinking of various ways to make sure he told us everything he knew.
It was fairly early when I arrived, so I was surprised to find Coal in the common room with Brinkley perched on his lap. “Morning, brother,” I said and eyed him curiously.
He smirked and shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that. Savior’s on guard duty this morning and since I was already up, I tagged along. Figured there would be a lot going on this morning.”
“Anybody else here yet?” I asked.
“Copper, Layla, Bronze, and Spazz are here, but I think they’re still asleep. Grant crashed in one of the empty rooms, and Savior’s with our guest.
“How’d you end up with the baby?” I asked.
He opened his mouth to answer when Mackenzie came through the door that led to the kitchen carrying a tray with three or four plates of food. I immediately got to my feet and took the tray from her. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“She offered to cook breakfast, so I offered to watch Brinkley while she did,” Coal said.
“I need to grab the coffee. You guys go ahead and dig in,” Mackenzie said and darted back to the kitchen.
I was trying to decide if I should give him some advice or let him make his own mistakes when he took the words right out of my mouth. “You don’t need to say anything. Nothing other than me being a nice guy to a girl who’s having a rough time is going on,” he said with a smile. “And I like kids. Isn’t that right, Princess Brinkley?” he cooed causing Brinkley to erupt in a fit of baby giggles.
Mackenzie returned with the coffee and a huge smile on her face. “If you keep that up, I’ll be asking you to babysit all the time. She rarely laughs like that with anyone other than me.”
Coal chuckled. “Biker babysitter is definitely not what I pictured when I decided to move here.”
Mackenzie laughed lightly. “I would never ask that of you. Truthfully, I don’t have a need for a babysitter. If I can’t take her with me, I don’t go.”
I was curious about the baby’s father, but my attention shifted when Copper and Layla entered the room. “Food!” Layla squealed in delight and reached for a plate.
“Mornin’, Prez,” I said.
“Morning. I thought your ass would’ve woken me up hours ago.”
“I wanted to, but some things can’t be rushed,” I said cryptically and shoveled a forkful of food into my mouth.
“We’ll get started as soon as everybody else gets here,” Copper said.
“Great,” I said and went to the kitchen to get another plate of food.
Twenty minutes later, we entered the shed to find Tristan exactly how we left him—tied to a chair wearing a gag and a diaper.
I turned my head from side to side to crack my neck followed by my knuckles and yanked the gag from his mouth. “I don’t have the fucking time or patience for any of your shit. Tell me what I want to know and I won’t hurt you.”
He stared at me for several long beats before his face morphed into a snarl. “Fuck you! I ain’t telling you shit!”
I grinned maniacally. “Have it your way.” With that, I grabbed his thumb and yanked it back until I heard a satisfying snap followed by his shrill scream.
“Fuck!” he screeched. “Why’d you do that?”
I gave his other thumb the same treatment before I answered. “I did that because you’re being a disrespectful little shit. Tell me what you and Oliver talked about.”
He grimaced and pressed his lips into a thin line. “No?” I asked and sighed as placed a large bowl of ice water on the table.
“What did you and Oliver talk about last night?” I asked again, but he wouldn’t answer. I held his hands in the bowl of freezing-cold water while he screamed. Batta took a few light swings at his arms and legs. But still he refused to utter a word.
As much as I hated to admit it, I knew we’d reached the point where we were pointlessly torturing him, and that’s not what we were about.
I stepped beside Copper and kept my voice low. “Prez, we can do this all day long, but he’s not gonna talk.”
Copper looked down at his phone. “Guess it’s a good thing our backup plan just arrived.”
“Just give me one second,” I said and walked back to the table with a plate of food. “You hungry?” I asked.
Tristan eyed the plate of scrambled eggs, grits, and bacon. “I’ll just leave it right here in case you decide you want to eat,” I said and placed the plate in front of him before heading for the door.
Grant was waiting outside the shed door looking tired as hell. “Check his restraints and replace his gag. We won’t be long,” Copper told him as he passed.
We’d made it no more than twenty feet from the shed when we heard a shrill scream followed by gagging and grunts of pain.
“What the fuck did you do, Judge?” Copper asked.
I grinned. “I seasoned his breakfast with a Carolina Reaper.”
Copper whistled low and shook his head while trying not to laugh. “Oh, fuck me, that’s a good one.”
“Prez,” Grant called out from behind us sounding worried. “Should I..? Is he…? Uh, I mean—”
“Let him be. If he chokes or stops breathing, call Splint,” Copper said.
“Yes, sir,” Grant nodded and closed the door to the shed.
We walked into Church to find Coal sitting with a woman who looked like she’d seen better days a long damn time ago. She was the stereotypical woman who refused to acknowledge her age and ultimately made herself look far worse by wearing animal print leggings, a tight, lowcut black shirt, gold jewelry everywhere, way too much makeup, big, poofy hair, and a horrid spray tan.
Copper extended his hand to the woman. “I’m Copper Black. And you are?”
“Mitzie Mayfield,” she huffed. “Shouldn’t you know that?”
Copper ignored her and directed his attention to the rest of us. “Brothers, this is Tristan’s mother, Mitzie Mayfield. I invited her to the clubhouse to see if she’d be willi
ng to chat with us regarding her family’s recent activities,” Copper shared.
Mitzie sat back in her chair and made a show of adjusting her breasts while she smacked and clicked her gum. “Yeah, sure, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, as soon as I’m compensated.”
Copper pulled out his wallet and placed five one-hundred dollar bills on the table. “Will that be enough for your troubles?”
She quickly took the money and narrowed her eyes. “Not for what you’re wanting to know.”
“How about you name your price so we can get on with it instead of wasting time with this back and forth bullshit?” I snapped.
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
I opened my mouth but shut it when Copper held his hand up. “Fine. Fifty thousand dollars,” he agreed.
“Prez,” I protested.
“Shut the fuck up, Judge. Bronze, grab a check from my office.”
Bronze returned with a check and I watched in disbelief as Copper made it out to Mitzie Mayfield for the amount she requested. He placed it in the middle of the table, but kept one finger on it while he spoke. “You can have this once we’ve heard what you have to say.”
She leaned back, crossed her legs, and continued to obnoxiously smack her gum. “Well, see, all this shit started when Roy met that whore, Spring. I mean, he always liked to have his fun on the weekends with his drugs and his whores, but I didn’t give a shit because it kept him out of my hair, you know? But that bitch, she just wouldn’t go away. Well, when I found out he’d been giving her shit for free, I put a fucking stop to it. He can fuck whoever he wants, but his money’s mine. Well, she didn’t like that, so she convinces him to start selling, so she can still get hers without paying. And she got away with it until his dumbass got arrested.”
She paused and pulled an e-cig from the depths of her cleavage. “You mind if I vape?”
Copper waved his hand dismissively. “Go ahead.”
She sucked on the contraption and blew out a plume of berry-smelling vapor. “So, I had to call my brother to get the money to get him out of jail, which was this huge thing because he didn’t want his wife to find out. Well, Roy got arrested two more times, so she did find out and threatened to stop paying for my house. So, I told Roy he needed to get out and make it look like we were getting divorced. Told him he could shack up with his little whore until my sister-in-law calmed down. We was just staying together for the sake of the kids anyway.”
It was all I could do to maintain the blank expression on my face. Was she serious? For the kids? All three kids were grown, and I knew for a fact one had moved out years ago.
“Well, the shit hit the fan when my niece died. You would’ve thought I killed her myself with the way my brother and his wife were carrying on. They cut us off from everything, even after I kicked Roy out. Said some shit like ‘If we weren’t part of the solution, we were part of the problem.’ I’m an understanding person and all, so I waited for a few days after the funeral to talk to them. Told them I wanted to be part of the ‘solution’.” She sucked in another lungful of vapor and exhaled exaggeratedly. “You know, blew some smoke up their hoity-toity asses.”
“So, they said they believed me and everything went back to normal. But then, my sister-in-law shows up at my house and tells me the only way she’ll keep paying my way is if I got Roy to get her some heroin. Said she’d make sure we didn’t get into any trouble with the cops and she’d even give us some extra cash for our troubles. But I didn’t want Roy to know about any of it because I didn’t want Spring trying to get her hands on my money, so I asked my son to do it.”
“Tristan?” Copper asked.
“Yeah, but I told him I wouldn’t pay him if his dad found out. So, he says he’ll do it and comes back with a brick. I gave him some money and he took off with his friends. So, I call my sister-in-law and tell her I did what she asked. Well, she says she needs me to hold on to it for a few weeks. So, I put it in my panty drawer for safe keeping.”
I wanted to scream at her to get to the point. I couldn’t take much more of her gum-popping and vapor-sucking.
“Now, here’s the part that just pisses me right the fuck off. While my sugar daddy took me away for the weekend, someone stole the smack that wasn’t even mine! So, I took all the money I could find from Tristan’s room. Well, he comes home and he’s pissed because his money’s gone. He tells me he couldn’t possibly have told his dad because no one’s seen him in over a week. That’s when I knew it was Spring. So, I told Tristan to go find his father and get it back from her. I don’t know what Tristan told Roy, or what they did, but Tristan came back with most of it.”
“There better be more to this story,” Copper growled.
Mitzie leaned back and smiled smugly. “There is, but that’s what you get for five hundred dollars. Judge me all you want, but I’m not as stupid as I pretend to be. What fucking idiot accepts a check for a bribe? You would’ve canceled it the second I stepped out the door.”
“I’m not giving you fifty thousand dollars,” Copper stated.
“Then, I’m not telling you anything else.”
“Pretty sure you told us everything we need to know,” Spazz said and looked up from his laptop with a small smirk on his face.
“Tell us what you got, brother,” Copper said with a grin.
“Mitzie Mayfield nee Ellison is the sister of Paul Ellison who is married to Gwendolyn Ellison, the current County Council Chairman. The same Gwendolyn Ellison who has the district attorney under her thumb, and is on a crusade to clean up the streets of every town in Ritch County by whatever means necessary,” Spazz said proudly.
Copper leaned back and rubbed his chin. “Well, sounds to me like you and your sister-in-law just landed in a heaping pile of shit. Doesn’t matter why she wanted the heroin, you helped her get it. And because it was laced with fentanyl, it’s been linked to four deaths, including your husband’s.”
She grabbed the check from the table and took a flying leap for the door. Batta caught her in midair and unceremoniously dropped her into a chair. “Don’t even think about trying that shit again.”
She took that to mean scream for help at the top of her lungs. “Fuck this shit!” Copper roared. “Gag her and get her ass out of here.”
As soon as she was out of the room, Copper leaned back in his chair and tilted his head skyward. “We need to choose our next step very carefully, brothers, and I don’t have the first fucking clue what it should be.”
“Call Tina,” Bronze suggested. “Make sure she knows you’re speaking to her as a client so the attorney-client privilege will apply.”
“Any objections?” Copper asked.
When no one objected, he pulled out his phone and placed a call to Tina.
Chapter Forty-One
River
I briefly woke when Jonah returned home in the middle of the night, but was able to go back to sleep after he crawled into bed with me. However, it was a different story when he left moments after the sun had started to rise.
Once I was up and moving, I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I quickly became restless. All I could think about was the possibility of spending the rest of my life in jail. For longer than I care to admit, I seriously considered gathering my resources, cutting off the ankle monitor, and going into hiding for the rest of my life. I was weighing my chances of making it to the bunker at the cabin when my phone rang.
I looked at the screen and saw my brother’s name, but I didn’t answer. I was rapidly spiraling into a dark place which left me with no desire to speak to anyone. As I stared at my phone, the call went to voicemail. Moments later, a text message appeared on the screen.
Reed: Hi Aunt River!
Seconds later, a picture of my little niece appeared on the screen. As I took in her dark hair, big, blue eyes, and chubby cheeks, I found myself smiling. I could see a lot of Reed’s features in her.
I continued staring at her picture for a long time before I decided I nee
ded to do something to keep my mind from traveling further down the dark and depressing path it was on. Thinking that some physical activity might help with my overall mood, I cranked up some music and started cleaning Jonah’s house.
Since his house was already pretty much clean, I had everything except his office spick-and-span within two hours. I’d just started a load of laundry and dropped onto the couch trying to think of something else to do when someone knocked on the door.
I sighed in exasperation and contemplated not getting up to answer it, but quickly changed my mind when I heard Leigh’s voice after another round of knocking. “It’s me, sweetie. I hope you’re decent because I’m coming in.”
I opened the door as she was starting to put her key in the doorknob. “Leigh, what’re you doing here?” I asked and motioned for her to come inside.
She smiled. “I came by to see if you would help me with something.”
I was suddenly concerned. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, it’s nothing like that. I’m absolutely fine,” she reassured me. “When Jonah decided to have a house built, he told me how much he was dreading having to make all the decisions about the interior. So, I wanted to see if you wanted to help me do some of it for him as a surprise.”
I hesitated, unsure of how to answer her and she must have read the uncertainty on my face. “Trust me; if someone doesn’t do it for him, that house will be fifty shades of boring. His other house looked exactly like this one—no decorations, no paint, no color.”
“Maybe he likes it that way,” I suggested.
Leigh laughed. “Oh, honey, if you’re worried about stepping on his toes, don’t be. He’s mentioned hiring someone to do it for him several times. I asked him what he had in mind for the interior, and he said he didn’t care as long as it looked nice. Well, then he added that he didn’t want flowers and pink shit all over his house.”
Judge (Blackwings MC - Devil Springs Book 2) Page 20