I turned to find Quickshot and Tash waiting for my signal. They understood when they saw it and grabbed Peety up before he knew what was happening. I turned towards a once again very red-faced, pissed off Peety. “Why would you be giving us false information, Peety?”
He blustered and attempted to pull away from Tash and Quick. “I didn’t. Last I saw they were all there. I only left for a little while to get food. The other guys were here though.”
“Yeah? Where are they now?”
His shifty eyes moved toward the barn then. “Don’t know. They weren’t here when I got back.”
“Why didn’t you report that to anyone?”
“You guys were already here. Figured you relieved them,” Peety snickered on the use of the word, ‘relieved’ because he preferred the term ‘reliever’ for the club whores. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he was insinuating.
“Interesting play on words, but do you think that’s really going to help your cause right now?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he boasted.
“Put him in the van. Pants down, ass up, mouth taped shut. Let’s see if Peety’s time as a reliever helps loosen more than his asshole.” I had no intention of letting anyone rape the man, but he didn’t know that. His eyes grew large as saucers.
“You can’t do that. Even your dad wouldn’t…”
“I am not my dad, but you have pushed me too far. You didn’t mind stabbing us in the back, why shouldn’t we get to stab you in the back as well?” I widened my eyes as I smiled at the man when my double meaning finally hit him. Once Quick took him to the van I spun around to ask what was going on with the scout team only to find Sweet frowning at the video. Then my cell was ringing.
“Yeah?” I called out to Keys as I picked up.
“We have a problem,” she breathed into the phone heavily. “Paramour was hit about 10 minutes ago. They didn’t do a whole lot of damage, because your dad and his crew were there. They came in early for the weekend festivities. We have two women missing though. Trix and one of the dancers.”
“Damn,” I thought a moment about the fact that we’d been having trouble balancing the books for Paramour lately. “Find Brady, pump him for info on Trix so we can be sure she’s a loss and not an accomplice. She might have been our other problem there. Who was the dancer?”
“Lola, she was newish. Real name Katherine Stevens.”
“She’s a single mom. Check in with her family and see if they’ve heard from her. She sounds like a legitimate loss, and we need to get her back, because I don’t want to have to tell her little boy his mommy isn’t coming home,” I explained needlessly.
My last comment piqued Sweet’s interest. So I hung up after letting Keys know I’d call JoJo for more updates shortly. Then, I recapped recent events for Sweet. “Fuck. Good thing Ghost decided to head in early. I told him you were acting a little antsy about the Intel we were getting.” I gave him a squirrely look then. “Don’t give me that look. You might not have trusted me with your suspicions, but us leaving early, video equipment, your sketchy looks when all our information started filtering in through Peety alone. It all added up, sugar. Besides, Quickshot and I were already feeling it too, especially when Quick couldn’t get hold of Spokes.”
“We need to question Peety, but we should send everyone else back too, in case there’s another attack. We have two women missing, one seems sketchy, and the other most likely is a victim.”
“I’ll stay and deal with Peety. You go take care of your people.”
“Nuh-uh. Tash and Keys can handle the home front. I want a piece of that fat bastard.”
“Well, when you put it like that.” Sweet laughed. “Is it weird that you’re turning me on right now?” The asshole dropped his truth bomb and walked away to gather up his men, smirking the whole way.
“Did he just ask…”? Tash started to question me.
“Yeah,” I cut her off. Then I filled her in on what had been happening back home as well as what I needed her to do when she got back. She still hesitated before leaving, clearly about to dig deeper into what Sweet had said to me. Fortunately for me, my phone rang again.
“Yeah?”
“Jamie, you all good up there?” My dad. I should have known.
“Yeah, your boy Peety has been very naughty and was clearly playing for a new team.” Our scouts were coming back from the barn, grim faced, and with bodies slung over their shoulders. Three in all. “I’m thinking we just found Spokes and the two missing prospects.” I said into the phone.
“Damn. Tuck won’t be happy to hear that. He and Spokes go way back.”
“Sorry,” I offered. “Keys told me about Paramour. Thanks for being there today. She said without you guys it would have been worse. They weren’t expecting a hit on the damn bar.”
“Jamie, you don’t have to thank me.”
“I know, but still.” I sighed, and was going to leave it at that before I thought about how short staffed my girls were, especially with the guys from Redemption, Inc. off running down any other possible holes the WRs were slithering into when no one was looking. “Can you coordinate with Keys, and Tash when she gets back, to make sure everything is secure and locked down?”
“You know I will,” my dad offered.
“Good. I need to know that you have men you trust personally on the job, especially any that are left near my compound or places of business, because some of those girls are already fragile from before and they’re skittish around men. Hearing what went down at Paramour isn’t going to give them a whole lot of confidence, you know?”
“I’ll make sure only my inner circle are left with them if it’s even necessary to have any of the men inside. I think your girl is making sure everything is locked up tighter than Fort Knox already.”
That made me smile. I knew Keys had shit handled. “Thanks,” I offered before disconnecting so I could go handle my own shit.
Chapter 8
Peety was an easy man to interrogate, as it turned out. Not that I was surprised by that fact since he was obviously a coward and a turncoat. Still, I found his questioning to be anti-climatic, especially since it didn’t seem the WRs trusted him with much. The idiot knew they had rolled out of town, but had been told they headed in the opposite direction to hit a small chapter of Aces High in Chattanooga first. It was a small deception, probably to test Peety’s newfound loyalties since he was rolling over on his own club. Sweet and I finished getting as much as we could from the traitor and then found an out of the way place to dispose of Peety.
“You thought they were heading to Chattanooga to take out the little 10-man chapter there and that was okay with you, Peety?” Sweet asked. Peety spat blood from his mouth in an attempt to hit Sweet. It pathetically dribbled down his chin instead. “Doesn’t bother you in the slightest to turn on your own brothers?”
“They fuckin’ turned on me,” Peety shouted.
“No, you just weren’t cut out to lead. We didn’t turn our backs or kick you out. We did what was best for the club.”
“What was best for you so you could get next to that bitch’s pussy, you mean,” he spat angrily through gasping breaths.
“Where are the WRs heading?”
“I fuckin’ told you. Chattanooga.”
“They didn’t go there, Peety. They went to Sierra High and kidnapped some women instead.” Peety visibly stiffened at those words.
“Your niece lives in Sierra High, doesn’t she?”
What remained of the blood coloring Peety’s face drained immediately. Still, Sweet continued on. “Your sister lives there too. That’s why you wanted to head there to lead the club’s new chapter, right?”
“You have to get them out,” Petty demanded.
“See, here’s the thing,” Sweet stated coolly. “The minute you took orders from the WRs and turned your back on Aces High and got our members killed, you became nothing more than dead weight to us. Emphasis on the word dead.”
“Please, I know I fucked up, please, just make sure my family…”
“Fuck you!” Sweet’s retort cut him off. “I’m going to let you live your last moments knowing you got your own niece taken along with Angel’s women. Those monsters enjoy ripping into the young ones too. We know this because the girls Angel saved from the WRs were able to describe their nightmares in horrific detail. You did that. Not just to Angel and her club, not just to Aces High MC, your brothers, but to your blood family too.”
Peety’s sobs were soon cut off as Sweet lifted his gun and pulled the trigger, silencing the man’s cries for good. I helped Sweet take him down from where we’d strung him up in the barn outside an abandoned farmhouse 20 miles south of where we had staked out the WRs property. We then set to the task of cleaning up any potential evidence and setting the place ablaze.
Once that was done, we went about the business of finding a place to crash for the night, because the weather was no longer conducive to driving motorcycles. We were both in desperate need of a good cleanup before we could keep driving around in the public eye anyway. My club and businesses were mostly legit. The last thing I needed was to be pulled over with a man’s blood and other bits all over me. I shivered at the thought.
“Sorry, there’s a family reunion. We only have the one room.” The clerk explained to me as I stared into her eyes, willing her answer to change. I had to be the one to come in and get us a room because Sweet was still semi-saturated in Peety’s blood. It was probably a good thing I did. I’d have never believed there was only the one room available if he’d been the one to come in.
“Okay.” I finally agreed, handing over the cash. She went through the process of checking me in with the fake ID I had given her and once I had the key in hand I was back out the door. We’d stopped at a hole in the wall place with bungalow style rooms and old school, real keys to unlock the doors.
“Which one’s my room?” Sweet asked as I approached.
“We’re in number seven, all the way in the back.” His eyebrows quirked up as a smirk came to life on his all too handsome face.
“We are, huh?”
“Mmhmm.” I nodded as I mounted my bike.
Sweet chuckled, then looked around, probably taking note of the vacancy sign turning to ‘no vacancy’ and the fact that there were cars parked in front of each bungalow, except for one. We drove to the rear of the property beyond bungalows one through six and cut our engines in front of the seventh one.
“Lucky number seven was the only one available, huh?” The grin on his face said he wasn’t as upset by this as I was.
“Family reunion or some shit has the others occupied,” I grumbled. It was bad enough I was exhausted, soaking wet from the rain, and I’d be holed up with Sweet for the night to top it all off. The weather had turned to shit on us while we’d been busy with Peety’s body. Now, I just wanted a hot shower and a pillow beneath my head. My last bit of strength was sapped when I opened the door to find one queen sized bed and one couch that was currently soaked due to the steady drip from the leak in the roof. “Fuck my life,” I huffed out as Sweet laughed.
“Aw, come on Jamie, it’s not that bad. I’ll let you grab first shower while I let the front desk know about the leak.”
That’s how I found myself walking out of the shower fifteen minutes later to see a shirtless Sweet smiling at the front desk girl who couldn’t take her eyes off his ridiculously well developed chest.
“What’s being done about the couch and all the water?”
“Hey baby, the lovely,” he glanced back down at the girl’s shirt, “Amanda brought a bucket. That’s the best they could do for tonight unless we want a refund to go somewhere else.”
Judging by the sound of the rain on the roof we weren’t going anywhere on our bikes tonight. “Okay,” I managed. Then I moved over to the bed, sat my ass down, and continued to try to dry my hair.
“So, you’ll be staying then?” The girl, Amanda, finally managed to ask with a slightly high-pitched squeak to her voice. I simply rolled my eyes. Not that Amanda would notice since she was still making googly eyes at Sweet.
“Looks like it, darlin’.” Sweet offered her his most charming smile. I rolled my eyes again and choked back a laugh. Amanda managed to look away from Sweet’s chest long enough to appear slightly guilty as she remembered I was there in the room.
“Okay, let me know if there’s anything else I can do,” she offered sweetly. Again, she was speaking only to him, and seemed to forget I was there entirely.
“Sure thing, darlin’.” Sweet smiled as he physically had to hold her shoulders, turn her towards the door, and give her a little shove out into the foul weather. “No offense honey, but my girl and I really need to make use of that bed now.”
I did laugh then. Sure, we were going to make use of the bed. To sleep. I had no doubt that both the girl and Sweet were conjuring up entirely different scenarios of how the bed would be used. When she was finally out the door he sighed and let his annoyance with the girl’s behavior show.
“If you didn’t answer the door shirtless that might not happen,” I teased.
“Considering my shirt is soaked in Peety’s parts and blood despite the rain, I figured it was the safest option, love.”
“I guess. Shower’s free.” I mentioned as he moved closer to where I sat.
“You gonna come help make sure I get clean?” He asked the question while wearing a shit-eating grin on his damned face.
“That would be a no!”
“Too bad. I bet Amanda would have agreed to help.”
“Feel free to go get her. She probably didn’t get too far.” I moved to climb under the covers and when I did the towel in my lap fell away revealing the fact that I was only wearing a tank top and panties. Sweet made a noise low in his throat that sounded a lot like a growl.
“Not like I packed PJs for the trip.” I shrugged, and ducked under the bed covers, lying with my back to Sweet. I was very aware that he continued to stand there a while. By the time I was curious enough to turn and look, the bathroom door was closing and the sounds of the shower turning back on with a groan from the old pipes greeted me.
I released a deep sigh as I tried to relax back down into my barely there pillow. I was beyond exhausted, but circumstances being what they were, sleep wouldn’t come. I laid there listening to the groan and strain of the pipes as Sweet took his shower wondering what would happen if he actually stuck around for longer than it would take to find a decent president to run the Sierra High Chapter of Aces High. I also wondered where that would leave things when he went back to Cedar Falls. My heart squeezed as I imagined his absence.
I’d overheard him speaking to a woman before we left on this trip. He was firm in telling her that he wouldn’t be back any time soon. They weren’t involved like that, and that something was none of her damn business. He’d done it all politely, but also with a cool aloofness that did not speak to someone being in a loving relationship. Still, I wondered if he had a regular hook up, a girlfriend, or someone who was waiting on him and hoping for more. As much as our pasts were intertwined a promise that once was, we were strangers now, and those little things kept reminding me of that fact.
Part of me hated the idea. The other part, the one that wanted to be fair about things, thought that Sweet deserved someone like that. I was the girl who walked away from everything and everyone on the word of her supposed best friend. As Tash had tried to point out to me, she was jealous and had motive to lie, but I still didn’t know if what Marisol claimed to have happened with Sweet was true or not. Sure, I had doubt when I looked back on everything in hindsight, but she still knew all about Sweet’s apartment – a place she’d never been before. And beyond that, Sweet had overheard me telling the girls why I’d left, and he never once brought it up or contradicted what I’d said. Why wouldn’t he speak up right away and deny it? Whether Mare’s story had been true or not, I wasn’t sure I could move beyond my entire
life changing because of it. I knew it might not be Sweet’s fault, and still the block in my brain existed, because it’s what I’d believed when I fled. It was what I believed for seven damn years. Sweet definitely deserved more than that. He deserved more than me, and the doubts I’d had about him whether he helped put them in my head or not.
I must have managed to nod off at some point during the examination of our toxic past, because of all the nights to embarrass myself by having a night terror it had to be a night when I shared a bed with Sweet. I woke with a start, shooting up in the bed, a scream on my lips, and the memory of my brutal first time stinging my eyes with hot tears.
“What the hell?” Sweet was right there beside me. A hand tentatively rested on my shoulder. “You okay, sugar? What’s the matter?” He muttered a curse under his breath. “Shit, you shouldn’t have been there with me to take care of Peety.” He wrongfully thought my night terror was about what we’d done to that traitorous bastard. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Hell, I considered Peety’s torture session to be more of a therapeutic thing than something bad. I was working out my own demons. No, my nightmares held a very different face, even if all the blame for what happened was mine to carry.
I shook my head. “It wasn’t that. Sorry,” I apologized softly. “I have this recurring nightmare, well two, but this one tends to rear its ugly head when I’m stressed.”
“All that from a nightmare?” He eyed me skeptically.
“Well, more a memory, which makes it a particularly vivid nightmare.” I admitted.
“A memory?” He questioned, sitting up a little straighter now. “What the fuck kind of memory causes a reaction and nightmare like that?” Sweet’s eyes had grown wide with my admission, and I wished like hell I had just blown it off. Unfortunately, I was still shoving off the sleep haze and the thundering pulse from my nightmare so my normal filters weren’t in place.
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