She’d disrespected the wolf Alpha in front of people, and he’d pulled her wolf from her to show her just how much power he has over her. She’d been curled in a ball and in pain for the better part of a day, but from what I understood, he’d taken it easy on her. She had to learn, and the Pack Alpha doesn’t fuck around with that kind of thing. Wolves learn respect early in the Pack.
“You usually call people.”
“As you pointed out earlier, you’re her father and I’m just the ex. If this doesn’t produce her, let me know. Actually, please let me know either way.”
“Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry about earlier.”
“You should be. Find her, Gil.”
He disconnected, and I looked to Frost. “She’s okay. She has a good head on her shoulders. She won’t go far.”
“I got no problems going with you to look for her, if we need to.”
“No. If Gil follows my instructions, she’ll call him before the time’s up. If she isn’t with one of those three, they’ll know how to reach her.” I looked at my phone. Nearly three in the morning. Fuck. “You can go back to sleep. I need to stay up to make sure he finds her.”
“If you think you know where she is, we can take a ride and see.”
“If he doesn’t find her, the Alpha can track her through the Pack bond. She’ll be pissed we brought him into it, but I’m pretty mad at her for pulling this shit.”
“Right. One of the reasons my wolf brothers won’t oath to him, but I have to admit it comes in handy with a wayward teen.”
He moved behind me and I leaned back, into him. It was like him saying he had my back, and tears formed a knot in my throat and tried to make it to my eyes. I swallowed them down, but I knew Frost would smell my emotions.
Gil had told me artists need keepers, that we aren’t capable of surviving without one. I’d proven him wrong, and yet, it felt good now, to have someone to lean on.
But Frost wasn’t taking over. He was still letting me handle it, he was just there as support. It was different than it’d been with Gil.
I took a deep breath and let it out. “If he tries to keep the kids from me because of you, it’ll backfire on him. I mean, I can’t stop him, but I’m not going to let him dictate my life. I love the kids, and I want to be there for them, but he’s their dad and if he decides to be a cunt, I can’t stop him.”
“Maybe tonight has reminded him how much he needs you? It can’t be easy, being a single parent. You and I are too new to be talking about parenting, and yet, I feel the need to say that if I stick around, I’ll step up and do what’s needed, too. Admittedly, I’ll probably be better with the boys than with Nora, but there’ll be three adults instead of two.”
I’d kind of figured that out already, based on what he’d said, but it was nice to hear it. “I liked the way you handled Nora. Compassion without backing down. Being a teen is hard, and she’s a teen and a new werewolf, and she had to leave her old school and join the one with the other freaks — her words, not mine.” I pushed my hair out of my face and looked at my phone. “I feel for her, but she can’t just go running off when she doesn’t get her way.”
I was about to text Gil and ask if he’d heard anything when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, and I answered it fast.
“Shy? Dad said I had to call you and tell you I’m okay.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to hear her voice.
“I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried. Where are you?”
It turns out, she’d had trouble staying human, and had gone to the school principal’s house for help. And yes, she’d had her boyfriend drive her, but she’d used her head and hadn’t let him take care of her. She’d gone to an adult.
“She told us we could come to her anytime we found ourselves having a hard time with our wolf,” Nora told me, “and she helps me with it more than Daddy. He makes the wolf want to come out and eat his face off, and I know I can’t do that, but I couldn’t go to you for help, so I came here.”
Which wasn’t a terrible decision, if that’s where she was with her wolf.
“And you didn’t call me because your father told you I was dead to him, or something equally stupid, right?”
“He told us to forget you were ever in our lives, that it was just the four of us now.” She drew in a shaky breath. She was on the verge of tears.
“I love you, Nora. Your father is dealing with his own shit right now, and he dragged you into it. That was wrong, but he’s human too, and none of us are perfect. Since he brought me in to help tonight, I hope he’s changing his mind. He has the legal right to kick me out of your lives, but as long as I’m allowed to be in your life, I will be. Promise.” I took a breath. “And if he forbids it, we only have two and a half years until you’re eighteen. It won’t be forever.”
She burst into tears, and I wished I could hold her. “I love you, Nora. I’m sorry it seems as if everything’s gone to shit right now.”
I heard the phone being handled in a different way, and a woman’s voice came on. “This is Dianna Phillips. To whom am I speaking?”
“Cheyenne Grace. I was Nora’s stepmom, but her father and I are divorced. I’ve still been a major part of her life, but I’m dating someone for the first time, and her father didn’t deal well with that information yesterday. I’m afraid he dragged the kids into his drama.”
“Thank you for the explanation. I think I have it from here. I’ll feed her and get her to sleep until shortly before time to eat again and leave for school.”
“I appreciate the care you’ve obviously given Nora, since she trusted you enough to come to you.”
When I hung up, I considered calling Gil and lighting into him, but I didn’t. He knew he’d fucked up. He didn’t need me to tell him.
“What time do you need to leave here?” I asked Frost.
“I need to be at the main office by seven, unfortunately. I can have breakfast brought in though, so I can get away with waking at six thirty and leaving at six thirty-five. I’ll get the men organized and send them out, and then I can brush my teeth and eat breakfast. I assume my code will get me out of here?”
“The code for the gate to get out of the backyard starts later in the Fibonacci sequence. It’s 581321.” And it’s programmed so you need a code to get in and out so I know when the kids come and go, but I didn’t explain.
He chuckled. “We both use it? How... Fuck. I’m fucking falling for you, and it’s fast and I don’t want to make you run away, but I needed to say it. I also need to apologize, again, for not seeing it before.”
“It’s okay. Stop apologizing for that. It was an odd situation. You never got to see the real me, only the part of me showing up for sex.”
“And yet, I kept gravitating to you.” He kissed me. “My phone’s set. Sleep. I’ll try to leave without disturbing you. I’m guessing you’ll wake at least an hour later.”
Chapter Thirteen
Frost
My day was shit. All fucking day, I mediated and problem-solved, and then I had to talk to Mad Dog and Squatch about the damned LEO prospect.
Mad Dog had asked Shadow in Atlanta to dig farther into the bastard, and Shadow had discovered we did, indeed, have LEO trying to infiltrate. The thing is, if you know someone’s a cop when you beat the hell out of them, it’s assaulting an officer. If you don’t know, they usually can’t make those charges stick. It’s still assault though, and usually ends up being felony assault.
So, dealing with him was sticky. If we admitted to knowing he was a cop, we couldn’t do anything to make a point, but without stating why we were beating the everloving fuck out of him, nothing would make sense.
New prospects don’t see anything illegal. Ever. There are stages, and he was still in the first, barely past the level of a hanger. We weren’t in danger from him testifying to anything. Yet.
I didn’t figure we’d kill him since the national Rolling Thunder organization frowns on killing cops, but had
to do something to make an example of him.
Mad Dog had called in Squatch, Dementor, Clean, and me. The surviving members of the battle. Everyone else had been patched in after. Gears was a prospect during the battle, and he’d more than earned his place, but it seemed Mad Dog wanted the remaining core group of us for this discussion.
“Shadow verified the Feebs have someone in, prospecting. Based on the dates, it could be three of the prospects.”
“We know who it is,” I told them.
“Most likely, yeah. They’re all first level, so we’re safe. Shadow’s still digging, and Brain’s looking, too. We should know more in the coming days.”
“We need to vote in a VP and at least one enforcer,” I told them. “We have more members now. It’s time.” When we’d been down to only six people, a President and Sergeant-at-Arms was plenty. They’d voted me in as Treasurer when I got sprung. Mad Dog had been handling that as well as his duties as president while I was inside.
“Yeah,” Mad Dog agreed. “An enforcer, at least. You have to vote in a President and Sergeant-at-Arms, but beyond that, you can’t have more than twenty-five percent of the membership with a title. Technically, we need one more person to meet the rules for the three we have with a title now, but I agree. It’s time.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a guideline and not a rule,” Squatch said. “Bobcat will know for sure.”
Mad Dog tilted his head in agreement. “If Bobcat had made the move to us official, I’d have invited him in for this meet. I hope things work out with him and Tess. We need him to stay.”
I agreed, and bringing up Bobcat made me think of something that might work to deal with the motherfucking cop.
“We could line the prospects up and make them fuck the sweetbutts on camera.” I sat back in my chair as I thought it through. “Maybe pay one of the pro-submissives to bend over and let them whale on her with a belt before they take her? Each one solo on the camera with her, belting her and then fucking her ass, and then have them three to a sweetbutt, one in each hole. Sweetbutts can wear a lone-ranger mask, prospects can’t.”
“Could work,” said Dementor. “LEO isn’t supposed to engage in that kind of thing. The shitwad will either have to bow out or know we’d use the video if he tries to testify against us in court.”
“Gears checked in with Shadow and Brain, got the best gizmo to see if someone’s using a recording device.” Mad Dog told us. “Nothing showed up. They aren’t going for the small stuff. He’s in it for the long haul — they want a member in place who can take us down. We need to make a point.”
“Easiest way to make a point is to make him disappear,” said Squatch.
“Right,” said Mad Dog, “but if he’s just doing his job, we try to refrain from killing the good guys. Nothing points to him being a dirty cop, so let’s keep that option on the back burner for now.”
Squatch sighed. “I sponsored him. If it comes to a vote, I’ll take him out and carry the full weight of the risk. Not the club. I’ll also accept whatever punishment the club votes for me.”
“The club will vote, but I understand what happened,” said Mad Dog. “He fixed your bike, you let him know we were hiring, and then after he was hired in, you got to know him and sponsored him. Cops are good at planning that shit.”
We all knew Squatch would have to pay for sponsoring a cop, though. That kind of thing can’t slide. The rules were in place to keep this from happening, and it’d been Squatch’s responsibility to know who he was sponsoring.
“We have nine prospects,” said Dementor. “Let’s bring in two pro-subs. One will get belted and fucked by four prospects, the other by five. We’ll make sure our cop is the fifth person, so he’s belting someone who’s already been put through hell. Ten strikes from each?”
Clean shook his head. “Both of our best can take a hundred with a belt if you pay them enough. Twenty from each prospect. The girls’ll get fucked in between, so they won’t get them all at once.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Prospects have a choice. Do the deed, or get strung up and every member uses a whip on them before taking their patches and ejecting them.” I sighed. “I’ll need to let Skippy know she’s a pro-sub.”
I’d sponsored two men I met in jail. Skippy was a prospect because he’s a geek, and we needed another geek in the worst sort of way. If he knew she was a pro-sub, he’d do it. Otherwise, he might not.
“No,” said Mad Dog. “This is about trust. Two-way street, he has to trust us, we have to trust him.”
I nodded. Mad Dog was right, of course. If Skippy failed the test because he didn’t trust us, then so be it.
“Good point. Agreed.”
“I’ll arrange for the pro-subs,” Clean said. “This might need to be Sunday afternoon, since I doubt they’re booked.”
“That works,” said Mad Dog. “Mandatory ride after church. Members and prospects. No ol’ladies. Sweetbutts follow in the van. Any prospect who doesn’t ride with us loses any patches they have, and they don’t come back.” He looked around, considering. “No one will know where we’re gonna end up. I’m still road captain, so I’ll plan the route and the final destination. The pro-subs will need to be in their own vehicle, following the sweetbutts.”
“You thinkin’ we need someone else as road captain?” I asked.
“Yeah. If the percent thing’s a guideline and not a rule, we need two enforcers and a road captain. We’ll vote them in Sunday. Back to the ride, we’ll truss the women up. Partial hoods with gags, and fully bound. We won’t roll camera showing them calmly letting us restrain them. Video starts after, and we’ll pay them to fight and scream like it isn’t consensual.” He glanced at me. “Skippy will go second in the first round. Only concession I’m giving him.”
We were bringing Skippy in as a geek, not a fighter, and we were badly in need of geeks. He’d have to make his way through the process though. No one gets a patch without earning it.
“Hidden video,” said Dementor. “We aren’t obligated to let a prospect know he’s on film. The pro-subs will know and will be paid accordingly. The sweetbutts will be masked so we don’t have to tell them.”
“Right,” I agreed. “We can tell the fuckwad he was on candid camera after the fact.” I sighed. “Ideally, we need him doing something that’ll get him booted from the force, but then we put ourselves at risk.”
“Not necessarily,” said Mad Dog. “We just have to be creative. A situation we tell him to handle, and we’re clear that figuring it out and doing it are the job. He isn’t to ask for help. So long as the easy way is illegal and the hard way is legal, and he has no idea he’s on camera...”
“Not just illegal,” said Squatch. “They can help rob a bank when they’re undercover, but they can’t shoot a hostage, for instance.”
Everyone was silent, and I assumed we were all thinking up a scenario.
“Think on it,” said Mad Dog. “I’ll remind everyone at church that a stage-one prospect doesn’t find out anything about the club. They’re the same as a hanger, trust wise. We don’t tell the membership because we don’t want him picking up on the fact we know what he is.”
“I know Brooke is creepy and expensive,” said Squatch, “but what if we have her go into his head and make him do something that would get him booted from the force?”
“The idea has merit. What would we have him do?” Mad Dog asked.
“Kill one of our enemies, assuming we have someone who needs killing,” I said. “Barring that, I’m not sure.”
“If he refuses to belt and fuck the bound bitch, we’ll whip him and send him on his way,” said Mad Dog. “He won’t have proof it was us. No DNA because none of us will touch him without gloves. We’ll use a new whip, and we’ll incinerate it when we finish, along with any gloves.”
“Right, so anyone thinking of going undercover to burn us will know what happened to the last guy, but we’ll be in the clear.”
“Yes, and if he tries to burn us,
we’ll destroy his reputation and his career with the video.”
“Another deterrent,” I said.
“Okay, we have more than half the full membership present,” said Mad Dog. “We need an official vote. Is everyone on board with a mandatory ride this weekend, and then the prospects being required to belt and fuck a pro-sub, then do a threesome on the sweetbutts?”
“Assuming the pro-subs know the deal going in, and we stop a prospect who gets carried away with them, I’m in,” said Clean.
“Do we have someone who’ll lay into them too hard?” Mad Dog asked.
Clean shrugged. “You never really know until you put the belt in their hand.”
“Well, then I suppose we may learn a few things about all the prospects with this little exercise. We need new people, but we have to be careful.” Mad Dog looked to Squatch. “That’s one yes vote. Let’s move it around the table, starting with Squatch.”
Everyone voted for it, and Mad Dog ended the meeting by saying we didn’t give any of the prospects a heads up in any way.
I didn’t stand when everyone else did. “Squatch, you and I need to talk. You got time now?”
He sat back down, and when everyone was gone, asked, “Shy?”
“Yeah.”
“Wish I could snap my fingers and make it go away.” He shook his head. “If I said I was thinking twenty-five, then we can let you do the first twenty-five OTK with your hand, the next twenty-five over a sofa-back with a paddle, and the final twenty-five with a belt.”
“Any way we can make it fifty?”
He leaned back, thinking. “The rule is three times what you walked out on, but that’s assuming she’s still a sweetbutt. I’m thinking the rule changes a little for ol’ladies, so we’ll make it double.” He shrugged. “Assuming the rest of the club agrees.”
Frost (Rolling Thunder MC Birmingham Book 3) Page 9