by Paula Cox
“Maddie, listen to me.” She coughs a few times before composing herself to listen to what Cal has to say, “Erin is going to be okay. Michelle is going to be fine. And you are going to make it out of there. I just need you to remain calm, stay strong, and do what the people who are watching tells you to do.”
“But – but – I’m scared. Like, I’m really, really scared.”
My heart breaks as I listen to her. I want to kick down this door and run to her. I can’t imagine how Cal feels as he listens to his own daughter fall apart. And, unlike me, he isn’t here to hold her, to bring her close, to give her the feeling that someone is watching over her.
And it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. Listening to him talk to her, I realize just how wrong I was. No, Maddie shouldn’t have been made to live in such a dangerous, horrible place, but she had Cal and Cal had her. And I should have trusted that Cal was making the best decisions he could have for his daughter. He was protecting her and me this entire time until I cut him off. Now, we’re paying for it.
I wipe the tears from my eyes as I listen to him continue to soothe her, “You can be scared. I’m scared, too.” He takes a deep, audible breath as he starts, “When your mom died all those years ago, I came home that night and your grandmother handed you to me. And I looked down at you in my arms, sleeping. And I had never been so scared in my life. I couldn’t believe I would have to take care of you, let alone keep you safe, for the rest of your life. But even though I was scared out of my damn mind, I still made a promise that I was going to be brave and strong for you every single day. Do you think you could make that promise? Do you think you can be brave and strong for me? Just this once?”
“Yeah, Dad. I can.” Her voice just squeaks it out. It’s so low I can barely hear it.
“Say it louder. Say it like you mean it. Like a Mustang would!”
She is resolute as she shouts back, “I can! I’m going to be brave! I’m a Mus—”
Maddie cuts off and I hear something drop to the ground with a small crash. A booming voice takes over, “What the fuck is going on in here? Who disobeyed my orders and gave her that phone?”
No one dares answer or even moves. I am also too fearful to even breathe. Whatever is going on right now isn’t exactly as planned. The voice repeats itself, “Who the fuck gave her that cellphone?”
There’s a click. I know it all too well – the sound of a gun’s safety being turned off. I hold my hands over my head, not wanting to hear what comes next. There’s a loud bang and then a thud followed by the sound of Maddie screaming. I hear bodies being thrown around the room as I have no time to think about what just happened. I stand up and run down the stairs, going back to my spot by the window.
I have just enough time to sit myself down and pointed towards the door before I hear loud footsteps and the pound of the metal door hitting the wood frame. “Stay down there, you little asshole. And don’t you think of saying another word or I’ll really give you something to scream about!”
I get one quick glimpse of her as a man tosses her to the ground. In the light, I see a flash of sparkle in Maddie’s hair – something I didn’t notice on her when I was comforting her earlier. I pull myself up higher with the support of the broken pole to get a better look at her. And suddenly, just like that, I have an idea that just might save her, Erin, and me. I just need the perfect opportunity to make it happen.
Chapter 29: Mission Mustang
CAL
“Maddie! Maddie!” I turn my head towards the group of men sitting at the table next to me, “What the hell just happened! Someone tell me what happened to my daughter!”
“We don’t know, Cal. Sit down, and we’ll figure it out.” Ace stands up, grabbing on to my shoulders and forcing me back in my chair. The group of five Mustang loyalists stares at me with pity in their dark eyes. I want to rip each of their heads off, but I can’t. These men have been sitting with me for hours since Red Dog came back with the phone number to one of Addison Bell’s main henchmen.
“You have to be crazy if you think I’m going to just sit here and wait for the next sign to go. Did you hear that noise? That was a fucking gunshot. And my daughter! She was screaming. Did you not fucking hear that?” I was losing all sense of cool I may have had just a few minutes ago. But could you blame me? I didn’t know if my daughter, who I just spent nearly ten minutes reassuring she’d be safe, was alive or dead and if my phone call was the cause of it.
“Just focus, Cal. I get what you’re saying, but we need to figure this out first.” Red Dog turns back to the man across the table still sitting with his large headphones over his ears. He’s our techie nerd. We’d never let a guy like him into a motorcycle club, but his skills at hacking and tracking have come in handy. “Walton, was that long enough? Were you able to track their location?”
He’s typing away furiously on a silver keypad, his tongue sticking slightly out as he concentrates. He holds up a finger towards Red Dog, but I stand, instantly grabbing it to twist his entire hand back to the table. “Don’t you dare tell me to wait. I’m the second in command here!”
“And I’m the first.” A loud, edgy voice startles me back into my chair. Jager walks slowly towards us from the door in the living to our spot at the kitchen table. I watch as his boots skid on the dirty tile before he scuffs them up against one of the empty chair legs, swinging it around for him to take a seat. He looks at me, concerned and slightly annoyed, “I know you want to find Maddie, but you’re not starting any infighting in this club. Do you hear me, Cal?”
I feel like a dog that’s been kicked. Jager has never admonished me before, especially not in front of my inferiors. I bow my head, looking at my fingers and palms for answers. “I hear you, Jager. I hear you.” My hand knots into a tight ball, which I slam down hard on the wood table top, “But I can’t just sit here and wait. That’s my daughter!”
He reaches over and places a hand on my shoulder, trying to ease me back down. “Walton, do you know where they are keeping her or not?”
Walton’s stringy, high-pitched voice fills the deep stillness of the room, “Well, Cal managed to talk to Maddie for around eight minutes and two seconds. I needed him to go for at least nine to get an accurate location—"
“DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT!” I am on my feet again pacing. This is not the news I expected.
“But! I do have an area to target. And luckily, part of that area is covered by a highway.” He turns the screen my way, and a map pops up. He has drawn a large red circle over the area, and, as he said, most of the area inside the boundaries is a stretch of highway I’m very familiar with.
I lean in closer, noting all of the street names and the mile markers. In my head, I’m piecing together bits of my regular rides as if it will help me spot where the Coyotes would have taken her. “I know that part of the highway. I used to ride it to get to Chris’ repair shop to do inventory and check-ins. That is, until I burnt it down a few days ago with Ryan.”
“That has to be where she is, Cal.” Ace stands next to me, pointing towards where the repair shop is located on the map. “Maddie said something about it being smoky. Maybe she meant it smelled like smoke or the air was still smoky. If they are holding her at a part of the repair shop that wasn’t destroyed, it will still reek of the burn. And most repair shops have those underground areas to do oil changes. That could explain why there isn’t any windows.”
I look at him, totally deadpan, before I burst out at him, “You’re right! You’re motherfucking right. They have to have her there. There’s nowhere else on this map that would fit that description.” A million thoughts are racing through my head as I rummage through my jacket for my keys.
I’m nearly out the door before I turn around. No one has moved or begun to follow me. They are all still sitting there waiting for Jager to make the call. I stand by the door pleading with them, “What are we waiting for? What are we doing?”
“We can’t just go in there. That’s what they are e
xpecting. They’ll execute them before we can get through the front door. We need a plan.” Jager turns back to his men. His hands rest upon his head as he leans back lazily. “What do you have, guys.”
There’s silence as everyone hunches down a bit lower. Finally, Red Dog clears his throat. “If we can’t charge in, we have to go in bit by bit. We’re in a war right now, there’s no doubt about it. This is our chance to lay it out all on the line, our chance to say no more. I say we go in for a three pronged attack.”
He pulls the computer out of Walton’s hands and types in a web address. A map again pops up, but this one has three points designated. I walk towards the table to see what he has in mind.
“First, we send our main crew, the young guns, and some of the newer enforcers out to attack their clubhouse again. The attack lasts two hours. After the first half hour, enough time for them to inform the other Coyotes what’s going on, we send the seconds and main enforcers to head out towards the warehouse where they do the main distributions. It won’t be guarded, but as soon as we make our move, their seconds and top teams will respond leaving Chris’ repair shop open. That’s when we go in – the Alpha Squad. We go in quickly, quietly, and we take down Addison Bell and the Mountain from there.”
Jager looks at him long and hard before leaning forward in his chair and reaching out his hand. “That’s brilliant, Red. They won’t see us organizing and hitting three at once.” He begins writing down a list of names and placing them in columns. A large map of the city is pulled out from his supplies in his basement office. He circles spots, drawing lines. It’s as if we are a football team getting our plays right rather than motorcycle club members on the attack.
He uses sticky notes to place men at each of the spots. Red Dog and Ace stand next to him arguing who goes where and the vantage points to be used. But I stay in the background. I’m too emotional to make this my mission. This needs men who have their head in the game, not men who are transfixed on the idea that the two people he cared for most were getting slaughtered in the down time.
There’s another part of me, though, that is longing to jump in. That part of me aches knowing those names and the people they belong to won’t be making it out of the places we are sending them to. I feel like I should be the one putting their name down in that black ink, the one condemning them to being shot at, to being taken, to being killed. I’m signing their funeral receipts. I’m the one issuing them to say goodbye to their own daughters and women. But the ultimate sacrifice is worth it for this club. And these are the decisions that have to be made. So I keep my head down, my mouth shut.
When Jager is done, he stands and holds the paper up with the three columns. Each of us, his main crew, gets one final look at it, and we nod our approval solemnly. No one is going to argue about any of it now that Jager has set it in stone. This is Jager’s call, and questioning this death list would be like questioning George Washington as he sends his troops to battle.
When we all confer, he hands the list to Walton, who begins the phone, email, and text message chain. Road captains slowly file into the clubhouse as Red Dog runs through the plan over and over and over again, making sure everyone is clear on what is supposed to be happening when and where they are going to be positioned at. There are lookouts, guards for our clubhouse, men to drive the ammo cars. Even some of the more fierce women of the club are recruited to take part by helping back at the clubhouse with the wounded who are brought in. Three of them even offer to take over if the shit gets too hot.
But when everything's said and done, within two hours time, everyone has been alerted. Everyone knows their station. We’re ready to ride. Red Dog, Ace, and I, the members of the recovery team positioned at the repair shop, set our watches to synchronize. At one o’clock, we ride out to rescue my daughter. At one o'clock, we save my girls.
I walk silently towards my motorcycle parked near the rear. The clubhouse has gone quiet in anticipation; the windows are, again, boarded up in case of another attack. The only souls left outside are my team. Before I rev up my engine, I place my hands on the bars and grip tightly. I look up towards the sky and ask that whatever higher power that’s up there is listening to me now. This is my chance to do what I said I would do. If it takes my own life to bring Maddie and Michelle back home to me alive, so be it. I just hope that sacrifice is enough in the end.
Chapter 30: Metal on the Ground
MICHELLE
It’s back to pitch black. No sights. No light. No bit of hope for any of the three of us down here. Outside, I can hear the men screaming at one another, each of them shouting louder than the next. There are a couple more shots of the gun, each one of them sending shivers down my spine and shaking me to my core. I cover my head with my hands, trying to drown out the noise with my sweaty palm, but they still come, unpredictable and chaotic.
And then there’s Maddie. She’s hysterical now, crying out for her dad as if her saying it loud enough will make it come true. Her sobs are heavy and full of tears I can practically hear as they fall down her face in the dark.
She still hasn’t moved from the spot they dropped her at as far as I can tell. But I can’t seem to make myself to find her. I am too afraid that if any of us make a sudden movement, the men upstairs will hear us and have reason to put us next on their hit list. Though, realistically, I already know we are.
I can hear a man standing above where I am sitting. It’s the same man from before, the one who walked in on Maddie taking that phone call. His voice echoes off of the plank and through the broken pipes loud enough so it even catches Maddie’s attention. “What the fuck do you mean they’re at the clubhouse? Who is there? Who is guarding it?”
I sit up straighter as he goes on raging. “If those fuckers think they can mess with us in our own turf, they have another thing coming from them.” He pauses as he plots his counterattack. “Tell the boys at the house to hold it down until I can get ahold of some reinforcements. Send Pedro and Tom-Tom their way to flank them in the alleyway. Then call in Yazoo and his boys to take care of them from the back. They’ll never know what is coming for them!”
He laughs long and hard, the floor shaking as he beats his foot into the ground. The idea of laughing over a war is beyond me, let alone gleefully sending in troops of friends and family to do the dirty work. But the man above me isn’t just a regular guy; he isn’t even like Cal. The invitation of death is like a calling for him, and I can tell how eager he is to get out there and join them just from the dripping tone of his voice. But he’s disappointed. He’s got to pull rank here to guard over us. After that phone call, I doubt he can trust any of his men to obey his orders completely, especially when it comes to an innocent little girl like Maddie.
I, on the other hand, should be excited, even thrilled. The attackers going after the clubhouse with such force have to be Cal and the Mustangs. But my heart is sitting at the bottom of my stomach as I think of the men dying for absolutely nothing. They’re at the wrong place, probably at least five miles away from us! While they are attacking the empty clubhouse, we’re probably closer to death than ever. And what will happen when Cal finds he comes up empty handed? I shake my head, trying to erase the thoughts of him seeing us lifeless and long cold.
“Michelle? Miss Springer?” Maddie is whispering low. I turn my attention back to her and crawl slowly towards her voice. “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
I shh her, like the practiced teacher I am. She can’t be heard right now. It’s more dangerous than ever for us to get any bit of attention. I quickly find my way through the dark to where she is laying, her head facing the ceiling and her arms clasped tightly around her waist. I sit up next to her, finding a support beam to rest my back on. I grab her arms and lay her head on my lap as I say, “We can’t talk loudly down here. If we can hear them, they can hear us. And we don’t want to make any noise. Do you understand me?”
She nods her head yes and rolls towards my stomach, talking as low as possible in my sh
irt so even I have to bend lower to hear her. “Did you hear what that guy said? He said someone was attacking the clubhouse. Do you think it’s my dad?”
I hesitate. Should I tell her her dad is headed towards a horrific death and that he’s not anywhere near us or should I save her hopes? I go with the best answer I can muster. “I don’t know for sure, Maddie. But whoever is attacking the clubhouse is making them very nervous and mad.”
A flicker of light from the window dances near us as I get a quick sparkle of her tear filled eyes. “It has to be them. The Mustangs wouldn’t just leave me here. Right?”
“I am sure your dad is doing whatever he can to get you and Erin out of here as fast as possible.” My voice cracks as I try to get the last words out, “We just have to be patient.”
Maddie scoffs, “Patient? My dad would never be patient. We should be attacking them…you know, kicking them in the butt and stealing their guns and stuff. My dad wouldn’t let them do any of the shit – oh, um, sorry, crap – that they’re doing to us.”