“If it wasn’t Poppy, and she hadn’t been through everything she’s recently gone through, I’m sure you would be right. There’s no way he’s going to leave her in doubt of what happened last night just to fuck with me though. That would be cruel to her.”
“I see your point. I guess you got lucky this time. Word to the wise, if you’re ever talking about a kid and another woman to someone you only just started dating, fucking, or whatever you two are doing; there probably needs to be some sort of explanation as to who those people you mentioned are before you up and run out of breakfast.”
I ran my hand nervously through my hair, because honestly, I should have known better. Before I could get lost in my own thoughts of Poppy and where I thought we were going to be headed with our little new-found friendship, my brother-in-law got a call.
“What’s up babe?” I knew immediately it was my sister. “Seriously, still no?” Bender sighed, disappointed in something she was saying. “Okay, I’ll let him know. No, it’s okay. Another time. I’ll be back as soon as I drop Smoke off.”
“Drop me off?”
“Yeah, sorry, man. Your sister wasn’t exactly feeling well this morning, but she swore it was okay to pick you up because she thought it would pass.” He lifted a shoulder in agitation.
“I’m guessing it hasn’t passed?”
“Not sounding like it, so I’m just going to drop you at your bike. Maybe you can catch back up with Poppy and Chief?”
“Yeah, okay.”
I was on my bike at a stop light when I felt the vibrations. I pulled it out at the next stop to take the call. “Yo! What’s up, Shep?”
“Smoke,” he called me by my road name instead of my actual name which immediately put me on edge. “I have a problem. Not sure if you can help, but I’d sure as fuck appreciate it if you could.”
“What’s going on?”
Shep gave a quick rundown of how his mom’s latest asshole had put her and his sister in danger, and they needed help getting out.
“I’m on my way to your place. Give Bender a call and let him know. His plans got canned today, and I’m sure he’d be down for helping too.”
“Thanks.” I hung up and took off, heading in his direction again. I was half way there when I felt my phone vibrating. I cursed myself for not having the damn thing paired up to the Bluetooth in my helmet yet. I had just bought the new phone a couple days ago and still hadn’t bothered to do it. Then again, I didn’t usually get this many calls that I wanted to answer. When I had been with Julie, I tended to ignore my phone until I got somewhere because I didn’t want her nagging about when I would finally make it home.
At the next light, I yanked the phone back out of my pocket, and thank fuck I did, because the asshole coming up behind me wasn’t slowing the fuck down. I caught sight of him in my mirror and just barely managed to move out of the way before he would have taken me out. Still ended up dropping my phone and having the bastard run it over. “Mother fucker!” I growled wishing I had the time to chase the son of a bitch down. I took note of the traffic cam, and the fact that I’d be putting in a call to the boys in blue to find that son of a bitch for me. He deserved far more than the ticket the camera was going to throw him. Waiting to get his ass kicked until I had time to do it would just make it that much sweeter.
It didn’t take long to get to Shep’s place after that, mostly because the shot of adrenaline from almost being taken out by a careless asshole driving a cage was still riding my body. Being charged up meant I wasn’t a laid back rider.
“That was quick, what the hell happened? You answered my call and then everything went dead.”
“Fucking moron took out my phone on the road, almost took me out had I not seen him in time. Thanks for the call, you literally probably just saved my fuckin’ life.”
“No shit?” Shep asked, eyes wide, as he took in my appearance. “Yeah, you’re jacked up right now. Come on, you can grab a drink, and we’ll go over what you think I need to do to help them out before I hit the road.”
“Before we hit the road,” I tell him. “I’m not leaving you to handle this shit on your own. Your girls need moved, we’ll get them gone from that situation and make sure the fucker knows they aren’t to be trifled with again.”
He glanced down at his phone and grimaced. “Might need to get on the road and head that way sooner than later. I’m not sure how much longer they have before someone gets hurt.”
“Give me your phone a minute,” I tell him and he hands it over without a complaint. I quickly shoot messages to Bender, Chief, and Ghost telling them what’s going on. Ghost says he doesn’t mind sanctioning the club assist, and Chief shoots back a message that Wren will be joining too.
I turned to Shep. “All right, Bender, Chief, and Wren are meeting us here and then we’ll ride out. You taking your truck in case you need something to put the women in to get them back here?”
“I guess I better. That way I can grab some of their shit too, hopefully. Depends on the situation we end up rolling into.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll get as much of their shit as we can fit in the truck. We’ll pack the fuckin’ cab if need be and your mom and sister can hop on the back of one of the bikes.”
Shep laughed at that. “I’d like to see any of you attempt to convince my mom, of all people, to just hop on the back of your bike for the ride home.” He shook his head and chuckled as we moved to the garage and he rolled the truck out, securing his bike inside. By the time he was finished and had everything locked up, the rest of my brothers had arrived, and we all headed out to what we thought would be a simple run to help a friend. If only we had known how wrong we were.
We rolled up to the place where Shep’s mom had moved to after hooking up with her latest loser. I could already feel that shift in the air that signaled things were not going to be as simple as we thought when we rolled out. Suddenly, I was thankful so many of my brothers had come along for the ride. It wasn’t even that it looked like there were too many people here to handle. My gut was sending that tingling warning through my body, telling me shit was not as it seemed.
“Something isn’t right,” I finally stated out loud as I took my helmet off.
“I feel it too,” Bender put in.
“Same,” Wren called out as he killed his engine.
Shep looked back and forth between us and it was clear he didn’t get the same gut reaction. I wasn’t sure if that was just because he’d never been in some of the situations we’d faced as a club, or if it was because he was too close to the situation since his mom and sister had reached out for help.
“Did they say if they were alone?”
Shep tipped his head to the side, indicating a busted old truck sitting there. “Looks like the asshole is home.”
I had that itch to text Poppy and make sure she was okay, or let her know that I was. She wasn’t even my old lady yet, and besides, my phone was toast. I’d dropped it and crushed it on my way to Shep’s. I turned to ask Chief if he could text her, but the front door to the house flew open and a wide-eyed, crazy looking fucker stood there with a shot gun aimed in our direction.
“Don’t know who the fuck all of you are, but you need to get gone from here!”
A female voice screamed out, “Shep!” It sounded muffled and distant, and we all realized what that meant almost immediately. “I’ve got the back door,” Wren called out as he and Chief took off in that direction.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” The crazy fucker with the shotgun yelled at them as he brought the muzzle around, tracking their movements. Wren and Chief ignored the threats and I moved in. I shouldered his arm with the shotgun upward, so that if he pulled that trigger the shot would fly to the sky before letting gravity take its course, putting our guys in the clear. Then I had to get clear quickly, because Shep had come up and kicked the man’s knee out from under, dropping him immediately.
“What the fuck are you doing with my mom an
d sister?” Shep seethed at the man.
Bender was by my side, collecting the fallen weapon, and helping to drag the bastard inside. We did not need an audience, or worse, someone with a cell phone standing in their window witnessing what looked like us breaking into a home and assaulting the residents. I turned to check to see if there was anyone we would need to talk to once we were done here, but all I noticed was a black suburban with windows tinted so heavily, they were beyond well illegal in this state. “Bender,” I called out and tipped my head. He saw it and gave me the nod indicating he understood too. If nothing else, we had witnesses to what we’d just done. The fact that the witnesses looked shady as fuck though, did not bode well. There was more going on here than Shep thought.
Once we were inside, Wren and Chief met us in the living room with two terrified women and another man. The women were a mirror of one another with exception of the fact that one was obviously about 20 or so years older than the other. Shep’s mom had aged well, and his sister was a dead ringer for the woman.
The man, on the other hand, did not look as though he belonged at all. Every inch of skin that wasn’t covered by clothing was dripping with ink. His face, while not completely covered, also had tattoos present. I couldn’t make out most of it, as they looked to be symbols and shit written in another language. If I had to guess, I’d say Slavic, based on the man himself and the way it looked. That didn’t mean I could translate the least bit of it.
“Who the fuck are you?” Shep asked the man who only smirked at him response. Then he turned to the idiot that Bender and I still had a hold of. “Who the fuck is that? And what the hell is going on here, you piece of shit?”
The asshole we had hold of spit at Shep’s boots. He missed in the pathetic attempt to disrespect the man so I slapped him around for being stupid. Nothing pissed a grown ass man off more than being bitch slapped by another man. He growled out in frustration, so I slapped him again.
“Answer Shep’s questions asshole, or we’ll get creative with how we get the truth out of you.”
We all watched as the fucker glanced in the direction of the other man and clammed up at seeing the ruthless look on his face. He promised to do more harm to the man with one look than we could ever threaten. It didn’t matter that he’d been captured too. You wouldn’t know it by the menacing air he was putting off.
“He sold us to that guy,” Lindsay, Shep’s sister, cried as she pointed to the tatted up bastard that was now staring daggers at her.
“Get that fucker out of here,” I told Wren. He nodded his head and hit the guy with the butt of his gun. The man dropped like a sack of potatoes and, once he was out, they managed to find shit to tie him up with in the kitchen. Wren stuck around in the kitchen to stand guard and keep an eye on the back door while the rest of us gathered in the living room to figure out exactly what the fuck was going on.
“Now, why would a man sell his wife and stepdaughter to some inked-up thug?” I asked. Chad Montgomery, the man in question, looked up at me and started laughing.
“You think I’m afraid of you boys and your little bikes you ride? I’m not.”
“He owes money,” Tammy pipped up.
“Shut your fucking mouth, you stupid cunt!”
“You can kiss my ass, Chad! You just sold my daughter to pay off your gambling debts!” Tammy shrieked across the living room at her piece of shit husband.
“Sold you too, bitch!”
“Yeah?” She asked, smugly. “How’d that work out for ya?”
That was when the dick blanched, and finally realized the situation he was in. Either way, he wouldn’t be coming out of this shitstorm alive. If we didn’t take him out – and we would – the assholes he was dealing with sure as fuck would be back to try to claim what they thought was their rightful payment for his debts.
After I let it sink for a minute, I gripped his greasy blond hair and pulled his head back so he could look me in the eyes. “Now that you figured out your lot in life – what’s left of it – maybe you want to start talking? We’ll make it quick and relatively painless if you do. Those other fucks don’t look like they’ll make it painless or quick for you.”
“I can’t. They’ll know I talked.”
“So, you’ll be dead,” Bender laughed. “What are they going to do? Bring you back?”
“They’ll go after my wife and kids,” he shouted as the acrid smell of urine started to fill the room.
“Did you just piss yourself?” I asked as my nose wrinkled up at the smell.
“You already sold your wife and kid to them!” Shep yelled.
“That cunt don’t mean shit to me, and that little bitch ain’t no kid of mine,” Chad snarled.
“What?” Tammy shrieked.
“That’s right, cunt. We ain’t legally married. I already have a real woman back home. We were just taking a break when I met you. Figured I could have you on the side, but fuck if you weren’t too much work. Thought you’d help pay some of the debt off since you work at the hospital, but I didn’t realize you were fucking downing in those credit cards.”
“You sorry ass motherfucker!” She screeched and before anyone knew what was happened she jumped up, grabbed the shotgun we’d tossed to the side, and shot the fucker right in the head.
“Jesus!” I yelled as I jumped back out of the way. Bender swore and dove out of the way too. Shep managed to tackle his mother, a little too late.
“Momma?” Lindsay called out, shocked and sounding far younger than she looked at first glance only moments ago.
“Oh God! What did I do?” Tammy started wailing.
“Eto nereal'no,” We heard the other man mutter amidst his own laughter.
“You have a basement here?” Wren asked from the kitchen?”
“Yes,” Tammy told him as she stood there shaking like a leaf. Obviously, shock was starting to set in either over her circumstances or the fact that she’d just shot and killed her fake husband, I didn’t know.
“Let’s get this mess down there too,” I told Bender. He nodded his head and helped me move the body as Chief did his best to shield Lindsay’s view of what was happening. Not that it mattered all that much after she was nearly abducted and watched her mom shoot the man she thought was her stepfather.
“Do we have to find his family now?” Tammy was asking.
“You will do no such thing. That’s for the police to do, if they can identify him. I’m thinking the woman already knows he’s a peace of shit, considering they were on a long enough break that he was able to set up house with a new woman and be involved enough with you that you were willing to marry him.”
I didn’t see or hear Tammy’s response, but I knew Chief was about to put the fear of God and the Aces High MC into both women. If they talked, and our involvement became known, that would be a problem for our club that was damn near ready for all its chapters to go 100 percent legit. We had done our time as one percenters and that time was coming to an end, because there was just too much loss involved. The risks didn’t outweigh the reward in this day and age.
Once we had the body moved to the basement, we called up for Wren to send the other asshole down. He did, with a swift kick to the ass, the dipshit tumbled down the steps and landed in a heap at our feet. I knelt beside the man and realized, by the odd angle of his neck, that we weren’t going to get to question him either.
“What the fuck, Wren?”
“Sorry man, he was getting feisty.”
“Well, he’s dead now,” I informed him as he came down the steps to see for himself.
“Shit, I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“Let’s get some pictures of his tats. Maybe they’ll lead us to whoever he was working for. My best guess though is Russians. That’s what this shit looks like,” I told them pointing out a few of the tattoos. “We had that one guy before,” I started to say, but couldn’t think of his name.
“Yeah, I remember. He wanted to be a prospect, right?”
&n
bsp; “He was a hang around for a while until he ended up dead,” I confirmed. “He had similar shit inked on him.”
“Okay, well it gives us a jumping off point,” Bender mentioned as he started pouring what looked like lighter fluid on the two bodies. “Go on upstairs and give me a shout when everyone’s clear. I’ll have this place torched in no time.”
Thankfully, the house was not sitting terribly close to any of the others in the neighborhood. “Let’s go get the girls back home and hidden away for a while.”
Once we were far enough away from the house, we let Bender know it was okay to light it up, and he took off too, catching up to us quickly, before we managed to haul ass out of there. We had managed to get some of the girls’ things into the truck before we took off, so at least they wouldn’t have to start over completely. We were clear of the area before we found a storage unit to put their belongings in, and then we doubled back and headed in the opposite direction of Cedar Falls. The stop to unload their shit was necessary because we didn’t want to be hauling a bunch of shit if we ended up with a tail of any kind. We managed to roll through Ohio and Pennsylvania, stopping there overnight at a piece of property we had with a few barns on it. We had converted one of them into a pretty sick shelter that was housed underground, beneath one of the barns. They all just looked like aging, decrepit buildings. As soon as we were all rested, we headed out again, stopping each day, for three days, in a new place. It was all done to throw the trail.
From our last stop, we separated and went in different directions with the same destination in mind. I Was pretty sure Wren was headed back to report in with Ghost about the possible blowback from our trip. Bender and Chief took off on their own on the last day too. I helped Shep get the girls settled into a hotel just outside of Cedar Falls until he could figure out what to do with them. I wasn’t entirely sure four hours away from the scene of the crime was enough. Luckily, he agreed with me.
Once everyone was settled, the only thing on my mind was getting back to Poppy. Little did I know, I was going to have some explaining and groveling to do since I hadn’t had a phone with me, and apparently Chief hadn’t contacted her either. I knew a way to make it all up to her though. A couple days after we got back, I took her to her first Penguins game in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, we weren’t really able to do more than say hello to my brother afterward, but that didn’t seem to matter to Poppy. What mattered was us being there together, and it only endeared me to her even more.
Redemption Duet (Aces High MC - Cedar Falls Book 0) Page 27