Redemption Duet (Aces High MC - Cedar Falls Book 0)

by Christine Michelle

  “Yeah, I did. He wants us both to stay put long enough for you to be able to get in there once the flames are out. He wants answers, but he also wants everything we have underground kept secure until he can get the rest of the guys up here to pull it all out.”

  “Fuck,” I growled out. “I need to call Shep and Kent.”

  “Don’t you mean you need to call Poppy?”

  “I need to talk to them first and see what they’re willing to do for her. If they can’t get her home safely, then I will have to call one of the club women to run up there with a prospect or something.” I mumbled as I was basically thinking out loud.

  “Get to it then. I’m sure my sister is worried, and not to mention she’s been left with two men she hardly knows.”

  “You know,” I told him as I threw my hand up to indicate the mess we were standing in the middle of. “I didn’t exactly have a choice.”

  “I fucking know, and it still pisses me off, so deal with it.”

  Chapter 7

  One thing after another was bound and determined to keep me from getting back to Poppy. I finally had to ask Kent and Shep to make sure she got home okay, and it killed me to do it. Hell, Chief nearly killed me for having to make that call too. At least, he threatened it until I pointed out that he wasn’t exactly in a position to go back for her either.

  “We need to call a lock down,” I suggested to Ghost when I finally got some information and had to call him back. “I’ve already let Shep know that his family needs to remain hidden for a while, but I think these fuckers are going to keep coming at us until we produce them.”

  “What the fuck kind of shit was his step-dad into?”

  “The mafia, for a few large apparently. I think one of them was looking forward to having Shep’s sister as payment though.” I swore when I glanced down at what looked like a human remain sitting at my feet outside the barn. The locals had missed something here after the explosion. I didn’t know what to do with that sight and ended up staring at the digit that sat in the dirt near the toe of my well-worn leather boot. “They aren’t afraid of making a statement considering they just took out a few cops with the explosion they had rigged. Either they thought we’d go charging in our own building, or they were purposely trying to turn the heat up for us with the law.”

  “Either way, I think you’re right. I just sent out a lockdown notice to everyone.”

  “What about Poppy?”

  I could almost hear the smile in Ghost’s voice when he answered. “Leanne went to get her.”

  “You have someone on Leanne?”

  “Of fucking course, I have someone on Leanne. I ain’t sending my woman out there unprotected.”

  “Soph, Bender, and Brant?” I asked after the rest of my family.

  “Haven’t been able to get a hold of them. Bender mentioned them taking a short trip earlier today though.” He sighed. “Been trying to call them back, but you know Bender. They go on their little family excursions and he doesn’t answer shit.”

  “Yeah, sometimes hate the fucker for that, but I’m Soph’s brother too, so I have to love the fact that he’s putting them first.”

  “We’ll keep trying to get a hold of them. I’ve put 911 texts in to both of their phones in case they turn them back on.”

  “Appreciate it, brother.”

  “Get me something we can use,” Ghost demanded.

  “Working on it.” It wasn’t a lie, but there wasn’t a fuck of a lot to go on since most of the evidence had been blown to smithereens, and what was left had been collected by the cops and then trampled over by the fire department as they too went through looking for anything the cops left behind.

  “Anything?” Chief asked as he moved closer to me, noticing the thumb that I had been staring at on the ground. “Jesus! You’d think they would have at least made sure to get all of their men’s parts.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “They’re too close.”

  “Yeah, that’s why shit’s gonna end up fucked,” Chief muttered. He wasn’t wrong either. It was already showing in their sloppy collection activity.

  “Leanne is taking Poppy into lockdown with her,” I informed him since he was her brother.

  “Good.” He sighed heavily then. “Heard some shit from Snake before that never sat right with me.” I turned to watch as he tried to reel his anger in. “When the men in Georgia were dealing with the human trafficking ring, the fucking third wave of those fuckers coming into their territory trying to fuck with their shit, Poppy was left home alone in a farmhouse that had no fuckin’ protection. Bastard didn’t tell me until after the fact.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Probably making sure the club whores didn’t whisper anything in her ear about his habits.”

  “Motherfucker!” I snapped. “It’s getting past time we took a ride to Georgia to straighten this fucker out.”

  “Nope,” Chief disagreed.

  “What the fuck do you mean by nope?”

  “He’ll get what’s coming to him, but you have to keep your hands clean. Poppy wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want the drama of club brothers going at each other and causing strife. Trust me on that. Hell, she’s better to the club than that particular chapter deserves, but I promise you, she’ll be pissed if you do anything against Walker.”

  “I feel like my hands are tied behind my back and I’m walking this tight rope blindfolded.”

  “I know it, brother. Let everything sort itself and settle. Then, we’ll have a come to Jesus meeting with the asshole who couldn’t take care of my sister properly. I promise you. It’s coming.” He tipped his chin down towards the digit that was still taunting me. Something about it set me off and it didn’t settle in until that moment. “Let’s get this shit to the cops.

  “Nah, we’re not gonna do that.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “This little digit doesn’t belong to them. Check out that ring. Know many cops that wear a pinky ring?”

  Chief leaned in to take a better look. “Holy fuck. One of those bastards blew himself up?”

  “Looks like it. Must have come from the initial blaze or explosion.” I pulled a knife from my belt and knelt to stab the thumb. Then I brought it up closer to my face to check out the jewelry on the damn thing just a little closer. The ring was a golden revolver cylinder with one chamber filled and topped with what looked like a ruby. There was also a partial tattoo present at the base of the thumb where it would have connected to the index finger.

  “You know what that is?”

  I nodded my head. “I do because a guy that used to run with the club for a while back when I was prospecting had one. VTK. It’s Russian and used to indicate that the person was in a labor camp before they were 18. It’s a youth offender designation.”

  “Think it’s the same guy you knew from back then?”

  “No. Couldn’t be. He fucking died in a fire, of all things, not too long after I met him. The bastard was shacked up in a crack den that burned to the damn ground with him and two others in it.”

  “You sure about that?”

  The more I stared at the ink on the thumb, the more my worry became a real thing. These people weren’t ones to be trifled with. We had a huge club with a shitload of chapters throughout the country, but we were also a club on the cusp of trying to go filly legit. Throwing down with the Russian Mafia could derail those plans exponentially, especially if the outcome – like buildings blowing up cops – put us on the radar of the feds. Our guys in Tallahassee were almost free of their gun running responsibilities they had to pick up ten years back as a result of a deal they needed to make in order to get rid of some corrupt ass government officials and their family who had been terrorizing the area and the chapter’s president’s old lady.

  “I’m sure enough to know we should all probably be shaking in our boots.”

  “You don’t think we can take them?”

  “It’s not about that. We have to worry about ho
w deep the fallout will roll, how many people will end up dead in the wake, and how many eyes we have on us just as we’re pulling out of the last of the shit that keeps us dirty.”

  “Well, fuck!” Chief hissed out as he walked off again and raised his cell back to his ear, speaking to someone on the other end.

  We were just about to leave when Womack pulled up on the scene his men had torn apart the day before. He didn’t bother getting out of his vehicle, just rolled the window down and handed me a large brown envelope. “Not so sure I should be doing this, but it’s in my head that you boys wouldn’t bring this sort of attention down on yourselves. I have to think there’s good reason for it.” I nodded my head indicating that there was. “Thought that might be the case. That’s everything we gathered so far. Catalogued it all, cops gave us their list, and we’re working this jointly considering. Do what you need to with that information, but don’t let it out of your sight because you’ll never see it from me again. That’s all the help I can give you boys.” He tipped his head up and started to roll his window back up and thought better of it before turning back and sending a warning of his own. “Might want to tell Ghost to start lookin’ for some new property. Think this site is just about used up all the welcome you boys were ever gonna get.”

  “It’s been a pleasure, Womack,” I called out.

  “Wish I could say it ended the same, Smoke.” With a shake of his head, and a swipe at his window control Womack cut himself off from us and took off back down the bumpy, unpaved road that brought him out here.

  “Let’s get this back,” I suggested before tucking the envelope of papers into my saddlebags.

  We were halfway home when my cell phone would not stop buzzing in my pocket. I finally got fed up and decided answering it was better than wondering what the hell had them calling me so frantically. “Yeah?” I asked into the receiver after pulling off the interstate.

  “How close are you?” Ghost’s gruff voice had the hairs on my arms standing on end.

  “Halfway, why?”

  “You need to get here as quick as you can brother and bypass the clubhouse. Get to the hospital.”

  “The hospital? Is Poppy okay?” Chief killed his engine and ran over when he heard his sister’s name.

  “She’s fine. Asleep at the clubhouse still, last I saw her.”

  A horrible feeling sunk deep down in my stomach as I recalled Ghost telling me they had tried to pull Bender and my sister in for lockdown but had been unsuccessful in getting a hold of them. “Soph? Brant?” I asked.

  “Get here!” He hung up.

  “FUCK!” I screamed. “Fuck!”

  “Calm down brother. We don’t know what’s happening just yet. Not gonna help anyone sitting here losing your shit. Let’s get back and see what’s up, okay?”

  All I could do was nod, or losing my shit would be the least of our worries. I had this feeling. I wasn’t going to get to say goodbye to my sister no matter how quickly I got there. I couldn’t even allow myself to think about my innocent little nephew, or my club brother. What the fuck would I do if we lost them all? If we lost any of them? SHIT!

  There should have been a bit over two hours left on our ride back. We made it back in half that.

  Chapter 8

  My heart hammered against my chest as I dove from my bike, not even able to remember if I’d snatched the keys out, because I was in too big a hurry to make it inside. “Sophie and Granger Bent?” I shouted. “Brantley Bent?”

  Immediately sad, pitying eyes met my own and it stopped me short. “Sir,”

  “I’m Sophie’s brother, Brantley’s Uncle,” I explained.

  “Smoke!” I turned to see Ghost standing there with a doctor and rushed toward them.

  “What’s going on?”

  Ghost reached for me and immediately wrapped his arms around my shoulders, effectively tucking my hands between us. “Soph and Bender are gone, brother. Brantley’s okay. They’re just checking him out right now. He survived.”

  “What the fuck did he survive? What do you mean they’re gone?”

  “As I was explaining to Mr. Ghost here,” some asshole doc was saying before I turned around and he took note of who I was. Hell, I wasn’t in and out of here as often as Surfer was, but enough that people knew me. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize, Mr. Lewis.”

  “I’ve got it from here,” Ghost informed him.

  “We’ll need you to sign for your nephew before he can be released since…” his voice trailed off as I stood there ingulfed in Ghost’s arms.

  “I have you. We have you, Smoke. We’ll get through this.”

  “Kent,” I managed to choke out.

  “Already got word to him. They’re sending him back from California.”

  “Jesus, fuck! How did this happen? What the fuck happened?”

  Ghost released his hold on me and we both collapsed into the uncomfortable chairs sitting there just inside a room I hadn’t even realized we had moved in to. Chief was there with us now and he tucked my keys into my hands. Apparently, I had left them behind.

  “It looks like they were run off the road on purpose. Reports came in to the police that a white work van was trying to run a car off the road. They were in the Mustang, and…”

  He didn’t have to say it. My sister’s Mustang was a convertible. “They rolled?”

  He tipped his head up and down one time. “Doc says neither of them suffered. Brantley still being so small is the only thing that saved him. That and the car seat.”

  I had no words. My sister was gone. My club brother who became a brother-in-law was gone with her. Now, there would be their little boy to care for in their absence and I honestly didn’t know if I was up for the job. How did you tell a kid they just lost both of their parents and you and his other uncle were all they had left?

  “The roads were slick, and from the reports, the assholes in the van were relentless.”

  “It was a hit?” I heard Chief ask.

  “Looks that way,” Ghost returned.

  Nothing. I had nothing for that. After what we found at the barns I knew that things were about to get ugly. I’d even mentioned earlier that we were looking at potential casualties and collateral damage that might draw the interest of agencies we didn’t want poking around in our business. Never, in a million years, had I envisioned my own family as a part of the losses. I’d saved Shep’s mother and sister at the expense of my own sister and club brother. How the fuck was I ever going to make that right?

  “He was there,” Ghost murmured, as if reading my mind. “Bender was there with you when you went to help Shep. He’d do it all over again if he were here right now, and you know it. Don’t take that shit on your shoulders or put it on Shep’s. We’re going to find the assholes responsible, and we’re going to take every last one of the fuckers out. That is a fucking promise.”

  “Gonna hold you to that one,” I managed to get out before the grief hit and I lost my shit right there in the waiting room for all to see. I’ve never been a man prone to tears, but my little sister was more to me. In a way, I had become a surrogate father for her, and she’d become my own child. Our sibling relationship was vastly different from many people’s since I had to step up and take of her and Kent. My baby girl, my sister, was gone and there was nothing on this Earth that could bring her back to me. We had hardly talked since that barbecue where we had shitty fucking words to say to one another. While Poppy and Soph had managed to pull it together in the end, my sister and I still hadn’t really managed an opportunity to talk about things and make it right between us.

  “How the hell do I tell Brant?” I asked everyone and no one all at once. “Where is Brant?” Panic set in then. Somewhere in this hospital was a little boy who was probably scared shitless and wondering where his parents were and here I was becoming a sniveling mess in a waiting room. How had he not been my first thought? Shit, I was already fucking up.

  I stood just as Ghost did, and he put a hand on my shoulder
to hold me still a moment longer. “It’s okay. BigMac’s been sitting with him.”

  BigMac was one of the older brothers who was barely around anymore because arthritis was taking his ability to ride. Still, the man had a heart of gold and doted on his grandchildren like they were the most precious things this world had to offer. Hell, the fat bastard took it upon himself to beef up for the position of Santa at the club’s Christmas events every year. He was already pushing 350 at only 5 feet 10 inches, and he took it seriously, because he wasn’t about to disappoint the kids. Even knowing that, I couldn’t let another man sit in on my responsibility any longer. “I need to go to him.”

  “I know you do. How about you take a minute to process first, and then get yourself cleaned up before you go in there shocking the kid with just your appearance. Shit’s about to be hard enough.”

  “Has anyone told him?”

  “Nah, we figured either you or Kent would want to do that.”

  “I don’t think either of us wants that particular honor,” I mumbled.

  Ghost clapped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I know you don’t. I’m going to call Leanne and update her.”

  “Don’t tell Poppy just yet. Please, let her know. I think it’s best if that comes from me or Chief too.”

  Ghost nodded his head and stepped aside only for Chief to take his place. “Anything you need, brother. Anything. I mean that.”

  “I know you do,” I told him.

  “You want one of us in there when you tell Brant?”

  “Would you mind?” I asked. It wasn’t that I was afraid of telling the kid, though I wished I didn’t have to. My heart hammered disturbingly fast against the body restraining it as I thought about how I would be when everything sunk in for Brant. Having backup didn’t seem like a bad plan.

  We took two steps toward the doorway of the waiting area before I realized I had no clue where to go. Ghost had disappeared to make his phone call and Chief had come in with me. I knew there were others here but they had all made themselves scarce at some point. Probably when I had come apart and cried like a fucking baby in the arms of my club president. “Shit, brother, I don’t know where he is.”