by Marla Monroe
“Anything else?” Terror asked. “Then stay with her and we’ll be in touch. No one gets near her that you don’t know and approve of. Got it?”
Then his brother shoved the cell back into its holder and, without looking at Rage, turned and headed back the way they’d come.
“What?” Rage growled as he followed his brother.
“Someone grabbed Mia, but Bear and Scooby intercepted them before he could close her up in the trunk and leave. He’s not one of our cast of players. We need to put the pieces of the puzzle together sooner rather than later. This isn’t at all what we thought it was.” Terror kept walking toward Loco’s office.
“Is she all right?” Rage asked in a soft, strangled voice.
“She’s alive. That’s all I know right now. Bear and Scooby will keep her that way while we figure out what the hell is going on and put a stop to it.” Terror’s voice hadn’t wavered one note, but Rage saw the small tick at the corner of his brother’s eye that had always warned him when Terror was about to reign.
When his brother stopped outside of Loco’s door, Rage gripped his shoulder and squeezed, letting him know he was there if things went bad. Rage’s temper might start a lot of fights, but Terror’s madness always ended them. This wasn’t a good time to have to worry about T, but considering the mess they had and still didn’t know who was responsible, he wasn’t about to tell him to suck it up and hold it in.
Terror knocked once on the door but didn’t wait for an invitation before pushing it open and strolling inside. Loco looked up but held up his hand as he talked to someone on the phone in a language neither of them knew. Rage felt the heat of someone behind his back and stepped to one side to see who it was. To his surprise, the entire club stood outside the door with questions in their eyes and determination in the set of their mouths.
“If you have family or close friends in town, call them now and tell them to lock down and stay down until the dust settles. We are at war and our enemy is anyone in our way,” Rage told them.
Several of them nodded and stepped away as they pulled cell phones from their pockets and holders. Hawk and Gunner moved in closer.
“What do you need?” Gunner asked. “I’ve got or can get just about anything outside of a nuclear bomb, and with the right amount of money, I bet I can get one of those for you, too.”
Rage couldn’t stop the cold smile that formed at Gunner’s words. “Thanks. I’ll let you know on the bomb. For now, it’s normal load and safety. Once we have a little more intelligence, we’ll know what more to stock up on.”
Gunner nodded and stepped back so that Hawk could move in. “I’ve gone ahead and rounded up all the girls still here and sent Hershey with them to the safe house. He’s too old to really move around fast enough to be of any help here. He’ll take good care of them, and they won’t be underfoot.”
“Good call, Hawk. Thanks. What about the Old Ladies? Did they go with them?” he asked.
Hawk laughed. “Are you shitting me? The only one to leave was Loco’s. They have the two girls. She knows they’re her responsibility when the shit hits the fan and doesn’t hesitate. The rest will hold down the clubhouse until we tell them otherwise. Injured come here and they take care of them.”
Rage didn’t like it, but it was the way of the biker’s family. If they’d had time to bring in more men before all of this hit, he would have felt better about letting them hole up there. As it was, there were barely enough of them to give the Vipers a good run for their money. Their best chances of coming out on top of the whole fucked-up mess was Loco and anything he could dig up to give them an edge.
“Tell me?” Terror demanded as soon as Loco disconnected.
“Scooby texted me what was going down while Bear called you. I just spoke with a Navaho friend of mine about any movement south of us we should be worried about. Said a small group of bikes heading in this direction passed through there yesterday and should already be here. That means they’re already in place, but there are only about twenty-five of them.” Loco rolled his chair down the desk, snatched something off the printer, and handed it to Terror. “That’s the information on the club’s land. Notice what it’s in the middle when you look at the map over there.”
Terror walked over to the map of the western half of the US pinned to the wall. Their little area was depicted by a red outline that looked less than an inch wide and long. Rage read over his brother’s shoulder and glanced at the map several times before it hit him. It hit T at the same time.
“Son of a bitch!” T roared.
“There’s more,” Loco said. “Here is a list of people who stand to gain from all of this.”
Rage took that from his hand and scanned down the list. Two names jumped out at him. He handed the list to Hawk. The other man might recognize more.
“What does all of this have to do with the man who tried to take Mia?” Rage asked.
“Nothing,” Loco said. “Not a damn thing. Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Terror asked.
“Jealousy, and, well, I wouldn’t say love. I’d call it infatuation,” Loco told them. “Mia ended up in the middle of things because her stalker wanted her and was also mixed up in the entire fiasco.”
“Looks like all of their plans got screwed up, though,” Rage pointed out. “They thought they had everything in place to cover up what was really going on, but they hadn’t counted on Mia overhearing them.”
“No, they didn’t. Which is why I think whoever Gaetti is, he’s a part of it all,” Terror said.
“Well, it is possible, but that means one of the players is in deeper than we thought.” Terror grabbed a folder off his desk and looked at it. Then he looked up at him and Terror.
“What is that?” Terror asked without reaching for it.
Rage was pretty sure his brother was afraid to find out something about Mia he didn’t want to know. So was he, but they had a club to protect. He grabbed the folder from Loco’s hand.
“I know I didn’t have orders or even the right to check up on her, but its habit to dig, and she was obviously someone you were interested in, so I did it anyway.” Loco looked down at his hands.
Rage opened the folder to a piece of paper with Mia’s name and picture, along with a brief history of her life reduced to a small paragraph. Nothing in-depth, just pertinent facts like her date of birth, social, place of birth, and education. The picture Loco had used was from her driver’s license, so it wasn’t the best in the world. Everything went downhill when he turned the page.
* * * *
Why won’t someone cut off that damned alarm? I’m trying to sleep, and with the way I feel, I probably haven’t had but a few hours as it is.
The beep, beep, beep didn’t stop, and she didn’t have the strength to call out about it. Why hadn’t someone else gotten irritated like she was and turned it off already?
Hell, what am I thinking? There isn’t anyone else here. It’s just me.
But it felt like there were others in the room with her. Had she fallen asleep at The Wagon Master when she’d stepped into the kitchen to take a short break? Surely Duke or maybe Hoss would have come looking for her. Crystal would be too busy. But she didn’t hear music or the sound of people shouting.
Mia tried to open her eyes, but they felt like lead weights had been glued to her eyelashes. They didn’t budge, and she was beginning to panic. What was wrong with her? She recognized the sound from when she’d been in ICU back in Chicago when Glenn had been killed. She’d spent enough time in that blasted curtained-off cubical to remember every sound and smell of the place. It might not be Chicago, but she was sure it was a hospital and another ICU room.
It was enough that sheer will tore open her eyes where the bright glare of the overhead lights blinded her to everything around her. She blinked them and tried to turn her head, but something had her unable to do that. She squinted to remove some of the glare so she could see better.
Yep. I’m in IC
U. Why can’t I move my head and neck? What about my arms?
She managed to wiggle her fingers then her toes, but neither her arms nor her legs seemed to be able to move around much. Mia tried to clear her throat to speak, but only managed a weak cough. It was enough to get someone’s attention, because she heard the rustling of clothes and the squeak of a chair cushion as if someone had gotten to their feet.
“Hey. You’re awake.” Scooby’s familiar face came into view above her. “Don’t try and move around too much, Mia. They’ve got you strapped down to be sure you don’t move anything until they’re sure your spine is okay. It’s just a precaution. That’s all.”
She licked her lips, but even her tongue was dry, so it didn’t help. Scooby seemed to know what she wanted, though. He picked up a mug and pulled out a small ice cube that he gently rubbed back and forth over her dry lips. The cool water seeped between them into her parched mouth. It wasn’t enough to really swallow, but it went a long way to ease the tacky feeling in her mouth and the tightness of her lips.
“Thanks,” she managed to croak out. “What happened?”
“Bear and I came to make sure you got home safe when you left work, but the bar was still fairly well packed. We just sat at a table in the back on Crystal’s side since your side was completely full. When you disappeared into the kitchen, we just thought you were taking a quick break, but you didn’t come back out after ten minutes, so we went to check on you,” Scooby said as he brushed another ice cube over her lips and let her suck on it while he spoke.
“We stopped at the bar to let Duke know what we were doing, but Hoss was working that side, and he just watched us as we walked through. The second we stepped inside, we knew something was wrong. You weren’t in the main part of the kitchen. We heard you talking to someone and then heard you telling them that someone would see you if he took you out the back. We knew you were in trouble then,” Scooby told her.
“I remember now. It was Antoine Gaetti, my husband’s boss before he killed him,” she said. “He thinks I have some key that my husband stole from him, but I don’t. I don’t have much of anything left from our marriage.”
“You were married?” Scooby asked.
She would have laughed at the comical look he had on his face with his brows so high they disappeared in his hair if things weren’t so serious.
“Yeah. I was married for four years. Then Gaetti showed up one night after we’d gone to bed and wanted to know where Glenn had hidden the key. Glenn told him he didn’t know what he was talking about, but Gaetti didn’t believe him. I remember my husband staring at me with tears in his eyes, telling me without words that he was sorry.”
“What happened?” Scooby asked.
“It was over two years ago. I woke up in the hospital in ICU a week after it was over and stayed another three weeks before they released me. By then my husband had been buried and everything Gaetti and his men had left intact had been reduced to two cardboard boxes my landlord had stored for me in his garage.” She could almost see Glenn’s face with tears running down his cheeks before they’d finally cut his throat and they closed forever.
“I’m sorry, Mia. I didn’t know you’d been married before,” Scooby said.
He smoothed her hair back from her cheeks and gently ran his hand up and down her arm as she silently cried. It all seemed like just yesterday right then with the sounds and smells of the hospital surrounding her. It had been over two years, but all it had taken was a voice from the past to bring it all back into focus. She couldn’t help but wonder if it would ever go fuzzy again.
“How did you get me away from him?” she finally asked.
“I ran back through the bar and out the front door to cut him off at the back while Bear followed behind the two of you in case he tried anything before I got out in front. I didn’t realize that Hoss had followed me until he stopped me from running head-on into the parking lot and maybe getting you killed. He pointed out the big Cadillac as having to be his car since it was parked behind Duke’s truck and told me to sneak around to hide on the opposite side and to be ready. Told me I’d know when the time was right.” Scooby shook his head and smiled. “I shouldn’t have trusted him. I knew he was a plant from the Vipers, but I was desperate enough for help that I just went with it.”
“Did he help or turn on you?” she asked. Somehow she still couldn’t see Hoss as being the evil biker that the Vipers represented, but she knew she was probably wrong.
“Yeah. He did. I didn’t see it all, but when the bastard pushed you toward the trunk, Hoss stepped into the light and told you to get back to work. You could turn tricks on your own time.” Scooby laughed. “If Rage or Terror had heard him say that, the man would have been toast for insulting you like that, but it made the bastard hesitate and gave him and Bear the time they needed to attack while the knife under your arm wasn’t as close to the artery as it had been.”
“Why don’t I remember any of that? I was awake, wasn’t I?” she asked.
“Yeah, but when Hoss stalked toward the two of you, he held the man’s attention so that Bear was able to hit him from behind and knock him away from you. The only thing no one expected to happen was for the momentum of Bear hitting him away from you to send you flying backwards. You landed hard against the bumper of the caddy. We were scared to death you’d broken your neck or cracked your skull.”
Scooby got another piece of ice and let her suck on it while he finished the story. “Bear and Hoss beat the crap out of the guy then shut him in the trunk of his car while I called for help and tried to stop all the bleeding. He’d cut you in a lot of places, Mia. I don’t know how you handled it. Then there was the cut on the back of your head. I was sure that you’d start leaking brains at any minute. I’ve never been that scared before.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t need that many details, Scooby.”
“Sorry. Right. Anyway, once we had you on the way to the hospital we called Terror to let him know what had happened. Hoss said he was never there and slipped back inside. Terror told us to stay with you and they’d pick up the car with the man in the trunk.” Scooby squeezed her hand. “I need to let the nurse know you’re awake. Is there anything else you wanted to know about?”
“What’s going on with Terror and Rage? Did they manage to get the stuff moved before the sheriff’s office searched the garage?” she asked.
“Yes. That’s all taken care of. Right now they’re working on figuring out what to do about the Vipers and the land deal that’s on the table. I don’t understand what all that means, but my job is taking care of you,” he said.
“Thanks, Scooby. You better call the nurse now. I think I’m going to be sick.”
Chapter Fourteen
Rage, Terror, Hawk, Gunner, and the rest of the club not assigned to other duties waited at the end of Main Street Sunday morning just before ten. They watched as the late-night partiers slowly pulled themselves out of the hotels and motels to pack up and drive home.
By three that afternoon, Terror was sure everyone who didn’t belong in Settler’s Point had left. The inhabitants had all gotten the message that something was going on and had settled in where they would be safe.
Terror prayed nothing would happen, but after spending most of the early morning hours reading through reports and scouring maps, neither he nor his brother had any doubt that things were going to happen. They just weren’t completely certain of all the players involved. It made knowing who to trust pretty dangerous.
“Okay, I think that’s everyone. I doubt it will be long now. The small town gossip mill is probably burning up the lines now. I can already hear the phones ringing,” Loco said. “Got Martha over at the Settler’s Point Inn calling Denise at the Trailmaster Motel comparing stories while someone is calling the sheriff’s office to report the sudden decline in traffic leaving town. With all the out-of-towners out of the picture they’ll make their move. Now the question is, are they talking to the sheriff himself or to
Deputy Gowen?”
“One or both of them have to be in on this,” Terror agreed.
“Or are they talking to Bill Owns from First Settler’s Point National Bank?” Hawk said. “They have to be able to finance the plan in the first place.”
“My money’s on Colby Scribner with that real estate business he operates out of the back of his mom’s house. The man is seriously creepy,” Jinx said.
“Hey, anyone who still lives with their mom and works out of their mom’s house has to be a serial killer,” Gunner agreed.
Hawk’s cell must have vibrated. Terror watched the big biker pull it out of the holder and listen without saying a word. He grunted and stuffed it back in the case.
“Cowboy said about twenty-five bikes just rode around Big Rock and are heading this way,” Hawk told them.
“Loco,” Rage said. “Still no sign of more riders coming in from any other direction?”
Loco continued monitoring the tablet but shook his head. “Don’t see anyone anywhere other than those Cowboy reported.”
Terror couldn’t figure out what was going on. Nothing made sense. Why would the Vipers send in scouts if they didn’t plan on taking over the town? Why send only twenty-five men with maybe five others already there to do it? Even they couldn’t be that arrogant to think it wouldn’t take but about thirty men to defeat The Howling Death. Well, he guessed he’d know soon enough. They were closing in. He could hear their engines and see the dust cloud in the distance.
“T?”
“Got your back, bro,” he said to Rage.
“And I’ve got yours.” Rage held up his fist, and Terror bumped it with his own.
There were no guarantees in life and even fewer in the life of a biker. Whether the road got you or another club did, dead was dead. It was all about the ride and not how or where it ended.