“I said I’d think about it didn’t I, Harmony?” Now, I’m getting downright aggravated with her continuous inquiries.
“Alright you two. Cut it the fuck out before you end up brawling, and we have to separate the two of you—again.” Rogue, who’s been sitting by chuckling the entire time, has now turned serious. “The last time these two had a serious discussion,” Rogue turns his attention to Mercenary. “They ended up rolling around on the floor like two teenagers. It turned serious real fast, it took six of us to separate, and contain them.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Merc says, blowing out a sigh. “But, this time, it’d be me and Edge. Harmony isn’t fighting anyone, at least not until she has our kid.” He protectively places his hand over her slightly swollen abdomen. I know that has to be chapping Harmony’s ass, though. She grew up with all of us boys, she can fight with the best of us. She’s taken several of us down. Of course, in my defense, I was drunk the one time she got the best of me.
Shadow comes rushing into the room like the hounds from hell are chomping on his ass. His laptop is flying around in his hands. For a second there, I fear he’s going to drop it. “Found something. Need to talk to you, Rogue,” he says in a low but serious tone while occasionally looking in Sandman’s direction. We all turn and do the same, which alerts Sandman.
“What is it?” Sandman asks harshly, leaving no room for argument.
“Need to talk to, Rogue,” is the only reply that Shadow gives.
“This obviously has something to do with me. Spit it the fuck out.” Sandman walks up and grabs Shadow’s laptop from his hands.
“Jesus fucking Christ. I’m dealing with a bunch of overgrown boys. Cut it the fuck out, Sandman!” Rogue bellows out. “Follow me, Shadow.” He takes the last sip of his beer and hops off his stool. Sandman goes to follow, but Rogue stops him by pointing to him. “I promise you, Sandman. I will come and get you once I have a chance to find out what’s going on. There’s plenty of pussy roaming around. Go get fucking laid and get some of that aggression out.”
“Fuck,” Sandman roars. Picking up a stool, he launches it across the room, missing Bane’s head by inches.
“Boy, I’m gonna whoop your ass if you don’t calm the fuck down,” Bane says, in a calm voice. Which, if you didn’t know him, you’d think all was fine and dandy. But, he uses that tone with the enemy, so with him you never know.
“Sorry, VP.” Sandman walks out of the clubhouse, kicking the front doors wide open as he exits.
“Is this gonna be bad for that boy?” Rogue, witnessing the display, asks Shadow.
“Life altering,” Shadow says, eyes glued to the door that Sandman just exited.
“Then we best figure this shit out. Edge, you’re with us,” Rogue calls the command out over his shoulder, as he continues down the hallway. “Bane, you too.”
I have a feeling, that war is on the horizon. A lot quicker than we anticipated.
* * *
Talia
* * *
When my eyes flutter open, I reach across the bed. But Edge isn’t there. I notice my suitcase at the foot of the bed as I sit up. So, I go through it and grab some fresh articles of clothing and shower before I walk out of the room. I’ll have to ask Edge who brought my things so I know who to thank. Once I hit the hallway, I watch as Rogue, Bane, Shadow, and Edge walk into the church room. None of them have a look on their faces that say everything is peachy in their world. Edge, either not seeing me, or his mind otherwise occupied, doesn’t even acknowledge my presence. I’m hoping it’s the first, and not the last. Especially after what we just shared. I can still feel him between my legs. He’s left an impression that will be stuck in my mind for the rest of my life. No man will ever compare.
I find Harmony sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of lemon water. “What’s going on?” I ask, sliding onto a bar stool next to her.
“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s not good.” Her eyes travel from the door to the room the men entered, then back to the front door of the clubhouse. She tells me what happened right before they left.
“Wow. That’s not promising.” I begin chewing on my thumbnail in anticipation. Something inside of me, says this is about me and what trouble I’ve brought into their lives.
“Don’t do that,” Harmony says, reaching up pulling my thumb from my mouth. “You’re a nurse, you know what can happen if you break the skin, right?”
“Yes. Nervous habit I’ve had since I was a kid,” I say, before my legs begin to bounce.
“Looks like that’s not the only one you have,” she tells me, pointing at my restless legs. I shrug my shoulders because I have nothing to add.
The door slams open, hitting the wall. Sandman comes stomping into the room. “I’m giving them five minutes, then I’m breaking that damn door down. Five!”
Pyro stands up, and when he does, I don’t see that friendly man who I’ve sat down with a time or two and had a beer with. No, who I see, is one of the club’s enforcers. Ready, and willing, to put a brother in his place. “You know how this works.” He crosses his arms over his chest. He’s taken a stance that lets the room know he’s ready for action. Chills run down my spine, causing a shiver to run throughout my body. He’s an intimidating man, he’s got that whole domination thing down. He makes me think of the BDSM books and the Doms I’ve read about. But, Sandman is also an enforcer, Rogue’s to be exact, and Pyro’s display doesn’t seem to do anything to him. He also takes a defensive stand, and I begin feeling like I’m in the middle of a showdown.
“Which one of them will win?” leaning over I whisper to Harmony.
“They are evenly matched. Who knows, but it’ll be a good fight to watch.” She excitedly starts bouncing in her seat.
“Should you be doing that?” I feel my eyes squint as I question her.
“You and Edge are made for each other.” A giggle leaves her throat.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The snap from me has her head swiveling in my direction.
“Nothing.” She waves me away like she’s swatting at a fly. I go to open my mouth, but am stopped when Rogue slams the door open and yells out for the others to join them. “Damn,” Harmony mutters.
“What?” My curiosity gets the best of me.
“I was really wanting to see those two fight.” She shrugs it off and goes back to sipping her water.
Is she fucking serious right now? “You’re joking, right?” She has to be. I can’t think of a reason she’d want to see one brother beat on another.
“No,” She answers, picking the lemon from her water as she squeezes it in hopes to get more out of it.
Turning around, I watch as each man leaves the bar and heads into the room— leaving me with a very bad feeling. Something monumental is happening in there, I can just feel it. Right about now I’m wishing I were a fly on the wall, because I’m worried about these people I’ve come to care deeply about the last couple of days.
A few minutes later, I hear a bellow that could be justified as a category five storm. It’s heartbreaking and if I wasn’t already sitting down, it would’ve dropped me to my ass.
Chapter Eight
Edge
I knew the moment I heard Aria’s name that there was more trouble headed our way. When Rogue got up to call the others into the room, I stood up and walked over to man the door. Because when Sandman finds out who the Henchman have in their possession, he’s going to become a man on a mission. When he walks through the door, he side-eyes me. There’s only one reason that door would be guarded. To keep a brother contained, and it’s for him and he fucking knows it.
Rogue wastes no time sharing what we just learned. “Sandman, there’s no easy way to tell you this. Aria didn’t abandon you, Son. She was taken. The Warped Henchmen have her in their clubhouse. I’m sorry, brother.”
Sandman stands up, and the most anguished cry I’ve ever heard escapes him. Then he hits his knees, and I feel his hurt deep inside
of my chest. “Aria,” comes out as a whisper from his now quivering lips. “I have to go get her. I-I can’t leave her there,” he finally says. He stands up with the assistance of Story and Phantom. “I have...no I need, to bring her home. I’ve left her in their clutches too long. She’s been missing for over eight months now. I can’t believe I didn’t search harder for her. I just assumed she didn’t want to become my old lady and skipped town. I’m a fucking dick! She depended on me and I’ve let her down.” He plants his face into the palms of his hands and sobs some more as the guilt eats away at him.
“We all would have jumped the gun and thought the same thing. We will get her back. Have some faith in your brothers.” He slams the tip of his finger into the table while emphasizing certain words. I’ve never witnessed Fox talk a brother down. He’s our class clown, the one who’s the entertainment at all of our parties and get togethers.
“We won’t stop until we do, brother,” I reiterate to Sandman.
“Preciate it, brothers,” he mutters through his hands. When Aria went missing, he looked every day for nearly four months before finally giving up and accepting she’d just skipped town. There was no sign or trace of her. Her bank account was depleted. She’d abandoned her car, cat, and apartment. Sandman ended up taking her cat to her mother and begging for information of Aria’s whereabouts. Her mother profusely declared she had no idea where her daughter was. Sandman and the rest of us thought at the time, that she was just covering for Aria. Boy were we ever wrong, we should have dug deeper. Left no stone unturned. Shadow did his thing and couldn’t locate her. She was just...gone. We assumed she emptied her account and abandoned everything to throw us off of her trail. Sandman, devastated, still decided to give her what he believed at the time she wished for. It broke a piece of him, but he just recently started to move on. Not by dating anyone, but he’s allowed the club whores to take care of his needs. I’m worried that the guilt is going to start eating him alive. It would do the same to me if that was Talia.
“Tell us what all you found from the satellite feeds, Shadow.” Rogue brings the meeting back on track. Sandman walks over to his chair and takes a seat. Rogue nods at me letting me know I can abandon my stationed post at the door. Walking past Sandman, I place my hand on his shoulder in a show of support.
“Snowman’s mine,” I inform the room, and they all nod in acknowledgment and approval. Satisfied, I take my seat and listen intently to what Shadow shares with us. He has hacked into the government to retain a visual of their compound. Not the first time, but I can’t help but wonder how he does this without getting caught. That’s some major federal jail time we’re talking about. But, that’s why he’s our IT man. He’s damn good at what he does.
“The first couple of days there wasn’t any activity,” Shadow begins, “but on day three, I saw the VP Viper pulling a woman out of the clubhouse by the hair of her head. She looked vaguely familiar, it took me a minute to place that it was Aria.” Sandman slams his hand on the table, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of smokes and a lighter.
“Need a shot of whiskey?” Being my helpful self, I ask. Since that’s the kind of man I am and all. Always willing to assist a brother in need. Especially when it comes to alcohol. I’ll aid a brother getting drunk, anything past that is on them. I don’t do clean up. That’s a little too much brotherly love if you ask me.
“Yeah,” His voice comes out raspy. I can already see that he’s tunneling down a dark path.
Even though I don’t blame him, now’s not the time to get careless. As hard as it is, we need to stay focused. “Don’t go there. I can see the despair in your eyes and the wheels turning in that head of yours. This was not your fault. There’s no way we could have known that she was snatched. Nothing led us in that direction. Otherwise, we would’ve gotten to her a lot sooner.” This touchy-feely shit is not my expertise. I look at Rogue with wide eyes for guidance. Stone stands up and walks over to the mini-bar we have set up in the rear corner of the room. He pours two fingers full of a shot in a glass and brings it over and sets it in front of Sandman. Lifting it up, he swallows it all down in one gulp.
“I left her hanging, Edge. Then I allowed the sluts to blow me. All while she’s been suffering at the hands of those sons-of-bitches. I can’t get past that feeling of betraying her.” Now I need a damn shot. He and Aria have been an item since high school. They were the real deal. We all knew he’d be making her his old lady as soon as he got his patch. Aria however, when it came time, needed some space to think things over. They were still deeply in love, but she had seen some things that made her question the life Sandman was living. He used to party and drink a lot, not always inviting her to club parties. She began questioning him about the reasoning behind this. He became angry at her insinuations that he was possibly cheating. Their fights were epic, and Sandman would ignore her for days at a time. It didn’t really surprise many of us when she wanted some time. She would’ve come around, I’m sure of it. We all are feeling something deep down at giving up on her.
“If the roles had been reversed, and you’d been missing all of this time, would you forgive her for moving on? Would you blame her if all signs pointed to you abandoning her? Tell me, brother, would you fault her for letting someone go down on her? Would you judge her and never forgive her? Or, would you excuse it because the trail lead nowhere, and everyone believed you’d simply upped and walked away?” Not sure if these are the right questions to ask him or not. Hell, I’m not even sure if I should be asking these questions at all right now. This emotional shit has about taken its toll on me.
“Are we done exploring our feminine sides yet? Jesus, I’ve gotta look down and make sure I sure have a dick with all the fucking girly shit flying from your mouths,” Fox dramatically inputs.
“What Fox is so eloquently trying to say is, we need to make some decisions. You gonna be alright, Sandman? And what I mean by that is are you gonna be able to help us get her back while taking them down with a clear enough head?” Rogue gives a look of irritation to Fox before turning a more passive look over to Sandman.
“I’ll be better once I know a plan is in place to get her out of there,” Sandman answers giving Rogue a deadpan look.
“Good enough,” Rogue replies with a firm nod. While we were distracted, Shadow brings over the large television we have on a rolling stand. I always forget it’s in the room, since it’s tucked into a small cubby space in the corner. He does some technical shit and attaches his laptop to the TV. When the screen comes to life, we see what he has booted up. It’s an overview of the Henchmen’s compound. Which makes me sit back and wonder, who could possibly be watching us?
“This is the satellite feed of their club. As you can see, they keep a sniper here, and here,” he points to the furthest south side of the building and then to the north side. “If we come in from the east and west side, we’ll have a better chance of not being spotted. From what I’ve observed, they don’t leave their post.”
“How very convenient.” Something feels off about that. “They’ve never covered the other sides?” My question causes Shadow to look over at me.
“That ain’t right. There’s something off, that doesn’t make any sense,” Pyro bursts out, voicing out loud what I’d just been internalizing. “Why protect two sides and leave the other two vulnerable?”
“Shadow, can you get a better visual of the east and west sides of the property?” Bane asks him. “I’ve gotta say, I’m in agreement with Pyro. No club leaves itself in a position to be attacked. It’s a recipe for disaster if I’ve ever seen one.” He points to the screen.
“My gut instinct screams that this is a set up.” My outburst causes Rogue to look over at me in shock. I’m not usually one to help strategize, usually just observing and doing as I’m told. I’m the road captain, my job is to map out our routes and then join my brothers in fucking someone up. I hate politics and meetings, but I know they’re a necessity. “What?” I flippantly ask hi
m.
“I agree with Edge,” Mercenary chimes in. “Doesn’t make sense. Something is heavily guarding those areas.”
“Nice to hear you voice a concern in a meeting, Edge. You too, Mercenary.” But his stare is fixated specifically on me. He casually dismisses me with several blinks of his eyes before turning back to the screen.
“You’re welcome,” my smartass mouth comes out to play before I can control it. He turns back to me and shakes his head in aggravation at me before his eyes shift back away from me. I take that as my cue to pay attention, so I swivel in my seat and watch the screen as it plays out what Shadow is typing. As we get a better view of the east side, my eyes widen in surprise. “What the fuck is that?” I jump out of my seat to rush over to the side of the stand to get a better look.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Rogue roars in outrage when Shadow zooms in on the mound we were looking at. “They have their own mini-minefield. We need to have the entire ground looked over. We will not be charging in there without knowing the full layout of the club and its surrounding land. We can’t have our motherfucking bodies blown to a gazillion fucking pieces.”
“Agreed.” Fox looks over at us with wide, fearful eyes. He grabs his junk and closes his eyes. His head tilts up toward the ceiling, and I see his lips moving. Is he praying for the safety of his damn dick? Shaking my head, I ask for strength not to jump over this table and not choke the life out of my brother. There’s more to life than pussy. One day, his dick is going to rot off.
“Who do we have that’s willing to go in and sweep the property?” Bane asks Rogue, who then turns his head in Mercenary’s direction.
“We all know I’m the best man for that job,” Merc acknowledges Rogue.
“It needs to be done quickly,” Rogue issues the order.
“I’ll leave as soon as we’re done here,” Mercenary informs him. I see hesitation in his eyes, which isn’t a good mindset to be in when taking on a mission like this.
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