Laced with Fear (Cash Bar Book 1)

by Hayley Faiman

  The clubhouse is abuzz with the news of Lucifer’s death. His body is stashed in our metal warehouse and I know that we’ll have to dispose of him soon.

  Right now, everybody is just glad that the threat of him is gone. Making my way toward my office, I frown when I realize that Ginger isn’t inside.

  I have a few phone calls to make, so I ignore that clawing in my gut to find her, and quickly make my calls. I have to call MadDog, the president of the original charter and let him know that Lucifer has been found, and will be disposed of shortly.

  MadDog thanks me for the update, and tells me to stay safe up here. He also asks if we can start looking a little deeper into the compound of Aryans that Jones’ men had mentioned before we killed them. I agree, wondering how in the fuck I’m going to find some off the grid fucking compound of skinheads, but I don’t bitch.

  I’ll find them if I can, and I’ll get those poor girls and kids the fuck outta there. I’m kind of excited to watch the fuckers bleed personally.

  “In fact, I’m going to pull shipments from you guys for now, and that’s what I want you to focus on,” he mutters.

  I snort. “Fuck that, brother. We got our shit locked down tight. We can handle both.”

  “I want those fucks found, and I want their heads. I’m sick of them popping up every couple of years and wreaking havoc,” he growls.

  I almost laugh, those fucks are like the Cartel, there’ll always be some dumbshit popping up and making trouble, there’s no way to get rid of them all. I assure him that I’ve got it handled, even if it’s a huge fucking lie.

  The last thing I want him to do is pull our shipments though. That’s where we get our money, without it, the brother’s wallets would be tight, and no way in fuck do I want that—for me or anybody else.

  Ending the call, I tell him that I’ll keep him updated, reminding him that we have to go in quietly. These skinheads aren’t stupid when it comes to militia tactics. It’s what they fucking thrive on, it’s how they were raised.

  If we want to find them, we have to be smarter than them, not louder. So, if we completely drop our regular duties, we’ll definitely be on their radar.

  Leaving my office, I go off in search of my wife. I’m sure she’s good and pissed off right now. A smile tips my lips, she’s so fucking sexy when she’s pissed. And, when she fucks while she’s all fired up, goddamn it’s hot as shit.

  Looking around the clubhouse, I don’t see any sign of her, so I make my way toward my room, anticipating seeing her in bed, resting. When I open the door, the room is empty. My mouth frowns, no longer excited for her anticipated anger, now I’m beginning to grow concerned.

  My feet take me outside, my heart beginning to beat rapidly in a panic and then I see her. She’s sitting at a picnic table, looking out at the trees behind the club’s property.

  I watch her for a moment, my eyes unable to stray from the back of her. She lowers her head and then rests her cheek on her arm that’s draped across the table top.

  Walking up behind her, I straddle the bench and sit down, my front pressed against her side. Ginger sits up, but she doesn’t look at me. Instead, she shifts, wrapping her arm around my waist and pressing her cheek to my chest.

  “Will you tell me now?” she asks.

  Her voice sounds sad, and I hate that I’m the one who has made it that way. Fuck. I wish she were pissed at me.

  I close my eyes, placing my lips on the top of her head and I tell her about my morning. I start with my phone call from the chief of police, and I don’t stop until I’ve told her about my conversation with MadDog.

  When I’m finished speaking, she lets out a heavy sigh and turns her head so that she can look up into my eyes. I wait for her to speak, but she doesn’t right away. She looks at me, watches me, and then she finally talks.

  “Doc says he probably died instantly, looked like a heart attack from what he could tell,” I explain, speaking of Lucifer.

  “I can’t believe that he had that poor girl. I’m glad he’s dead, but I’m sorry he didn’t suffer,” she whispers.

  I laugh because I feel the same fucking way.

  “Snake,” a voice calls out from the back door of the club. I lift my head and see Fish standing there. “Doc’s here,” he announces.

  “C’mon, peaches. Let’s go talk to doc. He’s going to examine Esme, then he’s going to look at the body. I want to know how that fuck died. I assume a heart attack, but who the fuck knows,” I grunt.

  Together we walk back into the clubhouse, quietly, and hand-in-hand. We didn’t have a big blowout, and I didn’t apologize for my shortness with her, although I probably should.

  Ginger knows me though, and now she knows what I was dealing with this morning. My woman has my back, always, and she doesn’t hold little shit against me, no fucking need to not when we’ve been through the big shit together.

  GINGER

  I pace because apparently, I can’t sit still. How damn annoying. The doctor is taking forever in Motorhead’s room. Gracie appears at my side, swaddling sweet baby Easton. I take him from her grasp, hoping that the small baby will keep my mind off of whatever is happening in that room.

  “Has Hayden been by to see him at all?” I ask Gracie.

  She smiles and touches the baby’s soft head. “She has, every day. I’m bringing him back to her now. Crooner is walking now, and he’s going to make a full recovery.”

  I nod with a smile, happy to hear that. Hayden has kept him under lock and key and I haven’t heard or seen anything about him in days.

  Just when I’m about to ask her how she’s been, Hayden appears. Her eyes point directly at her baby and he’s the only thing she sees. She marches straight up to me and gently takes him from my arms. I watch their reunion as she kisses his forehead and he smiles up at her.

  It’s absolutely beautiful.

  Placing my hand on my belly, their interaction makes me yearn that much more for Evalyn’s arrival. A hush comes over the room as the doctor walks in.

  Hayden straightens and turns to face him. All of us are anxious to hear what he has to say about the mysterious Esme. I only saw her for a moment before Motorhead whisked her away.

  Prescott steps up behind me, and I feel his hand on my lower back as his chest presses against my back and shoulder. “She okay, doc?” he asks.

  The doctor glances around before he nods. “She’s a little banged up. A little dehydrated, and in need of proper nutrition, but she’ll be okay. I took samples to test for any STI’s or pregnancy,” he informs us.

  I stiffen at the mention of sexual diseases. Reality is, we know nothing about Esme or Lucifer. He was a revolting man, I have a feeling he didn’t really care too much about his health or being tested regularly.

  “Need you to come to the warehouse with me.” Prescott’s deep voice rumbles from behind me.

  The doctor gives him a jerky nod. Together, they walk out to the warehouse, with Free and Fish trailing behind them. Turning to Gracie, I give her a wide-eyed look.

  Looking over at Hayden, I watch her for a minute. She’s staring toward Motorhead’s door and she’s got an unreadable look on her face, not that I can normally read her expressions anyway.

  “I need to talk to her,” she whispers.

  I reach out to touch her arm, but Gracie beats me to it. “She’ll need you, I’m sure of it. But how about, we let her rest for now?” Gracie gently suggests.

  Hayden turns to her and gives her a ghost of a smile. “Okay. I should take Easton to Crooner anyway, he’s been begging to see him.”

  Gracie and I watch her walk away. “I don’t know if I’m happy that Crooner is so obviously into her, or sad because I don’t think she realizes what she really has in him,” I mutter.

  “She’s young. She needs time. He’ll either be patient or move on,” Gracie shrugs.

  Biting the corner of my lip, I look back toward Crooner’s room. “I really hope that he can be patient. I really, really like them toge
ther,” I admit.

  “That’s because you’re happy, and you want everyone else coupled up and happy too,” she winks.

  Leaving the main room, I decide to go to Prescott’s office and wait for him. I’m tired, but I don’t want to go to bed and take a nap, or anything quite yet. His computer is on, and for whatever reason, I start clicking on things.

  I shouldn’t really look at anything on his work computer. It isn’t my business, but my curiosity is getting the better of me. What I need to do is get back to my bar and focus on that, especially now that this Aryan and Lucifer thing is all handled.

  The mouse scrolls over a folder that’s labeled, Peaches. Frowning, I open it. There are a few pictures of me, some from before I was kidnapped, and some from recently. I smile because it’s obvious he’s taken them candidly, probably from his phone. A document in the folder has my hand shaking.

  Drifter

  I click on it immediately. What in the fuck would Prescott be doing with a document labeled with my abductor’s name?

  I don’t know what I expect to see, but it isn’t what appears on the screen. It’s a detailed outline of his whereabouts by month. I frown, as I continue to look through them. He was in Idaho, then seen crossing over into Cali, and back over and over for years.

  I don’t understand why this is here. He’s dead, but why was Prescott having him watched for so long, especially when he was supposed to be a brother, and nobody ever knew he was a bad guy.

  The dates of his travel are more frequent during the time he was acting as President of the Idaho chapter of the Devils.

  Then I see it. The date I was taken. He was in Idaho near the Canadian border, then he traveled to California. I close my eyes for just a second, trying to compose myself before I read any further. The address where I was held is right here, printed in black and white.

  Prescott knew where he was the whole time?

  Was he in on it?

  Is he some kind of Aryan, too?

  “What’re you looking at, peaches?” Prescott asks, he’s leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb and his green eyes are narrowed and directed right at me.

  I suck in a deep breath and click out of the documents. I don’t know what to say though. I’m a terrible liar, and I freeze up instantly.

  Prescott pushes off of the jamb and makes his way toward me. The computer screen is now blank, but I’m sure there’s some kind of techie way to see what I was looking at just seconds ago.

  “I was just clicking around,” I whisper.

  He shakes his head once. “That’s not what’s got your eyes scared shitless, and your face pale. What’d you find?”

  “You have a file on me,” I whisper. “And a document tracking Drifter for years before he was killed. It even has the date he took me,” I mutter.

  Prescott tips his head to the side, his green eyes staying focused on me. My mind must be playing tricks on me because he’s looking at me differently and the air in the room suddenly changes. “Pres?”

  “I do have those things,” he admits. “I have them because I’ve been trying since you were found to figure out how he did all of this shit, seemingly alone. I tried to figure out if someone in our club or another chapter was in on it with him, or if he acted solely alone. Those notes may help me find the compound that we’ve discovered exists. I just need to continue to dig deeper.”

  I feel paranoid and silly by the time he’s finished with his explanation. I shake my head and laugh to myself. I can’t believe that I really thought he was one of them, I know Prescott better than that. With everything that’s happened in just a few short weeks, I feel a little crazy.

  My hand shakes so I move it from the desk and slip it beneath my thigh. I feel hot and nervous all of a sudden. “You’re panicking, peaches, what the fuck?” he asks.

  The world around me starts to spin, all I can picture in my head is Drifter and Prescott standing side-by-side.

  Suddenly, I gasp for air, unable to breathe and then everything goes black.

  SNAKE

  I yell for the doctor, scream for him at the top of my lungs as I catch Ginger in my arms. She’s out fucking cold, her body seizing in my arms. I watch her shake, unable to do anything, unable to help.

  A few seconds later, the doctor runs in. He’s breathing hard, and I know that he hauled ass from the metal shop where he was looking over Lucifer’s dead body.

  “What the fuck?” he whispers. “Bring her to the sofa.”

  I do as he asks and pick her up out of the chair and take her over to the couch. I watch as he starts to dig through his medical bag and takes her blood pressure.

  I should have told her all about my tracking Drifter a long time ago. I didn’t want to worry her though or bring him up at all. I don’t like thinking about the fuck, let alone talking about him to anybody, but especially to her. Speaking his name just reminds me that I failed her.

  “Her blood pressure is through the roof, take her to the emergency room now. You’re too far out to wait for an ambulance. She had a seizure,” he states.

  His face has a grim look on it and my heart jumps to my throat. I don’t know what she has wrong, but apparently, it’s really fucking bad to make doc look so fucking stoic.

  Picking Ginger up, I don’t look back as I run toward her Jeep. Setting her down in the front seat, I belt her in before reclining the seat back as far as it can go. I don’t talk to anybody, and when I start the car, most of my club is standing right outside of the main doors, their eyes on us.

  Peeling out of the parking lot, I watch as rocks fly all around, but I don’t give a fuck. I drive. My only goal, getting to the hospital, right fucking now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SNAKE

  I pull right up to the emergency room doors, ignoring the side-eye that the fucker of a security guard is giving me. Jumping out of the Jeep, I run to Ginger’s side.

  Carefully, I lift her out of the passenger seat and rush to carry her inside of the hospital. The security guard starts to walk swiftly toward me, but I continue to ignore him.

  “Hey, you can’t leave your car there,” he yells from behind me.

  He can tow it, he can burn it, for all I care. A car doesn’t mean dick to me, not when there’s something clearly wrong with my Ginger, with my wife. I hurry up to the window of the emergency room, and the nurse behind the desk jumps to her feet with a gasp.

  “My wife, she passed out and started to seize,” I practically shout.

  My voice doesn’t sound like my own, in fact, I don’t feel like I’m inside of my own body right now. Standing in the emergency room, my arms shaking, as I beg for help.

  I’ve never been one to ask anybody for help, and begging? Never in my life have I done that, not really. Except right now I would do anything for my wife, I would do whatever I needed to help her.

  A set of doors open to my left and a hospital bed is wheeled toward me. I set Ginger down on the bed, but I don’t let go of her completely. My hand wraps around hers, and I hold on as they take her away.

  “I’m sorry,” one of the men wheeling the bed says. My brows knit together with confusion and I look up at him, waiting for him to continue. “You can’t go any farther,” he murmurs.

  Everything inside of me screams to demand that I stay at her side, but I don’t. Reluctantly, I let my hand fall away from hers. Standing there, feeling nothing but helpless and worthless, I watch them take her away from me.

  Closing my eyes, I lift my hand to my chest and rub the center. I keep waiting for that ache to leave me, but it doesn’t. They’ve taken her, she’s gone, and I don’t know what will happen next.

  “Come with me, sir,” a woman in scrubs says.

  Her voice causes me to jerk, but my head is still in a fog. I follow her, unsure of where she’s taking me, or what will happen next. When she guides me toward a chair, my tired legs give out and I sit down.

  “What happens now?” I rasp, unable to focus on anything in front of me
.

  Her hand squeezes my shoulder, but she doesn’t speak right away. “You wait, and you pray,” she whispers as her hand falls away from me.

  I look up in time to watch her walk away from me. Wait and pray. Two things that I’m not really fucking very good at. I do them though, both of them. I don’t know if God even knows who I am, and if he does, he probably doesn’t like me too much.

  I don’t know what else to do, though. I can’t get into a fist fight with anyone, I can’t kill or torture anyone. All I can do is fucking wait and I hate every goddamn minute of it. I wait for what feels like hours. I know that it’s not, but it feels like a fucking lifetime until someone walks into the waiting room.

  Standing, I shove my hands in my pockets. It’s the only thing I can do that will keep me from grabbing him, and shoving him against the wall, as I demand answers.

  “Mr. Gordon?” he asks, his voice gentle and low. Lifting my chin, I walk a little closer to him. He clears his throat before he continues. “Your wife had preeclampsia due to her high blood pressure. Normally, I would give medication to try and lower it, but it was too late, and it was too high. I had no other choice. It was an emergency to save both her and baby. We delivered your daughter.”

  “Give it to me, doc, are they okay?” I ask.

  My voice sounds like it’s really far away, and it is taking all of me to focus on him right now, instead of pushing past him to find my wife.

  The doctor nods. “Your wife is in recovery, and the baby is in the NICU being checked out there. Would you like to see her?”

  “The baby?” I choke.

  The doctor smiles. I nod once, quickly following behind him as he begins to walk away from me. He takes me to a room labeled NICU and my stomach knots as I walk through the doors behind him.

  There are a few babies in incubators, but I don’t focus on them, not when there is a baby straight ahead that has every ounce of my attention.

  She’s small, so small that I’m afraid to even approach her. She looks tiny and fragile as I make my way closer.