CHANCE To Load

by K. J. Dahlen

  Without moving away from Lester, Jonah called out “Enter.”

  Jonah turned his head and saw Victor standing there. He moved away from Lester and went over to Victor.

  Victor handed him a brochure.

  At first Jonah just stared at it without taking the time to really look at it. He glanced at Victor and frowned. “What the fuck is this?”

  Victor just pointed to a photo on the brochure. It was someone they both knew a long time ago.

  Jonah’s eyes widened as it suddenly clicked into place. “That fucking bitch!” He crumpled the brochure in his hand. Turning his cold eyes to Victor, Johan growled. “You find this bitch. You find her and bring her to me. I’m going to enjoy killing this one nice and slow. I’m going to make her beg me to kill her.”

  Victor nodded but didn’t say anything. He turned to leave the room.

  Jonah snapped his head around and glared at Lester. Then without saying a word to the other man, he left the room, snapping the lights off as he went. He left Lester, alone, in the dark, bleeding and wondering about his fate.

  Jonah walked down the short hall to his office. Slamming the door behind him, he walked over to the bar and poured himself a drink. Then he walked over to the desk and sat down in his chair.

  Taking a deep breath, he smoothed out the crumpled brochure and looked down at the picture of the red haired woman. His eyes burned as he remembered her features from ten years ago. She’d been nothing more than a kid back then, all of fourteen years old, he reasoned.

  But now she was a woman full grown. His heart burned with rage as he traced her features with his fingers. His headache had ramped up since he first laid eyes on her.

  The headache he had was a constant thing in his life. Every day for the last ten years. It had become part of his life due to her. His fingers lifted to his forehead and he traced the horrid scar she’d left him with a decade ago.

  The edges were rough and jagged. The heavy glass ashtray she’d struck him with had broken in half with the first strike and he would have been okay if she stopped at one strike but she hadn’t. She kept hitting him until his skin had looked like hamburger it was torn up so badly.

  He’d been almost asleep when she got into the room. Earlier that afternoon, he’d taken a blonde girl off the streets. He brought her to his room to have a little fun with her. Both him and Victor had seen the redhead follow her out of the diner but they thought she wouldn’t be able to find them at least until Jonah had had his fun.

  She found them three hours later. Then all hell broke loose. She began hitting him with the ashtray. The first blow brought him an explosion of pain inside his head as he awoke and he thought to fight back but the second and third blows came too quickly. He caught a mere glimpse of her face when he opened his eyes and her image was forever frozen in his memory but after the third blow, she damn near killed him.

  His fingers dropped to the scar on his throat and the rough edges reminded him of the near miss with death he had that night. The broken ashtray had slipped and nearly cut his throat. The blow slipped at the last minute and nearly laid his throat open but missed the artery that could have ended him then and there.

  Victor hadn’t heard the fight in his room but he did hear them when the car roared out of the parking lot. Victor rushed into his room and found him there on the bed covered him blood. He got him to the hospital just in time.

  The Emergency Room people really had to work fast to keep him alive as he almost bled out on the table. The police came by to see him the next morning. Unfortunately, for them, he couldn’t answer their questions. He couldn’t speak properly for weeks after the attack.

  Since then he and Victor had been searching every little town along their path for this woman and by luck, they found her here on Troy. Then he happened to notice another photo on the same page. This woman was blonde and all he could do was stare at her.

  It couldn’t be? Could it? His eyes traced the contours of the face he saw every night in his dreams. It was her, the blonde from ten years ago. His eyes scanned the information on the brochure and he found her name. Peaches Caulder.

  Jonah smiled. Peaches, the name suited her. She was as sweet as a Georgia peach and was just as juicy. He remembered well the taste of her skin from that night. How her gray eyes glistened in the moon light.

  Then his eyes ran over her features again and he found the mark he’d left on her throat. He’d held a knife on her when they first got back to the room. He hadn’t meant to use it, just to scare her with it but when she struggled to get away from him the knife cut her. The cut wasn’t deep but it reminded her that he was in charge and if she didn’t want to get hurt she should obey him. She stopped fighting him then.

  What had surprised him was the fact she was a virgin. When his cock invaded her, he felt the resistance of her body and he was more than a little glad he’d gotten to her first. After that, she belonged to him and if her friend hadn’t shown up, she would still be with him today.

  He glanced back at the redhead and found her name listed as well, Cassie Tory. Jonah frowned. Tory? Where had he heard that name before? He shrugged thinking about asking Victor who that name belonged to.

  Jonah pushed away from his desk and went over to the window. Looking out, he stared at the darkness surrounding his warehouse. He remembered thinking the darkness hid a host of sins and shadows. But that was okay, he worked well within the shadows, in fact he preferred them.

  Reaching inside his pocket, he brought out the photo of his latest acquisition. This little girl’s name was Destiny and it fit her well.

  As much as he preferred blondes, her hair was long, dark and curly. But he could fix that when she was older. Her eyes had a look in them he wanted to explore. They were blue and they had a hint of fear that he so enjoyed exploiting in his girls.

  But there was also something else caught within the depths of her eyes. That was what he wanted to know about. It seemed to him her eyes held the look of someone older than her years. He wanted to know her secret.

  This was always what had fueled him. Yes, the sex part was great, but it was what was inside a person that he wanted to get at. He had always felt cold and empty and these girls made him feel full, if only for a bit. When they got too old, he discarded them, as they would have that same cold in their eyes by then. He had Victor bury many of them over the years. He needed their innocence, their emotions. He had none, except rage.

  This girl would be his and these other two women would be too, then he would kill them. Vengeance will be sweet.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Victor sat in the shadows waiting and watching a place called Redemption House. This was the place featured in the brochure Mona Pearlman had dropped on her way out earlier tonight.

  The place looked like an old school but he could see where it had been patched up in places. He could also see signs of where they had improved the surroundings. It looked clean and tidy for a place this old.

  Something else he noticed just sitting here in the dark. There were three of four men watching the place. They too, were in the shadows but made no attempt to hide the fact that they were there. It was almost as if they wanted people to know the place was protected or something along those lines.

  Victor couldn’t help but wonder who they were protecting and why. They couldn’t know about Jonah already could they?

  After a long time he finally decided that Cassie wasn’t here. There was really no sense in him being here either. He had no idea if the little girl was here or not, he had a feeling he couldn’t get in to find out anyway.

  He started up his car and drove away. He paused a few blocks away and reprogrammed his GPS with another address. Tory was the name of the president of the local MC, Sin’s Bastards. This was a bit disturbing in itself.

  From what he’d heard Deke Tory was a real bastard to deal with and he protected his club most of all. Victor had to wonder if there was some kind of relationship between Cassie and Deke. Would th
e MC Prez step up to protect her if Jonah got his hands on the woman?

  When he exited off the highway, he pulled it into the shadows of the tree line. He checked the lane and he knew he would have to go the rest of the way on foot. The Bastards clubhouse was at the other end and he didn’t want to tip them off he was scouting the area.

  Grabbing his flashlight, he made his way through the woods and just before the trees ended, he shut off his light. Staring at the compound in front of him, he noted the fence line and the locked gate.

  He studied the compound and he could see the security of the structure and the men standing in the shadows. He didn’t dare get any closer if he didn’t want to get caught.

  Instead, he went back the way he came in. When he reached his vehicle, he sat there for a moment. He’d come a long way since the age of sixteen when he met Jonah. Being bigger than most of the kids his own age, he knew everyone was scared of him and he wasn’t ashamed to admit he enjoyed their fear. It gave him a sense of purpose. His mother had tried to give him guidance but it hadn’t stuck. She wanted him to be a better man than his father but Victor could see where pushing people around got him things he didn’t have to work that hard for.

  Victor had decided he wanted that taste of power. When he found Jonah, he found the way to the power and they’d been together ever since. In the last fifteen years, the pair of them had come a long way. From being broke and living on the streets, they both now had showplaces, they had more money in the bank than they would ever spend and they had women anytime they needed them.

  Victor was living the good life now and he had no desire to give it up. He looked back over his shoulder and for a moment, he felt a shudder of something dangerous crossing his path. For just that nanosecond in time, he felt his heart stop, then his heart began beating again and he was able to shrug it off.

  Driving away from the compound Victor kept checking the rear view mirror but there was never anyone there.

  When he pulled into his own driveway, he felt a moment of being safe. He wasn’t sure where that thought was coming from but he knew the Sin’s Bastards would come down hard on anyone going after them or their own. He didn’t like any of this. Jonah may have stepped on a hornet’s nest this time.

  ~*~

  He missed seeing the lone man standing in the shadows watching him. The man didn’t move at all, as he watched Victor get out of his car and go inside. It was only after the lights went out that he disappeared into the shadows of what was left of the night.

  Blocks away, Wes ran into his brother Wyatt and the pair of them walked down to where Wyatt’s car was sitting.

  Once they were settled in the seat, Wyatt turned to his brother. “Well? What did you find out?”

  Wes grimaced. “I was able to track his car before he left the warehouse tonight. He sat for the longest time in front of Redemption House then he went out to the clubhouse and sat there for a while.”

  “That was a good idea brother, tracking Victor’s car,” Wyatt admitted.

  Wes shook his head. “If Jonah had anyone looking into the whereabouts of Cassie or the girl, he would send Victor in. He sure as hell wouldn’t do it himself.”

  Wyatt snorted. “That’s for damn sure. Jonah Rossi is as lazy as a slug.” Then he sat back and watched his brother for a moment. “So you followed Victor instead huh? That was smart.”

  Wes nodded. “We may not be able to do much to help but we can keep track of the players.”

  “Do you really think these guys are coming after Cassie and the little girl?”

  Wes nodded. “Yeah, I think they are. I don’t know why Jonah is interested in Cassie but we both know what his interest is in the girl.”

  “Yeah, but I was hoping those fuckin rumors were just that, rumors.” Wyatt shuddered in revulsion.

  Wes rolled his eyes. “And why would Jonah be any different from his father and grandfather? That whole fuckin family should be gone. I doubt anyone would miss them and the world might be a better place without them in it.”

  Wyatt was silent for a moment before he said, “We aren’t supposed to judge anyone we don’t know the truth about brother. Even then it isn’t up to us to judge another man.”

  Wes stared out the window for a long time. “Even if we know the rumors are true?”

  Wyatt frowned. “And how would we know that for certain?”

  Wes stared out the window. “I saw the old man. Back when I was just a kid. Me and Amos saw Gino Rossi doing something we never should have had to see. I couldn’t believe it then or now.” He turned to his brother. “That whole family is wacked in the head.”

  “Brother—” Wyatt started.

  Wes cut him off when he held up his hand. “I don’t care one way or the other how a grown man gets his kicks. Unless it affects kids, then I care because that’s just wrong.” Shaking his head, he continued. “Sex between consenting adults is one thing and nobody’s business but their own. But between an adult and a kid, that’s where I draw the line. I cannot and will not ever condone that.”

  Wyatt nodded. “You and me both brother, you and me both.”

  “So for now, we wait and watch every little move they make and if one of them steps out of line, we step in and stop them.” Wes nodded.

  “I can live with that,” Wyatt agreed. “I can guarantee we won’t be the only ones watching. The Sin’s Bastards will be watching as well.”

  Wes nodded. “Not only them but Amos and his group will be keeping an eye out too. Miss Cassie is their champion and they aren’t going to let a man like Jonah get to her or that little girl.”

  “Do you know where she is?” Wyatt asked.

  Wes shrugged. “It ain’t my business to know where she is but I think she’s still with Ms. Quinn. And Ms. Quinn’s daddy is Sam Tory. So where do you think she is?”

  Wyatt nodded as he smiled. “She’s safe then isn’t she?”

  “Safer than she would be at home, little brother.”

  “I heard that,” Wyatt agreed.

  “We may as well go home for what’s left of the night and catch a few hours of sleep.” Wes yawned. “I don’t think anything else is going to happen tonight.”

  “Come on, you can sleep on my couch,” Wyatt offered. “That way you’ll be at ground zero if anything happens at the Pearlman residence.”

  Wes nodded and closed his eyes as Wyatt took them home. “Can you swing by my place, so I can pick up ole Blue? I’ll bet the old hound would like a night away from home too.”

  Wyatt chuckled. “Sure why not? What’s one more?”

  “When has one more ever bothered us?” Wes asked as he settled into his seat and crossed his arms over his chest.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Cassie rocked her baby, Piper slowly and gazed down at her sleeping face. Her dark hair reminded her so much of Deke’s hair and Cassie had to smile. Meeting him four years ago had the best thing in her life. Cassie had to admit that.

  So much had happened since their first meeting and sometimes, she couldn’t believe they were still together. She had faced her toughest demons and he had been there for her the whole time. For the first time, she knew what real love was and now, she was afraid she would lose it.

  She could feel the danger coming for her. She couldn’t feel it or touch it but she knew it was coming. Looking down as her precious daughter sleeping in her arms, she couldn’t imagine her life now without her children in it. Piper, little Sam, Jemmia and… Deke. They were her life, they were the reason she got up in the morning.

  But before them was Peaches. They had been two lost souls growing up alone, yet together. Peaches had been such a gentle little girl when Cassie first met her. She knew right from the start that Peaches needed her and that gave her the strength she needed to protect the other girl. While they had been the same age, Cassie had been through so much more, she knew how to cope better than Peaches did and that gave her the will to get through what passed for her childhood. It hadn’t been easy and there w
ere times when she wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and bury herself in it but she didn’t do that. She made a promise to herself and to Peaches she would get the other girl back to her family someday.

  And that’s exactly what she’d done. The day she returned Peaches to her father and grandfather had been one of the best days of her young life. Cassie rested her head on the back of the chair and closed her eyes.

  Tears leaked down her cheeks but she didn’t make a sound.

  “Hey baby,” Deke whispered as he knelt beside her chair. He reached out to brush the hair away from her face. “Are you okay?”

  Cassie opened her tear filled eyes and gazed at him for a moment. “No I don’t think I am.”

  Deke closed his eyes briefly then opened them again. “Sweetheart, what can I do to help you?”

  Cassie shook her head. “I don’t know if you can help me. I have too many demons in my soul.”

  “But don’t you know, your soul belongs to me now. If you’re in pain then so am I,” he whispered as he leaned closer. “I’m here for you where you’re scared, I’m here for you when you’re happy…To protect you always. I love you so much don’t you know that? You and the kids mean the world to me and I’ll be damned if I let anything or anyone come between us.”

  Cassie reached up and cupped his chin. “Oh baby, I love you to the moon and back. Until you, I didn’t know what love was, hell I never knew what love was like. Then you came along and accepted me for what I was. You took me on warts and all and let’s face it, I had some pretty awful warts.”

  “But that’s what made you, you.” Deke smiled. “Sweetheart, none of us are perfect. We all have our own warts but don’t you see, if we were all the same we’d be so boring. Life never goes the way we want it too and I’m sure no matter how much we want it, even our children will face problems as they grow up.” He leaned his forehead against hers and looked her in the eyes. “You are my whole world, you and you alone have the power to make or break me. Don’t you know that? I would die for you and I would kill anyone who hurt you.”