by Jessie Cooke
Bruf sighed and looked like he’d just had his wisdom teeth pulled as he said, “He’s my brother.”
Wolf felt the color drain out of his own face. He knew that Bruf had secrets. He never talked about his family except to say they immigrated here from England when he was a kid. He did one tour in the army, and he never spoke about that either. It was that darkness and those secrets that had made Wolf instantly hesitant when he realized Bruf was interested in his little sister.
“Your brother is their General?”
Bruf nodded.
“How did I not know this? Coyote’s background checks on his prospects were tougher than the FBI’s. How did he not know?”
“He knew,” Bruf said, quietly. “I don’t have time to explain now, though. He’ll give me ten minutes if I get there on time. If I’m late, he’ll leave and that will be that.”
Wolf watched in shock as Bruf left. Coyote knew? Bruf had been the closest thing Wolf ever had to a best friend...yet his father knew about Bruf’s history, and he didn’t? He didn’t know whether to be hurt and pissed, or relieved that maybe it gave them a way to track down Mouse and Granite.
His thoughts were practically chaotic on his ride back to the clubhouse. He brushed past everyone that tried to talk to him, and closed himself in the office. That’s where Smoke found him an hour later, surrounded by the odors of the two joints he’d smoked and the half empty fifth of whiskey. Smoke looked at the ashtray, the bottle, and his president’s face and said:
“Coffee?”
Wolf nodded, not even really making eye contact. He knew it was a stupid time to get drunk and high. He wanted to be stone-cold sober when they found Mouse. Somehow, he just felt so betrayed by Bruf...someone that he never, ever thought would betray him. Technically, Bruf hadn’t done anything wrong, though. There were things in Wolf’s past that he didn’t like to talk about either. It just got him wondering how much more there was that he didn’t know about his friend and the man who protected him and his club on a daily basis.
Smoke came back with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a plate in the other. He sat them both down in front of Wolf. On the plate was a sandwich, stacked high with meat and cheese and surrounded by chips. Wolf took a sip of the coffee and then said, “I’m not hungry.”
“Made it myself. Eat. It’ll soak up the whiskey.”
That made Wolf smile, despite his pissy mood. Smoke had used up his quota of words for the day...and he’d made his boss a sandwich. Every time he started feeling like no one really gave a shit and he was all alone, one of his brothers stepped in and proved him wrong. Wolf picked up the sandwich and took a bite, and after washing it down with another drink of the coffee, Smoke spoke again. This was a banner day for the almost mute biker.
“So, what’s this guy pissed off about?” Wolf knew the “guy” he was talking about was Mouse. Mouse was before Smoke’s time in the club, and not someone anyone ever felt the need to talk about since he’d been there. He looked at the clock. Bruf had only been gone a little over an hour. Maybe if he was busy, the wait wouldn’t feel like it was killing him.
“I can’t speak for him,” Wolf said, “but my bet would be that he feels like he was abandoned by his brothers. Why it took him so long to seek revenge, I have no clue. Of course, it could be a move by the White Owls too...but I’m just not feeling that. They’ve stayed up there and minded their own business all these years; I can’t see them screwing that up now. I hope Bruf will be able to sort that much out.” He paused there and ate more of his sandwich. He realized as he ate that he had been hungry, and Smoke was a pretty damned good sandwich maker. After a few minutes he went on, letting his thoughts take him back to that day eight years earlier.
He was practically still a kid, not quite twenty years old, wet behind the ears, and full of piss and vinegar because he was the president’s son. He always knew someday he’d be holding the gavel that his father left behind. He wished it hadn’t been so soon. Not because he couldn’t handle it, or that he didn’t think he was doing a better job than Coyote. But simply because sometimes he really missed his dad. Taking a breath and refocusing his thoughts, he said, “It was the middle of the summer and one of those days that makes you hate this fucking valley. It was triple digits and no fucking air moving. I’d been hoping all morning that Coyote would send me to collect the protection monies or something. I had no desire to be out sweltering in that shit. But no. He told us all to saddle up. It was him, Manson, a guy named Vic who was SA then—he died of a heart attack about a year after that—Mouse was an enforcer, and Dad had me and Bruf along as prospects to do the grunt work.
“Mouse was a little older than us, and honestly, I didn’t know him well. He kept to himself a lot, but it wasn’t like he wanted to...it was almost like he had no social skills. They called him Mouse because of the way he looked...but also because of his demeanor. He made enforcer because it didn’t bother him to pull the trigger on his gun, but when it came to shooting the shit with the guys...and especially, making it with the ladies...he was completely inept. Shy to the point of being almost introverted. Anyways, the van was brought along to carry the crate. I don’t remember the guy’s name who drove the van that day. He wasn’t with us long...” Wolf remembered seeing the man dead in Mexico after being accused of cheating in a card game. But for the life of him, couldn’t remember his name.
“We did a lot of business with the Mexican gangs in those days. We were meeting with the Nortenos out of Merced. We had some guns that had been smuggled up from Ciudad. These guys were badasses who had direct ties to at least one of the cartels in Mexico. Coyote should have known doing business with them was borrowing trouble...but he was stubborn like that. He had agreed to sell these guys the weapons at a hefty price. So hefty, in fact, that a lot of the guys were suspicious. Manson was one of them. He didn’t believe these guys were going to come up with the money that was promised. Coyote didn’t listen to him, though. The club was just opening the strip clubs they’d bought up near Stockton and they needed cash to get those going.” The strip clubs had since been sold at a hefty profit. Wolf used the money, with the club’s vote of consent, to invest in other legitimate businesses that were easier to operate, with less overhead and government involvement. They put the money into timeshares in Vegas, and Wolf had, with the club’s consent, invested in a Harley Davidson center that a friend of his owned in town. The front of the center was all Harley and all legit. But instead of cash return, what the Skulls got out of that investment was a huge warehouse that was attached to the back of the business, where they could “store” cars until they had the time to strip and/or restore them. Once the car had been stripped of parts, or painted, or otherwise modified to the point of being unrecognizable, it was placed on the showroom floor of the Harley dealership and sold.
Wolf realized his mind had been wandering again, and he finally refocused on Smoke and said, “We rolled up to the rendezvous spot that day, and they were already there. They had brought a van too and there were eight or nine of them. Three of them stood up front, waiting for us. The rest of them were covering with automatic rifles while the exchange took place.
“‘You got what we talked about?’ Coyote asked them. The man in the middle, an OG with a scar on his face that ran from his forehead to his chin, stepped forward slightly with a bag in his hand. He nodded and sat the bag on the ground in front of Coyote. ‘You?’ he asked. Coyote had me and Bruf bring the crate of guns over and take off the top. They got a look at what was in the crate. It was all there. Coyote was a lot of things, but he wasn’t ever a cheat. Unfortunately, not everyone was of the same frame of mind. Two of the Mexican guys started toward the crate and Coyote signaled to Mouse and his SA. They stepped in front of it and Coyote looked at the OG and said, ‘Open the bag first.’ That’s where it all started to go sideways. The OG said, ‘You don’t trust me?’ and Coyote said, ‘I don’t trust nobody, especially you. Open the bag or we take our merchandise and go.’
“I swear none of us even realized Mouse got left behind until we were down the road. Bruf was the first to notice and he turned around. He said he could see Mouse running hard, toward him. But before he got there, the cops started showing up. They saw Mouse first and were surrounding him. There was nothing Bruf could do at that point short of getting arrested with him, so he turned back around and we all got the hell out of there. Of course later, the cops showed up at the clubhouse, but by that time we had things all cleaned up and there was nothing they could get us on. It was obvious that Mouse hadn’t talked, or they’d be arresting Coyote for murder. Coyote called the attorney and sent him down to see Mouse, but Mouse refused to see him. He went with the public defender and made a deal with the DA. That was still okay with the club, and he was still a part of us, you know? He had plenty of protection inside. He was the one that made the decision to cut us all off and join up with the Owls. At that point, Coyote was just so grateful to him for not pointing the finger, he just let him go with no hard feelings. But it looks like there were hard feelings...on Mouse’s part.”
“So he’s looking for payback,” Smoke said.
Wolf nodded. “My guess. We watched him while he was inside and then for about a year after he got out...there was no sign that he wanted anything from us. Now all these years later, it seems he’s been stewing over it...”
“Hey, Boss!” Manson stuck his head in the door. “Bruf’s back.” Wolf looked at the clock. It was almost two p.m. They had three hours before Mouse was back in control again, as long as no one warned him. He hoped like hell Bruf had found out where they could find him. Wolf had felt guilty for a long time about Mouse getting left behind. He’d even tried to reach out to him in prison. But Mouse had refused any and all visits from the Skulls. He wanted nothing to do with them. So, he didn’t get to show up for years, and decided that now he wanted payback? That wasn’t how it worked. Smoke was already on his feet and he followed Wolf out the door of the office. Wolf was tucking his gun back into his belt as he went. He hoped he didn’t have to use it, but every time he carried it...he knew he would if it meant protecting one of his own.
6
“So this guy is pissed off at your MC, and somehow I ended up in the middle of this shit?”
“Don’t look at me,” Granite said. His voice was winded, and Blair could tell he was in a lot of pain. She was still having a hard time seeing this guy as a biker. She’d seen plenty of them in and out of prison and her office, but this was the first one that looked like he just walked off the cover of a men’s fashion magazine. If not for the bloody patch of hair on the side of his head and the blood on his nice shirt, he might even look like he was on his way to some fancy restaurant, or benefit, or office downtown. “I wasn’t even there that day. Mostly I keep to the books. The rest of the shit that goes on only involves me if we’re short of men and the prez calls on me.”
Granite hadn’t really told her what happened “that day,” just that whatever it was, Mouse felt like he’d been abandoned and left holding the bag for the entire club. Blair knew someone had been murdered the day Mouse was arrested, but that murder charge had been thrown out and no one had ever been convicted of it. She was trying to make her mind stop working like a prison employee and focus on the fact that she was probably not going to see another day alive...but how depressing was that thought?
“So, what’s his plan...for you?” she asked.
“Using me as bait,” Granite said. “He wants our president and his VP and SA.”
“So, I can assume those three were there the day things went bad for Mouse?”
Granite coughed and said, “What you need to be assuming right now is that neither of us are leaving here alive, no matter what he wants with the rest of my club. He’s using you as bait too, right? Something about your boyfriend and him having sexual fantasies about you?”
“You heard all of that?”
“Bits and pieces,” he said, with another wet cough. Blair was beginning to worry that he might have a punctured lung. His breathing seemed to be getting more difficult and his chest sounded wet and occasionally whistled when he inhaled.
“Well, the facts are that I have no boyfriend. The creep he’s talking about was supposed to be a professional, but it sounds like he crossed a lot of lines...and trust me, the shit he told this man, was all lies, fantasy, delusional even. I don’t know if he made up the stories to entertain himself or the inmate, but it sounds pretty sick either way.”
“Mouse never had any friends. Probably this dick was trying to manipulate him somehow by making him think he was his friend.”
“If I get out of here alive, I’m going to kill that dick myself.” She probably wouldn’t kill him, but she could picture herself holding her knife to his throat and making him sweat. Oh my God! The knife! Blair tried to twist her boot against the chair. The duct tape was around her lower calf just above the ankle boots and it was so tight that her foot had fallen asleep. She couldn’t feel if the knife was still there or not. Mouse may have taken it while she was unconscious...if he figured out it was there. She looked over at Granite as he had another coughing fit. He was coughing up blood now, and Blair knew if they didn’t get out of there soon, Mouse would only have to kill one of them. “Can you make it over here?” she asked him. Granite’s hands and feet were bound with duct tape too, but he wasn’t tied to anything the way she was. He was just dumped on the floor. Maybe if he could reach her, he could get the knife. It was a dangerous plan, considering they didn’t know when Mouse would be back with his gun...but they had to try to do something. “I think I have a knife in my boot.”
He raised an eyebrow and then winced with pain. “You think?”
“It was there this morning. I’m not sure if he found it while I was unconscious. If it’s there, though...well, it just seems like our only hope.”
Granite looked overwhelmed at the thought of it, but he grunted and scooted his body half an inch or so. It was painful to watch him. He’d move a little and stop a lot, each coughing fit getting worse than the last. He was wheezing and gasping for breath and once or twice, Blair almost told him to stop. The distance between them was only five or six feet, but it seemed like it was taking him forever. She hoped to God he didn’t die before he reached her. “If it’s too much for you...” she started.
“Fuck that. I’m a Skull,” he said, with what sounded like completely false bravado. He kept pushing himself and when he was just under two feet away from her, he reached out his bound hands and brushed them against her boot. Using the weight of her body, she tipped back as far as she could, raising her feet up so that only the heels of her boots were touching the floor. It took Granite several tries, and he had to stop to spit blood at least twice, but at last he was able to get his hands open across the sole of her boot, and that’s when the real hard work began. His hands kept slipping off the polished leather and he had to work to get them back in position. A few times she wasn’t able to hold the chair back any longer and it fell forward, almost pinning his hands to the floor. He bit his bottom lip a couple of times to keep from crying out. Blair watched his agony and she could almost feel his pain as she did...but she had to give him big points for determination, and eventually, it paid off. He got the boot pulled down far enough that she was able to wiggle out of it and as she did, she felt the knif
e fall out and heard it hit the cement floor.
That part was rough, but it appeared that getting the knife between his hands was going to be even harder. Each time he tried, the sides of his hands scraped against the rough, unfinished concrete and after a dozen tries, they were bloody and raw. Blair had lost count of how many times he pulled his hands together around the knife before he was finally holding it with the blade pressing into the tape that bound his wrists. Watching him awkwardly saw at the tape, cutting the palms of his hands and the skin on his wrists in the process, gave her even more respect for him.
“Fuck!” he cursed loudly as the knife sliced deep into the skin of his left wrist. He dropped it as the blood began to pour out onto the floor. Blair winced. She felt responsible and was about to apologize when she realized he was using the blood as a lubricant to slide the tape up his hands where he was able to stretch and manipulate it until it began to tear. Blair wanted to jump up and down and cheer as she watched him slowly break free of the binds. She only hoped that he had enough energy left to cut her loose. He was still stopping to cough and wheeze, and he was bleeding profusely from his wrist. She was in awe of him as she watched him pick the knife back up and saw the tape loose that bound her ankles. It was instant relief, and she felt the harsh tingle of the blood as it rushed back into the veins that it had been forced out of.
Granite had to struggle to sit upright. His face was as white as a ghost and he looked like he might pass out at one point. But finally, he was leaning into her chair and cutting her wrists loose. Another wave of feeling like a thousand needles were pricking her skin had her rubbing and rotating her wrists. After all Granite had just endured, she felt like a child even complaining in her head about the simple pain she was feeling.