“Lainey’s missing. The bomb threat was a fucking decoy. When I got home, she was gone. Kid tracked her phone to a house across the nature reserve from ours. I went to get her only to find that the fucker in the house denies seeing her and supposedly found her phone near the playground. I couldn't check the house for her on my own because I was afraid I'd get her hurt if she was there.”
Beast lifts his head and turns to look at me, raising a thick, black eyebrow at my frank admission, before pulling them together in confusion. He knows Lainey wouldn't be separated from her phone by choice. The tension in the room ratchets up a notch, everyone silent and watching for Beast’s reaction.
Drawing a deep breath I continue, knowing the next part might get my head knocked off my shoulders.
“Kid tracked Brendan Taylor and he’s missing. His parole ended at midnight. The story from the house doesn’t check out. My gut says she’s there or has been there. Kid’s checking the house out now but I know something’s up. We need to get our shit together and storm that motherfucking house!” I state the last sentence with absolute certainty as the bar explodes into chatter, everyone discussing the news I've delivered. My father nods in approval when I meet his eyes.
Satisfied everyone's on board, I look around with hard eyes to shut them up so I can continue but Kyle cuts me off when he runs into the bar from the office. He nods sheepishly at Beast, then looks at me with a hint of pride in his eyes.
“I’ve dug into that house like you asked. It belongs to Brendan’s maternal aunt’s business partner. The ownership was hidden in Trusts and other shit but I found it. I have printouts of the layout for everyone and I’ve got the details of the security setup. They’ve got back to base monitoring which I can hack and shut down, that’ll give me access to the onsite alarms. I can disable them as well. They’ve got intercom throughout the house and electronic security shutters on the windows. I’m working out how to get them to open and if I can do that I’ll disable the intercom so whomever’s there can’t communicate.”
He looks at me for affirmation that he has done his job well. The kid’s hit is out of the fucking ballpark. Twenty minutes and he’s created the skeleton of our approach and discovered how to circumnavigate their security. I’d kiss the lanky, red headed geek for what he’s pulled off but I don’t swing that way, even in emergencies. Instead, I nod at him with appreciation.
“Respect, brother. Let’s sort out how we secure the house. Hand out those floor plans…”
There is a loud crash as Beast throws his beer bottle against the wall and follows it with a barstool. Everyone ignores him, almost immune to his explosions by now. In all honesty, I wouldn’t mind smashing something myself but I’ll save that urge for Brendan’s fucking face.
We gather around the tables and study the layout of the house. Beast shakes off his rage and joins us. We’re discussing potential points of entry and exit and who should be placed where based on their particular skills when a small voice interrupts.
“Honey, where’s Madelaine?”
Wendy is poking her head through the doorway that leads out of the bar towards the bedrooms, rec room, kitchen and bathrooms. Both Lainey and my grandfather’s built this clubhouse from scratch with the other founding brothers after they outgrew their original clubhouse. We have a great setup that is still in good condition even though the clubhouse is nearly forty years old now.
Wendy’s amber eyes are clouded with worry as she waits for Beast to answer.
“Club business, Wendy. You know better than asking.” Beast dismisses her.
She steps into the bar with Joel, Matty and Lachie behind her. She eyes him firmly.
“This is not just Club business, Patrick Benjamin O’Brien. She’s our girl too. Is she ok? Why are we on lockdown? I’ve got three boys out here worrying with me. Just tell us what’s going on and we’ll leave you alone.”
Her voice gets stronger with each word. Wendy is a hell of a lot easier going than Lainey but you mess with Beast’s five kids and you’ll see her steely side.
Wendy couldn’t have any kids of her own so when Beast moved into her hometown as a widower with five young children, it didn’t take long for her maternal side and their need for a mother to bring them all together. Even though it's pretty obvious she has a fucked up past, the tiny, pretty brunette was just what Beast and his kids had needed to get through Alanah’s death.
Part of me wants to tell them what’s happening just to share the burden of the situation but I know if we tell them, Joel will alert Benji straight away. With only thirteen months between the twins and Joel, they are more like triplets. It pisses Lainey off that Benji and Joel get mistaken for twins more often than her and Benji.
I’m worried that if Benji finds out what’s going on he's going to fly back here, which could jeopardise his team’s performance and his spot in it. Knowing him, it'll screw up his tentative sobriety as well. He has fallen off of the wagon a few times since he got clean and we’ve discovered that too much booze is his gateway to picking up his meth habit again.
Unfortunately the second he gets stressed he reaches for a beer, just like Beast. Further complicating this fucked up situation, Beast is completely unaware of Benji’s drug problem and Brendan holding it over my woman’s head so he is no support when we try to limit Benji’s drinking.
“Wendy, we don’t know exactly what’s going on. When we do, we’ll fill you all in. Until then…”
I answer before Beast, who looks like he’s about to snap at Wendy for challenging him in front of his brothers. It’s probably the worst thing she could do today after what I’ve pulled already.
“But Maddi is missing?” Joel cuts me off.
I glare at him. I was trying to get away with not answering that question and he has to go and pose it outright. I decide to lay out most of the situation and appeal to his common sense about telling Benji.
“Yes she is, Joel. But that needs to be kept in this room. No one else can know, especially Benji. We’ve it handled and telling him is only going to make him miss a game...We definitely don’t need to involve the cops either.” I say pre-empting the question I can see Wendy about to ask. She narrows her eyes at me.
“I hear ya,” Joel replies.
He knows Benji has issues with ice but he thinks it’s only happened since he moved in with him. He doesn’t know we have been dealing with his problem for over four years.
He eyeballs me with hard eyes before turning his scowl to Beast. Beast greets him with scowl of his own. Joel is the most like him out of all of his kids so they’re constantly butting heads.
“I’ll keep it to myself until his game finishes so you better have her home by then.” He threatens. “I’m guessing it has something to do with Brendan Taylor since you don’t want Benji or the cops to know?”
It hits me that Joel knows more about what happened four years than he lets on.
Here’s hoping that Beast doesn’t start connecting dots and realizing he has been left out of the loop. Shit will hit the fan if that happens.
“Watch how you speak in my club, boy!” Beast snaps. “You don't wanna patch in so you have no fucking say in how we do things and you don’t get to ask fucking questions. What Mad Dog has told you four will stay in this room until I say otherwise, you feel me? You’re wasting our fucking time anyway, we could be out there getting her if you’d fuck off back to the rec room with the women!”
Beast guards Benji’s football career like it’s made of fucking gold. He’s living vicariously through him since he never played in the national league. He won’t even consider Benji prospecting until his career is over. Joel on the other hand hasn’t shown any interest in the MC, although he works part time at the workshop with me while he gains his carpentry qualifications. Beast takes this as a personal insult.
“Whatever you reckon, Prez.”
After delivering his verbal jab, Joel turns around and stomps out of the bar with Matty close behind. Wendy grabs Lachie’s
hand and drags him behind her as she leaves. She’s crying silently and Beast looks like he’d like to go after her but he doesn’t.
Instead he turns back to all of us and says. “Let’s get this fucking plan sorted. I need my baby girl back before this fucker hurts her again.”
He glowers at me and I can see he’s still pissed at the stunt I pulled. He'll get over it.
Eventually.
Argument diverted, we turn back to planning how we’re going to ambush the house without its occupants knowing until it’s too late. Kyle is going to come in the Jeep with me and his laptop. He’ll cause a blackout in the suburb which will disable the back to base alarm once we signal him that we’re in place. Then he’ll sequentially turn off any remaining onsite security over the next thirty seconds.
There are twenty-two members of the Shamrocks Brisbane Chapter and all but six are heading out with us. Part of that six are two Officers who can monitor communications while the others look after the Clubhouse and our families. They have strict instructions to call in the Gold Coast and Emerald chapters, if they lose communications with us for longer than fifteen minutes.
The Black Shamrocks are a medium sized motorcycle club. My chapter is the mother chapter. Beast is the National President and I am the National Vice President. We have six smaller chapters other than my chapter in Queensland and two in Northern New South Wales. We run most of the weed trade in QLD and run supplies down to our NSW brothers. Each chapter offers security for a price as well. We have several successful motorcycle customizing and repair workshops—I part own the biggest one with Beast free and clear of the Club—which are our legitimate day jobs along with the two restaurant’s and the nightclub we own in Brisbane’s city centre.
We break the law to an extent but we remain conflict free with the authorities because we don’t get greedy. The only significant problem we’ve had since I patched in was about four and a half years ago when another club tried to overrun some of our weed turf and we had to teach them a lesson. It was brutal and got pretty bloody but the Shamrock’s prevailed.
The MC stays away from hard drugs, the sex trade, and we don’t run weapons, although we have a good hidden cache at each Clubhouse in case of trouble. In my opinion, they bring in a lot more money but they also invite the attention of the law and other more hardcore clubs so they’re not worth it. Luckily, the majority of my brothers agree. Most of us are members for the brotherhood and to throw a middle finger at the constraints of society, not because we want to be big bad outlaws and get rich quick.
Beast slaps me on the back to get my attention. He looks stressed to the max and not at all like his normal boisterous self.
“You’re point on this, Mad Dog. I’m too close to blowing to be any fucking good.”
He’s handing the reins of this recovery over to me because he doesn't trust himself to keep his cool once he sees the motherfucker. I appreciate his faith in me, particularly since Lainey is involved, but I’m questioning my own ability to keep a cool head. I have rage pulsing through me already and I’m not even in the same suburb as Brendan yet.
Kyle and I climb into the Jeep while Timber and his enforcers lead us out on their bikes. Beast follows in the Club’s van with the rest of the guys in the back. Each brother has multiple handguns with silencers strapped to them and the van has rifles and ammo ready for the guys who’ll be standing guard on the property’s perimeter. We're leaving most of the bikes because we need to be quiet and discreet due the nearby houses. Hopefully we can keep everything contained to the house and not bring any attention to ourselves. Lainey and I live on the outskirts of the city where the blocks are bigger. We’re hoping the extra space and darkness works in our favour.
Checking the clock in the Jeep as we head out to get my woman back and deal some serious damage to any fucker who has hurt her, I realize it’s already nine o’clock. He’s had her since about six. Worry that my decision to organize my brothers and weapons plus make a plan has given him plenty of time to hurt her or even get away with her floods me.
Maybe I should have pushed my way in when I was there? What if my gut is wrong and she's not at the house? I pray to a God I’ve only spoken to once since he took my Mom twelve years ago, to please keep the love of my life in one piece, and to make sure that Brendan hasn’t done anything to her that she can’t come back from. My last prayer occurred when it looked like Lainey might die from her injuries and He’d come through for me that time. I was gambling on a repeat.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lainey
Present Day
A warm finger strokes up and down my ribs and then circles my nipple. The unexpected touch forces me to break through the blackness that has been holding me captive. Something wet touches the same nipple and I jerk back to complete consciousness.
Opening my eyes, I find Brendan’s head hovering over my chest. He's lavishing my nipple with attention. My stomach tightens in disgust at his repulsive touch.
Moving to push him off of me pulls my arm tight above my head. Trying my other arm, I discover both are secured in this position. Looking up, I can see that my hands have been handcuffed to the middle bar of the antique wrought iron bed frame. On my left hand ring finger is Brendan’s commitment ring and on my wrist is the matching sapphire and diamond bracelet he once gave me. He’s removed the braided black leather and gold bracelet that Mik made for me. It has a gold infinity symbol woven between the braiding and I haven’t taken it off since the day I woke up with it on my wrist in hospital.
Looking around, I can see it sitting with my engagement ring on the dresser he knocked me into earlier. So much for my mature gesture of mailing his Nana’s jewellery to his parents after he went to jail. His parents have made it well known that they blame me for everything that happened but I tried to be the bigger person, even after they waged a hate campaign against me to such a degree that I refuse to return to my home town. Now I wished I’d flushed everything down the toilet or something equally dramatic. The madman is trying to brand me as his again and I hate it.
He licks my other nipple, causing it to furl tightly and I realize I’m completely naked. My heart races at the possible implications and my eyesight starts to waver in fear. I can’t fight him without hands and I can’t go through being violated by him again.
I mentally scan my body to feel if he’s raped me while I was unconscious. I don't feel any unusual tenderness between my legs so I don't think he has. God, I hope he hasn't. It scares me that I don't remember him undressing me or handcuffing me, the last thing I remember is watching his fist rush towards me when he was berating me for loving Mik instead of him.
My emotions well at the thought of Mik and my panic reappears. Mik please save me! Please come back! I’m screaming in my head because I need him to rescue me. I don't want to be here.
I turn my chest away from Brendan as he begins to suck my nipple and he notices I’m conscious. My consciousness is tenuous because I feel like I could pass out again at any time. My head and split lip are throbbing, one of my eyes won’t open all the way and my entire body aches.
“Don’t go back to sleep, Lainey. I’ve been waiting for hours for you to wake up so you can enjoy our reunion with me.”
He laughs at me when I kick my legs to try to get him away from me. He knows I can’t go anywhere and I can't fight him off. I get an unwanted eyeful of him when he leans over me. He’s naked and very aroused.
“Don’t you love having my jewellery back on you? It occurred to me when I was cleaning you up that you might like to look like you have some class again so I put my jewels back on you. My gifts are much better than that trash you were wearing. You’ve really taken to the role of biker whore haven’t you? With the leather and the tattoos.”
He pokes my rib tattoo with disdain. I have a large tattoo of sapphire blue roses and swirls running from under my right breast, down my ribs and ending mid-thigh. It starts from my side and covers half of my stomach. It covers most of the scar
s from my three surgeries to fix the injuries he caused. On my left hip, I have a tattoo a bit bigger than my palm. It’s of a leather clad Archangel Michael riding a Harley Davidson. I designed it to remind myself when I look at my broken body that Mik saved me and loves me how I am.
Between my shoulder blades I have paw prints running down my spine as if a dog has left tracks. It consists of 8 bigger paw prints in charcoal grey that have matching, but smaller, sapphire blue paw prints over the top of them. This is Mik’s way—along with my leather Property of Mad Dog vest—to show the world that I am his Old Lady. Mik has the matching tattoo on his right forearm. The design references his road name and our promise to each other to walk through everything life throws at us together.
I look down at my body and catalogue the changes since the last time this psychopath saw me naked. In addition to my tattoos and my more defined muscles from my self-defense classes, which I love, there are a multitude of scars left from our last night together. All of which I hate with my entire being. They are eternal reminders of a time I'd rather forget.
On my right hip I have a scar from the surgery I needed to insert a rod into my femur after he badly broke my leg. I have six inch long incision marks on my stomach from surgeries to remove my spleen, repair my bowel and to fix my punctured lung. I also have a small horizontal incision on my pubic line from the surgery to repair the damage he inflicted upon my uterus. I also know without looking that I have a small scar through my left eyebrow and that my nose is no longer completely straight since he broke it.
The physical damage was hard to deal with but I would take that pain any day over the mental and emotional anguish he caused me. While my body was completely healed in about six months, it took me nearly a year until Mik could touch me intimately without me freaking out and even now, if I'm having a bad day, I can still flinch in fear if he touches me without warning. I have severe trust issues with anyone outside my immediate family and I still can’t go into Benji’s house without hyperventilating and having a panic attack. I also don’t know if I’ll be able to carry a child within my damaged uterus, which kills me since both Mik and I want children sooner rather than later.
Seizing Control Page 14