"Why would he expect me to go with them?"
"You're close to Casey, like a sister. So the club considers you family now, too," she explained.
Oh.
"Look, honey--" Rosa got to her feet. "We can talk about this stuff later. Let's find you a room and get you settled. I'll go check to see what's available."
"I could use a shower," I admitted. "I don't have anything to change in to, though. Not until Jace gets here. He went to take care of Samson and get clothes for me and Casey."
"Clothes won't be a problem," Marie smiled. "I'm sure I have something that will fit you."
"Are you hungry?" Rosa asked, pausing at the door.
"Famished!" I held nothing back in that one word.
"I'll bring you something back from the kitchen."
"Thank you." I met Marie's eyes, including her in my appreciation. "Thank you both so much." Rosa smiled and slipped from the room.
"Let me get you a drink." Marie rose from the sofa. "I have some wine."
A glass of wine sounded really good right then. I was tired, mentally and physically, and would have liked nothing better than to just fall into a bed and sleep. I wanted--needed--to see Casey, though, before I took care of my own needs. I had to make sure that she was going to be okay.
I sank back against the cushions of the chair, momentarily forgetting about the painful marks on my back, but quickly sitting up again when the sting of pain became too much.
"Do you think we can go back out into the main room? I want to see Casey when she gets here."
Marie handed me a glass of wine. "Honey, I just texted Reaper and asked him to let us know when they got here."
I forced a smile, took a sip of the wine, and waited.
Chapter 19
Jace
Samson was gone by the time I arrived at Casey’s trailer. The blood on the floor suggested that he hadn’t walked out of there on his own, so I was left to wonder what had happened to him until Karla and Barbara, the waitresses from the restaurant, came over to tell me that they’d taken him to the vet. They’d been told that he should be okay, but his leg had been shattered by the bullet and he would probably lose it. I gave them some money for the bills and my number so they could get in touch.
I was thankful that they’d shown up. They helped me pick out some clothes for Casey and Luna. They’d been relieved that the girls had been rescued, and promised to call if any of the Destroyers showed back up. I highly doubted that they would, they had no reason to with the Wreckers on lockdown at their compound. But God only knew what kind of retaliation the bastards would carry out once they found out what had gone down at one of their hideouts.
They were now six members short.
I stuffed the clothes into my saddlebags and headed to the compound. I’d hated putting Luna on the back of Moody’s bike, especially when I’d seen her wrap her arms around him. I didn’t want her sitting up against anyone but me, and that was fucked up thinking. She’d needed to get the hell out of there to some place safe, and I’d trusted Moody to take care of her. As soon as they were inside the compound he’d texted me.
Rollin was manning the gate, and when he saw me coming he opened it up so that I was able to roll right through. The number of vehicles and bikes that were parked outside of the compound told me that the place was packed. It would be, with all of the families there. It’d been a few years since I’d been on a lockdown with the Wreckers, and I could see their numbers had grown considerably since then. I walked into the noisy bustle of the clubhouse, my gaze automatically searching for Luna. A shrill whistle drew my eyes to the bar, where Reaper stood waiting for me.
He pulled me into a firm hug. “Thanks, brother. Finding those girls saved their fucking lives.” He motioned to the prospect behind the bar to bring me a drink. “That was fucking lucky, you being on Route 9 at the same time those fuckers rode past.”
“Yeah, well, give that credit to Moody. It was his idea we leave the interstate.” I picked up the beer that had been placed in front of me and took a long drink. “Speaking of Moody, where is he?”
Reaper’s smug smile was answer enough, but his words confirmed my suspicions. “Think I saw him going off with CC.”
I snorted. Not much got in the way of Moody when he wanted pussy. He wouldn’t be gone long, though--when he was done he was done.
“Where’s Luna?”
“Probably sleeping by now. We put her in one of the rooms out back. After she made sure Casey was cleaned up and resting she disappeared and hasn’t been seen since.”
I nodded. “What those sick fucks did to Casey--they didn’t deserve a fast death. They deserved to suffer first.”
“Agree, brother,” Raze, who was sitting on the other side of Reaper, said. “She has a long road of healing ahead of her, but the club will make sure she gets what she needs. Thank fuck Luna got lucky.”
“You think?” I practically snarled the words at him, thinking about what I had seen that fucker doing to her when I’d looked into the window. “Did you see the damage to her back?” Several heads snapped our way. “One of them was whipping her with his fucking belt buckle when we got there.”
“Fuck, man, she never said a word.” Reaper shook his head, regret heavy in his expression. “I don’t think she even mentioned it to Marie or Rosa.” He glanced around. “I think I need to call church. Spread it around to the brothers,” he told Wolfman and Raze, who he'd made eye contact with.
The Wreckers who were close enough to hear Reaper’s comment left their chairs and followed us. A double set of thick, solid doors led the way into the sound-proof room. I’d been in a few meeting rooms before, and they were similar in set up. The main piece of furniture was the massive oblong table in the center of the room, surrounded by chairs for the officers to sit at. Other chairs lined the walls for the rest of the members, and any guests they may have. At the head of the table was a gavel where Reaper sat.
I tried to calm myself down as I sank into a chair against the wall close to Reaper. It wasn’t their fault that they hadn’t known Luna had been abused at the hands of the Destroyers.
No one spoke as everyone plowed into the room, most carrying a drink, some already smoking weed. Faces were stone-cold serious, eyes hard, grumblings muttered between tight lips. No one liked going on lockdown. It was especially hard when there were children involved.
“Okay, order!” Reaper called out, slamming his gavel down. “Let me remind you assholes that if club business is discussed, it’s saved for this room. I don’t want to freak out any of the old ladies, and I sure as fuck don’t want to give nightmares to any of the kids.” Murmurs of agreement filtered throughout the room. “We’re here to discuss the fucking Destroyers and how we’re going to deal with them.”
“What the fuck put a bug up their ass anyway?” I growled. “Seems they went out of their way to start this war.”
“Seems that way.” Wolfman leaned back in his chair, a whiskey bottle in front of him and a glass in his hand. “Not sure why they attacked us at the lake clubhouse.”
“Maybe it was just a few newly-patched fucks who wanted to show us they were bigger and badder then us,” Dober suggested.
Wolfman shrugged his big shoulders. “Shit got out of hand, and some of them got killed.”
I snorted. “Sawtooth too stupid to realize that his brothers started this shit? They came to us first.”
The door opened and Reaper held up his hand to halt the conversation. Jim stepped into the room.
“Brother,” Reaper began, narrowing his eyes. “Go be with your woman.”
That shocked the shit out of me. The club came first, always, then your brothers, and then your families. The fact that Reaper had told Jim to go be with Casey just showed how much the hard-assed president had changed when it came to how he regarded old ladies. Having Marie was good for him, but I’d never thought I’d see the day that he’d let his brothers put a woman above the club.
Jim shook his hea
d. “She’s out of it, Prez. Doc gave her something to make her sleep.” He found an empty chair and sank down into it. “I want to hear what we’re going to do to those fuckers.”
“Okay then. In response to Jace’s question, Sawtooth has a legitimate reason for wanting war. Now, some of you might not have heard, but it turned out that the Destroyer he was so desperate to get back was his kid brother.”
Shit.
“And we sent him back with a bullet in his head,” Raze added.
Fuck.
“Bet he wasn’t too happy we attacked his clubhouse, either,” Moses smirked. Snorts followed.
Reaper shrugged. “They shouldn't have taken the girls.”
Tit for tat.
“Fucking deserves more for what they did to my woman,” Jim snarled. After his outburst he glanced down at the ground, his hands clasped tightly between his parted knees. He was in pain. We all fucking knew what it did to a brother when someone you loved got hurt--you hurt right alongside them. It grew quiet for a minute.
“Where do you want us to help?” I asked, knowing that Moody would be just as eager as I to help out in any way possible.
“The fuckers are known to frequent some bar called Beer Belly’s, and the strip club Cookies. Since you’re not wearing our cuts, I want you and Moody to scout around their hangouts to see what you can find out.”
“That’s probably why they didn’t acknowledge us on the road,” I said, speaking aloud my thoughts. Several brothers nodded in agreement.
“And unless they mentioned seeing you to anyone before you got to their hideout, you should still be good.”
I agreed with Wolfman.
“Just report back to us.” Reaper ordered, making it clear that he didn’t want us to take action. “When the time comes, we’re going to hit them at every fucking location at the same time.”
I raised my brows at that. His confidence told me that he would follow through, too. I’d never known Reaper to fail. “It sounds like you’re aiming to cripple the club permanently.”
“They’re a threat, brother,” Raze snarled, reaching for the beer he’d brought in with him. “They put a brother in the hospital, hurt our women.” He shot Reaper a look. “We had peace for a long time. Kinda liked it.”
Heads nodded in agreement. I could understand. I’d seen it in other clubs before. After a while, the danger and the fighting got old. It was not as thrilling or as anticipated as it had been in the beginning. Brothers grew older and wanted to settle down, have families, peace. Not saying the occasional battle wasn’t a nice way to break up the monotony, it kept everyone on their toes, but a full-out war like the one coming with the Destroyers wasn’t welcome.
Brothers were going to die.
“I’m lookin’ forward to ending the Destroyers,” Roy said in a strong voice. “Been too fucking quiet around here. We’re one-percenters, not weekend riders! We don’t fight once in a while, we’ll grow fat and lazy.”
A few guffaws followed his comment. At close to fifty, Roy was one of the oldest members in the Wreckers. He’d been with them a long time, had seen and done a lot of shit in the name of the club. Like most, he’d gotten involved with the MC because of the danger and the excitement it brought, and apparently that hadn’t worn off of him like some of the others.
“Understand what you’re feeling, brother,” Moses agreed next to him. “But if you had a good woman, a family, you’d see things differently.”
Roy scoffed and gave Moses the finger.
Reaper took control of the conversation again. “I want five teams of two out there looking for their fucking hideouts. Wolfman will decide who goes. Try to stay low and don’t engage in any fights. I don’t want them to know what we’re planning, and we’re going to need all of you when the time comes to make our move. Raze, I want you to check the arsenal, make sure there’s plenty of explosives. We need to do this right.”
“Do we know how many hideouts we’re looking for?” Puck asked.
Reaper nodded. “Yep. Been working on that for a long time.” He grinned shrewdly. “Just in case we ever needed to know. According to my contact, there were six, but thanks to Jace and Moody, there’s five left. Jim made sure it was burned to the ground before they left. I know the general locations of the others, so they should be fairly easy to find.”
“Well why the fuck didn’t we go after them before now?” Roy snapped. “Before the Destroyers became a problem?”
He had a good point.
“We had no reason to, brother,” Wolfman responded in a sharp tone. “Wreckers don’t go looking for trouble. You know that.”
Roy released a loud breath and folded his arms, clearly frustrated.
“You need to get laid, brother,” someone mumbled beneath his breath, causing those around him to laugh.
“Fuck you,” Roy growled in the general direction the comment had come from.
“Enough!” Reaper snapped. “The hideouts are in the Lake George region. Wolfman can point them out on the map. Rollin is at the gate. I want Tooter, Rider, Boots, and Smokey to cover the four corners. Porky, you keep eyes on the surveillance monitors with Razor.”
“I knew that cataract surgery would come in handy,” he joked, getting a laugh.
“I’m counting on Sawtooth to retaliate for the hit on his brother and the damage we’ve done so far,” Reaper continued smoothly. “I want us ready for anything.” He paused briefly before asking, “Any questions?” It remained silent. “Once we have more information about the location of their hideouts we’ll take action. Until then, keep your mouths shut out there, and stay alert.” He picked up his gavel. “Church is over.”
Reaper usually hung back while his brothers filed out of the room. I remained in my chair.
“I’ll fill Moody in.” Reaper nodded. “We’ll head out to Cookies later tonight. Right now I want to look in on Luna.”
“She’s in the room we put you in the last time you were here, brother,” he smirked.
I grinned. “Smart man.” I got up to leave the room.
Chapter 20
Luna
Waking didn’t come easy the next morning, thanks to the pill that Marie had given me. I hadn’t wanted to take it, but she’d insisted, saying that with everything I’d gone through it would help relax me. She’d been right. I’d returned to my room after making sure Casey was set for the night, taken the pill, and then crawled into bed. My back was a screaming mass of pain and it was almost unbearable having anything against it, so I’d also had to sleep on my belly.
As I tried to chase away the lingering fog in my brain, the first thing I noticed was the muted noises just outside my door. My room was far enough away from the main room and center of activity for it to be fairly quiet, but there were a lot of people living there. I wondered what time it was. It had been early when I’d left Casey. She’d been given a pill, too, by the doctor, which had knocked her out almost instantly. I’d been reluctant to leave her, but after watching how Jim had been with her, caring and attentive and his sorrow evident in his eyes, I’d known that he would take care of her.
It was obvious that he was blaming himself for what had happened.
A soft moan traveled up my parched throat as I began to move. I was sure that I hadn’t moved an inch during the night. I was stiff and achy as a result of the abuse I’d suffered at the hands of those men, and I was thirsty as hell. I wet my dry lips and tried to open my laden eyes, trying to make sense of the continuous thump, thump, thump beneath my ear, and the hard, unyielding heat that was running along the front of my body, a sharp contrast to the cool air on my naked back.
As my senses slowly came to life, so did my awareness of other things. There was heavy breathing above my head, stirring my hair, and the rise and fall of a scorching body beneath mine, the hard contours strangely soft against my dead weight. I realized that I was lying on top of someone, becoming instantly aware of the hard pecs, ribbed abdomen, and the huge cock lighting a fire between my l
egs.
Ohmygod! My eyes opened wide. Please, God, tell me that it wasn’t Fury! As soon as he’d returned to the clubhouse the evening before, he’d come straight to me to see for himself that I was alright. For a while he’d stuck to me like glue, until I’d convinced him that I needed to go see Casey and that he needed to eat and get cleaned up, promising that we would see each other later. By the time later had come, I’d been exhausted and ready for bed. Fury had walked me to my room. I could tell that he hadn’t wanted to leave.
His concern had been touching, and it had been really kind of sweet how he’d worried over me and wanted to take care of me, while concerning me at the same time. He was a nice man, and a friend, and that was as far as I was going to allow it to go. He knew that, but he didn’t seem to be able to accept it. Maybe I was reading more into his attention than was meant. I hoped so. I didn’t want to hurt him.
“Fury,” I murmured in a worried tone, realizing that I was once again going to have to remind him how I felt. But that was as far as I got, because the sudden change in the body beneath me came over loud and clear. Everything in the man stilled, even his breath. I raised my head from the crook of his shoulder to meet glaring eyes filled with fury. Everything inside of me froze. “Jace . . . what . . . how . . . ?” I couldn’t seem to form a complete sentence.
“Sorry I’m not who you were expecting,” he grated in a hard, flat tone. “I wasn’t aware that you and Fury had something going on.”
“Jace, I . . . he . . . we’re not−” My, God, why couldn’t I form an entire sentence? I was stunned to see Jace, and the pill that I’d taken before going to bed the night before was still in my system and rendering me incapable of clear thought and speech. “What . . . how are you in my bed?” I finally managed to get out.
“This is my room when I’m here,” he explained briskly. “Sorry they put you in the wrong fucking room. Now if you’ll get off me, I’ll get out of your way.”
His brusque tone revealed how livid he was. His words reminded me that I was still splayed out on top of him, and except for my panties we were both naked. Jace’s body heat was comforting, and had nothing to do with the intense heat I was feeling at my core. I hadn’t forgotten how good we were together, how alive he had made me feel. I’d hungered for him while he’d been gone, dreamt of him, and now he was here. He’d saved my life, and Casey’s, and I wanted to crawl inside him, where I felt safe and protected.
Dangerous (Nomad Outlaws Trilogy Book 2) Page 14