With too much on my mind and nowhere to go, I was going crazy. Lockdown sucked. Sure, the compound was large and had lots of outdoor space, but the whole thing was fenced in, and the sight of razor wire along the top of the fence made it feel like a prison. In a way, it was. It kept us inside, supposedly safe from whatever enemies the club had. I actually did like being there—I liked the people, the comradely and the family dynamic that I hadn't had, ever. If only I could leave once in a while.
And do what, Luna? Feeling cooped up isn't my problem. Recognizing that my relationship with Jace is just sexual and is probably going nowhere is. He's been honest with me and I let him use me like a bitch in heat. What's wrong with me? I've been attracted to men before. No, not like this. There's something about Jace that really gets to me. He's everything in a man I that didn't know I wanted. Unkempt in a rugged, sexy kind of way, with muscles on his muscles.
I laughed at that silly description.
He's buff for a man in his forties, and I like the touch of gray at his temples.
I released a deep sigh.
Most of all I like his hands on me, his lips on mine, and what he makes me feel.
"You talking to yourself, honey?" I started and swung around, relieved to see that Bee, and not Jace, had moved up behind where I was sitting on top of the picnic table.
"I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me," I chuckled, a little embarrassed that she'd caught me.
"Maybe you need to talk to a doctor about your problem," she joked. She came around and climbed up onto the bench to join me.
I laughed. "Melvin or Doctor Lockhart?" I noticed that she didn't have Max with her. "Where's the baby?"
"Spending quality time with his daddy." She released a resigned breath, looking in the direction of the trees beyond the fence.
Something in her tone snagged my attention, a kind of sadness that she couldn't disguise. "Are you okay?"
I wasn't surprised when she shook her head. "A little worried I guess." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Any time the club loses someone it reminds the rest of us how unpredictable and dangerous their lives are. We all deal with it in our own way, but I have a baby to think about."
"I'm sure everything will work out." I wasn't really sure of anything, but it seemed to be the right thing to say. I was concerned, too. "Did Reba and Tiger have children?" It occurred to me that I hadn't spent as much time around Reba as I had with the other old ladies.
"No. No children. Back in the beginning, when the MC was new, things were different. Warring clubs were at each other's throats on a daily basis, men were dying left and right. The cops were less apt to get involved, because MCs were so violent. So they decided not to bring children into it."
"This is all new to me," I confessed. "How long has the club been around?"
"It was founded around thirty years ago by Reaper and Wolfman's fathers. They also have chapters in Maine and Massachusetts. They started out as a serious outlaw club, but in the last few years Reaper has done his best to change their reputation in the public eye by doing charity work and donating money. But that doesn't matter to the other MCs out there who want to prove that their bigger and badder, or who want to run the Wreckers out of their established area. And when that happens, and the club is forced to protect themselves or retaliate, it puts them right back into the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often."
I nodded with understanding, because a lot of what she was saying backed up what Casey had already told me. "I hope Reba will be okay."
Bee nodded with a small smile. "She will be in time. The members of the MC are like one big family. She'll be taken care of."
Yes, but I knew that that wouldn't replace what she’d had with Tiger.
A slight commotion at the gate drew my attention. Since I'd been outside I'd noticed bikers arriving, some in groups, some by themselves, but when I looked this time I found the prospect opening the gate to let a delivery van inside. Several men rushed over to it as the driver got out and walked to the back to open the double doors. They began to work together to unload it and disappeared around the side of the building. Soon after, Wolfman came walking in our direction. It was clear by the way his gaze rested on Bee that he had eyes only for her. The love reflected in his eyes made me yearn for Jace to look at me in the same way.
"Where's our son?" Bee asked when Wolfman reached us.
"Down for his nap, babe. I came to tell you that Reaper's called church." He rubbed the bottom half of his whiskered jaw, looked at me, and then back to her. "Just wanted to prepare you, we'll most likely be riding out shortly after dark."
His gaze shot my way again, and something about the way that he looked made me wonder if he wished that I weren’t there. Maybe he had something private to say to Bee, or maybe he was afraid of saying too much in front of me, but I immediately brushed that thought away, because none of the Wreckers that I'd met so far had a problem saying what was on their mind. If Wolfman wanted me gone, he would have told me to leave.
"Jace will be riding out with us, honey."
"Is this a dangerous ride?" I asked, forcing a smile that I didn't feel. I knew that he wasn't going to answer me, and if he did that it wouldn’t be the truth. I could see it in his eyes, and the smile Bee gave me conveyed mild regret, as if she knew that Wolfman wasn't going to say what I wanted to hear and felt bad for me.
"Club business, honey. Don't know when we'll be back."
"I've noticed members from the other chapters arriving," Bee commented.
He nodded and leaned in to kiss her, and I turned away to give them some privacy. I stared at the tree line, trying to ignore the sounds of their passionate kiss, thinking that I should seek Jace out to tell him goodbye, too. I hadn't seen him since that morning when I'd left him in the kitchen. I'd run into Melanie and Val, two of the club wives, in the hallway. They'd been on their way to the laundry room and had clearly needed help with their full baskets and the little ones who had been trailing behind them, so I'd offered to help.
It had kept me busy for a good part of the day, and had kept my mind from feeling sorry for myself.
"Love you, babe," I heard Wolfman murmur in a gravelly tone.
"I love you, too." I could hear the tremor of emotion in Bee's voice. "Be careful please."
"Always."
I sensed Wolfman walking away. Glancing at Bee, I could see the effort that she was making to not break down as she stared across the yard. It scared me, and I wondered what exactly she knew about the ride that the men were going on. A sense of doom settled over me. I reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze, drawing her gaze to me. She gave me a watery smile. I wanted to tell her that it would be okay, but the words wouldn't come.
Would it be okay?
Bee released a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I better go check on Max."
She made to get up and I followed. "I'm coming, too. I want to see Jace before he goes."
I knew that he may already have been in church, but I would wait for him to come out. It surprised me to see him when I walked into the main room where the bar was located. It was practically bare of men. CC and Toya and a couple of the other club women that I didn't know were hanging at the bar. Jace was walking through the room in the direction of where I knew they held their meetings. Our eyes met.
"Don't go anywhere, babe," he ordered lightly.
That was all he said before he disappeared around the corner. I hesitated to go to the bar when the club women, especially CC, were there. I didn't like her, and I was pretty sure she felt the same way about me. She was after Jace, she'd made that very clear, and didn't seem to appreciate boundaries. We made eye contact. I saw her smirk before she whispered something to her friends. That was when I decided to go to the bar and order a drink.
I wasn't going to let her run me off.
"Beer, honey?"
"Please." I returned the smile of the man behind the bar. I knew that h
e was a prospect because he didn't have any patches on his cut. He was young, maybe early twenties, and completely bald. "Thanks," I said when he set my drink down. "How come you aren't at church? I asked, making conversation.
"Only patched members attend church."
Oh. I took a sip of my beer. Jace and his friend Moody weren't patched members that I knew of, and I wondered if maybe allowances had been made for them.
"Don't waste your time, Toby," CC said from her end of the bar. "She's not going to give it up." The women around her laughed. "You want pussy, baby, you come to us."
That was something to be proud of? I rolled my eyes, biting the inside of my mouth to keep myself from saying something sarcastic about her sounding crude and desperate. Toby actually blushed, and began to wipe down the bar in front of me.
"In fact, I don't think she even knows how to satisfy a man," CC continued with a fake laugh. "Jace couldn't wait to have me suck his cock one morning right after they fucked."
That morning came back to me in a flash, the image of her and Jace together burning a hole in my heart. I refused to engage, sensing that it was what CC wanted. She was hoping to force me into an argument that would put me on the same level as her. I was better than that. I ignored her, pretending to enjoy my beer, even though it hit my stomach like acid.
"He has a nice, big, fat, cock." I couldn't argue with her there, he was huge. "Really scratches the itch. Have any of you girls had a chance to fuck him?" she continued snidely.
Oh, God, I so didn't want to hear the answer to that, and I fought the urge to cover my ears. Had she and Jace actually fucked? Was that how they'd ended their morning after I'd left that first time? I couldn't change it if they had. After all, the club women’s job was to sleep with the men and relieve stress for them. They didn't get paid for what they did, but the club did take care of them in other ways. Casey had told me that it included medical care and anything else that they needed.
The other women didn't seem as eager to be as crude and nasty as CC was being. If they responded to her I didn't hear them, and after a while she seemed to lose interest in taunting me. My mind turned to what could be going on in church.
Chapter 30
Jace
I knew once the drones arrived that shit would move fast. Reaper had called church as the delivery van was exiting through the gate. The room was packed with anxious, impatient brothers wanting instant retribution, but that wouldn't happen. Oh, there would be retribution alright, but attaining it was going to be dangerous as fuck. My gaze moved around the room, briefly touching on each of the brothers that I'd come to know over the years, including the members who'd shown up from the Maine and Massachusetts chapters. It was clear to see which of us had been involved in the earlier fight, and my lips quirked with remembrance.
Whatever it was that we were about to ride into, it could turn out to be the best decision ever made, or the biggest mistake. Whatever the outcome, Reaper was a good president and had the loyalty of his brothers behind him, and they would follow him without question. They always did when he had to make hard decisions. The club was his life, and he'd brought it a long way into changing public perception of it. There was a chance that what they were about to do would set them back, but they had to take out the Destroyers.
"Time to take the Destroyers out!" Reaper shouted with grim determination. The room erupted with enthusiastic shouts, the brothers throwing their fists into the air as their battle cries revealed that they were raring to go. Reaper was being uncharacteristically patient, giving his brothers time to work themselves up into the rage they'd need to get through the fight.
He waited until they gradually quieted down. "This is what we live for, brothers--to protect what we have. To fight for our club, our women, our families. Tonight we get retribution for Roy, Tiger, and Dober. We hit the Destroyers fast and hard. We don't give them time to regroup. Rollin and Tucker are going to save us a lot of work. They're packing the drones with explosives right now and programming them to fly to each location and detonate at the same fucking time."
"Fuck, Prez, sounds like the drones are going to do all our work for us," Puck complained.
Reaper shook his head. "Not everything, brother. The drones will blow up their hideouts and their clubhouse, but some of those fuckers will make it out alive. I want teams of three men at each hideout." He slid a sheet of paper to Wolfman, saying, "Pass it on. Look for your name to see where your location will be. If your name's not on the list, you'll go with me to their clubhouse. Orders are to take down anyone who makes it out."
"Anyone?" a member from one of the other chapters asked. I didn't recognize him.
"We don't shoot women unless they're shooting at us," Reaper growled impatiently, as if the brother should have already known the answer.
"What happens if the cops show up?" Whip, one of the brothers who was standing against the wall, asked. He was from Maine.
"You know what to do if the cops show up. Get your asses out of there any way you can, and try not to kill any fucking cops."
"What if someone on our payroll shows up?" Fury was referring to Smith and Donavan.
Reaper snorted, sitting back in his chair. "They won't." The confidence in his tone made it clear that we should not doubt him. "Jim, you'll stay here‒"
"The fuck I will!" He practically jumped out of his chair, his face red with anger. "I have more‒"
Reaper held his hand up to stop Jim from saying more. "Brother, I know how you feel. I know you want to kill every one of those fuckers with your own hands for what they did to your woman. But I don't want to go into this worrying about a brother whose head is fucked up. I need someone here to run the prospects in case one of those fuckers manages to get past us and shows up here. Can I count on you?"
Jim sat stone-faced, his jaw clamped tightly, a fire burning in his eyes that every one of us in the room understood. It didn't matter that the men directly responsible for attacking Casey were already dead. In our world, the whole club was responsible. He remained quiet, but it was clear that he was on the edge of exploding. With the kind of war that we were heading into, no one wanted to be left behind.
He finally gave the chin lift of assent that Reaper had been waiting for, and then sat back in his chair and stared at the table in front of him, clearly not happy. I felt for him because fuck knew that if anything like that had happened to Luna, there would be no holding me back, and being a nomad, no one would fucking dare try to stop me from exacting my own justice. No woman deserved what those fuckers had done to Casey.
The thought that Luna could have suffered the same fate made me fucking sick inside.
"When do we head out?" Raze asked, breaking the silence.
"As soon as the drones are ready. They're being set up to detonate at precisely nine-thirty tonight, but I want you at your locations by eight-thirty, and I want you wearing ear buds so we can communicate about how shit's going." Reaper paused, looking over the room. "If we get lucky, we go in, the explosives take care of most of it, and we tie up any loose ends. If you get caught up in a confrontation, end it quick and get the fuck out of there. I expect that a series of explosions is going to draw a lot of interest, and we don't want to be seen leaving the vicinity."
"Should we leave our cuts?" Razor asked.
Silence followed, and I could tell by Reaper's expression that he was thinking it over.
"We're not pussies!" Puck snarled. "Our cuts are who we are!"
"Maybe Razor has a good idea," a brother from Massachusetts suggested. "Ninety percent of us will be riding the road tonight. There's going to be a lot of questions once the dust settles."
"Civilians might overlook a biker, but you can bet they'll notice one who’s wearing a cut," Raze added.
He was right, and the Wreckers had been established in the area for a long time. There were other MCs around, but none that were nearly as prominent or recognizable as the Wreckers.
"Our cuts might identify us," I pointed
out, deciding to add my two cents worth. "Not wearing them doesn't make us lesser men."
"No disrespect, brother, but you don't wear a Wreckers cut," said Fury.
He was right, but I still gave him the bird.
"Jace is right, brothers," Wolfman said, nodding. "We're eager to settle the score with the Destroyers for what they've done to us, for the lives they've taken and for invading our home ground, but what good is wiping them out if we end up in prison, leaving our families unprotected?"
"It's the price we pay‒"
"Enough!" Reaper interrupted, leaning forward in his chair and placing his hands on the table. "The price might be too high," he went on in a lower tone. His gaze moved around the room, including everyone. He steepled his fingers. "Let's put it to a vote. Those who say leave our cuts, raise your hands." Almost everyone did. "Those of you who say wear our cuts?" Only four men raised their hands. "We leave our cuts here," Reaper said in a no-nonsense tone.
The door opened, and Rollin and Tucker sauntered in. They were blood brothers, and as opposite as night and day. Rollin was tall, and had brown hair and brown eyes. Tucker was short, with blond hair and blue eyes.
Reaper continued as the two men walked further into the room, "Those of you riding to their clubhouse with me, we'll ride in but hang back until the explosives go off, then we'll move in and spread out, make sure no one gets through the gate or climbs the fence." He acknowledged Rollin and Tucker. "That was fast, brothers."
"We're good at what we do," Tucker said cockily.
"Let's hope so, asshole." Laughter followed Raze's comment.
Rollin ignored Raze and addressed Reaper. "We have seven drones ready to fly."
"Three for their clubhouse?" Reaper frowned.
Bushy brows arched high on Rollin's forehead. "Not enough?"
"We burned half the place down the other night. Three seems excessive. We're going to light up the fucking sky as it is."
Rollin shrugged. "What's one more then?" His comment did nothing to erase the frown from Reaper's face.
Dangerous (Nomad Outlaws Trilogy Book 2) Page 23