by A. M Gillham
Punching the dash, Cash growls, “Fuck. This is fucking crazy. You know your old man isn’t gonna be happy about this little plan of yours, Zeke.”
“He ain’t gonna know about this, Brother, I’ll be the one getting in touch with Vince, not Pops. If Pops goes ahead and tells Vince we’ve taken Asha, what do you think’s gonna happen, man? Vince is gonna hit the fucking roof, man. He ain’t gonna believe someone else caused that explosion to the car. He’s gonna come straight for us.”
Calming down, Cash nods, and says, “Yeah, you got a point there. As soon as she’s better, you need to drug her and drop her at the hospital over the border, man. The hospital calls the cops, the cops call Vince, and everything is hunky dory again. The shit shouldn’t blow back on us.”
Nodding my head at him, I start the van and get back on the road. There’s nothing I can do except wait for Bullet’s call. On the drive back to the clubhouse, all I can think of is what Cash said about dropping Asha off at the furthest hospital from our territory. Fucking hell, I know it needs to be done but I…I don’t know. I was hoping that somehow having her live with me, even by force, she would fall for me. Fuck, I’m insane. How I could possibly think she would fall for me? What a mess. I need to talk to Pops; tell him exactly what happened and what we need to do.
Clearing his throat, Cash says, “You ready to face the Old Man, Brother?”
Laughing sarcastically, I say, “What do you think, Brother?”
Chapter 11
Vince
I am just sitting down in my red leather desk chair when my phone buzzes. I think about leaving it, but Asha is away and it could be important so I reach for my phone. Asha’s name comes up on the screen; it’s a text message from her.
*Asha – Hey Big Brother, I’m freaking out. I got this scary text. I’ve attached it to this message. I think it has something to do with that guy that beat up Gwen, the cops never found out who he was and he skipped town. It’s come from an unknown number so I don’t know how you could trace it. We are stopping in forty minutes. I’ll call you then. Love u Xo
Attachment
*Unknown Number – YOU’RE MINE AND SO IS SHE, YOU FUCKING DOG. YOU’LL DO WELL TO FUCKING REMEMBER THAT. FUCKING MINE, NOW AND FUCKING FOREVER. YOU AND THOSE OTHER BITCHES ARE ALL GONNA PAY. TODAY WILL BE YOUR LAST.
Re-reading the text message, I slam my fist down onto my desk, shaking the photo frames and other shit I have on there. FUCK!
Vince – “WHAT?!! Fucking hell, Sis? I’ve given the message to Saint, Dice and Wizard, they are going to try trace your phone. I know you like you privacy Ash but I need to know you and the girls are safe. The rest of the brothers are talking to the other chapters now, they’ll be on the lookout for anything suspicious as well. Fuck, be fucking careful, this prick sounds like he’s serious, so, fuck, watch your back please. I’ll talk to you in an hour. Love u too Sis X
After replying to Asha’s text, I race out of my office. I need to find Aim; we need to find out what the fuck is going on. I don’t have to go far when I hear the moans and groans coming from his room. “Oh God, OHHH GOD, ahhh, ahhhh, harder Xenon. Baby please, Aim, ahhh fuck, ahhhhhh that’s it, baby. Ohhh shit, right there honey, it’s coming now, fuck me harder X, now!” I walk in to find Aim grabbing ahold of Sophia’s hip with one hand while his other hand holds her shoulder, pushing her down. He’s pounding into her and as much as I’m enjoying the free, live porn show; Asha is in trouble. He can get his dick wet later. Club business needs to come first. He must notice someone’s at his door, but doesn’t realise it’s me when he growls out, “If you know what’s good for you, fucker, you’ll get the fuck outta my room now, I’m fucking busy.”
Letting out a bark of laughter I say, “Sorry, bud, rides over; I need you to get Saint, Dice and Wizard now. We got shit to handle.”
Slapping Sophia on the arse, Aim tells her he’ll find her later. Pouting, but obeying, she grabs her clothes off the floor and walks past me.
“Good girl,” I say.
“Damn pres, I haven’t enjoyed myself that much in weeks, what the fuck?”
Turning my head to look at him I say, “Get the brothers and meet me in my office. Tell them they have fifteen minutes, tops.”
Forty minutes later, the boys are all caught up with the message Asha received on her phone and forwarded to me. They know how worried I am, but they are too. Asha is like a sister or daughter to most of the brothers here. The brothers have had a big hand in helping me raise her. Wizard, one of the newer prospects, is a fucking wiz at computers, hence the nickname he’s been dubbed with. He gets straight to work, tracking Asha’s phone as soon as I mentioned the text message. Dice and Saint start calling the presidents of the other chapters, telling all of them the situation, and asking them to be on the lookout for anything strange or out of place; any fuckers that look nervous.
Aim’s not happy when I tell him to get rid of the girls and old ladies for the night. I don’t want any distractions while we do this shit; I need all of them clear headed and here with me, not thinking about pussy. Once all the guys are out of the office, I plan to call Colt; our link to the boys in blue, but he calls me first. He never calls unless the news is fucking bad. He normally just sends through a quick text to catch up, so I’m starting to panic before I’ve even spoken to him. Picking up my phone, I answer with, “Colt?” It’s a question, but the only sound that greets me is silence. I wait, but all this waiting is making my heart rate pick up. My heart is thumping so hard, it feels like it’s about to explode right out of my chest.
It feels like an eternity before Colt lets out a heavy hearted sigh and says, “Vince, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but there’s been an incident involving Asha, her friends, and their vehicle. I’ve just received news from the police sergeant down the coast. The car Asha and her friends were travelling in was attacked; they believe that a homemade explosive was thrown at the vehicle. The emergency services are still at the scene. Three of the girls have been transported to the closest hospital. It’s not Asha but there was one DOA. The thing is, Asha’s missing. The police have scoured the area, just in case she had been disorientated and gotten out of the vehicle, but nothing, mate. Her bag with her purse and phone was still in the car. The only evidence they have found at the moment; was the left over bomb and tyre tracks that look to be from a motorcycle. Nothing else has been found at this time, Vince. They can’t find anything…”
I don’t hear anything else he says to me after that. My sister is missing. Fucking missing! Then, a realisation hits me, and I think back to the text she received. What if the sick fucker who sent it has her? “What the fuck, Brother? Are you all right? What’s happened? Vince… Vince.” I can hear Aim and Saint but I can’t see them. I start to see spots, then blackness; my breathing is slowing. It’s getting harder and harder to get air into my lungs. “Here, put this over your mouth and nose and keep breathing,” Saint says, passing me a brown paper bag. I hear him tell Aim that it looks like I’m having a major panic attack. Finally, my breathing evens out. Looking around my office, I’m on the floor leaning against the wall behind my desk. I don’t remember anything after Colt told me Asha is missing. My fucking sister is missing…
Sitting up, I go into depth about what Colt had called about; the car being attacked while the girls were in it; that three of the girls are in hospital with critical injuries and one has died. Lastly I tell them that Asha is missing and about the motorcycle tyre tracks that the cops found. Everyone is silent and then all of a sudden Saint starts to yell loudly and panicked, “Vince, man, which girl is dead? I need to know who it was. Where. The. FUCK. Is. She. WHERE. IS. MEL? Is it her, Brother? Tell me. Please, just fucking tell me.” Saint loses it!
He starts throwing my shit around the office; he flips my desk over and throws my chair at the wall. He ends his breakdown with a massive hole in my wall and his hand busted up so bad; it looks like a shredded, minced piece of meat. Storming out of the office he punches the
door on his way out. Hammer looks over at me with a worried expression on his face and says quietly, “Fuck! Was it her Vince?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I turn to him and say, “Shit. I honestly don’t know, man. Colt didn’t tell me which girl was dead, only that it wasn’t Asha. C’mon we need to get to him, if it’s Mel he’s gonna need us.” Turning away, all the boys follow me out the door and down the hall after Saint.
We hear him before we see him. “What the fuck, Colt? You have got to be kidding. JUST. FUCKING. TELL. ME. NOW!” I see Saint yelling at someone on his phone; I’m pretty sure it’s Colt. He’s just around the bend of the hallway and has just thrown his phone at the wall opposite him, smashing it into tiny pieces.
He slides down the wall and starts slamming his head into the wall behind him. I run as fast as I can over to him. I grab ahold of his head to stop him from doing any more damage. He stops and just starts rocking and shaking. I lean into him and say, “Leo, Brother, what is it? What’s going on, man? What did Colt say? We are all worried. Fuck, man, some prick has my baby sister.”
Leo now has his face in his hands; the tears are running down his cheeks. I almost don’t hear him when he whispers, “It was her, my girl. Mel’s dead, Brother and I can’t bring her back. She’s gone, fucking gone, forever. What the fuck am I gonna do without her, Vince?” That’s it; he breaks down completely. I’ve never heard a man cry and scream so loud. The only thing I can do is hold him, anything I do or say won’t bring his girl back, I know this. It was the same when I lost my parents, but I had to be strong for Asha.
I put my head to his and say, “Fuck, I’m so fucking sorry, Brother, so fucking sorry. I promise you that we are gonna get this prick.” In that moment all of the brothers are crowded around us, crouched down in a closed in circle, surrounding Saint. All of us grief- stricken for him, but knowing we need to be strong for him. A little while later, Dice and I stand Saint up. Putting his arms around our shoulders, we walk him to his room. We lay him down on his bed and give him a tablet to knock him out for a solid eight hours. He’s too distraught to be of any help to us now. Who can blame him? He’s just lost the girl he was going to make his old lady. After he falls asleep I tell Milo, to keep watch over Saint. I don’t want him waking up and doing something stupid. When we find the cocksucker responsible for Mel, for the other girls and for taking Asha, he is going to wish he’d never been fucking born.
Colt rings me back later on that night, he has a few more details on the attack. The girls were four hours away from the new strip club when their vehicle was attacked. The weapon used was definitely a homemade explosive device. It was tossed at close range towards the vehicle, hitting the front left hand side of the car. Tilly is fine and should be able to leave the hospital in a couple of days. Cassie has a deep gash that goes from the top of her throat and ending between her breasts. She won’t be leaving the hospital for about a week. Gwen has lost her left leg; the bone and muscle were too damaged to save. She lost a lot of blood and was taken straight into surgery. Once she’s out of recovery, she’ll be airlifted back home to the local hospital. She’s going to need a lot of physio after her recovery. Mel’s seatbelt broke, throwing her straight through the windshield. The impact tore her arm from the shoulder socket all the way from her body, almost decapitating her. After hearing the particulars of Mel’s death, I know they are going to break Saint. I don’t want to keep the details from him, but I’m going to try for as long as I can.
Lying on my bed, I can’t sleep. We can’t find any more information on Asha’s abduction. The police are looking for her. They are searching for any leads that might help them find out where she is, and who took her; but that’s all they can do for now. Staring up at the ceiling, I feel the tears start to roll down my cheeks for the first time since my parents died. I let myself have a total breakdown because I was supposed to be protecting Asha, my baby sister. I’ve fucking failed her! I’m going to find and kill this fucker if it’s the last thing I do.
Chapter 12
Zeke
It’s almost 8 p.m. when Cash and I pull up to the electric gates outside the clubhouse. Cash opens the glove box, pushing the black button in that opens them. Driving through the large, solid, black, iron gates, I park outside of Cash’s room. The clubhouse used to be an old bed and breakfast. There are fifteen small villas, big enough for each bloke to have one, with their own parking spots. The main house is a two storey, mixed coloured, brick building, with an old, yellow tiled roof. There are old iron bars on every window. When Pops bought the building he added them in, he wanted the extra security in every room. It didn’t bother any of the brothers. There’s an old attic room with a small watchtower up top. The brick continues inside the house. There’s a big, stainless steel, industrial kitchen – we have a rotating roaster for the old ladies to come in and cook for the brothers. They don’t mind and they all have bloody awesome cooking skills; no one ever goes hungry around here. The old ladies do all the shopping; the cupboards and fridges are always full. There used to be two dining rooms but Pops had one converted into the chapel. Church is held every Thursday. There are two more offices - one is the main office, where Pops does all of his paperwork and business. The other office is a dummy office for less important meetings. There’s a security room that has all the surveillance cameras and security feeds from around the property. The last room used to be the main living room, it has been converted into the bar with: pool tables, dartboards, TV’s, and other shit guys like to do.
Getting out of the van, I walk into the clubhouse and head straight down the hallway to Pops’ office at the end. I knock once and yell out, “Yo, Pops,” I walk into his office. He’s got a club whore kneeling under his desk, sucking his cock. Fucking hell, this day is just getting better and better. “Pops, we need to talk.” I say, while I cross my arms over my chest, leaning against the door.
Pop’s grabs the whore by the hair, pulling her head back and says to her, “Out, now.” Wiping her mouth, the girl stands up scurries past me and out the door. My old man cleans himself off then tucks himself away. Zipping up his jeans, he sits back down in his chair. Slapping his hands on the sides of his chair, he points to the opposite chair and says, “Have a seat, Son, nice to see you back in one piece. You get the girl?”
Closing the door behind me, I lock it to make sure we aren’t interrupted. I know this little meeting is going to turn into an all-out yelling match. Sitting down in the chair across from him, I lean back and rub my temples. Blowing out a deep sigh I say, “Yeah, Pops, we got her.”
Nodding his head, he says, “Well, where is she then?” Getting up out of the chair, I start pacing back and forth. Pops pipes up and says, “Spit it out, Son, I don’t have all God damned day for this shit.” I stop in my tracks and glare at him. Fucking rude old bastard, he hasn’t done a fucking thing except sit on his arse for the past three years. I do it all. Pops needs to step down…soon!
“Turns out we weren’t the only ones after her. We left the motel after Bullet turned up and headed to the rest area and parked up, waiting for the girl and her friends to drive past. They ended up stopping at the rest area, Pops. I was gonna grab her, but it was too crowded and someone would have seen us. So we stuck to our original plan to grab her when her and her friends stopped for their lunch in the next town. That’s where the plan fucked up. The girls never made it that far. We followed behind them after they left the rest area. There was a complication, a big, fucking complication. We were still following behind them when a guy dressed in work clothes stepped out from the trees and threw a fucking bomb at the fucking car. I’m thinking it was a homemade job because it didn’t engulf the car in flames or blow it to pieces. It did send the car flying through the air and blow off the front tyre. Three of the girls were pretty badly hurt. One is dead, got thrown through the windscreen on impact. Asha had cuts all over her face and body, but Cash and I got her out of the car and took off. I took her straight to Doc’s place; he’s done x-rays
and says she’s in the clear. He won’t let me take her back to my place until she wakes up, and he gives her a clean bill of health. He wants her to go for a fucking brain scan once she’s awake, I told him no. The emergency services arrived at the scene just after we got out of there with the girl. This fucks everything up, once the cops get in contact with Vince. He probably already knows about the incident and his missing sister by now. We need to figure out a way to get her back without it pointing straight back at us, Pops. I have an idea. Won’t take much to pull off, but you ain’t gonna like it.”
Like I expected him to do he slams his fist down hard on the desk. He gets up and walks over to me. Getting in my face, he starts to yell, “Fucking great, Son, just fucking great.” There’s spit coming out of his mouth and he starts jabbing a finger in my chest, he continues to yell, “I sent you, Zeke. To. Do. One. Fucking. Job. And. You. Fuck. It. Up!”
Staring him in the eyes, my anger builds in my chest. I grab ahold of his wrist and shove his hand away from me. I yell back, “My fucking fault? Fuck you, Old Man. You gotta be fucking kidding me! This fucking plan was yours, Pops, no one else’s, fucking yours. I wanted nothing to do with it, but it’s the same as usual. Isn’t it Pops? You know best, but not this time. I think it’s time you start thinking about stepping down and passing me the reigns, Pops. I’ve been doing your job for the past three years, we both know I’m right.”
This gets his attention. I see the moment of realisation flash across his eyes before it disappears. “Zeke. Listen to me, Son, I know you didn’t want to do this but like I said; we need to show them we won’t let them move into our territory. Fucking Hunter Rowe always thought he could take shit over, thought he was entitled to fucking everything.”