by Mia Miles
“Okay.” He took a couple of deep breaths to gather his thoughts and muster up his nerve.
I waited to hear him say he saw Chase burying a dead body on the jobsite or something, but what he had to tell me wasn’t nearly that dramatic.
“I walked in on a deal between Mr. Chase and the local head of the mob,” he said in a panicked voice.
“Come again?” I said, turning my ear toward him.
“You know, the mob. Mr. Chase is involved with the mob, and I walked in on a deal. They were in the office, and I didn’t realize anyone was in there but him. I went in to clock out, and they got really quiet. I mean, the air in there just stopped. I couldn’t even breathe,” he said, rambling.
“Okay, I got it. It was tense. What happened next? How do you know the guy he was talking to was with the mob?” I asked, trying to move him along.
“Mr. Chase told me he’d handle clocking me out and that I should get out of there if I knew what was good for me. But I recognized the guy immediately. He was one of the guys my dad talked to on the deal with Schmitz a couple of years ago. I’d never forget a face like that,” he told me.
I laughed. Schmitz was one of the old timers. He got his name because he drank way too much and always got into trouble. He’d crossed a man named Russo who ran a gambling ring. He was connected, but unless things had changed, he’d never been the head of anything. Ace’s father was Rugs, one of our cleaners. The story was that he’d cleared Schmitz’s debt simply by talking to Russo. Everyone believed he’d put the fear of God in the man.
“It’s not funny, Nails. I’m lucky they let me off the lot alive.” His panic was reaching a fever pitch.
“Calm down, son. First off, I’m pretty sure Russo isn’t the local head of the mob. He’s connected, and he ran that gambling ring Schmitz helped us break up. That’s it. Now, thanks to your dad, you really don’t have to worry about him. I’m surprised he didn’t storm out of there once he saw who you were. From what I’ve heard, your dad scared him pretty bad.” I laughed again.
“Well, if he’s talking to Chase, I’m sure he’s not just small fries,” Ace argued.
“Good point, and you’re right. Chase doesn’t operate small. So, you have a job for the MC now.”
“What? Don’t you have to go through Ren first before you put me on anything?” he asked, practically shaking in his boots.
“No this,” I said. “Ren will agree with me on this one. You need to go back to work tomorrow and try to find out all you can about the deal between Chase and Russo.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t tell you everything. There’s more.”
I sat back while I let him tell me the rest of his story.
“After I left the office, Mr. Chase came out and called me to the bottom of the steps in front of the trailer. He told me if I said anything about it, he’d have me taken care of.”
“He did what?” I asked.
“You know, he threatened to have me killed, Nails.”
“Go home,” I told him flatly. “Go home and don’t say anything to your dad.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked as I stood up and unlocked the door to the breakroom.
“I’m going to handle Chase,” I told him. “You get home. If your dad asks, today went fine. Tell him you stopped by to see how I was doing and to see if I needed any help.”
“You want me to lie to my dad?” he asked from his chair. He still hadn’t gotten up.
“Well, if you want, you can stay here. I’ll get Leo or one of the girls to hang back with you until I’m done,” I offered, using my tone to make it sound more like a punishment than an offer to help.
“No, I’m good. I’ll go home.” His thin frame rose shakily from the table.
“Not a word, you got it? I don’t want anyone showing up and jeopardizing what I’m doing,” I told him on the way out.
“Not a word. Got it.” He walked away, toward his motorcycle. He hopped on, cranked it up, and roared off into the afternoon.
I turned to Leo. “I’ve got some business to handle. Close it down for me if I’m not back on time.”
“Got it,” he said. “Everything okay?”
“Will be soon.” I adjusted my cut and walked outside to my motorcycle. Brittney was driving my car so she had an easier way to and from class instead of taking the bus every day. We had taken care of that after she talked to one of her old friends.
I grabbed my helmet and put it on as I straddled my old Harley. Riding her more the last few days had felt great. I felt free for the first time in years. She roared to life underneath me and I revved the engine up a few times, listening to her growl, feeling her rumble beneath me.
I pulled out of the parking lot and raced over to the jobsite where I’d been working for Chase before running off with his daughter. I felt guilty for going to see him without saying anything to Brittney first, like I was sneaking around behind her back or something, but it was MC business, as far as I was concerned.
The bike roared onto the jobsite as the last few of his workers called it a day. I drove right up to the trailer where his office was and killed the engine. I climbed off the bike and walked up the steps, but I took a moment before opening the door. I was going in alone. I was handling MC business without talking to my brother or anyone else first. I justified it to myself because it was personal.
I slung the door open and walked in.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Chase said in mock surprise, sitting alone behind his desk. “If it isn’t good old Jagger ‘Nails’ Holmes. I haven’t seen you since you ran off with my daughter. How is she, by the way?”
“You ran her off. You acted like you were glad to get rid of her. I’m not here to talk to you about that,” I said as I advanced on him.
“Then, tell me, why are you here?” he asked.
Just then, I heard sirens coming up on the jobsite. I narrowed my eyes at him and clenched my fists.
“Now don’t do anything you don’t want to have to explain to the police, Jagger,” Chase cautioned me, speaking slowly and in an almost fatherly tone.
“You set me up,” I growled.
“Maybe I did. Maybe you set yourself up by coming back here. You shouldn’t have run off with my daughter, Jagger. You fucked up when you did that.”
Right at that time, the door opened again and two officers barged in, guns trained on me. “Jagger Holmes?” one of them asked.
“That’s me,” I said.
One officer holstered his gun. He grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back, where he quickly worked to cuff me.
“You’re under arrest,” he said.
“For what?”
“For the kidnapping of my daughter, you piece of shit,” Chase yelled in mock rage. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about his daughter being kidnapped. He was just playing it up for the arresting officers.
“That’s funny. I’m sure if you talk to her, she’ll tell you a different story,” I said, but I stopped myself from saying anything else. I didn’t want to give the officers anything to work off of, and I certainly didn’t want Raymond Chase to know where she was in case he was inclined to try something stupid.
“Mr. Holmes, you have the right to remain silent,” the first officer said, as if reminding me to keep my mouth shut so that I didn’t say too much in front of my former boss.
“This isn’t over yet,” I told Chase as the officers led me out of the office and back down the stairs.
“Officers, that sounded like a threat,” I heard him calling out behind us. The officers didn’t seem to notice as I was led over to the car and shoved into the backseat.
As they backed up and turned around, I stared at my bike.
“Hey, can someone come and impound my bike?” I asked from the backseat as we started to pull away.
“Why would we need to do that?” one of them asked.
“So it doesn’t get vandalized or worse while it’s sitting at this jobsite. I don’t trust that man,
” I explained.
“It’s not typical procedure to impound your vehicle if it wasn’t involved with what we’re picking you up for,” the officer informed me.
“Great. If anything happens to it,” I started.
“That would be unfortunate,” one of the cops finished for me.
“Yeah, very unfortunate.” I rode down to the station in silence after that. I had botched the attempt to kidnap Brittney. I didn’t think it through before I did it. It was pretty much on impulse. Then, when I tried to handle actual MC business by listening to Ace and then trying to stand up for him, I had botched that as well. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like I had been set up.
Why hadn’t Ace gone to his dad first? Rugs would have made damn sure the situation with Russo had been handled, again. If Russo had even been there. I was starting to think the whole thing had been an elaborate hoax to land me in the back of the cop car.
“Alright, before we go in, do you have anything on you that we need to know about?” one of the cops asked me, shoving me into the side of the car once we got to the station.
“Nothing,” I said.
“No guns, drug paraphernalia, candy wrappers, nothing, huh?” he asked again. I could hear him nodding his head and smirking.
“Man, I told you. Nothing.”
He frisked me quickly and, satisfied, he hauled me into the building.
“I need my phone call as soon as possible,” I told him.
“Well, I guess we ought to put a rush on it.”
I knew if I told him it was so I could get my lawyer down there, I never would have gotten the call.
“I need to let my girl know I’m not coming home tonight. You know, the one Raymond Chase says I kidnapped. The one who opened a woodworking shop with me,” I said.
“You’ll get your call as soon as you’re processed,” he said as he shoved me into a holding cell and slammed the door.
I didn’t say anything as I watched the cop walk away. I was pretty sure there were only two other people who knew where I was, besides myself – Chase and Ace. I would have put money on Ace’s involvement.
Chapter Seventeen
Brittney
“So, you’ll never guess how I found out you were in jail,” I said through the phone in the wall of the visitor booth.
“Who told you?” Nails asked with a defeated tone.
“No one, so you don’t have to worry about that. Everyone has been quiet. They’ve been acting like you’re just not there, like everything’s okay and I’m the crazy one for thinking something’s up,” I said, unable to stop letting the words fall out of my mouth in anger.
“Listen, I’m really sorry, Brittney. This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He kept looking down at the table in front of him as if he were ashamed to look at me.
“You know, it wasn’t until I went online and pulled up county records. I don’t know, Nails, maybe it was the biker stereotype that made me think to do it, but there you were,” I said.
“I guess I let you down, huh?” he said, a little attitude and defiance returning to his voice. He looked up at me. His gaze met mine, and I could see in his eyes that I’d finally struck a nerve.
“No, but you could have told me what you were trying to do so I could tell you how stupid you were being,” I told him.
“Who told you?” he asked.
“Leo told me.”
“How did Leo find out?” he asked, like it mattered.
“Think about it, Nails. Someone had to be there to run the shop today while you were still in here. So of course Leo found out.”
“Has anyone seen Ace?”
I shook my head. “We haven’t at the shop, and Leo hasn’t said anything. From what Leo told me, if Ace was in on it, he’s going to be laying low for a while.”
“So should you. You need to worry about school. Let me handle this with our lawyer,” Nails urged me.
“Nope, not that easy, babe,” I told him. “You got in trouble because my dad is a dick, so I’m going to help you out. I’m going to go talk to my dad for you.”
“Like hell you are,” he snapped at me.
“I’m sorry? Did you forget who you’re talking to? You don’t talk to me that way.”
“Yeah, well, surprise. You don’t need to see your dad. Lord knows what he’ll do to you,” he added.
“Do you really think I have something to worry about?” I asked.
“I don’t know, and neither do you. I didn’t expect him to call the cops on me for kidnapping you when I went to talk to him about Ace, so I don’t know, Brittney. Be careful. And if you feel like being smart, stay out of it altogether,” he said.
Just then, the guard called out his name. “Holmes!” He started walking over to where we were sitting.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “Be careful.” He hung up the phone and slid back as the guard approached. I sat with the phone in my hand and watched him walk away.
“Ma’am,” a voice said behind me. “Miss Chase, it’s time to go.”
I hung up the phone and turned around to see a young guard standing behind me with a polite smile on his face. He hadn’t worked there long enough to look hard and seasoned like the other guards did. I wanted to tell him to give it time, but I had work to do.
I had to come up with a plan to get my father to drop the charges against Nails. They were bogus, essentially. He’d tried to kidnap me, but agreeing to a business deal instead didn’t sound much like kidnapping to me. I figured I could at least go talk to my father to explain to him what had actually happened.
I also needed to find out what happened with Ace. What had he seen? What did he know? And if it was all concocted, why had the name Russo come up? My dad and Ace knew that Nails would have recognized that name, but why?
Leo had told me everything that Nails had told the MC’s president, Ren. The news had come down through Jay, who was quietly overseeing the shop on behalf of Cutter until they could get Nails out of jail. Jay was keeping an eye out for my dad’s men or Ace, or even some of the guys associated with Russo.
I didn’t get to tell Nails everything, but I hoped he understood that no matter what he told me, I was going to work to help him any way that I could. I left the jail and drove over to my dad’s jobsite. I didn’t stop anywhere to take the time to compose myself or figure out what I was going to say; I drove straight over there.
I pulled up next to the trailer and got out of the car. I looked around the jobsite. It was the same place where we were working when Nails had abducted me, but it looked nothing like it had then. The office building was standing and the parking lot had been poured. The remaining workers were putting the finishing touches on everything, getting it ready for the shell companies to move in. I was still convinced there was very little legitimate work going on in these office suites that were popping up everywhere.
As I got out of the car, my dad’s voice came from behind me. “Let me guess, that’s Jagger’s car.”
“Hey, dad,” I said from the driver’s side door, neglecting ever-so-conveniently to answer his question.
“I figured having him locked up would draw you out. Please, come up. We need to talk.” He sounded almost cheerful to see me. It was staged, I knew. He was just happy to have the upper hand again.
“Right. I’m not here to talk long,” I said when I walked inside his office.
“That’s fine, dear. It won’t take long.” His tone changed. He wanted to talk business. I wasn’t his daughter anymore, not in the way that most dads saw their daughters. I was a piece of property, at best, and he was negotiating for ownership.
He went and sat down behind his desk, and I followed behind, sitting in the chair in front of him.
“So, how have you been? You look like you’re doing fine. Maybe you could use a little more sleep, but other than that, you look okay,” he said in a flat tone.
“Small talk, dad? Really? You didn’t call me in he
re to talk about my day or what I’ve been doing. Besides, I’m sure you got everything from Ace,” I said, adjusting myself in the seat so that I was more comfortable.
“Ah, Ace. Yeah, he’s a good kid. Hard worker. You know, I’ll give the Renegade Lions that. They do raise up some hard workers.” He was such a patronizing ass.
“You didn’t invite me into your office just to brag about Ace and Renegade Lions either, did you?” I asked.
“You know, you keep talking like you weren’t the one who decided to drive over here. You did that, Brittney, not me. So, since there must be some grand reason why we’re talking, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?” He sat back with a smug little smile on his face.