“Hey buddy,” I tried to think of an excuse for why I was there as Piper put her arms around both of us and we had our first family hug. I couldn’t have given a shit after that about excuses. The reality was that I had a son, and I had Piper, and we were all in one huddle. Hugging like the families that I’d seen waving off my buddies in the military when we left. So many times, I’d watched from my seat inside the plane, lamenting over the fact that I’d never have that. If only I’d known that I would have that.
“Hey, baby,” Piper lifted her hand to push Sam’s hair away from his eyes and I saw that she’d bled through the bandage again.
I didn’t get the chance to act because Sam was off, telling us about his night with both of his grandparents and how he was going to have his own room at my parent’s house that he could decorate in any way he wanted. He started talking about characters that I’d never heard of and I gently put him back on the ground as I went to get new dressings for Piper. The truth was, I was worried that she was still bleeding and that there had been a slight redness around the wounds the night before. Hopefully keeping it clean and keeping on top of the dressings would help, but if it continued I’d take her back to the ER.
“Hey bud,” I interrupted Sam, hating to do it, but I needed to get Piper fixed up and I couldn’t miss this meeting with my guys. “I’m just gonna change your mom’s bandage because her owey is bleeding a bit, okay? You can keep telling us, but we need to move into the bathroom.”
Nodding quickly, he went back to his news and followed us. It was almost like the kid didn’t need to breathe, he just talked, but the second I put Piper back onto the counter like the night before, he stopped and stood closely, watching everything as I did it.
“Sam, maybe go see Pops?” Piper suggested. “This is yucky.”
Shaking his head, he crossed his arms and stood with such a stern expression that I did a double take.
“Jesus, he looks like he could command a unit,” I whispered to Piper.
“I can help,” he decided and turned to pick up a small plastic stool that was in the corner of the room, moving it to in front of the sink. Climbing up onto it, he started washing his hands with soap before turning around with his arms in the air letting them air dry. “I need bandages!”
Piper and I looked at each other and then back at him.
“We need to clean around the wounds, Sam,” I tried to turn Piper’s hand away from him as I said this, but he gently grabbed her wrist and lowered it so that he could have a good look.
“It’s pink,” he muttered with a serious frown on his tiny face. How someone so young could look like that I didn’t know.
She must have seen the question on my face, because Piper explained. “He takes after his Daddy. Old before his time!”
Looking back down at Sam, I decided that letting him help would be the best thing for all of us. He watched as I cleaned the wound and passed me what I asked for. After letting him put the strips of tape that would hold the bandage in place, I turned him back to the sink to wash his hands again.
“Where did you learn to be a doctor, bud?”
“On the vision,” he shook his hands, spraying water everywhere.
“The vision?”
“Doc McSuffin,” he moved his stool back to where it had been originally, impressing me hugely.
Looking over at Piper and feeling totally lost, she burst out laughing when she saw the look on my face.
“There’s a kid’s program called Doc McStuffin that he loves. That’ll be where.”
“Jesus,” I felt so fucking old. “They show shit like that on kid’s TV shows now?”
Laughing even harder, she snorted, “It’s a cartoon, Hunter. She fixes toys when they hurt themselves.”
The conversation was over when Sam grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the door. “Poppa, Daddy’s here!”
Feeling a burst inside of me, I quickly picked Sam up making him scream with shock. Putting him over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift, I walked making sure to bounce with each step to the kitchen. As I walked in, laughing with Sam, I saw my parents and Piper’s looking at me with emotional grins.
“He’s back,” Griff muttered, before turning back to the coffee maker.
I felt more like myself now than I had for years. It was definitely a case of slowly slowly catchy monkey, but I could breathe, and I was feeling lighter than I had since I’d left.
Taking a deep breath to clear the emotions from my face, I turned around and put Sam on the floor. “Gimme the caffeine old man. I’ve got to head soon and I can’t drive without that sh…stuff in my veins.”
“Yeah,” said Sam, copying the position that I was standing in. “We need to drive our bikes. Where’s my cup?”
Running over to the sink, he picked up two plastic non-spill cups and ran up to where I was standing by the coffee machine.
“Fill me up,” he commanded. “And this is yours.”
So, I had my first cup of coffee for the day from a bright green non-spill sippy cup with a blue lid on it surrounded by my family, and it was the best fucking cup of coffee of my life. Men would kill for coffee that good and that beautiful, as they drank it from a kid’s plastic cup holding onto the handles either side of it.
Pulling up in front of the building that we’d bought and renovated, I saw one of my guys Noah standing waiting for me, his arms crossed over his chest. Looking around, all our bikes seemed to be here too, so I assumed everyone else was inside.
Killing the engine, I swung my leg over the bike and walked toward him thinking about what had happened in my day so far. I’d left Sam with his mom, upset because he couldn’t come with me. Unfortunately, I’d had to promise that once his bike arrived he could ride here with me. I wasn’t one to ever break a promise, had never been that guy, but I definitely wasn’t him now, and the chances of me ever allowing him to cycle on the roads was a zero. The thought left me feeling like I had ice in my chest.
Distracting myself quickly, I took in the expression on Noah’s face as I got closer to him. Noah was quite a serious guy, but today he looked even more so.
“You okay, man?”
Uncrossing his arms, he looked around us. “Everyone’s inside waiting. We have company coming.”
This was unexpected. “Who?”
“Preacher, Jagger and Kai,” he replied. Kai I knew well, we’d been on missions together often over the years. Kyle was a kick ass bitch if ever there was one and also went by her military call name ‘Kai Ghost’. We’d stuck with a male name so that if radio conversations were intercepted, they wouldn’t target her team purely for the fact that there was a woman on it. She was also a Ghost, one of a guy called Duke’s investigation and security team who were known as the Ghost’s because you never saw them unless they wanted you to. She could hit a target with her eyes shut. Preacher was her father and the head of The Knights MC. From what I knew, Jagger was his VP, but what they wanted with us I didn’t know.
“Social?” I asked. His lips firmed as he shook his head slowly. So, it was a work visit, but what the fuck for? Sighing, I ran my hands through my hair. My day had started off so fucking well as well. “Fuck. Right, let’s get inside then and figure out what the fuck is going on.”
Opening the door, I walked into the cool open area that we’d made the bottom floor into. It took a couple seconds for my eyes to adjust, but when they did I saw the rest of the guys relaxing on the couches like nothing was up. They knew what was going on because their eyes had swung to the door and had stayed on it long after we’d come in like they were expecting company. As always though, they shrugged it off and went back to what they were doing. We’d had an agreement when we were in the unit – don’t shit if you don’t have a pot. It was applicable to so many fucking things, a thought which had me letting out a snort, but most of the time when we used it we were in active situations. Basically, don’t act unless you have to.
The question was would we have to?
&
nbsp; “So, how was your night then?” Sasha grinned as she nudged my shoulder hard enough to knock me slightly off balance. With my hand injured, I was kind of limited to what I could do at the bar, but I was filling in a form as I kept an eye on what was going on in it. When she’d nudged me, my hand had slipped and now the beer name that I’d been filling in looked like it said Fucker’s. Shit, our accountant was going to love that.
Sighing, I tried to change it, but it just made it worse. Sasha couldn’t handle the silence and lack of knowledge though and she kicked my foot almost knocking me sideways again.
“What the hell is up with you today, you abusive bitch?”
Laughing, she lifted herself up onto the bar and sat swinging her legs as she stared at me with her eyebrows raised. Refusing to give into her out of principal now, I went back to filling in my form for Fucker’s beer.
Hearing her nails tapping close to me, I looked back over at her. So much had changed since I’d last seen her. The memories of last night popped into my head and I felt my cheeks heating up as I remembered the look in his eye as he…
“Oh, my GOD!” Sasha squealed. “You had sex!” The volume of her voice was high enough that a healthy portion of my current patrons now knew that I’d cleared my vagina’s cobwebs. And it wouldn’t take much to guess who had done it too.
Just as she opened her mouth to say something else, I slapped my hand over it, forgetting about the injuries. “Oh shit, shit, shit!” I was holding my hand and stomping my foot to try and distract myself from the sharp stabbing pain.
Not hearing a word from the bitch still sitting on my bar, I looked up to see her grinning down at me.
“Happy for you, chica,” she said and I knew it was the truth. Sasha had been through hell with me many times over and she knew what Hunter had meant to me from day one. When he’d left, I reckon I must have made the world’s worst best friend, but she’d stuck with me throughout. Then she’d petitioned his corner the other night…
“I flove you woman,” I said, the pain in my hand lowering to a tolerable level.
“Stick with him, babe.” She said, answering one of the questions that was niggling away at me. “It’s one day at a time. It takes time to heal, and you both have those wounds.” Now shocking me with how serious she was. This was very unlike the normal Sasha. Catching my look of confusion, she winked at me and her normal mischievous smile spread over her face again. “And hump that hunk until you have speed bumps in your vagina from all of the high speeding traffic.”
Again, her voice was so loud that everyone turned around to stare at us. Looking up at the ceiling, which I noticed needed painting, I groaned. Accepting that I couldn’t just disappear by clapping my hands, I lowered my head and gave them all an oblivious and innocent smile.
Thankfully, my embarrassment was distracted by Dad coming out of his office and coming up to say hi to Sasha. Looking down at the form in front of me he made grunts as he looked at the numbers and names of the alcohol on it, until he got to the last line.
“Fuckers?” He shouted, laughing hard. “They take a look at you and see that on the form and they’ll be thinking that you’re making an offer, honey.”
Slapping me on the back, he moved around to the other side of the bar where someone was waiting to be served, leaving me mentally sobbing over my lack of dignity, and making plans to have a tunnel built under the bar so that I could just leave that way. The prospect of walking through the bar, past everyone, after Dad and Sasha’s oversharing today was really unappealing.
“Hunter and Piper, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g,” Sasha started singing beside me. Once she got to the bit about love, marriage and a baby carriage, Dad joined in.
“She skipped the marriage and went to the baby carriage. It’s all of that Fucker’s beer!”
How was this my fucking life? For four years, I’d had misery and peace and quiet. There had been no fuckery like this, at least not that I’d noticed, and now? The truth was, I would give my left arm for this to have been part of my life for the last four years, with Hunter the reason behind it. Now that I had it though, I knew that I was going to have to deal with insecurity and issues as they hit me. You couldn’t go through what we had without it happening, but I was determined to fight for him, to fight for us.
I was sitting opposite Preacher, Jagger and Kyle trying to make sense of what they were telling me.
“You want us to what?” I looked at Preacher as I asked it, but it was his VP, Jagger who replied.
“The ring goes from South to North America. They deal in the worst drugs and weapons that you can imagine. We recently found out that they also have a great human trafficking circuit too. Kids of all ages being snatched and sold onto who knows fucking what and who.” The image of someone doing that to Sam had bile coming into my throat. “We were approached by Hennesy,” he leaned forward, maintaining eye contact with me the whole time.
“I know Hennesy,” I nodded. “He’s government and came out to the pits a couple of times when we were active.”
Kyle nodded her head. “Yeah, I flew him to the drop during Operation Sharelle. Serious, but knows his shit.”
I had a lot of time for Kyle, in fact all of us did. She was twenty-five and had worked her ass off for eight years to be who she was today. She was one of the best helicopter pilots we’d had and was also the best sniper that the US military had. She wasn’t technically military because she was contracted as and when things were needed or her skills were a mandatory necessity to a situation. There were few people who didn’t know of ‘Kai Ghost’.
She put on a good show and would stand up to any man regardless of how big he was, and she’d probably win, but what she’d done, like us, left a stain on her soul and you could see it in her eyes from time to time.
When she wasn’t working her contracts, she was working for her uncle, called Duke, who owned and ran a security service. They were all great people and I’d met them a couple of times, but Preacher and his VP were relatively unknowns for me. Noah knew them better than I did, I’d only met them at a bar on two occasions when we were passing through or they were in our area. I wasn’t sure what to make of what they were telling me.
“So, what do you need from us?” I sat back as I asked this.
Kyle, Preacher and Jagger all looked at each other before Preacher answered.
“We need you. Your skills. You and your people here,” Preacher gestured to the rest of the guys who were all sitting near me.
“Why us? We’re newly discharged and just trying to figure out what the fuck to do with ourselves,” one of my guys, Aron asked.
Jagger’s shrewd eyes took all of us in. “You’re a unit, a tight knit unit. You are organized and work together. We need your skills and we need them quickly,” rubbing his lower lip, he looked over at Kyle and I thought I saw something flash in her eyes, but it was gone quickly. “People, kids, are going missing. A two-year-old was snatched in broad daylight two days ago. We need to intercept them and get her back before they sell her into fuck knows what.”
Kyle took over. “Last week, a group was arrested in Belize. They were running a child prostitution ring.” She sounded like she was forcing the words out as she went on. “The oldest child was nine-years-old, Hunter.”
I knew what they were asking. Knew that even if my guys all said no, I’d still go ahead and give them my skills. We’d come across these fuckers a couple of times over the years and were familiar with the problem. In fact, one of my guys Garrett had worked on a case for four months to intercept a ring just like this. They were right, between all of us we did have the skills to help them.
The question was would my guys want to do this? We hadn’t had time to recondition ourselves to civilian living yet and a lot of us still needed a fuck ton of help. Looking around at their faces, I knew that their answer was the same as mine. We would be assisting The Knights.
I just hoped that Piper understood when I told her.
“We kno
w that they have bases in Panama, Brazil and Belize,” Preacher laid out some aerial photographs for us on the table. The pictures were black and white and a bit fuzzy, but impressive all the same.
“Hennesy really must be flexing his muscles if he got you this shit,” Noah muttered beside me, turning a photograph so that it was the right way around for him to study it.
“The intel that we have tells us that there’s a drop point happening here,” Kyle pointed at an island near Panama on the map in front of us. “From there, they’ll split the load between four boats that will head off to different locations across South America. The boat carrying the youngest kids will head to Costa Rica though. There’s a new client who is demanding three minors as well as one point five million dollars’ worth of cocaine.” I could feel the blood boiling inside me. I fucking hated these bastards. “The client is none other than Jose Demingo.”
Compass (Valiant MC Book 1) Page 8