Maddox: The Wild Ones (Jokers MC Book 3)

by Jessie Cooke

  “You can punch me if you need to, but I’ll still be grateful to you for coming. Blackheart has exhausted every resource he has and it’s as if his little sister simply vanished off the face of the earth. I’m sure, and so is Blackheart, that it’s not a coincidence that my friend Louis, the butcher, disappeared at almost exactly the same time. Louis is one of the best men I’ve ever known, and Blackheart’s sister is completely innocent...when I knew her, she was always the type of kid who stood up for the underdog. She was tough as nails on the outside, but her heart was as big as Texas. Blackheart would have rather found her on his own. He keeps his business dealings close to the chest, and his personal business even closer. For him to reach out to us...let’s just say that he has to be in a really bad way.”

  Maddox nodded at that. He was looking forward to meeting Blackheart. He’d heard a lot about him, and he’d been impressed by most of what he’d heard. Maddox had mad survival skills, all of which he’d learned in ten years in the army. Blackheart’s survival skills were on a par with his, from what he’d heard...only his had been learned in the wilds of the swamps. And Maddox knew that Maz was right; if a man like that was asking for help, then things weren’t just bad...they were very likely impossible.

  2

  Mario had a pretty good thing going. When he’d left Jersey, he’d been an under boss. Where the mob was concerned, it was as much of a miracle for one of them to leave the organization alive as was the birth of Jesus Christ...if you believed in that sort of thing. But Mario, and his father, who was the boss at that time, had a lot of differing opinions on how things should be run. His old man wanted to war with everyone, including the police and the rapidly growing number of street gangs in the area. Mario, on the other hand, was more of a negotiator. He wanted the old man to agree to some of the unspoken rules on the street that would keep their men alive and out of prison. There was an incident with one of the gangs that took out a handful of their men, and that was when Mario drew the line. He told the old man he was leaving, knowing full well he was risking waking up...or never waking up...at the bottom of the Hudson River. Everyone involved was surprised that the old man agreed to let him, and a small group of their crew, walk away. It was a soft spot in the old man that no one had ever seen before and would likely never again. His only stipulation was that Mario left with nothing, financially...and nothing involving the family name. The money the family had accumulated at that point would stay in the Jersey organization and Mario wouldn’t be allowed to use the Scarponi Family name. Mario knew that was going to be hard, but he also had a sort of sixth sense about things, and he knew the Scarponi name wouldn’t mean much in a matter of years anyway.

  Mario had been in New Orleans for five years, and he’d built his own empire from the ground up. He had a full crew and the respect, however grudging, of the community, police, and local gangs. His father on the other hand was currently sitting in prison on RICO charges, and the rest of the men that hadn’t followed Mario were either dead, or in prison along with the old man. Not having the name had benefited him much more than it had hurt.

  Mario had taken his mother’s maiden name in the move. He was now the boss of the Tucci family. He’d chosen, for personal reasons (mostly being that he enjoyed sitting on top alone) not to have an under boss. Normally an under boss is like a VP, the boss’s right-hand man. In Mario’s case he liked only having two hands, his own right and left...and he answered to no one.

  Mario did engage a consigliere, a “Mob Lawyer” which in this case was one of his uncles on his mother’s side. Most of the men who followed him to Louisiana were his maternal relatives. The paternal ones had stayed in Jersey to go down with the ship. His consigliere was there to advise him and give him legal opinions about the various activities the family was involved in. Mario took that advice sometimes...and other times he ignored it. That was his right as the boss. Underneath the boss and the c...in Mario’s “family” were his captains, or “capos” as they called them. Mario had four capos and each capo had his own crew of what were called “made men” who worked directly for them. In addition to the capos and made men, the family also had “associates.” These were men paid to do their job for them, usually on the down low. For example, he had his associates in most of the local branches of law enforcement. He had them in restaurants around town, and bars and hotels, strategically placed so that Mario would always be in touch with the pulse of the city. Mario liked to respond to what was going to happen, before it happened, if possible.

  That was what brought Mario to an outside cafe that morning, sipping his espresso and waiting for the man he had arranged a meeting with. Mario had been hearing things...things that upset him. One of the men who owed Mario money had gone missing...along with a young woman who was related by blood to the leader of the motorcycle club that practically owned Jefferson Parish. There was no proof the two disappearances were connected...but anyone with a brain would have to figure they were. They’d disappeared on the same day, in the same city, and both had strong ties to the community. Normally, Mario wouldn’t involve himself in other people’s family problems, and he’d simply assume the man who had gone missing couldn’t handle the pressure and had skipped town. But in this case, Mario happened to know that it was highly likely that one of his capos, or at least that capo’s crew, had been last to see the man, a butcher named Louis.

  The scuttlebutt was that the butcher shop had been cleaner than a surgical ward at the hospital by the time the police got there...which not only made them suspicious, but everyone else involved as well. There were no fingerprints in the place at all...not one. There was a “glitch” in the surveillance video as well. That morning’s video, according to his man in the police department, showed Louis Breaux, the Cajun butcher, arriving and beginning his morning routine. Then suddenly it cut...to absolutely nothing. Watching the video, it was as if Louis had simply disappeared. He wasn’t seen leaving on the video, and no one else was seen coming or going. What that said to the police, and Mario himself, was that the video had been altered. Mario hoped that his crew wouldn’t be stupid enough to be involved in any of it, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why anyone else would have wanted Louis to disappear. Louis was supposed to have been scared into compliance if he refused to pay. He’d been making noise and Marco had told his capo Gianni to take care of it. But Gianni knew that hadn’t meant kill the man, or run him out of town, and he absolutely knew that had there been any witnesses...such as a young woman who was related to the president of a powerful motorcycle club...that nothing should have been done until Louis was alone.

  Gianni hadn’t said a word to Marco about any problems with Louis that week. He hadn’t mentioned his not paying his dues, or having to rough him up, or even not being able to find him if the man had skipped town on his own. Gianni was one of Marco’s most trusted capos, his older sister’s son, and now Marco had to worry that he’d done something, or allowed something to be done, that could possibly bring the entire organization to their knees. Marco hoped he was wrong, but his sixth sense was telling him he wasn’t.

  Looking down the street, he saw Gianni parking his car. Marco’s nephew was Italian in every sense of the word. He drove an Italian-made sports car, which he was now parking about a block away. When he stepped out, Marco wasn’t surprised to see he was suited up to a tee, even in the hot Louisiana summer. He was wearing a double-breasted Italian suit and shiny leather Italian-made shoes that in the 90-degree heat made him look ridiculous, in Mario’s opinion. Mario himself was a sharp dresser when the event called for it...but he’d be damned if he was going to sweat into expensive Italian silk. He rolled his eyes as Gianni buttoned up that double-breasted jacket, glanced both ways, and then strolled across the street as if he owned it. Gianni wouldn’t ever admit it to his uncle, but to anyone who knew him it was apparent that he held out hopes of someday sitting in his Uncle Mario’s chair. As long as Mario was breathing that would never happen, though, and if he was i
nvolved in this current mess, he might not live long enough to see it happen even after Mario was gone.

  Mario had given his capos the freedom to choose their own crew, within reason. Gianni had chosen a handful of cousins...and if Mario wasn’t wrong, and he rarely was, Gianni had chosen them based on their double-digit IQs. Gianni was under the impression that he could control men with low IQs better...Mario knew he was wrong, but he was the type of leader who was willing to sit back and let his men learn their lessons through their failures...unless, of course, those failures threatened to bring him down. When that happened, Mario stepped in, and did whatever he had to do to make it right...even if that meant losing a man, or two...even a family member. Mario’s sister was no fool. If her “baby boy” went missing, she’d know it was at Mario’s hand. But she also knew Mario paid the bills and she lived in the lap of luxury because of it. His sister loved her big house and fancy cars...and her freedom to fuck every cabana boy she could get her clutches into. Maria wasn’t a pretty girl, but with Mario’s money she didn’t have to be. She liked being a cougar and he was sure she liked it even more than she did her own son. As Mario watched his dark-skinned, dark-eyed, handsome nephew walk toward him, cleanly shaven and not a hair out of place, he knew in his gut that this was about to be one of those times where he had to take control, and he would do what he had to do to protect his “Family,” and anyone’s opinion about that could be damned.

  Maz had taken Maddox straight to Blackheart upon first arriving in New Orleans. As soon as Maddox walked into the little clubhouse that seemed to sit sideways, sinking down into the Louisiana mud, he could feel the pall that hung over it. Maddox spent a lot of time in the Westside Skulls clubhouse, and he’d become a regular at the gym the club ran in Fresno. He’d learned, long before he started spending time with bikers and boxers, how to read people, and especially how to read a room. Typically, a room filled with biker brothers and their families would be a loud, raucous place. Sometimes it would be filled with laughter, and sometimes with heated debates...but what Maddox had come to understand was that when one person in the club was suffering, they all were, and the silence that greeted the two from California that day confirmed it.

  Maz greeted a few people on their way through, but it was like watching a greeting at a funeral, with sad little hugs and kisses on the cheek. A few suspicious eyes landed on Maddox, but he knew that walking through with a trusted friend like Maz alone would give him the credibility he would need to do the job he’d been asked to do.

  They found Blackheart on the phone in his office. While the big, blue-eyed man finished his call, they waited, and Maddox got the feel of the room they were in. Behind the president, affixed to the wall, was the largest alligator Maddox had ever seen. Not that he’d seen too many of them, but this one had to be at least seven feet long. When Maz saw him looking at it, he smiled and said, “The boss took that monster down with his bare hands.” Maz looked like a child, bragging on something his daddy had done. Maddox smiled at him and then looked back over at “the boss.” Blackheart’s biceps were as big as most men’s thighs, and covered in colorful depictions of swamp life, Celtic symbols, and Catholicism. Maddox had ceased being surprised by anything long ago. The fact that a man like Blackheart who...he’d heard, at least...could feed a grown man to an alligator in the swamp without blinking twice, but still worshiped a God some didn’t even believe in, didn’t surprise him. There were more murderers in prison carrying around Bibles or Qurans than there were people in churches and mosques across the country. In the criminal mind, one seemed to almost cancel out the other, and he wasn’t shocked to see that Blackheart was no different.

  The blue-eyed man wrapped up his call and then turned to Maz and Maddox. He smiled at Maz and both men stood up. Blackheart came around the big desk and embraced his old friend, who by Maddox’s assessment seemed to hero-worship the older biker. He turned to Maddox then and held out his hand. Maddox shook it and watched the other man’s eyes. In them, he could see both anger and pain even as his mouth was curled into a smile. Maddox wondered how much of that anger Blackheart had turned onto himself. He knew that in his own case, he was angrier at himself for not protecting his family than he was at the drunk piece of shit who took them away.

  “Thank you for coming,” Blackheart said, in a thick Cajun accent. He spoke each word slowly and Maddox could tell that he was used to having to enunciate things to make sure people understood what he was saying. The Cajun language was so convoluted, such a cacophony of so many different languages, that to the average ear it sounded like the speaker was holding a mouthful of peanut butter and trying to speak around it.

  “Of course,” Maddox said as the three men all took their seats once again. As soon as Blackheart was in his, he looked at Maddox again and said:

  “I’m not in the habit of having to ask for help...but I will do anything, pay anything, give up anything if there’s even a chance that you might be able to help me find my sister.”

  “Wolf and the Skulls take good care of me. I’m here because they asked me to come, and I’ll do whatever I can to help find your sister. First, I’ll need to know what’s already been or being done, and we’ll go from there. Have you filed a missing persons report with the police?”

  Blackheart nodded, but Maddox could tell by the look in his eyes that he had little faith in the police, and that didn’t surprise him either. Most bikers were where they were because the government had somehow failed them or their family before them along the way.

  “Good. So, I’ll need to know about her movements at least twenty-four hours before she went missing, and I’ll need a list of anyone close to her, anyone who might have known her routines.” Blackheart was still nodding, but when Maddox added, “I’ll also need a list of anyone who might have an ax to grind with you or your club,” the nodding stopped and Blackheart’s blue eyes narrowed on Maddox’s face.

  “No. I’ll check out those close to me, and anyone who might have a grudge. That’s not what you’re here for.”

  Maddox stood up, and looking confused, Maz followed suit. Holding his hand out to Blackheart Maddox said, “It was nice meeting you and I hope you find her safe.”

  “What the fuck? You’re leaving?”

  “I can’t help you if you can’t trust me,” Maddox told him. Blackheart looked at Maz and Maz nodded at him, slightly. Pinning his blue eyes back on Maddox’s face Blackheart said:

  “Trust, as I’m sure you’re aware, doesn’t come easily to me.”

  “Nor does it to me,” Maddox said, “but working together without trust is pointless. If you want me to find your sister then you’ll have to give me access to everything...and I can’t stress this enough, Blackheart...everything.” The big biker sighed, looked at Maz once more, and then said:

  “Sit back down. This is going to take a while.”

  3

  “Uncle Mario...I was going to tell you...”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Mario was staring down at Louis the butcher. The man was still alive, but barely. He was tied to a bed with his arms over his head and his legs tied to each thick post on the footboard. There was a thick, leather strap around his chest, but from the looks of the condition the man was in, that was overkill. He didn’t look like he would have the strength for a thumbs-up, much less to pull his overweight, bruised, bloody body up off the bed and stand on the knees that were obviously twisted and broken. “What the fuck were you thinking?” Mario asked. His nephew didn’t speak right away and Mario snapped, “That wasn’t a fucking rhetorical question! What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “It was Frankie...”

  “No. You don’t get to blame this on your moronic crew. You picked them. You handpicked them and you told me that they would do whatever you told them to do. You’re their boss. What they do directly reflects on, or in this case, implicates, you. And sadly, your actions will affect and implicate me. I left Jersey to stay out of the short hairs of the cops and the men my father insi
sted on pissing off...and now this.” Mario growled and ran a hand through his thick, black hair. He wanted to punch his nephew. He was afraid if he started unloading on him that he wouldn’t be able to stop.

  “I was going to tell you, boss. I swear. I just wanted to have some kind of plan in place before we talked, and I’ve been trying hard to come up with one...”

  “It’s been a week, so obviously, not hard enough!” Gianni was sweating bullets. Sweat was beginning to seep through the expensive, Italian silk suit he was wearing and it was rolling and dripping off his face and actually pooling onto the wood floor underneath him. It was a pathetic display, and seeing his nephew practically pissing his pants only made Mario angrier.

  “It wasn’t Louis,” Gianni said. “Frankie overdid it with him, because he’s a fucking idiot...but this wasn’t what I was afraid to tell you, Uncle.”

  Mario didn’t like the sound of that. He had been sure there was more to it, but hearing his nephew stumble over the words as he tried to get them out of his mouth was proof that whatever he wasn’t telling him was worse than what he was. “Just spit it out,” Mario told him.

  “There was a girl there...she saw everything.”

  Mario opened his mouth, and then closed it. His nephew might have just brought the house of cards he’d been balancing down around them all. “You motherfucking moron! Where is she? Where the fuck is Blackheart’s little sister?” Gianni looked shocked that Mario had figured that connection out so quickly. It wasn’t a hard jump to make, but it was the worst-case scenario that Mario could have imagined...especially if she was dead. When Gianni didn’t find his voice right away Mario said, “If you hurt that girl, so help me God...”