Chapter 12
Twelve
Brick
Sunlight beams into the room, and I roll over to get away from it.
I feel like I could sleep another couple of hours. I reach over for my pillow, but it's not there.
Instantly, I push up when I realize I'm not home.
A soft groan from the other side of me reminds me exactly where I am: Luna's place.
Last night was nothing short of absolutely miraculous. I'm not sure why it felt so good, but all I know is I'm addicted. I want as much of that woman as I can get. I'm not usually one to beg, but I'll get on my knees every day for the rest of my life if I have to.
"Brick?" Luna grumbles from my side. Her eyes aren't open yet, so I can't tell if she's still sleeping or not. Is she dreaming about me? That I think would be a first.
"I'm here, Sweetness." I push strands of her disheveled hair away from her face, and she slowly blinks her eyes open. I expect a little bit of confusion, but when she focuses on my face, there's nothing but a sweet smile.
I don't deserve this woman. Just the way she's looking at me now lets me know that.
"Did you sleep alright?"
"Yeah, I'm straight." I don't want to remind her that I used to sleep in a narrow twin cot for years, so I could basically sleep on the floor nowadays and still get a good night's rest.
"Last night was intense," she purrs as she moves closer to me and wraps her arms around my midsection. I get comfortable and pull her closer.
"Tonight will be too." I kiss the top of her head, and she playfully swats my stomach.
"What about the day? What are we going to do about what we found out?" She questions, and right away, the at-ease feeling I had is gone. I could have gone a few more hours without thinking about that damn thumb drive, but she's right; we need to get back to the clubhouse and put our heads together to figure out what the next steps are.
"We need to get back to the clubhouse. I'm going to talk to Dutch and see if he's the one who knows where your sister is, but there's no way I can do that on my own. It all depends on how he takes it. If he's cool about it, he'll just want to make a trade, but if he's pissed, it could turn into a firefight." I huff out a breath.
"I've never been in a firefight before."
"And you never will, as long as I can help it." I move away from her to look in her eyes; I want her to know that I'm not going to budge on this.
"You've got to be kidding me. You think there's a possibility that my sister might be there, and I'm going to let you leave me somewhere?"
Here we go with the fighting. I push up out of bed, taking one of the sheets with me so I can cover myself. "Luna, I'm not taking you to the seven-oh-sevens territory. That's just not happening."
"Well, I guess this is the part of the lesson you don't understand. You don't get to tell me where I'm going or what I'm doing, Brick. I trust you and what you need to get done, but I'm not going to just sit back and wait. I'm not built like that, especially when it comes to my sister. So here are your options: either you take me with you, or I go behind your back and deal with the fallout after the fact. I called you last night to help me, not take over."
I grind my teeth together, fighting the urge to just tell her to shut the hell up. I don't want to have to fight about this. I don't want to have to convince her that her life is way too fucking important to just chance it.
"How would you go behind my back? You already told me that you didn't know who any of these people are." I squint my eyes at her, a bit of suspicion creeping in.
"And you already told me they are major players. I know where most of the drug houses are, and I'm sure there's more than enough people who would tell me the location for a little bit of money. You're not the only one who runs in those circles, Brick."
I open my mouth to retort, but she's absolutely right. All it would take is one or two questions, and she'd probably have the same information that I do.
"You're so infuriating," I growl before I bend and pick up my pants to slide on.
"Yeah, I'm trying, but you and I both know I can be easy too." She winks at me, and I nearly pull my pants back down.
I hesitate for only a second until I'm able to shake the already blooming thoughts of taking her again out of my mind. "Don't do that, or we'll never get out of here."
"Give me a few minutes to wash up, and I'm right beside you." She rushes out of the bed, leaving me in the room shaking my head, trying to figure out how I managed to be bested by her while palming my cock through my pants.
She's going to ruin everything, but I can't say I'm not looking forward to it a little.
It really doesn't take her very long to finish getting dressed, and the minute she's ready, we are on my bike and racing back toward the clubhouse.
I push open the door, and Luna is right beside me. Light, Hook, Pipe, and Semi are all in the main area.
"What did I tell you? Pay me my money!" Light jumps up from his seat, doing some strange-ass chicken-looking dance while he shoves out his hand in each of their faces. One by one, and with a healthy amount of cursing, they all place at least two bills in his hands.
I don't bother to stand around and figure out what they are betting about, but Hook and I converge as I'm making my way to my room.
"What the hell was that about?" I question.
"Light bet us that you would be coming back here with your ol' lady; none of us believed it was possible. I guess the impossible happens all the time." He claps me on my back before he turns and walks to his own room where his ol' lady is most likely lounging around.
"What does that mean?" Luna asks from next to me, but I don't respond. I'm not trying to scare her off by telling her that they think I'm going to keep her with us forever. What if that's not on her mind at the moment? What if she doesn't see her life with me? No. I'm not going down that road yet.
"Come on." I finally get her into my room and let her sit on the bed. "I need to have a meeting with the guys. It's private, and no one but patched-in members are allowed inside. I need you to stay here."
I can see the gears turning in her head already. She's ready to start making moves on her own. I know she's always had to do this, but I wish she'd just stop.
"I promise we won't go anywhere or do anything until you know what's up."
She nods, and I reach into her pocket to grab the thumb drive we took from her house.
I'm actually not looking forward to showing the guys this. We made it our business to stay out of everyone else's dealings, and this thumb drive puts us squarely in the middle. I shove the drive in my pocket and walk out of my room, making sure to close the door as quietly as possible so I don't give away how tense I am to Luna.
"Semi, Pipe, get everyone for church," I call out to them as I make my way across the hall to the large room.
I sit inside for a few seconds, just listening to the silence. There are so many choices that I can make. Choices that might just wind up with some of us killed or back in jail. But this is the position I wanted; I wanted to be the one leading this group of misfits through life. The bad parts are definitely part of it.
A few seconds tick by before the door opens and the rest of the club starts to file in. All of them are wearing different versions of the same smug smile on their faces.
"Do we order the wedding flowers now or later?" Light jokes, and everyone cracks up with him.
Any other day, that might be funny, but today isn't the day. Not when all this extra shit is going on. "Can it," I bark out, and instantly everyone shuts up.
I see Semi and Torch shoot each other a look. Apparently, this isn't the type of meeting they thought they were going to be in on today.
"Yes, Luna is still here. I'm still vouching for her, but our relationship hasn't gone any farther than that. I'm calling you all in here because we've got some sensitive information that might change how we do business with the seven-oh-sevens or possibly put a target on all of our backs. I need you all to be prepared. Also, we need to figure out how we're going to move forward with the information we have here." I look over to Light, who has a serious expression on while he stares back at me. "Light, I need you to get something in here so we can watch what's on this." I pull out the thumb drive so he can see it, and he quickly nods his head.
Light rushes out of the room, but the others are already starting to question what this is all about.
"Does this have to do with her sister? Did you find out more information on her?" Hook asks.
"It does have to do with her, though she's still missing. The other night when Luna's place was broken into, we don't think they were there for her per se, but for this." I seesaw the thumb drive between my fingers, and the rest of the guys grow somber. They all know it has something to do with the seven-oh-sevens, and if they are already willing to break in and hurt someone for what's on the drive, it must be important to them. And we are in possession of it. That means the fight is coming to us.
I don't have to spell it out for the guys. Shit is about to get real.
Soon after, Light comes in with a large flat-screen TV. I'm sure it's one of the throwaways he's got in his shop. Every so often, he just shows up with refurbished shit. I'm just glad he's not out stealing it. We don't have a hook or anything for it, so he just places it up against the wall so we all can see it. After he plugs it in, he connects his computer to it and then reaches over for the thumb drive.
I hand it over to him and instantly feel lighter with it out of my possession.
It's dead silence in the room while Light gets it set up and then presses play. It starts in the same place I saw it start last night: Dutch beating a man in a chair. This time, I don't have to stop it because none of us find it too hard to keep watching. Every last person in this club has seen the worst of society. We know just how bad things can get.
When it's finally over, over thirty minutes worth of footage, we have more information on the street gang than I ever wanted, including certain members of the gang making plans to come take us out.
Now it went from a problem to personal.
I can't be sure that Dutch knows what's going on, but I know if Daly is involved with it, it's probably because he's going to use it to get back into the group or, better yet, maybe overthrow Dutch.
"We can't ignore this shit," Semi's gruff voice snaps me to attention.
"No shit. The question is, what the hell do we do with it without getting any of our people hurt? If this shit goes to the cops, Dutch is done for; if we do nothing, not only do we lose out on finding Wendy, but there's a very real chance that all of our days are numbered. I'm thinking we've got to pull Dutch's chain. Let him know there's more snakes in his grass and see if he'll work with us instead of against us."
"You know that's going to be a hard sell. He doesn't see us as equals. He thinks because we don't go around shooting and robbing people, we're just wannabes," Pipe answers.
"I don't give a fuck what he thinks of us. Right now, we've got him by the balls. We know who in his operation to look out for, and at any given moment, we could drop this off to the cops, and he'll be in jail for life. I'm not sure he's built for that life." I let my eyes roam around the room, just trying to feel out where everyone else might stand on this.
"Are you doing this all for that woman?" Torch questions. The words are coming from his mouth, but I swear they came from Semi's brain. Semi is a good brother, but he never fails to check us, even me, if he feels like shit is off.
"You don't get to fucking question who or what I'm doing it for. You want to sit back and wait for these bastards to roll up on us and take us out? Say that. You want to try and get ahead of it? Say that. But don't fucking question my motives. Ever. In your fucking life." I stand from my seat, just waiting for him to say another word.
I would have no trouble going toe-to-toe with anyone in this room, and if Torch keeps poking the bear, I just might have to.
"No, Brick is right," Hook speaks up. "It doesn't matter who this started out for; it involves us now. Honestly, it's partially our fault for letting those bastards think we'd be such easy targets. It's damn near sickening to think we're the easy kill they think we are."
A round of grumbles starts through the group, and soon after, they are all nodding in agreement.
I glare at Torch a second more before I sit back down and take a breath; I need to keep this calm. "Now that we know the stakes and what these assholes are planning to do, what's the vote? Do we sit on this information, give it to the cops, or try to talk this shit out with Dutch even though it might go bad?"
Light leans forward and stares at me. "Well, we picked out prime locations to dump the bodies if it comes to that. Doesn't make sense to let them go to waste."
I laugh at that.
After the shit that went down with Bea and Hook, I knew it was going to be impossible to keep on skating by without getting our hands dirty. I would try my best, but if someone had to go, I wanted to make sure we had a place to put them. Seems like we're going to use those graves a lot sooner than I was expecting.
I look around the room, and everyone votes. It's unanimous. I'm going to have to take another meeting with Dutch. Let's see what else this bastard has up his sleeve.