Chapter 17 #2
“They’re here. Let’s go,” Vail said, checking his phone.
He looked through the peephole first before stepping outside, looking around the dark parking lot as though worried that we were being watched.
But after a minute, he gave us the all-clear, and we followed.
Waiting in the parking lot were two charcoal grey SUVs, and one of the rear doors was opened.
Vail climbed in first, and Lee made sure I was right behind him before following.
Shaw, however, got in the front passenger seat, and we were off.
I found myself squashed between Lee and Vail, who reached over and buckled me in like I was a toddler, but I didn’t fight it.
Vail showing any sort of concern for my safety was reassuring, especially with what I was going to do tonight.
Once we started moving, I could finally take in the other men in the vehicle.
The SUV had been modified inside so that the two rows of rear seats faced each other, and when I took in the two men sitting across from us, I knew immediately that these were members of the Black Spades.
One of the guys was big and beefy, with lighter, brown hair hanging down his back and a long beard to match.
The coolest thing about him was probably the claws tattooed over the backs of his fingers, like a bear.
He was probably in his mid to late twenties, and though he looked like a terrifying biker, he smiled kindly, and the guys acknowledged him with a fist bump.
But the man to his left had my full attention.
He wasn’t as big or brawny, but something about him demanded attention and immediate respect.
His golden, tousled hair was streaked with grey, telling his age which I took to be his mid to late forties.
Even the whisker on his chin was full of greys.
But he had a handsome face, even though his forehead was marred with a massive pink scar that trailed down the left side of his eye.
This was a new one, probably in the last few weeks or so.
“Casey, this is Maverick Mathers, President of the Black Spades, MC. Maverick, meet Casey Cooper,” Lee said, introducing us.
“Casey.” Maverick nodded to me, his voice as gravelly as Shaw’s, though much deeper.
“Nice to meet you, honey. We appreciate you helping us out here.” His eyes roved around my face, studying my features, and his brows pulled together ever so slightly.
“Cooper, you said?” he confirmed to Vail, who simply nodded.
“Thanks for coming with us this time,” Vail said, lounging back in his seat.
Every so often, he peered out the window or looked behind us, searching for a set of headlights that could be on our tail, but the road was dark and empty as we took a backroad leading south to the edge of the West End of town.
“I hate sending you guys in there,” Maverick said, glowering at the thought.
“Should be us putting ourselves at risk… but Elias’s guys know our faces.
I didn’t realize he had the Beasts there at the docks that night.
We got fucked over,” he said bitterly, the fist resting on his knee clenching hard.
“Luckily none of our own got hurt, cuz the random biker they had with them who wasn’t wearing a Beast's cut, killed one of Elias’s own men…” Shaw muttered from the front seat.
“One of his own…?”
“A Jackal,” Vail explained, “from the high school.”
Maverick looked sharply at him, his eyes narrowed. “The biker wasn’t wearing a cut?”
“He was … a vest over a t-shirt… but he had no emblem on it from what I could see. Just a rocker.”
“Did it say, Nomad ?”
“Can’t say I got that close to him,” Vail snapped. “Not while he was busy sawing away at a screaming high school kid…”
“Bryce knew what he was getting into when he and Hunter had the Jackals suck up to the Faceless,” Shaw called from the front seat. “Aligning with them means you’re gonna die young. They just got cocky…”
“I don’t think Bryce deserved what he got,” Lee said, sounding a little sick. “I doubt he expected Elias’s own men to turn on him.”
“That biker is not Elias’s,” Maverick said, sighing heavily as he sat back in his seat, looking overly troubled. It actually worried me. Who was this guy that had everyone so unsettled? “He’s a nomad for hire. He’s Jeremy.”
“How do you know?” Vail asked him. “And who is Jeremy?”
“I know because only Jeremy is fucking crazy enough to walk into a gunfight with a chainsaw and attack the first person he sees with it. The fact that the kid was on the same side as him and he cut into him, not worrying at all about repercussions, on top of the actual act itself… well, that gives me my answer.” He ran his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes as though exhausted.
“I’d hoped he wouldn’t turn up here, but I heard whispers that he was in town. This is the first official sighting.”
“ Who is he?” Vail asked, his mask slipping ever so slightly. I could see the rage burning in his eyes. What Jeremy did, even though it was to a Jackal, was fucked.
“Like, I said, he’s a lone biker for hire and takes on jobs for insanely high payoffs, so the only ones who could afford him and would even want to are higher-up mob bosses or crime organizations.
Hence, Elias is bringing him in. Jeremy…
” Maverick trailed off, lost in thought for a moment as he chewed on his bottom lip.
“Jeremy just kind of showed up out of nowhere. No one knows anything about him. Where he’s from, relation, or even his fucking last name.
It started with a talk between the MCs, people who have heard about a Nomad Biker who traveled across the country, rumours about him being a sociopath, or a psychopath or some shit. I can’t remember the difference.”
“Have you ever met him?” I asked, feeling the hairs on my arms rising.
Maverick shakes his head. “Haven’t met him, no. But he’s the reason I suddenly found myself President instead of VP in recent months,” he spat out, his jaw clenched tight.
Oh, shit , I shuddered and leaned into Lee’s side, feeling safer when Lee’s arms were wrapped around me.
“Anyways, enough about that fucker. Tonight is just another night in the club, which means no Beasts. My informant said they had Church tonight.”
“Church?” My brow furrows, and I half-laughed.
“It’s what we call club meetings, honey.” He smiled at me, as though he found my ignorance about MC life endearing.
“So why not just call it a meeting?” I asked, scrunching my face up.
The others all laughed at me, like what I had said was a great joke or something.
But they moved on, not bothering to answer.
“Lee, you’ve seen Vail do this with Meredith enough times.
” Maverick handed him a shiny, oval, onyx pin, which Lee would stick onto his lapel.
“Flaunt the money.” The big burly guy handed Lee a wad of cash, and when I said wad, I mean…
like, hundreds upon hundreds of dollars.
My mouth drops as Lee splits it into smaller folds, tucking them away in various pockets of his suit.
“Confidence,” Maverick added, “Don’t take no shit.
You’re lucky you’re a big guy, so you can pass for someone older, and most likely, the others in there won’t fuck with you.
But you, honey.” He looked at me next. “I trust Meredith filled you in?”
I nodded, my hands twisting in my lap as we turned down a long, vacant road, pulling over to the side to where trees surrounded us.
They leered overhead, bare branches shaking in the cold wind.
There was no moon tonight, and the only light came from the glow of the dashboard as the drivers of both SUVs turned off their headlights.
“It’s okay to let them see you’re afraid,” Maverick said, his eyes moving to my hands and back to my face again. “For all they know, Lee’s taken you against your will, and you’ve been forced into your situation by him. Be meek. Be skittish. It’ll be more convincing.”
I nodded, sucking in a deep breath and holding it before exhaling.
“We’ll message, GREEN, if we’ve finished and it’s all clear for you to go. RED, if you need to get the fuck out of there. We’ll be standing by and watching through that camera.” He nodded to the lapel pin. He turned in his seat to look at Shaw. “You good if Animal covers you?”
Shaw twisted around in his seat to eye the massive guy sitting directly behind him.
The two locked eyes for a few seconds before he gave a subtle nod.
“As long as he isn’t breathing down my neck while I break in.
He stands out,” he said, slouching in his seat.
Honestly, I felt better knowing that there was a biker watching his back, and I breathed a little sigh of relief.
“Vail and I will be staking out in the woods keeping a lookout and watching the camera feed,” Maverick said and turned to point at the SUV that was leading the way. “The others will be on standby in case we need backup. Any questions?”
“Let’s fucking do this,” Lee said, clapping his hands together.
Maverick opened the passenger door and climbed out with the big guy called Animal, and they headed for the first SUV.
Shaw got out next, not saying a word as he looked back once to cast me a pained sort of expression.
I’m about to tell him to be careful, to please be safe, that…
I love him… but he closes the door before I could, and follows the two Spades.
“Casey…”