Chapter 3—Bass
I can’t get the woman’s words out of my head. I’ve seen a lot of shit in my life, and I recognize what PTSD is. But this is the first time I’ve seen it in a kid. And don’t even get me started on how long before I realized that’s what the kid has.
At first, I chalked it up to a scared kid not being around the “big bad” before. Not that we Hounds would ever hurt a kid, but we’re strangers. They have no idea what we’re capable of. I honestly just thought it was a typical kid’s reaction, that he hadn’t see a weapon before or something. The club might have kids around, more lately than before, but that didn’t mean I spent much time with them. I’m here for a few laughs, and that’s about it.
But as I sit at the bar at the clubhouse, nursing the whiskey the prospect manning the bar gave me as a “welcome home” gift, I keep replaying the scene in my head. No matter how many angles I try to force on it, only one is true: That kid went through some serious shit. And I made it worse for him.
“There he is. The man of the hour.”
I grunt as I hear Chains’ voice behind me and feel him approach at my back. I look up and see his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, noting that he isn’t alone.
“Oh yeah?” Casper says, sliding up on my left as Chains takes my right. “What makes him so great?”
I just shake my head, as I already know they’re teasing me. They must have missed me a ton to be starting in on the jokes so soon on my return.
“Don’t know many who can strike out with a woman within twenty minutes of being home. Man, did you lose your touch up north, or did you not get any practice in the last ten months and forgot how to flirt?” Chains says with a wide grin as he accepts the beer the prospect places in front of him, Casper grabs his beer as well, and they cheers.
I let their chuckles surround me as I take another sip of the whiskey. The burn warms me as always, but it still doesn’t clear my head of the words that keep rattling around inside.
“What do you know of her?” It’s rare that I’m the one who brings the jokes to a stop. Hell, I’m usually never serious. This might be a first for me outside Church or a mission. Even then, though, I’m still cracking jokes half the time.
Casper raises an eyebrow as Chains shrugs before he answers. “Not much. Flint ran her through the system, but nothing popped.”
“And he’s never missed anything before, huh?” I say with a huff of a laugh, thinking about a few others we let in the club who we thought nothing about till things took a turn.
This time Casper glares, and there’s a hint of irritation in his voice. “You saying we can’t trust a brother?”
“Not saying that.” I shake my head. I’d never not trust a brother. “Just saying that it wouldn’t be the first time the club missed something. I know we have a lot going on, and some things are bound to slip through. Even if we didn’t have our hands in so many jars, I doubt we’d catch everything. The world is changing.” I shrug. “It’s getting harder to tell who you can trust these days is all.”
They both hum in understanding. This isn’t about trusting a brother’s ability to hack into a person’s background, or saying that we’ve got a lot going on, and maybe one man isn’t enough to look over everything like it used to be. We have the best of the best. We either buy it or recruit it. But the world keeps growing, evolving. Even amateurs can make a decent fake ID now. You bring in someone with a little talent, and it’s easy to see how they could get something past us. I saw it more than once when I worked up north.
“I can ask Flint to do a deeper dive,” Casper says with a nod. He might not be the VP or the president of the club, but Casper has a lot of pull around here. As the club’s enforcer, his job is to keep us all safe. The VP deals with making sure the club runs smoothly, and the president looks over everything to keep us on track. The enforcer has one of the hardest jobs from my perspective.
“Thanks, man.” I tip my whiskey to him with gratitude, and he indulges me by raising his beer to tap my drink.
Call it what you will. Either the girl got me bugging out over a few simple words, or maybe I was in the field too long and stopped trusting anyone who wasn’t a brother. We usually send people home for R attempting to kidnap all the old ladies and Law’s kid.
“Yo.” Casper runs back into the main room and shakes his head before going back the way he came.
“Shit. Okay, Mama Bear, I need you to stay calm.” Chains is out of his seat, and I’m right there with him. “Need you to get the kids and head to the safe room. Take the gun in your nightstand with you, and I’ll be there in a second.”
I catch the clubhouse’s door a second after Chains, hot on his heels as we exit the building. Domino and Kooper are talking by the bikes, and I nod at them once before nodding toward Chains. My action puts a pause in their conversation enough for them to head in our direction. Not sure how many brothers we’re going to need, but Hounds don’t go in alone if we can help it.
“Okay, good. I’m on my way ba—”
Gunshots from across the road have us all ducking a second before we realize it’s not aimed at us.
“Go!” I yell as I lead the group toward the open club compound gate and across the street.
“Shit, babe, get to the safe room now. Run, baby.” Chains hangs up after yelling at his woman but doesn’t put his phone away.
I’m the first to hit the back fence of our rental property and bend down so as not to draw the eyes—or a stray bullet—from the one shooting. The automatic lights are on, and I chance a quick glance over the fence to confirm no one’s in the yard.
“Casper, shots fired at the rental,” Chains says into the phone.
It’s not on speaker, but he’s holding it out for us all to hear as Domino and Kooper also hunch low beside us.
“Can you tell which one it is? Both have cameras installed, but it’ll help me narrow down which one to focus on.” Flint is going to be pissed that he missed this. Especially if Casper messes up his system. He might not be the fastest with technology, but each brother knows how to work the system so Flint can take a break from manning the coms all the time.
We all shake our head, but it’s Chains who communicates it. “Negative. We were too far, and the echo played it off. Could be either one.”
Another shot breaks out, and we duck lower as our eyes move over to the fence. We watch as someone stumbles through the screen door on the left property, smashing out the screen as they step backward. The body jerks again a second before the sound registers that another gunshot was fired. And again and again as the person keeps moving back a step or two.
I’ve seen this before, and I’ve also been morbidly curious if the impact of the bullet makes them step back or if the person getting shot is still trying to get away. Doesn’t matter. They miss the steps leading down the porch and fall backward, landing with a solid thud before they stop moving completely.
The creak of the door being opened draws our attention away from the body. Not sure why they opened the door with the man-sized hole there that they could have walked through. Less noise, too, if they didn’t want to alert anyone to their presence.
Amateur.
The automatic lights we installed in the back only do so much—a fact we’ll be correcting after this shit, I’m sure. The person who walked out is still in darkness. We can see an outline, but the features are what’s missing till they take that last step into the floodlight beam on the porch to stare down at the body below. It’s not moving, but that doesn’t stop them from raising their gun and firing one last time. I might not be right on them, but I recognize a kill shot when I see one.
“Damn. If we find out this chick isn’t half as crazy as she seems, I want dibs,” Domino hisses, and I have half a mind to smack him upside the head.
Not because I think he’s wrong for finding what she just did hot as hell. I’m sporting my own semi in my pants from her actions. More for the instant thought that I wanted to tell him I’d already called dibs. You know, when we were back at the birthday party, and I insulted her kid and forced her to leave early?
But thankfully, I’ve got half a brain. And I might like crazy, but I doubt I’ll like this much crazy.