Chapter Seven
This was where my expertise came in. What most people didn’t realise was, the old saying was true, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Omen had been one of us for years, yes he’d fucked up, let a pussy lead him astray.
I had to play on that side of him, the feelings he had for the club.
There had to be some of that still in there.
For a long time, I stared at Omen. War was antsy, he paced a little until I glared at him. He stopped moving, the tension in the air was high. Despite the reasons for one of our brothers being tied to a chair, it was still a hard pill to swallow. Both of them understood I needed quiet, stillness.
Another tactic that held a lot of merit was keeping your silence during an interrogation, letting your target fill it, tripping themselves up or giving you information they hadn’t intended. It was a tried and true tactic for me. It didn’t always work, but with Omen it was the right move.
Initially, Omen kept up the eye contact, then his eyes lowered, his head dipping, so his chin rested on his chest. A couple of tears fell, splashing onto his t-shirt.
I didn’t feel sorry for him. What was coming for him was inevitable, everyone in the room knew it.
Question was, would he do anything to redeem himself before it happened?
I didn’t have to say anything, he started speaking on his own.
“Lily never told me what they planned on doing,” he said on a stutter. “Just said it was important she got Waverley away from the Devil’s.”
“Where have they taken her?”
I wasn’t going to engage with his bullshit excuses. I wanted to get to the heart of the matter, and fast. I didn’t think Dirt was about to burst in here and put a stop to it, but I wasn’t going to hang around waiting for him to show either.
“I don’t know,” he raised his head, trembling. “I swear, Hustle. Once we got off the compound, we drove to this meeting place, there was another van there, two guys were waiting. Lily went with them and they…” he paused and gulped, looking away.
“Did they hurt her?” my voice was even but my heart rate sped up. His next answer was make or break for him, our plan be damned.
“No, they just moved her. But, Lily…”
“Didn’t take you with them?” I filled the gap when Omen didn’t go on. I swallowed, knowing she wasn’t hurt helped. A little. It was clear the Kingsmen got what they wanted from him then dumped his ass. He’d lost his wife, his club and pretty soon, his life.
“We were supposed to go together but…” again he trailed off. “I never meant for things to go down the way they did, Stitch wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“What about the van?” I asked, even though I could see War about to burst out of his skin. I’d get to Connor soon enough. “Make, model, colour?”
“It was black,” he said through laboured breaths. “Econoline, it had a decal on the back, like a surfing thing. I didn’t see the plate but it looked old, like early 2000’s. No windows, except at the back but they were blacked out.”
They hadn’t thought Omen would have noticed or given us the information but one thing King instilled in everyone was to be aware of your surroundings.
I tried not to imagine Waverley being moved from Omen’s trunk to that van, keeping emotion out of my facial expression was key.
My blood was burning in my veins. They were going to pay for touching her, every last one of them.
“Where was the meeting point?”
He coughed, some blood spilled down onto his already stained t-shirt. “Morris Turnpike.”
So they’d gone south of Sussex, about a twenty-minute drive out of town to the meet point.
Ink said they hadn’t got anything from the place in Phillipsburg, the Turnpike was on the way there.
Handlebar left the room quietly, taking his phone out.
He’d be calling Kansas with the information on the van and direction they’d been heading.
“The two guys with her, you recognise them, know anything about them?”
He shook his head, if I wasn’t mistaken, there was shame in his eyes now. And immense guilt, it was eating him alive. Good.
“I never spoke to them. They just… uh took… her from my trunk then left in the van.”
I gritted my teeth. “Tell me about Lily.”
He gulped and more tears leaked out. I was getting sick of this.
Shit, I knew what it felt like to love a woman, to do anything you fucking could for her.
I’d walk through fire for Waverley. Case and point sat here going through all this, waiting to end this fucker.
But I would never betray my club. No woman could ever make me do that.
I was fortunate Wave was as loyal to the Devil’s as me, even if she didn’t want to admit it. I may have thought about walking away for her all those years ago, but that was before we’d been patched in, and that wasn’t a betrayal. That wasn’t selling out my club and causing them harm.
This wasn’t only about finding her or getting retribution for Connor. Itchy was dead because Omen kept this secret. Connor was hurt, twice because of this fucking asshole. I clenched my fists, I still needed more from him.
“I did meet her at the church, through my sister. We went out a few times and things started from there. I got in deep, she was perfect, you know, she wasn’t afraid of the club, despite being so religious.
She embraced it, she was a good girl.” That got a hissed curse from War.
“I didn’t know she wasn’t who she said she was, I fucking swear it War, on my nephews lives, I swear I didn’t know. ”
“Don’t talk to him,” I snapped, making Omen flinch and turn back to me. “When did you know?” I ignored his pleading, even when he started crying in earnest, disgusted at the piece of shit.
His ass shifted on the seat and he groaned in pain, his jaw looked pretty fucked up. “A few months ago she started saying things, about how I ought to be moving up in the club.”
“To do what exactly?” War scoffed. “Become an officer? You’re fucking delusional.”
“I know that, man. I know. I’m a member, I was happy with that. I love the club, I-”
I hit him, lurching up high enough from my seat to swing a fist straight at the side of his face. It was swift and had enough force behind it that the shock of it had more impact. Far more than just tying him up and beating him relentlessly.
I hoped War was learning something from this. Sometimes, being hot headed wasn’t the way to go. Omen’s head snapped to the side. Something popped in his face. I sat back down as he coughed and moaned. Looked like I’d broken his eye socket.
“You betrayed the club,” I said in an even, but menacing tone, sounding a lot like a psychopath I’m sure some people thought I was. “Don’t disrespect it even further by saying that shit. How’d she turn you?”
It took him a while to answer, he was gasping from the obvious pain he was in.
“I don’t know. It was…over time,” he spat out more blood, his face wincing. “She kept saying I could move up higher if I went to a different club. It was… she just wore me down and eventually I started to think about it.”
It was really fucking hard to hear this shit and not kick the hell out of him.
“I met up with a couple of them,” he finally said, his voice so low I had to lean in.
“Kingsmen?” His nod was barely perceptible. “Who?”
“Low level guys, Stiverson was the main guy.”
I sat back slightly at the name. War and I killed that guy a few weeks ago, after he started the events that got Itchy killed.
I’d sat and watched that fucker gloating about what he was doing to the club, we all had.
Omen had been in that room when we all sat and watched how the Kingsmen’s attack had ripped the club apart. And he said nothing.
“Where’d you meet?”
“Branchville.”
Everything was pointing South. The Kingsmen were situated east of us, closer to New York.
Despite being a small club, they tried to cover a lot of territory, skirting around where we controlled.
They’d always been chaotic in the way they worked, never setting down any real roots or showing any loyalty to who they dealt with.
Oftentimes, they dealt with rival factions, they didn’t care who they sold to or who they worked for, they were just out for money, at least, that was how it had seemed the last few years.
Devil’s Chaos stuck to and had control over our immediate area, because we had a lot of chapters around here, both in New Jersey and the surrounding states. We were also smart about who we had dealings with and that meant the heavy hitters were happy to work with us when the time came.
Lately we’d been making some connections with the Irish in New York. They avoided the Kingsmen like the plague, another reason why we were a far superior club and why, they wanted to take us down. But it wouldn’t work.
“I never met the officers, he said they were on board with it, with me making a switch.”
“Fucking idiot,” War muttered. I didn’t chastise him this time. I agreed.
“And through all this, you didn’t actually question why Lily wanted you to make the move?
You’re that fucking pussy whipped and stupid that it never entered your head she was playing you?
” I shouted. He flinched away. Up until now, and that one punch, I’d been the easy going one in the room.
Big mistake him believing that. As he looked up, the realisation filled his squinted eyes.
My reputation finally seemed to dawn on him.
He didn’t answer. I tried to get him to talk more but he was weakening the more we talked, descending into a blubbering mess, pleading for his life, swearing up and down he never meant to betray us. He was on the verge of passing out at one point and was beginning to piss me off.
Moving the chair I stood before him. I didn’t look at War as I asked. “What about Stitch?”
“That wasn’t me,” he cried out. “I would never do that. I wouldn’t. Despite everything, I couldn’t hurt a brother like that.”