Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
AMbrOS
“What the fuck? Did you say drugged?”
He holds up the scrap of fabric. “Chloroform, to be precise.”
“I don’t understand. How? Why?” Citi asks the same fucking questions I’m wondering.
“I don’t know, but I will, don’t worry about that. I need you to tell me things that you might not want to. But for Star’s sake, I need you to be honest with me, Citi,” Havoc orders, crossing his arms over his chest.
Citi doesn’t look up at him. Her worried gaze remains on Star as she answers. “What do you want to know?”
“Who have you had over here besides the MC and the women associated with us?”
She looks over at him with a frown. “You mean like delivery guys?”
“Sure, and anyone you would have let inside.”
“I haven’t let anyone inside.”
“Think a little harder, Citi.”
“I don’t need to Havoc. I haven’t let anyone inside other than you guys and your old ladies.”
“Someone knew your alarm code.”
“You’re sure you didn’t forget to set it?” Citi asks me without anger.
“Ambros wouldn’t forget something like that.” Havoc sighs, making me scowl at the man.
“I didn’t say he did. I was just asking.” She cocks her head before huffing, a look of disappointment on her face as she continues. “Oh, I see, it’s much easier to believe I told someone the code than it is for Ambros to forget to reset it.”
“I’m not pointing fingers. It’s easily done.”
“Really, because it sure as shit feels like you’re blaming me.”
“Or you’re just being defensive because you know I might be right. If you have someone after you, we need to know so—”
“So we don’t get abducted again? Are you serious right now? I don’t go anywhere or do anything. The park and my therapist’s office are the height of my social life until Ambros took me out last night.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” he grumbles. “I’m just trying to help.”
“You’re pointing your finger, or at least that’s how it’s coming across.”
“Someone stole your kid from her bed, Citi. They didn’t just walk through the wall. They turned off the goddamn alarm and walked right in. They could have killed you in your sleep and taken Star away, never to be seen again.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she hisses.
“Then fucking help me figure out who did this!” Havoc snarls.
I stand up and stomp over to him. “That’s enough. I get you’re freaked, I am too, but do not speak to her like that.”
His eyes narrow as he leans closer, but before he can say anything, Kruger runs in.
“Found something, Pres.”
Havoc’s head snaps around. “What is it? You get this asshole on camera?”
“Nathan’s still reviewing the footage. Found this in the driver’s foot well.” He’s holding a note in his hand. “Probably placed on the dash for us to see but slipped off.”
“What’s it say?” Citi asks as I move next to Havoc to read it.
Have you found my wife yet?
Perhaps this will incentivize you. Perhaps it won’t.
Maybe next time I’ll have to be a little more brazen, after all, it was so easy to slip through your defenses.
Find Lilac and return her to me, and all of this will stop.
Or ignore me, and I’ll pay this little family another visit, then move on to the next.
You have a baby at the clubhouse now, don’t you? And who doesn’t love babies?
“Havoc, what does it say?” Citi persists.
Havoc looks at me, a fire of retribution burning in his eyes. “It’s club business, Citi.”
She laughs—a wretched sound that brings tears to her eyes—and has us all turning to face her.
“So it wasn’t me who put us in danger like you thought, huh, Havoc?
It was you—or, should I say, the club. And instead of telling me what’s going on so I can protect myself and my daughter, you’ll hide the truth from me, even though you weren’t the one targeted. We were.”
“Citi—” he starts, but she swipes at a tear that slips free and turns away.
“Get out. All of you. Just go away and leave us alone.”
My eyes close in defeat as I feel everything unraveling. I walk over to her and cup her jaw, forcing her to look at me. “I am not leaving either of you.”
“No point in putting yourself in danger, Ambros. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be okay. It’s not the first time I’ve faced a psycho, and only one of us lived to tell the tale.”
“I’m not leaving the woman I love to deal with this on her own. Fuck that and fuck you for thinking I would.”
She freezes, her mouth falling open. “You love me? You don’t even know me.”
“I know everything that matters. Damn fucking right, I love you. Now, you’re going to give Star to me, while you go pack a couple of bags for both of you. I’ll get Con to box up the rest and bring it over.”
“Over where? I don’t understand.”
“To my house. I want you both with me, where I can watch over you and keep you safe.”
She bites her lip, looking around the room with an air of mistrust, before focusing back on me. She squares her shoulders and nods. “Okay.”
“Good girl. Now I’m going to take Star. You go do what you need to, then we’ll take her up to the hospital and get her checked out, to be on the safe side.”
“I texted Hannibal. He said that if her breathing and pulse are good, she’s not in any immediate danger, but get her checked out anyway. Most likely, she might wake up feeling a little nauseous and won’t remember anything,” Con offers. I wonder how Con has Hannibal’s number.
“Okay, thanks, Con,” she tells him softly, as I take Star from her and pull her to my chest.
Con walks over and takes Citi’s hand. “Come on, I’ll help you.” She looks at his hand for a beat before slipping her smaller one into his. He looks at me for a second before I give him a nod, and he leads her away.
I turn to face Havoc, trying to keep my temper in check. “I need to use the truck to get her home, so make sure they have everything they need from it.”
“You think this is a good idea? They can stay with me and Nevaeh.”
“I get you have a position you have to maintain Havoc, but you’d have to be nuts to think she’d agree to that right now.”
He runs his hands through his hair, looking agitated. “This is my fault. I’m the one who suggested this place.” He curses.
I look at Kruger, who looks like he’s two seconds away from going postal himself.
“Suggested this place for what?”
I look between them. I missed a shit-ton while my sister was sick, but if something happened and it involves Citi, I need to know about it.
“We had a client—Jack—who arranged a meeting with me and Nathan, wanting to hire ELM to find his missing wife. But the guy seemed off from the get-go. We declined to take him on, but he kept contacting Nathan, offering more and more as an incentive.”
Havoc takes over from Kruger, leaning against the edge of the sofa. “Around the same time, Hannibal had this guy Sam sniffing around his club, offering a percentage of his security business if he could rely on the MC’s protection. Hannibal had Kruger check him out.”
Kruger nods. “We tracked down Jack’s wife to warn her that Jack wanted to hire us to find her, only to learn that the Jack who was her ex-husband and our guy weren’t the same.”
“She had no idea who the other guy was?”
“None. But it was the same guy who called himself Sam who was poking around Hannibal.”
“I don’t get it. The woman you tracked down wasn’t his wife, so what does he want her for? And how does Hannibal tie into it?”
“The woman he had us look into was a test. He wanted to see if we could find her and how far we would dig. He also wanted to get a bead on what kind of MC we were. He hoped he could throw money at us and we’d do his bidding.”
Havoc picks the story up again. “The guy trying to hire Kruger was actually a PI. He was chasing us down for his client. And let me tell you, this Jack or whatever the fuck his name is, is as bat shit crazy as his employer. He’s trying to find his client’s wife—that part is true.
He’s looking for a woman named Lilac, who just so happens to be Lil. Our Lil.”
“Jesus, no wonder she ran.”
“Let’s not get into that,” Kruger grunts, and I remember that they used to be pretty close before she disappeared.
“Wait, does this mean he wanted in at Hannibal’s clubhouse to search for Lil? He thinks she went there?”
“It was one of his leads, yeah.”
I adjust Star in my arms so her head is over my shoulder. “How does this have anything to do with Citi and Star? They never met the guy, right?”
Havoc groans, shaking his head. “No, but Kruger needed somewhere to meet him at the last minute.”
I wait for the rest, but when it doesn’t come, I feel myself frowning in surprise. “You brought him here? While Citi and Star were living here? What the fuck, Havoc?”
“We were under the impression he thought Kruger and Delphi lived here. The lease is still in his name, after all.”
“Did Citi know?”
“That a guy with a bomb strapped to his vest was here? Of course, fucking not,” Havoc snaps.
“He had a bomb, and you let her come back here?” I’m questioning his fucking sanity right now.
“It sounds fucked, I know, but he really did seem to think I lived here.” Kruger steps forward.
“Oh yeah, so what would have happened when he came to kill you for not doing what he wanted? Instead, he finds a woman and a little girl. You think he’s above having some fun with them? Lil ran for a fucking reason, and I doubt it’s because the guy bored her to tears.”
“I fucked up, I know I did.” Havoc runs his fingers through his hair again, making it stick up all over the place.
“We both did,” Kruger admits.
“Yeah, but you didn’t double down and imply it was Citi’s fucking fault.” I point at Havoc. “He did.”
“Yeah, well, he probably got the alarm code from me. Don’t know how, but I used it to get in that day. Maybe he had a camera on it that I didn’t see or something.”
“Go check it out. See if you spot anything that looks off, too,” Havoc tells him before he looks to me and nods. “I’m sorry, Ambros. We never thought something like this would happen. We wouldn’t risk her that way. You have to know that.”
“Maybe I will when I’m less pissed. But right now, I can’t help but ask myself if you’d have taken the same risks if it were your old lady being hung out to dry instead of Citi.”