Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
KRUGER
I shake hands with the client and wait for him to climb into his car before turning to Nathan. “What do you think?”
“I think Jack Davis is a lying piece of shit.”
“Yeah, that was my take too. He says all the right things, but everything that comes out of his mouth is just a little off.”
“So, what do you want to do here? He obviously wants us to find his wife, though the reason why is bullshit.”
“Obviously. I still want to find the wife, offer her help pro bono if she needs it, and warn her this motherfucker is looking for her.”
“I think he was banking on you not giving a shit about anything but the money he’s offering. You’re a biker, after all. You don’t have morals.”
“Yeah, the cut makes people think I’m an asshole.”
“I don’t have the heart to tell them, you being an asshole has nothing to do with the cut.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, I know a security firm out in Tempest that deals with this kind of thing. Might tag them in on this because, with the guy being a lawyer, and the connections he has, we need to keep everything on the up and up.”
“It’s the only reason why I agreed to take the meeting.
I was also curious about how he heard of us.
We’re a small unit in bumfuck nowhere. I get that we draw business from all the local towns and smaller cities, but he’s coming to us from another state.
We’re good, but he could have found a security company closer who would work just as well.
Plus, we lean toward protection and cybersecurity.
It’s not often we’re tagged with tracking someone down, let alone retrieving them, but he spoke with a certainty that we’d done it before. ”
“And that’s not something we advertise. Someone told him.”
“Exactly. Again, nothing outright for me to say is wrong, and yet it all feels off.”
“You recognize him from anywhere? There is something about him that seems familiar, but I know I haven’t met him before.”
“Might have been on the news, depending on how high-profile his cases are. I’ll do some digging on this guy. See if we can find anything useful.”
“Tomorrow. I’m gonna head home. You should do the same.”
Nathan salutes me. “Aye, Aye, Captain.”
I shake my head as he walks to his car. It’s a fifty-fifty shot whether he goes home or back to the office.
I head to my bike, pulling out my cellphone to turn the ringer back on, cursing when I see a few missed calls, one of them being Delphi’s.
Before I can call her back, the phone rings in my hand. It’s Havoc, so as much as I want to send it to voicemail, I don’t. I answer with the intention of getting him off the line when he speaks.
“Delphi’s okay.”
“What? What do you mean, she’s okay? What’s going on?”
“I don’t have all the details yet, just that Del’s okay, but Theo is hurt. Head to the trailer. I’m five minutes out.”
I stare at the phone when he hangs up, cursing that we took the fucking meeting here instead of at the offices. Even if I speed the whole way home, it’s still going to take me forty-five minutes.
With a curse, I dial Delphi. She answers after two rings. “Delphi? What happened?”
“Theo’s hurt,” she tells me quietly as I climb on my bike and shove my helmet on, switching the phone over to Bluetooth so I can ride and talk at the same time.
“How bad?”
“Bad. If the guys don’t get here soon, I’m going to have to call an ambulance. I might get arrested, though.”
“What? Back up. Why would you get arrested?”
“I might have beat the shit out of Josh with a tire iron,” she admits as I grip the handlebars harder than necessary.
“That won’t happen. Havoc is a few minutes out. He’ll take care of everything.”
“Okay.” She’s quiet. So fucking quiet for a minute, I wonder if she’s having a seizure until I hear her whispered voice.
“He hurt Theo, Kruger. He hurt our boy.”
Our boy. Somewhere along the way, the stray became a fundamental part of our family. If he doesn’t make it…
“He’s strong. He’ll get through this. Never will that asshole lay a single hand on him again. You tell Theo that from me, okay?”
“I’ll tell him.”
I hear commotion in the background and panic for a second until I recognize Havoc’s voice.
“Havoc’s here. I have to go. But please hurry. I need you.”
“I’m coming, chestnut. I promise. I love you.”
I make the hour journey in forty minutes, taking risks that could either get me arrested or kill me.
But it still feels like a lifetime before I pull up outside the trailer and find a handful of my brothers’ bikes outside.
I park mine beside them and jog to the door, which opens before I can even touch it.
Havoc is standing there waiting for me. When I try to move past him, he holds me back. “Need to get the story straight with you first, because the cops will be here any minute.”
I look at him impatiently, willing him to hurry the fuck up.
“As far as anyone is concerned, a random asshole off the street did this.”
“What?”
He steps aside, which is when I see Josh on the floor, unconscious but breathing. When I look at the state of him, I turn back to Havoc in shock.
“Who did that?”
“Delphi.”
“I know she started it, but I mean, who finished him off?”
“Delphi,” he says again firmly. “He was like this when I got here.”
“Fuck me.” I feel my dick twitch at the thought of my woman beating this piece of shit to near death before I realize he must have done some damage to her, too.
“I need to see her. Theo too.”
“Two seconds. Couldn’t avoid calling the cops because Theo needs an ambulance.
So the story is, Theo called Delphi, saying he’d been attacked before passing out.
When Delphi got here, she saw someone running from the trailer, but she didn’t get a good look at them.
When she walked in, she found Josh like that, and Theo passed out in the bedroom.
We’re keeping it like that for now. Theo keeps drifting in and out of consciousness, so we can’t tell him what to say. ”
“And as it stands, he has no clue what happened to Josh anyway.”
“Exactly.”
“Alright, got it. Now, where are they?”
“Back bedroom, door at the end of the hall. Oh, and Kruger? You might want to get Delphi down to the gym so she can burn some of that shit out of her system.”
I nod as I walk away, thinking of the mangled state of Josh’s body. I don’t know if that’s from her bottling everything up or if it’s from a mama bear protecting her cub. But one thing’s for sure—when push comes to shove, Delphi is more than capable of handling herself.
I push the door open and spot Mac first. He’s kneeling on the opposite side of a large bed. He looks over at me and nods. “Kruger.”
Hearing my name, Delphi leans forward. When she sees me, she takes a deep shuddering breath before getting to her feet and throwing herself into my arms. I hold her tight, breathing her in for a second before I place her back on her feet so I can take her in.
I pull away and look her over, my eyes moving over her body, looking for injuries.
I don’t find a scratch on her, and the streaks of blood don’t appear to be hers.
“I’m okay. It’s Theo that’s hurt.” She takes my hand and drags me around the bed.
I curse when I catch sight of Theo and drop to my knees beside him. “Hey, Bud, you look like shit.”
He huffs out a laugh that turns into a hiss, which in turn earns me a slap on the chest from Delphi. “Kruger,” she whispers.
I reach for his arm and give it a gentle squeeze, not wanting to hurt him. “Yeah, I’m here, Bud. I’m not going anywhere.”
I turn to Mac as I hear sirens approaching. “How’s he doing?” I ask him quietly.
“Breathing is a bit shallow for my liking. That’s why I haven’t moved him.”
“You thinking broken ribs?” A broken rib can easily puncture a lung, which will fuck with his breathing.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m watching for. Nothing else looks broken, but it’s hard to tell with this much swelling. I want five minutes alone with that motherfucker when he wakes up.”
I grunt. “You and me both.”
“Gotta ask how attached you are to Delphi.”
I whip my head around to look at him. “What the fuck?”
He shrugs. “I’ve been hard since I saw what she did to that motherfucker.”
“I will cut your dick off and feed it to you if you don’t keep my woman out of your dirty fucking thoughts.”
“Seriously?” Delphi hisses from beside me. I turn and find her glaring at us both. “You’ve seen what I’m capable of. Do not push me right now. I’m a woman on the edge.”
My lips twitch, but I’m smart enough to fight it back. Mac, not so much.
“It’s like you want me to hurt you,” she growls at him.
He looks at me. “You lucky fuck.”
I grin. What can I say? We’re all a bunch of weirdos.
The sirens seem to be coming from right outside the house now. I move back, making space for the EMTs who I see through the window, hustling inside.
“Help’s here now, Theo,” I tell him.
Two EMTs push their way into the room. A woman in her mid-thirties and a man, perhaps five years younger, hurry after her.
“Okay, what do we have here?”
Delphi steps forward. “His name is Theo. He’s fifteen. He called me about an hour ago to tell me his stepdad hurt him. I hurried over and found him like this.”
“His breathing is shit. I didn’t want to move him because of his ribs,” Mac adds.
“Good call. Alright, Theo. My name is Mandy, and I’m just going to check you over, okay? Let me know if anything hurts.”
Mandy looks up at me. “Is that the stepdad bleeding on the living room floor?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice work,” she mutters.
“As much as I’d love to take credit, I’ve only been here five minutes myself.”
“He was like that when I got here. Someone was running from the trailer when I arrived, so I hung back for a minute, not wanting them to come back. I should have come in sooner,” Delphi says, worrying her lip.
“Never apologize for being smart. He could have circled back, or there could have been someone lying in wait. There would have been nobody here to raise the alarm if you’d been attacked too.
Women have to be extra cautious, and we both know that sometimes a beating is the least damaging thing a man can do to a woman. ”
Delphi nods and reaches for my hand as they start working on Theo. After five minutes, the male paramedic disappears and comes back with a gurney.
“We’re going to take him in and get him checked out. I don’t think his lungs are compromised, more so that he’s breathing shallow because it hurts. But we’ll need X-rays to rule it out. You’re not his mom, are you?”
“No, I’m—”
Theo reaches out his arm toward Delphi, yanking on the oxygen mask on his face. “She is. She’s the one I chose.”
Delphi swallows hard before moving toward him. She bends down and presses her lips to his head. “I’ll meet you at the hospital, okay?”
“Okay,” he murmurs as the paramedic places the mask back over his face.
Mandy turns to Delphi and lowers her voice before telling her which hospital she’s taking him to. “Do you know how to reach his mom?”
Delphi shakes her head. “I’ve never met her, and she wasn’t here when I arrived, either. I have no idea where she might be.”
I step closer, moving behind Delphi and sliding my hands up and down her arms. “I’ll ask the guys to see if they can track her down.”
“Thanks.” Mandy turns and pushes Theo out into the hallway.
Delphi face plants against my chest. “I wanted to kill him, Kruger. I still do.”
“You’re not alone in that chestnut. I do too.”
“The whole club feels the same way, babe,” Mac adds as she lifts her head.
“Thanks for coming. I tried calling, but nobody answered their phones, and I panicked.”
“We need to get G to set up an SOS so we know if it goes off in church, it’s an emergency,” Mac says, giving her arm a squeeze.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
“What is?” G asks as he walks in and looks around, his eyes falling on Delphi.
Mac explains the whole SOS idea, and G nods. “I should have thought of that myself. Anything else you need?”
“Yeah, can you see if you can track down Theo’s mom? The paramedic asked about her, and I have a feeling we’ll run into some issues at the hospital without her to consent to things.”
Mac sighs. “I know someone who might be able to help. Works for CPS and owes me a favor.”
“How the fuck does someone from CPS owe you a favor?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, if it helps, Kruger and I have done the training, background checks, and everything else we needed to do to become foster parents. We just haven’t done the home visit yet. Hard to do that part when we clearly have a teen boy living there already.”
Mac nods. “That’s good. That will help.”
“Guess you saw the writing on the wall,” G adds, pulling out his cell phone.
“I’ll get the girls in to make sure everything is covered for a visit.
Heck, they can call Lola if they need to.
Wasn’t that long ago they had CPS in to assess the place for Millie moving in.
You won’t need to hide Theo’s stuff either.
We can just say, after all this, you rushed out to get the room sorted so he had a safe place to go, just in case. ”
“Good, because whether they let us take him home or not, like fuck will I let him back here with Josh. I’d rather hide him out with Hannibal. They’d soon give up looking. Shitty as it sounds, kids like Theo fall through the cracks more often than not.”
“I want him with us,” Delphi says softly.
I kiss her forehead, my eyes on Mac. “Then we’d better hope your CPS contact pulls through for us, or it looks like we’ll be moving in with Hannibal, too.”