Chapter 9 #2
He jumped out of his truck and hurried inside, wanting to get out of the cold, cutting wind. He stopped by the bar and got a cup of coffee from Miles, then carried on to church. Everyone was already seated, and it looked like they were waiting for him.
“All right. Let’s get this shit going.” Race dropped the gavel, calling the meeting to order. “First thing I want to know is if anyone has gotten eyes on Tinker?”
A lot of no’s and grumbled fuckers, but that was about it for responses.
Race sighed heavily. “This is getting old. He’s been in prison for the last ten years.
He can’t have that many people he knows on the outside that are in Redemption.
” He turned his focus on Tuck and Darren.
“Has Kylie been able to come up with any leads? Does she know who he hung with while he was inside?”
“Not yet,” Tuck replied. “She’s been working on it.”
“We have to force her to sleep. She’s terrible at taking care of herself,” Darren added.
Race nodded his head in understanding. Kylie was seven months pregnant, and he could understand their reluctance to let her do her usual thing, where she tended to forget to eat or sleep.
“I don’t know if all of you know it or not, but Jed and Tulsa got called out to Bottoms Up last night. You want to fill them in?” Race waved his hand at the group around the table.
“One of the bouncers called to report someone was caught trying to sell EZ Lay in the men's room. Tulsa and I went to check it out. Tom had the kid downstairs. He barely looked old enough to drink. He said his name was Levi and he was twenty-one. He couldn’t have looked less like a dealer if he tried. He looked like a college student, all neat and clean, with clear eyes.” He looked to Tulsa for confirmation.
“What the hell?” Dagger mumbled.
“Jed’s right. He looked like an upper-middle-class college kid.
He said he was tryin' to make money to pay rent.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“When we asked him why he was stupid enough to sell that shit in our club, he said that one of us gave him the pills and $500 to sell it at Bottoms Up.
The kid was confused about why we were hasslin' him.”
“One of us?” Lance asked.
“One guess.” Jed glanced around the table.
“No fucking way.” Jackson dropped back in his seat. “Tinker?”
“What the fuck?” Race growled.
“From what the kid said,” Jed continued. “Tinker gave him the drugs, the money, and told him he could keep the money from the sale.”
“He’s sure it was Tinker?” Maverick asked.
“He said he had a patch that had Tinker’s name on it, and he gave us a perfect description,” Tulsa finished.
“Son of a bitch. He’s wearing our patch and selling that shit?” Trick’s hands fisted on the table.
“Looks that way,” Jed answered. He wasn’t very happy about the idea either. People were going to get the impression that the Sons were back in the drug trade.
“Tell them about Sadie,” Tulsa elbowed him.
“What about Sadie?” Race’s eyes narrowed.
“By the time I finished up at Bottoms Up, I was running late getting to Sadie. When we got there, the parking lot was completely dark. I swung my truck in the direction of where she normally parks her car. She was on the ground, and bleeding from her head. She’d been attacked.”
“What?!” Darren shouted. “Did she say who it was?”
“She didn’t recognize the guy, but when she asked him what he wanted, he said he didn’t want anything, but his friend did.”
“You’re thinking Tinker was behind her attack?” Dagger asked.
“Yeah, I do. He tried to assault her at Bottoms Up, broke into her apartment twice, and now this.” Jed’s muscle in his jaw ticked. He was tired of being two steps behind Tinker all the time.
“How bad was she hurt?” Tuck asked.
“She had to have four stitches. Bacon came to my place to patch her up because she refused to go to the E.R.”
“Why wouldn’t she go to the hospital?” Maverick asked.
Jed’s mouth dipped into a frown before he answered. “No insurance.”
“You were just trying to do what you thought was best at the time,” Race spoke up. “How is she doing this morning?”
“She says she’s fine. She took the bandage off, and the stitches didn’t look too bad, and there was a little swelling.”
“Where is she now?” he asked.
“She had a doctor's appointment, and I had Cutter take her.” They all looked confused. He’d just said she was doing well. “She had it scheduled a week ago.”
Race’s chin tipped up.
“What are we going to do about that motherfucker?” Jackson wanted to know. “He’s definitely set his sights on Sadie. Does anyone know why?”
“She shot him down at Bottoms Up, but other than that?” Dagger responded.
Race was thoughtful for a moment, running his thumb back and forth across his bottom lip while watching Jed. “Does he know you have an interest in her, Jed?”
His head jerked back. Was that it? Was that why Tinker was fixated on Sadie? Because Jed had an interest in her? Was he going to use Sadie to hurt Jed? “I don’t know. Other than him seeing me check on her at Bottoms Up after he manhandled her, I can’t think of any time he would’ve been around.”
“That could be enough of a reason for the fucker to target her.” Jackson ran his hand through his hair.
“Well, fuck.” Jed pounded his fist on the table.
“Are you two a thing?” Trick asked.
Jed wasn’t sure how to answer that. “We’re seeing each other, and we agreed not to see other people while we’re doing it.”
“Are you claiming her?” Race rocked back in his chair, his gaze assessing and shrewd.
Jed squirmed a little in his chair. “I mean, it is what it is until it isn’t anymore. That’s what we agreed to.”
Race’s shoulders dropped like he was disappointed in his answer. Dagger’s mouth pursed, and he shook his head. The rest of them all looked at him like he was an idiot.
Leaning forward, Race settled his arms on the table.
“Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. Whenever you can’t be with Sadie, someone else needs to be with her.
We can’t take a chance that Tinker will get his hands on her.
The ones of us who knew him from before know what he’s capable of doing to women.
Jed, if there’s ever a time you can’t be with her, give us a heads up, and I’ll put someone else on her. Does everyone agree to this plan?”
Everyone agreed.
“All right. Everyone keep scouring Redemption. He shouldn’t be this fucking hard to find.” Race slammed the gavel, ending the meeting.
Jed followed everyone out, grabbing his phone from the box he had left it in before church. He checked for messages and saw that he had one from Cutter. They were back at her apartment, and something was wrong with Sadie. He immediately dialed Cutter’s number.
“Jed.” The prospect sounded relieved to be hearing from him.
“What’s going on? What do you mean, something is wrong with her?” He continued cutting across the common area, heading for his truck. He hopped in but didn’t start it up, afraid he’d miss something Cutter was saying when the phone took a second to connect to his Bluetooth.
“I don’t know. She came out of the elevator like she was in a trance.
Her face was pale, and it looked like she might have been crying.
She didn’t say anything on the way back to her apartment.
I followed her up, and she went straight to the bathroom.
She’s been in there since we got back.” He was starting to sound a little panicked at this point.
“I knocked on the door to check on her, and she said she was okay, she’d be out in a minute.
That was twenty minutes ago. What should I do? ”
“Don’t do anything. I’m on my way.” He disconnected with Cutter and started his truck.