Chapter 15
HOAX
The call came through and quickly, I answered it. “Hey brother, I got you back. What’s your status?”
I heard ragged breathing followed by the distant sound of shouting.
“I got him!”
A burst of gunfire ripped through the speaker, muffled and distorted, and my stomach dropped.
“Legion!”
Nothing. Just the hollow hum of an open connection.
I stared at the wall, trying to visualize the tunnels in New York, mapping out the darkness where my brother was currently bleeding out.
I tried to ping his location, my fingers flying across the keyboard of my rig, but the signal was a ghost. Dead.
“Come on, Legion, you're not dying on my watch.”
I slammed the end call button and immediately dialed F.O.C.U.S. He was the closest asset in the city. He could move fast, and get a pulse on the situation before the body went cold. The phone rang. Once. Twice. Ten times. The voicemail clicked in, and I called again. Same result.
“Shit!”
The panic started in my gut and boiled over into a cold sweat. I dialed the only other person I knew who could help me either contact Crucifix, the President of the New York Chapter or tell me what the hell to do.
“Hoax.” Jameson’s voice was a gravel pit, deep and exhausted. I could hear the faint clink of glass in the background, probably a bottle of bourbon hitting the table at the clubhouse.
“Prez, I think we’ve lost Legion.” There was a pause. The kind of pause that makes you wonder if the other person just stopped breathing.
“What are you talking about?”
“I was with him until he got to the tunnels, then I lost all communication. I received a call back but… it doesn’t sound good. He's not on the com and there’s no cameras down there. He can't talk, Prez. I heard shots. I heard screaming.”
“Where’s F.O.C.U.S.?”
“I’m thinking he’s on a run because he’s gone silent. He's not picking up.”
“Fuck!”
Jameson cursed, the sound vibrating through the line. I could picture him slamming a fist onto his desk, the wood splintering under the force of his frustration.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” I snapped, my voice cracking. “We can’t leave him lying in some dark tunnel somewhere. He's out there alone, bleeding, and we're sitting here in the swamp staring at maps.”
“Okay, call the Duchess and tell her we’ve got a man down.”
I froze. “The Duchess. What about Crucifix?”
“Just do as I tell you.”
“What if she asks more questions?”
“Let her know Legion was in the area and was sent out on a run, chasing down some Scorpions and we’ve got some information to share with her. I’ll contact her when I’m damn well ready. I’m done tiptoeing around these women.”
I hung up and stared at the phone. My heart hammered against my ribs as I dialed the New York number. It rang twice before a feminine voice answered.”
“Hoax. This is an unexpected hour.”
The Duchess sounded like ice over the phone, cold and devoid of any warmth. I shifted my weight, pacing the length of my apartment, the floorboards creaking beneath me as I tried to figure out what to say.
“Duchess. I’ll get straight to it. I have some information for you, but you aren't going to like it.”
“I rarely like things, Hoax. That is the nature of my position. Speak.”
“We’ve sent one of our members on a bit of a goose chase. He was tracking some Scorpion activity in your territory. We lost communication with him, and we need your help finding him.”
There was a long silence. I could almost hear her narrowing her eyes, her mind whirling, calculating the cost and the benefit of this request.
“A goose chase,” she repeated, her tone dripping with skepticism. “You send a soldier into my city, you didn’t tell me, and you call it a goose chase? You’re asking for a favor while admitting you’ve lost control of your situation.”
“I’m asking for a rescue, Duchess. Not a favor. There’s a difference.”
“Is there? In my world, the difference is usually measured in blood and currency. Why should I risk my resources to find a man who doesn't even have the sense to keep his radio on?”
“Because he has something you want. Information. Things that will make your life a lot easier and your enemies a lot shorter.”
“This wouldn’t have to do with what’s going on here in New York?”
The question was a trap. If I gave too much, she owned us. If I gave too little, she’d hang up and let Legion rot. Then again, I didn’t know what she knew and what she didn’t know.
“I’m not at liberty to say. All I can tell you is Jameson will contact you when he’s good and ready.”
“Will he now?”
The sarcasm in her voice was a blade. She knew Jameson. She knew the pride that fueled him, and the stubbornness that often blinded him.
“That’s what he’s let me know.”
“So he does know what’s going on and he didn’t bother to contact me. How charmingly cowardly.”
I clenched my jaw, the muscles in my face tightening. I didn't care about the politics. I didn't care about the power struggle between the clubhouse and the city. I only cared about the man in the dark.
“Duchess, no disrespect, but you didn’t contact us first. Now this man has been watching your back for several weeks and he needs your help now. I can’t leave my brother down there for the rats. He's a good man, and he's bleeding. Just help me find him.”
The shift in her tone was subtle, but it was there. The ice didn't melt, but it shifted. She recognized the desperation. It was a currency she understood.
“You are lucky I find your honesty refreshing, however clumsy it may be,” she said. “I will not send a full squad. I will not alert the streets that I am playing nursemaid to a Louisiana stray. But I will send the girls.”
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. “Thank you.”
“Don't thank me yet. You'll give directives to Lantana. She's my Road Captain. She knows the tunnels better than the rats do, and she has a very low tolerance for incompetence.”
I closed my eyes and cursed under my breath. Lantana. The name alone brought a wave of dread.If she found Legion, she’d probably kick him in the ribs just to make sure he was still awake before she dragged him out.
“Yeah, I know who she is.”
“Then you know she doesn't like to be kept waiting. I will give her your frequency. If she finds him, she'll report back. If she doesn't, you can consider your brother a permanent resident of the New York sewage system.”
The line went dead and I dropped the phone onto the desk. It bounced once, twice, then lay still. I sank into my chair, the leather creaking under my weight. My mind drifted back to Legion. This motherfucker got himself in trouble and now if he wasn’t dead he was about to be.
I wanted to punch through the wall, I should have flown to New York with him, should have been by his side. He was one of the good ones, I refused to let him die.
After about a half hour my phone buzzed. A new message came in with a frequency code.
Lantana.
Dealing with the Scorpions was one thing, but being rescued by the woman he’d been deceiving all this time was a different kind of torture. She wouldn't just save him, she’d make him pay for every second of his lies.
I leaned back and stared at the ceiling and I prayed to a god I hadn't spoken to in a decade that Legion was strong enough to hold on.
The clock on the wall ticked, each second sounding louder than the next. I had to stay focused. I had to be the eyes and ears for these women.
I opened the comms channel and waited. The static returned, a low, humming vibration that seemed to echo through the room.
“Lantana, this is Hoax,” I whispered into the mic. “Tell me you're moving.”
A voice crackled back, sharp and impatient, cutting through the noise like a razor. “I’m moving, Louisiana. Stop breathing into the mic. It’s disgusting. Give me the last known coordinates before I decide to leave your brother for the crows.”
I swallowed hard. “He’s in the sector four tunnels. Near the old subway junction. He’s wounded, Lantana. Bad.”
“I’ll find him.”
“Stay on the line. I don't want to have to call you twice.”
I leaned forward, my eyes locked onto the screen, to a single, pulsing dot on a map of New York.
The tension was a wire stretched to the snapping point as I waited to find out if my brother was dead.
I listened to the sound of her giving the other women orders as they approached the entrance of the tunnels.
“Hold on, Legion,” I whispered. “Just hold on.”
“Legion, come in.”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“This place is a dump,” she coughed a little as she walked through the debris.
Another one of the women agreed with her. “Do you know where he is exactly.”
“He was headed to the lower maintenance level.”
“Found it!” a distant voice came through.
Lantana breathed hard as she made her way through the tunnels. “Well fuck, these moterfuckers had a complete set up down here.”
“Looks like they’ve got a trafficking situation going.” Another girl responded.
“Lantana!” There was a shout in the distance. “I think I found him!”
“You found him?” I asked, listening carefully on their conversation.
“Hold on, Louisiana.” She stated as she made her way over.
Seconds passed and then one of the ladies cursed. “Well, fuck me. Isn’t he…”
“Benjamin Harper,” Lantana whispered into the mic and I instantly knew, she’d just found out the truth.
“Is he alive?” I asked.
“What?” she asked, seemingly in shock.
“Is he breathing!”
I heard shuffling and then another voice came on the line. “This is Roulette, Hoax.”
Roulette was the VP of the Harlots New York Chapter. “Roulette! Is he alive.”
“He’s been hurt bad, a knife blade to his side, looks like he bled out quite a bit. A bullet traced his temple but he’s breathing. He’s alive.”
“Fuck!” I ran my hands down my face as I breathed out in relief.
“We’re bringing him in and I’ll have Obsidian keep you updated.”
“Roulette…thanks.”
“Tell your Prez, he owes us one.”
The line went dead and I slumped back in my chair and looked back at the ceiling. If there was a god, I was glad he’d listened to my half-assed prayers this one time.