Chapter Three
Nashville
“Have you ever thought about buying a house like this?”
Ronin is sitting next to me on a slope behind the Morris kids' house. The security around this place is insane, but we have at least established he’s here alone. It’s the kind of place where one would have staff, and the owner is rich enough to have a property like this sitting empty.
“You think I could afford this shit?”
“You know, if you had the money.”
I like Ronin, he’s one of the good guys in the MC, strong, reliable and knows how to get shit done. If there were an opening, Nero would give him a spot on the council. He does sometimes ask random questions when we’re on a stakeout. It’s a good job it’s me he’s talking to.
“Nah, not something like this. If I had that kind of money, I’d buy a yacht with a helicopter pad. Learn to sail and fly at the same time.”
“I just think it’s crazy that someone needs more than one house when there are so many people out there living in shit situations.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that was the way you were going with this. Now I feel kinda bad.”
“It’s all good, this guy’s dad worked hard to make his money, to get this house, and his little shit of a kid is in there, hiding away with his 90-inch TV screen and gaming consoles and Rolex watches. I hate spoiled little bitches like him.”
“Don’t envy him too much. He’s about to have a really bad night.”
The security light at the back of the house goes on, and I sit forward a little. The door opens about twenty seconds after, and Dean Morris walks out onto the patio. He moves across the lawn to the swimming pool and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
“How much do you want to bet he’s so scared of his mommy he won’t smoke in the house even when he’s miles away from her?”
“Mommy will wish she hadn’t been a bitch when her blue-eyed boy vanishes.” I get up and turn on the comms receiver. “I love this shit,” I tap the device in my ear. I’ve got no idea where Blaze got it all from, but I’m loving not having to use our cell phones to communicate.
“He’s in the yard.”
“I’ve got into the security system,” Blaze’s voice comes back.
He goes on to explain what he is doing. I’m not even going to pretend to know what he means, but I have the gist. The alarm system deactivated when Morris opened the door and came outside.
Whatever Blaze has done has overridden the rest of the system so that all the doors and windows are knocked off the security alerts instead of just the back door that Morris opened.
We can sneak in without alerting Morris or their security company because he will have no idea it hasn’t been rearmed after going back inside.
It takes the dumbass ages to finish because he takes out his phone and sits there doomscrolling. These kids and their fucking phones, he’s supposed to be hiding out. Anyone with any tech knowhow could find him.
It’s another twenty minutes of watching before he finishes and goes inside, then half an hour before all the lights finally go out.
To be sure, Blaze tells us to wait a little longer for him to fall asleep.
My ass is numb by the time we move. Everyone has their own part of the plan, Ronin and I are the ones who are going to grab him.
Ratchet will go inside and pack up some stuff, his phone and wallet, while Blaze gets into his bank accounts and transfers all the money out to an account no one will be able to trace.
Everything to make it look like he ran.
Ronin picks up the black duffle bag and we head down the hill. There are security cameras, but Blaze has disabled them. When we get into the back of the property, we pause and Blaze kills all the lights on the block. Ronin opens the door carefully and we step inside the house.
Any lights that were on before the blackout, come back on. People will report a power outage which will explain why the cameras went off if anyone decides to look into it. For the first few hours or a day or so, his parents will think something has happened to him and the police will be looking.
This whole operation has been planned down to the last detail, we’ve memorized the layout of the house and move silently up the stairs to the bedroom Morris has been sleeping in.
The TV is on and as carefully as I can, I push the door open an inch to see inside. He’s laying on his back with one arm over his head and the other hand on his dick. Fortunately, he’s asleep. I get it, sometimes the comfort of holding your junk makes you drift off easier.
The thought he jacked off crosses my mind and I hope he had some tissue to deal with the fall out of that. Indicating to Ronin that it’s safe, he bends down and opens the bag, taking out the needle.
He manages to inject the sedative easily enough, but Morris wakes from the pinch of the needle.
His eyes widen in fear when he sees us and just for fun, and for Taylor, I punch the fucker in the face.
The point is not to leave any trace of him being taken but I have a solid right hook and with the quick acting sedative and the punch combination, he’s out cold in seconds.
Ronin is busy unwrapping the body bag and we get him inside and zip it up. I radio Ratchet via the cool comms equipment, he comes in and looks at the body bag as we heft it up between us.
Morris is not a small guy. It always amuses me how these buff gym guys like to flex and pose in mirrors and take a million selfies, but when it comes down to it, they fall like a fucking felled oak tree.
When we reach the top of the stairs, I look at Ronin and he looks at me and without a word, we toss the fucker down the stairs. He doesn’t make a peep, and hell it made our life easier.
Fury is waiting in the garage which he was breaking into while we were getting the fucker. We throw him in the back of Morris’ own car and watch Fury drive away.
He’s wearing a baseball cap to fool any cameras, but Blaze has mapped it all out and will make sure the driver is obscured in any images.
We meet Ratchet at the bottom of the stairs and sneak out the back. All in all, it took ten minutes max before we’ve made our exit back up the hill and a block over from the house.
Blaze is waiting for us in the van. We jump in and drive off to the meeting point.
“Nero is here,” Blaze says.
That’s a surprise but at the same time, not so much. I did think it was crazy he was going to leave us to this. With the whole Storm mess being on the back-burner while we track down the fucker, it’s left him open to handle this.
It would surprise me even more if Nero went soft just cos he has a woman. Not many of the men with old lady’s do, they become more secretive if anything.
Nero is waiting at a house in a less affluent neighborhood, and Fury has already carried the body bag in. We watch him tie the kid to a chair with zip ties at his ankles and his wrists behind his back. The others stayed in the van, so it’s just the three of us now.
Nero nods at me, silently telling me we did a good job, then he takes out a rope and ties it around the kid’s neck.
Once everything is set up, we wait for the drug to wear off. No one speaks, Nero sends a few texts, Fury stands over Morris with his arms folded.
Stuff like this bothered me initially when I joined the MC. It’s a rite of passage, a tie in to the club every member had to take part in to prove their loyalty.
Since Nero took over, he’s stopped all that hazing shit. Any necessary killing is usually done by the officers, away from the clubhouse. Sometimes he handpicks others to be a part of it but its rare, hence why Ronin and Ratchet are left outside for this part.
The kid hasn’t got a clue where he is initially, all fucked up and disorientated. When he sees the three angry looking bikers standing over him he starts to struggle.
“What the fuck? Who are you, where am I?” he turns his head as far as he can, then dips his chin when he realizes there is a rope around his neck. “What is this? My parents have money, they’ll pay you.”
“We’re not interested in your money,” Nero tells him.
“Then what do you want? You’ve got the wrong person. I’m just a college kid, I’m not involved in anything. Please I won’t say anything.”
He keeps babbling and pleading, even though he doesn’t appear to have a clue why he is here. That says a lot about the little fucker. He shuts up pretty quick when Fury takes out his knife.
His eyes go wide and in seconds the smell of piss fills the room. I’d feel bad if I hadn’t watched the video of what this kid did to Taylor. He’s a budding psychopath according to Blaze’s research.
“Remember this?” Nero pulls out his phone and holds it up.
Nero can’t see the screen and there is no sound but I watch it, see Taylor taking those punches to the face and falling to the ground. Nero doesn’t want to watch it again and I get it. It hardens any doubts I had about this.
“I don’t know what that is,” he cries out. “That isn’t me.”
Nero nods to me and I walk behind him and grab the rope, jerking it hard so his back bows. For a good eight or so seconds I pull on it, making him thrash and try to fight it as his breath is stolen. Nero nods again and I loosen the slack on the rope.
Our Prez isn’t big on torture, he usually leaves that to Stryker, or Fury.
This is personal and before he ends things, he wants the kid to admit it.
We go on for ten minutes, choking him and Fury cutting him in various parts of his body, before he is crying and admitting to it, begging for his life.
“You see that woman,” Nero holds the phone up close to his face.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please. It won’t happen again. It won’t, I will never do it again, I swear.”
“The second you put your hands on her,” Nero snarls at him. “Your life was fucking over. I want you to look at her, look at what you did.”
He is crying in earnest now, squeezing his eyes shut. Nero looks at me over his head, a look of such profound disgust on his face as he lifts his chin. I loosen the rope and lift it over his head.
The kid looks up in surprise, his head swiveling between each of us, a look of hope in his eyes. Fury hands Nero the knife and any hope disappears as quickly as it came, the fear rippling through his body.
With quick precision, Nero slashes the knife across the kid’s throat. An arc of blood sprays to the side. Nero had very thoughtfully placed a tarp beneath the chair prior to our arrival.
We watch as he gurgles and splutters and bleeds out. It happens pretty quick, the light dimming in his eyes.
The whole time, the video is playing, taunting him, showing him it was down to his own actions that he ended up here.
The clean-up isn’t my favorite part but we get the dickhead back in his body bag, the tarp rolled and Ronin comes in to take the chair, zip ties and rope. Everything that was here when we arrived is gone. Not a speck of blood or a hint that anyone has been here by the time we leave.
“You know where you’re going?” Nero asks Fury when the body is back in the trunk. He nods. “Razer is there with the bikes.”
“See you at home, ladies,” Fury heads around the car.
“Asshole,” I call after him as Nero lets out a laugh.
Some might wonder how we make light of such a situation but we’re used to it. It’s our way of life and we only ever do things like this to people who deserve it.
In this case, you could say the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, but Blaze believes the kid would move on to serious assault and likely murder if he was left to carry on.
With a dad who has pulled strings before to hide his son’s abhorrent behavior from middle-school onwards, we did the world a favor. It’s the only way to rationalize this.
Nero pats my shoulder and tells me he is going home. Taylor and Oscar are there with Jesse, his best friend. Jesse is richer than Morris’ dad and lives in a penthouse apartment downtown but he’s staying with them while he gets better.
I’m not sure it’s necessary, he is pretty resilient and seems okay to me but they want him there. Guess when you go through an ordeal like what him and Taylor went through, it trauma bonds you.
We’re quiet on the ride back to the clubhouse and go our separate ways once we’re back. For a hot minute I think of going to the bar to decompress like the others but decide against it and head home.
After a night like this, a few episodes of Vampire Diaries, a guilty pleasure no one will ever hear about, and a couple of beers in my undies is what I need.
I’m sure tomorrow will bring a whole new set of shit to deal with. Right now, I’m going to enjoy my peace.