Chapter Eighteen
Nero
The sound and smell of this place really does make me want to gag.
As I climb off the bike I glance to the left where the pigs are.
Some of them are inside their barn but a few are out snorting around, digging up mud and hay with their snouts.
There is nothing nice about these pigs, they’ve survived on human flesh and bone for a long time now.
I don’t know how Stryker stands it. He doesn’t live on the farm, he has two trusted people who manage the place and take care of the pigs, even breeding them to make sure there is a never-ending supply.
They’re never around when Stryker is busy with his late night work or anyone from the club shows up.
I’d give anything to still be with Taylor, my plan had been to keep her in my bed all night, something I haven’t wanted to do in years. I can count on one hand the number of times a woman has slept in my bed.
It was different when I stayed at her dad’s place, she was vulnerable. I wanted to let her know she was safe. Fucking her for the first time the next morning was a bonus.
Once again, I have to compartmentalize my thoughts and not bring myself here with her on my mind. Chains is finally talking.
I wince when I walk into the large barn that is way at the back of the land, away from the small farmhouse and the pigsties.
It doesn’t last long because this fucker is a traitor.
Still, seeing someone hanging from the ceiling with meat hooks through his shoulders isn’t a sight anyone should get used to.
Apart from Stryker. He has no issue doing this kind of thing. The place smells of piss and blood. Razer and Nashville are standing off to the side talking as I walk in. They both look up and move toward me. For now, it looks as if Chains is unconscious.
The closer I get, the easier it is to see the destruction of his face. I’m not even sure his nose is where it’s supposed to be. It is sickening, but what this prick did is deserving of it.
“What else did he say?”
Nashville stops beside me, hands on his hips as he looks at Chains with as much distaste as me.
“Had we gone to that meeting two nights ago, it would have been more than an ambush. They had M16 assault rifles and were going to mow us down as we drove up.”
My jaw clenches. They didn’t plan on showing their faces, like the fucking cowards they are. I’d turn around and punch the fucker myself if I thought it would hurt. He’s out cold and I’m not sure any hit I could give will rival the world of pain he is already in.
Out of the corner of my eye I spot Stryker sitting on a hay bale in a dark corner. If I were anyone else, I might have jumped seeing him there, so still and quiet. I’m used to finding him like this, sitting and watching, his face a blank mask.
As Nashville fills me in on the plan Storm had to take us out and how Chains was feeding him everything we were doing, I watch Stryker watching me.
Some people say he has dead eyes, but that isn’t what I see when I look at my Reaper. I see a man who needs to do the awful things he does because he’s afraid of himself, and what he thinks he might do to those around him, the people he cares about.
I don’t know what happened to him in the past, or the weight he’s carrying, all I know is, doing what he does for the club keeps his monsters at bay. Now he isn’t sure what to do. Those two things are colliding here, his cousin is now the enemy.
Shit. I shouldn’t have let it get this far. Stryker’s jaw tightens, and he wrings his hands together, the knuckles all busted up. I lift my chin and after a beat, he gets up and walks toward the door. He doesn’t look at Chains as he passes.
Nashville stops talking and watches as Stryker keeps going, having said nothing to anyone. He frowns at me, but I hold a hand up, letting him know it’s okay.
“How much more are we going to get out of him?” I ask.
“Have you seen him?” he tilts his head at Chains. “Stryker got everything out of him. Storm was using him to get intel, he was probably promising him something in return he was never going to give.”
“Some things never change, he was always a fucking snake, always out for what he could get for himself. Fucking waste,” I look up at Chains.
“What do you want to do?” Nashville asks, looking through the door where Stryker disappeared.
“The only thing I can. Wake him up.”
Razer brings a bucket of dirty water and throws it at Chains. He wakes up and thrashes but only long enough to remember how he is being kept upright and he cries out, some garbled shit coming through his broken teeth.
Everything about him is defeated. Deep down inside, I feel that too. No one ever wants to do this to someone they’ve called a brother for years. It’s the only way to deal with traitors. I’ve learned a hard lesson with Storm. Its ironic Chains is the one paying for that mistake.
He has one good eye that he manages to open as Razer steps up and hands me a gun. This is the side of myself that is inevitable given the life I grew up in. As he stares at me, a drop of moisture squeezing from his eye. I have to harden my heart and forget everything going on.
This is who I am and nothing I do is going to change that. I point the gun at his head and fire. There is no point dragging it out, monologuing over why he did what he did and what it means to betray his family. Stryker will have made him see that.
His head jerks and then drops forward. My eyes squeeze shut for the briefest of moments, then I turn and hand the gun to Razer.
“Stryker stays out of this.”
Nashville nods and turns to Chains. Him and Razer now have the job of getting him off those hooks and over to the pigs.
The night sky seems much brighter all the way out here, stars scattered across the inky blackness lighting the way as I head back to my bike.
This whole mess is fucked, and I hate what I had to do but it’s done and it’s time to move on.
One problem down, two more to go.
Why do I get the feeling none of this is going to go away as easily as we hope?
I spend the rest of the night at the clubhouse, trying to sleep but thinking about shit from the past. How close Storm was to my dad all those years ago.
My father never made it to officer status at the club, but he was well liked, loyal, if somewhat stupid at times.
Accidentally shooting himself while cleaning a gun was the way he was always going to die.
Him and Storm were often together, he would have been pissed at what his old friend did, getting thrown out of the MC. Never thought I’d wish the old bastard was still around so I could get some advice on the fucking bastard threatening the club.
At least now I know what we’re up against, and how damn serious they are. Me and half of my officers could have been wiped out in one night. They’ve gone to ground since their plan fell through, and they must know Chains is off the map too by now.
At least their way inside the club is taken care of. Now we need to find them.
Back at the house a couple of days later, Jesse says he has work to catch up on so I need to stay with Oscar. He looks a little pale with dark circles under his eyes, but when I ask about it he waves me off. He reminds me Oscar isn’t sleeping great, his nightmares seem to be getting worse.
This is all I need. How the hell do I get help for my son when no one is supposed to know he is here. Sheridan hasn’t picked up the last few times I’ve called her. It’s been a while since she checked on Oscar.
She’s an okay mom to our son, her showing up for me to look after him while she took a break wasn’t totally out of character. I’ve never had reason to doubt her when it came to him, but she had problems in the past with drugs and bad choices.
Making sure Oscar is okay, I text Speedway to come inside.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asks as he comes into the kitchen, he looks through the arch at Oscar and waves at him.
“You heard from Sheridan?”
“Not for a while, why?”
“She hasn’t been checking in.”
His lips go down in thought. “Shit, do you think she’s using?”
“You know her better than me,” I grab a glass and fill it with water.
“I mean,” he slides onto a stool and looks at his hands. “She’s been a little distant lately, but I didn’t think it was down to that.”
“She has not ignored him this long before.” I look in on Oscar playing with his puppy.
“You think she’s in trouble?” His head comes up fast. “With everything going on?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I reassure him. “No one knows about her ties to me. Try to get hold of her. If you know where she’s gone head there.”
“What about watching out for Oscar?”
“I’ll get another brother here.”
“You’ll have to tell them about him,” he looks at my son again.
I’ve already thought about that. Jesse spends that much time with him, and at my place, no one would think he wasn’t his father. The thought of that makes my heart pound, but it’s for his safety. I can’t lose sight of that.
Speedway agrees to go check on his sister and I call Rebel about getting someone else over here, then I fire off a text to let Jesse know. I watch Oscar playing and wonder what it must be like, to be able to take your child out, something as simple as getting ice cream.
I never would have chosen to bring a kid into the world, my world, if I could have helped it. My thoughts turn to Taylor. If I’m going to keep fucking her, I need to make sure she’s on the pill. Condoms break. Making that mistake again isn’t an option. Nor is putting Taylor in danger.
Another few days pass with us getting nowhere on finding Storm. The guy Juice followed after their attempted mass execution of my men, has vanished too. I’ve no idea how long he is going to stay underground or what he will plan next.
It’s fucking pissing me off.
After putting Oscar to bed and sending Jesse home, I sit down with a beer and look around my house. This place cost me a fortune, it’s in a good neighborhood and Oscar is safe here. I’ve done everything I can to make sure nothing can happen to my family in this house.
The second beer is going down nicely when I get a text telling me to check the link.
I open it up and read through how the police have found and arrested six students from one of the most prestigious universities in the state.
They’re under suspicion of being those responsible for the motorcycle attacks.
I call Blaze when I’m done.
“The news is a little behind, two of them were released on bail this morning. He wasn’t picked up. Lots of texts back and forth since. Its pretty fucked up, but it worked.”
He’s keeping things as cryptic as possible over the phone. “Keep an eye on it. I don’t want them taking what I’m owed.”
“The two that got out concern me, I’ve got Ronin on them.”
“Okay, give it a couple more days, then we do it.”
I set the phone down, but it rings before I have a chance to think.
It’s Taylor, for a second I pause, I haven’t contacted her since the night everything went down with Chains. It felt wrong to go to her after that. She’ll be calling because she’s seen the news. The idea of her thanking me when she has no clue what my next steps are isn’t sitting right.
Blowing out a heavy breath I hover my finger over decline, then slide it the other way, cursing myself for wanting a bit of her light in the darkness that is creeping over me lately.
“Hey,” I answer, leaning back on the couch and picking up my beer.
“Hi. I wasn’t sure whether to call.”
“You can call me, Cherry. I might not always answer but I’ll call you back.” I mean that too, this isn’t a lie. “It’s been busy the last few days, but you caught me at home for once.”
“I was calling about the news today. About the biker gang who attacked me. Was that you?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, I told you I’d deal with it,” I close my eyes.
“It did surprise me. I was expecting something else.”
“Believe me, something else was on my mind. Getting them like this made better sense.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Cherry. Fuckers deserved it after what they’ve been doing.”
“I don’t understand why they did it. They’re all from affluent backgrounds, why would they want to do that kind of thing, it’s not like they need the money.”
“Some people are evil like that, looking for an excuse to hurt innocent people. They would have escalated. It really was only a matter of time. They were already getting worse when they hurt you.”
“Then it’s even better that you’ve stopped them.”
“We’ll see.”
“What does that mean?”
“We need to make sure it sticks.”
“Okay, well I wanted to say thank you. And…”
“And what?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing.”
“What aren’t you saying, Cherry?”
I practically hear her swallow down her fears. “Do you want to come over?”
“You want me to come over?”
“I asked didn’t I?” she says. “Let’s not pretend this is easy.”
“I’d love to, but I can’t tonight.”
“It’s okay, I know your busy and… other things.”
“It’s not that,” I say, wanting to laugh at her not being able to mention what we talked about the other night. “Oscar is in bed.”
“Oh.” She pauses, both of us remembering our first interaction and how I told her to forget she ever saw my son. “Noah, I didn’t tell anybody. I mean, I had no reason to. I could have done cos I thought you were an ass when you got mad about it.”
“I remember, Cherry.”
Standing up, I walk to the kitchen counter and pick up the monitor. Oscar is fast asleep, poor kid was exhausted after I’d finished entertaining him. I’ve never had anyone around him before, but he should stay asleep. Or Speedway could come in and watch him while I go to her place.
But she has seen him, she knows about him. Shit…
“I understand.”
“You could come here.”
Her end goes silent, she’s thinking about what it means that I’m asking her to come over when my son is here. I’m still trying to figure that out myself when she agrees.
“Be careful.”
“Yes, I know.”
I can see the eye roll in my mind’s eye.
“See you soon, Cherry.”