20. Priest
When I arrived at the house, I instructed the rest of my men, who were still at the bottom of the long driveway, to follow me. We rode up in full force, and Sunny was on the front porch with his arms crossed like he was chilling on a summer afternoon drinking sweet tea or some shit. But I knew that if that nigga heard some foul shit in that house, he would have kicked the door in and asked questions later.
I climbed off my bike and headed to the front porch while my men held their positions on their bikes.
“What’s up with his security, Priest?”
I smirked. “They were sent over by Soul’s company, DSL Protection and Security.”
“Nigga. You with the shits, I see,” Sunny commented.
I replied, “Nah. I’m with taking this bitch down the right way.”
Sunny nodded. “That’s what’s up. It’s been long enough.”
He was the only one who knew my secret. And unless September had figured it out, she would be the next in line to know the truth. But I couldn’t see how she would have figured it out.
“I’m going in,” I told Sunny.
I grabbed the door, and not surprisingly, the knob twisted. That was the problem with rich assholes like Christopher Morgan. They thought their money bought them security and that they had nothing to worry about. But what about when men from underground society like me used our money to infiltrate that secured fortress?
I stepped inside the house and quietly closed the door behind me. I knew they had to hear our bikes by now, so I didn’t move too quickly but surveyed my surroundings. I listened for several seconds before I determined that they were in Morgan’s office.
I walked stealthily in their direction as I listened to the bullshit he spouted from his mouth. I wanted to put a bullet right between his eyes, and I wanted him to see me do it. But when I heard September mention my mother’s name, I froze.
“… you cheated with a younger girl named Katherine Guillebeaux. She said that when you tried to break it off, the girl didn’t take to that too well, and that it not only jeopardized your relationship with Mama, but with your job too. Mama told Aunt Diane that she demanded that you ‘fix your problem,’ but she had no idea that fixing it meant that you would go get that girl hooked on drugs. You purposely did that shit to make her go away. Only she didn’t go away, did she, Daddy? That’s the part Mama never knew. She didn’t know that Kat never went away.”
I continued to listen as I drew closer to where September and her father were.
“I met her only surviving child recently,” September admitted.
“Who?” Morgan asked.
I took the final step to the office and leaned against the doorway. I could tell that September saw me from the corner of her eye, but she said nothing.
“David Aziel Guillebeaux,” September answered.
“That little bastard. How did you meet him? Where?” Morgan demanded.
“I’ve been right here all along, muthafucka,” I answered from where I leaned against the door jamb.
Christopher Morgan spun around and raised his gun at me.
“Nigga, you might wanna put that down,” I demanded with my gun aimed at him.
“I’m not putting shit down. You’re not taking another muthafuckin thing from my house.” Morgan was seething.
“I ain’t gotta take shit. Not when she freely walks away from here.”
He hesitated for a moment and then replied, “September will go with you over my dead body.”
“Oh, that’s a given, chief. Now, I suggest you put that gun down. My boys are outside waiting to take your ass out. You ain’t making it out this bitch alive.”
“September, you know where our loyalties lie,” Morgan demanded when he turned to look at me.
“The same place yours did, Daddy? It seemed to me that you were only loyal to yourself, and you didn’t give a damn about me.”
“Priest has been in your head and fucked up your judgment!” Morgan shouted.
“My judgment hasn’t been clearer, Daddy.”
“You might want to rethink that statement, son, and put your gun down.”
I turned around and realized that I had underestimated the situation at the same time that I heard September gasp and shriek. “Daniel? What are you doing here.”
Daniel Usher stood behind me, and he had a gun aimed at my head.
“I was waiting for your father to return to the library so that we could finalize our little deal. When I heard you and him arguing, I decided to stay back and listen. When I heard the motorcycles pull up, I knew that I needed to stay hidden.”
“So why did you come out now?” September asked.
“Because this has all been fun, but it sounded like the negotiations aren’t favorable toward me. Priest, put that gun down and kick it away from you.”
“Nigga, I ain’t putting shit down. We’ll go out of this muthafucka in a blaze of glory.”
“Son, I know that you don’t think you’re about to walk out of here with my fiancée. You see, I’ve paid a pretty little penny for her.”
“Contrary to popular belief, Usher, she’s not a fucking piece of property. She’s a person whose price tag neither of you niggas could afford. She’s priceless, bitches,” I snarled.
“No, Priest. That’s where you’re wrong. Everyone has a price. So, Priest. Tell me. What’s your price to walk away from this? I get it. She’s young, ripe, and fine. A juicy piece of ass. I’m sure you tested it out while you had her,” Daniel Usher stated.
September lunged forward, “You bastard!”
Her daddy swiveled on a beat and aimed the gun at her. I was surprised by how well he maneuvered with his crutches. September was upset, but I warned her, “Chill. Don’t let this shit get to you, Ember. It’s grimy shit.”
Daniel laughed. “You’ve even given her a nickname. How sweet is that? Sweetheart, you’re going to walk out of here with me, and I’m going to let your daddy take care of this piece of work.”
Daniel waved his hand at me and beckoned me toward him.
“You’re not getting out of here like that,” I warned.
“Yes, I will. I doubt your boys are going to want to shoot me when I’ve got your prime MC princess with me. Sure, a lot of them have wanted to tap this pussy, so they won’t be shooting. Trust me.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” September hissed.
Morgan pushed September forward, and when she pushed back, he turned the gun on her. “You will do what your husband says,” Morgan ordered.
“He’s not my husband,” September snapped back.
“Semantics, my dear. I think we need to push this ceremony up. You’re behaving like a wayward woman, and it’s time that I teach you a lesson,” Daniel declared.
Morgan pushed the gun into September’s back and pushed her forward until she was within touching distance. She looked at me with sorrow-filled eyes, and all I wanted was to protect her. Anger rose within me because I found myself in a similar situation to that I’d been in years ago when I failed to protect my sister and my mother.
I glanced beyond her to where the gun lay on the ground and then back at Morgan. At the last minute, she threw her arms around me and pressed her body into mine.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
My arms wrapped around her.
“Okay, you two have had enough of your lovers’ goodbye. It’s time to move it along,” Daniel quipped as he snatched her from my arm.
My right arm was still aimed at Morgan, and he still held the gun on me. September walked toward the door with Daniel.
“Don’t you want to tell your daddy goodbye, September?” I asked.
She turned back and looked at her daddy. At the last second, she turned back to Morgan.
“Daddy, please.” She cried as she walked in his direction. I grabbed her arm and pulled her against me. I winked at Morgan, and my arm shifted slightly. Those movements were enough to make him panic. He shot at me at the same time that I grabbed September around the waist and dove sideways. I fired off two shots in his upper body at the same time he shot his gun. I heard a thud behind me.
Christopher Morgan lay on the floor with his eyes wide open and stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. I looked over my shoulder and saw Daniel Usher lying half in the room and half out. His head was turned sideways, and he stared at the wall.
Doors kicked in at the front and the rear of the house, and I heard my men run inside as they shouted my name.
I turned my gaze to September, who lay in my arms. I suspected she was in shock, and she stared in disbelief at her daddy on the floor.
“Ember, I’m sorry.”
She sobbed softly and shook her head. I kissed the top of it.
“Hey, you’re going to be okay.” I soothed her as I stood from the floor and pulled her up along with me.
I took her chin, tilted her head up, and forced her to look away from her father and at me.
“I know,” she responded softly.
“I’m sorry. I had no choice,” I murmured.
September threw her arms around me and pressed her face into my chest.
“I can’t believe he was going to force me to go with Daniel,” she mumbled.
“Your daddy and men like him don’t mean anyone any good. They don’t respect women, September. And while it’s easy to say that I don’t either because of what goes on in the MC, women have a choice about what position they want to play in the men’s lives in the MC. No one is forced to do anything, and everyone has the freedom to walk away whenever they want.”
“I know.” She sobbed.
I held her close as my men crowded into the room to check what was going on.
“Sunny,” I called.
“Yeah, Prez?”
“I need a cleanup crew in this muthafucka.”
“Already on it. And Keeper is on standby too.”
I nodded.
“We need some evidence. Where does your father keep his files?” I asked September.
I hated to bug her with this shit right now, but we didn’t have a lot of time to make some crucial moves to cover our tracks. The police would be involved in an investigation like this. Two high-powered men in the community involved in something with the MC wouldn’t look favorable on our part, especially when they were dead.
“That depends on what you’re looking for,” she muttered.
September pulled back from me and wiped her eyes. I could tell that she was destroyed, and I hated that this happened to her, but it was inevitable. If she married Daniel, shit would have been a lot worse.
“Anything related to business conducted between Daniel and him.”
“You won’t find anything.” Daniel groaned from his position on the floor.
“Get him out of here,” I ordered Ox.
Ox instantly snatched Daniel up by the broken arm, and the older man screamed in pain.
“You’ve got the code to get into his computer, right, Ember?”
“Yeah. I managed his books. I only recently discovered what he’d been up to the day that you came here. Wait. Do you think that Daniel was involved in that?”
“I know that he was. Your father’s a wealthy man, but to pull off shit like that, he would have had to have someone more powerful and wealthier backing him. That’s where Daniel came in. They’ve been friends for how long?”
“Years. At least ten.”
“I’m sure that your father and Daniel have been involved in this business all along. Short of killing Daniel, we need to find something to take his ass down.”
I watched as she ran to the desk and sat down. Her fingers flew over the keys as she opened the laptop and searched through the files.