Chapter Four
Raider
The phone call from the fucking senator’s assistant has me seeing fucking red.
This is the fourth fucking time we’ve been called in to solve his problems for him.
At the rate this man is going, the club is going to have so much fucking dirt on him we’ll be able to do whatever the fuck we want to do in this state.
What makes my blood fucking boil is the fact that this motherfucker keeps hurting innocent people.
I slam through the back door with Medic and Anvil hot on my heels.
“Satchel,” I yell when I don’t see anyone.
Marching through the building, searching for anyone. I’m just about to the front office when Erin Rose steps out, scowling at me.
“Damn you, Raider. Why the hell are you screaming the walls down?” she snaps.
Stopping in my tracks, I level my angry gaze on Satchel’s Ol’ Lady. “We got a call about a high-priority cleanup.”
“Still doesn’t explain why you’re yelling like a madman,” she sasses, matching my stare.
Growling in frustration, I throw my hands up. “Fine, I’m sorry. Can you please tell me where I can find Satchel so we can get the things we need to get this fucking job done?”
I watch as she relaxes at my not so angry words. “The last I saw him, he was out back spraying out the vans. Try starting there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I mumble like a chastised child as I step forward to press a chaste kiss on her cheek.
As I do, the movement to my left catches my attention.
I snap my eyes to a figure sitting in one of Erin Rose’s office chairs.
When our eyes land on each other, everything I thought I’d buried in the past explodes wide open.
I stand straight, trying to stop the tilt-a-whirl that just took over my brain.
She stands so quickly she stumbles. Stepping forward, I reach out to steady her.
My heart stops when she throws a hand up, halting my steps.
I am so fucking dumbfounded that Anastasia is standing here that I can’t string a single thought together.
Erin Rose steps around me, seemingly not grasping that my entire world just stopped spinning.
“Oh goodness sweetheart, are you okay?” Erin Rose asks, placing her hands on Anastasia’s shoulders.
She doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring between Erin Rose and me. Without looking away from us, she reaches into her purse and pulls out her phone, checking it before she speaks again.
“I will get your number from Auntie Lynn and check in with you tomorrow on when or if you would like me to start,” she stumbles over her words. “This is my boy, and he’s supposed to be at practice. So, I need to take it and run.”
The way she said “my boy” causes something deep in me to go quiet. The smallest spark that I didn’t even know was still burning is just … gone. Burning out so fast, I can feel the chill in my soul. The last piece of me that cared about something is completely dead.
Erin Rose’s voice is soft when she speaks. “Sounds perfect, sweetie. I look forward to hearing from you.”
Anastasia moves towards me, looking at her feet as she moves around me. “Excuse me, please.”
I step out of her way, watching her as she moves through the door to the front office and right out of my life for the second fucking time. As she steps through the door, she places the phone to her ear, and I nearly fall to my knees.
“Hey, love, what’s wrong? Why are you calling me from practice?” I hear her say just as the door swings closed behind her.
“The answer is fucking no,” I force through clenched teeth without looking away from the door my very own poltergeist just walked through.
“Excuse me?” Erin Rose asks, making her way around her desk to sit.
Looking around the warehouse, I find it empty. I turn back to Erin Rose, making sure there is no misunderstanding when I say what I have to say next.
“You will not hire that woman. She will not work anywhere near any business I have. Erin Rose, this is not something I will bend on.” I make sure to lace every word with authority.
She leans back in her chair, a thoughtful look on her face.
“If she isn’t allowed to be anywhere near one of your businesses.
” She spits the word “your” like it disgusts her.
“Then are you going to go call Terro and tell him that Gold Wings cannot do the renovation and lawn care out at Lynn’s place? ”
Her words have their intended effect. “What we do at Ms. Lynn’s has nothing to do with this. Anastasia and her sister bring nothing good with them.”
“Ms. Lynn matters when she called me personally to ask if I knew of a part-time job for her niece, who moved back to town to help care for her since Shea was being a twat again,” Erin Rose says like I’m a dumbass.
“Fucking hell,” I hiss, turning and punching the wall. Since the day she left me fifteen years ago without a word, tearing my heart out as she went, and then I joined the club. I have fought every day not to think about her. I have constantly had to slam the lid on the memories that haunted me.
Memories of the summer days spent running across her land and helping her grow her plants in her greenhouse slam into me.
The way Anastasia’s face would light up when she talked about all the ways she was going to fix the house up and return it to its former glory.
I’d spent so much time running from and burying those memories, that unless there was an issue out at Auntie Lynn’s or we were doing construction, I did my best to stay away from all conversation and gossip about what was going on out there.
“I’m guessing you’ll be sending a brother over to fix the damage to my wall,” Erin Rose wonders at my back.
“Yeah,” I throw over my shoulder, needing to get to this fucking job.
“Oh, and as much as you want this to be your business—I run it, and if you want that to continue, then I will be hiring her to help me.”
I turn to look at her and find a dare written all over her face.
“If you say no, then I will happily pack up and find something less icky to do. So, what’s it going to be?”
“Ultimatums aren’t attractive on you, Erin Rose,” I sneer, fucking pissed she’s backed me into a damn corner.
“Asshole makes you look like Shrek,” she rebuttals, not backing down from the dark look on my face. “Tell me what it's going to be.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you when this blows up in your face. She likes to disappear without a trace,” I shrug, marching off to find my brothers.
I find them out by the vans packing the equipment we need for the job. At least someone around here knows what the fuck they're doing.
“We ready to go?” I call as I get closer to them.
Satchel looks over at me. “From what little information Anvil was able to give me, I would say so. In van one, we have all the forensic collection stuff we need to make sure we have what we need when we need it. Van two has everything for the clean-up side of things.”
“Let’s get this shit done,” I tell them, sliding my cut off and hanging it in the back of the van I’ll be riding in.
Anvil climbs into the driver's seat, pulling out as Satchel and Remedy follow us in the second van.
We move from the rundown side of town to downtown, where all the money and tourism is.
If only half the people knew what really goes on in the bright and shiny side of town.
The closer we get to the high rise the hotter my anger seems to get.
“Prez, you okay?” Anvil asks without looking away from the road.
“I haven’t been okay in so long I don’t even fucking know what that looks like. What I am is solid and able to do my job,” I say harshly, not liking that this man is questioning me and, truthfully, looking for a fucking fight.
“Never said you couldn’t do the damn job. I’m just gauging how long I have until the bomb goes off and we’ve got a fucking mess to clean up,” he says so matter-of-factly that it stops my train of thought.
This man, who has been a brother for a long time, even through serving in the military, was always an ear.
And, like always, he’s gone and done something I didn’t think was possible at this point in my life.
He stopped the chaos in my fucking head, it’s as if he reached in and slammed the runaway train into park.
Anvil didn’t berate, placate, or even try to tell me I’m losing it.
He just saw I was circling the goddamn drain and instead of trying to pull me back, this motherfucker met me there, right on the fucking edge.
I let out a sarcastic laugh. “It’s fucking scary how you can cut through the bullshit.
To be honest, what has me worked up right this second doesn’t have anything to do with the club, sex trafficking, random-ass motorcycle clubs, or even the fact my goddamn brother seems to be leader of all the fucked up shit. My very own past has unburied itself.”
“Yeah, it always seems karma has a way of revealing the buried things when you don’t have the space or time to deal with them.” He taps his finger on the steering wheel.
“That it fucking does.” I need to change the subject. “How does it feel to be back full-time?”
“I’m adjusting. Having shit to do has helped keep me from getting lost in my own chaos,” he tells me, looking at me from the corner of his eye.
“That I can agree with,” I tell him as we pull into the parking lot of the hotel.
I point for Anvil to go around the back where there will be someone to open the door allowing us to slip into the hotel. We park the van, and a very large man in a suit swings the door open for us. Anvil puts the van into park before killing the engine, watching the man closely with narrowed eyes.
“You solid?” I question him, the hairs on my neck rising by the way Anvil is watching the man.
“I’m as solid as it gets. Something about that man is familiar in the snap-your-neck-when-you’re-not-looking kind of familiar,” he murmurs, never removing his eyes from the man.
“As Sergeant at Arms, you tell me, do we need to have the others on standby?” I ask him.