Chapter 70
Reaper
I rub my hand up and down Lark’s arm, trying to comfort her as she talks to the ladies. They’ve been trying to keep her mind off the fire, but I can still feel a tremble running through her. She hasn’t received any more texts or voicemails since the fire, thank fuck.
I look up at the clock. It’s been an hour since Lark hung up with Erik and Emma. Thankfully, the damage from the fire and water should be minimal since they got to it so quickly.
The hallway doors open, breaking me out of my thoughts and we all stand when we see Thor and Dragon emerge, smiling widely.
Lil’ Bit squeals in excitement, damn near bouncing on her toes. “Are they here? What are their names? Everyone’s healthy?”
We all chuckle at her as Timber pulls her into his arms. “Give him time to answer, Sunshine.”
Thor and Dragon exchange a look, grinning.
“They’re here, our twin girls. Adrianna Emily and Olivia Marie!” Thor calls out and cheers erupt from all of us. Roy, Levi’s dad, quickly walks over to them, pulling them both in for a hug, his eyes brimming with tears.
“Thank you,” he says quietly as he dabs at his eyes.
Emily was Levi’s mom’s name and Marie was Thor and Dragon’s mom’s name.
“Awww, that’s so sweet of them to carry on their moms’ names as their daughters’ middle names,” Lark says quietly as she dabs at her eyes.
“Can we see them?” Mae asks and both Thor and Dragon nod.
“Yeah, but Wildcat is understandably pretty spent, so just a quick visit for now. Longer visits can happen once she’s had some rest.”
We all take turns, though all of the women hold back, letting the guys go first. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask why they didn’t want to go first, but I suspect it’s because they all want to hold them and their visits will take a bit longer than the rest of the guys’.
Finally, it’s our turn to go in and see Half-pint and the girls.
“Awww, they are just precious,” Lark coos as she bends over the bassinet holding Adrianna per the name card on the front of it.
“You can hold them,” Half-pint tells her as she sits up a bit more in bed. She tries to hide her wince and her cheeks flare red when she notices I saw it. “How was the ride over?” she asks me and then her face hardens when she sees my expression.
“What happened?”
I grit my teeth and notice Lark’s muscles visibly tighten for a moment before she forces them to relax since she now has Adrianna snuggled in her arms.
“Reaper, can you grab my phone out of my pocket?” Lark asks me as she turns her back to me.
I do as she asks, unlocking it and bringing up the text thread before handing the phone to Levi. Both Thor and Dragon peer over her shoulder and read the texts.
“Minutes after the fourth one came through, we got an alert on our phones of a fire at the tavern. The fire department got it put out before it could get out of hand, but most of Lark’s office will need to be replaced,” I tell them.
“I think I’m gonna ask Smithy if he can make my next desk out of metal and use fireproof drawers or safes as my ‘desk drawers’,” Lark mumbles as she sits down in the chair and rocks Adrianna.
Thor walks over to Olivia, picks her up, and walks back over to Lark.
She holds out her other arm and nestles Olivia in close.
“Thank you,” she whispers and thankfully, he says nothing about the unshed tears in her eyes that she’s desperately trying to blink away.
“Do you need us to send some guys to Junction Creek with you?” Thor asks and I pause, not having thought to ask about that yet.
Thor chuckles and clasps my shoulder. “Brother, you and your club have helped ours repeatedly. It’s the least we can do to start repaying you.
I’ll message Phoenix to talk to everyone and see who all we can spare.
If need be, we can switch people out after a week or so. ”
“Thank you, Brother.”
His lips twitch in a half smile and tension leeches out of my shoulders. Now all we have to do is figure out our next step.
Lark’s gaze locks with mine, and I can tell she wants to suggest something but isn’t sure if she should.
“What is it, Darlin’?”
She chews on her lip as she looks around the room at Thor, Dragon, and Half-pint before it settles on me again.
“I think we need to pay Zac a little visit at his house. Something is still telling me he’s involved, and if he is, then there has to be some clue there.”
I grin and share a look with the others. “Looks like we’re going hunting.”
We stayed for another half-hour, ironing out the plan for who all will go with us as well as what our next steps are going to be.
I look down at Olivia in my arms and longing once again hits me hard. I hope like hell Lark and I are able to start a family of our own soon. I carefully lay her down in her bassinet, relieved when she doesn’t wake back up.
“You did good, Half-pint,” I tell her as I walk over to her and hug her.
“Thanks, Andre. You know you guys are always welcome to come and visit anytime. Once the girls are a bit older, we’ll start making trips out to see you guys again as well.
” She pauses as she gives me a bit of a squeeze before she lets me go.
“And keep us posted on this stalker asshole. Lark’s right.
If that Zac is involved, there has to be some sort of a clue at his house.
Fuck, I wouldn’t put it past the guy to have a shrine of you somewhere. ”
Lark visibly shudders at that before hugging Half-pint. “I hope that’s not the case but that would let us know for sure if he’s in on it.”
“Ryder, Smoke, Gunner, Axe, Timber, and Patch are able to head out with you guys today. Smoke also told me to let you know he’s got the supplies for giving you guys the trackers under your skin.
Everyone in our club now has it and I think it would be a good idea for your club to get it too.
Smoke has all the bugs ironed out, so we’ll be letting the other chapters know about it as well. ”
I give him a chin lift. “We’ll stop at the club house and get it done. I’ll talk to the guys but I don’t think they’ll put up an objection.”
After saying our goodbyes, we head out to the waiting room. To my surprise, I see the rest of my club still in the waiting room.
Devil smirks at me. “Didn’t want to leave you unprotected. Not sure if that asshole has figured out where we are, but just in case, we figured we’d wait to ride back with you.”
“Thanks, Brother,” I reply and clasp him on the shoulder before turning to the rest of my brothers.
“Sorry for taking so long. Some of the Forest Creek guys will be riding back with us—I’ll explain once we get to the clubhouse, so let’s head out.
” While they’re trying to hide it, everyone else in the waiting room is trying to listen in and I don’t want this conversation to happen around loose ears.
Twenty minutes later, we pull up in front of the clubhouse.
We all head inside and file into Church.
Thor texted right before we left that he called Church so we could fill everyone in on everything.
Lark hesitates, most likely not sure if she is allowed, but I snag her hand, lead her inside, and shut the door behind me.
Phoenix gives me a chin lift. “Reaper, how about you take over and fill everyone in.”
I guide Lark to an empty chair and then step up next to Phoenix at the front of the room, filling everyone in on both of Lark’s stalkers and how we managed to catch one of them. Then, I tell them about the plans we came up with in Half-pint’s hospital room.
“Like Thor said, Ryder, Smoke, Gunner, Axe, Timber, and Patch, will head out with you today. If you still need more manpower after a week, we’ll rotate out. Keep us posted on how the stakeout goes and what you find at that asshole’s house.” He pauses and looks over at Smoke, giving him a chin lift.
Smoke turns to Lark since the rest of us have known about his trackers since last fall.
“Lark, I don’t know what all you know about the trackers that are imbedded under the skin, so I’ll just get right to it.
The rest of us are familiar with them. The trackers are not something that’s available to the civilian world yet, but in exchange for doing my friend’s company some favors, I can get as many of them as I want or need. ”
He pauses and gestures for Phoenix to lower the screen. A moment later, the image of the tracker appears on the wall.
“This is what it looks like. It’s not like normal trackers that emit a constant signal.
It can be triggered or deactivated in two ways which helps prolong the battery life.
The first way is that I can do it on my system.
The other is that you can press it three times in a row.
While it can go in your arm, the best place for this particular chip is in your hip.
It needs to go below the waistband of your jeans and away from where the seam is on the side of your jeans, so it won’t be accidentally triggered.
Depending on the use, the battery life is ten years.
However, if something happens and it starts to die before then, I’ll get a warning on my computer.
I’ll also be doing random checks to verify they are still working but I’ll shut them off as soon as I’m done.
When the battery does die, all it takes is just a small incision to remove the chip and at that same time, I’d replace it with a new one. ”
“How does it get inserted? Do I need to have an incision done?”
Smoke shakes his head and pulls out a device that’s like a little gun. “This is what we use to inject it under the skin. Then you just need to keep a band aid over it until the skin heals.”
She chews on her bottom lip as she thinks for a few moments. “And everyone in the Forest Creek chapter has them?”
Smoke nods and after a few clicks on his keyboard, the screen changes to show the program he uses. Currently, there are three blue dots and four red dots all in a small cluster on the screen.
“The blue dots are adults and the red dots are the kids. Right now, you’re seeing Mae, Mary, Elvira, Lindsey, Ash, Izzy, and Cassie.
” Then he pauses as his mouse hovers over the blue dots until he gets to Mae’s.
A picture of her comes up and below that is her name and the coordinates of where she is.
“I’m able to add in more information if needed, but for now I settled on picture, name and coordinates. Now, can those in the room that have the tracker please activate it?” he asks.
I glance around, watching everyone from the Forest Creek chapter reach down to their hip. I look back up at the screen and more dots start appearing on the screen, one after another.
Lark nods thoughtfully, her gaze fixed on the screen. “Too bad we didn’t do that for Star and Crystal—we could have made sure they adhered to the conditions we gave them,” she mutters.
I’m not sure if she meant for anyone to hear that, but I cock my head as I contemplate that thought.
It definitely would have helped in those situations.
Well, so long as they didn’t have the trackers dug out after the fact, that is.
Judging by the look on Phoenix’s face, I’d say he’s thinking the same thing.
“Have you thought about adding blood type and possibly allergies for a quick reference in case of emergencies? At least, I assume you’re able to access this from your phone as well.”
Smoke’s head cocks to the side. “Yes, I can access it from my phone. As for blood type and allergies, I hadn’t thought about it before but that would be easy enough to add since Patch has that information already, I believe,” he says, and Patch dips his head in acknowledgement.
I raise an eyebrow in question to Lark. She takes a deep breath, but nods in acknowledgement.
“If you have more, I’d like to get one.”
“I have more than enough. Does anyone else from your chapter want it? When we get to Junction Creek, I’ll make sure Python has access to the program and that he has rights to add more as you guys grow.”
“I’ll get it,” I tell him, and the rest of my brothers quickly agree as well. I turn to Smoke. “If you’ve got the stock, can you bring more with you for the others that stayed back?”
Smoke gives me a chin lift and then rasps his knuckles on the table. “Of course. Lark, I’ll get you yours here before we leave, but as for the rest, let’s wait till we’re back in Junction Creek so I can show Python how to administer them and set everything up.”
I dip my chin in thanks to him.
Phoenix rasps his knuckles on the table. “Okay, let’s go over the plan one more time before you all head out.”