Chapter Twenty-One
Hatch
“HATCH!” RAZOR YELLED. “Get in here!”
“Where’s the fuckin’ fire, brother?” I demanded, limping into the room.
Razor waved his hand over the pool table. “I think we have a problem.”
The felt was piled high with phones, necklaces, bracelets, and rings, and my heart dropped. “Fuck.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called my woman’s number, hearing her ringtone for me peal under one of the bejeweled phone cases. Jesus, fuckin’ Christ, she’d changed it from ‘Bad to the Bone’ to her fuckin’ boy band song.
Razor hissed like he’d been burned with acid. “What the hell is that noise?”
“Goddammit,” I growled, pushing the phones out of the way to find my wife’s just as other phones began to buzz and ring.
Brothers began filing into the great room, some with their phones to their ears, others just following, not knowing what I was about to tell them.
“Anyone seen Grace?” Flea asked.
“Where the hell is Danielle?” Booker demanded, stalking behind Flea.
Hawk waltzed in, his phone to his ear, and I heard buzzing in the pile on the pool table, so I pulled out the phone and held it up. “Is this Payton’s?”
“Why do you have my woman’s phone?” Hawk asked.
I handed it to him and sighed. “I think y’all will find your women’s phones are all here. Along with their trackers.”
“What?” Razor frowned, rummaging through the pile and pulling out a phone and a necklace. “What the hell?”
“What’s goin’ on, Hatch?” Mack demanded as my brothers surrounded the table and located each of their women’s items.
“I think you’d call this an insurrection,” Booker muttered.
“This is worse,” I growled. “This is what we call payback, gentlemen.”
“Payback for what, exactly?” Devon demanded.
“Fucking hell,” Booker snapped.
“For what we did with Warlock,” I provided.
“Poppy would never do that,” Devon countered.
“Call her phone, bud,” I said.
He slid his phone out of his pocket and dialed, and another phone pealed on the table. Devon scowled, finding it in what was left of the mess, along with Poppy’s bracelet. The one I’d had made for her when she was seventeen.
“What the fuck?”
“Where’s Gina?” I demanded.
“She just left,” Rooster said.
I called the gatehouse, and Buzz answered, “Yo.”
“Is Gina out of the gate yet?”
“I’m about to open them.”
“Don’t,” I ordered.
“Ah, what do I tell her?”
“Tell her I have something for Clutch. Be right there.”
I grabbed the keys to my wife’s car and headed down to the gates, smiling when I saw Gina standing outside hers. She raised an eyebrow when I climbed out and limped toward her.
“Hey, buddy, how ya feelin’?” she asked.
“Good.”
“I heard you had something for Clutch.”
“Ah, right, that wasn’t entirely true,” I admitted.
She shrugged then crossed her arms. “Well, that’s too bad, because he’s on his way.”
“Did you really feel like you needed to bring him in?”
“Wouldn’t you?” she challenged.
“No one here would lay a finger on you, sweetheart.”
“Never thought that for a second.”
“You gonna tell me where my wife is?” I asked.
“I’m not,” she said.
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because I honestly don’t know.”
I scowled. “What do you know?”
“That they’re safe.”
“Jesus Christ, Gina, you can’t honestly—”
My words were cut off by six bikes rollin’ in through the gates, Burning Saints patches on the backs of the bikers riding them, Clutch leading the pack, with Minus bringing up the rear.
“Goddammit.”
The men cut their engines, and Clutch made his way to us, wrapping his arm around his wife. “Hey, baby.”
“Hey.” She kissed him quickly, then eyed me with trepidation.
“What’s goin’ on, Hatch?” Minus asked from behind us. “Why does Eldie look a little freaked?”
“I’m not freaked, Minus,” Gina rushed to say. “Hatch just wants to know where Maisie is.”
“And you stopped my woman from leaving so you could ask her?” Clutch hissed.
“No, he didn’t stop me from leaving, honey,” Gina said. “He asked me to wait. I waited.”
“Jesus fuckin’ christ, I would never do anything to threaten, hurt, or cajole your woman, Clutch and you fuckin’ know it. I wouldn’t do anything like that to any woman.”
I heard footsteps behind me and knew my brothers were forming a protective circle.
“I swear to christ, Clutch, you’d look for a fight in the bottom of the box of your Captain Crunch,” I snapped.
“Well, since I wasn’t invited to the last dust-up, maybe I’m itchin’ for a little fun.”
“No one was invited to it,” I pointed out. “It was a one-on-one fight. No additional fists.”
“Boring,” Clutch said on a groan. “If I was there, it would have been a real party.”
“If you were there, it would have been a blood bath,” Gina said.
Clutch cocked his head. “Isn’t that what I said?”
“Where’s my wife, Gina?” I asked as gently as I could.
“I honestly don’t know, Hatch. She didn’t tell me. Just that they were all safe and that she’d reach out when they got where they were going.”
I glared at Minus. “Did my sister say anything?”
Minus shook his head.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called her myself.
She answered on the first ring. “I’m not speaking to you right now, and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”
“Cricket, what the fuck?”
“Your wife is pissed at me because of you, so for the foreseeable future, you are dead to me, big brother.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I kept your secret, against my better judgement, and because of that, I betrayed the trust of my sister-in-law, and my friend. She has made her displeasure known and now I don’t know if she will ever speak to me again, ergo, I will never, ever, ever, speak to you again.”
“Christina—”
“Suck my dick.”
She hung up on me, and I glared over at Minus who gave me a cocky grin.
“Someone needs to tell me where the hell my woman is!” I bellowed.
“No one knows, brother,” Rooster said.
“Fuck!”
“Ah, hi, Cricket,” Gina said into her phone. “Yes, of course. I’ll let Minus know. Okay, honey. I’ll see you soon.”
“Right, unless you’re a Dog, get the fuck out!” Booker bellowed.
“Except Gina, you’re always welcome, sweetheart,” Mack said.
“I’m good,” she said. “I have a husband and kids to cook for.”
“I’m cookin’ tonight, baby,” Clutch countered.
She smiled. “Even better.”
We waited a few minutes for the Saints to ride off and then Booker pulled me aside, out of earshot of the others. “I know where our women are.”
“What the fuck?”
“I think.”
“Jesus, Book, I’m gonna fuck up that pretty boy face if you don’t start talkin’.”
“Let’s talk in my office.”
I followed him back into the clubhouse and down to his office.
* * *
Katie
We arrived in Cannon Beach to our little private paradise, and Maisie and Dani handed out keys to everyone for the little condos right on the beach.
I was going to be sharing with Waverly and Melody, and I think Tate nearly collapsed with devastation that she wasn’t sharing with Melody, but she covered it well.
Melody Morgan was the biggest pop star on the planet.
No, let me rephrase. She was the biggest star on the planet and Tate was her biggest fan.
Melody had won a Grammy, an Oscar, and an Emmy and was about to start a play on Broadway, just because she could, so she was angling for a Tony.
The fact we might have an actual EGOT in our little club was a mind-bend, and Tate was her biggest fan. Okay, one of them, anyway.
Once everyone had their keys, we headed to our respective rooms with a plan to meet up for dinner at seven.
As I walked into our space, we divvied up rooms and I headed to the one in the back with the water view and threw my suitcase on the bed just as my phone rang. It was Cricket. She was the only one who had my burner number, and it would stay that way for the foreseeable future.
“Hey, bestie.”
“Hi,” she said, sounding totally deflated.
I frowned. “You okay?”
“No,” she bit out. “My sister won’t talk to me, and you’re there having fun with everyone while I’m stuck here with all of these barbarians. I just told my brother to suck my dick, and while that was a bright spot in my day, I’d rather be there with you.”
I sighed. “Honey, this will all blow over with Maisie.”
“Katie, that women holds a grudge—”
“Especially if it matches her handbag,” I finished. “I know. But she loves you. It doesn’t apply to the people she loves.”
“I fucked up,” Cricket rasped.
“You were in an impossible position.”
“Maybe, but I should have backed Maisie.”
“And what would have happened if you’d told her, right after she’d had major surgery, that her man was about to put his life in danger?” I challenged.
“She would have done something stupid, like running out of the hospital to stop him,” Cricket grumbled. “But she did do that or did you forget?”
“Yeah, but she did it after she’d healed enough to walk.”
“Barely.”
“True,” I agreed. “But she could have done real damage if it had been any sooner.”
“Well, Hatch is pissed, apparently. He boxed Gina in at the gate and Clutch and the boys had to come and rescue her.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Hatch.”
“Nothing my brother is doing sounds like him right now. He’s losing his mind. Literally. He can’t function without her.”
I sighed. “Well, maybe he’ll think twice about running off and nearly getting himself killed next time.”
“Have you met him?”
“Okay, right.” I chuckled. “Hatch is gonna do what Hatch is gonna do.”
“Anyway, I need to run. Will you please put in a good word with Maisie for me?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks, honey. I’ll see you when you get home,” she said. “Don’t have too much fun without me.”
“Never,” I swore.
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
We rang off and I joined the other girls in the living room for wine.
* * *
Maisie
Dani and I had fallen into uncontrollable giggles as we made our way back to the condo we were sharing after dinner. Granted, we’d had a lot of wine, and were in our cups a little.
“His face…” I said, then couldn’t finish my sentence.
“And Razor when your ringtone sounded. Oh my god, I thought he was going to puke.”
“Which is so rude. Take That is my favorite band.”