Chapter 28
Bear
J ackson was all smiles and looking for me on the one day he could guarantee I was captive to whatever insanity he’d cooked up.
“ I hear church on Friday needs a visiting preacher or ten.”
The shop was empty. I motioned at it. “ You don’t have to speak in code.” Wolf had one delay after another to get everyone wrangled for the VP vote. But it was happening. The patch had been sitting in Wolf’s desk for too long.
“ Hagerstown , ‘ Burgh , and Scranton RSVP’d .”
Cool . It would be a hell of a party. On fucking Halloween , too. I smiled. “ Is Kate at the club?” They started decorating a week ago and still weren’t done stretching fake spiderwebs all over the place. Rose was beside herself making witchy decorations and finally fitting in.
“ Naw , she’s back at the house. The fucking cable is out again.”
“ Hickey never tracked that down?”
Jackson groaned. “ This is all new shit.”
There went his smile. Damn it. “ It’ll all be fixed by the time you get back, then you’ve got…” I checked my clock and grinned, “all of a half hour to fuck her senseless again.”
“ Takes more than a half hour.” Jackson stood a little wider and that smile peeked back out.
I pulled my phone out to text one of the prospects to meet Zoe at her school. Maybe even warn them not to take her directly home.
But it lit up in my hand before I could. I answered.
Skinner was talking too quickly.
“ What do you mean, you can’t get a hold of Wolf ?” I glanced at Jackson , who was not making a secret of listening in. Skinner spat out some more info. It sounded like he said KC had been arrested.
“ He’s where?” Fuck .
I snapped my fingers and quickly relayed what I needed to Jackson while I listened to Skinner . “ Write down that lawyer’s number—the criminal one, not the fucking estate one.”
I had it stored in my phone, but I needed to get Skinner on this right away. “ Does KC have an alibi?”
Jackson’s eyes widened. He jotted down a number from memory. It figured he’d have that one memorized. We all should. I stuck a pin in that thought and moved back to Skinner’s conversation.
“ Let me repeat what you said, Jackson’s listening. Three minutes ago, you got the post-booking call from KC . He’s facing a murder one charge.” I glanced at Jackson to see how he’d handle that news.
His mouth tightened. I barely caught the silent, “fuck” he couldn’t hold back.
And that was putting it mildly. We were all cooked. There were stipulations with the estate that applied specifically to this situation. The biggest were the morality clauses in the contracts that the club agreed to in order to get our hands on that money. No felonies. By any member.
We’d been relying on a silent addendum of ‘ They have to catch us and convict us first ’ to every action since.
Because not even the fear of losing millions was enough to stop us from being Destroyers .
Or in this case, an idiot. I passed the number Jackson gave me to Skinner who had to be working on his laptop and his phone because he verified he had the firm on the line.
The next thing I said was worded very carefully because the line wasn’t secure.
Nor was my shop. “ Have you run a roll call yet?” What I really wanted to know was if he’d located Sketch , his girlfriend, Izzy , and probably got them and his kid out of the fucking state.
But I didn’t dare say anything close to that over the phone.
Skinner said he’d send a thread out.
Sure as shit, my phone displayed the message.
“ Check me and Jackson off. Kate’s at the house.
Hickey should be there looking at her cable, but don’t count them until you hear from them.
” I sent Jackson a tip of the head to make sure of that before anything else.
“ Pop it up and down the line. Use the full list. ASAP .” That meant everyone, ol’ ladies, hookers, prospects, everyone.
Jackson got on his phone to check on his family rather than wait.
“ What do you mean she doesn’t have her cell on her?”
Shit . Jackson’s skin had turned that ugly shade of red it got just before he beat the ever-loving shit out of someone. More than once, I’d had to tear him off so he wouldn’t kill the unfortunate target of his anger.
I tapped his elbow carefully to ground him and silently ask, who ?
“ Zoe . Fucking school makes ’em lock up their damn phones.” He turned back to the call with Kate . “ Tell me you sent someone there in person to pick her up.”
While I didn’t hear her reply, I did see the dagger-stare Jackson sent in my direction. “ And who’s on her?”
No . Fuck no . Hammer was supposed to be with Rose . I quickly texted him, demanding his twenty.
Lake . Lockdown . Smoke n Sprout hdng here fr job site.
That meant at least two ol’ ladies were under his care already. I sent a thumbs up to his message and waited while Jackson gave orders to Hickey to keep his wife safe.
That done, he kept the phone in hand. The black mirrored surface felt like a pit.
“ Rose is on Zoe ?” I asked carefully.
“ If it’s any consolation, they’re both armed.”
If Zoe couldn’t keep her phone on her at school, there was no way she’d be able to bring her handgun in. “ Where’s Zoe’s gun?”
He grimaced, realizing what I had. “ Probably locked in her glove box.”
I didn’t have to roll my eyes to let Jackson know what kind of stupid place that was for it.
“ She’ll be fine.”
Jackson didn’t fire off platitudes recklessly. So , I dissected the disassociated way he spoke. He was telling himself that lie, not me.
“ Ride with me. We’re going to go make sure of that.”
Our bikes waited outside. Jackson took lead, breaking laws to get to the school as fast as he could. I shadowed him, head on swivel so we wouldn’t get busted.
About three blocks away, my efforts weren’t enough. A cop pulled out from his blind all lit up. I gunned my bike to jump ahead of Jackson so I could tap my head, then downshifted fast so the cop would nab me, not him.
But that idiot circled around to join me.
Jackson smiled nicely and took the blame. Bear was just keeping up, officer. Give me the ticket, not him. I glared at my boss the whole time, not daring to say anything lest we get arrested on top of everything else.
Two tickets and twenty minutes later we pulled into the school lot. It was empty. My phone had been buzzing on my hip the entire time. I pulled it out and checked the messages from Rose .
“ They’re at the junkyard.”
Jackson looked confused. “ Why not home?”
I held up a finger and dialed Rose .
“ Bear ! Oh , thank the Goddess . Are you okay?” Her breathy, rapid-fire words barely registered.
“ Is Zoe with you?”
“ Yes , we’re fine.” I heard Zoe in the background say something.
“ Tell her to call her dad, now .”
Jackson’s phone rang within seconds. “ Baby girl, tell me something good,” he answered.
I breathed out a quick thank you to the gods. To Rose I said, “ Stay there. I’ll bring Jackson in. And if you could, please find out where Griz is? Let him know I’m on Jackson , and he should confirm Wolf’s twenty.”
“ No shit?” Jackson’s tone caught my attention. So did his laughter. “ No , you can’t have a shot until I get there, do you hear me?”
Zoe’s “ Da —ad” echoed through my speaker. “ Why does Zoe want a drink?” I asked Rose .
“ It’s not that, and it’s complicated, you might want to hear this in person.”
With that cryptic warning, Jackson signaled I needed to end the call and get moving.
“ What’s going on?” I asked him before he could pull away.
“ We get to kick some ass.” His smile wasn’t creepy at all. At least, that’s what I told myself.
A tow truck—not one of ours—sat outside the club. Attached to it was Zoe’s car. Next to them was my SUV .
Jackson took his time to walk around the vehicles to inspect for damage. His brows were down, casting his eyes into shadow. With the precision he carried himself, and the glowering seriousness of his expression, I knew he plotted murder.
Bad timing for it.
Then again, if the club was going down, maybe it was the perfect time to show everyone why we earned the moniker, “ Destroyers .”
I peeked into the cab of the tow truck out of curiosity more than anything else. No sooner than I did, I smacked Jackson’s arm as he paced another slow circuit around the vehicles. “ Check it out, blood.”
His face flushed red and his eyes met mine. “ That better be his because if it’s not…”
“ Boss ?”
“ What ?!” He was at the end of his leash and ready to snap free at any second.
I kept my voice low. “ If it isn’t his, I think everyone would want a piece. I know I would appreciate at least one bite.”
His body shook with rage. “ We’ll see.
He practically ripped the screen door off its hinges, then kicked more than opened the door as he powered into the club. The rumble of voices cut short.
Near the entrance, Baldy and Coop flanked a greasy pig of a human who wore filthy overalls, a squalid T -shirt yellowed by dirt and sweat, and mud-caked work boots. Blood dripped from the towel he had pressed to his neck, and more of it stained his clothing rust-red.
Zoe raced to her father with a high-pitched, “ Daddy !” Her momentum practically took him down but he recovered quickly to put her at arms-length and check for damage. Seeing none, he smiled.
“ May I please get my gun out of the car? Please , Daddy ?”
He shot a glance at the bleeding man. “ Give me a minute to catch up first.”
“ Who cut him?” I interjected, because that was important.
Rose stepped forward. Unlike Zoe , she did have blood on her hands and clothes. “ I did.”
My head went a little fuzzy.
Before I thought to blink, she was standing in front of me, holding out the athame I’d given her. “ Long story, but he had Zoe’s car attached to his truck when I got to the school to wait for her. I tried to make him unhook it but, well, eventually had to force him to see things my way.”