Chapter 21
Lynch
We were all sitting around the conference room waiting for either Jagger or Tully to speak when we heard Tully say, “Long time no see, brother.”
“I’m not your brother. I’m nothing to you, and after the shit you pulled with the club and Sophie, you are less than nothing to me.” Jagger’s voice grew deep and menacing as he warned, “And if you’ve done anything to hurt Sophie or so much as touched her, you’re as good as dead.”
Tully scoffed, then sneered, “It’s good to see you, too.”
“Where the hell is Sophie?”
“We’ll get to that, but first, there are things to discuss.”
“I’m not here to play games, Tully. Tell me where she is, or there will be hell to pay.”
“You’re in no position to make threats—not if you ever wanna see your girl again.” You could hear the legs of a chair drag against the concrete floor as Tully said, “Now, sit down.”
There was another shuffling sound, and then I heard Jagger ask, “Okay, Tully. What exactly do you want to discuss?”
“Why don’t we start with you? How are things on the outside?”
“Are you being serious right now?” Jagger spat. “I got no interest in shooting the shit with you, Tully. I just want to know where Sophie is.”
“This isn’t about what you want!” Tully barked back. “This is about me and what I fucking want! I want you to sit there and listen to what I gotta say.”
“I’m all ears, Tul. Just waiting on you to spit out whatever the hell you gotta say.”
“You’ve always been a smug piece of shit. I should’ve known you’d stab me in the fucking back.”
“I never stabbed you in the fucking back.”
“The hell you didn’t! You dug the knife in the second you walked out of here. You just left and took your protection with you.” I could hear the anger seeping from his words as Tully roared, “I had to face my enemies alone, and if that wasn’t enough, I had to face yours, too!”
“Mine?”
“All those assholes you had run-ins with were itching for vengeance but couldn’t get it with your big, bad Ruthless Sinners’ protection.
Once that was gone ... once you were gone, they came for me!
” The guy sounded like he was about to lose it as he shouted, “They made me their bitch. You got any idea what that’s like?
What it does to a man? To be beaten and fucked with day after day while you’re out there living the fucking high-life? ”
“I didn’t know.”
“Of course, you didn’t know! You never gave a shit enough to know. You wouldn’t even return my fucking calls! You just left and never looked back.”
For a split second, I honestly felt a little sorry for Tully. We all knew how cruel prison life could be. It had to be rough not having Jagger and his protection any longer. But at the same time, Jagger didn’t owe Tully any further protection.
They weren’t brothers.
They were cellmates.
But clearly, Tully thought that meant more than it did.
Eager to get answers, Jagger pushed, “What does any of this have to do with Sophie? Tell me where she is!”
“I will tell you when I’m good and ready! For now, you’re gonna listen to what I’ve gotta say!” Tully pouted. “Something you should’ve done before and none of this would’ve happened. But no! You never gave a second fucking thought to what was going on with me.”
“What did you expect?”
“I expected you to give a damn! We spent four years in that cell together.”
“I spent four years saving your ass and didn’t ask for a damn thing in return.”
“Oh? And what about Rossi? I took care of that asshole for you, or did you forget about that?” The entire room stilled the second Rossi’s name came through the speaker.
Lorenzo Rossi was a member of the Italian Mafia.
He killed Aubrey’s folks and was out to kill her as well, but his plans were derailed when she escaped and landed under protective custody with my grandparents. They put her up in her own place, gave her a job, and watched over her for months—until Rossi and his men found her.
My grandfather was a wise man. He knew there was a chance Aubrey might be found, so he lined her up with a car, money, and clothes and left her a note with instructions to come to Tennessee and find us. He knew the club would look out for her, and we did.
With a good deal of help from Billy, our club’s cleaner, Menace was able to help her shake Rossi and provide the evidence against him during his first-degree murder trial. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Rossi was found not guilty and set free.
But seconds after he walked out of the courthouse, he was shot and killed.
We’d all thought Menace had something to do with his murder, but clearly, we were mistaken. I wasn’t surprised that Jagger was involved. He and Menace had always been close, and after hearing that Aubrey was Menace’s ol’ lady, he felt inclined to help.
Tully’s words were still hanging in the air, weighing on everyone in the room, when Tully added, “You were supposed to get your club to protect me! You were supposed to get your girl to help me get a fucking parole hearing!” Tully sounded delusional as he explained, “I did my part. I hired her to do her fucking anger management bullshit.”
“You hired Sophie?”
Menace didn’t miss the tremor in Jagger’s voice. None of us did. We all knew it was a sure sign that Jagger was about to lose it, and that couldn’t happen—not until we knew where to find Sophie. Menace kept his voice low and steady as he warned, “Easy, Jagger.”
“Damn right I did! I played the same fucking game you did, but the bitch refused to fucking help me.”
“That wasn’t her job!”
“The fuck it wasn’t! You should’ve made her! You should’ve—”
“I didn’t know you’d fucking hired her, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have asked her to cross a line like that. Not for you. Not for anyone.”
“You could’ve done something to get me out of here!”
“You got it all wrong, Tully. You’ve got ten years left of your sentence. You’d need all kinds of pull to get out of this fucking place, and I don’t have it. If I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t have spent four fucking years in this godforsaken place.”
“But you got out, and—”
“We’re going in circles. For the love of God, just tell me how I can get Sophie back!”
“I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t.
” There was a dramatic change in Tully’s tone as he explained, “I’ve prayed night after night that one of the beatings would go too far, and that would be the end, but it never happened.
I’m a fucking mouse in a goddamn lion’s den, and none of them want to give up their toy. ”
“You still haven’t told me what you want from me.”
“I want you to make it stop!” Tully demanded. “I want you to do whatever it takes to make it all just stop.”
“There’s only one way out of this, Tul,” Jagger answered flatly, leaving no doubt to what he meant. “You made sure of that when you had our strip club blown to bits and raped one of our girls. And if that wasn’t enough, you killed one of our prospects and had Sophie taken.”
Before Jagger could finish his thought, Tully interjected, “I never told him to rape the girl.”
“What?”
“I just told him to rough ’em up a bit, but that was it. Didn’t tell him to kill your prospect either.”
“Didn’t tell who?” When he didn’t immediately answer, Jagger pushed, “Didn’t tell who!”
“Give me your word that you’ll make it stop. However that may be, I need your word. It’s the only way I’ll tell you.”
“Fine! You have my goddamn word! Now, tell me who!”
“It was Booker and his brother, Kordarius.” The second I heard Kordarius’s name, I knew we had him, and Tully knew it, too. From that point on, he didn’t bother holding back. “I called in a favor—one I’d been saving for something like this, and they stepped up and got the job done.”
“This Booker fella and his brother... Did they work alone?”
“Couldn’t tell ya.”
“Which one of them has Sophie?”
“Couldn’t tell you that either.”
“Fuck, Tully. What kind of show are you running here?”
“The kind that got you here. That’s the only thing that fucking matters to me!”
Menace turned to Shotgun and Hawk, and like they’d read his mind, both immediately stood and started out of the room. Menace leaned forward and spoke into the mic as soon as they left. “We’ve still got Kordarius. Just hang in there. We’ll get him to tell us where the brother is.”
Jagger’s voice sounded muffled like he was covering his mouth as he whispered, “Just make it fast. I got a feeling we’re running out of time here.”
I understood Jagger’s urgency. This Booker motherfucker raped Misty and killed Collins without being told to do so.
We couldn’t take any chances on him doing the same to Sophie, which meant Shotgun had to get Kordarius talking.
It wasn’t going to be easy. He’d already proven that he’d withstand the pain for his brother.
The thought concerned me enough to ask Menace, “You think Shotgun can get him to talk?”
“Oh, yeah. He’ll have the guy singing like a fucking canary.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
“’Cause I am.” Menace turned his computer screen towards me. “I found his kid.”
We weren’t the kind of MC that hurt women or children, but it wasn’t above us to use them as an incentive. I just hoped Kordarius would take the bait and tell us where we could find his brother and Sophie before something happened that we’d all regret.
My curiosity was starting to get the best of me when Country leaned over to me and whispered, “I’m gonna go check in with Shotgun and see how things are going with Kordarius.”
“Good, I’m going with.”
Country motioned over to Viper, letting him know what we were doing, and then we both stood up and quietly stepped out of the room. Neither of us spoke as we walked down the hall and out to Shotgun’s holding room.
We stepped up the two-way mirror and found Kordarius secured to an old wooden chair with his wrists duct-taped to its arms and ankles bound to the legs, making it impossible for him to move.
Kordarius had been locked up in that room for weeks, and you could tell by looking at him that his mental state and physical strength weren’t what they were when he was first brought in.
Shotgun had already started working him over, and he was bleeding from his mouth and cheek as he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Enough of the bullshit.” Shotgun knelt in front of him and looked him square in the eye. “We know you and your brother were working with Tully.”
Kordarius’s eyes widened with panic. “You got it wrong, man. I don’t know no Tully.”
“We know differently.” Shotgun took out his phone from his back pocket, then pulled up a video. As soon as he hit Play, he turned the screen towards Kordarius. “We also know about your son.”
You could hear the utter fear in his voice as he pleaded, “Noooo!”
“Afraid so.” The video continued to play, then Shotgun said, “He’s a cute kid. I’d sure hate to see anything happen to him.”
“You can’t hurt him. He’s got nothing to do with any of this.”
“Oh, we can, and we will.” Shotgun looked down at the screen as he told him, “You either tell us everything you know, or we bring the kid in, and I’ll—”
“Okay, okay. You win.” Kordarius couldn’t seem to talk fast enough as he rambled on, “It was my brother. He was the one who had the connection to Tully. The guy offered him a big payout if he caused problems for your club and that Dalton guy. I didn’t want no part of it, but Booker had me by the balls. I owed him for—”
“I don’t give a shit why you did it,” Shotgun interrupted. “Your brother has one of our girls. I need to know where he would’ve taken her.”
“I don’t know.” Kordarius thought for a moment, then added, “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s hiding out at Jenson’s place. He was the one who did the break-in with us.”
“What’s the address?”
“He’s got a duplex on East Main. Number two-twenty-three or two-twenty-four. I ain’t sure.” He thought for a moment, then added, “It’s green with a white door. Probably got a blue Dodge parked out front.”
If Kordarius was right, it’d be only a matter of time before we had Sophie back. My focus was still on Shotgun when Locke walked up and nudged me with a concerned look on his face. “I got something you’re gonna want to see.”
He handed me his phone, and when I looked down at the screen, I saw a message from Haleigh.
Haleigh:
Hey.
I’m going to have to cancel our plans for tonight.
Raelyn’s been in a car accident, and I’m on the way to the hospital.
Locke:
Oh, damn.
Is she okay?”
Haleigh:
I don’t know.
I haven’t made it to the hospital yet, and she isn’t answering her phone.
Locke:
Let me know when you find out something.
“When was this?”
“About an hour ago.” Locke grimaced as he admitted, “I would’ve said something sooner, but we were in the heat of it with Jagger and Tully, and I was hoping to hear back from Haleigh, but—”
“I need to go find out if she’s okay.”
I stood up but then immediately froze.
I was stricken.
I’d always believed that the club came first—no matter what.
But this was Raelyn—the woman I’d intended to claim as my own.
I had no way of knowing whether she was alive or dead, and it gutted me.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing there when Menace said, “Go.”
“But—”
“We’ve got it covered. Go!”
Without any further encouragement, I charged for the door and rushed outside to my bike. Seconds later, I was through the gate and speeding towards the hospital while dread washed over me.
I knew without a shadow of a doubt that when I reached that hospital, my entire world would be shattered, and yet, I didn’t stop or turn around.
I simply drove faster.