Chapter 8
Switch
Ifelt fucking gutted leaving Joy on the landing alone, but we’ve got three men trussed up like Thanksgiving turkeys and we need to know what they know.
I need to get this shit shut down before Joy or Kit are hurt.
Marx’s whistle pierces the air and like the trained dogs we are my brothers and I come running.
“Settle down, we have shit to cover and not a lot of time to do it in,” Marx barks.
“I’m here, and all will be revealed,” Chewy says mysteriously before taking a long slurp of something in a cup the size of her head.
She takes her place on Rhodie’s lap, and snuggles in, her ever present laptop on the table in front of her.
“Wait, I thought you were in early retirement?” Fox asks, brows furrowed.
“I was until I saw three unknown men wandering around Joy’s house.”
“Wait, you saw them?” Rhodie asks, leaning over to see his Ol Lady’s face.
“Well, duh. I did the security remember? Joy gets home at precisely 5:45pm everyday. Those men were walking the perimeter at 5:15pm. The motion sensors went off. Oh, they also went off when one of them called that witchy neighbor woman a ‘bitch’ and she went feral. I like her.” She grins at Mad Dog who rolls his lips between his teeth to stop the grin that’s growing on his face.
“OK, what else do you know?” Marx asks impatiently.
“Well, Wire is doing a reverse hack on the comms unit, but I can tell you that as of two minutes ago five blacked out SUVs with around fifteen men have all pulled up at Joy’s and they’re combing the entire property.”
My fists clench on the top of the wooden church table.
“Fucking hell,” Gus grumbles before frowning at Roman. “Why are you here?”
“I like the hospitality,” Roman replies in his cool, clipped accent.
“He’s here because his bad guys will know stuff about these bad guys,” Chewy answers without looking up from her laptop before waving a hand in Roman’s direction. “That’s what always happens. Bad guys cross our path. We piss them off. Roman knows more about them than we do. Then we get rid of ‘em.”
“She’s not wrong,” Judge mutters.
“So, what do you know?” Tav asks.
“The buyer of your little red head is a man named Petrov. He’s been causing Lexi some…issues.” Roman answers with a flick of the wrist.
“What kind of issues?” Marx asks through gritted teeth.
“The kind that lead to dead bodies in shipping containers.”
“Fucking hell,” Rhodie growls.
“Lexi has been shutting down his trafficking operations, but these things are like the Hydra. You cut off one head, and two more grow.”
“So how the fuck are we meant to stop them?”
“Much like Hydra you take out the one, main head,” Roman replies, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped over his stomach.
“Petrov,” Gus says, Roman dipping his chin in confirmation.
“So, we shut him down, and in turn we shut down one huge part of Matthew Thompson and Richard McDonald’s business.” Savage surmises.
“Then we just have to shut down their weapons operations and they’ll be done,” Tav adds.
“Well, it all sounds so simple when you put it like that,” Roman says with a smirk. “I also happen to have heard that Petrov is not very happy with Thompson and McDonald. It seems this one little girl isn’t the only one that has slipped through his fingers.”
“Addy and Bree,” Fox says, jaw clenching.
Marx narrows his eyes at the Russian and opens his mouth but he’s interrupted by Chewy’s “uh oh.”
“What do you mean ‘uh oh’?” Marx asks as his head snaps in her direction.
“Bad guys leaving Joy’s house heading this way,” she mutters, fingers flying over her keyboard.
“Fuck. You said five SUVs, three men each?” Fox asks, brow raised as Chewy nods, eyes on her screen.
“That’s too many for an extraction,” I mutter, thinking of the three men we have in the Rev Room.
“That’s a fucking assault team,” Rhodie growls.
“I’ve initiated lockdown. Alerts have been sent to the Ol Ladies.
Gates have been locked and Moss knows that we have trouble.
” She taps at her laptop before brightening.
“Hey! Remember ages ago when I gave you all watches with ear pieces in them?” She looks around the room before growling, “Put them in. I’ll have eyes on. We’re gonna destroy these mofos.”
Marx blinks once before he starts barking orders and we all exit church, heading for our stations around the clubhouse. After the last time we were attacked we’ve run drills of the best places to position ourselves for an attack, not that we were expecting another one.
“I have no fucking clue how a motorcycle club like us, not even fucking 1%, get caught up in so much shit,” Jules whines as he stomps past me to head to the roof with Pops.
I don’t even bother to answer, because I agree with him.
“Switch!” Joy’s panicked voice calls out and I rush toward the middle of the house where the basement door leads down to the bunker.
“Joy!” I call out, catching her and Kit as their tiny bodies barrel toward me. “Listen babe, I need you to keep Kit safe, yeah?” Kit sniffles as she hugs at my legs.
“What about you?” Joy asks, eyes as wide as fucking saucers.
“I’ll be up here, making sure nothing and no one touches you or your little girl. Me and my brothers got this.” I gently cup her face and run my thumb under her eye to catch the tear that is tumbling down her soft cheek. “You’ve got this.”
“I’ve got this.” She nods once, squares her shoulders, sniffs and takes a step back on solid legs.
“Come on e hine,” Mama Debs calls.
I press a kiss to Joy’s crown, before bending and doing the same to Kit. “Be a good girl and I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Kick butt, Switch,” Kit says with a fierce look on her little face.
Joy takes Kit’s hand and then follows Mama Debs down to the bunker, leaving me standing in the hall.
“We got eyes on, brother!” Rider yells out, alerting me that I need to fucking get to my post.
I thunder into the dining room and take my place at the second dining room window, on the other side of the room to Rider.
“It’s the women, you know. The reason why we have so many fuckers on our asses. Get rid of one asshole and a new woman turns up with a new problem,” Rider says nonchalantly. “The women always bring trouble.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Prove me wrong. When has one of the brothers ever gotten a woman who didn’t bring trouble with them? I’ll wait.”
I glare at him and curse him to finding a woman that will cause so much fucking trouble that he’ll have to choke on his words.
“Ha, you can’t!” RIder crows before ducking abruptly. “Fucking laser scopes!” he grits out.
I hunker down in my position at the window, and concentrate on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Focus.
“They’ve breached the perimeter!” Marx’s voice bellows and gun shots ring out.
I chance a peek through my window, counting six men advancing on the house. Ducking again I count to three before taking another look. We’re down to four men advancing and Pops’ or Jules’ rifles take out another.
“They’re scouts,” Rider yells as he fires on a man closing in on his side.
I angle myself at the window to dodge fire as I steady my aim, squeezing the trigger and popping off two shots at two fuckers dressed in head to toe tactical gear.
They’re good, but not good enough to be able to make it through the wall of DRMC fire.
The sound of a rifle on the roof sounds out and everything goes silent for a moment.
“First wave down. Prepare for the second wave,” Chewy’s voice calls out.
Oh, it’s on.
Joy
“OK ladies, what’s your poison?” Ana asks, as she moves around the impressive bunker kitchen.
This place is not what I was expecting. I was expecting something akin to a hurricane shelter, not something that looks like a high rise penthouse.
“Something with alcohol in it. Lots of alcohol. I hate when this happens,” Vi grumbles.
“At least this time you’re down here. Last time you were holed up in the kitchen,” Blanche points out.
“Too true,” Vi says, accepting the glass of wine that Ana has handed her, holding it in the air in a toast.
“Wait, does this stuff happen often?” I ask, picking at my cuticle.
The women all look at each other before Remy tips her head from side to side. “Not often, but enough that we know the drill by now.”
Looking around I take in how relaxed everyone is which is crazy to me because I’m about to go out of my mind with worry. My body feels fizzy and jacked up on adrenaline and it feels like I want to wrestle a boar and at the same time, curl into a ball and sob.
“Wait, where’s Willa?” I ask, having not seen her since I caught a flash of her on the back of Mad Dog’s bike.
“If you’re talking about your neighbor, I saw her giving Mad Dog hell as he hustled her into his room. She had her shotgun though so I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Kaia grins. My shoulders drop a little because she’s another person that I’ve been lucky to have come into my life.
A little hand patting my arm has me glancing into Elio’s dark as night eyes.
“Kit can come with us. She’ll be safe,” he says, offering Kit his hand.
She takes it and looks up at me for permission so I give her a little nod.
She grins and skips next to Elio as they head to where Jovie, Cove, Annie-Bella and Jackson are all lounging.
“Cute,” Jazz grins.
“They’re good kids.” Mama Debs agrees.
Blanche holds her hand flat in the air, palm facing down as she rocks it back and forth. “Eh, they could behave a little better.” She takes a long slurp of her fruity looking cocktail.
“Like maybe not giving everyone bobcat kittens?” Lovely asks in her sweet voice with a smirk.
“Bah, if anyone should be put out it should be my man. He’s had to build a whole nature enclosure to keep them, and us safe,” Nat says before throwing a cherry in her mouth.
“Oh. Oh,” Remy says before taking off to somewhere down here with her phone to her ear.
“Huh, wonder what that’s about?” Kaia asks.