Chapter 17
JAX
It surprised him how much lighter he felt, even though he was sitting in Church where he was about to talk about the bastard that shot at him. He felt like he should be embarrassed over having told her all that, but Saylor didn’t look at him with pity, which softened the blow. She looked at him with understanding and regret, as if she didn’t like that she hurt him. Did that mean she was finally starting to consider staying? Even if only subconsciously? He hoped so. Because he really needed her to stay with him; her response earlier solidified that. It also made it clear that he had already fallen so hard for this woman.
He should probably be freaking the hell out about it, but that was the last thing on his mind. How the hell could he fall for a woman so quickly? It had only been a day, and already, he was thinking of her staying permanently. Of exploring what they had. How did that make sense? But he’d seen it happen already with Savage and Fury. Hell, Fury was after Esme from the first day, and look at them now. If they could make it work, he could do the same with Saylor. He just had to convince her to give him a chance.
But that would have to wait until later.
“Alright, let’s start from the top,” Savage ordered briskly, drawing their attention. “Jax, you recount what you remember; Rogue, you fill in anything he doesn’t. Then Simba will fill us in on what happened when they chased them down.”
Jax gave a quick recount, with Rogue adding a few details along the way. When he finished, he said, “I think the man in the car was Saylor’s ex. I thought about the voice some more, and I’m pretty sure it’s the same bastard that screamed at us in the clearing.”
“That tracks,” Fury agreed. “We already know he’s got leverage over whoever this asshole is. It stands to reason he’s gotten the guy to help him. He was probably counting on us bringing the car into the shop, so he could sneak around to find Saylor while it was being fixed.”
Jax’s blood ran cold. He didn’t even want to think about what could have happened if they had been successful.
“Guess it’s our turn,” Simba drawled, leaning forward to brace on the table in front of him. They had pulled in extra chairs for the Predators, who had taken up residence at the opposite end of the table, completely at home. Jax supposed they had been around enough now that it made sense. “We gave chase, and surprisingly, those bastards were fast and seemed to know where they were going. The passenger shot at us, but we returned fire and they ducked back inside. We were going to try and herd them down a side road, but they went screeching in the opposite direction down a busier street. We saw kids playing outside and had to abort. As much as I wanted to catch them, I’ll never put innocent lives like that at risk.”
Savage nodded. “We’d be the same. Alright, we know they’re smart enough to evade us, but they won’t be lying low for long. If they’re willing to try that shit in broad daylight, they’re getting desperate.”
“The bastard driving wasn’t skilled for that kind of chase,” the Predators VP, Jag, remarked. He was a quiet guy normally, with hard edges, and a very good second-in-command for their group. With some gray in his scruffy beard, short black hair, eyes a hard cast-iron gray, and a scar on the left side of his jaw, he gave off the unapproachable air of someone you didn’t fuck with. Not if you didn’t want your face bashed in, anyway. Jax had a healthy respect for him. Well, for all of them.
“Yeah, he was all over the road,” Ursa agreed. “I’d have given him a ten percent chance of getting away without crashing the car, but the bastard surprised me.” Their Treasurer, he was one of the larger ones of the group. He stood at six-four, with a thick black beard that Jax was sure had grown even longer since the last time he’d seen him. His hair was a matching black shade, with two intricate braids woven through the top, and his eyes were dark and calculating, no matter the situation or mood. Glitch had mentioned once that his brain never seemed to stop running, and that he loved numbers and odds, which explained his comment on the driver’s chances. Personally, Jax was happy leaving that kind of thing to him.
“We need to figure out where they are,” Rogue grunted. “They can’t be far.”
“We can take a look around town,” Tiger offered, glancing at Simba for confirmation, who nodded his agreement. Tiger was their Sergeant at Arms, standing at six-one with a tidy beard the color of straw, with a bit of silver weaved through. His eyes were a tawny brown, but while the rest of his brothers had plenty of ink, Tiger sported only one visible tattoo on his bicep. It made Jax wonder why he wanted only that one in that spot, but it wasn’t his place to ask.
“Appreciate it,” Savage said with a nod. He looked at Code. “Any luck on IDing this guy?”
Before he could answer, the door to the room flew open, and they all whipped around to find Karissa and Glitch striding in, looking downright livid. “Don’t even think about it,” Glitch warned Savage when he opened his mouth to blast them. She slammed the door behind them. “When my team is here, I’m with them, which means so is Karissa. Which, again, means that we are to be involved alongside our team in any meetings, including ones in this little sanctum. We are not Old Ladies, we are Predators MC members.” Then her venomous gaze sliced toward her team. “And you eight,” she spat, her wrathful indignation a living thing. “We’ll deal with you later, along with the blatant disrespect of not notifying us about Church.” She and Karissa completely ignored their men and went to stand at the back of the room with the Predators.
The room was silent, and the tension was thick. Savage’s expression was thunderous, while Razor and Code looked like they weren’t sure whether to beg for forgiveness or run for cover. Even the Predators looked uneasy, and that was saying something.
Finally, Karissa said, “Are you going to continue, or is there another problem?” There was a biting tone in her voice that told Jax not only was she pissed, she was ready to raise all kinds of hell.
“The two of you,” Savage began icily.
“Stop,” Simba grunted. “They’re right, and you know it. When we’re here, they are members of our club first, and Old Ladies to your club second. We didn’t include them; that’s a slap in the face to any member, including them. The invitation should have been extended, and we fucked up. You have your ways of running your MC, but as much as it’s going to bother you, when we’re here, they are to be included. They’re our members. Their biology shouldn’t matter.”
“This is why women shouldn’t be allowed in MCs,” Ink huffed. Karissa and Glitch leveled him with glares that said they’d like to light him on fire.
“Enough,” Savage barked. “Now, back to what we were discussing. Simba, you and your men are willing to try to find out where these assholes are hiding. Did Glitch get you up to speed on the situation?”
“I’m standing right here and can answer for myself,” Glitch interjected, the biting affront in her voice undeniable. “But yes, I did. I also have information on our third man, if you’d like to hear it. Or would you rather I leave and let you all fumble your way through it?”
“Glitch,” Code warned.
“Fuck off, Code,” Glitch snapped at him.
“For fucks sake,” Savage gritted out. “Just tell us what you found.”
Glitch moved around the table toward Code. When Code went to pull her into his lap, she bared her teeth at him, making him sigh and back off. Instead, she logged in to his computer and pulled up the video from the gate camera, and then a picture. “I ran his face through the recognition system, and it turns out that he is none other than the counterfeit ringleader, Jared Long. He comes from money, and likes to continue making it, it seems. When Jared here was younger, he liked to gamble, and got himself into some trouble with some bookies from his hometown. Mommy and Daddy paid the bookies, but also cut him off until he got himself straightened out. Went to a fancy rehab for the rich and infamous, and six months later, walked out a new man. And I say ‘new’ lightly. Because while he was there, Jared made himself a friend, and they started to cook up some schemes.”
“Wait, there was a second name last time,” Ink remarked excitedly, clearly following where Glitch was going with this.
“Nice to know someone was paying attention,” Glitch said with a wry smile at Ink. Another photo popped up on the screen. “This is who I believe is Long’s second in command in their little ring. Curtis Lin, he’s also a trust fund kid that grew up with all the luxuries he could ever want. Amassed a huge gambling debt and a hardcore addiction to pills, so off he went to rehab after his parents paid off the people after him. Rehab seems to be where Jared and Curtis met and became friends, and was the birthplace of their operation. After leaving rehab, they mostly fell off the radar, other than Jared being hired at a bank, and Curtis going to law school. Both their parents pulled strings to get them to where they are. Jared was hired at a bank that his father invested a hell of a lot of money into, and Curtis’s parents bought his way into Harvard. And considering the grades I saw, they obviously paid off the school and the Bar Association to get him the credentials he needed to practice.”
“Must be nice to be so rich,” Taz quipped, grinning at Glitch.
Glitch ignored him and continued, “After that, they both rose up the ranks, until Jared was the manager, and Curtis set up a small law firm. In all that time, they seemed to have kept themselves out of major debts with bookies, but then, it looks like Curtis got in a little too deep and slid back into his old ways. Owed a local bookie about a hundred grand. He managed to pay that back, though I can’t find where that money came from, because no money was taken from his or his parents accounts. I even checked Jared’s finances, and found nothing.”
“You think that’s when they started making counterfeit bills,” Warg inserted, dark eyes honed on Glitch for confirmation. One of the Predator’s Enforcers, Warg gave off the same intense, don’t-fuck-with-me vibes that they all did. He was a large Black man, standing at six-four, with black hair that he currently had shaved on the sides and braided on top in an intricate style that Jax wasn’t sure how to describe. All he knew was that it made him look hard, edgy. While most of the Predators had beards, Warg sported a thin goatee around his mouth. Tattoos covered his arms, hands, and if he wasn’t mistaken, peeked from under the collar of his shirt.
Glitch nodded. “It would explain why there’s no withdrawals, but the problem disappeared. And our boy Jared here, being a bank manager, would have access to plenty of money and could make sure the counterfeit bills were undetectable.”
“He probably used his own bank to test them,” Vulture, their other Enforcer, suggested, his whiskey brown eyes glaring at the screen. The tallest of their team, the man stood at six-seven and looked like a modern-day Viking. He had a long, thick, dark brown beard; he kept the sides of his head shaved, and wore the rest of his hair in a long, intricate braid that fell down his back. He was covered in ink, and had small gauges in his earlobes. He was also the one that the twins loved to tease Rogue about the most, by calling him “Viking Daddy”.
“Once they perfected their fakes, they would have been able to continue making them and use them wherever they wanted,” Steel agreed, mouth pulled into a grim line. “Fuckers were probably planning it all along.”
“When rich kids get cut off, they either man up or they crumble,” Copper, the final member of the Predators, and their Secretary, sighed. He was Japanese-American, and the shortest member of the group at five-eleven. He was lean and wiry, with black eyes and long black hair that he wore down to his shoulders.
“They probably brought in the others once they got their counterfeits perfect so that nothing could be tied back to just them,” Razor added grimly. “Were you able to figure out who the other members of the ring are?”
“Possibly,” Glitch replied, clicking a few more buttons and popping up another four pictures. “These are some well-known associates of Jared and Curtis; their names match the initials on the papers Saylor found. Are they part of it? Not sure, but it’s looking that way. They all have jobs that could, in one way or another, make them perfect candidates for this kind of team. There’s Cyril Freeman, a post office worker; Aaron Blair, a truck driver; Seth Rush, a corrections officer; and finally, Nathaniel Kelly, who works for the Coast Guard.”
“They’ve got every avenue covered but air,” Jax remarked, sitting forward as he stared at the pictures on the screen. “Mail, road, jails or cops, and water.”
“Give him a gold star sticker, we’ve got a winner,” Glitch said with a grin. “Which is exactly why I believe these are the team members. The only good part is that I’ve been able to track all of them, as well as Curtis Lin, back to where they should be. Jared’s the only one MIA from his life; it looks like he’s the one that joined up with Saylor’s ex.”
“But the question still remains, why did he hook up with Leon and not go to the people backing him?” Rogue interjected. “None of that shit makes sense.”
“That’s where I come in,” Code replied, drawing the room’s attention. He nudged Glitch gently out of the way and clicked on his keyboard. Up came some images that were obviously screenshots of conversations. “I spent a lot of time scouring through these asshole’s phones, and realized they were using code when they were talking to each other. Well, to who I assume is each other, because they never overtly say that the person on the other end is part of the ring. All of them change numbers frequently, but the discussions were so similar that it made me look closer. Anyway, I was able to decipher them.
“Apparently, the only reason that Saylor’s ex knows about any of this is because Curtis Lin owes money to good ol’ Frank, and Leon went to collect from Curtis one evening. One of the guys was late, though they don’t say who, and Leon was dealing with Curtis when one of them walked in, talking about the job they were doing without realizing Leon was there. The guys were panicking because they didn’t know what to do; in another message, Jared told them to stop freaking out, that he would handle it. Leon’s clearly blackmailing them, so they’re paying him off. But then, another message comes in.” He clicked a few more times and one more message came up, large on the screen.
Unknown: Of course I’m freaking out. He took the template for the cash when he grabbed that stack on the table. If we don’t get it back, we’re fucked. And by fucked, I mean dead, when our client finds out what happened and we can’t fill the order.
“So Leon somehow grabbed some bills and some kind of template they use?” Jax asked, trying to wrap his head around it. It was like something out of a movie.
“They probably tried to get it back, and now he’s using it as a way to get them to help him track down Saylor,” Ice guessed grimly.
“And we’re sure there was nothing else in that notebook that Saylor took?” Rogue suddenly asked. “Because I would think that blackmail wouldn’t be enough for them to go after Saylor, even if Leon threatened. If he was gone, they could have just made another template and gotten back to work. They’ve had the whole thing down to a science for what appears to be years; making another one should be easy for them, right?”
Savage stood and headed for the door. As they all waited for him to come back, the room was quiet, the tension palpable. Jax noted Razor and Code trying to get their Old Lady’s attention, but the women ignored them, and ignored looks from the Predators, including Taz, who appeared downright remorseful. It was no secret that he was close with both women, and hurting them would bother him more than the rest.
Savage returned, holding the little black notebook. “Give it here,” Ursa said, holding out his hand. Savage arched a brow, and Ursa rolled his eyes. “I’m a whiz with numbers and all things money. I’ll know what I’m looking at.”
“He is,” Glitch agreed. “I tried to get him to be my advisor but he refused.”
Savage nodded and handed him the book. Everyone waited as Ursa carefully inspected it, examining both covers, then all the internal pages and parts. Then he took out his knife, and with a precision that would rival Doc’s, he carefully cut open both of the covers from the inside, looking through them. Finally, ever so carefully, he peeled the front cover open, but instead of looking inside the hole he made, he looked at the piece of fabric that had come away. Then, to all their shock, he peeled away a flat piece of something that was the exact same color as the fabric. It was the flattest envelope Jax had ever seen. Ursa carefully opened a small flap, and pulled out what looked to be a one-hundred dollar bill.
“Holy shit,” Jax heard Ink gasp.
“This right here is what they’re after,” Ursa proclaimed, carefully inspecting the bill. He flipped it over for everyone to see and put it on the table. “You can see on this one, little marks and notations, which means that whoever made this has been perfecting their craft for a long time. They had to make sure every single detail was accurate to evade detection.”
“No wonder they’ve been wanting to get this back,” Taz remarked gravely. “It would be a major hardship for them to have to duplicate something this precise.”
“Or they don’t want it falling into the wrong hands,” Savage countered. “If the Feds get ahold of this and trace it back to them, they’re fucked. Or, if a rival gets it and takes over their business, they’re also fucked – if they can’t produce what they’ve committed to, it’s only a matter of time before their clients decide they’re in the way.”
“Saylor sure stepped into a huge fucking mess,” Fury remarked, glancing at Jax. “And she probably didn’t even know this was in there.”
“It was sealed, so I can say for certain she didn’t,” Ursa agreed.
“We need to keep this mess from getting any bigger, and get them the hell out of our hair,” Savage announced grimly. He looked at Simba. “You and your guys staying?”
Simba nodded. “We figured we’d come and hang out for a few days anyway, since we just finished our latest mission. We’ll work on tracking these two fuckers down.”
“Good. That will give us the ability to increase patrols,” Savage agreed. “Everyone be on alert. We know two of them are nearby, but that third son of a bitch, Felix, hasn’t made his appearance yet. Depending on how this shit goes down, we don’t want to discount that he’ll try something too.”
“Who’s Felix?” Taz asked. Glitch gave him a quick rundown, and Taz turned to smirk at Jax. “Your woman’s awful popular, brother. You might need to up your game or she’s going to have far more options than your ugly face.”
Jax flipped him off and retorted, “She won’t be leaving with yours, though, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Taz laughed, unfazed.
“Alright, we know what we’re doing,” Savage said briskly. “Everyone keep your eyes open. Jax, make sure Saylor stays on the grounds, preferably as close to the clubhouse as possible.” Jax nodded. “Good. We’ll consider Church adjourned for now.” He banged his gavel and stood, but no one else moved. He looked around, confused. “What, did we forget something?”
“We’re just surprised you’re brave enough to stand up, considering the two women currently wanting to murder you,” Taz said helpfully.
Savage scowled darkly. “The two women who should not be fucking in this room, is more like it,” he countered. He turned to Glitch and Karissa, who held his stare. “Both of you are Old Ladies. You are not patched members of this club, so?—”
“It’s like you’ve completely forgotten. We may not be patched members of your club,” Karissa interrupted sharply, making Savage’s eyes narrow. “But we are patched members of theirs,” she continued, with a nod toward the Predators. “Right now, our gender means nothing. We’ve held up our end of the bargain; we stay out of your club business and are only Old Ladies while they’re away. But when they are here, we are patched members, not Old Ladies. We agreed on that, and now you’re going back on your word by putting us in a gender role that we only agreed to occupy part of the time. So, here’s how this is going to go. The disrespect is going to end. You are going to keep us out of club business as relates to your club alone. But the moment our club is involved, that is no longer the case. We are to be invited into this room with our fellow club members. Your gender biases need to be set aside in those moments.”
“And you,” Glitch continued, looking at the Predators. “You all fucking know better. You talk a big talk about how we’re equal members of the MC, but you came in here, completely forgetting that two members were not sitting at this table. And instead of speaking up, you just continued with your boy’s club. When we agreed to stay with our men, you assured us that we would always be members. That our genders and relationship statuses changed nothing. But you’ve clearly forgotten that, and today, you’ve broken your promise.” Every member of the Predators winced at that.
“So, this is the last time we’re going to say anything about it,” Karissa finished. “But just to be clear, so there are no mistakes: when the Predators MC are on these grounds, or are being called in to help, we are to be included as members of the Predators MC. That extends to being included in Church. When the Predators MC are not on these grounds, and they are not being called in, then we are Old Ladies and will not be involved in club business in any way, shape, or form. If you can’t accept that, then it’s time Glitch and I considered our options. You welcome our help and expertise, and expect us to protect the other Old Ladies and children, but when it comes to this room, you all close ranks and leave us out in the cold. We’re done with it. We’re done with the disrespect, and we’re done with being treated like we’re only good for when it serves you, when you want to protect the people you value the most in your lives - which clearly is not us.” Then she and Glitch walked out of the room without so much as a backward glance, leaving them all in stunned silence. They closed the door softly behind them, but the snick of the latch was so final that Jax felt a pit of guilt and dread swirl in his stomach.
Everyone looked at Savage, and then at Simba. Savage’s face was hard, but Jax saw a hint of doubt, and if he wasn’t mistaken, guilt in his eyes. Simba’s expression was awash with regret, remorse, and shame. Still, no one spoke until finally Simba asked Savage, “What are you going to do?”
Savage didn’t answer for a long moment. “I don’t know. I need to think on this.” When he walked out of Church, no one moved.
Taz sighed. “It’s probably a good thing that most of the weapons are locked away, because I don’t know if he’s going to avoid getting a bullet in his ass this time.”
Jax had to agree, but that was a worry for another time. Right now, they had to focus on finding Leon and this Jared asshole to keep Saylor safe. Everything else could be sorted later. Right now, his woman was his priority.