Chapter 11 #3
The second I got into the clubhouse, I knew there was trouble brewing.
The past two days I had told Ace I was going off the radar until Orla healed.
He was okay with that, and he expected as much.
But when I saw the look in his eyes as Brogan sat at the bar, relaying some news, I knew I’d walked into a clusterfuck.
It didn’t matter how good I’d felt after lulling my woman into a near coma from coming so much this morning, that was quickly dulled with whatever the fuck had happened.
I moved over to the bar. “What is it?”
“Foley’s been spotted near where Shae had the girls,” Hawk added in. “Dempsey is already on his way up there to get them out, along with Savage and Viper. They’d already been on a scouting expedition near Limerick anyway.”
“Where are the girls?”
“Outside Galway,” Ace offered. “Lorcan is aware and has sent Conor and Killian down to help.”
“Brogan,” I sat down next to him at the bar. “You have something to share?”
“I’m working with Ace to help put Foley back behind bars and not six feet under.”
“Is that a fact?” I asked, annoyed that Ace was considering it. After all, he wanted Sheridan, and he’d hurt Orla. Why the fuck was this even a question?
“If he’s killed while he’s escaped, we will be charged by the state for failure to protect a prisoner in our custody,” Brogan said. “Not only that, but if he’s killed by someone, and they are bringing charges, whoever kills him will end up in jail for life.”
I looked to Ace, who seemed about as pleased as I did. He didn’t want the fucker alive to do this all over again, but he knew the consequences. We killed him, and he would win.
“You know the stakes, guys,” Brogan said, pushing up off the stool. “Call me if you need me, but I don’t want to hear about a death investigation or charges against the city.”
He left the clubhouse, and we waited for a few moments before we spoke.
“Are we seriously going to play by the rules on this one?” I asked. “You know we could take him out and no one would see him again.”
“The investigation would land on Sheridan and those girls,” Ace said. “They’d be hounded since they disappeared when he got loose and then they returned, happy as ever?”
“Fuck,” I grunted. “What can we do then?”
“We find him and bring him back to Brogan,” Hawk added. “I don’t like it just like you don’t, but it’s the safer option. He’s gone, and we go back to building our MC and being the strength in this town again. One final test before we get what we’ve wanted since Donald died.”
He was right.
Goddamnit.
“When are we going?” I asked.
“We’ll wait to hear from Viper or Savage, then we’ll figure out what to do and how to get the information we need.”
“Go be with Orla,” Ace said. “We can handle this.”
“Like hell,” I stood up. “I’m your goddamn Sergeant at Arms. I will be where the action is.”
Ace nodded, knowing there would be no arguing with me. “Fuck, sometimes, you look just like your old man when you get fired up.”
“I wasn’t gonna say it,” Hawk said, smirking over at me.
If I wasn’t so annoyed by the fact I couldn’t kill that motherfucker, I would feel happy that I was like my dad. He’d been a good guy, and a standup member of the club but right now, my head was all over the place.
“Call a party,” Hawk said. “We’ll party and show the cops we aren’t looking for him. It will mask the women coming back, and throw suspicion off us.”
I nodded. “That’s not a bad plan, brother.”
“I’ll tell Shona,” Ace said, moving down the hall to speak with her.
She was the best at putting on an impromptu party for the club and at such short notice, she’d get it done quick smart.
She was coming out of the office with Ace when I spied the bruise on her jaw.
Once the light hit her, Ace and Hawk noticed too, and we all cornered her.
“Who the fuck did that?” Hawk asked. Shona was one of us, someone we protected like our own sister, especially after what her husband Dog did not only to this club, but to her on those occasions he was off his face.
“Relax,” she put her hands up. “It’s just a little bruise. I fell out of bed a few nights ago.”
I knew she was lying, but I wasn’t going to push. Hawk would, and Ace would wait until she told him. But I had a better way to find out.
Pulling back, I grabbed my phone from my pocket and sent Orla a message.
BEAR
I need your help. Shona has a bruise on her jaw and she won’t tell us what happened.
The message would sit unanswered for a few hours, given how much she needed rest after our romp, but if anyone was going to get the truth out, it was Orla.
Putting my phone back in my pocket, I moved around the bar to grab a beer.
Ace and Hawk let Shona out from the corner of the room so she could put her plan into action, but their eyes were on her as she fussed about with a tablet by the couch.
“If Savage sees that, he’s going to lose it,” Hawk said quietly to us.
“She and Savage a thing?”
Ace chuckled. “Are you blind, brother? They’ve had an intensity about them for months. I don’t think they’d done anything yet, but I know Savage would do anything for her. I’ve seen the look before.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft, Coop. Sheridan whipped your ass already?”
“And you’re not?” Hawk laughed.
The three of us, long since abstaining from permanent relationships, and yet here we were back home and already locked down.
And yet, Orla had always been on my mind.
Every single pussy I’d been in, every single mouth around my cock, it had always been me picturing her.
I’d been whipped the day she landed those lips on me back in school and I knew it too. Everyone did, especially my mother.
I pulled my phone back out and checked when she had last spoken to me. It wasn’t like her to go this long without speaking to me.
As I clicked through to ring her, my phone lit up with a message from Orla.
ORLA
I already know the answer. She told me yesterday. Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.
BEAR
Did I not pound you into the bed enough? How are you awake already?
ORLA
We have a visitor making life very difficult to sleep through.
My heartrate picked up. I dialled Orla immediately.
“Who the fuck is there?” I asked her, my voice tight with worry.
“Your fucking mother,” she ground out. “She’s vacuuming currently because apparently I’m not allowed to sleep after being thoroughly pounded by my man all morning.”
I could hear my mother’s voice in the background yelling obscenities at my woman and my blood boiled. I moved out of the clubhouse and toward the garage so no one could hear me.
“Put her on the fucking phone.”
Orla said something away from the receiver, and soon I heard my mother’s sing-song voice on the other end.
“Your house is a pigsty, son, I’m just helping you to clean it, since your woman doesn’t want to get off her lazy ass.”
“Get out of my house,” I said. “You call before you come over. Whether or not Orla wants to get up is up to her, and since I fucked her for hours this morning, I’m surprised she woke up at all.”
“I don’t really need to know that much about you, son.”
“Well, then you know where the door is.”
“She should do something other than lounge around,” my mother continued. “I had to have a job, so she should too.”
“She has one, not that it matters to you, and you needed a job because my dad didn’t support you. You weren’t his wife. Orla will be mine, and she can do whatever the fuck she wants. Now let her sleep.”
“Fine,” she said, her voice strained with anger. “You don’t want me in your life like your useless father? I won’t be.”
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” I said, annoyed that she continued to speak about Orla like that when she was in the room with her. “Give the phone back to Or.”
I heard a screech before a torrent of curse words, and then Orla came back on the line.
“What the fuck was that?”
“She threw it at me and it hit me in the gut,” she said. “She’s gone now.”
“Don’t let her fucking come in next time. She’s not welcome unless I’m there.”
“Babe, I didn’t let her do anything. She has a fucking key, and it really doesn’t bother me. I’ve dealt with more shit than she can throw at me.”
Fuck, how the hell did she have a key? I’d never given her one.
“I need to know what happened to Shona.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Orla…”
“Alex…”
I took a deep breath and released it before I lost my shit. The events of the day hadn’t given me a lot of patience for this, but I knew she didn’t know anything so I kept it civil.
“Get some rest, Or. We have an impromptu party tonight.”
“Ooh, really?” she asked, her excitement growing. “Will Sher be back?”
“Yeah, they’re on their way back now,” I told her. “Go sleep. I’ll come by to pick you up tonight.”
“Can I wear anything?” she asked me.
I could already feel the feral growl coming from my chest. “You need to wear clothing, Orla.”
“I know that,” she giggled. “But I want to show off my ass tattoo.”
My cock jumped with joy at the thought of her showing off her possessive tattoo.
“You know you can do that, but I don’t think you own anything that revealing.”
“Yee of little faith,” she said. “I’ll be ready by six.”
“See ya then.”
I hung up and willed my cock to sit the fuck down. The sound of construction caught my attention, and I headed in the direction of it. When I opened the door to the shed off from the garage, I saw Kirby, Rebel and a few of the other club members in there, fixing up the place.
“What the hell?”
“Thought you wanted this for Orla’s studio,” Rebel offered.
“Well, yeah.”
“We’re patching it up so she can start working on our tatts for us. Kirby’s looking like a fucking blank canvas over here.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he replied, throwing a piece of drywall at Rebel who ducked and laughed.
Fuck.
It meant a lot for these fucking kids to be doing this without me asking them to. I didn’t want to show emotion, so I just nodded and told them to keep at it. Rebel nodded, realising my discomfort and telling me to get gone.