Chapter 27 Maverick
My brothers and I were on our way back to the clubhouse from the drop.
Fucking Matteo Santoro didn’t even show, and Luca was pissed.
There was no explanation on why he didn’t come, but that didn’t matter in the long run of things.
We still got our guns, but they lost our cooperation.
I told Luca that he would be the only Santoro we’d work with unless his father wanted to come out of retirement. He was pissed, but understanding.
In this business, it was all about trust. Too much was on the line when it came to organized crime, which is why you had to be careful with who you worked with.
We didn’t get this far as a club by letting motherfuckers walk all over us and disrespect us, and we weren’t about to start letting that happen now.
Riding in our typical formation, we continued down the highway. To my left, I saw Ares veer off to the shoulder, and I quickly followed along with Crash and a few of my other brothers who would go with him for the drops.
“What’s wrong?” I asked Ares, and I saw him put his phone to his ear.
“Serena’s been calling my phone back to back,” he said. “She might be in labor.”
“About a month too soon for that,” Crash said, dismounting his bike and walking over to us.
“What?” Ares said into the phone. “Babe, slow down. Where is Thea? What do you mean someone took her?”
I felt my heartbeat pick up as I tried to get closer to him. He held out his hand to stop me.
“Babe? Serena? Can you hear me?”
He quickly hung up his phone and I saw something I’ve never seen in the guy, fear.
“What’s going on?”
He went to mount his bike, and we all did the same.
“Someone broke into my house and took Thea,” he said with the panic evident in his voice. “Serena was trying to tell me what happened and she started hyperventilating, and then I think she fell. We have to get over there.”
“Let’s go,” I said, starting my bike. “I’ll call an ambulance on the way.”
We took off in a frenzy down the highway. I was pushing the hell out of my bike. Fuck, I wasn’t expecting the Sons to attack so soon. If they took Thea or hurt her, I would desecrate every last one of those motherfuckers until there wasn’t anything left.
Before we got to the exit to his house, I saw Ares take the one before it and mouthed the word ‘hospital.’ I shook my head as I gestured for the boys to follow. We pulled into the parking lot at New Haven General and quickly dismounted our bikes.
“What’s going on?” I asked Ares as we followed him inside.
“She’s in labor,” he said. “Fuck, this is bad.”
“What do we know about Thea?”
“I don’t know. She was still unconscious when they got her here. I got the house footage on my phone,” he said.
We made our way to the hospital’s ER lobby and Ares explained who he was to the receptionist. Some lady walked over to us and showed us to the labor and delivery waiting room.
“A doctor will be with you in a moment for an update,” she said.
Ares nodded and paced across the floor as he began scrolling through his phone.
“Fuck,” I said, as the worry increased in my chest.
“Got it,” he said, motioning for Crash and me to come closer. Before he could press play, a doctor approached the lobby.
“I’m looking for the family of Serena St. James,” the small woman stated.
“I’m Davien Blake, her fiancé,” Ares said, and the nurse gave him a smile of compassion.
“First, I want you to know that she is stable,” the doctor said.
“It seems that she fainted due to a quick drop in her blood pressure, but unfortunately, she fell onto her stomach when she lost consciousness which caused a placental abruption. This causes the baby to lose oxygen and serious bleeding. If we don’t move forward with an emergency c-section, we are at risk of losing her and the baby. ”
“Do whatever you think is best,” Ares said to the doctor, and she gave him another sympathetic smile.
“Her blood pressure has increased significantly since she came in and we are monitoring her closely. With that being said, we think this should be fairly routine,” she said. “She’s being prepped for surgery now and we’ll keep you updated.”
“I can’t go back with her?”
“Unfortunately, there won’t be enough time to get you prepped, as well. I’m sorry, Mr. Blake.”
The doctor turned and left the lobby, and we once again gathered around Ares so we could watch the surveillance footage on his phone.
He fast-forwarded a little until we saw Matteo-fucking-Santoro pull up to the house and knock Blake out with his gun.
Luckily, the kid didn’t experience any major issues and Doc was able to fix him up without having to take him to the hospital.
“Crash, get Luca on the goddamn phone and tell Circuit to track the plates,” I said, seething in anger. What was that fucker thinking busting into one of our houses and attacking our women. Did he think we wouldn’t go to war behind them?
The video continued to play and I quickly realized that Thea knew exactly who he was. I watched the cocksucker scream into her face about where his child was, and my stomach sank. They had been together.
She then talked about how she had a miscarriage and I was ready to throw a fucking chair across the room as I watched him kiss my woman. For one split second, anger flared inside me until I saw the terror on her face.
“What the fuck is this shit?”
The video continued to play and I watched him hit her across the face with his gun because of the marks I left on her. I felt regret as bile rose in my throat as I watched him kick her repeatedly.
“I’m going to kill the bastard,” Ares said.
The video ended after Thea did her best to protect Serena. I couldn’t help but feel proud of my girl. She did her best to protect Serena though she knew that meant leaving with that sick fuck.
“Where the fuck is Crash?” I started texting the presidents of other chapters to let them know to be on alert. I had no problem calling them in if reinforcements were needed. At whatever cost, we were getting my girl back.
I heard the lobby door open, and was disappointed when I saw my mom, Anna and the other old ladies walk in followed by Hollywood, Bullet and Ace.
The rest of the guys stayed back because I put the club on lockdown until I figured out who took Thea.
Now that we knew it was isolated, I let Pops and Hawk know that everyone needed to be cautious but was free to go.
“Hey, sweetie,” my mom said, hugging me. She immediately picked up that something’s wrong.
“What’s wrong?” She asked. “Is it the baby?”
“No, no,” I said, reassuringly. “It’s Thea.”
“What happened? Where’s Thea?” Anna asked and I saw the worry on everyone’s face.
“Matteo Santoro took her,” I said, darkly.
“What do you mean he took her?” Hollywood said.
The room fell silent. Everyone had grown to love Thea in one way or another. She was a part of our club now, which meant that, not only did she have our respect, she was a part of our family.
“He broke into my fucking house, beat her and took her,” Ares yelled and my mother quickly wrapped him in a hug. “Fuck. Because of him my sister is gone and Serena and the baby are in trouble. Where the fuck is Crash?”
On cue, Crash came walking in, to my surprise Luca Santoro came strolling in behind him. Before he could say a word, I paced over to him, grabbing his neck and pressed him up against the wall.
“Before you do something you regret, let me talk,” Luca said, calmly. “Don’t let your anger start something that you can’t finish, Bane.”
“I promise you I won't ever start something I can’t finish,” I assured him. “Tell me where the fuck your piece of shit brother took my old lady.”
I squeezed his neck tighter and watched his face turn red. Hollywood quickly pushed the women out of the room and shut the door.
“Let him talk, Bane,” I heard Ares grumble from behind me. I took a deep breath and let him go. Luca shook his head and fixed his suit, pretending to wipe fake dust off.
“I assure you your sister is safe,” Luca started.
“Safe? I just watched your brother beat the shit out of her,” Ares bellowed.
“Unfortunately, Matteo would never kill Francesca. This has all been a big misunderstanding.”
“My old lady’s name is Thea,” I added. “Not Francesca.” I immediately thought back to what Thea was saying about her friend and Matteo the other night.
Had it been her the whole time? Why did she let me go into business with that fucker?
She knew exactly what I was doing and still chose to be my old lady because she knew it would be in the club’s best interest that the deal went through.
“My apologies, that’s the name she used during her time in Italy.
You see, my brother and Fran-, Thea,” he corrected himself.
“Had a relationship. One that was actually one-sided on Matteo’s end.
That’s beside the point, though. When she left the country, he was under the impression that she was pregnant, so he spent a lot of time and resources trying to track her and the baby down.
I’m assuming when I introduced him to Ares, he saw a resemblance and went to check it out. ”
I heard Ares mumble something under his breath.
“Where the fuck is she, Luca?” I asked, getting closer to his face. “I’m not going to ask again.”
He stepped past me and took a seat.
“I’m having some of my men track him down now, but I wanted to come here in the meantime so that we can try to fix this unfortunate coincidence amicably,” he said and I laughed.
“I’m serious, Bane. I assure you that my family respects our partnership and doesn’t want this incident to cause a war that neither of us want to fight. ”
It was hard for me to trust Luca with Thea’s safety, but if Matteo had gone rogue, the Santoros would want to find him almost as badly as we did. He was right. A war between our organizations helped no one.
“After what your brother did to my sister, do you really think we are going to end things amicably?”
“I do, actually, because you all are smart men, which is why I had no trepidation about walking into this room today. I know what you all are capable of and you all know what the Santoro family is capable of,” he let his voice trail off.
“Are you threatening my club?”
“No,” Luca laughed. “Not at all, but I wanted to give you my word that I will get your sister back to you, safely, and that I will keep my brother away from her moving forward if you give me your word that you or your men won’t lay a hand on him in return.”
I laughed darkly. This man had balls, I gave him that, but that’s why the family was so big in the mafia world. They truly thought that they owned shit and could make their own rules.
“Fine,” I said. “But how do I know that Matteo will stay away from her?”
“Well, since there’s no kid, I doubt my father would be willing to dissolve one of our strongest partnerships so my brother could get his little pet back.
I assure you that the Santoros respect you and your club, Bane.
This would have never happened under any other circumstances, I know you must know that. ”
“You have two hours to get her back here,” I said. “If she’s not back in two hours, I will hunt each and every motherfucker I have to down until she is.”
“Deal,” he quipped. “Well, this has been a pleasure as always, boys. I’ll see you in less than two hours.”
“Luca?” I called out to him.
“Yes?”
“If you ever call my woman a pet again, I’ll gut you like a fish,” I said, smirking and he laughed.
“I’d like to see you try,” he responded and gave me an exaggerated salute before turning and walking out of the room.
Asswipe. He had two hours starting five minutes ago, but I had another thing I needed to take care of in the meantime, a call I needed to make.