Chaos Chapter 18
Last night, we finalized the plans for acquiring Patton Sinclair.
Shadow had his home address, picture, his regular haunts when he wasn’t working, and more.
Based on his credit card statements, we discovered that every Friday night, Sinclair went to a strip club between Macon and Gordon, Georgia.
It sat out there, kind off by itself, which at least made the citizens in Gordon feel better.
Its rural location didn’t stop many people from traveling miles to watch the dancers strip. It did a booming business, as far as we knew. Hell, I think all of us have been there at least once. The women weren’t as high-quality as some clubs, but they still made a living.
The plan was simple. We’d go to the strip club.
Put a few guys inside to get eyes on Sinclair.
When he went to leave, they’d hang back before leaving.
There would be a couple of others outside in a vehicle, and they’d grab him and head out as if nothing had happened.
There was no need to be concerned about security cameras catching us snatching his ass.
That strip club didn’t have them outside, and barely any inside.
They wouldn’t want the nefarious drug dealing and prostitution that occurred there to be recorded.
We never interfered in any of that because if it wasn’t harming ours, we knew we couldn’t police the entire state. We mostly kept to our own county, unless there was another reason to get involved.
I was ready for this to be over with. I had better things to do than piss around with a piece of shit like Sinclair.
The biggest one was to officially claim Bianca as my old lady, not just my girlfriend.
I’d asked for and gotten the club’s approval last night, while we were all together, to make her my old lady.
Even Mishap hadn’t objected. Chains had ordered the property cut today.
It was his job as club secretary to do that sort of thing.
It shouldn’t take long to get in. Carol Lynn and West, the married couple who made all our cuts and other leather goods, would rush it for us.
It was agreed that I would be inside the strip club with Storm, Rage, and Troublemaker.
Outside, driving the vehicle would be Kingston.
Ryder and Eagle would nab Sinclair and stuff him into the getaway vehicle.
They’d head out first. We’d wait ten minutes, then leave, making sure no one suspected us.
He’d be brought back to the compound and put in the Thieves’ Hole.
Once there, his interrogation and subsequent punishment would commence.
It had been discussed who would do the questioning and inflict the pain.
Ryder as enforcer was a given, as was I, since it directly affected my old lady.
Mishap would’ve been involved in both if he was up to it.
He’d been told if he felt like observing or asking some questions, he could, but nothing very physical.
We wouldn’t risk him having complications or a relapse.
The doctors weren’t one hundred percent sure that his seizures were cured.
And until they were, we’d be careful. And since they weren’t sure they were cured, we were being extra careful not to do anything to trigger one.
I kissed Bianca goodbye, making it slow and passionate.
I assured her that I’d be careful. I knew she hated being left behind, as did everyone else not selected for the pickup crew.
We wouldn’t risk sending them updates because you never wanted to risk it coming back to bite you, despite how heavily encrypted our phones were, thanks not just to Shadow but to Smoke, the computer god who was part of the Dublin Falls Archangel’s Warriors chapter.
He and his wife were elite hackers. They assured all the clubs they were friends with had the tightest shit possible.
We trusted them because the US government did.
The ride from Lake Oconee to Gordon was fifty miles, so at night, with no traffic, it took us fifty minutes.
Yeah, we sped a tiny bit. We were bikers, not angels.
When we arrived, the parking lot was three-quarters full.
It was nine o’clock at night. Shadow had verified that Sinclair’s car had left his home at seven p.m. and went straight to the strip club, Velvet Bliss.
The name made it sound way more upscale than it was.
We parked our bikes close to the front of the club.
We located Sinclair’s car in the lot, and the van carrying Ryder, Eagle, and Kingston parked in an empty spot three spots down from it.
They pulled in a couple of minutes before we did, so no one would assume we knew each other. We never looked in their direction. Securing our stuff, we walked into the Velvet Bliss, projecting an aura of “Don’t fuck with us, and we won’t fuck with you.” It was usually very effective.
Inside, there was a guy at the door, a bouncer type.
He eyed us but only gave us a chin lift.
We scanned the interior, which, no surprise, was barely lit.
The music was way too loud. Tables and booths along with the bar were filled with bodies.
Loud laughter punctuated the murmur of voices, and because there was a woman on the stage dancing, cheers, hollers, and whistles.
I didn’t pay attention to the woman. She held no interest for me. I had Bianca.
Rage was the one to spot an open booth. He pointed to it.
As we approached, a covert scan of the immediate area around the booth showed me we were only two spots away from Sinclair.
He surprised me by not sitting right in front of the stage.
I pictured a guy like him wanting to be close to the women.
We sat down. I unobtrusively studied Sinclair through my lashes.
I’d seen his face, which was a forgettable one.
He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t handsome. He was ordinary and therefore easy to overlook.
If Sinclair put effort into it, he should be able to get sex.
He wouldn’t get the beautiful, highly desired women, but he wouldn’t go without it.
It made me wonder what made someone become a rapist.
Time seemed to drag as we ordered a beer.
To keep up the image that we were there to enjoy the show, we watched the stage, whistled once in a while, and laughed.
We were too far from the stage to toss money onto it at the end of the dances, but we took turns walking up to do it. Again, to maintain the illusion.
Patton Sinclair never whistled or hollered.
He stared at the stage and drank whatever his waitress kept bringing.
He never had to hail her to bring him more.
She did it automatically, showing that he was a regular and that his preference was known.
Another thing I noticed was he didn’t toss any cash onto the stage.
We maintained the illusion that we were drinking far more alcohol than we were. No way would we ride impaired. We’d sneak and pour the shit into a conveniently placed fake potted plant. No idea who thought greenery in here helped, but it sure came in handy.
I was ready to go over and hit Sinclair over the head and drag him out when it turned midnight, and he was still sitting there.
Restlessness was fighting to be set free.
Suddenly, the stage lights came on, and new music began to play.
I glanced up to see what the dancer was like, and I froze.
A young woman stood there, probably in her mid-twenties.
What struck me wasn’t how scantily she was dressed or the way she moved her body.
It was her face, her hair. Even at this distance, I could tell she looked very much like Elodie and the other women who had been raped.
I glanced over at Sinclair. He had been slumped in his chair all night, looking bored. Now, he sat straight, and his gaze was glued to the stripper. And the entranced expression on his face told me he saw the resemblance. She was why he was here.
“Goddamn, I didn’t know he was here for his next victim,” Storm muttered.
We all worked to avoid giving away the fact that we were watching our target more closely. He never took his eyes off the stage. When the dancer finished and collected her money, she left the stage through the back curtain. Barely a minute passed before Sinclair got up.
I thought he was leaving because her dance was over.
But instead of heading for the front door, he went toward a dark hallway, which, from past trips here, I knew led to the bathrooms and, if you went further back, to the exit from the dressing room where the dancers got ready for their dances.
And it wasn’t far from the door into the dressing room that you ran into the rear exit.
One that most of the employees and dancers would use to come and go. The hair on the back of my neck rose.
“He’s going after her,” I muttered.
“Fuck, I’ll warn the others to get their ass to the back parking lot. I’m going out the front, and I’ll circle the building. You stay here and get eyes on him,” Storm ordered.
Working to appear casual, Storm rose, waved, told us he’d see us later, then walked out.
I waited a minute, then got up and told Rage and Troublemaker I had to hit the bathroom.
Rage said he had to go too, so Troublemaker told us not to forget to hold it for each other and laughed.
We gave him the finger and walked off at a leisurely pace, though I wanted to run.
I spotted Sinclair pacing in the darkness outside the dressing room door at the far end of the hallway. A waitress came out of the dressing room. I was close enough to hear her speak to him.
“I gave her your drink. She said to tell you thank you. Good move not making it alcohol. She doesn’t drink. Have a good night.”
As she walked toward Rage and me, we opened the bathroom door. She glanced over her shoulder to find Sinclair coming our way. However, he stopped and went back to the dressing room door when the waitress kept going, never looking back again. He cast us a searching look.
“All clear,” Rage whispered to me.
“Hey, man, you got a second? I wanna ask you something,” I called to our target.
He gave me a wary look. “About what?”
“It’s about the women who dance here. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I heard the waitress say she delivered a drink.
Do the dancers really accept drinks from customers here?
Other clubs I’ve been to, they always say no.
I don’t know how else to get them to talk, ya know.
I’ve sent flowers before, but that doesn’t always work,” I said, sighing.
At first, Patton Sinclair said nothing. Then, after a few beats, he answered me.
“Most won’t, but I’ve been a customer for a while. I’ve established that I can be trusted, so they do from me. Other than showing them you’re trustworthy, I have no clue.”
I wanted to punch him in the face when he said trustworthy. The fucker was the most untrustworthy one in the place. His bland, average appearance made him seem harmless.
“Hey, it’s worth a try. Thanks. Sorry to interrupt you,” I told him.
“Come on. I gotta piss,” Rage said.
“Alright. Go ahead. I’ll wait here. I don’t have to go after all,” I said.
Rage disappeared into the bathroom. I knew he would be glued to the door waiting for me to signal him with a knock.
It wasn’t more than a couple of minutes when the dancer from the stage came out of the dressing area. I knew as soon as I saw her, she had been drugged. I kept my head down like I was staring at my boots. She staggered, and Sinclair reached out to catch her.
“Whoa, be careful. Are you alright?” he asked with concern.
“I-I don’t feel too good. I’m hot and feel sick to my stomach,” she mumbled.
“Maybe you’re overheated. Here, let me help you to the door, and we’ll prop it open to let in the cool air. It might help,” he suggested kindly.
With the drug in her system, her natural inhibitions and internal warning system were compromised, and she was susceptible to suggestions.
Without a fight, she allowed him to walk her toward the door.
I noticed he glanced back at me once. I watched him from the corner of my eye.
I rapped on the bathroom door, and Rage came out, talking about me holding onto my horses and that he was finished.
He never looked in their direction. I hoped the fuck Storm was right outside that door.
As if a signal went off, Rage and I charged down the hall toward them.
Sinclair saw us coming, and he panicked.
He shoved her into the exit door and pushed on the release bar.
It flew open, and they almost fell out of it.
We were nearly to them when arms came out and captured both of them.
I charged through the door and into the cold night to find that Eagle had the dancer and was holding up her almost unconscious body. The drug had hit her hard.
As for Sinclair, Storm and Ryder had him.
He wasn’t given a chance to shout for help.
One of them had slapped duct tape over his mouth, and they had his arms pinned behind his back, practically carrying him to the nearby van.
Storm shoved Sinclair inside, and Ryder followed him in.
Storm stayed outside. I saw movement, then the door closed and the van took off.
“Get your asses back inside and then out to your bikes like we talked about. Eagle, let’s get her inside and sit her in the hall.
I hate just leaving her, but we can’t let anyone see us with her.
The plan will go as planned except Eagle, you’re gonna have to ride bitch with me.
You’d better watch where you put your hands,” Storm warned.
It wasn’t the smooth plan we’d worked out at the clubhouse, but we did manage to get the dancer inside, where it was safe.
Eagle and Storm left via the back door. Rage and I made it back to our table to Troublemaker, where we sat for ten minutes, then left.
It was the longest ten minutes of my life.
I knew Troublemaker was dying to ask how it went, but we wouldn’t risk anyone overhearing us, so he had to wait until we got home.
The ride back was nerve-racking for me. I kept praying we’d gotten away free.
That no one spotted us or would say anything when the drugged dancer was found.
As the miles dropped behind us and there was no pursuit, I breathed a tiny bit easier.
I couldn’t wait to find out what that bastard’s story was.
And to make him pay for what he’d done. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that he was a rapist.