Chapter 4
Creed
Idon’t like leaving Nova in my office alone, but it’s the best place for her while I handle shit I don’t want her knowing about.
All my important stuff is in either my desk or the safe, and both of those are locked.
I don’t lock my door, but I do have Nix and Twitch hang out nearby to make sure she stays put.
When I get back to our main room, Crusher is waiting.
“Nothing missing from inventory,” he says. “If Patch took anything else, he didn’t take it from here.”
I nod and lift my chin toward the door. Crusher follows me outside where I call for Ace and Vandal.
The four of us walk around the side of the clubhouse for a private conversation.
I look at each one before I start talking.
Ace, who’s been my right-hand as long as I can remember.
Crusher, loud and funny, but deadly when he needs to be.
And Vandal, the quiet enforcer, the one I send in when a subtle message needs sent.
While I trust all my men, these are the three I trust the most, the ones who handle things when I need to keep the circle tight.
“Anyone say anything about the girl?” I ask.
All three men shake their heads.
“Any of you recognize her?”
“She looks familiar,” Crusher says. “Just can’t figure out why.”
“Patch’s girl,” Ace says. “That’s who she looks like. He didn’t bring her around a lot, but he was always staring at her picture on his phone.”
Crusher snaps his fingers. “That’s it! She looks like the girl on Patch’s lock screen. It’s not on the phone now, but a few of the guys harassed him about it when he turned down one of the bunnies.”
“The girl in there,” I jerk my thumb toward the office window behind me, “is Layla’s sister, Nova Reed.”
“Layla’s missing, too,” Ace says, rubbing the dark stubble on his cheek.
I nod and quickly repeat everything Nova told me. When I’m done, I nod at Crusher.
“Seems too much to be a coincidence,” he says. “Might be the two of them took off together.” He shoves his hands into his jean pockets. “You think Layla wanted to get away from her sister?”
“Could be,” I admit. “You think that’s what we got here? Girl feels like big sister’s suffocating her and asks her boyfriend to take her away from it all?”
“Maybe Nova had a problem with Patch,” Vandal says. “Not a lot of parents would approve, and you said Nova’s like Layla’s mom.”
“Why would Patch take a gun and leave his bike?” Ace speaks up. “If they were running away together, I can see not taking the phones, but why leave everything else behind? It’s not like either of them has the money to replace everything.”
“You don’t think they left voluntarily?” The thought of someone grabbing one of my men pisses me off.
“I didn’t see anything that looked like a struggle,” Crusher says. “And Patch wouldn’t have gone quietly.”
“Nova didn’t mention Layla’s apartment being trashed,” I say.
“Something about all of this is wrong,” Ace says.
“Why’s the sister here?” Vandal asks. “If she thinks Kings of Ruin are involved in her sister’s disappearance, why didn’t she go to the cops with that? It’s not like they’re our biggest fans.”
“They’d love any excuse to come after us,” Crusher agrees. “Even if they think Layla ran off on her own, would they pass up the chance to get a search warrant?”
“The Reed family history has me concerned,” I admit. “Both parents being criminals makes me wonder if something they’ve done or someone they’ve pissed off came back to bite their daughter in the ass.”
“She needs to go,” Vandal says. “Nova being here is gonna make trouble for the MC. If the cops look into her, she’s going to lead them here.”
“But if we kick her out, won’t that just make her mad?” Ace asks. “More likely to take Layla’s phone to the cops. They get their hands on that, they’ll be at the gate with a search warrant before the ink’s dry.”
“We can take the phone,” Crusher suggests. “Have Cipher tell her he can get info from it. Once we have it, we make her leave without it.”
“And if she reports to the cops we stole her sister’s phone?” I ask.
“Even if she doesn’t go to the cops, if she starts asking too many questions around town, it’s gonna draw attention,” Vandal points out.
“We don’t want nosy people coming around, spreading rumors, getting reporters involved.
They find out we got a missing prospect, you know the story’s gonna be he trafficked or killed her. ”
“We got too much going on right now for any of that,” Crusher agrees.
“We also can’t have her fucking up our search for Patch,” Ace says. “She might want to find her sister, but I don’t think she’ll like some of our methods to get information.”
I remember the fire I saw in her eyes when she talked about finding her sister and I think Ace might be surprised by what Nova Reed would be willing to do for her sister.
“We need to use her as a resource,” Crusher says. “She could know a lot more than she realizes. She could end up having information that’ll take us right to Patch and Layla. We kick her out and she’ll never tell us anything.”
My VP is right. I weigh the information and look at it from other angles before coming to the same conclusion.
Most of the time, when we need something from someone and they’re not giving it to us, we apply physical pressure, but just like there are times when Vandal sends a better message than Crusher, sometimes it’s better if the person doesn’t realize they’re being interrogated.
Subtle isn’t our most used weapon, but we can still use it.
“All right,” I say as I make my decision.
“She stays here and we watch her. Officially, she’s under our protection and we’re going to look for her sister while we’re looking for Patch.
She doesn’t go anywhere without an escort, and she doesn’t leave the compound at all.
If Nova’s hiding anything, we’ll find it.
And if Layla reaches out to her sister, we’ll be right there to hear it too. ”
“You want to keep the prospects on her?” Ace asks.
I shake my head. “Set Ravage, Whizz, and Sin up on rotating shifts.” They’re the least likely to scare her with their appearance. “Tell them to play nice, but not too nice. See if they can get her to talk but be careful. We don’t want to piss her off.”
“I’ll spread the word to the others that she’s hands off,” Ace says. “Don’t want anyone thinking she’s fair game just because she hasn’t been claimed by anyone.”
No, I think, we definitely don’t want that. “Tell ‘em to treat her like she’s their little sister.”
Ace raises an eyebrow. “She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d like that very much.”
I shrug. “Not about what she likes, is it?”
“Prez!”
I look over to see Stray jogging my way. In his late twenties, he’s one of the younger members of the MC, and when he doesn’t have the sandy brown beard to match his hair, he looks even younger. Right now, he’s frowning.
“We might have a problem,” Stray says once he’s close enough to not have to shout. “I got a message from Tansy, that brunette with the big rack I brought to last—”
“Get to the point,” I growl. He’s a great kid, but he talks too damn much and hasn’t figured out when it’s the right time to tell a good story and when he needs to just keep it simple.
“Some guys have been asking around town about a redhead from the Reed family,” Stray sums things up neatly.
“Shit.” Crusher shakes his head. “We need to reconsider, Prez.”
“Reconsider what?” I ask.
“Whether or not having this girl here is worth the trouble she’s going to bring our way.” He glances toward my office window. “Maybe she knows something that’ll help us find Patch, but I don’t think so. If she could find her sister on her own, she wouldn’t have come here for help.”
“She might bring some problems our way,” Ace admits, “but kicking her out could cause more.”
I gesture at him to explain.
“She came here alone and that’s a ballsy move. Someone who does that won’t give up just because we won’t help.”
My second-in-command is making some good points, and his take on Nova matches with the woman I met.
“You think she’s gonna get in our way?” I ask.
“Not if we scare the shit out of her,” Crusher says. “Make her think it won’t be good for her or her sister if she doesn’t back off and let us find Patch.”
Even though it’s his suggestion, Crusher’s as disgusted by it as the rest of us.
We’re no saints and we end up on the wrong side of the law more often than not, but we have certain lines we don’t cross.
One of them is we don’t hurt women and kids.
Just the thought of threatening one with violence turns my stomach, but I can’t think of anything else that might keep her from sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.
And that’s only a maybe because my gut says even that might not do it.
“No,” I say finally. “We keep her here so we can know where she is and what she’s doing. Anyone comes after her, we’ll handle it.”
The guys nod their agreement and then move off to take care of their business.
I stay where I am for a minute, thinking about the pretty redhead in my office.
If people are looking for her, we need to watch our backs, but that’s the obvious danger.
What has me craving a cigarette for the first time in seventeen years is a feeling I can’t shake.
A feeling that there’s something we’re missing, and that the something has to do with the timing of all this.
When I look at the whole picture, it all looks like coincidences.
Our prospect and his girl going missing.
The sister coming here asking questions.
People asking questions about her. Those are connected.
But all this happening at the same time Kings of Ruin are expanding certain areas of business?
Could that be a coincidence? Or is there more to Nova Reed than meets the eye?
Her face flashes in my mind and a jolt of pure lust makes my cock twitch.
I’ve had my fair share of women, but I made it to forty-five without an old lady because I don’t get led around by my dick.
When I want to fuck, I find someone who’s willing and it’s never more than sex.
Women never distract me from the work, and I don’t like that Nova’s broken through.
I gotta cut that off right now and make sure clear boundaries are set. I got too much to do to be thinking about a woman, especially one I might not be able to trust. And the first way I’m gonna do that is by staying as far away from Nova as possible.
But first I have to go tell her that she’s going to be a guest of the Kings of Ruin until we find Patch and Layla. I have a feeling she’s not going to like hearing it, and when she realizes it’s not a request, she’s really going to hate it.
Too bad there ain’t nothing she can do about it.