Chapter Two
Cassie caught her breath and looked over the table at Deke.
He kept shaking his head.
They had been just about to go to bed when the call came in. She too had put the call on speaker and Deke heard most of the call but he kept quiet until now. He opened his mouth but Cassie put her free hand over his mouth and shook her head.
Deke glared at her then picked up his own phone and texted Iceman.
Cassie took a deep breath and said, “Tell you what, you tell me where you are and I’ll send someone over to collect her, it won’t be one of the bikers but someone I trust. As soon as he gets there and sees Peaches, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“And how will I know you’ll tell me the truth?” Banger grumbled.
Cassie scoffed. “I don’t lie, whether you believe that or not, but why would I lie? “
“For the gold.” Banger growled.
“What the hell do I need the gold for?” Cassie snarled.
“I have a fortune of my own. Plus, I don’t want what I can’t earn myself.
Nor do I want something that doesn’t belong to me.
Janelle Walden had plenty of gold hidden in her walls too.
She got it from selling children, that gold had too much blood on it to be worth anything to me.
My blood and the blood of each child she sold into slavery.
It was already tainted when the boys in blue got to it.
” She paused, then said, “Robbie would see it and dream about the things he could buy with it. He was just as bad as his so-called mother and the monkey on his back taunted him to find his own gold that only he could spend. That was when he made his biggest mistake. You had what he wanted so he lied and he set you up to take the fall for him. Then he went after your gold. He took it and hid it but the monkey on his back wouldn’t leave him alone.
He had to have more and more. So Robbie fell hard.
He didn’t know the more he grabbed the harder that monkey would ride him.
That’s when he got stupid and crossed one too many lines.
He thought no one would ever catch him and he got careless.
Then someone did catch him and he died by the same violence he tried to push on me.
I survived but he never had a chance. I think in the end he knew it. ”
“Oh, boo-hoo. Poor Robbie finally faced judgement, what do you want me to do about that?” Banger quipped.
“Nothing,” Cassie replied. “But now that same greedy monkey is riding your shoulders. You have a choice to make right here and now, if you release Peaches I will tell you where the gold is. But if you hurt her any more you’ll be looking over your shoulders for the rest of your days. What’s it gonna be?”
“Honey, if I don’t want to be found, nobody is gonna find me.”
Deke quietly stood in the middle of the call to silently open the door to an enraged Iceman.
Sam and Zipper were behind him.
Cassie’s lip curled as she replied to Banger over her cell, “Well, Honey, if you hurt her again I’ll track you down myself. I can hide in plain sight a lot better than you can. I will turn over every rock and check every hole I see to find your cowardly self.”
Just then the call went dead from Banger’s end of it.
Iceman snapped his glare over at Cassie. “When did the call come in? Is Peaches okay?”
Cassie calmly set the phone back on the table then raised her head to look at Zipper. “You need to find her, Zip.”
Zipper looked confused as he asked, “Me? How the hell am I supposed to find her?”
Cassie smiled. “On your computer. She was wearing the vest you gave us when the FBI took us to Boston.”
Deke just shook his head and smiled. “You told her to wear that? So we would have a way to track her if he took her.”
Cassie nodded then looked over at Iceman. “When they took me they knew about her too. They knew she had been with me when we were kids. I told her to wear that vest just in case he came back.”
Iceman nodded but the muscle on his jaw ticked. The rage in his cobalt eyes calmed a bit but it was still there and his hands were still clenched at his sides.
Sam stared at him as he looked a bit worried.
Zipper took the bag he carried from his shoulder and slid his laptop out of it. Then he sat down at Deke’s table. He opened the program to search the city for a red light that would tell them where Peaches was being held.
A few quiet minutes later, he found the red dot but he frowned at the address on his computer. He looked up at Iceman then at Deke. “I found them... I think?”
“Where are they?” Iceman grumbled.
“About three miles away at an abandoned warehouse, the Old Tile company actually. But as far as I know that building is practically falling down.”
“Any way you can check the city cameras and find out how they got there?” Iceman asked.
Zipper shrugged. “I can try but I’d have to go back and see.”
“Do it.” Deke growled. “We have to see if she’s hurt and how she ever got on the back of his bike when all she had to do was scream.”
Zipper nodded. The first camera he checked was their own. He found what he wanted only an hour ago. They all watched the footage as Banger snuck up behind Peaches and clamping a hand over her mouth, he dragged her toward the fence line.
Sam wasn’t the only one who growled as he pushed her through the cut fence.
Zipper began switching cameras and they were able to follow the pair deep inside the wooded area.
They all watched as Banger stopped within the range of the cameras and they all saw him tie her hands behind her back.
They watched as he positioned her bound hands over the back brace on his bike and he rode out through the woods.
Deke finally raised his head and he looked directly at Iceman. “He will lose body parts for this.”
Iceman said nothing but he let out a low growl.
Cassie shook her head. “Boys, put it back into your pants. Just help us figure out a way to get close enough to take him down and get Peaches out of there.”
Deke turned his head and glared at her. “Babe, I know you’re worried about Peaches but this might not be as simple as you think.
Banger is on the verge of losing it totally and he might do anything to Peaches he deems fitting in order to get away.
We have to be very careful of the insanity that even I could hear in his voice. ”
Cassie nodded. “I understand that part but I think we all know what sort of man Banger is too. He’s not like you and every other man in this room.
He just got out of a prison Robbie sent him to.
He’s enraged that Robbie is dead already and his first stop was to look me up.
He knows that I’ve protected Peaches most of our lives.
I have something he thinks he wants and he doesn’t mind hurting her to get me in line. ”
“Do you know how much he hurt her?” Iceman asked quietly.
“She’s afraid of his mental state. Afraid enough that she’s asking for help,” Cassie told him.
Deke looked puzzled. “I didn’t hear that.”
“Me and Peaches have been together from the age of five, we have a way of saying stuff without really saying it. Do you remember when I asked her where she was and she told me she didn’t really know?
I think she knew already. Her answer told me that he had hurt her.
If she wasn’t hurt she would have said something like maybe.
But she didn’t, all she said was she didn’t really know. ”
Iceman shook his head and asked, “How did you know enough to tell her to wear the old vest?”
Cassie turned her head and explained, “When I was with the Screaming Falcons I could see just how unorganized they were. Especially this Banger guy. He doesn’t think two steps ahead, only in the minute.
His MC brothers did have enough sense to look worried when they realized who I was, at least. They also didn’t look happy when I got there.
They did not like it when Rodney hit me either.
Those men weren’t bad, they just tried to be loyal to this Banger as he was part of the original club.
And that was why I told you all to let them go.
And Banger knows Peaches is very connected, not only with us but her family as well.
He doesn’t think he has anything to fear from the Vincintis because he doesn’t think they can find him.
Like I said, he isn’t sane right now.” She shook her head.
“What he doesn’t know is that if he hurts Peaches bad enough, Leon and Calderone won’t stop until they find him.
” Shaking her head, she added, “It ain’t gonna be pretty.
Then he’ll have you and Iceman to deal with. ”
“Yeah, he’s a dead man walking right now, but he won’t be for long, I can guarantee that.” Iceman growled.
The other men in the room nodded in agreement.