Chapter Sixteen
Grayson
T en guards on rotating duty. Two men in suits who seem to do the processing of the victims. As the club has been watching the warehouse almost around the clock for two weeks now, we have learned the routines of the men who are working here.
The only issue is there is no routine to the cars that pull up, pick up, or drop off someone and then leave. It is completely random. But at least there have been some of the same cars we are tracking and more that we have the license plates of to look into.
“What about Tammy? Did anyone see her there at any time?” I ask Nerds.
He shakes his head. “No. She hasn’t even driven close by. She is out a lot during the day, but it doesn’t appear to be anything suspicious.”
“Can I see?” I ask, walking over to stand behind his desk chair when he nods. He brings up the tracker labeled for Tammy, and he clicks out of the live tracking, bringing up the tracker history. I blink a few times. “Hang on. Go back to the live feed.”
Nerds glances up at me and furrows his brows but switches back. We watch the little red dot moving on the map along the outskirts of Jacksonville.
“What is it? It looks like she’s just heading out of Jacksonville. She does that on occasion,” he says.
“But look.” I point at the screen, just above the direction the red dot is heading towards. “Isn’t that where the warehouse was where David took Harley and Cade to?”
Nerds opens up a new screen on the monitor to his left and brings up the warehouse that Rage, Ryker, and Harley burned down. “Yeah. That’s right where it was.”
“And she’s going directly to it. Has the tracker ever picked up her going there before?”
Nerds clicks a few times and then searches the address on the tracking history for Tammy. He pauses. “No. She hasn’t. Why would she be going there now? That’s her father, right?”
I nod and continue staring at the screen, an odd feeling stirring in my stomach.
“I’m going to find Rage and see what he thinks about this or if it’s worth looking into,” Nerds says as he stands up and walks out. I plop down in his chair and continue watching as the tracker stops right over the address.
My phone dings with a text, so I pull it out of my pocket and smile at the message from Harley.
Ryker is being insanely impatient and whiny. I told him that if he didn’t stop then I would be sleeping in your room tonight and he could sit outside the door and listen to us. ;)
I bet he went silent really fast.
He definitely did. Our tests start in a few minutes, so I’ll see you later!
I can feel the heat running up my neck and onto my cheeks thinking about Harley being with me and us making Ryker listen or even watch.
Shaking my head, I attempt to clear those thoughts and have to readjust my jeans to sit more comfortably. Harley, Cade, and Ryker are currently at the school taking their semester finals. They only have a few months left after they pass these tests until they are completely done and then we can all graduate and move on.
Glancing back up at the screen, I jolt out of the chair and grab the tablet Nerds has sitting on the desk. Powering it on, I bring up the tracker for Tammy and then run out of the office in search of Rage or anyone I can find.
Flinging the door open to Rage’s office, I find him, Sugar, and Nerds talking.
“Grayson?” Rage asks, forehead creasing with worry.
“She’s coming here,” I breathe, holding the tablet up in the air. “She’s on her way.”
Nerds grabs the tablet from my hand. “Grayson, there are plenty of places she could be going on this path,” he says carefully.
I shake my head and lock eyes with Rage. “She’s coming here. I don’t know why, but I just know she is. She was at the burned down warehouse for all of three minutes before she was driving again and is coming directly in this direction. As soon as I saw it, I knew.”
“Alright, say she is. Why would she come now?” Sugar questions, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall by the window.
“I have no idea.” I run a frustrated hand through my hair and blow out a breath. “I just have this feeling. Just watch the tracker. She is going to show up here.”
“Okay, Grayson. We believe you. We are just trying to figure out why.” Rage curses under his breath. “We need to find out when Harley and the guys might be back.”
“They just started their tests, so at least two hours. If not longer. But we can text Noah to let us know when they’re on the way since he is there on guard,” I comment.
Everyone is silent for a few minutes as we stare at the tracker moving on the tablet that now lays on Rage’s desk, who shakes his head and leans back in his desk chair. “I don’t get why she would even go there. From what I remember, they didn’t really get along, and he wanted nothing to do with her when my dad was still alive and running this place. Then he just disappeared after my father died, said he didn’t want any part of the pussy club I was creating.”
“Maybe they reconnected in some way?” Sugar muses, hedging a guess.
“I feel like that’s something that David would have had to throw in my face before we killed him. But he didn’t. He just said, ‘You have no idea what lies in the shadows waiting for the right moment to attack’ . I thought he was just trying to throw shit out there. I still think he was.”
“Well, we’re about to find out what is going on,” Nerds says as he looks up at all of us, his face full of dread. “She’s here.”
Rage sends Sugar off to let everyone here know what’s going on just to be safe. Nerds heads back to his office while I follow Rage out to the main room where Axe and Stone meet us.
“Text Parker to let her through the gates,” Rage tells Axe.
Walking outside, we all wait a few feet in front of the door as her SUV pulls down the long driveway and parks in the middle of it. From what I can see, it looks like she is completely alone.
The second she steps out of the car, Stone ducks around a parked car and slowly works his way around so he can peek through the windows of the car.
“Gabriel. It’s so good to see you,” she says in a sickly-sweet voice.
I’ve never actually seen her up close before. You would never guess that this person in front of us could be so hideous on the inside when she smiles warmly, her clothes perfectly tailored to her body. Her hair holds perfect curls, and she has a full face of makeup on. Not a flaw in sight.
“It’s Rage. Not Gabriel. And I can’t say the same,” Rage says flatly. “What are you doing here, Tammy?”
She looks him up and down before her eyes scan the rest of us standing out here. “I noticed you discovered David’s little club right out of town.”
Rage feigns confusion. “What are you talking about? David disappeared after Killer died and I took over the club. I haven’t seen him since.”
Tammy narrows her eyes at him and then scoffs, “Don’t play stupid with me, Gabriel. You may have turned into a pussy, but I know you’re the one who burned down his club building. Let me guess, his big mouth finally ran too far, and you found out about how he wants to take over?”
“Well, it’s nice to learn that. But I had no idea he was even still in the area. I haven’t seen or heard from him,” Rage deadpans
“You can stop playing games with me. I fucking know you burned down the building and I’m guessing took him out considering I haven’t heard from him in months,” Tammy sneers.
“How could I possibly burn down a building I didn’t even know existed? If you haven’t heard from him in months, why are you just now checking for your own father?” Rage tilts his head at her.
She rolls her eyes at him and crosses her arms over her chest. “You know as well as I do that the bastard didn’t care about me. The only reason he ever reached out over the last few years was to talk about that precious daughter of yours,” she snaps.
My fists clench at my sides. Breathe, Grayson. I knew she wouldn’t be able to not bring up Harley, but yet it still sets my blood on fire. She shouldn’t be allowed to even think about her.
Rage, being the perfect image of calm, doesn’t answer her. He just stares at her with the same bored look.
A slow grin spreads over her face. “Unless he finally got his hands on her? Is that why you burned him to the ground?” she taunts.
“This is becoming pointless,” Rage sighs. “You’re going in circles, and for once in your life, you are wrong. I figured he took off to one of the other MCs that my father was involved with in another state. I had no fucking clue he was around here. I haven’t talked to the fucker in over five years.”
Tammy’s smug attitude begins to drop. “You know I don’t care if you did kill him and took down his club. They were becoming a bigger problem than asset for me anyway.”
That gains Rage’s attention, and he steps towards her. “How was he becoming a problem for you? From what I understood, you got out of this life when Killer banned you from the club when we were barely eighteen. So, what is this really about? Why are you showing up here after not having shown your face in over a decade?”
Her eyes narrow. “Gabriel, you have never been able to play games like your father. Why are you doing it now?”
“Don’t compare me to Killer.” He snorts. “We are nothing alike. I have never played games. I didn’t like the manipulative shit he did, and I would never do that to someone else.”
Tammy examines him for a moment, as if she thinks he’ll crumble and tell her what she wants to hear. When he doesn’t, her face falls. She pales and takes a slow step back.
“You swear that you had nothing to do with this? Not a thing? Don’t lie to me, Gabriel. Please,” she says almost pleadingly while also trying to keep her hard shell in place. My brows furrow, not really understanding what’s going on.
Rage sighs and runs a hand down his face. “Tammy, I’ve told you multiple times now that I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. I don’t deal with that shit anymore. I don’t care about any of it.”
“Not even your own daughter?” She raises a brow at him.
“I didn’t say anything about her. She’s my child, and that’s different.”
Tammy clearly wants to say more, I would guess about Harley, but she clamps her mouth shut and breathes through her nose. She glances around at all of us, her eyes lingering on me for a moment, and then she steps back again next to the driver’s side door of her car.
“If you really have no idea about any of this…” She shakes her head and spins towards her car, throwing the door open. I can almost swear I hear her mumbling something like, He’s back, as she gets in and shuts the door, immediately taking off.
“What the hell was that about?” I ask. “Why did she only care to ask about David? She barely even brought up Harley. Why did her entire demeanor change when she realized you weren’t going to change your answer about being involved?”
“Grayson!” Rage snaps. I glance up and realize he’s standing in front of me. “Breathe. I don’t know. That—the way she changed wasn’t the Tammy I used to know. At the start, the cocky attitude was. But she never backs down like that. She never misses a chance to throw something in someone’s face.”
“It looked like she really wanted to, but she stopped herself,” Axe supplies.
“Axe, you and Stone go to the school and stand guard with Blade. I want more eyes on them. The fact that she came here and didn’t taunt me about Harley is a bad sign. Grayson, keep tracking her car. We will hold church later this evening and figure out a way to keep a closer eye on her. I want to know who she’s talking to and what she’s doing every minute of the day,” Rage demands.
“Do you think she knows about us looking into the warehouse and keeping eyes on it?” I ask, glancing between him and the others.
“Honestly, I have no fucking clue. I don’t know the person she is now. All I do know is her not taking the opportunity to taunt me about Harley is a bad fucking sign. And whatever spooked her when she finally believed me that we had nothing to do with David’s warehouse isn’t good either.
“There’s only one person that I can remember ever actually truly scaring Tammy. Other than that, she has never given a shit about anything besides herself,” Rage says.
Axe and Stone take off, and I head back inside, going to the tech room where Nerds is. He doesn’t glance up from his desk, but he asks, “How did you know she was coming here? I mean, I know she was driving in this direction, but there are plenty of places she could have gone.”
I shrug. “I just had a gut feeling. I knew something was off when she went by the burned down building months after it was destroyed.”
Sighing, I run a hand through my hair and drop down into the chair at the desk in the center of the room.
“I don’t get it,” I add. “Why would she come here at all? She really just wanted to ask about David? What was she even going to do if Rage had admitted to it?” Frustration seeps into my tone.
Nerds finally looks up and turns toward me. “Trying to figure out what is going on inside of a psychotic woman’s head is going to be a waste of your time. She obviously has fucking issues. And honestly, I think she just wanted Rage’s attention. She didn’t show up here calling him Gabriel for no reason.”
I furrow my brows. “But she hasn’t seen him in over a decade. Why would she want anything to do with him now?” I press.
Nerds shakes his head. “Not worth trying to figure out. The only thing we need to worry about at the moment is the warehouse.”
That distracts me from all the unanswered questions swirling around in my mind and I sit up straight. “Do you have anything new?”
He nods and flicks his fingers for me to join him at his desk. Moving the chair next to his, he starts up his many monitors that are mounted to the wall above the desk. “After the first few days that we had people watching it, they were noting how many cars were coming and going throughout the day and sometimes at night. So, I had them start getting pictures of the license plates and trying to snap photos of who was in the cars.”
He opens up a list on one monitor, and another one pops up with a bunch of pictures of people’s faces and license plates.
“This is a list of all of these people.” He points from his list to the images. “I’m going to talk to Rage later, because I think it’s time we bring the entire club in on this. We need all the help we can get, and everyone in the need-to-know circle is getting exhausted from having to keep an eye on the warehouse almost 24/7.”
I cut in, “Yeah, but with everything that has happened, Rage is still hesitant to trust people. Especially when it’s Harley on the line and now all of these victims we’re discovering.”
Nerds nods. “That’s where you come in. I want you to dive into everyone. All our members, the club girls, everyone’s families. Do background checks, stalk them, find out every little thing about them. Let’s clear them all for Rage so he can take a fucking breath.”
I glance back at the computer monitors. “I can do that. But it’ll probably take a few days.”
“That’s fine. I need to talk to Rage about bringing it to church anyway because I think we need all the people we can get to help us. When it’s time to take down this warehouse, we need other teams splitting off and going to all of these people’s homes to check for victims. I want us to save as many victims as possible, and the only way to do that is if we hit hard and fast all at the same time.”
“That’s a good idea. But just based on this list you made, even if we get the entire club involved, we won’t have enough people.”
Sighing, he taps his fingers on his desk. “I know. But we have other allies we could bring in. This is the only warehouse in Jacksonville that we’ve found, so I think once we take this out, it eliminates a lot and really damages whoever the fuck is running all of this.”
“And after we take it down, we can look into destroying the offshore accounts that are in the guys’ names, right?” I ask.
Nerds glances at me, and a terrifying smile spreads over his face. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” I question as my eyebrows furrow in confusion.
“You and I are going to have our hands full, but it'll be worth it. I have some ideas about how to hack into the banking systems remotely. We should be able to get in through a back door and change the owners on the accounts and make sure they are not connected to the guys at all but are instead connected to those who have been involved in this.”
“But how does that help?” I sigh, rubbing my temples and feeling a headache coming on.
“After all this is over, we will be able to get this information to someone we trust within the FBI. And then they will be going to jail for a long fucking time. I know we want to kill these fucking sick bastards, but killing a judge, a sheriff, and other important people in town won’t be easy to smooth over. But have the FBI swoop in at the end and arrest their asses? That will be a celebration.”
I nod, thinking over everything he’s saying. “Alright. But when do we even do all of this? How do we know when it’s time to actually take action?”
“That’s something Rage will have to discuss with us in church, and he’ll have to base it on how fast you and I can plan everything.”
“Okay. Have you messed with the Black Night Ball website anymore?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. I am a little stuck on how to get in without it setting off alarms because whoever created the site is damn fucking good at keeping people out.”
While thinking it over, I move back over to the desk on the other end of the long back wall that has basically become my spot and get started on checking out everyone who is involved in the club.
Nerds left the tech room a few hours ago to go talk with Rage and hasn’t come back in yet. I’ve been making slow progress going through all of our members. It’s going to be a long few days for me trying to get through everyone. On the plus side, everyone that I’ve checked out so far is good. I haven’t found anything bad or suspicious.
Leaning back in the chair, I stretch my arms over my head just as the door opens behind me. I spin around to find Harley leaning against the door frame. Her lips are pinched together, and she has a pained expression on her face.
“Hey, beautiful. Did your test go okay?” I say softly.
She nods and steps into the room, shutting the door behind her. Walking over to my desk, she hesitantly leans her butt against the edge, and her fingers squeeze the desk on either side of her.
Wetting her lips, she watches me nervously for a moment before quietly asking, “You saw her?”
Realizing Rage or someone must have filled her in about Tammy making an appearance at the club, my eyes soften. “Yeah, I did. How are you feeling?”
Shrugging, she drops her head and stares at her feet. Instead of answering my question, she says, “Tell me what you thought.”
Tilting my head, I roll my chair so I’m in front of her with my knees on either side of her legs. Harley raises her head enough to meet my eyes when I grasp her hips. “She doesn’t matter, Harley. She doesn’t deserve us sitting here thinking about her. You have made so much progress since you got away from her. Don’t let this drag you back down. No matter what, every single person in this club will stand with you.
“We are all mad on your behalf. No one wanted to stand there and listen to her shit. The only reason we did is because we have to play the long game. And as more things happen, as we take down this empire she has formed, you might hear about her or even see her more.”
Taking a deep breath, I lock my gaze with her scared and withdrawn eyes.
“I’m going to take a wild guess here and assume you aren’t stuck in your head because this brought up what she did to you. But you are worried we were sucked into her trap, right? That she showed up here with a smile, dressed nicely, seeming like the picture-perfect woman and we would all think, She’d never harm a hair on someone else .”
“How do you know that?” she whispers, blinking away tears.
“Because you are strong and brave, but you’ve also been put through so much in your life already. When you lost your mom, who was your person, you latched onto the thought of Tammy, who you thought was your aunt and was going to protect and love you. You fell into her trap. So why wouldn’t we?”
“I know it’s stupid,” Harley blurts with a slight sniffle. “It’s really stupid to let my mind go there, but it does.”
“It’s not stupid. Not at all. Our brains rewire after trauma in an attempt to protect ourselves from more harm. It’s what I did when Lincoln told me who he was. I’m still struggling to fight off the part of me that assumes he is going to leave me like the rest of my family has.
“If they share the same blood as me then they eventually leave in one way or another, right?” I shake my head. “But it’s not right. Feeling it is okay. But don’t let it set you back or make you retreat into yourself and feel like you can’t trust us, okay?”
She nods and drops down into my lap, draping her legs over mine and burying her head against my neck. “I know. I think that’s why I left everyone else out there and came back here. I just needed you.”
Wrapping my arms tightly around her, I breathe her in. I need you, too.