Chapter 15
Jinx
Whatever the Hyenas put into our ventilation system is still moving through the building. We fought our way through several dozen Hyenas in a desperate attempt to get to Nora before they took her.
Garret is down with Queenie on her knees beside him. She has both hands pressed to his head to stem the blood. The other women are running around getting medical supplies and seeing to another prospect who was injured.
I squat down beside Queenie. “What happened?”
“We couldn’t breathe and the little ones were crying because their eyes stung.
Nora said Coal did that to drive people out of the building, one of his dirty tricks.
Garret was leading us to the exit when they attacked.
The prospects were outnumbered and they took her.
God, I’m so sorry, Jinx, there was nothing we could do. ”
I’ve never seen Queenie look so distraught. I’m used to our former club queen being unruffled, but she looks shaken by whatever happened.
“Alright, don’t worry. I’m gonna get her back,” I say without a trace of doubt in my voice.
I might be calm on the outside but I’m a burning inferno of fury on the inside.
I’m pissed they came to get her because Stripe saw her as his personal property, bought and paid for.
I want to track every single one of them down and make them pay for daring to lay a finger on my old lady.
I stand up and begin plotting how I’m gonna get her back, as I walk towards my bike. Slate steps in front of me, blocking my path. Jasper and Onyx show up almost instantly. Figures, the other club officers want to plot and plan, but I just want my fuckin’ old lady back.
“Stop and listen to reason,” Slate says.
Jasper adds, “If you get on your bike and go riding out right now, you’ll be a dead man before sunrise. Those Hyenas will rip you apart without thinkin’ twice.”
Onyx throws in his two cents worth, “You can’t rescue her if you’re dead.”
“Those fuckers took my pregnant old lady.” I glance around the parking lot at all my club brothers who are in various stages of fucked up and bleeding before finishing my thought.
“I ain’t gonna sit around talkin’, I’m gonna get her back, right goddamn now.
” The words fly outta my mouth before I think.
Jasper doesn’t say anything for a second. Then he reaches out and squeezes my shoulder.
“Give us twenty minutes. Then we’ll all go with you to get her,” he says, sincerely. “You’re our sergeant-at-arms. We’re not gonna let you down.”
I’m too choked with emotion to respond for a second.
Jasper turns to the brothers. “We’re havin’ church right goddamn now. Everyone to the chapel. Striker, bring everything you’ve got. Get the injured into the main room and call every medic we’ve got, and Dr. Marsh too. Tell her we’ve got wounded.”
He looks down at Garret, who is pale and breathing hard. He’s still trying to sit up but Queenie keeps pushing him down again. “Let me up. I’ve got to get back to the gate. We can’t let them back in.”
Jasper’s expression closes down, so the brothers don’t see him get emotional.
He presses Garret back down. “You did a good job, prospect. Your gate duty is over until you are seen by our doctor and cleared for duty. The brothers will see to the gate. You just take it easy and recover your strength.”
***
Church is held with very little decorum. Jasper hits the table with his fists instead of his gavel. “I call this meetin’ to order. These fuckers have broken into our property twice in as many years. This time we go scorched earth on their asses.”
When he jerks his chin at Striker, Striker jumps into the conversation. “There’s no way they could have forced their way in here without knowing our set up and being privy to our security planning.”
“You’re tellin’ me this is an inside job?” Jasper demands.
Something crosses Striker’s face. “Yeah. And I think I know who gave them the info.”
Jasper takes a step closer to Striker. “What the fuck? We have a traitor now?”
Striker nods. Slamming his fist against his chest, he says, “It’s me, brother. It’s me.”
The entire room goes quiet because no man in this room believes Striker would betray the club.
“You’ve got about ten seconds to make this make sense before I lose my shit,” Jasper growls.
“It wasn’t intentional.” Striker pulls up an image on the big screen, showing shrink-wrapped bundles on a shelf.
“I don’t understand,” I tell him. “That’s the recovered inventory from the cannery, sitting in our own storeroom in the officer’s storage area.”
“Yeah,” Striker agrees. “And I swept it for power signatures. I got nothing, because one of the bundles has a recording device that’s programmed to wake up when moved.
It’s set to record and then transmit data back to the Hyenas twice a day.
It’s my fault. I know how clever those bastards are.
I should have opened the shrink-wrapped packages and double-checked what was in there. ”
“That’s not on you anymore than it’s on me,” Slate tells him. “None of us even thought they could have tampered with the bundles that way. It’s smart if you think about it. Expensive tech is at risk of being stolen by anyone, even their own guys. They added security that happened to trip us up.”
“You also managed to figure it out in the middle of an attack in the wee hours of the morning. I’m just grateful that you were intelligent enough to discover and mitigate the security devices.”
Striker’s expression is still embarrassed, and he isn’t listening to their words.
So, I speak up, “Striker, you did us a solid by finding out how those bastards know our every move. That’s a job well done by anyone’s standards. Tonight, I need that big brain energy of yours to help me find my old lady before it’s too late. Can you do that?”
Striker holds my eyes a second before nodding.
“Yeah, I can do that. In fact, I discovered something else by talking to that cartel dude. They used some of our devices as fleet units. The Hyenas didn’t steal them to sell.
They stole them to use. They’ve been using them in their vans to run their stolen-parts pipeline like a real logistics outfit. ”
He replaces the image on the screen with a map. It had a little blue dot moving along a gray line. “They disabled the trackers before, but I hacked their system. Now we know what they know.”
Striker proudly asks, “Do you want to know where your old lady is right now, brother?”
A slow smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “She’s the blue dot, right?”
“Yeah, she is. I can tell because it was the strongest signal when they were attacking our compound. When they left the signal got weaker, which makes perfect sense since the tracker was on one of their vehicles.”
“Are they takin’ her to their clubhouse?” I ask.
“No,” Onyx says. “Taking her to their clubhouse or the cannery would be obvious. I’ve been reading through the material I grabbed from the cannery.
The Hyenas are adapting to the Cartel’s way of doing things.
One rule is to never house the product and people at the same location.
It’s risky in a lot of ways, including drawing undue attention to stockpiles. ”
I respond, “Yeah, folks like us could show up and torch their whole operation, right?”
Several brothers laugh because that’s exactly what happened.
“Yeah. But here’s the thing, the rent on three different sites was paid out of the same account, including the cannery.
The second one is a storage lot on the other side of town, the opposite direction your blue dot is travelling.
The third location is a transport yard on our side of the river.
Satellite images show eight acres of land with dozens of vehicles behind a chain-link fence. ”
I watch the blue dot crawl along towards that transport yard.
“They want to take her someplace isolated. A place they don’t think we know about.
That’s where Stripe will officially rip my property cut off her back and replace it with his own.
We all know what comes after that,” I point out grimly.
“He might even punish her for running from him and shacking up with me all these weeks.”
Striker adds, “And no matter how much she protests, Coal ain’t gonna do shit to protect her. She’s not a daughter to him, or even a human being. She’s just an item he sold to solidify his position with the cartel.”
My jaw aches, because I’m clenching my teeth so hard.
Looking around the room at my club brothers, I say what we’re all already thinking, “When Stripe figures out she’s carrying my child, he’ll consider that the ultimate betrayal.
There’s no tellin’ what he might do to her if his anger burns hot enough. ”
“We need to move right away,” Jasper announces. “Time is not on your old lady’s side right now.” He folds his arms over his chest and tells me. “Want to get with Striker and work out a route?”
“Hell the fuck yes, I do,” I respond flatly.
“Everyone else, gear up,” Jasper commands. “Jinx’s old lady is pregnant and that makes her extra vulnerable. We roll out the minute Striker sends the quickest route.”
I put my head together with Striker and look over the map of that area.
If I could be accused of having a best friend, it would be Striker.
He knows how important this is to me and is leveraging every ounce of his brain power to help me find her.
The second we finalize the route Striker texts it to all the brothers, while I run out of the room to gear up.
I stop at the door long enough to look back at him. “I almost forgot to thank you.”
He glances up from the screen, looking surprised. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m as dedicated to finding Nora as you are.”
“Keep eyes in the air on this one, brother. I have a bad feeling things might go sideways this time.”
“Roger that. Gear up, hit the road and trust that I’ll be reporting what I see through your earpiece.”
I turn, run to the armory, and pull out what I need.
Truth be told, I stick weapons of every type and size all over my body.
This is the battle of a lifetime, and I want to be ready for anything.
No matter what it takes or what those bastards have done to her, I’m gonna bring her home.
The sound of my boots hitting the floor echoes through the clubhouse as I run out to meet up with the other brothers in the parking lot.
Jasper is already addressing the brothers, giving instructions we all know by heart.
“Tonight we stay together. Nobody rides ahead or breaks formation. When we get there, nobody fires until we get Jinx’s old lady out.
You better be the stealthiest motherfucker on the planet while we’re lookin’ for her.
If you have to use force, do it with your hands or with a blade. ”
His eyes land on me. “I don’t care what you see once we get there, Jinx’s old lady is the priority.”
I’ve never been prouder to be a club officer in the Sons of Rage than I am at this moment.
This is why we joined the club, not only to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and the brotherhood of like-minded men, but also because we have each other’s backs.
Even the strongest man needs back up every now and then.
Tonight, I have an army at my back while going into enemy territory to get my old lady back.
I speak up, “Once we get Nora to safety, Stripe is mine. I’m gonna make sure my old lady never has to look over her shoulder for that fucker again.”
Jasper says, “Let’s load up. I want to get there before sunup.”
As we’re leaving, Dr. Marsh pulls up to help with the wounded and shoves a first aid kit into my hands.
“Listen to me, Jinx. When you find her, she’s gonna be scared even if she doesn’t show it.
Be careful with her. Carry her out if you have to, but don’t make her run, throw her over your shoulder or stress her out more than she already is.
Tell her she’s safe, everything’s going to be alright, and then get her to me as soon as possible. ”
“Got it, Doc. You’re gonna be here when we get back, right?”
“Yes, unless you let me know she’s in bad shape. If she is, I’ll meet you at St. Mary’s. I have admitting privileges there.”
The other bikes roar to life and I shove the first aid kit into the back storage compartment on my bike. “I gotta go. I’ll keep you posted about what we find.”
I throw my leg over my bike and hit the ignition switch. As my motor springs to life, I snap my helmet into place. Right before I shove my visor down, Jasper pulls his bike up beside mine. His eyes drift over all the weapons I’m carrying and his expression goes blank.
I think he’s worried that I’m gonna lose my shit on some poor hapless fool, like I did last time, so I try to reassure him. “I’m calm, Prez. My head is screwed on straight. You don’t have to worry about me tonight.”
“I know. This is your one chance to get your old lady back in one piece. I don’t think you’d be quite stupid enough to blow it by letting your emotions get the better of you.”
“What is it then?”
“We need to make smart, strategic decisions during this mission. It’s the only way to make sure everyone makes it home alive.”
“They took my woman and my unborn child. If anyone loses their life rescuing them, it’ll be me.”
Our club president doesn’t look too happy with my response, but he lets it go. He revs his engine to get everyone’s attention and yells, “Let’s move out.”