Prologue #4
Poison had barely spoken a word since Kitty had walked out of the motel room.
The occasional question was asked over their helmets’ Bluetooth since the earpieces Rose had given them for constant communication were not working.
At times, hours passed without a single one of them speaking.
Jack from the Mountain Mutineers was feeding them intel, sparse though it was.
The news from Mount Grove was grave. Someone had planted a bomb in the club’s bar, and when it exploded, it brought the building down on everyone who had been inside.
While there were many survivors, there were also casualties.
The last body count was four: Frankie, the club’s nanny who had been there on her night off; Monica, one of the waitresses at the bar; Dru Dendinger, a local physical therapist who had been in the bar on a date night with her husband; and Scott Pan, a deputy with the Mount Grove Police Department.
Among the injured were the six local bankers who had been in the back of the bar; Danny, another deputy; Dru’s husband Jett; Gracie, another waitress; Specs, a VDMC prospect; Ghost, the VDMC’s president and the bar’s co-owner; and Grumpy, a VDMC member.
Grumpy was still in critical condition, having lost an eye and sustained numerous burns, but the doctors were optimistic about his survival.
Additionally, Becks, Ghost’s ol’ lady and wife, and Ranger, the VDMC’s enforcer, Becks’ older brother, and Ghost’s best friend, were also missing. They had not been in the bar at the time of the explosion, and were both last seen with Ranger’s girlfriend, all three of them leaving her apartment.
Beyond knowing that Rose was in WITSEC, there wasn’t much that Jack could tell them.
Finding her status as a protected individual as well as her handler was his current task, but he couldn’t promise speed.
There was a reason no one has been able to hack or break into the program.
The U.S. Marshals were very good at making people disappear.
But, from what the Non Cras could presume, Rose couldn’t be a typical case. For one, she was clearly in contact with people from her old life.
From the few questions she’d answered about Rose, Poison admitted that she had not known Rose was a hacker, even as a teenager, and that the sisters were not close growing up.
With a decade between their ages, Poison had felt more like a parent than a sister to Rose.
When Rose started smoking and drinking in her early teens, eventually graduating to the more hardcore crimes, her parents sent her off to boarding school in the hopes of her straightening her life out.
Instead, she got caught stealing, sent to juvie, and eventually overdosed on heroin.
Or so everyone thought.
That was six years ago. Rose had been barely eighteen when she OD’d, making it legal for her to cut her own deal, and leaving Poison alone in the world.
Until a year and a half ago.
No one dared to mention Kitty. It was like he’d never existed in the club, let alone been their president’s Knightmare. If Jack knew about Kitty’s—or Rurik’s—absence in the club, he was smart enough to also keep his mouth shut.
Walking into the ice cream shoppe was like stepping back in time.
There was a milkshake counter directly in front of the main entrance with what looked to be barrels of whiskey on the far wall.
Instead of labels like Bourbon, Rye, and Single Malt, though, they had Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Almond, Black Cherry, Blueberry, Butter Pecan, Salted Caramel, White Chocolate Cheesecake, and Crème de Menthe.
Families with kids, teens and adults on dates, and some single customers filled the dining booths and the round stools at the bar, despite the northern cool still plaguing the afternoon.
Other than one customer in the corner on his laptop, there was not a computer in sight. Just people on their phones, texting or sharing pictures on social media.
No Rose.
She would be twenty-four now, and perhaps it was foolish to have any expectation that Rose would just be sitting at the counter eating a sundae while waiting patiently for the club to arrive.
Kitty had been right. The entire, nail-biting trip to get there had been a huge waste of time. As Jack had warned, Rose must have faked the IP information, and the club just drove across the country in two days to prove nothing.
No Rose, no enemy, no fight.
There was nothing.
* * *
Poison felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Like she’d been holding her breath for days, and this was the one place she held out hope she’d finally be able to get some air. But instead, she found herself sinking further and further down to the bottom of the sea.
The two older women working behind the counter wore paper hats on their heads and striped pink and white dresses.
They froze at the sight of the newcomers who just walked into their ice cream shoppe like a pack of leather-clad wolves.
Out of the corner of her eye, Poison saw moms grabbing for their kids as men eyed them, no doubt trying to decide if they had a better chance trying to fuck or fight the hardened women standing before them.
The two older women behind the counter exchanged a look like they were wondering if they needed to call the police.
In their defense, none of the NCMC had showered in two days, and Poison couldn’t have forced a smile onto her face if her life depended on it. She didn’t have the time, the energy, or the patience.
Poison started forward, the rest of the club hanging back. She had no intention of causing a scene, knowing damn well that she couldn’t help Rose from jail.
Then again, she wasn’t even sure what help she would be to her baby sister here either.
It had been many years since Poison had looked through the older pictures on her phone. All the ones that had included her pig of an ex-husband had long been deleted, while the ones of her parents and sister had just been buried, lost to time.
Pulling out her phone, Poison opened the screen to the last picture she had of Rose and showed it to the women behind the counter. “Do you know this girl? She’ll be older now, mid-twenties?”
Neither woman made any move towards her, though both did take a passing glance at the phone. “No, sorry,” the one on the left answered. “Can’t say I have.”
“Look again!” Poison demanded loudly, causing many patrons to jump.
A metal spoon clattered to the floor. Fuck.
Poison hung her head, desperately trying to rein in the mass of emotions bombarding her like a hailstorm.
She let out a long, shaky breath through her nose before she, slowly, lifted her head.
Poison’s grip on her phone tightened. “Please,” she pleaded, beyond desperate.
“She’s my sister, and she’s missing. Can you please look again? ”
The women hesitated before stepping forward. One even put on a pair of reading glasses to see Poison’s phone better. Tense seconds passed, but then they shook their heads, and despair cascaded through Poison all over again.
“It’s hard to tell,” the one said with a sad expression. “We see so many faces around here. Without a current picture, I can’t say for sure. I’m sorry, sweetie.”
Poison nodded stiffly. Really, what else should she have expected? “Thank you for your time.” She reached into her back pocket and dropped some cash in the tip jar on the counter.
Her club parted like the Red Sea as she turned and made her way towards the door on shaky legs. From their expressions, they were feeling as helpless as she was.
What was Poison supposed to do now? This had been the longest of long shots, but it had been all she had, all that was keeping her going since she learned her little sister was still alive.
And now?
Poison had been such a rotten older sister to Rose, but hindsight was always twenty-twenty.
She thought being harder on Rose would make her try harder, make her reach for more.
Rose was the smartest person Poison knew, always spewing out the most random of thoughts and facts.
So it made no sense why she didn’t apply herself, why she just barely passed her classes, and why she got caught up in the wrong crowds.
Poison walked aimlessly, not intending to end up in what was clearly the ice cream shoppe’s back alley.
More of an open delivery lot with several dumpsters, a propane tank, and two steam vents.
She did not feel the chilling northwest breeze that whipped her dyed ginger hair about as she stared at the chipped blue paint and the faded logo of the dumpster company.
A series of loud, echoing crashes disturbed the cozy, winter city as gloved hands reached for anything and everything that could be thrown, tossed, or destroyed. Trash littered about, but Poison didn’t care. She couldn’t breathe! She couldn’t breathe!
Falling over, she braced her arms against the brick wall of the building and let out a heart-wrenching, agonizingly frustrated wail of agony.
She didn’t hear her club enter the alley, nor did she hear the motorcycle come barreling down towards her.
All she felt were the strong arms that had held her every night for the past year and a half wrap around her middle.
Pulling her off the wall, Kitty turned her in his arms. Poison struck.
She punched and swatted at him several times, screaming as she did, but he did not relent.
He took blow after blow until the last of her energy was zapped out of her.
Her knees gave out, and she sagged against his chest. Even as pissed as she was, Poison clung to him like her life depended on it as tears began to fall.
* * *