11. Butch
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BUTCH
A fter eight miserable hours without my misbehaving backpack named Candy to keep me warm on the ride back to headquarters, we pull onto the Mercy Ravens MC property back home in good ole Fort Collins. The sun is already low in the sky as we cut the engines on our bikes and the SUV pulls in behind us.
The few weeks we were gone in Sacramento for the pilfering case have brought a change in the season back home. We left in October, when the weather was still fairly warm. Fall has arrived in the Colorado foothills. All the trees have lost their leaves, covering the ground in a patchwork of colors. The air is crisper, with the fresh taste of snow in the breeze.
It’s a good thing we rode home from Vegas when we did, or we may have been riding our bikes in the snow. Though we’ve done it many times, we prefer not taking unnecessary risks. Mother Nature can be a beast. At least she held off until our return.
The main building on the compound sits in the center of the property, a steel and stone version of mid-century modern architecture designed by Jo. A row of garages sits to one side of the front of the property, and a mechanic shop to the other, where Eagle and his crew work on the bikes and other security company vehicles. And a few new houses belonging to Prez’s family and others in the crew dart the backside of the property.
As imposing as our MC headquarters is, it’s the chunk of land that it sits on that’s most impressive. A hundred acres of untouched land, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains and nearby Cache la Poudre River, cradles our little fortress from the rest of the world.
It’s the only place I’ve called home, and I intend to build a home for me and Candy somewhere on this property—a little slice of heaven for me and her to retreat to, to enjoy each other’s company in private.
First things first, I need to get back on my woman’s good side.
I don’t know what caused the discord between us this morning, but I’m going to rectify it before we go to bed tonight.
I stride to the SUV, yanking Candy’s door wide open. She startles awake from her little nap, blinking against the muted light of the pink and orange sunset.
“We’re home, sweetness. Would you like me to help you down from the SUV?” I ask, my voice hedging on a plea. Hours of not touching her has left me craving her soft skin under my fingertips.
Candy stretches like a cat, sleepy from the long trip. “Hmm?”
My woman is still tired. I reach over Candy and unbuckle her seatbelt, pulling her gently from the vehicle. She leans against my shoulder as I help escort her inside headquarters. However, as soon as we’ve crossed the threshold into the warm, great room, Candy attempts to pull away from me.
Not a chance. Eight hours of distance is long enough. I snag her hand before she can disappear on me. Those handcuffs I have in my suite are sounding more tempting, anything to keep her tethered to my side.
She looks at where I hold her hand tight in mine before raising a sharp eyebrow at me.
As menacing as she’s trying to come across as, I know better. She’s mad, but not enough to cause a scene as we’re greeted by a lot of cheerful voices from the rest of the crew.
With her hand in mine, I stay close to her side as we give hugs and make chit chat with the rest of the members. This is one of the best parts about returning home after a case—the envelopment of the family coming together.
Maybe it’s my affection-deprived inner child, but having this family means a great deal to me. The feeling of acceptance is nearly as warm as the fire blazing in the fireplace, and as comforting as the smell of Stella’s, or more appropriately, Mama Bear Holland’s cooking wafting out from the kitchen.
Simone is squished in a Holland sandwich between Jo and their parents. They look like the poster models for the perfect Nordic family, with their sandy-blond heads bent together. They rock as a family unit, happy to be reunited. Atlas towers behind Jo, looking like Hulk’s Colombian cousin. He holds a mini-him twin boy in each of his arms with their giant Cane Corsos at his sides. Punk gets sucked into the Holland family hug, resting his cheek on top of Jo’s head. Chase impatiently waits to reclaim his wife from the family sandwich. Ziggy is necking Jared, crushing his husband in his arms like he can’t bear to be separated from him. And I squeeze the hand of the pink-haired goddess next to me, happy to have my person by my side.
It doesn’t matter if Candy’s upset with me for unknown reasons, she’s still my goddess. My everything. And I want the world to know it.
Maybe if I claim her in front of the family, the marriage deal will stick.
Here’s hoping.
As I clear my throat, ready to announce to the family Candy is my old lady, I’m interrupted when an excited voice cries out, “Candy!”
A halo of rainbow waves bounces toward us. Opal pulls Candy in for a hug. And surprisingly, Candy hugs Opal back. They’ve come a long way since their early days in the club .
“Welcome back,” Opal says cheerily, releasing her with a bright smile. “We’ve missed you guys.”
“Missed you, too,” Candy says with a sincere smile on her cupid lips.
Ebony, one of the other MC women who’s as tough as she is beautiful, pops the bubble of her gum. “Stop hogging her, Opal. The rest of us want to say hi, too.”
Opal laughs and moves aside for Ebony to snake her arms around my woman, her long raven hair curtaining them from my view. After a few long seconds, Ebony releases Candy and Red—another MC woman—swoops in to hug my woman, too. Although Candy is not as short as some women in the club at her five-seven height, Red’s lanky form still dwarfs hers when Red bends to hug her.
I’m ready to reclaim my woman from her friends when the VP approaches me.
“Atlas wants to debrief the Sacramento case before discussing the next mission,” Gauge says.
Stepping away from Candy when I know she’s upset about something, something I feel may have to deal with me, goes against my instincts to stay put beside her.
However, the sooner I get debriefed, the sooner I get back to my woman.
Groaning internally, I nod at the VP, letting him know I’ll be right behind him. He retreats to the conference room, with the rest of the team trailing behind him.
With a growing unease, I interrupt Candy and her friends. “I need to go debrief with Prez. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”
“No worries,” Candy says dismissively. “Opal invited me over to her and Gauge’s new place to check it out.”
The way she brushes me off doesn’t sit right with me. Candy only behaves this way toward others when they’ve upset her. My earlier speculation about her being disappointed with me seems more plausible.
Fucking great .
Opal’s smile grows twice its normal size. “For real? You’re coming over?”
Candy shrugs a shoulder. “Sure. Why not?”
Opal squeals with elation. “I can’t wait to show you the colors I painted in all the rooms.”
“Let me guess. All the colors of the rainbow?” Candy offers with a hint of sarcasm, knowing the bubbly woman is fascinated with all things rainbow.
Opal’s mouth falls open. “How did you know?”
“Just a hunch.” Candy loops her arm through Opal’s, tugging her toward the patio doors leading out to a pathway to the other homes on the compound.
Before Candy can dart away, I catch her by her other elbow. She looks at where I got a hold on her before looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Have fun. I’ll swing by later to bring you back home with me,” I say, emphasizing the words with me .
Candy can have her space for now, but we’re going to discuss what’s bothering her tonight. If I’ve upset her, I need to know. I need to make it right.
My pink-hair beauty gives me a curt nod, and I release her, watching her walk outside and down the path to Opal and Gauge’s new home.
With my woman taken care of for the moment, I head for the larger of the conference rooms, where the crew is already settling into their seats around a massive table. I take my seat next to Ziggy and wait for Prez to join us.
Atlas hands off the twins to Jo before kissing her on the crown of her head and taking his seat at the head of the table. Jo hustles out with her babies, leaving only the brothers to discuss the last assignment.
“Alright, Ravens. Let’s get this show on the road. Chase, why don’t you and your team start by giving us a rundown of the Sacramento assignment? ”
Chase and the rest of our team spend the next hour going over the pilfering operation we uncovered at P.L. Moore Financial, with ties to the deceased mafia don Lorenzo Bianchi. With a lot of digging on the dark web and hacking into international accounts, we retrieved the bulk of the funds. Simone took it a step further and gave the name of the thief—who, coincidently, was Simone’s ex-boyfriend—to the new head of the Bianchi mob, Piero Bianchi. The fucking weasel is dead in a ditch somewhere, and Piero retrieved a vast amount of cash once belonging to his dead cousin.
Atlas nods his approval. “Another successful case in the books, and another ex-asshole out of our hair. Good job, brothers.”
Snickers are heard around the table. Our crew may have a slightly skewed moral compass. We’ll follow the rules, unless justice can only be accomplished by overstepping those laws. This time, we didn’t need to do anything. Piero and his men handled Simone’s ex for us. It’s a good day when we don’t need to get our hands dirty. And thanks to the new Don of Denver, Trent Grills is no longer trying to worm his way between Simone and Chase.
“We’re happy to have you back home,” Atlas says with a slight curl to his lips on his otherwise hard face. He turns to his right where our VP sits beside him. “Bring our brothers up to speed, Gauge.”
Gauge types away on one of our smart tablets, turning on the television monitors around the room. The faces of three young women appear on the screens. The women appear to be college age, no more than early twenties. Happy, healthy, and bright-eyed.
However, young fresh faces on our monitors are never a good sign. I’m betting these are the latest victims of the sex trafficking ring Atlas and Gauge were trying to uncover prior to our tech team leaving for Sacramento.
“Stacy Gander, Jolie Hernandez, and Bree Nowak were abducted near Colorado State University three weeks ago. Last time they were seen was leaving an Italian restaurant near campus at twenty-one-hundred hours, heading home to the apartment they shared. The women were reported missing after they didn’t show up for their nursing clinical two days in a row...” Gauge goes through the profiles of each woman.
Smart, pretty, and unprotected—prime targets for the trafficking rings popping up around Denver. However, these women weren’t taken from Denver.
No. They were taken from our city—Fort Collins. Either someone is stupid for stepping into our territory, unaware we protect the citizens in our community, or someone knows and doesn’t care, making them a dangerous opponent.
Punk shakes his head, crestfallen. “Please tell me this isn’t the case you were working prior to us leaving for Sacramento.”
Atlas nods, with a grim face. “Indeed, it is. Detective Luke Quire at Fort Collins Police Department was working on the case. Nothing was being picked up on the city cameras, and there was no evidence of a break in at the apartment the women shared. Quire wanted to keep investigating the case, confident the women were abducted. However, the chief of police—Owen Dunne—told him the women probably ran off.”
I scoff. “All three?”
Gauge releases an irked grunt. “Smells fishy to you, too? There’s no way three college-aged women in nursing clinical vanish when they had everything going for themselves with no hints of trouble in their lives.”
“Detective Quire almost got himself put on leave when he continued to press the issue with Chief Dunne,” Atlas adds, his voice laced with tints of anger. “When the police said there was no evidence of foul play and they were closing the case, the parents of Bree Nowak contacted us. We’ve been exhausting all leads. Nothing solid has come to fruition.”
Chase scratches his head. “Nothing was picked up on the city cameras? Not possible.”
“That’s what we said,” Gauge agrees. He presses a button on the tablet in front of him, and a video of one of the city cameras appears on the monitors around the room. The image shows the corner of South College Avenue and Garfield Street, near the campus. Though the footage is a tad grainy, you can see three women heading north up College Avenue. The video experiences a moment of static before returning to normal, aside from the three women no longer in the footage.
Atlas looks at Chase. “You think you can clean the video? PT tried while you were away. The college kid is good, but not Chase good.”
Chase’s lips thin as he shakes his head. “The video was spliced—on purpose, by the looks of it.”
“Are we thinking dirty cops are behind this?” Ziggy hedges.
Gauge nods. “We thought there’s been a mole at the Fort Collins PD since we caught Lorenzo Bianchi’s hacker and gave the police all the information on his popper party drug ring. He slipped under the radar after we brought forward all the information they needed to arrest him. No way he could have gotten away without a heads up from someone within the PD.”
“Too bad no one warned him about Mama Holland’s bad driving,” Punk jokes before pretending he’s driving a car erratically and making a splat sound.
Atlas hides his laugh with a cough before addressing Chase. “Is there anything you can do with the city camera footage?”
“The best I can do is check the other cameras in the vicinity, see if I can find the vehicle that may have been used to grab them.”
Atlas nods. “Let us know if you find something.”
Chase smirks, opening his laptop. “You mean, let you know when I find something.”
If it was anyone else talking tech cocky, I’d roll my eyes. Yet with Chase, he’s that good at what he does. If there’s something to be found in the remaining city cameras, he’ll find it.
Ziggy says what we’re all thinking. “Three weeks is a long-ass time to hold on to abductees in a flesh trade operation.”
“The first forty-eight hours, we stand a chance. Each day after, the odds of finding a missing person decrease by half,” Tank—a security specialist in our crew—reminds us. “Do we have evidence the women are still stateside? Or are we looking at this as a mission, going nationwide?”
“We’ve had eyes on the cargo trains—nothing to note out of the ordinary. Meaning the roads are the way these women are most likely being transported. We’re hoping they’re still stateside, but we’re prepared to go nationwide,” Gauge answers.
Reaper, one of the club’s enforcers, pushes away from the table. He stands and paces the far side of the room like an angry bull. “I thought we cleaned this shit up when we uncovered Lorenzo Bianchi’s drug ring over a year ago. The feds had one job—to dismantle the Denver mob.”
“Right? We handed the old Bianchi bastard on a silver platter to the FBI,” Brass—another beefy enforcer—pipes in, echoing his best friend’s thoughts.
Stage, one of our scouts, turns to Prez. He opens his mouth, then immediately closes it.
Atlas lifts a heavy brow, his face hard as he eyes the young biker. “Have something to say, Stage?”
Stage sighs, cautiously asking, “I mean no disrespect, Prez. We all know you’ve grown close to Piero Bianchi?—”
Eagle subtly motions with his hands to stop talking. But it’s too late. Stage already let the cat out of the bag.
Atlas’s dark eyes go nearly black, glowering at Stage. It’s an act of treason to question the president of the motorcycle club about his choice of friends.
Stage hastily licks his lips, possibly sensing he’s entered dangerous territory. “We all agree Piero helped with recovering Jo, and then you when you were taken by your deranged sperm donor?—”
Shots fired!
Referring to the deceased Colombian drug kingpin—Esteban Moreno—as Atlas’s bio-pop isn’t winning him any favors. It’s like rattling the cage of a beast to awaken it .
“Stage!” Triple hisses, trying to warn our brother to stop digging himself a hole.
Not getting the memo, Stage stupidly continues to shovel figuratively. “Could our appreciation for the new don have clouded our vision to Piero’s true intent? The Bianchi family has appointed him to the new position of Don of Denver after his cousin got turned into hamburger meat by your mother-in-law running him down with his own car.”
Oh, sweet hells below. Stage is toast.
“That was an accident,” Atlas growls in warning.
It’s a lie, and we all know it. Stella Holland didn’t get the name “Mama Bear” for nothing. She knew exactly what she was doing when she threw that Lamborghini in reverse. Her tears fooled the police, but not our crew—we got built-in lie detectors from our military training. Even her husband, Jim, is convinced she intentionally killed Lorenzo, though he’d never call her out on it.
Flay—our club’s medic—runs his hands down his thick bearded face as he groans. “Stage, you idiot. You had to say the quiet part out loud. I don’t want to use my medical tools on you, brother.”
Atlas slowly stands from his seat. He places his catcher-mitt-size palms on the conference table, leaning over to the word-vomiting young biker. “Are you questioning my ability to smell a rat when one’s in front of me, Stage?”
The young biker gulps, staring wide-eyed back at Prez, like a rabbit cornered by a mountain lion. “It’s our job to question every avenue, sir. What if Piero’s intent was to get close to us, offer his services and deep pockets to locate your wife, allowing him to handle his shady dealings right under our noses?”
Atlas’s nostrils flare.
Gauge, the only one who can calm Atlas down when he’s ready to blow a gasket aside from Jo, stands from his seat to lay a heavy hand on his best friend’s shoulder. “Easy, bro. Stage makes a solid case. ”
Prez turns his glower on his VP. “Have you questioned my judgment before, brother?”
Gauge snorts without humor. “I’ve questioned you so many damn times in our friendship, Atlas. It’s my job as your friend and your VP to anchor you when I feel you’re floating off course.” He juts his chin at Stage. “The young scout makes a good point. Piero is a Bianchi. How does that saying go? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer .”
“Piero is an ally,” Atlas persists sternly.
Chase looks up at the ceiling, sighing loudly. “This hurts my soul to admit this—especially when I think the fucker has a soft spot for Simone. But I’m with Prez. Piero isn’t trying to sneak one past us. Trust me. I’ve hacked into this guy’s life deeper than most. Like many of you, I questioned why he wanted to befriend us. He’s clean—for a mobster. If there was something sketchy, I would’ve found it.”
“Are you sure you’re not letting your bias for the dude tint your glasses rose-colored?” Punk questions his best friend.
Chase scowls at Punk. “What fucking bias? The mobster has a thing for my wife. I have more reason to dislike him than most.”
“So the fact Piero took out Simone’s ex isn’t swaying your opinion?” Punk challenges.
Speaking is a bitch. Yet sometimes it’s a necessity, especially when tensions are on the rise. Clearing my throat, I let my opinion be known.
“Piero took out Trent Grills because he stole from the Bianchi mob. Plain and simple. Perhaps his affection for Simone had some influence on his course of execution. But we don’t know shit about what went down. We’re all speculating at this point. Same with Piero’s character. We’re divided, some thinking he’s dirty- er , and some believing he’s on our side.”
The room falls silent, all eyes on me.
I get it. The freak with the neck scar and typically mute-by-choice speaking more than a few words is unusual .
I clear the roughness from my throat again. “It doesn’t hurt questioning Piero. If he’s our ally, he’ll be transparent with us.”
We’re quiet for a long moment, waiting to see how Atlas will respond.
Atlas hums discontentedly in his chest as he takes his seat. “Fine. I’ll ask for Piero to join us first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll inform him what we know and hear him out. Meeting adjourned.”
“HOOYAH!” we shout as a squad.