Chapter 14 Leo
LEO
I look at Josh. He’s still pacing my living room. We need to make a plan, and that plan will involve all hands on deck, but that doesn’t mean telling Tiny is going to be easy.
I may not have to worry about what happens to my house after breaking the news to him that his daughter has been kidnapped.
“You may want to call a priest while I call Lia’s dad,” I mutter.
“Why?” Josh looks confused.
“Cuz Tiny’s going to fucking kill me, man.” I don’t care that it’s nearly midnight now. I dial Tiny’s number, and he answers on the third ring.
“What,” he grates out. “Fuck me. What time is it? This better be damn important.”
I take a deep breath and break the news as calmly as I can, then I listen, waiting for Tiny to blister my ear.
He doesn’t, but he says, “I’ll deal with you in person. On my way. Don’t fucking move.”
Over the next forty-five minutes, Dog and Morris show up at my house. Josh is drinking coffee, while my rage is more than enough to keep me wide awake and sharp.
“Fire up another pot,” Dog says. “I take mine with sugar.”
I head into the kitchen with Morris hot on my heels.
“We’re going to have problems with Tiny,” Morris warns.
“No shit.” I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I’m resigned to it. Just when I started thinking that there could be more there with Lia, that there’s something between us worth fighting for.
I can’t wait to see how supportive Tiny’s going to be of his prospect dating his little girl now.
“I feel sick about this, Morris. I had no fucking clue this could happen.”
I toss the filter in the trash and make the biggest pot of coffee the machine can brew.
“I’m just saying. Nothing about Tiny is small. Especially his temper.” Morris is pale. He’s wearing the same wrinkled T-shirt he had on when I left his house earlier, but he looks like he’s aged years in the hours since I last saw him.
“I’m prepared for that,” I say. “Whatever the consequences.” Saying it out loud actually makes what’s about to happen easier to take.
If Tiny didn’t want his daughter dating a biker before—specifically me—then a guy whose family shit got his daughter taken by kidnappers and held for ransom, is definitely out of the question.
Any hope I had for that possibility of more with Lia…up in flames.
A pounding at the door sets the dogs barking and my teeth on edge. “Time to face the firing squad,” I say.
I open the door, but before it’s even open three inches, Tiny’s boot kicks it back so hard it hits the wall with a bang. He lunges forward with his hands outstretched.
“I’m gonna kill you!”
Dog is up in a flash, and he and Morris stand on either side of the big guy, holding him back by the shoulders.
I wave the guys off. “It’s all right,” I tell them. “I can take it.”
Morris and Dog back off, but Josh rises to join me.
“Sir,” he says, “I’m Josh Aronowicz. It’s my fault that Lia is in this situation. If there’s anyone who needs a beating, it’s me, not Leo.”
I frown at Arrow for standing up for me. I don’t know what game he’s playing, but I don’t need his help. Turns out, Tiny doesn’t seem to care who’s to blame. He wants to take his anger out on all of us.
“You dumb-ass pieces of crime-playing shit!” Tiny swears and curses, kicking a path through my living room that the carpet’s gonna be feeling for a long time.
“You!” He points at Arrow. “I don’t give a shit about you, this bail business, or your weak-ass apologies.
All I want to know is how someone was able to kidnap my daughter while she was out with you. ”
He turns and thrusts a meaty paw at me. “This one over here isn’t much better, but at least she’s lived with him for a year, and he’s managed not to get her ass kidnapped.”
I watch, a little bit stunned by what’s happening. Is Tiny defending me?
I’m not letting it go to my head.
“You’re a bail agent who not only lost his felon, but you endangered the lives of innocent people.” Tiny shakes his head. “I damn well hope you’ll be considering another line of work after this.”
Arrow looks like he’s being called out by his grandma for masturbating at the dining table.
“And you.” Tiny looks at me. “If I find out that anyone, and I mean anyone, has laid a hand on my daughter…” He shudders. “I will go to prison for killing you,” he said. “And I will enjoy every minute of it.”
He spends a few more minutes explaining how he’s going bury my remains and piss on my poorly hidden grave before Dog steps in with a helping hand. “Okay,” he says. “Now that we’re clear how many different ways you’re planning to kill these two, let’s figure out a plan.”
Morris nods and hands Tiny a huge mug of coffee. “We know these assholes want Tim or these assholes are Tim. When did you last hear from this jailbird, and what can we do to find him?” He directs the question to both Arrow and me.
We jump in with what we know. We talk about the timeline, when I last heard from my brother, and we go over everything that Arrow knows about Tim and Juliette.
But like everything else, rehashing the details brings us right back to where we started.
No new information.
No ideas.
No leads.
Tiny looks at Arrow and points to a chair.
Arrow looks as if he’s considering not sitting, sizing up Tiny, the vibe in the room, and the bikers who outnumber him, but he drops down.
“I wanna know everything,” Tiny seethes. “Leave no detail out.”
I’m not sure I want to hear every detail again, but if there’s any nugget, any shred of information that might shed new light on what happened, I’ll listen to Arrow describe in detail almost kissing my girl. Thankfully, he leaves that part out.
He explains that they were dancing, she went to the bathroom, that he thought there might be some confusion over whether or not this was a date, and that for a while, even he wasn’t sure if Lia and I were trying to pull something over on him.
“Sweet fuck,” Tiny blurts out. “You all need to lay off the podcasts or whatever shit you watch.”
I don’t bother correcting him.
We talk through the fact that the solution has to lie some place in or around Checkers.
“We need someone on the inside at Checkers to talk,” Tiny says. “There’s no way a kidnapping happens inside a bar without somebody seeing something. Somebody knows Tim or you—” He points accusingly at Arrow. “And they knew something was up when you came in two nights in a row, feeling people out.”
Even Dog shakes his head at that. “Isn’t there some kind of bounty hunter code?
Do you have, like, other shithead friends you can ask around?
How easy can it be for a felon on the run with a woman to stay in hiding?
No money, no friends.” He looks at me. “You haven’t heard from your brother, so you’re not helping him out. ”
It wasn’t a question, but I feel the need to answer it anyway. Not if there’s even a suggestion out there that I might be helping out Tim.
“Hell no,” I say. “It’s been a year plus, and after everything I’ve learned about him this week…that asshole better know not to come to me for help.”
Tiny’s looking furious and exhausted—a dangerous combination for all of us.
He wants someone to blame—we all do. But even more than that, I want answers.
I want to do something. Unlike before, when I wanted to run away from this, I now want names, addresses, and goddamn phone numbers.
I want to kick ass with my own hands and bring Lia back home safely.
“Checkers,” I say. “We have to get back in there and shake them down. If they know a girl was kidnapped, I can’t imagine any of them want to take the fall for that kind of shit.”
“Those people,” Josh adds, “they don’t talk.
Or they won’t now. That’s why I was trying to hang out, see what I could shake loose.
This isn’t my first fucking rodeo. In my line of work, you don’t get clients by having a slick Instagram account.
You’ve got to hang out where the clients are.
Let them know who you are and build up that trust.”
“Trust,” Tiny spits. “You of all people should know there’s no fucking honor among thieves.”
Josh continues, but the tension is building. We’re all feeling the pressure of decisions made when we had no clue how high the stakes really were.
“Exactly my point,” Arrow says. “It cuts both ways. If I’m gonna do what I do, people have to know who I am. I’m guessing that bringing Lia there made people suspicious. And yeah… That’s on me.”
“One hundred percent,” Tiny says, glaring at Arrow.
“Which is why you’re going there tomorrow, and you’re going to talk to every single person who works there, owns the place, the suppliers of the beer.
I don’t care what you have to do, someone in that bar knows how to find Tim.
You find these people. No more of this James Bond bullshit.
You go in heavy and hard,” Tiny demands. “You carry?”
Josh shakes his head. “No, I—”
Tiny holds up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.” He looks at Dog. “You help this pansy-ass bail whatever he is. You don’t take no for an answer, you hear me? You shake loose everyone and everything you can, and don’t give up until we get a lead on my daughter.”
Dog nods and pats his belt. “We’ll get lips flapping, Tiny. We’ll get something.”
After arguing for what seems like hours, disagreeing about everything, finally, Tiny pulls rank.
“I’m in charge from here on out.” Since he’s the president of the MC, none of us are going to fight him.
He eyeballs Arrow. “You got a problem with that, you can go. We take care of our own, and right now, there’s only one man in this room who’s not one of us. ”
I swallow a mouthful of sand as he says that. Tiny’s supporting me, but only because he has to. And if this thing doesn’t end well with Lia…I’ll be the first one to pay the price, and I’ll take that punishment willingly.