40. Chapter 40
After Mary’s family’s surprise, the rest of the afternoon seemed to fly by. It’s nearing four in the afternoon and we really only have Mary’s and Nikos’ bedrooms left to pack up. Once the house is empty, I’ll hire a cleaning service to clean, refinish the hardwood floors, and shampoo the carpets. Then, her house will get listed. We had toyed with the idea of keeping it as a rental, and if we have trouble selling it, we’ll take that route.
I’m helping Judge carry out Nikos’ desk when Thor calls out my name. He’s got his phone to his ear and his lips are pressed in a thin line.
Fuck…
What’s happened?
He gestures me to follow him and we head back into the house and into Nikos’ old office, closing the door behind us.
“I’ve got Drae on the line.” He pulls his phone away from his ear and puts it on speakerphone.
“What’s up, Drae?” I ask, keeping my voice low so it doesn’t carry.
“I was just telling Thor that I think you need to get the ladies back here and tell her family to head home. We’ve had a couple of drive-bys in the last half hour that match the description she gave of that fucker. There was also a package addressed to her that was delivered by courier today. I haven’t opened it, but it’s in the safe box. At first, I just texted Thor about the package when it arrived, but coupled with the recent drive-bys, I think you need to be wrapping things up soon.”
“Good job, Drae. We’ll finish what we absolutely have to and head back. The rest we can get another time. Call me if anything else changes.”
“You got it, Pres,” he says before disconnecting the call.
“Fuck,” I hiss as I run my hands through my hair angrily. “I knew he’d do something soon, but I had hoped we could at least finish this trip without any interruptions.”
Thor clasps my shoulder, and I take a deep breath, trying to calm my anger.
“Come on, we need to spread the word. I don’t want it looking like we’re rushing out of here, but I also don’t want to give them a heads up about what we’re planning. We’ll load up the rest of anything important to Mary as carefully as we can and get the hell out of dodge. Later, we can send some guys to get the rest of the stuff and Mary can sort through it at the compound.”
Nodding, I prepare myself to give the bad news to Mary.
Thor follows me upstairs and to Mary’s room, where we find the rest of the women. Mary’s sitting on the bed as she helps wrap her things. They’re halfway done with packing her collection of crystal figurines and other trinkets. Mary looks up as I come in, and the smile instantly fades from her face.
“Time to move?” she asks, and at her tone, Levi, Mae, and Sasha also look up sharply.
In an instant, all four of them change like a switch has been flipped inside them. I shouldn’t be surprised at how quickly Mary can switch gears, but I still am. I know part of it’s her past, but it’s also incredibly convenient for being a biker’s Old Lady. Which she will be once I can get rid of her fucking husband. Maria and Mary’s aunts are eyeing our ladies with a look I can’t quite decipher, but I’m thankful that they aren’t freaking out.
“Yeah, we gotta roll, Siren.”
“Keep acting as normal as possible, but pack everything that’s irreplaceable to you, Mary, and do it quickly. The rest we’ll send a few guys to get after whatever the fuck this is cools down.” He pauses as he shares a look with Levi, and then me. Occasionally, it still baffles me that we’re able to communicate without words, to read each other’s looks and body language, but it fucking comes in handy way too many times. “Church as soon as we’re back. Patch, bring Mary. Mae, can you watch the kids with Elvira?”
“Of course, Thor. We’ll do a popcorn and movie in the common room so that we are all in one place.”
Fuck, Mae still surprises me with how far she’s come since she’s been here, and it’s only been a few months. Still, I hardly ever see a glimpse of the woman who came here at the beginning of September—the shy girl who would flinch away from any male’s touch except for Timber and her brothers, and would do anything not to make waves. The only times that I get a glimpse of that shy girl is if everyone’s attention is on her, but not in situations like these. Here, she’s ready to kick some ass if need be, and I know she’s been training with Levi on how to throw knives and she’s been taking shooting lessons from Gunner, who before Sasha and Lex came here, was the best shot in the club.
“Good. We roll as soon as possible.” He pauses and looks over at Mary’s family. They’ve all paled slightly, but they’re all standing proud. “It’ll possibly draw attention if we follow you to your homes, but we’ll do drive-bys periodically to make sure you’re safe, if that’s alright with you?”
They all nod, but it’s Maria that answers. “We’d appreciate it. Is it okay if I give them your number and have them text their addresses?”
The corner of Thor’s mouth ticks up slightly and I already know what he’s going to say. Hopefully, they won’t be too mad.
“Don’t take offense, but I wasn’t going to allow anyone here that I didn’t know about. Especially since two of our Old Ladies are pregnant, one of them being mine. We ran all three of your ladies’ information as we already had Haris and Maria’s information. Maria, you can give them my number along with Phoenix’s and Patch’s. Mary, you can give them your new number as well. Call us if anything happens, but we’ll drive-by occasionally. Especially tonight and the next couple of days.”
“We will,” they each respond, and though I can tell they are a little ticked off at us having done a background check on them, I think they all understand why Thor had Smoke do it.
“Also, until we know the scope of what’s going on, I think you guys should follow Antonio’s lead and communicate only via a secure line going forward. Hopefully, it won’t be for too long and then, when it’s safe, you can all get together in person again.”
Once again, they aren’t happy, especially with just getting Mary back, but they seem like they understand.
“All right, let’s hustle.”
He leaves the room, but Mary gestures for me to stay.
“Ladies, besides what I already told you, please pack the rest of the figurines, and if there’s time, my books. Patch, please take me to πατ?ρα (dads) room.”
I pick her up off the bed but am surprised she wants to go in there since she was extremely hesitant to before. After crossing the threshold, she points to a chair in the corner.
“Set me down over there. Then can you close the curtains and shut the door?”
Frowning, I do as she says.
“Okay, I can’t believe I forgot about this for all these years,” she says more to herself as she studies the hardwood floor.
I’m about to ask if she’s okay when she points to a spot on the floor that’s in front of the middle of the bed.
“See that board there, with the slight chip in the corner facing me?”
“Yeah,” I reply as I kneel and run my fingers around the corners of the board. Does she want me to pry it up?
“Okay, this is the part where I don’t know if you’ll be able to do it by yourself or not, but if you follow that board underneath πατ?ρα (dads) bed, close to his headboard, you’ll see another slightly chipped board. You need to pry that board up.”
Worries from years past come rushing to the front of my mind as I try to lift the bed, but of course, Nikos had chosen a nice, heavy, wooden bedframe, headboard, and footboard. I can’t do it by myself without possibly scratching his hardwood floors.
Walking back to the door, I open it and spot Thor, Reaper, and Dragon in the hallway outside of Mary’s old room.
“Hey, guys, can you give me a hand with something quick? This fucker’s heavy and I don’t want to scratch the floors all to shit.”
They all give me a chin lift and follow me back into the bedroom.
“Shut the door, will ya?” I ask and Reaper shuts it after him. “Okay, we need to lift and move the bed back that way so I can get at something hidden under the floor,” I tell them as I point to my right.
All of their eyebrows shoot up as they give Mary a curious look. She tries not to squirm under the weight of their gazes but isn’t quite successful.
We manage to move the bed as far as we can to the other side of the room. Grabbing my pocketknife, I find the chipped board Mary mentioned and pry the board up. Three boards on either side of the chipped one lift in unison and when I flip them all up, I realize Nikos had hidden a floor safe in here.
“What’s the code, Siren?”
She clears her throat and I can almost feel her pain without even having to look at her, not that I could since the headboard is blocking my view of her.
“8-25-20-06.”
I reach for the lock but pause. “The day we met.”
“And also the day that Eileen’s poison was first exposed to πατ?ρα? (dad).”
My hand pauses at her quiet words after entering the twenty-five, but I continue, even as my worries worsen. Was I right before all those years ago? Was there a reason why Mary and Nikos were targeted?
The lock unlatches and I open the door, revealing some papers and a couple of books that I grab.
“Grab everything that’s in there, please. He never showed or told me what he stored in there, and I didn’t even know about it until about a month after the accident Eileen caused. He said that if anything should ever happen to him, to look in the safe. I thought it was just a copy of his will or something since she’d just recently died, but now I’m starting to think there might be something more to everything that’s happened.”
Closing the safe, I lower the floorboards and stand before walking over to Mary and give her the stack of papers and books.
“Is there anything else you want us to grab of your dad’s? Otherwise, we’ll just move the bed back in place and get ready to head out.”
She looks around the room and nods. “I’ll ask one of the ladies to come in and help me grab a few things, and then that will be it.”
We move the bed back in place and Thor turns back toward Mary.
“Just tell us what you want, Mary, and we’ll put them on the bed. If it’s something we can pack, we will so that the ladies can finish up with your room.”
She asks us to grab all of the picture frames, some books, and a few trinkets, some of which I remember being with her when she bought them.
“I think we can manage these things. I’ll go get a box, tape, and some of that bubble shit,” Reaper says as he opens the door, heads out into the hallway, and returns a moment later.
Since my hands are the smallest out of all four of us guys, I grab the bubble wrap and start ripping off sections before quickly wrapping everything to pack up. A few minutes later, Dragon tapes the box shut.
“I’ll get this down to the van,” he says as he picks up the box and leaves.
I walk over to Mary and pick her up. “Let’s go see how the ladies are doing. We need to get out of here.”
The guys follow us and seeing quite a few boxes already sitting in the hallway, they start carrying them downstairs. Stepping just inside the room, I’m surprised to see quite a few boxes in just the short time that we were gone and all of them ready to go as well.
“How’s it going, ladies? Need any more help?”
Levi and Maria shake their heads.
“These are the last two boxes, I think. Let’s get these out in the hallway and then Mary can take another look around to make sure we didn’t miss anything,” Levi tells me and I sit Mary down on her bed before I start carrying the boxes out and into the hallway.
Mary points out a couple of small things that they pack into the last couple of boxes, but other than that, I think we’re done for the day.
“Okay, I’ll start taking these down and let the guys know that this is the last of things for today. Ladies, how about you gather up all of your stuff and start getting around?”
Hoisting up a box, I head down and out to one of the trucks in the driveway. “We have just a handful of boxes and then we’re done,” I quietly tell Thor and the few guys that I can see right now. The others must be watching the perimeter or something. Thor gives me a chin lift.
“Here’s how we’re going to roll out. Prospects will lead in one of the vans, then Sasha, Wildcat and Mae, a van, then you two, then the last van. Like before, those on bikes will be pairing off to ride in front of and behind each vehicle. Make sure you all get through the intersections and traffic lights together. I wouldn’t put it past that bastard to make a move on your woman to separate her from us. Keep an eye out.”
“You got it, Pres. Was already planning on it.”
Heading back inside, I pause at the base of the stairs as Smoke carries my woman down and sets her down in her chair. It bugs me that someone else other than me is holding my woman, but I know Smoke wouldn’t try anything on her.
“Ready to go, Siren?”
Her face hardens and her lips thin. “Yes. I just hope that those assholes will know what’s good for them and they leave us the fuck alone.”
Smoke and I share a look. I’d love to agree with her, but everything in me is saying that someone’s going to make a move. And I don’t think the box and the drive-by’s are going to be the last of what they do today.
After saying goodbye to her family, I carry Mary to the truck while the guys secure her chair in the bed of my truck. Once she’s buckled in, I realize she’s clutching her backpack, but is making sure it’s not visible from any of the windows. I’m gonna take a stab that it contains whatever was in her dad’s safe. I flip up the center console, revealing the stowaway area I had custom created when I got my truck.
“Here, Siren. Put that in here for now.”
She does as I ask and I lean in, giving her a quick kiss.
“I’ll go lock up, set the alarm, and be right back.”
She nibbles on her lip nervously but nods and then looks around at the guys as they finish securing the other three vans.
Heading inside, I make sure no one is still here and that we didn’t leave anything out before setting the alarm and locking the doors. Walking back to my truck, I notice everyone else is either on their bikes or in one of the vehicles.
Climbing in, I buckle up and start my truck, waiting for the others to pull out and for our turn.