Cambria Chapter 17
We were gathered at the clubhouse. Much of our life centered around that building, but I didn’t mind. Tonight, it was Shadow, all the other Pagans—Undertaker, Sloan, Smoke, and me. The others were in the common room. We were in church. I felt weird being there, but I had been invited.
The reason this wasn’t being done in the common room, as it was last time, was that the topic under discussion and material to be reviewed was too graphic to share with everyone.
I was here because I had asked to be, and while my man didn’t like it, he agreed.
Sloan pretty much went where Undertaker went.
I was glad to see Undertaker a free man again.
He’d walked into the clubhouse this afternoon like he’d been gone for a cup of coffee.
He looked the same. He spent a brief time with Wrath, then private time with Sloan.
Now, we were gathered to find out how his mission at the prison went.
I had been on edge for days, wondering. I’d been afraid he’d either be hurt or killed in there, or they’d never let him leave.
You had to have beyond nerves of steel to do that.
“You’re looking good, Undertaker. I assume you’re in perfect health. Sloan, I bet you made sure of that,” Wrath said, starting off the meeting. He winked at her. Sloan smirked.
“You know damn well I stripped his ass down to the skin and inspected every inch of him. He’s still in impeccable condition, in all areas except his knuckles.” She pointed to his scraped knuckles.
While the rest of us chuckled, Undertaker gave her a sexy smile. I totally loved and only wanted Shadow, but there was a part of me that wondered what Undertaker looked like under his clothes. I wanted to know how much of him was covered in ink.
“How did it go?” Rage asked.
“It went as expected. I got processed early Thursday morning. I was a transfer from another maximum-security prison for death-row inmates in California. Anderson’s people used part of my actual history as an outlaw biker to build credibility.
I was doing two consecutive life sentences without chance of parole for first-degree murder.
One was due to me beating a man to death for daring to speak to my woman.
The other was for strangling that woman to death for encouraging the man’s advances.
” Undertaker glanced at Sloan as he explained. Her eyes were twinkling with mirth.
“By the size of you and the scowl you wear, I totally can see it. Any problems with the other inmates? Guards? Or the target?” Smoke asked.
“The guards did their usual hard-ass routine on how they didn’t put up with shit, and I’d better toe the line and behave. I didn’t mouth off or challenge them. The inmates immediately started to test me to see what I’d tolerate and so on.
“As it would happen, Brooks was in the hole, meaning he was in solitary confinement. Something about him being jumped by another inmate, and it was for his protection. I knew that going in from Anderson’s intel.
So, I knew I had to get in the same section of the prison as Brooks to make this work.
And the surest way to get your ass in the hole is to fight.
And I’m not talking about a minor scuffle. It has to be bloody.
“So, I waited and let the others test me until dinner time. We were all in the chow hall when the biggest bastard with the worst reputation decided he was going to make me submit to him and join his gang if I passed his test. I swear, it’s always the same shit with those guys.
“Anyway, I timed it so that I was able to get his ass good. I beat him unconscious before the guards got to me and pulled me off him. Of course, this meant his guys were howling for my blood. I was taken straight from chow to solitary. The guards who took me there warned me that when I came out, I’d better kiss my ass goodbye, because the guy I beat was the leader of the biggest and most brutal gang in there.
From the way they spoke about the gang, I could tell they were scared of them.
“I studied the builder’s plans for that place before I went.
I knew how many solitary cells there were.
As they walked me down the hall, I asked how many guys were in there with me.
I was told I made three. It wasn’t hard to figure out which cells were occupied.
If they weren’t, the small window in the door was left open.
The guards proved I was correct when they put me in mine, and they closed that window.
“I waited until midnight, when everyone should be asleep. The guards are less alert. Footsteps came creeping down the hallway, and I heard my door release. That was my signal. I waited five minutes, then left the room. There was a key, a penlight, and a recorder left there for me. From there, I proceeded to find Brooks and enter his cell.”
Undertaker paused. He shifted his gaze to me. “Cambria, there’s a video of what happened. I figure the guys might want to watch it. If you don’t, no one will think any less of you. Even if you hated him, he was your father.”
A part of me said to leave. I didn’t need to see that.
But a greater part, the one that wanted justice for Mom and those other women, wanted to see with my own eyes that the monster was dead.
Even fourteen years later, I would occasionally dream that he was loose and coming for me.
I hated those dreams and wanted them to disappear forever.
I’d told Shadow about the nightmares. I looked over at him. He was staring at me.
“Twilight, it’s your decision. I’ll support whichever choice you make.” He held my hand. He squeezed mine, and I returned it. I turned back to Undertaker.
“I appreciate the out, but I need to see that he’s gone and never coming back. He lurks in my nightmares. I have to see the monster die.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Smoke, you got that video ready to roll?” Undertaker asked.
Smoke, like Shadow, had his laptop in church. Crusher had his tablet. Smoke gave Undertaker a thumbs-up. Within thirty seconds, the lights were dimmed, and on the screen they had on one wall for this purpose, the scenario Undertaker just set up continued from where he left off.
He was walking down the long, dark hallway. There was no noise other than the faint sound of his jumpsuit legs rubbing together. He paused outside a door with the window closed. I held my breath. Was I about to see my sperm donor for the first time in over a decade? In almost a decade and a half?
However, something stops him from unlocking it.
Instead, he wheels around and keeps walking in the direction he’d been headed in.
Up ahead, you could see the cell door that cut off his section of prison from the rest. The next-to-last door on the left had its window closed. He stopped and remained there.
Undertaker carefully inserted the key into the lock and turned it.
I held my breath. It was too easy, I thought.
He slowly swung the door open. At least the damn thing didn’t squeal or creak.
He only opened it far enough to slip his big body inside.
In the cell, in the faint light given off by the penlight Undertaker carried, I saw a form curled up on the bed.
The interior of the cell got my attention at that moment.
Other than the bed, which was hardly more than a cement platform built into the wall with three inches of foam, there was a sink-slash-toilet combo in the corner.
Under the bed were cubbies where some clothes were.
And on one wall, a small, raised rectangle built into the wall held some personal hygiene items.
By the time I turned my attention back to the form in the bed, Undertaker was looming over it. I held my breath, wondering how he’d do it. Would he kill him in his sleep? How? I didn’t see a weapon.
“Brooks, wake up,” Undertaker growled in a low, menacing voice. The threat in it made me shiver.
The body jerked, and the breathing paused, then raggedly blew out.
The figure slowly turned over onto his back.
The light hit him in the face, causing him to blink.
I studied the man. There was no mistaking that it was Garen Brooks, my…
father. He was older. His hair was mostly gray, and his face was more lined.
But despite those things, he was still an attractive man who retained all his hair.
I’d hoped that prison and his dark deeds had taken an outward toll on him as well as an inward one.
From what the Patriots were able to find, it seemed that Garen was in relatively good health. That pissed me off to no end.
“Who the fuck are you? What’re you doing in my cell? You’d better get the fuck out of here before the guards catch your ass. If you want to have companionship, go to the other guy’s cell. He’ll let you have his ass or mouth. I don’t do that shit,” Garen said waspishly.
“I’m not looking for a fuck toy. And I’m not leaving this cell until I finish giving you the message I was told to give you,” Undertaker told him calmly.
Garen sat up. He was giving the Patriot a calculating look. “Did Cruz send you? Tell him I’m not gonna tell the warden or his pussy guards anything. He doesn’t have to worry about me. I don’t squeal. I’ve been in here for days, and I’ve not breathed a word of it.”
“No, Cruz didn’t send me. He has more things to worry about. Like how long he’ll be in the infirmary healing from the beatdown I just gave his stupid ass.”
This confession got Garen’s attention. He tossed back his blanket and scooted to the edge of his bed.
“You put Cruz in the infirmary, and you’re standing here?” Garen asked in awe.
“Yeah, so what. That wasn’t hard, and no one is pushing me around. They need to learn I’m not to be fucked with. I ran my block in Cali. I’ll do the same here,” Undertaker boasted.
“Who are you? And what message do you have for me?” There was less dismissal in Garen’s voice.
“The name is Undertaker. And the message comes from someone on the outside. They wanted me to tell you that they’ve never forgotten you. Or the promise you made at your trial.”
“The promise at my trial?” my sperm donor repeated, sounding perplexed.
“Yeah, you know the one where, as they led you away after your sentencing, you told your daughter, Journi, that you would find a way out, and when you did, you’d kill her. She’d join her mother and those other women you killed. And if you couldn’t do it yourself, your friends would.”
“I may have said that, but I don’t know if any of my followers were close enough to overhear it. And why send you here to tell me this? Now? It’s been over fourteen years.”
Undertaker slid closer, then he leaned down from his imposing height. Garen eagerly leaned toward him. “It wasn’t a friend or one of those sick fanatics who became your fans. It was your daughter who sent me. She wanted me to tell you something.”
“W-what?” Garen asked shakily.
“It’s time to pay. For you to go to hell. Oh, and she says, I got you first, motherfucker,” Undertaker snarled and then wrapped his massive hand, just one, around Garen’s neck.
He squeezed, and I watched Garen struggle frantically.
He pounded on Undertaker’s arm with his fists.
He tried to kick him. And when those didn’t work, he drummed his feet, like he thought he could attract attention.
I leaned forward. Everyone else was forgotten in the room as the monster’s face grew darker and darker, as he suffocated.
It was over too fast, I thought, when he went limp in Undertaker’s grip. However, the Dark Patriot wasn’t done.
He hadn’t killed him, it seemed. I figured that out when he grasped Garen’s head between both his hands, and with a quick jerk, he snapped his neck.
The cracking sound was clear on the video.
Then, Undertaker laid him down, carefully positioning the body back the way it had been lying when he was asleep, and put the covers over him.
And just as he entered, he slipped back out of the cell and made it back to his. He left the penlight, the recorder minus the tiny card, and the key outside his door, where he had found them.
The air in church was thick. Silence reigned as one thought kept going through my head repeatedly. The man I once called dad was dead. The monster was dead, thank God.