Chapter Three
Finn nodded. “I think talking to her is the best bet. I don’t want us to do anything stupid either. But what if she doesn’t know anything useful?”
Banger shrugged. “Then she becomes unuseful to us getting back what’s ours. And we move on to person of interest number two.”
Chewy looked up again from his phone. “Hey, did you guys know this woman runs that second chance house over in Troy? I think it’s called Redemption House.
Says here a bunch of homeless vets took over a schoolhouse she bought and rebuilt it for her.
They help women too. Ones who’ve been beaten up and such. ”
Banger looked at Boxer.
He kept rubbing his finger over his chin.
“That information might come in handy huh, boys?” He chuckled.
“Virgil might even be able to talk to her there rather than have to go all the way out to her MC home. Be easier anyway. I’ve seen that place and it’s pretty easy to get into and easy to sneak out if you had to.
I think they don’t want it to look like a prison or something. ”
Banger smiled coldly. “Well, we might have to do just that. We need to find a way in and identify her before we can question her.”
Boxer snorted. “Hell son, that won’t be too hard.
One of us just has to go inside the place and ask for a second chance.
It is all about helping the homeless and people with problems. Walk in, then claim that you are hungry and have nothing.
Easy peasy. At least it gets us in through the front door. ”
The men around the room nodded.
Then one man stepped forward. “Let me go in and gather intel,” Rodney volunteered.
“Banger might have you do that.” Boxer nodded at him then he looked at Banger.
“But before we go to Troy, we need to find a place to stay awhile. Somewhere out of the local traffic and out of the way, where we can hide while we gather information. But tonight we celebrate.” He grinned.
“We can deal with Troy tomorrow. Tonight we’re all getting drunk in celebration that our brother finally walked out free. ”
He went over to the bar and began setting up glasses. Reaching for a bottle he poured drinks for everyone and someone else turned the jukebox on. They turned the volume high and the walls began to shake.
Banger made his way over to the corner of the room and sipped his drink carefully.
Finn watched him silently. He wasn’t sure he liked this plan but he kept his mouth shut. Yeah, he missed Banger but to go after an innocent woman like this? He wasn’t so sure about that. With a man like Leon Vincinti or even Calderone in the background, that wouldn’t end good.
He just sat back and watched Banger for the next few hours. It was late when the party wound down. But Finn and Chewy hadn’t drank much. They just sat back and watched everyone.
Finn just shook his head then looked at Chewy. “I don’t think Virgil is so happy to be out.”
“And why is that?” Chewy asked.
“Because he nursed only two drinks all night,” Finn pointed out. “That’s not like the old Virgil everyone knows and loves.”
Chewy looked over at Banger. “You’re right, he used to drink a lot more. But he was drunk the night he got framed, remember? What do you suppose he’s thinking about?”
Finn just stared at the floor then he shook his head. “I think whatever Robbie took from him is worth more to Banger than his own life. That along with him being sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit has turned his life around and not in a good way.”
“What does that mean?” Chewy frowned.
“It means Virgil lost a lot more than just ten years behind bars,” Finn spoke quietly.
“What else did he lose?” Chewy wanted to know.
Finn shook his head. “Not my story to tell brother. If you want to know, you ask him but I don’t suppose he’ll tell you, not until he gets whatever Robbie stole back, whatever it is.” He got up and went down the hall to his bedroom and shut the door behind him.
Chewy looked over at Banger.
The man said nothing as he got up and left the room looking for his own bed.
Chewy finished his beer and shook his head. He thought about what Finn had said. This club had too many secrets. They could come back and bite them all in the ass someday.
And one of those secrets might get someone dead too.
He didn’t even want to think about that.
While the club was small enough and they weren’t total one-percenters.
But they also weren’t breaking too many laws.
They were mostly legit but they did run guns every once in a while.
And drugs, a couple of the brothers ran drugs, not on a regular basis though, only once in a while too as far as Chewy knew but he didn’t know for sure.
He himself was a mechanic and he worked in a garage mostly.
Finn ran the local tattoo place and Boxer handled the MC stuff.
Chewy went to his own room and sat down on the bed. He hoped the next few days went well and that maybe they could all get out of this mission in one piece.
Before dawn the next day....
Fifteen bikers left the clubhouse. They all wanted to back Bager up in his quest. They reached Troy before the workday started and they drove through town looking it over carefully.
They weren’t wearing their cuts as they didn’t want to let anyone there to know they were in the area.
If they managed to talk to this woman, they didn’t want anyone knowing who they were.
The plan was to get into Troy, get to her, ask her some questions and leave before anyone knew they were there.
Chewy had found an abandoned warehouse at the far edge of town to stay in. Everyone settled in for a long afternoon. One of the brothers had driven a truck in case they needed it. Banger explained to the men that he might snatch this woman, if she refused to tell him anything.
They all looked spooked.
“Didn’t you hear what they did to Robbie, Virgil?” Finn asked him.
Banger nodded. “We will not be hurting her. And I’m hoping she will just talk to me and we won’t have to nap her.
Chewy and Finn did not look happy.
Redemption House
Rodney and Banger took the truck and went to this Redemption House. It would be better to have just two of them go. So their story would look legit. They found it on the poor side of the town. They parked down the street and stared at the building itself for a long time.
It had the eyes of a tiger painted as a mural on the outside wall. It was high quality and the artist had to be a pro. Somehow, it made him feel something. He just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Like warning of portending doom?
How odd. It was just a logo or something.
Then again, he hadn’t been right for years. Being behind iron walls for a decade would do that to a person. Like he did often now, Banger waited in silence.
Rodney was getting nervous about that silence. Finally, he asked quietly, “What are you thinking, man?”
Banger slowly turned his head and stared at him. “I’m thinking you’re getting a bit jumpy.”
Rodney nodded. “You’d be right about that.”
“Kid...” Banger sighed hard. “I know you want to do the club proud and all that. But if we go into that building and things don’t go well with this woman, we might be crossing a line in the sand.”
Rodney looked over at him. “Why are you trying to talk me out of this? I volunteered for it.”
Banger simply shook his head. “Because I just walked out of prison for a crime I didn’t commit.
No one person can prepare you for life inside those walls.
That’s a journey only you can take, only you can decide what happens to you.
But once you go through that fucking gate, your life is no longer yours.
Prison isn’t no fancy vacation, son. It’s hard to wake up in fear every fucking day and wonder if today will be the day you’ll piss off another inmate bigger and meaner than you are.
Then you get stabbed. Just because they got a bug up their ass and they want to take it out on you.
It ain’t like jail where you spend a few days and they let you out.
I don’t want to hurt this woman. I just need some information she might not be willing to give me.
A decade ago, Robbie took something from me I’m hoping to get back.
I can’t ask a corpse anything so I have no choice but to ask her.
My plan was to go after Robbie and beat the shit out of him but Robbie isn’t here anymore.
It was the only thing that kept me going all those years I spent behind bars.
That when I got out I was going to be free to find the little puke that sent me up and what I would do to him when I found him.
I never expected to find him dead. This.
..” He motioned at the building down the street.
“... is the only way I can find the answers. So, I need to know if you can do this or not, because if you can’t then I will.
But right now, my mind isn’t in a very good place. ”
Rodney straightened his shoulders and said, “I can do it.”
Banger nodded. “Ok, then now is the time to put up or shut up.”
“I will case the back area. You might need a way to escape if this goes south.” Rodney opened the truck door and got out. He shut the door quietly and headed toward the building known as Redemption House.
Banger got out as well. He walked toward the double doors of the old school with purpose in his stride.
He tried not to think about what his part in this mission was, to his mind he was here to gather facts, not possibly hurt an uncooperative woman.
He just spent ten years behind bars for a crime of someone who’d hurt a woman really bad.
Then while he was stuck in an 8 by 10 cell, the real criminal had been free to do God only knows what.
They had heard some of what Robbie had done to those poor women.
All while Banger never hurt a woman in his whole life.
When he pulled the door open and stepped inside, Banger had to pause to look around carefully.
The lobby was done in soft subdued colors.
Everyone here was laughing and moving along with their lives.
No one looked like a bum or like they were in trouble.
Children played nearby but there were also adults who watched over them.
A young boy about five ran down the hall, opened a door and hollered out, “Mama!” as he rushed into the room.
Banger slowly walked down that same hall to stop at the half open door and peeked inside.
A woman with long red hair sat in a chair listening with interest to the boy’s story of what his morning had been like at school.
Banger swung his gaze over to the name plaque on the door Cassie Tory. He took a step back then stared at the woman sitting behind the desk again. He looked long enough at her to burn her features into his brain. So it was Cassie, not Kacey.
Then he looked down at the top half of her body and noticed for the first time that she was wearing a cut.
It carried the name Sin’s Bastards. He never heard of them.
Then again if it was a younger MC, he wouldn’t have.
Ten years is a long stretch. He’d better talk to Boxer first to see if he ever heard of them.
He took a step back then turned and silently walked to the main doors again.
He needed to wait to talk to her... alone.
Too many people and kids around this place right now anyway.
They would all probably start screaming just because he got near her.
An ex-con like him would get thrown back into stir and they would just toss the key away