Chapter 5
ROOK
There are times I fucking hate being the prospect.
I appreciate Jack taking me in, and I know I need to do my time at this level, but sometimes they treat me like I’m a kid just out of diapers, not a twenty-three-year-old man who’s done time.
That’s how they’re treating me now, like a useless kid.
I know something is going on. I just watched Jack and the others march across the compound and vanish inside the clubhouse. I have little doubt that they’re headed to his office. Their energy was high, their body language bullish.
They’ve got information, but are they including me? Fuck no. Often, they’ll ask me to hang around outside the meeting rooms so I can go fetch anyone they need, or grab things for them, but not today.
And that makes me so fucking mad. After all, this is Camile we’re talking about. The idea that they somehow have more right to know what’s happened to her leaves me spun out with fury.
I’m the one who was with her last night—well, me and Ace—but I’m the one she actually trusts, the one she allows to get close to her.
Sure, maybe it stung to learn that she’d been planning to leave us, and she hadn’t confided in me about that, but I know that’s Jack’s doing as well.
She understands there’s a hierarchy here, and if she’d told me, she’d have put me in a difficult position.
And yet I’m being left out when it comes to finding where she is and punishing whoever has taken her.
Fuck them.
I wait a few beats until I’m sure they’re all inside the office with the door shut and deep in conversation. Then I check around to make sure no one is paying me any attention, and they’re not, then slip into the building after them.
It’s still early, so there’s no one in the bar. Not even the barmaids are restocking yet. The place stinks of stale beer and old cigarette smoke.
I take the door that leads to the corridor outside Jack’s office. I know I’m going to get in shit for this if I get caught, but I’m past caring. She’s more important to me than dealing with whatever fallout comes from me spying, which is exactly what I’m doing. As I suspected, the door is shut.
With my heart in my throat, I move closer and press my ear to the wood. The voices beyond are deep and muffled, and I can’t hear what’s being said. Damn.
I’m going to have to take some risks if I’m to find out what’s going on. My gut tells me they’ve got information about where she is, and if I don’t find out what that is, then I won’t be able to play my part in getting her back. And hell, do I want to play my part.
I can’t let these men—even though I consider them my brothers—go off and rescue her while I stay behind, twiddling my thumbs. How would that make me look to Camile? Like I’ve been sheltered by the others because they don’t think I’m strong enough or reliable enough. I hate that.
I also hate that by excluding me, they make me feel like they have more right to her than I do.
It especially pisses me off and hurts me that Ace is in there, yet I’m out here in the cold.
Ace and me, we have a weird fucking dynamic, but I thought after our shared time with Camile, he might see me more as an equal, at least in this.
I want to burst in and yell, ‘She’s mine, too,’ but I know how that will go down.
So instead, I rest my fingers lightly on the door handle and slowly press down, hoping it won’t make a sound. The door clicks open, painfully loudly to me, and I freeze, but no shout comes, and the voices continue as before. I edge it open a crack.
It’s not enough to be noticed from the other side, but it’s enough to break the seal holding back their words.
“Those fucking Numbnuts,” Ghost growls. “The goddamn sheer audacity of them messaging the Revenants with insider information. What the hell is going on with them? And the Revenants getting involved with those three idiots and then doing this, it’s fucked up and makes no sense.”
Ace speaks. “First, they take our gun shipment and beat up our men. And now this…”
Jack lets out a snarl. “There’s someone else behind this. There must be. The Revenants aren’t big enough or smart enough to have pulled this off.”
“I’m not sure,” Ghost says. “After all, they pulled off taking our shipment. Even if there was someone else involved, what would they be gaining? And they had insider help.”
“Money?” suggests Jack. “It’s the biggest motivator in men.”
Ace snorts. “Or sex?” He must suddenly realize he’s said the wrong thing as he hurriedly adds, “Forget I said that.”
But his words stick with me. They wouldn’t go to all this effort to take Camile just because they want to fuck her, would they?
Yes, she’s gorgeous, and she’s different from the MC girls, but they wouldn’t risk starting a war just to get what they would see as a bit of cartel princess pussy.
Surely…? The very thought makes my blood run cold because if I’m wrong and Ace is right, it means they’ll be raping her and we’ll need to act fast.
Jack speaks again. “We can’t do anything until my old chapter gets here. They should arrive around mid-afternoon.”
I freeze. Mid-afternoon? Is he fucking kidding?
“Yeah,” Ghost agrees. “Even then, we’re going to have to wait until it gets dark. We can’t go storming in there. We need to come up with a plan, and we need to be smart about it. If we go in all guns blazing, there’s a chance they’ll just kill her anyway.”
I take a step back from the door, every muscle in my body rigid with tension.
I don’t care what Ghost has just said—or Jack, for that matter. We can’t leave her there for hours and hours.
For all we know, they could be taking turns raping her now, and the sort of trauma she might go through by the time we wait for night to fall could be irreversible.
I know a little bit about that because of my time in prison.
I wasn’t the bottom of the rung, but I was a long way from the top.
It meant some things happened to me that I’d rather not think about.
The thought of sweet, innocent Camile going through that is too much to stand. It makes me want to burn down the world to get her back. That’s exactly what I’ll do, if needed.
Jack might be the Prez, but I know people.
I have contacts, too, from when I was inside.
I’m pretty sure they know men inside the Iron Revenants MC, and they might be able to get me in.
Perhaps having one man slipping, unseen, into the compound to find Camile will be better than a whole MC, plus another chapter, descending on them.
If my contact can ask around, I might be able to find out exactly where she’s being held, or at least get some idea of where I should focus.
Yeah, it’s dangerous, but it’ll be worth it.
I won’t just be sitting around twiddling my thumbs like the others.
I briefly consider mentioning my contact to Jack.
It could help. But almost as soon as the thought crosses my mind, I dismiss it.
Jack will shut me down. He’ll stop me from leaving, and where will that leave Camile?
With no one coming to help her for fucking hours.
The door opens fully, and I step back in shock as Ghost walks into the hallway, shutting the door firmly behind him. He stares at me as if I’m something gross on his shoe and cocks one eyebrow in a superior manner.
“What are you doing here?” He glances back at the door, and then to me. “Were you listening in?”
“No,” I deny, scuffing my boot on the floor and ducking my head.
But my cheeks burn with heat, and I know they must be glowing.
“Christ, Rook, we don’t need this right now.
Fuck off before the Prez finds out you’ve been listening.
We’re dealing with lots of urgent and important stuff here.
Can’t you just go off and do some… I don’t know, rookie stuff?
I think there’s a big shipment of beer arriving later today.
You can help haul it in for the barmaids.
” He storms past me and into a room on his right, grabs some paper, then heads back into the office, slamming the door firmly in my face with a glare.
My jaw clenches as I consider how they all treat me like I’m an afterthought.
Mind made up, I shove my hands into my jeans pockets, put my head down, and get the hell out of there. My bike is parked just outside of the clubhouse. I’ll call my contact once I’m out of the range of any listening ears.
I reach my bike and swing my leg over the seat. I plug the key into the ignition and bring the bike to life, the roar of the engine soothing me like a cat’s purr.
Once I’m off the compound, I pull into a small layby on the side of the road and take out my cell.
I make a call to the brother of a good friend of mine, one of the men I was imprisoned with.
He was meant to be there the night we committed the robbery, but he’d been injured in a fight and couldn’t make it.
We’ve been in touch on and off ever since, and I think he appreciates the fact that I never snitched on any of the other gang members to get myself a shorter sentence.
I was the youngest by far, and while my sentence was more lenient than the others, it was harsh for someone who wasn’t armed and hadn’t been involved in the violence.
I think they purposely gave me a longer sentence than many others get in my circumstances to attempt to get me to squeal on the rest of the gang in exchange for time off.
Prosecutors had been trying to get the others on a major felony for a long time, and they believed I had been privy to information that could give them ammunition to argue for longer sentences.
I didn’t refuse to do it because I would ask for a favor one day, but because of my own morals, and because I didn’t know as much as the prosecutors believed.
Now, though, I do need that favor, and I think keeping my damn mouth shut for so long means I’m owed one.
As I wait on the end of my ringing cell, I worry that Jarrod won’t pick up.