Chapter Eight
Daisy laid back and closed her eyes for a moment.
She sighed heavily when she realized her family had made the first move.
Damn, of course they had. They were arrogant and a bit stupid too.
She had to pray a little that this MC could stop them.
If they failed to protect their home, her family would just rip through these men like they were trash.
She had prayed for this day for a very long time for her father and brothers to be stopped.
And now she hoped it would happen. She knew she would probably go to hell for her part in this but hell might be better than living under her father’s roof.
She just whispered a prayer for the men living here. And she prayed their friends would show up soon, she had a feeling her dad had Satan standing by.
Torin was watching her and when she looked his way, he asked, “What is it?”
Daisy shrugged. “I’m just worried that Dad has Satan standing by or closer than we know. Nothing about this situation is real at this point. And now he’s lost one of his sons, he isn’t going to let that go for long.”
Torin nodded. “Yeah, your dad seems the type to push it.”
Daisy nodded. “Especially since it was Digger that got left behind. He and Digger are very close, him being first born and all.”
Fox cleared his throat.
Torin looked at him.
“Do you think we need more men?” Fox asked him. “I can call my cousin and see if he and his group could help us? They might not be interested but it wouldn’t hurt to have more men.”
Torin shrugged. “You’d better ask Pope. I have no idea how many guys he already has coming but to my mind we need all the help we can get.”
Fox nodded. “I’ll ask him then.”
Torin turned his head to again look at Daisy. “What do you think your dad will do next?”
“I think he’ll come with more men, looking to get the upper hand,” she replied.
“He’ll try to distract you. Then have someone get inside to get his son back and kill me for daring to take something from him.
He may not know what I took but that won’t matter to him.
The fact that I dared to take what was his is enough. ”
“Is he really that much of a bastard?” Callum asked.
Daisy struggled to get off the bed.
Torin reached over and stopped her. “Don’t get up right now. You are still hurt.”
“Just for a minute... Ok?” she asked him.
He paused at the determined look in her eyes then he helped her to stand.
When she finally got to her feet, she turned her back to them and pulled her shirt up over her head.
The silence in the room was absolute as the three men sitting there were stunned at what she revealed.
Her back was crisscrossed with welts, some were old and some were not so old. They were belt marks and each one told their own story. Some were deeper than they should be and a couple were raw and red.
She spoke but her words were soft and careful, “The first of these scars I got were when I was ten and dared to ask him where my mother was when he came back alone. The latest ones are about a week old now and afterwards, I swore to myself that he would never hit me again. That’s when I decided I would take what I could and disappear.
I needed to go far enough away that he couldn’t drag me back.
Then the plan was to use what I’d taken and finally put an end to my father and my brothers.
I just had to be careful who I trusted.”
Torin reached up and tugged her shirt back down then helped her put it back in place.
He gathered her in his arms and just held her for a long moment.
Finally, he spoke, “There’s no jail or hell cruel enough to make him pay for this.
I think you are brave for doing all of this, to fight back instead of being a victim.
He’s the coward, not you. I believe in Karma.
She chooses the time for someone to repay their transgressions.
After all, you now have the Warriors Saints on your side and that means more than you know. You will see that soon enough.”
She again sighed as she worried about any of them getting hurt by this war.
So she didn’t respond to what he just said.
Instead, she wanted them to win and so she tried to give them more ammunition to fight with.
“I think he’ll wait for night to fall so he has more cover.
Darkness hides monsters like him and his sons,” she whispered.
“My dad and brothers like to work in the dark where they think no one will look for them. He also likes to distract from the actual plan he’s got running in his head.
” Daisy paused then added, “I noticed you have a lot of trees around your compound. So if he can’t get in in any other way...
look for someone to start a fire there. It's been dry in Texas for a while now. He might think if he can distract you long enough he’ll be able to sneak someone inside to rescue Digger.
He’ll think your guys will run outside to fight the fire and leave the front door wide open. ”
Torin swung her up into his arms and he boldly left the room.
Patch and Callum followed him.
When they came to the main room Pope looked up from the computer screen. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Daisy just told us her dad might start a fire in the woods around us,” Torin explained to his father. “Hoping to distract us. At least enough for one of them to slip in and try to find her brother. Then end her before she can get the information to anyone who could try to stop them.”
Pope snapped his gaze over to stare at her. “Is this something he’s done before? The fire I mean?”
Daisy nodded. “Yeah, he’s done that and much worse.
There was a farm house too close to his compound.
He asked the farmer if he would sell the farm to him but the farmer didn’t want to sell.
That wasn’t what my dad wanted to hear but the farmer stood his ground.
About three weeks later my dad had his fields set on fire and when the farmer came running my dad shot him.
The farmer went down and the fire took his farm.
Three people died that day, the farmer, his wife and his two year old son.
They all burned up in the fire while my dad, my brothers and the whole crew just stood there watching it.
Two months later dad bought the farm from the bank.
He expanded the club and no one said a word. ”
Pope glanced at Torin then at Callum. He took a deep breath and replied, “ Yeah, I’ve met his kind before. Greedy and ruthless. Right now, we’re under a burn ban. It's really dry out there and it would be the perfect time for a fire.” Then he looked at Daisy. “Too bad we know something he doesn’t.”
“What does that mean?” Daisy frowned.
“We just happened to pick this place for more than one reason,” Pope told her.
“I’ve got two brothers of my own and we grew up around this area.
Before my brothers decided to branch out and start their own clubs, we turned this place around.
We built it up and we made provisions for every scenario we could think of.
One of the features around here was an underground lake.
Not very many people know about it but my brother Cardinal found it thirty years ago.
This being Texas and all we built a reservoir around it and we’ve protected it since then.
When we need to we take some of the water off the reservoir and we feed it into the ground to keep the ground from cracking.
When it gets dry the ground around here can crack about three inches wide.
We also keep the floor of the forest clean so if it does catch fire it won’t burn out of control.
” He shook his head. “But hey, now it’s getting dry again so maybe we should let the water run.
What do you say boys?” he gazed all around.
Everyone had a grin on their face as they all gave him a nod.
Pope looked over at Callum and said, “It might be time to let the water run again.”
Callum nodded then left the main room.
Pope chuckled.
Daisy kept staring at him in confusion.
“You see, there’s a basin of above ground water sitting on top of the hill right behind the woods there. If we need to, we can use that against any intruders as well.”
“Will that flood the compound too?” she asked.
Pope shrugged. “It might yeah but we also have an underground safe room, if we ever need it. Most houses here have basements for a reason. Like for tornadoes and such. But we know trouble comes when you least expect it and we wanted to be careful. So when we built this place, we put it in an underground room. We’ve never had to use it before but your daddy is just not sane.
I’d rather not waste a life on bat shit crazy, thank you very much. ”
Daisy just stared at him, still unsure about safety.
“We got more people coming to deal with them, so we’ll have the numbers.” He reached out and patted her hand. “Don’t worry, the clubhouse is far enough away from all sides that if they start shooting at us, we can defend ourselves with minimal risk.”
Daisy nodded. “I did notice the clubhouse sits to the back of the property.”
Pope nodded. “Yeah, and that was also done with a purpose behind it. And even if they do set the woods on fire we have plenty of options before it burns.”
Daisy nodded. “Its too bad you can’t just drown them all. The world would never miss any of them. I wish they would just...”
Pope paused at her reply. He glanced at Torin who just shook his head.
Fox looked up from his computer and announced, “Ok, water is running from underground.” He stared at Pope and asked, “You want it wide open?”
Pope shook his head. “Nah...Just get it up enough to soak the ground. We don’t know for sure what they’re gonna do and if we get it too wet, that might end up working against us.
Besides, we don't want to give them too many options before they actually do anything. If she’s right, it's gonna be a long day. We need to keep our heads on straight and start thinking like them. Come up with a plan to beat them at their games.”
Daisy scoffed. “I hope you never have to think like them. But just think of the worst case scenario and times it by ten. My father and brothers have nothing to lose and everything to gain or so they think. And from what I hear, Satan and his band of merry men are even worse than they are. That’s why I want nothing to do with any of them. ”
Pope nodded. “I can’t blame you for that, but this is our home and we will defend it from the likes of them.
We don’t run from trouble honey and if your family comes here looking for that...
they will find it. But we have home advantage and nobody outside these walls knows what kind of protection we do have.
That’s an advantage I won’t give up. You just wait until my brothers get here, you’ll see what I mean. ”
Daisy nodded. “Well I hope they can get here safely then. My father might have people watching the roads, looking for others who come in.”
Pope just smiled at her concerns. “Where there’s a will there’s a way, little girl. And my brothers know the way. He looked around the room at every face there. “And we got the will to protect what’s ours.”
The room erupted in cheers of, “Warriors...Warriors!”
Daisy jumped a little as they stomped their boots and chanted.
She just stared at them. She didn’t know what they were all cheering about.
This wasn’t like some high school football game or something.
These men could actually lose their lives.
She knew her father and her brothers only too well.
They had no cheers, just grab, kill, grab...
She knew they wouldn’t stop pushing until they got in and destroyed all of them.
She only hoped these guys could produce a defense like they said they would.
She turned her face into Torin's shoulder and whispered a little prayer.
Then she said another prayer in her mind that this nightmare would finally be over one day soon.
She had made that prayer everyday for the last ten years, hoping that one day, it would happen and the noise in her head would finally go silent.
Her whisper of, “Amen,” went unheard in the loudness of the room.