32. Hawk
32
HAWK
W ith War firmly in his little love nest, fussing over Bliss and their daughters and their new baby, running the club fell on my shoulders.
I went through the motions, discussing what we had coming up with the other guys, taking stock of who wanted to go on runs and who was tied up with their day jobs or family lives. It was something my old man would have never bothered with when he and Army had been in this position. They’d been very much of the mindset that club came before all else and that if they said jump, the rest of the club would only ever answer with, “How high?”
But War had changed all of that when he’d taken over. His family, the ones who didn’t live here in the clubhouse, were always his first priority, and he’d set the tone for the rest of us.
So Fang spent more weekends changing diapers than hunting down wayward payments with the brute force Army had first recruited him for. Aloha took Queenie on dates instead of sleeping in the back of the van when he drove gun shipments across borders. Gunner went to his grandkids’ soccer games instead of overseeing the drug syndicate.
I kept thinking about how I’d rather be riding around in ambulances or helping people at the clinic. But until that was a reality, the black market we’d known all our lives was still the thing that paid my bills.
I leaned back on my chair, poring over the notes Fang was studiously taking as the guys and I decided who was doing what for the next few weeks. Satisfied we were finished, and eager to see if Kara was back yet, I lifted the wooden gavel. “If nobody else has anything to add, I think we’re done here.” I lowered the gavel toward the table, ready to bang it down, signaling the end of the meeting.
Aloha cleared his throat and raised a hand tentatively. “Boss.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to call me that just because War isn’t here.”
Aloha grinned. “Temporary boss, then?”
I twisted the hammer in my hands, impatient for him to get to the point because I was sure sick of looking at their ugly faces when I could be looking at Kara’s.
Or Hayden’s , an insidious voice whispered in my head, which I promptly told to piss off because fuck Hayden. What we’d done last night had been all about Kara.
What we’d done in the darkness a few nights before maybe hadn’t been, but I could put that down to a lapse in judgement. Chaos was an arrogant prick. He was good as an extra dick when Kara needed one, but that had nothing to do with me.
I wasn’t gay.
I might have stopped giving War a hard time about Scythe, but that didn’t mean I was heading down the same path. I wasn’t about to start plastering the clubhouse walls with rainbow flags because Chaos knew how to suck dick.
The whole situation made me grouchy. And vaguely horny.
Fucking hell.
“What do you want?” I snapped at Aloha. “I need to go get laid.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How many times in one day does your dick actually work? Between midnight and this morning when the three of you finally knocked it off, it had to have been put to good use.”
I smirked at him. “Works a hell of a lot more times than yours does, old man.”
Aloha scoffed. “Says the cocky son of a bitch who’s gonna be staring down the barrel of his fortieth birthday in a few years’ time.”
“Five years,” I clarified. “Four years behind you, don’t forget.”
Aloha chuckled. “Fine, fine. You’re the fountain of youth. Don’t mind me if I don’t drink from it. I’m perfectly content with the idea of a new decade. Gotta catch up to my woman.” He sat back, a dreamy expression on his face. “You all don’t know what you’re missing ’til you’ve got yourself a cougar.”
He growled and swiped his hand like he had claws.
The other guys laughed at his antics, Aloha forever the good-natured goofball who kept this place chill.
I disagreed about the older woman thing, though, thinking of Kara’s sweetly rounded face and the innocence she’d come here with. That I’d promptly stripped away by fucking her in so many different ways and positions, with plans to do so much more with time.
Images from last night kept playing through my head: taking her ass for the first time, feeling Chaos fucking her at the same time through the thin internal walls of her body.
Imagining what it would have felt like if we’d both been encased in her pussy. Our dicks double penetrating her, rubbing all up on each other at the same time.
I dug my fingers into the fleshy part of my thigh hard enough to snap me out of the real-life porno playing out in my head and focused on what Aloha was saying.
He tapped the table with his fingertips. “I want to talk about Ice. I know my opinion don’t count for shit, but when are we going to patch him in? He’s been a prospect—”
He was interrupted by the static of the walkie-talkie on the table. “Hawk,” Ice’s voice crackled down the line.
I picked it up, pressing the button so I could talk. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Whaddaya want, Prospect?”
Aloha sighed while we waited for Ice to respond. “That’s what I’ve been trying to talk to you about. You get off on making sure he knows he’s a pros—”
Ice’s voice cut in through the walkie-talkie. “Kara’s here with the doc. But there’s a red pickup behind them. Kara says they know the driver. Says his name is Kyle.”
I exploded up out of my seat, panic flooding my system in a single fast dump of adrenaline that had me racing for the door and my bike sitting outside it with the keys perpetually in the ignition. I slammed my foot down on the kick start, barking orders down the line at Ice, the engine roaring to life. “Do not let him inside those gates, Prospect! You get her and Hayley Jade inside now! If you’ve ever wanted to prove yourself, now is the time. He doesn’t touch one hair on her head, Ice. You hear me?”
I didn’t wait for his reply, tossing the walkie-talkie onto the grass, my tires spinning out on the gravel driveway.
I took the winding path quicker than I’d ever dared to in the past, praying for Ice to be useful for once in his fucking life and keep my girls safe until I got there.
If they had so much as a scratch on them, then all hell was going to rain down on whoever had dared to lay a finger on them.
Blind rage fueled me, and I dumped my bike at the open gates, not giving a flying fuck about the screech of rock against metal as the gravel stripped the paint I’d paid a fortune to have done.
My panicked gaze sought Kara out first, only a tiny bit of the rage settling when I found her, Hayley Jade standing beside her, holding her fingers tightly.
I rushed to them, clutching both sides of Kara’s face and searching her for any sign she was hurt. “Are you okay?” I reached a hand down to cup the back of Hayley Jade’s head. “What about you? You okay, pipsqueak?”
She stared up at me with those huge dark eyes that squeezed my damn heart.
I dragged my gaze back to Kara.
She nodded quickly, fingers twisting in my shirt. “I’m fine. I just—”
I wasn’t listening, my gaze falling on the rusted red truck and the young guy standing next to it looking damn fucking nervous.
So he should be.
“You Kyle?” I stormed the space between us.
He nodded.
“Hawk!” Kara shouted after me.
But I barely heard her, gaze too focused on the young kid who’d done Josiah’s dirty work for him.
“He sent you?” I clenched my fingers into fists. “And you had the fucking balls to come here and talk to my woman?”
Kyle shook his head, his hair flopping around his stubbled face. “No. I swear—”
I didn’t care what he had to say or why he was here. He was one of them. One of the fucking Josiah worshippers who wanted Kara and Hayley Jade back.
I wasn’t giving them up.
They were mine. There was no fucking doubt about it in my head. My brain roared the word, screaming it so loudly it was deafening.
I ran for the intruder, my fist drawn back, ready to connect.
Grayson caught me before I could make contact, deflecting the blow. “Okay, what we aren’t going to do is attack someone while Hayley Jade is watching, capiche?”
He pushed me away, putting himself between me and the Jesus lover, holding his hands up to keep the distance.
I breathed out hard. Breath misting in the wet, cold air a storm had brought in.
Grayson eyed me with a raised brow. “We’ve talked to Kyle. He didn’t have anything to do with Alice’s death, and he’s not in contact with Josiah.”
I scoffed. “You believe that bullshit?”
“We wouldn’t have brought him here unless we did.” Grayson eyed me warily, like I was a bull that might charge him at any moment.
I glanced at Kyle, who was still so shit-scared it was impossible to believe he was anything but a sheltered farm kid who had no idea what he was doing outside the gates of the cult he’d been raised in.
“He’s just a kid,” Grayson said quietly. “And your kid is watching to see how you handle this. Do her and yourself proud and settle the fuck down.”
My kid.
Having someone else acknowledge that before I’d even really acknowledged it to myself set my world spinning.
“Your eyebrow is fucking judging me.” I turned around to stalk back to Kara. I picked up Hayley Jade from the ground, shifting her up against my chest and supporting her weight with my arm across the backs of her thighs.
She ran her hand over the cropped lengths of my hair, letting the short spikes tickle her palm.
With my other hand, I took Kara’s. “Why is he here?”
Kara squeezed my fingers, trying to be reassuring. “He needs somewhere to stay. He’s been homeless ever since…well, you know what.”
I gaped at her in disbelief of her bleeding heart. “Are you seriously bringing home another stray dog? Wasn’t Chaos enough?”
She stared up at me. “You started it by bringing me here.”
“You aren’t a stray dog,” I said gruffly. “And it was Rebel who brought you here anyway.”
“It was you who fought for me to stay. You who fought for Hayden. And now I’m asking you to do it again for Kyle.”
I glanced over at the lanky twentysomething. Hell, was he even that old? His beard was laughable, patchy like mine had been before I hit my twenties.
I groaned.
“Please?” Kara asked. “I just…I feel like it’s my responsibility. He has nowhere else to go. He can’t go back to Ethereal Eden. The cops will find him there. If Alice and I hadn’t left, Kyle wouldn’t be out here on the run. I owe him.”
“You don’t owe anybody shit, Little Mouse. No one but yourself.” I eyed Kyle, staring him down with a glare I hoped like hell portrayed the fact I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw his six-foot-plus frame.
I turned to Grayson, sighing, trusting the doc more than anybody else at that moment. “Take them to the clubhouse for me? I’m riding with Kyle.”
Grayson paused. “Do I need to remind you that your heart lies in helping people, not hurting them? Or that blood is really hard to get out of upholstery?”
I didn’t answer, just clapped the man on the shoulder and trusted him with the only two things in my life I held precious.
I stalked past him, closing the gap between me and Kyle and staring the kid down with a barely concealed distrust. “Keys.”
“In the ignition.” Kyle’s voice was barely above a whimper.
I got behind the wheel.
Kyle just stared at me through the windshield.
I slammed the heel of my hand down on the horn, blaring out a long honk until Kyle scampered for the passenger-side door.
“Get in,” I bit out through the open window without looking at him.
He did, pulling his seat belt across his chest like it was armor.
“That’s not going to help you if I don’t like how you answer my questions.”
He nodded quickly, too scared to even peek at me.
I watched Grayson drive through the gates with my girls and waited ’til they’d disappeared from sight before I said anything. “You’re going to answer everything I ask you, without question. You’re going to tell me the truth. Every word. Even if you think I won’t like it. You feel me?”
“Yes, sir.”
I screwed up my face. I couldn’t remember anyone ever calling me sir in my life, and it was unsettling. But that was beside the point.
“Did Josiah send you here?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you kill Alice?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you have any way of communicating with Ethereal Eden or anyone in it?”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and laid it on the center console.
I picked it up and pocketed it. “I’ll keep that until you earn my trust. Which might be a very long time, because let me be clear, I’m pussy-whipped as all fuck and will do anything for that woman, including taking you in off the streets. But that doesn’t mean I ain’t watching you every second of every day. If you so much as step a fucking toe out of line, I will come down so hard you will beg me to send you back to your God. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stop fucking calling me sir.”
“Yes…” He clamped his lips together. “I don’t know what else to call you.”
I sighed at the conversation I’d had earlier repeating itself. This kid reminded me of all the prospects we’d had come through the gates over the years. Not many of them lasted.
I predicted this kid would be crying into his cereal before the end of the week and begging me to let him leave.
“If you’re in, you’re in, kid. Do you get that? I can’t have you changing your mind and running back to Josiah.”
Kyle finally looked me square in the eye, zero hesitation. “I’ll never go back there. I can promise you that. I just need somewhere to lie low until Josiah and the cops stop searching for me. I won’t cause any trouble.”
I could see what Kara had.
The pure honesty in his eyes. The desperation that made you want to help.
Against my better judgment, I nodded and started the engine. “Fine. Is there anything else I should know before I let you in those gates? This is where you tell me anything at all you can possibly think of, because if I find out later you kept something from me, things are going to get heated.”
Kyle paused. “Actually there is.” He pointed at his phone. “May I?”
“Go on, then.”
He picked it up, and to my surprise, after he hit a few buttons, he didn’t turn the screen around, he leaned forward and adjusted the volume on the dashboard.
“What’s this?” I asked, clutching the steering wheel, impatient to get going now that I’d decided I was letting the outsider in.
“I’ve been listening to Josiah’s podcast,” Kyle admitted.
There was a low rumbling growl in the back of my throat.
Kyle hurried to explain. “I just wanted to know what was going on with my parents and to know if Josiah was talking about me or Alice or what had happened to her. I swear, that’s all. But there’s something you should hear. Bear with me a second.”
He skipped the podcast back before letting it play again.
Josiah’s smarmy voice filtered through the speakers, filling the interior of the truck. “Now that takes care of this week’s sponsors, there’s something desperate and disturbing I need to discuss with all of you, members of my Ethereal Eden community. Something I’ve been keeping bottled up inside that has been destroying me piece by piece every day I keep my silence. On the advice of police, I held my tongue, but I can no longer do that for my heart is broken, a part of it stolen away in the night.” Josiah drew in an audible breath, his voice shaking. “If you are listening to this, I need your help. I desperately need your help.”
I gripped the steering wheel tighter, a sick feeling washing over me, already knowing where this was going.
“My wife, my beloved, sweet, kind, obedient wife has been taken from me. Forced from her home by men who know not of the Lord’s word. Sinners who have turned her good-natured heart against me and our people. The Ethereal Eden family who love and cherish her.” He paused and sniffed.
“And the Oscar goes to…” I muttered.
Kyle cringed. “It gets worse.”
“Of course it does. The man can’t do anything by halves, can he?”
Josiah, apparently done with his fake display of hurt and sorrow, started again. “My wife, my heart and soul, she is but a weak-willed woman. It is not her fault she has been swayed the way she has. She doesn’t know any better, but without my guiding hand, I fear for her immortal soul. This is where all of you come in. You listen from all over the country. From California to New York and everywhere in between. If you listen each week, I have to believe you believe in me. That you believe in the work we’re doing at Ethereal Eden, and even if you haven’t joined us in person yet, you are my brothers. You are my family. And family sticks together.
“So I beg of you. Bring my wife back to me, as well as the child who was stolen with her. She is believed to be in the Saint View or Providence areas, with known ties to the Slayers Motorcycle Club. Retrieving her will be no easy feat. She will fight. She will lie. She will run. But that is the devil inside her! That is what we must overcome so she can take her rightful place by my side. Her captors will fight back, so you must be clever. Take weapons. Use any force you see fit. Because without my queen, my empire is incomplete, and I cannot carry out the tasks the Lord has set upon my shoulders.”
I swore beneath my breath. “I’m going to kill him. Slowly and fucking painfully.”
“You’ll never get to him,” Kyle said quietly. “My parents have left me so many voicemails, telling me about all the new security they’ve put in at Ethereal Eden. Josiah is telling them it’s to keep them safe from the men who took Kara and Alice, but obviously that’s a lie.”
“It’s to keep them locked inside.”
Kyle hunched over on himself. “They’re prisoners and they don’t even realize it. But it also keeps Josiah safe within the walls, and this podcast means everyone else is doing his dirty work for him. If you keep listening, you’ll hear him offer a one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward and a spot on Josiah’s closest council to the person who brings back Kara and Hayley Jade.”
I stared at him in horror, turning up the podcast and hearing Kyle’s words confirmed in Josiah’s voice. “We need to call the police. Have them listen to this. This is a kidnapping threat. They have to get this taken down before it attracts all the fucking whack jobs who need a quick payday.”
“I don’t disagree, but this podcast has been up for days already. It has hundreds of thousands of listens.”
He had to be joking. “You’re fucking kidding me? He has that many followers?”
“No, but he has more than you might think. It’s something he’s put a lot of time and attention into the last couple of years. He calls it spreading the Lord’s word.”
“But it’s really just feeding his own self-inflated ego.”
“There’s thousands of shares. That’s why it has more listens than it should. Word is already out, so even if the cops force him to take it down—”
“It’s not going to do any good. Kara is still going to have a merry band of fucking God-loving lunatics after her.” I ran my hand through my hair. “We knew Josiah’s men were probably lurking around, but a handful of his pod people are one thing. Offering a reward like that raises the stakes to every Joe Blow out there.”
“What are you going to do?” Kyle asked.
There was only one thing I could think of. “Kill Josiah.”