Hawkins growled and sneered as he checked out the older woman from the top of her head to the souls of her shoes. Then he looked over at Cat. “Who is this bitch?”
“This is the Mother Superior,” Cat told him.
Mother Superior sniffed arrogantly. “Again I ask, who the hell are you people and what are you doing behind these walls? This place is not for the likes of your kind.” She turned to Cat and Luna as she snarled. “You two shouldn’t be here either. You aren’t welcome.”
“Were we ever?” Cat snapped.
Sister Patrice quickly spoke up as she stared at the Mother. “They came here looking for a woman named Isobel but I tried to tell them there was no one here by that name.”
Hawkins shook his head. “Well hell, I might not be of your kind. But I know you’re both lying, since both of you called out Isobel’s name when you entered. So I just don’t believe either one of you bitches. But you’re right about one thing, we aren’t staying here.
“Good, get the hell out of here then,” Mother Superior raged.
“Oh, we’re going, but you and the good sister are coming with us,” Hawkins assured her. “We got questions and I’m willing to bet you have some of the answers.”
“I am not going anywhere with you dirty people,” Mother Superior said haughtily. “I’ll be damned if I’m going anywhere except back to the Abbey to call the police about some intruders.”
“Now, why you gotta be like that?” Hawkins quipped. “I hate to tell you this, but I ain’t asking.” He stepped back.
Kota rushed toward her just as she opened her mouth to let out a scream. His hand went to her throat and he squeezed, cutting off her air supply.
Mother Superior’s eyes widened and she clawed at his hands to free herself.
Luna grabbed the tape on the table, ripped off a piece, and slapped it over her mouth. Then she bound Mother Superior’s hands behind her back.
Cat and Titan were doing the same to Sister Patrice’s mouth and hands.
Kota lifted the Mother to his shoulder and Brute threw Sister Patrice over his shoulder.
“Now ladies,” Hawkins announced. “I’ll tell you this only once, you make any noise between now and the time we get out of here and you won’t like the consequences.” He looked over at Luna. “Check the grounds for anyone else that might stop us.”
Luna shut the light off and opened the door. Checking the distance between them and the Abbey, she didn’t see anything moving around out there. Looking back at the group, she whispered, “Looks all clear.”
Brute stepped outside as Mother Superior began wiggling and tried to cry out but Brute settled her down by swatting her hard on the ass a couple of times.
She seemed to feel it even through her long heavy skirts. The woman was so surprised that she settled down.
When they got into the woods Hawkins men began falling in behind them.
When Mother Superior saw them, she stopped struggling all together. All she could do was stare at the sheer number of men gathering once they got to the service road.
The Mother and the Sister were pushed into the back seat of the truck. With their hands behind their backs, it wasn’t going to be a pleasant ride for them.
Then Kota got in the back seat with them.
Mother Superior grunted when they were squished together too tightly.
Titan and the other two women got in the front and Hawkins told them they would see them back at the compound.
The truck and the bikers took off and soon, all they could see was the road and the miles disappearing behind them.
The quiet stretched out the more miles they put between them and the Abbey. With the tape over their mouths Mother Superior and Sister Patrice couldn’t complain about anything like the bumps in the road, or turns made too fast that caused their heads to bang against one another, giving them both such headaches.
It wasn’t until they got to the city limits of Granite Falls that Mother Superior’s eyes widened as she seemed to know exactly who these men were and where she was going. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she fought to get her hands free.
Only problem was… the tape they used was medical tape and it wasn’t easy to break free from. It narrowed and became harder to break through or break free from. By the time they reached the compound, it was too late now to make a run for it even if they could have gotten free.
Mother Superior looked over at Patrice, and shook her head, trying to relay a message for her not to say anything.
The truck stopped and they both looked out seeing even more men lined up, glaring at them.
Hawkins opened the passenger door for Luna and Cat to get out, telling Titan, “Bring them inside.”
Titan nodded and got out. Kota opened his door and got out, soon both men were hauling the so-called nuns out and none too gently. The women stumbled in their long skirts as the men half dragged them into the clubhouse anyway.
Once inside, Hawkins reached out and tore the tape away from Mother Superior’s mouth
She swore at him, “Dammit man that hurts, you son of a bitch!”
The men around the room raised their brows at her foul language but no one said anything.
Then Kota reached out and ripped the tape off Sister Patrice’s face.
She screamed and the corner of her mouth began to bleed as some of her flesh was ripped. “You motherfucker.” She growled.
“Well, I guess we can say neither of you are real nuns can’t we?” Hawkins crossed his arms over his wide chest. “Which leads us to another question, just who the hell are you?”
Mother Superior straightened her shoulders and growled, “I am Sister Naomi and I am the Mother Superior at the Abbey of St Jude.”
Hawkins scoffed. “That’s a damn title woman and nothing more, cuz you ain’t a real nun.”
She pursed her lips together as she lifted her head as if being superior to him and refused to speak.
Luna shook her head.
Kota glanced at her and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“She just said her name was Sister Naomi but that can’t be true. She always signed her name as Sister Regina, Mother Superior. Well, at least she did ten years ago when I grabbed my files. I saw her signature on several papers spread out on her desk when I broke in to get my stuff, and that’s the same name on my papers.”
Hawkins glared at her. “So which is it, bitch, Naomi or Regina?”
She snarled. “I don’t have to tell you a damn thing.”
Hawkins nodded. “True, but you won’t like how we get the information from you, and that makes me wonder just what the hell you two are hiding.”
“What makes you think we’re hiding anything?” Sister Patrice asked.
“Oh lady, you’re hiding something, must be something big if you’ve been living behind those Abbey walls all this time,” Hawkins reasoned. “The girls tell us you’ve been there since they were kids, so that tells me it’s been at least twenty years, could be longer than that.”
“Twenty three or twenty four, most likely,” Cat offered her guess. “I was seven when I first got there and they were there already then.”
“I demand you untie us right the hell now!” Mother Superior told Hawkins, ignoring Cat’s statement altogether.
Hawkins shook his head. “You’re in my house now woman and I don’t answer to you or anyone else.” He looked over at Kota and Titan. “Let’s see just who we’re looking at, boys. Take off their head coverings. They shouldn’t be wearing Nun’s clothing anyway.”
Titan reached out, grabbed Mother Superior’s head dress and ripped it off her head while Kota did the same to Patrice’s head dress.
Both women screamed in protest but their heads were uncovered all the same.
Mother Superior’s hair was dark red and braided. The braid fell to the middle of her back.
Cat gasped when she saw it. It was the same color red as Isobel’s and when she realized this, she stumbled over to the nearest chair and sat down, still staring at the older woman.
Patrice’s hair was dark in color and cut much shorter as she hung her head.
Hawkins narrowed his eyes at Cat’s reaction and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Cat turned her head slowly and stared at him for a moment then tried to talk but her voice failed her for a moment. She swallowed hard and tried again, “She has Isobel’s coloring.”
Hawkins wasn’t the only one whose head snapped around to glare at the older woman.
Even Patrice raised her eyes and stared at the older woman in shock.
“Fucking hell pa, she’s right.” Kota growled.
“The years Isobel was here,” Hawkins mused. “Living here I mean, she always had dark hair. Then the next time we saw her she had red hair, I guess the red hair was her natural color, shocker. Everything we ever knew about her turned out to be nothing but one lie after another, after another. Even her name was a lie.”
“That’s right.” Cash nodded at him. “Juju told us earlier that Isobel McCormick never existed.”
“We figured her real name was Gellis Hondas, didn’t we?” Wilder claimed.
Patrice paled when hearing that name.
Luna was now staring at the woman. She turned to Cat and shook her head. “Except that can’t be her real name either.”
“Why is that?” Kota asked.
“Because I think it’s Sister Patrice’s real name,” Luna told him.
“What the fuck?’ Hawkins frowned. He turned to glare at the woman who called herself Sister Patrice. He noticed she was trembling now, since she was the focus of so many.
Mother Superior turned toward the other woman and hissed, ‘You better keep shut your fucking mouth if you know what’s good for you.”
Patrice’s face turned even whiter and she began swaying as if she might pass out. Then she crumbled to the floor hard. With her hands tied behind her back, she couldn’t break her fall and her head hit the floor with a thud.
Hawkins shook his head and he motioned for a couple of his men to go get her. “Haul her into see Boots, but don’t you dare leave her alone in there. You watch her like hawks and when she comes around again, you give us a holler.”
Two men picked her up by her arms and dragged her down the hall.
When they were gone, Hawkins turned his gaze to the red headed woman they knew as Mother Superior. “Let’s sit down and chat shall we?” He grinned at her.
“Let’s not, in fact, just go to hell.” She snarled back.
Hawkins looked over at Cash and Wilder. “Damn, I’m losing my faith, brothers. Not that I had much anyway but hell, I never knew real Nuns could swear so much. This one has to be a phony, what do y’all think?”
Cash shook his head. “Well, we already figured out that she ain’t a real sister of the cloth, so there is that.”
“True enough.” Hawkins nodded as he continued to stare at the supposed Mother. “Well, sit your ass down anyway and untangle the lies you’ve been telling everyone for so long.” He went over to the sideboard, opened a drawer and pulled something out then carried it over to the table with him and sat down.
Mother Superior-Naomi-Regina… glared at him for a moment, but before she could say a word, Kota was pushing her toward the tables where his father sat. She stumbled toward the table then turned her head and swore at him.
When they got close, Hawkins threw a roll of duct tape he’d gotten out of the sideboard to Kota and told him, “Make sure she can’t get up and run away. I don’t think she’s gonna like what I got to say.”
Kota left her hands that were already taped behind her back but he also taped her around the waist to the chair, then he taped her ankles. When he finished, everyone knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Now suppose you start off by telling us your real name and we’ll go from there,” Hawkins told her with a steely glare.
“Why don’t you go straight to hell?” She smiled.
JuJu shook his head, got his phone out of his pocket, and snapped a picture of her full face.
She yelled at him for taking her picture, unaware of his intentions.
Hawkins frowned. “What’s with the photo?”
“I’m going to run facial recognition on her.” JuJu smiled. “If she’s been in the Abbey for that long, I can make her younger and run it through the police records. That way, I can start by finding out if she’s ever been arrested,” he explained.
The supposed Mother Superior paled a bit then pressed her lips together.
Hawkins watched her and then broke out into a huge grin.
