It was almost midnight before Tanner and I headed back to the clubhouse with a very pissed-off Brooks. I cringed at what was to come, especially since he had called an emergency church meeting to talk about some things. I knew Tanner and I had fucked up. I knew we were about to get reamed out in front of all the guys.
Thank fuck, I had my date with Molly in the morning.
We pulled up to the clubhouse around twelve-thirty and there were multiple bikes already parked in the lot. Brooks hadn’t spoken to myself nor Tanner the entire ride back, and he sure as hell didn’t stop to wait for us as he charged his way up the steps and crashed through the front door. I looked over at Tanner as he groaned, then together we started into the clubhouse behind Brooks.
And after I closed—and locked—the door behind me, Brooks pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I want to start off by saying that I commend Cole and Tanner for jumping at the opportunity to catch Chops,” he said.
Finn furrowed his brow. “Wait a second, what?”
Porter lifted his head. “Where was Chops? Why the hell didn’t I get a phone call?”
Tanner walked over to the circle of guys in the kitchen. “I decided to do a bit of tracking on my own since I had some downtime, and I found him at the boardwalk.”
Finn paused. “The Santa Cruz Boardwalk? But that place is, like, filled with people twenty-four-seven.”
I nodded as I walked over to join the fray. “Exactly. It’s the perfect spot to hide in plain sight. He’s got the crowds to disappear into, he’s probably paid off the security guards that watch over that place, so it ticks all of his boxes without being a place he frequents.”
Porter grimaced. “What the hell made you think he’d be out there in the first place, though? You just wake up with that premonition or some shit?”
Tanner shook his head. “I mean, we had already exhausted all of his normal haunts. They’ve practically gone underground on us, so I figured why not check the populated areas? It couldn’t hurt, and the worst that would happen is that he wouldn’t turn up.”
Brooks nodded. “But he did. Tanner’s way to work around this was right.”
Finn crossed his arms over his chest. “So, what happened? Where is he?”
I sighed. “He spotted us outside of a restaurant he was at and used an emergency exit with a fire alarm attached to it to scramble the crowd. We lost him in it.”
“Shit,” Porter hissed.
He turned around and punched the wall, causing every single one of us to wince. But no one called him out on it. No one got upset. Porter pulled his hand from the hole in the wall he had just created, shaking it off before he turned back around to face us.
And while we all thought he was about to spew some sort of vitriol, instead he simply drew a deep breath in through his nose.
“So, where do we go from here?” he asked.
Brooks sighed. “You guys didn’t let me finish.”
“Oh, boy,” I murmured.
Brooks’ attention turned to us. “While I commend you guys for trying to get him, you should’ve called for more backup than simply myself before you attempted to pursue, or even show yourselves in a public place like that. We could’ve had the building surrounded, which would have prevented him from—”
“I had Tanner scale along the wall where the emergency exit was that he was headed for. We tried everything we could.”
Brooks nodded. “Yes, everything you two could do. What I’m saying is that there should have been at least four of us. So, you should have called at least Porter and myself.”
“And what about me?” Finn asked. “Am I chopped liver over here?”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, this isn’t some kind of a popularity contest. We tried jumping at an opportunity—”
Brooks interrupted me. “—that will now push Chops further underground now that he knows we’re checking everywhere, and not just his regular places.”
“Fuck,” Tanner groaned.
Brooks held up his hand. “Look, I get it. I understand that impulse. I want to get him just as bad as you guys do so we can end this shit once and for all. Okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“Tanner?”
His head fell back. “Yeah, yeah. I know, Brooks.”
Porter stepped up to the plate. “Chops is likely hiding again, though. And this time, he won’t be hiding in places like the Boardwalk. So, it’ll definitely be harder to find him this time around.”
Finn shrugged. “We could keep tapping into traffic cameras. He can’t avoid all of them forever. Eventually, he’ll pop up.”
Brooks shook his head. “But by then, the Black Flags might have already re-established, which means we’d be back to square one.”
Tanner sighed. “I mean, would that be such an issue if they aren’t re-establishing in our territory?”
We all slowly looked over at him in disbelief and he held up his hands.
“Just a thought,” he murmured.
Brooks shook his head. “If we wanted to, we could go straight to the Black Flags and force Chops out.”
Porter scoffed. “What? We just stroll up to their damn clubhouse and cat-call him until he comes out?”
I shrugged. “We could light their shit up. We have enough evidence to warrant that kind of a move anyway. We burn their shit down—”
Brooks cut me off again. “–and they come back and burn our shit down. Tit for tat. That’s how these assholes work.”
I held up my hands. “Hey, I’m just feeding off you guys.”
Then, Archer finally spoke up. “Are we basically in agreement that he’s the one leading the Black Flags in the first place?”
The room fell silent before Brooks nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s pretty much the theory.”
Archer slid his hands into his pockets. “So, we take him out and they don’t have a leader. Right?”
Brooks chuckled. “Until they vote another one in, sure.”
Archer narrowed his eyes. “But if they’re underground, that usually means they’re split up. Scattered to the wind. Unable to formulate much of a plan until the heat dies down, right?”
I cocked my head. “Whatcha thinking over there?”
Archer swallowed hard. “If we take Chops out while they’re still underground, it might rock them enough so that they tear each other apart.”
Brooks nodded slowly. “They tear themselves apart and it saves us the bullets.”
Porter rolled his eyes. “Or it will only cause us even more problems because then we’ll have to relearn the movements and habits of their new president, which we won’t have the delicate insight to already know.”
Brooks pointed at him. “He’s also got a point.”
I held up my hands. “Look, there isn’t an easy way to do this, but I actually agree with Archer. We have to take Chops out first, despite what the consequences might be. Then, we can deal with the whole of them without their leader, and it might show us a different side of them that we hadn’t considered before.”
Finn barked with laughter. “Are you saying that these assholes are only assholes because their President is an asshole?”
I shrugged. “I mean, he was leading us, right? And are we assholes?”
Brooks stared at me hard. “You really think there’s a better side to them?”
I licked my lips. “I think the only way of finding something like that out is to dive head-first into it. Either way, Chops is out of the way and we can deal with whatever comes without that slimy asshole knowing our secrets. Because you know damn good and well he’s feeding intel to his guys to use against us. We cut off their supply of information, we gain the upper hand.”
Archer pointed at me. “Bingo. He’s better than I am at speaking after midnight. That’s exactly what my mind told me.”
I nodded. “You know I got your back.”
He winked at me. “Thanks, beautiful.”
I grinned. “Anytime, gorgeous.”
Brooks chuckled. “It’s a well-thought-out plan, but it doesn’t take a lot of things into consideration. If we keep pursuing Chops and try to take him out, we could be dealing with everything from a brawl to a fire-fight to a have-no-mercy captive sort of scenario. Remember, some of us have families that are now wrapped up in this. That makes them vulnerable, so any false move could put them in danger.”
We all fell silent at his words before Brooks drew in a deep breath. We followed suit, taking a conglomerate breath to try and settle our minds.
But we still hadn’t come to any sort of a decision.
“All right,” Brooks said breathlessly, “here’s what we do: we take a couple of days to ourselves and do what we can. If you feel like you have a lead you can pursue, stick to the shadows and pursue it. And in a couple of days, we can meet back up and discuss what we’ve got, if anything. Got it?”
I nodded. “Got it.”
The guys all nodded in unison and offered up their versions of “got it” before Brooks clapped his hands. It was the universal signal for when a church session was over, and I couldn’t hurry out the damn door quickly enough. I had to get home and get some rest before my date in the morning with Molly. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be late, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to call and postpone our plans.
So, I raced home and dove face-first into bed just shy of two in the morning, with an alarm set for eight-thirty. After all, I had to shower and piece myself together before I stopped and picked us up the coffee I had promised.
I only hoped that none of this shit would ruin the plans tumbling around in my head.
Because by the time I was done with Molly, she’d be begging to shed her clothes for me when she experienced the way I treated my women like queens.
And the last thought on my mind before I fell asleep holding Opie was how I hoped to be holding Molly in my arms tomorrow night instead.
