A door opened down the hall as Nash stumbled from his room. He looked groggy and was holding his jaw. He stopped when he saw everyone standing in the hall. He looked up at Kota and growled, “What the hell did you hit me for, brother?”
Kota crossed his arms over his massive chest and growled back, “You were acting like a jackass, that’s why.”
Nash stopped cold and glared at Kota then looked around the hall. Each and every man there wore the same look on his face. Disgust for him, apparently. Nash realized then he was the only one who thought Cat shouldn’t be here. He slowly shook his head. “I thought I was protecting this club from an outsider.”
“Yeah, well you were wrong weren’t you?” Hawkins growled. “Cat belongs here with us. She should have grown up here but she didn’t. And that wasn’t her fault.”
“Damn Hawkins, even you got to admit you didn’t believe her either at first,” Nash grumbled. “I mean how could she know the shit she does?”
Hawkins shook his head. “I don’t know but there’s one thing I do know, and that is if you touch her again, I will hurt you boy. We protect our own and she’s under that protection now, as is her friend Luna. You don’t have to like either one of them, but if you touch either of them again in anger, or any other way, you’d better be prepared to be held responsible. Just stay away from both of them.”
“I hear you old man.” Nash growled. “I was only looking out for the club. For all we knew, she could have been sent here to fuck us up.”
“Well now, you know she hasn’t.” Hawkins growled. “If she was working with her mother, she wouldn’t have saved your worthless life. Isobel was all set to leave your dumb ass in that fucking cave. She didn’t care if you lived or died.”
“Stop it!” Cat called out. “Please just stop it. I don’t want this fighting to go anymore. I keep telling you I haven’t seen my mother since the day she dropped me off at my grandparents’ house. She walked out of my life then and I haven’t talked to her at all since that day. I’ve seen her from a distance maybe three or four times since then but each of those times, she’s only brought me pain. She murdered my grandparents, then she left me out there alone and hurt and she killed my husband in cold blood, so if you think I’m working with her you’d be wrong on so many levels, I can’t even tell you. She brought my friend here and left her to die in the woods out there, hoping to blame this club for her death. That woman is pure evil and I want no part of her. Hell, she’d rather see me dead before she’d ever recruit me. To her, I am nothing more than a mistake she never wanted.” Cat shook her head and gazed over at Nash. “You made up your mind about me before you even knew me. I could see it in the tea shop that day. I didn’t want to come here in the first place, remember? I didn’t belong here anymore and you made sure I knew it.”
Titan stepped over to her. “Cat, you don’t have to do this. Forget what he’s said. It is not important in your life.” He glared at Nash.
Cat kept shaking her head, “No, he needs to hear this, so does everyone here. I don’t want this fight inside this club to continue over me. When I went into that orphanage, I was alone until Luna got there. Her and I became best friends until the day I left, then I had Davey for a short time and he showed me what unconditional love was all about but my mother just wouldn’t leave well enough alone, so she killed him and I was alone again. I don’t know why she has killed everyone in my life or why she is trying to get rid of this MC.” She stared at Nash. “In that, he is right. She wants to destroy you all, but you know what? I am one she wants dead, she has tried and she won’t stop until I am as dead as those girls Billy Ray killed.” She turned to the back door and looked outside, “The ghosts in the woods are waking up and I can feel the rage that’s coming.”
“From who, baby girl?” Hawkins asked.
She turned and looked at Hawkins, “You found the name Bojangles in the safe that hadn’t been opened in twenty four years. I didn’t know the name when you asked me before but I think I might know it now. When I was sitting with Bear, I remembered something from years ago. Just before my dad was killed, my old dog Bear and I were walking in the woods near the house one day. Mom was gone on one of her little trips and Dad was at the clubhouse. I remember seeing a stone sticking out of the ground that had writing on it. I was only three but I could read a few of my letters at the time. I remember being excited because the letters on the stone started with B. I didn’t know the rest of the words written there but it could have been Bojangles? And that’s all I remember about it.”
“Do you remember where this stone was?” Hawkins asked with a frown.
Cat shook her head. “We walked all over the place back then. I don’t remember now where we went that day. I mean I don’t even know if the stone had Bojangles on it. I was only three at the time. I do remember telling ole Bear the stone must have his name, because it had a B on it. It could have said anything but in my child’s mind, I told Bear it had his name on it.”
Hawkins shook his head. “Ole Bear lived a good number of years after you left him. The day he died, I buried him over at your old house. Even put his name on a sort of headstone. He spent a lot of his time wandering around looking for something. I guess he was looking for you the whole time.” He shook his head. “I never knew you were alone so much back then. That wasn’t right. I guess I assumed your mother was with you.”
Cat just shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It was a long time ago.”
“What the fucking hell are you all talking about?” Nash wanted to know. “What or who is this Bojangles?”
“When we found Luna,” Wilder explained. “We overheard Isobel talking about getting the bikers out of here, so she could find something Jesse had hidden years ago. No one here knew what she was talking about. We looked in the safe and found a folded paper with the name Bojangles on it, in Jesse’s handwriting. No one here knows anything about any Bojangles either.”
“What the hell did Jesse find?” Nash asked.
“That is what no one knows either but Isobel killed him for it.” Hawkins growled. “And now, Cat claims she can feel more trouble coming our way. More ghosts in the woods are feeling rage.”
“And that right there is what I’m talking about!” Nash shouted. “How the fuck does she know all that shit? She hasn’t lived around here in twenty four years.”
Luna stepped up just then and snarled at Nash, “So Mr. Hotshot biker man, you think you know all the answers? You don’t know shit. You dare to look down on someone because they are different from you but you have no clue what we went through at that fucking home of horrors.” Tears began running down her face as she recalled, “It had been built for orphaned kids and run by Nuns, but that place was a nightmare. The nuns were not sympathetic to little kids at all and that’s being generous. Then kids like Cat who had a special gift, she was beaten and kept in a locked room when she dared to share anything she dreamed about. They thought her gift was a sign of the devil inside her. But it wasn’t, she only wanted to help people. She was my only friend in that place and more often than not, she stood up for me when she didn’t have to. She aged out two years before I did and after she left, I was held in solitary confinement for six months. They locked me up because they knew I wouldn’t stay after she left, and they were right. I wasn’t going to stay. Then they made a mistake when they released me. They thought they broke me but they didn’t. I got out of that place as soon as I was able.” She paused and wiped her tears away as she glared at Nash. “Cat never brings attention to herself, not like she did this time. She came here for a reason, maybe it was to save Kota’s life, or maybe just to come home, I don’t know but whatever the reason, it wasn’t for you. Probably, cause you aren’t worth a shit.” She scoffed. “Then they say she saved your worthless hide? I sure wouldn’t have. But at least, these men know that what she sees might just save their lives someday.”
“She saved him when she was injured and fucking blind,” Kota told her. “He went and got taken hostage by Isobel and Billy Ray. They gave him a death blow and had it not been for Cat leading us right to him, his stupid ass would be dead now. When we found him, we also found my little brother and another man who went missing a long time ago.”
Luna took in a deep breath then blew it out, shaking her head. “So maybe she did come here to save your worthless life.”
Cat glanced up and her eyes widened. She pushed off the door frame and rushed toward Nash just as everyone heard a rifle crack. They both fell to the floor as just seconds later, the wood splintered just at the height of Nash’s head.
Titan slammed the door shut and everyone hit the floor.
In a tangle of arms and legs, Nash tried to push her off him. He struck out and his fist caught her jaw.
Cat cried out while tasting the irony flavor of blood in her mouth.
Hawkins was there while staying low, to pull her away and when he saw the blood on her mouth he turned to go after Nash.
Cat held him back and shook her head then she just moved away.
Titan was right there to hold her up.
”What the hell was that all about?” Hawkins yelled.
Cat wiped the blood away from her lip and said, “I looked at him and saw a red light on the middle of his forehead. I wasn’t sure what it was and then I almost didn’t get there in time.”
Wilder was helping Nash up when they heard more shots.
Everyone ducked while three more bullets hit the door. The bullets came right through the wooden portal and embedded themselves into the walls just on the other side.
Then everything went silent.
After a few minutes, Titan got up slowly and helped Cat to her feet.
Everyone else stood up as well.
Titan stared at the door and shook his head. “What the fuck is going on here? Who do we know that has a high powered rifle?” Then he turned to Nash. “You got someone after you that we don’t know about?”
Nash shook his head. “Hell fucking no. Why did they fire at me?”
“Maybe it’s someone from your past, Nash,” Wilder said. “Maybe this is someone who wants vengeance for what you’ve done.”
“What the hell does that even mean?” Nash wanted to know.
Hawkins shook his head and stared at Wilder. “Naw, he wouldn’t…Would he?”
Wilder shrugged. “He might think enough time has passed that we’d never know it was him.”
“Who the fuck are you two talking about?” Nash demanded as he looked from one man to the other.
“Your dad. My brother, Hogg,” Wilder told him.
Nash leaned back against the wall behind him and shook his head. He looked pale and sweaty. Shaking his head he said wearily, “You might be right. I never thought he’d try to kill me, but I never thought he’d kick the shit out of me either. When we left here, all those years ago, I was ten years old. Hell, I grew up in this club. This place felt like home to me back then. Then he fucked it up and got us kicked out. Do you know how hard that was? I had a family here and then suddenly, I didn’t. Life with him away from here wasn’t something I ever wanted. He was shit as a father. I would have been better off living on the streets. Then that stupid fucker got hooked on the shit he was dealing and he got paranoid. He kept coming up short and he started blaming me. I was sixteen and he came home one night madder than hell. He said he was missing some money and he blamed me, he never realized he was putting all the profit into his arm or up his nose. He beat me up for the last time that night. As soon as I could move, I got the hell out of there. He was passed out and the last time I saw him, I was hoping he would just die…Fuck.” He shook his head. “I walked out on him and as soon as I could, I came back here. Been here ever since.” He looked over at Cat. “Is that what you were talking about before? Betrayal and vengeance. Were you talking about my old man?”
Cat shook her head. “Well, for one, I never knew a ghost could shoot a rifle. And I said the ghosts were waking up and that they wanted justice, not vengeance.”
Nash shook his head. “Justice? My old man blew that when he went against the club to run the fucking drugs for the cartel. He knew the rules. He knew what he was risking. He also knew his brothers wouldn’t let him stay if he got caught. He wants vengeance because that’s what he would think of it as.” He glanced at the back door where the three holes of light shone through the wood. “Well, if it’s vengeance he wants, it is vengeance he’ll fucking get.”
Hawkins glanced at Wilder then over at Nash, “I have to ask son, was it you that carried Cat out to the woods after she got hurt?”
Nash’s head hit the wall as he sighed in disgust. “Hell no, I didn’t. And yeah, I thought she shouldn’t be here but I wouldn’t move against her like that. It would have gotten me kicked out on my ass and this place is home to me.”
After a long moment of silence, Hawkins had to ask aloud, “Makes me wonder just how long Hogg has been back. Has he been watching the club all this time?”
