The door of McClellan’s splintered against the wall as I threw it open and stormed inside with Bat at my back. Warren was still sittin’ in the booth, his smug motherfuckin’ smile frozen on his face as he saw me comin’ for him.
He held up his hands like that would make a fuckin’ difference.
I hauled him over the wooden table and then slammed his back against it, my hand at his throat. “Where the fuck is Lou?”
His throat worked against my hand. “Bathroom.”
“She isn’t in the fuckin’ bathroom you, piece of shit.” I leaned on his neck harder and looked back at Bat and Nova who’d joined us.
Nova shook his head. “Not there, Prez. Fresh tire marks on the street out back. Someone took ’er for fuckin’ sure.”
I could feel Warren’s pulse beat hard under my grip. It called to me like a fuckin’ song. If I put just a little more pressure right there—he choked—for a little longer, he’d be dead.
Fuck but I wanted to kill him.
“Garro,” Danner called from the gapin’ front door. “Put him down.”
I ignored him.
“You want to take one more breath, it better be to tell me where my goddamn woman is,” I growled into Warren’s face.
The fucker started crying.
Pathetic.
“Garro, I mean it. Put the man down,” Danner tried again, from closer this time.
Bat stepped in front of him when he tried to get into my space and held up a hand. “Hold the fuck up.”
“Nova, get this fuck somewhere private,” I ordered and then gave into my impulse to squeeze the breath outta ’im.
Warren was passed out in thirty seconds under my hand. I wanted it to be longer. I wanted the fucker to never wake the fuck up.
But I needed to know what he knew so I could get my fuckin’ wife back.
“Not letting you go with him, Garro. You’ve got to know that,” Danner said.
I waited ’til Nova slung the cunt over his shoulder then led the way out of the bar, aware of the eyes of Entrance at my back. There’d be gossip and news reports. The big bad Fallen had assaulted a teacher at the local watering hole.
I’d make sure there were bigger stories to break before the day was fuckin’ done.
Axe-Man and Buck were already waitin’ on their bikes in the lot and Curtains was pullin’ up with one of the club trucks to transport Warren.
We passed the surveillance van where I’d been sittin’ with Danner and Gibson when we’d seen Lou go to the bathroom and not fuckin’ come back for ten minutes. I’d torn outta there the second it was obvious she wasn’t coming back, clocking Gibson in the temple when he’d tried to stop me. Bet he was still in there passed the fuck out.
A hand closed over my arm from behind me and Danner said, “Zeus, stop and think about this for a fuckin’ minute.”
The van dented with a metallic groan as I threw Danner into the side of it with my arm at his throat and yelled, “You fuckin’ swore you had this shit on fuckin’ lock down, motherfucker.”
The fuckin’ pig looked at me steady as I pressed against his airway.
“This is my fuckin’ wife you put in the line of fire, my fuckin’ reason for bein’ who near lost her life fuckin’ twice already this year. You think to stop me, I’ll tear you limb from fuckin’ limb, ya hear me? She gets hurt, she fuckin’ dies…That. Is. On. You. Danner.”
He nodded slowly, his face red as rage but calm as ice. Hated that he was so fuckin’ cool in the face of his mistake.
I snarled at him. “You gonna let me do what I need to do to secure my woman?”
“Let me help,” he croaked.
I released him so quickly he sagged against the dented metal ’fore he could catch himself.
“This is on the brotherhood now. You had your fuckin’ chance.” I turned to my brothers and called, “Roll out. Make the calls, every fuckin’ brother is ridin’ out on this right fuckin’ now. Find out where those motherfuckers took my fuckin’ girl.”
“We’re gonna find her, brother,” Bat told me.
I knew it. We’d find her if I had to scour the nine levels of fuckin’ hell for her. I was just worried as fuck about what I’d find when I did.
“Garro,” Danner called out again as I swung my leg over my bike and throttled the engine. “I want to help.”
“Like I said, you fucked this once. It’s club business now.”
His face set. “I’ve known Loulou her entire life, there isn’t a chance in hell I’m not playin’ a part in getting her back. You do what you gotta do but I’m goin’ in to McClellan’s and getting the security tapes. I’ll text you if I get plate numbers.”
I stared at him for a beat before slidin’ on my aviators and givin’ him the finger as I rolled out of the lot, my brothers at my back.
Blood sprayed across my face as my brass knuckles contacted with Warren’s nose and busted it open. I wiped it off my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Wanna try again, motherfucker?” I asked him.
We had him tied to a pole in the barn out at Dixon’s farm, the dirt gone to red mud beneath his feet. His pretty face was a pile of broken flesh and crumbled bone, prettier than it had been ’fore in my eyes.
He looked the way the inside of his fuckin’ soul looked.
Repulsive.
“I told you, I don’t know where they took her,” Warren sobbed like a motherfuckin’ baby. “They never told me shit like that.”
I adjusted my stance and hit him hard across the right cheek, listening to the crack of the bone. “What’s your fuckin’ play in all’a this? And you better fuckin’ tell me all that there is to it or I’ll do a lot worse than brass knuckles.”
Warren closed his eyes, his head hangin’ awkward ’cause he was in too much pain to hold it up. “At first, it was just an idea Ben had. We both hated the MC so we thought we’d try to take you down, get the people to hate you enough to cast you out. So, we dealt bad drugs.”
Somethin’ clicked. “You the one to plant that shit in King’s bag?”
There are different kindsa fear. Fear for loved ones and fear of failure or rejection, but nothin’ is more powerful than fear for yourself.
Mitch Warren felt that fear lookin’ into my eyes ’cause he saw his doom written there. Man fucked with my wife and my son?
He was leavin’ in a body bag.
“You put that shit in King’s bag,” I confirmed. “Tried to get my kid expelled and arrested just ’cause he’s the son of a biker?”
Lifelong bigotry flared in him. “He shouldn’t have been allowed into EBA anyway. He’s filth just like you and yours.”
My laugh was cold. “Like Lou? ’Cause she’s sure as fuck mine.”
He paled. “Louise made a mistake but she’s not filth.”
I snagged out to grab the back of his hair and held him still while I connected my fist to his temple.
“You made a mistake when you thought you could fuck with The Fallen.” I crouched down and grabbed his mangled jaw in my hand to hear him whimper. “You think I won’t be happy to kill you, you don’t give me what I need?”
“Yes, yes, I know, please, God, don’t,” he whined, blood and mucus slidin’ down his face and into his open mouth. “Fuck, I didn’t mean it. You’re not filth, I just, I was wrong. Please, don’t kill me.”
“Oh, I won’t kill you. I don’t have the kinda patience for torture, not really. I like to kill ’em quick and personal, just my hands, ya know, like the good ole days. Nah.” I shook my head then jerked my chin at Priest who stood in the corner watchin’ avidly. “Priest over there, he’ll kill you proper. He likes it, ya get me? Likes to make a man sing when he peels off his skin, piss himself when he cuts off each of his fingers with those garden shears. You want to see how Priest makes an art outta killin’ a man, Warren?”
“Oh God,” he cried, shakin’ his wet mess of a face back and forth so blood went flyin’. “No. Listen, okay, I know Javier Ventura is backing them and he’s been buying up property in the area. Maybe if you check one of them out, you’ll find her. But…”
“But what?” I asked, studying the blood-slicked brass knuckles on my right hand.
Warren whimpered. “But I don’t know how you’ll find her. Ace and Jack always said they’d kill your entire family and make you watch before they killed you.”
“Who the fuck is Jack?” I pressed my thumb into his broken cheekbone and thundered, “Who the fuck is Jack?”
“He’s one of you,” he cried out, breathin’ heavy through the gore in his throat. “One of your brothers. The one who killed that disabled kid.”
The energy in the room went electric.
“You fuckin’ lyin’ to me when I’ve got your damned life in my hands?” I growled low.
We had a snitch. I’d known it, kept shit tight. Only the most trusted brothers were kept in any sorta loop: Buck, Bat, Priest, Nova and on a need-to-know basis, our tech kid Curtains and my old friend, Blackjack.
Black. Jack.
Ace’s motherfuckn’ son.
I closed my eyes and scrubbed my hand down my face across blood that wasn’t mind.
No.
B.J. had been my brother since ’fore we were brothers. I’d known the guy since we were fuckin’ kids.
There was no fuckin’ way he’d turn after all these years.
’Less he didn’t turn on a dime.
’Less he’d been workin’ behind my back for fuckin’ years, just bidin’ his time to stab me in the fuckin’ back.
I opened my eyes again and Warren moaned at the look in ’em. “Not lying, not lying, promise.”
“Zeus, brother,” Buck called from behind me where he leaned against a stack of hay. “Blackjack’s MIA. Tried to call ’im into action but he wasn’t pickin’ up his phone.
“Fuck,” I boomed, slammin’ my fist into Warren’s face just to feel it crunch, just to rid myself of the fuckin’ burn in my fuckin’ chest.
“Someone find me that fuckin’ Judas so I can rip off his fuckin’ head,” I shouted into the night air.
Behind me, someone left the barn.
“Prez,” Nova appeared at my side holdin’ out my cell. “Let Priest take over, yeah? Danner’s on the line.”
I ripped the phone out of his hands and ordered, “Don’t fuckin’ kill ’im,” before I said to Danner, “Talk.”
“They took her in a black van with stolen plates. We found it, Garro, outside the fuckin’ gates to your house,” he said.
A message.
A message, as those goddamn pictures had been.
Not that they were just watchin’ me from afar but from up close to.
From B.J.
“Garro?”
If Blackjack hated me enough to sit on that hatred for years and let it burn his ass, what were the fuckin’ odds he’d let Lou live?
Fear pierced through me, radiatin’ from the bullet scar just above my heart.
“Here. Got a lead, man named Javier Ventura’s been backin’ the Nightstalkers, check his properties for any activity, will ya? I’m ridin’ out now.” I swallowed my dislike of the cops even though it felt like fuckin’ acid goin’ down. Anythin’ to save my girl. “Owe ya, you find ’er.”
“No,” Danner’s voice was firm. “No, I owe you for putting her in and getting her taken. I’m on it. But do me a favour. I heard there was a barfight off 99 at Lloyd’s Bar. Some guy got beat on really hard. Dispatch is sending out a car to check on it.” He paused. “That guy might be Mitch Warren.”
I looked over at the miserable fuck that had thought he’d had a chance with an angel like Lou just ’cause he wore a fuckin’ suit. I wanted to kill ’im but then, I was in a murderin’ mood. I figured so long as I could get my hands around motherfuckin’ Ace and motherfuckin’ Blackjack’s throats, I’d be okay to let Warren rot in jail ’fore a while ’fore he went to hell.
“Heard there were gunshots too. Might need the paramedics,” I added.
I hung up and tossed the phone to Nova.
“Priest,” I called to the redhead settin’ up his medical tray of tools. “Next time. This one’s a catch and release.”
I stalked up to Warren, grabbed my 9 mil from the waistband of my jeans and drilled a round into both of his hands. “That’s for puttin’ my boy in prison and havin’ a hand in gettin’ Cress and my fuckin’ woman tied up in this shit as well.”
With his wails in my ears, I turned around and stalked out of the buildin’ callin’ to my brothers as I went.
“First man to find that motherfucker Blackjack gets to be the one to put a bullet through his fuckin’ head.”
