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.