Five minutes later, I was on the road back to the compound in Rutherford. It wasn’t a long journey, but I cut the time down by a good fifteen minutes just because I ignored speed limits. Wolfe didn’t tell a person to haul ass without meaning it, so I did as bid.
The gates were open. Weird, but when they closed behind me, I got it. Further proof that Wolfe needed me in church as soon as possible.
I didn’t even take the time to park my cruiser where it usually went, didn’t even store my shit. Just began unbuckling my helmet as I hurried over to the clubhouse, then descended into the basement without even greeting any of my brothers who were hanging out around the bar.
The clubhouse was sectioned off smartly. One part for families and kids, another for brothers and hos, then there was even an administrative area. The top floor was for bedrooms, but the basement? That was where the darker side of our lives came out to play.
Down here, we had an area we called The Pit. It had earned that name because the floors were sloped so that blood drained off from whichever sap had crossed us. The Pit was accessed by a secret door that you could only get to from the room where we held church.
The Rebels was one of the largest brotherhoods in the South. We had lifers, hardcore brothers who worked solely for the club, then we had the brothers who were like in the Reserves. Called up when we needed them, but whose ties to us weren’t as extensive.
The room where we held church could seat over two hundred, three at a push, but it was empty except for the council table when I strode in. The only person missing was Rodeo, Keys’ dad, but he had another year left on an aggravated assault charge. Lucifer, the Knights’ Prez, and his Enforcer, Jax, who had to get some real shit thanks to that Sons Of Anarchy series, were at the table, as was Lucie, Ama’s mother.
When I strolled in, I half-expected my ass to be reamed—Ama and I had left my bedroom together this morning, and a few of the sweetbutts had caught us. If word had spread…
Were they rescinding their approval?
“Okay, now that you’re here,” Wolfe ground out by way of greeting, “we need to get this shit started.”
I blinked at him as I took a seat and dropped my helmet on the table. “What is it? What’s gone down?”
“Past couple of months, we’ve been having issues with our deliveries. Cops, ATF, you name it. They’ve been stopping us and only some pretty hefty bribes have been getting them to back off,” Lucifer grated out, his irritation evident. “It’s one of the reasons I haven’t come and visited for a while.” He shot Lucie, his daughter whose momma had given her her father’s road name, an apologetic look. Because Lucie was Lucie, she shot him back an unimpressed one.
“It’s been chaos,” he carried on with a grimace that told me he’d felt the icy burn of that look from all the way across the table, “and as I was pulling up outside Corpus Christie, I got a text from my VP—had another raid. This time at the compound. Nothing was found because everything had already been shipped out this morning, but that run? It’s fucked too. And the locals don’t want bribes. They’re gunning for my boys.
“Now, we all know that’s a potential hazard of runs. My boys… they know what to do and they know we’ll look after them best we can. But I’m pissed. Wicked pissed. They’ve been targeting us for a while now. Sniffing around, just waiting for us to make a mistake, well, we haven’t made a mistake and they got to us anyway.”
Axe, Wolfe’s VP, asked, “Who are the dirty cops?”
Martin waved a hand. “Some ATF, some regular old PD. We got an ugly pig cocktail going on up at Fort Hancock. What really pisses me off the most is that they waited, and somehow knew I was leaving today. No one knew that except for a couple of people, which means I’ve either got a snitch in my camp or Kenzie ain’t as tormented as she appears, and it ain’t loyalty that’s making me swerve in that direction.”
“What is it then?” Wolfe prompted irritably, not that I could blame him. The run the cops had just busted had over three hundred K’s worth of cigarettes. Most of which had been heading for our pockets.
“Lucie, personal question, but when you were six, seven months gone, how often did you need to pee?”
Lucie’s nails tapped against the table. “Every other minute it felt like.”
“So, a three-hour bike journey?”
“Would be hell. Not just for my bladder. My back too. But, I saw her, Martin. I mean, she’s in a bad way. Maybe she’s just desperate enough to suffer so she can get home.”
Martin scraped a hand across his jaw. “Don’t get me wrong, I saw exactly what he’d done to her and I thought on it, thought about how to respond to the sight of her, but the truth is, Hex just ain’t like that.”
“That’s what everyone thinks,” Lucie retorted. “What goes down behind closed doors is something no one can ever really deliberate over.”
“I know that, I do, but Hex, until recently, was a lighthearted guy. Know why he got that name? ‘Cause he could charm a woman from her panties in less than twenty minutes. The boys got jealous, said he had to be hexing the women… That sound like a wife beater?”
“It sounds inane,” Lucie retorted with a sniff.
“Well, you don’t know him like I do,” Martin grumbled, irritated. “He’s a good boy. It honestly surprised me. It’s the first time any bruises had been on her face, and it just happened to be around the time her brother was coming for a visit… it stinks to me.”
“What? You think it’s… makeup?” I hazarded a guess as I rocked back into my seat. “But why?”
“Because I think she’s up to something.”
“Like what? What could she get up to now when she’s been there for so long?” Dagger demanded.
Martin’s eyes flared. “How long do you think she’s been with us?”
“Since she left here,” Flame replied, then casting a look around the table, carried on, “What? Five years?”
“Just under,” Lucie agreed.
Martin shook his head. “Nope. She ain’t been with us for more than seven months. Around five years ago, sure, she came and hung out… was one of the sweetbutts for a while if I remember correctly, then she disappeared like they do, and we thought nothing of it.
“Seven months ago, she rolls back around. Same old story, except she goes for Hex in a big way. Wasn’t all that surprised when she turned up pregnant.”
“They think it’s the easiest way to get an old man,” Lucie rumbled, her mouth curving in a sneer.
“Yeah. Exactly. And it’s since she rolled back around that all the shit has been hitting my fan, and I ain’t happy about it.
“That run? I’ve lost my Sergeant-at-Arms, my fucking Road Captain, and five other good brothers. Brothers that, in a pinch, I’d have shoved on the council if I lost any of the councilors, which I just fucking have.” He gritted his teeth as he ran a hand through his hair.
Silence fell at his declaration, and because we all understood his pain, we didn’t say shit for a while, just processed what he was saying and where he was going with it.
Rubbing my chin, I contemplated it and decided to spell it out for everyone. “Okay, let’s run this down. What you’re saying is that Hex never beat on Kenzie, and that she’s, what? Wearing makeup to make it look like she was badly hit? All so that Keys would see it, react, and somehow magic it up that you’d let her come here?”