Nickel
“Where the fuck have you been?”
I swung my leg over my bike and stood. Pipe was barreling down on me with a shit-eating look on his face. “With Karmen.”
“Well, maybe you should answer your fucking phone when I call. You asked me to look into her father, but when I find shit out, you can’t be bothered to answer the fucking phone.”
“You think you can cool it with ragging on me like my mother?” I really wasn’t up for being bitched at. It was late Monday night, and I was only at the club to grab a change of clothes, and then I was heading back over to Karmen’s. With Cora taking up residence in my room, I had an excuse to be over at Karmen’s every night.
“You think you could act like you maybe care a little bit about this club anymore? I was the one who had to fucking bring everyone up to speed with Cora being here when I’m not the one who is supposed to be taking care of her.”
“She’s fucking twenty-eight years old, Pipe. You really think I need to be taking care of her? As long as she stays in the clubhouse, nothing is going to happen to her.”
He shook his head and pulled a cigarette out of the crushed pack he removed from his pocket. “You know,” he mumbled, “I’m real glad you were able to hook Karmen, but do you think you could take your head out of your ass and not disappear for days?”
I had been gone for twenty-four hours. He was acting like I had taken off for weeks. “You gonna tell me why you were trying to get in touch with me, or just keep nagging me?”
Pipe growled and lit the end of his cigarette. “I shouldn’t even tell you.”
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “Look, Karmen had no idea about Cora, and I’m not sure how the fuck to tell her. So if this has to do with Cora, just give me some time to figure out how to tell Karmen. She’s already insecure as fuck and telling her I have a chick staying in my room really isn’t going to go over well.” I hated not telling her, but honestly, I had no idea where to start.
“No, she just sits in your room, comes out to eat twice a day, and that’s it. She’s only spoken two words to me, and they were yes and no.” Pipe exhaled and blew a cloud of smoke in my face. Fucking prick. “It’s about her dad.”
“You work fucking fast.” It had taken me close to a week just to find out that he had been tossed into the hole.
“I get shit done. That’s why I’m VP.” Prick loved to throw that shit in my face.
“Plus you don’t ever sleep for longer than two hours.”
“You wanna hear what I know, or talk about me sleeping?”
I nodded. I needed to know what he knew. I still hadn't shaken the feeling that something more was going on than what we thought. “Fucking spit it out.”
“Your girl who you thought was sweet, quiet, and innocent? Well, she’s got a shit ton of hell about to rain down on her thanks to her good ol’ dad.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.” I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. I knew that things with her dad weren’t going to be easy.
“Seems the family he plowed into when he was drunk had a son that lived. He’s out for blood.”
“Against the dad, right?” I knew the answer, but I was praying that I was wrong.
Pipe shook his head. “Seems he’s out to erase the whole Handel name, and he plans to start with Karmen. Her dad got wind of what was going on, and that’s why he called her the other night. He was trying to warn her.”
“Mother fucker.” Her dad was a complete douchewad, but he was at least still trying to look after his daughter. “So this guy had connections in Winchester and got Handel thrown in solitary so he couldn’t talk to Karmen anymore.”
“Ding, ding. The guy's name is Ryan Morski. The little bit of digging I did on him doesn’t bode well for us. He was seventeen when his family died, and he managed to escape the system since he was close to eighteen. He’s been bouncing around most of his life, getting into trouble but nothing major. He used to run with a club over the border, but as far as I can tell, he left there and hasn’t been seen for six months.”
“What club was he in?”
“Hell Captains.”
I scoffed and leaned against my bike. “They’re just a bunch of wannabes who drive around on Kawasakis and do wheelies.” Hell Captains were a joke when it came to the MC scene.
“I know, brother. What I’m worried about is the fact that no one has seen him in a long fucking time.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Then how the hell do you know that he is coming after Karmen?”
“Because the fucker is done hiding.”
Jesus Christ. I didn’t need this bullshit in my life right now. I just wanted the club to go back to the way it was when I first joined and have Karmen be my ol’ lady. Nothing more, nothing less. “So I’m assuming he has connections in Winchester since he got Handel thrown in the hole.”
“Got a friend who is a guard. He made up some bullshit story about Handel taking a swing at him. From what I saw and heard about Handel, the guy has been a model prisoner and doesn’t cause trouble. He was up to be paroled next month when the shit with the guard went down. Now he’ll be lucky to get out early at all.”
“Shit.” I didn’t know what the hell Morski was up to. If he wanted Handel dead, he was going to have a hell of a time getting it done now if Handel was going to be locked up for the rest of his sentence.
“We have church in ten minutes. Be there. You’re going to need the help of the club if you want to keep Karmen safe.”
Son of a bitch. “I left her all alone at her apartment.”
Pipe mumbled under his breath about me not answering his phone. “I’ll send Boink over to keep an eye on her.”
Fucking Boink. He better pull his head out of his ass and keep Karmen safe. “You really think Wrecker is going to help with this?”
Pipe moved to the front door, and I fell into step beside him. “I know you don’t have much faith left in this club anymore, Nickel, but you have to know that Wrecker has our backs, no matter what.”
We walked into the room off to the side of the common area and took our seats. Pipe sat to Wrecker’s left, and I sat on his right. All the other brothers were gathered around the table waiting for us. “I thought you said church was in ten minutes.”
Wrecker grinned. “That was the longest we were going to wait for you.”
“Yo, Boink,” Pipe called down to the end of the long ten-foot table. “Head over to Nickel’s ol’ lady’s house and keep an eye on her.”
Boink slipped out of the room.
“Don’t you think I should have told him where she lived?”
Pipe smirked and shook his head. “We already know where she lives.”
Of course, they fucking did. I’m sure when Pipe was doing his digging into Handel, he found out more about Karmen than I knew.
Wrecker leaned back in his chair and looked me up and down. “Pipe tells me your ol’ lady has some shit coming down on her, thanks to her dad.”
I nodded and clasped my hands in front of me on the table. “Yeah. She got a call from him the first night I was with her, but I wasn’t able to get in touch with him after. Pipe was able to pull some strings to find out info.”
A slick smile spread across Wrecker’s lips. “I think you mean I pulled a few strings.”
Aw hell. “I had no idea it was you.”
“It was. You know I don’t like shit going on behind my back. Thankfully, Pipe was smart enough to clue me in.”
“I appreciate that, Wrecker.” Wrecker was not in a good mood, and I had a feeling I was the reason he wasn’t.
He inclined his head. “I’m surprised you appreciate anything anymore, Nickel. I know you’ve been having some problems accepting where the club is headed.”
I made eye contact with Pipe, and he nodded at me. There wasn’t any use in beating around the bush. “I don’t like the shit we have to do now. You knew I voted against it, so you have to understand that I’m not going to be happy making all of these bullshit runs.”
Wrecker tapped his fingers on the table, and his gaze traveled around everyone in the room. “I can tell you right now, that you are not the only one who feels that way. Unfortunately, things are happening that we have no control over.”
That was the exact same thing that Pipe had told me. “I didn’t know the extent of how far things were out of our control. Pipe was nice enough to clue me in the other day when we were in River Valley.”
“I can’t have my Sergeant at Arms going off half-cocked when he doesn’t know the facts. Just like I also don’t want my Sergeant at Arms taking care of a dangerous situation on his own.”
Fuck. “I didn’t know that it was a situation until Pipe found out for me. Karmen figured it was just her dad trying to get her to vouch for him for parole. She hadn’t talked to him for years before that.”
Wrecker nodded but stared me down. “I understand why you did what you did, but next time, use your fucking head and realize that a guy from prison calling in the middle of the night isn’t something to wait a week to figure it out.”
Point fucking taken. “I got it,” I gritted out.
“Now that we got that taken care of, you wanna hear what else we were able to find out?”
I sometimes hated Wrecker. The damn asshole knew what the hell he was doing but was such a dick about it. “Yeah,” I mumbled.
“Your girl herself is clean as a whistle. Never even got a speeding ticket. The same cannot be said for the rest of her family.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I know all of this, Wrecker.”
“He’s letting the rest of the guys know,” Pipe chimed in.
I shifted restlessly in my chair. I didn’t want these fuckers to know anything about Karmen. All this bullshit made her look different in their eyes.
“Drunk driving. Smashed into a family of four. Killed them all except for one,” Wrecker went on. “He’s doing time in Winchester and got thrown in solitary after he reached out to his daughter. The kid that didn’t die, Ryan Morski, is now going after Handel and anyone related to him. His first target is supposedly Karmen.”
My phone dinged in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see Karmen had texted me.
Scary looking biker dude sitting at my curb looking at my apartment. Do I have a sign hanging on my house for all badass bikers to come over?
A smile spread across my lips. Only I’m allowed to come over. That’s just Boink keeping an eye on you. Shit came up at the club.
“You done smiling at your phone like a fucking schoolgirl?” Wrecker asked. He was riding my ass hard right now.
I set my phone down on the table. “Look, I can tell you really don’t want to fuck around with this, so just tell me what you found out, and I’ll get it taken care off.” All I needed to know was where the asshole was and shut him the hell up. It was a shit hand he was dealt losing his whole family, but it wasn’t Karmen’s fault. He was more than welcome to go after Handel, but he wasn’t going to touch Karmen.
“We don’t have a problem helping you. The problem I had was you thought you were going to take care of this shit yourself. We cleared that up, and now we are moving the hell on, right?” Wrecked stared me down and leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the table. “We’re brothers, Nickel, and myself and everyone in this room is going to help you and your woman take care of this shit. Got it?”
I looked around the table and bobbed my head in understanding. “Fine.”
Pipe opened a file folder he had in front of him and pulled out a picture. He held it up for everyone to see. “This is Jeff Sanders. This is the guard who fed Morski the info on Handel. From what I gathered, he went to school with Morski and is just doing the friendly thing of helping ruin Handel.”
“A real regular saint, huh?” Slayer mumbled from the other end of the table.
“So why don’t we grab Jeffy boy and have him tell us where Morski is hiding out and finish this shit tonight,” Clash suggested.
Pipe pulled out another piece of paper and pushed it across the table to me. “That is his last known address. He works the graveyard shift.” He looked over his shoulder. “He’s sleeping right now but should be up in about two hours.”
Wrecker nudged me with his elbow. “You wanna go back to doing this shit on your own again?” he jested.
Pipe and Wrecker had known about Karmen’s father for twenty-four hours and already had found out more information that I had been able to collect in a week.
I shrugged and looked at the piece of paper. “There’s no sense in y'all backing out now.”
Everyone snickered, and I knew I wasn’t going to hear the end of this for a while.
“So let’s go wake this fucker up,” Brinks growled from the corner.
Pipe and Wrecker looked at each other. “I told you as soon as we told them they were going to want to wreck shop and kill the fucker,” Pipe laughed.
“Clash, Slayer, and Maniac, I want you three to go with Nickel and find out everything you can from this guard.”
Slayer and Maniac high-fived while Clash cracked his knuckles.
“I’ve been looking for a reason to beat the shit out of someone lately,” Clash said with a twisted smile on his face. He was one guy I didn’t mind having ride with me.
Wrecker’s eyes landed on me. “Call your girl and tell her to pack a bag. Until we figure out where Morski is, here is where she needs to be.”
“She’s not riding on the back of Boink’s bike,” I growled. She was only going to be on my bike. Period.
Wrecker and Pipe both laughed. “Have her drive her damn car then, just tell her to get here.”
“Wrecker and I will keep an eye on her while you are gone,” Pipe said with a wink.
Jesus Christ. I could only imagine what these two had up their sleeves. “I’ll lock her in my room.”
“With Cora?” Pipe questioned.
“Fuck,” I hissed. “We’re gonna have to wait until she gets here before we head over to the guard’s house.”
“Gotta get your ol’ lady’s permission?” Maniac said, and the rest of the guys laughed.
I grabbed my phone off the table and pushed my chair back. “Laugh all you want fuckers, but I’m the only one here who’s getting laid regularly.’
They all flipped me off but didn’t argue the fact.
“Call your woman, figure shit out with her, and then I want you out of here within the hour. Morski lives twenty minutes away.”
My finger swiped over Karmen’s name, and I put the phone to my ear as I walked out of church. I had twenty minutes to get Karmen here, explain to her why I had another chick staying in my room, and I hoped she didn’t freak the fuck out and run.
I was fucked.
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