Chapter 25

Tank

NOVEMBER 6

It was a long fucking night. Stitch and I pored over hours of video. We flagged any guy who remotely matched the description we were given, but it was so vague we had too many suspects. Between delivery guys, plumbers, and a few paying guests, we had over twenty guys matching the description that we had to watch coming and going through all the feeds.

I don’t think I’d ever spent so much time staring at a computer screen in a single night. How did Nicole do this day after day at her job? By one a.m., I had to take a break. Between the jumpy video feeds, the black-and-white picture, and the stark glow of the computer screen, I was starting to get vertigo.

“I’m calling it,” Stitch said before I could. “If I gotta follow another fat, fifty-year-old fucker around the club on video, I think I’m gonna hurl.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling the same way. You know what can fix what ails ya?”

“Brittany.”

“Shit, I forgot the girls were here. Why the fuck did we stay at it so long?”

Stitch held up his new Enforcer patch.

“Oh, yeah. That.”

We both wore huge grins as we left the office and followed the bumping rock music to the main section of the club. The party had definitely started while Stitch and I had been locked in the back office. The rest of the board members joined Reb, Axle, and Zag, along with their women. A few guys were lined up at the bar with a date, others sat around the club’s booths, and a couple were grinding on their women on the dance floor.

Which is where I found Nicole. Her, Brittany, and Jessica were sliding against one another in what could only be described as a simulated lesbian orgy. Fuck, what did it say about me that I was actually jealous of Stitch’s wife, since she was currently grinding on my woman. That should be me.

In about two point five seconds, it was me. I slid seamlessly between the girls—aided by Stitch’s yank on his wife’s arm—until I was the one grinding my crotch into Nicole’s sweetly rounded ass. I wrapped my arms around her torso and breathed hotly on her neck. “Christ, woman. You’re killing me in that dress.”

Deep red, her dress was cut low enough in the front that I could see her fucking amazing cleavage and was tight enough around her ass that I knew she wasn’t wearing any panties.

Killing. Me.

I kept her clasped to my front as I guided her off the dance floor and down the hallway I’d just left, until I found a spot where we could talk without shouting. I stopped and rested my back against the wall, then spun her in my arms so I could see the fucking gorgeous face that haunted my dreams.

“Hey, T.” Nicole smiled up at me. “We were wondering if you guys were ever gonna show up. I was starting to think maybe I’d have to go home with Brittany. And you’re a much better kisser than Britt.”

I growled. “Not. Funny. Exclusive, remember? Which means I’m the only dick, lips, or hands you get until we decide otherwise. We clear?”

“I was just joking, Tank. I didn’t mean—I wouldn’t—”

“Clear?” I barked.

“We’re clear. I swear, you’re the only one I want.”

An overwhelming urge to mark her as mine tore through me. I wanted everyone to look at this amazing woman and know she was mine. But for now, this would have to do. I kissed her until she swayed toward me. Resting my shoulders against the wall at my back, I caught her body against mine and continued kissing her until I didn’t care what happened next. A fucking army of elephants could’ve marched down the hallway, and I wouldn’t have noticed.

Finally, Nicole pulled away from my mouth with a moan. “If we don’t get out of here quick, I’m gonna put a floor show on that’ll make Brittany and Stitch embarrassed.”

A hearty laugh came from somewhere behind Nicole. “Not possible.”

Nicole rested her tight little body against mine and tilted her head to look at Brittany. “You guys getting out of here?”

“Hell yeah. I had four hours of foreplay with you, Jack, and Don Julio. I’m ready for the main event.” Brittany laughed up at Stitch as they walked down the hall.

“Foreplay?” I asked Nicole.

She pushed away from me with a laugh and walked backwards down the hall, shadowing Stitch and Brittany to the back exit. “Just because we’re exclusive doesn’t mean I won’t be dancing with my girls. Don’t be a dick.”

“I’ll show you a dick.” I lunged toward Nic, but she squealed and bounded down the hall to Brittany.

Stitch grinned at us as he unlocked the back door with a key Zag had given him a few hours ago. “I can help you with a head start, but you’re on your own after that.”

Nicole laughed but still charged for the door as Stitch swung it open. Two steps later, she tripped and was sprawled out on her hands and knees on the harsh asphalt.

“Shit, baby girl. You okay?” I raced down the remainder of the hallway toward her. I knelt next to her and helped her brush off her scraped knees and hands. Fortunately, it’d looked worse than it actually was. Once I was satisfied she hadn’t done any permanent damage, I helped her to her feet.

“Fuck me, Tank.” Stitch bent down and picked up a twenty-pound propane cylinder. “Why are you guys storing your gas cylinders here? They’re blocking the back door. That’s the kinda shit the building inspector is gonna have a field day with tomorrow.”

“We don’t. We don’t even use those kinds of propane cylinders. What the fuck?” I looked behind Nicole at a stash of at least ten cylinders sitting next to the back wall of the club. “Something’s not right.”

“Fuck!” Stitch shouted just as he slammed into me and Nicole, throwing us to the ground.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I asked from the bottom of the dog pile, with Nicole and Brittany and Stitch on top of me.

But Stitch didn’t answer.

And then I heard it.

The telltale sound of a shotgun reracking.

Fuck.

I pushed them off and behind me, putting myself between my family and the son of a bitch out there with a shotgun. But my hands came away wet. My heart dove into my stomach. “Nicole?”

She groaned and sat up behind Stitch. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not. You’re bleeding.” I ran my hands over her body but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

“I am? Where?” Nicole patted herself and paused when she hit a wet patch on her shoulder. “But I don’t feel anything.”

“It’s the adrenaline.” I sagged in relief. At most it was her shoulder. She’d be fine. She could still run. “Grab Brittany and get inside. Tell Reb what’s going on.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” she cried.

“Go!”

I stood up to block any more gunfire aimed toward Nicole and Brittany, and a second later I heard a pop followed by a ting. Someone out there was shooting at the propane cylinders.

Dumb fuck. The cylinder wouldn’t blow up unless there was already a fire to ignite the gas. I reached for my piece at the small of my back but came up empty. Fuck. And then I remembered tossing it in the glove box of my pickup when I got here. The club should’ve been a safe place, so I figured I wouldn’t need my gun. Dammit, now I wouldn’t have anything but my body to use to protect the girls.

I turned to make sure the girls had made it, but Brittany wouldn’t leave Stitch’s side. Nicole sobbed as she pulled on Brittany’s arm.

“He’s already gone, Britt. There’s nothing we can do.”

A roaring sound filled my ears. Stitch? I crouched back down next to him, but Nicole was right. He stared sightlessly up into the dark night sky. The harsh overhead lights made the dark spot in the center of his black shirt gleam. A roar welled in the bottom of my throat. Not Stitch. I wanted to lash out and make that fucker hiding in the darkness pay. But I couldn’t. At least not yet. I needed to get the girls to safety first.

“Brittany, listen to me.”

She continued to ignore everything around her as she patted Stitch’s face and pleaded. “Come on, baby. Please wake up. Please wake up. Oh God. Please.”

So I barked, “Listen. To. Me! Stitch is gone. We can’t help him. You two have to get inside. Tell Reb. Get inside.”

Brittany raised her pale face to me and shook her head frantically. “He’s fine. He’s just passed out. He’ll be okay if we can pull him inside. Just help me pull him inside.”

“Brittany,” I yelled, then froze as I heard another round racking in that bastard’s shotgun. “I’ll get him. You two get inside. NOW!”

Finally they obeyed me, or at least Nicole did as she dragged a sobbing Brittany the few feet to the still open door. Nicole turned back to me and held out a hand. Her eyes darted to my left, and she turned white as she quaked. “Dad?”

I turned around, and a large man with gray hair and a huge furry beard stood about twenty yards away holding a shotgun in front of him. I knew in the depths of my soul that this was the son of a bitch we’d been searching for.

Our arsonist, and the fucker who murdered Stitch in cold blood, was Nicole’s father.

I looked down at her and had a second of doubt. Was she the one to sell out our club to whoever was out for us? Nicole met my eyes, and I knew she saw the doubt in mine. Shaking, she wiped at her tear-streaked face and took a giant step away from me and toward her father.

“Nicole, no.” I reached toward her, and that was when her father finally spoke.

“Do you honestly believe I’d do anything to hurt my own little girl?”

I glared at the fucker holding a gun on me and wished like hell that I hadn’t left my piece in my pickup. “From what I hear, you wouldn’t think twice.”

Nicole’s father laughed softly as he walked toward us. “Yeah, my little girl would say shit like that. You know she has never once thanked me? Even when she was little, she’d pretend like I wasn’t even there. She’s the most ungrateful bitch I’ve ever met. You can’t pretend now, can ya, princess?”

“You son of a bitch.” I didn’t care about the shotgun. I just saw an asshole saying shit about my woman and standing closer to her than I was comfortable with. “You might be her fucking sperm donor, but that doesn’t make you anything more to her.”

I took a step toward him, and he raised his gun. Not that I gave a shit. But Nicole put her hand on my chest and pushed me away.

“This isn’t a fucking game, Tank. He has a gun!”

“So do I,” Reb said from the doorway behind us. “They do, too, by the way.” He nodded toward Axle and Zag, coming up from behind Nicole’s father.

Nicole’s dad lunged toward her. I grabbed her arm and pulled her to me. A heartbeat later a gunshot went off, and she flinched.

“Tank!” Nicole shouted.

“Don’t look, baby girl,” I murmured as I turned her face away from the spot her dad had just been standing.

“No. I have to see.” Nicole pulled away from me and faced her father again.

Sprawled out on the ground, he held his thigh as a large pool of blood gathered beneath him. “Aahhh! Son of a bitch! You weak-ass motherfuckers. You can’t even kill me right. Fuck.”

I walked toward him and kicked his shotgun out of his reach. From the corner of my eye, I saw Nicole bend over and clutch her stomach as she moaned.

“Nic, baby.” I reached toward her, but she gagged and bolted for the other side of the parking lot. A second later the sound of her retching mixed with her father’s pathetic moans and Brittany’s sobs.

“How do you wanna play this, T?” Zag asked when he reached my side. He eyed Nicole’s father with contempt and kicked his injured leg. “It’s just a fucking flesh wound, you little bitch. My old lady got lung shot and didn’t cry that hard.”

I looked from the spot Nicole had disappeared, to her whimpering father, then to Stitch’s body where Brittany clutched his vest as she wept. “Round everyone up. We’ll go back to the clubhouse and figure out what to do next.”

Nicole stepped out of the shadows still clutching her stomach. I made a move toward her, but she flinched and shrank away from me. Fuck, I didn’t think this night could get any worse.

A few minutes later I was driving a silent Nicole to the clubhouse. We’d gotten Nicole’s father, Bear, hogtied up in the backseat of Reb’s Audi. Emily and Jessica had untangled Brittany from Stitch’s body. Her grief-filled shrieks still vibrated in my bones. If I’d spent one more minute in that parking lot with my buddy’s lifeless body, I think I would’ve joined her. It felt like a huge part of my soul was missing when I saw Stitch lying there, not moving. I couldn’t even imagine how Brittany felt. They had twenty years together and had planned for at least twenty more. And now…

Fuck, my eyes burned.

I stealthily wiped at my eyes. I couldn’t give in to the grief yet. There was still too much to do.

Axle was staying behind with Stitch. He had a buddy in the Sheriff’s Department who’d help him sort out the paperwork so that the MC or Lux wouldn’t have an issue, and Stitch could have a proper burial.

Burial.

Fuck, that word burned a hole in my gut. We’d been fucking around and laughing not even an hour ago, and now he was gone.

Stitch’s death ripped a hole in my soul that I didn’t think would ever get filled. He was the one guy I could turn to no matter the situation—women problems, club drama, family issues, PTSD bullshit—and now he was gone. It was only a matter of time until the horror of tonight brought up old nightmares of things I’d seen, shit I’d done, but now I didn’t have Stitch to turn to. Now I was all on my own.

Except for Nicole.

I looked over at Nicole sitting in the passenger seat of my pickup. She still hadn’t said anything. She’d been silent when Emily and Jessica loaded up Brittany. Just stood there with her hands wrapped around her waist, not letting anyone near her. Hadn’t said anything since we shot her father. Was she pissed at me? At her dad? What was going on in her mind? I wanted to ask her, but I was on virgin ground here. Was there anything I could say that would make this any better?

Before I could figure shit out, the gates to the clubhouse shone in my headlights. We were here. I waited as Bam Bam pulled the gates open and parked my truck next to Reb’s car. I pushed my door open and hopped out.

“Bam, get over here,” I called, then waited for him to obey. “Take Nicole to Reb’s bedroom. Stand guard inside. Don’t let anyone in, and let me know if she tries anything.”

Reb stood next to me and watched as Bam Bam helped Nicole out of the car and into the clubhouse. Once we were alone, he turned to me. “You think she’s in on this?”

“I know she’s not. But I think she blames herself, and I’m worried…” I couldn’t even say the words out loud.

“That she might do something to herself?” Reb filled in. “Fuck, man. You sure you’re okay letting Bam stand by her right now?”

“I gotta be. We have work to do.” I nodded to Reb’s car where his cargo waited to be unloaded.

“Let’s get busy then.”