Chapter Fourteen
Hatch
When DJ gives me silent permission to follow, I give her a hug and kiss and order two of the prospects, Jaxson and Chet to stay with her. Following behind Chief, my mind is all over the place. I honestly cannot believe that the stupid bitch, Starla, thought she ever had my attention! She is nothing but a blip on the radar that has fixed herself within the club. We don’t have ‘true’ club whores, but if we did, she’d definitely qualify as one. All she’s looking to do is attach herself to a patched member, preferably an officer. She just doesn’t get that she doesn’t have the inner stuff that makes her a good old lady, like DJ and Cara and even Paisley have. I’m lost in thought as I travel with the escort crew. I’m worried about what we’ll find out she’s shared about our family and possibly even the club. She’s betrayed us in the worst of ways, she will be stripped of the club’s protection and will be kicked to the curb, that is if she doesn't end up doing time for hitting Luca with a car and attempting to kill my little girl.
Now thinking back on what we learned, I wish I’d let DJ loose on her a lot sooner than we did. Before I know it, we’re pulling into the parking lot of the police station. Chief drives on to the back, where they unload their suspects. We stop and park in the front, we get off our bikes and meet in front of the doors. Law goes over to the door and opens it, gesturing for us to follow. I take a deep breath and walk in behind them. “Remember, guys, keep y’alls cool. We’re here as spectators and Chief is granting us this courtesy because of the brotherhood.”
“I hope he throws the book at her,” I growl out, causing Law to roll his eyes at me.
“He’ll charge her for everything he can,” he tells me.
“He better, because if she walks out those doors,” Axe says, “she’ll wish she hadn't. I’ll let DJ loose on her and I don’t care if she’s ever seen alive again.” Law sighs out in exasperation. I know we can’t say things like this inside because of ears overhearing us, but I have to say I’m with Axe on this one.
Law gives us a look and we quieten as we enter the station. I’m hoping for Cara’s sake that the charges will also be applied to the Jensen’s, since it appears they were the masterminds behind this fucking plot. “We’ll be over here,” Law says, gesturing down a hallway. “Remember, keep your damn cool, both of you.” Didn’t he just say this to us earlier? We do know how to follow directions, we learned that when we were five.
I look at Axe as we stand in the room. “This may be easier said than done,” he mutters. “When Cara finds out what her plan was, she’s going to lose her shit.”
“Great, two badass women,” I retort.
“Two mommas whose babies were threatened,” Axe says. Can’t say I disagree especially since Luca and Ray have been in each other’s lives since they were in the womb. I look over to my left as we walk down the hall following Law, and I see Starla being escorted in by Chief. I bet they’d throw the book at me if I rush her and choke the answers out of her. Law, seeing where my eyes landed, gets behind me and pushes me down the hall in front of him. Sucks that I know I am the one experiencing what it’s like to have a babysitter. Guess trust only goes so far, I look back at Law and give him a dirty look, one he returns. Since when is the enforcer of the club not one to be feared? I feel as if I’ve lost some credibility somewhere, maybe I need to beat some ass to prove that I still hold my title and still have a dick attached. I’m not some pussy that needs to be kept in place.
Law, who apparently has developed some sort of psychic ability, leans in and says, “Look, you can be pissed off all you want, but there’s a procedure that has to be followed. Here, you’re not our enforcer. Here, you’re the man whose woman’s child was nearly killed. Same with you, Axe.”
“She’s my daughter too,” I growl out, they know this, I’ve claimed her as my own.
“Misworded that, Hatch, but you know exactly what I meant,” Law tells me, trying to douse my inner fire.
I’m about to say something else when I see that Chief has brought Starla into the interrogation room. Looks like there’s a detective with him. Guess someone has to take charge and since Chief was there and he wants it on the up and up, he’ll bring in a detective. They must think he’s prejudiced in this case, Lord only knows I am. I want them to throw everything they have at her. I don’t want her to ever step outside of a prison’s gates again, because if and when she does, I won’t hold my old lady back. We stand in front of the two-way mirror as the detective begins to question her. She starts at the beginning, things we already know. I cross my arms over my chest and settle down to wait for her to get to the information that we haven’t heard yet.
“When they laid their plan out for me, I asked them to give me a night to think it over,” she tells the detective. “The more time I had to think on it, the more I agreed that something needed to be done. The law doesn’t care about the fact that their only son is dead and they don’t get to see their grandchild. She’s in Texas now, and there are no ‘grandparents rights’ here,” she says as if the detective and Chief don’t know the laws or something. “Anyways,” she continues, “I became angry and sad on their behalf. The plan was to hurt Ray, not Luca. The Jensen’s felt that if DJ and Ray were out of the way, or occupied with Ray being in the hospital they could make their move. They wanted to get Cara alone and be able to scare her into legal action. They said she’s a coward and would bow down to their demands easily without DJ around being her backbone.”
A low growl emits from my throat and I feel Axe’s hand come down on my shoulder. “She’s sinking her own boat, man,” he murmurs, his voice so low that I can barely hear him.
“I wasn’t supposed to technically kill the child, just maim her bad enough to put her into the hospital. But I thought, why not get what I want out of the deal as well? DJ wouldn’t want Hatch around if she was dealing with getting her daughter better, and I could scoop in and get my man back that the bitch stole out from underneath me.”
This time it’s Axe that lets out a growl at the mention of Cara being a coward. “She’s stronger than any of them ever gave her credit for being,” he says, and I wholeheartedly agree.
“That she is, man,” I say to him.
“What happened from there?” the detective asks her, since she stopped speaking.
“I think I may need a lawyer,” she says, causing me to get angry and bang on the mirror. She jumps in her chair and her eyes swing that way. She begins to shake and changes her mind, “Never mind, I’ll talk.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, making me want to go and shake some sense into him.
“He legally has to ask her once she has requested representation,” Law tells me.
“It doesn't make me feel any better, my kid didn’t get an option of asking for help ahead of time and neither did Luca,” I say to the room as a whole.
“Hatch, I hear you, I really do, but we want this shit to stick. No technicalities need to pop up that cause her to walk out of here a free woman, y’hear?”
“Fuck!” I ground out between clenched teeth. “We need to know this, Law. You know what ends up happening, folks get attorneys and then the whole story is never really known. I’ve gotta make sure my family is safe and so does he,” I continue, pointing at Axe. “You know we’re not the kind of club that takes care of this shit so we have no choice here, but dammit, if she gets an attorney, I’ll be reaching out and finding someone who can.”
“Don’t say that shit around me, Hatch. I’m an officer of the court, for fuck’s sake!” Law states.
“You’re a brother first, man,” I reply.
We turn our heads toward the mirror again when she starts speaking. “Yeah, I’m sure. With everything I’ve done, I just want to get it out.”
Finally, the bitch bought a clue! “Glad to see she decided to tell all,” Axe remarks.
“Yeah, me too,” I say.
“So, then what?” the detective prompts.
“When that didn’t work, they asked me to spy on all of them to see if there was anything they could report to CPS so that the kids would be removed, specifically Luca. Mrs. Jensen thought that they would take custody while the investigation was going on. Only then, some woman named Trinity started coming around because of Hatch’s real little girl.” What the fuck does she mean by that? Ray is my real daughter, she may not carry my blood in her veins, but she’s mine in all ways that count. I didn’t think I could hate this bitch any more than I already did, but now I see how wrong I was.
“When what didn’t work?” the detective asks her.
“He needs specific details,” Law says to us. I nod my head in understanding, but don’t say a word wanting to hear all she has to say.
“When Ralynn wasn’t the one hurt in the accident.” Accident my ass! That shit was an intentional hit and run.
“What vehicle did you use when you hurt Luca?” the detective asks her.
“The Jensen’s rented me a car with fake identification and paid in cash.”
“I thought rental car companies required a credit card to hold for incidents?” I ask Law.
“They do, that part’s not adding up. I say we get Bandit on this.”
“Done,” Axe says pulling out his phone.
During the nightmare of the accident, the car had fled the scene and because the teachers were focused on Luca and the girls, as well as getting the other kids safely inside, no one got the license plate or even a decent description of the car or driver. While I’m glad their focus was on the kids, if someone had gotten that, we might have gotten to this point a helluva lot sooner.
Axe hangs up his phone and says, “Bandit’s on it. He’s gonna get Twisted to give him her information we have at the trucking company so he can do a full-out search on her. Something’s not right and I wanna know why the hell she’s so fixated on Hatch since he’s never really given her the time of day.”
“I would like the answer to that question myself,” I tell him.
“Tell me what happened after that, what all information did you end up relaying to the Jensen’s?”
I notice that Law and Axe are really paying attention now. The Rebel Guardians is a legit MC, we don’t run anything illegal, but we still have a code. What happens within our businesses or clubhouse stays there. Period. There is a line of loyalty and honor and it isn’t one to be crossed. She’s crossed every line there is and has betrayed us in ways no one ever has.
“I mainly gave them any information I could find out on Cara and Braxton’s relationship. They wanted specifics on if there was a way to break them up. What would be his breaking point, what would be the final straw that would make him abandon her. I never found one, but I know the kids are his weakness, so I tried to find anything that could help remove them from his home.” Braxton growls out at this information.
“Give her some rope, and she’ll hang herself,” Law states.
“I’ll personally go out and grab her a roll if it will help her out any,” I tell him. He bows his head, but I see his shoulders shaking up and down in laughter.
“Hatch, you’re killing me here,” he states. As we’re talking, we hear Starla start up again.
“My main priority while having their backing was removing both of the women from the picture. They needed Cara away from Braxton, but I wanted DJ away from Hatch. They agreed to finance the operation as long as I was willing to do their bidding. I got into the personnel files at work and gave them as many details as I could on all of them. Some of them were helpful and some weren’t.”
“What kind of information did you share?” Chief ask her.
“I don’t remember, Chief, honestly I don’t. I just photocopied things and dropped them off to them.”
“That fucking sneaky little cunt!” I scream out. I don’t usually use that word because of how I was raised but Starla is the epitome of one right now.
“Axe, we need to notify all the employees that their data was compromised. I’ll check into that credit watch alert that is offered through one of our lenders, and we’ll offer that to all of them,” Law states upon hearing Starla’s confession.
“I’ll put Cara on it right away,” Axe replies. “I wouldn’t put anything past those people.”
“They’re all going down,” I say to Axe, who agrees with me.
“Yes, they are,” he responds.
“Anything else?” the investigator asks, returning our attention back to what’s happening in the interrogation room.
“No, that’s pretty much it,” she says. I notice her head is down and tears are now streaking her face but couldn’t give the first fuck. She nearly destroyed two families with her actions and she needs to pay. So do the Jensen’s.
“Law?” I ask. “Will the Jensen’s face the same charges as she does?”
“Most of them, yes. Especially the attempted murder charge that we’re asking for because of the hit-and-run that injured Luca so badly. Plus, the girls were hurt. So, based on my experience, she’s looking at three attempted murder charges with one serious injury, breaking and entering because of her actions at the trucking company, and stalking.”
“Doesn’t sound like she’s going anywhere for a while,” Axe states.
“Maybe we need to send her some Snickers.”
At my comment, the other two men start chuckling, relieving some of the tension from the past few hours. Now, though, we’re going to have to face the women.