Chapter 36

Peg

“It’s been two weeks now, Prez.” I thump the table, frustrated. “Flash is recoverin’ physically, but I can’t keep her locked down forever. While Mercer’s on the loose, she’s terrified of leaving the compound.”

“He needs to be put away.” Wraith agrees from across the table.

“We need to get Cherry to come forward and change her story.” That’s a big part of what’s annoying me. If she does, Pete Mercer has no alibi, except for the one his father had given him, which, under the circumstance, must be suspect. Cherry’s withdrawal of support would surely make the cops at least question him again.

The lines on Drummer’s face show he’s sharing my vexation. “I’ve spoken to Lieutenant Diaz, but Mercer’s still got his father saying he was at home the night Flash was attacked. To us, it’s a dubious alibi, but Mercer Senior’s an upstanding citizen until we can prove different, and an important businessman in this town.” He catches the expression on my face. “What you thinkin’, Peg?”

“I’m thinkin’ I want to do what I wanted to do all along. Get up close and personal with Mercer Junior, make him suffer and finish him once and for all.”

“Our original plan was to get him locked up, then call in a favour and get him killed in prison. Still prefer to go that route.” Yeah, we might be a clean club, but we’ve still got contacts.

“If the police aren’t movin’ in on him, it’s gonna come to me takin’ care of it myself.” I give Drum fair warning. I’m not putting my old lady in danger again.

Drummer strokes his beard and seems to be ignoring the comments coming to me in all directions. Flash is well respected here, but all of us have seen the changes in her since she’s come back. She jumps at the slightest noise, avoids any man’s touch—even mine she’ll only just about tolerate. Yesterday, Beef came up intent on his phone, not looking where he was going and bumped into her. She screamed.

When the clubroom gets crowded, she tries to hide it, but I’ve watched the blood drain from her face, and taking her hand, feel her pulse racing. She might be healing physically, but mentally she’s got a long way to go.

Prez raps the table. “Mouse, what’s the latest?”

“As you know, Mercer’s bank loan agreement has a tiny clause buried in the small print. While the initial interest rate is low, sometimes zero percent, at the discretion of the bank this can be changed to that nearer of a payday loan, over twelve-hundred percent.”

“And on the size of the loans he’s dishin’ out, that would be cripplin’ to anyone.”

Mouse nods at me. “Exactly. Imagine the interest on a million-dollar deal.”

“Is it legal?”

“Yeah, Beef. Perfectly legal. I’ve checked with Alex, and she went over it with a fine-tooth comb.” Alex is taking on more and more duties as our club lawyer. Married to Dart, the VP of our San Diego chapter, Alex is halfway through getting her law degree, which is being paid for by the club. “It’s like anything, it’s an agreement. Once you’ve signed it you’ve agreed to the terms. What is unusual is that the bank don’t need a reason to increase the interest.”

“Who the fuck would sign that?”

Mouse shrugs. “Rock, it’s Mercer’s golfing buddies. Deals are often done on the green with little more than a handshake.”

“And they say there’s no honour among thieves.” Shooter looks amazed.

“Mercer must be rakin’ it in.”

I shake my head and nod to Mouse to let him know I’ve got this covered. “The top interest rate is rarely applied, or if it is, it’s reversed. It’s there as a threat, and only pointed out when Mercer needs a favour.”

“But it can’t always work, can it?”

“No, Road.” I tell him what Mouse has already told me. “You’re right. Remember that prominent politician’s suicide? It was all over the news, as him takin’ his own life didn’t make sense. He was happily married and had a staunch reputation. It was concluded he must have been suffering depression that he was hidin’.”

“But,” Mouse takes over, “I’ve found he’d taken out a loan to cover his mortgage. With Mercer’s bank. There’s no proof, but it makes sense Mercer would want a politician in his pocket, particularly one who everyone from all political parties agrees on that he’s straight.”

“You say there’s no proof? But if you’re right, Mercer must have approached him.”

“Not everything’s kept on computers,” Mouse reminds Drum. “A handwritten estimate of what he’d be payin’ would work just as well. Or printed from a computer not connected to the web.”

“Mercer must have documents somewhere,” Blade observes, his knife spinning as normal.

Dollar cracks his knuckles. “What if we find that proof? We can discredit Mercer and anyone who’s been sucked into his control.” He throws a snide smile toward the prez. “Think an MC would be handy to Mercer?”

Well, fuck me. “Muscle,” I breathe out.

Drum’s staring at Dollar, and I watch as what passes for a smile for the prez spreads over his face. “Fuckin’ good idea, Dollar. If it doesn’t work, we just pay the money back. No harm, no foul.”

“And if it does?” Jekyll’s looking confused. “We get landed with a bill we can’t pay. Even a day’s interest at that level would break us.”

“Not if it didn’t get applied.” Dollar takes the floor back. “But I’m guessing it won’t be a lowly clerk who’d discuss the hidden clause. It would be Mercer himself.”

“Giving us the opportunity to see how he does it.”

“It could take a long time before he calls on us.” That’s my only objection.

“It’s worth a try,” Drummer says, then smirks. “Right, assholes, what do we need a couple of million for?”

After dismissing some of the inaner suggestions, we settle on expanding our construction company, with the new contract for the mall coming up that would be seen as legit. Although run by Viper and Bullet, all our businesses are owned jointly by the club.

While I was worried that we’d have to play a waiting game, as it turns out, Mercer takes the bait surprisingly quickly. Drummer puts in a request for a meeting on the Monday following Friday night’s church and gets an appointment to see the man himself the following day.

“That was fast, Prez.” I wave to Pussy, who’s taking her turn behind the bar. To give her her due, she seems to enjoy it more than the other sweet butts, and gives me my beer with a smile.

Taking his whisky from Pussy, lines etch his forehead as Drummer replies, “You might have been onto something, Peg. There’s no one else on his books who could provide the kind of services he probably thinks he could get from us.”

“I’d like to be a fly on that wall.”

“You know why you can’t, Peg.”

Yeah, I do. While I’d have loved to go to the meeting and see the man who sired my woman’s nemesis, it makes more sense if the prez and our treasurer go instead.

With time on my hands while Prez and Dollar go to meet Mercer, I spend it with Flash, worried she’s clearly struggling to cope. Obviously, she’s not able to do any strenuous activity for another few weeks, and I wouldn’t even dream of trying to fuck her until I get the okay that she’s healed. But I want to touch her, kiss her, show those signs of affection which demonstrate how deeply I feel for her. But apart from allowing me to hold her hand and lightly put my arm around her, she evades all further intimacy.

At night she lies in my bed, but if I try to hold her, she pulls away. At least she’s here. I’d rather have her with me, where I know she’s safe, than out of my sight. Her lack of progress worries me, and every time I see her start at the slightest sound, it makes me wish all over again that Pete Mercer was dead.

I’ve spoken to Slick, taking advice from him as to how he helped Ella recover from her own ordeal, a multiple rape at the hands of what was then a rival MC. At his suggestion I decide to ask Ella to speak with her. I can only hope she has some success.

Noting the time, I leave her taking a nap and am back in the clubhouse when Prez returns. His raised chin lets me know they’d been successful as he passes over a copy of the contract he’s signed to Mouse, and then goes to the bar. I go stand alongside him as he indicates to Allie he wants his whisky from the top shelf.

“Celebratin’ being two million dollars richer?”

His mouth twists wryly. “Would buy a decent few bikes.” He takes a sip of his drink, ice cubes rattling around. “Had to put the compound up as collateral. Not touchin’ a fuckin’ cent.”

“What’s the interest rate?”

“Well, we weren’t offered zero, but a fair enough point five percent.”

As I’m about to probe further, Mouse reappears, a frown on his face. “This isn’t right. It’s a standard contract. I’ve scanned it and been through it line by fuckin’ line, and there’s nothing about raising the interest rate.”

Disturbed, I look at him, then toward Prez. Mercer’s being straight with us? Shit. That idea didn’t work, and now we’ve got two million dollars in the bank that we don’t need. I don’t understand how we could have got it so wrong, but trust Mouse to have checked the contract, and compared it to the one with the high interest rate. If he says it is, that clause is definitely missing.

Prez checks for himself and reaches the same conclusion. The three of us exchange worried looks. Why the fuck has Mercer given us such a large loan and played it straight? We were so sure we were on the right track.

We don’t often get casual callers to the compound, so the next afternoon, when an unknown person appears at the gate, it’s unusual. When Fergus calls up asking for instruction, Wraith and I happen to be in Drummer’s office at the time.

“Fergus. Yeah, who is it?”

“Is it now?” Wraith and I tilt our heads, something in Drummer’s tone having caught our attention.

“Bring him up.”

At my raised eyebrow, Drummer ends the call and gives that half grin of his. “There’s a clerk from Mercer’s bank here.”

“They bring the money in person?” Wraith laughs.

“Nah, that’s already in our bank account. Dollar has checked.”

A buzz of excitement comes over me. We were right.

“Something’s going on, Prez.”

“Yeah, Peg. And soon we’ll find out what it is.”

A man who couldn’t look less threatening if he tried is shown in to Drummer’s office. I stand and wave him to my seat. But the clerk who can be no taller than five-foot-six, and who’s built as though he’d be blown over in a strong breeze, shakes his head.

“This shouldn’t take long. Are you Rick Felix?”

I haven’t heard Drummer’s real name mentioned for a couple of years, but realise he must have had to use it to sign the official document.

“Yeah.”

“Well, sir, I’m sorry, the contract you signed with Top Loans yesterday was the wrong version. I do apologise on behalf of the company that you were given an old contract to sign. I’ve come with a replacement that I’d like to ask you to put your signature to.”

Drummer’s eyes sharpen, and he successfully resists looking at me. I try to keep my face impassive, noticing Wraith studying the floor intently. “Any change I’ll have to get my lawyer to look at.”

“Oh, there’s no need for that.” The clerk sounds confident. “It’s a minor error. There’s a spelling mistake on page three. Look.” Taking the wad of papers out of his briefcase, he flicks over the first couple of pages, and then points to a word near the top of the third page. “Contact should be contract. That’s all it is. But we don’t like to look unprofessional. So, if you wouldn’t mind signing this one, everything will be hunky dory.”

Hunky fucking dory? Who the hell speaks like that? Someone who’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes, that’s who. A quick glance at Wraith shows he’s thinking exactly the same as me. The clerk even helpfully provides a pen for the prez to use.

Drummer’s no fool. He flicks through the rest of the contract, skimming it with his eyes, probably giving it the same cursory glance everybody else must have done. He gives nothing away, but picks up his own pen, and scrawls his name at the bottom. Then at the clerk’s request, initials every page. “You got a copy for me?”

“Of course, sir.” The clerk gets another one out of his briefcase. It looks identical to the one Drummer has signed. To prove it, the clerk goes through the business of pointing out the corrected error again. “And to keep things tidy, could I please have the original back? We don’t like incorrect documents hanging around.”

Drummer doesn’t argue, just opens the drawer of his desk, takes out the paperwork, and hands it back. The clerk nods and disappears it into his bag. Then he thanks us for our time and opens the door to leave. Fergus is waiting outside.

Once he’s gone, I raise my brow.

Drum shakes his head. “I couldn’t fuckin’ see it. Get Mouse in.”

Mouse knows exactly what he’s looking for, turns to a page near the end, covered in very small print, and points it out. “They’ve been crafty. It’s written in words, not numbers. If it was written as 1200% you’d have probably noticed it, but look, here it is written out, the bank may increase the rate at their discretion to a sum of at least one-thousand, two-hundred percent.” We all look at it, the tiny font they’ve used making it hard to read, and it’s buried deep in a multitude of legalistic phrases.

“Fuck me. So that’s how they do it.” Drum’s mouth turns up at the corners. “We’ve been screwed, brothers.” He laughs. “Think it’s time for a celebration.” Reaching behind him, he opens a cupboard, takes out his special single malt, and pours four glasses. “Here’s to becoming muscle for hire.”

It still worries me. I’m a man of action, and I don’t want to sit back and wait, preferring to be the one with my hand on the throttle. But now that’s all we can do. Accepting we’re left hanging until Mercer makes his move and starts making demands on us.

“Don’t look so miserable, Peg. Mercer took the bait fast. It could be we won’t have to wait very long. He might already have something in the works.”

Wraith’s leaning forward, rolling his glass between his hands. “Or we could report him to the feds. Surely that’s the logical step for anyone who finds out what he’s done?”

Drummer taps the paper, a copy of which he’s just signed. “That’s a legal document, and my fucking signature. Hard to prove. And he took the original, so nothing to compare.”

“Would everyone just have given him the original like that?”

“His golfin’ friends? Yeah. They’d trust him. And us? Well, we’re just ignorant bikers.”

“So the feds wouldn’t have anything to work with. But surely they’d smell something off?”

“He’d come up with some excuse for that clause. Something about protecting the bank. A man like that would be well prepared with answers.”

Drummer slowly shakes his head. “Nah, Peg, nothing to do but wait for him to make contact. My bet is the way he does it is to ask for something simple at first. Something small. But enough to dirty a man’s hands. A favour, but not big enough to raise red flags. But something he could hold over their heads.”

“Mercer is a clever man,” Wraith observes.

But it remains to be seen, is he cleverer than us? He’s underestimated us, that’s for sure. We found both him and his game out.