Phoenix
I pulled into a parking lot roughly a mile from the warehouse. A few of Boar’s members were already there waiting for us. Boar stepped out of a cage and walked over to my bike. “I just talked to Copper. No one has been in or out of the warehouse since Crystal arrived. Can’t say for sure, but it doesn’t sound like anybody is in there except the four of them.”
“Thanks, man. Appreciate you helping us out like this,” I said to Boar. I was surprised he actually came with his boys. He was still recovering from being shot during the same incident that injured Coal. His recovery was slower than Coal’s due to the location he was shot and his age. Boar nodded in acknowledgment of my gratitude. We would probably owe him a marker for this, but I was okay with that.
“Here’s how we’re going to do this. We’ll ride up some more and stop about a half mile from the warehouse. We’ll leave the bikes and approach on foot. Once there, we’ll split off into groups and surround the warehouse. Carbon and Shaker, once we breach, you two get Nathan out as fast as possible. The rest of you shoot to kill anyone in there except Octavius. I’ll be the one to send that fucker to hell,” I growled.
With that said, we rode to the half-mile point Byte mapped out for us and walked the rest of the way. We functioned like a well-oiled machine. Half the group went one way while the other half went in the opposite direction to surround the building. Badger and I inched along the side of the warehouse until we found a door that was stupidly ajar. I made eye contact with him and nodded. Holding my fist down by my side, I ticked off one, two, three with my fingers. On three, I eased the door open and stepped inside.
The door opened to a large room with concrete walls and floors. In the middle, Nathan was tied to a chair, head slumped to his chest. Off to the side, Octavius and another man, who I assumed was Annabelle’s father since I couldn’t see his face, were in a heated argument. At their feet, Crystal’s lifeless body lay in a pool of her own blood. Badger and I simultaneously raised our guns, took aim, and fired.
Octavius and the other man dropped to the ground. Annabelle’s father didn’t so much as twitch thanks to the bullet Badger lodged in his skull. Octavius, on the other hand, was rolling around on the ground, clutching his leg, and screeching like a banshee. I went straight for Octavius and quickly tied his hands behind his back.
Carbon and Shaker rushed in and began untying Nathan who was starting to come around. As they were carrying him out to the van, I heard Carbon mutter, “Well, that was anticlimactic.” I shook my head. I wondered about that boy’s sanity sometimes.
Boar strolled through the door and looked around the room before his eyes settled on Annabelle’s father. “What in the hell did Gnaw have to do with this?”
“Who’s Gnaw?” I asked distractedly. I was still hovering over Octavius, contemplating shoving a gag in his mouth. I was so grateful we had accomplished our goal without incident, I hadn’t bothered to take in any details of our surroundings.
Boar pointed to the man on the ground. “That fucker right there with the Disciples of Death cut on. He was a vicious son of a bitch.”
“Fuck me! That’s Annabelle’s father. Fuck, this just keeps getting better. On top of everything else, now I’ve got another club to deal with.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head. “I’m going to get this piece of shit secured and see how Nathan is. Then, we can start on the cleanup.”
The rest of the guys followed me outside as I drug Octavius by his bound hands to a cage. I guess no one wanted to wait in a poorly ventilated warehouse with two dead bodies in the middle of a scorching summer. I shoved Octavius in the back of an SUV and told Judge and Batta to stand guard. Then, as I opened the door to the van containing Patch and Nathan, a loud boom sounded behind me and I felt the ground shake, followed by an intense heat at my back.
I whirled around to see the warehouse in flames and several of my guys, as well as Boar’s, on the ground. Fuck! Boar was also sprawled out on his back. I knew that was too easy. I ran back to check on the men and was relieved to find that no one was seriously injured. It looked to be just a few bumps and bruises.
I extended a hand to Boar and helped him to his feet. He winced in pain and rubbed his chest. “Somebody see if Patch can take a quick look at Boar,” I called out to no one in particular.
He waved his hands dismissively. “No need. I’m okay. Just rattled my cage a bit,” he said, continuing to rub his chest.
“You sure, man?”
“Yeah. Ain’t nothing some whiskey and rest can’t fix.”
“All right, brothers, let’s get out of here. That fire is going to draw attention, but at least we don’t have to worry about evidence. Carbon, you and Shaker toss some fuel on the flames. Wouldn’t hurt for it to burn hotter and faster,” I ordered.
Shaker nodded and looked to Carbon. “Was that climactic enough for you?”
Carbon chuckled. “No, but it’ll have to do.”
“Well, it sure as fuck was for me. Let’s get moving,” I barked.
We walked back to our bikes and rode home. I was truly thankful to have rescued Nathan, captured Octavius, and taken care of Annabelle’s father with ease. It was rare that any of our missions of that nature were carried out without at least a few people getting hurt.
When I pulled through the gates to the clubhouse, Annabelle was standing outside the front doors waiting for us. As soon as she saw my bike, she ran to me and grabbed my cut right as I came to a stop. “Where is he?” she demanded.
“Relax, doll face. He’s in the van with Patch. He’s a little banged up, but he’s okay,” I told her.
“I need to see him,” she said, tears running down her face. The doors to the van opened and Nathan stepped out. “Nathan!” she yelled and took off running. Nathan barely had time to brace himself for the impact. He grunted when she threw herself into his arms.
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m okay,” he said, trying to soothe her.
“Incoming!” Patch shouted from behind Nathan. Nathan looked up in time to see Ember barreling toward him. He lifted one arm and wrapped it around her when she got to him.
“Come on, girls, let’s get him inside,” I said.
Coal was by the door and held it open for Nathan to enter. “You okay, brother?” he asked.
“I could be better, but I could be worse,” Nathan answered honestly.
“Glad they got you back,” Coal said quietly.
Nathan clapped him on the shoulder. “Me, too.”
When Patch took Nathan to his makeshift med room to finish looking him over, Annabelle turned to me. The concern had vanished from her eyes and was replaced with pure, unadulterated fury. “You,” she growled, yes growled, and stabbed her finger in my direction. “You fucking lied to me! You knew what he was capable of and yet you still lied about his death, which not only put me, but my children, in danger! You put my kids’ lives in danger and one of them was nearly taken from me! How could you do that, Phoenix? Did you think it was okay because he’s not yours?”
“Everybody, out! Right fucking now!” I bellowed. If we were going to have it out in the common room, we were going to do it without the whole damn club watching, not to mention our children and my grandparents who were staring at us with jaws agape.
“Why do you want everyone to leave, Phoenix? So you can feed me some more bullshit behind closed doors? They all knew Octavius was still alive while you made a fool of me. So, let them stay and watch the show. I have nothing to hide.”
Holy shit. I had never, and I mean never, seen her so angry. And I was terrified. Yes, I did lie to her, but it wasn’t for the reasons she thought. I needed to speak, but I was too scared to say anything. If I lost her again...Fuck, I couldn’t even bring myself to complete the thought.
“Fucking say something, you big bastard,” she screamed.
“Mom,” Coal said softly. He was standing off to the side with Gram and Pop, but I didn’t fail to notice how he was positioned in front of Ember, even though Dash was cradling her against his chest. When my eyes landed on her, I heard her sobs loud and clear. Fuck, this was going to do a number on her, too.
“No,” Annabelle fumed. “He’s going to explain and he’s got five seconds to start doing it before I walk away from him.”
I visibly flinched from the pain that ripped through my chest at hearing her words. I sucked in a huge breath and did the only thing I could. I told her the truth. “We faked his death last year. I wasn’t going to let him keep his secrets and spend the rest of his days living comfortably in a jail cell. No, I was keeping him here until he told me what happened to you or I found something that led me to you, whichever came first. When I finally found the papers and headed out to California, I knew, if I found you, you wouldn’t come back here unless he was dead. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t kill him before I found you!”
“You should’ve had one of your boys do it before we came back!”
“Fuck, no! If anybody ends him, it’s going to be me!”
She stood with her hands balled into fists, glaring at me while she heaved in breath after breath. Then, she shocked the ever-loving shit out of me. “I want to see him.”
No. She didn’t really ask to see him, did she? “Annabelle, I don’t think—”
“I don’t care what you think. I want to fucking see him!” she roared. “He ruined my life just as much as he did yours. I have every right to see him and say my piece to him. You owe me that, Phoenix Alexander Black.”
If I wasn’t so busy feeling uncertain and helpless, I might have been turned on by her fierce determination. I swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay. I’ll take you to see him.”
“Just you. No one else,” she added.
Ignoring the shocked and stunned faces in the common room, I silently led her to the cell in the basement where Carbon had secured the little weasel. “Ah, my big bad brother has returned to torture me so soon? I expected it to take you longer to figure things out and clean up the mess you made at the warehouse. Such a messy job disposing of bodies,” he taunted.
“I’m not your fucking brother,” I growled.
“Our DNA says otherwise,” he quipped.
Before I could say anything else, Annabelle shoved me to the side and stepped forward. “Oh, brother dearest, you brought me a surprise. How thoughtful of you to return my lost property.”
I growled low in my throat. If Annabelle had something she wanted to say to him, she needed to do it and do it soon, because I was going to snap his neck with my bare hands if he continued trying to goad me.
“I was never yours,” Annabelle spat, facing down the man who took so much from her. She stood as tall as she could with her hands clasped tightly behind her back.
Octavius chuckled. “Oh, you still don’t know, do you? Well, you would have found out from Nivan at some point, so I’ll go ahead and tell you myself. Yes, you were my property. Didn’t you think it was strange that I would take in an 18-year-old to provide for while her parents worked off a debt? You were a legal adult. I didn’t have to do shit for you. No, your parents didn’t owe me any money and they never worked on the farm. I met your father when I first started providing guns for his club. He was always looking for ways to make more money. He’s the one who came up with the idea for loaning money to those who couldn’t pay it back and having them work off their debt at the farm. I paid him quarterly for the idea, a sort of royalty, if you will. A few months into it, he asked for his quarterly payment early. He had gotten himself into trouble of some sort. When I refused, he offered you up for sale. So, yes, Annabelle, you are my property.”
I had my eyes on Octavius as he spewed his shit at Annabelle. I should have been watching her. If I was, I would have seen her hand move, but I didn’t. Before I could react, Annabelle had a gun in her hand and proceeded to empty the clip into Octavius without hesitation, not missing a single shot.
We had soundproofed the cell we usually kept Octavius in not long after he became our resident prisoner, but Carbon put him in one of the regular cells until we could get the locks changed on his old cell and there was no way the guys didn’t hear the gunshots upstairs. Almost immediately, I heard the sounds of booted feet running down the hall. The door to the basement flew open and Duke called out as he practically jumped down the stairs with Carbon and the rest of the club on his heels, “Prez! You okay?”
Annabelle whirled around to see a wall of leather with guns drawn and aimed in our direction. She squeaked and the gun in her hand fell to the floor. “Put the guns down, brothers. We’re fine. I need a couple of you to clean—”
I was interrupted by the frantic screaming of my daughter. “Mom! Dad! Let me go before I knock your ass to the ground!”
“Ember! Stop! You know you can’t go down there!” Coal yelled back.
“The hell I can’t!”
“You two stay up there. We’re both fine and we’ll be up in a minute,” I called out. “Brothers, give us a minute, yeah?”
Duke glanced around the basement, unable to stop himself from surveying the area for threats. When his eyes landed on Octavius’s very dead body and the gun on the floor, he nodded and motioned for the others to go back upstairs. I was proud of him. As my SAA, his job was to protect me at all costs, even if it meant going against my orders.
When I heard the door close, I turned back to Annabelle, who had been surprisingly silent since she fired the first shot. “You okay, doll face?”
She cleared her throat and shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Uh, yeah, I’m fine. So, um, I guess we’re even now?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, you lied to me about him being alive and I lied to you about wanting to say my piece to him,” she sheepishly admitted. When I just looked at her, completely confused, she clarified, “I didn’t have anything to say to that bastard. I just wanted to shoot him.”
I stared at her blankly for two seconds, absorbing what she’d just said, before I threw my head back and laughed. I pulled her against my chest and engulfed her in a hug. “Woman, I fucking love you.”
“Yeah, I love you, too, you big bastard. But let’s get one thing straight right now. I understand why you did it, but if you ever lie to me again, I don’t give a fuck what it’s about, I’ll superglue your balls to your leg while you’re sleeping.”
I had no doubt she would. “There is something else I need to tell you. I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from you, I just hadn’t found a good time to tell you.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Luke called with the results from the DNA sample you provided. It was a match,” I said softly, unsure of how she would take the news.
She was silent for a moment and then asked, “Anything else?”
I cleared my throat. “Your father is also dead. Badger killed him when we went in to get Nathan.”
“You’re sure he’s dead?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. Badger shot him in the head. He was dead before his body hit the ground.”
She exhaled and her body visibly relaxed. “Remind me to thank him.”
I chuckled and threw my arm around her shoulder. “Will do. Let’s go see about our kids and let the boys get this place cleaned up.”