~ 7 ~
“You got anything yet?” I asked Crank as I walked to desk he was sitting at.
Man, he was one untidy bastard. Pages of scribbled notes were scattered across the old desk in the basement of the clubhouse—though I use the word basement very loosely. Basement would imply that we stored shit down there, like crates of beer, old jackets, and maybe some bike parts, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
No, this basement was where we brought our guests for interrogation.
It was the only place we trusted to be completely clean of any unwanted ears, since most people didn’t know it existed.
The lights were dim, though Crank had found an old metal desk lamp from somewhere and plugged it in, casting a bright spot over where he was working. He had two laptops running side by side and his fingers flew over the keyboards of one of them.
He grunted a no at me, his brow furrowing further.
“You gotta have found something,” I snapped, leaning back against the wall.
I didn’t like it down there. Place gave me the damn creeps.
The walls were bare brick and stone, old cement crumbling away if you rubbed it too hard. The floors were of a similar state, with a single drain in the middle of the room that led down to the sewers. The drain in that place was probably the only thing that was any good. Probably because the drain in that place was pretty fucking important.
Couldn’t wash away blood without drains.
“I’m not googling some bitch I went to high school with, Sketch!” Crank snapped. “This is some serious shit right here.” He pointed to the laptop in question, as if I hadn’t noticed it before then.
“Just hurry the fuck up with it before Vin pops something in his head.”
“Hurry up?” Crank shook his head, his jaw hanging open. “Hurry the fuck up! Did you not just hear—” The laptop beeped in front of him and he turned back to the screen. “Got you, motherfuckers.”
He pulled up something on the dark screen, but I had no idea what it was. It was just numbers and text that made no sense to me. Technology wasn’t my thing by any standards. Crank’s hands started tapping away on the keyboard again and he flipped from one laptop to the other. Not gonna lie, it was fascinating, since I had no real clue what he was doing. Eventually he leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. He looked over at me with a grin.
“Done,” he said with a smirk.
“What did you do?” I got closer to the screen, as if that would help me understand what I was seeing, but it still meant nothing to me.
“Plugged their connection into the local Walmart. Cleanup on aisle fourteen, motherfuckers.” He laughed and I joined him.
“They’re gonna work that out real quick, right?”
Crank shut down one laptop and chucked his empty can of Coke to the ground with the other three. He yawned and stretched. “Probably. I sure hope so. I want them to know that I found their little peepshow. And it wasn’t that hard either.” He cracked another can open and took a long drink of it, his face grimacing. “Needs some ice.”
I slapped him on the back and turned to leave. “All right, well if you’ve sorted that shit out, you can come back up into the clubhouse now. No one can see or hear what we’re doing now, thankfully.” I turned to leave, but my footsteps came to a halt. “Wait, I thought you said that this was harder than it looked.”
Crank barked out a laugh. “Not for me, you dumb bastard.” He turned back to the screen and went on tapping away as I scowled at him. “I’m going to tie the ends of this so they can’t get back in. Still not sure where they planted the bugs, and I won’t rest easy until we find them.”
“All right, well I’m heading out with Semi to see if we can locate Skate.”
Crank turned back to me. “You got news of him?”
“A small lead that he’s been seen at INKslingers. Probably a bust though.”
Crank cracked a grin. “Whatchya going for then?”
“Fuck off,” I barked with a laugh.
He knew exactly why I was going to check this lead out for myself. A certain hot-assed woman worked there, and I was hoping to catch a glimpse of her. If not a taste.
“Keep your eyes open, brother.” I turned and headed back up the stairs, feeling better as I climbed the steep steps and pushed open the door to the outside world.
I took in great lungfuls of air, feeling better with every breath I took. Hated that basement; it stank of blood and death. Not that blood and death bothered me at all, but that shit seeped into your skin if you wasn’t careful and I was already swimming in enough of it to last a lifetime. Crank, though—brother would shower in that shit if he could. Over the years he’d gotten better, but he’d never be right. The shit with Hope and Maria way back had tainted his soul, and I doubted he’d ever get over it.
I headed through the back entrance to the clubhouse and knocked on Vin’s door before sticking my head around. He was sitting in his chair, his head back and his eyes closed.
“What?” he barked.
“Heading out with Semi. He’s got a lead on Skate.”
He cracked an eye open, one hand moving to his lap to the head that was currently bobbing up and down like it was diving for fish. “Call me if you hear anything. JP and Buddy should be back anytime. Drove through the night to get back.”
I nodded and waved as I stalked away, heading outside and climbing on my bike. Semi was in the middle of another heated argument with Sara, and she slapped him across the face and screamed something incoherent at him.
He looked over to me with a sigh as she stormed away, tears trailing down her blotchy red cheeks. “I deserved that,” he grunted, rubbing a hand along his jaw.
I snickered. “Yeah you did.”
I slid on my helmet, not happy about putting my head inside the oven. Sooner we were out of Miles City the better. Goddamn place was a fucking deathtrap. The door to the clubhouse reopened and I looked over as Lex screamed something. Pretty much only heard the words no and Sara before the shotgun blast sounded out.
Sara was standing there, gun in hand, her arms struggling to hold up the heavy weapon as she tried to aim it at Semi. Lex had her hands on her waist and was trying to pull her back, but she was going to end up getting me shot herself if she kept on like that.
Semi dove off of his bike and ran to one of the large rolling bins we had outside, and Sara let off another round into it.
“You fucking bitch!” he roared from behind it. “I will fucking kill you, bitch!”
“So get on with it! You’ve already killed me anyway,” she sobbed. She elbowed Lex in the side, sending her flying backwards as she reached into her tiny denim shorts pockets and pulled out two more cartridges. She’d gotten the first one loaded when Mason grabbed the gun from her shaking hands. Jason was on her in a second, tackling her to the ground as she lashed out, arms and legs flying all over the place.
“Get off of me!” she screamed.
The whole scene was insane, women and men fighting, bullets flying, screaming and arguing. Worse than growing up in the shitty orphanage I once called a home.
Vin charged out the door. “Enough!” he roared, and Sara had the damn good sense to quit fighting Jason and collapse into a heap on the ground. Her shoulders shook as she wailed, the sound more like an animal caught in a trap than a woman crying.
Lex dove over to her and dragged her into her lap, hushing her and wiping her hair away from her face. It was fucking poetic. Insanely poetic. Vin looked over at me as Semi came out from behind the dumpster looking sheepish.
“Check out the tattoo shop yourself. I need serious words with Semi, right the fuck now.” Vin looked down at Lex and Sara and Lex caught his gaze. “Get her cleaned up, now.”
“Vin, she didn’t mean it. He’s an asshole, the way he’s been—”
“I don’t fucking care what he’s been doing, she tried to kill him. Ain’t no mistaking that, Lex. Now get her calmed the fuck down and cleaned the fuck up and let me deal with it.” Vin was not fucking around, and I dreaded what was going to happen to Sara.
Lex nodded and helped get Sara up off the ground, taking her back inside the clubhouse.
Vin looked over to me. “What the fuck are you waiting for?” He glared at Semi as he reached him. “You really fucked up, brother, and now that shit’s coming down on us all. Can’t be having that.”
“I know, Prez, I know.” Semi dragged a hand over his head. “Don’t know why I keep doing it to her, fucking love her more than life itself.”
“Sure as shit not showing it,” Vin growled.
I missed the rest of the conversation as I started my bike and pulled out of the clubhouse, heading toward INKslingers and hopefully Nancy. Though after seeing what bitches were like when they flipped their shit like that, I was a little hesitant. Though I didn’t intend on keeping Nancy—just fucking her out of my system. If she’d let me.
I chuckled to myself.
Yeah, she’d let me.
I was motherfucking charming and shit.