Wolf
What the fuck is going on? Hitch isn't someone I want showing up at my club. Bear, Bull, and Tank are waiting for me downstairs and follow me out the door. It looks like Hitch has around ten guys with him.
Walking up to the gate, I ask, “What in the hell do you want, Hitch?”
“I want you to release Moose, because I know you have him here.”
I turn to Tank. “Hand me the iPad.”
Pulling up the footage of us releasing Moose, I show it to Hitch. “As you can see, Moose was released yesterday. We did follow him to see where he would go.”
Hitch watches the footage. “Where in the fuck did he go?” he asks.
“We followed him to his apartment. He went in and did not come back out. After that, our guy came back. So, we cannot tell you where he is now.” I'm seeing red at the guts this guy has for showing up to my club with demands.
“Well, we'll take care of Moose." Hitch promises, then smirks. "Heard you had a new bitch?”
“She's my woman!” I won't say anything else about Pepper. Not sure how Hitch knows about her, either. Something isn't right.
“Yeah, I heard she's a feisty thing, I look forward to meeting her.” His grin grows.
“You stay away from mine or I will kill you.” Fucking hell, I'm going to murder him. His reputation for how he treats his women is enough for me to want to do away with him. But Pepper—I'd have no regrets about protecting her.
“I told you no more of your women or children will be hurt if Moose was released, but I still want to meet her.”
Why is he so damn interested in Pepper? "Fuck no.” Before I can say anything else, I hear movement behind me and it isn't the heavy boots of my men. I turn to find Pepper stepping out from behind the guys. She walks right up in front of me, evading my attempts to pull her behind me.
Pepper turns and glares at me. “Maybe we should get those introductions done, and we can all go on about our business.”
Turning back around, she looks at Hitch. “So, Hitch, here I am. I understand you wanted to meet me. Now you have, you can go. Bye.” She waves her hand. Before she turns to walk away, Hitch touches his nose with two fingers. She turns around with her head held high and starts walking back to the club house.
They all watch as she sashays away.
I turn to Hitch. “I guess that’s your cue to leave.”
“Well, fuck. Your woman is something,” Hitch mutters. “Mount up,” he tells his men. “It’s time to leave this hell-hole.” Then he turns to me. “We'll be watching you.”
We don't move until all the Dwellers are out of sight.
“Son of a bitch,” Bull states.
All of them start to laugh. I'm not fucking laughing.
“Did you see Hitch’s face when she did the little wave, and turn to walk away?” Bear says. He's about to piss in his pants from laughing.
Growling, I stomp back to the club house. I plan to tan her bottom red, but right now we need to have a meeting. I tell Shooter. “Get the guys together. We have church in about fifteen.”
I know for damn sure we have a mole. Moose was let go without anyone outside the club knowing it. The newest prospect, Bill, is my pick. There's always been something off with him. None of the other prospects knew about Moose being released, except for Bill. I send a quick text to Ghost to make sure there's a clear view outside the door. Maybe we'll catch our mole listening in.
Before I go into the meeting, I need to find Pepper. I see her about to go upstairs. “Can you come to my office for a second?” I say nothing else and head in that direction without looking to see if she's following. As soon as the door shuts, I turn around and push her against the door, grabbing her face. She starts to say something, but I shake my head at her. She knows I'm not happy with her right now, so she stands there until I decide to speak. Rather than say anything, I lean in and kiss her harder than I have before.
“Do not ever do something like you did again!” I spit out, breathing hard. I shake my head again, stopping her from talking. “Those men are some of the meanest you’ll ever meet. They would not even think twice about pulling out guns and shooting.”
Her eyes widen. “I'm sorry, but I don’t regret what I did at the gate. This shit needs to come to an end,” she says in a shaky voice.
“I know baby, we're working on it. By the way, I guess you know Moose was released. Who told you?”
“Yesterday, when the prospects got back from their errand, Travis had the duty of bringing up the laundry. I passed him in the hall talking to Roxie. He was telling her that Bill told him about Moose being released.”
Not sure what to make of that, I nod. “Go on and get ready for supper. The club members are going into a meeting, and when we finish I'll come get you.”
On the way, down to the meeting, I keep thinking about Bill, Travis, and Roxie. I thought Bill was the most likely suspect, but now there's a possibility it's Roxie. Travis is family so I would be surprised if it turns out to be him. There's no way it could be a brother—at least I hope not. I hate that to even be in my head, but also can't leave it out of the picture.
I get to the meeting before everyone else starts to come in so I can watch them, and I send a text to the prospects. Then, I put Travis on guard duty and let Bill free for a while.
Tank and Ghost show up first. I go over my thoughts with them about catching the mole. Ghost sets the feed to come through his laptop and then we wait on everyone to enter.
”You guys go along with whatever I say.” Before the other men now present can ask anything, I answer the questioning looks. “Everything will be revealed by the end of the meeting.”
It takes about fifteen minutes for the rest of the members to get there, including the members from Louisiana since this is not a meeting just about our chapter. I have no idea what is going on anymore. Pepper has me thinking maybe it’s not about the Dwellers—it could be something else entirely. For now, I'll let everyone think the problem is limited to the Dwellers in case it’s one of the guys in the meeting.
I start the meeting going over the topic of Moose’s release to see if anyone has anything to add. Not everyone is happy with us letting Moose go. Some of the guys think we should have gotten rid of him, particularly Gunner, Dog, and some of the men from Louisiana.
I go over the fact we had a prospect who we thought was from the Dwellers get on our property. “I'm not sure if the prospect was sent for something, or to spy on us.”
Before I can say anything else about this, Snake, one of the guys from Louisiana, interjects, “There's no way that we would have let the prospect live. Not sure we would've even let Moose live.”
"I agree with him," Dog says
“How is your sister doing?" Ghost changes the subject.
"My sister is doing somewhat better. She still can't speak because of her mouth being wired shut. But as soon as she names her attackers, somebody will pay with their life.”
“Something was not right about Hitch showing up at the gate,” Bull points out. “I think he was not surprised that Moose had been released.” Everyone agrees with Bull.
I let them all talk over each other, letting time go by. After twenty minutes of nothing, I decide to wrap things up. I'm not ready to disclose my suspicions to everyone yet, so I prepare to close the meeting.
“Does anyone else have anything they need to say?” When nobody speaks, I hit the gavel on the table. “Meeting adjourned.”
Emptying the room takes another ten minutes. Everyone has left except for Tank and me. Tank is and always will be one of the only people I trust completely. We check out the stream from the video camera outside the door. I can't believe nobody showed up. Makes me rethink the culprit being Bill or Roxie. I know they are both free and knew about the meeting. Which leaves prospects Travis and Hank or one of my club brothers. I hope it's not the latter.
There's still an hour before supper, so I decide to get some work done in my office, giving Pepper time alone.