Chapter 12
Ace
We were in the middle of church when the door opened and Deputy Callahan stepped into the bar. I could tell from his expression that it wasn't a social call. His gaze encompassed all of us at once, lingering on me a little longer than the others. My face was still messed up from the fight a few days ago, and I could read the question in his eyes, but he didn't voice it. He had his own agenda and it was obvious that it took precedence over anything else. Besides, Callahan had long ago adopted the policy that asking no questions meant not having to deal with answers he may not want to hear.
"Sorry for busting in on your meeting," he said straight away, walking toward us.
"Not a problem, Deputy." Tanner sat back in his chair. "You look a little frazzled."
Deputy Callahan had been a cop for about twenty years. His experience worked in our favor because he knew things couldn't always happen by the book. He was the one we usually dealt with when there was an issue, and likewise, he came to us. The police department was thankful for our partnership, for the most part. There were still those strictly-by-the-book newbies who tried to make life difficult for us, but they quickly learned to leave us the fuck alone.
Callahan grabbed an empty chair and planted his fifty-year-old butt on it. The man was in fairly good shape for his age. It occurred to me that he was only a few years older than I was. The man had a wife and a family. Christ. His kids were all grown up. The knowledge that I had none of those things and probably never would was like a fucking knife in the gut.
Callahan ran a hand over the lower half of his jaw before releasing a frustrated sigh. "Had a run-in with some of the Hellraisers early this morning, over on Tomoka Farms Road. They terrorized an old couple who live close to Cabbage Patch. Then they shot up a few vehicles traveling on the road, caused one driver to slam into a tree. He was rushed to the hospital with a heart attack. By the time I got there there'd already been a shootout between them and responding deputies. They sent two deputies to the hospital; we put four of theirs in jail."
"Fuck. They going to be okay?" Tanner frowned.
Callahan nodded. "Looks like you were correct about the Hellraisers moving to Cacklebery, they've practically taken over the whole campground."
Heath and I had been staked out at the hotel that the Hellraisers were staying at the night before and we’d noticed some movement that suggested that they were leaving. It didn't surprise me that they'd only gone as far as Cacklebery. The campground at Cabbage Patch was a popular spot for bikers to hang around when they were in town.
"Who'd you arrest?" Mark inquired.
"No one important," Callahan grumbled. "Prospects following orders. Witnesses who hung around couldn't ID anyone."
I snorted. "Prospects taking one for the club." It was a common practice that when cops showed up, the prospects took the fall so the others could escape jail time.
"The other bikers scrambled and it was too dark to see who they were or where they went." He snorted. "We sure as hell couldn't arrest the whole damned MC. Told them we'd be back at daylight to question any other witnesses we can find."
Several of us laughed out loud at that. "You won't find any," I said. Civilian witnesses rarely remembered anything when it came to speaking out against an MC, and we all knew that anyone who ratted out their club would be signing their own death warrant. Disloyalty was the worse crime you could commit against your brothers.
Callahan nodded, his mouth turned down. "I know that. The situation was like a keg of dynamite getting ready to blow. Those assholes were drunk and high and I just wanted to defuse the situation as fast as I could without calling in more officers. Figured backing off would give everyone time to calm down." He pinned his worried gaze on Tanner. "I want them gone. If I thought they'd just stay at the campgrounds until they’re ready to move on I'd ignore them."
"That's the problem," Gabe began, reaching for a donut. "They want to take over this town."
"The department has three hundred fifty officers for roughly sixty-five thousand citizens. The chief asked for ten volunteers to start up a task force to deal with problem MCs on a full time basis."
"That's what, like seven percent of the force?" Sid pointed out. "And you're heading up this task force?"
Callahan shrugged with a smirk. "I was the first idiot to raise my hand." He pinned a direct gaze on Tanner, turning serious. "I did it because I knew I could count on the Sentinels for help."
The long look they held spoke volumes. I was just waiting for Deputy Callahan to put his thoughts into words. Once that was done, there'd be no going back. He'd asked us for help a few times over the years—mostly muscle work and intimidation--because we were an MC, but there'd been a couple of times when he'd wanted help but didn't want to know the details. My lips quirked when I realized that this was going to be one of those times.
"Why do I get the impression that this isn't just a request for surveillance or verbal warnings to get the fuck out of town?" Tanner inquired.
Callahan leaned forward and said in a deadly serious tone, "I want those bastards out of our town. We've got the reports on them. They're nothing but a gang of hoodlums that cause destruction and death in their wake. Arrest one, send him away, and another pops up to take his place, just like a fucking cockroach."
Callahan was right. There were a lot of Hellraisers doing time for various crimes, and yet their numbers never seemed to go down.
"So, you think between your ten officers and the twelve of us we can take on the Hellraisers?" Gabe smirked. "Our odds aren't good."
Callahan grinned. "As head of the task force I've been given leeway on how I choose to get things done, short of outright killing. The chief wants to keep this as close to home as possible."
Meaning that he didn't want to call in reinforcements, either. It wouldn't exactly look good for the department if they couldn't protect their own town, and if they couldn’t do that then the chief might as well forget about re-election when the time came. Daytona had had their fair share of trouble with MCs in the past, but the reputation of the Hellraisers guaranteed violence and chaos. The reports I'd seen revealed that they were guilty of just about every kind of crime.
"Are you asking us to break the law?" Skipper half-joked, his comment drawing laughter from Callahan and several others.
Callahan knew that we'd help him in any way that he wanted, but we had to make certain that shit wouldn't come back on us. He held his hand up to prevent anymore comments. "The nine deputies under my command have already been briefed that the Sentinels will be working with us in getting rid of this MC, so you won't get any interference from them. As I said before, I want these bastards run out of town." He paused for effect. "Whatever it takes."
His message couldn't be clearer. The Hellraisers had no endearing qualities. They were made up of criminals who'd managed to skirt around the law because they were good at not getting caught, and when they were, they didn't hesitate to eliminate the witnesses. They were fucking good at disappearing, too.
Tanner and I exchanged a look. As his enforcer, I would be the one working out the details of how we were going to help run the other MC out of town. I could tell that he was thinking things over in his head. Some of us had families now, including him. If we took this on, he'd want to send the women and children away and put them on lockdown.
"What do you say, brothers? We might as well take a vote right now." Tanner's tone gave nothing away as to how he wanted the vote to go.
Sid released a heavy sigh. "We were already keeping eyes on the assholes and were ready to act if necessary." He shrugged. "I don't mind getting my hands dirty for a good cause."
"Some of us have families," Mark growled, most likely thinking about the baby he had on the way. "Once the Hellraisers realize that we're actively running them out of town it will mean war."
"There are twenty of us," Rod quipped, folding his arms.
"Against fifty plus," William reminded him gruffly, his brown eyes snapping.
"The numbers don't bother me," Gabe said with confidence. "We can call in brothers from another charter to make it equal."
"If we do this, we'll send our families to the safe house in St. Augustine. They'll be guarded twenty-four-seven until this is over." Tanner turned his eyes onto the quiet Callahan. "We help you with this, we do it our way." Something passed between them, and finally Callahan slowly nodded.
Tanner then glanced at me. I made sure Callahan knew what we'd expect from him. "You make sure your officers stay out of our way. This isn't going to be as simple as asking them to leave," I demanded firmly. "This is going to get violent and dirty."
"I guarantee they won't give you any trouble," Callahan began, getting to his feet. "They've got families, too. And they know what happened to that cop and his girl in Georgia."
Yeah, that had been bad. A good cop just trying to do his job. He'd made a fatal mistake in confronting two Hellraisers who’d been giving a clerk a hard time at a convenience store. He hadn't been in uniform; he'd been on a date with his woman. The two bikers had backed off and left. Later that night, the cop's burned out car had been found with two bodies inside. It had later been determined that they'd been burned alive. Their bodies had been handcuffed together on the steering wheel.
No one had been arrested for the crime because there'd been no witnesses, only speculation that the Hellraisers had had a hand in it. Two bikers had been seen leaving the area around the time of the fire, but it had been too dark to see who they were.
"Brothers?" The room grew quiet. I recognized Tanner’s tone. He was done talking and wanted our answers. He glanced at each of us, waiting just long enough for the chin lift that indicated our vote was “yes” before moving on to the next brother. He took a deep breath and met the questioning look in Callahan's eyes. "We'll do it."
Christ, we were fools, but Daytona was our town, and we'd do whatever it took to protect it, and our families. There was going to be war. We were going to get our hands bloody. It was the only way with men like the Hellraisers. The only thing they'd understand.
I should have taken out the five assholes that had been messing with me that morning.
Deputy Callahan got to his feet with a look of satisfaction on his face. "Be careful." He dug for something in his pocket and handed it to Tanner. "The names of my men."
Tanner waited until Callahan was out the door before saying, "Put a sign on the door saying we don't open until five, and lock it. We need to make plans." Sully got up to take care of it. "Bonnie!" he called out. She'd been in the back getting ready to open.
"Yes, boss?" She entered the room, drying her hands on a towel.
"Honey, I want you to call everyone on the schedule and tell them not to come in until five. Then I want you to leave."
I could see that she wanted to ask why, but I knew that she wouldn't. "Sure." She hesitated, glancing around the table. None of us looked happy at the moment. "Want me to make a fresh pot of coffee before leaving?"
"I think we're gonna need something stronger," Pete said. There was a murmur of agreement.
"Whiskey and tequila," Heath suggested.
Bonnie smiled. "You got it." She turned and went back to the bar.
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. It had been a long time since we'd had to deal with shit of this magnitude. War. We knew all about war. Sure, we'd been out of the service for a long fucking time, but each one of us remembered what it had been like. How hard we'd had to fight to keep alive. It was simple. It was us or them.
I wondered if this would be the war that would destroy the Sentinels.