CHAPTER SIX
Loch
“Shouldn’t have let him go alone,” I said as I sat there in front of Cal.
I’d just gotten back from South Carolina. The whirlwind trip down there left no time for sleep and I was ready to get back home. Though I hadn’t been away but a little over twenty-four hours, I missed my woman and my little baby girl.
However, the moment I stepped foot into Cal’s office I knew I wouldn’t be getting home anytime soon. The fear and anxiety hung thick in the air as he told me that Bocca hadn’t returned. Bocca hadn’t even checked in. Cal didn’t have to say it for me to get that it wasn’t good. Bocca should have been back first thing this morning at the latest.
It wouldn’t have done any good for me to voice the feelings I had about the whole situation. I had been uneasy about this thing from the get-go. But I could see the desperate need in Bocca’s eyes telling me that he couldn’t walk away from this. Not that I could blame him, I felt the same way too. Maybe we had our priorities all wrong. No, I was starting to feel certain that we did.
That was the thing, we’d taken on all of this so that we could have some sort of control, to know that the artillery that came in didn’t fall into the hands of people that intended to do harm to innocent people. Then again, maybe that was being a bit naïve. I kept myself—and maybe the club as well—in this pit of denial, convinced that it was better for us to be the ones in charge and oversee everything rather than let someone like, well, Savage get their hands on something like that.
Fuck knew we didn’t need another one of him to get the power.
Even as I thought those things, I knew it wasn’t that simple. It wasn’t like a dinner date where we could just call and apologetically cancel. If we did it would set a ripple in motion. It would raise concern and with that, people would start to get unsure. We’d worked too hard setting up new contacts. The trust wasn’t just for us to gain, we had to earn it from them too. If it didn’t feel like they had, then there was something obviously wrong. So as hard as it was, Cal had made the best call for the situation.
His office was quiet. The prez sat there, face looking about ten years older than it did yesterday. This was hard on all of us. I didn’t have to look over at Diesel and Axe to know that they were feeling it too.
Bocca. He’d been gone over a day. It shouldn’t have taken this long and I had no clue where he was.
When he came to us about this side job that Lucy asked for help with, there was too much going on for us to be able to send someone trustworthy with him. I saw the disappointment flicker in his eyes, but then he came up with a new plan right there on the spot. A plan that had a lot less action and maybe less risk. It wouldn’t be the take-down that he’d hoped for, but it had potential to lead to ending the operation and rescue of the innocent lives that had gotten trapped into this web.
So there was Bocca, swearing up and down that it was a simple job and he was just going to do some recon. That he could handle it no problem. He hadn’t had plans to make any moves. He was supposed to go in, remain unseen, and come back to us so that we could formulate a plan on where to go from there.
I couldn’t help but feel that something had gone wrong. I was smart enough to know that more than likely we weren’t lucky enough that he was just hunkered down somewhere hiding until the heat passed. If that were the case, I knew he would have found some way to get a message to us.
Right then, nothing else mattered. Fuck it all. We could mend bridges with whoever we pissed off later. We had to get him back. Cal was kicking himself the same as I was. We should have never fucking let him go alone.
The problem with Bocca being gone, we didn’t have the first clue how to find him. Yeah, he was our hacker and tracker. He knew how to do all that shit and none of us had the first clue where to begin.
Then there was Lucy. I trusted her completely. After all, she knew shit about the club that she shouldn’t have. But Bocca had said she was headed out of the country and would be unreachable. This shit sucked. We could have reached out to other chapters but I had a feeling Cal wanted to keep this contained for right now.
It wasn’t a good time. Sure the new chapter was doing good, but there was still a lot of energy and time going into getting everything set up. Having control over the docks meant more merchandise coming in. More runs. More trade-offs. And more buyers. We were stretched a little thin at the moment, trying to find new routes and new clubs to work with. That required a lot because we weren’t going to trust just anyone. It took time to make connections and establish relationships, especially ones that were worthwhile. It took men and resources.
“Diesel, try Clean. Get that he’s probably out, but if we can get to him then we can get to Lucy. Hate to do it, but don’t got a choice,” Cal said, his tone grim like he already knew it was going to be useless. “That don’t work, then Axe you have your old lady try to reach out to Lucy. We gotta try. But I don’t want the girls knowing that somethin’ is up, if we can help it. Let’s try to keep this as quiet as possible for now.”
Axe and Diesel nodded and headed out. Cal waited until the door was closed behind them before he spoke again.
“We need someone outside the club that we can trust. This is beyond what we can do. Search Bocca’s room. Find me somethin’ to work with here.”
I got to my feet and left.
It should have felt strange going into his room, like a total invasion of privacy, but it didn’t. We didn’t have secrets here in the MC and I knew Bocca was as open as they came. When it came to his own life, anyway. When it came to all the things that he knew about everyone else, he tucked it away like it didn’t even exist. Some might have said that he ran his mouth too fucking much, but it was never anything of great importance. I had picked up on that after a few years.
See it was no secret that Bocca knew pretty much everything about everyone, especially when we first vetted you for the club. Bocca could find out just about everything. Real name. Birthday. First speeding ticket. And that was just the small stuff. Not only could he work his finger magic to find things you might try to hide, but he could weave a map to things that might not have even been there in plain sight.
Bocca was smart, in the oddest sort of way. I never tried to explain it. Never wanted to define it. And maybe most of the time I just took it for granted. It was that strange intelligence that helped him to continuously hide behind his shield without anyone realizing that he was. Letting little snippets of non-classified information slip here and there threw people off to how much he really did hold in.
I didn’t know how many people noticed it, but I saw it. And I not only had deep respect for the guy, but also completely and totally trusted him.
The search of his room came up empty. I didn’t dare touch his computer shit. Even if I did, I wouldn’t have had the first clue what to do with it. I realized that this was a huge problem. We relied on Bocca for so much and without him, we were completely at a loss. I hoped he knew how valuable he was to us, and that because of that we were so grateful for him.
As a club, we were great at communication as far as club shit went. But as men, we were just a bunch of grunting, nodding Neanderthals most of the time. We said things, just not with words. Shared emotions, just subtly and at a distance. Now, I was starting to wonder if that was enough.
It hit me like a fucking ram to the chest, I might not have the chance to ever tell him how much he meant to not only the club, but me as well.
I shook the negative thoughts away. There wasn’t time for that and it wouldn’t do any good to let that kind of darkness seep in. We were going to find him. Pull every string and cash in every favor to make that happen. There was simply no other option other than getting him back.
“We got nothin’ other than what he gave us,” I said the moment I closed the door to Cal’s office behind me.
Cal nodded like he already expected to hear that very thing.
We looked over the info Bocca left with us again. Not a damn thing that would help us. Not a location. Not even a street name.
“This shouldn’t have fuckin’ happened,” Cal said and I could see his strong façade slipping.
“It did. It’s is happenin’. There’s not a thing that we can do about it other than get him back. So let’s do that.”
I tried to bring him back even if I was feeling the same thing that he was.
“Called Hunter. He’ll be here shortly,” Cal said.
Thank God. We needed something and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it before. Hunt would find him. If anyone could, it would be him.