Chapter 7
Beast
After riding for a couple of hours, we finally arrive at the motel we’re staying at. We all split into two groups this time and are staying in two separate motels. The Macks Clubhouse just happens to be smack dab in the middle of both them. They are twenty-miles north of ours.
We’re staying four men to a room. Ace, Blaze, Hawk, and I are sharing one, it feels like old times, back in our old barracks in the desert. We’re just missing Snake and Gator.
Once we’re all settled in our rooms, we’ll have time to rest, until we meet at the location, at two in the morning, so we can scope out their Clubhouse and start our preparations. A few of the guys will go earlier and start setting up the wiring for the explosives.
It’s after six when I finally pull out my cell phone to check-in with Bella. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her all day. Much to my dismay, I couldn’t get her out of my head on the long ride here. I need to hear her voice to calm my shit down. Damn, I sound like a fuckin’ pussy, what has gotten into me lately. I know, it’s got to be love, my heart is full of bliss and love for her and Gigi. I’ve never had to look out for anyone but myself until now. Now, I have two other people in my life that I care very deeply about and have to protect.
She answers on the second ring. “Gio!” she shouts into the phone sounding happy and relieved at the same time to hear from me. At the sound of her voice, I finally take a breath that I was apparently holding for a while.
“Hey, baby, whatcha doin’?” I ask anxiously. I really hope she is getting out of the apartment and getting to know my brothers and the other ol’ ladies.
“Good. I miss you, amore mio,” she says, so low I almost don’t hear her. “I’m sorry, that’s not fair, it’s just not the same around here without you.” She’s nervous, I can hear it in her voice, and trying, but her emotions are getting the best of her. “I miss you too, baby, and it’s fine, I get it,” I say reassuring her. “Tell me what you’ve been doin’ since I left this morning?” I may have to have another conversation with mom and make sure she is socializing with everyone.
“After you left Gigi, Jules and I took a nap together in our bed for a couple of hours. Then we went downstairs with Aunt Cindy to have lunch with everyone.” She pauses, then continues. “Oh, Gio, I met all your brothers, and they seem great, and I like a lot of their ol’ ladies too. They have all been so nice and compassionate. I’m assuming Gator spoke with everyone after the other day to forget about the whole incident.
“After lunch, Gigi, Jules and I hung out with the women and the kids out back. Gigi played with the kids while Jules and I sat and watched, talking to the women. It’s wonderful having so many kids around, Gigi is so happy, she hasn’t left them. Afterwards, some of the women and I watched a movie.
“Actually, we just finished, and I was going to help set up dinner. You called just as everyone was leaving the media room.” She pauses again, taking a deep breath to compose her thoughts. She’s been rambling trying to contain her uneasiness.
“To be honest, it’s been a little overwhelming, but it’ll get better as I spend more time with everyone, right.” The pure joy that i feel in my heart floats through my veins, like a drug. Bella is my goddamn drug these days.
She really is doing fine. I knew she was my brave, strong woman, who could stand on her own two feet.
“Baby, I’m really proud of you. I knew you could do this. What are you all having for dinner?” Okay, I’m trying to distract her a little. Dinner sounds really good right about now. I’ll round up the guys to head to the diner up the road when I’m done.
“I’m not sure what the ladies are making.” She’s quiet for a second, then she says, “Gio, are you okay?” Wow, where did that come from? “I’m fine, baby. Why are you asking?” I hear her take a deep breath. “Gio, I know you, and I know you’re worried about me. Please, stop! Damn it, I’m fine, really. I need you to do your job and not stress about me. I can’t lose you, and if you’re distracted, I will lose you, or you’ll lose one of your brothers. I miss you like crazy, and I love to hear your voice and receiving text messages would be great too, when you can. I won’t distract you just touch base with me every now and then. Please stay present in what you are doing so you can finish this shit and come home to me. Can you please do that for me?” There she goes again with that sassy mouth of hers. My girl surprises me at every turn and just put me in my fuckin’ place. She is stronger than I’ve given her credit for, and apparently, smarter than I am too. If this is what she wants and needs from me, then I’ll give it to her.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m stressing over nothin’, I know. I just love you so much and want to be with you, protecting you from everything. I forgot for a minute that you could take care of yourself. It won’t happen again. I’ll concentrate on my job, while I’m here and getting home to you and Gigi, safely. I gotta go. I’ll try to call you before bed to say Goodnight, if not I’ll send you a quick text. If you need anything, or just want to send a text, do it, and I’ll get back to you when I can? Tell Gigi I love her. Ti amo, mia bella Principessa.”
Now, I feel like I’ve let her down. I’m such a fuckin’ asshole. I need to let go of the reins a little where she’s concerned, and give her some space. I don’t want to smother her, especially when she is being like this. I would love more than anything to have her with me all the time, but I can’t, and she needs her space. It hurts me and warms my heart at the same time to hear her being so brave and facing her fears head-on.
“Ti amo, amore mio, bye.” “Bye, baby,” I say, and hang up. I stand there on the side of the building for a few minutes reflecting on her words. She sure as shit just put me in my place, and I definitely deserved it too. After a few minutes I shake off the feeling of disappointment, and I head back to the room to find the guys, so we can head out for dinner.
Ten of us stroll down to the diner for some grub. The others are sleeping or didn’t want to join us.
Ace, Blaze, Hawk, Bull, and I grab a table together.
During dinner, we enjoy a good meal together just unwinding and shooting the shit.
“What crawled up your ass? You were fine when we got here, then you disappeared for a few minutes and came back in a grumpy ass mood. Who put your panties in a twist, man?” Blaze asks, laughing and the guys join him.
I tell them about my conversation with Bella, and of course, they all laugh their asses off at me. My woman definitely has me by the balls and my brothers can see it all too well.
After they finish ribbing me, we finish up and head back to our rooms. On our way back, I pull Ace aside, it’s time to have a little chat with my brother on his intentions with Jules.
“Hey, bro, why didn’t you come to me first about claiming Jules?”
“It was kind of a last minute, overdue decision,” he grunts, walks a few more paces before continuing.
“I never thought I deserved her or love. I’m a piece of shit, never gonna amount to anything. I’m a good for nothin’ son of a bitch and a bastard, a killer, an unlovable shit. That’s what those men my mother brought around, engraved in me my whole life. The only person that ever showed me love and that I truly love is Brookie. Fuck, look how that shit ended. She still hates me and for good reason.” Brookie is his much younger - thirteen years - baby sister.
“You know none of that’s true, right.” He doesn’t answer me because in some ways, he still believes it and probably always will. He just nods and goes on.
“It all started the moment I heard the heartbreak in Jules’ voice, that day in the bar when she called you to help Bella. Something changed inside me, and I didn’t know what. Then things just...escalated from there.
“Laying eyes on her for the first time... My heart literally skipped a beat at that moment. Bella ripping into my ass on your wedding day...
“That asshole touching her...” he growls.
“I don’t know, it just felt right. I just had to follow my heart for once.” I get it, I’ve seen the way they look at each other. He doesn’t have to tell me any more.
That will be their love story to tell, not mine and not now.
“Just don’t hurt her or I will kill you, brother or not. Jules is my family, she may not be my blood family, but she’s family all the same. She is my sister just like Gigi.” She has been my sister since the day she was born. All those years growing up so close and always protecting the girls, you develop a sorta bond. I may have left all those years ago, but my heart was always there with them, and I always kept up on their lives through Val. Of course, my main concern was always Bella, but I asked about all the other girls too. They were my family before I left all of them.
“I have no intentions of ever hurting her. I will be making an honest woman out of her when the time is right.”
Bella told me Jules was thinking about leaving us, once all this shit is said and done, she was going back to her home. I guess now that has changed and all for the best. I for one, am very happy for the two of them and now my girl doesn’t have to lose her best friend once all this is over.
He just better not hurt her, VP, brother, and friend or not, I will knock him on his ass if he hurts her even in the tiniest bit.
We leave it at that, and the rest of our walk back is in silence.
When we enter the room, it’s after 10. I send off a quick text to Bella before falling on my face from exhaustion.
Me: I luv u, baby. Sweet dreams, my beautiful Princess.
Bella: I luv u 2. GN, my luv.
When I’m finished, I face plant onto the bed, and it becomes my best friend for a couple of hours. I’ve been running on fumes from no sleep the last three nights and our ride up here. I pass out seeing the face of my strong, beautiful woman and her mesmerizing honey, golden eyes, heart-shaped face and long wavy, soft dark brown hair that I love to rake through with my fingers.
Ace wakes me after one in the morning, and we head out to meet the rest of the guys.
We find a place to hide our bikes in the woods, far enough away from their Clubhouse, so we can’t be seen or heard. Then we walk the rest of the way around the fence surrounding the building. Ace and I find Blaze and Hawk in the back corner covered by the trees.
“Hey, we got a tenth of the perimeter laid out, and another tenth or more should be done in a couple of hours. We spliced their wires for Throttle, so he has access to the security system already,” Blaze says looking smug as usual.
The guys have started on the C4 explosives, setting them up around the perimeter. Throttle is monitoring their cameras from our Clubhouse to see who is coming in and out of the building at all times. If all goes as planned, we should be able to light this bitch up as early as Thursday night, before the unknown possibilities of the weekend.
It’s time for me to get to work on my part of the explosives, the detonators.
****
Two nights later, we find ourselves still in the woods outside the Macks Clubhouse. Progress is slower than we hoped, and we have to survey the area again for anything new that may cause problems.
A fence surrounds the Macks’ Clubhouse separating it from the woods. It conceals us enough to place the explosives on the inside of the chain link fence without being seen. Fortunately, there isn’t a long distance, like our Clubhouse, from the fence to the building. Unfortunately, the explosives aren’t as powerful as I would like them to be, but they will get the job done. We just need to contain the blast as close to the building and as far away from the trees as possible, without the town noticing the ground shaking miles away. Hawk found a hole in the fence in the far back corner, the other night, when he was surveying the area, and we’ve been using it to our advantage. Being that the trees are right outside the fence, we need to be careful, so we don’t cause a major forest fire.
Blaze, Ace and I have spent pretty much the whole day on our laptops in our room. We connected with Throttle, monitoring the Macks Clubhouse computers through their Wi-Fi. I hacked into all the guys’ computers and searched their hard drives and history.
We found out: these fuckers have an auction scheduled, here in Georgia’s underground circuit, for this Tuesday to sell the girls they have now. The girls are being held in the basement of the Clubhouse. We have gathered all the information we can at this point, we know they have twelve girls locked down there, and I was finally able to see the camera feed today. They were bouncing it around different IP Addresses so it couldn’t be traced back to them.
That is the main reason for the change to our plans. We can’t risk their lives, so no going in guns ablazing and shooting every one of those shitheads. We can’t light this place up until we have extracted the girls and get them to safety. In order for that to happen, we had to devise a new plan.
So, the new plan now is to extract the girls first, from the building. Regrettably, that won’t be happening tonight like we had originally planned. We need more time and more supplies to handle this new development. With the weekend here, this puts a major hole in our plan. Who knows what these assholes have planned and if we can sneak around to get it done in time?
Gator ordered two prospects, from the Jax Club, to head our way with all the extra shit we’re going to need. I even have them bringing me a few extra things that we may end up needing. Jax’s Club doctor is on standby for any injured guys when we return, if needed. I hope that with our new plan no one will get hurt.
The new plan, we devised starts with running “nitrous oxide” - laughing gas - through the air conditioning vent system. We’ll place everyone in the building to sleep, knocking them out cold. I know it’s the pansy ass way of doing things, but it’s the only way to ensure we get those girls out alive, without bullets flying and one of them becoming collateral damage.
Then 12 of our men will slip in through the back, with gas masks on, and physically remove the sleeping girls. Once the girls are out of the building and loaded into the van, the prospects will drop them off at the local hospital. Anonymously, of course, so nothin’ can be traced back to our Clubs.
Red Dog found himself a nurse when we first arrived here, and it’s been to our advantage. She knows what we need her to know about the situation with the girls, and will have them checked out properly.
When that is done, they will contact the girls' families to come and collect them, if they have any.
Once the girls are settled in the hospital, we will finish what we started and then vamoose our asses out of dodge.
After they are gone, the guys that are left behind here will be ready to lightem’ up and take these bastards out once and for all. They may not all be here, but we’ll get more than half of them on this mission at least.
The prospects should be here in the morning so we can start setting up in the dark. I’ll be hooking up the nitrous oxide to the a/c lines at that time, then the following night we will take care of all the preparations. By Saturday night, our plan should go into full effect, foreseeing no problems. If they have a party that we’re not privy to at the moment, we won’t be able to go through with the plan, because too many innocent people will be around. As much as I wanted this shit over with yesterday, we have to protect the ones that aren’t directly involved.
A few more days of this shit and we’ll be done. Then I can move on to more important things, concerning my love and keeping her safe and happy, for the rest of our lives together.