Brent
“Hey, excuse me, I’m here to see about Kira Foster,” Brent said to the policewoman on duty at the front desk of the local jail. “I believe she was booked here about an hour ago. I’d like to see if there’s any way I could post her bail.”
The policewoman sighed and shrugged, then typed punched at her computer keyboard, staring at her screen for several long moments before she turned back to look at Brent. “Sorry. Her hearing isn’t till tomorrow morning.”
“What does that mean?” Brent asked, barely keeping himself from punching a hole in the glass partition that separated the policewoman from him.
“It means you can’t do anything today,” the cop told him. She smacked her gum rudely before turning her attention back to her computer. She punched listlessly at her keyboard for a solid minute before she realized that Brent was still standing there, staring at her. “What?” she asked
“She’s not supposed to be here,” Brent said. “She’s been framed. I need to meet with her so I can arrange a lawyer to represent her in court tomorrow.”
The cop rolled her eyes and blew a bubble with her gum before answering him. “You can see her tomorrow. For now she’s still being put through processing. Just come back in twenty-four hours and you can visit. Okay? Okay. Have a nice day.”
Brent held his ground, turning to look back at Dylan, who was sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting area, an anxious look spread across his little face. “I’m not leaving here till I see her,” Brent said. He was trying to keep his tone hard and firm but still unthreatening. He was dealing with enough conflict with his MC at the moment that he really didn’t need to start bullshit with the police department, who probably recognized him from all the drug busts that had been happening during the Soul Catchers’ deals over the past couple of months anyway. He needed to keep a clear head if he was going to help Kira out of this clusterfuck of a situation.
The policewoman looked unimpressed with his idle threat, tapping her long, intricately painted fingernails against the desk. “Sir, you’re welcome to hang out in the waiting room as long as you’d like, but you’re not getting in to see her until tomorrow. So if I were you, I’d go ahead and skedaddle right now before you waste any more time.”
Brent groaned quietly, considering his options for a minute, before he noticed Dylan tugging harder on the bottom of his pants, trying to get his attention. “What is it?” he asked, kneeling down to look Dylan in the eyes.
“Can we see Kira and Lucian now?” Dylan asked. He bit down on his bottom lip anxiously.
Brent sighed and rubbed the top of Dylan’s head. “Not just yet, buddy. We’ve got to do some stuff first.”
Dylan frowned but didn’t say anything right away, his little brow furrowed up in frustration and confusion. He stared at Brent for a long moment with wide, pleading eyes then reached up and tugged Brent’s arm down. For a minute, Brent was confused, unsure of what his son was trying to do, but then it finally clicked. He wants me to hold his hand, Brent realized. He felt a twinge of pain in his chest as he awkwardly wrapped his hand around his son’s. It felt weird, almost unnatural, and he was tempted to pull his hand back and force Dylan to cope by himself, but he quickly realized he couldn’t do that. He misses Kira, who’s basically been acting as his mom for the last several weeks. He needs comfort. Brent didn’t know how to do that—comfort a sad and confused little boy—but he knew he had to try.
“Come on,” he said. On impulse, he reached down to scoop the little boy up into his arms, encouraging him to wrap his arms around his neck as he headed out into the jail’s parking lot, where he’d parked Kira’s car five minutes earlier.
“Where are we going now?” Dylan asked. Brent dropped him into the car seat in the back of Kira’s car.
“My clubhouse,” Brent said. “The place where all my friends hang out. We’ve got to find the MC’s lawyer so we can get Kira back.”
Brent was tempted to speed the whole way to the Soul Catchers clubhouse, but he could hear Kira’s voice in his head berating him for even considering it with Dylan in the backseat. So instead, he focused on gripping the steering wheel as hard as he could, praying that Milton, the club’s lawyer, would still be at the compound at this late hour.
“Okay, come on, buddy,” Brent said as he pulled Dylan out of the backseat. “Keep your head down in there, okay? I probably shouldn’t even be bringing you in with me.”
“I won’t tell,” Dylan said, wrapping his arms back around Brent’s neck. “Mommy told me that good boys never tell what happens to them.”
Brent paused, then, craning his neck back so he could look Dylan in the eyes as he held him close. “Dylan. Listen to me. Your mommy was wrong, okay? I know that doesn’t make sense right now, but she told you to do things that were bad for you. I won’t do that to you, okay? You can trust me.”
A little wrinkle popped up between Dylan’s eyebrows, and his eyes narrowed as he whispered, “What does ‘trust’ mean?”
Brent’s heart ached a little as he formulated a response, pulling Dylan closer to his chest so he could whisper in his ear, “It means you know that someone won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you. Ever. I promise.”
Dylan pulled back a little, looking up into his father’s eyes uncertainly. “But you’re going to send me away, right?”
Brent’s jaw dropped open a little and his eyes went wide. His own thoughtless words were rebounding on him like a spiked boomerang. He cleared his throat and shook his head, saying whatever came to his mind in this moment, where everything seemed clearer than they’d been before. “Dylan. I’m not going to do that to you. You have a home now. I’m not going to take it away from you.”
Dylan stared up at him silently for a long moment, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. Brent couldn’t exactly blame him. He hadn’t been the softest or the sweetest person to the kid over the past several weeks. But he knew now that he would never be able to give him back to Danielle, even if she showed up totally sober the next day. Dylan was his now, a part of him that he couldn’t cut out or ignored. Kira had shown him that much.
Brent patted Dylan’s head again, hoping to get him to relax a little bit, but it was no use. The little boy was lost without Kira and Lucian. Brent realized that it was futile to try to make the little boy forget what was going on. He was too smart, having lived through too much in his short life so far that he couldn’t be deceived that easily. He needed to know the truth.
“Dylan,” Brent said. He brushed some of his hair away from his forehead, a move that he’d seen Kira do a couple times at dinner a few weeks ago. “We’re going to get them back, okay? I swear to you. I’m not going to stop fighting until we’ve got them both home.”
Dylan was staring down at the floor now, silent for several long moments until he finally looked up, his eyes now full of tears. “Why?” Dylan whispered hoarsely, his tearful eyes unblinking as they looked at Brent for an answer.
The answer came to Brent’s mouth before his brain had even processed it. He supposed the reply came straight from his heart. “Because we’re a family. Families look out for each other. It’s what we do.”
A couple tears fell from Dylan’s eyes then, splattering his cheeks. Brent reached forward and wiped the tears away with his thumb, forcing a gentle smile for his son’s benefit. He had to be strong. For Dylan. For Kira and Lucian, too, he realized. We’re all in this together. I can’t stop until we’re all home, safe.
He clutched Dylan close to his chest then walked to the back entrance of the Soul Catchers clubhouse, taking the steps to the back door. He dug around in his pocket for his key. “That’s weird,” he said to himself as he stuck the key into the lock and turned the knob. The doorknob refused to turn. “Maybe I picked out the wrong key.” He tried again, with another key to the clubhouse, but that one didn’t work either. “What the fuck?” he whispered out loud. His hand trembled a little as he went through all of the keys one by one, trying each multiple times to see if one would open the door. None of them worked.
Brent sighed, feeling incredibly annoyed. He used his free hand to bang on the door as hard as he could. “Yo! It’s Brent! Let me in!”
Several seconds passed before someone moved on the other side of the door, noisily bumbling around for a few moments before finally opening it. “What do you want?” the crabby old lady snapped, her eyes narrowed into slits. Brent recognized her from the clubhouse kitchen.
“Just let me in,” Brent said, shoving past the old lady on his way into the clubhouse. He hitched Dylan up higher onto his shoulder as he headed deeper inside. “You seen Milton around?” he yelled over his shoulder in the vague direction of the old woman.
“Hasn’t shown up for days,” the old woman said back as she slammed the back door closed.
“Great, thank you,” Brent said sarcastically. He sighed deeply as he turned a corner, heading into the hallway where his office was located. “I guess I’ll just have to dig his number out of the records in my office.”
When he got to his office door, he placed Dylan carefully on the floor before reaching into his pocket again. He knew for a fact that the smallest key on the chain was for this door, at least. But again, when he tried to fit the key into the lock, it didn’t work. “What the hell?” he whispered out loud to himself, trying the handle of the door to see if it was unlocked. “Fuck,” he muttered as he tried the handle again and again, each time with no luck.
“What’s wrong?” Dylan asked, looking up at him with worry.
Brent swallowed around the lump in his throat, nodding to himself, trying to calm down. “Nothing, it’s nothing. We’ll be out of here in a few minutes, okay?” he said to Dylan. He rubbed the top of the boy’s head again and gestured for the child to follow him back down the hallway, where the old woman was still stacking plates in the closet behind the kitchen.
“You’re still here?” the woman said. She glanced at Brent and Dylan through the corner of her eye.
“Yeah, why doesn’t my key work? Did Howie authorize a security change or something?” he asked. Some of the MC’s rivals had been ramping up their activities lately, so it would make sense if his second in command had taken some extra steps to make sure the clubhouse couldn’t be infiltrated.
“Nobody told you?” the woman said, finally turning to face him full on. “I guess that explains why they bothered having the locksmith come in and change everything. Personally, I would’ve just made you hand over your keys and not changed anything at all, but then again, what do I know? Nobody listens to me.”
“What are you talking about?” Brent asked. A surge of anxiety made his blood pump faster within his veins.
“The club’s done with you,” the woman said, shrugging as she turned back to her pile of plates. “I thought you were just here to get your stuff and go.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Brent asked, his voice rising along with the fear that wrapped around his heart.
“Jethro’s in charge now,” the old woman said, referring to one of the junior members who’d only joined the MC in the last year. “He wants you out of the place before morning. Don’t let him find you. I don’t want to have to clean up any blood. Don’t make my job harder than it has to be.”
“Jethro…” Brent said, thinking out loud. He honestly struggled to come up with a mental image of the man. All he knew was that he was a younger guy who’d been on a couple successful drug runs, but he’d never spoken to the guy before. Yet apparently this Jethro guy had pulled a coup, convincing enough members of the MC to flip over on Brent and allow him to change the locks of the whole clubhouse so that Brent couldn’t come and go as he pleased.
“They’ll be wanting your kutte back,” the old woman said, struggling to lift a stack of plates and put it up on the shelf against the wall. “You might as well turn it over now so you don’t have to come back later.”
“Like hell,” Brent said reflexively. There was no way in hell he was giving up his kutte, the jacket that he’d earned when he became a full-fledged member of the Soul Catchers. He’d sooner give up his actual balls before he let anyone take the symbol of his own strength and accomplishment away from him.
“Suit yourself,” the old woman said with another shrug. “It’s no skin off my nose, as they say. I just figured you’d want some friendly advice, that’s all. Anyway, you’re luckier than you know.”
“How’s that?” Brent asked out of curiosity. His head felt clouded and fuzzy, like he’d had several drinks. Nothing felt real, the world around him blurring together as he tried to accept the facts that were presented in front of him. He wasn’t the president of the Soul Catchers anymore. He wasn’t a leader. He was a chump. How the hell had this happened?
The old woman turned to look at him again, grinning maliciously. “Most people don’t get to leave peacefully. In my day, presidents of MCs had to fight their way out. They’d cut the tattoos right off their body. But you just get to leave with all your limbs intact. You should count your lucky stars and leave town before Jethro changes his mind.”
“Yeah, right,” Brent said. He turned to scoop Dylan back up into his arms, holding him close even though his own hands were shaking. “Come on, buddy, we’re leaving.”
“Don’t come back!” the lady called after him as he headed back out through the back door.
Brent walked quickly to Kira’s car and hurriedly placed Dylan in the backseat before going back around to the front. “What the fuck?” he muttered under his breath, careful not to alarm Dylan. “What the fuck is going on?”
For a long moment, he just sat there in the driver’s seat, gripping the wheel if only to have something to hold onto. He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know what to do. He was on a mission to get a lawyer for Kira, but if the old woman was to believed, he no longer had access to the club attorney. What the hell was he supposed to do now?