Chapter Eleven
Hack
Walking down the steps, I chuckle at the expression Pru was wearing when I walked out. I’m pushing her, pushing really fucking hard. Not only did I walk out on her when she needed me the most, but I’ve now put her and Scarlett in danger. Still, she is gonna have to deal. Now that both my girls are here, there is no damn way I’m letting them go.
Trying to stop thinking of them, I head to the common room and search for Boz. He’s sitting on the couch, with Trix curled into his side. She’s looking up at him, while he says something to her. Somehow, he must feel me watching, ‘cause he shuts his mouth and cuts his eyes to me. As soon as our eyes lock, he lifts his chin and motions for me to come his way.
“Have you had a chance to talk to Smoke and Brew yet?” I ask, coming to a stop right in front of him.
“Just for a second,” he answers, tapping his hand on Trix’s leg to get her to move.
My eyes scan the common room and notice for the first time how dead it is. The prospects are cleaning, while the club whores lounge around. A few brothers are sitting at the bar, and a couple more are playing pool. Other than that, it’s a ghost town.
“Where the hell is everyone?” I ask, wondering what the hell is going on.
He pulls his arm from around Trix as he answers, “I sent them to get their families. The club is going on lockdown.”
I don’t ask any questions, just wait for him to get up then follow him through the room. He points to the bar, drawing Round’s attention, and motions for him to come along. We all stay quiet until we walk into his office and the door is closed behind us.
“This shit is worse than we thought,” Boz says, walking across the room and pulling a beer for each of us from his fridge. “That run Hoss came to talk to me about would have us working with the Dragons MC.”
He hands us each a beer then walks to his desk and leans against it. “The Dragons’ crew is nearly three-thousand strong, and they have charters in five states. They’ve been supplying guns to some sketchy fuckers in New Jersey. The Dragons’ California charter moves them to Nebraska, and those boys bring them to Tennessee. The Saints have been handling transfers from here to Jersey for the last three years, but the Dragons are wanting to change things up.”
Round pops the top off his beer as he asks, “Not sure how this is a problem. We’ve taken jobs from other clubs before.”
“We’re not working with the Dragons. Their biggest source of income is flesh, and not the willing kind. I have no problem selling pussy, but both of you know how I feel about forcing that shit on anyone,” Boz states, anger causing his voice to sound even rougher than normal. “I’m not working with a club that’s into slavery.”
Not long after I earned my cut, Boz took me with him to visit a club in New Mexico. Our clubs had been working together for years, bringing in coke for the sellers in Nashville. It was a lucrative deal that only caused the club a few days on the road every few months.
The visit started out friendly, just the two presidents getting together to discuss taking on a new seller. It turned ugly fast, when a van showed up full of Mexican girls. As far as I could tell, not one of them spoke a word of English. Their wrists were tied, and they all sported bruises and cuts. What little clothes they wore were torn and covered with blood and cum. The boys hooted and hollered, reaching out to grab their tits and asses, as they were marched to the back of the clubhouse.
The President of the club laughed as he told Boz and me how his club made more in one trip across the border than they would make in a year running drugs. He went on to tell us how the virgins would be sold to private buyers, and the others would be sold to whore houses across the Southwest. That, of course, was after his boys had their fun.
The entire time he talked, I thought about the girls who had just been marched through the clubhouse. The thing that still sticks out in my mind was how young they were. Some of the girls couldn’t have been more than fifteen, and every single one looked scared out of their minds. It took all my willpower not to take on the entire club to help them. The only thing that stopped me was the look in Boz’s eyes. He wasn’t just pissed; he was fucking furious.
Boz kept his cool, knowing that anything we did would only lead to our deaths and wouldn’t help the girls. We spent the next few hours pretending to drink and enjoy ourselves. As soon as the party started to wind down, we got on our bikes and rode out. We never worked with the club again, and any other club that attempted to bring their drugs into Nashville were run out of town with a few of their members in body bags.
“Is Hoss’ club going to take the run?” I ask, knowing if he does, Boz will cut ties with Trix’s dad, and all hell will break loose.
He shakes his head. “Nah. Soon as I told him what those fuckers were involved in, he said he would figure out how to turn them down without any blowback to either of our clubs.”
Round walks across the room and plops down on the couch. “If we’re not taking the run, I don’t see how this makes shit any worse between us and the Saints.”
“Oh, it’s gonna get a hell of a lot worse,” Boz says with a shake of his head. “The reason the Dragons want the Grim Bastards on board is because a couple of our brothers rode with the Saints on a few of their runs.”
“Motherfucker,” I say in a near shout, anger growing inside me. “That’s the connection between Stone and the Saints.”
Round places his beer on the floor between his feet and leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “Since we’re not taking the run, we don’t have to worry about the Dragons. We need to focus on Stone. It’s time we got our money back and time we bury the bastard’s memory along with his body.”
“There’s more,” Boz says, looking between Round and me. “When Gidget dropped Parker off at school this morning, there was a guy on a bike in the drop-off lane. She said he didn’t have a kid with him, and that alone gave her the creeps, but she blew it off. Didn’t think anything more about it until she saw him again outside the grocery store.”
“Was the fucker wearing a cut?” Round growls, realizing someone has eyes on his son’s old lady.
Boz shakes his head and keeps talking. “Gidget stopped by the club for lunch and told Trix about it. Lisa happened to overhear and mentioned there was a guy on a bike outside the pizza place when she stopped to pick up lunch.”
At the mention of his old lady’s name, Round jumps up and shouts, “You have got to be shitting me, brother. Lisa would have told me if someone was watching her.”
“Not if she didn’t think anything of it,” I say, hoping Round will hold his shit together until Boz tells us everything. “There’re a lot of bikes in Trenton, and not all of them are owned by club members. It probably didn’t seem out of the ordinary to her.”
Even as I try to calm Round, my heart is pounding. I tap my foot against the floor, trying to gain an ounce of control. The fact that men are watching our families has me ready to let a few bullets fly.
“None of the women thought much about it, even after they started comparing notes,” Boz tells us, taking a drink of his beer. “It was only after they left, when Trix remembered seeing a man standing beside his bike as she and Addy left the mall last night. The asshole was staring at them, but that’s not unusual considering the way both of them look. She finally started putting two and two together and came to me.”
“This shit is not good,” I mumble, setting my unopened beer on the table and running a hand over my beard.
“If it had only been one of the old ladies, I could have let it pass as nothing more than us teaching our women to take in their surroundings. But with it happening to every one of the officers’ women, I decided to put the club on lockdown.” He pauses for a second to take another drink then adds, “With Pru, the Saints could have justified their actions by saying she lived in their territory. Bringing it to Trenton, there is no excuse. This is war, and I’ve already sent the first strike.”
“What did you do?” Round asks, finally sitting back down.
“Sent a few boys to Clarksville to deliver a message. They should be getting it anytime now.” Boz smirks then adds, “That new bar they just had built won’t be opening up tonight, not to anyone but the fire department that is.”
He then turns to me and orders, “I want a list of all their properties on my desk by nightfall. Not just the club’s, I want to know what every member owns, even if it’s a fucking RV.”
I don’t have to be told twice. I walk out of Boz’s office and head to mine. As I start my computer and hit power on the bank of screens that line the wall, a smile spreads across my face. Bringing the Saints down is gonna be a fucking pleasure.