Judge

by KJ Dahlen

  “Yeah well, I think she figured that out with the beating you gave her,” Kyle commented as he lifted his beer to his lips.

  Luke frowned. “I wonder where she went?”

  Kyle shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time she’s disappeared on you.”

  “Yeah, but this time isn’t the best time for her to disappear. Aiden wants to get his hands on her and if I can’t deliver her to him, he’s not going to be happy.”

  “Sucks to be you man doesn’t it?” Kyle smirked.

  “Shit rolls downhill fucker.” Luke swore.

  “So what does Aiden want with Sage anyway?” Kyle asked.

  Luke shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t fucking care. Although Rowdy told me once that years back, the VP disappeared with a key. Supposedly, the key was to a very special vault. Aiden had a matching key and together these two keys opened a vault that held the club’s retirement. Aiden and some of the others think they’ve waited long enough. They want that key and the last time anyone saw it was around the time their VP disappeared with three woman they were going to sell on the black market. That sale never happened and they couldn’t find Brandi to ask her why.” Luke paused to take a swallow of his own beer and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand.

  Kyle sipped at his beer and watched him.

  Luke was getting lit up from a combination of beer and meth and his mouth was running about shit he should have kept to himself, like the Lords’ business. Kyle finally asked, “So now what, sixteen years later they want to get their hands on Sage to find out from her what her mother did sixteen years ago?”

  Luke snickered. “Something like that.”

  Kyle looked at the other man and with a frown asked, “How would they even connect the two women? Sage was only six at the time.”

  Luke smiled. “I may have mentioned the fact that Brandi had a kid and she was living in the same house as her mother. She might have overheard something that went down that night.”

  Kyle shouldn’t have been surprised by Luke’s actions, he really shouldn’t have been. He’d know the other man for a number of years, in fact they grew up together, but this? This was taking it to a whole other level. Kyle knew what it was like to hate someone so much you wanted them dead and that’s what he felt for Sage even though she had nothing to do with the death of his father. That was on Brandi.

  Brandi was the one who gave up his dad to the Lords but Brandi was gone and Sage was all he had left to blame, but this obsession Luke had with Sage was going to get him killed one day. So his dad slept around when he was younger, who gives a fuck about that anymore. It happened and now Luke had a sister he really wants gone.

  He stopped to think about things that happened over the last ten years or so and suddenly realized that Luke’s obsession with Sage was more than just what was on the surface. There was something about her that went deeper. Luke really hated this girl.

  Kyle looked into Luke’s eyes and for the first time he couldn’t read his friend. Although friend was a loose term, he couldn’t read the other man’s intentions. He knew exactly what Luke was capable of and every time he did something illegal, it was because of her.

  A sudden pounding on the door made both men jump.

  Luke swore under his breath and walked over to his door. He didn’t bother looking through the peephole he already knew who was standing on the other side.

  Kyle watched as Luke wiped his hands on his jeans before he opened the door.

  Simon Grant and Rowdy along with two other men were standing there. Simon looked unfriendly at the very least. Pushing Luke out of the way, Simon and the others came inside. Looking around the place, Simon turned to Luke and asked, “Where is the girl you promised my brother?” He sneered at Luke. “We stopped by the jail to pick her up and guess what? She wasn’t there.” He cracked his knuckles and glared at him. “You don’t make a promise to my brother and not keep it. That’s just not wise, little man.”

  “She should have been there waiting for you but the cops haven’t found her yet.” Luke wiped the sweat from his upper lip. “I’ll have her for you in twenty-four hours.”

  Simon’s sneer grew until it transformed his face into something evil. “You’ll have her in twelve hours. Aiden paid you good money to secure her for the Lords and he doesn’t like failure of any kind.” He looked around the house and noticed the other three bodies in the room. Shaking his head, he turned back to Luke. “I think if you want to survive in the future, you should maybe think about trading these little boys for some real men. Men that can protect you instead of hinder your growth.”

  Luke frowned. “Hinder my growth?”

  Simon snorted. “Ones that won’t use the products you run for us. You’re supposed to be a dealer not a user.” Simon stepped over to Luke and looked into his eyes then growled at what he saw. “You better get clean son and stay that way. Aiden doesn’t want no junkies for dealers.” Simon stepped away from Luke and shook his head. “You got twelve hours to find and secure the woman. If you can’t, then your daddy can expect a visit from the Lords and they won’t care if they have to tear up this fucking town to find her. Then when they do, they’ll come looking for you and your daddy.” Simon threw back his head and laughed.

  The sound of his laughter made Kyle shiver. There was no glee in it, only the sounds of retribution and how much he wanted to fulfill it.

  Kyle watched as Simon turned and walked out the door along with the other three men that had accompanied him. When the door slammed behind them, Kyle slowly turned his head and stared at Luke.

  Luke ran his hands over the top of his head. He had completely sobered up by this time. The buzz he had earlier was gone as soon as Simon walked through his door. If he failed to find Sage, Aiden would bring the hell of the Lords of the Devil down on him and his father.

  Kyle now knew the real threat to their lives was at hand. Not that Luke gave a damn about his father but Luke had a good thing going in Troy and he didn’t want to lose it. He liked the money and the power he had and with the backing of the Lords, he knew he would only go up, unless he failed them.

  They had to find Sage and get her ready for whatever Aiden had in mind for her. Or they were all doomed.

  ~*~

  When Simon stopped next to his bike, he took a deep breath. Luke’s house had stunk of booze and smoke. He knew the scent of smoked meth and he’d seen the results with his own eyes. Luke was a junkie as were his friends. The ones that were passed out anyway. The other man there tonight wasn’t a user, but he was still a putz. He’d have to be to hang around with Luke.

  He couldn’t wait for phase two of Aiden plans for Troy. Now that he had ties established in this town, the Lords would be coming back here and setting up residence. This town was better for them to get the drugs in and out of town because of the river access than Glen Falls had ever been. It had taken time to set the whole operation up and they had certainly set up the city council by greasing their pockets with the payoffs they seemed to enjoy over the years.

  But now they had to have that damn key in order to move into Troy properly. The money in that vault had been just sitting there for the last sixteen years while the club had continued to grow and spread out.

  Whatever had happened to the VP of the Lords all those years ago, was still a mystery. Had he just run off with the three women they were going to sell to a dealer? That’s what Brandi had tried to tell him. He’d had his doubts about her story then and over the years, he began to doubt it even more. Aiden hadn’t been happy when he told him about what Brandi had said. Then when she disappeared without a trace, he’d been even more doubtful but when she surfaced again, he had watched over her carefully.

  Swinging his leg over his bike, he got a flash of an idea. Looking over to where the others were sitting on their machines, he told them, “Follow me.” He took off down the road and took a route he hadn’t been down for a very long time.

  When he pulled up to an abandoned house, the
other three men with him just stared in confusion at the rambling old building.

  “What the fuck are we doing here?” Fish asked.

  “This old dump used to belong to us a long time ago,” Simon told them. “I haven’t been here in sixteen years but Aiden’s whore lived here once upon a time. We used this place as a distribution point for drugs and weapons. We’d bring the product in and other clubs would come and get it.” He paused and nodded at the house. “In fact, this is the last place any of us saw Nitro.”

  “You thinking maybe he never left here?” Hammer asked.

  Simon shrugged and looked back at the house. The broken windows and rotted wood didn’t bode well for finding anything inside but he wanted one more look for the missing man. He should have looked harder sixteen years ago but back then, he took her word for what went down. “Come on let’s have a good look and see what secrets this old house really holds. But be careful, it might not be that safe to search.”

  Each man opened his saddle bags and grabbed a flashlight then one by one, they entered the house.

  The scent of rotting wood and mold hit Simon’s nose as soon as he entered. He put one hand over his nose and looked around what was once a living room. Dust covered everything in a thick layer.

  Moving his flashlight around the room, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

  Just when he was going to move further into the room, Rowdy raised his hand to stop him.

  Simon snapped his head over to the other man and glared. Rowdy was looking at the lighted area on the floor. Simon looked down and saw what Rowdy had seen. Footprints. They all turned their lights on the footprints in the dust. It looked like three separate sets. All of them were huge footprints. Simon knelt down and studied them for a moment.

  “What the fuck?” Hammer growled.

  “Somebody else has been here in the not too distant past,” Simon announced.

  “Have to wonder why and who they were,” Fish grumbled. His lights followed the footprints to the stairway. “Well, they went upstairs first anyway.”

  Simon got to his feet and was furious. “Well then, let’s find out where they went and see if we can find what they found.”

  They all followed the footprints and when they were on the second floor, they all noticed they lead to only one room. Simon walked to the doorway and found himself in what used to be Brandi’s bedroom. He looked around the room carefully. At first, he didn’t think anything had been disturbed but on second look, he did notice the dust had been disturbed. The closet door had been forced open. He could see the arc the door made in the dust as someone had forced it across the uneven floor. He followed the footprints to the open door.

  Standing there, he caught the faint scent of death. Flashing his light around the small closet, he found one of its secrets. Someone had moved part of the wall and he could see the bones laying inside the wall. “What the fuck?” he swore under his breath.

  Moving closer he and the others could see the pile of human bones on display. Whoever had moved the wall boards had revealed a grisly secret. He looked closer and found three separate skeletons inside the wall. Simon remembered the three missing girls from sixteen years ago and had a feeling he just found them.

  Then he noted another piece of the wall missing. It was eye level and it seemed to be a hiding place. He flashed his light inside the small opening, but it was empty. He could see the area once held something, but he wasn’t sure what that something was. Whatever it was it was gone now.

  He stepped back into the bedroom and turned his light on the floor again. He saw the footsteps leading out of the room and followed them.

  All four men followed the footprints in the dust back down the stairs and over to another doorway.

  Simon opened the door and found himself at the top of a set of steps leading to the basement. He stepped carefully on the rickety steps and went lower into the underground cavern. Flashing his light around the dirt floor, he frowned when he found the dirt disturbed in the corner of the room.

  He went over to the disturbed ground and just about dropped his flashlight. Whoever had been here earlier had uncovered another body buried in the basement. Simon knelt down and studied the bones in the dirt. The smell was overpowering but he didn’t cover his nose. Instead, he noticed someone had brushed away the dirt and uncovered a leather cut the body had once wore.

  Simon ground his teeth together as he searched the cut. He reached out and brushed more of the dirt away.

  Fish gasped out loud as Simon uncovered the logo on the back.

  It was the same one they all wore. A skull with a crown smoking a cigar with crossed bones underneath and the words Lords of the Devil on either side of the skull. The difference in this cut and theirs was the VP patch underneath the crossed bones. They could barely make out the logo as it was covered in a thick layer of something that stained the leather dark brown.

  Simon grunted in disgust as he knew who the bones belonged to. He rubbed his hands over his jaw and mouth. “Well, son of a bitch.” He growled. He looked up at the others. “Well, we finally know Nitro didn’t run off sixteen years ago, don’t we?”

  Hammer snorted and shook his head. “Not with that hole in his back he didn’t.”

  Simon turned back and carefully touched the ragged cut in the leather. It appeared to be a knife cut rather than a bullet hole. If he remembered right, Nitro always carried a big knife. He always claimed a knife was a quieter kill. Well, he was quietly dead and so he’d been right after all.

  He took out his phone and snapped a couple of pictures. They wouldn’t be the greatest as the house had no light but this was the proof Aiden would need to see. He began rifling through the pockets of his jeans looking for the key Nitro carried. If they could at least find that, they would have something to show Aiden but his pockets were empty and probably had been this whole time. Whoever murdered him had taken the time to take whatever he had.

  Simon got up and motioned for the others to go.

  Once outside, they gathered around their rides and Simon reached for his phone.

  When Aiden answered his call, Simon gave his brother the bad news.

  “You got that little bitch yet?” Aiden growled.

  “Not yet. That little bastard Luke isn’t holding up his end of the bargain you made.” Simon smiled. He’d been after Luke for years and now his luck may have just run out. “But that isn’t what I called about.”

  “What the fuck you want then?”

  Simon cleared his throat. “I found Nitro.”

  There was silence on the other end of the call. “The fuck you say.” Aiden growled at the thought of his missing VP. He disappeared sixteen years ago with three women they were selling. No one had heard or seen him since then and now Simon told him they found him. “Drag his sorry ass back with you. I want to look that fucker in the eyes when I kill him.”

  “That’s not going to happen brother.” Simon told him. “He hasn’t been missing in action, he’s been dead all these years. Looks like he took a knife to his back sixteen years ago.”

  Aiden was silent for a few minutes, long enough for Simon to ask, “You still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here.” He growled. “Where did you find his carcass?”

  “In Brandi’s old house. He was buried face down in the basement.”

  Simon listened to his brother growl for a moment then gave him the rest of the bad news, “But we weren’t the only ones that found him.”

  “What the everlovin’ fuck you talkin’ about?”

  “We came here on a whim. An idea I had,” Simon told him. “When we got here, we found the dust disturbed so we followed their footprints and we found three other skeletons upstairs. We also found a hidden compartment that could have held anything but the dust settled around it, made it look like it held a small notebook or box of some kind. Whatever it was, is missing so it’s possible we’ll never know. We followed the tracks down to the basement and found the dirt has b
een disturbed. That’s where we found what was left of Nitro. He was still wearing his cut but it was covered in what I assume is blood. It also had a slice in the middle of the back.” Simon waited for Aiden’s reaction

  A couple minutes later Aiden’s voice came over the phone. “So the bitch murdered him huh? Never thought Brandi had the guts to do something like that. Did he still have the key on him?”

  “No, his pockets were empty of everything.”

  “Fuck!” Aiden roared. “That means the bitch has had the key all this time.”

  “That fucking key could be anywhere by this time,” Simon informed his brother. “Brandi has been dead for six years remember?”

  “I fuckin remember. That little bastard Luke bragged about killing her. Do you remember that brother?”

  “I remember,” Simon told him quietly. “Do you think he has the key?”

  “Find out,” Aiden ordered. “I want that fucking key back. I’ll send some of the brothers down to collect Nitro in the morning. Tell Fish to stay there until the boys get there. Nitro was his cousin.”

  “Ok,” Simon agreed. “I’ll go back and have a chat with Luke. Maybe he can clear this up for us.”

  “Find that little bitch and bring her to me. She might know more than Luke and I want answers.”

  Simon didn’t need to hear the hang up, he knew his brother was pissed. He looked over at the three men waiting for instructions and nodded at Fish. “Aiden wants you to stay here with Nitro until he can get some of the brothers to collect his remains. He’ll get a proper burial.”

  Fish nodded.

  Then Simon looked at Hammer and Rowdy. “We get to go back and find out what Luke knows about this.”

  Rowdy smiled. “That should be fun. That prick has been cocky for far too long.”

  Chapter Ten

  Sage came to with a start. Her heart was pounding in her chest with her nightmare still fresh in her mind. She was warm enough that sweat rolled down her neck. She felt a wet tongue lick her face. She shrieked and pulled back. Then someone stirred next to her and she shrieked again as she bolted up in bed.