A Touch Of Grey

by René Van Dalen

  “Already done because we have a body outside the front gates, Loek. It’s male but I can’t make out if it’s one of ours. What I can tell you is it’s not Mitch. The guy is too small.” Johnny reported quietly.

  Drawing in a deep breath Loek ended the call then turned to Lebo. “There’s a body outside the front gates. Check on it then get back here. The cops are on their way.”

  Lebo didn’t hesitate; he jumped in the jeep and raced off towards the front gates.

  “We’re going to have to sedate the cat to get a look at her. Find me some way we can do it without pointing a fucking gun at her. I don’t want her attacking my woman when we dart her.” Loek said to no one in particular.

  “We feed it to her.” Someone said from behind him. “We lace a chicken carcass with a fast acting sedative, she goes to sleep peacefully and we safely get your girl out of there. Dayana needs to be sedated and in the clinic before the cops get here. They’re going to need access to the run to go over the scene.”

  He suddenly realised that while he was handling shit and kept his focus on his woman and the cat the group outside the enclosure had grown. Sunny’s team was crowded close behind his guys. And it was Inus, one of the vets who had suggested the chicken trick.

  “I’ll get it ready. Is Sunny in there?” Inus kept his voice even and calm.

  “We haven’t found her and I’m not sure if she’s in there.”

  “Dayana loves her, she wouldn’t hurt her. Something else happened here.” One of the nurses said equally quietly.

  “If you get me the sedative then we can get in there and search the enclosure. Without it we’re not getting anywhere near her. Right now Cherise is the only one she trusts and I want to know why the fuck that is.”

  “It’s because Sunny has been bringing her into the run to play with Dey-Dey. She knows she’s a friend.” The young intern drew his shocked eyes to her with her matter of fact statement.

  How the hell hadn’t he known that?

  “Why?”

  “Sunny was worried about her girl not eating if she wasn’t here to feed her. She’s been training Cherise to do it. I’m supposed to start my training next week.”

  There were a couple of whispered comments but they died instantly at his pissed off look.

  “Enough chattering, let’s get this shit sorted.”

  An hour later Dayana was sedated, the cops had taken over the run and Cherise was back at his side.

  They would be having words about his woman keeping important information from him.

  As soon as he got over the terror of seeing her so close to Sunny’s crazy cat.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jagger

  After agreements had been reached between Hawk and Breker (Breaker), the acting president of the Flying Herons MC and late president’s son, things moved fast. It was very obvious that it was difficult for the small club to hand over their autonomy to the Iron Dogz MC. Not only because they were a law abiding club that was about to be assimilated into a club with a less than pristine reputation with the law, but also because they would now have to adhere to the rules and regulations of the Iron Dogz MC. Plus they had a long road ahead of them before they would be fully integrated into the new brotherhood.

  Three of the men were used to being a part of the decision making in their club but they now would no longer have that privilege.

  And that was why Hawk had come up with a way to ease the transition.

  The three officers would become shadow lieutenants to Scar, Bones and Mamba. His prez purposely paired them with two of their legacy members and one of their brothers who understood the difficulty of integrating into the club. Plus he trusted his brothers to help the new men with the difficult transition.

  At the same time Hawk had officially allocated specific lieutenants to specific officers. Bullet with Hawk, Spook with Ice, Scar with Sin, Wolf and Mamba with Beast, Bones with Boots, Buzz with Jagger, Bollywood with Ziggy, NikNak with Rider and Ratel with Kahn. Because Bulldog as their Chaplain was mostly to be found at the clubhouse he had been given two patches that would be with him whenever he left the property. The brothers would rotate that duty.

  Jagger had been pleasantly surprised when he found out that three of their new brothers had extensive construction experience. Ben “Banger” Viljoen and his two friends, Nico “Mes” (Knife) van der Westhuizen and Arno “Vissie” (little fish) Visser, had been working in his dad’s construction company since they were in their teens.

  Banger had brought the company’s interest in working on the development of the resort to the table. His dad was prepared to put in a tender for the job and to work alongside Jagger’s team. Ziggy had done a deep dive on the company and they had come up clean with a reputation for delivering on time and on spec. No cutting of corners or allowing shoddy workmanship. Ben Viljoen Snr had a reputation as a tough but fair man.

  More importantly though, Crash and Banger had bonded and could be found stirring shit all over the compound. The two had picked up where Spider had left off, teasing and joking and generally pissing the brothers off. And the two were out every weekend cutting a swathe through the women.

  The same way Spider used to do.

  And like Spider, Jagger and Sin they didn’t make use of the club girls.

  Their shenanigans had lightened the atmosphere around the clubhouse and the new brothers were slowly settling into their new positions and their new home.

  Life was almost perfect, almost but not quite. It would be bloody perfect if Celeste stopped texting and calling. In exasperation he had finally blocked her number. If she needed shit done at the clinic she could call their office and leave a message.

  In his gut he knew the call would come because a couple of their dogs had vaccinations due. And it seemed that day was today. Looking down at his phone he read the message one more time and the frown that pulled his eyebrows together only got deeper.

  For some reason he didn’t trust it, not at all.

  Jagger, I’ve been in a car accident with my new assistant and won’t be able to do the vaccinations. She wasn’t as badly injured and will do the physical work while I oversee it. Arrange access to the kennels and dogs for eleven tomorrow morning. Celeste.

  The niggling in his gut had him going straight to Ziggy’s office. Walking in he found Ziggy, Kobus and Bollywood in a heated discussion on the pros and cons of some fancy new computer.

  “Zig, can you check on something for me, please, brother?”

  Ziggy smiled and nodded. “What do you need?”

  “I need to know if Celeste Brent has been in a car accident. She just let me know she’s coming in to vaccinate a couple of my dogs, and she’s bringing someone along because she was injured in the accident. According to the message it’s a new assistant which means we haven’t cleared her. I don’t have a name and Lynn didn’t say anything about hiring someone else.” Jagger gave him everything he had plus forwarded the message to him.

  “No worries, brother. We’re on it. I’ll call you as soon as I have anything for you.”

  Ziggy’s reassurance didn’t make him feel any better.

  Leaving the office he called Radar to him from where he was lounging in the dog bed behind the bar and left to check on the fence construction crew. They had been slowed down by the recent rains but now that the ground was dry they had returned to continue the job. He knew he was pushing too hard to get the fences done but something told him to get it done as soon as humanly possible. They still had one hell of a long way to go and he knew it wouldn’t be finished anytime soon. There was a very vulnerable gap between the Bekker property and the Iron Dogz property. If at all possible it would have been the first part he would have had fenced in but it had been decided to include their backdoor property in the revamp of the fences, so it had to wait.

  Jagger was sitting on the couch on his veranda with a cold beer in his hand enjoying the evening air when he heard the bikes approaching. He watched as three lights bobbed c
loser then turned into his short drive, the deep rumble cut off as they parked. He watched as the three men dismounted.

  He stood as his prez, Ziggy and Bollywood walked up the steps onto the veranda, by the looks on their faces he knew the news wasn’t good.

  “I’ll get some beers.” He went inside, got the beers and handed them out when he came back outside.

  Sitting down he looked at his Prez. “What did Ziggy find?”

  Hawk nodded his head at Ziggy, telling him without words to speak.

  “There was an accident reported but I couldn’t find any photos of said accident or a complete incident report. We tracked all the traffic cams in the area where it was said to have happened and found nothing. Bollywood checked the hospitals and the same thing. We found a very basic report of a dislocated shoulder and a wrenched back. Nothing on the assistant.”

  Bollywood picked up where Ziggy left off.

  “I reached out to a few contacts and they feel it’s a plant. Then I hacked the hospital’s server. They keep security footage for two months so it was easy to check on the day of said accident. No one bearing the likeness of Celeste Brent came into Trauma that day. I then hacked the clinic’s server and found a veterinary nurse assistant had been added the day before the accident. Someone by the name of Sanna Boshoff. Further investigation revealed that she doesn’t exist, not as a veterinary nurse at least. I found a teacher, a corporate lawyer, an accountant and a housewife with that name but none of them have any experience working with animals, not even on a volunteer basis.”

  Hawk’s eyes hadn’t left him the entire time the two men had explained what they had found.

  “You think they might be Syndicate, don’t you?”

  Jagger felt his insides shrink with horror when his president nodded.

  “Ja, unfortunately I do. You need to be very, very careful tomorrow, Jag. We’re going to let them in but we will be taking precautions. I’m putting extra brothers on watch around the kennels, on the walls and at the gate. I’m putting Dollar, Crash and Banger inside the kennels with you and Scar, Wolf, Mamba, Breker and Puzzle outside. There will be more brothers there but they will stay out of sight until they are needed. If we’re wrong then so be it, but I don’t think we are wrong. Something is going on with this bitch, something bad.” His president finished.

  “I agree, Prez, there’s something off about her. And now I’m wondering why the hell I never saw it. Crash did, he tried to warn me but I was so focussed on work I didn’t give it a thought. Until I saw what she did with Radar and it opened my eyes. Dammit! And now I want to kotch (vomit) every time I think about the fact that I had my dick in her snatch.” Jagger shuddered in revulsion.

  “We all make mistakes, brother. Everyone knows my mistakes almost cost me my old lady. At least you realised your mistake early and thankfully you don’t have an old lady who can be hurt by the bitch.”

  Hawk gave him two hard taps on his shoulder then picked up his beer and took a big slug.

  “When she first came to work for Doc Lynn I did a background check but not a deep dive because she would never really have impacted the club.” Ziggy looked pissed as he spoke. “After what you told us we went looking for dirt and we found a black hole. Celeste Brent appeared out of the clear blue three years ago and walked into a top job with a veterinary research centre in Cape Town. We found several emails between her and Doc Lynn discussing vet shit and she slowly wormed her way in until the Doc saw her as a friend. That’s when she struck. Pretending to be disenchanted with her job and looking to get away from the research side and back into treating animals. And what do you know…the doc offered her a job. She jumped at it. If the doc hadn’t left so soon after she started at the clinic I’m sure she would have seen through the scam. But she didn’t, she left on a long overdue visit to her family and left the clinic in the hands of Celeste.”

  Bollywood picked up the tale when Ziggy cleared his throat and picked up his beer to take a drink.

  “Did you know you weren’t the one she tried to snag first?” He didn’t wait for Jagger to answer. “She tried to hook Spider but apparently he blew her off and she set her sights on you. You were easier to get to because of the rescue dogs. She could approach you without raising suspicions.”

  Bollywood threw him a cautious look before he continued and Jagger braced for what was coming.

  “We found several attempts to break into your phone, and every time it happened you were most probably with her at her house.”

  “What?” Jagger growled. “There’s nothing on my phone that would have been of any use to her or whoever she works for.”

  “They don’t know that.”

  Thinking about it for a minute he gave a slow nod. “They most probably thought there were codes or some shit on there because I handle security for all our business and the compound.”

  He sat for maybe a second before he surged up off the couch and drew his arm back to throw his beer bottle only to scream with rage and letting his cocked arm fall to his side.

  Turning to Hawk he met his president’s angry yellow eyes.

  “I swear to you, Prez, I haven’t shared anything with her, not a fucking thing. I fucked her, that’s it. I never even stayed the night.”

  “Brother, calm down, I know. I’m not sitting here because I doubt you. I’m sitting here so we can come up with a plan to put a spanner in the bitch’s works.” Hawk pointed at the couch. “Sit your ass down and help us come up with a plan of action for tomorrow.”

  Sinking down on the couch Jagger drew air in to his lungs and blew it out slowly then nodded. “Let’s make sure those bitches don’t get what they want tomorrow.”

  They drank beer and made their plans.

  Jagger stood waiting as the cage drove up to the gate of the kennels. Arms crossed over his chest and legs braced apart he watched as the bitch gingerly stepped out of the cage and locked eyes with him. By the look on her face he knew she was going to play the girlfriend card.

  Not today bitch, he thought to himself.

  His eyes went past Celeste and got stuck on the woman sliding out of the cage. Short, no real curves to speak of but there was strength in her little body. The light blue jeans she was wearing were too big for her and she had rolled the cuffs and belted them with a wide leather belt to keep them from falling down her narrow hips. A dark blue tee with the clinic’s logo on the chest hung on her small frame and she had knotted it at the side to make it fit. She looked like a little girl wearing her big brother’s clothes. A little doll dressed up in the wrong clothes. Light brown hair was pulled back in a severe high ponytail and he narrowed his eyes at the bruises on the side of her face and neck.

  He wasn’t a fool. He knew bruising, and the shit on this woman’s face wasn’t from a car accident. She had been beaten.

  Who the hell was she and what was she doing with Celeste Brent?

  “Jagger, baby, I’ve missed you. It’s so good to see you.” Celeste gushed while trying to put her free arm around him and kiss him.

  Pushing her away with very obvious disgust he looked over his shoulder and beckoned Banger over.

  “Get the doc’s bag so we can get this done. I don’t want her ass on our property for longer than is absolutely necessary.”

  Banger grinned as he strolled over with that cocky walk of his.

  “Sure, Boss.” He winked at Celeste as he strolled past and took the bag from Scar who slammed the back door of the cage closed and stood next to it with his arms crossed over his chest. His face an emotionless mask.

  Stepping away from the bitch he looked at the small woman and caught her eyes. Worried beautiful blue eyes met his. Her teeth caught hold of a luscious full bottom lip and his cock gave an interested twitch.

  Bloody hell.

  “You’re the vet’s assistant that’s going to administer the vaccines to my dogs, right? What’s your name?”

  There was a minute of conflict on her face before the bitch roughly intervened.
<
br />   “She’s nobody, you don’t need to know her name.” The tone of her voice harsh and condescending. Turning to the woman she snarled viciously at her. “Get to work and remember the rules, no fraternising with the customers.”

  The muscles in the small woman’s jaw clenched but she said nothing as she followed Banger into the kennels. The minute the assistant walked into the kennels the bitch tried to play on his sympathy.

  “I’m hurting so bad, baby. Can we go inside and sitdown while my assistant handles the dogs, please?”

  Jagger gave a derisive snort and shook his head.

  “I’m not your anything, Celeste. You can wait in the vehicle.”

  He gave Scar a short beckoning chin lift. “Brother, can you help her back into the cage, she’s feeling weak or some shit. She stays in the cage and out of the clubhouse. I’ll be in the kennels if you need me.”

  Not paying any more attention to the angrily spluttering bitch he turned and walked into the kennels, letting the gate fall closed behind him and lock automatically.

  Phase one of their plan was on track. Separate the bitches and keep eyes on both.

  And if possible question the assistant.

  He quietly walked up behind her and the woman jerked with fright when he spoke.

  “We kept the dogs requiring vaccines in their kennels to make it easier for you. I suggest we start on the far end and work our way back here.”

  She gave a little nod which set her ponytail swinging back and forth. Jagger had a hard time resisting the impulse to catch that tail in his fist, jerking her head back and kissing the hell out of that luscious mouth of hers. But he couldn’t allow his body to once again fail him.

  Steeling himself against the insane attraction he felt for the woman he clipped out instructions at a smirking Crash. His bloody little brother was only too aware of his battle to control his interest.

  “Crash, open Ranger’s kennel.”

  He watched as the small woman soothed one of their more damaged dogs and competently delivered the vaccination. Through it all the big dog stood motionlessly, his ears and eyes on the woman who did a quick physical exam.