Every Little Thing: MC Romance (Bayou Devils MC Book 7)

by A. M. Myers

  Every Little Thing

  Bayou Devils MC

  Book Seven

  A.M. Myers

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover Design by Jay Aheer

  Proofreading by Julie Deaton

  Copyright © 2018 by A.M. Myers

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Chapter One

  Wyatt

  My eyes burn as I scan over the file in front of me again. It doesn’t matter that I have read this same information a hundred times in the past week, I still search for more. There has to be more, something I missed along the way that will finally make all of this make sense. Sighing, I run a calloused hand over my face and grab my beer off the table as I lean back in my seat and take a sip. It’s warm now but I don’t give a shit. To be honest, I can’t even taste it because I’m consumed with these cases. When I wake up in the morning, I look over the files. Before I go to bed at night, I look over the files and anytime I find a spare moment in my day, I look over these goddamn files. It’s become my obsession and I know there is something here. I just need to see it. The rest of the Bayou Devils MC might like to believe that this is all just bad luck but I refuse. Three girls are dead, girls that we helped, girls that we were responsible for and there is no way in hell their deaths are simply a coincidence. No matter what my brothers think.

  Leaning forward, I slam the bottle of beer back onto the table with too much force before scooping up the top file and scanning it again. Girl number one was Dina. She came to us for help to escape her piece of shit husband who liked to talk with his fists instead of his words. When she ended up in the hospital with bruises all over her body, a nurse slipped her our card and she gave us a call. We couldn’t let her go back home to him so the nurse agreed to shelter her until we could get her to safety. Chance and Storm were on that run and shit went bad when her husband, Mitch, showed up at the nurse’s house and tried to take her back by force. In the end, it all worked out and we took her to a hotel to keep her safe but almost two weeks later, we got the news that she was dead. At the time, we all assumed it was her husband but now… I just don’t know.

  Flipping the page, I read over the crime scene report Detective Rodriguez was able to give me and blow out a breath. A maid at the hotel where she was staying found her when she came to clean the room and called an ambulance. When paramedics arrived, she was barely breathing and they rushed her to the hospital. The doctors ran numerous tests before it was determined that there was no brain activity and her mother decided to turn off life support. She slipped away a few hours later. We were all hit hard by her death but we understood that it was a part of what we did, a sad reality of helping women and children in these volatile situations.

  The Bayou Devils MC used to be a real outlaw club, running guns and drugs, just out to make a quick buck but after one of our members, Henn, was sent to jail and our President, Blaze, was shot, things started to change and when a frantic woman crashed into Blaze at a gas station, everything changed. We started helping people and we opened up a legitimate business. This is all secondhand information, of course, since I didn’t join until after the club started down the straight and narrow but I have heard enough stories from the guys who have been around longer than I have to know how chaotic things used to be. For me, joining the club after years of aimless wandering was like finally finding the place where I belonged and I loved being able to use my skills to help people without the restrictions that held me back in the past. Although, I can’t help but feel like I am failing them now.

  Barely holding back a growl, I toss the file down on the table and grab the next one before flipping it open. The second girl was Detective Rodriguez’s girlfriend, Laney. We first met Diego Rodriguez a few years back when Blaze’s son, Nix, and his girlfriend, Emma, needed our help and ever since then, he has helped us out on cases when he could and we return the favor. When he called us in to help on Laney’s case, he had just started digging into it and all we knew was that she had been getting weird phone calls from a man. At first, all he did was breathe on the other end of the line to scare her and when that wasn’t enough anymore, he escalated to commenting on her outfit that day or the errands she had run - anything to let her know that he was watching her. Just before we were called in to help watch over her, he told her it would be such a shame when he had to kill her. While Rodriguez dug into the case, we kept an eye on her and made sure she was safe until he tracked down Owen, the man responsible for harassing her. But just a couple of weeks after he was locked up, Rodriguez came home and found Laney in a pool of blood. After that, he kind of lost it and our main focus was to keep him from spiraling out of control.

  As I scan through the facts of the case, I notice a note scribbled at the top of the page about a man that Smith saw at Laney’s funeral and scowl. It would be incredibly moronic for the killer to show up there but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. Then again, it could have just been someone visiting a dead relative. I read over the note again and me knee bounces underneath the table as I sigh.

  Average white guy, kind of tall, brown hair, slim.

  Shaking my head, I flip through the file and pull out the dark, grainy photo Rodriguez got off of a surveillance camera near the pay phone this guy used to call Laney when he was stalking her. You can’t see his face, but he matches Smith’s description from the funeral to a T which is the biggest problem. He’s perfectly average, the kind of guy you don’t even notice, the one who can slip through a crowd without a single person remembering the features of his face. The kind of guy that can get away with murder. Shaking my head, I toss the file down on the table and grab my beer before finishing it off.

  “You need another one, Fuzz?” Cleo, our bartender, asks and I nod. She flashes me a coy smile as she fishes another bottle of beer out of the fridge and opens it. Her hips sway back and forth as she walks over to me and normally, I might be interested in what she’s offering up tonight but with the cases on my mind, there is no way in hell I can focus on anything else. She sets the beer down in front of me and I nod as I scoop the third file off of the table.

  “Thanks, Cleo.”

  She winks. “Anytime, babe.”

  I watch her as she sashays back behind the bar before taking a sip of my beer and flipping the third file open. Girl number three, Sammy, was just killed a little over a month ago and her death was the catalyst for my newfound obsession. In the first case, it was safe to assume that Dina’s husband came back to finish the job and for Laney, I suppose we were all too busy looking out for Rodriguez to put the pieces together but with Sammy… it was different.

  The club first got into contact with Sammy through her sister, who asked us to help her break Sammy away from her insane boyfriend. We later realized that her boyfriend was Biche, the guy who was responsible for Henn going to jail, but before we could do anything, we lost contact with her. She resurfaced a couple of years later, called us and we swooped in to get her away from him. The plan went off without a hitch and Sammy was starting a new life on her own when we got the call that she had been killed. Normally
, we would assume that Biche got to her again but with him not in the picture anymore, it’s just not possible. Which left me wondering if there was more going on here than any of us realized and started my trip down this demented rabbit hole.

  “Church!” Blaze calls from the door to the war room and I release a breath as I close the file and toss it on the table. Grabbing my beer, I run my hand over my face and stand up, taking a sip before I follow the rest of the guys into the room. We all file around the table to our regular seat before Blaze grabs the gavel and bangs it on the table, nodding to Streak. Streak stands up and passes a sheet of paper to each of us.

  “First up this week, we have Marina who hired us to investigate the man her father went into business with. Her father has run a very successful Italian restaurant for many years and took on a partner last year to lighten his workload but Marina is concerned that Mr. Girouard is taking advantage of her father. Fuzz and Smith, this case is yours.”

  I glance over at Smith and nod.

  “Second up is a security detail for Mikayla Silva. She’s a witness to a murder and Rodriguez has requested our assistance in keeping her safe through the trial.”

  “Storm, Chance, Kodiak, and Henn, y’all will rotate shifts round the clock to keep her safe,” Blaze says and they all nod in agreement. “Anything else we need to go over?”

  Nodding, I sit forward and meet Blaze’s eyes. “We need to talk about the cases I’ve been looking into.”

  Kodiak sighs from his spot two seats down and I flick an annoyed glance in his direction before focusing back on Blaze. From the very beginning, Kodiak has been adamant that there is nothing going on and I’m afraid that other people are starting to believe him but I know there is something here. Call it experience or intuition but either way, I’m convinced that the death of these three girls aren’t just coincidence.

  “What about them?” Blaze asks, his brows furrowed. “Have you found anymore evidence?”

  I drop my gaze to the table and shake my head. “No.”

  “That’s because there’s nothing to find,” Kodiak snaps, slamming his hand on the table and my head jerks up.

  “Look, if you want to bury your head in the damn sand like a coward, that’s your business but if we ignore this and I’m right, the next one to die could be someone important to all of us. Y’all have wives and families now that you have to think about and you can’t afford to dismiss this.”

  Kodiak growls. “Leave Tate out of this.”

  “Or what?” I snarl as I square my shoulders and meet his gaze. He stands, his hands balled into fists but before I can jump out of my chair, Blaze slams the gavel down on the table, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

  “Enough.” The roar of his voice echoes through the room as his gaze flicks between the two of us, anger lighting up his eyes. “It will be a cold day in hell before I let you all turn on each other. That’s not the way this club works.”

  I deflate as I nod my head and Kodiak murmurs his agreement as Blaze turns to me.

  “Listen, Fuzz… unless you can show me some new evidence, I’m inclined to side with Kodiak…”

  “Hell, no,” I say, cutting him off. “I know I’m right about this.”

  “And what proof do you have?”

  “Since this club turned things around eight years ago, we’ve lost five girls total and three of those girls have been in the last year and the other two, we know were killed by their exes. Also, all three of the girls who were killed in the last year had our card with them when they died.”

  “Of course they had our card, we helped all of them,” Kodiak mutters.

  “But they all had them when they died. Are you gonna tell me they just carried our card around all the time with them?”

  He nods. “It’s fucking possible.”

  “For the sake of argument here,” Streak says, leaning back in his chair. “Why would they need the card? Wouldn’t they have put the numbers in their phone?”

  “Exactly and what about Sammy? Our card was laying on top of her body when they found her.”

  “Not to mention, Biche couldn’t have done it,” Henn adds and I nod. Holy shit, are they actually saying I might be onto something? Finally?

  “I’ll admit that Sammy’s case is weird but it’s also entirely possible that it was a fluke. Dina was murdered by her ex, Mitch. Rodriguez locked up the wrong guy and Laney was killed by the guy who was really stalking her and Sammy could have just been random.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “And this random killer found our card and decided to place it on top of her dead body?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I growl, shaking my head. “Why can’t you open your damn eyes and see what’s right in front of you?”

  “If there was something to see, I’d see it but there isn’t.”

  “And what if I’m right and the next time someone gets hurt, it’s one of your old ladies? Or your sister? Or someone’s mom?”

  “I fucking told you not to talk about my wife and maybe if you stopped obsessing over this shit, you’d finally be able to find a woman willing to put up with you.” His comment stings more than I’d like to admit but I push it down. It’s not important right now. He shoves his chair away from the table like he’s going to storm out but Blaze holds his hand up to stop him.

  “Enough!” he bellows and the room is painfully silent as he shakes his head in disappointment. “Fuzz, there isn’t enough evidence to move on this yet and I can’t spare anymore people to look into it right now but if you want to keep investigating, you can.”

  I scoff as I cross my arms over my chest and lean back in my seat. As if he could stop me from digging into this more. I know I’m right and I won’t stop until I find the truth.

  “And the two of you,” he says, motioning between Kodiak and me. “Need to sort this shit out now. If Fuzz is right and there is more to these cases than we can see, we cannot be divided. Is that understood?”

  I nod. “Yeah, boss.”

  “Fine,” Kodiak growls, sparing a glance in my direction. Blaze rolls his eyes before turning to look around the table at the rest of the guys.

  “If there’s nothing else…”

  When no one says anything, he nods and slams the gavel on the table to dismiss us. I grab my beer off the table and follow everyone else out of the room before going back to the table with the files on it and sinking into the chair.

  “Holy shit!” Chance yells from the bar, a wide smile on his face as he slaps Smith on the shoulder. I arch a brow as he turns to the rest of us and holds up his beer. “Quinn’s knocked up!”

  The room explodes with cheers and shouts of congratulations as they all drift toward Chance and Smith to give him the old “atta boy” shoulder pat. I force a smile to my face before lifting my bottle of beer to my lips and draining half of it, my stomach churning. I don’t mean to be an asshole and I certainly don’t want to be but each time one of my brothers falls in love and starts his own family, I can’t help but think of all the plans I had for my life that haven’t come to fruition. I’m happy for all of them, especially Smith and his wife, Quinn, after everything they went through but it still doesn’t stop the onslaught of memories of pain that I usually keep under lock and key.

  Shaking my head, I try to force my mind to turn off as I finish off my beer and set the bottle on the table. Cleo holds up another bottle in question from behind the bar and I shake my head. In the mood I’m in, if I keep drinking, I’ll end up too drunk to drive home and I can’t stay here tonight with the celebration that is sure to follow an announcement like that. Sparing a glance at the group, I gather up my files and slip away from the bar without anyone noticing before stepping outside. It’s still muggy as hell even though the sun went down hours ago and I sigh as I slip the files into my saddlebag, looking forward to the ride home. Maybe it’s just what I need to clear my mind.

  After climbing on the bike, I back it out of the parking spot and turn th
e key, my heart kicking in my chest as the engine rumbles to life. God, I love that sound. After I got back from my first deployment, I needed something to take my mind off of all the shit in my life and jumping on the back of a bike gave me the peace and quiet I so desperately craved. The roar of the motor drowned out the sounds of war and the vibrations of the bike beneath me distracted me from the hollow, persistent ache in my chest. Just thinking of that time in my life brings back awful memories and I try to clear them as I peel out of the parking lot. For a solid two years, I was a miserable, cranky bastard and even now, ten years later, it still kills me to think about that time and my traitorous bitch of a wife. I guess I assumed that, in time, the throbbing ache in my chest would disperse and if I’m thoroughly distracted, it’s easier to ignore but it never really goes away.

  I try to relax as downtown Baton Rouge blurs past me, fighting back memories both good and bad. Thinking back to the last time I saw her, the day I deployed, that damn ache returns and I rev the bike’s engine like maybe if I go fast enough, I’ll finally be able to outrun it. Man, how fucking pathetic am I? Piper threw away everything we had and everything we could have built together and here I am, still thinking about her when it’s clear, she doesn’t give a damn about me or the plans we made. And they were grand fucking plans, too - a cute little house, some kids running around in the backyard with the dogs and my woman by my side until the end. Thing is… I still want all that. Not with Piper, of course. She can rot in hell for what she did to me but the wife, the kids, the house, and the dogs… I’ve never given up on that dream and hearing Smith’s news tonight just reminded me how badly I want it.

  Pulling my bike into my parking spot in front of my building and climbing off, I run through my options as I grab my files out of the saddlebag and turn toward my door. I’ve spent years working my ass off to avoid thinking about Piper and what she did to me and it’s left me without options. I mean, occasionally I’ll hook up with Cleo when the need gets to be too much but it’s never been anything more than mindless fucking and I can’t see that woman being the mother of my children. So, what else is there? I could go out to a bar and try to pick someone up but the odds of finding someone that is looking for the same things I am seems unlikely at best. Sighing, I unlock my door and slip into my place before dropping the files onto the table with a thump and flipping the light on.