“Got a beef to pick with you motherfuckers,” he growled.
At that, one by one, we poured from the car, until we were each standing behind Slade, staring down the cop as one massive wall. He hadn’t moved his weapon, holding it diagonally across his chest like a shield.
“A beef, eh?” Slade asked. “What are we talking? Like Angus? T-bone? Maybe a nice tri-tip?” Slade flashed him a smile but he didn’t bite. He stood stoically staring back at us like he was trying to decide who to shoot first. Pretty sure he was banking on Slade.
I stepped up beside Slade, nodding at the cop. “Since I’m the one who came to see you, I’m guessing that beef is with me?”
He eyed me, then grimaced. All of us were bigger than him. He knew we could take him. He was obviously out-numbered. He was obviously an idiot for not bringing back-up, as well as pulling us over on a public road and standing there with that gun in his uniform.
If he really wanted to do some damage, he would have changed out of those clothes and snuck up on us without us even knowing he was there.
But he didn’t.
He was a hot head, that much was clear. He hadn’t thought this through. Which meant that with the right words, this whole thing might just end to our advantage.
“My beef is with whichever of you motherfuckers called my chief to complain about the missing person’s report that wasn’t filed!”
“Oh, so now you admit you didn’t file it?” Ryder asked, his voice as calm as always, low and menacing, a thread of a threat laced through it.
“I didn’t say that,” he insisted.
I shrugged, stepping up and towering over him now. I wasn’t afraid of his gun. What I was afraid of was losing Maddy and Sage and Corinne and Frannie, and this loser was the obstacle standing in my way right now.
“Listen,” I said. “We know you didn’t do anything to Frannie. But we also know what you did do. We know everything.”
I was bluffing now, of course. All we knew about this bastard is that he had several sexual harassment complaints about him, he was married, so he was a cheating bastard, and he was up for promotion to Chief of the precinct. He obviously had a lot to lose. My guess was that he was having an affair with Frannie, but we had no evidence of that.
Except the look on his ugly fucking face right now.
“Everything?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“Yeah, motherfucker,” Slade said, always the instigator. “Fucking everything!”
“Look, we know you and Frannie were having an affair. We know that’s why you didn’t file the report. You didn’t want an investigation, you were afraid your wife would find out, right?”
His eyes dilated and he took a slow, deep breath, his eyes glued to my lips.
I nodded, slowly, knowing I’d hit my target.
“Here’s the deal, Mac, can I call you that?” I went on without giving him time to answer. “I’m sure you love your wife, right?” I tried not to gag at those words. “Shit happens, we get it. But here’s my issue right now. All I care about is finding Frannie. I don’t care about you or your promotion or ruining your marriage. Nobody has to know that shit. But we found the guy who we think took Frannie. And he has both of her daughters now, too, as well as a friend. The thing is, and I’ll be honest with you, because I think you can appreciate this. We were following them. And you pulled us over, and now, while we’ve been standing here talking about all this bullshit, and watching you wave your little gun around, we’ve lost the car they were in.”
“You know who has Frannie?”
“We do,” Ryder said. “And listen, man. We can be discreet. If you help us now, we’ll help you keep things quiet on our end.”
“Bro code, you know, man,” Slade said, flashing him his stupid grin with a knowing wink.
“Bro code, huh?” Mac replied.
“Yeah, man,” he said.
“So, who’s the fucker who took her?” Mac asked.
“Frannie’s therapist. We were following him and her youngest daughter. We need to get his home address and I bet you could do that a lot faster than we could. Hell, maybe you could even give us a police escort over there and you can take a little credit for solving the case. Your chief would like that, wouldn’t he?”
He paused, looking each of us over, weighing whether he could trust us or not.
“Look, man, it’s either help us or shoot us all down in a spray of bullets in front of all these drivers going by and have a lot to explain afterwards,” Riot said.
“What do you say?” I asked.
“Fuck,” he said, rubbing his bald head and letting the gun fall to his side. “Sure, why not? Give me the dude’s name.”
Slade put his hand on his shoulder and nodded approvingly.
“Good choice, man,” he said. “I mean, I love a good fight, but maybe later, huh?”
I shook my head and walked away, my heart full of worry for the girls.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
SAGE
We heard the car pull up outside and knew he was back. Mom told us about her idea and as creepy and terrible as it sounded, it just might work. Although, when we heard him enter the house and realized there were two sets of footsteps, we weren’t sure what to think.
It only took a few moments to find out, though. When Leo opened the door and pushed Maddy in, we were all surprised, so surprised that we didn’t have time to do anything at all. Leo left us there but assured us he’d be back soon.
Maddy and Mom embraced and I was so happy to see them together that I started crying and then Corinne, ever the level-headed one, convinced us all to save the emotional reunions and figure out a way to get the fuck out of this nightmare.
We quickly filled Maddy in and then set to work getting ready. When Leo came back, it wasn’t the four of us that was waiting for him.
It was four versions of his mother.
Dressed in her old dresses and wearing her makeup and perfume, we stared him down, hoping like hell he’d break.
He froze as soon as he saw us and Mom took the lead.
“Sunny,” she whispered, her voice stuck in a high sing-songy tone. “Baby, I missed you.”
She pulled him into her arms, holding him at her breasts before he blinked a few times then looked up at her.
“Mother?” he whispered, his voice low and quiet, like a sad little boy.
She nodded, smiling at him softly. “Yes, baby.”
“Hello, Sunny,” I said. “I missed you, too.”
He looked over at me in confusion. “Mother?”
“It’s me, Sunny,” I said, turning in a circle, the skirt of the vintage black lace cocktail dress I wore fanning out around me. “You love this dress, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, as if he was hypnotized by the movement. I leaned over him and kissed his forehead and he inhaled deeply, the scent of the rose perfume sending him into a stupor.
God, he was so easy, I thought. He was so sick.
“Leo, look at me,” Corinne said, standing in the corner, twirling in a red chiffon floor length gown. She looked quite striking but the red lipstick was not her color. Leo wandered over to her slowly, an eerie smile spreading over his face. While he wasn’t looking, Maddy raced upstairs and in moments, music poured down into the basement.
“Sunny, let’s dance,” Corinne said, reaching for his hand. He stepped to her, and they began dancing around the room together as Mom and I watched. She moved close to me, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.
“Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain…” Corinne sang, and Leo joined in, smiling up at her as he danced a perfect waltz with her. Corinne, as planned, took an extra step, causing Leo to trip on the skirt of her dress, ripping it.
“Sunny!” she cried out in anger. He cowered instantly.
“I’m so sorry, Mother!” he cried.
“You tore my favorite dress!” she shouted, her voice harsh and mean, as she raised a hand like she was going to hit him. Leo fell to the ground in fear a
nd we all towered over him now, shouting at him together.
“Bad boy, Sunny!”
“You’re in so much trouble!”
“Sunny, you’re terrible! Bad boy! Bad boy!”
We chanted, marching around him in a circle, wagging our fingers at him, our shouts mingling with the song, until he was a crying, sniffling mess on the floor.
Maddy came back downstairs, yards of rope tangled in her arms.
“I found this,” she whispered, not wanting to break the spell. I nodded, still chanting, still marching in a circle, as I took the rope from her arms and knelt down, winding it around his hands, his traumatized eyes staring up at me in a stark terror that wound up from deep inside of him.
The sound of the God’s bikes, mixed with the sound of a police siren, made me smile down at him.
“Sunny, one so true, I love you…” I sang to him, a well of empathy threatening to come up for him.
But then, I remembered what he’d done to my sweet, kind mother. After I was sure he was tied up so tightly he couldn’t move, I reached for a hammer that I’d spotted on a shelf and lifted it over my shoulders.
Mom grabbed my arm before I could split his head in two.
“Don’t, baby,” she said. “He’s not worth it. He is so not worth it.”
The sound of the front door busting open echoed through the house, followed by a barrage of footsteps. Seconds later, Colt barreled down the basement stairs. I dropped the hammer and ran into his waiting arms.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice gruff with worry.
“We’re okay, we’re all okay,” I said. His lips crashed into mine and he held me so close, so tightly, that I struggled to breathe. Finally, he pulled away, staring down at me.
“It’s over, babe,” I said.
“Yeah, babe, it’s over.”
He kissed me again and it was like finally coming home.
EPILOGUE
SAGE
“You didn’t have to throw us a party,” I said to Colt, as we strolled around the grounds of the Gods’ property.
“We wanted to,” he said. “And I wanted to show you where I live…”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, squeezing his hand. “So peaceful.”
We rounded the corner of the clubhouse and I smiled as I saw Maddy was still hanging out with the owls, Oliver and Olivia. She was clearly smitten with them.
“They just hang out with y’all all day like this?”
“No, not always,” he said. “Only if they like someone.”
“Maddy, I think they like you,” I said, as we walked up.
“I adore them!” she said, her eyes shining brightly. “They’re fascinating! Look at their eyes, Sage!” Oliver was sitting on her shoulder, periodically nuzzling her face and Olivia sat on her knee, demanding endless petting.
“I know, they’re amazing,” I replied.
Mom was sitting on the porch swing watching, she and Grace quietly talking together. She’d told us everything she’d gone through, and it was excruciating knowing she had so much to recover from. And yet, she was stronger than ever, somehow. I’d never loved her more and it made me so happy to see her and Maddy getting along so well now.
Corinne and Blade were hanging out on the porch steps and sharing a beer and I couldn’t remember ever seeing her so happy.
I have to admit, I loved them all. I thought I’d met all the Gods, but once we arrived at the clubhouse and saw the rest of them swarming around, I realized this was a much bigger operation than I originally thought.
Once I met Grace and Lacey and heard more about their incredible mission, I couldn’t have respected them more.
“So, I guess you’re heading back to Portland soon, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thankfully, my professors were understanding about my time off. I have a lot of stuff to make up, but I think I can catch up.”
“Of course you can,” he said, smiling at me.
“So, where do you sleep?” I asked. “Do you share a room with all these guys?”
He laughed and shook his head, his curls falling around his face. “No, I have my own cabin. Want to see it?”
“Sure,” I said. We left the others on the porch and he led me back to a string of cabins a bit away from the clubhouse. He walked up to the third one from the back and opened the door. It was warm and cozy and very manly. Not a flower in sight, but it was filled with a comfy looking brown leather couch adorned with Pendleton blankets and pillows, with a large bed in the corner.
Colt shut the door behind us and pulled me into his arms.
I’d quickly become addicted to his kisses. Now that Mom was home safely, and Leo — or Sunny, as we’d taken to calling him — was safely behind bars in the state mental hospital, we could all breathe a little easier, and I was wholeheartedly allowing myself to feel the pleasure Colt was providing.
All traces of guilt had evaporated and the only thing I was feeling now was happiness, and gratefulness, and a very, very strong sense of desire now that I was alone with Colt again.
“Hey, what’s that?” I asked, pointing to his bed.
“My bed?”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “You do realize that we’ve slept together twice, but never actually been in a bed together?”
“Oh, that is terrible,” he said. “How did that happen?”
“Well, at least we know each other’s names now,” he said, laughing, as I beamed up at him.
“You’ve been amazing throughout this entire thing, Colt,” I said. “I owe you so much.”
“You don’t owe me anything, babe,” he said. “In fact, I’m the one who owes you.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you opened up my heart. Because meeting you showed me that there’s more to life than this. That I can have more, too. I know you’re going back to school, but I hope you don’t mind if I come visit often?”
“I’d love that,” I replied.
“Sage, I know it’s probably too soon, but I’m an honest guy and I’m not one to hold things back. You’ve made me feel alive again, sweetheart. I love you.”
My heart skipped a beat at his words.
“I love you, too, Colt,” I whispered.
I wrapped my arms around him, his lips falling on mine as we fell on the bed together, rays of the sunlight we’d been chasing pouring over us like the promise of a new day, a new life.
One that we could start together.
THE END
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THE GODS OF CHAOS MOTORCYCLE CLUB SERIES!
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PLEASE CONTACT THE ORGANIZATIONS BELOW:
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CHASING SUNSHINE: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK THIRTEEN) Page 20
