“Chloe,” she corrected him.
“That’s right.” He pulled the bar stool out and patted his lap. “Come sit here sweetheart.”
Chloe silently did as he asked. Her eyes widened as she felt the gun holstered at his hip.
Troy didn’t know what to do. Where was Tom? He had promised the owner he wouldn’t try to handle his brother on his own, but he had no choice.
“Isn’t stealing one girl from me bad enough?” Troy blurted out, hoping Chloe would take the hint and play along.
“The last one doesn’t count,” Jake laughed. “She came looking for me. She wanted someone with power, not someone weak.”
“I’m not that weak,” Troy pointed out. “You spent some time in the hospital over that I heard.”
“And I got our just in time to take your little girlfriend to the abortion clinic,” Jake fired back.
Troy felt like he had the wind knocked out of him. He didn’t know that part. Of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t allow Trinity to visit him in jail. He didn’t take any of her calls. Any letters from her went straight into the trash. When he was released, he avoided the clubhouse so he wouldn’t have to see her.
He couldn’t let his brother see how the words affected him. He forced a laugh. “Probably wasn’t even mine,” he shrugged. “But I won’t let you take Chloe from me,” he continued.
Jake laughed. The movement moved the gun closer to Chloe. She was terrified.
“This girl was mine long before she was yours.”
“You left her,” Troy pointed out. “She’s mine now.”
Jake’s hands grasped Chloe by the waist and he tossed her onto the bar. “You want her, she’s all yours,” he shouted.
Troy ran to Chloe and helped her up. “Are you okay?”
She nodded with tears in her eyes as she fell into his arms. “He has a gun,” she breathed into his ear as he held her.
Troy’s body went rigid. She had confirmed his fear. He had to be careful. His brother was a loose cannon and there were too many innocent people in the building.
“Why are you really here Jake?” Troy asked as calmly as he could.
“I’m here for you,” Jake said. “You know what happens to people that leave the MC.”
Troy pulled Chloe from his arms and protectively moved her behind him. He kept a grip on her hand as she clung to his shirt.
“I’m not part of the club,” he reminded his brother. “I never initiated. I never blooded. And I never will.”
“That doesn’t matter. You were born into it. You know too much.”
“Is that why you agreed to bring me out here? Is that why the only club members you brought were the ones too stupid to think for themselves? The ones only loyal to you. Did the whole take get a vote on this?”
“No vote needed, since you’re not officially a member,” Jake pointed out.
Troy knew he had no defense. He was raised by the club. He knew too much, and he had just admitted he had no intention of joining. That made him a threat and there was only one way to deal with a threat. The few members that would side with him were all the way back in Wisconsin.
He put his hands up in surrender. When he let go of Chloe’s hand, she gripped his back even tighter as she sobbed out loud.
“Can I ask a request?”
Jake smiled. “You can ask all you want. It doesn’t mean I have to honor it.”
He held up a finger. “One day. Give me one day. I will meet you wherever you want me tomorrow. Just give me one last night with my girl. Give me time to move some money around so she’s not left with nothing.”
Jake snorted. “Twenty four hours from now you would probably be across the country.”
Troy reached into his pocket and tossed his keys to his brother. “You know damn well I won’t leave without Dad’s bike.” He hated that Jake’s greasy hands were even touching the keys to his father’s motorcycle, but he needed to buy some time. He needed to come up with a plan.
He needed to at least tell Maya goodbye. He knew Jake would make it look like he just disappeared. He couldn’t let Maya think she had been abandoned again.
“You have until noon,” Jake answered. “Friendship Tower. You know what will happen if you don’t show.”
Troy nodded. “I’ll be there,” he promised.
Jake stood up and turned toward the door. Before he walked away, he turned back and landed a fist to the side of Troy’s face. “I’ll be looking for you and your entire family if he doesn’t show,” he warned Chloe as he left the bar.
Chloe didn’t know what to do when Troy crumbled to the floor upon impact with Jake’s fist. She couldn’t tell if he was knocked unconscious from the punch itself or if it had been when he hit the cooler on his way down, but either way, Troy was hurt.
She made sure he was breathing before she set to work on getting an ice pack. The entire right side of his face was swollen and already turning purple. When she kneeled down to apply the ice pack, she noticed a thin line of blood on the side of his head.
“Troy,” she whispered as she gently shook him. “Troy, wake up.” She could barely see through her tears. She froze when she heard the door open.
“Where is everyone?”
At the sound of Tom’s voice, Chloe sprang to her feet, climbed over the bar, and jumped into his arms.
“Chloe? What happened?”
She was crying so hard she could barely breathe. “Jake. Troy saved me. I can’t wake him. He’s going to kill him.” The words came out in a jumbled mess, but Tom sprang into action.
“Chloe, I need you to calm down,” he instructed her. “Call Maya. Wait. Not yet.” He moved around the bar to get a better look at Troy. “Jake did this?” Chloe could only node. “Tell Stacie I need her in here.”
Chloe nodded and ran toward the dining room while Tom crouched next to Troy.
“Should we call the cops?” Stacie asked when she approached with Chloe. “We didn’t know what to do. I know you usually say no cops, but you weren’t here to handle it,” she rambled.
“Are there any customers left in here?”
Stacie shook her head. “Everyone kind of cleared out when the shouting started.”
“Good. We’re closed. Lock the doors.” He fished out a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them to Stacie. “Go get Maya,” he told her. “Don’t give her details because I don’t want to scare her. Tell her it’s an emergency and I need her here. Make sure you’re not followed.”
Stacie nodded and ran out the door, locking it behind her.
“I need to get home to Mason,” Chloe managed to get out between sobs.
“You are not leaving this building alone,” Tom insisted. “I’m sure Jake is still in town somewhere. Did he remember you?” Chloe nodded. “Shit. Did he threaten you?” Again, she nodded. “Does he know about Mason?”
“I had told him I was pregnant the night he disappeared,” she choked out. “I don’t know if he remembers. He was pretty messed up tonight. He had a gun but he didn’t use it.”
“I need to know exactly what happened,” he said as calmly as he could.
“He’s going to kill Troy. Tomorrow. At noon. We have to call the cops. He said he would kill me and my family if Troy doesn’t show up.”
“We can’t go to the cops,” Tom insisted. “I need you to start at the beginning. I know it’s not easy, but I need to know everything.”
Chloe nodded and took a deep breath. She started with the conversation right after Maya left. She had just finished when Maya appeared.
“Oh my god! What happened!” she cried as she ran to Troy’s side. He was still unconscious and the bruising on his face was getting worse.
“Stacie, I need you to call the boys back home,” Tom instructed, ignoring Maya’s question. “I need them here as soon as possible. As many as can make it. Tell them we have an issue with Jake Jackson.” Stacie nodded and headed toward the dining room to make the phone calls.
“Jake did this?”
>
Tom nodded. “We need to get him upstairs. I doubt Jake will come back tonight, but it’s safer up there.”
Tom picked Troy up effortlessly and carried him up the stairs. Maya immediately fell into the bed and wrapped her arms around him.
“Dad, Duke and Jeremy are actually in Sturgis. They are on their way. Everyone else won’t be here until late morning,” Stacie informed Tom.
“Dad?” Chloe and Maya said together.
Tom ignored them. “Take Chloe to pick up Mason and bring them back here,” he instructed.
“Is Gavin safe at home?” Maya asked, wondering if she should have brought him alone instead of sending him inside and cancelling the camping trip.
“Jake can’t tie you to Troy, so you have nothing to worry about,” Tom assured her. “As far as Jake knows, Troy is with Chloe, which was some quick thinking on Troy’s part that probably saved her life. But Jake will be looking for her.”
“My. Ah.”
The sound was barely a whisper but Maya’s attention snapped to Troy. He was awake, even though his one eye was completely swollen shut.
“I’ll give you two a few minutes alone,” Tom said as he turned to leave the room.
“I’m sorry for hurting you,” Troy whispered. “I don’t want to leave you, but I have no choice.”
Maya shook her head. “What are you talking about? You’re going to be fine. You’re not going anywhere.”
Troy shook his head and reached out for her hand. The pain from the movement temporarily blinded him. “Jake is going to kill me,” he went on. “I bought myself until noon tomorrow so I could say goodbye. I couldn’t let you believe I had just left you.”
“He can’t,” she cried. “We won’t let him.”
“It would take an army to stop him at this point.”
“I just so happen to have an army,” Tom said from the doorway where he stood flanked by two men Troy had never seen before.
~12~
“W e have been trying to put an end to Jake Jackson for years.”
The words echoed in Troy’s head as Tom introduced the new men as Duke and Jeremy. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew about Tom’s former club life, but he hadn’t realized Tom’s club had been just across the Mississippi River from where Troy had grown up.
“Did you know my parents?” Troy asked.
One of the new men, Jeremy, nodded. He was young. Older than Troy, but definitely younger than Tom. He was clean cut, dressed nice, and looked nothing like any biker Troy had ever met. Duke, Jeremy’s father, was the exact opposite. He had been a founding member with Tom and he looked like he could be a poster child for a motorcycle club.
“Your father was a good man,” Duke told him. “But even he couldn’t control Jake. Even as a child, that kid was always on our side of the border causing problems.”
“Your old man never would have left the club to Jake. He never even wanted him initiated, but your mom thought it would be good for him. She thought it might straighten him out,” Tom explained. “Obviously, it didn’t.”
“He was maybe your age when he cut the breaks of Tom’s bike and caused the accident that killed Julia,” Duke continued. “Tom wanted him dead then, but Marilyn begged for his life. It wasn’t her fault; she really believed he could change. No parent wants to believe their child is a monster.”
“That’s when I left my club,” Tom went on. “I moved out here because if I ever saw Jake on my turf again, I was going to kill him. I didn’t need the wrath of Carlisle Jackson coming down on my club.”
“How is it possible that I never knew any of this?” Troy asked. Of course he would have been too young to know much of what was going on at the club level, but he should have at least known something.
Tom shrugged. “You were young.”
“A few years after that, your parents were killed in an accident that was suspiciously like Tom’s accident,” Duke added.
Troy stared at the men. Had he just heard them correctly? His voice was barely above a whisper when he finally managed to choke out a reply.
“You think Jake killed our parents?”
All three men nodded silently while they gave Troy time to process the information.
“There was no way Jake would ever become an officer with your dad in charge,” Duke said. “Jake knew that. Everyone knew Carlisle planned on handing everything over to you, but Jake didn’t like that idea. With them gone and you too young, they were forced to put Jake in a position of leadership.”
Maya didn’t know where to begin to process all the information. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “We need to go to the cops,” she shouted. It was the only thing that made sense. Why hadn’t they made the call already?
“No!” all four men shouted.
“If we are lucky enough to find a cop that would actually arrest him and charge Jake, no jury would ever convict him,” Troy pointed out. “They would be too afraid of club retaliation first of all. Besides, most clubs, especially Jake’s, are involved in a ton of community service. They want to seem like the good guys.”
“If we can’t go to the cops, what can we do?” she asked as her voice shook. “You can’t just let him kill you.”
Troy pulled Maya into his arms and reached up to wipe her tears. “If I had another choice, believe me, I would take it,” he assured her calmly. “If I tried to run, he would go after Chloe. I’m sure eventually he would find out about you. I can’t let that happen. If I deal with this without a fight, it ends with me and he will leave everyone else alone.”
“We could kill him first,” Duke suggested.
“This is crazy!” Maya cried. “You’re talking about murder!”
Troy shook his head. “He won’t be alone. It would bring too much retaliation and everyone could end up hurt,” he argued. “We let him have what he wants and end this. He will go back to Wisconsin and the rest of you live out your lives.”
“How long until he does something like this to someone else?” Chloe asked quietly from the doorway of the small bedroom. She had just returned and Mason was sound asleep in her arms. Troy’s heart began to pound as he saw his nephew for the first time. “Would any of us really be safe if we just let him go? What would stop him from going after all of us after you are gone?”
Maya’s eyes darted back and forth between Troy, Chloe, Tom, and the two bikers in the room. She didn’t like any of their options. She certainly hated the idea of losing Troy, but was it enough to justify murder? The entire situation was insane.
“Could Chloe try to reason with him?” Jeremy suggested. “Obviously Jake don’t care about taking care of his kid, but if he thinks you are, he might change his mind.”
“Absolutely not,” Troy insisted. He was started to struggle to follow the conversation. Dark spots were beginning to invade his vision. He was certain he had a concussion, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. He had to stay focused. “It’s too dangerous,” he continued. “Too many things could go wrong.”
“Where are you supposed to meet him tomorrow?” Tom asked, changing the direction of the conversation. He wasn’t convinced that letting Chloe talk to Jake was a bad idea, but he let it go. He looked at his watch. Nearly 9 pm. They had just over fifteen hours to come up with a plan.
Troy shook his head. Details from the confrontation were slipping away from him. The memories were hazy at best. His eyelids were heavy and he felt sick to his stomach. He needed sleep, but he wanted to spend as much time with Maya as he could.
“I don’t remember,” he admitted. “Something about a tower.”
“Friendship Tower,” Chloe clarified.
Tom nodded but he didn’t say anything. Friendship Tower was about a mile hike through the forest. If it wasn’t crawling with tourists, it would actually be a good place to ambush Jake. There were plenty of places to hide along the trail.
“You need sleep,” he told Troy. “We will leave you alone while we plan this out. Maya, you can join
us in the living room or you can stay here with Troy. It’s up to you, but no one will be leaving this apartment tonight.” He turned and ushered the other men from the room and Chloe followed with Mason.
Maya couldn’t control the tears that were freely streaming down her face. She hated feeling so helpless.
“Come here,” Troy whispered as he leaned back in the bed and opened his arms for her to crawl into. She moved slowly, afraid to hurt him, as she settled next to him in the bed. The twin size mattress was too small to comfortably accommodate both of them, but at that moment, the closer they were, the better. They didn’t speak. Troy kissed her forehead before his eyes closed and he was engulfed in darkness as he fell into a dreamless sleep.
Maya knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she also knew that he needed her close. As much as she wanted to know what was going on in the other room, she decided Troy needed her more.
She kept her eyes on him while he slept. The swelling and bruising on his face didn’t make him any less attractive to her. Even the dried blood in his hair didn’t make her want to look away.
She couldn’t imagine the thought of losing him tomorrow. Surely Tom wouldn’t let that happen, although it seemed like everything she thought she knew about her boss was a lie.
Maya spent the next hour curled up in bed with Troy. She didn’t want to risk waking him by climbing out of bed.
~***~
“You’re not actually going to let his brother kill him, are you?” Chloe asked Tom after she had gotten Mason settled in Tom’s room. She really hoped the child would sleep through the night, but she wasn’t getting her hopes up. Mason barely slept all night at home, and this place was strange to him. She fully expected an all-out meltdown when he woke.
Tom shook his head. “Of course not, but we can’t let him know that,” he explained.
“What are we going to do?” she asked quietly, even though she suspected she already knew the answer.
“Jake can’t kill anyone if he’s dead,” Duke answered.
“Troy said that wouldn’t work,” she reminded them.
“Troy is worried about retaliation. We are going to have to make sure it’s not a problem,” Tom explained. “I have some contacts in his club. I’m sure Troy does as well. I highly doubt many of them will miss a tyrant like Jake.”
Facing Fear Page 11
