by Nicole Snow
There were profit numbers from the latest gun runs we did for the Grizzlies and the Prairie Devils, going down to the coast. Another letter of condolence from some mafia fuck in Ireland, who'd assured us he had our backs when we finally tracked down Dom and his boys. The Sicilians wouldn't escalate their war with reinforcements, as long as they had to worry about reprisals in Europe.
Profit statements from the garages and the Ruby Heel. Our body work, dancers, and booze brought in more clean money than ever this quarter. Didn't do a damned thing to patch the black hole in my stomach.
When I got to the end of the reports, I sighed. There was nothing about Dominick Barone, and even less about Hannah.
I reached for the half full bottle of Jack in my bottom drawer. Nearly hit the ceiling when something long and wet slid across my hand.
“Fuck you, wolfie! You're gonna give a man a goddamned heart attack one of these days.” Failing to see the huge wolfhound laying in the corner when I came in told me how fuckin' blitzed I'd really been.
Bingo pulled his head away and stretched, his mouth opening wide in a yawn, tail wagging because he didn't have a care in the world. I would've given anything for a taste of that attitude, right about now.
I pushed my chair over and stroked his head while I poured myself a shot, listening to his heavy breathing. “You've only been with us for a little while, and you've already seen a heap of shit. Fuckin' shame, really.”
The dog pressed his head into my hand, oblivious to the club's many struggles and fuck ups over the past year. Hadn't all been bad, of course. Half the boys were wed off or raising kids. Their stories had happy endings. I started to believe the same slice of heaven might be waiting around the corner for me.
Big mistake. Colossal.
My hand tightened on the little shot glass while I took a second hit from the bottle. This shit only did so much to numb the demon churning in my guts. It wouldn't be truly tamed 'til I brought her back.
I believed she was alive out there somewhere, ignoring the savage voice deep down that said I was wasting my time, and everybody else's, too.
The third shot was about to go down my throat when my door swung open. Bingo jerked up and walked across the room to make room for Firefly.
We'd shared an icy peace the last few months, ever since Hannah up and disappeared. Now, the giant stood over me, looking like a grenade about to go off, flattening his hands on my desk.
“You got something to say, or what?” I asked, looking back with daggers in my eyes.
“I believed you, Cap'n. Listened to every fucked up thing you said in church last week, when you swore up and down you were looking for her, giving it everything you had.”
“Not sure what you're pissed about because I gave you the God's truth. What the fuck do you think I'm doing in here? Pulling my pud while I think about how much I miss her doing it for me?”
The whiskey had hit my system quicker than I believed. Words came out like bee stings on the tongue. Knew I sounded like an asshole, even if there was a bigger one standing in front of me.
Slowly, Firefly reached out, grasped the almost drained bottle, and gripped it in one hand. “I'm gonna give you one chance to tell me how throwing this shit down your gullet at ten o'clock in the morning helps bring my sis home. Half a minute. Go.”
I stood up, tilting my face up, my eyes locked to his like knife on bone. Over in the corner, Bingo whined, sensing the storm about to break open in this little room.
“Whatever the fuck else you've got to say or do to me, just let the dog go. He don't need to be here for this.”
Firefly grunted reluctant agreement as he walked over. He stroked the big grey dog's head 'til he stood up, and slowly ambled out the open door on four furry legs. I watched my big Enforcer cross the room after him, yank the door shut, slamming it so hard on its hinges the whole building shook.
“I gave you thirty seconds, Prez. You haven't said a fuckin' thing, which tells me you've got nothing.”
“Fuck, we oughta add a detective patch to the club ranks for the fine work you just did,” I said, stepping out from behind my desk, getting in his face. “We're missing the same woman for different reasons, so you deserve an answer that ain't just 'fuck off.' I come in here, morning after morning, looking for the day I see a scrap of paper that has a few answers on it. Every single evening, I go home, staying up 'til I pass out, combing over every file, hoping we missed something. Every fuckin' lead turns to ashes in front of my eyes, and then does it again when I'm stupid enough to double-check. That lead in Michigan last month that went fuckin' nowhere...the Grizzlies prospect who thought he saw her in Idaho...the drunken asshole at the Heel who told us she was right under our noses, two towns over, only to walk in where he said and find a bitch in a wig shooting up in front of her kid...”
My nostrils flared. That last incident a couple weeks ago really pissed me off.
The club called the good cops we knew as soon as we pushed the druggie bitch outta her house and got her kid to safety. Then I personally drove to the Heel, pulled the drunk who'd handed us the faulty tip out back, and put the fear of God into him for boozing so fuckin' much he thought a crank whore looked like my Hannah.
“So, you're giving up, Prez? That what you're saying?” Firefly snorted, shaking his head. “Fuck's sake. You know we're gonna get a hundred more false leads before we take a bite on one that's real. That's how this goes, and I'm doing my damnedest to keep my head straight, keep it clear, double-checking for anything – motherfucking anything – we might've missed.”
“That's just it – we don't have goddamned time for a hundred more fake leads. She's been missing for seven fuckin' months!” I pushed past him, hit the wall, and banged both my fists against it.
Seven. I counted them in my head every heartless night, right before I forced myself to blackout.
Some nights, Doctor Jack and Jim helped. Others, I got down on the floor, sweated like a hog, and did so many pushups I hit the floor with my arms half-broke, grinding my teeth angrily 'til I passed the fuck out.
Seven evil months without my Hannah. Seven months of darkness. Seven months shuffling through this life like a disembodied spirit.
“You're making excuses, Cap'n. I want her back just as much as you do,” Firefly said, his grip on the bottle easing. His knuckles weren't pale white anymore. Maybe he'd gotten cold feet about bringing it down on my skull.
“Fuck wanting, Firefly. I'm bringing her back. Maybe you're right about the bottle taking too much away from me. It bleeds time, focus. Hours and days when I could've hit the shit in front of me a few more times, triple checked a few more leads. I hear you, brother, and I'm fuckin' sorry.”
Apologies were supposed to help. This one tasted like ash in my mouth.
I kept my face to the wall, ashamed, wondering how I kept the boot off my own ass. Hated how it took this asshole behind me to admit I had a problem with the sauce cutting into these worthless leads.
“Don't apologize.” Firefly laid a stern hand on my shoulder. “Shape the fuck up, Prez. We just gotta be patient for a little while longer. Joker's touching base with the contacts we've got in Texas and Oklahoma, trying to sniff out anything new.”
“Bullshit,” I said, turning around to face him. Pulling out my pipe, I gave it a light, and motioned to the map behind my desk. The one with all the little rainbow tacks stuck in it, one for every place we thought we heard a rumor that wasn't total bullshit. “That's the trouble with all this, ain't it? Her route doesn't make sense. If anything we heard about her being in the Pacific Northwest was true, why the fuck would she give that up to go down to Texas? With her Sterner Corp ties, she'd be heading for Seattle, trying to get to Alaska, or fuck knows where from there.”
“My sis ain't stupid, Prez. Last thing she'd do is walk right into a fuckin' trap.” Firefly stared me down.
I never broke my gaze, but something inside me reached up, giving my heart a bitter twist. My Enforcer's words stung because
she'd taken the bait. Dom and his bastards wanted her out there alone, by herself, where the club couldn't protect her.
And I hadn't stopped her. If only I'd gone to the damned hospital that night, walked her back to her car, throttled the motherfucker who ambushed her and tried to take her hostage before she crashed his shit on the mountain...
“Prez? What the hell's the matter?”
I closed my eyes, shoving my regretful demons back in their boxes. I said a quick, silent prayer in my head.
Lord, just a little while longer. Banish this darkness, send me a light, anything to bring my woman home.
I wasn't a religious man. Hard to be anything resembling that when you'd dispatched as many sick fucks as I did over the years. Still, I prayed, sent up my desperate hopes to a God who didn't owe me a damned thing.
“You've been pissed at me for months. I don't blame you,” I said, stepping up to my Enforcer, putting my hand around his wrist. “If it wasn't for this shit between us, Firefly, she might be standing here today, safe and sound. She went to the hospital without me the night your kid was born because you couldn't stand having me around.”
Firefly bared his teeth. Angry muscle bulged underneath my fingertips. “Now's not the time to dwell on the past. I always said we'd sort out our shit as soon as we brought her home. That's all that matters.”
“We're sortin' it out now,” I said. “Because as long as there's this quiet, toxic resentment between you and me, brother, we ain't finding her. Go ahead. Get it outta your fuckin' system. Maybe the blow to my skull will do me some good, knock some sense into places that need it.”
My fingers dug into his skin. He tried to move back, but I wouldn't let him, holding on in a death grip 'til he moved that bottle high.
“What the fuck's gotten into you?” he said, his blue eyes going wide. “You're acting like a nut right now, Prez, and I –“
“You're pissed. You hate me for shoving my ring on her finger, and then letting her get away. And I hate you for hating it, wanting to spit in my face over the best fuckin' thing that ever happened to me. You thought I was too goddamned bad to put my lips on your little sis, have her in my bed, bury my dick in her, and promise her she'd be carrying my kid within the year.”
I'd seen my boy's eyes glowing like hell itself a few dozen times in battle. They'd never been this bright, this hot, this pissed off.
“You know what you're asking for, Prez?” he snorted, clenching his teeth. “I'll fuck you up. Bad.”
“Exactly. I want you to get this fuckin' poison out of your system so we can put it aside and find my wife. Don't give two shits if you refuse to believe me about going after her. I love her. I need her. I ain't giving up on her for anything, and I'll crawl through hell itself with a broken face if it'll stop the distractions, and put the energy you spend busting my balls into bringing her back.”
The bottle in his hand twitched. I closed my eyes, bracing for a special kind of pain that'd probably knock me out cold, if it didn't do brain damage.
Instead of hearing the whiskey bottle colliding with bone, we both heard a dog in the newly opened doorway. Bingo yipped once. We both turned to see him standing in the hall, Joker holding him by the leash, squinting at the showdown in my office.
“Looks like I picked a bad time to pass out good news.”
“News? What news?” I pushed past Firefly, frantically approaching my Veep, studying the smile on his face. It still didn't look quite right when he smiled, even though it happened a lot lately. The muscles must've needed practice to work right after all the years he spent scowling, loathing, waiting to avenge his dead brother.
“We've got ourselves a hit in some dusty little town in West Texas, Prez. Came in this morning. Warpath Nomads, riding down from Oklahoma, heading for Mexico.”
My heart stopped pumping for five brutal seconds. The Warpaths were solid, only other outlaw MC in Dixie we trusted. Firefly stood next to me, taking in the news, while Joker went on.
“They think they spotted her driving into town for groceries.”
I grabbed him by his cut, digging my fingers in, stepping over his boots and the dog laying down on the floor. “Think, or know? There's a big fuckin' difference.”
“Know, Prez. They sent me these about an hour ago.” He reached into his pocket and held up his phone.
The first pic had a license plate number I'd burned into my memory. Second pic showed her getting outta her car, those sweet locks I'd smelled and fisted in my hands a hundred times catching the Texas light. Third pic stopped my fuckin' heart for a whole lot longer than five goddamned seconds.
It was Hannah, wiping down her windows while she fueled up, beautiful as the day she left me forever. No, more beautiful than I'd ever seen her before, because her body showed one big difference from how I remembered it.
That bump in her belly, sticking out, could only mean one thing.
Firefly made a sound like he stopped breathing when he saw it. Shook me straight to my fuckin' core, so rough and sudden it was like catching a bullet. I gripped Joker's leather in both hands tighter, pulling hard, only support I had to keep me on my feet.
“Fuck...” One word rendered me speechless.
Joker sensed the earthquake rolling through my body. Veep's hands were wrapped around mine a second later, helping keep me up, walking me over to the beat up couch in the corner, across from my desk.
Nobody said shit 'til I was sitting down, with Firefly next to me, pale as a ghost.
“Christ, Veep, get them on her,” he said. “You gotta –“
“Tell them to turn their fuckin' bikes around and pin her down!” I snapped, cutting my Enforcer off. “Block off every exit in that damned town. Don't let her out of sight 'til they know we're on our way. Find her a room in town, keep her cozy, as long as they're under her watch, I don't fuckin' care!”
Joker's face softened. “Like I said, brothers, I only got this shit an hour ago. They caught up to her about a half hour before that. By the time I got it, saw it, and texted them back, they'd moved the fuck on. I told them the same thing you just said, believe me. Unfortunately for us, they've got business south of the border. Big Dog told me personally they can't be bothered holding up for our missing girl. They did us a favor just reporting it.”
“You're shittin' me.” I gave him a hard look, but his eyes were honest. That dagger lodged in my guts for the last seven months gave me the sharpest twist ever.
“No, Prez, I wish I was. Ain't like we've got any authority over their club. They're our friends, and they've just given us a gold mine here. Best we can do is take that shit into our own hands, get on our bikes, and find her.”
Joker laid down so much truth it turned my fuckin' stomach. I had to keep it together. “Get the boys together. Whatever the fuck it takes to bring them all here in the next hour, ready to go. Everybody except Tin and Lion, who'll hold down home with the prospects.”
“On it.” My Veep nodded. He stood, stroked his dog's head, and led the animal out. He never wasted time, a virtue that stuck, despite all the happy changes upending his life.
Me, I had one shot at tracking down my woman, and having something resembling the happiness I'd lost. Firefly looked at me, and I wondered if he'd want to pick up on where we'd left off after this punch to the guts.
“You've still got that thing in your hand,” I said, looking at the bottle. “If you're gonna do it, let's get it over with, fast. I need to be on my feet and ready to ride, hoping to Christ we're not too late by the time we get to Texas.”
Firefly stared at me. His hand released, and the bottle hit the ground with a heavy thud. “Prez...you just heard the same thing I did. Whatever the fuck my beef is with you, I'm too big a man to whack the bastard who put a kid in my sister's belly. And what you said earlier...fuck me. I hate it that you care about her, hate it that you're speaking from the heart, killing every last instinct I've got to put your ass through the wall. Fuck you, Cap'n. You've made me a believer, made me th
ink you might not be total trash for my little sis. Only thing that matters is bringing Hannah home.”
“Damned straight.” We both stood up.
Only lasted a second before the big man threw his arms around me, squeezing me like a boa constrictor. That big, brotherly hug hurt like it was meant to. We'd been at each other's throats since before she disappeared.
Now, we forced that venom out, shed it in a bear hug mean enough to splinter bones. When he pulled away, so did I.
“Get your shit together, brother. We've got a long run ahead, and you know we're not stopping for any sleep.”
“No breaks except for gas and coffee.” He headed for the door, stopping once before he ripped it open to look back at me, a fractured smile on his face. “And Prez, if I catch you sneaking anything that's straight from the bar, I will kick your ass from coast to coast.”
“I'd expect nothing less.” We shared another nod, and he was gone.
I shook off the remaining booze in my system, tuned up my bike, and set to work packing up the guns we'd need to blow through anyone who got in our way.
Nothing, nobody, and fuck all was stopping me from finding my wife.
One Week Later
Lady Luck wasn't giving us a damned thing without working us like dogs. The first day we rolled into that dusty little town just south of Odessa and couldn't find her, I nearly hit the roof.
I rode fifty miles further with just Skin and Sixty at my side, stopping at every ranch along the way. Had to bite my tongue 'til it was almost chewed clean through every time the answer came back the same.
No, sir, haven't seen anybody like her.
Don't recognize the plates.
You sure she's been this way? Hardly anybody takes this route if they're cruising to the coast.
That last reply, and every bullshit word like it, caused me to see so much red my brothers had to help me back on my bike before I shot the messenger.
