by Brook Wilder
“A bit,” he said. “But there’s a lot going on that I need to take care of first.”
“I agree. You can’t help that you’re bringing a baby into this world. That’s done and it’s going to happen. But what you can help is how you build this family. That girl deserves a ring, but she also deserves one after we eliminate any threats that might be lurking,” Link said, taking a sip of his after dinner coffee.
“Threats…”
“If Ben finds out you’re having a kid, he’s not going to react well,” Link said. “It’s nice hostage bait, first of all, to take your kid and extort you for everything you’re worth. But on top of that, that nutcase has been gunning for the president position for as long as I’ve known him and you having a kid would certainly upset that chain of succession. The entire gang would rally around this kid and then he’d be really out of the running.”
Chance felt his throat constrict and his entire body get tense. The idea of Ben coming anywhere near Hannah, anywhere near their child, it made him see red from every corner of his vision. He could hear his own heart beating in his ears and feel it through his shirt at his chest. He gripped tightly to the railing of the balcony and gritted his teeth and little too tightly to the point where he could feel them groan just a bit from the pressure.
Ben needed to go. If Chance wanted a family, wanted a future, Ben needed to disappear from all possible scenarios. That meant they were going to have to lock him up or kill him. He had been Chance’s friend once but right now all he wanted was to see the light leave that man’s eyes. He’d hurt his sister, threatened his family, and conspired to do some awful things to try and get back at Chance. He was far past second chances and the benefit of the doubt. He was far past putting up with any sort of compromise or deal or attempt at making peace with this situation.
Ben had threatened something incredibly precious to Chance, and for that he was going to not only pay, but disappear from their lives forever to somewhere where he could not hurt them again.
Link seemed to get the idea when he looked into Chance’s eyes and gave him a solid, firm nod. They were agreed in this. Link clapped his hand over Chance’s shoulder once again, reminding him of all those years together when Chance was a kid and Link was there to be his confidant and friend and the truly closest thing he had to a father. He was glad that Link was going to get the chance to see this baby, to watch his grandchild grow up. Link was more deserving of it than anyone else that Chance could think of.
So they returned back into the house with the beginnings of a plan in mind to make the world safe for their families. Chance wrapped his arm around Hannah tightly and didn’t let go the rest of the night.
***
“What have we heard on Ben?”
Chance called together Link and Moose. He asked if Cindy could come too but Moose decided it was better for her mental health at the moment if she stayed out of it. Chance wasn’t going to contradict him and the girl had been a ton of help thus far. But there was only so far they were going to get on their own.
“He’s a snake in tall grass,” Link said. “Which means there’s only one real way of dealing with him.”
They waited.
“Burn the field down and smoke him out.”
“Lovely as your metaphor is, we’re talking collateral damage here,” Moose said. “We’ve already seen the type of collateral damage that Ben can cause, just look at Cindy.”
“This is different—”
“How?” Moose said, harshly. “You want to scare him? After what happened to Cindy?”
“She will be safe—“
“But what about others? Chance, you saw what happened to Cindy and was ready to just go ape shit at the thought of it happening to Hannah,” Moose said. “Imagine how many other people in this town want to protect their friends and family just as much.”
Chance knew he had a point. It was hard to imagine but he and Hannah were not the only people in love, not the only budding family that could be put in danger if they didn’t find a way to safely take down Ben. He imagined any number of faceless siblings or parents or spouses who had to watch their loved ones get trampled by a man who was a little too power hungry with an inferiority complex to match.
“Okay, so what do you propose we do then Moose? We’ve got no leads, nowhere to start,” Chance said. “If you’ve got some magic way we can—”
“Hi, sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
There stood Cindy. Even with her standing taller, walking on her own, and looking a little surer about herself, she still very much looked small and little more fragile than Chance would have liked. Her bruises were gone completely, though a few of her wounds had scarred over in a way that would be a permanent reminder of what happened to her. She had been timid about going out and meeting new people, but Hannah had been a big help to getting her to open up.
“Cindy, hi, sorry. We went later than we thought,” Moose said, getting up and walking over to her.
“No, it’s alright,” she said. “I’m actually here because I was hoping you might have room in your plan for one more person to help?”
“You want to help us?” Link asked.
“I know forced exposure therapy probably isn’t the best idea for someone who just went through so much trauma but the only way I’m going to feel better is if I feel useful. And I want to make him disappear. I want to get him of the streets and away from where he can hurt anyone else.”
She was more impassioned than Chance had ever heard her, full of more energy than he’d known her to be capable of. Despite the fact that Moose looked uncomfortable with the whole situation, her sincerity seemed there. She wanted to help. She was desperate for it. Chance knew from experience that people who were desperate for anything tended to make overly rash or impulsive decisions. But she looked completely clear in the eyes. Nothing about her seemed deranged or the result of her getting a little too shit-faced and deciding to step outside.
“How do you want to help?” Chance asked. He ignored the glare that Moose was sending his way. He knew Moose was not keen on this girl getting anywhere close to the action, but he also couldn’t tell her what to do.
“I know Ben, I know his patterns,” she said. “We were never—we never fucked or anything. But I’m an observer and Ben’s kind of obnoxious about everything he does. I know what he does, where he goes, and who he surrounds himself with. If you need it, I can get you names of places to start looking. It’s better than smoking him out completely.”
“I agree,” Chance said. “There is a possibility he finds out we’re onto him and he starts making a mess of things.”
“We cross that bridge when we come to it,” Link said. “For now, this is a start. Give us what info you have Cindy and we’ll do the rest.”
Cindy sat down with Link and started listing off all the places and names she knew of that might be of use. Chance left it to Link to take them down and decide what was useful and what would be a dead end. He was good about knowing the city and the people that way.
“Can we talk?” Chance asked Moose who was sitting at the bar with two empty shot glasses in front of him and glassy eyes. “I know you’re not happy about this. But she’s getting involved on her own, and on her own terms. We’ll keep an eye out for her.”
“How would you feel if it were Hannah?”
“Hannah is already involved.”
“And look at the protective maniac it turned you into.”
Chance sighed and turned to face the bar. He knocked on the wood beneath his fingers with a light fist and was brought a shot glass of his own and a bottle of Jack. He didn’t want to go home drunk, but he made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t keep alcohol in the house or drink in front of Hannah while she was pregnant. So he might as well get what he could here.
“Doing this is going to protect them all,” he said. “I’ll make sure of that and so will you. Because you and I have something Ben doesn’t. And that gives us an advantage.”
“And what’s that?”
“Something we’re fighting to protect.”
Chapter 20
Cindy was a wealth of information. She knew not only the place he was frequenting, the bars he liked, the drinks he got there, who he got them with, but she knew the kind of weapons he was bringing into the city, where he was hiding them, what he was keeping for himself.
“He’s got a mini arsenal in a house on Maple Road,” she said. “If we strip him of that then we might have ourselves a real shot at wounding him. It’s not necessarily cutting the head off the snake but we can at least cut the limbs off.”
“How many men is it going to take to have a real, viable attack on this place?” Chance asked.
“A lot. It’s not going to be without guard and there’s no way we’re sneaking in. It’s going to be a power move—a total siege—or nothing at all.”
For this they would need more than the men they had at their disposal. They were fifty or so strong in the town, larger than most other gangs in the area. But against something like this, Chance liked the idea of having overwhelming odds. He wanted no possibility of a small margin of victory or the real possibility of defeat. He wanted to completely overpower them.
This meant he’d need to call in some help.
“Moose, get in contact with our chapters in Northern Cali and in Nevada,” he said. “See if they have anyone they can spare for this. Tell them we’ve got a rogue brother that turned on his family.”
“Is this really going to be some kind of all-out war?” Hannah asked from where she was standing quietly in the corner of their apartment.
She had become such a staple here. It was so domestic and looked so perfect and like everything that Chance wanted out a scene in his own future. She was standing there in lazy sweatpants and one of his old tee shirts, sipping at a cup of decaf coffee and frowning. It could be just a rainy Sunday morning like any other, a lazy day together.
He got up and walked over, placing his hands on her hips and squeezing just enough so that she knew he was there. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get rid of Ben. We knew none of this was going to feel safe or comfortable. So we’re going to have to do some unsafe and uncomfortable things to get ourselves to a place where we can feel safe about the rest of our lives.”
He didn’t mention the baby because Moose and Cindy were still in the kitchen. He trusted Moose with his life, with Hannah’s life, with the life of his unborn child. But the less people who knew about the baby and could be tortured for the information if Ben caught them, the better. She looked at him with eyes so full of everything they were keeping to themselves. It would be so easy if they were alone in this kitchen, if he could just hold her and tell her he’d keep her and their child safe, if he could put her up on the table and make her forget with his body.
But this was their reality right now, and they had to work with what they had. They’d be safe and happy and content soon. For now, it was a battle to get there.
“I’ll head up to San Fran tonight,” Moose said. “Is it okay if Cindy stays with you guys—”
“Moose, it’s really not that necessary—”
“Of course it’s okay,” Chance said. “She’s family too and we protect our own.”
Cindy smiled gratefully at them and walked out to see Moose out.
“I hope you’re not offended that I’m actually grateful Cindy is staying over,” Hannah said.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, it just makes things feel a little less serious, you know? The less we feel alone then the more comfortable I feel,” she said. “I feel safe with you, I do, it’s just—”
“I get it,” he smiled. “Slumber parties and all that. Will I get to see a naked pillow fight?”
“If you play your cards right maybe I’ll paint your nails.”
She smiled cheekily and kissed him lightly on the lips just as Cindy came back in from saying goodbye to Moose. She seemed to have grown pale between the front door and the kitchen table and Hannah immediately set to work on making her some chamomile tea with honey, remembering how her mother used to practically force it on her as a girl when she was stressed out.
“He will be safe, Cindy,” Chance said. “If anything I’m pretty sure Moose is an even better rider than me, and he’s always been far smarter.”
Cindy gave a soft smile at their efforts to cheer her up and sighed. She looked at her hands, laced together on the table, and Chance understood her worry. If the roles were reversed, if he was going out and Hannah was the one saying goodbye, he didn’t know if he’d be able to handle the separate as well. Moose was a brave man and Chance didn’t take it lightly that he was leaving Cindy in their care. He trusted them. So he wasn’t going to ruin in it by letting anything happen while Moose was gone.
They spent the rest of the night sitting together and talking. They stayed up late into the night until Moose called them to let them know he made it safely to the club house up north for the night. They went their separate ways to bed and Chance didn’t let go of Hannah the entire night, holding her close and taking in the smell of her in case something in the morning came to take her away from him. He’d waited his entire life for someone like her and now she was here and he was never going to let her go.
In the morning, the sunrise brought more than just day. Moose arrived with a horde of bikers behind him. Several chapters of clubs had offered up riders on a volunteer basis, allowing anyone who wanted to show support for their brothers down south to head out and follow Moose back to the town. They pulled into the parking lot outside Chance and Hannah’s apartment and she couldn’t help but laugh to herself thinking about how angry Kat’s neighbors would be if they pulled up there.
“The cavalry is here,” Moose said, stepping inside.
He looked tired and incredibly worn. He had deep circles under his eyes that told of a whole day and night without sleep. His eyes were wide and bloodshot and his breath smelled of nothing but coffee and cigarettes. But Cindy rushed up to him anyway, throwing her arms around him and holding him tightly. She was whispering something in his ear and he was nodding and rubbing his hand up and down her back in a comforting manner. Hannah moved away to head back to Chance’s side where he seemed to be having a serious conversation with the president of the group there.
He turned to Hannah she came to his side. “We’re going to meet at the clubhouse, then we’re going to move out.”
Hannah nodded.
“We’ve got all the info we need, the address to the warehouse, all of it,” he said.
The next part was where she asked to go with him, insisted that she didn’t want to leave him to deal with this all alone. They were already having the conversation with their eyes as they looked at each other and silence seemed to fall down around them like a waterfall that created a bubble. They were alone in their world and both pleading with each other in a tug of war. Hannah didn’t want to be forced to be left behind.
“You’re carrying our kid,” he whispered into her ear. “That makes you the most important person in the world right now. You shouldn’t go with us.”
“I can’t protect you if I’m sitting here waiting around,” she said.
“And I can’t focus on getting this taken care of if I’m looking around every five seconds to make sure my worst nightmares don’t come true,” Chance said. “I have terrible dreams where I lose you and Ben does not make it easy. He’s not going to kill you. He’s going to take you away. He’s going to let his goons do whatever they want to you. And then he’s going to sell you off to the Black Death and when they find out you’re pregnant they’ll…”
“Shhh,” she said, gently, placing her fingers over his lips. “It’s okay.”
“I won’t let that happened and I can’t make sure it doesn’t happen if you’re right there the entire time,” he said. “Part of protecting each other and being in a partnership is knowing to trust each other from afar, understand we will do everyt
hing in our power to make it back to one another. You and Cindy wait here and I swear I’ll return to you.”
She couldn’t argue with that. She wasn’t sure if it was the way his eyes were so glassy and seemed to water or the way his voice quivered with the weight of what he was admitting. The words “I love you” were in every breath between the words he as saying. It was in his eyes, in the shake of his hands as they gripped tightly at her hips and arms.
“You can’t exactly go be Mr. Hero if you’re still holding onto me,” she laughed, a little sadly.
