“What the fuck?” Gunny shook his head, looking at Mason and trying to decide which thing felt the most surreal—the fact he had been ambushed and abducted from his own home, or that a brother had betrayed the club in a way that ended in his permanent removal. Betrayal. He felt his heart race faster, saw his hands clenching into bloodless, white balls at the end of his arms, fisting tightly.
When they got to the clubhouse, he gently sent Sharon upstairs to a room, Ruby moving with her, arm around her shoulders in comfort. He had known Ruby nearly all her life, knew too well the history of abuse she carried, and in this moment, he prayed little sister was the right pick to care for his woman right now. They were both strong, survivors, but he knew from personal fucking experience how events like this could fuck with your mind, bringing up fears long buried, and he worried for both Ruby and Sharon. My Rose of Sharon.
“Yeah,” Mason said, bringing his mind back to the moment, and he watched his friend scrubbing at the beard on his jaw. “Birdy fucked up one of the dancers. Hoss is sitting with her for now, but we hope she can shed some light on what the fuck he was doing.” Birdy had been a member of the Chicago chapter first, then transferred to Fort Wayne a while back, about the same time Jase had come to town. He had been in the life a long time, coming to them from a friendly club out in Utah, Legends. Chief, one of Mason’s friends, was president of that MC, and had vouched for Birdy’s nomad status.
Gunny frowned, because beating a bitch wasn’t reason enough to cut a brother. Censure him, fuck him up, then educate him on the way to treat a woman, yeah. Cut him, no. Kill him? Fuck no. This still wasn’t quite adding up for him. There had to be more to the story than the man raising his hand to a woman, even one that belonged to the club; those pieces didn’t fit together convincingly. He offered his opinion, “That can’t be all.”
Mason shook his head, leaning back, and Slate picked up the conversation. “He was sleeping with Manzino’s sister. The dope dealer we fucking ran out of town, he finally raised his head again and sent his goddamn sister to ease his way. We picked Birdy up at the woman’s primary operation, sitting and watching her minions cook up that meth shit.” Manzino—Gunny felt his lips twist in distaste. That motherfucker had made the club’s life hell for years, back when Bingo was president. He had connections out west, in Colorado, and the drug dealer wasn’t above using them to add to the weight he tried to throw around.
It wasn’t until Slate took over the chapter in Fort Wayne that they were able to shift the bastard off their own front porch. They had worked hard to push him and his enterprise out and away from Rebel properties to create a safe buffer zone around the clubhouse and businesses. Gunny still didn’t know the full details of the deal that caused Manzino to pull way the fuck back, peddle his shit elsewhere. But, since it was about the same time Slate’s little brother blew into town and ODed, he had an inkling things were linked by Slate and his past connections.
“Okay, that’s enough to cut a rocker, but fucking put a brother to ground?” He shook his head. Shit still wasn’t adding up. Beat a bitch, and then even sleep with a bitch who is attached to a club enemy, that shit was still not enough to warrant a bullet to the brain.
Bear spoke up then, and Gunny listened, knowing out of all the brothers, this man truly knew the pain of betrayal, because of what had happened to him at rogue Rebel hands in Iowa. “Motherfucker threatened the entire fucking club. Hatred and poison spewed from his mouth when he knew he’d been made. The man was a mole, but we don’t know for who. He’d have killed us all without flinching, brother.”
“Goddamn,” he muttered, thinking hard. Wanting to confirm his knowledge, he asked, “We picked him up from Legends, that Utah club, right? When we picked him up, were we sure his leaving them was voluntary?”
“Don’t fucking know anything for sure anymore, brother,” Mason said, tapping his thumbs against the edge of the table. Then, backing up what Gunny already knew, he sighed and said, “But, yeah, he came to me from Chief with a high recommendation. I’ve already been on a call with him and the Legends officers; from the look on their faces, they were as stunned as I was to get the news.” Myron was big into technology, and had forced Mason into using video chat a while back. They had all adopted it pretty quickly, because they found it helped to see the face of a man when you had to ask hard questions without enough precious time to get on location. Fucking Myron and his toys, Gunny thought, shaking his head.
“Fuck. That ain’t good news, brother.” He shook his head again, running the tip of his tongue along the inside of his teeth, and then said, “Let me tell you what went down with me. Don’t know if it will tie anything together, but it is all fucking related to your discussion with the officers a couple days ago, Prez.” He nodded at Mason, seeing the strained lines appear alongside his mouth at his words, hating he was the one to hand this to his friend. “I know you’ve had problems with Diamante in Chicago, heard about Watcher’s problems out in Las Cruces.” Watcher was the president of a club out west they had good relations with, the Southern Soldiers. From his digging, Gunny knew Watcher and Mason came from the same small town in Kentucky, and suspected their friendship ran deeper than anyone knew.
“Fury,” he said, and saw recognition on Bear and Slate’s faces. “Clearly you know this motherfucker’s name. I did not, so his appearance in the cell where they were holding me was entirely a surprise to me. Fucking shit, I’m telling it all out of order. Let me start at the beginning.”
He took a deep breath, forcing down the emotions that would cloud his memory, not wanting to screw up this debriefing. Leaning his elbows on the table, he gripped his hands together tightly, taking another deep breath and clearing his mind. Begin at the beginning. He knew that’s what Kincade would say. “It was a crisp, coordinated insertion into the bedroom, with a flashbang followed by a rush attack. I grabbed my piece just before I was knocked from the bed, lined up and downed four targets. Shot the leader point blank, but he was vested, so the motherfucker stood back up. Elkins was one of the men I put down, Mason. Sharon’s ex was in my goddamn fucking bedroom.” He shook his head, trying to stay on track, because thinking about how Sharon had watched him kill the man pissed him right the fuck off. Motherfucker had a slow, painful death, and he could only hold onto her whispered, I won’t be afraid, in blind and hopeful belief it also meant she would never be afraid of him.
“Team leader was an ex-jarhead, knew him from Force Recon. That man does not work on the cheap. He runs in rarified circles, so seeing him in my fucking bedroom was a jolt. His conversation indicated Sharon was the target, making me collateral, but I talked my way into the van with them. The compound was about twenty minutes from my house, give or take, so no real fucking idea where. That’s almost anywhere on the south or west side. They landed us in Markle for the exfil, so I’d lean more towards the west.” He ran his hand over the top of his head and then held it out, staring for a moment, idly watching it tremble. “Marines. Oorah.” The silence in the room was deafening, the men all waiting for him to be able to continue. Another deep, cleansing breath.
“Separated us, secured me in a cell, and I waited. At least a couple hours, but not overly long, because they weren’t trying to wear me down, weren’t waiting for me to feel the need to talk, just…waiting, it seemed. The door opens, and in walks Fury, with a president patch on his cut. I couldn’t see the club colors then, but he talked about Kentucky, Prez.” He looked at Mason. “According to him, I was the one they wanted, which threw me, because Woolfe had sung a different tune. But, Woolfe wasn’t there by then, so all I had was Fury. Either way, he focused on some business in Kentucky he claimed I was fucking up by asking around about Judge. Mason, I gotta tell you. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about until he mentioned some trouble Sharon ran into down there.”
“She danced at a club there before coming up here, had some problems that caused her to not work there anymore. ‘Bikers,’ her word, not mine, came in and demanded
more than she wanted to give, threatened to rough up the bouncer on shift if she didn’t comply. When she left there after her set that night, she didn’t go back. Kept making her way north, and eventually wound up here. We all know what happened to her here with Elkins, so me finding him hooked up with Woolfe at the same time as they are all standing in my fucking bedroom where Sharon and I were sleeping is un-fucking-settling. Then, there’s the strip joint itself. Prez, the club is called Shinedown.”
Mason shifted and nodded, saying, “Owned by Shooter. I know of it.” Already unstable, that answer pushed him into rage, because it hinted at things not yet uncovered, maybe important. Maybe touching Sharon. Fuck.
“Well, I didn’t learn about the ownership until last night, so you might coulda shared, Prez.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he fought to bring himself back under control. “Fury knew of the trouble she had, said he dealt with the prospects who caused the ruckus. He got me to agree to back off my investigation, unlocked the fucking chains, and proceeded to chat me up as if we were old friends. Saw the Diamante club patch and recognized it as a problem we’ve been dealing with on a bunch of fronts.”
He opened his eyes, staring at Mason, “I got questions, man, because if Shooter owns the strip joint, why the fuck would Diamante be involved there? Why would Fury give even a half a shit about me asking questions about something that happened months ago at the goddamned club? Unless they swooped in after we dismantled Shooter’s Outriders, but even that don’t make a lotta sense. Hell, nothing about this makes sense, so I’m not sure why I think one little detail should.” He shook his head. “Anyway, while we were waiting at the diner, I asked Sharon if she had seen any of the men before, but she was too shaken up to think. I’ll try again tomorrow, but there ain’t no guarantees. She’s been through a lot, was finally finding her way back to goodness, and then this shit lands on us. Her only questions have been about the pups, and I had to tell her I didn’t know.”
“Pups are okay. PBJ has them right now.” Slate nodded at his outrush of breath. “Brother, I’m sorry we weren’t faster. Seemed all the shit hit the fan at once. Birdy fucking up Mercy, then ghosting. You going missing, leaving trash for us to clear. We made the Elkins connect, but that wound up muddying the waters a fuck of a lot, because it sent us looking the wrong direction. Jase…Captain dealt with Birdy, and we walked out after shit went down to find you had called and Mason was already on his way to pick you up.” He flexed his fingers, popping the knuckles loudly. “Shit just kept hitting the fan, but we cleaned up things at your place, found the pups in a crate. All the bikes are there; nothing else was missing, only you.”
“Good to fucking hear, brother,” he said. There was a pause as all the men around the table tried to digest the information laid out between them. Fist raised, Sharon falling. Mine. Fuck. Pushing back the memories, Gunny sucked in a deep breath, blowing it out slowly, trying to bleed off some of the tension that seemed to have settled deep into his bones. He said, “I’m going to go check on Sharon. Gonna put us in my room here tonight. I don’t want to spread the club thin by trying to argue going home. My fucking security will be upgraded. I already sent a text to Myron, and he’s on it like white on rice.” The men laughed humorlessly and stood along with him.
Headed to the door, he paused, turning to look at Mason. “Tonight or tomorrow, you tell me what you need, boss. I’m willing to keep on the shit in Kentucky, but damned if I don’t feel obligated to stop. Fucking oath to a fucking stranger who let a man lay hands on my woman, but it don’t feel right. I need to know what you need, and I need to fucking know what you know, Prez. Sharon got swept up in this because I fucked up asking shit, and you had information that might have made a difference. I’m willing to keep pushing, but I need what’s in your head.”
“No. We pause for a breath, brother. Should hear from our man out in Cali today; he visited Shooter already. Maybe he’ll have an idea about Judge. Bear’s got Eddie covered, so we’ll let things rest a bit.” Mason reached out, pulling him into a one-armed clench. “Love ya, brother. Fucking glad you’re back in one fucking piece.”
“Me too, man. Kinda fond of the undamaged me.” He walked out and saw Jase sitting at the bar. Sighing, he tried to duck around him with no luck. Even frustrated and angry, he got it. He understood the man simply wanted to know his sister was okay. But right now, Gunny needed to be with her, needed her in his arms…needed to hear her say she wouldn’t be afraid of him. Needed to watch her sleep without nightmares to believe they’d be okay. Then a thought drifted through his mind and he remembered Slate mentioning Jase stepping up and dealing with Birdy. They’d glossed over it somewhat, but he knew exactly what it had to mean, what it could mean for Jase…Captain. Knowing all this, he slowed and turned, facing him, willing to give him a moment, even as he denied him what he might need. “Not right now, brother. Mason or Slate can fill you in as they want, and I’ll be glad to talk to you tomorrow, but I need to get to Sharon right the fuck now.”
Jase’s eyes were bright as they locked gazes, not holding the shadows he expected, and for this, he was thankful. Glad for Jase and DeeDee’s sakes, but also for Sharon’s. Finally, Jase nodded, his head moving up and down once, decisively, before he stepped back and gave Gunny tacit permission to keep moving. “Take care of her,” he said softly and pointed across the room, and Gunny saw with a start that Sharon was waiting in one of the chairs, her eyes trained on him.
“You got it, brother,” he said, turning on his heel and walking over to her. He squatted down, caging her chin in his hand and holding her gaze with his. His eyes fixed on the deepening bruise on the side of her face, and every muscle in his body clenched tight in anger. Fist raised, Sharon falling to her knees, mouth open in pain. Without smiling, he said, “Babe, let’s go rest, yeah?” She nodded and he scooped her up, taking the stairs two at a time.
***
“Sometimes it helps to talk things out. Talking it through can let you fill in blank spots, keep a person from obsessing over details.” He glanced over from where he was sprawled on the bed, looking at ease, as if nothing had happened to them tonight. When he carried her to the room, she opted for the chair, wanting the support, the feeling of security from having something at her back. She sat on the cushion now, curling into it, drawing her knees up to her chest.
She offered him a smile she knew was less than believable, then, without thinking, she quipped, “Smarty pants. How’d you get so knowledgeable about kidnapping trauma survivors?”
“Not kidnapping.” His gaze fixed on a spot on the wall above her head. “Just trauma in general. Talking helps.” He lifted the beer he held in his hand, taking a drink. “So does dope. The army is even using morphine on servicemen after a debriefing now. My doc said it helps move the brain from its hyperaware state. Breaking the hold early is good, and keeps the memories from cementing into place.”
Shit, she thought. How did I forget something like that? If anyone would know, he would. “Okay. I’ll admit I’m kinda freaking out.”
He moved, uncoiling from the bed, and padded soundlessly to her side. He stared down at her for a long minute, then surprised her by folding down, kneeling on the floor. He was so tall his head was even with her chin, which made her smile. At the expression on her face, he reached out and wrapped his arms around her; they were hard and strong as he tugged her body towards him. She dropped her feet to the floor and he leaned against her legs, bending himself in half to rest his head in her lap. “Freaking out is allowed, baby. It was scary shit, Sharon. Every fucking bit of it was scary as shit.”
Cradling his head in one hand, she slowly trailed her fingers across his scalp, feeling the rough stubble everywhere. He shaved his head weekly, and she never tired of watching him. His rituals, as important to him as Jase’s were, choreographed movement self-assured and confident. Back and forth her hand went, caressing his skin, drawing comfort from the motion, from comforting him. Turning his face into her belly, he held her like that for
a long time and she felt him slowly relaxing, their breathing coming into sync.
“I didn’t know what was happening when I woke up.” She spoke softly, and he made a quiet noise she took to be understanding. “It was loud and bright, like a really close lightning strike. Then something hit me hard, pushing past me, and you weren’t beside me anymore. I couldn’t see you, Gunny. I couldn’t hear you. Baby, I couldn’t find you.”
She used her thumb to trace across his eyebrow. “It was so confusing. I didn’t know if the house had blown up or what, and all I could think of was finding you, getting you out of there. Making sure you were safe.” He drew a sharp breath at that, and she saw a frown cross his face. Using her fingertips, she smoothed it away, feeling the returned tension in his arms relax minutely.
“Someone grabbed my arm and I thought it was you.” She paused, taking a breath and closing her eyes then opening them in a panic when all she could see behind her eyelids were the shadowy figures moving through the bedroom. Gunny must have noticed her reaction, because his hands moved, smoothing up and down her back, his cheek rubbing on her thigh. He took a deep breath, nuzzling her lap with his nose, and she breathed with him. “But it wasn’t. It was a man with a mask on his face.”
“A balaclava,” he said quietly.
“Balacuntwaffle,” she blurted, and he raised his head to look at her and laughed. That laugh was so loud and real she could almost run her fingers along the weft and weave of the feeling behind it. It was the first flicker of amusement, the first laugh, the first emotion other than anger she’d gotten from him since they had gone to sleep. Since she told him she loved—
“I like that. I won’t ever think of them the same way, baby.” He laid his head down, draping himself across her legs again, and gently urged her, “Keep going. Tell me.”
“One guy, then two, then three, and then there were gunshots.” She frowned. “Or maybe there were gunshots before the men.” She paused and then shook her head, suddenly unsure. She recognized the quaver in her own voice as she said, “I don’t know. Told you…it was confusing.”
Gunny (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 5) Page 22
