Karmen stood behind Nickel and rocked Cole in her arms “And you also have ESP because I had no idea what the hell she said.”
Alice swallow and turned her back on Wrecker. “I’m so calling our baby Credence Longwater now.”
Wrecker choked
“Is that…” Maniac tipped his head to the side. “Isn’t that…”
“It’s a fucking name of a band, Alice!” Wrecker thundered.
“Really?” Now it was Alice’s turn to tip her head to the side. “I thought I totally made it up.”
Only Alice would think she thought up the name of a band from the 70s.
“Creedence Clearwater Revival, Alice.” Raven grabbed her phone. “You have to know the song ‘Bad Moon Rising.’”
“‘Fortunate Son?’” Slayer added.
“‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain?’”
Alice shook her head. “Doesn’t ring any bells, and of course, I’ve seen the rain, Nickel. What a weird question to ask while we’re trying to name the baby.”
Nickel’s jaw dropped, and I was in a bit of a state of awe by the fact Alice claimed to not know any of those songs.
Raven hit a few buttons on her phone, and the opening chords of “Bad Moon Rising” started playing.
We all watched Alice, waiting to see if she would recognize the song.
“Oh,” she gasped. “I do know this song. Totally good.”
Wrecker pulled her back against his chest. “And that’s why we’re not calling our kid Creedence Clearwater. It’s a damn band, not a name for a baby.”
Alice rolled her eyes and scoffed. “As if anyone is going to connect the two.”
Freak shook his head. “You’re hopeless, Alice.”
“I sometimes worry about you, Alice,” Wren laughed. “Even I’ve heard of Creedence Clearwater Revival.”
Everyone talked at once, some quoting lyrics, others suggesting other names.
Freak sat next to me and stayed quiet. “Hanging around all of this craziness will help take your mind off your worries, right?” he asked me quietly.
“I don’t want my mind off of Cora.”
Freak glanced at me. “She’ll be back before you know it, brother.”
I scoffed and grabbed my bagel. I hadn’t even touched it yet. Eating was just not something I was interested in. “Yeah, well, that would be nice, but so far, nothing. How’d you do it?”
“You might wanna ask Carnie how she did it. I was the one who got my ass knocked out in the bathroom and kidnapped.” Freak patted her leg. “From what I hear, she wasn’t exactly calm about getting me back.”
“Because Bobby was a prick.” Carnie pointed her finger at Freak. “Don’t ever pull that shit again. I about shit my pants.”
Freak shook his head. “So classy, babe.”
Carnie rolled her eyes. “Pretty sure you would be shitting your pants if you were in Brinks’ shoes. It’s a natural reaction.”
“Ah, no shitting of the pants here, unless you mean Jenkins is going to shit his pants once I get my hands on him.” I shoved a piece of bagel in my mouth and shrugged. “More like he’s gonna shit his pants when I kill his ass.”
Freak fist-bumped me. “Right on, brother.”
“Do you think Cora will be okay with you killing her brother?” Carnie asked.
“Carnie,” Freak whispered harshly.
“What?” she spat. “Has no one thought about that? I get the guy is a piece of shit, but he’s still her brother. From what I gather, he’s her only family.”
“You don’t need family like that,” I growled.
Carnie rolled her eyes. “I agree, but do you want to be the person who kills him?”
“Do you know what he did to me, Carnie? Do you know what he’s doing with Cora? What he plans to do with her?” I leaned toward her. “He deserves to die, and I’m going to be the one who puts a bullet in his head.”
Carnie blinked and nodded. “Okay then. I can’t really argue with that logic.”
Freak leaned close to Carnie and whispered in her ear.
She bit her lip and nodded. “I’m gonna go help clean up.” She jumped off Freak’s lap and moved to the other end of the table.
“You didn’t have to tell her to leave,” I mumbled. I knew I wasn’t exactly nice to her, but I couldn’t sit there and tell her anything but the truth.
Freak shook his head. “You were fine, brother. Carnie went through some shit when Bobby managed to outsmart me, but she doesn’t get what you’re going through. You guys managed to get to me pretty quick. It’s going on two weeks since you’ve seen Cora. That’s a hell of a long time to not know what is going on.”
It was. The past days had felt more like months.
“You guys like to eat, huh?” Oakley stood in the doorway with Leo behind him.
My attention turned to them with the hopes that they knew something. Anything.
Wrecker leaned in to whisper to Alice who was sitting in his lap.
She turned to kiss his cheek and stood. “Let’s pack it up, ladies. It’s time for the boys to have a pow wow.”
Oakley and Leo took the chairs on either side of Wrecker, and as soon as the girls cleared out, Oakley got right to it.
He sat back in his chair. “Del and Tray are meeting with Jenkins today. The plan is for them to meet at Jenkins’ place and to determine whether or not Cora is what they want.”
“There is one problem,” Leo added.
Could anything ever, just once, go off without a hitch? There was always a fucking problem. “What is it?” I demanded.
Oakley and Leo looked at each other. Leo motioned for Oakley to say it.
Oakley splayed his hands out in front of him. “They’re in Colorado.”
The world dropped out from beneath me, and I felt an all new sense of helplessness.
“Colorado?” Wrecker thundered. “How in the fuck did that asshole get there?”
Leo shrugged. “He’s had a few months to worm his way out of Ohio. Del and Tray just got off the plane in Colorado. They should be making contact with Jenkins and Cora in a couple of hours. They apparently have a bit of a drive to get to where he is staying. Jenkins didn’t tell them where they were going after they got off the plane.”
“Why the hell didn’t they tell us they were headed to Colorado?” I demanded. We could have been on a fucking plane already and halfway there.
“I have the same question,” Leo replied. “As I said before, Del and Tray seem to share one brain, and it doesn’t seem to work well. They didn’t contact me until they were boarding the fucking plane.”
“And we’re relying heavily on them throughout this.” Pipe shook his head. “A regular Mutt and Jeff.”
“They’re all we’ve got at this point.” Oakley shrugged.
“So this whole time, we’ve been thinking he was somewhere near River Valley and he was hundreds of miles away.” I shook my head. “How is this idiot able to outsmart us?”
“He was making moves when no one was watching him. We all figured he was done for after the clubhouse burned down and whatnot.” Oakley shrugged. “We should have known he was a cockroach that never went away.”
“Here I was thinking as soon as Del and Tray told us where Jenkins is, we would just fucking drive there and fuck his shit up.” Pipe shook his head. “Now we gotta fly or drive a fucking long way.”
“Fucking shit,” I growled. This was a huge fucking problem.
“Well, it is going to take a whole hell of a lot more planning. First, we need to get a solid location on them.” Wrecker leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “But it’s not anything we can’t do.”
That was what I wanted to hear. I needed to know that even though this was going to be hard as hell, that I had my brothers behind me.
Cora was hundreds of miles away, but there was finally a light at the tunnel.
Now, it was time to figure out how to get to the end of the tunnel and then blow the fucking thing up.
&
nbsp; *
Chapter Twelve
Cora
I tugged on the hem of the skirt and turned to look in the mirror.
If I kept pulling it down, maybe my ass cheeks wouldn’t show. I let go of the skirt, and it went right back to my cheeks peeking out.
“Son of a bitch.” Even on nights when I lived in River Valley and had gone out looking to get laid, I never wore a skirt this short.
“Cora?” Susie called through the door. “Jenkins just called. He said they’ll be here in five minutes, and I needed to make sure that you were dressed.”
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the mirror.
I could not get out of this fucking shack quick enough. I was losing my patience and ready to unleash my tongue on Jenkins. The only reason I didn’t was because it would get my ass beat or even worse. I kept telling myself that my chance to bust out of here was coming. I just needed to have patience.
The one fucking thing I never really had.
“Are you sure you don’t have another skirt I could wear?” I asked. “I think I’m a little taller than you so this skirt is super short.”
Susie laughed. “I know. That’s why Jenkins wanted me to give you that skirt. It helps show off the goods.”
I looked at the door. Susie was in a weird mood today. She was nice, but she knew I was basically being walked to my death and she thought it was funny. “I don’t have any goods, Susie.”
“You do,” she replied. “I wish I had your butt and legs.”
I cocked my head to the side. Part of me wondered if she had a bit of Hannibal Lector in her and actually meant that she wanted my butt and legs. “Well, if I could give them to you, I would.”
“Come on out. I need to get you chained to the table before Jenkins gets here.”
The urge to twist the lock on the door was strong but I didn’t. I took one more look in the mirror and sighed. “Showtime,” I muttered. I was either going to die or worse today.
Susie stood by the table, and I made my way over to her. Each time she let me off the chain, I wanted to beat the shit out of her and make a run for it. The thing that always stopped me was the fact that I knew I couldn’t get out of here.
If I knocked Susie out, then I would just be a sitting duck waiting for Jenkins to come back. I could take Susie, but I knew Jenkins could beat the shit out of me with one hand tied behind his back.
Susie bent over and snapped the chain around my leg. All it would have taken was a knee to the face, and I would have knocked her out.
She looked up at me and smiled. “They’re gonna like that you shave your legs.”
The creepy statement made my skin crawl. I knew I should have kept the two weeks’ worth of stubble on my legs, but the thought of not having a carpet on my legs was too tempting.
Yesterday, after soaking for a good ten minutes, I had gone to town on scrubbing myself and using the cheap razor to make myself feel somewhat human. Stupid.
After I cleaned myself up, Susie and I had set about cleaning up the shack. Well, as much as you could clean up a shack. The pile of dishes in the sink had been washed and put away. I had swept where I could while still being chained up. Susie organized all of the guns and stuff on the table in the corner, and I had scrubbed the hell out of the bathroom. The whole while Susie and I cleaned, Jenkins started out sleeping in the bed and then moved to the couch in front of the TV.
I cleaned with a vengeance, pissed off at the fact that while Susie and I worked our asses off, Jenkins was a worthless piece of shit doing nothing.
It’s something I used to expect, but that was a while ago, and now, it just infuriated me.
“Do you know who is coming?” I asked.
Susie shook her head. “Nope. I don’t know who it is.”
The fact that Jenkins didn’t even tell Susie who was coming worried me. He had her tucked away in this shack, but he didn’t trust her enough to tell her more than minor details. “But you know what they want with me.”
She shrugged and stood. “Probably the same thing they wanted with the last one.”
Last one? What in the hell does that mean? “Uh, what do you me—”
A horn sounded in the distance, cutting off my words.
“They’re almost here.” Susie pushed me toward the chair. “Sit down and don’t talk unless you’re spoken to.”
I sat and looked up at Susie. “I thought we were becoming friends, Susie.” There was a sense of dread coming over me, and I tried a last-ditch effort to maybe talk Susie into helping me. “You’re gonna marry my brother, and we’ll be sisters.” I fought back and cringe and smiled.
Susie leaned down. “You’re even stupider than I thought if you really think that line of bullshit is going to work on me.”
My jaw dropped. Asshole Susie was back, and she wasn’t looking to listen to anything I had to say.
“Susie,” I pleaded.
She shook her head. “I look out for myself and no one else. I may have talked with you and acted like we were becoming friends, but in the end, my loyalty lies with Jenkins. We’ve been through it all, and he’s still here with me. That’s something I will never turn my back on.” She snapped up to stand again, and before I could process anything she had said, she reared back and slapped me across the face. “Now who’s the dumb bitch?”
My cheek stung, and a lone tear streaked down my face.
That nasty bitch.
Her name was added right next to Jenkins’ name on the list of people I wanted dead.
It was a short list. Only their two names on it.
“I guess I’m the dumb bitch, Susie,” I whispered. How could I have ever thought Susie could be a possible ally?
“It’s about time you figured it out.” Susie itched her arm and smiled wide. “As soon as you’re gone, it’s going to go back to just Jenkins and me with a fat stack of cash.”
Welp. That solidified the fact that I was about to be sold to someone.
The door to the cabin swung open and smacked against the wall.
“Honey, I’m home,” Jenkins called. He strode into the shack with two men behind him. The sun streamed through the door, and I couldn’t make out more than their silhouettes. Average build…and that was about it.
“Just in time,” Susie called. “Cora and I were having a little chat about our friendship.”
The second guy closed the door behind him, and my breath caught. They each looked familiar. I had seen their faces before.
But who were they?
I couldn’t put my finger on just where I knew them from.
“Tray and Del,” Jenkins called. “Meet Susie and Cora.”
The one who walked into the shack first looked me up and down. “I’m assuming Cora is the dark-haired one?”
“You would be right. The blond is mine.” Jenkins’ tone was possessive and Susie, the ever psycho she was, preened at his words.
I sat stock still in my chair and tried to figure out what to do. Susie had told me not to speak unless I was spoken to, but that was when I thought she was maybe on my side. Now, I was ready for her to get her ass kicked.
Jenkins and the two men moved toward the table.
My brother sat opposite of me while the two men sat on either side.
“She looks a bit worse for the wear,” the one on my left declared.
Jenkins shrugged. “You know how it is. Sometimes you gotta get a little rough for people to understand that you mean business.”
I glanced to my left at the man who had said I looked rough. The same could be said for him. He wasn’t anything to write home about. His hair was cut short to his head, and his nose was crooked. There was a thin scar through his eyebrow, and an odor of sweat drifted around him.
I wanted to plug my nose and turn away, but I didn’t want to offend the guy who was going to buy me.
“That isn’t what we had agreed on,” the man on the other side of me replied.
Jenkins shrugged. “She’s more than fine. Del. Tr
ay.” He nodded to each guy and smiled. “Can you guys really be beggars when it comes to this?”
I looked at each of them and wondered who was who. The one with the scar looked like a Del.
“Referring to Del and me as beggars probably isn't it your best move. You are, after all, the one who wants something, correct?” The guy on my right was Tray, and he seemed to be the one who was going to do all of the talking. At least, for now.
I was sure Jenkins was going to piss off the two of them before this was over, and I just hoped it ended well for me.
“It’s just a saying,” Jenkins laughed nervously.
Del and Tray seemed to be younger than Jenkins, but obviously, they had the upper hand. Jenkins was just about quaking in his boots at Tray’s words.
“Where did you get her?” Tray asked. His eyes were on me, and my skin crawled.
“Streets.”
Del glanced at Jenkins. “Really?”
Jenkins nodded.
He was lying through his fucking teeth. I wanted to scream that I was his sister and he was a bastard for wanting to sell me to them. For all I knew, if I did that, Del and Tray would kill us all and I wouldn’t be any better off.
“Any family looking for her?”
The Fallen Lords MC.
Jenkins shook his head. “Had her for close to two weeks and haven’t heard a sound from anyone.”
“She’s pretty good looking for coming from the streets.” Del grabbed my wrist and turned it over. “No noticeable track marks. You wouldn’t believe what guys will pay for that.”
Jenkins smiled broadly. “I told you I would get you guys a top of the line piece.”
What an insane thing to be proud of. Kidnapping a woman who would bring in a lot of money when you sold her. I was now convinced my brother didn’t have a soul. I always wondered if he had a heart, but I never questioned if he had a soul until this moment.
He had neither.
“And you’ll be able to get more like her?”
Jenkins nodded. “I know where I can get eight more just like her.”
Eight more? What in the hell was he talking about? “What?” I blurted out.
Fallen Lords MC: Books 7-9 Page 34
