Counter To My Intelligence (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 7)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  My mind raced as I fought the bile rising up in my throat.

  “You can’t find whomever he worked with and talk to them?” I asked worriedly.

  Sebastian shook his head. “No. We’ve been looking. I’ve never known anything about my dad’s business. And not once, in all the years I’ve been alive, has he had a slip up.”

  My head hung. “I…I need to go home. I need to think. Maybe I can come up with something. Maybe he left me a note.”

  Sebastian looked at Baylee with pity, not holding back his worry about me.

  Well, he could just take that pity and shove it.

  I knew he wouldn’t just leave without letting me know.

  I knew it.

  Chapter 23

  Dear NASA, your mom thought I was big enough!

  - Pluto

  Silas

  “That rifle shot that took your daughter-in-law out was meant for you. I lucked out that you thought it was a rock that hit her. Could’ve had me then, but you fucked up. You’re getting soft in your old age,” Shovel said snidely. “You almost lost her, and it would’ve all been your fault. All these years of you protecting them, and it wouldn’t have mattered one single bit.”

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Not because of what he was saying, though that was significant.

  But because I was fairly positive that the broken ribs I’d sustained after going down on my bike and having the shit beaten out of me were sinking through the tissue of my lungs.

  I’d woken up like this nearly an hour before, and all Shovel had done since I’d woken was talk about the old days.

  Him shooting Baylee was new, though.

  We’d really thought the cut on her neck was due to a rock, or something that kicked up and taken out a chunk of her flesh while we were riding.

  The bleeding had never made sense to me, though.

  Now, knowing that Shovel had taken a fuckin’ sniper rifle to her, it made sense.

  “So what are you going to do to me?” Shovel asked.

  What was I going to do to him?

  I was the one that was tied up to a fuckin’ chair.

  Well, granted, I had wanted to be tied up.

  I knew he’d take me if I gave him the chance.

  Which was why I’d gone out on a ride alone.

  I knew he couldn’t resist the temptation.

  And he was only one person.

  He had my arms stretched upwards, tied to a pipe above my head.

  But he’d made a mistake by not tying my feet.

  I wouldn’t escape…yet.

  I’d wait until I had my chance.

  Or possibly sooner if Sawyer found the note I left her.

  “You know you ruined my life,” Shovel said conversationally, pulling out a pocketknife and picking dirt from underneath his fingernails with it.

  I raised a brow. “I did, did I?”

  He nodded. “Leslie was going to be mine. She was going to be my reward. But then you came in, claiming her and jumping through every hoop I threw at you and took her right out from under my nose. I’d had my eyes set on her since I was sixteen, and you fucking ruined it.”

  That was new to me.

  I’d just seen Leslie come in, and I hadn’t been able to do anything else but save her.

  It’d been her eyes.

  The innocence in them.

  I was drawn to that.

  It drew me in every, single time.

  Which had been the reason I’d fallen for Sawyer, too.

  Now, though, I knew she was nothing like Leslie.

  She was stronger.

  She was someone I’d never in my life cheat on. She knew all about me, and I knew there’d never be a time that I kept a goddamn thing from her.

  Hell, now that I had Sawyer, I realized just how much I didn’t love Leslie.

  Because what I felt for Sawyer, I knew, was real love.

  It was unshakable.

  This love…it would withstand the test of time.

  She got me, and I got her.

  Before her, every damn night, I’d dream of how my life could’ve been.

  Now, with Sawyer in it, I dreamed of what our life will be like.

  I didn’t think in the past tense anymore.

  I was now a future kind of guy.

  And I knew Shovel hadn’t picked up on that yet.

  Because he wouldn’t be talking to me right now about Leslie. He’d be trying to rile me up by threatening Sawyer.

  Because if he wanted to see me break, that would be just how to do it.

  He’d done it before.

  Many, many times.

  “Then you kept ruining my life by cleaning up my club, making me lose all that money. My gambling debts got out of hand, man, and every fucking day, every day, I worried about how I would pay those fuckers back. You did kind of solve that for me by sending me to prison, though. And I thought it wouldn’t be half bad, except my parole was denied time after time, and I finally realized that something wasn’t quite right. So I had some people start to dig for me. And what do I find when my people started digging into my club? I found you…the fucking president… living the high life while I suffered day in and day out,” Shovel hissed, pushing his face into mine.

  My body locked, and I didn’t move a single millimeter back.

  I had no room to move back from him. But mainly, it was because I wasn’t going to flinch away from him. I didn’t flinch.

  Not from him, not from anyone.

  “You ruined your own life, you piece of shit. You could’ve stayed just like the rest of us, but you chose to make a fucking mess out of everything. I cleaned your shit up. What I didn’t do, but should’ve done, was fucking kill you. Then I wouldn’t be in this predicament right now,” I growled.

  Shovel smiled.

  “You know, I watched you drive to Huntsville,” he said lightly. “Followed behind you the entire way.”

  I froze, eyes lifting up to look directly into his eyes.

  “Yeah?” I asked, voice steady.

  It didn’t reveal outwardly what I was feeling, which was anything but calm internally.

  “Yep. So I did some research into why you were there. Found four men that are fucking pissed as hell that they lost their jobs over a stupid piece of ass,” he said lightly. “So I invited them back with me.”

  Then the doors behind Shovel opened, four men walking into the room.

  Each one had a box in their hands.

  “And they’ve got some entertainment for you. Each time you fail to show a reaction to what they’re showing you,” Shovel said, pulling out a lead pipe. “I’m going to introduce you to this lead pipe. And we’re going to make you talk even if we have to kill you.”

  I doubted that.

  It’d take a divine intervention to get me to react to anything.

  Because as long as I knew they didn’t have Sawyer, then they had nothing.

  She was safe and that was all that mattered.

  “This is the picture I took of our first encounter,” the first man said.

  He had blonde shaggy hair that fell over his head in a fucking mop of messiness. He had brown eyes that were dark, but not cold. Not nearly cold enough to get past my defenses.

  The picture, however, wasn’t anything I wanted to see.

  “We took pictures of her every day for eight years,” the man continued.

  I clenched my jaw tightly as he showed me the first picture.

  And I literally tasted blood as I bit into my tongue to keep from giving this creep a piece of my mind.

  “Well, if that one doesn’t move you…how about this one?”

  Guess I didn’t have the iron-willed control like I thought was the last thing I thought before a seething blind rage clouded over my eyes, and the only thing I saw was a broken Sawyer being violated by the pervert in front of me.

  And although I went down hard as Shove
l’s lead pipe came down on the temple of my head, arms still tied above my head, I took pride in the fact that the man standing in front of me now had a knife wound in his heart courtesy of the one that slid out of my boot.

  “Ohh,” Shovel said, shaking his head. “That was very, very stupid.”

  Head pounding and the only thing holding me up was the rope around my wrists, I said, “Yeah, yeah, motherfucker.”

  The last thing I heard before I succumbed to unconsciousness was, “Tie his fuckin’ feet.”

  ***

  Sawyer

  “I have this note…” I said, handing Sebastian the note.

  His brother Sam was in the room with him, and they were both staring at Silas’ table with all of Silas’ open cases laid out in front of them.

  Sam and Sebastian looked up, their eyes so much like their father’s that my heart ached a little bit.

  “What note?” Sam snapped.

  I held it out to him.

  “What is it?” He asked, eyes scanning it quickly.

  “Well, the other day when Silas and I were in bed…”

  “Is what you’re saying pertinent to what we’re going through right now, or can we skip the life story?” Sam snapped.

  I narrowed my eyes at him, but it was Cheyenne who set him straight.

  “Sam, I realize you’re worried, but being a dick to the woman isn’t going to help. Get the fuck over it and let her speak,” Cheyenne growled at her husband.

  Sam’s eyes closed, and when they opened again I realized that he really was worried, and covering his worry up with a bad attitude.

  Just like his father did.

  “Go on. I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.

  I shrugged. “Anyway, we were talking about gambling for some reason, and it kind of escalated to whether we actually had any ‘bookies’ in the area. When he said yes, I asked him to tell me where I could find one, jokingly, in case I ever needed one. And he told me all I would have to do was to look forlorn while gambling at the poker table at The Horseshoe.”

  Sebastian nodded. “Okay.”

  “So it kept going from there, but I finally got a serious answer out of him that a bookie’s name in the area was ‘Black Jack.’ How a lot of people still owed him a ton of money and that he was a not man to cross. He said he’d seen Shovel nearly beaten to death over his gambling debts while he was cleaning up the club,” I explained. “When I asked him whether or not Shovel still owed this man money, he said that he did. And if Shovel was smart, he’d never come back here. Because this ‘Black Jack’ guy knows every low life in the city, and if he ever got wind that he was back, Black Jack would let his underground army know, and they’d find him in a heartbeat. And that’s what the note says.”

  Sam’s eyes went to the note.

  “21. Shovel. Horseshoe,” Sam read. “So what, he wants us to go to The Horseshoe’s black jack table and, what… ask for Black Jack?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I think that’s exactly what he wants you to do.”

  Sam shrugged, as did Sebastian.

  “Ain’t got nothin’ else.”

  ***

  Ninety minutes later, I was down to my last fingernail when the two men came back to the house after a quick trip to the Black Jack tables.

  “You were right,” he said. “Old Black Jack was pretty happy to hear that Shovel was back in town. Apparently, not only does Shovel owe Black Jack money, but he’d also gotten kind of handsy with Black Jack’s wife years ago. He wants Shovel to know that he hasn’t forgotten.”

  Ouch.

  That sucked for Shovel.

  But if it got me Silas, I didn’t care who it hurt in the process.

  “And? Where’s Silas?” I asked worriedly.

  Sebastian shook his head. “It’s gonna take some time, Sawyer.”

  I wanted to yell, ‘Silas doesn’t have time!’ but I just barely managed to hold it in.

  I knew they were both aware, just as much as I was, that he didn’t have a lot of time. Especially since he’d most likely had a motorcycle wreck before he fell into the hands of that man.

  And I just knew it was Shovel that had him.

  There was no other explanation for it.

  I closed my eyes and thought about where Shovel might have taken them.

  I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea, but Sam shot it down almost immediately.

  “What about the old clubhouse y’all used to have. Where’s that? Shovel hasn’t been out of prison very long, so I bet he hasn’t had the time to replenish his money supply. So where would he go that wouldn’t cost a lot of money?” I asked.

  “This is the old clubhouse,” Sebastian explained. “And the only place that has low income housing is by the interstate. But that was the first place we went when we started looking.”

  “Shit,” I exhaled. “That sucks.”

  Both men nodded, and it was then that I realized that we were the only ones in the room. Several of the guys had stayed with me while Sam and Sebastian went to the casino. Now they were gone.

  “Where’d everyone else go?” I asked.

  The men didn’t bother to look up.

  “They’re out looking. But you’ve been coming up with some really good ideas, so we’ve been staying here to help you jog your memory in that hopes that you’ll remember something that might help,” Sam said.

  I nodded in understanding.

  “Alright then, tell me what it is that you need me to do that’ll get y’all out there looking for him. I’ll stay wherever you want me to stay,” I told them.

  Both men looked at each other, but it was Sam who spoke.

  “You know, we’re not really used to dealing with understanding and compliant women. But what we really need for you to do is stay at the clubhouse until further notice,” Sam explained.

  I nodded, immediately getting up to head into the bedroom where I quickly packed a bag. I was back in the living room within five minutes.

  “Ready when you are,” I said.

  They both acted so similarly and so much like their father that it hit me how close they could be, but yet weren’t.

  Did they even know how much Silas loved them?

  I decided to ask them during the silence that continued in the truck.

  “Do y’all know how much your dad loves you both?” I asked hesitantly.

  A van passed us going at least ten miles an hour over the speed limit, and I watched it while I waited for the two men in front of me to respond.

  My question was met with silence.

  Neither man said a word.

  “He talks about you all so much. He’s so happy that y’all are happy. Goes on and on about your kids, and how y’all include him in your lives when he doesn’t deserve it. Loves your wives. Loves the fact that y’all are better fathers than he was. He’s so proud he could burst. He has photos of y’all in his offices. Did y’all know that?” I asked in a trembling voice.

  I don’t know why I was telling them all of this, but I was scared, really scared.

  And I wanted them to realize what they could be missing if he wasn’t found alive and safe.

  I knew Sebastian better than Sam, but neither one of them had a really ‘close’ relationship with Silas, and I that just made me really sad. They had no idea what they were missing out on.

  I loved my father dearly, and I knew, if put into the position that Silas’ had been in, he’d have done the same damn thing in a heartbeat.

  Sam’s phone rang, and he looked down as he pulled it out of his pocket just as we pulled onto the road that led to the clubhouse.

  Had he not looked up just when he did, he never would’ve seen the body being thrown out of the back doors of a panel van. The same van that’d nearly cut us off earlier in the trip in its haste to get past us.

  But he did.

  And thanks to his quick reflexes, he was able to stop just in time to prevent his truck from r
unning over the body that’d been thrown out of the back of the van directly in front of the clubhouse.

  My eyes closed as my breath started to saw in and out of my chest.

  And when I would’ve tried to get out, I was told to stay put by Sam as they both got out to look at the man that’d been thrown.

  And I knew by the look on their faces, the devastation that completely took them over, that it was Silas.

  Broken, bruised, and bloody.

  I closed my eyes as fresh tears, not the first of today, started to pour down my cheeks.

  They were gone so long that I couldn’t take it anymore, and quickly opened the back door and circled it around to the front where both men were leaning over an unconscious Silas.

  “Is he alive?” I whispered.

  Sebastian looked up. “Yeah.”

  He didn’t say more, but he didn’t have to.

  I knew it was bad.

  Really bad.

  I could tell that just by looking at him.

  He didn’t have a spot on his body that wasn’t covered in blood or dirt.

  His shirt was torn, nearly disintegrated in places.

  His boots were missing.

  His face so battered and bruised that he was unrecognizable.

  His salt and pepper hair stained red from the copious amount of blood.

  And he wouldn’t open his eyes.

  My phone was in my hand, and I had 911 on the line before I even realized I’d done it.

  I handed the phone over to Sebastian when they asked to speak with someone who knew where they were exactly, and finally dropped down to my knees beside the love of my life.

  “Silas,” I whispered.

  He didn’t move. Didn’t react.

  I placed my hands on the side of his cheek, feeling the sticky wetness beneath my fingers, but not reacting like I normally would.

  Instead, I leaned over him and prayed.

  Prayed that he’d be okay.

  And knew instinctively that it would be a long road to recovery ahead of him.

  Because when he woke up, he’d be sore as fuck, and hell bent on vengeance.

  And it’d be really, really hard to keep him there knowing that there were people out there trying to kill him.

  “Y’all know you’re going to have to take care of this, right? Because if you don’t, he’s going to kill whomever it was, whether he’s up to it or not, and probably get himself killed in the process,” I whispered to the two of them.