by Jessie Cooke
“I have so much to say about all of that,” Tammy said, with an appalled look on her face. “I just pray you’re talking out of both sides of your ass for the benefit of Mona being in the room. Gunner saved my life, and that day when he shot Swinger, why do you think any of that happened? Swinger was trying to kidnap me again, probably to kill me this time. Swinger knew that he couldn’t get away with just killing you, there were too many men loyal to you and there would be too many repercussions. He needed someone to pin it on and once Eddie was out of the picture and we were still alive, he turned to Gunner as a scapegoat. You can’t honestly believe some kid who wasn’t even affiliated at that time would have been stupid enough to shoot the president of a one percent motorcycle club for any other reason than self-defense. You’re a lot of things, Dad, but you’re not stupid. You didn’t come out of hiding until Swinger was dead…because you knew he wanted you dead, and you were afraid for your own life. Now, the only reason you’re willing to ‘avenge’ his death is because Mona is telling you that’s the way to get back into the good graces of the men that still supported him. Randall Covey…running scared.”
Randall let out something that sounded like a growl. Telling him he was afraid of anyone or anything was the biggest insult she could have leveled at him, and she knew it. “Running scared? You little shit, I tore up this fucking town looking for you and Martini, and once you were safe, I didn’t stop until I made sure Martini would never come after you or your brother again.”
“I’m not talking about Martini. I’m talking about Swinger.”
“I wasn’t afraid of Swinger. I was trying to figure out what was going on, so I knew how to deal with it. Like I said, you don’t know anything about the inner workings of this club.”
“I’ll admit that I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything and that I don’t know what he said or did to you that day you confronted him. All I do know is that you went into hiding while your son lay dying in a hospital and your daughter was left unprotected for all you knew. So, tell me, Daddy, what should I think other than that you were more interested in saving your own life than you were ours?”
“You ungrateful little bitch,” Mona spat. Randall put his beefy hand on her arm and shot her a warning glance, but she had stayed silent longer than any of them expected her to and she wasn’t about to be deterred. With fire burning in her eyes she pulled her arm away, sat forward, and said, “My husband wasn’t even in town when you were snatched. Malcolm’s death affected him deeply, and the orders for Randall and the rest of the men to tear the city apart to find you came from him. He called in the nomads and the out-of-town chapters to help…you. Your boyfriend may have found you first…or maybe he knew where you were all along…but in the meantime, this entire club was being shot up and arrested and killed, looking for you. If it wasn’t for that boy who thought he was a man because he happened to share DNA with Dax Marshall, none of this would have happened, none of it! It was him that pissed off Eddie to begin with, and the Head Hunters only stepped in as a favor to the Skulls. Eddie blamed them for that and for his money going missing and even then, Swinger gave Randall the okay to let that little bitch of a boyfriend of yours recuperate at your home. And before it was all over, before Eddie was found and stopped, the Skulls walked away and left you and your brother and your father and this club to suffer the fallout. Any affiliation that my husband had with Eddie Martini was his attempt at being diplomatic. You have no idea what lengths he went to in order to keep this club out of the war that your boyfriend ultimately dragged them into.”
Mona had barely finished speaking when Zack began to bang his hands together. He’d had enough of the show. It was time to bring down the curtain. He’d held onto what he had since his last trip to the ranch because he had hoped to walk away and let them all ruin themselves. The sound of his applause was the only sound in the room, and Randall, Mona, and Tammy all turned to look at him. With a smile on his face, Zack stood up and said, “Wow, Mona, that was…I’m not sure I have words for it, but award-winning at the very least. I’ll just bet Dad is rolling around in his grave laughing his ass off at that. You managed to take this thing and spin it so that anyone listening, who didn’t know the truth, would think this was somehow all Gunner’s and Tammy’s fault. You love to play the ‘I’m a woman and I know nothing about club business’ card when it works in your favor, but the truth is, you’ve known what Swinger was into all along, and you condoned it. You want to know what I think? I think that all these years that the club believed Dad was staving off a war with Martini, he was actually in cahoots with him. I believe everything the men that suddenly ‘disappeared’ or ‘recanted’ said, that he was benefiting from the business of selling people into slavery. He was cashing in on children being used for sex trafficking. He was reaping the rewards of pushing drugs to middle schoolers, and I believe that you knew all of that, all along. You knew that fancy shit you wear and that fancy car you drive and everything else you revel in was being paid for by other people’s blood. And you, Randall…you’re a fool if you let this devil woman drag you into a war with Dax Marshall and the Skulls. Dax has cleaned up his business to make a better life for his family and the other families that live on that ranch. But if you think he’s not still the most dangerous son of a bitch you ever met, then you’re not just a fool, you’re crazy. The Skulls will wipe this club so far off the map that history won’t even be able to find it, and you will be responsible for its downfall, for every drop of blood shed. You have the opportunity to lead this club with the dignity and respect that it’s been missing all these years and to have a relationship with your daughter, and the man she wants to make a life with, probably make you grandchildren with…are you seriously going to throw that away for an occasional blow job from a witch?”
“You little bastard!” Mona yelled at him. She was about to lose her cool, and Zack could see on her face that she realized that wasn’t a good thing. She reined in her anger, took a deep breath, and looked at Randall. “This is a waste of our time. You’re the president of this club, are you really going to let these two children tell you how to run it?”
“I ain’t letting no one tell me how to run my club,” Randall growled at her. “You included.” Mona looked slightly taken aback, but she was smart enough to know when to shut her mouth. Randall turned his attention back to his daughter and said, “I’m sorry, baby girl, but there are things I have to do in the name of earning the respect of the men that I lead and even the women I protect that you can’t understand. Swinger established this club and he sat at the helm of it for over thirty years. I can’t just turn a blind eye to the fact that he was gunned down in the street, regardless of my personal history with him.”
Tammy had tears running down her face as she said, “You make me sick. My whole life I knew you were a lot of things, most of them not perfect. But the one thing that kept me hanging on was that I thought you loved me and Tommy more than your own life, more than this club. I was wrong though, wasn’t I? This club means more to you than your own flesh and blood.”
Mona rolled her eyes. “Oh, poor baby,” she said, ignoring the look Randall was giving her, “You were treated like royalty growing up, and so were you,” she said, looking at Zack. “That’s probably the problem here. You both think you somehow have the right now to speak this way to people who sacrificed everything for you.”
Zack threw his head back and laughed. “Sacrificed? What exactly did you ever sacrifice for me, Mona? You pushed me out and then I was raised by this club. If not for the kindness of the women you call whores and treat like dirt on the bottom of your stiletto, I probably wouldn’t have made it to my fifth birthday.”
“Now that I see what you’ve grown into, I can’t help thinking maybe it was too bad you did,” she spat back at him. Zack looked at Tammy; she looked defeated. She was getting nowhere with Randall. He was convinced that the only way he could get any “respect” was through more violence. Zack sent a text message to Ske
eter. “Who are you texting?” Mona asked, suspiciously. “What the hell is this? Is this some kind of set-up? Randall’s sergeant at arms and lieutenants are right outside that door.”
Zack’s phone beeped and he looked down at it. With a smile, he looked at his mother and said, “Well then, maybe we should invite them in.” He walked over to the door and opened it to Skeeter and an older man who went by the name of “Jacked.” Jacked was a hard-core biker who had served as one of Swinger’s lieutenants for almost fifteen years. He was the closest thing Skeeter ever had to a father. He took Skeeter’s mother from a club whore to an old lady when Skeeter was a teenager and treated the boy like he was his own flesh and blood. Still, though, he was a loyal Head Hunter, so when Zack had called his friend on the way from Tennessee and told him what he was thinking, neither man was convinced that Jacked would go for it. They took a risk that instead of helping them, Jacked would take what they had to Randall in private, or worse yet Mona, and then they’d really be screwed. Instead, he had proven that family did come first to some of the men in the club. He’d taken it to a man named Malice, who was now Randall’s V.P.; Malice was following Jacked into the room. Malice had also been a lieutenant under Swinger and had been a loyal member of the Head Hunters for nearly as long as Zack had been alive. Sadly for them, but luckily for Tammy and Zack, both men were beginning to realize that those years of loyalty had been sorely misplaced.
“What the hell is this?” Mona asked.
Randall stood up. “What’s going on? Jacked, Malice, what are you doing here?” Jacked looked at Randall with something like sympathy, but the look he gave Mona was pure disgust as he handed the USB and the laptop in his hand to Zack. Malice stood behind Jacked. His face was neutral, but his posture told a different story. He was ready for a fight. Skeeter and his friend Chris, the prospect, stood at either side of the open door like sentries. Zack could see both of Randall’s sergeants at arms standing on the other side of it. Zack had a feeling that Randall was about to rue the day he let a snake into his bed. “Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on!” Randall growled. Tammy reached up and wiped the tears from her face; her attention was suddenly on Zack and what he was doing as he walked up to where Randall sat and said:
“I’m almost sorry to do this to you, Randall, since it would seem that you didn’t have any knowledge of what my father was doing to this club behind your back. Don’t feel too bad about that, though, none of these guys knew.” Zack sat a laptop down on the table and slid a USB into the port. He chose what he wanted to open from the drop-down and hit play. Randall stared at it curiously but Zack could see by the look on his mother’s face that she knew exactly what it was. She tried to grab for it, but Zack stopped her with one hand on her skinny wrist. “Relax, Mona. Sit back and watch the show.”
She screamed like a wild animal, before coming at him with her other hand and her claws out. She got off one swipe at his face, drawing blood, before he hauled her up over the table and wrapped her up in his big arms so she couldn’t move her upper body at all. Still, she kicked her feet at him and wailed like a wild banshee. She even tried to slam her head back into him.
“You’re the one that should have died! You have been nothing but a disappointment your whole life!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. She looked at Malice and Jacked then and screamed at them, “Shoot him! He’s not even a part of this club, and he’s an embarrassment to your president’s memory.” When they didn’t make any move to help her she spat at them like a feral cat. Zack almost felt sorry for her. Her reign was over and she knew it. There was nowhere for her to go from here but down. He looked back over at Randall. He was still staring at the computer and now Tammy was watching over his shoulder with a look of shock and disgust on her face.
25
“Where did you get this?” Tammy asked. The color had drained from her face, and from Randall’s as well.
Zack was out of breath from tussling with the wildcat in his arms, but in a winded voice he said, “Remember how we used to joke that Swinger knew everything that went on around here before it even happened and how we sometimes wondered if he was taping our conversations?”
“Oh my God, he had cameras in all the rooms?”
“Yeah, all of them, even your precious ‘suite,’ Mona.”
“Randall, he used me. He made me do those things, horrible things…” Mona tried.
“Shut up, Mona!” Randall barked at her, not taking his eyes from the screen.
“Did you know he was taping you too, Mona? I’ll bet you didn’t,” Zack said. “Funny, the tapes were right there in the safe under the floor in your room.”
“You broke into my safe?” she accused.
Zack laughed. “I didn’t have to break in, Mona. I remembered the combination from when I was a kid and my father trusted me.” That was a lie. First, Zack hadn’t been the one to get into the safe. He’d sent Skeeter as soon as he and Tammy had Mona and Randall down in the meeting room and distracted. And second, Swinger never trusted him. Zack just happened to be there one night when Swinger was drunk off his ass and he wanted to brag about how fucking smart he was. He told Zack about a burglary he’d taken part in, without the knowledge of the club, or Mona. He was holding onto the jewelry until it wasn’t so hot, and safe to fence. Zack was no expert on jewelry, but Swinger had told him it was worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Swinger didn’t remember any of it the next day and after a while Zack just assumed he’d either gotten rid of the jewels, or told someone else about them in a drunken stupor and been relieved of them the way the original owners were. Zack been shocked when Skeeter told him they were still there in a leather case among the tapes. “Obviously, he didn’t trust you enough to even tell you the safe was there,” he told Mona.
“I knew it was there!”
“Really? Then you’re a fucking idiot for not getting rid of those videos.” And the jewelry.
“Let go of me!” she hissed at him.
“I’m going to put you down in that chair and you’re going to stay put. If you move, I might just let one of these guys shoot you. If you’ll notice from the looks on their faces, none of them would mind.” Zack dumped her down into one of the chairs and, with crocodile tears that Zack was almost impressed by, she looked around at the men in the room and going from bitch to abused woman in an instant she said, “None of you know what that man put me through, the things he made me do! He was a devil and he threatened to kill me if I didn’t do what he said…”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but was this the same man that you loved so much, you were willing to have Randall start a war to avenge his death?” Tammy asked.
“You don’t get to judge me,” Mona said. “You have no idea what my life has been like. You’ve always been a fucking little princess. I’ve had to scratch and claw and beg for everything I’ve ever had in my life and I’ve been used by every man I’ve come into contact with…”
“Mona!” Randall snapped. “Shut up!” She stopped talking and for a few seconds there was nothing but blessed silence, but then Zack heard his mother’s voice again and this time it was coming from the laptop. She was talking to whichever man she was in bed with, coercing him into coming over to the dark side and siding with Swinger to get rid of Randall and anyone else in the club that wasn’t willing to do exactly what Swinger wanted them to do. Whoever she was talking to seemed to be objecting to the club involving themselves in Eddie’s human trafficking business, so Mona told him to look at it as cleaning up the “vermin” on the streets of San Antonio and shipping them off to some island to make use of “the only thing they had to offer.” Zack tasted bile in the back of his throat as they all listened to her talk. He couldn’t even look over at her to see how she was taking it; he was afraid he might kill her himself. He was further sickened by the fact that his father was evil enough to pimp his mother out in order to reel in his backers, but even sicker was the fact that Mona’s only regret was getting caught.
Zack had taken a chance, telling Skeeter to talk to his stepfather about the tapes. He had no idea if Swinger had also bugged that “suite,” but knowing his father the way he did, it had been a safe bet that he hadn’t even trusted Mona. He didn’t even want to imagine his father watching Mona do the things she did to manipulate these men. “It’s Malcolm,” Randall said, startling Zack out of his reverie.
“What?”
“That was the most recent video,” Malice said, speaking for the first time. “There are lots of others, but I thought that was the most significant one. Malcolm refused to be manipulated. He was going to tell you, Randall, he just never got a chance before they killed him.”
Tammy let out a heart-wrenching sob. “You bitch! Malcolm was a good man!” Tammy started toward Mona, but Randall stopped her. He gave her a pleading look and then with the sound of authority in his voice that Zack hadn’t heard from him since before Swinger died, he looked at his lieutenant and said, “Get her out of here. Let her pack what she can carry and then escort her out of the county. Leave her with whatever cash she has, but take any credit cards out of her wallet; they stay here. Let the front gates know that if she’s seen back on the grounds, they can consider it trespassing and consider her hostile.”
