by KJ Dahlen
“So all we have to do is wait for him to come here looking to finish you off?” Bam Bam asked.
“No, Turnkey knows now that I’m still alive,” Nix told them.
“How do you figure that?” Grizzly asked.
“He paused just as they were leaving and then turned to the darkness of the alley. He called out my name and the he told me he would find me again and this time he would make sure I was dead. He wouldn’t stop until we were both dead.”
“How did he find you the first time?” Bam Bam asked.
“I had a paystub in my jacket.”
“How did you get a job? If you had no way to get any identification?” Grizzly asked.
“I forged the papers I needed. I had to live and I couldn’t do that without some help.” She looked at the group staring back at her. “When you live on the streets, you do a lot of things that aren’t exactly legal, just to get by. You may not like it but you do it to survive.”
Deke knew the struggle she went through very well. From stories his wife had told him about he knew exactly what this girl had gone through just to get by. He looked over at Nix and nodded. “You didn’t do anything wrong here girl.”
“Maybe not in your eyes but I lived in fear every single day.” Nix looked over at Bam Bam and asked, “So now what happens?”
“First, we deal with Turnkey and his cohorts, then you and I have to talk. If you’re my kid, we have to find out before we move forward.” He looked over at Grizzly and said, “Then we have to clean up a problem that’s twenty-four years in the making.”
“We need to know Turnkey’s real name,” Deke told them. “Once we have that, we can run him down and find whatever there is to find out about this guy. Once we know how he thinks, we can set a trap for him. We need to take him down clean. I don’t want any innocents caught in his crosshairs.”
Bam Bam nodded his agreement. “He lost the club four years ago when his story didn’t quite ring true with the police reports. We don’t usually go with or to the badges but we had our ear to the ground and conflicting reports were coming in via rumors from the citizens.” He nodded over at Nix. “She wasn’t the only witness to the build up of the beating but she was the only one who saw it go down. Someone in the club gave him a heads up on the judgement coming down though. We expected him the next morning and he and his two buddies never showed up again. Instead of facing us like a real man, he went Nomad and never came back. They’ve been on the run now for four years. This is the closest that we’ve gotten to him. We dug out his club stooge and took his colors then showed him the door but by then it was too late. That was two years ago.”
“What happened to the stooge?” Sam wanted to know.
“We took care of his betrayal.” Was all the other man would tell him.
Sam and Deke nodded.
Wiley’s hold on her tightened a bit and Nix leaned back against his chest.
Bam Bam took in the scene and again glared at the couple, but said nothing. Instead, he looked over at Deke. “As far as I know, his real man is Jackson Turner.”
At the sound of his real name Nix started and began trembling. No one but Wiley noticed it but he did. He tightened his hold on her as Bam Bam told them about the other two men with him.
“JoJo’s real name is Marcus Nolan and Bailer’s real name is Terry Royce.” Bam Bam rubbed the back of his neck. “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised they are still in the area. He’s too close to our territory as far as I’m concerned. I have no idea why he would stay this close.”
Wiley leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “So how do you know the name Jackson Turner?”
“Moses’ last name is Turner. His full name is Gerry Turner. I know because I saw a letter from the mail once,” she whispered back. “He often spoke of having family in another MC and when the time was right, they would start another chapter after they took over the other MC. He said he’d done it before, and he would do it again.” She looked up at him. “I don’t think it was a coincidence that he took my mom away from Bam Bam back in Phoenix.”
Wiley nodded. “I don’t think it was either.” He looked over at Deke. “Moses’ name is Gerry Turner. Nix thinks Moses’ was planning all along to take over the Hell’s Wrath MC. She claims he had plans to add another chapter of the Hellions by taking over the Wrath’s MC.”
Bam Bam’s hands came down on the table hard as he growled. “That mother fucker. That lousy mother fucker. No wonder I never knew about my daughter. He was planning on using her as a pawn all these years. He had this planned from the very beginning.”
Now Nix remembered something else from her past. She swung her face around to face Wiley. Tears rolled down her face and for a moment she couldn’t speak. “I think they killed my mom on purpose. Granted, she wasn’t much of a mother but she was all I had. They broke her down at first then they got her hooked. She probably thought she had nothing left to lose by that time. She’d lost it all already. Eventually, I think they gave her too much and she overdosed. They never even tried to save her. Then they were going to use me to help them take over the Wrath’s. When I was packing my things, I saw a series of photographs my mother had hidden in the closet. At first, I didn’t know what they were but now I know. They were proof that they were going to use to blackmail Bam Bam into giving them a spot in his club. As long as they had me, I would be their bargaining chip. When I left, they lost that and had to start all over again.” She thought about something else from four years ago. “When Turnkey forced me off the balcony four years ago he swore and said Moses wouldn’t like the fact I was dead. I was in so much pain at the time I never gave it another thought. But he did. Turnkey knew all about me and I never understood how he knew. When I hit the ground, he swore at his friends and then they all rushed down to me. If JoJo knew more about what he was looking for he would have found a pulse. When he declared I was dead, Turnkey was still swearing. He knew he had to keep my death a secret. He made the others with him swear to keep the fact that they found me after all this time to themselves.” She shook her head. “I thought I was hearing things but now it makes sense. I think he was supposed to find me then take me back to St. Louis so Moses could use me to get Bam Bam to turn over his MC. It all makes sense when you think about it.”
Wiley nodded. He knew Moses would be coming here if he had any idea Nix was in the area. He’d be coming here with his army to wage a war he thought would give him the spoils he’d been after for over twenty years. But there had to be a reason he wanted Bam Bam’s MC. A reason no one knew at the moment but he himself knew about.
Wiley turned and looked at Bam Bam. “Have you ever met Gerry Turner before the time in Phoenix when he took your wife away from you?”
Bam Bam glared at the other man. “What the hell are you talking about? No, I never met the bastard before then. Why?”
“Well, think about it.” Wiley shrugged. “He took your wife, then kept your daughter a virtual prisoner, then when she left, he’s been hunting her down for ten years. There has to be a reason. Hell man, he sent his brother into your MC as a spy, why? Think about it. What do you have that he wants bad enough to wait twenty-four years to collect?”
Grizzly looked like he was thinking about what Wiley was saying. “He could be right, you know.”
Bam Bam sat back in his chair and gave the idea serious thought. He didn’t think he’d known the man who took his wife away from him twenty four years ago. “We have to find out just who this Gerry Turner really is and why he’s looking to destroy everything I hold dear. We have to go back as far as we can too.”
“If the girl is right, he had a reason twenty four years ago to entice Milly away from you even then. Whatever that reason was he put his entire MC in the line of fire to goad you to either fight or turn and walk away. You chose to walk away but he still kept your woman then he kept your kid all those years. Then when she got away, he still looked for her. He wasn’t gonna face you until he had her back,” Grizzly pointed out.<
br />
“My guy Zipper can find out whatever he has to hide but I know someone who can dig deeper and faster than anyone else in the world,” Deke stated. “We might want her in on this. If this guy is up to something, then she can find out and let us know.”
“I don’t care who you get to dig up this bastard’s past, we just need answers before he comes knocking on the front door.” Bam Bam shrugged. “I think I’ll call in the backup. That way, if he hits us here, we have the men to take him down.” Shaking his head he added, “No offence to you or your men but this is our fight not yours.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Deke assured him. “It became our fight when Turnkey took a bat to one of us. He brought it to our front door and I’m hoping we can fight beside you not against you in this.”
Bam Bam stared at the men around him for a moment then reached out his hand to Deke. “I would be honored to have you stand with us in this fight. And I want to say thank you for giving my daughter sanctuary.”
Nix startled at his words. She drew Wiley’s arms around her and tried to curl up into a ball almost as if to hide.
Wiley growled and tightened his hold on her. “We haven’t given her sanctuary as you claim. She saved my life and I’ve claimed her as my old lady. She belongs to us now.”
Deke nodded. “He did claim her last night and when she accepted, it she did become one of us. Just because you found her here doesn’t make that claim null and void.”
“But I didn’t know she existed until today,” Bam Bam stated the obvious.
“Our claim on her supersedes your claim,” Sam argued.
“Stop this,” Nix interjected. “Don’t I have some say in this at all?” She looked around the room. “Because if I do, then I chose to stay with Wiley. I know you won’t understand why so I won’t bother telling you my reasons. You...” She looked over at Bam Bam. “I don’t know you. You might be my father but I’ve never known you. My mother would never even tell me your name. She couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about her past when she was still alive so I never knew you. Not only that, but I’m twenty-three years old, no longer a child. I chose to stay with Wiley because I can. I don’t need a father figure. I might have needed one ten years ago when I walked out of the compound but I did what I had to do back then. I made my own decisions then and I’ll do the same now.” She swallowed hard. “If you want to know me as a woman, I’d be fine with that but you can’t tell me what to do or where to go. I am my own woman.”
Bam Bam looked her over carefully. She was indeed a woman. He’d missed her whole childhood and he didn’t know how to deal with suddenly having a grown up for a child. Running his hand over the top of his head he nodded, “I do want to know you. I only wish I’d been there for you when you really needed me.”
“Can you be there for me now? I still need you?” Nix asked. “It’s kind of nice to know I’m not completely alone in the world. T-that I actually have family. It is a little lonely out there if you’re on your own.”
“I’ll be there every step of the way if you’ll let me. Not only that, but you’ll have my MC along with Deke’s standing between you and this Moses and Turnkey. Together, we can and will stop them both. We’ll cut off their balls and stuff them down their throats.”
“Well, that was something I really didn’t need to picture in my mind.” Nix shuddered.
The mem around her chuckled as they agreed with her.
An hour later, Deke had made his phone call to Trudy and he had Zipper digging on this end. Bam Bam had called his own tech person in on the digging to find the truth. He also told his second in command, Trigger that he wanted enough men to come to Troy to help fight the battle between Moses and Turnkey and the MC’s.
“Are you sure that’s wise Bam Bam?” Trigger asked. “I know you want this MC wiped out but if you take half the men to Troy, they might wipe us out here.”
Bam Bam snorted over the phone. “He’ll come here first. He seems to have a real hard on for ending my life. I know you didn’t know my first wife but he took her away from me twenty four years ago in Phoenix. That was before we came to Vermont. When I let her go with him, rather than fight for her, he turned her into a club whore. What I didn’t know then was she was having my kid...” He paused but Trigger didn’t say anything. “I found my daughter today, Trig. She may be all grown up but she’s mine.”
“How can you be sure she’s really your kid? Maybe you need a DNA test to know for sure,” Trigger suggested carefully.
“She looks just like her mother but she’s got my eyes and my hair. She said she’s had the white streak ever since she was born.” Bam Bam chuckled. “She my kid. I don’t need a blood test to see what’s right in front of me.” He hesitated then said, “We’re digging into the brothers Moses and Turnkey. For some reason, Moses has a real problem with me and the MC and I want to know what it is and why he sent his own brother to infiltrate our MC.”
“So Turnkey has been a plant all along?” Trigger asked. “He’d been here for long enough to know all our secrets man.”
“I know and he could use everything he knows against us,” Bam Bam stated. “But I don’t think we got anything he wants. He’s been keeping an eye on me. Remember the couple of times I had those unexplained accidents? Maybe they weren’t so unexplained.”
“What are you suggesting?” Trigger asked.
“Maybe he was attempting to take me out of the picture on his own.” Bam Bam surmised. “I don’t know but somehow, everything I learned today makes me wonder.”
“Wonder what?” Trigger wanted to know.
“What the hell did I ever do that an entire MC wants me dead.” Bam Bam asked. “It doesn’t make sense to me. I mean I have no deep dark secrets, well we all have secrets, but mine aren’t that dark.” He paused then said, “Keep half the men with you and move everyone to the secret place. Protect our families. The one thing he doesn’t know, hell no one knows is where we would go if something like this happens. They know two places but not the third place. Only you and I know where that is. You should send the families there. Move the men there too. They can’t take over if they can’t find us but I have a feeling they’ll be stopped here first.”
“Oh, why is that?” Trigger wanted to know.
“Moses is after my daughter and so is Turnkey. She witnessed him as he killed a man four years ago and he almost did the same thing here. That’s how she got involved with them.”
Trigger snorted. “I can’t wait to meet this girl of yours.”
“Yeah well, that might be a problem. Seems like the man whose life she saved has already claimed her and she’s made her position very clear on that score.”
Chapter Seven
Sabine Pass, Texas
Trudy checked and double checked her information before sending the info to Deke. She’d just spent the last six hours looking for a man that simply wasn’t there. She’d been given a name and asked to find out what she could about the man.
There was no man named Travis Turner. Not in the Phoenix area twenty something years ago and not in the prison system. There was however a man named Michael Turner with a stepson named Travis. Travis might have taken the name Turner but he wasn’t legally adopted by said Michael. He in turn, had two sons that were called Gerry and Jackson Turner.
Travis’s name had remained Paulson legally and it was Paulson when he was in court and convicted and while he was doing time and it was Paulson after he died in a prison fight. It was also on his headstone.
Trudy read the trial reviews and the case had been a nasty one. She, like a thousand other people, thought Travis Paulson or Turner or whoever he really was, had deserved what he got when he was sent to prison. He got what he deserved while he was in prison too.
She sent what she found to Deke and then dug into the police files leading up to the conviction of Travis Paulson. She did find a slim connection and she also sent that to Deke. What he would do with it she had no clue but she had done what he asked her to d
o.
Troy, New York
Zipper received the info from Trudy and took it one step further. He tracked down the witnesses from the police file and three of the witnesses were gone since the thirty something years since the case went to trial.
He did track one man- Greg Matthias to the state of Vermont. He would have to mention that to Deke and see if their guests knew who this Greg Matthias was. He added that to the pile of paperwork and then got up and walked down to Deke’s office.
He put the papers on Deke’s desk then something caught his eye and he frowned as he read the paper on his desk. It was research on Bam Bam and his MC. When he read Bam Bam’s true name he frowned. Bam Bam was Stone Matthias.
His frown deepened as he thought this could just be a coincidence but he knew coincidences such as these were never good. He grabbed up the papers and decided Deke should know about this right away.
An hour later Deke, Sam and Gator were knocking on the door of the cabin Bam Bam and his friends Grizzly and Bumper were staying.
Soon after his knock, the lights came on and a grumpy Grizzly answered the door. He only had his jeans on and he glared at the men staring back at him. “Can I help you gentleman?”
“We need to talk to Bam Bam,” Deke told him.
“And it can’t wait till daylight?” Grizzly grumbled.
“No it can’t.” Sam glared at the big man.
“What’s this all about?” Bam Bam voiced from behind them.
“We might have found a connection but we need to verify a couple of things,” Deke informed him.
Bam Bam ran his hands over his head and motioned for them to join him. “Well, come in and lets get this out in the open.”
Deke sat down at the kitchen table a few moments later, as Gator and Bam Bam along with Grizzly joined him and Deke laid out the papers Zipper had given him.
Sam and Bumper leaned against the wall.
Bam Bam looked at the papers but didn’t find anything really. “What is all this?”
