by KJ Dahlen
When Deke and his entourage showed up, Theo and Sarah stayed in the bedroom. The door was open so they could hear everything said, but they stayed out of sight.
Priest opened the door of his room to find more than just Deke on the other side. Stepping back, he noted the members of the MC were present and accounted for. Not only was Deke there, but so was Sam, Gator, Mountain, Iceman, Black Jack and several more that Priest didn’t know by name. Then he saw Breaker return.
When Priest shut the door, he turned to face the solid wall of bikers.
“What the fuck is this all about?” Deke demanded as he crossed his big arms across his chest.
“I came here to warn you about a threat I can’t ignore. A threat against your MC,” Priest began.
“If you’re talking about Bear’s brother and dad we already know,” Deke replied. “We’re able to track them as they’re making their way here and growing in numbers as they get closer to us.”
Priest looked over at Breaker then back over at Deke. “Did he also tell you that Oscar’s plan is to just shoot his way in? And that he’ll shoot anybody wearing your colors? Man, woman or child?”
“Yeah he did,” Deke admitted softly. With steel in his spine and in his words, he assured Priest, “We’ll be ready for him.”
“How can you be ready for that?” Priest scoffed. “I’ve been watching you for the last few days and you aren’t ready for jack squat. Your women aren’t sheltered nor are you on lock down.” He shook his head.
Deke glared at him. “He isn’t even close to us yet.”
“You don’t think so?” Priest asked softly. “If you think that then you’d be wrong. He’s got at least three of his men scouting this town already. I’ve watched them watching your every move. They take note of who comes and goes from your compound. Don’t tell me they aren’t here yet.”
“What else have you seen?” Sam demanded angrily.
“They’ve set up cameras on the businesses you guys own and operate and that includes Redemption House.”
Deke didn’t move but then he glanced over at his men and they all agreed, they hadn’t seen anything either. He turned back to Priest. “How do you know all this?”
“My man James has been here a week now and he’s very good at what he does. He notes everything and finds stuff that shouldn’t be there but is.”
“And how long have you been here?” Mountain asked.
Priest stared at the man. “Long enough.”
The tension in the room just cranked up a notch and was turning hostile when Sarah stepped out of the bedroom and whispered loudly, “Please stop, all of you.”
Everyone turned to see her standing there with tears running down her face.
“I can’t bear this. You have to stop quarreling and fight together against what’s coming. There is a battle coming that will require all of you to work together if you hope to win it.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Sam growled as he scowled at her interruption.
“I’m no one that matters, but you guys...” She held out her hands toward them. “You guys matter, you guys, your women and families, they matter. Don’t you dare ignore this or pass it off as nonsense. I may not know your world, but I know families matter and you need to do what you need to do to protect them.” She put her fists on her hips and glared at each and every one of them. “This pissant has plans to take it all away from you if you allow it. He thinks he can surprise you and catch you with your pants down. He plans to wipe you out and he doesn’t care who he has to hurt to get what he wants. You’d better not let him.” With that, she turned and went back to the bedroom slamming the door behind her.
Deke looked around at the others in a dazed aura. “What the hell just happened?”
Sam snorted. “You just got your ass handed to you, fool.”
Deke turned his head and viewed Priest for a moment. “Who was that woman?”
Priest shrugged. “To tell you the truth I have no clue who she is. She’s a friend of a friend. But she’s absolutely right. We are going to have to work together to live through this. You need to get ready. I can help you with that but you need to get you’re women and kids under protection.”
“From what we can gather, Oscar and Matty and their ragtag group in still in Maine working their way south,” Mountain stated.
Priest shook his head. “They’re already in New Hampshire. They met up with several others on Concord. Word on the street is they’re next stop is Lowell, Massachusetts. There is a group of survivalists waiting for them there.” Shaking his head he informed them, “Four men who have no souls and think survival of the fittest is the key.”
“And just how do you know that?” Mountain folded his massive arms over his chest.
“You have your ways and I have mine.” Priest shrugged. He clocked Deke, “I’ve also heard when he picks up those four, he’ll have enough men and will be coming here next.”
Deke shook his head. “We need to know who he’s got watching us right now then we’ll take precautions. If we all go into high alerts this minute, his minions will tell him and then he’ll come blasting into town. We have to protect everyone living in this town, not just us. That wouldn’t be good for the town, wouldn’t be good for us either.”
The bedroom door opened, and Theo walked out and met the men standing there face to face. “Then you meet the fuckers head on and far away from this town and your families.”
Deke straightened his spine and slowly turned to face the new man. He thought he recognized the voice but when he turned, he didn’t know the man standing there. “Who the fuck are you?”
Theo shrugged. “I’m nobody.”
“Why do I doubt that very much?” Deke snorted.
“I don’t care what you think one way or the other,” Theo retorted.
“What exactly are you saying?” Mountain asked.
Theo turned his head to the giant of a man standing there. “What I’m saying is that you need to take the fight to Oscar, rather then wait for him to bring the fight to you. Waiting is bad if you’re the one doing it. Rattle his fucking cage if you like.”
“Shock and awe, huh?” Sam known as Bones nodded. “I like that. We could whittle down his numbers that way too. Take away his men, you take away his power in numbers.”
Deke thought about what Theo was saying then nodded. “We also make the man desperate which in turn makes him careless. We have to let the club know what’s going on before we come up with a plan of action.”
Theo nodded. “Do it now before you lose the element of surprise, because once that is gone he’ll come straight through the heart of your club. He wants to bring devastation to this town and he isn’t going to stop until either you or he is dead. Remember, he’s had seventeen years to plan his revenge and prison changes a man. And it’s never for the good.”
“Huh...” Mountain grumbled. “From what I’ve heard of Oscar Buckley, prison only enhanced his ugliness.”
Priest nodded. “I’ve heard the same thing. His history reveals he was an ugly, mean bastard before he went inside. His murder charge told us that much. I read his files from prison and he wasn’t a model citizen. From day one, he pushed and pushed. So by the time he ended his first year, he ran his prison block. He ran everything from drugs to cigarettes inside. The other prisoners called him Jefe.”
Deke scoffed, “I really don’t care what they called him. He’s a dead man walking as far as I’m concerned.”
Sam looked over at Priest. “Do we know where they are right now?”
Priest shrugged. “Somewhere near Concord, New Hampshire was the last word I got.”
“Is there any way to verify that?” Deke questioned.
Priest turned and walked out to the door across the hall and knocked on James’s door. He spoke to the other man for a moment then returned. Leaving the door open, he waited until James joined them.
He looked up at the group of men facing him and informed them, “When we first heard abo
ut this threat we were able to track them down. We put trackers on their bikes and have been following them on their journey. The trackers have told us every stop they’ve made so far.”
Mountain and Sam looked around making eye contact with the others before they turned back to James and Priest.
“How the fuck did you do all that?” Sam asked.
Priest just looked at him. “We have our ways.”
“How did you find them in the first place?” Wiley wanted to know.
“They never tried to hide who they were and what they were doing,” James admitted. “It was rather easy to find them and tag them. They were building their army to confront you.”
Breaker nodded. “They got a few original members on their team. The ones who were here under Bear. You threw them out when they wouldn’t agree to your terms.” He shrugged and added, “The only real thing you changed was the drug dealing. You didn’t want it but they liked the money it brought to the club. Even paying Bear his forty percent it was bringing them more money than they ever had before. They figure they have a score to settle with you for changing their lives. They liked the way Bear ran things, but you turned the MC around and went legit. They missed the money they got from the drugs sales you wouldn’t let them deal.”
Deke shook his head. “I gave them a chance and a choice. I never wanted to boot anyone out of their home, but I didn’t want the MC to keep going down a dead-end one-way path either. I wanted to build it up and set us on a different path than the one Bear had it on. If we’d have kept going on his path, everyone would have been dead or in jail within three to five years’ time.”
Breaker nodded. “We all knew that. We hated it, but no one had the balls to stand up to Bear until you came around. You showed us a different way. Bear just took what he wanted, you gave us a choice. Bear just took and took, you honored your word.”
Deke turned and glared at Theo. “Which leaves us with you...who are you and what is your interest in all of this?” He glanced over at Priest and nodded. “I get why he’s here, why are you?”
Before Theo walked out to confront these men he’d made up his mind that he would tell them as close to the truth as possible without telling them everything. “I have my reasons. But I will tell you this much, I don’t like the fact Oscar Buckley thinks he can just walk over good men to get his MC back. You guys have a good thing going here and you take care of your families. That shows you have honor and believe me when I say, that’s rare in today’s world.”
“So what’s in this for you?” Sam queried. “You don’t seem the type to do this out of the goodness of you heart.”
Theo shrugged. “I don’t really give a fuck what you think, nor do I have to explain why I’m here. Right now, you need all the help you can get. All you have to know about me is the fact I’m here, willing to help you.”
Deke snapped his head around to glare at Theo. “If I find you betrayed us I’ll personally put a bullet in your head. Just saying...”
Theo nodded. “I’ll give you a gun if it comes to that.”
“Is the woman yours or his?” Sam nodded at Priest.
“She’s mine,” Theo assured him. “She isn’t your concern either.”
Sam shook his head. “Never said she was, just pairing up who’s with who, that’s all. She’s your responsibility.”
“Damn right she is.” Theo growled. “You just remember that.”
Sam nodded. “No problem. My own woman is waiting for me at home.”
“Can we get back to the main issue here?” Deke grumbled.
James stepped forward and handed him three different photos. “These are the men watching your businesses. Facial recognition hasn’t identified them yet, but I’m working on that.”
“Have you checked with Trudy yet?” Mountain asked.
James nodded. “I passed them to her yesterday but she hasn’t come up with anything yet either. Either these guys are clean or they’ve never been caught before.”
“There has to be some kind of record on these guys,” Deke added.
James nodded. “If there is anything out there we’ll find it, don’t worry. Between Trudy and myself we can find anything.”
Deke glared at the man. “Trudy, I know. I don’t know you. Don’t give me your word when you might not be able to back it up.”
James nodded once to let him know he got the message.
“What I suggest you do is gather your members and your families and get them under your protection for now,” Priest interjected. “Keep them close. Then a small select group can go hunt down the men waiting for Buckley in Lowell. Maybe someone the men from the original MC don’t know.”
“Then what? My men aren’t killers. This would be cold-blooded murder. You’re suggesting we take them out before they can take us out.” Deke growled.
“Sometimes life gives you a choice,” Theo commented. “You have to choose this time between life and death for you and your families. This is a no-win situation. It’s kill or be killed.”
Deke gritted his teeth. “Yes, we belong to an MC but we aren’t cold blooded killers. We’ll fight if we’re attacked first but this isn’t that yet, is it? I can’t ask my men to kill before they storm our gates. I just can’t.”
It was at that moment Theo knew what he had to do. He looked over at Priest and saw the only answer they had in his eyes as well. Looking over at James, he saw the solution there as well. He gave them both a nod and from that, a pact was born. The three of them would take on the MC formed from Buckley’s hate of Deke.
He turned back to Deke. “You take care of your families here. Don’t you dare lose any one of them.” Then he turned and walked back into the bedroom slamming the door behind him. He looked over at Sarah but didn’t say anything. Theo knew he was being sucked back into his past and he didn’t like it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it, he could kill without remorse and had done so in the past but he was trying to start a new life now. He hated the fact he was drawn back but he couldn’t allow this to happen. These people needed his help. He couldn’t undo the past but he could do this. His blood began to rush through his body and for the first time in a long time, he felt good. His past had been all about taking life maybe his thinking that was truly his path had been all wrong. Here he was still taking lives but the reason behind it was ultimately to save lives. Maybe this would begin to heal his soul.
Chapter Three
Theo went over to the window and looked out over the city. He felt more than saw Sarah move in behind him. Then her arms came around his waist and she pressed her body into his back. “What’s going on?” she whispered. Maybe she shouldn’t be touching him but she was risking it. She wanted him to know she was willing to stick by him always.
“My past is catching up with me and I don’t like it.” He glared out the window.
Sarah swallowed hard, but fear wouldn’t let her say anything. She’d always known this man had a past, maybe even a violent past, everyone did but she didn’t ask about it because if she didn’t know about it, his past couldn’t hurt her. She hated her own past... hated what she’d done and was ashamed of it.
For a moment, her own eyes were haunted. She hadn’t wanted to come back to this part of the state. It was too close to the town she’d grown up in, too close to his family. Because of him, she hadn’t seen her own mother for the last five years. She had had to break all ties to her brother as well and that really hurt her. She and Stone had been very close at one point. But Stone had always been a stickler for the truth and she knew he’d found out about her lies. She didn’t think he would forgive her for all the lies she and her mother told him over the years.
The lies had been told to keep him focused on the delicate job he was doing in the battlefields. They didn’t want him to be distracted and maybe end up bleeding or dead on those same battlefields. They kept the truth from him and she knew he couldn’t overlook what she’d done. Resting her forehead on Theo’s back, she breathed in his scent.
>
She could smell laundry soap and citrus and she felt her mouth water. Drawing in a deep breath, of it as his own unique scent was a mixture of spicy and sweet. Sarah almost groaned as she felt her body’s response to him. She’d been hiding what she felt for Theo for a while now and she was almost out of patience. She wanted him badly, but she also knew he didn’t want her the same way.
“Sarah,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “I’m not doing anything.” She broke her hold and stepped away from him reluctantly.
~*~
Theo turned slowly to face her. What he saw was Sarah’s head hung low, her face covered by her long dark hair, but he could also see her trembling as she took another tiny step away from him.
He reached out and cupped her chin bringing her face up to meet his. He saw the longing in her eyes before she could hide it and for the first time he understood what she wanted. Sarah wanted him! His hand shook as he rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks. Somehow, his heart began to beat a little quicker in his body. It beat so hard he could feel it thunder in his chest. “Shall we get our own room?” he whispered.
Sarah was so lost in his eyes she couldn’t speak so she nodded.
He reached out and grabbed her hand.
Leaving the bedroom, Theo noted the room was empty save for Priest and James. He glanced over their way. “We’re going to get a room and get settled in. I’ll be back later.”
Priest nodded and barely looked at him as he and James continued to make plans for the upcoming battle.
Theo didn’t pause but continued on his way to the front desk. When he got the room, he hauled her up three flights and opened the door to the suite. Then he pulled her in and slammed the door shut. Twisting the lock, he pushed her against the portal and lifted her face so he could see her eyes.
“I need to know something,” he spoke in a hushed voice.
