I put my finger to my lips and reached for my laptop. It was asleep and not off, so thankfully it didn’t take long to awaken. I opened notepad and typed:
Do you want to go?
They said they get drunk? I haven’t been drunk in a long time.
If you go and you’re accepted, it’ll make life easier. Constance, Gen, and Sheila are our neighbors, and Harmony doesn’t live too far away. Angelica’s around a lot, even though she and Bash live in town.
Will you be there?
I’ll be security. If you need me, just text me and I’ll be there for you.
I’d have to let Duke know I was security as long as Hailey was there, but I might need to bow out. As soon as I thought it, I realized that wouldn’t work. I couldn’t take her home without putting us both in danger. Safety tomorrow night would be a numbers game.
We’ll have to stay with the group until they reach the last venue. We won’t be able to leave early. You should be able to sit with me outside as security if you need time away from the women.
She nodded, and I closed my laptop as I told her, “We have so much to talk about, and I’m sorry it’ll have to wait, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“I saw Bobcat and Slick, but they didn’t acknowledge me.”
I sighed and opened my laptop again.
They probably thought they were being helpful, in case someone didn’t already know. I’ll talk to them.
Slick was always nice to me.
And he’ll still be nice to you. I’m sure he thought he was helping.
I sighed as I once again thought this couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“I’m sorry, Hailey. I’ll try to do more tomorrow to show everyone you’re mine. I’ll do everything I can, but you have to know if I swoop in and rescue you in every situation, they won’t respect you.” I sighed and gave her the bad news. “Pebbles and Jiminy left, so you won’t have her on your side tomorrow at breakfast. Harmony will be here, and probably Gabby, but Gabby’s kinda shy until she gets to know you.”
“Angelica seemed nice, and Gabby, too. Honestly, at the end, Gen was the only one acting like a high-school-mean-girl.”
Since she’d said it out loud, I needed to give my response aloud. Gen couldn’t hear, but Duke could. “Gen is actually one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet, but she’s kind of a prude. Be nice to her and let her come around. She’s the president’s ol’lady, nicknamed the Duchess for a reason. Please don’t make an enemy of her on purpose.” Again, with my words as much for Duke as Hailey, I said, “I’m sorry she was mean to you. I’m sorry she made you feel bad about your choices.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I like it here. When can we leave?”
Her words broke my heart, but I couldn’t blame her. “When we’re sure it’s safe. You don’t have class for a week, thank goodness. I’d get you there and back if you did, but I’d be a basket case.”
She was asleep when I got out of the shower, and I crawled in bed and fell asleep with her in my arms.
* * *
Schools have different alarms for fire and tornado. We have those, but we also have one to alert everyone to LEO with a warrant, to an active attack on the compound, and to an emergency that means all brothers need to get dressed and into the hall for an assignment.
The latter alarm went off a little before three, and I was out the door in minutes. Technically, Hailey shouldn’t be back here without me, but I knew they’d put someone in the hallway to make sure girlfriends stayed in their boyfriends’ rooms. As I dressed, I warned Hailey if she left the room, she’d be escorted upstairs. I also let her know Brain was likely in the control room, and told her how to contact him from my room if she needed me, since I wouldn’t have my phone with me. I stressed it was only for an emergency, and I kissed her and left with my boots in my hand. I could put them on while I listened to the sitrep.
Bash was leaned against a wall, looking at a stopwatch as I came out. I sat on the floor to put my boots on, and about ten seconds later, Bash said, “Those who aren’t out yet need to listen up. Duke and Gonzo took over guard duty on the front gate at two this morning, and they were both shot about ten minutes ago. Gonzo was hit in the gut, but Duke took a headshot. Gonzo pulled Duke inside the gate and out of sight, and they both managed to get changed. They’re upstairs eating. Duke is still the wolf, Gonzo’s back to human. Brain’s looking through video feeds to be sure we go after the right people. It should go without saying, but everyone’s in helmets and vests when we go out.”
“I’m sure Brain knows the direction the bullet came from by now,” I said. “Viper and I’ll head out and do some reconnaissance, see if we can figure out where the shooter was standing so we can get his scent.”
Bash shook his head. “Moving car. We won’t get a scent. Let Brain do his thing.”
“The baby should be crying after the alarm,” Viper noted.
“Constance, Gen, and little Max are upstairs with Gonzo and Duke. Angelica went up to help with the baby, and I think—”
Bash stopped talking as Nix stepped out of his room and said, “Tip’s not doing so good. If any of your women are awake, maybe they can hang out?”
Tippy’s a deer, and sometimes has trouble in a building full of wolves. She’s gotten used to us individually and in small groups, but we can be too much for her in large numbers. I wondered how Gabby was doing as well, because her claustrophobia’s worse than mine and I knew she wouldn’t be downstairs. I looked around and didn’t see Horse, and said, “Maybe she can go to wherever Gabby is?”
“Horse is on patrol,” said Bash. “Aaron Drake collected Gabby and took her to his house last night, so she wouldn’t have to come downstairs.”
I opened my door and stuck my head in. “Hailey, Tippy needs some company, can I send her in with you? You didn’t meet her last night. She usually stays downstairs when there’s too many people in the clubhouse.”
“Of course. I’d just decided I can’t sleep and was going to read, but company would be nice.”
I closed the door so again Hailey couldn’t hear us, and nodded to Nix. “She’s known about me for around fourteen years, and she was bound at the time. Tippy’s free to share if she wants.”
Nix went back into his room and we headed upstairs so he wouldn’t have to walk Tippy into a hallway full of wolves. We knew he’d be along as soon as he got her settled.
Things moved fast, and within ten minutes Brain was showing us video of the car in front of our compound. Both the driver and shooter had worn masks. We could see their black hands, but nothing identifiable.
Brain fast forwarded as the car travelled through several more intersections, and slowed it to real-time as the two men parked in a used car lot on Rossville Boulevard and exited the vehicle without masks. He zoomed in on their faces, and we all recognized them as OKM.
Brain had an address for one of the men, and said he was working on finding out where the other lived. We were just figuring out our game plan when the control room changed the view on the large-screen television to our front gate. My stomach jumped into my heart as I recognized the local wolf Alpha, but Brain said, “Let him in. I’m pretty sure he’s here as Duke’s brother and not the wolf Alpha. Either way, we don’t need to leave him out there waiting.”
No one met Randall in the parking lot, but as he neared the door, Brain opened it to let him in as he said, “Duke’s in his office. Bash’ll walk you back.”
“Thanks.” He looked around the room to all of us. “Duke pulled from me, and I pushed energy into him for his change. If I hadn’t, the head shot would’ve killed him.” He shook his head, looked down a few seconds, then back up to Brain. “The Pack and MC have done okay so far, but I’m about to break some laws to help my brother find his way back to human. I’m not hiding it, but in the next couple of weeks we’re going to need to form some kind of alliance to keep us all out of hot water. Tell me the alliance is in the works, so I can honestly tell the othe
r Alphas and the Concilio it was before I came to my brother.”
“The alliance is in the works, and I feel certain we’ll confirm it soon since you aren’t insisting any of us oath to you.”
I waited until Bash walked Randall out of the room before suggesting, “As much as we all want blood, perhaps we need to take some time to come up with the right plan. It doesn’t make sense for the OKM to pull us into this fight. Something doesn’t smell right.”
“The whole shitstorm’s stunk to high heaven since it started,” said Dozer. “Are we sure Jiminy isn’t orchestrating this?”
We all looked to Brain, who shrugged. “If you follow the money, it would make sense. His people are pressuring him to move in on our territory, and he’s trying to finesse it so we’ll give him something. The only lies I smelled had to do with his own personal security though, and I can’t fault him for not being honest about the steps he’s taking to stay safe. He seemed to be telling the truth the rest of the time.”
“It might be time to pull someone in who can tell us if he’s been bound,” said Viper. “If he knows about supernaturals, it’s possible he’s been taught to lie.”
“He’s a sociopath,” I pointed out. “We all know what he’s capable of, and I thought he smelled a little off from the first time I met him.”
A wave of power pulsed through the room, and I reached for a nearby table for balance as my knees went weak. I looked around the room and realized everyone else was stunned as well, except for Bobcat and Viper — and Bash, who’d just returned and was now taking long strides back down the hallway away from us. I made a mental note all the wolves had been stunned by the Alpha’s energy except Bash.
“Everyone stay put,” I said as I regained my composure. “Bash will check on him and let us know if Duke needs us.”
We heard Max crying when Bash opened the door, and Brain said, “Bobcat, with me. Ghost, check in with McGyver in the control room, see where he needs people, and assign them.”
I sent Dozer, Tiny, and Knife to a corner at the edge of our territory McGyver said someone needed to man, and swapped a few people around already out there. When I came out of the control room, Duke and his brother were in the hallway, hugging.
I could’ve walked away and left them to their moment, but I didn’t like Duke alone without someone watching his back, so I leaned against the wall and pulled my phone from my pocket.
Randall chuckled and said, “Love the way ya’ll take care of each other.”
Duke smiled as they pulled away, and I put my phone back into my pocket as I looked to them.
“We’re good,” Duke told me. “Also, Bobcat pointed out since we’re no longer exclusively a club of wolves, Randall can treat us as just another supernatural group, instead of treating us as a lone-wolf group. We’ll be able to put together a treaty — much like the ones he has with the vampires, the lions, and a few other groups.”
I breathed out in relief. “Good to know. Are you back to a hundred percent?”
He shrugged. “I need more food, but I’m close enough.” He looked to Randall. “Thanks for coming, but it looks like I’m about to be in meetings. When everything settles, we’ll figure out when we can have lunch together, or Gen can invite you for dinner.”
* * *
An hour later, Viper and I were patrolling the area near the gun store while staying out of sight as much as possible. We’re sent out together a lot, because Viper’s nearly as good as me at walking without being noticed. We don’t have to think about it, we just walk in a way so people don’t see us.
“You haven’t told us much about Hailey.”
“Not much ya’ll needed to know.”
“Coulda bowled me over with a feather when Gonzo brought a Cherokee woman in and said she was yours.”
“She’s a little over a quarter.” Viper’s something like seventy or eighty percent Cherokee, but it hadn’t occurred to me he might want to know. She’s just Hailey to me.
“Don’t give a fuck what percentage she is. Her aura reads Cherokee. She’s been raised in the traditions.”
I shrugged. “I went to the regular high school, and she went to the one on the rez. Her mother and grandparents took her places on the weekend sometimes. Places I couldn’t go, so I assumed it was Cherokee stuff.”
Maybe Viper could help with one of my questions. “She drank a lot in high school and seemed to handle it okay. Somewhere along that time, she spent some time with her alcoholic father and decided to stop drinking because she doesn’t want to be like him.”
“And the ol’ladies are going to expect her to drink with them tomorrow night.”
I nodded, happy he understood my question. “Is she better off staying away from it?”
“She don’t seem like the type to use anything as a crutch, but if she’s worried she will…” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Ghost. Check in, please,” came Brain’s voice in my ear.
“We’re good,” I answered into the comms. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Make your way back, and see me when you arrive. No hurry, take your time and be careful.”
I can walk through the shadows without being seen because my Navy SEAL dad started teaching me how to do it as a small child. He expected me to go into the military and make a career of it, but it wasn’t for me.
Nix, on the other hand, comes to us from the military, and they kind of messed him up. It isn’t that he won’t kill anymore, but he has to make the offer — he won’t kill on demand. I wasn’t surprised he’d offered to take out whoever shot at Marlin’s son, or that he’d let Brain know he’d handle whoever shot Duke and Gonzo. Duke had a new baby, and Gonzo’s wife was all belly, and due in the next week or two. Truth is, we’d have been pissed no matter who got hit, but shooting these two seemed a special kind of insult. Our enemies don’t know we’re werewolves, and the hit to Duke almost took him out even with his supernatural abilities. If Duke’s twin didn’t happen to be Alpha of the local Pack, there’s a good chance little Max would grow up without ever knowing his dad.
All this to say, I wasn’t surprised to see Nix in the control room when Brain buzzed me in.
“We all know Nix prefers to work alone, but he’s agreed you can go with him to watch his back,” Brain said.
I looked to Nix and he gave a tiny nod. “They’re both in a house on Olive, and I have line-of-sight to them from a good ways up the ridge — about a quarter mile shot. Piece of cake.”
Nix and I work together in the gun store. We’re close. I’ve been to his house and shot his weapons, and I know how damned good he is with a firearm. I’ve seen him hit bullseye at a mile and three quarters on his first try. A quarter-mile won’t be an issue for him.
Our biggest problem would be getting the gun from the car to the woods — and then through the woods — without alerting people or dogs. He’d already scouted the area from a car, and Brain had figured the best spot for us to park and get into the woods. We were in one of the club’s unregistered junkers so it wouldn’t look out of place parked in that part of town.
The side of Missionary Ridge is damned steep, but we’re wolves and we’re strong, so we easily managed the terrain. Nix climbed the tree he’d chosen, and I moved to the base of another tree and blended into my surroundings.
Nix was in the tree twenty minutes before I heard the first shot, and then six seconds later, the second shot. Twenty seconds later, his gun was back in the long duffel, and he was on the ground with it slung over his shoulder. We made our way back to the car, and stopped before we hit the edge of the woods to be sure no one was around. Two men were about to come to blows in the yard we’d parked next to, and Nix swore under his breath.
We needed to get out of here in the next three to five minutes or we’d have to find another egress. The club had bought the car for cash from a junkyard, and Bash had gotten it running. The tags worked okay as long as we didn’t draw attention to ourselves, but we didn
’t need to be in it once the place was crawling with LEO. We could ditch it if we had to, but we’d need another way out.
I adjusted my cap and told him, “I’ll get it solo. Head north through the woods and I’ll pick you up on McRae, in the wooded section.”
I switched my gate to a swagger and kept it low-key, steady, and fluid. I managed to walk down the middle of the road without being noticed — the two glanced my way when I started the car, but saw a black man in a junker car and went back to their argument.
I took my time on Chamberlain so I wouldn’t have to wait long for Nix. As I approached the wooded area on McRae, Nix spoke through the comms to say, “I see you. Stop where the grass is higher.”
He slid the long duffel into the back seat as he got in. I drove away as he closed the door, and we used back roads to make it to the top of Missionary Ridge. We followed the crest road all the way to Georgia, and then used more back roads to an old, forgotten quarry. We made sure we had everything out of the car, and I rolled it into the deep, deep water. Another mile hike and Viper was waiting for us in a van, and we both climbed into the back.
Viper drove us to Nix’s house forty minutes north of Chattanooga. The three of us took ten minutes for some target practice on his outdoor range, and we took pictures of ourselves doing it. Nix texted a picture of us with our target papers to Tippy, and we all cleaned our guns, washed up, and headed back.
Brain let us know LEO had come to the bar asking to talk to Duke and Gonzo.
No police reports had been made after Duke and Gonzo were shot, and Brain had altered the traffic cam videos right away, so LEO couldn’t know our guys had been shot at, much less hit. Both had changed, so there wasn’t even a bruise as if they’d been hit while wearing body armor.
We pulled into the restaurant and went inside, noting the three cruisers and two detective vehicles in the parking lot. We knew they’d want to know where we’d been earlier in the day, and we produced our pictures when asked. Brain had long ago shown us how to change the times on images on our phone, and we’d adjusted the first pictures to about ten minutes before Nix had shot the men.
Ghost: The Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club, Book 8 Page 6
