by Naomi West
He looked at her like he was trying to figure out what game she was playing. “Look,” he said finally, “I’m not stupid, all right? I know things haven’t been great. I know they’re not the same. I want to fix it before it’s too late.” He pulled gently on her hand, turning her to face him. “I wasn’t there for you,” he murmured. “I wasn’t there when you needed me, and —now this is where we are. But we’re here together, and I want it to stay that way.”
She looked at him for the first time in what felt like years. Her eyes traced the familiar contours of his face, and she noticed that he seemed tired. The spark in his blue gaze was dim, smothered by concern and sadness. He had a beard — when did he stop shaving? Kelsey realized that she hadn’t even really seen him since she left him at the hospital, and the tears overflowed.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, clutching his hand with both of hers. “I’m so sorry. I lost everything.”
“What?” She was crying too hard to get anything else out, so Chopper simply gathered her into his arms and held her for a long time. “It’s not your fault,” he said, over and over, like a mantra. “It’s not your fault, baby. It’s not your fault.”
Kelsey wished she could believe him, but she could only soak his shirt with her tears as she gasped for breath like a drowning woman. All the pain she had so carefully bottled up came exploding out at once. She felt it all over again: running from Spike, being told she lost the baby, waking up from surgery with an empty body. But this time, she let everything wash over her instead of shoving it away. She cried for herself, for her poor, dead sister, for the life she left behind in order to seek vengeance. She cried for Chopper and the men he’d lost. And, as always, she cried for the child she hadn’t known she wanted until it was too late.
By the time the storm finally passed, Kelsey’s whole body ached. She curled up with her head in Chopper’s lap and tried to take deep, slow breaths. Her throat was raw, but her heart felt better. She began to breathe a little easier. Above her, Chopper traced his fingers through her hair in silence. She wondered what he was thinking about, but had no voice to ask him.
“I should’ve killed him before we left,” he said suddenly. Kelsey rolled over and saw that his face was set in deep shadows, anger etched into his eyes. “Might have been better than he deserved, but at least I’d know where the son of a bitch is now.”
She frowned. The question of Spike’s ultimate fate had faded into the background with astonishing quickness once she’d returned to her “normal” world. It was only now occurring to her that maybe he survived the beating he got in the warehouse. Just because she hadn’t seen any Mongols after her kidnapping didn’t mean there weren’t some left, hiding out like roaches in one of Spike’s other satellite bases.
The research that Kelsey had done before she joined the Mongols showed her a network of deep, far-reaching roots. It was both foolish and naïve to think that they could be wiped out after one big raid, no matter how prolonged and bloody. And if they somehow got word that their leader was alive and in need of help, Kelsey had no doubt that help would be provided.
“You think he’s out there?” Her voice was weak and raspy.
Chopper glanced down at her, placing his fingers tenderly over her lips. “If you come down to the kitchen with me, I’ll make you some tea and tell you what I know.” He leaned down and pressed his mouth to her forehead. “Think it’s about time I got my old lady back, don’t you?”
Kelsey smiled slightly, but the smile didn’t last long. “I don’t know if I want to go back to that,” she told him honestly. “Not yet.”
“I know,” he said sadly, “and I’m sorry. But it’s the world you live in now. It’s what you chose when you chose me.” Chopper’s jaw tightened. “I won’t ever put you in danger again, I promise, but there’s only one way to fix this.”
Kelsey didn’t like it. If it weren’t for Chopper, she knew she’d be done with motorcycles and motorcycle clubs, but that man was one thing she couldn’t leave behind. She took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded slowly.
“Spike Lawler killed our baby,” she said.
“Yeah.” Chopper squeezed her hand, his eyes dark. “I’m gonna find him, and he’s gonna pay.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Chopper
The thought was a constant murmur in the back of Chopper’s mind, even when a million other things demanded his attention: He should have made sure Spike Lawler was dead for good. During his rare and precious quiet moments, he shut himself into the war room and thought about how to carry out a hit on the one man who’d been playing the game just as long as he had. But not just any run-of-the-mill hit. No, this one was personal. Chopper wanted to be there. He wanted to do it with his own hands. Such an attitude was in violation of his acquired sensibility — he’d learned long ago that it was unwise to mix emotions with business, but he didn’t care anymore. Kelsey threw that particular policy straight out the window when she walked into his life the second time. It was far too late to backpedal now.
Still, a small voice piped up from the back of his mind, urging him to be careful. After all, he was lucky he still had her to come home to. As she’d cried in his arms that night, Chopper became painfully aware of how close to the edge she was, how close he’d come to losing her forever. That was when he made his promise to her, fueled by rage and pain, that he would not rest until he knew Spike was gone. In the moment, it felt like the right thing to say, and Chopper had every intent of following through. But in the still clarity of an empty room, he understood the magnitude of what he set out to do. He had no information, so even just finding Spike again looked like a problem. The Mongols were like roaches. He was sure they were still around, hiding out … but where?
Fortunately for Chopper, the main Mongol stronghold now lay in Savage Outlaw hands. He began to put together a crew to go over and sift through the ruins of Spike’s compound for anything that might assist in locating the fugitive leader. Then he reconsidered. His own forces were severely depleted, and the numbers that remained needed time to rest and regroup. He couldn’t ask them to spend long hours preparing him for his grudge match. This was something he had to do himself. Chopper crumpled his paper, dropping it in the trash on the way out. For the first time in years, he was about to go behind enemy lines.
# # #
The land around the Mongol compound was bleak, charred black by fire. The smell of smoke permeated everything from the ground up, and it gave the whole place an eerie, haunted feeling. The ghost of the Outlaws’ last fight lingered in the air. Chopper felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. He tried not to look as he passed over the place where Hoss and Red died, certain that he would still see their blood staining the dirt. The anger, ever-present now, smoldered in his chest. If nothing else, this compound was his victory. He hoped it was worth the steep price he had paid.
He hid his bike behind some large debris a short distance from the main building, just in case some straggling Mongols decided to scope out their former headquarters. The front door, once a heavy barricade, wasn’t just open — it was broken, pieces of the iron lock bars lying in a heap on the threshold. Chopper stepped over them and into the compound. He pulled the door shut behind him, but it swung back on its hinges. Whatever, he thought. It didn’t really matter whether or not he met anyone here. All the Mongols in the world couldn’t stop him now.
Spike Lawler was ex-military, and the inside of his place reflected his way of thinking. It was Spartan, and if it weren’t for the myriad of evidence of battle-born panic, it would’ve been neat as a pin. Chopper moved slowly through the ground floor rooms, checking each corner for nasty surprises. He half expected the whole thing to be one big booby-trap, but so far, all he found was silence. He supposed that if there were traps, he would’ve heard about it from Dean, but still. At this point, there was no such thing as “too cautious.”
Having cleared the first floor, he found a set of stairs and climbed them. The second story
housed the administrative areas where Spike did his business and kept his files—Chopper located a meeting room, a library, and an office space with one wall covered in cabinets. Inside the office was a functioning server room for an impressive bank of computers. All the machines were still on, but when he woke one of the displays, it showed him an input screen for a long and complicated password. He made a mental note to keep an eye out for anything written down, but knew he’d probably need to find an expert if he wanted to crack into those computers.
Even so, Chopper was willing to bet real money that whatever he was looking for was buried in those filing cabinets. Spike was old-school; he did things his way, and when he assumed control of the Mongols, digital technology hadn’t been anywhere near the level of server rooms and coded passwords of today. Maybe there were digital backups, but Chopper knew that a man as business-savvy and meticulous as Spike never threw anything away.
He left the server room and stood for a second in the middle of the office, staring down the huge bank of cabinets. Up close, he saw that the drawers were labeled with numbers that looked like some sort of weird cipher. Chopper rolled his eyes. Was there no end to Lawler’s paranoia? In light of the current situation, he guessed he couldn’t blame him. These were probably the very circumstances for which his security systems were designed.
Before committing to the monumental task of tackling Spike’s physical files, Chopper decided to finish exploring the compound. No doubt that Spike himself knew everything about this place like the back of his hand, but it was worth investigating to see if Chopper couldn’t find something that might make his life a bit easier. A legend for the filing code, perhaps? He knew Spike was no cryptographer, and there were so many cabinets that it seemed impossible for him to have committed the whole code to memory. As Chopper walked into the library, he found himself wondering who had created the filing system. Between that and the computers, how deep did Spike’s connections run, and how varied were the fields of their expertise? He was beginning to suspect that while he ran his club on a foundation of strength, loyalty, and respect above all else, Spike Lawler sat on the throne of an intelligence empire.
A random, unbidden thought flashed across his mind: Did Kelsey know?
Spike trusted no one, least of all his trophy girlfriends, so probably not. Even if she did, it was water under the bridge. Chopper would have chosen the hand-to-hand fight in any case. It was what he knew best. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that he was slightly out of his depth, or that it could be weeks before he unearthed something useful. He tried to focus as hard as he could on the things that were driving him forward. His love for Kelsey. His desire for revenge. That was enough to sustain him until the end of time.
The library was a small labyrinth, and Chopper thought a few times that he might actually be lost. He wandered aimlessly through rows and rows of unlabeled stacks. The more he saw, the greater his frustration grew. How was it possible that Spike could have so much information? Where had it all come from? Chopper had always seen the Mongols as a bunch of dumb, rowdy thugs — and he was sure that many of them still were — but clearly, there were a lot of things happening behind the scenes. If he wanted to deal with it all, he’d need more people, people he didn’t currently have. In some way, although the Outlaws had won the battle, the immense burden of their gains felt like a punishment. Chopper had no idea what was in those books, or if he would even be able to make sense of them. He decided quickly to leave the library alone unless he absolutely needed it.
Tearing his thoughts away from the books, Chopper kept walking. His plan was to start at the back wall and case the perimeter of the room, searching for a hidden exit. Soon, however, he saw that there was no need for any of that. One of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stood at an angle, revealing a hidden staircase. Chopper’s heart beat faster, but he made himself pause.
As chaotic as the fight over the compound had likely been, and as fast as Spike needed to evacuate, leaving the secret door wide open seemed like too big an oversight. Had he not been planning to return at all? The notion that he might have somehow been tricked made Chopper’s stomach turn. He glanced over his shoulder at the books crammed in behind him. What if none of them were real? He resisted the urge to open one, unsure of what he would do if he found empty pages. Instead, he took out his phone and sent Dean a text.
“Did you go up the stairs in the library?”
The reply was almost instantaneous. Chopper smiled. Red had always known how to pick his recruits.
“They’re clear, and so is the third floor. Don’t worry, Chop. We got you.”
If anyone was in dire need of a promotion, Chopper thought, it was this kid. His smile turned wry. Good thing there were plenty of advancement options now. He mounted the staircase, thought about closing the shelf behind him, chose not to take the risk of locking himself in. Spike ciphered the shit out of his files; who knew how he worked his doors. The steps led up around a tight corner, and then Chopper found himself emerging from the floor into an expansive, high-ceilinged chamber. It was nothing like the barren halls of the first and second floors, and he recognized instantly that he was in Spike Lawler’s personal quarters.
Chopper had to chuckle to himself as he looked around. It was so much like Spike to push one set of ideals onto his men while he followed another entirely. The rest of the compound was dressed down like a barracks, but up here there was art framed on the walls, pieces of furniture that Chopper guessed were probably worth more than one shipment of drugs. He crossed the central living area and found two doors, leading to a bedroom and a study. He chose the study.
The first thing he saw was that the big desk in the middle of the room had been completely ransacked, its drawers pulled out and left in a pile on the floor. Papers lay scattered over everything—Chopper picked one up and saw that it was a partial list of names with dollar amounts printed beside them. The figures were massive, some of them in the range of hundreds of thousands. He furrowed his brow. Money Spike had gotten — or money he was owed? The thing he found resting on the desk itself provided all the answers.
It was a plain black binder with a three-inch spine, and he could tell from the wear that it had once been stuffed to bursting. Now, most of its contents were shredded, charred bits of paper curled among the rings. The burn job was messy and incomplete, clearly done in a hurry. It gave Chopper no small sense of satisfaction to know that he had caught Lawler so off guard. Some of the papers on the bottom had barely burned at all, and he saw that they were recordings of Mongol finances, written by hand in red ink. Chopper knew what that meant. He shook off the burned paper and paged quickly through what was legible. And then he understood.
The Mongol empire was secretly floundering. According to the binder, Spike had been making enormous payouts for years in order to keep his firmly-established support network, and when Chopper and the Outlaws began to disrupt the drug trade, the money ran out quickly. He’d been living off the club’s reserves, which couldn’t hold up the lavish lifestyle he was used to. By the time the Outlaws and Mongols finally clashed, there was almost nothing left.
Chopper recalled how the attacking Mongols had withdrawn so suddenly, and how he had seen none at the warehouse where Kelsey was taken. At some point, Spike must have realized that he needed to conserve the manpower he still had, if he wanted to have any hope of coming back. Now, it appeared that one of the most longstanding motorcycle clubs in the city might be on its last legs.
It was good news for Chopper — great news, in fact. If Spike had truly disappeared without contact, there would soon be a massive manhunt underway as his connections sought to claim more bribes. And if the Outlaws could capitalize on that, then Chopper would have it made. He could take care of Kelsey forever, and they could build a life in relative peace. No rivalries, no kidnappings, no danger. He’d make her his queen.
Further inspection of the room yielded little more than a set of keys, empty bottles, and some truly impressive rece
ipts. Lawler had spared no expense when he thought he was untouchable. Chopper pocketed the keys, took the half-burned binder off the desk, and went into the bedroom next door. He stood for a moment just inside the threshold, preparing himself for a whole host of worst-case scenarios. He’d never come this close to looking into Spike Lawler’s undoubtedly twisted private life—hell, he still didn’t want to. He was only doing this because he had to now, for Kelsey. For revenge.
He took a deep breath and stepped forward.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kelsey
Inexplicably, time was marching on. The hurt in her heart was no longer as prominent as it had been even a few weeks ago, though Kelsey still felt it every day. She felt it strongest whenever she saw a woman with a stroller, or a bassinet, or trailing children behind her like ducklings. She felt it when she passed the aisle in the grocery store with all the formula and the diapers. And she knew that no matter how bearable it became, how well she healed, the scars of her loss would always be there. But sometimes, other things happened that kept her mind in other places, and right now, she was worried about Chopper.
