Compass (Valiant MC Book 1)

by Mary B. Moore

  Closing my eyes to take a deep breath and try and slow the rate of my heart down, I opened them again to see her looking at me with a huge smile on her face.

  “So long as we always have this,” she moved her pelvis slightly, “you can go off and do superhero shit and fight baddies all you want. I’ll even wash and iron your cape and spandex uniform.”

  “You’re such a dork,” I snorted, but the support that she was giving me without reminding me what I was going to end up doing, eased the residual tension from me and meant everything.

  After talking about it a little bit more, I realized that he was trying to tell me everything that he could, but that he couldn’t tell me anything else. He wouldn’t want me to feel like he was keeping secrets from me though, so Hunter was trying to give the answers that he could. We’d decided not to tell Sam that Hunter would be going away periodically. I was worried that he’d assume that Hunter wasn’t going to come back, so we agreed that it would be a case of crossing that bridge when we came to it.

  “Are you okay about it, baby? I know that it’s soon and we’re still recovering from…everything.”

  Deep inside I was worried about him, but Hunter had always been a hero to me. When we were younger, he’d been the guy that we all looked up to without even meaning to be; he just had that presence about him. Over the years, the pain had taken over all of it, but little by little we were seeing the old Hunter and it occurred to me that tonight when he’d come in, that the difference about him was maybe the old Hunter coming out too. He was always calm in stressful situations and that calmness was coming out of him now. I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel going up against people who were trafficking innocent kids or dealing in weapons and drugs, but Hunter was always the strong one.

  “I’m okay, honestly, Hunter. I just want you to promise to be safe.”

  “Absolutely. I have you and Sam to think about.”

  “How did the others take it?”

  Snorting out a laugh, he started stroking my hair again. “They were eager and ready to help. Pissed at the situation though.” The way he said it made me think that maybe there was more to it, but I’d just decided not to push for details and I wasn’t going to forget that within twenty seconds of making the decision. “We’ve decided to name ourselves Valiant. It’s what we’ll go under when there are messages sent or calls made.”

  “Huh, Valiant.” I thought about it for a second. “I like that! It suits y’all.”

  Shrugging, and ever bashful, Hunter stroked my hair until I felt my eyes getting heavy. “Pipe,” he spoke through the fog of sleep that I was starting to go under.

  “Mmmm…”

  “I love you, and Sam.”

  “Love you too,” I mumbled into the comfy pillow that was his chest, and then I was out cold.

  “So, let me get this straight,” I said to Blake the following day. We were discussing the news and I was doing my best to not let on that I knew about his past at the same time. “You’ve put a new wheel on his bike with a moniker on it? And he hasn’t noticed?”

  Nodding, Blake pointed out the window across to where Hunter’s bike was in the lot. “He drove the truck yesterday,” he pointed out the obvious seeing as how that’s how we’d gotten there just half an hour before. “I’m waiting to see how long it takes him to notice.”

  I took in the words around the wheel and the compass visible in the center of it. He’d explained to me what the Latin meant and it was so fitting that I’d felt close to tears. I’d always been afraid of motorcycle clubs, having read too much and watched too much fiction about them. It didn’t help that The Knights were well known in our area. They weren’t bad per se, but they’d gotten rid of a lot of illegal activity using strong measures and they were a bit intimidating. Looking around at all of these men though, and thinking about what they were aiming to do as a ‘club’, I found my opinion changing rapidly. In fact, I was pretty fucking proud of it.

  I was about to tell all of this to Blake when we saw Hunter walk across the lot toward his bike. It was parked with the front facing out and he stopped as he got close to it. After a couple of minutes, and a good thirty seconds of him itching his ear, he broke into a huge grin and started laughing. “I FUCKING LOVE IT!” He yelled, turning toward the window where Blake and I were watching him.

  A couple of the guys got up and walked out to see what was going on. When they saw it, they turned toward Blake with petulant looks on their faces and crossed arms over their chests.

  “How long does it take to make one of those?” I mumbled to Blake seeing a lot of work in the near future for him.

  “Couldn’t sleep last night so I already have four completed and another one almost done.”

  Hunter walked past them and reached up to itch his ear. It had been a nervous tick he’d had since we were little and I knew the story behind it. In fact, even before he’d met him, Sam had done the same thing on a couple of occasions. It had always felt like a stab to the heart when I saw it, but now I saw it for the fate and magic that it was. I was about to walk outside when the loudest boom of “Ooohrah Fallujah!” was shouted from inside and outside.

  Looking at Hunter in shock, I saw the flush across his cheeks and made a mental note to find out what the hell all of this was. I was greedy for any information on Hunter I could get.

  Going back to what I’d been intending to do, I walked up to him and stood pressed against him.

  “My valiant hero.”

  Grinning down at me and looking a bit embarrassed, he lifted his finger to itch his ear, but before he could make contact I joined in the shout that I now expected. “Ooohrah Fallujah!”

  Shaking his head, he leaned down and gave me a soft kiss not caring who saw the gentle move.

  “I fucking love you, Piper Hill.”

  “I fucking love you too, Hunter Black.”

  “Ya know,” Blake said walking past us with two of the wheels in his hands. “Piper Black sounds better.”

  I looked up at Hunter and saw the grin on his face grow even bigger. I could swear that he was a bigger romantic than any of my female friends.

  It was a matter of days until we got the phone call telling us to get our guano into one sack and head to The Knight’s clubhouse.

  “They fucking took the Senator’s sixteen-month old daughter,” Kyle fumed down the phone. “We have someone working inside who is feeding us information, but at this moment the ETA of the baby and the destination are unknown.”

  “Fucking hell,” my men watched me as I paced back and forth. The phone was on speaker in the secure office that we’d set up. There were signal jammers and whole host of other shit in it. Overkill to some, but having seen what the bad people of the world were capable of, it was a fucking necessity. “We can be there by tonight.”

  My gut sank at the thought of leaving Piper and Sam, but my parents were moved into their house and when I’d spoken to Dad and Griff they’d both agreed to watch over both of them while I was gone.

  We had no way of knowing if me being part of this would paint a target on their backs. There was no reason for any of the players involved to know anything about my private life, but given my past with Demingo, he’d be fucking stupid not to have a good record of what his own enemies had going on in their lives. Therefore, we weren’t taking any chances at all.

  “Affirmative. We’ll debrief and plan once you get here.” Kai broke off and I heard clicks.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning my new scope. It has an asshole between the hairs,” she bit out. I’d seen Kai pissed before, but this was a new level for her. With her accuracy and skills though, the asshole was grass.

  “I’ll let you know when we leave.” I hit the button to hang up and turned to face the room. “Let’s get to it. I’ll be back soon, I have a son and woman to say goodbye to.”

  I didn’t wait for any answers, there really weren’t any to give. I had to figure out how to explain this to my son and then say go
odbye to both of them when I’d just said hello.

  It was after twenty-one-hundred when we pulled up in front of the gate that surrounded The Knights compound. They had a great security set up. I’d taken in a lot of nifty shit as we drove up to the gates, including what we’d often referred to as an OBFG - one big fucking gun. If you didn’t know what to look for you wouldn’t have seen it, but I hadn’t survived hell being blind. It was well hidden, but would be fucking effective if they were ever ambushed. On that thought, I had to wonder what the fuck The Knights were involved in.

  The gate opening in front of us distracted me and raising my hand to give the guys the signal to proceed, we all drove onto the compound. I was hoping that whatever the fuck we were going into would be over quickly. Sam had been devastated when I’d said that I had to go away for a couple of days. Only the promise that his bike was going to be delivered tomorrow had got him to stop crying. I was going to miss it and that pissed me off because no doubt those old bastards would take the credit for the designs and adjustments that were being made to it.

  Pulling up in front of the clubhouse, I noticed that it wasn’t that different to what we now had. Slowly but surely, the fact that we were now an MC was sinking in. I’d expected to feel like a dick being part of something that honestly, I’d always viewed as a cliché, but instead I felt pride.

  The door opened and out walked Kai in her standard black combat pants and tank with Jagger beside her. Taking in how close they were to each other and the subtle body language it was clear that something was going on there, but I hadn’t come here to read Cosmo and discuss relationships while braiding each other’s hair.

  “Glad you could join us,” she shouted as the engines turned off. “Let’s get this show on the fucking road.”

  This was why I liked Kai so much and why we’d always worked so well together. She was a no nonsense and no bullshit person. You got up, you did the job, you went home.

  As we all gathered in their Church, I looked at Preacher who was sitting across from me with Jagger on one side and Kai’s boss, Duke, on the other. A majority of the faces were strangers and I felt tense about that, but there were some of the other Ghosts who gave a smile and nod. Those guys I knew well and we’d worked well together in the past; they definitely had the best on this job.

  “Senator Menzie’s baby daughter, Perry, was taken today,” Kai walked over to the wall where a map was stuck with highlighted areas on it. “She was out with her nanny en route to a park that she’d played at previously.” She nodded over a guy we knew was called Data. He’d helped us with shit in the past and was fucking awesome at what he did. The picture of a little girl with blonde curls and beautiful hazel eyes looked out at us. She was smiling at something in the photo and looked the definition of a baby beauty competition winner. “Perry is sixteen months old. The nanny is in hospital in a coma due to the methods used to take her and is obviously unable to give us any information on the people responsible.” She looked grim as she faced us again. “They were ready. Any footage from security cameras is impossible to use as they used a signal jammer which distorted the picture. Even using Data’s skills, we haven’t been able to clear it up.”

  “Who the fuck are these people?” One of the guys I didn’t know asked.

  “Assholes is who,” Kai replied without hesitation. “That said, they dropped the ball about an hour outside of where the child was taken from.” A new picture came up on the screen. “Look familiar?”

  The image was of a guy walking into a service station with a grin on his face like he didn’t have a care in the world. I remembered that fucking face. “Fucking Demingo.”

  “Mmmmhmm,” she nodded. The other occupants of the room would have already been briefed on Demingo’s history and involvement with what was going on. “The best news is, because of this we have pictures of the plates of the car…and we know where it’s headed.”

  The picture behind her changed as she nodded to Data. “You have to be kidding me?” Noah said beside me.

  He had stopped at the place where the bodies of the girls had been found years ago, a location that not one of us would ever forget the look and location of.

  “We’re expecting a couple more of your friends,” Duke added as he threaded his fingers together and leaned onto the table slightly. “A few guys from Piersville.”

  A sigh of relief came out of me. I had recently helped Mace and his friends in Piersville with a situation regarding attempts on their lives. It was seeing my former comrades, who I’d considered as damaged as me, settling down and starting their lives over that had given me the final push into coming home to Piper.

  With Mace and the others joining us now, this was going to be a piece of piss. Snorting inwardly at the expression we’d picked up from some of the guys who’d worked with us last year and were part of the British Special Forces, the SAS, I nodded at Duke. There was no doubt he’d have seen the change in me at this news, but it was fucking awesome news. Mace and Coleman and the others were smart and knew what they were doing. With a baby as the victim here, I desperately wanted her found, and back home with her parents.

  “Game on!” Kai grinned walking to sit down as Preacher stood up to brief us on what we were going to do. Fucking game on.

  “You need to stop pacing,” Sasha mumbled as she typed on her screen. This wasn’t unusual for her, she was always the more social one of the two of us.

  “Do you think he’s okay?”

  Sighing, she put her phone beside her on my desk at the bar. “If something had gone wrong in the thirty hours since he’d left, you’d know by now.”

  It might sound cold hearted, but she was a straight shooter and right now I needed to be shot straight, or not shot at all, but I needed to be told the cold hard facts. She was right. Plopping down onto my desk chair, I almost landed on the floor forgetting that I had a new luxury one with wheels that had been delivered that morning. I’d been complaining to Hunter the other day about how the old one didn’t move and was so hard that it was pushing a disc out of place in my spine. Low and behold this arrived this morning. When I realized who had sent it, I’d had to fight tears, but I’d managed it and had let Sam push himself around on it making engine noises until my parents showed up and Mom took him home with her.

  Dad and Ron hadn’t left my side and I’d heard them talking about Delia going around to see Mom and Sam not long after Roy had arrived at the bar. I was betting that at that moment, Sam was being spoilt rotten and most likely eating his way through a bunch of junk.

  “Sorry,” I looked at Sasha with an embarrassed grin. “Wanna go and help me serve some crazy ass drunk people?” I was working the night shift with Dad and a couple others and on those nights Sasha always came in to take in the amusement that was people who had drunk far too much and now had no respect for dignity.

  Grinning back at me she stood up and walked to the door. “I thought you’d never ask!”

  Following her out to the bar, I saw the queue and immediately jumped in. My hand was feeling better and had stopped bleeding, but I still took it easy on it as I poured drinks and spoke to the regulars and the people celebrating whatever it was that they were celebrating.

  After five hours of drunk people and a lot of laughter with Sasha, I went home to try and get some sleep without Hunter beside me. Sam had asked to stay at my parents, so I was alone in the house. Before, I’d have hated the quiet because it gave me time to think, now I hated it because I heard things and because I missed Hunter’s presence beside me.

  Eventually, I fell asleep just as the wind picked up outside and the branches of the tree that I kept meaning to trim back hit the window next to me. The noise was a welcome break to the monotony of the silence and somehow sleep came.

  I was forced awake by the sound of something smashing. It took me a minute to get my bearings, but quickly I remembered that I was all alone in the house so there was no one to knock anything over.

  Rolling out of bed, I re
ached for my cell which I’d put on charge beside my bed like I did every night, but it wasn’t there. Where the fuck was it? Had I knocked it onto the floor?

  I swept my hand across the floor hoping to bump into it, but all I came up with was the charging cord with nothing attached to it. Fuck, I was sure that I’d put it on charge.

  Crawling around to the other side of the bed that was hidden from the door, I curled up into a ball and started replaying what I’d done that night. I’d walked in, thrown my phone on the bed after answering Hunter’s text, I’d gotten changed into a night shirt and shorts and had done my whole nighttime shit as Hunter called it. Then I’d definitely put it on charge because the power save option had flashed up on the screen and I didn’t want it to die overnight. Where was it now?

  The wind was fierce outside and it was hard to hear anything over it and the whacking of the branch off the window. I was about to stick my head up to look around when a hand grabbed my ankle and pulled me painfully across the carpet.