Watcher

by MariaLisa deMora

  “Yet.” Opie breathed the word. “You know, we need intel. Cannot plan an op without knowing what we’re up against. So you’re gonna do exactly what you gotta do. Hold, brother. Don’t do anything yet. We have to know more before we cut the lines. Get the girls out of the house, get Juanita out of the house, but hold.”

  Rigid with anger Watcher sucked in a lungful of air, then another. Pausing on the exhale until he was sure he could speak without raging at a man who had no wrong in this, Watcher finally released the breath and asked the only thing that would let him walk out of this meeting without losing his mind. “How long before we know?”

  “Fast as I can make it happen. My patch, brother. As fast as I can make it happen.”

  He had to come up with a reason to get them out of the house tonight. What would be believable to Juanita? Trust came hard, and with what he’d come back from in Utah, Watcher couldn’t see sending them north. Where’s the last place anyone would look for my family?

  “College starts in a month. Juanita and I were talking last week, our girls need a vacation. I might be crazy, Opie, but San Diego seems right.” Watcher nodded slowly, growing convinced with each thought flickering through his head. “Sun and surf, beaches and boys. Girls will love it. Juanita will enjoy the time away, too. Leave me here at the house. Won’t seem like it’s odd, either, with the semester starting so soon. San Diego.”

  Opie shook his head, “Not followin’, boss.”

  “Cain’t send ‘em to Mexico. Raul’s got his hands busy right now. Columbians are itchy for more, and he’s dealing with them routing through his territory whether he gives way or not. Means Mexico’s out.” He pointed to a square patch high on Opie’s shoulder, the RW in stark white stitched on black. “We support the Rebels. Made it official a while back when we took on their support patch. Don’t mean they’re our only ally. Much as I love Mason like a brother, the man’s shit is thick up north. He can’t turn one way or another without running into enemies. Look at what happened in Memphis. Jesus, man, they fuckin’ dismantled the town, tore it wide open and had to pour blood and men into the breach so it didn’t fuckin’ spread.”

  The Rebels had, too. They’d taken on Columbia cartel in a big way. So much death, the rumor was every highway construction site had unexpected filler added to the deep base of bridges and roads. Killed the drug dealer Ling, ran the Diamante chapter out of town, then pulled in a dozen clubs to talk about what would happen in Memphis in the long term. Solidified their position as dominant in the area by taking over and holding tight, forcing everyone to their path. “Rumor and speculation, but I trust there’s more than a grain of truth.”

  He waited for Opie to argue, and when he didn’t, Watcher continued, more convinced than ever he was right. “Then right there in Chicago, we got Bones. That man is on the cusp of rolling Skeptics into the Rebels, and I can’t blame him. Strengthens both of them in a way which makes the world take notice. It’s gonna back some of the shit off their doorstep, but until it happens and is recognized, north can’t be an option.” Watcher shook his head. “Florida, I ain’t got but a couple of names. I got folks in my pocket in Alabama, but not sure I wanna stir that pot. Retro got sucked into some shit with the Rebels, he’s been on federal radar ever since. Sending my girls to him isn’t a good option.”

  “So what’s in San Diego?” Opie looked puzzled, and he should be. This wouldn’t be anything any outlaw club member would expect.

  “Blue Line and the Malcontents.”

  “Fuckin’ LE? Are you kidding me?” Opie’s response was immediate and exactly what Watcher expected, and he smiled humorlessly.

  “Not kidding, brother. Give it a minute, and you’ll see the reasoning. LE isn’t just off radar for most clubs, they are off the planet. No one scopes and watches what they’re doing or who is coming and going.” He shook his head. “Unless they’re pulling dumb fuck shit like a couple of the cop clubs. Blue Line, though, he’s different.” The fact he was Bear’s brother-in-law was a secret for now, but it was another of the reasons Watcher felt the man might be trusted with his girls.

  “Malcontents stick to their own shit. They don’t fuck with other clubs. They even manage somehow to stay out of the way of the dominant on the west coast, and you and I both know how fuckin’ hard it is to run under radar side-by-side with a club that big. Malcontents can keep them safe. Juanita would—” He swallowed, hating to expose her fears, even to someone who loved her without reserve, like Opie did. “Juanita wouldn’t be comfortable going anywhere without me unless I can tell her she’ll be safe. I think I can make that promise in good faith if they go to Diego.”

  “Then San Diego it is. We’ll sort through this fast, boss. Myron’s on it, and he’s good.” Opie reached behind him, pulling the door open and letting the heat of the day roll through the tiny building. “We’ll have the girls home before you know it.”

  “And we’ll deal with the motherfuckers who put eyes in our clubhouse, on my property, in my little girls’ rooms. Do a little forty-five persuading.” Watcher reached up, tugging the string, plunging the corners of the building into darkness. “Take care of family.”

  ***

  Staggered from what he had just learned, Watcher stood, rubbing the top of his head. He saw the man who had just released him from a headlock familiarly greet Duck.

  Gabe Ledbetter, his cousin. The last time Watcher had laid eyes on him was Tabby’s funeral. Son of a bitch.

  They were standing in the back of a bar the Soldiers had purchased a year ago in Lamesa, Texas. Watcher had approved a charter here before that, letting the half a dozen men run the club out of a garage until they had an official building in town. Now the clubhouse was housed in the backroom of the bar, extended downward recently as they hand dug a basement room. Soundproofed and well-stocked, it had many uses. Right this minute it held a dozen women and children they’d rescued from a slave farm five nights ago, the activity which had brought him to town in order to organize their escorts to host families.

  Duck pulled Gabe close, muttering softly into his ear and Gabe turned amused eyes Watcher’s direction. “Watch…Michael,” Gabe yelled through his laughter. “You keepin’ secrets, cuz?”

  Watcher expected to see Gabe at Aunt Loretta’s services, but the man had been a no-show, pissing Ezra off. He’d heard through the grapevine Gabe had joined a club, but that was years ago, somewhere down in the Carolinas. His redheaded cousin had fallen off the grid for him, especially when Watcher followed Darrie’s move to New Mexico and his focus turned out here.

  In the club world, there’d been talk of a man named Fury for months, popping up in conversations with a dozen different clubs, but most persistently when Watcher spoke to Mason. The man had played a part in Memphis, as well as played a role in the club absorption process in Chicago. Played a part of what Gunny and Duck had found in Cynthiana with the Outriders, taking over the territory fistful-by-fistful until Shooter had to pull back. That happening even before Shooter wound up in prison for his part in kidnapping his own daughter. Fuck, Fury even played a role in his own dismantling of the rival club here. But that Fury? He had been a Diamante, one of the enemy until he’d proven himself, moving his chapter to Fort Wayne and then burning his charter, rolling every one of his men into the Rebel Wayfarers chapter there.

  Unreal that Fury was his cousin. Gabriel, one of Loretta and Ezra’s boys. Watcher had memories of the redheaded kid he’d fished with, stories told by Tabby of how Gabe had stuck up for her against shitheels at school. Gabe had been born in Louisiana where their mothers were from, raised in Kentucky. Stick thin, hair in a short buzz cut leaving the barest crimson halo around his skull as they waded up the creek, turning over logs and rocks to find mudbugs. That was the Gabe Watcher remembered. Not this muscled, bearded man wearing a Rebel Wayfarers patch on his vest.

  Duck was here in Lamesa because he’d been born here, and still owned land and a business in the area. Watcher had run into him four days ago, shock
ed to see the man. Not in the territory, because that had been asked and answered via a phone call from Mason before Duck left Chicago months ago. No, Watcher had been shocked to see Duck without a vest on. It had felt like a hard kick to the chest. To Watcher, it seemed to telegraph that the Rebels didn’t trust him, or his men. Duck running anonymous in his own hometown because he didn’t believe the word of the Southern Soldiers’ president that he’d be safe.

  Pissed as hell, Watcher had called Mason, ready to rip the support patch off his own shoulder. With everything going on, Juanita and the girls finally getting home after three weeks in California, Watcher then having to be away from his family and home on move-in day at the dorms, he’d been pissed as a wet hen, and scarcely a breath away from calling war. Too much shit, he thought now, gesturing to the bar for beers. Mason had put the kibosh on his anger, calling him out on his mistakes, reminding him neither of them were mind readers.

  Settling into a seat, he listened as Fury and Duck brought him up to speed on everything that had been going on in the Rebel world. Sitting quietly, keeping his own counsel, he let them talk on, switching the narration back and forth between them until they’d run out of stories and news. After a few moments of silence, Watcher was somehow not surprised when Fury tipped his head to the side and said, “Heard Myron helped out with some info a few weeks ago. Everything shake out okay from that?”

  Watcher sat for a moment, because it had, but it hadn’t. “Had someone put up cameras at my place.” Duck’s eyes sharpened, and Watcher was reminded of his intelligence. This man, nearly as well as Slate, could look at a problem and see fifteen ways to solve it. Mason’s got a stable of keepers, he thought. Spider. Devil. Opie. Diamond. So do I.

  “FBI?” Fury asked the question, and Watcher shook his head.

  “Not fed. They were my first thought, too. Then, we traced the signal back to a truck parked about three miles away. Had some equipment in the bed, about half of it tarped, half open in the elements. When we found it, based on what we saw it seemed a remote set-up. Isolated from everything. It looked like there were about two weeks of data stored, so Myron figured whoever had put it into play only came in every so often to gather what had been captured on the cams. He didn’t see any way to remote into the system. Meant they’d be back, so we staked it out. No one approached. But”—he shook his head, because this was maddening in so many ways—“about two weeks into our stakeout, it took a burst of power from something. Zapped the entire rig. Fried everything.” Lifting his beer, he took a long drink, his throat tight with remembered anger.

  “When we realized it was useless, we went to move it.” The hospital visit slid through his mind, men covered in blood and sand, looking exactly like he never wanted to see his brothers. “Fuckin’ IED under the wheel. Blew a crater and sprayed my guys with shrapnel. Afterwards, we found a battery under there with a sensor. That’s what had fried the rig, it was hooked to the frame. Whoever did it was able to kill the system remotely by opening a connection. Set a trap.” He took another drink, scanning the room with his gaze.

  “Found a room…a cell buried under the truck. Two women. Devil figured they’d been dead about four days.” Eyes back to Fury and Duck, he scoured them looking for any sign of contempt. “We sat on our asses for two weeks while they starved to death. Sat there eating chips and drinking beer, watching a fucking truck in the middle of the desert while two women starved to death in a metal fucking box under the truck. A truck filled with videos of my house, and my wife and daughters.”

  Watcher pushed his chair back and stood, “So no, I don’t consider that shaking out okay.” Two steps away, he paused. Without turning around, he huffed out a breath and said, “Back in a minute, just need…some air.” As he walked out the door, stiff-arming it open, a buzzing swell of animated conversation came from behind him. Fury and Duck dissecting his tale, trying to figure a way to help him.

  Brothers. Family. Standing in the heat outside, he leaned his shoulders against the wall. Two men had been injured when the can of bolts exploded, one blinded, forever losing sight in an eye, something no amount of money could make better. Because I was so focused on finding out who was watching my girls, I forgot to pay attention to anything else. On me. That’s on me. Club. Honor.

  A few minutes later the door opened, and Fury stepped out, moving to stand beside Watcher. “Had no idea, Mike.” Watcher grunted in response. “We got some thoughts on it but have questions first. You up to comin’ back inside?” In answer, Watcher pushed away from the side of the building. Fury turned and opened the door, holding it so Watcher could enter first. As he walked past, Fury lifted a hand to grip the side of his neck, squeezing tight for a moment, muttering a word that shocked Watcher. “Prez.”

  ***

  Leaning against the motel headboard, Watcher grinned as he listened to Juanita verbally reenacting the day. She and the girls had moved Bella into her apartment with the help of Spider’s two sons. Not a dorm as he’d thought, but a suite of rooms where she’d have more space. “And then the boys dropped her suitcase. Watcher”—Juanita was laughing so hard he could barely make out the words—“it busted open, and they were working to scoop up the clothes. Then”—laughing harder, she was taking in great whooping breaths between each word—“they realized they were holding her panties.” Now he was laughing alongside them, this picture in his head in a way he both liked and didn’t like because he didn’t want to think about Spider’s boys with their hands on his Bella’s panties.

  Mela was in the background, howling with laughter as she shouted, “Hot potato, Papa. They were throwing her thongs”—I did not need to know that—“back and forth, like a game of hot potato. Throwing them towards the suitcase, missing, having to pick them up again. Then Bella came out of her room—” At this point Mela lost it completely, laughing so hard she couldn’t continue.

  Juanita picked the story back up, “—and screeched, ‘Put down my underwear!’ It was hilarious, Papi.”

  “Wish I’d been there to see it,” he told them, and Mela laughed even harder.

  “Oh, no. No, Papa. No, you don’t. You’d have shot them.” Mela’s voice was muted like she was moving away from the phone and he recognized the ending tones of the doorbell in the background.

  Juanita, still giggling, her voice soft but threaded through with her love for him, said, “Wish you were here, too, Papi.”

  He thought about the women moved from the bar’s basement room today, put on transports taking them to host families. Some of them had babes at the breast, two of them with older children, and Watcher said another prayer that God would watch over those babies, keeping them safe and blanking their minds of what they had seen. Like you helped with my Juanita and Mela, God.

  “Box for you, Papa,” Mela called, and he smiled to hear how light her voice sounded. She would start classes the same day as Bella, but had opted to continue living at home. Her safe place in the world. Let those children find a safe harbor too, God, he finished. Amen.

  “Put it out by the barn door, one of the boys will take it in for me.” Noise in the background and he waited a moment, knowing it was her leaving the room. “Juanita?”

  “Yes, Papi?” I never get tired of her voice. The sound quality changed and her voice could have come from right beside him when she murmured, “What is it?” Took me off speaker, wants a different kind of fun now.

  “Love you, mamacita.” He smiled and then reached down, adjusting his jeans around his thickening cock. Simply the sound of her voice could do that to him. “I’ll be home tomorrow. Be good.”

  “And if I’m bad?” Jesus. Killin’ me.

  “Then you’ll earn what you get when I get home, won’t you?” She giggled again, sounding nearly as young as their girls when she was playful. “My Mama gonna be bad?”

  “Only for you, Papi.” Fingers to the waistband of his jeans, he opened and pushed them down, taking his cock in hand. When he groaned, she asked, her voice breathy, “What are
you doing, Papi? Do you need me to go?”

  “What do you think, honey? You gonna talk to me like that and I’m this far away? Oh no, not a chance in hell you’re leaving me high and dry, honey. Thinkin’ of makin’ me hafta take care of business by myself?” The sound of her breathing sped up, and she whimpered. “Leave me with only dreams of you, baby? Burying myself in you? Oh, no, Mama. Least you can do is listen.”

  Their call didn’t end for another thirty minutes, during which he directed his wife go to their bedroom and lock the door. Then he talked to her, listening as she took herself over the edge of a much smaller mountain than they found when together.

  ***

  “How’d you…?” Watcher paused, because this wasn’t a question he’d ask anyone else, but this was Gabe, so he forged ahead. Even as he did so, he was careful to set the stage as to where the inquiry was coming from. “How’d you wind up where you are, man?”

  “Might as well ask how the grass grows, brother.” Fury lifted his coffee cup and blew across the steaming liquid, then sipped.

  Watcher and Fury were seated along the short edge of the bar, the cleaning crew moving around them to finish their job. Watcher was hoping to be on the road by noon, make it home by dinnertime so he could take Juanita and his girls and Bella’s apartment-mate out for a meal. Make up a little bit for missing move-in day, even if it had sounded like they’d managed fine without him. With that in mind, he’d asked Fury to meet him early, knowing they’d have some privacy. The Soldiers members in Lamesa were all staying at a local motel until he could find a decent house to buy. The motel was cheap digs for now, and cheaper yet because his men had run the meth heads out for the owner, so she was cutting him a deal on their rent.

  “Gotta be a story in there.” Leaning his elbows against the curve of the bar, Watcher dangled his hot mug from the fingertips of one hand, reaching for a stirring straw with the other. Twisting his neck, he called, “Crema, Lizetta. Leche para mi café, por favor.”