“I’m taking her home. I’ll see you all later. I’d appreciate it if you and a few of the others stay until the bakery closes. I don’t want Jessica or Trudie here alone. He may be desperate enough to go after one of them,” I told the others. Ajax immediately piped up that he would stay. With that taken care of, I headed for the SUV I’d driven her in this morning. With her pregnant, I’m not allowing her on my bike. Besides, even if she wasn’t, having her on it would make her a target. He’d shot at her once. Joker, Slash, and Demon surrounded us. Once in the car, I headed to the compound. Joker and Demon followed us. Maybe I needed to talk to Bull about getting more guys here from the Dublin Falls club or the Pagan Souls.
As soon as we got back, I took her to our room. She curled up in the bed and drifted off almost immediately. Once I knew she was sound asleep, I slipped out to the common room. I wanted to catch Tank or Bull when they got back. I sat down at the bar and asked Alex for a beer. I usually didn’t drink this early, but today was one of those days.
About a half hour later, Bull, Payne, and Tank came striding into the clubhouse. They made a beeline to me as soon as they saw me. They all asked for beers as well.
Payne broke the silence. “She’s sleeping, I hope?” I nodded. “Good. We need to talk. Bull called church in an hour. We’ll figure out what to do to make sure both she and the baby aren’t hurt.”
I clasped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, brother. I don’t want to make her a prisoner because that would add stress. She’s vomiting every damn day as it is. I can’t tell how much is from the pregnancy and how much is from stress. We need to talk about Jonah too. This is the second time he’s fucked up.”
“We will,” Bull growled. I could see he was pissed by his furled brow and the heat in his eyes. We sat and finished our beers. Others had already started to stream into the clubhouse. I excused myself to check on Madisen. She was still sleeping soundly. I hated to leave her in case she woke up. There was a soft knock at the door. I opened it to find Jocelyn.
“Bull said you guys are going to church soon, and he told me about the bakery. I’ll sit with her while you guys meet.”
“Thank you, Jocelyn. I’d appreciate it.” She hugged me then took a seat on the couch I had in my room. She turned on her e-reader as I turned and left for church. The others were all meandering in and taking their seats. I could tell by the expressions on their faces, they all had heard what happened at the bakery. No one looked happy.
Bull called us all to order and jumped right in. “You all heard what happened at the bakery earlier. I called in Scarelli to cover our bases though the police have no idea either. Our main concern is protecting Madisen from this madman. He’s sneaky. Despite having guys outside, he still got into the bakery through the back door, which should have been locked.”
I cleared my throat. Bull gestured for me to speak.
“It was locked. That was one thing I ensured as soon as we got to the bakery. She hadn’t gone out of it. Somehow, he either had a key or was let in, but no one was in the back to let him in. That means there is a key floating around.”
“We’ll get a locksmith out there today and get the locks changed on all the doors. You, me, and Madisen will be the only ones with a key unless we decide otherwise. Right now, Tate and Alex are watching the bakery until it closes. Tonight, Outlaw, I want you to place more cameras at the bakery. Whoever it was knew where the cameras were. Outlaw couldn’t catch a good look at him because he kept his face turned away. I want some hidden ones. Hopefully by doing it at night, he won’t be watching to see where you place them. Also, I’m calling in Terror and Wrath. Wrath’s Pagan Souls are closer to us than Agony’s club in Cherokee. I’ll see how many they can spare. Smoke and Everly are deep in the search for a hint of her stepdad. Let’s call him right now. I need another update.”
Bull rang and put it on speaker.
Terror answered, “Hey, Pres, glad you called. What’s up?” It was funny to hear Terror as the president of a sister chapter defer to Bull not only as the charter president but as his father-in-law. He’d surprised all of us when he made Bull’s daughter, Harlow, his old lady then wife. It had been five years and Bull still liked to bust his chops about taking away his daughter.
“Well, I’d say you could give me back my daughter and send me my grandkids, but I’ll have to fight with you about it some other time. That issue I told you about just got worse.” He went on to tell him about the shooting and then the message inside the bakery. When Bull got done, Terror was silent on the other end for a moment.
“Shit, things are getting real. Tell me how many guys you need. Things are quiet here right now, knock on wood. We’ll help you any way you need, you know that.”
“I know, and I appreciate it. I think four is enough. I’ll be talking to Wrath to see if he can send a few. In the meantime, can you get Smoke on the line? I need an update on where he is in finding Madisen’s stepdad. We’re convinced it is either him or someone he’s hired doing this shit.” Terror told him to hold. We waited impatiently for about five minutes then both were back on the line. Bull greeted Smoke then asked him for an update.
“Well, Everly and I have been working on this every day since you reached out. He’s fucking hidden like crazy well. We’re on some websites that you go to if you want to hire someone to take care of your problem for you. You know, in a permanent way. There are a few requesting a hit on a young female. They haven’t given details or said where the young woman is, but we’re watching all of them. We think he’s one of those and working a hitman-for-hire scheme. But in order to do that, he’d need serious money, so Everly worked her magic. She just found out something right before you called. He came into a significant amount of money prior to his release from prison. Who it’s from is buried in shell companies. She’s unraveling those. We hope to get to the person behind it. Once we do, we can work on figuring out what he did or is going to do to earn that money. I have a contact who is vetting the guys he spent the most time with in prison. He seemed to get friendly with a couple of cartel guys. I swear we’re working it as fast as we can, and we’ll let you know immediately when we find something.”
“Thanks, Smoke, and tell Everly the same. We know you’re both working your asses off. If there is anything Outlaw can help with, let him know. We’re concerned with the amount of stress this is causing Madisen. It’s not good for her and the baby,” I tell him and Terror. I heard both draw in a deep breath.
Terror was the one to speak. “Damn, I didn’t realize she was pregnant! Congratulations, man. That was fast. She knocked you on your ass, didn’t she?” He chuckled. He would know. He claimed Harlow within a week of meeting her.
“Yeah, you know it. Had to tie her down. Now, I need to keep them both safe. Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.” We spent a little more time talking before we signed off. Immediately after we did, Bull called Wrath. He was happy to help and said he’d send three and if we needed more to let him know. I knew if we needed more, we could ask the Souls in Cherokee, the Iron Punishers in Virginia and the Ruthless Marauders, our newest affiliates here in Tennessee. I hoped it didn’t come to that.
The last thing on the agenda was to talk about Jonah. Ajax filled everyone in on going to look for him after the writing was found and finding he wasn’t in the back alley where he was supposed to be. When he returned, Ajax said he told him he had to piss and went to find a private spot to do it. I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not. Why not just piss there? No one was ever back there during the work day, unless they were taking out the trash. He wanted to be a biker. We usually had no issue with someone seeing our cocks. He was the one to also open the gate for Madisen when the whole CeeCee incident happened.
“We’ll obviously be questioning him. Depending upon what we find out, I suggest we kick his ass to the curb if he was just negligent. But if he did it, knowing the person intended to harm her, then I say we end his ass. We don’t need that kind of person running around out there,” Payne said. He was the enforcer for the club. Everyone around the table voiced their agreement. I added my agreement too. With this decided, church was ended and we filed out to go to the Cellar. We were going to handle Jonah today. I quickly checked with Jocelyn to see if Madisen was still asleep. She was. Jocelyn told me she was fine to keep sitting with her. I didn’t want to take advantage of her. She was pregnant as well and with twins. Bull checked on her and she assured him she was fine.
We headed to the Cellar which was back in the woods on the compound. It was our special place for holding prisoners or those needing to be questioned. I knew Jonah had to be pissing himself. We were throwing the fear of God into him. When we walked in, he was sitting in one of the cells. He jumped to his feet.
“Listen, Pres. I’m sorry. I know I fucked up. It won’t happen again. I’ll call someone if I need to take a piss,” he rambled. I stepped up to his cell and Payne unlocked it. He shrank back. I grabbed him and pulled him out to the main area and slammed his ass down on the chair sitting over a drain. His eyes got huge seeing the drain. He knew what it was for.
“You could have cost me my woman and child by going off to take a goddamn piss, dumbass! Tell us about the back door. Why was it unlocked? Did someone pay you to unlock it? To turn the other way? Tell me!” I yelled. He was pale and sweating. Payne picked up a knife from the table where we had a variety of tools. He moaned in fear.
“I swear, I didn’t mean any harm. A guy asked me to do it. Said his girl worked in the bakery and he wanted to surprise her with a gift. He had roses in his hand. He paid me a hundred bucks to get lost for ten minutes. I didn’t see any harm in it. I went inside and made sure it was propped open. I had no idea he was after Madisen or going to leave a message.”
I punched him in the face then in the gut. He curled up groaning. “What did he look like? Did he say who his girl was? Give us something here. How could you be so stupid? You knew my woman was in danger!” I was fast losing control. I wanted to rip his head off.
He looked at me in fear. “H-he looked normal. About six-foot, with dark hair, he wore sunglasses. He said his girl was that Jessica chick. He didn’t look crazy or anything.”
Ajax leaped forward and slammed his fist into the side of Jonah’s jaw. “You, son of a bitch. What does normal look like? Or crazy? Did he have any tattoos? A beard, what was he dressed like?”