Chapter 23: Ajax
I wanted to kill someone with my bare hands. It was bad enough to come home and find a hole in the damn yard and know it was likely from a grenade or some kind of explosive. Demon was sure it was a grenade. And he’d know, since he had been in the Marines. But to come home and have it upset your woman so much, she vomited and then tried to tell you she should leave. I wanted to get blood on my hands.
We all sat down at the table in church. Frowns and pissed expressions dominated the faces of everyone. Bull cleared his throat and banged on the table with his gavel. We all came to attention.
“Tell us what happened, Demon. Then I want Outlaw to tell us what he’s found on the security tapes.” Both of them nodded then Demon launched into his explanation. I knew he was stressed because Zara had been here. The way he was watching her when we arrived showed he had been scared and pissed that she had been in danger. As for her, she seemed to be taking it in stride. She was at the house with Jocelyn.
“We were all inside the clubhouse, in the common room with the babies, talking and playing darts. Out of nowhere, a loud boom sounded and the place shook. Two of us got the women and kids into the panic room while the others went to investigate. Tate was at the gate. He was fine. He said he’d seen a dark SUV come slowly down the road. He was busy watching it, so he didn’t see who snuck up and lobbed the grenade over the fence. Next thing he knew, it went off and knocked him on his ass.” Murmurs went up around the room. We were all glad he hadn’t been hurt.
Demon continued, “That’s when we found the hole. Maverick and I went outside the fence to check it out. Outlaw went to check the security tapes and Jake stayed inside the clubhouse with Zara and the babies. We didn’t see anyone or find anything other than scuffing in the dirt where someone stood and threw it over the fence. I have no idea what they hoped to accomplish by throwing it over. I mean, if they wanted inside, they should have hit the gate or even the wall. It would have likely made a hole for them to get through. We walked the front perimeter and then went back inside. We electrified the top of the wall and gate and then called you.”
Bull looked over at Outlaw. He had his head partially buried in his laptop, typing away. When he noticed the silence, he looked up.
“Okay, I guess it’s my turn. Check out the screen.” He pointed to the projector screen we had in here. We used it mainly when he wanted to show us something on his computer. It flicked on to show the SUV that had been described. We watched as it slowly went past the front gate. It had barely passed when there was a loud boom.
He changed to another screen. Off to the side you could hardly see the SUV, but it was a camera along the fence where the grenade had been thrown. A figure dressed all in dark clothes with a mask over his face ran up to the wall in a crouch. He stopped and looked around then lobbed it over the wall and took off running. Further down the road, we caught sight of another vehicle. He jumped into it and the car took off. We all looked at each other baffled.
“That’s all I’ve found so far. I’m running everything from an hour before the explosion until afterward. I have to watch each camera’s feed and that’s a dozen of them. I have four done and working on the fifth one. Give me another two hours, maybe three, and I should be through all of them. The two vehicles didn’t have license plates, so I have no way to track them through the DMV.”
I tried to fight down the disappointment. I wanted them caught. We all knew in our hearts it was Jess’s stepfamily. I decided to let them know what she’d said.
“We need to find out who it was and eliminate the threat. Jessica is certain it was her family. I think so too. She’s worried the other women and kids will get hurt. She was telling me she needed to leave before I came in here. I think I talked her down, but she’s torn up. You all saw her vomiting. It was because of this.” They all groaned.
“Shit. We can’t have her wanting to leave. When that shit happens, they get crazy and go. The hormones don’t help either. Make sure to keep an eye on her. We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Rebel said. He should know. His old lady had taken off on him too.
“I will. If we don’t have anything else, I need to go check on her. She laid down to take a nap in my room.”
“No, that’s it for now. We’ll maintain a lockdown. Outlaw will continue to work on the tapes. If you need help, reach out to Smoke. He can be another set of eyes and possibly Everly.” Everly was Smoke’s wife and a world-renowned hacker like him. I hurried out the door ahead of the others.
When I got to my room, the door was partially open. I knew I had closed it when I left. I eased it open to find the bedroom and bathroom empty. Trying to not panic, I ran out to the common room. Seeing my face, the others asked what was wrong. I told them.
“Don’t panic. She’s probably at one of the houses with one of the women. I’ll go check my house. Rebel, you and Ace go to your places. We’ll meet back here in ten minutes. If some of you want, check the rest of the clubhouse and outside in the back,” Bull told us. We all went our separate ways. I searched the inside. She wasn’t in the kitchen. I even went up to the second floor to the apartment we had there. Zilch.
I’d just made it back to the common room when Demon busted through the door with Zara in his arms. She had blood running down her face from a cut on her head. She was telling him to set her down and he was ignoring her. I ran over to them as the others began to filter in.
“What happened?”
“I found her out behind your house. She was out cold. I just grabbed her and came here. She woke up as we were coming through the door,” Demon explained. She slapped away his searching hands.
“I’m fine. Get your mitts off me. Where’s Jessica?” My heart froze. I looked up at the others. All shook their heads, telling me without words they hadn’t found her. I scrambled to ask Zara what she meant.
“Was she with you, Doc?”
“Yeah, I went with her after you went to church. She couldn’t sit still so she asked me if I’d take a walk with her. She was showing me your house while we waited for you. We were in the backyard on the patio and had just come inside to get a drink. Next thing I know, I woke up with this big oaf carrying me and running his hands all over me.”
“I was checking for injuries, you brat. Your head needs to be cleaned and maybe stitched.” He growled as he pressed a clean cloth to it. She frowned.
“If it does, I’ll stitch it myself. No way I’d let you near me with a needle. Now, back to Jessica. Where is she?”
“We don’t know. We’ve been looking for her. How long ago would you say you two were at the house?”
She looked at the clock on the wall. “It was maybe twenty minutes. I remember looking at my phone not long before I was knocked out. I was about to tell her I needed to make a call when it all went blank.”
I jumped up and looked around. I didn’t see Outlaw. As I headed toward the hall, Bull and Rebel came with me. We barged into Outlaw’s room-slash-office without knocking. He was on his computer. He didn’t even look up.
“I have her headed east on 40. She’s traveling quickly, so obviously she’s in a car of some kind. Not sure yet how they got inside the walls, but the video shows they took her out the back way. The back gate had been opened somehow. Don’t worry, Ajax, her tracker is signaling us. We can head that way and call Terror to get his guys coming toward us.”
“You keep tracking her and checking out the video. I’ll call Terror. Ajax, get some of the guys rounded up. We’re going to be heading after them in ten minutes tops,” Bull ordered. I didn’t say a word. I ran out. In under ten minutes, we were on our bikes and headed east. Tate was driving a van so we could bring back anyone we caught and Jessica.