as I walk in they descend into silence.
“Boss, what’s happened?” Alex asks, he’s one of the new recruits, I have fifteen of them now. It’s great when we’re at war and everyone knows it. They want to be with the badass who’s offing everyone.
“I had a visit from Aaron this morning at seven o’clock.” A murmur goes around my men as they realize he’s not here. “He’s with Mia right now.” That seems to satisfy them. “He informed me that Martin had shot two people this morning or rather late last night. The details are sketchy, but those two people are in surgery right now.”
“Who Boss?” Liam asks.
I ignore him for now. “David was tasked with the job of finding out who shot them, searching all cameras in the area and finding clues but once again, Martin fucked up. We know that he personally shot both of them.” I nod my head to David in thanks, the man is a fucking monster these days, he’s on the hunt, primed for killing and he doesn’t give a shit who he kills. He’s after blood.
“Tina was shot first, she has lost a lot of blood and we’re not sure about her condition.” My men straighten their backs as they stand taller. As much of a bitch Tina is, she’s my father’s wife and that means she’s family. “The other person to be shot, was my ma. She was found instantly and the ambulance was called. She, too, is in surgery, again, we’re waiting to find out her condition.”
“What can we do, Boss?” Rory steps forward, offering himself up.
“Martin is underground, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out how the fucker has stayed hidden so well, and then I realized something. How many of you remember that fed that was on our case?”
“Johnson?” Jagger asks and I nod. “What about him? He’s gone.”
“My point exactly, that fucker was on me like he had a fucking hard on for me. Then all of a sudden he’s gone, bit of a fucking coincidence that it happened just as this shit happened.”
“No such thing,” David growls, his arms crossing over his chest.
“My point precisely,” I remark, “so I want to know where that fucker is, I want to know what he’s doing. I have a hunch that he’s working for Martin.”
The anger in the room is palpable, the air is sizzling. “Why would he work for him?” Jagger questions.
“I’m not sure, but I have a few ideas. He could have offered me up, giving him everything about my organization along with every crime I committed. Or he could have paid him off. Either way, that shit needs to be stopped.”
“What’s the plan?” David asks, he’s wanting in on the action.
I smile. “There’s only one thing to do, we need answers and there’s only one way to do that. David, Jagger, Alex and Liam. You are going to find Johnson and bring him to me. I want to know why he backed off and why he’s working with Martin.”
The four men collectively take a step forward, they’re all ready for this. “Take him to the old bar?”
I nod. “Yes, try not to kill anyone while you’re getting him.”
Each of the men smirk. “We’ll try our best,” David quips as he walks out of the club.
“I’ll call you when we’ve got him. Let me know if there’s any news on your mom or Tina,” Jagger says walking past me.
I nod and turn back to the other men in the room. “Have any of you found anything out about Martin or where he may be hiding?”
My question is met with silence.
“Anyone have anything to tell me?” I bite out, what the fuck am I paying them for?
Rory steps forward. “Boss, I did find out something.”
“Tell me,” I instruct him.
“Boss, well, Martin told us that his mom died recently.”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes.” I’m wondering where he’s going with this.
“Boss, I did some searching and the man and woman who raised Martin are both still alive so I dug up the grave, I took a sample of DNA and had a friend of mine run it. The woman he claimed to be his mom, wasn’t. In fact, the woman was young. She was in her teens.”
“What the fuck?” I growl. “Who was she and what the fuck happened?”
“Boss, her name was Marline Harrow, she was seventeen and I spoke to her parents. She’s been missing for three years, her parents reported her as missing, they say she ran off with her boyfriend.”