Page 12 of Kingpin (Blackjacks MC #1)

Chapter eight

Hattie

For the rest of the day, I continued to check the street for signs of Blackjacks in the area. But I didn’t see anything.

If Neil had even the slightest reason to believe I might be in danger, there was no way he would leave me unprotected. Even if we’d been divorced for over a decade. Even if I’d made cutting remarks to hurt him.

Just because I couldn’t see any Blackjacks didn’t mean a damn thing. They were still here. Somewhere.

“Looking for someone?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and jerked away from the window. Connie raised her eyebrows with amusement, swaying with a sleepy Emma in her arms.

“No,” I replied, sounding defensive even to my own ears.

“You wouldn’t be hoping that a certain biker might drop by for a visit then?”

I sighed, clearing Wylie’s toy cars off the couch so I could take a seat. At this hour, late in the afternoon, Nathan was home from working at the local factory, tossing a baseball around in the yard with Wylie.

“I was actually thinking about the trial,” I said.

Connie’s amusement evaporated in an instant, dropping her gaze to study Emma’s features.

“You know how I feel about that subject.”

“I’ve been in Brightwater for nearly a week,” I replied. “And I haven’t told the police. I was supposed to inform them when I came back to town, so they could assign an officer to keep an eye on me.”

She fiddled with Emma’s blankets, shaking her head.

“But you’ve been laying low here. Or at the hospital. It’s not like you’ve been parading around town. Do you think it’s necessary to get the police involved?”

Guilt gnawed at my conscience. I didn’t want to put even more worries on Connie’s shoulders. She had enough on her plate with the new baby.

I wasn’t afraid to give my testimony, wasn’t afraid of the threat that this robber’s accomplices—who were still unaccounted for so far—might try to intimidate me into silence. The police had been very clear to make sure I understood what kind of position I was getting myself into.

It was one thing to face this trial on my own. I didn’t need to drag Connie and her family into it by association.

“Maybe it would be better if I got a hotel room until the trial,” I suggested.

Connie frowned.

“Do you…are you not feeling safe? Is that the problem?”

I thought about Vlad, seated on that motorcycle in the shade. How massive he was, like a mountain. The Enforcer patch on his chest.

Neil could have been the one watching me. Instead, he sent his muscle—the biggest, burliest, beast of a man.

I hadn’t been concerned before. Hadn’t even given the trial much thought. But now…

Even though I’d experienced Neil’s over protectiveness throughout the course of our marriage, and the ensuing divorce, he had a very good reason to be.

From the abuse and abandonment of his childhood, to clawing his way into the 1% ranks, Neil had come face to face with the worst that humanity had to offer.

Bottom feeders and shit dwellers, he called them.

If Neil was appointing the toughest member of his crew to watch my back, that meant he was worried.

It’s just a precaution, he’d told me.

Neil had proverbially brought out his biggest gun and set it on the table, declaring to anyone who might be watching that there would be hell to pay if they touched a single hair on my head.

“Whether you’re here or not,” Connie said. “Everyone in Brightwater knows we’re related. If someone wanted to hurt you, it wouldn’t take much effort to figure out they could go through us.”

Nausea clogged the back of my throat. What I hated even more was the fact that my sister had to be the one to point out that fact. If I went to a hotel, it would spread protection resources thin. Staying at Connie’s house was the best option, whether I wanted to admit it or not.

“I guess I’m just eager to put this whole thing behind me and get it over with,” I said with a small smile that I hoped was comforting.

Connie kissed Emma’s forehead.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Another wail emanated from the nursery. I sighed and rolled over, glancing at the clock. 2:39am..

Since sleeping all afternoon, Emma started to fuss sometime around 10pm. She’d been restless ever since. Nathan and Connie were practically dead on their feet with exhaustion, so I volunteered for baby duty.

I tried everything—rocking her in my arms as I paced through the house, singing to her, bottle feeding. Nothing worked for long. She quieted down for twenty minutes or so. Then she would be back to squirming and whimpering, until she worked herself up into crying with the full force of her lungs.

I recognized that oncoming wail now. In less than two minutes, she would be sounding off. I pushed the sheets aside, scrubbing my gritty eyes with my palm. I wasn’t sleeping anyway, my mind too preoccupied with thoughts of Neil.

Shuffling out of the guest room, I made my way down the corridor to the kitchen. Might as well warm up a bottle before—

My heart froze.

Standing in the kitchen was a man, dressed all in black and nearly invisible among the shadows.

Except for the Halloween mask he wore—the same ghoulish, pale-faced mask the thieves wore at that bank robbery.

The side door that led to the backyard was open, but I knew it had been locked when I went to bed. I checked. Twice. Almost three times.

Just as I took a breath to scream for help, the intruder lunged.

He slammed me against the wall, bracing his forearm across my throat. I wheezed for air, black spots dancing across my vision.

“Don’t say a fucking word ,” he hissed in my face.

Hot breath on my skin. Venom seething with every word. Spittle flecking my cheek.

Then the metallic snick of a switchblade sliced through the tension. A flash of gleaming metal caught my eye. The bite of a knife's edge pressed to the thin skin of my throat.

This guy wasn’t here to stop me from testifying. He was here to hurt me. Probably my sister, too.

Anger incinerated my initial shock. And I rammed my knee into his groin.

He doubled over, loosening his grip on me.

“You bitch —” he croaked.

I took advantage of his momentary distraction and darted to the stove. Snatched up one of Connie’s heavy cast iron skillets. There was no way I could get to the knives in time, barricaded by a child-proof lock in a drawer.

I cocked the skillet back, prepared to swing.

A blur of movement flew through the open door. A second man hurtled into the kitchen—no mask, his face exposed, barely visible in the dim half-moon light.

He collided with the first intruder, sending them both sprawling to the floor.

That’s when I glimpsed the cut on the second man’s back and the familiar patches that identified him as a biker. Blackjacks arched across his shoulders in grungy white letters.

The two men struggled for a moment or two. Then the biker managed to get the upper hand, pinning the robber face down with a knee in his back.

Emma let out a piercing, blood-curdling shriek.

Then the light flicked on. I squinted as the kitchen flooded with illumination.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Nathan. Looking utterly horrified and bewildered, with a baseball bat in hand.

The biker’s icy blue gaze flicked to me with an assessing look. As far as the Blackjacks were concerned, I was still Kingpin’s Old Lady and their primary focus. A divorce didn’t hold much weight in the face of club code.

“You all right?” he asked.

I nodded, my tongue seemingly glued to the roof of my mouth. Something seemed familiar about him—the hint of a down-to-earth accent, his lithe cat-like movements, his muscular frame flexing so effortlessly as the intruder struggled beneath him to escape.

“Wait…” I said. “I remember you.”

“Evenin’, Hattie,” he said. “It’s been a few years.”

A glimmer of recognition flashed like a minnow in a shadowy corner of my mind. I latched onto it.

“Gatling,” I replied in disbelief.

He’d been about my age when Neil and I got married—a quiet, solemn man from West Virginia with a cold stare that could turn anyone to stone. He always seemed to linger at the fringes of the Blackjacks, as if he didn’t quite fit among them. Or anyone, for that matter.

While his brothers took up space, loud and proud, cracking jokes, pestering each other, Gatling would slip outside and remove himself from it all. I never really got to know him, and it didn’t help that he barely spoke two words together.

Neil had informed me that Gatling was fresh out of the military when he joined the Blackjacks, with numerous medals of honor to his name that he never wanted to talk about.

And he wasn’t Vlad. Which meant my suspicions had been right. There was more than one biker keeping an eye on me.

“Would someone please explain why there is a wrestling match on my goddamn kitchen floor?” Nathan demanded, exasperated and harried.

I went to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder for comfort.

“It’s okay, Nathan. He’s with Neil.”

“Neil, as in…your ex? The biker?” he replied, with an undeniable edge of stress in his tone. “No offense, Hattie, but that’s not reassuring.”

Emma let out another scream. I winced. This is exactly the kind of problem I did not want to dump on my sister’s family.

“I’ll get this guy out of your hair,” Gatling said, yanking the intruder to his feet. “Call the cops. Let them know about the break-in.”

He disappeared into the night as silently as a ghost, taking the intruder with him.

Nathan let out a tired breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. I moved to the door, pushing it closed. The lock had clearly been jimmied open, completely destroyed in the process. I made a mental note to get it fixed tomorrow before Nathan or Connie noticed.

“Papa?” Wylie mumbled sleepily as he wandered into view, his hair sticking up in every direction like a hedgehog. “What’s all the noise?”

My throat tightened as Nathan scooped Wylie into his arms.

“Nothing, kiddo. Sorry for waking you up. It’s taken care of now, okay?”

Wylie yawned and snuggled into Nathan's neck.