Page 26

Tusk

W e show up at Gnarly John’s just in time to see him about to close up shop to go fishing. Everyone knows this older man just closes up shop when he wants or needs to. He’s got no one to answer to but himself. I walk in as he’s counting his drawer for the night. He smiles when he sees me.

“What’s up, Wade? You need gas?”

I don’t correct him about my club name being Tusk, ‘cause he’s not gonna remember anyway. “I believe my ex-wife was in here earlier. Do you remember seeing her?”

“Yeah, Gina’s the rudest woman I’ve ever met in my life. How did you stand to stay married to her for so long?”

“Well, she’s definitely an acquired taste. You’d be surprised how many men chase her.”

He snorts a laugh. “I guess some men like their women with a side of spice.”

“Can you tell me about her visit?”

The older man shrugs. “She got gas on her card at the pump for that new car of hers. And then she came in and got a couple of coffees. She paid cash for those, though.”

“Did you happen to see what direction she went?”

He tosses me a mischievous grin. “Why do you wanna know? You planning to start chasing her again?”

I grin back at him. “I might do. She’s pregnant with my kid, after all.”

He snorts another laugh. “No, she ain’t. She’s as skinny around the middle as she ever was.” He holds up two hands and makes a gesture like he’s holding a woman around the waist. “I could’ve fit both my hands around her tiny waist tonight.”

“Direction?” I ask for the second time.

“Due north, straight up the highway.”

“Thanks, old man. Catch you later.”

He waves one hand in my direction and goes back to counting.

When we walk back outside, Tank brings up what we’re all thinking. “I don’t know if I want to go on a wild goose chase tonight.”

Dutch adds, “You said she was pregnant, what’s all that about?”

“I don’t know, but it’s the only lead we’ve got. He was with it enough to know she was in a different car—Silver’s, to be exact. Evan said he waved her out after the alarm. Gina was probably hiding under a coat or something in the back seat when they left the clubhouse. As for Brittany, they hid her in the trunk. I can almost guarantee it.”

Siege gets on his bike. “We might as well give it a try. Got nothin’ to lose.”

We head due north, just like Gnarly John said. Every time the road branches off, one of the brothers splits from the pack to scout it out. After a while, I find myself cruising the interstate all on my own. Even with the stress of trying to find Brittany, riding at night reminds me of all the reasons I love riding the open road.

After about forty-five minutes, my phone buzzes. I pull over and answer it.

Tex’s excited voice fills my ear. “We’ve got your ex. Now, don’t be mad, but I had to rough her up a little to get her into the vehicle. But we’ll be pulling into the clubhouse in about fifteen minutes if you want to meet us there.”

“Hell yeah, of course I do. You gonna text the group chat, or should I?”

“I’ll do it.”

Seconds later, my phone buzzes several times in a row. The first message was Tex’s update about hauling Gina back to the clubhouse. The second was intel from Zen on where Silver lives. The last message was Siege assigning several brothers to go by Silver’s place and bring her to the clubhouse if they could lay their hands on her.

That settles everything from my perspective. I head back towards the clubhouse, along with my club brothers.

***

We roll into the clubhouse just as several brothers come pouring out of Silver’s car, dragging her kicking and screaming behind them.

Rigs speaks up. “Tusk is right about one thing. The only way they could have gotten Brittany out of here was by stuffing her in the trunk.”

Siege grabs a flashlight from his storage compartment. “We’d best have a look. It’ll save a lot of time when we’re interrogating our perps.” He tells Crow, “Pop the trunk. We want to have a look inside.”

Silver promptly loses her mind and tries to grab the key fob from Crow. He’s a big guy, and she falls on her ass trying. Crow hits the button, and when we look inside, I immediately know what she didn’t want us to see. Blood.

I turn to her and say, “You’ve got exactly one chance to tell me what the fuck you’ve done.”

She snaps her mouth shut so fast it would be comical if the woman I love’s life wasn’t hanging in the balance.

Siege grumbles, “Take her to my office.”

As we walk into the clubhouse, Rigs asks Siege, “You want me playing good cop again?”

Siege nods. “Yeah, you do that, brother.”

Of course, I know what this means and decide on the spot to be unhinged cop ‘cause it’s not even a stretch for me at this point. I’ve always said I’d never hit a woman, but when it comes to my old lady and finding out what’s happened to her, I ain’t making no promises to keep my hands off that troublemaking bitch.

Siege, Rigs, and I pile into his office, where Crow is standing over Silver with his arms crossed over his chest. Siege jerks his chin at our club brother, and he ambles away, leaving us to deal with the woman who betrayed our club.

Siege sits down at his desk and stares at her for a long moment. “Do you know what motorcycle clubs do with people who betray the club?”

Her eyes get big, and she nods. “But you wouldn’t hurt me, ‘cause you like me, right?”

I speak up, “No, we fucking well don’t like you. You’ve been nothing but a gigantic pain in the ass since the day you walked in the door.”

Rigs agrees with me. “You started getting temporary bans on your first night with us. What about that screams you’re special enough to get preferential treatment?”

Her face takes on a stubborn expression. “Look, this wasn’t my idea, and I’m not going to take the blame for it.”

Siege jerks his chin at Rigs. “Fuck that shit. Instead of playing good cop and bad cop, I’m just gonna let you be bad cop. Go ahead and take her out to the tool shed and do whatever you have to do to get her to talk. We’ll work on Tusk’s ex.”

Rigs jerks forward in his seat, clearly surprised. “That’s where we take the worst of the worst, and most of them don’t make it out alive. You sure you want me to take a club girl in there?”

“Yeah,” Siege says in a pinched tone. “Brittany could be out there dead or being tortured somewhere. I’m fucking fed up with nobodies who attack our club from the inside thinking they’re too special to answer my fuckin’ questions.”

Silver chuckles. “I know an empty threat when I hear one.”

Rigs curses under his breath, stands, grabs Silver by the arm, and leads her out of the room. I know my mouth is hanging open and my eyes are probably bulging out of my head, but this is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen happen at our club.

When Siege stands, I do as well. I’m honestly freaked the fuck out. “Look, I want my old lady back more than anyone else, but what just went down is one-percent shit, and we ain’t one-percenters.”

Siege’s face lights up with amusement. “Chill, man. We don’t have a torture room like some clubs. She doesn’t know that, though. Rigs is just gonna rattle her cage a bit and see if it loosens her lips up at all.”

Relief surges through my body. “Thank fuck for that.”

My club president asks, “Are you ready to rattle your ex’s cage?”

“More than ready. I want to push her hard and find out what the fuck she did with Brittany. Like you said, they could have done anything to her.”

We head down to the small cell in the basement. Evan and Levi are on guard duty. They are no match for my fuckin’ ex. Siege immediately sends them away, and they scramble off. When we unlock the door, Gina throws herself at us. Whoever thought tying her up was unnecessary can fuck right off. I catch her and literally toss her into the back of the room.

She screams, “The fuck, Wade? Show some respect. I’m carrying your baby.”

I immediately zero in on her belly. I see something hanging out from under her loose shirt. I approach her with a grin, ‘cause I know what this means, Gnarly John was right, she isn’t pregnant.

She starts backing away. “Stay away from me. I don’t want you hurting our baby.”

“Now, don’t be like that, sweetheart. I’ve been meaning to catch up with that little fucker for a while now.”

I reach out and tug her shirt up to find a fucking fake belly. I yank it right off and toss it aside.

Siege does a double take. “What the fuckin’ hell was that?”

I glance over at him. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s an artificial baby bump.”

Turning back to Gina, I say, “Guess that IVF wasn’t successful after all, was it?”

She shoots me a dirty look. “I was going to try again, but you had them destroy your sperm. Really, Wade, was one more child too much to ask?”

I grab her by the shoulder and press her down into the chair Siege placed in the middle of the room. “Yeah, it was. I love my boys, but that doesn’t mean I want more kids with you.”

Siege composes himself and steps forward. “Let’s loop the conversation back around to the issue at hand. What did you do with Brittany?”

She just shrugs. He leans forward and glares at her. “Do you know where Silver is right now?”

“Home in bed if she’s smart,” she says with a smirk.

Siege just frowns at her. “No, she’s out in our tool shed learning what our club does to traitors.”

Gina’s face goes slack. “No. You wouldn’t do that. You’re not that kind of club.”

Siege pulls out his phone, makes a call, and puts it on speakerphone.

Rigs picks up. “I can talk or torture. Decide which one you want because I can’t do both.”

We can hear Silver screaming and crying in the background. “It was not my fault. I didn’t talk to that Harper dude. She made the deal all on her own.”

“Keep up the good work, brother. It seems to be getting us results.”

“You got it, boss.”

Siege disconnects the call and slides his phone back into his pocket. “Want to tell us all the details or join your friend in the utility shed?”

“Look, you two are getting yourselves all worked up over a club whore.”

I slap her face instinctively, no one talks about my woman like that. Siege turns to stare at me, because that move is totally out of character for me. I don’t look at him. Instead, I keep my gaze squarely on Gina and tell her, “Enough. I don’t want to hear your personal opinion on anything at all. I want to know where Brittany is, or I’m gonna take you straight out to the tool shed. Now, talk sense. Right fuckin’ now.”

She must have seen something in my expression because she immediately starts babbling. “I wasn’t trying to hurt Brittany. I just wanted to get rid of her. When you brought me here that time, Silver caught me in the restroom and offered to pass me along information on you if I paid her. I wanted to get back with you, so I gave her a hundred bucks.”

When she stops to catch her breath, Siege keeps the pressure on. “Keep talking. Don’t stop for any reason if you want to avoid Silver’s fate.”

“That Harper guy that Brittany was supposed to marry came to me. He tracked you all when you bought tickets back from Alaska, knew all your names. He figured out that she was with you, and that led him to me. He offered me ten grand if I could give him Brittany and her baby.”

My hand shot out to grasp her neck before I could stop myself. “You mean my daughter?”

She shoves my hand away. “Yeah, only as you can see, I didn’t do what he wanted. I knew you’d never let go of your only daughter.”

“Bullshit. You have no fucking moral compass, you’d have given him both if you could. Wanna tell me how the hell her blood ended up in our meeting room and in the back of Silver’s trunk if all you were supposed to do was trick her into showing up where he could grab her?”

Siege chimes in. “I guess Brittany wasn’t as easy to manipulate as you thought she would be, right?”

Gina loses it right then and there. “Of course she wasn’t. Everything Silver tried, Brittany just ignored. I could feel my chance with you slipping away, so I had to do something quick.”

I’m almost a hundred percent sure I already knew the answer, but I ask anyway, “Where the fuck is Brittany?”

“I turned her over to Harper. He refused to pay us because we didn’t bring the baby. Silver tried to talk him into paying half because we delivered on half the deal, but he didn’t go for it. He told us to bring him the baby or no deal.”

There’s a tornado in my mind, raging out of control. But Siege manages to pick up on what I’m missing. “So, that clearly means you have contact information on Harper, right?”

My ex nods. “Yeah, fat lot of good that does you. Wade isn’t gonna give up his kid to get this guy. He’s one of the last great family men. You have to know that about him if you’re his club brother.”

Siege backs up, his tone becoming less harsh. “I want you to call that asshole and tell him you have the baby.”

She responds, “He’s gonna want to see that baby for himself.”

“Tell him, no dice. He can schedule a meet-up or fuck off. Those are his choices.”

Pulling my thumb towards Siege, I say, “Yeah, exactly what he said.” Reaching over to the table, I pick up her cell phone and hand it to her. “Call him. Now.”

“Yeah, whatever. This whole situation is messed up,” she grouches.

Siege places his massive hand over her phone and pushes it down towards her lap. “You don’t seem to understand the gravity of your situation. I think you need to take a moment to get into the right frame of mind. Because if you fuck this up in any way or aren’t convincing, I’ll personally escort you to that fucking tool shed myself. Got it?”

I watch her swallow hard and nod, clearly too frightened to speak. Her hand trembles when Siege lets go of the phone she’s holding.

“Good. Take several deep breaths and then make the fuckin’ call.”

She does exactly as Siege says, and when he picks up, we can hear both sides of the conversation.

A cold voice answers the call. “Do you have the baby or are you intent upon wasting more of my time?”

Gina’s voice is anxious, but that might work for us in this situation. “Yes, Mr. Harper. I’ve managed to get her away from her father at great personal risk. I need more money.”

My head comes up hard and fast, as anger spikes in my gut. Siege’s hand comes out to rest on my chest, in a gesture for me not to interfere.

If a man can sound both pleased and perturbed, this one does.

“As I’ve told you before, my name is Bishop Harper. I want to see proof that you have the baby that belongs to my Eve.”

“I had to leave her in the care of friends and put some distance between us to avoid suspicion. That’s why I need more money, to pay them for taking care of her.”

“I want the baby delivered to me immediately.”

“What about my extra money?”

“I’ll pay you fifteen grand to cover the extra expenses, but I want the child delivered to me in good health and unmarked. My Eve grieves for her daughter, and I would see them reunited.”

My ex says slyly, “Maybe we can meet up again in a week or two.”

Harper sighs, “Fine. I will reward you with twenty grand if you deliver the child within twenty-four hours. Is that enough incentive to make it worth your time?”

“Absolutely,” my Gina responds in a pleased voice. “Where do you want to meet me? I can come to your church.”

“No. I don’t want you anywhere near my church. I prefer a public place, like the Las Salinas mall after closing hours. Be there at midnight with the baby and come alone.”

Gina laughs darkly, “What? Didn’t you like Silver?”

Harper responds crisply, “You’re both whores, and I can’t say I like either of you.”

She makes an indignant sound, but he cuts her off.

“Be on time and bring the baby. Don’t mess this up for me or you will regret it.”

My ex swallows thickly, “You’re sure going through a lot of trouble for this woman. Are you sure she’s worth it?”

“My Eve is worth five million times the likes of you.”

“If you knew me, you’d think differently, Silas.”

The way she purrs his name is almost sensual. My jaw goes slack with shock. I literally cannot believe my ex is actually flirting with the religious fanatic that abducted my old lady.

Harper responds tightly, “I told you, it’s Bishop Harper. Be present at the appointed hour with my stepdaughter or suffer my wrath.”

The second her screen goes blank, I jerk her phone out of her hand and slap it down onto the table. “What the actual fuck was that?”

Siege interjects, “Were you just flirting with the asshole who’s paying you to abduct a goddamn baby?”

Gina rolls her eyes. “I was just buttering him up. He’s paying me twenty grand, so he’ll expect to be flattered and coddled.”

I lean down until we’re face to face, boxing her in by putting my hands on either side of her chair. “Really? This was just some ploy to soften him up? Because it looked an awful lot like you were trying to cozy up to this bastard because he has money.”

Her expression turns stormy, and she shoves me back. “Jealous? So, what if I am? You don’t want me and he’s got money.”

I stare into her eyes, trying to figure out if she’s being serious or if this is some kind of manipulation to make me want her again.

I feel Siege grab my shoulder and pull me back. “Don’t argue with crazy, man. It’s not worth it to try and unpick this kind of lunacy.”