Page 17 of Warrant (The Berserker’s Rage MC: Wyoming Chapter #1)

Warrant

W e hurried into church and sat down. Cypher was on his phone, nodding at whatever the person on the other line was saying.

“Kids have been missing for about ten hours,” Glitch said in a low voice.

“Why did they wait so long to call?” Cynic asked.

“Wait, why are they calling us at all?” I asked. When everyone stared at me, I shook my head and held my hands up in a pacifying gesture. “Not that we wouldn’t help. Of course we will, but like…Austin doesn’t really know us. And Austin is a long way from here. We’ve got some gaps in this story.”

“Right,” Rotor said with a shake of his own head.

His hair flopped into his face. One of these days I was going to sneak into his room and buzz cut that hair.

It was shaved short on the sides, but long on top and got longer the closer it was to his face, like a reverse Mohawk.

I didn’t know how it didn’t drive him nuts. “You aren’t fully caught up.”

“What kids?” Demo asked, looking confused.

Now everyone was staring at him then back at me with disgust. “There wasn’t time,” I muttered. “Couple of the kids from the Austin Viking’s Rampage were kidnapped.”

“Oh shit,” Demo said, eyes widening. “How many bodies do we need to clean up?”

“None yet,” Scythe said. “Their techies found footage of the kidnappers. That’s all we know. Cypher’s talking with their president, Cade, and Lockout now, getting more information.”

“So, the question still stands. Why call us? We heading to Austin for manpower?” I asked.

“I think they’re heading our way,” Torque said. He wasn’t usually in on our meetings since he wasn’t an officer, but the seriousness of the situation meant everyone was present and accounted for.

“To Wyoming?” Jury asked with a frown.

“The fuck would kidnappers take some kids from Austin and bring them to Wyoming for?” Pyre asked.

He hadn’t spoken much over the last few weeks.

It was good to see the fury there in his eyes.

Maybe this would help distract him from his family’s recent loss.

Not that anyone wanted kids to be missing or anything.

It was going to be tough to say anything good about this situation without adding that caveat.

Missing kids was one of the worst things that could happen.

“That’s what Cypher’s trying to figure out,” Scythe said with a shrug.

“If Rat and Ari send over what they have I can run through it, too,” Glitch offered. “See if I spot anything they may have missed. I can pull in Switch if needed, too.”

Switch was a friend of one of the Tucson guys’ old ladies. And now, apparently a friend of Glitch’s as well. No one had met her in person, but she’d helped us out a couple of times and we knew she could be trusted.

“Pretty sure those two are on your level of genius when it comes to tech shit,” I said, remembering Toxic talking about the married duo from Austin and how good they were with computers.

“They are,” Glitch said with a nod. “But they’re too close to this. They know those kids. Love those kids. They might have missed something.”

“Good point,” Scythe replied. “I’ll get Cypher to have them send everything over as soon as he’s done.”

We waited in tense silence while Cypher finished his call.

As soon as he set the phone down he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.

“This is fucked. Riggs is the vice president over there in Austin. He and his old lady, Anna, were inside a store when it happened. Their fifteen-year-old son volunteered to stay in the car and watch his three-year-old sister, who fell asleep. They didn’t want to wake her just to run into the store for something quick. ”

“They were in there for eight minutes and thirty-six seconds.”

We all stared at Glitch as he tapped at his laptop. The thing went everywhere with him. I was pretty sure he wrapped it up in a water tight bag so he could shower with it.

He glanced up, feeling the weight of our stares, and shrugged. “Rat already sent everything over and asked if I could take a look. He had the same thought as me, that he might’ve missed something.”

“Did he send you the video?” Cypher asked.

“Yeah.”

“Put it on the screen,” he ordered, turning on the big screen TV that hung up on the wall.

We all watched in grim silence as four men approached the vehicle in broad daylight, broke out the windows, and took off with Riggs’s SUV with the kids still in the backseat.

“Fuckers,” Scythe growled. “Were they just going for the vehicle?”

“That’s what Cade thought at first,” Cypher said. “But then why not dump the kids somewhere with a bunch of people and take off?”

“Better yet,” I added, “make them get out of the car right then and there. Rewind it, Glitch.” I stood up and went to the screen. “Right there. Play.” I tapped at the boy in the back seat. “He’s yelling, trying to protect his sister. See the way he’s shielding her with his body?”

“She probably woke up screaming and crying to the windows being smashed in,” Torque said, sadness coating his words. He was the youngest of our crew at twenty-four and had a huge, soft heart. “Poor kid.”

“Fucking bastards,” Cynic snarled. “You don’t mess with kids.”

“They came for the kids,” I continued. “Otherwise they would have dragged them out and left them in the parking lot. No one purposefully takes a vehicle with children in it. Too much of a liability. Look, rewind it again. See that guy, the lead guy? He’s looking in the back seat.

He’s confirming that the kids are in there.

He wanted them. So, who would want to take those children? ”

Cypher gave me an appreciative look. “You figured out in a couple minutes what it took them hours to realize. They did go after the kids. Not the vehicle. SUV was just the easiest way to transport them.”

“Why those two?” Scythe asked.

“One,” Cypher said.

“What?” Demo asked.

“They only wanted one of the kids,” I said, catching onto what Cypher was getting at. I stared up at the screen. “Has to be the boy.”

“Why?” Pyre asked. “Why the boy?”

“What would taking a three-year-old get them?” I asked with a shrug.

“What would taking a fifteen-year-old get them?” Pyre countered.

“He involved with any unsavory types?” I asked. “Friends from school?”

“You’re on the right track with basically jack shit for information,” Cypher said, sounding impressed. “I forgot how fucking good you were at your job with the MPs. Sit down.”

Cypher stood up and began pacing as he laid out everything Cade and Lock had told him. “Jared is adopted. Riggs found him living on the streets when the kid was around twelve years old. They took him in. Adopted him. End of story.”

“Not anymore,” I said, staring up at the now frozen screen. The kid looked pissed, even if the video was grainy black and white. “He knows them. Or they told him something. He’s mad,” I pointed out when Scythe raised his brows. “Not scared. Pissed.”

“Rat tracked down his relatives. A mother. And a grandfather,” Cypher said.

“Turns out the grandfather died about a month ago. Jared had lived with him when he was younger. Until the mother turned up one night, took her kid, and hot footed it to Texas with some boyfriend. Or so the CPS reports say. Mother abandoned him at a gas station, a couple days after getting to Austin.”

“Piece of shit,” Torque said in a low voice.

Jury nodded in agreement, his arms crossed over his chest as he quietly listened.

“Grandfather tried to get custody of Jared, but crossing state lines made it harder. They put the kid in foster care while they tried to work through the red tape. Jared took off. Lived on the streets until Riggs found him. It’d been a couple of years by that point and the grandfather had given up on ever finding him.

Not sure why he wasn’t notified when Jared was found, but that’s the story. ”

“So the grandfather paid these guys to get him back,” Demo suggested.

“He died,” Glitch reminded everyone. “Month ago. Heart attack.” He tapped at his keyboard. “Oh shit.”

“What?” we asked as a group.

“Reggie Coldwell.”

“Old Man Coldwell?” Pyre asked, surprised.

“He lived here in Sentinel?” Cynic asked at the same time.

“Fuck,” I said, tapping the table as I thought about it. “I don’t remember Old Man Coldwell having a kid living with him. Mom and Dad might though.”

“We’ve been fucking busy with the club and Sentry Securities the last seven years,” Cypher said, “and before that everyone was in and out on military assignments.”

“And most of us didn’t live here before that,” Jury added.

“So, who would want to kidnap Jared?” Rotor asked.

“Has to be the mother,” I told him, leaning back and crossing my arms over my chest.

Cypher nodded. “That’s what Cade and Lock think, too. Who else is there?”

“No one unless it’s random. But they chose that car for a reason. It’s the mother,” I echoed.

“But why?” Demo asked. “Why take both kids?”

“Odds are they were just supposed to take Jared. Probably didn’t realize the sister was in the car until it was too late.

Or just didn’t give a shit,” I mused. “Brought her along instead of dumping her alone once they realized it. Maybe thought she’d make a good bargaining chip.

Maybe they were just too fucking stupid and panicked.

Or think she’ll make a good ransom. Could be anything. ”

“Why take them at all?” Scythe was the one to ask.

“Not sure,” I glanced over at Cypher and he shrugged.

“They don’t know. Haven’t gotten a call. Nothing. Parents are out of their minds with worry. Anna’s pregnant again and all the stress has put her in the hospital.” He looked around at us. “It’s possible they’re coming up here to Sentinel. To where Christina, the mother, grew up.”

“Rat managed to track where they dumped the SUV,” Glitch said, reading off his laptop. “And the vehicle they stole. They’re definitely heading toward Wyoming. It makes sense that this is where they’d come. Or maybe Cheyenne, to get lost in the city?”

“Lock is sending Butcher, Toxic, and Hush our way,” Cypher said.

“Austin has Riggs, Steel—his brother—Gunner, and Axel coming to back us up. They all wanted to come, but if this is something more than a targeted attack on Jared, then they’re going to need all hands on deck there in Austin.

Lock’s sending more manpower their way to help watch over the women and children.

“That should be more than enough with our numbers,” Scythe said. “We can handle this shit and get those kids back to their parents.”

Cypher looked around at all of us. “This is important on multiple levels, brothers. These are our allies. Their families. Their fucking kids. No one messes with our children and gets away with it. No one.”

“We’ll find them,” Demo said, his face darkening. “And we’ll rip the fuckers who took them apart piece by piece.” He cracked his massive knuckles, the sound like a shotgun blast in the silent room.

“Fuck yeah,” everyone muttered together.

Whoever was stupid enough to go after the Viking’s Rampage had just signed on as an enemy of ours. It wasn’t going to end well for them. We’d make sure of that.