Page 24 of Warrant (The Berserker’s Rage MC: Wyoming Chapter #1)

Warrant

“ H ow’d it go?” Cypher asked when I pulled up and parked next to the motorcycles in the back.

“Good,” I said as I got out and hid the keys in one of the tire wells.

Everyone was parked out behind Miller’s barn.

It was far enough off the road that no one would see our rides, but not so far we’d have to hoof it for long before we got to the buildings where Glitch suspected this crew might have Jared.

“She took it pretty well.” I nodded at Riggs.

“Thanks for letting me take her on my own. Ainsley would’ve asked too many damn questions if you’d shown up with me. ”

“Wasn’t easy,” Riggs muttered. “She better take good care of my kid.”

“She will. Don’t worry.” I could see the anguish in his eyes.

He just got his daughter back, only to hand her over to a stranger, without even being there to do it?

That had to hurt. A hurt he was about to repay a hundredfold.

But having him show up to drop his daughter off would’ve made Ains even more suspicious.

Riggs sighed, but we all turned and focused on Cypher.

“Alright. We have about a mile walk to get to these outbuildings.” Cypher pointed north.

“Once we’re there, we’ll spread out. First goal is to secure Jared.

Whoever finds him first gets him out of there.

Let us know over the radio that you’ve got him and bring him back to the vehicles.

Take Warrant’s SUV back to the clubhouse and wait there with Glitch. Got it?”

Everyone nodded.

“Good. Second goal-”

“Fuck up everyone you find,” Scythe said with a grim smile.

Cypher shrugged. “Yeah, basically. Leave at least one alive. I’d like to find out why they took these kids so that we know we don’t have to worry about it happening again in the future.”

“Lower down grunts might not know what the plan is,” I said.

“Good point,” Cypher rubbed his beard. He pulled his cell out and hit a number. “Glitch. You have a picture of the fucker who was leaving Christina’s house?” He nodded. “Send it to each of us.”

My phone pinged a minute or so after Cypher hung up and I stared at the photo. It was a bit grainy, but clear enough I could make out the guy in it.

“If you see this guy, keep him alive. He knows the mother, so he’s probably one of the higher ups in this crew if not the leader.”

We kept a lookout as we walked up the road toward a cluster of outbuildings. Miller’s ranch was one of the bigger places in the area and there were outbuildings everywhere. Some hadn’t been used in decades.

The fact that this crew knew to use these buildings as a place they wouldn’t get caught meant someone in this crew knew the area, and the people who lived here.

It wasn’t that surprising, but it was a shock that we hadn’t run into them before.

Either they hadn’t been operating here in Sentinel long, or they’d managed to keep a low profile until now.

As soon as we reached the group of six buildings we split up into smaller groups to go search them. Me, Scythe, and Riggs ended up together circling around the building the farthest to the west.

There was only one way in. Scythe grabbed the door handle, met both my and Riggs’s gaze. When we both nodded he tossed the door open and we both went in with our rifles up and ready. I went left, Riggs went right, and Scythe came in behind us.

As soon as we stepped inside we were met by a hail of gunfire. Cursing, I dove and rolled behind a stack of square bales of hay. Not the best cover, but better than nothing. Riggs and Scythe weren’t so lucky. They were stuck out in the open with no cover.

The fuckwads shooting at us were crouched behind an old tractor that looked like it hadn’t run in twenty years.

“Shit.” I took aim at a foot. It was all I could see.

Squeezing the trigger, I grinned when the guy dropped to the ground howling in pain.

I continued shooting until the dumbass stopped rolling around. One down. Who knew how many to go.

My cover fire had made the others hiding behind the tractor stop long enough for Riggs and Scythe to crouch behind some barrels.

Nothing in this fucking place made for good cover.

The only good thing about it meant these bastards had nowhere to go either.

I met Scythe’s gaze and watched as he motioned to his right, toward the tractor. I shook my head.

Bad fucking plan.

He was already moving before I could do anything. He was drawing their fire so that I could come in behind them. But he was much closer to their location than I was. Which meant I had to fucking hustle before they shot his dumb ass.

Sprinting from behind the hay, I made my way toward the tractor while they were focused on Scythe. Riggs was stuck where he was unless he wanted to catch a stray bullet, but he was laying down suppression fire to keep our targets from having a free shot at Scythe, or from noticing me.

As soon as I stepped around the back of the tractor, the two men left alive swung their pistols my way. Two shots and silence descended on the old shed. I stared down at the four men who were laying there dead. Either Scythe or Riggs must have taken out one of them because I’d only shot three.

“Could’ve left one of them for us,” Scythe grumbled as he walked up.

“Don’t do that again,” I told him in a low tone.

“What? It worked, didn’t it?”

“You could have gotten shot, Scythe,” I snarled, pissed off at him.

“I knew you could handle it.” He smacked me on the back so hard I nearly pitched forward into the tractor.

“What are we doing with the bodies?” Riggs asked, meeting up with us in the middle of the room.

This thing was an old storage shed, but it was big. Not the size of the huge barns you usually found on old ranches like this, but a damn good size.

“We’ll take care of them after-”

Scythe broke off as the door swung open. All of us swung our weapons that way, but it was too damn late. Three more men came through the door.

Riggs landed a shot that brought down one of them right there in the doorway as we all broke into a run and scattered to make ourselves harder to hit.

My steps faltered as I recognized the man on the right. There was the same recognition in Forge’s eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.

“Told you we were looking for the kid,” I told him, my eyes straying to the man on his left who was about to take a shot in Riggs’s direction.

Forge sighed, held up his pistol and pulled the trigger. Silence again as his ‘friend’ dropped to the ground. Blood poured from his head where the bullet had entered. “Wasn’t staying here much longer anyway,” Forge said with a shrug when I arched a brow at him.

“Where the fuck is my son at?” Riggs bellowed, rushing toward Forge.

The man watched Riggs—pissed as fuck—come toward him and snorted. “You weren’t kidding. He is a big fucker.”

I stepped in front of Riggs and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “This is the guy who helped Aella. Kept her safe.”

Riggs paused, then scowled at Forge. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“Signed up for this gig to make some money,” Forge said. “No one said anything about kidnapping kids. And certainly nothing about…” He let that last part hang, allowing Riggs’s imagination to fill in the blank. “Couldn’t let that happen.”

“What did you think you were doing?” Scythe asked as he walked up.

“Something to do with drugs. I’m good with moving drugs. Once they brought those kids in, I was going to fucking leave.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked.

He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair as he holstered up his weapon. We all slung our rifles over our bodies so they pointed down at the floor. “Was on my way out, late at night. Didn’t think anyone else was awake but…” He paused and eyed Riggs.

“But what,” Riggs insisted, fist clenching.

“One of the fuckers was creeping around. Going toward the room your daughter was in. He didn’t have the best reputation when it came to women,” he said. “I doubted he could be trusted around a kid either. So I killed him, buried him out back, and stuck around so no one else tried anything.”

“Why are you leaving now?” I asked.

“They found the guy I killed just after we left to come here. They know it was me. This asshole,” he pointed to the man he’d killed, “was supposed to bring me back to base.”

“What were you all doing here?” Scythe asked.

“Just because they kidnapped these kids doesn’t mean this crew isn’t still fucking around with drugs,” he said with a smirk. “We were here to get a shipment.”

“Is Jared at your base?” Riggs asked, getting back to more important matters.

“Yeah.”

“You going to tell us where it is?” he growled.

“I haven’t been there. No one except the boss and a couple of the higher up guys in the crew knows where it’s at.

Everyone else stays at the place they had the kids the first couple nights.

I convinced them to sell off the girl and that I’d watch her at the warehouse until the buyers came.

That was supposed to happen yesterday. I told them they took her. ”

“And they didn’t kick up a fuss when they left without her?” I asked. Riggs looked like he wanted to murder everything in sight. I couldn’t blame him. That was his daughter we were talking about.

“Didn’t get the chance before I killed them, too.” He wore no expression on his face. Murder didn’t bother him. But he had a code of ethics because this was a lot of trouble to go through for kids he didn’t know.

“Thanks,” Riggs said, his voice rough with emotion.

Forge shrugged. “No one ever said anything about kids,” he echoed. His gaze bounced between the three of us and he let out a heavy sigh. “I may have done some digging. Narrowed down base to two different spots.”

That caught our attention. “You willing to share?”

“Yeah, what the hell? Not like I’m going back to work for them. And they were going to kill me. All for a piece of shit like Kenneth. They like to use outbuildings like this. There’s one out off Crasen’s Creek-”

“Hagen’s place,” I said with a nod. “I know it.”

“That’s my best guess,” he said. “But the other could be it, too. Other end of town. Big blue monstrosity of a barn.”

“We know that place, too,” Scythe replied.

Some commercial company had bought it from the owner years ago, then decided haying and cattle wasn’t their thing and pretty much abandoned it. Not before they’d painted that barn blue and stamped their logo on it.

Forge crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s all I got. I hope you find your kid,” he said, looking over at Riggs.

“Thanks. We will.”

“Am I free to go?”

Nothing seemed to shake this guy. I fucking liked him for some strange reason. No, I knew why. He reminded me a bit of Scythe.

I looked over at my VP. If I was senior here I would let Forge go, but with Scythe present it was up to him.

“Go,” Scythe growled. “Don’t let us find you working with these fuckers again.”

“I’m heading back to Cheyenne,” Forge said as he backed toward the door. “You won’t see me again.” He stepped out the door and disappeared around the building. Despite his claim something told me he’d be back through Sentinel.

Scythe keyed the radio mic clipped to his cut. “Kid’s not here, but we have intel on his whereabouts."

As soon as he let go of the button Cypher was responding. “Everyone meet outside.”

There was no more gunfire, so if the others had run into any trouble they’d taken care of it the same way we had. We met with everyone outside and Scythe relayed to the group what had happened.

“Demo, Jury, and Pyre. Stay here and clean up the bodies,” Cypher ordered. “The rest of us will head back to the clubhouse and make a plan for hitting these spots.”

“I can stay and help them,” an accented voice said from my left.

Turning my head, I frowned at Axel. “When the fuck did you get here?”

Axel scowled at me. “I’ve been here the whole time…”

“The fuck you have,” I muttered. “I didn’t even see you.”

Axel rolled his eyes, then ignored me and focused on Cypher again. “I’m good at making bodies disappear.”

Cypher grinned. “Appreciate the help.”

We left the four of them and jogged our way back to our bikes.

It wasn’t likely we were going to hit either of these places tonight.

Cypher hated going in without a plan. We’d take tonight to make sure every move made sense and we’d hit them, simultaneously, tomorrow night.

I was sure of it. I knew Cypher and his habits well.

My mind drifted to Ainsley and I hoped she wouldn’t be too pissed at me for having to babysit for a couple of days instead of a few hours. Either way, I knew Aella was safe with her.

We wouldn’t go pick her up and bring her back to the clubhouse for two reasons.

One, Ainsley would probably refuse to watch her a second time.

She’d only agreed the first time because of guilt and the fact that I’d dropped the girl on her last second.

She hadn’t had time to tell me to go fuck myself.

And two, it would be too chaotic for Aella.

Better to leave her with Ainsley, where she was safe, and then pick her up when everything was done and over with.