A dull haze of blurriness falls over me. It isn’t until a torturous scream erupts from BB that I realize Slash has his hand pinned to the office desk with a knife.
“You’re gonna want to elaborate, motherfucker.” Hepresses down on the knife and twists it while I remain motionless, almost paralyzed in my own body.
“Ahhh, fuck!” Brian screeches. “Ahh, ease up, man. Ease up.” He slaps the desk with his free hand.
Warrior tips his chin in Slash’s direction, and I watch on from the office door as Slash slowly releases his hold but leaves the knife firmly in place.
“C-Can you…?” BB gestures toward the knife.
Warrior’s eyes darken. “No, elaborate first.” The tone of his voice is threatening, deadly even.
“Okay. Okay.” His chest heaves. “So the sentencing was not too long ago, right?” Warrior nods while I remain rooted to the spot, still dumbfounded this fucker claims to know something about my sister. “Well, I heard some guys in the local bar say she wasn’t dead. That they saw her walking around Jacksonville.” I flinch at the familiar spot. Jacksonville is where our grandmother lived. As kids, we went every summer to spend time with her. It was our safe haven, one of the few memories I treasure, and I know Alisha does too. Every muscle in my body coils. Could this be true? Dread replaces the usual surge of hope inside me. The police found valid evidence that she was no longer alive. The sick bastards she got messed up with are human traffickers, murderers, the lowest sick bastards society offers.
She’s dead. She has to be.
Alisha would never let me suffer the way I have been. Never.
“What bar?” Warrior asks.
“Eleven’s,” he hisses on a grimace.
“Which guys?” Slash asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His fingers twist in the palm of his hand as if he’s itching to play with his knife.
“I don’t know their names.” Brian glances down at his hand, his face deathly pale. “But I could show you?” His eyes implore Warrior’s, and I want to point out how desperate he sounds, but the mention of my sister has a familiar lead resting in my stomach, weighing me down, and my mouth cannot construct words.
My gaze darts to Warrior, and he’s already watching me. A silent conversation passes between us; it could be a trap.
Warrior drops his feet to the floor and leans forward. “You’re going to take me and my brother to the bar.” He gestures toward Slash. “And we ain’t leaving until we speak to them. If you so much as give anyone a heads-up, I’ll let Slash here fuck you up.”
The sheer shock on Brian’s face would be comical if I weren’t feeling so immobile. My heart hammers, and my blood rushes through my body frantically.
Is my sister alive after all?
Cassidy’s face flashes in front of my eyes. She’s lying. She knows something, and I’m going to make sure I find out exactly what that something is.
One way or another, I’ll make her spill her secrets; and, in turn, she’ll pay for her brother’s sins.
Each and every one of them.
KILLA
The clubhouse is alive, and my body vibrates under the hoots and hollers of my fellow brothers’ and the club whores’ antics, but for some reason, I can’t find it in me to join them.
Smoke and the familiar scent of alcohol fill the air, and the wooden walls virtually bounce with the heavy bass of the music booming through the speakers.
This is home.
It might not look much to some people, but to us, it represents family, trust, and unity.
In here, we take care of our own and those we care about.
There’s a nine-foot-tall metal fence that surroundsthe perimeter of our land, and with a prospect on the main gate and another on the roof, we’ve never encountered an issue we couldn’t combat since the two clubs separated.
Behind the clubhouse is a patch of land leading to another gated area which houses the officers’ properties, and despite most of us not using them and opting for crashing in our rooms here in the clubhouse, it’s good to know we have our own place should we ever want it.
Warrior visits his home on the regular. He spends a lot of time fixing it up, making it look pristine as if he has a reason to.
Poor bastard is in denial, for sure.
