GAUGE
“Listen, all I’mseeing right now is us sitting around with our dicks in our hands.” Dom slammed his hand on the table. “We need to find her before they do, because I’mtelling you now, any of them touch her and I’mgoing to kill them.”
“Brother, she’ll kill them if any of them touch her,” Ireplied in earnest.
Casa chuckled. “Ain’tthat the fuckin’ truth.”
Casa was currently tapping away on his laptop, his face barely three inches away from the screen. His fingers moved with easy speed across the keyboard, clicking this, tapping that. Couldn’texplain what he was doing, but he said he had an idea, and since we were all out of them…
“Calm down, they're going to ground no matter what. For what they did to Gauge, for the disrespect, and for siding with the wrong people.” Shooter leaned forward in his seat, his thumb and forefinger stroking the long hair of his beard.
“All right, all right,” Casa said suddenly, perking up, “Ithink I’ve got somethin’.”
He turned the screen to face the table, and we all leaned forward trying to make out what we were seeing. It looked like security footage from somewhere downtown, and my eyes roamed the screen trying to make out exactly where it was.
“This is from earlier today. The bar opposite those old apartments that were due for demolition like ten fucking years ago. Look at the top of the building.” Casa pointed to the screen and we leaned in even closer as he rewound the footage.
There was no sound, but we didn’tneed sound to know what we were looking at. Dom sucked in abreath as we watched someone jump from one building to the next, long hair flying out behind them, and even longer legs stretching forward. They landed on the other side, and for several moments we sat in silence, waiting to see if she’dgot up, but the footage was grainy, the angle shitty, and the focus was on the front entrance of the bar so only acorner of the two roofs was caught.
“Find me something else!” Dom yelled, slamming his hand down again. “Did she fucking make it or not?”
“She definitely made it, but watch,” Casa said, sounding apologetic.
From the side she’djust jumped from, agroup of men ran to the ledge and opened fire. Dom covered his mouth with his hand and stood up, finally tearing his eyes away from the screen when the men ran back the way they had come.
“Fuck,” Dom said under his breath as he paced. He looked up, his gaze wild. “Fuck!” he roared, grabbing the small desk in the corner and flipping it over. The contents crashed to the floor and he began pacing again.
Istood up and walked to him, grabbing both of his shoulders and pulling him to astop. “Brother, listen to me. Listen!”
“What do Ido? What do Ifucking do, Gauge? How do Itell my mom that their only daughter is…” He choked, not being able to say the next word.
Igripped the back of his neck, dragging his forehead to mine. “We don’tknow that’show it played out. We don’t. Jolie is the toughest woman I’ve ever met. She’ll be okay.”
Dom was breathing hard and fast, his eyes burning into mine as he nodded. “Yeah, yeah…”
“She will,” Iinsisted. “If anyone could have gotten off that roof, she could. None of us would have even thought to jump across, never mind had the balls to do it. Jesus, she’sfucking nuts, brother!”
Dom let out asudden laugh and Igripped his neck tighter. “Yeah, yeah, she is. Crazy as abox of frogs, that one.” He laughed again. “When we were kids she’dcatch snakes and leave them in our underwear drawer just to scare the shit out of us.” He laughed and the rest of us joined in.
Ireleased Dom and turned to Casa. “Find me something else, right the fuck now.”
Casa nodded. “I’mworking on it. I’mchecking YouTube because you know someone uploaded that shit to the web. Look at all those phones.” He laughed maniacally as we glanced at the paused screen noting how, even as people ducked to get to cover, they had their phones out and were trying to film it. “No sense of self-preservation, fuckin’ idiots.”
“I’mgetting the prospects out to look for her,” Isaid as Istalked to the door. Iopened it and called for Max and the others. “Finding Jolie is their main focus until Isay otherwise.”
Islammed the door closed as Max went to round up the others. When Iturned back around, Inoted Shooter looking at Casa’sscreen with afrown.
“Can you get into any real-time footage?” he asked.
Casa looked up sharply. “Ican, but with the Razorbacks…” He shrugged before blowing out along breath. “I’ll cover my tracks as best Ican, but the chances are they’re going to be watching for shit like this. If I’mcaught, they’ll be coming for me.”
Casa said it in away that said he didn’tmind doing time for it, but deep down, we all knew that anyone going inside right then likely wouldn’tbe coming out anytime soon. It might be amisdemeanor hacking live CCTV, but it would be twisted into amore serious felony. Because one thing was for certain: there was no denying what lengths the Razorbacks would go to to take our club down.
“I’ll cover it if they come for you,” Isaid. “Fuck those little pricks. Just find her. Find Jolie by any means necessary and we’ll sort shit out.”
Casa’sexpression, for once, was serious. “Brother, you know Iwasn’tsaying that. Idon’tmind doin’ the time—”
“Ifuckin’ know you don’t,” Icut in, “but you’ve got awoman and I’mjust me. If it comes to that I’ll take the hit. Now stop discussing this shit with me and get on with it.”
