Outlaw MC Bear (13 page)

A
xe
, Cole and Tate arrived at the condo a couple of hours later. Sabrina was relaxing in her bedroom by then. She’d had taken the time to cook up a pasta and meatballs dish for him from scratch—which he appreciated more than he cared to let on. Silas put Tate’s tech skills to work, making him sweep the apartment and her phone for bugs. In the meantime, Axe and Cole helped get the four men out of her place via a service elevator that Godfrey from the front desk arranged. By the time they got through three of the eight rooms, Tate had come up with a handful and crushed every device under his boot. It was no surprise, given who her father was, but Silas hated the idea that someone was watching her and listening to her every move in her own private space.

He also discovered a few more things about her during their inspection. The guys he fought off left her place in a disastrous state, but it was obvious Sabrina liked things neat and orderly. At least if he went by the two rooms that hadn’t been touched. She was also a voracious reader, from the stacks and stacks of romance novels and nonfiction biographies he saw in her study. And he couldn’t help getting a little thrilled to see that the DVD collection in her family room was mostly made up of action and adventure movies. Hopefully she didn’t keep the rom-coms in her bedroom.

“Is everything else okay?” Sabrina called from the back room. She came out into the living room looking classy and chill in her black leggings and a blue striped button down shirt. Still, her fashion sense and movie tastes were not enough to make him forget she’d lied to him about her family connections. She was right that if she had come clean about that back when he met her on the elevator, he would have gladly walked away. His recent intervention in the latest plot to snatch her, along with the fact that her condo was so heavily monitored, meant that whoever was after her would know his club was giving her protection. Giovanni or her father had to have something to do with it. Had she put two and two together yet?

“We’re good here. The place is clean now, but those bastards were listening in on all your phone calls. Tate found a GPS tracker in the lining of your purse too.”

“Good God.”

“There’s also no way to tell if they’ll replace all the hardware after we leave tonight.”

“True…So, are you okay?” She took a hesitant step forward.

“Never better. You’ve got some serious shit going on in your life, and now it’s on the MC’s doorstep, but I can handle it. Let’s go.”

He let that be the end of the discussion and announced they were all returning to the clubhouse. He headed into the hallway with Sabrina in tow. She came along willingly this time. The alternative probably didn’t sit well with her.

This time out, they all took the stairs.

* * *

S
ilas toyed
with an unlit cigarette in the clubhouse meeting room while all his brothers’ eyes were trained on him like a hawk. He had just finished his debrief of the full story, and everyone seemed to have an opinion.

“Yeah, so this is a bit more complicated than I thought…”

“No shit, Pres.” Tate pushed on the edge of the long table with his feet, leaning backward in his chair until the legs rose up in the air. “Is it ever simple when rich broads are in the picture?”

“True.”

“Well, now that we know the lay of the land, just let me know who I have to shoot, maim, or kill and we’ll be golden.”

“So let me get this straight. You want us to take on the entire Italian mafia. That’s almost as dumb as my sticking my fucking nose where it didn’t belong in the first place.”

Cole added, “And your hand…And your dick.”

“Shut it, smartass.” Silas slouched back in his chair, wondering what Sabrina was up to in her guest room at the back of the clubhouse right now. He had no intention of letting her stay in his room, even if his beast protested like a five-year-old after a candy binge. There was distraction, and then there was getting too attached to let go. Keeping her addictive smell on his things twenty-four seven would classify as the latter. It would end up overtaking his senses and consuming him. He didn’t need that right now.

Clearing his throat, he got back to business. “Anyone else have anything to add? Speak now or…you know the damn drill. And I need a few drinks so I can sort through this mess.”

He glanced around the table at Cole, Tate, and Axe. Dean, the prospect, was out there tending bar while the twisted claws pulled their weight by helping to clean out debris from the explosion. There was a lot left to do to make the clubhouse feel home again—if that could happen at all right now.

Tate said he’d be right back and headed to the bar, returning a few minutes later with two bottles of whiskey and an envelope. He passed Silas the envelope and one of the bottles. “Here you go.”

“Thanks. What the fuck’s in the envelope?”

“No idea. Dean said someone dropped this off while we were gone. Apparently we had an interesting visitor.”

“Does our visitor have a name?” Silas’s eyebrows narrowed. He frowned, turning the clean but creased envelope over in his hands. He didn’t recognize the elegant, cursive writing on it.

“Well, it was mostly just a hand, Pres. Some guy drove up in a limo and rolled down his window enough to stick out a meaty paw and drop the envelope out the side. One of the officers was out working on his ride when he noticed it. By the time he snatched up the message, the limo was already rolling out. So no, not enough interaction to grab a who, what, where, when, or why.”

“Fuck,” Silas muttered, shaking his head as he ripped it open.

He read it once, then another time. Yep. They were all royally fucked. Silas rubbed the side of his head with a long exhale. Some days he just wanted to be somewhere else. This was one of those days.

“Well?” Axe leaned forward and held out his hand for the letter.

Silas passed it over without a word. He took a few long swigs of booze, slammed down the bottle, then he leaned back in his seat with steepled fingers. “Shit’s about to go down. We need backup. Cole, start rounding up the other charters. See if anyone’s free and if they can make it here before tomorrow night.”

“Sure thing,” Cole replied without even knowing what was going on.

For a split second, Silas’s chest got tight at the idea that he had such a loyal, badass vice president. He followed orders first and asked questions later. That type of loyalty was hard to come by, and valuable at times like this when improvisation was going to be needed.

“Thanks, bro.”

By now the letter was making the rounds. Tate stared at it as if the piece of paper would explode in his hands. It was an invitation to a meeting with the padrino, Sabrina’s father, in two days. He was out of the country on business but wanted to discuss their mutual interests and threats to future dealings. It was strange at best. The worst case scenario was grim.

“So we’ll get going on this thing, Cole?”

The invite was only for Silas and his VP, but he sure as shit wasn’t leaving anything open-ended. He had no doubt that someone as powerful as the Italian padrino would leave anything to chance when it came to either business dealings or the possible abduction of his daughter. Silas was anticipating the big guns. So it wouldn’t hurt for the Beartooth Brotherhood to bring out some secret reinforcement of their own so if shit went south, they had more guns watching their six.

“Yeah, give me two hours and I’ll have a list. I’ll have Jenny pull up our weapon inventory to see if we have any shipments that haven’t gone out yet that we can use in a pinch.”

“Before you go, let’s talk options.”

“Sure. What are you thinking?”

“First, there’s a chance the padrino had nothing to do with the two kidnapping attempts on Sabrina or on giving the order to the panthers to bomb the clubhouse. If that’s the case, we can show him we’re actually allies against whoever’s behind it…assuming he’ll give us the chance to tell him we were protecting her.”

“Assuming he’ll let us talk at all,” Axe said.

“Agreed. The other possibility is he ordered it all, and this invite is to get us out of the way so he can continue whatever he was up to. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s possible.”

Tate put the letter on the table and leaned forward. “And then there’s the bugs planted at his daughter’s place. If he knew about them, then first, he’s a sick fuck for listening in on his own kin like that, but more important than that is he knows someone went there to grab her, and that you stopped them, Silas.”

That was fucked up. It also meant he heard Silas go all grizzly on the men, and that he did the nasty with Sabrina. “Let’s just hope he had nothing to do with the place being wired.”

Cole rapped on the table with his knuckles. “Whatever goes down, we’ll be ready.” He got up, gave a mock salute and left the room.

“Don’t have to tell that fucker anything twice, do you?” Tate noted.

Now all that was missing was a little more intel. Silas mentally cringed at what he was about to do but knew the call had to be made at some point. It was only a matter of time, and they needed to clear the air without hitting the padrino’s radar. Otherwise tension would make business go south in less than two seconds. He spun his burner phone on the table, rehearsing what he’d say next. Flipping it open, he hit the speed dial and pressed the device to his ear.

“I was wondered when you would call,” Mr. Giovanni began. “It is rather important that we have a conversation, Mr. Corrigan.”

“Yes. That’s why I phoned.”

“You have my fiancé. I’m keen to get her back here with me.”

Interesting. So Giovanni knew. The question was whether he found out on his own or from another source. Maybe he was the one who planted those bugs at Sabrina’s place.

“I’m simply keeping her safe.”

“I don’t play nice when my things are stolen, you understand?”

“We didn’t kidnap her, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Look, this is a misunderstanding—” Silas brought his voice and his tone down a notch. There was no point having a full-scale verbal war.

“I don’t see it that way,” Giovanni blurted out. “Neither does our mutual friend, the padrino. He sees our current predicament as very black and white. You have what’s mine. Your best next move would be to give it back.”

“Hold on a second.”

“It’s late, and I have someplace to be tomorrow. Get her back here before I return in twenty-four hours.”

“I’m not good with demands.”

“Well, you’d better start getting good with mine, Corrigan, or next time I’ll take out every last one of you. Don’t think I can’t pull together the resources to have a few pounds of C-4 strapped to a club member, instead of that minor light show outside your place last night.”

The fucker was admitting it now.

“You son of a bitch!” Silas went off, releasing the rage that channeled through his being until he was shaking with it. “You’re the one who fucked with us?”

“A little tip, Corrigan. Next time, don’t shit where you eat next.” There was a chilly burst of laughter across the line. “You bring my fiancée when and where I tell you to, and I won’t retaliate any further. Just remember that the Beartooth Brotherhood isn’t the only gunrunning charter in the area. You aren’t crucial to my operation. No one is irreplaceable. Do you see where I’m going with this, or would you like me to demonstrate?”

Silas managed to hold onto his temper long enough for the line to go dead.

He flung the cell phone at the wall, watching the pieces shatter across the room.

“I take it he wasn’t offering us a free subscription to Playboy.”

Silas snorted at the poorly timed joke, narrowing his eyes at Tate. He spread both palms out over the worn, scarred table, looking around the place he’d called home since he was five and could maneuver into the big chair at the head of the table. Would he really see his dream—his family—attacked, beaten down and killed over something so stupid as a good piece of ass?

“I need to have a talk to Sabrina. You guys can start prepping everyone.”

“I’ll call the lockdown.” Axe fiddled with his pocket knife and sniffed, leaning forward in his seat. “Any other protocol you want us to observe while you’re otherwise engaged?”

“Yeah, make damn sure my mother stays out of my way. I don’t want to hear her shit right now.”

“I’ve got that covered,” Tate raised his hand and chuckled. “She’s a sucker for my dick.”

Silas’s eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline, but he kept his comments to himself. Cindy was a grown woman. If she wanted to risk having casual sex with a twisted son of a bitch like Tate, that was her own damn choice. He just didn’t want to know about it. Ever. “Don’t mention that again or you and I are gonna have a problem.”

“You got it, boss man.”