Unplugged: A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance (21 page)

Jase nodded.
“
I agree. What do you suggest?
”

“I
’
m going to put some feelers out to
some allies around Eagleton. We don’t have a chapter very
close to there, so we are going to need to hire some people to do the work for
us.
”

“You’ve
got an Afghani group up there. We’ve
never met them directly but I know they work for Aamir. Maybe he cou
ld set up contacts.
”
Since the wars in the Middle East, the
MC had found their best gun-running allies in the natives from that region, who
happily sold American weapons back to the States and out of the hands of
insurgents.

Henry said,
“Yep, already on
my list. I’ve
also got a call in to the Broken Pillars and the
Gladiators, to see if they have anything we can use. Once we figure out who
these morons are, we’ll have a nice talk with them, make sure they are settled
to leave Maggie in the
‘
loss
’
column o
f
their dipshit operation, and move on. We’ll work the details of that out once
we have more information on them.
”

“
Sounds like a plan. Let me know how I
can help.
”
I want to get her out of here as fast as
fucking possible.

“
Actually,
”
said Henry, and Jase
’
s blood immediately went cold at his
tone of voice. It was that tone he had heard a million times since the MC had
‘
taken him in
’
, and since Henry Oliver had become his
father figure.
“
I do have a job for you, Jase.
”

“Don’t…”
said Jase. The word fell out
of his mouth before he even realized it was in his brain.

“She
’
s my daughter, Jase. My only child. I
can’t risk anything happening to her, despite our differences,
”
said Henry. He sighed and wrapped his
fingers together on the table. He leaned forward towa
rds
Jase.
“
Maggie needs a detail on her every
minute until I am confident she hasn’t been tailed here. Until we know more
about these guys, I have to assume they
’
re big and bad enough to have followed
her out of town.
”

Jase closed his eyes.
“
Henry, please
…”

“
Beck is not the soldier he used to be.
His eyes are getting worse. I need my best soldier on her, Jase. And you are my
best soldier.
”

“
Fuck that. What about Will? Or Ghost?
”

Henry shook his head.
“
Will is not a better soldier than you. A
better spy,
maybe. And Will is also not going to
intimidate anybody from a distance.
”
Henry made a gesture from Jase
’
s legs to his head, as if to say
you
’
re a giant, kid, you know that!
 “
Ghost is too fresh to the club for me to
let him close to Maggie.
”

Jase pushed t
o
his feet, angry and feeling trapped.
“
Do you really understand what it is you
’
re asking of me?
”

“I
’
m not trying to put you in a world of
pain, son, but my back is against the wall. You
’
re the best man I’ve
got. She
’
s my only child. I
’
m supposed to change
my tactical plans based on the fact that you two fell in
love once?
”
Now Henry stood up to meet his face.
“
If I put your feelings, or hers, ahead
of my battle instincts, then I might lose her for good. Is that what you
’
re asking me to do, Jase?
”

Jase froz
e,
quiet. Of course, rational Jase would never ask Henry to do anything like that.
He trusted Henry with his life. But rational Jase was currently losing the
fight to emotional Jase, and he couldn’t get his pounding heart to slow down at
the thought of hav
ing to spend entire days around the
knife of a woman that had gutted him. He wanted to give Henry the right answer,
the answer he deserved, but it wouldn’t come out. He stared at the floor in
shame and shook his head. It was all he could do.

“
Trust that if
I had another option that worked this well, I would take it,
”
said Henry as he put a big hand on Jase
’
s shoulder. Jase couldn’t return it,
couldn’t look up to meet Henry
’
s eyes. He was in too much pain, and he didn’t want Henry
to see it.

“
I need you to
be
with Maggie and keep an eye on her wherever she goes. Drake is with her right
now, setting her up with a temporary place to stay. I’ll give you the address
and have you go relieve him when you
’
re ready. I’ll check in with you
periodically to get updates
, and let you know how the
intel search is going,
”
said Henry.

Jase swallowed against a tight throat.
“
I can be ready in a half-hour.
”

“
Thank you, son. I have every ounce of
trust in you. I know you will protect my little girl better than anyone else in
t
his MC could.
”

For whatever reason, that pierced Jase
’
s heart as hard as the favor itself had.
There was a whirlwind of emotions flying around Jase
’
s mind as he contemplated why. Shouldn’t
he have every reason in the world to gladly see Maggie get some com
euppance? Where was that hungry bear-heart that had made
him the most trusted young soldier the MC had in five counties? She was just a
woman, and he had had dozens of them. She was just another woman.

But that was a lie, and Jase knew it.

~
FOUR ~

Ma
ggie took
one more wandering tour around the small house Drake had
“
acquired
”
from his realtor friend. It had the same
kind of Nuclear Age charm that the entire town of LeBeau
held. It wasn’t the prettiest property, but it had character. It was
clean, not far from the clubhouse, and the small bedrooms felt more cozy than
confining. The sliding backdoor opened into a modest yard ringed by giant,
leafy trees and a six-foot privac
y fence. Had she
actually been house-hunting, Maggie probably would have put this place in her
top five.

As far as Maggie could tell, Drake
’
s connections with the realtor gave him
and the MC access to rent a place for straight cash as long as they needed
it. Nothing was written down or signed, of course. After
their chat, Drake and the realtor in the fine black suit had gone outside, and
the realtor threw the
“
For Sale
”
sign from the yard into the back of his big shiny Escalade.
Drake came back inside with
the keys for her and the
promise that it was hers and paid for until she decided to move. He carried in
the single box of possessions she had managed to get out of Eagleton before she
fled and put it on the white Formica counter.

“
The old lady who used t
o live here died about four months ago,
”
said Drake, even though she hadn’t
asked.
“
But her kids took their sweet-ass time
getting her shit out of here, so it
’
s only been on the market a few weeks.
”

“
She took care of the place, at least,
”
said Maggie. She
distantly wiped her hand across the sill of the kitchen window.
“
Did they leave a bed?
”

“
A what?
”
said Drake. He plucked away at the
keypad on his phone screen.

“A bed…”
said Maggie.
“
You know, where people sleep and stuff.
”

Drake looked up at her with a s
crunched face. He wandered back to the bedroom without
saying a word, then immediately came back muttering curses under his breath
—
mostly to himself, it sounded like. He
walked right past the kitchen and into the front yard, his phone already up
against hi
s ear and calling someone to solve this new
problem.

Maggie let out a low chuckle at him and
shook her head. He was a weird guy, but at least he
’
d been mostly behaving himself since
they left the clubhouse. That was not to say he hadn’t made her uncomfortable,
though. On the car ride over, Drake didn’t hesitate to ask her why Jase had
thrown her beer at the wall when he walked in.

“
Jase and I
…
go
back,
”
she had said. The anger in his eyes
still simmered in her memory, rooted, refusing to budge.
“
We have history.
”

“
What, did you break his heart or
something?
”

“
Why do you say that?
”
she asked, surprised.

Drake shrugged without moving his
eyesight from the road.
“I
can’t
really think of any other thing that Jase would still be pissed about after all
these years. He’s a fighter, not a grudge-holder. He fixes his problems fast.
You musta done something deep.
I’ve never seen him
like that
—
well, not outside of a legitimate
fist-fight, anyway.
”

Maggie let the conversation fall into
silence. When they pulled up to the house, the realtor was already waiting in
his shiny black SUV, and Maggie was thankful to give t
he
subject a chance to be forgotten entirely.  The rest of the time had been spent
nailing down the details of her rental, and now she waited while Drake tried to
find her an actual place to sleep. The house was adorable, but there was no way
the carpet wa
s soft enough for 40 winks.

“
Alright, alright! I’ll owe you, Joey,
just get this done for me, pronto!
”
Drake ended whatever call he was on as he walked back
through the open front door.
“
Sorry about that, darlin
’
. I’ve
got a guy on the way with a few piec
es. They may not be choice
…
. Fuck, they might not even match
….”

“It
’
s last minute,
”
said Maggie for him with a wave of her
hand.
“
I understand. As long as I have a bed to
sleep on that preferably hasn’t been died in, I’ll be settled.
”

“We’ll
get you set up
.
It
’
s gonna take about an hour or so,
though.
”

Fuck
, thought Maggie. She was over this day,
through and through. She had faced her father, and practically bent at the knee
to him; she had faced Jase and his anger, even if just for a moment. Maggie was
exh
austed, but it wasn’t necessarily just sleep that
would fix her. She really needed some time to step outside of the darkness for
a little while. Since sleep was off the table for the time being, she decided
on a new course of action.

“
I really need a drink
,
”
said Maggie.

Drake leaned on the counter and lit up a
cigarette.
“
There
’
s a Sev just up the street, we could
head over and grab something.
”

“
No, I need to get out. I just feel
…
cooped,
”
said Maggie. She wanted to say
trapped
, but she didn’t want to give this new
guy the wrong impression. She was going to need allies in the MC to survive
this. Drake offered his box of smokes to her and she pulled one out slowly.
“
Is the roadhouse still open? The one
with the neon-pink cowgirl
sign?
”

Drake
’
s silver lighter flipped open in front
of her face.
“
Hot Tamales? Yeah, of course they
’
re open.
”

“
I think I
’
m gonna head over and grab a drink
there.
” 

Maggie took a long first exhale of
smoke. She expected him to be more resistant to her pl
an,
but he was already half on his phone again, texting someone.
“
Okay girl. Well, look, if I head out to
Tamales with you, I will almost certainly lose track of time, and I don’t trust
Joey as far as I can throw him. He won’t wait for us if he gets here a
nd we ain’t here.
”

“
I
don’t mind going on my own.
”
In fact, I prefer it.

“
That
’
s fine,
”
said Drake.
“
I can wait here for Joey. I’ve been
relieved of duty anyhow.
”
He
looked up with a grin.

Before she could ask him what that was
supposed to mean, Drake
’
s phone erupted in the light and sound of an incoming call.
He accepted it and immediately began berating whoever was on the other end as
he walked off out the front door and into the yard.

Maggie figured this was as good a chance
as any. Leaving Drake in
a corner of the yard
hollering into his phone, she climbed in her car and configured her phone GPS
to find Hot Tamales. She was tired, it was dark, and she wasn’t sure she could
find her way even through familiar territory.

Construction on Spruce Avenue s
ent Maggie on a GPS-guided detour through a relatively
quiet neighborhood of the town. Houses sat dark and soft, nestled in the early
night. It was almost peaceful until she heard the sound of a motorcycle a few
cars behind her coming up loud as a lion
’
s r
oar through
her open windows.  It was moving fast by the sounds of it, almost as if she
were a gazelle it was chasing.

Relieved of duty
, she thought to herself, and rolled her
eyes.
That
’
s what Drake had meant. My next
“escort”
has arrived.
She was so over
come with the anxiety of the day that she hadn’t realized how fully her
father would react to her request for help. She was in danger, so of course he
wasn’t going to let her out of sight of the MC.

She pulled up to a stoplight and seethed
to herself. Knowing she had no choice but to accept this provision didn’t do
very much to lessen the weight of it on her shoulders; that feeling of being
treated like a child; of being powerless against the whims of
powerful men. She couldn’t get it to sit right in her
stomach.

When Maggie finally got back on-route to
the roadhouse, she made a promise to herself that she would not take out her
aggression on whoever was unlucky enough to have been given
“
first watch
”
by her father. She had likely never met
him and none of this was his fault. She would swallow the fact that she had a
babysitter for the time being.

Hot Tamales was right where Maggie had
left it, so to speak. The roadhouse had been built as one of the fi
rst structures connecting LeBeau with the nearby town of
Howlett, and had for decades been a popular destination for bikers, truckers,
and other professional nomads and adventurers. The long flat building sprawled
across what had once been a verdant meadow
tucked up
against the foothills. While most of the meadow was now under the building or
the huge gravel parking lot, tufts of wildflowers still bloomed in the spaces
surrounding the dive. The hot pink outline of a sexy cowgirl riding a bull had
been the r
oadhouse
’
s calling card since Maggie could
remember, and the sign buzzed in the dark night as she pulled up and parked her
car. A few other cars were pulling in from the opposite side of the lot, coming
from the direction of Howlett. She heard some of the
cars
behind her pass by with a
whoosh
, continuing down the highway without
pausing. The motorcycle driver was clearly breaking, however, and pulling into
the Tamales lot behind her. She sighed to herself. Part of her had still been
hoping it was a coincide
nce.