Page 59 of Chains

Well, we’re about to find out. I throw my leg over my sled and rev the engine a few times, trying to calm my racing heart. Hang on, little one. I’m coming to get you.

Finally, we’re off towards Bear’s place. I always wondered why he never built a place on club property, since he’s one of the original members, and I’ve never been to the place he has. He always kept mostly to himself, but I thought that’s just how he was. Quiet but loyal. What a joke.

I feel sick to my stomach because I left Zoe in his care. And now, I don’t even know if she’s dead or alive.

The house is on a poorly lit street, and all the neighboring houses seem to be in a similar state of disrepair with peeling paint. It’s a bad part of town, just another blemish against the fucker. Why live like this when he earns good money from the club?

We park a few doors down from his house near a kids' playground crab crawling our bikes against the fence before sliding off. I’m eager to get this over and done with and to get the answers I need from him before I skin him like a pig.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Chains

I let Kick take the lead, even though everything in me tells me I need to get in there and get the sonofabitch. We arrive with a couple of other brothers, Ink, Angel, Riggs and Ky. Kick told Spider to stay behind and look after things at the clubhouse. Ky, Riggs, and Angel went round the back, while Ink, Tiny, Kick and I storm the front.

The whole place is in darkness, except for the tv playing some game show as we entered the living room. I see Bear sitting in a chair, his back to us, as we all withdraw our weapons as one.

“Bear, turn the fuck around and face your club brothers like a man.” Kick roared. But when there was no response, I frowned. Angrily, Kick twisted the swivel chair around to face us. A pair of brown eyes stared back at us blankly, half his face blown away, and brain matter covering everything around him.

“Motherfucker!” I stated. There was no point checking for a pulse. He was dead. On his lap lay the gun he used, still smoking, so he must’ve done it in the last few minutes. Next to him on the coffee table lay a piece of paper with something written on it. Kick picks it up and starts reading.

Whoever finds this letter, I must be long gone by now. I need to say sorry first to my boy Callum (Snake) I know the club will look after you when I’m gone. Next, I want to say sorry to every one of my brothers. I loved you all like you were my blood. But blood trumps everything, and unfortunately, being affiliated with my blood brother, I went down a dark path towards my ruin.

My brother Caleb was the one who brought Jose Ramos into our lives. Caleb and I worked together with Jose in kidnapping young girls and women off the street.

“What the actual fuck?!” I spit out, and Kick gives me a dark look, telling me without words to be quiet. He then continues reading. While I stand there fuming.

I was the one who brought Caleb Thatcher into our lives. You see, Caleb is my blood brother, we were never close because he just wasn’t right in the head. He was a little weird even as a kid. So, when he wanted something, he went out and took it. And he wanted Zoe Cullen, Max’s kid…

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He was a brother long before most of us were here, and to betray us like that was unconscionable. And now that he blew his own fucking brains out, we may never find Zoe.

Angry, unable to listen to more of his shit excuses, I storm out of the house. I pace the porch, which had gaps in the wooden slats and was virtually falling down. Lighting a cigarette to calm my nerves just as the door to the house opens and Angel walks out.

“What are you doing out here?” he demands, taking a cigarette from the packet I offer him, and light his.

“I needed to get out of there. The entire scene was pissing me off.” I tell him.

“I hear ya, brother,” he replies, taking the nicotine deep into his lungs before expelling it through his nostrils in a puff of smoke.

“What’s got you so out of sorts lately?” I ask.

“Nothin, brother. Just have a lot on my mind, personal stuff, ya know.” Which meant, don’t ask and I won’t lie.

I know all my brothers inside out, well, most of them. But it’s Angel that’s the hardest to pin down. He keeps his private life close to his chest. Though he’s a brother, I would trust with my life.

“That letter the fucker left before offing himself pissed everyone off. First Max and now your woman is missing. We need to find where that fucker Caleb is keeping them. I don’t understand why take her father?”

I'm overwhelmed with guilt because none of this would've happened if I hadn't brought Caleb, that asshole, into the club years ago. We were supposed to prospect together, being best friends and all, and hopefully become members together. But his betrayal ruined everything.

The worst mistake I ever made was leaving Zoe and running away to the Marines, leaving Caleb to move in on my girl. I shake my head of the thoughts that keep circling my brain. I was such a stupid kid back then, letting her go. I won’t be making the same mistake twice. She was mine. It might take her a while to get with the program, but I was determined that she would soon know it too,

This waiting around was making me feel out of sorts. I quickly stub out my cigarette on the sole of my boot before returning it back into the packet. I wasn’t leaving it for the cops to find any traces of my DNA around here, and together with Angel, we return inside.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here.” We hear Kick say to the rest of the brothers, rounding the corner just in time to see him ripping the letter he still held into tiny pieces and throwing them on the floor in disgust.

“Light this place up, I don’t want any trace left of this asshole. Tonight, we send his brother to hell. Let them both burn together.” He tells us, and we get to work setting the house alight, before making our way back to our sleds under the cover of darkness.

Returning to the clubhouse, Zoe continues to be my major priority. I need to speak with Knox and to find out if he’d discovered anything new with the video we had of Max, so that I didn’t get on my sled and ride aimlessly searching for her. I know without pinning down an actual location, we would never find her.

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