Page 48 of The Sentinels

"Wouldn't have found them, brother," Charlie said, a few steps behind us. "Saw Maniac and a few of his men toss them in the back of a van and peel out of there a few minutes before you brothers showed up."

I stopped and spun around to face him. "You see anyone who didn't belong there?" I snarled. "Because someone sure as fuck got word to Maniac that we had brothers inside."

"Thought the same fucking thing, man," Rod spoke up, "when I saw our three being tossed into that van."

"Why the fuck didn't you stop them?" Coffee exploded, taking an angry step toward Rod.

Tanner put a hand on his arm to hold him back. "Think of the big picture, brother. We'll get them back."

All of a sudden a thought occurred to me, a flashback of a vehicle that we'd passed on the road coming there. "Were they driving an old orange van?" I asked on a hunch. Both Rod and Charlie nodded. I looked at Tanner. "Fuck, one passed us on the way here."

"I remember it, too," Mike said. Others began to nod. "It reminded me of a truck my uncle used to have for his business back in the sixties. Same fucking color and everything."

"Did it have windows?" Gabe inquired, lighting a smoke. "Like the hippie vans?" He'd obviously not seen it.

Mike laughed. "No, man, it wasn't a VW. This one was used more for commercial shit."

"Well, at least we know we're not looking for the usual black van or SUV." Tanner stopped before entering the bar. "Ace, I want you and a couple brothers to ride around and look for it. The rest of you, gather up their weapons and head back to my bar."

"I want to ride along with Ace and the others," Joker said.

"That's up to my enforcer," Tanner responded putting it back on me.

"I have no problem with it." I gave Heath and Sully a chin lift, and the four of us walked off to our bikes.

First we would hit the rundown hotel that the Hellraisers had been staying at when they’d first come into town. Next, we'd start checking out biker bars and other known biker hangouts. An old, orange van would stand out. I was sure that once we'd left the campground Maniac had been notified about what had gone down. He'd figure out that we knew what kind of fucking vehicle he'd taken and want to get it out of sight. Yeah, good luck with that, asshole.

The four of us sped down Tomoka Farms Road with grim determination to get our brothers back, and in one piece. And if we had the opportunity to take out Maniac, Boomer, and a few of their MC, we'd do that, too. We could always send their bodies back to their MC.

Or their heads.

Yeah, that would send a fucking message.

Emerson

Once Bonnie and I had left the restaurant I tried to put thoughts of my dad out of my mind, but it hadn't been easy. As we’d meandered through the shops I’d thought I’d seen him everywhere. Each time that I’d imagined seeing him I’d done a double take, but of course by the second time I’d looked back he was gone. The idea of him being around made me more than uneasy. It damn near scared the hell out of me. He'd been in prison for a long time, hopefully long enough to forgive me for putting him there.

But somehow I doubted the he would ever forgive me.

I would never forgive him, either. I didn't want anything to do with the man. As far as I was concerned, he was a monster and had deserved to spend the rest of his life locked away. It didn’t matter that he'd chosen chemical castration, the damage had been done. Sophie and Gracie's lives had been changed forever. They'd severed contact with me after the trial, and that had hurt for a long time, almost as much as the physical and mental abuse I'd suffered at the hands of my dad.

"Are you okay?"

I blinked out of my thoughts, realizing that I was staring down at some cheap souvenir that I'd picked up. I set it back down and turned to Bonnie with a smile. "Yeah, why?"

She walked over to me. "I don't know, you just seem kind of different since lunch." She picked up the souvenir that I'd just set down and made a face. "This is the ugliest mermaid I've ever seen."

"So ugly it's cute," I countered.

"Where would you put it?"

"In your house." We both laughed and moved on. "I'm good," I said as we found ourselves at a bin of discounted tees. I began to go through them, always on the lookout for a cheap sleep tee.

"Look." I glanced over at Bonnie to see her holding up a shirt three sizes too big for her and hanging to her knees. "I'll be able to fit into this in a few months."

"Are you planning on having quintuplets?" I teased, and then I recalled something she'd told me once. "Hey, don't twins run in your family?"

"Oh God, don't say that!" she dropped the shirt as if it had burned her fingers. "One at a time, thank you."

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