Page 42 of Patching Over

“Uh, no,” RiffRaff slowly says. “They’re never fucked with, Kicks, you know the rules.”

“In that case, if any kids survived, they could end up gunning for us, searching for payback,” Banshee remarks. “It’s what we’d do, brothers, and we’ve got far more honor in our left pinky than those sacks of shit ever thought of having.”

“I’m on it, Pres,” Hawg states, his fingers flying. “We need names,” he murmurs, almost to himself.

“Brick, check the old notes from the year Ryleigh was abducted,” RiffRaff commands as if he’s still running shit around here. “We wrote down every road name of anyone we detained and interrogated.”

I chuckle but the sound is dark because their form of interrogation during that time ended up with the person being questioned becoming worm food.

“Yeah, okay, Pops.”

Brew stands and goes over to the huge safe embedded into the sheetrock and once he unlocks it, he spends several minutes going through the old binders until he locates the one he was searching for and pulls the file out.

Right now, I’m grateful as fuck we have our notes and shit embedded on an encrypted site that Hawg created because all those papers show a shit ton of felonious activities.

“Hawg, how hard would it be to add the old shit to our secured site?” I question with an inquisitive look. “Just thinking of the possible ramifications should any of it ever get out there, y’know?”

“I can scan them, Pres, then we can have a good old-fashioned bonfire if you’d like,” Hawg replies.

“Good. That’s a solid plan, let’s get on it. And you’re positive the site cannot be accessed?”

I mean, I know enough about computers to check my emails, which are mostly junk, and play a few online games, plus of course, the payroll systems for the businesses, but outside of that, I’m fucking clueless and useless.

“Fucking one hundred percent, Pres. The way I’ve got it set up is it actually bounces and pings around a few towers with no set IP address,” Hawg promises.

“You’re speaking Greek to me, brother. As long as none of us are gonna go down for anything, I’m good,” I retort, which has everyone laughing. “Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, fuckers, you know good and well y’all are as bad if not worse than me when it comes to computer shit.”

We now have a list of names of members from the Demon Devils MC that Hawg is tracking down to see if there were any survivors. While his computers are running searches, most of us are sitting in the common area drinking.

I checked on my ol’ lady after dismissing church and she’s still out, so now I need to focus on my brother, who’s had one helluva shock.

He went from being alone to finding out he’s got his sister back.

A sister who doesn’t remember him, doesn’t rememberanyof us. That part hurts my heart simply because I’ve felt the connection to her since the first time I laid eyes on her in that ditch, even with me not knowing who she was then. I remember as a kid helping Banshee watch over his baby sister; how she would toddle to me and want me to pick her up when she started walking.

While I definitely didn’t have any inappropriate feelings way back then, I still remember her patting my cheek and saying, “My Brick. You is mine.”

“You okay, brother?” I ask, breaking the silence as I watch Banshee down another shot. He’s shooting straight Fireball and I know his gut has to be roiling by now, but he’s a grown ass man, so I’m not gonna stop him or monitor his liquor intake.

I do motion for Stormy to come over and when she leans in, I quietly order, “Grab him a bottle of water and some aspirin, will ya, babe? And another beer for me.”

“Sure thing, Brick. Is Rayleigh okay?” she queries. I notice her words and concerns come across as being honest and sincere.

That’s something I’ll never get used to, but in reality, while all clubs are different, my grandfather and father made sure the club girls we had were decent human beings, for lack of a better way to say it. They didn’t cause any fucking drama, or go after the taken men. They respected the ol’ ladies and helped out around the clubhouse when they weren’t taking care of the single brothers.

What blows me away, though, is how they’ve really banded around Rayleigh the way they have. Maybe it’s because they’re older than she is, maybe it’s because a few, like Leathyr, were around when she was stolen from us. Even though they don’t know yet that she is Ryleigh, they still grasped that she was very innocent and naive about life in general.

I’ve been watching my ol’ lady gain confidence in herself and my concern now is how this news might send her spiraling backwards.

“I think she’ll be just fine, Stormy. Thank you for your concern.”

“Be right back with the stuff, Brick,” she replies, winking at me.

CHAPTER

TWO

Rayleigh

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