Page 14 of Tusk's Fury

I gape at him, growing angrier by the second. “That’s not what was going on. It was my son’s birthday party. I wanted them to come to the clubhouse, because I could keep Gina away from Brittany that way.”

“Seeing as Brittany was there with Clara, you did a piss poor job of it,” Rider adds.

“What?” I ask. “Brittany was here?” I’m confused now, if she was at the clubhouse then why didn’t she say something.

“I heard from the club girls that Gina was talking about how you and she were getting back together and the two of you having sex,” Rigs says.

Siege sighs. “If I were Brittany, I’d be too humiliated to come back to the clubhouse too. Did you really think you were gonna go back to your wife and hang onto Brittany of all people as a side piece? As wild and fiercely possessive as Brittany is, that plan doesn’t even make fucking rational sense.”

I use both hands to make the time-out gesture. “Hold up a damn minute, all of you. First of all, my ex-wife is an asshole of biblical proportions. She used our son’s birthday to try to get back with me. I told her to cut it the fuck out.”

Siege’s eyes narrow on me. “You sure about that? It didn’t sound like your ex got the message you were laying down.”

“Don’t particularly give a fuck. I had a little talk with my kids, told them we weren’t getting back together, and even waxed poetic about how great it was to have two houses and double presents for their birthdays. They left fucking happy, and that’s all that matters to me.”

Zen jerks his chin at me. “You never put her in your property cut, you didn’t move her into your place, or put a ring on her finger. How were we to know that you were this serious about her?”

“Look, I get that those are the ways we stamp ownership on our women, and I was planning to put her in my cut on our one-year anniversary. It’s coming up in a few weeks.”

Siege tells me, “If you’re sure you want to pursue this, we’re behind you one hundred percent.”

“I sure the fuck am certain about this. If you won’t help me, I’ll do it on my own.”

Zen interjects, “We’ve already said we’d help. Siege said you had a busted phone. Let’s start there.”

I calm down and pull the phone out of my pocket. I don’t know why I hadn’t expected pushback from them on helping me find Brittany. I like to think they do this to every brother with a problem just to evaluate if the situation is dire enough to warrant a full club response, but something tells me it’s because Brittany was a club girl. That doesn’t sit right with me.

Chapter 5

Tusk

Ihover over Zen’s shoulder as he tries to pull the SIM card out of Brittany’s phone. He gently elbows me back. “Damn, brother, you’re gonna have to back up so I can work.”

“Sorry, I’m just so fuckin’ anxious.”

I know that I shouldn’t be riding his back that way. But we need the information on this phone if we’re going to find her. Regardless of whatever else is going on, I can’t shake the feeling that she’s been kidnapped.

Zen pulls something square out of the phone. “I finally got it out of that mangled mess.” Putting it in a device attached to his computer, he says, “Let’s see what’s on here.”

I watch him run some kind of encryption device that breaks the password, and then he begins accessing information. “I’m gonna put this on the big screen. Tell me if you see anything that looks out of place.”

“I’m not sure what we’re looking at,” I confess.

Zen explains what he’s seeing. “It looks like she deleted a bunch of stuff about ten months ago.” He clicks on it and smiles. “It’s all the contact information she had with the other brothers. She deleted their phone numbers, email addresses, and chat messages.” He clicks on a few of the messages and cringes. “It looks like most of her chat messages were arguments with them anyway.”

“I’m gonna hack into her email and look around.” I watch him do exactly that. “There are emails from you. She was talking to some guy who owns a custom knife shop.”

My hand automatically goes to my waist and comes up empty. I remember taking my knife off my belt because I didn’t want to wear it around my kids. It’s locked up at home in the chest at the foot of my bed. I feel conflicted about taking it off.

Meanwhile, Zen continues looking through Brittany’s phone information. “Are you seeing anything that could indicate conflict with a potential abductor, any complaints she made about me, or plans to leave?”

Zen shakes his head. “Nope. Just everyday stuff. She has appointments with Tex’s old lady to get her hair cut, meet for coffee in town, and they got their nails done last week and were meeting to plan a birthday party for Tex.”

He stops to text someone and then begins scrolling through the information again.

“Go back further,” I tell him. “Is there any old information from before she came to the Savage Legion’s clubhouse?”

He begins searching. “Now that you mention it, everything starts five years ago, when she first arrived. Her email address was brand new. Although she deactivated all her social media, the original beginning dates were around the same time. It’s like she just came into being on that day.”

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