Page 24 of Rooster's Redemption

Fourteen

ROOSTER

I’m back at the Clubhouse in my communications room, going over every inch of footage on the security cameras installed around the bar. Ace came too long enough to get back to the Clubhouse with us and he told me what Adam confessed with his last breath. Steam and Dean Kingston have my daughter and planned on taking Alyssa the moment I left her unattended. Which I stupidly did to help my brother. None of us knew it was a ploy to get me away from Alyssa and unprotected.

I’m hunched over my computer screens, watching the footage of Alyssa’s abduction for the hundredth time. I have cameras placed in every room except Kayne’s office. I watch with nausea as two men rape Khandi, then slit her throat. Thank fuck there is no sound. I don’t think I could stomach listening to her crying and pleading for them to stop.

I pan in on Alyssa while Khandi is being raped. She tried to stop it, but the third guy caught her and forced her to listen to Khandi’s screams with his hands around her throat. Tears are rolling down her face, powerless to help. Then when the two guys came out of the back room, Alyssa tried fighting them off. The same two that raped and killed Khandi tried raping Alyssa before Kingston came in dressed to the nines in an expensivedark suit tailored to fit his form. I’m still confused why he stopped it and beat the shit out of thug one. Then I watch as the third man pulls Alyssa up from the floor and Kingston jabs a needle into her sensitive neck. After that, she sways on her feet, still fighting then she’s out. The third guy picks her up and carries her out the door.

I switch to the next feed and watch as they shove her into Kingston’s black town car and speed away. I pull up the city feeds, tracking his car until he gets out of city limits. Once he crosses the line, I lose him. I slam my fists on the desk, making it rattle.

Kayne sticks his head in the door, “Rooster, Church in ten. Pull yourself together, brother. We need your clear head on this one. I get this is personal, but now’s your time for redemption.”

I nod in understanding. Alyssa needs me to save her, Elsa needs me to protect her, and Poison needs me to find her sister. With renewed determination, I watch the cameras again. Instead of rage pounding through my blood, I look for clues as to where Kingston would take my Ol’ Lady and daughter. My fingers freeze on the keyboard. Ol’ Lady? Did we pass the part of no return?

I think of everything Alyssa has sacrificed in her young life. Her safety for a little girl who isn’t hers. The abuse at the hands of Rage and the Black Destroyers, thinking her family didn’t love or care about her, but she still puts others first. The way her smile lights up a room when I come in. Her caring personality nursing my asshole ways. The way she makes my body come alive just by being around her. I have never felt this way for another woman, not even Phoebe. Alyssa is the light to my darkness and the thumping of my heart tells me, she is mine as I am hers. I might be afraid to say those three words, but I sure do think them. I love Alyssa. Now, I have to find her and get herback so I can make her my Ol’ Lady, put my patch on her back and my ink on her skin.

With renewed determination, I pull up Kingston and Steams accounts I’ve been slowly draining, I check over businesses related to the two men. Remembering Alyssa mentioning something about a Russian man, I search for that too. With my computers running full tilt, I sit back and wait. While I wait, I come up with different ways to torture Kingston and Steam. I’m going to make them pay for touching what’s mine.

My ten minutes are up and I’m armed to the teeth with information on Kingston, Steam and some Russian fuck named Mikhail Kozlov. I make my way into the Chapel with my laptop and a solid plan. I check the time on my watch and we have a little over four hours before we meet Kingston at Deerfield Park. I haven’t slept a wink since Alyssa has been missing but I have been very productive.

Kayne slams his gavel onto the table once everyone files in. “You all know by now what we’re doing here so I won’t beat around the bush about this. Rooster, the floor is yours.”

I stand up, clearing my throat. “Around two thirty a.m., Kingston broke into Savage Saints bar, two of his men raped and murdered our bartender Khandi and then kidnapped Alyssa. He left me a note demanding I meet him at Deerfield Park at ten p.m. tonight. It doesn’t say if he will have Alyssa or why. But I did find this.” I hand each of my brothers a photo of the Russian fucker and a list of businesses that Steam, Kingston and this asshole frequent together. “The man in the photo’s name is Mikhail Kozlov. He’s one of the head snakes in the Russian skin trade. This man is wanted by Interpol, the CIA, the FBI and several other departments.”

I hand each brother another slip of paper with the names of missing women and children, the dates taken and their ages. “As you can see this is a list of missing women and children. I’vecrosschecked the list we have from Deadly Sins strip club and Holly’s parents’ house and all of them are on here. Which tells me Drex and Steam had a deal with this Russia, Mikhail Kozlov, and they were selling women and children to them.”

“The list I handed you with the Russian fucker’s photo is a list of businesses Steam, Kingston and Kozlov frequent together. If my guess is right, getting us to Deerfield Park is a ploy to take us out. After doing some digging, I deduced that they would have Alyssa and my daughter, Elsa, in one of these three places. A strip club run by a local gang, a warehouse owned by a Shell Corporation and Rockford Law Firm .” I want to face-palm after I talk out these locations. “They’ll be at the office building.”

“Are you sure?” Stryker asks.

“Positive.”

“Wait a minute. Adam said that you used to work for a Russian. Is this him?” Ace questions.

“He said that?” I counter. Ace nods his head. My mind is running a million miles an hour, flashing back to when I used to work for Rockford Law. One night stands out above the rest. After that night, Rockford had me doing more shady shit for him.

“Before I came here, I worked as the head security tech guy at Rockford Law. Mr. Rockford was my boss and I’d constantly cover shit up he’d do. I remember one night I was working late like usual and I accidentally ran into Mr. Rockford and some of his business associates,” I make air quotes around business associates, “in the middle of an intense meeting.”

Chapter

Fifteen

ROOSTER-5 YEARS AGO

Ilean backward in my chair and stretch my arms over my head. Checking my watch, it’s well past midnight. Mr. Rockford had me on a project that took all day to fix. Apparently, there was a breach in our protocol yesterday and he wanted it found and fixed. After hours of sifting through company data, I found the breach and rerouted the person who was snooping on the company server to be redirected to a dummy site I had set up for times like this. Whatever information they’re looking for, they won’t find. All they will get is a Trojan horse on their computer and their bank accounts wiped clean. All the money in their account will go into a shell corporation in the Caymans linked to Mr. Rockford’s business associates.

I print out the information I have and stuff one into a file. Then I send a copy to myself through a backdoor I created that cannot be led back to me. I erase all traces of my digital footprints to this person and shut down my machines. Standing up, I grab the file off my desk, turn off the lights and leave, locking the door behind me. I set the code on the outside so no one, not even Mr. Rockford can enter my space without triggering an alarm with a direct line to me.

Most of the floor’s lights are off except one toward the end of the hallway. Mr. Rockford’s office. I make my way down there and strange voices coming from inside his office cause me to hesitate to open the door.

“This is absurd, Matthew. I do not tolerate insolence in my line of work.” A deep Russian accent comes from the other side of the door. “If you were one of the shlyukha’s I’d have you on your knees for this.”

“You don’t want to do that. If something happens to me, remember shit floats downstream and you’ll be the intended target.” Mr. Rockford comes back at him.

The Russian mutters something in Russian before switching to English. “Get it taken care of, Matthew and quickly.”

“I have my best man on this.” Mr. Rockford answers, his voice a little shaky, which piques my curiosity. “He’s been working on finding the breach all day and should be here any minute to give me his findings. My phone alerted me that he just left his office.”

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