Page 14 of Bound By Redemption
“Of course. It’s the state-of-the-art newest model out there. But you didn’t hear that from me.” Sure, I could get into a shit load of trouble for having it, but it was a good tool to have in my box.
“Right…” my father said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
“I’m headin’ back to the clubhouse to check on everyone. Meet ya there?” His tone was a little hopeful.
“Yeah. Remy and Ensley are there. Once we figure out if any of this’ll help, I’ll be on my way.”
He gave me a squeeze, a soft smile, and then he was gone. It felt good to be able to help, but it felt better to have my father’s approval and see that glint in his eye. It had been a long damn time since I’d seen it.
The scan was over on the face in the picture and it came up with nothing. “Nothin’. Too much shit on his face. You got anything?” I asked Buzz who gave me two different location numbers.
I went to them and tried to pull photos and plates from the car. A cough escaped me, and I could feel my lungs not happy about the smoke. The pain in my body was present, but I turned my mind off to it and pressed on. Finding who did this was more important.
Running the plates, the car was reported stolen about a week ago and was found yesterday abandoned on the side of the road. Who knew when exactly it was ditched, so that was a clusterfuck. The only thing we could do with that was try to get fingerprints, but that didn’t mean that we’d get anything. Who knew who was in that car, but it might be the only option to start the process of elimination.
One of the photos, though, gave me promise. It was a male, I could tell by the hard jawline since his mask had fallen down just on one side.
“This.” I pointed, showing those around me. “Half a face. If I duplicate it and flip it over, that should give us an idea of the lower half of the face. That might get some hits.”
“Try it,” Cruz responded, coming to stand next to me. Had to hand it to the man, he was big as fuck for his age. One would never guess he was up there. He could tear my head off right now if he wanted to. How did I know this? Because I could do it too. It was part of our training and something we had in common.
“We’re goin’ on lockdown. Get your families to the clubhouse if you haven’t already. Prepare to stay for a while ’til we figure this shit out.” He looked directly at me. “You too, Ensley, the baby, and the sister.”
I really couldn’t explain the emotion coming through me at that moment in time. They were all over the place, and the fact that Cruz was giving me a shot, even as small as it was, I was going to grab on to it with two hands. This was my life, and I wanted it.
“Yes, sir.” Came from my lips automatically. No one around us said anything, though, which surprised me.
“There ain’t gonna be shit left…” Ryker sighed, putting his hands on top of his head and looking over the smoldering embers. He wasn’t wrong. The yard was littered withstuff. There was no other word to describe it because it was all pieces. If it wasn’t in pieces, it was destroyed by fire or water. There would be no mementos left.
“You got anything in a fireproof box?” Cruz asked him. Yes, Ryker and Cruz were brothers, but they were also father-in-law, son-in-law. Practically blood, and it showed in the way they were with each other.
“Yeah. It’ll have some of the important papers, guns, ammo and cash, but fuck there ain’t enough cash to rebuild this shit.”
While I knew Ryker was just pissed about the fire, he nor the Ravage MC had any problems with money. Back in my days, when I was looking into the MC, everyone was very comfortable. It’d be my assumption from the nice rides they all had that this was still the same.
“Get the insurance adjuster out here and get this shit figured out,” Cruz ordered, turning to some of the brothers. “Go over and see if they’ll let ya look for anything in the rubble. They probably won’t, but may let you at least close enough to see if anything can be saved.”
Cruz had some serious wishful thinking.
“Fuck man, what happened to your arm?” I heard Nox ask. Not thinking he was talking to me, I continued using photoshop to manipulate the image to run through the program. A punch came to my arm. As I turned to it, ready to lay someone out for punching me, Nox just smiled. “Talkin’ to you, man.”
Arm. Oh fuck. Yeah. I totally forgot about it. I tilted it, getting a good look. “Just a little burn from the fire. No big deal.” It really was. Yes, there was pain, and if I thought about it or moved just right, it would get worse, but I’d learned how to keep my emotions in check for whatever task lay ahead of me. My arm could be completely burned to hell, and I’d still be here typing on this computer. The job came first. Always. The arm could wait.
“Um ... fucker, that thing has boils on it and is red as fuck. Your fuckin’ skin is gone in some places. You need to get that shit taken care of.”
I shrugged, still contorting the image so we could catch this asshole, and then I could beat the daylights out of them. That would be sooner rather than later.
“It’ll be fine. Once we figure this shit out, I’ll deal with it,” I answered, focused.
“Seriously?” Ryker questioned, coming up to me and grabbing my arm. It had burned from the back of my elbow almost up to my shoulder. I knew it had happened when Austyn and I drove to the clubhouse. I just chose to keep my mouth shut. “You need to stop and get this looked at.”
I fully stopped and turned to Ryker. “I need to do this. My arm is an arm, flesh and bone. Ensley, Remy, Austyn—that is life. This is more important.” I needed him to understand what I was feeling at that moment.
Ryker said nothing for quite some time, and I’d thought I’d stunned the man. He said nothing, but I responded, “Yeah. Let’s get this.”
Finishing the image, it looked about right, and I ran it through the program.
“What about you?” I asked Buzz. “Anything of them comin’ up or from the road?”
