Page 54 of Patch's Bride
Marauder speaks again.
“You want her back, you better move fast. I’ll tell you where she’s at, but I want something in return.”
Siege speaks up, his voice tense. “Let me guess—you want us to take that clubhouse back for you?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I want. Lynch’s there, along with the ones who betrayed me. I want that garbage gone. You get the girl. I get my club back. Everyone wins.” There is a brief pause, and he says, “Call me when you’re ready to deal.”
Siege curses under his breath. “I’ll send out a message in our club group chat. Church is now.”
Glancing up at me, he snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Wake up, Patch. We need to get movin’ right fuckin’ now. We need to come up with a plan, gear up, and get her out of there.”
“She was supposed to be shopping, getting coffee, and visiting my mother. She stopped responding to my texts. I can’t believe that I let her go alone.”
Suddenly, I remember an important detail. “Her location app says she was wandering around a shopping center in town.”
“Clearly, she’s not if someone saw her getting nabbed. For all we know, that smart fucker could have tied it to a dog’s collar or has one of his prospects running around with it to throw us off his trail.”
***
By the time we get to the clubhouse, the rest of the brothers are already there. While Siege brings them all up to speed, I’m standing near the wall, staring at nothing. I haven’t checked out. I can hear Siege lay it out and the spirited question-and-answer session that happens afterwards.
“The Grave Diggers’ hideout’s supposedly real close. Marauder told me once that they were right under our noses and we just weren’t smart enough to see it. He told me that he’d give us the location if we promised to take the clubhouse back for him.”
Rigs speaks up. “Of fuckin’ course we agree to his deal. Beth’s life is at stake.”
Tank points out, “Rescuing this woman is getting to be a fuckin’ full-time job. I say we have a little throwdown and solve this problem once and for all.”
Rider says, “If we roll now, we can probably get there before dark.”
“I’ll call Marauder and let him know we agree to his terms. Once I have the location, we’ll head out immediately.”
He puts Marauder on speakerphone. “Look, we accept your terms. You give us the location, and we get your clubhouse back for you.”
“My source said that she got dragged to the old gas station off Lockridge. The one with the sun-faded Sinclair sign out front.”
“That’s your fucking hideout?”
“Yeah, and it was a damn good one. You fuckers never suspected a thing.”
“We’re leaving out right now. Are you gonna meet us there?”
“We stage at the Old Grand Hotel, in the back parking lot. My contact is practically sitting on top of your old lady, Patch. He says that right now she’s just chained up in a corner, and Lynch apparently has big plans for her, ‘cause he’s dared anyone to touch her. That means she’s safe for now.”
I growl out roughly, “I want her out of there, right goddamn now.”
“Yeah, that’s a fairly stupid plan. My contact says practically everyone’s packing there these days. We wait until the wee hours of the morning when they’re all passed out to make our move. There’s less likelihood of her catching a stray bullet that way.”
Rigs speaks up. “That actually makes sense.”
“If we’re sure she’s relatively safe.”
“Look,” Marauder says gruffly, “my men might be a bit wild, but if the club president says don’t touch, they ain’t gonna fuckin’ disobey him. Trust me on this.”
I just curse under my breath, because I don’t like this. Not at all. But the last thing in the world I want is for Beth to end up dead from a gunshot wound that nobody intended to strike home.
“This is an impossible decision,” I say out loud.
Siege steps forward. “It is. That’s why I’m gonna call it. We gear up and meet Marauder at the staging area behind the hotel. We strike when the time is right.”
