Captivate Me (21 page)

“Hang on!” he yells, putting his jeans on without buttoning them.

I move quickly to the bathroom, not needing whoever is on the other side of that door to see me.

“Yeah?” Breaker asks.

“Clubhouse full-out meeting, thirty minutes,” a deep voice says. It’s not his brother or GT. I don’t peek out to see who it is. Instead, I brush out my tangled hair after putting on my shirt.

“Got it. We’ll be there.”

We’ll?
I’m sure he said that word.

Suddenly, the anxiety hits hard, and I reach for my medicine bag on the countertop. I pull out two little yellow pills and wash them down with some water. I know I need them, and I’m not going to pretend like I don’t. When I didn’t take them before, I went down a spiral. Breaker made me promise to take them every day, and I have.

These two are to help me get through whatever this meeting is. The doctor said to take them if I knew a situation was coming up that I would have a difficult time with. This is that moment.

The door closes after Breaker comes into the bathroom. “We’ve gotta go. You good with that?”

I turn toward him. “As good as I’ll get.”

The chatter in the room is loud. Breaker keeps me at his side, one arm wrapped around my shoulders, as we move to Buzz and Bella.

I feel a little bit of relief when Bella turns and says, “Glad you’re here.” Her smile radiates from her, and I can totally see why Buzz is infatuated with the woman. She’s beautiful.

“Thanks,” I say just as I feel a presence beside me.

I look up to see GT standing next to me, and I jolt. He looks down at me then at Breaker and back at me. He lifts his chin then turns his head as Angel comes up and wraps her arms around me tight. Breaker has to let go of me for me to embrace Angel back. Then I’m pulled back to him the moment she releases me.

“This will be fine,” she reassures me.

I wish my quivering nerves would listen to her.

Pops stands on what looks like a makeshift stage back by the wall. It’s elevated enough that it appears he can see the vast number of people.

“Hi, Pops,” a little boy calls out, and Pops smiles.

“Hey, Coop.” He then turns to address everyone. “I know most of you here don’t really know why. After our home was attacked, I feel it’s in our best interest to get this shit out there in the open. First, Diamond’s daughter Shaina is here.”

My breathing stops as all eyes come to me, and Breaker pulls me closer to him. I wish I could burrow inside of him and disappear from everyone.

Instead of looking at the crowd, I look at Pops.

“She’s a Ravage. Blood of a Ravage. Don’t give a shit how you feel about the past. It’s done. She’s clear. Got me?”

Heat rises to my face as I clutch on to Breaker’s shirt. This time, I turn to him and look up.

“It’s okay,” he tells me, but he doesn’t have this fear clawing at him, trying to get out, to run away.

I can feel the eyes on me. I feel like I can almost read everyone’s mind here. I hate it.

That damn boulder comes back and begins to press me to the ground. The only thing keeping me above water is Breaker.

“Good,” Pops states, and I finally feel the eyes shift off of me.

“We’ve been attacked. I’m not proud to say this, but it’s my fault.”

I look up at him as he holds his hand out, and Ma comes and grasps it.

“Many years ago, this woman caught my eye. I took her from a man who, for years, seemed to work well with Ravage. He’s now showed his true feelings by coming at us, and we’re dead-set on finding him. I’ll be pulling in everyone on this to keep us steady. Ma will need help keeping us fed and makin’ sure the kids are secure.”

There are many nods of acceptance from the crowd.

“While we do this, we will have guards beefed up and even set out from the walls of this club. That way, if some dickhead decides to try and throw shitty-ass bombs at us again, we’ll nail them before it happens.”

He pulls Ma in more securely to him. “I admit, I thought this shit was over with. Didn’t mean to bring it to the doorstep here. But it’s here, and we need to stop it, so I need all hands on deck. We are Ravage. We protect our own. We defend our own. We are family, and as that family grows, we defend each new member.”

I can’t help feeling a twinge inside from those words. Family. The one thing I’ve longed for. What I wanted my father to give me, but he never did. This is where the jealousy I felt with the Ravage MC and my father came from. He had this, and I wish he would have given it to me all those years.

“Ma started breakfast and needs a few more hands with that. I need all the guys to meet with me in church. We go from there. Stay vigilant and stay focused,” he demands, and the entire room breaks out in chatter.

“Need you to stay with Angel and help her out.” I look up at Breaker at his words.

That boulder starts to get really heavy. I can only nod and try to fight it back.

Angel grabs my arm, but Breaker stops her.

“Take care of her.”

She smiles. “Always.”

I feel a small bit of relief, but it’s so small it doesn’t last very long as I’m thrown into the chaos that is cooking food for over a hundred people. Ma barks orders and so does Princess. Luckily, they keep me by Angel, and I go with the flow, thankful I took those two little pills.

The burner phone buzzes just as the door to church closes. I hold my hand palm out, fingers wide toward the men. They all hush as I open the flip phone.

“Yeah?”

“Fucker’s slippery.”

“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”

“Watch it,” Richard warns, and I look at the men. All my men.

They stare back at me, waiting for direction, waiting for this massive problem to be taken care of so we can get back to our lives and live free. That is what my father intended for this club: for us to ride free. It’s been a while since we’ve done that.

“Yeah,” I say in response.

“Your boy has access to surveillance satellites?”

I look at Buzz. “Access to surveillance satellites?”

“Some, but not all.”

“Did you hear that?” I ask Richard.

“Write this shit down,” is his response.

I snap my fingers and make a writing motion. GT shifts what I need over quickly, and I write everything down Richard says.

“Then what?” I ask.

“You have your location,” he says and then gives me two more things to write down.

“And those are …?”

“Three meatheads. Ransom and his two guys. Bring my grandkids.” With that, he hangs up the phone.

I flip mine shut and put it in my cut. “Buzz, come here.” He does so, and I hand him the paper. “Do you know what any of this shit means?”

His eyes roam the paper quickly. “Fuck yeah, I do. Need to go downstairs, though. My laptop can’t handle this shit.”

“Go,” I tell him, and he darts from the room.

He’s a good man. Too bad most of the guys are still pissed off he called his woman before telling the club. It’s lessening, though, as time goes on and I keep pushing it to the side. He’s worked his ass off for us, and beating the shit out of him won’t solve a damn thing, especially when we need his brain.

“Who was that?” GT asks.

“Informant,” I answer, not ready to tell the entire club. I won’t if I don’t have to. I’ll sit Princess and GT down later and tell them about their grandparents later. That way, the anger can be contained.

“Alright. That call could be a lock on Ransom and two of his assholes. While Buzz does his thing, we need a plan to take out the four buildings he has outside the city limits. Then we need a plan to protect these walls and our families.”

We discuss this for what feels like ages, putting together a solid game plan. Taking out the buildings is the easy part. There will be causalities, some that have nothing to do with Ransom’s bidding, but we can’t allow any of his men to survive. The plan also requires us to take more shifts and be more vigilant, but we will do it. We protect our own.

GT hands me the list of guys who are the most important in Ransom’s crew. Four have large red Xs through them, while three guys do not. Soon, we’ll have two of them and Ransom.

The doors to the office fly open, and Buzz walks in with papers in his hand. “Got it.” He slaps the papers down in front of me, and the top one showing an aerial shot of a building with an open space then trees surrounding it.

“Where?” I snap.

“Tennessee, about thirty miles outside Dyersburg.”

“You’re fucking shitting me.” Dyersburg has an MC of their own, the Vipers Creed. We met them at a rally and had no issues with them.

“Nope.” Buzz flips the papers over, giving me the two other locations of the three men. “These are directly in Dyersburg: one on the north and one on the south.”

“You trust this informant?” GT questions, and my eyes cut to him. “Seems we’re putting a lot of trust in someone we don’t know.”

I level my gaze on him. “
I
trust him. Therefore,
you
trust him. Is that clear enough, son?”

GT, God love him, straightens his back at my tone. So fucking proud I raised him right, even if he’s being a shit and questioning me.

“Got it,” Cruz says before GT can start. “We’re behind you.” Cruz looks at GT. “Right?”

GT lets the steam blow out of his thick head then answers, “Yeah.”

“Good. Now can I get back to looking at this shit?” I don’t wait for a response before I study the pictures closely.

There appears to be lots of room to move, but we have a problem.

“We need to know if Ransom has cameras on his locations because, if we take out his buildings here then drive to Tennessee, that will give whoever hears of the takeover time to contact him. You know that he’ll pay serious bucks for that information, so every dickhead around will be itching to get a piece of it.” I look over at Buzz.

“Let me get my laptop.” He darts from the room, coming back seconds later. He sits and does whatever it is he does.

“Pops, he’s got shit wired everywhere. There are hard lines and wireless. He has so much rigged up he can probably see the hairs on his guys’ asses.”

I suck in deep, cross my arm over my chest, and put my chin in my hand. “Alright. So we have to do this all at one time, which will take a shit load of planning.”

“There’s no way we can do it all at the same time. Even with remote detonators, there is always the chance that something could go wrong and alert them,” Buzz says.

“Why not have the Clayton charter take care of the four buildings here? We can set up whatever we need and have them do the rest,” Breaker says, and I cut my stare to him.

Breaker doesn’t talk much, but fuck, he’s on it when he does.

“Good call.”

His face is an unreadable mask.

I look up at the men from Clayton who line the back wall. “Benny?”

“Yep. We’re on it. Tell us what needs to be done.”

“Perfect. Now I need to make a call.”

“To who?” Becs asks as I pull out my cell.

“Vipers Creed.”

“Oh, fuck,” Becs replies, and I nod.

“And they are …?” Tug asks.

Since he, Breaker, and Buzz just patched in, I need to give them a very quick history lesson.