25. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Tripp

I curled up on the cot behind my woman. "Hey, did you find Anna?" Vina asked in a sleepy voice.

"No, and there was no answer at her place. If Scout can't get a lock on her tonight, we're going to have to break in and check things out. Something feels off about her disappearing into thin air, but then again, none of her family has raised an alarm that she is missing either. The hospital said she's taking a leave of absence after her cousin misused her badge. That leave of absence wasn't exactly Anna's choice. It's possible that she's running from the whole situation."

"It's also possible that her cray-cray cousin murdered her and stuffed her body in a freezer somewhere."

"Yeah, after seeing what was done to Barry, I'd say anything is possible at this point."

"Do you think she's really the one who killed Kim?"

"I don't want to bring my deceased wife, or my psycho ex into a bed we're sharing, sweetheart. Even if that bed is just a shitty hospital cot."

Davina got up and walked over to one of the chairs and took a seat then patted the one next to her. I did one better and picked her up and sat her back down in my lap. She snuggled in immediately.

"Now, tell me about Kim. I want to hear about the woman who had your heart first because she's an important part of your life, especially since you have Kip, Star, and Knoxville to think about. They need to know that her memory won't be buried and forgotten just because I'm in the picture with Coral. And I need you to understand that I'm not threatened by your first love.

"I don't consider June to be that. She was your first infatuation, lust at best, but never love because she tainted it." I hugged her closer as she said that last bit because it was honestly how I felt as well.

"No woman you ever date should be intimidated by the woman you loved and lost. She is your past, but she will always be important and relevant. I don't ever want you to think otherwise."

"There won't be any other women I date. You're it, Vina. Kim is probably smiling down at how perfect you are right now." I laughed as I admitted it. "Of course, she's probably also cracking cradle robbing jokes at my expense."

Vina laughed and the sound healed something inside me I didn't know needed to be mended. "Would she really do that?"

"Yeah, you bet your ass she would. Kim was one-of-a-kind."

I told Vina about how Kim and I started and the rocky beginning we had, then I told her about how we fell in love along the way and had a marriage most people would be envious of.

"That's a lot to live up to," she admitted.

"Nope. There's nothing to live up to. That was my story with Kim. My story with you is just starting. While it might have started out a little rough, too, we'll find our own pace and make our own happy along the way. What we have shouldn't be compared. Kim is my past, another life I lived before this one. You're my future, and we make of that what we're both comfortable with.

"I know you think I need to keep Kim front and center, but she hasn't held that spot in my life for many years. I appreciate you being willing to make room for her beside us, but that's no longer her place. There's just you and me here. Her memory can exist in my heart and with my kids and grandson. I'm happy as hell that it won't bother you if we discuss her, but I want you to know that she's not here. She's not going to come between us because I don't want that, and Kim wouldn't want it that way either. She would want us to have a fresh start with one another without another woman coming between us, even the ghost of another woman."

"If only there wasn't an evil other woman in the mix, too." Vina lamented. "What advice would Kim give me about dealing with June?"

"She'd tell you to have no mercy, but if I get my way, you will never need to follow that advice. I plan to make sure June isn't a concern for long. As soon as we find her, she'll be dealt with. Mack wants his pound of flesh just as much as I do."

"Oh God!" Vina's eyes went wide. "What will he think of me? I was a little worried the other day because he wasn't exactly friendly."

I grinned at her. "Mack already gave his blessing, too. His abrupt nature and coldness wasn't for you, it was for me because he didn't like that he would have to give you the gory details of what happened to Barry. That was my fuckup because I wasn't thinking it could be something that heinous, or I would have sheltered you from it."

"I'm glad you didn't. It helps to know what we're really up against. I'm kind of shocked that Mack gave his blessing though. I didn't think anyone would want to see you with a club whore."

"You're not a club whore. You're a mother, a paralegal, a beautiful, intelligent, go-getter. You're the woman who took care of my baby girl on your own and you did an amazing job so far, sweetheart. You don't have to do it alone anymore. You're my old lady, and one day soon, you will also be my wife. What you did in the past, that's your past. No one cares. They only care that we're happy moving forward."

I wiped away her tears as she cried in disbelief and then filled me in on her life before the club. It made me fall in love with her ability to persevere just a little bit more. Vina had been through a lot, and she had never given up. Instead, she kept remaking herself into a better version with each obstacle thrown in her path.

"Oh, by the way, I have something for you," Vina said as she got up off my lap and walked over to where her bag rested against the little side table in the room. She pulled out what looked like a business card and brought it over to me. "Here," she said and then bit into her bottom lip to stop the smile from spreading across her face.

"What's this?" I asked as the card turned over in my hand and I read the name on it. "Dr. Jenkins? As in our daughter's oncologist?" Vina nodded. "What exactly is this for?"

"In case you have any questions."

"About?"

"About the fact that our daughter's labs came back and…" Vina burst into tears. I stood immediately and grabbed a hold of her.

"Fuck, baby, I'm going to need you to spit it out because you have me in pieces seeing you like this. How much time do we have?"

"Hopefully, all the time in the world. She's on the mend, Tripp. Our baby girl is doing so much better. That's why she's been sleeping so much. She's been healing her little body. Dr. Jenkins thinks we'll be talking remission soon without the need for the bone marrow transplant."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Nope, he came by to talk to me not long after you took off."

"Shit, I wish I had been here for that."

"That's why he gave me his card for you. If you need to ask him questions, you can call or find out when he'll be doing rounds again, so that you can be here."

"Sweetheart?"

"Yeah, Tripp?"

"How about next time you lead with the amazing news and then we can slip into all the other stuff?"

Her giggle was music to my ears. I held onto Davina and we both shed a few happy fucking tears. Tears of joy, relief, fuck… Just tears to wash away the weeks and months of worry. The only thing standing in the way of our happiness as a family now was my ex-fucking-girlfriend. When I got my hands on her, I would make sure she suffered every bit as much as her victims did. Fuck Barry Whitaker. I didn't give a rat's ass about the man, but what she put my wife through, my new old lady, our daughter, my other children, and my whole fucking club… She'd pay for all of it.

Hours after I got to spend some quality time with my wide-awake baby girl and my woman, they were both finally fast asleep and resting. I was still up because that feeling in my gut was heavy. When it got to the point that it was all I could think about, I decided to stay up and on guard. Something was coming for us, and I didn't know what or when, but this feeling was something to be trusted.

My cell phone buzzed, as if it was a harbinger of doom.

Scout: Need you at the clubhouse. Keys rode down yesterday, and we worked on tracking backward until we found the bitch.

Tripp: You can't tell me what you found over the phone?

Scout: Mack requested that you be here for this. Bagger and Star are on their way to take your place.

Tripp: Anyone else around who you can send with them? I have a gut feeling that hasn't settled in the last hour or so.

Scout: Sorry, no. Everyone else is either on a run, here where they're needed, or on their way to look over your girls. We're pretty thin on resources right now.

Tripp: Headed out as soon as Bag and Star are here.

By the time I got to the clubhouse, I was already over the trip. My head hurt, my gut was telling me something bad was about to go down, and there was nothing I wanted more than to get back to my girls. I would settle for ending June's life as a consolation prize, but something told me that wouldn't be why they dragged me down to the clubhouse.

"Whatever you have better be worth the trip I just took," I called out the minute I walked into the clubhouse. Then I noticed a strange, red-headed woman who stood there smirking while she assessed me. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm the bitch who uncovered some helpful shit about your stalker," she countered.

Her cut identified her as a member of the all-female motorcycle club located in the northern part of the state. S.H.E. MC had become notorious years ago when they took out a sex trafficking ring that was snatching Georgia girls and selling them all over the world. They had my respect for how they handled the whole thing, especially since there were other MCs directly in the trafficking pipeline who had done nothing to stop it.

"Sara Keys, Security Officer for S.H.E. MC." The woman offered her hand to me and once we shook, I nodded my head in respect.

"Tripp Martin, President of the Savage Vipers, Danville, Georgia Chapter."

"Well, Tripp Martin, I don't want to keep you away from your family too long, so let's get to it." I followed her back to one of our meeting rooms we used when we had too many people to situate comfortably in my office but needed more privacy than the common room offered. The room we used as Church was off limits to anyone outside the club, no exceptions.

"Keys and I worked our way back from that gas station. We were able to get her on camera not too far from the condo where her ex-husband was found," Scout mentioned as she worked the keys on her laptop for a few minutes before an image was projected onto the screen on the opposite wall from where I was seated at the head of a conference table.

"Who the fuck is that?" I was looking at a large man with dark, slicked back hair and a gnarly scar that ran down the side of his face.

"That is Kenneth Winslow, Barry's brother-in-law. Kenneth Winslow's real name was Anton Oslav." Keys told me.

"Anton Oslav? Why does that name sound familiar?"

"He was one of the bastards we were after a few years ago. He was part of the trafficking ring my MC took down. To be specific, he was the spoke in the wheel that took women to be dispersed throughout the Czech Republic and various countries surrounding them."

"What the fuck is June doing with that bastard?"

"We believe he is now working as a contract killer. In fact, he has been working as a contract killer for years now."

"When we catch June, if this fucker isn't with her, we need to interrogate until we find him."

I turned to my brother-in-law. "What aren't you saying, Mack?"

He released a deep breath before moving closer and taking the seat directly to my left. "My sister only died in that fire because she was incapacitated first."

"What the fuck?" I yelled. "Where did you get that information and fucking when?"

"My sister would have had to be knocked the fuck out before she allowed herself to burn up in a fire, especially when she was expecting the kids home soon." Mack stated. "I had the medical examiner do an autopsy. While everyone else believed her cause of death was fire related, I had my own suspicions."

"Why the fuck did you never share them with me?"

"You didn't need the distraction. You just lost your wife; the kids lost their mom. Your job was to be there for them and to not drown in the pain. It was my job to make sure we had all the facts in hand when the time was right."

"You always suspected June, didn't you? You mentioned that before."

"Fucking right I did, and it turns out I was correct." Mack wasn't being a smug ass about it. He was simply stating facts. "Couldn't prove that shit, but this makes sense. No way June did it on her own and got away with that shit. She's too fucking messy, as she proved with the Barry debacle."

"You think this same fucker helped June kill Kim?"

"She suffered blunt force trauma to the side of her head before she was burned in that fired. The blow killed her, the fire only covered up the evidence, brother."

"Part of me thinks that was better. I always thought she suffered, trapped in that house without a way to get out."

Mack nodded. "Thought the same until the autopsy came back. She wasn't trapped when that fire was set, she was killed just before." He jabbed a finger toward the man on the screen with June. "That fucker was a part of it. I'd bet money on it."

"Son of a bitch."

"I can verify that claim," Keys stated.

"How the fuck can you verify shit that happened all those years ago?"

Keys leaned over Scout and hit a couple keys. The image on the screen changed and a picture of my daughter and her then best friend, Ash came onto the screen.

"What the fuck?" I asked.

"Anton Oslav – aka: Kenneth Winslow – was meant to take these two girls as payment for something. The dates on the picture coincide with the time he would have been hired to kill your wife."

"Motherfucker!" I yelled as I stood and paced the room. "You're telling me that my baby girl was in the sights of these fucking traffickers way back then? She was a fucking child."

Key's voice lowered and I could feel the empathy in it. "That's when they like to take them. It's easier to break children and bend them to your will than adults. There are also those who prefer to purchase younger slaves."

"Arrrrgggg!" I growled as I slammed chairs into the wall. "That fucking cunt sicked kid peddlers on my child? Killed my wife. I want her death to be slow, painful, and I want her to have to see pictures of all the beautiful fucking moments I shared with Kim. She needs to suffer in every way possible. Don't care what it takes, but she needs to be found yesterday."