Chapter Three

Falcon

I needed to go home. Needed to get out of this place before I did something stupid. Like crawl in the bed with the broken little doll and hold her until the pieces fused back together. Gina was quite possibly the strongest person I’d ever met. Even stronger than Lemon, who regularly busted my balls.

This woman chose to stay in a place where she’d been terrorized for over a year. I get she’d had a shit life even before she came here, but I was surprised when she didn’t head out of the compound like the hounds of hell were after her once she knew she was free to leave.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I pulled it out and checked the message and nearly growled when I saw Dom’s name. I’d known this was coming, but I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be in Gina’s house with her most of the night. The need to tell him to fuck the hell off was making my jaw clench. Yeah. Not the best idea, especially since I hadn’t been a patched member of Grim Road long enough to go against the sergeant at arms. Which… yeah. I wasn’t a pussy by any means, but going against Dom without a better reason than, “I’m watching my woman sleep. Piss off,” would be stupid.

Dom: Need you at the clubhouse .

Me: Sunrise .

Dom: Now .

Fuck. I stood and pulled the quilt higher on her shoulder before leaving the room. I locked her door when I left the house. Leaving was so hard it was a physical ache in my chest. It felt wrong because I knew anything I’d managed to forge over the last several months could easily be undone if I disappeared on her now.

I hurried to my bike, which I’d parked in Rocket’s driveway when I’d gone to stand vigil. Rocket and Lemon both knew I did this, but neither had said a word about it to anyone, including me. I figured, by parking there on the regular, if Rocket or Lemon wanted to warn me off Gina, they would.

The ride to the main clubhouse took less than five minutes. I lined up with the other bikes in the lot before striding inside. The club members present sat at the various tables in groups, talking among themselves. A few nursed their beer, but most were quietly waiting for the meeting to start.

“Nice of you to join us, Falcon.” Dom crossed his arms over his chest while Ringo, the enforcer for Grim Road, gave me a knowing smirk. Yeah. They all knew what I was doing. Some approved, but there were a couple who were pretty pissed about it because they thought she needed to get away from all of us. Even if she didn’t want to.

“Bite me,” I shot back automatically. It got a few chuckles. Except for Dom.

The bigger man pointed his finger at me and raised an eyebrow. “I will beat your ass, you little punk.” Which got even more chuckles.

“All right, all right.” Rocket stood and got to business. “We got a heads-up from a paramilitary company called ExFil. Most of you know the place and the guy who owns it. His name’s Joe Gill. Used to be president of a club in Somerset, Kentucky called Bones MC.”

“Most of the guys at Salvation’s Bane MC work for ‘em too, right?” Jackhammer was a newer guy. He hadn’t started out as a prospect, like most of us. He’d been brought in as a favor to Boon. Boon had been in Grim Road the longest of anyone in the club. He was blunt and to the point and didn’t care who the fuck he offended. All traits Jackhammer tried to imitate. Only problem was, Jackhammer wasn’t Boon.

“They are.” Rocket glared at Jackhammer, no doubt knowing the other man was about to protest.

“Then what the fuck do they need us for?” Jackhammer snorted a laugh, like he’d gotten one over on… someone? Salvation’s Bane maybe? The man was as mean as he was stupid. I honestly had no idea what his thought processes were and had no desire to find out. I also think Boon was suckin’ some serious dick to get this dumb shit into Grim Road. We had all been black ops at one point in our service. Most of us had either outlived our usefulness or were on a government kill list somewhere. Not Jackhammer. He’d been good for a while, but once he decided to show his ass, he tended to go big.

Rocket’s jaw clenched. Yeah. I wasn’t the only one who hated the little bastard. “Did I say they asked for help?”

“That’s where you were goin’.” Jackhammer stood, moving a couple steps in Rocket’s direction. “Tell me I’m wrong.” He stuck his chin out, directly challenging Rocket.

“Fucker has a death wish,” I muttered, shaking my head. I covered my mouth with my hand in case I burst out laughing when Lemon castrated the bastard in a few seconds. Last thing I wanted was for Lemon to think I was on her side in anything.

“Yep.” Rattler had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. We’d grown up together, gone to the Marines together, then joined covert ops together. Which is how we’d ended up here together.

“Ten bucks on Lemon,” I said softly.

“You’ve lost your Goddamn mind if you think I’m lettin’ you tell Lemon I bet against her,” Rattler grumbled.

Around us, similar conversations hummed softly. Dom scowled at us. Then pulled a folded bill from his pocket and said something to Ringo and shoved the money at him. Ringo held up his hands and backed away, shaking his head. Obviously, Ringo was smarter than he looked.

As if on cue, Lemon sauntered from where she’d been fiddling with the big dartboard on the wall behind Rocket. Before I realized what she was gonna do, Lemon marched straight up to Jackhammer. When she got close, she put one dart in her teeth sideways, like a pencil, then stabbed the other two into Jackhammer’s thighs. The third she saved for his crotch.

A collective “OHHHH!” went up around the room before everyone laughed. Everyone except Rocket. No one offered to help Jackhammer.

Rocket let the ruckus continue for a couple of minutes before quieting everyone with a look. “What I said, you dumbshit, is they gave us a heads-up.”

Jackhammer was on his knees on the floor of the clubhouse. He looked around the room until he caught Boon’s gaze. “Ain’t you gonna help me?”

Boon gave him a disgusted look. “Shoulda helped you permanently the last time you asked me that fuckin’ question. Instead, I brought you here. To my home.” Boon leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the table in front of him. “Apparently you still ain’t grasped the concept of actions and consequences.”

Blood was beginning to pool beneath and around Jackhammer. Usually this was the point where Rocket scolded Lemon, and Lemon pouted and pretended to be all innocent and shit before she launched that last dart straight into Jackhammer’s eye. Instead, the little hellion just stood there, twirling the point of the dart against her index finger lazily.

“You gonna get up and join the meetin’ or sit there and bleed?” Rocket gave Jackhammer a look that had been known to leave prospects quaking in their boots.

With his defenses down -- because of a dart to the dick -- Jackhammer had no hope of holding his ground. He grunted and tried to rise to his feet but the darts in his thighs must have protested, because the man gave a sharp yelp.

“Jesus Christ,” Boon muttered, scrubbing his hand over his eyes. “Will someone just shoot him and put him outta his misery?”

“Kinda feels a little like shootin’ a helpless, if stupid, teenager.” Ringo took out his sidearm and chambered a round. “But I can sure the fuck do it.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Finally! Lemon pushed her way past Rocket and knelt in front of Jackhammer. Before he knew what Lemon was doing, she reached out and yanked both darts from Jackhammer’s legs. Which caused another yelp. That yelp turned into a full-on girl scream when she yanked the dart from his crotch. “There. All better! Go see Bullet for a tetanus shot later.”

“You fuckin’ bitch!” Jackhammer screamed. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you for this! Fuckin’ whore!”

I stood so fast, my chair tumbled back. I wasn’t the only one. None of us were as fast as Rocket, though. He pulled his gun and shot Jackhammer in the crotch. Not once. Three. Fucking. Times.

“You want somethin’ to scream about, you pissant little motherfucker?” Rocket shot him in the crotch a fourth time. “Try that.” Again, Rocket shot. “How about that, too?” Blood was now everywhere. Jackhammer was covered in it and there was no doubt Rocket had hit one or both femoral arteries. Probably every blood vessel in Jackhammer’s pelvis. In any event, Jackhammer was no longer screaming. It wasn’t like Rocket to lose his cool, and definitely not like him to kill indiscriminately. Which told me Jackhammer had been way more trouble than Rocket was willing to take.

‘Course, it coulda just been the fact the fool had threatened to kill Lemon, no matter how much pain the fucker was in at her doing. The easiest way to unleash the outlaw in Rocket was to threaten his woman. Lemon had had a couple close calls since she met Rocket and the president hadn’t gotten over any of it yet. None of us had.

“Thank Christ.” Boon holstered his own gun before sitting back down. “I’d hate to’ve had to explain to Bessy how I’d killed her fuckin’ kid when I finally got to hell.”

“Jackhammer was your stepson?” I asked before I could stop myself and immediately winced. “Never mind. Ain’t my business.”

Boon gave me an impatient look. “Hell no, the bastard ain’t my stepson. He was my old lady’s kid. I never claimed him in any way, shape, or form.” He spat where Jackhammer lay in a heap on the floor nearby. “Told you this was your last chance to straighten up, kid. Shoulda fuckin’ listened.”

“Can we get on with this or would someone else like to die?” The look on Rocket’s face said he’d had enough.

Scrub, the cleaner for Grim Road, stood and nudged Jackhammer’s lifeless form with the toe of his boot. When the other man didn’t move, Scrub shrugged. “I’ll take him out back to dispose of. Let me know when the meeting’s over, and I’ll see what I need to do here.”

Rocket just grunted before continuing. “Ain’t no easy way to say this. Rattler. Falcon. One member of your team survived your last mission. She’s alive, but a prisoner.”

I felt like I’d been sucker punched. I think I actually grunted. “No,” I whispered. “Not possible.” I turned to look at Rattler who had an equally sick look on his face. Not that we valued female lives over male lives, but I hadn’t missed the fact Rocket had said “she” and there was no way Rattler missed it either. “We visually accounted for every single man and woman in our mission. We didn’t leave anyone behind, least of all a woman. Christ, Rocket!”

“I have no doubt your count was correct.” Rocket dug out a thumb drive from his pocket and tossed it to me. I caught it reflexively or it would have bounced off my chest and hit the floor. I was still trying to wrap my head around what he’d said.

“We brought every one of our team back with us. They were dead, but we brought them home. We carried their bodies to the landing zone and loaded them into the aircraft ourselves.” I could barely form words. Reliving the worst day in my life… Thinking about the events of that day made me nauseous. It wasn’t just a matter of getting our brothers and sisters to the LZ and in the chopper. We’d had to pick up as many pieces of them as we could. In some cases, it had probably been left up to investigators to figure out what body went with that limb. Or head.

“You did. What you didn’t know was there was someone on the inside of that terror cell already, giving your handler real time data. No one bothered to tell you because…” Rocket trailed off, clenching his jaw. He actually glanced over to Lemon who was focused squarely on our president. Her husband. She was as stony-faced as Rocket and, in some ways, infinitely more terrifying, even if she was still practically a fucking teenager. She nodded her head slightly and Rocket continued. “Because the operative imbedded in that shit hole was Joilyn Graves.”

Instantly, Rattler got to his feet. He pulled his gun and aimed it at Rocket’s head. I’ll admit, I had to stop myself from doing the same. It wasn’t every day someone told you a woman you thought had been dead for years had been the deep operative on your mission. And you’d left her there. Also, it probably didn’t help the fact that Joilyn Graves happened to be Rattler’s sister.

To the president’s credit, he didn’t flinch. In fact, Rocket looked like he’d been expecting exactly this reaction.

“Easy, Rattler,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, trying to urge him to lower his weapon before he got himself -- and me -- killed. “We’ll figure this out.”

“You don’t get to utter her name, Rocket. Not like this.” I’d never seen this side of Rattler. The battle-hardened man’s hand actually shook as he held his gun. “Joi died a year before everything that happened that night. You go back to ExFil or Cain or whoever the fuck told you this fuckin’ horse shit and tell ‘em I’m comin’ to kill them.”

“It’s all on the flash drive, Rattler. Information that will explain everything. Obviously, the CIA didn’t offer any of this. Data and his wife, Zora, along with Cain’s daughter, Suzie, found this. I’m certain their means of procurement were less than legal.”

Yeah. The full impact of this would hit me later, but I had bigger things to worry about right now. “You said they were givin’ us a heads-up,” I said after clearing my throat. Rocket had hit me with way too fucking much in way too fucking short a time for me to process. “They offerin’ to let us in on this?”

Rocket nodded. “They are. Cain said he thought the two of you needed the option to go with them or not. Piston said to consider it the first official act of the South Eastern MC Alliance.”

“That op went to shit two fuckin’ years ago,” Rattler bit out. He’d holstered his weapon, but he was still standing and looking like he wanted to be anywhere but in this fucking meeting. “What happened for ExFil to get this now?”

“Not sure,” Rocket admitted. “But I think Mama and Pops might have had something to do with it. Them, or someone they know.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just something Cain said. He mentioned Pops in the same breath he told me they were being sent after your sister. That man doesn’t give out information without a reason.”

“When do we leave?” Rattler clenched and unclenched his fists. I knew how he felt. It had taken me a long while to make my peace with Joilyn’s death. She’d died in a fiery car crash on a rural road. By the time emergency services got there, she’d been almost completely burned. The autopsy had identified her by dental records and me and Rattler had mourned her death.

Joilyn had been Rattler’s last living relative. He, Joilyn, and I had become a small family of our own. I was included with them because their parents had fostered me. I’d been orphaned when I was only eight, and Rattler and I had been best friends from the first evening I arrived at his home. Joilyn had been born three months after I arrived so I’d known her her entire life. It had devastated me and Rattler both when she’d been killed.

Now, to know she was inside that hellhole, providing us intel at risk to her life and, not only had we not known, but we’d cut and run, it felt like the absolute worst betrayal. We’d left her to her fate. Once again, I’d failed someone who depended on me. Seemed all I did was fail people. At least, it felt like I had from that night on. Even now, I was actually planning on letting down one of the most important people in my life. Leaving on this mission and leaving Gina here was going to be hard on her. But I couldn’t leave Rattler to do this on his own. For more than one reason.

“You leave here in two days. Cain said he was sending a team to pick you up.”

“Sounds like you expected we’d not only accept their invitation, but that we’d insist on going.” I gripped Rattler’s shoulder as I spoke. It looked like a show of support, but if I touched him, I could tell how tense he was. Pulling the gun on Rocket had been bad. I thought Rattler had himself back under control, but the last thing I wanted was for him to accidentally hurt someone because he wasn’t thinking clearly. The PTSD resulting from that night wasn’t subtle. Rattler’s muscles were tight, but the trembling seemed to have stopped.

“I’m not a dumbass, Falcon.” Rocket gave me an annoyed look.

“Wait.” Dom looked from me and Rattler to Rocket and back. “Why would Cain make that kind of an offer? Seems risky puttin’ an unknown element with a team right before going on a mission.”

“It is.” Rocket’s gaze never left mine. “Which is why I want to know why he included you, Falcon. Rattler I get. Joilyn is his sister.”

“Yeah.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. I inhaled a shaky breath. “Joilyn was going to be my wife.”