Chapter 9

(Sinn)

Feeding frenzy

Under any other circumstances, the scent of perfectly grilled meat and roasted vegetables would have had Sinn drooling. Unfortunately, these circumstances sucked. Despite the tenderness of the steak in his mouth, and the succulent flavors coating his tongue, Sinn was positively miserable.

“Boy, you better eat up,” his Gramps said. “I have it on good authority that there’s a couple custard cream pies in the fridge waiting on us and you know your mama won’t let us at them until the meal is done.”

“Not hungry.”

“Well, you’re gonna eat that never-the-less. You ain’t wasting a good piece of meat.”

“If you care so much about it, let someone else have it. Better still, give it to one of the dogs. Maybe they’ll be too full to chase me when I get out of here and trust me, I will get out of here.”

“And do what!”

His old man’s tone was typical for when he was fed up with something, which meant Sinn had heard it often as a kid. Something clanked, then splashed, as wood scraped against wood. His old man knocking something over as he stood was the most likely cause. “I’m mighty sick of your shit! If you weren’t my kid, I’d drive you to the state line and kick you over it.”

“Then consider me disowned and get it over with so I can go back home.”

“This is home!”

“No, this was home,” Sinn said, shoving his plate away as he jumped to his feet as well.

Things fell over and that was good, ‘cause this little sham of a family dinner needed to be over and done with. He couldn’t imagine the grief Saint was going through, or what the club was doing to try to track him down. If they wound up in jail, or worse, over bullshit that his family instigated, he was never going to forgive anyone in this room.

“You better watch your tone boy. Show your folks some respect,” His gramps demanded.

“Where’s their respect for me! Or my choices! Or the people I love!”

There was a brief moment of silence, then his mother spoke in that low, pleased, content as a cat with a bowl of cream voice of hers and Sinn wanted to smack himself for giving up even that much. “Must be a hell of a guy to get you using that word.”

“He is and I’d like to get back there before he lands in a jailcell tryin’ to find me.”

“If he’d kept a better hold on you that wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Unlike you guys, he doesn’t try to wrap me in bubble wrap and duct tape me to a chair.”

“If he had, he wouldn’t be out looking for you.”

“He’s out looking for me because you people are fuckin’ psychos!”

“Don’t you cuss at the table boy!” his grandfather thundered, the table rattling from where he smacked it with his hand.

“Oh my god, Gramps, do you hear yourself right now. You are telling me not to curse after you hired people to kidnap me and drag me over state lines. You know that’s a federal offense right? You do get that there are laws against shit like that.”

“What have those laws ever done for us besides get in the way of how we make our money?”

Sinn pressed his fingertips to both sides of his head and rubbed. He knew the argument. It had been the same since he was old enough to understand that there were all kinds of ways to get what you wanted when you wanted it. Understanding the legality of it all, or lack thereof, was something that had come much later. “Just let me call him and explain that I’m visiting family. At least then he won’t have to worry.”

“Oh, honey, you just don’t get it do you?” His mom said, just as casual as could be. Only someone who knew her well, family, would detect the hint of malice in her voice. “We want him to worry. We want him to look for you. If he loves you like you claim to love him, then he’ll find you.”

“And if he doesn’t, you’ll know the truth,” his grandfather said. “Maybe then you’ll be content to stay right here where you belong.”

“This is not a game. This is my life your fuckin’ with.”

“What’s wrong sugar, you worried he’ll give up? Think you’re too much trouble? Decide to find someone whole he don’t have to worry so much about?”

He swept his arm wide, wanting to do as much damage to the table setting as possible. It was a satisfying feeling when the sound of things breaking reached his ears.

“Saint’ll never give up,” he growled. “And the only other person he’ll have is the one we choose together.”

“You only think that, you don’t know….”

Sinn managed to find something else to knock onto the floor. Too bad it wasn’t fragile. It just hit with the kind of thud that left Sinn with the impression that it was hollow. “I know it with every fiber of my being! You’ll know it too, when he smashes in the door and lays waste to this place and all of you.”

“When’d you get so bloodthirsty, boy?” his old man asked. Sinn could hear him smacking away on the food in his mouth, completely unphased by the upheaval taking place around him.

“I’ve always been this way, but you refused to see it!” Sinn replied. “Just ‘cause I was losing my eyesight doesn’t mean I was any less a member of this family. I’d have been a valuable member of the club too if you’d ever given me the chance. I could have patched in before I lost my vision completely, but no, you wouldn’t even give me the option to do that.”

“Because it’s no kind of life for you,” His mother insisted. “You’d always be a liability to whoever….”

Sinn wished he hadn’t smacked his knife off the table. He’d have liked to stab it into the meat and give them a taste of exactly what kind of damage he had the capacity to mete out. “Now we’re getting to the truth. What you all really think about me. That I’m weak. That our enemies could use me to get back at the club. None of this was ever about me, was it? It was about protecting the club. Well guess what, the club was more protected with me gone than with you guys dragging me back here like a puppy on a leash.”

Through his tirade, his father’s fork and knife continued scraping the plate. He was the only one still focused on the meal, his voice more bored than annoyed when he spoke. “If I were you, I’d watch my tone before I’m tempted to give you a reminder of what we do to naughty puppies around here.”

“I’m not a child, so stop talking to me like one.”

“Would be easier to do if you’d stop acting like a tantruming three-year-old,” His father said, that dry tone of his seriously grating on Sinn’s nerves. “Time to grow up and start acting like the man I raised you to be.”

“Funny, but I thought that’s exactly what I was doing when I took off to make a life of my own.”

“Seemed more like running away to me.”

“You would think that.”

“I’m a simple man Sinclair, and I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

Sighing Sinn shook his head. “All we’re doing is talking in circles. I’m never going to see things your way and you’re never going to listen to what I’m trying to say. Let’s just call it done and give me a phone so I can call Saint and let him know I’ll be on my way back as soon as I can get to a bus or train station.”

“Saint can have you back if he can prove he deserves it, and the only way he’s gonna do that, is if he manages to track you here. Personally, I don’t see it happening, but if you’d like to lay down a wager…”

In the distance, Saint heard the unmistakable rumble of Harley engines growing steadily closer and knew the smile that slid across his face was smug and likely to piss his grandfather off more than he already was. “I think it’s a little late for that, unless you’re giving away free gifts.”

“It’s a lack of common decency is what it is, crashing in on someone trying to have a meal,” his father grumbled, but Sinn could finally hear him laying down his knife and fork. Several chairs scraped the wood as people shoved away from the table, a couple of those sounds quite harsh.

“If you all wreck my floor again, the whole lot of you will be on your hands and knees crawling around with sandpaper and fresh stain until every inch of it gleams!” His mom declared. She’d make them do it too, and stand over them to supervise and ensure they got it back to the pristine condition she preferred it in.

The rest of the house might look lived in, hell a few rooms were notoriously considered disaster zones with warnings that people should enter them at their own risk, but the dining room was sacred in her eyes.

Sinn started to stand, eager to hear what was going on, only a window shattered, and instinct sent him diving to the floor.

“Somebody is gonna die for this,” his mother snarled, and sure as shit, he heard the hammer of a gun cock, and felt her brush by him as she headed for the door. The moment he started crawling after her, she stopped short, her silhouette rising some, deliberately blocking his path. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

“With you.”

“The hell you are,” she yelled over the never-ending engine rumbles. It hit him then. There was no way it was the Jokers; their trademark train horn battle cry hadn’t sounded. As the rumble grew louder and the ground began to vibrate, Sinn was struck with the sudden irony of the moment. He was about to get caught in an all out war, because of his family, after they’d claimed that snatching him out of the alley behind the tattoo parlor and dragging him back to his childhood home was to protect him from the Jokers’ enemies. Even if the Jokers had called in their Outer Banks chapter, they wouldn’t have the kind of numbers to unleash an assault of this magnitude.

“Fuck!” Sinn snarled. “At least give me back one of my knives before you ditch me under here.”

“Wrong plan.” She snapped. The whole situation had rattled him so badly that he’d forgotten what else was under the table. All he could see was her light gray hand on a dark gray panel, then he was rolling. The shove she’d given him had sent him tumbling down the ramp to the basement below.

It was a brilliant design…. for hiding bikes or launching surprise attacks off the backs of ones, a fact which had contributed greatly to the last time the floor had to be redone. Their system of trap doors was better than a modern panic room. At least with the tunnel maze beneath the house, there were ways out, not that he’d be venturing in that direction anytime soon. For all his desire to prove himself, he’d be just as libel to wander in front of a bullet as knife someone on the imposing side.

As he bounced off the memory foam mattress at the bottom, Sinn just hoped his side won, or eventually, Sinn knew he’d blunder into the enemy and be forced to concede that his family was right to see him as a liability. Saint would never learn his fate. The thought of the man grieving him, or worse, wandering through life thinking Sinn had up and abandoned him and everything they’d been to one another, left what little food he’d eaten threatening to come back up. It bolstered his resolve to survive this.

He inhaled the stale scents lingering in the underground space while struggling to decide which passageway to take. The undertone of motor oil mostly covered by lemon pledge and wood soap permeated the place. Pantry would have supplies, not that he could see what was in the fuckin’ jars. He wasn’t even sure they were jars, until he reached out and his fingers slid over the smooth surface of one. Glass. Everything was dim, so he had to pick it up to tell if it was empty or full. Either way, they’d make a piss poor weapon if he had to throw them at someone unless his old man had filled them with gasoline again, in which case, he’d have some amazing bombs, until the house caught fire because of them. With his shitty fuckin’ aim, he might be better off trying to shatter it against someone’s head and hope it knocked them out.

Muffled gunshots and small trickles of dust from between the slats in the ceiling surrounded him completely. All the floors had been doubled, another feature of the sprawling fortress. An image flickered on the edge of his consciousness, one of the blue and black Victorian home Saint shared with his brother. Inside was warm, cozy, and as protected and reinforced as here and yet, here had never felt as welcoming…. or as safe. Rumor had it that the glass in the Victorian was bulletproof. Whether there was any truth to that or not, he hadn’t asked, mainly because he hadn’t wanted anyone to misinterpret the reason he wanted to know.

The glass here needed to be reinforced, that was for damn sure. He could hear it breaking all over the floor, the dust brushing against his face as he felt his way deeper into the tunnel.

“You picked a bad time to visit.”

The voice came out of the darkness, of which there was a lot at the moment. He was glad for it though. It meant the other party didn’t see him flinch. He hated that he had but he hated being snuck up on more. Fortunately, he knew the voice. The only danger he was in from Maddox was being too annoyed to think straight. Considering the chaos above, that was the least of his problems right now.

“In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t pick anything!” Sinn snapped. “Like with so much else around here, my choices got taken away.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re done bitching about it, come on, I’m supposed to guide you to the other end, then I’d like to get back while there is still something to shoot.”

“Did I ask for your help?” Sinn hissed. “Go try not to get shot yourself, it would piss mom off if she had to sew you up again.”

The sound Maddox made was half snicker and half snarl. Sinn could hear his footsteps moving closer way before he saw a shadow move.

“Why do you think she sent me after you in the first place? Maddox said, sounding just as pissed off as Sinn felt. “Now come on!”

You’d have thought Sinn was the younger brother the way Maddox spoke to him and gripped his upper arm, dragging him further into the darkness. It felt like forever as they wound their way through tunnels with only a weak flashlight beam for light.

“You should check the batteries in that thing more often, it looks like it’s about to die.”

“It isn’t, your eyesight has just gotten worse.”

“Joy.”

He said nothing else, just focused on keeping his feet underneath him and the fear of slamming into something from consuming him. Maddox wasn’t big enough to toss him over his shoulder like a few of their brothers were, but he was strong enough to yank his arm out of the socket if Sinn wasn’t careful.

He couldn’t hear gunfire anymore or the sound of rumbling engines. When the ground sloped upward Sinn knew they were nearing the end. It was an old storm cellar set back within a circle of trees that used to act as a wind break for the old house. The moment the cellar doors opened, he could hear engines again, but not gunfire. It sounded like the fight was over, but there was no telling who’d won until someone came for them.

“Great. I missed everything,” Maddox hissed.

“Good. At least you’re still in one piece.”

“Really? When are you gonna accept the same answer?”

Grumbling, Sinn didn’t want to admit that Maddox had a point Sinn wasn’t in the mood to hear. Instead, he listened to the fading rumbles of bikes moving further away, along with the whoops and hollers of victory.

“Sounds like we live to fight another day.” Maddox said.

“Can you see anything?”

“Didn’t exactly have time to grab binoculars. My eyesight might be considerably better than yours, but I can’t see that far without aid.”

“Then you know the rules. We stay put until someone comes for us.”

“Comes for you, you mean. I’m perfectly capable of getting back their unseen.”

“Go for it. Tell mom I said hey when you do.”

“I’d have been safer with the hail of bullets.”

“Maybe, but you’re here now, might as well see it through to the end.”

“Whenever that might be.”

“This fuckin’ sucks!” Sinn growled, keeping his voice low despite how loud he wanted to shout it. He was reasonably certain that they’d emerged victorious, but until they got face to face confirmation, he might as well get comfortable.

When cellphones got popular and damn near everyone had one, a younger Disciple had suggested they text the all clear. The old guys had laughed at that, said anyone could type out a message and drag everyone into an ambush. Even after thumbprint locks had been invented, they kept things old school. Unless someone wanted to wander out wearing a skinned face, there were few other ruses that would work.

He lowered himself to the ground between two trees, making sure he was tucked well and truly concealed behind a massive oak and tried to get as comfortable as he could, under the circumstances.

“Sinn!!”

“Sinn!”

“God damnit all to hell you answer me!”

He knew that bellow. His head smacked the side of the tree as he scrambled to his feet, shocked when Maddox gripped his arm to steady him.

“Slow down, for fuck’s sake, you give yourself a concussion and it will be me that gets the blame.”

“What are you, ten?” Sinn snarled as he jerked his arm loose. “Here! Saint I’m over here!”

“Thank fuck!”

Sinn didn’t need help tracking that voice. Hurrying, he forgot about the random obstacles nature placed in one’s path. Several times he staggered and once a limb and several leaves cracked him across the face.

None of it mattered.

Saint was here. How he’d figured out who had him didn’t matter. Sinn knew why and that was enough.

It was just too bad his vision was so fucked he wouldn’t be able to see the looks on his families faces when they were forced to admit that they’d been wrong.