Chapter 9

Tav

" Y o, listen up! As you probably know by now, Tav, Blanche and their family will stay with us for a while. That fucker Royal Landry tried to take her boy off the street today. Hit him in the head with a fucking gun. He's with Switch in his clinic quarters, so we need to keep the music to a minimum tonight boys,"

All the brother's nod their heads at Marx, and then, surprisingly, to me. "Don't worry brother, we got you," Tank says quietly from the seat next to me.

When I first filed into church after my brothers, I had a feeling of belonging come over me. It feels right, like this is where I'm supposed to be. In this room with these men, making the world a better place. I try to do it every day in my work with my siblings, but sometimes there are things we can't do, lines that we can't cross when we wear our Tombs Security hats. There, we are the good guys. Here, though, here we are the good guys who sometimes do bad things for the greater good.

"Royal, he's the one working with Hammer, right?" Dex asks.

"Yeah, brother to the Prophet and the one tipped to lead when he dies," Marx replies.

I raise my hand because as a prospect I don't feel right just blurting shit out. Marx runs his hand over his beard and I see him trying to hide a smirk before tipping his head at me to go ahead.

"Royal is also Niko's father."

"What the actual fuck? Isn't Blanche the Prophet's daughter?" Rhodie growls, the faces of the other brothers like thunder.

"She was forced to marry him when she was 18. Her brothers managed to get her outta there when she was pregnant with Niko. For the past almost 18 years, he's been trying to get the boy back. She doesn't know why he's so important. Royal has many sons older than Niko."

Wire frowns for a moment before speaking. "Remy and I have been looking into every angle to do with Royal, and we keep hitting dead ends. On paper, he's just a high-ranking member of Mercy Landry's flock. Everything we've found so far points to a legit church about 3 hours over the state border. There isn't even a record of a Blanche Landry."

I want to be irritated that they looked into my Pixie, but I know that in their shoes I would too.

"Try looking into Eden's Keep. From the little Blanche has told me, the church is a front for a larger commune type set up deep in the woods. Her father set it up before she was born. From the outside, it looks like a legit church, but it's actually a cult. The kind where old men get all the women and young men get kicked out as soon as they come of age. I'm sure you can all use your imaginations to figure out what it's like."

"What the fuck?" Judge mutters.

"So we need to decide how fucking far we want to go. Blanche will help us get to Hammer. In return, she wants to take out what she calls the council members. There are 8 of them," Marx looks around the room, gauging our reactions.

Fox lets out a low whistle. "That's a lot of lives to take. She up to it?"

"I'd say she's more than up to it after watching her jump out of the back of that truck where she'd taken out her own cousin," Savage says,

"Is anyone ever going to find a normal woman to lock down?" Fox asks, then dodges Wire's fist.

"My woman is normal!" he says through clenched teeth.

"Sorry to break it to you man, but she's not. No one is that goddamned nice," Sniper says, shaking his head.

Marx's lips curl up a little before banging his fist on the table. "Alright, you lot. Wire, you and your team will look into why Royal wants Niko. There has to be a reason. Anything you find might help us bring down Hammer. Remember that we still have that fucker Martin on our asses, too."

"Speaking of, we've clocked him with eyes on Devil's Big Tow," Judge growls.

"He's been seen at the garages, too," Nitro adds.

"Fuck," Marx growls, running a hand down his face. "I'll get on to Sergeant Davies. He needs to rein that pasty fuck in." He looks around the room, "From now on every time you see him note the date and time. I want evidence of his harassment, got it?"

"Are you sure we just can't make him disappear? I know someone who would love to get their old ass hands on him," Rhodie smirks.

"No murdering! Not yet, anyway." He waits until we all nod in agreement. "I want all men keeping their ears and eyes open for any trafficking activity - women going missing or dodgy shit going on. Wire, you and your team know what to do. Look into anything and everything. We'll use that information to fuck them all up, take Hammer out while we're at it. Blanche will have her revenge on the 8 council members, and collectively we shut down their entire operation."

"Well, when you put it like that Pres, it sounds easy," Savage says rolling his eyes.

"Bet you're glad you're not in that seat anymore, huh?" Dex teases his ex-pres.

"Oh, I am fucking overwhelmed with joy that I get to sit my ass right here and take all of Marx's well barked instructions," he grins while Marx flips the bird.

"Yeah, yeah. Get out of here fuckers," Marx brings down the gavel, or the meat tenderizer with a bang and everyone files out.

I hang around until it's me and Marx. "Pres, I just want to thank you for having my back. It means a lot to know that I have an MC family that can help protect Blanche and the kids,"

He stares at me for a moment. "You know that we would have had your back anyway, right? Doesn't matter that you're Chewy's brother. You and your family have had our backs since your crazy little sister broke into my compound. You've taken bullets and lives for us. We're family whether you wear a patch or not, Tav. Blanche and those kids are yours, which makes them ours." He looks thoughtful for a moment, his dark brows in a frown. "Did you join my MC to keep Blanche safe?"

I shake my head at him. "I've always been the youngest brother. The one who hung around Mom and wanted to keep the peace. There's a reason my face is prettier than my brothers - no broken noses, see?" I point to my perfectly straight nose as Marx snorts. "Since Gus and Chewy and Pops, to an extent, found their people and fell in love, they -" I blow out a breath, "they don't really need me anymore." I look at my hands spread out on the large wooden table that sits in the center of church.

"You're a fixer, Tav, the diplomat. I've known it since the moment you parked your SUV in my compound asking to talk to your sister. Pops is the patriarch. The man who kept you all together when you needed it. Gus is the leader. Jules is calculating and Chewy is so fucking brilliant it's scary. But you, you keep things ticking over, you smooth the way so your family can work at their very best. I've seen you do it here with the brothers. I've seen you do it with that prickly ass woman you claimed. You genuinely care, and that's something that you can't fake." He stands to leave the room, dropping his huge hand on my shoulder and squeezing on his way out. "We're lucky to have you, kid. Now let's go tell Blanche and the girls what the plan is."

I stand and follow my Pres out. "You know that you're not that much older than me, right?"

"Shut up."

Blanche

The men all start filing out of church heading for the bar. Tav hasn't come out yet and I'm starting to get a little worried.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mama Debs asked if we can have a movie night with her and Jovie. Can we please? Please please please?" Cove asks, her little hands clasped under her chin. Elio stands beside Mama Debs, holding her hand.

Looking at the time, I notice it's still reasonably early. Well, later than I would normally let them start a film, but after what happened today I'd already decided to keep them all home from school tomorrow. I will continue to do that until the threat is neutralized. Remy was nice enough to offer to sit and help them with schoolwork if I can organize their schools to send it all through. That's on my to do list tonight once I put them to bed.

"Yes, you can. But no sugary snacks, OK, Mama Debs?"

"Of course not!" She says, and I'm pretty certain I can't trust her on that one because she has a glint in her eyes like she's already assembled a whole grazing platter of pure sugar for tonight's movie night.

"It's OK, Cove's mommy, we're only allowed popcorn for night time movies," Jovie says to me, her cute little face super serious.

"Thank you Jovie, that makes me feel a lot better." She grins and then takes off, following Mama Debs into the kitchen, her curly hair like a halo around her head.

My eyes follow them for a moment before swinging back around to the door to church, just in time to see Tav following behind Marx, a smile on his face. He's nowhere near as big as Marx, but Tav's broad shoulders and lean swimmer's build get my heart racing every time. That and the whiskey-colored eyes that search for me in the room. He finally meets my gaze and his face lights up. He's so fucking beautiful and gentle, and again I regret pulling him into my world. I've killed someone and I plan on killing more people. Darkness, filth like that shouldn't touch this man, and yet it will. I know it will.

"Wire, Remy, Chewy -"

"Sir, yes sir!" Tav's sister yells as she jumps to her feet. Marx stares at her for a moment, then ignores the outburst.

"Your team is on Royal intel. He's never tried taking the other kids, only Niko. Find out what makes him so special. It may help us unravel their operation."

"Do you have anything that will help us with that?" Remy says in her sweet voice. "No offense, but I tried looking into your past earlier to get a head start on Niko's father, but, well, Landry is such a common name in Louisiana and I couldn't find any records that matched you or Niko anywhere." Remy wrings her hands and I really want to pull her into a hug, even if I'm annoyed she tried looking into my past. But if this is going to work, and these people are going to trust me, I have to trust them in return.

"Look under Patience Surette Landry. That's my birth name and the name I registered when I had Niko. His birth name is Nicholas Surette Landry." I hesitate for a moment and then remember I'm doing this for my kids. "Royal is his father, but he's not named on the birth certificate. I know it's fucked up, and it wasn't, um, consensual, but it is what it is and he's a great kid."

Remy clasps her hands in front of her large bust and looks at me with her giant blue eyes shimmering with tears. "You are one brave momma and I know you don't know us that well just yet, but we'll do whatever we can to help your kiddos. Trust me."

Fuck. What a sweetheart, I mumble to myself, but not quiet enough.

"I know, right? She's the best of us. Then there's the rest of us," Nat says with a grin as she indicates herself, Ana, and Chewy.

"Hey! Speak for yourself! I'm bloody delightful," Ana mutters.

"Anyway," Wire says, shutting down the women bickering, "Remy will get a start on looking into Royal. What have you got in terms of Hammer?"

Blowing out a breath, I think for a moment. "I know that there's a shipment going out soon. My sister's 3-day-old baby is meant to be on it."

A chorus of "What the fuck?" is thrown around by almost every man in the room and my nerves settle, knowing I'm in the right place.

"It's OK, she's safe!" Tav yells out. "Pixie got her out the night the kids stayed with us."

The grumbling settles as the men find their places again.

"I'll call my brothers, see if our sister knows anything more. It may take a while to get in touch with her, she's been transported up north in secret so Royal can't get to her."

Marx nods his head at this information.

"Tonight we let Wire and the team find out as much as they can with Blanche's help. We need to know exactly who and what the fuck we're dealing with. We're still being watched by the fucking Rose Grove PD, so we need to keep our noses clean. No murdering. That's directed at you, Chewy." He glares at Tav's sister while I stare in shock. Surely he can't mean actual murder, right?

Looking around at everyone in the room with amused looks on their faces I have to wonder. I get these guys are an MC, however from my research, they aren't a 1% club, meaning they're more weekend riders, people who do it because they love bikes, right? Clearly, the MC brothers would have taken lives. They're all ex-military, but Tav and his family are in laws to the club. They run a security company. They must be joking about Tav's sister murdering people.

"I repeat, no murder. Or torture for that matter, at least not until we get the pigs off our backs. Especially that fucker, Officer Martin," Marx grumbles.

"I know that greasy turd," I voice out loud, all heads snapping toward me.

"How do you know him?" Tav's eldest brother Gus asks. He looks concerned. And constipated. He arrived to pick up Ana when we were in the middle of redecorating the clubhouse with rubber dongs.

"He came to my house acting like the concerned PD officer, wanting to make sure my kids were OK. I recognized the slimy bastard from Eden's Keep. He's been meeting with Royal."

"Well, I think we now know why the hell this Martin guy has a hard-on for us. If he's working with Royal and Hammer, then we have a dirty cop problem," Savage offers.

"Also explains why the hell DRMC and the Bratva were both hit with murder investigations. It's easy enough to do when the person framing you works for the PD," agrees Dex.

"Hmm, it does make sense, but how the hell did Hammer, Officer Martin, and Royal all cross paths? Hammer has never lived in Rose Grove, Martin grew up in the same trailer park that Wire spent weekends, and Royal is Louisiana based." This time Gus. He's always wanting to cross all the T's and dot all the i's.

Marx knocks twice on the table in front of him. "Wire, add that to your list. The more intel we have, the easier it will be to take them all down."

"Ah, guys, I've managed to hack Officer Martin's cruiser. Aside from showing a scary amount of time outside DRMC buildings, it says here that he took a little trip to Louisiana four days ago." Chewy has her hand up to get everyone's attention, but there's no need. As soon as she starts talking, everyone listens. It's a nice change from where I grew up.

I'm momentarily distracted until Tav turns his whiskey colored eyes to me. "That was the day you rescued your sister and her baby," he snaps his head toward his sister, "around what time or times was he there, Dayz?"

Her fingers fly over the keys, the tapping loud in the quiet common room. Her brows pull down, and she purses her lips for a moment. "It says here he was there at around 9pm. The next day he headed further up north, before turning around and coming back. I wonder what was so important up north?"

Fuck.

"Where up north?" I ask, pulling my phone from my pocket, pulling up Vic's number.

"Last stop was Sunny Hill before he turned around,"

"Shit. Hold up." I raise a finger to ask Chewy to wait a moment, then I dial my brother. It rings twice before he picks up.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't our horrible sister. How's it going, squirt?" Vic's voice booms out on speaker.

"Hey Vic, you're on speaker with the Devil's Rose MC," I try to keep the smile out of my voice because I know he'll be all pissy I didn't warn him. Given that we didn't grow up with a lot of technology, Vic finds phones uncomfortable and his biggest pet peeve is being on speaker. Which means I have him on speaker every time I call him.

"Oh heyyyyy everybody. I hate you, Patience," he hisses after the pleasant greeting, causing the MC to laugh.

"OK, I'll stop messing with you. Where did you drop Lovely and Bee?"

"Why?"

"We think a Rose Grove police officer may have followed you. I've seen him meeting with Royal when I was running surveillance and Tav's sister tracked his cruiser. He was in Louisiana heading north not long after the rescue." and then I decide to tell them the rest, really quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. "Oh, and Royal tried to take Niko tonight, BUT he's fine and we are all safe at the DRMC clubhouse," I say quickly and loudly to stop Vic from having a complete meltdown.

"What the fuck did she just say?" I hear Dom and Chris in the background and Vic telling them exactly what I just said.

"Fuck, sis, are you all safe? Do you need us to come down there?" Vic says evenly while Dom and Chris talk over him to let me know they're coming. God I love them.

"No, I'm fine. I just need you to tell me where you took Lovely. I need to know that she's safe."

"We took the waterways, passed them off around an hour from home. Diligence then took them and handed them off again. As far as we know, her and Bee are safe and well. They check in once a day."

"Oh, thank God. That baby girl is too little and too precious to have all the evil in the world after her."

"We've got this. You take care of our nieces and nephews. You need anything you call us. We can be there in 3 hours."

"Will do. Love you all," I hang up and look around the room, the men and women all smiling softly at me. "Well, there you have it. Whoever Martin was meeting, it thankfully wasn't my sister or her baby."

"So, I'm guessing, judging by that conversation, you and your family run a sort of underground railroad type thing for people leaving Eden's Keep?" Chewy says, not even taking her eyes off the keyboard she's typing on.

"Oh, um, yeah. To begin with, we'd settle women and their children in the same small town as my brothers, but time and time again Royal would come looking for them and then using his bullshit mind control techniques, he'd use their fear of God to guilt them into going back. After that, we set up a series of contacts. Past members and their families now step in and help them get as far away as possible. We offer new clothing, names and ID if needed, that sort of thing." Looking up I notice Tav's eyes shining, he's puffed out with pride and the thought that someone like him can be proud of what we've achieved makes my chest feel warm.

"Using the waterways is genius," Rider mentions.

"Well, it's easy and accessible. My brothers run a swamp tour and gator business,"

"A WHAT!?" Chewy screeches, her eyes wild with excitement. I can honestly say this is the first time the woman has looked me in the eye.

"A swamp tour and gator business,"

"So they have gators?" she waves her hands as if to tell me to hurry the hell up with the information.

"Well, yeah. They rehabilitate injured gators, orphaned babies, that sort of thing. My gater Smiley lives with them,"

"YOU. HAVE. A GATOR??!! Tav, you better fucking marry this woman!"

I try hard to cover my chuckle, but I don't think I did a very good job. Not that it matters, because she's now turned her attention to Marx.

"Marx, we need-"

"Don't say a fucking word! Not one Chewy!" Marx barks. He then rummages in his cut pocket. Are those antacids?

She huffs as she sits down on Rhodie's conveniently placed knee.

"Let's get to work. Everyone know's what they're looking for."

"I think we should get Officer Martin out of the way first. Who wants to come pick him up with me?" Pops offers.

"No murdering!" Marx roars.

Pops drops his head, huffing out a large breath and I try hard not to snort as he looks just like Niko used to as a toddler when I told him no.

"Yes Pres," He grumbles, then raises his head to look at me and give me a wink. I try to stifle my giggle while everyone talks amongst themselves, organizing who's on what, who is reporting where, and so on.

Chewy is right in the middle with the MC brothers and I'm intrigued. I learned all I know about MC's from Sons of Anarchy and a bunch of MC romance books and I always thought that Ol Lady's had no say; it being a man's world and all that. But these huge scary men are listening to what Chewy is saying, taking on board her ideas. Same with Remy and, in fact, all the women here.

"Not quite what you expected huh?" Nat says, snuggled into the side of a tall, dark-haired man that I'm guessing is her Ol Man Savage. Jeez Louise, these two make a stunning couple.

"Not at all. I knew enough about the MC to know that my kids would be safe here if I had to send them to Tav. I knew they were good men. But they were men, a group of them, and in my past a group of men, no matter how morally upstanding they are, can be chauvinistic as hell. Which is why I was pissed when I found out Tav claimed me. I'm my own woman. I don't need anyone, especially not a man, to tell me what to do." She smirks at me as if knowing full well what I'm going to say next. "But since I've been here, it's been anything but that. I mean, look at how closely they're listening to Chewy," I gesture toward the group.

"Her brain connects the dots faster than anyone I've ever met. I mean, yeah, she's a bit wacky, but she's damn good at her job."

"Security?" I ask.

A big grin stretches Nat's face. "Nah, enforcing,"