17. 16 - The Notes From Hell

16 - The Notes From Hell

When Ariel came home from school, she walked in carrying a folded-up piece of paper and looking white as a ghost. “What’s going on, sweetheart? Why are you home so early?”

“I got a ride with Wallace Kincaid because Dina wouldn’t shut up in school about my dad.” She thrust the paper at me. “This was on your car. I looked because I’m nosy, but now I’m really scared, Mom.”

I snatched the paper from her and all the blood immediately drained from my face as I read it.

Pay up or your precious family dies. We’ll call with details on where to drop the money.

It didn’t say how much money. It didn’t give any pertinent details at all. That was it, but it was enough to not only gain my attention, but to freak me and my daughter out.

“Go pack a bag for you and your brother,” I said and then got on the phone and called my sister.

“I know you don’t have work tonight, so I’m not babysitting.” That was how my sister answered the phone.

“The kids and I need to come stay with you for a few days.”

“Why? Did you get kicked out of your house?”

“No, we didn’t. Someone left a note on my car.”

“And now you need to stay with me? Again, why?”

“The note threatened my family if I didn’t pay up.”

“Who the hell do you owe money?”

“No one, but Josh…”

“It’s been two freaking years. Don’t you think someone would have come after you before now, if it had to do with him?”

“What else could it be, Tillie?”

“Maybe that new, no-good biker boyfriend you got yourself.”

“It’s not him.”

“How the hell do you know that?” She shouted at me. “Look, I don’t want your trouble landing on my doorstep. I have enough problems with my husband, and he would flip his shit if he knew you came to stay because your lives were in danger.”

“Yeah, you got yourself a great man, Tillie. He’d rather let your sister, niece, and nephew die than to lift a finger to help out.”

“That’s not fair. I help you with babysitting. You’re asking us to take you in when someone wants to kill you. Anyone in their right mind would turn you away.”

“You know what, thanks for letting me know how you really feel. I won’t ever ask for another thing from you. In fact, I’ll lose your damn number altogether.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” my sister mumbled into the line before she hung up on me. I couldn’t believe it.

“Maybe you should call Walker,” Ariel suggested, and I glanced back through watery eyes to see that she hadn’t gone upstairs to pack a bag yet.

“I told you to go pack a bag.”

“I came to ask where we were going.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I heard Aunt Tillie. She sucks.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t expect people to stick their necks out for us.”

“You’re supposed to be able to count on family. Her and her husband are cowards. Call Walker. I bet he takes us in.”

I had thought of him first and nixed the idea because he only had one room at the clubhouse with one bed in it. He didn’t even have a couch in his room that could be used as a second bed. Besides, the clubhouse sometimes had wild parties that were not a good environment for children to be around, especially not 15-year-old daughters who had already started to blossom into their womanly figures.

“Walker lives at the clubhouse. He can’t take us in either.”

“Oh. Well, I still think you should call him. Maybe he can come stay here with us.”

“Go keep an eye on your brother for me while I make this call.”

“I don’t think he’ll turn us down like Aunt Tillie did,” she murmured. I nodded at her, but still worried that he would do just that. We had agreed to be exclusive with one another when it came to dating, but I wasn’t sure if any man would be willing to take us on if it put their life in danger, let alone someone I had been dating for such a short time.

When I tried to call him, his cell phone rang out. I tried it again and got voicemail again. I decided to try once more because I was desperate.

“Hello?” It was a man’s voice, but not Walker.

“I was trying to reach Walker.”

“Know that, since I answered his phone. Who is this and what do you want?”

“I’m Reesa and um, I got a note on my car. I need Walker.”

“Is he coming? Is he going to stay here and keep us safe?” Ariel asked far too loudly. I turned to see that panic had set in with my daughter and she was about to lose it.

“Shit,” I huffed. “Come here, baby girl. It’s going to be okay, even if we have to run.” I forgot I was still on the phone as I wrapped my arms around my daughter.

“Reesa! Ree! Pick up your phone!”

“Mom, someone’s talking in your phone,” Ariel poked at me to get my attention and reality snapped back into place.

“Hello? Hi,” I said as I lifted the phone back up to my ear.

“What’s going on, baby? Wash said something about you losing your shit and telling some girl you might have to run.”

“There was a note on my car when Ariel came home early.”

“What kind of note, baby?”

“The kind that demanded I pay up or they kill my family.”

“Fuck! I’ll be there in a few minutes. Keep the doors locked and your phone in your hand. Do not hang up. If I lose the signal or the call drops, you call back and keep calling me until you get through again.”

“Okay,” I managed to choke out.

“Breathe, baby.”

“I’m really scared, Walker.”

“I know it. We’ll be there soon, I promise.”

I got up and checked to be sure all the doors and windows were locked, then Ariel and I went upstairs and grabbed Josh Jr. and locked ourselves in the master bathroom. I had locked the master bedroom door first, for added protection. I wasn’t as na?ve as my children though. It would only take a really determined person a quick kick to get through those doors, but I hoped all the locked doors between us and whatever entry point someone had to the house would at least buy us some time.

We could hear the motorcycles in the background and knew that more than just Walker was on the way to us. I loved that he hadn’t hesitated. He hadn’t told me I was on my own. He hadn’t even asked any questions or acted as though finding a threat on my car was unbelievable or something to laugh off. He took me seriously and now he was coming for us.

When Walker pulled into my driveway, he let me know on the phone too. “We’re here, baby. Come let us in.”

“Okay.” I left the kids there in the bathroom and told Ariel to lock the door behind me, just in case someone had managed to get into the house while we were hiding. I hadn’t heard anything, but I was beyond paranoid at that point.

When I opened the door for Walker, he stood there with another piece of paper in his hand. “Where did you get that. I have the note in my…” I reached into my pocket where I’d shoved the balled-up piece of paper earlier. It was still there.

“You didn’t leave the note on the door?” He asked.

“The note wasn’t on the door the first time. It was on my car. Ariel brought it inside when her friend dropped her off.” It occurred to me then how bad things really were. “Oh my God! That note wasn’t there! That means whoever left it was out there when my baby got dropped off. They could have taken her.”

Walker’s arms came around me as someone else grabbed the note he had found and the one that was balled-up in my hand. “Just gonna take a look at what they had to say,” he informed me. His kutte said his name was Trouble. It was only then that I glanced up and realized I recognized him. Trinity had been the year above me in school, so she was a freshman in high school the year Trouble was a senior. Since the elementary, middle, and high school were all on the same campus, I noticed him too. I couldn’t help but notice him, since Trinity had a huge crush on him back then.

I never did learn what happened between the two of them, but Trouble was the reason my friend wouldn’t set foot near the Aces High clubhouse unless she knew for sure he wouldn’t be there. Knowing Trinity had issues with him didn’t mean I wouldn’t trust him, and Walker’s other club brothers, with keeping us safe.

“I can’t afford to pay you guys,” I insisted.

“Baby, you’re my old lady. We might not have discussed that, or made it official yet, but I claimed you. That means you and the kids are under club protection.”

“The kids!” I almost shouted. “They’re upstairs.”

“Go get them while we take a look around.”

I nodded and then ran upstairs to go get my babies. “Pack a bag for all of you with a few days clothes and something for little man to play with,” Walker called up to me. Even though he couldn’t see, I nodded my head again. It didn’t even matter where he would take us, as long as we weren’t left here to fend for ourselves.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Ariel asked as she opened the bathroom door for me.

“Walker and some of the MC members are here. He wants us to pack a bag while they look around.” Ariel smiled at me.

“I knew he would save us.” I leaned in and kissed the top of my daughter’s head.

“Essential clothes for a couple days. No bullshit and only one pair of shoes, Ariel. There isn’t a lot of room.” I didn’t know if we would be staying in Walker’s room at the club, but that was the amount of space I would pack for. Maybe the club had roll out cots or something we could put in there for the time being. It wasn’t exactly the way I planned to tell my kids that I was in a close enough relationship with Walker to share a room with him, but I didn’t see how it mattered anymore.

He came for us.

They saw that he came for us.

That was more than any declaration of dating. That meant they could count on him, and they’d know that moving forward. We quickly packed and then made our way downstairs. I held onto Joshie’s hand, and he clutched his motorcycle in the other hand as his eyes tracked all the strange men in our living room. When he saw Walker, his eyes lit up and he let go of me to fling his little body at my boyfriend.

“Hey little man,” Walker said as he scooped him up and noticed what he had in his hand. “You still liking the motorcycle?”

Josh nodded his head and held it up proudly. I knew he wouldn’t talk because there were too many strangers, and he didn’t have a lot to say to people he didn’t know.

“Right on, little guy,” Hollywood cooed to my son. “We’ll have you riding one of your own very soon.” He lowered his voice, though his eyes tracked to the side to meet mine as he added, “Just don’t tell your mom about it.”

Josh glanced back over at me with wide eyes, as if asking silently for permission to do that. I managed to smile for my boy even though I was still shaking in fear on the inside.

“We’ll get you a helmet first,” I managed to tell him, and my boy lit up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Walker came over and pulled me into his side while he held onto my son and then nodded for Ariel to get over there with us.

“Spike is outside. He already checked your car over. We’re going to put you guys inside and head to the shop for now. We have some prospects setting up a bigger room for us at the clubhouse until we can get shit under wraps here, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Aunt Tillie refused to take us and basically said she was done with mom,” Ariel confided in him.

“You called your sister?”

“I needed a safe place to take my kids, but she refused and said we couldn’t bring our trouble to her doorstep.”

“Her husband was okay with that?”

“Her husband is the reason she refused us.”

“Pussy,” I heard one of the bikers comment and Ariel nodded in agreement.

“Let’s get you guys out of here.” He glanced between me and my kids again. “What are you doing out of school?”

“Dina was causing trouble, and she got a ride home from someone,” I explained. “I still haven’t heard the full story because threats to my family seemed more important.”

“We’ll deal with all of it. Pretty sure it’s all connected anyhow.”

“What?” I asked.

Walker shook his head. “Get to your car. I’ll get Josh buckled in; Ariel can handle herself. You’re going to follow behind me and some of the guys are going to fall in behind your car. We’re going to Spike’s shop for now and then we’ll transfer to the clubhouse once everything is ready.”

“Okay.”

It didn’t take us long to get to Spike’s shop. Once we were inside, I tossed my purse and key down on the desk that looked the least cluttered. “That’ll be your desk, if you agree to work here,” Spike stated. I turned to look between him and Walker. “Your man spoke to me about the possibility the other day. Honestly, we needed someone in here helping out yesterday. If you’re willing to take the plunge, the job is yours.”

“Even with everything going on?”

“Especially with everything going on. Just keep in mind that you would have been offered the position without the added security risk, but now I think we almost have to insist.”

I gave him a quick nod because if words came out of my mouth, I was afraid it would trigger all the tears that were waiting to release as well. “Mom, you got a new job?” Ariel asked. She turned around and really took in the office portion of the shop where Walker and Spike worked. “This will be awesome for you. It’s during the day, right?”

“Yeah, while you’re in school.”

The way my daughter beamed up at me made me wonder just how hard my schedule had been on my kids. I knew it wasn’t easy since they had to have someone at the house with them in the evenings before they ever went to bed, and I was usually sleeping in the morning on the weekends.

“Weekends off, too.” When Spike added that little tidbit, Ariel squealed with delight.

“That’s awesome.” She moved to Spike and threw her arms around him. “Thank you for giving my mom a job. You won’t be sorry. She’s one of the hardest working people I know.”

“Shit,” I mumbled as the first tear fell.

Walker moved in behind me and wrapped his arms around my middle. I turned in his embrace, more to hide my teary blubbering from everyone than anything else. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” he whispered in my ear. “You got them for a minute?” He asked his buddies.

“Yup.” It felt like they all responded in unison, though there were probably slight variations of yes, yeah, and yup blended together.

“Everything is going to be okay. I promise. Things will just get better from here.”

“Well, they can’t get much worse, honey. I have people literally trying to kill me right now.” Walker grinned down at me. “What? Why is that something to smile about?”

“You called me honey,” he said. I hadn’t even realized. “First time you called me by anything other than my name.” He leaned in and kissed me softly before he spoke against my lips. “I liked it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re mine baby and I like that you want me to feel like I belong to you too. Endearments are for people you want to keep around.”

“I do want to keep you around.”

“Good because I’m not going anywhere.”

By the time we got back out to the office, only Spike and Hollywood were standing there with my kids when Quickshot and Keys walked in. Spike glanced between them and me with an amused look in his eyes. “Hey, Keys, I poached one of your bartenders.”

She glanced around and smiled when she saw it was me he was talking about. “I guess that’s okay. We were going to ask you to move over to Redemption Inc. in the office, but if you’re okay working here, then it might be for the better.”

“Why?” I asked, not liking that she already had plans to shift me around.

“You have a kid in high school and another in preschool. Tash brought it to our attention how difficult that can be. I can’t imagine working late nights and then having to do all the mom things when you really need to sleep.”

I had to agree with her. “No, it isn’t easy.”

“If things don’t work out at the shop here, just let me know, and I will find a place for you in the security offices. You’re one of the few working at Paramour that could pass a background check in order to work there, so congrats on keeping a clean record.”

We all laughed at that and then things took a turn for the serious. “I’m not sure if you know this, but I’m in charge at Redemption Inc. because I do most of the cyber security stuff. Quickshot is good with computers too, so when you got those notes, the boys asked us to meet you guys here.”

“Okay. Are you going to analyze the paper or something?” I asked as I tried to remember the last person who had the notes. The second one had never even made it into my hands, so there was no clue what it said.

“They both referenced that you would receive a phone call with further instructions. I’m here to clone your phone, so we can hear or see everything they have to say to you.”

“So, you’ll have access to all my calls and texts?”

Keys tilted her head to the side, which made her bright red curls bounce and bob there for a fraction of a minute. “Is that a problem for you?”

“Not really, I only ever talk to my kids, Trinity, and Shaina. Sometimes, work asks me to cover a shift or…” I hesitated to mention my sister because we would no longer be communicating.

“Or?” Keys asked, having picked up on the last blip.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and handed it over. “Tillie, my sister. After this morning, we’re no longer talking, so if you feel inclined to block her while you have that, it won’t hurt my feelings one bit.”

“Sorry to hear that. She doesn’t have anything to do with the notes, does she?”

“No. She refused to let us go there when we found the first one and no longer felt safe at the house.”

“I see,” Keys mentioned as she sat down and pulled out some equipment and a secondary phone that looked nothing like mine. “Your friends Shaina and Trinity, do they know about your situation?”

“Not the latest development.”

“You trust them?”

“With my life.”

“Who do you think is behind the notes?”

“My husband, who passed away two years ago, was a gambler and possibly a cheating bastard too. If I had to guess, it would be something to do with him or…” I glanced at my children; having forgotten they were there. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Mom. They need to know. Joshie won’t remember this, and I already know thanks to Dina’s big mouth.”

I glanced around the room and shook my head. “I planned to leave him before he died on a work trip. The gambling was too much. Some months, he dipped into our bill money, and I wouldn’t know until I went to pay the bills and the money wasn’t there.” I glanced guiltily at my daughter then, because she didn’t know that part.

“I hate that it’s come to this because I never wanted them to know anything bad about their dad, especially after he passed away.”

“I can take them in the garage for a minute,” Hollywood offered. I shook my head.

“No, there’s no point. We’re getting death threats now. I think it’s a little past the point of protecting them from the truth. Ariel could have been… She picked up the first note and I didn’t even know she was on her way home from school. The second note showed up after she came inside the house. Someone could have…”

Walker held me tighter before he sat me down on the couch that was situated along the far wall. It was obvious the space was meant for customers. Tash came into the shop while I explained what had been going down lately between the possibility of their being a debt and the woman who claimed one of her children was fathered by my husband. I even told them how she flipped which child it was after I saw the youngest one and knew it wasn’t possible.

“Hollywood, Trouble, and me picked up Josh’s gambling buddies and had a chat with them.” Walker looked at Quickshot and then his eyes drifted to Keys and Tash a bit warily. “We should probably talk about it alone.”

“I need to know.” Keys stated and wiggled one of the phones in her hand. “I’m sitting here cloning her phone right now, so we can listen in on potential calls.”

Walker blew out a breath and then told everyone, while directing it all toward his new club president, about Terry, her Italian ex-lover who lived here when we were younger. I remembered Joey because he was all any of the girls could talk about back then. Walker explained how the S.H.E. MC seemed to be involved with Joey, who was part of the freaking mafia out of Chicago.

“No way,” Keys stated. Tash shook her head as well.

“They specifically mentioned MiMi being involved with him.”

The two women glanced at one another and both of them immediately were put on alert. If I was a betting woman, I’d say they already knew that MiMi might be an issue. Then again, betting is what got me into this bullshit situation, so I wasn’t going to take those odds. They weren’t my business, so long as the people who weren’t involved with the mafia could get those bastards off my ass.

“Joey was demanding that Josh pay back the nearly half million dollars he had spent on child support for Dina over twelve years before he found out he wasn’t the father and that Josh was.” Walker glanced at me then. “We have not confirmed that she is biologically Josh’s yet.” When I nodded my head, he carried on. “He then gave Josh a loan for thirty grand to take to the casino because Josh and his buddies assured him they could double it, bring the thirty back and then keep doubling the rest.”

“Obviously, that didn’t happen?” Keys asked.

“No telling what he did with the money because we got the call from Reesa about the death threat before we could go hunt Joey Farina down to question him.”

At some point, during all the explanations, Tash disappeared. I glanced around and when I didn’t see her again, I turned my attention back to Spike. “Where’s Tash?”

“She had to go pick Griff and Diesel up. She had her bike when he called, that’s why she stopped in here. I handed her the key to our loaner vehicle, so she could grab them.”

“She was stealthy,” I mentioned.

“That one sneaks up on everyone,” Keys stated as she finished with my phone and handed it back. “I’ll be able to see all your texts and hear your conversations. Normally, I wouldn’t encourage you to give your friends a head’s up, but if you think you need to…”

I shook my head. “None of us have anything to hide.”

“Okay, then. My job here is done.” She turned to Quickshot then. “I need to go check security at Redemption Inc. considering what we just heard. We’ve been worried about MiMi and Angel Girl for a while and this confirms that something was going on behind everyone else’s back.”

“Go, do your thing. Be careful.” Quickshot stood and got ready to walk out too. “I’m headed to the clubhouse. Ghost is still around. Gonna go fill him in on what you guys found this morning and where we’re at. We might need a sit down with the Martinelli Family.”

Quickshot left and we were down to Spike, Walker, Hollywood, my kids, and me. I turned to Spike. “Since we’re sitting around waiting at this point, you might as well show me the ropes on your system.” I nodded to the desk with the computer on top of it.

“Grab a chair, and let’s keep your mind busy,” he stated.

“Watch Josh for me,” Walker told Hollywood. “Ariel, come with me. We need to go grab your brother’s bag, so he has something to do while your mom learns that system.”

“You should be the one teaching her.”

Walker and Spike both laughed. “Walker isn’t allowed near the computer or anything resembling paperwork. He’s a freaking menace in the office. Give him a torch or paint and he can create art. Give him a computer and all you get is chaos.”

Walker shrugged his shoulders, and Ariel teased him about being too old to understand technology as they headed out the door.

A few minutes into Spike explaining their ordering system, Ariel and Walker came back into the office looking puzzled. “Did you have one of the men move Ree’s Durango?”

“No, why would I do that?” Spike asked as he glanced around.

“Maybe because it isn’t outside.”

“Grab my keys and beep the fob.” I teased as I indicated the desk behind me where I’d tossed my things when we arrived. “I lose it enough in the department store parking lot that I learned to find it that way.” It seemed weird to lose a large SUV in their small shop parking lot, but stranger things had happened.

I went to grab my key for them, since I was closer, but it wasn’t there. “My key is gone.”

“Fuck!” Spike yelled as he jumped up and reached for his phone that was sitting on the other desk where we were just working. “Come on, Tash, pick up.” Her phone rang out to voicemail right as I realized why he had panic-called his wife.

“You gave her my key?”

“I didn’t realize. Thought it was for the loaner we always use. She probably thought it was a client’s car and took it for convenience rather than coming to swap out.”

“Oh no!” What were the odds that anyone would be on the lookout for my vehicle? “The first note was left on my Durango,” I whispered almost hesitantly. I didn’t want to speak trouble into existence.

A motorcycle started up and peeled off out of the parking lot sending gravel flying in its wake. Hollywood ran outside and hopped on his motorcycle. He yelled back over his shoulder. “I’ll try to catch her. I think Trouble just realized whose car she took as well.” He was gone in the blink of an eye. I stood there and prayed that nothing would happen to Tash, Trouble, or Hollywood.

Please, don’t let anything happen, especially after she picked up her kids.

“I’m so sorry.” The words tumbled out of my mouth.

“Nothing to be sorry for, Reesa. I grabbed the wrong key to give to her. That’s on me, not you.”

“I shouldn’t have just thrown it down there.”

Walker pulled me into his embrace to try to calm me down. “Not your fault, baby.”

“But I…”

Spike cut me off. “The key was literally sitting beside your purse. If I’d thought about it for even one second, it would have been clear the key was yours. It was just one of those mindless mistakes, and it was mine, not yours. Tash should have known it was a mistake when she grabbed a vehicle that had a car seat in it.” He growled and then threw something across the room. “Why the hell didn’t she come back in for different keys?”

That was a question we would all spend the next few minutes asking ourselves.