19. 18 - Guilt and Grief

18 - Guilt and Grief

“She was coming to pick me up,” Griffon said for the hundredth time. I wrapped my arms around his left side as my daughter did the same from his right.

The younger boys were curled up on a couch, snuggled into one another as Walker paced the floor waiting on someone to call with updates about Spike, Terry, or anyone involved with the mafia. He was antsy, and needed to be something other than playing guard dog for us.

“Griff, it is not your fault. She took my vehicle by accident. That crazy woman thought it was me.”

“Not your fault either,” he mumbled.

“No. The only person at fault here is Terry Matheson.”

“That bitch should have died.”

“She’ll get what’s coming to her,” Walker promised. “They all will after this. Gonna be lucky if Spike doesn’t burn the whole country down going after them.”

Spike had been the one to call Walker and tell him that Tash didn’t make it. He spent all of five minutes on the phone to relay the news and then went radio silent. The other thing we had learned was that Trouble made a choice earlier in the day. He couldn’t secure Terry and help Hollywood try to get to Tash at the same time. When it looked like Terry was knocked out, he went to grab rope from his saddlebags and Terry took off.

She was in the wind, but there was a BOLO out on her truck, and it wasn’t like it wouldn’t be easily identifiable, since it had a ton of front-end damage to it where she had rammed into my Durango and pushed it over the side of the road.

“Spike is going to hate me,” Griff cried.

Walker must have heard him because he came over right in front of us and grabbed Griffon. He stood him up and threw his arms around the boy. “Your dad could never hate you. He doesn’t blame you. This was not your fault. Spike has shit to work through of his own. He feels his own set of guilt.” His eyes met mine. “None of you are to blame for this. Not Spike, not Ree, not you,” he said as Griffon cried in his arms.

“What’s Diesel gonna do? He lost his mom. That was his mom. She was only my stepmom for a short while and I loved her. He’s barely going to remember her when he’s my age.”

“We’ll handle Diesel, man. He’ll be just fine and so will you and your dad. It’s going to take some time, but we’ll get you guys there.”

“Don’t leave us. Whatever goes on with the club, I need you to fight and stick around.”

“Where did you ever get an idea like I might leave?”

“Heard Dad tell Tash a few times that he thought you might give up on the club before they could get their shit together.”

“Not going anywhere, Griff. Not now. Not ever. That’s a promise.”

After a while, Griff crashed on the floor with Ariel. I wanted to take a picture of the two of them like that to show to my daughter one day, if they ever started dating and stuck it out. It was a mundane, normal thought of the future. As the two youngest children started to grow restless and wake, I knew we couldn’t stay hidden out in the shop much longer.

They would need to eat again, and we didn’t even have anything beyond a few moving blankets to use to cover everyone up when it got a little chilly at night. I went to stand beside Walker who sat in front of one of the computer monitors and watched the security feed where absolutely nothing had happened for the past eight hours.

“We need to get them all somewhere else. This isn’t comfortable and they’ll want to eat when they finally wake up.” I glanced at Griffon again who had an arm thrown around my daughter in their sleep. “Some of them will want to eat anyway.”

“I put in a call to Quickshot about thirty minutes ago. He’s going to have a prospect ride out with one of the cargo vans to pick us up.” When I gave him a questioning look, he patted his lap. “We don’t want to put you guys in a vehicle where you can be seen. Not sure who knows your faces. If we use the work vans, there’s no windows. We can transport you from the shop to the clubhouse without being seen.”

“Do you think they’re still out there waiting on us? I thought that Joey was in jail and Terry was…” I sighed. “Well, I guess there’s no telling where she is.”

“Terry is trapped on a mountain right now,” Walker admitted.

“How do you know?”

He eyed me carefully, as if determining how much he should tell me. “I need you to not panic when I tell you this.”

“Oh my God! You saying that is going to make me panic. Spit it out, already.”

“Trinity heard about what happened. She saw Terry driving like she was headed out to Helen and followed her off road headed toward High Shoal Falls.”

“Oh God. What is Trinity thinking?”

“She got in touch with Trouble. He is out there with her.”

Walker stopped talking and stared at the security feed again. “What aren’t you saying?”

He blew out a breath and then squeezed me tight as if to prepare me for what was next. “They weren’t the only ones to follow Terry onto the forest service roads.”

“The mafia?” I asked. It felt like I was stuck in some B-grade action movie as a bit character as those words left my mouth. Having grown up in northern Georgia, where you didn’t even have to lock your doors at night, it was strange to think about the mafia being here and actively hunting people down to kill them. It was even stranger to think that my family had ended up on their hit list.

Walker pulled me in closer to his body, so I rested on his shoulder. He breathed me in for a minute. “The mafia was on Terry’s trail when Trinity got between them. Trouble managed to catch up to her at some point, but…”

“But what? Is Trinity okay?”

“As far as I know.”

“As far as you know. What the hell does that mean?”

“It means the club lost communication with Trouble and that means they also don’t have any way to talk to Trinity to get updates on what’s going on there.”

“One of my best friends is out there with my dead husband’s homicidal mistress and a bunch of mafia guys who want me and Terry dead. And no one can communicate with her.” The tears started to fall again. “How is this our life? How in the hell did this happen? I swear if Josh was alive, I’d kill him all over again.”

“Trinity is with Trouble. He got to her. That’s the last we heard. Hollywood wasn’t far behind them, but when Trouble got through, Hollywood couldn’t. He’ll keep her safe.”

“How do you know that? They can’t stand each other. What if he decides to get rid of her while it’s convenient?”

“He would never hurt a woman, even one who drives him as insane as Trinity does.” Walker snickered then. “You do realize they hate each other because they have strong feelings for one another, right?”

“I have no clue. Trinity won’t talk about what happened with him to make her hate him.”

“That’s their story to tell and maybe after she gets back, she’ll finally clue you in about it.”

“I don’t like this, honey. We already lost Tash today.”

“I know. It’s a lot to process, but our men are out there searching for them, and they won’t stop until they’re found.”