Page 73 of Paladin's Hell

Chapter 25

Hellfire

We haven’t been on lockdown for fifteen years. No wonder Mo was so shocked. I could be making too much of this, but I’m going on gut feel here. Won’t take any chance of anyone else becoming hurt. I haven’t told the women, but the prospect, Runt, had taken a bullet. He’ll live, but this shit is serious. He could have been killed.

I’m out of practice at this. Since we got out of the drug and gun running business, and have been earning our money clean, the club’s had no real enemies. Or at least none that brought trouble right to our front door. Then we have a dead body turn up, planted outside our premises. Other odd things happening, our shop broken into. Now a drive-by shooting.

Mo’s going to hate being here. She didn’t want to come today; I’d had to persuade her. Jeannie will be fine, as will Sindy, but Mo? Christ, keeping her here is going to be hard.

But she, the other old ladies and the club girls are all my responsibility. It’s my decision they stay here to be safe, while I have to send men out to try to hunt down an enemy we currently can’t identify.

Who is fucking with us? That’s what I don’t know, and what we’ve got to find out.

Everyone’s already in church. Mace lights up and slides the pack toward me. I toss him a grateful nod and take out a smoke. For once, everyone quiets as I flick the lighter. While they’re not talking, their body language shows how agitated everyone is.

Not bothering to bang the gavel, I open the meeting. “Don’t want to waste time lookin’ for answers we already know we don’t have. What I want is ideas on how to find out who these motherfuckers are.”

“Runt didn’t get the license plate.”

I’m not surprised Cad’s already asked. “Everyone else was out back I presume?” Yes. Of course we were. Our only witness, and casualty, was the prospect who was out front taking his turn watching the gate, and who, as a result, had been shot.

“Runt going to be okay?”

“Yeah, Thunder. It was just a scratch even though it bled a lot. I just cleaned it, put a couple of stitches in.” Rusty’s medical skills come in handy at times.

“What’s the plan, Hell?”

I glance around. Everyone’s looking to me. Christ, I’m tired, and they’re all expecting me to have answers. “Demon, Thunder and Mace. Get out on the streets. Keep your eyes and ears open and start tracking down those gangs. I want to know if anyone’s heard any whispers of people moving in, looking to take us down.”

“Take what down?” Mace asks, incredulously. “Who’s got anything to gain from closing our businesses? Shooting up our club and takin’ us out? It’s not like we’ve got a gun trade to take over anymore. We don’t even deal in fucking drugs.”

“Someone’s got a beef with the club. It feels personal,” Demon proposes. My eyes shoot to him. “What if we’re not looking for a gang, but one person?”

“Could one person fuck us up like they’ve done? All the activity on the security cameras had the same time stamp that night.” Pyro, like the rest, is looking worried.

“Two,” says Cad, adamantly. “I went back over them. Checked the timings again. Two people would have been all that was needed.”

Lizard’s looking thoughtful. “Been trying to think of who might have a grudge against us. What about Smithy?”

“Nah,” Demon says quickly. “Good suggestion, but word is he went to LA.”

I raise my eyebrows. Demon shrugs. Man didn’t cut it here, maybe he learned from how he’d fucked up. We’d let the prospect go some months back.

“It’s worth following up,” Cad proposes. “I’ll dig deeper, check he actually left and see if I can find what he’s doing now.”

“Thanks, Brother. Probably a dead end, but we can’t rule anything out.”

“Any progress by the cops on the dead man?” Taser asks.

“We haven’t been told…” I break off, raising my eyebrow, again putting Cad in the spotlight.

“I’ll hack into the police database. See if there’s anything that’s not being passed to us.”

“I want half of us here at all times. We keep the businesses running, but women and club girls are to stay at the compound until we’ve got more info.”

“You think they’ll come after us in our homes?”

“Can’t rule it out, Buzzard.” I wipe my brow. “While we remain ignorant as to who or why, I don’t want to take the risk that they might.” After pausing for a breath, I lay it on them. “I’ll want to talk to all of you individually.” I glance around the table. “Any shit you don’t want to discuss openly, you can fuckin’ tell me in private. I want to know if anyone’s pissed someone off. Slept with the wrong wife, for example. I’ll be speakin’ to everyone. If it doesn’t affect the club, that shit stays with me. But for the sake of your brothers’ lives, don’t keep anything to yourselves.”

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