Page 66 of Taming the Bear
I take a deep breath and focus my attention to the warehouse where everything is going to go bad.
The minute we reach the warehouse, I feel a chill go up and down my spine. I know it sounds crazy but it’s almost as if my father is here and he’s watching over me and what I’m about to do.
“All right, men. I need you to sit down because I have some shit to tell you and you’re not going to like it,” I tell everyone the second I get inside. I wait for everyone to sit and then I stand in front of them with a cigarette in my mouth. “This is not an easy thing to talk about so I need you to listen to what the fuck I’m saying before you jump off the deep end. Aye?”
“Aye!” Everyone chants out.
I take a deep breath and then let it out. “About a month ago, I began feeling like there was a leak in the pipes of brotherhood. I don’t know why but I had to test it out. I began sending emails to a fake account in order to check who was reading my emails and to see if they would show up. I created a fake drop and then went to the building where it was scheduled for. I waited about five minutes and hid my bike so whoever was there wouldn’t see it. So, uh, long story short, someone tried to blow me up at the building.”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” Flip blurts out and his eyes are glazed over with betrayal.
Slice shoots out of his chair and walks up to me with a weary look on his face. “You mean to tell me that you went to this drop and almost died? You didn’t have the backup of your brothers? You did this on fuckin’ purpose!”
I hold my hands out in front of me to halt all of the conversations and they all quieted down. “There’s more. Chantal? My ol’ lady? Yeah, I hired her to be a hacker and she began searching to see who did it.”
The final nail in my coffin that is going to secure my fate in this club. I have done the worst sin by bringing an outsider into the club but I don’t regret it. I don’t regret Chantal at all.
Mack Truck kicks over his chair and charges at me. “You mother fucker! You hired a fucking hacker to look through all of our shit? Have you lost your mind?”
The gravity of what I have done weighs down on me and I feel as if my chest is being crushed. “My main concern for this club is to make sure that every single one of you is protected. That Lucifer’s Lair’s legacy is intact and no one disrespects us. I know you don’t understand it right now, but I did what I thought was going to be best.”
Flip is fuming and I know he’s going to try to kick my ass but I don’t say anything to him. I don’t say a word as I let what I have said sink in.
Rabies raises his hand a little bit and I look over to him. “Look, I’m not saying that I’m not pissed on what you did. What I’m saying is, and what I’m sure all of us agree on, you goin’ behind our back is not fuckin’ cool. We’re going to have to bring this to the committee.”
I knew that was going to happen and I had already braced myself with what this meant. “Yeah, I know.”
“So who was it? Did you at least find out who did it?” Slice asks me.
“Smokey and Q Ball have been working with Big Sir and they were trying to take over our club and pipeline. It was a coup and they almost got away with it. Smokey was pissed at me for taking Dana from him and Q Ball is just a dumb lackey. I don’t know everything but Big Sir and I have had bad blood for years after he killed my girl and baby.”
There’s a hand on my shoulder and I turn to see Bic standing behind me. He’s one of those members that doesn’t say a lot but when he does, you listen. Bic is about fifty years old and retired from the Marines with my dad. He knows this club in and out. I feel as if I betrayed him the most.
“Listen up, guys. What The Bear did was not cool and goes against our way of life. But I need you all to look in your hearts and remember what this man has done for all of you. I might not talk a lot about shit like some little pussy, but he did what he had to do. Shut up and listen to him.”
I stick my hand out in front of me and he puts his hand in mine. We do that guy hug and clap the other’s back. “Thank you, Bic. I appreciate it.”
“Where is Smokey and Q Ball?” He asks me.
I tilt my head to the right and he gets a big smile on his face. “Boys, hopefully it’s alright with you, but I have some plans with these guys.”
No one objects to what he says and I know it’s because everyone is afraid of the old man. He walks around with knives in his pockets and is notorious for eating with the damn knives instead of a fork. Bic is the number one person that I am glad is on my side.
“Let’s go, guys,” I say and follow behind Bic as he walks into the room that holds our prisoners.
The room is dark and smells like piss mixed with blood. The two men as hunched over in their chairs after their recent beatdowns and I feel a sense of pride that I am able to have stopped them.
“All in favor of letting them take their ink with them to the other side, say Aye!” I announce.
All ten ranked members are crowding in the room and I see them all with a look of disgust on their faces. “These men have threatened our way of life and was going to sell our pipeline to Big Sir to make more money. These men that we have treated like brothers have betrayed us to make more money. These greedy fucking men kidnapped my ol’ lady and almost killed her so she would hack into our bank information online to transfer the money. Are we going to let them take our colors to the otherside?” I yell out to them in a motivational speech type of way.
“No! Fuck the damn bastards!” Bic shouts out and runs over to Smokey first. I watch as he kicks over his chair and Smokey’s head smashes against the concrete floor. “You asshole mother fucker.”
I don’t participate in the destroying of the ink on their skins. I don’t feel as if I have the right to do something so ceremonial with my brothers but what I do do is think about how differently this could have ended up. I know it’s not the end, but it sure feels like shit is about to change.
Chantal
Joe’s eyes are tinted with red and my heart breaks for him. My heart shatters into little glass pieces that literally hurt my chest and I reach my hand out to touch his cheek. I don’t know what the hell we are or if we are ever going to be anything, but I do hope that he feels something for me.
