Angels and Ashes (Heaven's Rejects MC Book 2) (13 page)

“What the fuck do you mean that you haven’t found anything yet?” I yell at the men surrounding my table. “It’s been two Goddamn days and you haven’t found a fucking thing. How can there not be any evidence? She’s not that fucking good. There has to be a paper trail. A bread crumb. Something!”

The men sit in silent solitude as I pace the front of the table. Anger flows through me like a flooded river seeking a new place to wash over the shore. The men that sit around this table are some of the best trackers in the security business and they’ve found jack shit on my ex-wife. I knew she was smart, but there’s no fucking way that she was this careful. She couldn’t even cover up her string of lovers from me, so how in the hell can she hide her connections to the cartel so well?

“Prez, I know. I looked at every account in that stack you gave me and came up either empty-handed or on a money trail so long that even an army of hackers would take months to get a pin on the money’s location,” Voodoo retorts as he drums his fingers on the table. Large bags have formed under his eyes, and even someone from the outside can see that he hasn’t slept since I gave him his orders. I can’t fault him for this being outside of his skill set, but it still pisses me off that we aren’t closer to finding out where the fuck the money is or the reasoning behind their infiltration than we were two days ago.

I rake my hands over my head in frustration as I let out an exasperated scream. The tension in the room only continues to rise with each passing second, and the boiling point will soon be reached.

“Does anyone have anything to share? Hero? Tyson? Ratchet?”

Each man’s eyes are downcast onto the table and their lips never utter a word.

“Jesus, how did this bitch cover her tracks to the point we can’t find a scrap of evidence?”

“I don’t know, Boss, but short of riding down to Mexico and finding them walking down the street, we’ve got nothing to go on at this point,” Hero says. “I wish we had better news, but even the police chatter about the Manuel Cartel isn’t giving us any leads.”

A knock comes from the door as Slider’s head pokes through the opening. I glare at him, and a look of fear flashes over his face.

“What the hell do you want?” I question him.

“Prez, there’s someone here to see you. I know better than to interrupt Church, but I thought you’d want to know that Trax is here to see you. Says he has information for you.”

I feel a flash of confusion cross my face before I motion for Slider to open the door farther and let our guest enter. Slider steps out of the way as Trax pushes past him. His boots stomp heavily on the hardwood of the meeting room before he trudges straight toward an open chair near the front of the table, plops down into it, and throws his muddy boots on top of the table.

“To what do we owe this unexpected appearance, Trax? Last time I checked, lockdown meant you stayed your ass at the clubhouse until you got the all clear or a call to round up the posse.”

Trax pulls out a knife from the holster on his thigh and grates it underneath his dirty fingers, tossing the dirt onto the floor. He slides the knife back into its place on his thigh before he even looks back at me.

“I figured with your little on-going domestic problem that you might want to know some of the intel I have since one of my men fucked your ex-wife. The limp dick bastard squealed during his punishment for touching something that didn’t belong to him.”

There are less than five people in this entire world that know about Maj’s infidelity, and he just announced the issue to every one of my brothers. So much for keeping that part of the story on the down low. It’s not that I didn’t want them to know, but it doesn’t exactly fill my heart with pride knowing that I couldn’t keep my wife’s pussy where it belonged.

“That true, Raze? Your old lady run out on you with one of the brothers?” Hero asks.

“Yeah, man. Found out right after we got Dani back. I wanted to keep that part to myself, but apparently shit for brains over here doesn’t know how to keep his fucking mouth shut.”

“Shit, Prez. I can’t believe she’d do that.”

“Yeah, there are a lot of things I didn’t think she was capable of doing, but it took Jagger dying to find out just what kind of woman she really was.”

Nodding appreciative thanks toward Hero for his concern, I turn my focus back to Trax and his declaration of knowledge

“So, Trax. What did the cocksucker have to say?”

“Oh, not much. Just that your old lady has loose lips in the sack. He kept going on and on about Tijuana and how she had told him that’s where she was headed to when her job was finished with the club. Brute also mentioned that Maj had a blue cell phone that she carried at all times that she guarded like her life depended on it.”

Thinking of all of the times I saw Maj with her phone, it was never in a blue case, but a red one. That bitch had a second phone. That’s how she hid her communications with the cartel. A fucking different cell phone. God, I hope it’s not a burner phone because that will add a whole another level of complications if we can find it. The damn thing must be back at the house, because before our little trip out to the desert, I made for damn sure she didn’t have a phone or anything to identify her. Just thinking about my actions that day make me sound like a cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch, but what happened was necessary for this club to survive. I only wish now that I knew all of this bullshit I could have kept her alive so that I could squeal about her wrongdoings before I killed her again. I don’t think I would have had quite the same problem with pulling the trigger and ending her life the second time around.

I tell my brothers the suspicions of the phone still being at our house before I adjourn Church. As we exit the room, I call out to Ratchet and Hero to follow me out to the house and help me tear it apart. We can cover more ground if I have two extra set of hands helping me.

Just as we make it outside, Hero’s phone rings, and the look on his face as he hangs up signals to me that something is wrong.

“Dani’s in labor,” is all he says before jumping on his bike and flying out of the parking lot.

Ratchet and I stand in the blowing dust from his peel out in frozen silence, neither of us knowing what to say next. This kind of news is never easy to hear, and I know that Ratchet is fighting the urge to take off after him.

“Shit, I thought she wasn’t due for a couple of months,” is all Ratchet can muster before looking to me for orders. He knows where he needs to be, but his loyalties and friendship with Hero are ripping him up inside.

“Ratch, I need you go get Slider and have him head over to the house to help out Irons. You and I will head on to my house and see what we can find.”

“You sure, Raze? What if Hero needs us?”

“The last thing that man needs is for us to be butting in his business. If shit goes south, he knows to call me and his brothers will be by his side.”

Ratchet nods before heading back into the clubhouse to give out the orders. I’m far from a religious man, but I say a silent prayer for Hero and Dani anyway. Losing a child is far more damaging to a man than anything else besides losing their wife. If things go bad, he could risk losing everything that he worked so hard to get this year. He deserves the chance of getting to hold his children in his arms and watch them grow up. It would be a cruel twist of fate if something were to happen now.

Ratchet stomps out of the building a few minutes later and slides on his bike as Slider spills out of the door and does the same.

“Irons called, Boss. Dani wanted Darcy with her, so Irons and I will be in charge of the kids.”

It doesn’t bode well with me that Darcy isn’t there, but Irons is a family man, so the kids should be fine under his watch. I make a note to swing by on the way back from my house to check on them. I love my kids, but having them at Darcy’s has given me a bit of a well-deserved break. Trying to run the club and our security business has always taken away my time with the kids, but it has been a learning curve on how to balance out my life now that I am a single dad. Maj may had given birth to them, but I know now they were raised far more by the other women in this club than her. I can only hope they are both learning from the experience of being around a real mother like Darcy.

As soon as her name flickers to life in my mind, her smiling face pops into my vision. I’ve said it a thousand times, but she’s such a beautiful woman. The way her dimples flare to life as she smiles or laughs is enough to make any man come undone. Not to mention the fact there’s an air about her that just screams confidence and loyalty. It’s a damn shame that she’s had to face so much turmoil in the last year, but she could have a calm life now if it weren’t for her constant need to meddle in club business. It took everything I had at the apartment in Tijuana not to throw her over my lap and beat her ass for the sass coming out of her mouth. My cock stirs at the thought of my handprints in blaring red on her creamy white skin.

Jesus, Raze. Get ahold of yourself. This is not the time to be thinking about smacking Darcy’s ass or her at all. I think I need to get laid again because this shit keeps coming back.

Shaking the idea from my head, I straddle my bike and flip on the ignition before rolling out of the parking lot to the south. The ride to my house is almost relaxing even though I know shit may hit the fan if we can find that fucking phone of Maj’s, but Darcy immediately comes back to mind. I recall memories of seeing her on the back of Jagger’s bike and how her hair used to flow in the wind like it was dancing.

Shut it down, Raze. Shut it the fuck down.

Pulling into the drive, the sun begins to set behind the house. I’ve always loved this house because it seems so simple compared to the rest on the block. The red brick stands out from the more traditional style homes, but I like being different. It didn’t hurt that I got this house for a steal in California real estate terms for three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars. I walk my bike toward the side of the garage and unlock the side entrance of the garage.

My search begins in the most obvious places in our bedroom, the office, and Maj’s home salon that she worked out of when we were on lockdown. Ratchet tore through each room in destructive precision while I thumbed through our personal files and our family’s laptop.

Apart from cutting open all the couch cushions and mattresses, I am nearly at my wits end when an idea pops into my head. Maj loved to cook and never allowed me or the kids in the kitchen when she made dinner. Throwing open the cabinet doors, I shake and toss every single can or box in them until a can rattles just a little bit different than the others. Grabbing a knife from the butcher block, I place the tip of the blade under the lip of the can and systematically pry open the sides until the seal finally pops. Reaching my hand inside, I pull out the phone I’ve nearly destroyed my house looking for.

“Time to find out what exactly you were hiding,” I say as I tuck the phone into the inside pocket of my cut. “Time to find out how far the deceit falls down the rabbit hole.”

After giving Ratchet orders to secure the house and clean up the mess, I ride swiftly back to the clubhouse knowing that the key to all of this might very well be sitting snugly in the pocket of my cut. Trax’s intel will prove to be valuable if this pans out.

After parking my bike, I jog into the clubhouse and nearly run over one of the girls as I slide into Voodoo’s work/play room. Computers, laptops, and screens line the southern wall emitting a nearly blinding light from their luminescence. The rest of the room looks like a nerd’s version of paradise with tables filled with the newest and best technological gadgetry. Voodoo does love his toys, and they often come in handy on hard security cases so we keep letting him play.

I scan the room and finally find Voodoo passed out on top of an open laptop’s keyboard. I remind myself that once this is over, I need to send him on a long vacation to catch up on his sleep and relax. V has become nearly invaluable to the club after his hacker skills helped us save Dani from that sick motherfucker she called a step-brother.
Rest in pieces, asshole
.

I make my way around the table and gingerly pick up one of the thick programming books that lay next to Voodoo before letting it slip through my fingers and land loudly on the table.

Voodoo’s eyes fly open when the noise startles him. His weight unsettles the base of the chair just enough to tip back, sending Voodoo tumbling onto his ass. A laugh escapes my lips as a pissed off Voodoo looks up from the floor seething in startled anger.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” I tease. “I have a present for you.”

Voodoo wipes the sleep from his bagged eyes and pushes himself off of the ground, dusting off his clothes and righting the chair once more.

“I’m not exactly a fan of your wake-up call method there, Prez. You could do with some etiquette lessons. I prefer a warm pair of lips and a tight pussy for my morning rise and shine.”

“Yeah, so do I, but we don’t always get what we want, now do we?”

Voodoo stifles a laugh before crossing his arms over his chest.

“A present, huh? You know it’s not my birthday for another month. Besides, the entire Denver Broncos cheerleading squad that I asked for wouldn’t fit in your breast pocket.”

I reach into my cut to retrieve the phone. Voodoo’s eyes grow wide and his hands reach out and snatch it away from me. Within a matter of a few seconds, the phone is hooked to his computer via two cables as numbers and letters begin to flash on the screen.

“This is better than the Broncos cheerleaders, Prez. You’ve brought me the holy fucking grail.”

“That so?” I question. “Anything useful?”

I step closer to his screen and lean next to him, craning my neck to see information, but it all looks like chicken scratch me.

“Nothing yet, but it won’t take me long to jail break into this ancient thing. It doesn’t even have a touch screen, so the tech on it is easily hackable.”

“How soon will you know anything?”

“Couple of hours max. Why don’t you go see those kids of yours while you wait? Might be good to get out of here for a bit.”