He placed the pliers around her finger and started to press, as it pierced her skin she screamed again. “The bomb!”
That woke Dawg up and with wild eyes he ran towards her, only to run into Brick who just barely managed to stop him and turned towards Jessica.
“
Spill.”
“
I placed it,” she sobbed. “They said they'd find and tell my mom what I was and then rape her and bring her in. They've done that before. Please!” She wailed and tried to move to get out of Bull's grip. He didn't let go and held the pliers in place. “I didn't know what it was.”
They hadn't even thought about how the bomb had ended up at the strip club. It wasn't as if they had surveillance cameras at the club, just outside it, and it hadn't been big. They'd gone to the few tapes they had and come up empty. Anyone could've planted it. He knew why they'd had her do it. It was a way for her to show her loyalty, and he would've done something similar if he had someone undercover. There was a dead silence in the room, Brick was still holding on to Dawg, who seemed to come to his senses when her low crying started.
“They did it to a girl. Both her and her mom are still there.”
None of this added up to Bull. She'd been working for them for over a year, it didn't seem likely that the Águilas would've had an undercover for that long and even less likely that they'd keep that amount of control over her. There was something else, too, tickling in the back of his head, something that was off with her story, but he wasn't sure what. He went over to Brick, who was still holding Dawg.
“Is it just me?” He said in a low voice to both of them and Brick shook his head.
“
No. Something's wrong.”
Dawg seemed to snap out of it. “What?”
“Stay with her,” Brick said to Sisco and motioned to the rest of them to come with him outside. “I want someone to go to her house, find whatever the hell we can, because I'm not sure I'm buying this.”
“
If she's been with them for years, she's brainwashed, they have full control over her, that's how it works,” Wolf said.
“
Don't they usually control them with drugs? Get them hooked on it,” Bull said while still trying to figure out what it was that bugged him with her story. “We'd know if she was strung out.”
“
Yeah,” Dawg nodded.
“
It's impossible to miss that and they wouldn't get someone through rehab just so they could send them undercover to strip club,” he continued.
Brick was standing in silence and so was Bear. Both of them obviously having the same nagging feeling as he did. Then Bear looked up.
“Pronouns.”
Bull didn't even fucking know what 'pronouns' was. “What?”
“When she talks about the trafficked girls, she's talking about 'them' or 'they'. Not like she's one of them.”
Brick snapped his finger. “That's it!”
“How the fuck do you know what 'pronouns' is?” Bull asked Bear, he couldn't help himself.
“
Vi's got a test, I questioned her earlier today.”
“
Can we get back to the fucking point?” Brick interrupted them.
“
So we don't think she is one of the trafficked girls?” Dawg said with a sigh. “Then what do we think? I mean, why the fuck did she do that? She planted a bomb and no matter what she said, she knew it wasn't just a random bag to confuse us.”
“
We know she's not an addict and probably not a trafficked girl, because they do get those strung out and... it doesn't add up at all,” Bull summed it up to the others and then threw up his hands. “Fuck it! I mean, if we want to know, I can find out. Only reason we're hesitating is that she's a woman.” The others stared at him. “She's already admitted to placing the bomb that killed Vasco. Do we really give a fuck if she's got a dick or not? Are we gonna let her walk out of here either way?”
“
No.” Dawg said after a few moments of silence while looking at his feet. Then he turned his eyes to Brick while shaking his head. “No. I'm not saying it might not be a coincidence, but she placed it where Vasco always sat. It was just pure luck it didn't blow him to pieces immediately. I want to know why him. And either way, she killed a member. I don't give a shit about what's at her place or her sob story, she had a choice. She could've talked to us. She didn't. She killed a member and sold us out.”
Brick nodded and turned to Bull. “Do it.”
-o0o-
Dawg unlocked the door to Edie's place and snuck inside as silently as possible. He passed the bed on his way to the bathroom and she was sleeping. He needed a shower. He wanted to wash that night off him, and he wanted to think about other things until the morning after, when they'd talk about it at the club. Once they were done they were all too tired, and agreed to meet up the next morning to discuss what they'd found out.
After the shower he got under the cover and pulled Edie closer to him.
“
Hey,” she mumbled and turned around.
“
Hey.” He put his nose in her hair and took a deep breath. “Talk to me.”
“
You okay?” She said and tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes.
“
No. So talk me. Tell me about something. Anything. The weirdest place you've been or people you've met. I just want to hear you talk.”
She looked at him and stroked his cheeks before giving him a light kiss.
“Okay. I was on this island. Or more an archipelago, by the Horn of Africa called Socotra. It was like another planet. A third of the plants don’t grow anywhere else on earth. I haven't seen anything like it before or after.”
He closed his eyes and just listened to her, felt her hands on his cheeks and her breath on his throat.
“They had weird animals, too. Like a lizard without legs and beautiful birds. I only stayed for a week, but it was the most amazing thing I've seen as far as nature goes. Like being in a Sci-Fi movie.”
She got quiet, and when he opened her eyes she was studying him, still playing with his beard.
“Sure you don't want to talk about it?”
“
I'm sure.”
He stroked her tattoo. He'd looked it up, a black koi fish and blue lotus. Both of them symbolizing someone making it through difficulties. Coming out on the other side of it. The black koi for someone who's survived a big change involving pain and who's now at a powerful place. And the blue lotus for someone who's emerged undefiled from chaos and confusion. At least if he'd gotten it right. He hadn't asked her about it or the guy who did it on her. He didn't want to know about other guys.
“I love you,” she said and gave him another kiss.
“
Good. I love you, too. Sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep.”
“
Don't be sorry,” she yawned. “Think that's a part of being in a relationship. Being available to talk when things are shit.”
He chuckled and hugged her closer. “I've heard that. Just wished you'd taken pictures of all the things you talk about.”
“Pictures don’t do things justice. You don't hear, feel or smell a picture. I remember the things anyway. If you want pictures it's better to look it up online, and you'll find photos taken by pros.”
“
Go back to sleep, Nibbles,” he said instead of arguing with her.
She had so many ideas like that one, and until that day he hadn't even known she'd been to Africa. Not that it was strange; she'd just never mentioned it. He watched her for a while, and when he finally managed to relax, he fell asleep as well.
-o0o-
Brick'd had about three hours of sleep when he walked into the clubhouse the morning after. He took one look at Bull and Sisco and concluded that they most likely hadn't slept at all, since they'd been busy with disposing the body of Jessica. Because that was her name. She'd lied about the rest. Probably in an attempt to gain their sympathy. He was glad he had a guy like Bull as a Sergeant At Arms. He rarely had sympathy for anyone, and never took anything for granted.
They walked into the chapel and sat down.
“
So where do we land on this?”
Jessica hadn't started working at the Booty Bank for the Phoenix Águilas; she'd done it to earn money and get a status as and Old Lady. So initially she had been hitting on members, but when she didn't score and when the public's interest in her decreased and she made less money, she'd felt undervalued. She'd started to look for other jobs; changing venue is a way to become the new popular girl. And when she'd applied at the Águilas' joint, they'd jumped at the chance, and told her they'd pay her extra just to keep them informed. Small things to begin with, but once she'd taken their money, they blackmailed her into the rest. It had escalated, and eventually they told her to place the bomb. They'd said that someone had to die in the bombing, and Vasco had a favorite spot. She'd wanted out after that, but they wouldn't let her, they wanted her on the inside.
She'd started with the sob story to gain their sympathy. It turned out that the Phoenix Águilas using trafficking victims was true to some extent. They had some hookers, but not it wasn't their main business. But she wasn't one of them.
“
Think we need to be more careful with the girls,” Mace said and rubbed his eyes. “I mean, Ella warned us about Jessica and we checked her, but obviously not well enough.”
“
It wouldn't have been possible to know that she'd applied for another job and she was paid by them in cash, nothing to trace,” Mech pointed out. “As far as the rest goes, she's not the first girl who's been after the ink and not the last. If we want girls around we're gonna have to accept that those come around once in a while.”
“
Point is,” Brick interrupted them before they ended up in an endless discussion about pussy, “we were warned about her, and we didn't act on it the way we should have or
could
have. If you guys had told me she was pushing up on you and I'd known that when I got Ella's warning, this might have gone a bit different. I might've put two and two together. We need to talk about them and not just the quality of their pussy and blowjobs.”
“
Most of them push up in the beginning,” Dawg had a tired voice. “Or... some of them, a little. I don't know...”
Brick had a feeling Dawg felt bad about it. In general, Dawg's perception of women had changed drastically in the last year. At the same time he was right, most of them did have some idea of wanting to become an Old Lady, and they just wanted to have some fun on their way there. Some of the girls were tired of being 'good girls' and did this for a while before they moved on to married life. Others wanted the protection it meant to be one of the Marauders' girls. There were hundreds of reasons to why they came to the club, and the vast majority of them were gone within a year for one reason or another.
“I think we can all agree that while this Phoenix Águilas-thing is going on, we're careful. Some of the girls have been with us for a long time and I'm keeping those close, we owe them that. But we need to check out every new girl. If she's been here twice, I want a full background check.”
Mech nodded, that was his job.
“And we're not hiring new girls to the club, for now,” Bull added and everyone nodded at that as well.
“
Keep in mind, guys, that if she hadn't planted the bomb, someone else would have. I don't think they have more insiders, but we need to make sure they don't get another one. The warehouse, that was Haze's fuckup and I'm guessing he won't be a problem in the future?” He looked at Wolf.
“
No, he won't. That was my bad.”
“
Bullshit, we've all picked bad prospects. It's almost impossible to know beforehand if someone is going to make it or not.” The others nodded. It wasn't on Wolf, this was the very reason they had a prospecting period, to test them out. He turned to Bear. “And Bear, tell Ella about Jessica and I want that discretely spread at the BB among the girls. No details, nothing like that, just that she's gone, probably dead, because she didn't keep her fucking mouth shut about our business. We might lose some girls over it, but I don't give a shit at the moment. Anyone have a problem with that?”
They were all shaking their heads. He hadn't thought anyone would. It might get more quiet for a while, but when it came to bikers, the three constants were bikes, booze and pussy. It was always around. So they'd be back or new girls would come. He was pretty sure the members would be move vigilant towards the new girls, though, which was good. They needed to be. They'd slipped into some idea of the girls just being props, but this proved they needed to keep an eye on them rather than just their tits.
“On the note of Águilas. I've started to call other charters. First one was Chuck up in Englewood. He'll be here and the other border clubs as well. That's the ones I know for sure now, but there will be more.” He leaned back and ran his hand though his hair and loosened the braid to redo it. “I'm going to push on Roberto on this, it wasn't about the strip clubs, it's about the pot. Since they've attacked their warehouse as well, he seems to be a little more interested in helping now.”