Page 23 of Cole (Dirty Misfits MC 4)
Hopefully, so that we could go on a date that stole my breath away and lived up to every expectation I had dreamed about last night.
Eleven
Cole
It was almost midnight before Tanner and I headed back to the clubhouse with a very pissed-off Brooks. I cringed at what was to come, especially since he had called an emergency church meeting to talk about some things. I knew Tanner and I had fucked up. I knew we were about to get reamed out in front of all the guys.
Thank fuck, I had my date with Molly in the morning.
We pulled up to the clubhouse around twelve-thirty and there were multiple bikes already parked in the lot. Brooks hadn’t spoken to myself nor Tanner the entire ride back, and he sure as hell didn’t stop to wait for us as he charged his way up the steps and crashed through the front door. I looked over at Tanner as he groaned, then together we started into the clubhouse behind Brooks.
And after I closed—and locked—the door behind me, Brooks pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I want to start off by saying that I commend Cole and Tanner for jumping at the opportunity to catch Chops,” he said.
Finn furrowed his brow. “Wait a second, what?”
Porter lifted his head. “Where was Chops? Why the hell didn’t I get a phone call?”
Tanner walked over to the circle of guys in the kitchen. “I decided to do a bit of tracking on my own since I had some downtime, and I found him at the boardwalk.”
Finn paused. “The Santa Cruz Boardwalk? But that place is, like, filled with people twenty-four-seven.”
I nodded as I walked over to join the fray. “Exactly. It’s the perfect spot to hide in plain sight. He’s got the crowds to disappear into, he’s probably paid off the security guards that watch over that place, so it ticks all of his boxes without being a place he frequents.”
Porter grimaced. “What the hell made you think he’d be out there in the first place, though? You just wake up with that premonition or some shit?”
Tanner shook his head. “I mean, we had already exhausted all of his normal haunts. They’ve practically gone underground on us, so I figured why not check the populated areas? It couldn’t hurt, and the worst that would happen is that he wouldn’t turn up.”
Brooks nodded. “But he did. Tanner’s way to work around this was right.”
Finn crossed his arms over his chest. “So, what happened? Where is he?”
I sighed. “He spotted us outside of a restaurant he was at and used an emergency exit with a fire alarm attached to it to scramble the crowd. We lost him in it.”
“Shit,” Porter hissed.
He turned around and punched the wall, causing every single one of us to wince. But no one called him out on it. No one got upset. Porter pulled his hand from the hole in the wall he had just created, shaking it off before he turned back around to face us.
And while we all thought he was about to spew some sort of vitriol, instead he simply drew a deep breath in through his nose.
“So, where do we go from here?” he asked.
Brooks sighed. “You guys didn’t let me finish.”
“Oh, boy,” I murmured.
Brooks’ attention turned to us. “While I commend you guys for trying to get him, you should’ve called for more backup than simply myself before you attempted to pursue, or even show yourselves in a public place like that. We could’ve had the building surrounded, which would have prevented him from—”
“I had Tanner scale along the wall where the emergency exit was that he was headed for. We tried everything we could.”
Brooks nodded. “Yes, everything you two could do. What I’m saying is that there should have been at least four of us. So, you should have called at least Porter and myself.”
“And what about me?” Finn asked. “Am I chopped liver over here?”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, this isn’t some kind of a popularity contest. We tried jumping at an opportunity—”
Brooks interrupted me. “—that will now push Chops further underground now that he knows we’re checking everywhere, and not just his regular places.”
“Fuck,” Tanner groaned.
Brooks held up his hand. “Look, I get it. I understand that impulse. I want to get him just as bad as you guys do so we can end this shit once and for all. Okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“Tanner?”
His head fell back. “Yeah, yeah. I know, Brooks.”
Porter stepped up to the plate. “Chops is likely hiding again, though. And this time, he won’t be hiding in places like the Boardwalk. So, it’ll definitely be harder to find him this time around.”
Finn shrugged. “We could keep tapping into traffic cameras. He can’t avoid all of them forever. Eventually, he’ll pop up.”
Brooks shook his head. “But by then, the Black Flags might have already re-established, which means we’d be back to square one.”
