Page 15 of Tanner (Dirty Misfits MC 5)
I wondered if our only other safe place had been compromised.
This isn’t good. None of this is good.
As I holstered my gun, I stuck to the left side of the road that was covered in the most shadows. As each deserted mile fell behind us, I grew more confident that those dickheads hadn’t made it down this far. The street got more and more narrow, and when the guard rails disappeared I knew we were close.
But the entire time I was worried about my brothers that I had left behind to deal with the carnage at the clubhouse.
Just get Summer to safety, then you can go back.
By the time we pulled up to the suped-up warehouse, a thought occurred to me: we still had those three crew prisoners tied up in the basement of this place. I cursed softly to myself as I inched beside Brooks’ bike. One of the lights was turned on way at the back of the place, so I hopped off my bike and offered Summer my hand.
It didn’t shock me when she didn’t take it, though.
Silently, we made our way through the front door. The outside of the warehouse was pretty unassuming. Some of the metal was rusted. A couple of places on the roof had caved in. There were even a couple of downed power lines that covered the broken and battered concrete parking lot that used to be the shining feature of this place.
But when we walked inside, Summer audibly gasped.
“Holy shit. This place looks amazing,” she whispered.
I chuckled as I closed the door behind me. “It’s a work in progress. But it’s got most of the common creature comforts everyone likes.”
“Like beer, for instance,” Brooks said as he came around the corner.
I turned to face him. “Where did you drop her and Cheyenne’s stuff?”
Brooks paused, his beer not quite to his lips. “Is that her name? Cheyenne?”
I smiled. “My daughter? Yeah.”
He nodded. “Beautiful name. I bet she’s equally as precious.”
“You’re damn right, she is,” Summer said.
I sighed. “Can you point me to her room? I want to make sure she gets settled in before I go back to the clubhouse.”
Brooks drained his beer and shook his head. “I’m going back. You stay here with her.”
“But Brooks. I can—”
He held up his hand. “I said what I said. You stay here with her; I’ll deal with getting the rest of the guys and their families here safely.”
Summer stepped up in between us. “Then, you should know that Trigger-Finger over here killed one man and maimed another because they were camped out in the woods lining the road that runs straight to here.”
Brooks narrowed his eyes. “Is that true?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but they were still four miles back.”
He drew in a deep breath. “All right, I’ll put together a patrol to scour the woods once everyone is under one roof. But for now, you take care of her. I’m going to go get the other guys and their families.”
As I watched Brooks march between us, heading for the front door, hatred pooled in my gut. I hated that Brooks was going without me. I hated that Summer had gotten involved with this. I hated myself for being such a talkative fucking drunk and I hated the fact that Chops had pulled the wool over all of our eyes.
We should have taken him out a long damn time ago.
“So, uh, where’s our room?” Summer asked.
I whipped around to face her. “Our room?”
She nodded. “You know, me and Cheyenne.”
Hope drained from my heart. “Oh.”
She furrowed her brow. “You gonna take me there so I can shower? Or…?”
I crooked my finger. “Follow me. We’ll find it. There’s only so many rooms in this place.”
As we weaved our way down the confusing hallways of the sprawling fifteen-thousand square foot warehouse space, I thought back to my high school days. When I turned eighteen during the middle of my senior year, I ended up becoming a prospect for the Dirty Misfits. At the time, I didn’t think anything like this could have ever happened to us. We got down and dirty, and everyone was afraid of us. They bowed to us like kings, and I had been high on the power for months after I pledged just after graduation.
And at the time, I thought I was badass enough to take care of Summer all on my own.
But now, with her following closely as we scoured the rooms for her things in the middle of the woods, I wondered if Summer not showing up at our meeting spot was the best thing she could have done for us.
It pained me to even think it, but maybe she saw something in all of this that I hadn’t at the time.
Especially now that her and our daughter were both at risk.
“Found it,” Summer’s shaking voice said.
