HARDCORE: Storm MC Read online

  “Baby, I don’t wanna talk about that, not right now, not tonight. I’ll tell you sometime, but for tonight it’s been enough, yeah? Can we give it a rest and just be, now?”

  “Yeah, Dom, we can do that. We can give it a rest. No more tonight.” And I offered him a little sad smile.

  Then he kissed me, softly and sweetly, and his tongue slipped between my lips and met my own, and they danced together lazily and briefly. And soon after, we drifted easily into sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Dom

  My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and I reached down to read the text.

  Pres:My office, compound. 15 min.

  It wasn’t a group text. Well, this would be interesting.

  I’d been hanging out in the main room at Hardcore, watching over Sienna, doing the normal thing. If one could call serving time at Hardcore normal. But at least it allowed me the obvious benefit of being able to keep an eye on my woman, making sure she was good, that nobody was hassling her.

  Since she was busy talking to some guy I’d seen around a few times, I figured she was okay with him, doing her job, safe enough. Still, it never hurt to have backup. I headed over to Knuckles, who was at the bar, chatting up the hot bartender.

  “Yo, Knuck, I gotta take off for a few. Watch out for my woman, yeah?”

  Knuckles looked out to locate Sienna, then glanced back at me with a nod. “Sure thing.”

  “Thanks, man.” And with a final look at Sienna, who was not taking note, I took off.

  I hadn’t talked to Clav one-on-one in many weeks. Time was, we were buddies. We’d hung around the compound together a lot over the last six years, since I joined the Storm. Sure, he was of the older generation, had been in the MC for decades. Best friend to our old Pres, Duke, who had passed along from a heart attack several months ago. Duke was a great man, a fine president. He always did right by us. I figured he’d be turning in his grave if he knew how far we’d sunk down the tubes since his passing.

  Clav had seemed the natural choice to take on the lead role after Duke died. Shit-poor reality was biting us all in the ass.

  After that night with Sienna, when she told me all about her sister and the porno lot, I knew there was something really dark going down with Clav. From her description of the two MC guys on the lot, it was obvious that she had seen Manny and Clav there; they were those two guys she had described. And from her description of the time, the weekend of the big snow in late February, I also knew that that was one of the last times anyone had seen Manny alive.

  So if both her sister and Manny Fidel died that weekend, it only made sense to presume that their deaths were somehow linked. There was a tie there, but I didn’t have enough information to figure it out yet.

  In the last few days, I had been raising the specter of Manny some, asking a couple of my Storm brothers if they had ever been out to the porno lot to serve as security for Ronn out there in his little porno world. I also was trying to figure out exactly who had seen Manny last, and where.

  So maybe I was raising eyebrows among the brass with my questions. Maybe people were talking. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t give a shit. Manny was the best friend I’d ever had, and I felt like shit for not having tried harder earlier to get some serious answers. But now I was done laying low. With the knowledge from Sienna about her sister, it was past time I kicked up the dust. The smog of silence was killing my soul.

  But Clav, our esteemed President, him I had not yet talked to. And now I knew that he had been there that day. He was likely the only one who really knew anything. Fuck, he was probably involved in it. I determined that tonight would provide some answers. The way I saw it, even if he was the Pres, he owed me honesty. For Manny.

  When I rolled up on my bike, the compound was mostly dark. Damn, this place was turning into a ghost town. It was a fucking shame. I was a little surprised that Clav even used his office anymore. I hadn’t been here in weeks. I might have gotten a little nostalgic, but this was not the time to dwell.

  I let myself into the main building, which was still dark, and flipped some switches for light. Looking around, I saw that nobody was in there. I headed back to the hall off the bar and saw from under the door that the Pres’s office did have light. I rapped on the door with a knuckle, calling out, “Yo, Pres, it’s Dom.”

  “Get your ass in here and sit. Shit.” And we were off to a great fucking start.

  I went in, shut the door behind me, and took in my options before choosing to avail myself of the more comfortable couch, rather than one of the chairs facing the desk. This might have thrown him off; he was sitting at his desk, leaning forward on both elbows, looking about ready to rail into me from a beleaguered position of authority. I was not going to take that shit. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  I decided to set the tone on a more even keel. “Yeah, sure, I’d love a drink. Johnnie Walker, if you got it.” I knew he had it.

  He looked at me a minute, pursing his lips. “You watch yourself, Dom.” Still, he got up, fixed me the drink, and brought it over to me at the couch. He took the armchair, and we studied one another for several seconds while I sipped.

  He looked tired. His salt-and-pepper head of long frizz was tied back in a low ponytail, his mostly gray beard hanging down off his chin a few inches. His eyes had dark circles hanging underneath, and the lines on his face seemed more deeply ingrained, especially the ones between his brows, like he spent all his time lately frowning something fierce.

  Sienna had not been far off; the man scowled an awful lot. Didn’t used to be like that. There was a day not so long ago when his laughter had rung out loud and often. I guess it’s lonely at the top, especially when you lose your best friend. I knew something about that, myself.

  Remembering that, and the way Clav had forced us into this indentured servitude for Joey Ronn, I steeled myself. I was not here to give this man compassion or pity.

  “I overheard some shit about you earlier today, Dom. You need to know. That shit you pulled last week with Fielding is comin’ back to bite your ass.”

  This was news, though I can’t say I was too surprised. I had figured that there would be some blowback at some point. I guessed we had reached that point.

  “Lay it on me.”

  “I overheard Joey Ronn and Fielding talkin’ in Ronn’s office at Hardcore. Fielding wants your new woman, and he wants you dead. Ronn’s worried about body count. Fielding said he’d settle for a trade—your head or your woman’s bod.”

  Wow. Shit. I had not thought that Sienna would play in on the blowback, but I guess I had overestimated the complete shit-ball that was Fielding.

  “You got anything more than that?”

  “I don’t know if you understand what I just said. You get what he wants? Not just a onetime use. Fielding is not fucking around. He doesn’t want to just fuck Sienna and be done. On the DL, Dom. Plain language.” He leaned in. “Fielding is a sick fuck. He’s talking about takin’ her for a sex slave.”

  My jaw literally dropped, and my eyes widened. No way was this shit was for real.

  “So A) he puts a hit on me; or B) he wants…” I couldn’t even say it. It was unthinkable. We were in 2017, right? In America? What. The. Fuck.

  “Yeah, he wants. And he’s not fucking around.” Clav looked at me hard, like he was trying to impart some further knowledge and understanding with his eyes, which his mouth was unwilling to say.

  “What aren’t you tellin’ me, Clav?”

  He noted my use of his name instead of his title and raised his eyebrows a little. “Respect, Dom. Watch it.” He looked at me hard for several seconds longer and then finally answered. “I know some stuff, but it’s not for general consumption, Dom. Ronn and Fielding, they are planning some shit, and you gotta be aware. And maybe it’s best if you and your woman get gone. Not forever, but for a while, till shit gets sorted.”

  I nodded my head, seeing his line of thought, and the light bulb flashed in my head. There
was a way that this all made sense. “I see what you’re sayin’, Pres. I see that line of thought. But there’s more you ain’t tellin’ me, and at this point, I want explanations.

  “How far are you dug in with Ronn, Clav? Don’t bullshit me. I know some big shit is goin’ down. I’m not stupid. I know you’re involved, too. What I don’t know—yet—is how involved you are, and in what capacity. But I know there’s some serious dirt that Ronn must have on you. I want to know why the MC is payin’ for your shit. And I want to know what went down with Manny on that fuckin’ porno lot out of town in February. You owe me—fuck, you owe all of us—some serious explanations. I’ve about had it, man.”

  His face was getting red, and his eyes were piercing in a tight, angry lock, and his jaw was clenched, but I was on a roll.

  “So maybe now you heard I’m askin’ questions, kickin’ up what is sure as shit goin’ to fuck up your little game with Ronn, so you want to run me out. You think this Fielding shit and sex-slave thing is the easiest way to get rid of me for a while, too, huh? It’s too bizarre. It’s almost laughable. But I ain’t laughin’, man. And I don’t buy it.”

  I stood up and over him, and I declared, “You do not threaten me or my woman, and think you can just run me out of town. Now start. The fuck. Talking.”

  He stood up and growled, “Sit your ass down, Dominic. You remember who you’re talking to. I am your President.”

  “Then act like it,” I flashed back.

  He shook his head. The man was angry, but he was a master at cool. “Fuck. This is so fucked-up. First of all, you need to check your tone, and check your presumptions at the gate. You are a member of this MC, and a brother, so I’m gonna give you just one pass for the shit you just pulled, but you gotta know, that shit does not fly. I am your President, and you gotta remember that. Regardless of what you think you know is going on.”

  “Pres—” I hated myself for going off like that on him, too, and I totally saw his point. But I was fucking angry, about everything from Manny to the Hardcore gig and the loss of fraternity at the compound and with the MC in general. It just felt like everything involving Storm had been losing. But he had a point. I really should not have let it out like that on him.

  Clav got it, and he got me. He knew where I was coming from and where I was at. He was a big enough man that he could see from my perspective, and he didn’t wait for the apology. “Dom—fuck, man, this shit is real, and you need to get that.” He looked me in the eye again. “I was not lying about Fielding wanting you dead and your woman under lock. That’s real, and he’s dead serious. I swear to you. I would not make this shit up. So you needed to know, and you need to be careful, and I’m serious when I say you should think about skipping town for a while.

  “The rest of it—I get that you got a right to info about Manny, dude. I know that. But that gets tied up with shit you do not have a consideration in, so you gotta understand that the thing that is driving this clusterfuck is bigger than Manny. And I know that’s hard to hear, but that’s my reality, and that’s what I gotta live with.”

  He paused, and I could tell he was wavering on whether or not to let me in. “I’m not gonna share it with you if you are gonna make the smart choice here and get yourself and your woman out of town. There’s no point in you knowing, then. So you gotta make that decision now. If you’re gonna go, you should just go. And we’ll sort it out, and then you can come back. We can have full honesty then, and we will.”

  I looked in his eyes, which were fierce and so tired. He was my President, my brother, my friend. And he was fighting. I could finally see that, looking outside my own narrow self. And all of a sudden, I understood that whatever the bigger that was going on was, he needed help. He was near to drowning in it, even if he didn’t see it that way.

  “I’m sticking with you, Pres. Tell me. Let me in. Let’s bring down whatever the shitstorm is. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

  He looked at me another moment, shook his head, sighed, and gave me a brief chin up. “You are a stand-up man, brother.” He went to pour himself a drink, and I retook my seat on the couch.

  “Okay, Dom. Tell me what you know about it, so I can figure where to start.”

  “I only know that you and Manny were both at the porno lot the day he went down. Sienna dropped her sister off in the lot, saw you two at the door to the warehouse. Her sister never showed back, so something—whatever it was—happened that day. To both Tania and Manny. I don’t know the details beyond that, but I know that much.”

  “Okay, Dom. Yeah.” He nodded his head, squaring his thoughts. “So, they did the shoot. Since we were just security for Ronn, we weren’t in the room. He had us standing guard in the hallway at the door. Which was fucking freezing that day. Fucker. But he said it was a closed set, no watchers. So we didn’t know what was goin’ on till after. But fuck, Dom. That was some sick fucking shit they were filming in there. That girl…” He shook his head, heavy with regret. “But we didn’t know that, yet. We just thought it was regular porn. So we stood there.”

  “Wait a minute. Who all was in there?”

  He grunted. “Right. Joey Ronn and Jonathan Fielding were both in there. The girl. And there was a camera guy. There had been a lighting guy and a woman there earlier, doing costumes and makeup and shit, I guess, but they left before they started taping.

  “We were probably standing out there an hour and a half, hearin’ all kinds of noises from the girl, but that’s kind of par for the course, right? I mean, I figured they gagged her, so, you know, just a lot of high-pitched noises. Those eventually stopped.”

  He shook his head. “Finally, Fielding came out. He didn’t look at us, just left the building. We waited a few more minutes, and then Ronn poked his head out, looked at us, and said, just to Manny, ‘You. Get in here.’

  “So Manny goes in, and I can hear ’em get into it. Manny yells, ‘What. The. Fuck.’ And Ronn starts laughing. Like, hysterically. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with that motherfucker, but… Doesn’t matter. Ronn is laughin’, and then there’s a gunshot. And I had no idea what happened, or what the fuck was goin’ down, but I grabbed my gun and pulled the safety and went in there. And god, Dom. You can’t unsee that shit.” His eyes were gone; he was back in that warehouse in his mind.

  I gave him a minute, giving him a chance to pull himself back. “So Ronn shot Manny? Right there and then? That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “It does when you know what they had been filming. The girl, Dom. Completely mutilated. Face, body, everything. There was blood everywhere. And I could see Manny was gone. Shot in the face. His head was…” He was choking up. Hell, I was, too.

  “And when I got in there, I was ready to shoot Ronn, and I almost did, but he already had me in his sights and he reminded me of why I couldn’t shoot him. Fuck. Fuck, Dom. I wanted to, so badly. I wanted to shoot that motherfucker, for Manny, for the girl, for all of fuckin’ humankind. But I couldn’t. Because, if I did, that would mean—”

  He cut himself off, looking down, shaking his head with the slightest movement. When he did raise his eyes, they were red and holding back tears. I had never seen this man cry. Not ever.

  He took a minute. “He has my baby girl. Fielding has my Zoe, Dom. I gotta find her, and I gotta get her back, and then I gotta kill that motherfucking son of a bitch. But I can’t die first, and I can’t let anything else matter more. That is what the fuck is goin’ on.”

  Holy. Fucking. Hell. The clusterfuck just went apeshit out of control.

  Okay, this was way worse than anything I had imagined. And it completely made sense why our Pres was keeping us tied to Hardcore. Shit.

  Zoe had always been a little on the wild side, getting herself into drugs and shit. Jesus, she and Tania had a lot in common, from the sounds of it. But if what the Pres was saying was true, and Zoe somehow got taken up by Fielding, like a sex slave, and Fielding was also talking about the same shit with intentions toward Sienna, then the Pres was
not talking out his ass. He was being dead honest. And fuck, his heart must be breaking every minute to think of his little girl in that situation. I’d be fucking lost and furious, too.

  “Pres, you gotta know. I got your back on this, however I can help. Whatever I can do. What do you know? Do you have a plan?”

  “That’s what I’m workin’ on. Zoe’s been gone a long time already, over six months. I don’t even know if Fielding still has her, or if… No. I’m not going there.

  “What I do know, from what I’ve overheard and from some bugs I managed to place in Ronn’s office, is that Ronn knows that Fielding trades in sex slaves, human trafficking. They don’t talk about it openly, though, so it’s not something I can pin down. But there are references.

  “I gotta find out where she is. I gotta get her back. I gotta believe she’s still…” He couldn’t finish the thought. I didn’t need him to.

  “We’re gonna find her, Clav. We will.” I looked at him fiercely, and I could feel my jaw clenching. This game with Fielding was off-the-charts dark.