Page 63 of Jagger
“You’re on thin ice, ladies.” I jumped at the growly voice behind me. I whirled around on the stool, to see a clearly pissed off Trick glaring at the women in the kitchen. He strode over and planted his hands on the countertop under the pass-through opening, leaning over it to continue speaking to them.
“Molly is our guest and will be treated with respect. All of you should know better than to run your fucking mouths about what goes on in this clubhouse. Get back out to your quarters and stay there for the night. The brothers won’t be needing your services,” he told them harshly.
As the women just stood there gaping at him, he slammed his hands down on the counter and yelled,“Now!”.They quickly turned on their heels and scurried back out through the kitchen, and the slam of the back door was heard a second later.
Trick straightened up with a roll of his shoulders, then turned around to calmly ask Linc to order a “shit-ton” of pizzas.
“Get a little of everything. Pay for them with the club card and have them delivered to the gate as soon as fuckin’ possible. Tell the prospects out there to text Prez when the food gets here, and one of us will run out to get it from the guard shack. I don’t want any of them leaving their posts, understood?”
“You got it, man.” Linc immediately pulled his phone out of his pocket and started tapping away at the screen.
“You doing OK, babe?” Trick’s stern expression softened as he reached out to squeeze my hand as it rested on the top of the bar.
“I’ve had better nights, but I’m OK.”
He flashed me a grin, then assured me they were “getting a handle on things in Church” and should be finished soon.
“You just stay here and keep the prospect company until then. Maybe show him how to play pool,” he added with a wink. I heard Lincoln snicker and glanced over my shoulder to see him still tapping on his phone.
Chapter 18
Jagger/Cole
We all filed into the room we used for Church, stopping briefly on the way in to drop our cell phones in the basket just outside the door. King was the only one allowed to keep a cell phone with him in Church in case the Prospects guarding the clubhouse needed to reach him urgently. It was probably an unnecessary precaution since we kept our noses relatively clean now, but it was a holdover from the days of doing some shit that did more than just bend the law a little bit. It was a pain in the ass sometimes, but it was better to be safe than sorry. The room was almost completely soundproofed for the same reason. There were things we discussed in here that we didn’t want to leave these four walls. I was glad that we had taken those precautions at times like this.
“I appreciate you all responding to this emergency session. For those who don’t know, Jagger’s gone and got himself a woman, a real sweetheart named Molly. Now, Molly’s run into some trouble. She’s a teacher and discovered that one of her kindergarten students was being abused.” There were some angry outbursts at that declaration, with Brick getting so mad that he slammed his hand on top of the table and cursed long and loud. That giant motherfucker had a heart of gold underneath all that muscle, with a wife and two kids of his own that ruled his world. It didn’t surprise me that he was so pissed off.
“The school reported it, and the little girl’s piece-of-shit mother is in jail for it. Unfortunately, her even bigger piece-of-shit stepfather is in the wind. The cops are looking for him, but you know how that goes. Earlier this evening, the motherfucker called Molly and threatened her, then took a goddamned baseball bat and smashed the shit out of her car and slashed her tires, right in the middle of her apartment parking lot. A neighbor saw it, and called it in. His actions show a loss of control that concerns me. This guy is either too angry, too stupid, or too high to give a fuck if he’s seen, and that means he’s more likely to be unpredictable and dangerous.”
I glanced around the room and saw my MC brothers listening intently as King outlined the problem. I couldn’t help the swell of pride at seeing the support they were showing. Hell, even Ace was halfway paying attention.
“Bull has spent the last two hours or so pulling any information he can find about this asshole, a guy by the name of Chad Laskey. The guy has a record longer than the people in this room combined, everything from domestic violence, to drugs, to theft.” King picked up a piece of paper from the table in front of him, and passed it to Cowboy, who was sitting in the VP’s spot next to him. “I want each of you to look at this picture closely, along with a description of his truck and known addresses and associates. He works construction, mostly day labor stuff. According to his social media shit, he seems to pick up a lot of painting work with a cousin of his, so the cousin’s info is on here, too.”
“I want this motherfucker run to ground, from whatever hole he’s hiding in. Let me be clear about this - he’s on the cops’ radar, so we’re gonna have to turn him over to them if we find him first. But, if he happens to get fucked up a little in the process, well, it’s just a damned shame that we had to defend ourselves.” The wicked grin on my dad’s face was proof that he was really hoping to get in on that ass-kicking.
“Trick, go let one of the prospects know to order some pizzas while everyone is looking over Laskey’s details. It’s gonna be a long night.”
Trick nodded, then got up from his seat and quietly slipped out to head toward the clubroom. As the Sargeant at Arms, his seat was closest to the door, in the unlikely event that he needed to prevent someone from entering – or leaving – the room without permission.
King looked around the room and opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by Ace before he could even say a word.
“Why exactly are we putting our asses on the line to find this guy? Jagger’s piece of ass ain’t an Ol’ Lady, and you made it clear she ain’t a bunny. So why are we offering her protection if she ain’t part of the club?”
I saw red at Ace’s statement and clenched my hands around the edge of the table, trying to resist the urge to launch myself across the wood to deliver a throat punch that would cause Ace to choke on his bullshit words. I noticed that several of the guys, especially Lucky and Rome, looked like they wanted to land a few blows, too.
“Aside from the fact that the fucknut is a child abuser who deserves an ass-kicking, any fucking idiot can see that Molly is Jagger’s Ol’ Lady, even if he hasn’t been smart enough to make it official just yet. I’m sure he’ll be jumping on that just as soon as all this bullshit is over with.” Cowboy looked right at me, raising an eyebrow as he made his declaration. I nodded because he was damned right. Molly was my Ol’ Lady, whether she knew it or not.
“Cowboy’s exactly right. As far as I’m concerned, Molly is Jagger’s, which means she’s under the protection of this club. Anybody else got a fucking problem with that?” King’s voice was hard, his mouth drawn into a thin line as he glared at each member sitting around the table. His stare lingered on Ace, and the look in his eyes would have had most men shitting their pants. I hadn’t seen my dad that pissed off in a long while. Ace puffed out his chest and held King’s stare for a few seconds, before glancing away with a scowl and a shake of his head.
We spent the next thirty minutes or so tossing out ideas on how to find Laskey. It was decided that we would split up in groups of three, with each group checking out an address that he was known to frequent. According to Bull, social media was a goldmine of information like this, since Laskey’s wife liked to post frequent updates and pictures of them out with various friends or at their favorite bars.
Not all of the brothers would go out on patrol. Viking was going to stay behind to oversee the prospects and the clubhouse security, while Bull continued to dig for more information on Laskey. Hawk needed to get back to the bar, since he’d left our head bartender in charge. The guy was good, but he wasn’t a member of the MC, and we liked to make sure a brother was running things if at all possible. Ace said he needed to get back to Fallen Angels for the same reason, since Bodhi was going to join the hunt for Laskey. I was fucking happy to have Bodhi helping with the search instead of Ace. Pic had been in the middle of an appointment when we called for Church - a large back piece that he couldn’t bail on - so he wouldn’t be joining us either.
I was paired with Rome and Trick, and we were checking the apartment the Laskey’s rented, as well as the trailer park that his cousin lived at and the bar that his wife tagged him at most frequently. King, Lucky, and Brick were checking on addresses for Laskey’s brother and a couple of friends that he apparently hung out with a lot. Cowboy, Irish and Joker were assigned to addresses for his mom and a sister who both lived about thirty miles away near Shelbyville. Monica Laskey didn’t have much family around, but Bodhi, Skid, and Saint were tasked with checking on the brother she had living in the area, and a couple of other friends they hung out with often.
King’s phone buzzed, and he picked it up and glanced at the text before announcing that the pizzas had just been dropped off at the gate.
Trick hopped up and headed toward the door, telling us, “I told the prospect to leave them at the guard shack and we would send somebody out for them. I didn’t want any of them to leave their posts. I’ll go grab them and meet you all in the club room.”
