Among the Chaos: Book 2 of the Soldiers of Chaos MC Series (5 page)

“Now we really need to get you back out there and up to speed with all the shit that’s going on around here.”

Trace threw his arm around her shoulders and escorted her out into the main room.

As they entered the space Nikki’s gaze fell on Tex. He was sitting in the corner booth looking a little worse for wear. Their eyes met briefly before he quickly turned his head toward the window.

“Go let a brother off the hook hey?” Trace
suggested nudging her in Tex’s direction.

Let him off the hook? For some reason Nikki felt like she was the one who needed letting off the hook. Trace headed to the bar as some of the brothers gave him shit about coming out of the room with Nikki. She simply flipped the bird at them in response and headed over to Tex.

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Tex stared out the window at nothing. He was hung over but more than that he was hurting. He was hurting because someone had hurt the woman he loved and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. And now he was the one causing her hurt and he hated himself for it. She didn’t need the bullshit he was putting her through. He’d caught her eye for a moment and he’d seen the confidence and calm returned to her. She was carrying herself tall and facing outward for the first time instead of being hunched inward. He wanted that look to stay there.

He felt Nikki’s presence but didn’t acknowledge her as she sat next to him.

“Hey,” she greeted him softly.

Time to grovel.

“I’m sorry,” the words he’d been thinking tumbled out of her mouth.

“What for?” he asked in surprise.

“For driving you insane, for dodging you, for hiding shit from you, for everything.”

This was not what he was expecting at all.

“You don’t need to
apologise Ace. If anyone owes an apology it’s me. The things I said and the way I’ve been acting,” he paused trying to gather his thoughts, “I just can’t stand sitting around doing nothing. I need him to pay for what he did, to pay for hurting you.”

Nikki’s hand came up stopping him in his tracks.

“I can’t rehash that shit Tex. It’s in the past and
that is where I want it to stay,” the determination in her voice came through loud and clear, “You need to let it go, for my sake.”

That last little comment was meant to be the crusher.
For her sake. He would do anything for her and he knew that she held that knowledge firmly in her palm with that comment.

“I understand that it’s hard for you to do that
but it is the best thing for everyone, you, me, the club, that all that shit stays right where it is and never comes up again.”

It drove him mad not to be able to put his hands on that sick bastard and torture him. He wanted to make that asshole scream the same way Nikki had when Doc had treated her back. He could still hear her agonizing cries. The sound was burned into his memory forever.

“
You want to bury it? Fine, but I’m telling you now if I even suspect that something like this is happening again, there will be no way you can stop me from taking care of shit.”

And he meant that shit. Nikki nodded in response.

“Right, you two done the whole kiss and make up thing?” Trace asked as he approached them.

“No kiss yet but there’s plenty of time for that later,” he replied, winking at Nikki, “right now I think we need to get Ace up to speed with club business.”

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Nikki breathed a sigh of relief as Tex changed the subject. When she approached him she couldn't get a read on his mood. The minute his gaze locked with hers she knew how she needed to approach him. Sure he'd hurt her and she could see the remorse in his eyes but she could also see the hurt and anger there. She'd dragged them along on this rollercoaster right alongside her. While she didn’t expect those feelings to disappear straight away she knew that acknowledging how she wronged them was a good way to start.

"You've been missing a lot of action Baby girl. The last few shipments have picked up tails and we've had to make some major changes to the trucking routes. They've fired a few shots but nothing successful."

Tex took over, "They're testing us, looking for weak spots. So now we're not just putting on extra protection
we're also having to scout ahead of the run and man the route itself. We don’t seem to be able to shake them."

Issues with the shipments had started after Sheila had been killed. The brothers had been attacked by a group of men not long ago, a premature attempt without a lot of thought or success. Maybe they were trying to steal the guns for sale. Maybe they were trying to steal the Soldiers business by proving the club couldn't safely courier the goods. Whatever their reasons this was not good for the club.

Tex lowered his voice, "Seems like every time we make a change they are on us. It's almost like they know our moves before we make 'em."

Nikki's eyes went wide at that revelation. There was no way in hell they had a rat. The club was solid and so was every member in it.

"I don’t like what you're suggesting," she told Tex.

"We don’t like it either Baby girl. But the fact remains that these guys have to be getting their
intel from somewhere and we sure as shit ain’t broadcasting the shit on the airwaves," Trace responded.

This was bad.

"That’s not the only problem we got," Tex paused a moment, "Someone's been loading the Crow's streets with scumbag dealers and they've been slowly leaking into our territory."

That is one thing the MC would not tolerate, drugs. They didn’t traffic drugs, they didn’t deal drugs and they didn’t allow junkies as members. You had a drug habit you were out and you were out in bad standing. That was some serious shit in their world. They also didn’t allow that shit to touch their streets or infect their neighborhoods. You did not deal drugs on Soldiers turf because if you did the Reaper would greet you swiftly.

"What are we doing about that?" Nikki asked.

"We're trying to find out the source but we are either running into a wall of silence or these guys genuinely don’t know who they are dealing for." Trace explained.

Now that rang alarm bells in her head. There was one man who operated like that.

"Bridges," the name hissed out through her clenched teeth.

The name made her blood boil. She took a few deep breaths and calmed herself. Getting crazy was not going to help anyone.

"That's our theory."

If he was behind the drugs then he was probably behind the attacks on the gun shipments. This shit was getting messy. She wished she had the whole picture. All she had were snippets like her mother’s death, the threat to the shipments, the drugs, Lenny and the niners. It was all connected to Bridges somehow.

"There are too many links to Bridges now to ignore it anymore. There's a lot of questions we never asked you that we should’ve asked before. You need to tell us everything about Sheila, Lenny, Black, Bridges. The whole lot even if you think it’s insignificant."

She would share but only if they did. She was not being kept out the loop any longer.

"I will tell you everything but you need to do the same for me. No more hiding things."

They boy’s body language was tense and she knew they didn’t want to give up protecting her yet. They would have to.

"Agreed," Tex answered.

"Everything," Nikki demanded.

"Everything," he agreed.

“I went in to Sheila’s and found her in the bedroom. Black and Roach were still in the house. They bailed me up in the bedroom. I grabbed my old gun and I shot Black’s brother and then I killed Roach and before he died he told me Bridges had sent them,” she ran through the event as quickly as possible.

No need to poke the monster with a stick.

“Did they say anything else to you? Either of them?” Trace questioned.

Nikki thought back to the conversation. There was nothing that stood out.

Nothing except, “When I made a move towards him I remember him saying ‘A brave little thing are we? So more like your father then.’ It made me think that it had more to do with Reaper than Sheila.”

“That fits with Reaper’s story as to why they struck,” Tex replied.

“Maybe, but I don’t get why they’d pick Sheila as retribution. She didn’t have anything to do with the club
anymore and the club wasn’t exactly hurt by it.”

“We think there’s more to it than that but we’ll get to that later,” he explained, “Anything else?”

“Nothing.”

“What about Lenny?”

That was a subject that was intertwined with Cole. How was she
gonna divulge everything without divulging everything?

“Lenny said nothing to me about
Black, Bridges or the niners. This thing with him was personal, not business.”

“C’mon Ace there’s more to it than that,” Tex coaxed.

“You already know about the niners links. He also had links to Black. Alex placed a tracker on Black’s car the night we were at the Crows meet,” her comment left the pair of them focusing on her intently.

Yeah she may have forgotten to divulge that info.

“I know Black made a stop on the way home from that meet and it was Roach’s house.”

Trace nodded his head, “Yeah he turned up at Lenny’s house while Tex and I were scoping it out.”

That was news to her. They scoped out Lenny’s house? There had been no mention of a house in the info Cole had given her.

“Didn’t know he had a house.”

“Big waterfront
joint in a group of properties Black owns,” Trace answered.

“So wait, Alex has Black under surveillance?” It was Tex who asked the question.

“Yeah, kind of. He’s watching him from a distance. Black’s too smart and a tail would be way too obvious to him so he installed a tracking device.”

“Jesus Christ we could’ve been tracking this asshole from day dot,” Tex complained.

“Do you think he could’ve been the ninja?” Trace asked.

“Nah don’t think so. That guy moved with way too much precision,” Tex answered.

“What Ninja?” Nikki asked confused.

“When we were at Lenny’s this guy all dressed in black was sneaking around inside. The guy was a pro. He moved so silently and stealthily that I barely noticed him. We spotted him again as he was leaving,” Tex paused a moment, “It was weird because he spotted us but showed no reaction. It was like he was almost expecting us to be there.”

Nikki got the feeling that was about Cole. The more she thought about it the more it made sense. Lenny had that video of the two of them with Lucy and there’s no way Cole would’ve sent Lenny to his grave without that evidence back in his pocket.
So Roger had probably snuck in there to find it.

“Weird,”
was all Nikki said.

“You’re sure there’s nothing else?” Trace prompted quietly.

Nothing else?
There was plenty more. But how much did she say.

“I think Black knows I had something to do with his brother disappearing.”

Tex raised an eyebrow at her.

“The way he touched my scar and asked about it and the way he showed too much interest in me at the meet,” she paused.

Could she mention Lenny’s words without implicating Cole?

“
And now that I think about it Lenny said something about how bringing me down would be a bonus for his friends,” she added quickly.

Tex scrubbed a hand through his hair. It was an anxious habit he’d had all his life.

“Jesus Ace. This is shit we needed to know.”

Did he
think she didn’t know that?

“That’s all I’ve got Tex, I swear. Everything I know, you know. That’s all of it,” she reassured him.

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Tex didn’t want to question her word so, even though his gut told him there was more he kept his mouth shut.

"We know that Lenny is intertwined with Black. It’s the why I don’t get?"

He couldn’t figure out how these two came to have a relationship or what that relationship was.

"They have a common enemy," Nikki stated.

"Who? You?"

Nikki nodded at him, "Let's assume that Black somehow knows I killed his brother. Lenny wants me dead. Lenny tells his brother, his brother's a
niner and the niners work for Bridges. Jason Black obviously works for Bridges."

He couldn’t deny the logic although there was no way Black could know that Nikki killed his brother.