Among the Chaos: Book 2 of the Soldiers of Chaos MC Series (6 page)

"Let's take his brother out of the equation. If we assume it's Bridges behind these attacks on the shipments and the drugs leaking onto our streets, you've still got a common thread between Lenny and Black. Who would make the best target for a definitive declaration if war?"

Tex could definitely see the logic there too. Nikki was the daughter of their man-at-arms, the surrogate daughter of their president and the darling of their club. Plus it didn’t hurt that she was also a woman and also the only woman their VP had ever loved. They would not be going to war with Bridges, they would be bringing hell itself down on the man's head.

"You would."

"Exactly."

"What did you find out while you were snooping around Lenny's place?"

"
We didn’t get a chance to get inside so not much. Except there's no way Lenny could afford the digs he was living in. The houses in the estate belong to Black so we know Black was paying Lenny's way for some reason," he answered her question, "Black rocked up while we were there but we had to cut out, the boss was calling."

Trace broke his silent contemplation, "I still don’t see why Black would need Lenny to kill you. Surely if Bridges wanted to start a war, then Black would want us to know it was him. He wouldn’t need to hide behind
Lenny. If it was revenge for his brother, maybe he wouldn’t want to draw attention to Bridges, but he'd have no way of knowing it was you that killed him. No way."

They were going round in circles here.

"Look none of this is concrete and none of it fits quite right. We're just going round in circles," Tex stated.

"You think it's Bridges hitting the shipments right?" Nikki asked, "And you think he's behind the drugs? So why hasn’t he approached us? He sent Black out to talk to Bull yet here we sit none the wiser."

That’s something Tex had considered. Why hadn’t Bridges approached the club? Instead he was attempting to poison their streets and take their business from them without so much as a warning or an ultimatum.

“I don’t know why he hasn’t come to us,” he replied.

“Because he doesn’t want to work with us.
He wants to destroys us slowly, piece by piece. The question is why?” Nikki frowned, “It feels personal Tex.”

She was right. If he wanted to take over the business why not just do what he did with t
he Crows and offer a deal? It felt like a level above and beyond business.

“What about the hits on the shipments? Any clear indication it is him? Any messages? Anything?” Nikki was clearly as frustrated as Tex was.

“That first hit. We managed to get hold of one of the guy’s. He said he worked for someone and no one,”
Trace explained.

“That fits Bridges,” Nikki nodded.

What was that other thing he said? Tex wracked his brain trying to remember the phrase.

“What did he say when you asked him how he knew about the shipment?”

Trace shrugged in reply to Tex’s question.

“
Et tu Brutus or something like that.”

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Nikki knew that phrase. He meant et tu Brute. William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. They were the last words of a dying man to his traitorous best friend. Was he trying to say that someone had betrayed them? That a club member would turn on them like that was just beyond belief for Nikki. She knew that explaining what it meant would only support the boy’s traitor theory. She said nothing.

"So you've been keeping me out of the loop on a lot of things?" She asked.

She wasn't
angry about it. The boys were only doing what they thought was best.

"We were waiting for you to come back from that place you were in," Trace explained quietly.

Nikki nodded her head. She was back from that place and she needed back into her life.

"Well I'm back now and I want in on everything."

Tex and Trace both nodded in agreement.

"We're with you on that one Baby girl but it's not going to be easy. Some of the old boys are saying you're a liability."

She should’ve known that was coming. It wasn't the first time she'd experienced resistance to her being an active member of the club.

Her first steps in were through a cracked window, a back door, the shadows of a dirty alley. The boys refused to let her in so she would sneak in. After saving their asses a few times they stopped shutting the door in her face and just left it wide open. The brothers loved her and they respected her, so they didn’t protest. Instead they put her on protection for the girls and they let the boys take her along wherever they saw fit.

Her patch on the other hand had been harder won. The boys put her in that prospect vest after much debate. She’d had to work three times as hard as any other prospect. She ‘manned up’ and did the crappy jobs, she still worked the garage in between everything else, she turned a blind eye to all the shit that went on at the clubhouse and she’d learnt to hold her drink better than most men. She copped things the other prospects didn’t, like sexual passes from some of the brothers. She blew them off with some witty reply and if someone took it too far she used her MMA training to secure a hold on them or drop them to the floor. After a couple of those they gave up.

Even then she wore that vest twice as long as some of the other prospects. Trying to get chauvinistic bikers to patch a woman was like trying to pull teeth. She had to get them all on side one by one. In the end she’d received her patch though she had known some of the brothers had voted it under pressure from the boys and King. She knew she’d been called into question again when Alex came on the scene. He was a cop and she was a crim. She’d already proven she could keep her mouth shut but a lot of that was conveniently forgotten when he was around.

So now they were at it again and she could understand why. Her personal shit had leaked so far over into club shit even she would be calling herself into question.

“It’s not the first time and it probably won’t be the last time. Put me back in the mix and I’ll prove to them I have my shit locked up tight,” she stated.

“We got no doubt Ace,” Tex’s words held nothing but confidence.

She had no doubt either.

Chapter 5

Nikki woke up to the sound of knocking. She rolled over and glanced at the clock. Four pm. She cursed out loud. She really shouldn’t have slept that long. Hopefully he hadn’t already. The knocking at the door sounded again and Nikki could hear the boys stirring. She dragged herself out of bed to the front door.

Nikki peered through the peephole. All she could make out was a large bunch of flowers and what looked like a delivery guy’s shorts. Nikki frowned. This dude clearly had the wrong address. She opened the door.

"Hi. I'm looking for a Nikki Jones," the delivery guy said.

"Um, I'm Nikki," she replied.

Who the hell would’ve brought her flowers?

"Right can you sign here please?" He asked wiggling his clipboard at her.

She signed the paper then took the giant mass of roses from the delivery guy. She placed the flowers on her kitchen table and plucked the card from its little holder.

“Who bought you flowers?” Trace asked as he wandered passed her to the coffee machine.

“It obviously wasn’t you then?”

Trace shook his head. Nikki glanced down the hall to
Tex’s room where he slept soundly. It definitely wouldn’t have been him. Tex was a lot of things but he definitely was not the flowers type. She slid the little card out of the envelope and flipped it over. There was no name just a web address.

This had to be the weirdest thing she had ever received. She moved into her bedroom and grabbed her phone typing in the address. It took her to an audio file and asked for a password to access the file. Nikki checked the card again for a password. There was nothing on the back but the web address. The front of the card had the insignia for the florist and that was it. Maybe if she typed in the name of the florist.

Nikki entered the name into the password request and the audio file booted up.

“Hello Angel.”

Nikki froze. The phone slipped from her hand and hit the carpet with a soft thud. God, that voice. It reached right down inside her and threatened to unlock the monster from its prison.

“I wanted to do this face to face but I haven’t been able to get near you. What I did," Cole's voice cracked and then his speech paused, "God, I hurt you Angel. I hurt you so badly and I will never forgive myself for that. I wanted a chance to show you how sorry I am,
to beg your forgiveness. Please Nikki I need to see you."

He wanted to see her?
The darkness inside her rattled its cage furiously and growled ferociously a demand to be let out and taken to its master.

"Ace are you ok?" Tex asked from her doorway.

His voice broke Nikki from her trance and she dropped to the floor scrambling for her phone.

"This whole time I thought it was I that owned you but in truth it is you who owns me. I love you Angel," Cole admitted through the speaker as Nikki fumbled with her phone.

“Please meet me at,” Nikki cut the audio file off there and stared at the floor in front of her.

A battle began to rage inside her between the darkness and her will. She could not let it out. Damn Cole. Damn him and that vulnerable boy quality to his voice, because she knew if she looked closer she'd find that not only had his call tugged at the monster it had tugged at her heart too.

Tex growled audibly forcing her to look up. His eyes held something like pure fire and the darkness inside her paid some very unwanted attention to it.

"He called you?"
Tex's growled question brought Trace to her door.

"That sick bastard had the audacity to call you and tell you how much he loved you?"
Tex's voice was filled with dark hatred and unconsciously a shiver of the good kind slid through her as the monster inside her tested the walls of its prison. Nikki quickly tore her eyes away from him and looked back at the floor. Her heart beat faster and her breaths came quicker. A pulse began to throb between her legs. God, what was she doing? 

All three of their phones beeped in the pause after his question. Nikki knew what that was. It was King calling them in and just in the nick of time too. She screwed her eyes shut and took several deep breaths to calm herself. It was enough of a reminder to drag her back to reality. She couldn’t risk Cole sneaking back into her life and turning it upside down again. Nikki closed off the audio file and deleted it from her browser history. Then she collected the card and stood up pushing past the boys and into the kitchen.

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Tex could feel his anger threatening to boil over. Why couldn’t that prick just leave her alone? He’d done enough damage already and if Tex could only get his hands on the guy he’d return the favour and then some. He watched in silence as Nikki walked out into the kitchen. She scooped up the flowers from the kitchen table and walked out the back door. Where the hell was she going?

Both he and Trace followed her outside and watched as Nikki unceremoniously dumped the flowers into one of the fire drums in the back yard and doused the lot with fire starter. As she picked up a lighter from the nearby table Tex couldn’t help but feel a little better. She held a little florists card up to the flame and once it caught she tossed that into the drum also. As the flames took off with a woosh Nikki turned back towards them.

“Let’s go. We got shit to do,” she told them as she pushed back passed them into the house.

Tex
felt a wave of relief wash over him. Nikki wasn’t curled up in a ball on the floor crying and she wasn’t running out to meet up with the guy. Maybe their plan would work. He didn’t have time to contemplate that right now. They had church and then they had a long list of places to search for Black.

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It was the first time she’d been in that room for a couple of months. She was nervous about facing them all in there but she wasn’t going to let it show. She walked into that room with her head held high and went straight to her normal seat behind the boys. She felt the eyes on her.

“Move over you two let Ace in to the table,” King commanded.

Just like that she was back in. No one questioned the Pres.

“We got a number of things going on here. These tails on the shipments, the drugs hitting our streets and this morning I got a call from Lacey.”

Nikki knew what that meant.

“One of the girls got worked over bad. She’s in the hospital. New girl, she took an off the books call so we got no info on the John and she won’t talk to anyone,” King paused, “Nikki I want you to head down there after this see if you can get anything out of her. She’s really bad so I don’t know if she can tell us anything.”