Bound: Minutemen MC (5 page)

Chapter 8: Reaching Northburg

As it turned out, the town where the Minutemen had their home base was called Northburg, which was particularly ironic considering that it was situated in sunny California. Camilla expected a MC clubhouse to be a squalid, run-down place, but it was—in fact—quite cozy. It was a large, one-story house that the club had renovated.

There was a large hall that served as common room, with a bar and stools and armchairs, and even a fireplace. It also held recreational objects such as a jukebox and a pool table. The kitchen was spacious and functional. There were three bedrooms where members of the MC crashed in turn. There were two, fully-equipped, surprisingly spotless bathrooms. There was a large office which was used as meeting room, and there was a smaller office stuck in the back of the house, more of a large closet than a real office despite the window and the furnishings neatly arranged so as to maximize the space.

It was this latter room that Dirk led her to, after giving her a quick tour of the place.

“I’ll have someone bring you water and something to eat in a few minutes,” he said as he made her sit down at the desk.

“I would rather meet Stephan first,” Camilla argued. She couldn’t wait to get this over with, for better or worse; her nerves were killing her.

“I bet you would,” Dirk said, as he all but pushed her into the chair. “But not yet. Me and the boys need to speak to him first.”

Camilla let out a long-suffering sigh. “Fine,” she relented resignedly. “How long do you think I’ll have to wait?”

Dirk shrugged. “It depends. Could be half an hour or a couple of hours. Who knows?”

Camilla glared at him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Dirk smirked that infuriating smirk of his. “Immensely.”

Camilla clenched her jaw in anger. She was becoming familiar with their dynamic, and it was one where he was completely in control and all she could do was nod and go along. It was driving her mad.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, princess,” Dirk said. “We’ll call for you before you know it.”

“I hope so,” she couldn’t help but grumble.

Dirk’s blue eyes flashed with anger, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Just like with his men, he could let her know exactly what he was feeling and how close she was to crossing the line with just one look. He was becoming more and more terse with her, too, and Camilla was beginning to suspect that he had gotten tired of the new toy and was just going to treat her like the prisoner that she was.

“I want you to wait here,” he said firmly. “I’ll have someone come for you when the time is right.”

“Fine,” she said, knowing it would be useless to try and argue further.

Dirk studied her. “No,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Can’t trust you.”

Camilla frowned in confusion. “What are you talking about—?”

Dirk’s next move interrupted her, rendering her momentarily speechless. With quick and precise movements, he pulled out the handcuffs and cuffed her to the right leg of the heavy mahogany desk.

“There,” he said. “That’s better.”

Camilla looked up at him in disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me?” She tugged helplessly at her restraint, to no avail.

“I really am not,” Dirk said. His eyes were dark with something else other than the thrill of control; there was lust in his irises. Evidently, something about the image of Camilla handcuffed to a desk and at his complete mercy was turning him on.

This time, rather than turning her on as well, his excitement infuriated her.

“Dirk,” she said, spitting his name out through gritted teeth, “uncuff me this instant.”

“I don’t think so, princess. I’ll be a lot less preoccupied if I know you
really
can’t go anywhere.” He took a moment to run his gaze appreciatively all over her helpless figure once again, and then he turned around and began to walk out of the room.

“Dirk!” Camilla called after him. “You’re not just going to leave me here like this!”

He flashed her a smile over his shoulder. “Oh, but I am. Enjoy your lunch when it comes. I’ll see you in a while.”

She watched in disbelief as he did just what he had said and left her there, handcuffed to a desk in the Minutemen’s clubhouse.

Camilla shook her head in disbelief at her recent luck.
How the fuck did I get here?

***

An hour and a half later, anyone had yet to come for her, and Camilla was bristling and seething with rage. She glared daggers at the empty plate in front of her, where a few crumbs were all that remained of the lunch she had all but inhaled despite everything, too famished to go with a hunger strike as her selected form of protest.

  Her nerves were dangerously close to the surface, so much so that she thought she could actually feel her skin crawl. She had begun to swing back and forth on the rolling chair—at least as far as the handcuffs allowed, which wasn’t far at all. She still couldn’t believe Dirk was doing this to her. Who the hell did he think he was?

Camilla sighed heavily. He thought he was in charge, which was exactly the case. He wanted to make it very clear that she had absolutely no say over what was going to happen next. It was a power game, Camilla realized, one that she had seen before within gangs, although never in such a subtle, diabolical way. She wasn’t quite convinced that Dirk was a bad man, but she was absolutely sure that he would do everything within his power to make sure Camilla stayed in her place.

Well, she decided, he could very well forget about that. She was
not
going to stay in her place, especially considering that this chair and this room really were not her place at all. Her place was in New York, and before that, it was in the Minutemen’s waiting room, finally facing Stephan Walker.

Camilla looked around, searching for a way out. She soon discovered that she needed to look down in order to find it. Dirk had not thought about securing the desk’s drawers. She managed to pull one open with her free hand, and she rummaged inside. There was nothing but stacks of papers in there.

She tried another drawer, and this time she found the one where stationary supplies were stored. She rejoiced when she found what she was looking for. Camilla had picked up a few tricks during her time as an investigative reporter, and one of them was how to pick at certain types of locks with a paper clip.

She was a bit rusty on her lock-picking skills, but she heard the sweet sound of the handcuffs’ mechanism give away soon enough. She snatched her wrist away as if she had been burned, eager to be free. She stood and stretched her aching muscles. She looked around the room, assessing it carefully. Dirk had locked the door behind him, taking no chances, but after a few moments of careful scrutiny, Camilla discovered that the door wasn’t the only way out.

There was an air vent a couple of inches underneath the ceiling, on the wall to her left. It wasn’t very wide, but it would do. Camilla picked up the heavy office chair, unwilling to let the small wheels roll on the floor and alert someone, and she carried it with some difficulty over to the wall.

I really should exercise more,
she thought, as she found herself already huffing and puffing a little from the exertion of carrying the chair’s not-so-insignificant weight.

She noticed screws on the four corners of the air vent’s panel, but she did not panic. She had seen a screwdriver in the pen holder on the desk; she distinctly remembered wondering just what the hell would anyone be doing with a screwdriver amongst a forest of pens. She snatched it up, and then she gingerly climbed on top of the chair, careful to find her balance and not let the wheels move under her weight.

Even with the help of the chair, Camilla soon discovered that in order to reach the upper screws, she would have to stand on tiptoes. She took a deep breath, sent up a quick prayer to a God she hadn’t prayed to in a long while and that she wasn’t entirely sure she even believed in anymore, and she did just that, balancing on her toes for a few moments to test the stability of the position.

She carefully undid the bottom screws, relieved when she found that the tip of the screwdriver was the right size, and then she stood on tiptoe once again in order to reach the top screws. She unscrewed the first one. She shoved the three screws into her pocket, unwilling to risk them falling onto the floor. She began to unscrew the last one, heart pounding.

A noise somewhere in the house startled her; it didn’t sound that far away from the office’s door. Camilla jumped, her tension betraying her. And just like that, the chair was rolling out from underneath her and she was falling.

Chapter 9: Stephan Walker

“So let me get this straight…you kidnapped a TIME reporter?”

Dirk resisted the urge to squirm in his chair. Even though their friendship was more sincere than most that blossomed within a bikers’ gang, it would be a lie to say that he wasn’t intimidated by Stephan. The MC’s president was a formidable man, albeit his general disposition was a lot more open than Dirk’s own. Stephan generally made no mystery of how he was feeling: if he was displeased with you, he had no trouble letting you know; nor did he have any trouble letting you know if he was pleased. His mind was razor-sharp, and his tongue and wit were even sharper. He could calculate the move to make in any situation in pretty much a handful of minutes, seconds if necessary. He was ruthless and just and generally a force to be reckoned with.

Right now, Dirk couldn’t quite tell whether or not Stephan was pleased with what he’d done, and it was making him nervous.

“And you killed Tobias Alvarez and Paco Herrera?”

Dirk swallowed. “Well, technically, Don, Marc, and the Sniper killed them, but…yeah.”

“It’s been a little over three days now, right?” Stephan asked.

Dirk nodded.

“So the Mongols have probably found the bodies already and figured out who did it.”

“I guess,” Dirk said, and he tried not to grimace.

Stephan scratched his blond scruff absent-mindedly. “We probably should expect retaliation soon then.”

Shit.
Dirk’s uneasiness was growing by the second, especially given the fact that he now understood that, no, Stephan was definitely
not
pleased.

“We’ll be ready for it,” he offered, although he knew that wasn’t what Stephan wanted to hear.

Predictably, Stephan’s hazel eyes impaled him to the spot. “We’re still recovering from the last spat.”

“True,” Dirk admitted, shivering as he remembered the latest territory dispute with the Tar Mongols in the Mojave Desert a little over a month ago. Three good men had been killed and Stephan himself had gotten quite a close call when a flying bullet had hit him in the chest, missing the heart by some miracle. “But so are the Tar Mongols.”

That was also true; they had inflicted quite some considerable damage back.

Stephan shook his head, his handsome face furrowed into a frown. “I don’t want another gunfight right now; the men are still reeling. It’s too fresh; they’ll be out for revenge and do something stupid.”

Dirk had to admit that the man had a point, but what else was there to do?

“I don’t know that we can avoid it, Stephan,” he said carefully. “Ruiz won’t just stay put.”

“Yeah,” Stephan said darkly. His eyes then sparkled with something even darker, an idea that Dirk had the feeling he was not going to like. “Unless…” He let the sentence hang in the air.

Dirk frowned. “Unless…?”

Stephan met his gaze straight on, and he was looking so determined that Dirk had to physically restrain himself from wincing. “Unless we give him the girl.”

Dirk had been right; he did
not
like this idea. At all. “He’s gonna kill her, Stephan.”

“So? Better her than us.”

Dirk watched him in disbelief. “Where did your chivalry go? Did you leave it in Oregon?”

Stephan watched him carefully, and Dirk felt like he was being x-rayed. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

“Do you like this woman, Dirk?” he asked bluntly.

Dirk almost flinched. The question was so blunt and sudden that it felt like a bullet being fired off a very powerful gun. He forced himself to look Stephan right in the eye as he said, “No.”

Stephan kept watching him. “Don’t lie to me, Dirk. You know I don’t like it.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Fine,” Dirk said after a moment. “I may like her. But that is not the point, Stephan,” he hurried to say. “Giving her to the Tar Mongols would be wrong, and you know it. They’d rape her first and kill her later, and I know you can’t possibly want that for her.”

Stephan was silent for a few moments. “I wouldn’t want that for anyone,” he said then, his eyes darkening. As a survivor of sexual violence, Stephan waged his own personal war on rape, and the mere mention of it made his blood boil in his veins. “But I also don’t want bullets raining on my men again so soon. Besides,” he added, “I’m not sure how much I like the thought of an investigative reporter sniffing around our territory.”

Dirk sighed inwardly. He had expected Stephan to say something like that, and for all of his thinking, he still had not come up with a valid answer to argue the point.

“She’s not here for us,” he said, and he knew it was a weak argument, because it had felt weak every time Camilla had offered it to him in her own defense.

“Irrelevant,” Stephan said.

Dirk didn’t say anything. After all, what could he possibly said? Stephan was right, and they both knew it. An investigative reporter sniffing around club business was only going to complicate things and make an already bloody feud even bloodier. Even though he liked Camilla, he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk that either. But he also knew that giving her to Herman Ruiz was not the right move.

“I know you’re right,” he said after a few moments of silence, choosing his words carefully. “But could you really give her to that animal? In all conscience, could you? And if you decide that we should get rid of her ourselves, could you really kill a woman?”

It was Stephan’s biggest taboo, the only thing that still made him feel like a somewhat decent man even in their violent, unforgiving world.

Stephan stared at him in silence for a while, and then he exhaled sharply. “Damn you, Coleman,” he growled, and Dirk knew then that he had him. He ran a hand through his blond hair in frustration. “Fine,” he said. “What do you suggest we do?”

Dirk hesitated. He had not thought that far ahead, mostly because even after over three days of racking his brain over the issue, he still had no idea what to do.

“I suggest we lay low,” he said, because it was really the only sensible thing to do at the moment. “We keep her with us; we don’t let her go for now, at least not until she agrees to forget about this story of hers.”

“How would we know she’s telling the truth when she does?”

“She’ll still have to enter Tar Mongols territory in order to investigate them,” Dirk said. “Which means she’ll have to enter or at the very least pass very close by ours. Ain’t no way she can come back without us noticing.”

Stephan seemed to ponder the matter for a moment or two. Finally, he nodded. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“Once she agrees to forget all about us and the Mongols, we put her on a plane to New York, and good riddance.”

“I don’t like it, Dirk,” Stephan said after another few moments of silence.

“Me neither,” Dirk admitted. “But it’s the only alternative we’ve got. Would
you
be able to sleep at night if you had her killed? ‘Cause I sure as hell wouldn’t. We’ve never killed a woman. Let’s not make her the first.”

Stephan reflected silently for a while. “You’re right,” he finally said. “Fine. She’ll stay with us. As for the Tar Mongols, we lay low and regroup until we’re ready to deal with a retaliation.”

“And if they come earlier than that?”

“Then we fight, like we always have.”

Dirk smiled and nodded solemnly. They clasped hands, and Stephan gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“You’ll be the death of me, Dirk Coleman,” he said with a fond smile.

Dirk laughed. “Let’s hope not.”

Stephan stood and walked over to the small fridge they kept in the meeting room. He took out two beers and went back to the table, handing one to Dirk. He sat back down and groaned, as he put his boot-clad feet up on the table.

“Long stay in Oregon?” Dirk guessed, toasting him silently with his beer bottle.

“Yeah. Jack Miller is an idiot.”

Dirk smiled sympathetically. Stephan had been to their affiliated gang in Oregon for a week, going over their respective situation and reviewing the profits they had made from selling guns. Jack Miller was the president of the Minutemen in Oregon, and he was a reckless hot-head who always put revenge and reputation before the club’s need.

“He’s getting worse,” Stephan said. “If he keeps it up, he’s gonna get his whole gang killed sooner rather than later.”

Dirk cringed. “That bad?”

“Yeah. I hear the men are talking of overthrowing him.”

“Wow.”

Stephan shrugged. “They’re fed up.” He took a long swig from his beer. “Can’t blame them, really.”

“Who would take his place?”

“Dan Johnson.”

“Good choice.” Dan Johnson was the Oregon club’s VP—and the only reason why they were still afloat despite Jack’s disastrous leadership.

“So you like this girl, huh?” Stephan changed the subject abruptly. He was grinning, but his eyes bore holes into Dirk. “Should I be worried about your judgment?”

“Nah,” Dirk said. “I’m attracted to her, that’s all. You know I always keep a level head.”

“I know. But you know, it’s not the end of the world if sometimes you don’t.”

Dirk frowned. He was about to ask what Stephan meant when they heard a sudden crash coming from a few doors away.

“What the fuck?” Stephan said, immediately standing to full alert.

Dirk got up before the other man could, and he held out a hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”

Stephan nodded.

Dirk marched out of the room. He had a feeling he knew who was responsible for the noise.