Love's Hope (The Unknowns Motorcycle Club Book 2) (5 page)

CHAPTER NINE

When the vibrating noise stirred him awake, Alex opened his eyes quickly. For a moment, nothing in his life had changed. His sleepy mind thought that he was still very deeply involved with the Unknowns and that the vibrating was his phone. It would be Jameson, calling him to send him on some job that needed to be undertaken in the late night hours.

But then he remembered that he was no longer in his apartment. He was sleeping in Amanda’s bed, and all of his belongings were in a U-Haul somewhere in Chicago.

As quietly and as quickly as he could, Alex rolled over and took the phone from the bedside table. He saw the contact information on the display window and felt those hot rocks in his guts again.

Chester.

Alex got up out of bed and ran to the adjoining bathroom. By the time he closed the door behind him and cut on the lights, the phone had stopped vibrating. Alex waited a moment and then returned the call. He also cut on the bathroom’s exhaust fan, hoping it might mask his voice and keep Amanda from waking up.

The phone only rang once before Chester answered. “Hey, Alex,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Sorry to call so late, but you said that you wanted the information as soon as I got it, right?”

“Yes, absolutely. What did you find out?”

There was a very weighted pause on the other end before Chester started talking. In that silence, Alex realized that he already knew what was coming. Still, it made the following few minutes no easier to endure.

“The name of the systems analyst at that bank was indeed Stephen Randall. He’d been working as an analyst for the bank for three years. A bright guy, from what my source can find. On his way up the career ladder. He was married, so he left behind a wife. The cops never pieced it together, and his murder was never solved which — since you and I know it was a job from the Unknowns — really isn’t much of a surprise.”

Alex felt as if he had just been run through with a sword and the attacker was twisting the blade.

“You still there?” Chester asked.

“Yeah,” Alex said, his voice shaky, He ran a hand over his face, as if trying to wake himself up from some delusional dream.

“Want to tell me what this is all about now?” Chester asked.

“No. I’m sorry, man. Maybe some other time. But not now. This is the information I needed.”

“And from the sound of it,” Chester said, “it’s not the news you were hoping for.”

“No, but it’s what I was expecting. Thanks, Chester.”

“Hey,” Chester said quickly. “Before you go, there’s another interesting little twist to all of this.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. So, Jameson is taking the club to Chicago, as you know. Now, from what I am hearing, Marco O’Brien got his ass handed to him the other night. You know who that is?”

Alex’s heart went cold as he lied. “I know who it is, but that’s about it.”

“Anyway, it’s assumed that Jameson sent someone to deliver a message. ‘Leave us alone. This our turf now.’ That kind of thing. Anyway, Marco spent some time in the hospital but was released pretty quickly.”

“What’s that have to do with Tulsa?” Alex asked.

“The three goons that Jameson sent…one of them was Marco O’Brien.”

Alex nearly dropped the phone to the floor. He was aware that Chester was still talking, but most of it went unheard.

“Marco, as you know, did a lot of the grislier work for Jameson. As it turns out, this was one of the first jobs Marco ran for Jameson. It seems that by taking out the security guards and this Stephen Randall character, he stood out to Jameson. Some say it’s the job that convinced Jameson to keep working with him. The Tulsa job, after all, ended up putting about seven hundred thousand dollars into Jameson’s pockets.”

Alex wanted to say something just so he wouldn’t seem so startled, but he didn’t trust his voice. He was far too shaken.

“You okay?” Chester asked.

“Yeah. It’s just… shit.”

“Look, I know you said you can’t tell me about what this is about, but if you need someone to talk to, don’t hesitate to call me. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Alex said absently. “Thanks again, Chester.”

Without waiting for Chester’s reply, Alex killed the call and fought the urge to throw the phone across the bathroom.

He took a moment to collect himself and then tried to cover his tracks. He flushed the toilet, hoping that if the call
had
awoke Amanda up that the flushing toilet and running exhaust fan would maybe fool her. He waited a few more seconds before shutting the fan and the light off.  He then stepped back out into the bedroom and got into bed as quietly as he could.

He had been laying there for no more than ten seconds before Amanda spoke softly beside him.

“Do you always take your late night calls into the bathroom?”

There was some accusation in her voice, but most of it wounded like nothing more than annoyance of having been stirred awake.

“Sorry,” Alex said. “Damn club stuff. There are some people that aren’t really happy with me for leaving the way I did.”

“Mmmm,” was all she said. She slid over to him and threw an arm over his chest. Her voice thick with sleep, she added, “Sorry. That sounded shitty of me.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m sorry it woke you.”

“Mmm hmm,” she said.

She was asleep a few moments later, and he felt the rise and fall of her chest against his side. Just as he was also on the verge of sleep, his phone started vibrating again.

Damn,
he thought.
How can this get any worse?

Beside him, Amanda stirred. “Maybe just give a two weeks’ notice,” she joked. “That works for everyone else.”

Hearing her joking in such a way as she was half asleep made him feel very guilty about keeping what he knew about Stephen from her. In fact, as he reached out for his phone again, he started to feel real hatred towards himself for the first time.

That hatred was replaced by fear when he saw the display on his phone.

Jameson.

His first reaction was to simply ignore the call. But he knew that would do no good. Jameson would keep calling and only get angrier each time he ignored the call. Might as well just rip the band-aid off and get it over with as quickly as possible.

He again went into the bathroom, faster this time, and didn’t bother with the ruse of the exhaust fan.

“Hello?” he asked, trying to sound tired rather than afraid.

“Alex,” Jameson said. “How are you, kid?”

“Good, I guess. Listen, Jameson, I—”

“No,” Jameson said. “
You
listen Alex, and you listen good. I’m in town. I’m parked in front of a restaurant that I think you might know well. It’s where you met the woman I’m assuming you’re with.”

Holy shit,
Alex thought.
This is bad. This is—

“I don’t know where you are,” Jameson said. “And I don’t care. But you bring your ass here right now. You have thirty minutes. If thirty-one pass, and I haven’t seen you, I
will
find you. And before I beat you to a bloody mess, I’m going to rape that lady friend of yours and make you watch. You hear me?”

Fear quickly churned into an acidic anger, but Alex knew better than to let it surface.

“Answer me!”

“Yes,” Alex said. “I hear you. But Jameson, you have to—”

But the line had gone dead already.

Alex sat on the edge of the toilet, his stomach churning and his mind working in a million directions at once.

There was no way out of this, and he knew it. And Christ, had he been so stupid as to think he’d make this decision and not have to pay some sort of consequence? He found himself wanting to weep for the first time in nearly fifteen years, but kept it away. For now, he had to focus.

He had to pay attention to every detail and hope it was enough to make sure this was not the last night of his life.

***

He walked back out into the bedroom, hoping that Amanda would have fallen back asleep. That way, he could sneak out and handle this nasty business without her knowing anything at all about it. His hopes were dashed, though, when he walked back into the room and he saw her sitting halfway up, propped up on an elbow. The sheets had slid down just enough to reveal her left breast and he suddenly found the prospect of leaving her more than he could handle.

“More club stuff?” she asked.

“Yeah. But this call was… well, this one sucks.”

“Why? Is something wrong?”

Alex sat on the side of the bed, sliding his boots over to him. He also grabbed up his clothes form the floor and started to sort them on the bed.

“I don’t know for sure. But I do have to go.”

“Now? Alex, it’s two thirty in the morning.”

“I know,” he said, wanting very badly to explain what was happening. But he didn’t want to cause her any worry, and he sure as hell didn’t want to start an argument. This was something he had to do, and he didn’t want her trying to talk him out of his responsibilities. This was the bed he made, and now he had to lie in it.

“Is it bad?”

“It could be,” he said, slipping his shirt on. “I promise you, I’m not trying to be vague or rude about this, but the less you know, the better.”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “At the risk of sounding like an obsessive little girl, can I ask when you’ll be back?”

“If it goes well, I could be back in about an hour, I guess.”

“Someone from the club is
here?
In town?”

“Yeah. They found out where I was somehow.” His thoughts instantly turned to Slim, but he didn’t want to assume that his friend would just hand him over like that. On the other hand, Alex didn’t doubt that Jameson would get extreme on his own club members in an effort to get any information he wanted.

“And that’s why I can’t tell you much,” he went on, slipping his pants on. “If they’re in town, I have to go to them. If I don’t, they’ll look for me. And I can’t let you get into this.”

“But if these are members of your club, would they actually hurt you?” She was sitting up now, hugging the sheets to her. It hurt Alex to see her looking so beautiful and yet so worried all at the same time.

“It’s hard to say,” he said. He stood up from the bed and leaned over to her. He kissed her softly but deeply. She cradled his face in her hands, and when they parted, she looked him directly in the eyes.

“Be straight with me,” she said. “Are you about to go into a dangerous situation?”

“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “It’s really weird. Very hard to explain.” And the hell of it was he really
didn’t
know how this would all go down.

“Okay,” she said. “If for some reason it goes bad, and you get a chance, can you at least call me?”

“Absolutely,” he said, and then kissed her one more time. “But I have to go.”

She nodded and he hated to see her looking so sad. He gave her one final look and then headed for the bedroom door. “I’ll be back,” he said without much emotion.