Innocence Burned(20)
When the man named Zook went to the bar, Houston got a look at the back of his cut and noticed the missing rocker. He was a recruit. Part of the club, but not yet official. Recruits had to make it through an unspecified probationary period before the club would consider them for full membership. Basically, they made sure you weren’t a pussy or a narc.
He followed Axel into the office, which was actually a conference room for church. Church being code for a fucking club meeting. The furnishings in the room were sparse with the focus completely centered on the long, scarred table his father told him was made with some of the wood left behind at the mill. Up on the wall hung another old piece of lumber that had the club mantra burned into it.
Reap what you S.O.W.
Back in the day when his father started the club with his military buddies, they’d put the club’s focus on the fact that every action has consequences with a goal to make sure justice was served. Sometime between then and the fateful night of his mother’s death, the club motto and everything else about it went to shit.
The anger already sitting in his gut began to grow. He wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t his life anymore and neither was the Corps. Everything was fucking shit and getting worse by the second.
Time to find some control.
“So lets have it. What the hell happened that brought you willingly into the mill?” Axel handed him a beer and took the seat across from him. The other guys had melted away and he was left facing him with the worst possible news.
“I thought you wanted me to talk to JD?”
“You will if I think it’s important enough.”
He didn’t like the smirk on Axel’s face and was itching to do something about it. Fortunately for him, he didn’t have time for a god damned pissing contest. “I met someone.”
Axel smiled, but smothered some of it by taking a swig of beer. “Not surprised it involves pussy. Most problems do. Thank God we got out of that business. More power to the fuckers that want to manage that shit.”
Houston was kind of surprised to hear the club no longer dealt in pussy. His father had loved that part of the biz, JD too. “She was kidnapped. Right under my fucking nose.” Again, that turmoil eating him from the inside out flared to life.
The smirk on Axel’s face disappeared. “No shit? What the hell, man? Who is this girl? She worth something? Or did she just get in some kind of trouble and can’t get out?”
“I don’t know. One minute we’re sitting by a pool and the next I come back from the head and she’s gone. If not for my gut and the signs of a struggle I would have assumed she ran out on me.”
“So who the hell is this chick? What makes her so God damned important?”
“Yeah, that’s the kicker and why I’m here instead of the police.” He pulled out Izzy’s drivers license and slid it across the table.
Axel eyed it warily before picking it up. “I’m not going to like this am I?”
Houston shook his head, waiting as Axel read it.
“Fuck.”
Yep, that about summed it up. This situation was fucked front ways, sideways and every other God damned way.
Chapter Eleven
Axel
Axel stared at the tiny picture on Isabella Mazzeo’s drivers license still in complete shock. There wasn’t a whole lot that surprised him these days, but Houston randomly hooking up with the daughter of the man they were investigating…
They could not afford to let this fuck things up for the club.
He handed the card back to JD, his club president. “I’m not sure there’s much we can do about this one. She’s virtually untouchable.”
JD’s eyes turned hard. “No one is untouchable. I learned that in the Army. All it takes is the right intel and the right team and you can get to whomever you want. No one is that insulated. Not forever.”
He shrugged. “You want to risk the club over this? Our entire investigation? There are lives at stake.”
“Depends on him. How far is he willing to go to rescue this girl? If we say no and he goes after her, his involvement could unravel all the work we’ve already put into this. If this girl ran away from her family, there’s a chance she might have some information that might help us. Plus, we could use his skills. And the fact he doesn’t have an inked target on his back like the rest of us, means he could be very useful.”
“You thinking undercover work?”
“We need to do something. So far our investigation into those missing girls hasn’t got us shit. A man on the inside would be worth something. A lot of something.”
“And likely get him killed in the process.”