Chapter Two-1
2056 Words
Chapter Two
TRIGGER
“Vineyard,” a guard barked at me, “this is you.”
I glanced at Brick, who was being ushered into the cell next to me with Rail.
“You get one hour to freshen up, then lights out.” He laughed.
The door slammed behind me as I chucked my sheets on the nasty cot. Easing onto the mattress, I rubbed my face and looked over at my bunkmate. He had his eyes glued to a book. I knew he felt me staring because his leg shifted uneasily.
“We gonna have trouble?” I grunted.
The kid peeled his eyes over to me and slowly twisted to a sitting position. “No, sir, we will not.” His thick southern accent rolled off his tongue.
I eyed him curiously. “What’s your name?”
He extended his hand, but I didn’t move to shake it. “Wes.”
“Trigger.”
“I know.” He gave a tight nod before he went back to his book.
It didn’t shock me that he knew my name; most did in prison. I’ve been in and out of them my whole life. Besides, my club was international, so we owned many chapters. I was proud I had grown the club from just Santa Monica and LA to stretch as far as New Zealand.
I pushed the sheets into a thicker pillow and focused on where else I could send my men to look for Tess.
“Nolan Vineyard, I sentence you to three life terms in Terre Haute State Prison,” broke through my thoughts and made the creatures inside beat at the bars of their own cages.
Links better come through.
“I can hear them.” Rail’s tired voice filled the dark, damp cell from next door. We were all a bit wired from the kitchen duty we were assigned today. “They can smell me out.”
Fuck me, he was always so dramatic. Rail was smaller, his body a little slimmer than the rest of us. Prison was hard on him, but he always made it.
“I miss the garage, the smell of the steel and oil.” The mattress squeaked as he flopped to his side. “These s**t sheets feel like sandpaper.” He paused. “You’re awake,” I heard him say.
“No,” Brick grunted.
“How you can sleep on the first night is beyond me.”
“Shut up.”
The first night was always the longest. It weeded the weak from the strong. I was no stranger to inmate life, but I never stayed long enough to make it my own, and I sure as s**t wasn’t about to now. I closed my eyes to tune them out and thought about the mole in my clubhouse, eating my food, drinking my whiskey. Fire licked the hairs on my arms as I felt the need to snap. I somehow willed my head to clear and fell into a restless sleep.
The morning came too quickly. I blinked my eyes to focus and swung my feet to sit up. Once the doors scraped open on the tracks, I made my way downstairs, signaling to my men I was skipping breakfast and headed in the opposite direction.
The line for the phone wrapped around the corner and down the hall, but one look at me, and most scattered. My reputation in prison had traveled far.
I caught the eye of a Stripe Back I sent here last year. Kale had murdered a gas attendant for his initiation and tried to pin it on Morgan, who happened to be there at the same time. With a little pressure, I got the proof I needed to clear Morgan’s name and sent Kale away for life.
It didn’t help that I spread some rumors so he would become someone’s b***h in a matter of days.
“Nice limp.” Rail nodded. “Rough night under the sheets?”
Kale shot him a death look but was more focused on me.
“Tell me something.” He rubbed his crew cut and leaned against the wall. “How is it that you’re in here while your old lady is shackin’ up with your old man out there?”
Rail shifted and blocked the view of the guards while Brick appeared from the cafeteria and stood on the other side. I stepped up closer so we were nose to nose, and slapped my hand down on his pencil d**k.
“I will be out of here before your next date with your cellmate,” I twisted him tighter in my grip as he struggled to keep his composure, “peeling the clothes off your sister, just like I did the night you were sentenced.”
He tried to lunge, but I squeezed with all my might. He stifled a scream as his veins bulged. He couldn’t afford to get put in the hole again, and he knew I knew that.
“Vineyard!” a guard yelled. “Do we have a problem here?”
I raised my hands and stepped back. “Just getting reacquainted with an old friend.”
The guard gave a red-faced Kale a questioning look. “That true?”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Good. Move on, then.” He waved us off as I stood back in line for the phone.
Three rings after I stated my name to the stupid recording, someone finally answered.
“Helmond’s Bar, Peggy speaking. Trigger, is that you?”
Why is she questioning me?
“Peggy, get me Morgan.”
“Oh, my God, Trigger! I thought maybe it was Brick or Rail. It’s been so jacked up without you here—”
“Peggy,” I snapped, “where’s Morgan?”
“No clue. I figured you had him dealing with somethin’.”
“Find me Cooper.”
“Do you know how hard it is to run this bar myself? The till doesn’t add up right. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Morgan keeps throwing Tess in my face. He really can be an asshole—”
“Peggy!” I shouted, and a guard glared at me. “Cooper.”
“Fine!” she huffed and screamed for Cooper, who must have been in the bar, as he yelled back at her. “Trigger is on the phone.”
There was bickering before he tore the phone away from her.
“Hey, man, you okay in there?”
“Where is Morgan?” I didn’t have much more time.
“I don’t know. He left the day before yesterday, said he’d be back tomorrow. Maybe his dad is back?”
Morgan wouldn’t leave unless something came up, but why not tell Cooper or Cray?
“You heard from Links yet?” he asked. The bar must have picked up, because he started yelling over the noise.
“No. You?”
“He was here poking around yesterday, but he wouldn’t share anything.”
Really?
“Find Morgan.”
“Yeah, boss.”
I hung up and went to find Brick. Something didn’t sit right.
***
“Stop!” the guard shouted, clearly new and nervous. Sweat rode across his lip and down along his sideburns. His day didn’t seem to be going very well. The pits of his shirt were damp, and he smelled like a jock strap.
His hands shook as he removed my handcuffs. I stepped too close as I passed him and heard the air get sucked from his lungs. He was the guard I would target when I needed something.
Three chairs over, I located Sam and went to sit across from him. He was as white as a ghost.
Tess.
I brought the receiver to my ear and watched as he mirrored me through the glass.
“What?”
His lips parted, and he let out a small sigh. “Links won’t talk to me, only Morgan.”
“And?”
“And Morgan is gone, won’t answer his phone.”
Now Morgan wasn’t answering Sam’s calls? What the f**k?
“And?”
“And I can’t find him. Cooper is a mess trying to run everything. Cray is coming to help. That stupid blonde behind the bar can’t count to ten, and Links wouldn’t even give me a moment of his time when he was at the club yesterday.” Sam tugged at his red tie. “f**k forbid he answers his phone today. He won’t even text me.”
My thumb rubbed over my ring finger as I thought about what the f**k was going down at my club. A bright red head caught my attention. I glanced over and saw Brick ease in two seats down from me. He gave me a questioning look when he caught my grim expression.
The guard smacked his shoulder so he’d focus on Minnie. He picked up the receiver, and his jaw locked in place when Minnie slowly shook her head.
No sign of Tess yet.
“Sam,” I grunted, darkness escaping from my tongue, “find Links, or I will find another lawyer.”
I heard him call out my name as I slammed the receiver down and yelled for a guard.
We were done here.
I saw the stress that hung heavily in Minnie’s eyes when her gaze moved up to mine. She looked drained. She forced a weak smile, and I waited a beat before Brick and I stepped through the door.
None of this was supposed to happen. I always had a plan, and this wasn’t it.
“Inmate number 909576, Vineyard.” The young guard tried to sound scary, but his voice cracked when he met my gaze. “You have, um, yard duty.”
I stared blankly and waited for him to lead the way. f**k, I needed to kill someone.
The yard was mainly hard-packed dirt. The few little sprigs of grass that tried desperately to survive were slowly being choked to death under the boots of hundreds of inmates. It seemed like random groups at first glance, but each cluster was in a specific spot divided by race.
I glanced at Rail as he rolled a cigarette like it was the fifties, and Brick eyed the Koreans, who felt we didn’t belong here.
A guard with shiny black boots stepped into the yard and walked the inside perimeter. He didn’t carry a gun or a baton, and his unmarked hands were a dead giveaway that he wasn’t a fighter. Once he completed his rounds, he eased down onto a bucket and started to drum a song. It was Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.” I noticed the leaders of each gang tuned in to him and stopped what they were doing.
A dark chill filled the yard, and the scruffy hair on the backs of the wild beasts inside me stood to attention as they started to hiss.
A big Hispanic man cast a shadow over my face and cracked his knuckles like he was about to fight. “Heard you take out some of my men.” His English was broken, but I understood enough.
I nodded and blew a puff of smoke toward him.
He snapped his fingers, and the rest of his gang joined him.
“You die now.”
Flip.
***
TESS
I woke to a tightness in my lungs. My body was nearly frozen, but what caught my attention were the little drops of rain that tapped my face. A storm was coming; the clouds were low and heavy. When I moved, I felt it, a thick, heavy chain wrapped snugly around my neck. I was attached to the trunk of a tree.
Seriously? I fought to keep back the panic. What the f**k was this, Black Snake Moan? Oh, my God, it was terrifying!
“Are you enjoying the show?”
I screamed inside my head. The house was black, and I wondered what time it was.
Suddenly, the air was trapped in my lungs as something dark raced by. I was limited in my head movement, so I strained to move my eyes.
Shit, s**t, s**t. The little hairs on my neck stood to attention, like a wolf aware of immediate danger.
“Tess,” Jace hissed from behind me.
Oh, f**k, no!
I tried to pull away, but I didn’t have much wiggle room.
“Stop!” His lips touched my ear, and I wanted to claw his eyes out. “I get it you hate me. Whatever. But you will listen to me if you want to get the hell out of here.” I felt him jiggle the chain.
“Don’t want your help,” I hissed.
He let out a dark chuckle. “Yeah, you seem to be in good shape.”
I bit my tongue as he fiddled some more with the chains. I hated that I felt a heavy sadness inside over him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I made a bad decision, but he promised to help find my sister.” Jace had mentioned his sister to me once before, that they were separated when she was sixteen, and he’d always wanted to know where she was. I knew he just wanted family, but that was the club, and he’d pissed all over it.
Although a part of me wanted to hug him, the other part wanted to stab him in the gut, just once, to make my point.
“What was the information for?”
I felt the chain give way. Its tension went lax, and I sucked in a deep breath of relief.
“You.”
“So, you led them right to me. The night Trigger took me home, we got ambushed in the mountains. That was you?”
- Writer
