30
Dom
The next day, I took Jules, Grace, and Cara to the compound. It was surprising that Cara hadn’t fought me on going to stay at the compound and not her house.
After we got her mother to her room, I pulled Jules aside. “Baby, I got to run. We’ve got church in a few, and I need to keep the guys up to date.” I kissed her nose. “Get your mom settled and I’ll be back.” I kissed my girl once more and walked away.
Heading to chapel, I saw Locke and Axel sitting at the bar. Making my way toward them, I nodded to the prospect who was cleaning glasses at the other end. Without me having to say a word, he grabbed glasses and the bottle of Jameson off the shelf behind him and placed them in front of the three of us. He walked away again, leaving us to business.
Filling the glasses, I looked at Axel. “What do ya know, brother?”
“Damn, Dom, it looks like Sal was having issues in his own house. From what I found, looks like he might have known what was coming. Or at least that something fucked up was about to happen.”
“What do you mean? You think he knew Jules would be taken?” Tension rose in my voice.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I wanna say no, but who the fuck knows? Let’s get into chapel and I’ll show you.”
I sat at my usual seat at the table waiting for Ezra to get here. I was about to call him, when the bastard finally came running in. “Damn, brother. You’re late.”
Ezra looked up from his phone, noticing there were just a few of us. “Will it be a full church or just us?”
“Just us for now,” Locke bit out. “Now sit the fuck down so we can get started!” His tone caused all of us to look at him.
The brothers had all voiced their concerns that he’d been on edge since Sal was killed and Cara hurt. Nobody could really figure out why. I mean, we’d dealt with rough shit before, so I couldn’t figure out why this had him losing his shit.
Taking his seat Locke got started. “I spoke to a couple contacts. Seems like they have the same opinion of Sal as what Axel said. Over the past six months or so, his behavior changed. He’d started pulling away from people, dealing more in the dirty shit than staying in the clean business. From what people have been saying, he was acting paranoid. Constantly worried people were watching him, and someone was after him. Ezra, Axel, what do you have?”
Axel spoke up. “He has a prospect that helped out a lot. We told him we needed info to help find the person responsible, and he spilled it all. Said that Cara was like a mother to him and he would do anything to help her out.” Locke nodded for him to go on, looking impatient. “Seems like there was shit going on behind the scenes. He said a couple of the brothers in his crew where talking hostile takeover. I guess they were sick of his paranoia and shit.”
Ezra shook his head. “Not one person was loyal to that man except his wife and daughter. Well, daughters, now.”
“And they seemed to want only younger blood. Their VP is young, and he seems to be pushing out the older members,” Axel finished.
“Fuck, where is the club loyalty anymore?” Locke bit out. “Sounds like they lost it. Tech, what did you find out?”
“Well now that I have all this information, what I found out makes a lot more sense.”
Locke growled, his impatience growing. “Spill it, brother.”
Tech raised a brow. “He was getting messages from this unknown IP address that I still can’t trace. Weird ones going back almost a year. As well as text messages from an untraceable number that said he was dead, and he shouldn’t have turned his back on them. But it never says who “them” is. That’s the issue I’m having. I can’t nail anyone down. I mean, the fucker had a list of enemies as long as my dick.”
“Well, if it’s as long as your dick, it should only take us a few minutes to find out who it is,” I quipped.
“Very funny, fucker. Ha-ha.” Tech got serious again. “Anyways, the emails talk about how he backed out on some deal and they were not happy about it. They said something about making him pay, and how no matter what happened they would get what they were owed. One did say something interesting. I have it here. It says, “You thought you had me, but when you least expect it, I will rob you of everything you love, just like you robbed me. You will regret crossing me.” I have no idea what the fuck that means.”
“They aren’t signed or anything?” I asked.
“Nope. But I’m hoping I can figure it out. I’m still digging through them.”
“Damn it!” I roared, slamming my fist onto the table. “What in the hell was going on in that place?”
Axel jumped in. “What about Cara? I mean, maybe she knows something that could help us figure out what the hell is going on, and if there’s any more shit that’s going to happen. That way we can at least prepare the best we can for whatever shit storm Sal dragged us into.”
I shook my head. “She’s asleep right now. When she wakes, I’ll have Jules let her know we want to talk to her, but I won’t have all of us going in there making her feel like she did something wrong. So just me and Locke will go.”
Locke nodded, but he had a weird look on his face. What was going on with him? “Keep digging, Tech. Ezra, see if the girls need anything. And see if Grace
