Warlords MC: Book 4 – Deuce : Chapter 1

Deuce stood in the shadows of the campfire and watched his three brothers, Ace, King, and Jack, along with their women and Jade’s niece, Annabelle. They were laughing and carrying on and he felt a pang of loneliness. He wanted what they had already found. His three older brothers had found their Ones.

His fingers curled into fists and he thought back to when he was a kid and their grandfather had told them about the One. Ten year old, Ace had just snorted when the old man told them about how he met their grandmother, how his soul had recognized hers, and how they spent 53 years together before she passed. He had been five at the time and ever since then, he’d been looking for his One.

He remembered seeing the look on his brother’s faces, they were a few years older than he and Joker. They had scoffed at the idea of a girl meaning more to them than their own lives. He looked over at them now, and figured they knew what their grandfather had been talking about.

He felt a hand clap his shoulder and he knew who it was. His brother, the baby of the family, the one they called Joker.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Joker asked.

Deuce nodded. “Yeah.” Tomorrow was when Jack would marry his Jade. It had only been three weeks since Jack and Jade found each other but come tomorrow, Jack would marry her. He hadn’t hardly let the two girls out of his sight in the last three weeks either.

Shortly after the two came, Ace and King had gone to the house Sable and Oscar had shared to gather some of Annabelle’s things since Oscar hadn’t taken anything with them when he left. They had found Sable’s body and taken care of it for Jade. The funeral home had a service and then Charli had allowed them to bury her in the family plot here on the farm. As Charli pointed out, she was part of Jade’s family and Jade was part of their family now. Jade had cried at her reasoning but accepted it for what it was.

One of the items Ace and King brought back with them was a floppy stuffed dog. It was one of Annabelle’s favorite toys and she had been delighted to have it back. In fact, she hadn’t let go of it since they brought it back. Wherever Annabelle was, so was the dog she called Fluffy.

Deuce had shaken his head and everyone else chuckled at the name but it made the kid happy and that was all that mattered.

Their mission was going nowhere fast as there had been no sightings of Gauntlet or the Widowmaker anywhere. They figured Gauntlet had crawled into a hole somewhere to heal from the wounds Gabriella had given him, but they still didn’t know how he got out of the house while it was exploding but he apparently had, just barely escaping the carnage. They still had yet to identify Widowmaker but that didn’t stop them from trying.

Deuce looked over at Joker and shook his head. “Do you remember when we were just kids, the stories Grandpa used to tell us?”

Joker was tall like all of his brothers, well over six feet, maybe six four or close to it. His long dark hair was pulled back away from his face and held in place in a ponytail. His eyes were a mix of green and blue meaning one was green while the other one was blue. Solidly built and not a sign of fat anywhere, all muscle, but not body builder type muscle. He shook his head. “Barely, I wasn’t even in school yet when he died.”

Deuce nodded. “I remember. One of the last stories he used to tell us was about the One.”

Joker frowned. “The One?”

Deuce nodded. “He would tell us boys that one day, we would meet the one woman fate made just for us. He said as soon as he saw Grandma, he knew she was his One and he didn’t regret one day that he had with her.” He looked over at his older brothers. “They found their One after calling the old man silly. I’m truly happy for them.”

Joker studied him for a moment before he said quietly, “But you want what they got, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do,” Deuce admitted.

Joker exhaled deeply, “Me too.” He glanced over at Charli. “When I came here and met Charli I knew she was going to mean something to us. I wasn’t sure just what at the time but I knew. I think those three weeks she was nursing me back to health, I fell a little in love with her. Of course, Ace had to steal her away from me but that was okay. I think I knew from day one, she wasn’t meant for me.”

Deuce nodded. “Yeah, she really does belong with Ace but who woulda figured he would get a steady woman that would put up with his narly ass?”

Joker laughed. “True that, but I am glad about it.”

“Yeah, me too.” Deuce nodded. “It amazes me how she handles him, being so damned tiny. But she does.”

Later that night, Deuce watched as Jack picked up his soon to be little girl and walked her and Jade into the house. The others had already gone to bed but Deuce wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet. He still felt restless, so he sat outside in the shadows, drinking his beer.

After a while, he hoisted himself to his feet and dragged his butt back into the house. Walking to the kitchen, he rinsed out his beer bottle and put it in the bin. Turning to go to his room, he saw something lying on the floor. Walking over, he bent to pick it up and found it was Fluffy, Annabelle’s stuffed animal. He shook his head and smiled. He would drop it off on his way to his own room, as the little girl needed her Fluffy puppy to sleep with. Then he noticed a loose thread on the toy.

He frowned and looked a little closer. The loose thread was neon green while the dog was white with brown spots. What the hell? He felt the paw where the thread had been used and found something hard in there.

His frowned deepened as he carried the stuffed animal over to the kitchen table and sat down. Studying it, he noted the seams had been opened at some point then sewn up again.

Question is… why?

He reached into his pocket and brought out his knife. He carefully cut the green threads and the seam opened up easily. He was able to reach one finger in and he moved the hard abject to where he could hook it with his finger then he dragged it out.

He looked down at his hand and found he was looking at a mini flash drive. “What the fuck?” He glanced at the toy again. How the hell did something like this get into Annabelle’s favorite toy?

Then he thought about the one person closest to the little girl, her mother. Could this be why she was murdered? They had found out why Sable was known by the name Gloria Hayden. Oscar Chapmen aka Carmen Vance aka god only knows what his real name was… liked to not leave a trail anyone could trace, so they were running into dead ends every time they thought they had a good lead on him.

He glanced down the hall and wondered if he should wake Ace and the others up, or if he should just look at it first and let them know what he’d found in the morning. Well, he would do the right thing first. Deuce grabbed a needle and thread then sewed up the puppy’s foot and walked it down the hall to put it in bed with Annabelle.

After quietly going in, he leaned over, kissed her forehead and whispered, “Have some good dreams little one.” Then he went back to the living room, sat at the table, and opened his laptop.

Plugging in the flash drive, he opened the menu. Scrolling down through the drive, he found only one file in the documents.

Taking a deep breath, he opened it. There was a short message for whoever found the flash drive.

Hello, my name is Sable Hawkens, although I’m known around Braaken as Gloria Hayden. This life I’m leading is nothing but a lie. Even the little girl who calls me Mama isn’t really mine. I don’t know who she really is but Carmen brought her to me when she was only a few hours old. That day was August third, three years ago. He told me her mother died in childbirth and that she was his daughter. He set us up here, I think to keep us hidden from his business partners. He never did tell me who her mother was and I never asked. He told me it wasn’t my business and he had a terrible temper.

I want you to know, I did not come here of my free will. He ran into me at a bar and he thought I would do a good job raising his child. He kidnapped me just hours before he brought me his child. When he laid the little girl in my arms, I fell in love with her. That’s when he told me if I tried to run, he would find me and kill me. He told me all I had to do was pretend to be his woman and raise his child.

If you are reading this, I’m probably dead already and I don’t’ know if I’m doing the right thing by leaking this as I have no idea who will find this but I need to let the truth be known.

Please protect Annabelle, as she is innocent of her father’s crimes.

Sable Hawkens

Deuce let out a huge breath as he sat back in his chair with a stunned feeling. This was something he and his brothers never would have guessed. Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!

He looked down the hall and thought about how this would break Jade’s heart. If nothing else to find out Annabelle wasn’t even related to her and that alone would break her heart. They all loved that little girl, especially Jack. He was all set to adopt her and was already calling her his daughter.

He sat up and glanced over the rest of the files. Before he got too far, he got up and went to Ace’s room. Knocking lightly, he waited for his brother to answer the door.

His brother’s long brown hair was pulled back to the base of his neck, his features were harsh and unyielding at times…like now, since Deuce had woken him up. His hazel eyes were almost a dark green whenever he was riled up, which was known to be quite often. He was every bit of six foot eight inches tall, nearly taller than all of his brothers. He was wide too, his shoulders and frame towered over most men. Ace growled at him, “This better be good brother, I was sleeping.”

“Oh yeah, it is good or bad maybe? You are going to want to see this,” Deuce assured him.