Chapter6:Zero

Seattle is one place I dread, more than DC. The city brings back a notable amount of memories, bitter ones at most. I swing my leg off my bike and shove my helmet into my saddle. The restaurant is a glass encased feeding hole. If I am to describe it, I would say its uptight formal taste is too much for me. But not for the man I am meeting today. This set up fits him like a glove. Since I left Kanla with Beauty and Killer to hunt Lucca, something has played on my mind, bugging me. It's insistent. The last time something nagged my brain this much I ended up taking a bullet in my shoulder and lost three men because one of my men betrayed me on the battlefield. Turning to the enemy. It was the first time I met a shadow soldier as dangerous as Killer. But where Killer feels nothing, this soldier felt everything as if he was the one betrayed. He saved my life that day, taught me that a man without emotion is deadly but a man with too much emotion holds the world in his fingers, for he knows and understands all too well the poison of mankind. For me that poison is something I can eradicate, his name is Lucca Sanati. He is the leader of the Outfit, and husband to the woman I love. Just a few months ago he kidnapped Kylie Bray and Beauty, but we got them back. It wasn't in one piece, but they are alive. Barely That night is one thing I keep replaying in my head. Beauty's body tied to a chair, so fragile, broken like the soul of its owner. The small chance that my brother helped put her there sickens me. Beauty once told me that I stole the last piece of her, but what she doesn't know, she owns every breath I breathe. She is my owner, even if she doesn't know it yet, she will. A testament to that is the reason I am here, instead of going with her and Killer to see Kylie. The man I am here to see is sitting in the corner with an iPad in his hand, whilst his eyes are engrossed in whatever has got him so unaware of my presence. 'Thorn," My voice booms, breaking his occupied brain. His green eyes that are closely identical to mine look up from his iPad. He doesn't miss a beat as he lifts up his hand to shake mine. I pat his seated form on the back, pull out the silver and black leather chair and seat my ass down. My brother and I have always been on the opposite sides of the world. Today is no different and it got nothing to do with our taste in clothing, but the faults in our character. Me? I chose a life like my pops. As a kid, growing up I never wanted for another life besides the one I was given by my pops. The life of a biker, a Satan Sniper, has always been the path I'd lead. When I joined as a prospect almost twenty years ago it was as simple as breathing. The day I joined the military was another thing I never had to think about. I remember I was barely sixteen when I started researching about the different divisions. One of the happiest times of my teenage life was the day I got my letter. Two years in the army I decided to join the navy. It wasn't long after my training, I got recruited for my first big mission in Iraq, then Namibia. Got home a few years after that. Met a woman. Almost got myself married but the man upstairs took pity on a fucker like me, and killed her before I went down that road. Thorn, the club and my pops were there to pick my sorry ass up. It wasn't long after that fuck-fest I got recruited by Rounder to join the Special Ops team. It was way more than I wanted for myself, even my pops didn't see that coming. Guess, I surpassed my own expectations. A biker's life, becoming an Enforcer is all I have ever seen for myself before I met Beauty, even now, I can't picture myself without my brothers in my life. Thorn never fitted in with The Satan Snipers. Growing up I watched my dad and his futile attempts to get my brother to join, from the busty blondes, to the fast bikes. Thorn never wanted any of it. Not saying my brother didn't accept the occasional woman now and again. I could have saved my pops a lot of time and explained to him that Thorn was never going to be a biker, but I enjoyed the old Toad cracking his head. Thorn, on the receiving side of my pop's attempt at bribery wasn't impressed in the least. Since I could remember, my eldest brother has always been an ambitious man. It was encrusted in his soul from the time he was young. As we got older, had our own lives, his was spent wanting more. The biker life too wild for the Fighter Pilot. The army life too crowded. So, imagine my surprise when he came home one Christmas and informed the entire Club that he was becoming a bounty hunter. He was great at it too. The club used him a time or few. He made a name for himself and eventually a solid six figure salary doing private work for some business men. Wasn't too long after, he opened up his P.I services. It still boggles my mind how he ended up choosing to be a Private Investigator. I still can't picture him getting his hands dirty. But now as I sit here, I admit that thought doesn't hold its intensity of truth as it once did. The waitress walks up to me. A flirtatious smile to match her seductive walk which would have had me grinning a year back. She has a huge rack. At one time would've appealed to me to the extent that I would have fucked her on the side of this Uptight place for everyone to see. Now it has no reaction to me whatsoever. It amazes me what power a woman has over a man with just a simple smile. I never thought I would ever love a woman, the concept of it was foreign to me but now, how can I not love Beauty. 'What can I get you," The waiter asks as she plays with the long-braided hair of hers. 'A coffee, black, and a breakfast menu." 'Sure thing," She winks and I don't need to look to know she is sashaying her hips and ass. 'You got me here, what is so important, that it couldn't wait 'till next week?" Thorn doesn't beat around the bush. He puts his iPad to the side of the table and his coffee cup to his lips, whilst staring at me. 'Amariya. We are looking for Lucca, and the way she sees it, you are the one who knows where he is." He chuckles in a low half ass way my dad does, 'What do you want me to tell you Logan? You know as much as I do. She probably told you that Lucca employed me years back. She was pregnant at the time, and I was a dumb fuck tryna earn a big buck." His grimace is nothing to the sudden dread painting my insides. I don't know a man who loves money as much as Thorn. 'No, she didn't and I didn't ask. Hence, why I am here while another man carts my woman around. I want to know what happened all those years ago from you. We're family, so I want the truth Thorn. Why do you have a bounty on her head? Or better yet BROTHER, what the fuck are you doing on my girlfriend's hit list?" He leans forward, as I lean back. Today will mark the second time I bear witness to my brother show signs of discomfort. His pupils dilate and the light sheen on his forehead becomes visible to the naked eye as his attention scatters to everywhere in the uppity place besides my watchful waiting gaze that remains glued to him. He is nervous, which means one thing in my book, my brother is guilty. 'She was pregnant. At first when I got the job, I just wanted the money, and the reference. When I started looking for her, I found out she was sixteen. It was close to her seventeenth birthday when I finally found her. I admit I grew obsessed with finding this girl that Lucca Sanati was willing to pay five mill for. Nobody pays that money for anyone. She is like underworld royalty, the Cosa Nostra's lost female, did she tell you that she has siblings." 'No," I say. 'When her mother ran away from her father it caused the biggest war between the Russian Mob and the Catelli's. Her mother betrayed her family to the Russians. They solved the problem after a year by marriage. The more I found out about this Amariya Demarco, the deeper I dug. I didn't know at the time she was a killer. So, I followed her. To me she was a kid that got a bad break and though I felt like shit looking for her with every intention of taking her back to Lucca, I still did it. I told myself he loved her, convinced myself she'd be better off with Lucca than living on the streets. It wasn't long after I saw her did rumours get back to Lucca's ears about her pregnancy." 'There's your coffee." The waitress places my cup in front of me and hands me the menu. When she doesn't leave, I glare at her. The woman scurries to the other side of the small place. 'So, what happened then?" I ask my brother as I take a sip of the filtered coffee. 'I denied it, I said she didn't look pregnant. Not sure why I did it, guess following her I got a bit attached to the case," He chuckles and I find nothing about that funny. 'Lucca didn't take my lies too well as you can imagine, but he didn't touch me. I decided that day to get her first and listen to her story. And I did, she was eight months pregnant, and hiding out in a doctor's room. I asked her why she ran from Lucca, she just screamed Logan, girl went into a fit. I left and went back the following day not expecting her to be there, but fuck she was still there, so I broke in. Should have known better. She attacked me, and would have killed me if her water hadn't already broke. She was going into early labour. Obviously at the time I didn't believe it and thought it was Braxton hicks. So, I took her. We travelled for an hour but she carried on screaming. She was sitting in the back of the car. I swerved the car to take her to a hospital, but she said it was too late, the babies were coming." 'Wait, what?" I'm not sure I hear him correctly. He has the nerve to look ashen, 'Yeah, Amariya was having twins, two girls, and I was going to deliver the babies. Only, there were complications and by the time I got the first one out, there was so much blood. We were on the corner of the road, I'd managed to call the ambulance, but Amariya insisted she pushes. The baby was screaming, and I had to put the infant in the car, to get the other one, but that one was already dead. Once the ambulance came, Amariya was in hysterics, going crazy. When we asked them, what happened they said the baby suffocated, Amariya had it in her head I killed her baby." 'Then what happened?" 'Then I waited a few months, the first thing she did when she left the hospital was hand her baby to Deno, who I had followed. Found out where the baby was taken, then I went back for Amariya, but by that time she was gone, vanished. Few months later people started dying in numbers and Beggar was the name whispered on the streets of Washington. A wanted Jane doe. The cops put a neat bounty for her, one even a high society investigator like me couldn't resist. Imagine my surprise when I found Beggar, and was looking at Amariya, only this time she wasn't just a killer, she was dead inside. When she saw me, she wasn't running away, she was coming for me. We fought and I tried to make her see reason but she wouldn't listen, she stabbed me in the back of my spine. The knife planted right there, and then she was gone, the last time I saw her was at the clubhouse a few months back." My frown on my face probably matches my brothers, and while most of what he said sounds true, I feel that there is one important detail he forgot to mention. I have known my brother my entire life, if he didn't offer this information now, then there is no way I am going to get it out of him without a trade-off. And right now, the only trade-off I could offer him was the one thing I will never give up, HER. Beauty is the only person who could tell me the rest, but getting her to talk would be like using a shovel to dig an empty grave, pointless. 'How's dad." And his change of subject proves it, and while I smile not giving anything away, doubt clogs my mind, and a sense of forbidding hits me in the chest. Mercy was right when she said that a girl like Beauty doesn't want to kill someone for nothing. There has to be a reason, and as I look at my older brother, and see how these last few years has aged him, I know that I am not going to like that reason. Not one single bit. The thing about truth, it always comes to life, maybe not when you want it, but it comes out. Spending years serving my country, and years serving my club I know first-hand, how the truth can make even a grown man whither. It is a powerful piece of knowledge. But this truth, between the woman who owns me and my blood brother, is going to be a destruction of all of us. 'Dad's good, he's moving to Kanla, decided to spend his last years that side, just got the news last week." 'Nice, at least you there to keep an eye out for the old bastard, heard you broke it off with Quinn. I didn't see that happening, you need to stop jumping around with women and finally settle on down." 'Look who's talking, you don't even know the meanin' of fuckin' settlin' your own ass down. How's that nurse, still tasting the props?" 'I actually met someone, names Anna." 'Anna? Wow, nice man. How's the recovery? I see you still with the crutches!" 'I can walk a bit, but my back kills me." 'Better hope Anna loves to ride them horses." He rolls his eyes, 'She is ridin' one horse." Though I keep our conversation light, I want to ask him why he wants to kill Beauty. He hasn't answered my question. I want to insist he leaves her alone, but I don't. I have always been a patient man, I can wait. The rest of my morning I spend in the confines of this restaurant, chatting to my brother. He takes his leave before I do and the urge to follow him rides me like a fucking ton. How I remain seated to pay the bill, only god knows. I got a night to plan for Beauty and I. My patience with her has worn out. She has not said she loves me back, nor has she made any attempt to initiate any sexual contact. She is responsive to my touch but remains distant. It's as though she is waiting for another shoe to drop.