Page 67 of Bleed Me

We all followed him, including Elle, which surprised me. Old Ladies weren’t permitted in the Stalls.

In the center of the room was a big wooden table. Carved in the wood was a herd of running horses. Beautiful artwork. It must have taken so many hours of dedication.

I sat at my chair in the corner, not at the table, like the Officers and longstanding members did. Dagger smiled. “Might want to move, kid.”

For no reason I could fathom, Justice gasped. Her eyes raced to mine, and they were full of such emotion I was concerned I was about to be shot by her trigger-happy brother. As I stood to relocate, I studied the floor around me. Torque chuckled, “What are you doing?”

I laughed. “Checking for plastic to catch my remains.” Justice, smiling like I’d never seen, ran to me, throwing her arms around my neck. I teased, “Is this a goodbye hug?” Then I got a whiff of her hair. My face burrowed into her neck. “Damn, you smell good.”

She was yanked from me. “Giver! Focus!” teased big ol’ Vice.

My eyes scanned Justice. “Not a problem.” But I did refocus when the large wooden table began to move. The men pushed it toward the wall where I was just sitting. Then Lynx pulled a small remote control from his front jean pocket. A piece of wood, about 5x5 across, started to slide by itself. The moving wood soon exposed a lit-up blue felt compartment.

The Stalls? Not one, after all.

Inside, there were three side-by-side black boxes, each a foot long.

Lynx gestured to the boxes. “Justice, he’s your boy now. Do the honors.”

Church Eyes, full of smiles, went to her knees and removed the lids. I grabbed my chest and fell back. “Jesus Christ.” Each box was full of more diamonds and stones than I had ever seen. I’m talkin’ even in the movies. The lights above us and the ones in the compartment were making these jewels, of all different sizes, glisten blue, red, green, white… I kept blinking to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. “There are so many.”

Lynx smiled. “And that’s only half of them.”

“You’re shitting me!” I blinked even more. “Where are the rest?”

When everyone stayed silent, staring at me as if I had to figure this one out on my own, my mind searched for clues. The gym? Buried in the yard? Behind the President’s chair, at the head of the table, was a huge painting of a pack of wolves. Ah, shit. “Redemption Ryders. The rest are in Georgia.”

Justice smiled at me, touching the tip of her delicate nose.

I was dumbfounded! “Holy shit. Who would guess there would be such wealth in such a small town! Wait. Where the hell did all this come from?”

To keep their secret, Vice and Torque re-covered the diamonds. As the wood started sliding back over the hidden treasure, Lynx asked, “Have you ever heard of a string of heists about twenty years ago?”

Seeing how I was only eighteen, that was a negative. “Nah.”

“Well, a bunch of rich men decided to corner the market in jewels. We thought they were rich enough. The massive robberies that happened too close together to set off alarms were all over the news. Every known jewelry thief was drilled. Investigated. The FBI was positive it had to be highly experienced professionals, due to the unified ‘attack’.” He smirked. “Never did a group of ‘dumb outlaws who ride bikes’ ever cross their mind. It was the perfect crime, one of our best kept secrets.”

Damn. These bikers were naming things like “the Barn” and “the Stalls,” almost to make themselves sound dumb, yet were literally sitting on a fortune. They let cops believe what they wanted when they were actually brilliant. “Plain sight… Harder to see…”

Wait. “One of? There’s more?”