Chapter 28 Get me all the information on the Caruso Family.
Viper
We finished at last. All the permits were signed, the fees for our Daytona Rally booths were paid. We had good visits with the Royal Sons MC and our own Daytona chapter of the Lords of Chaos. It was a solid trip, but I missed my woman. I knew Torque felt the same about his. Four days away was too fucking long, and we still had two days of riding to get home. We were just stepping out of the LOC clubhouse, ready to leave, when Butcher got a message.
“Holy shit!” he burst out. His phone started going crazy, one alert after another. His mouth hung open, his shock growing with each new ping. Then Torque’s phone joined the noise. I was about to ask what the hell was happening when my own phone started buzzing in my pocket.
I pulled it out. The men around us began to mutter, sensing trouble. Catalina’s name was on my screen, with a long list of messages. I opened the thread.
Pictures of dead men filled the display. Their throats or wrists were cut wide open. Then I saw the last three images. The first was Catalina, posing with two corpses. She was holding the heads of two men, their bodies nearly separated, grinning like a madwoman. She was painted in blood. The next picture showed the President, VP, and Sergeant at Arms of the Jackals, all very dead. The last was of some prospects, with words carved into their skin.
Holy fuck. Our women had taken out the Jackals. The whole fucking club.
“Are you guys seeing this?” Butcher asked, his voice rough. “I told them to get the top three. I said I wished we could wipe out the whole club. I cannot believe they fucking did it by themselves.”
Our brothers started crowding around us, looking over our shoulders. I heard sharp breaths and muttered curses all around.
“They did it while we were all here,” Beast said, his tone flat. “We have alibis. No one can pin this on us. The Reapers and Devil’s Sons are here, too. We are all in the clear.”
“Your women are fucking geniuses,” Rockstar said.
I looked at Torque. He did not look happy. I knew my own anger was burning inside me. Catalina had not told me they were planning this while we were gone. She probably knew I would have said no. That is why she kept it to herself. I let out a heavy breath and dragged my fingers through my hair.
“They did what we asked,” Butcher announced to the crowd. “If they were men, I would patch them in right now. Your girls have bigger balls than anyone I know, and that includes every one of you. And you all have pretty big balls.” The men roared their approval, many of them grabbing their crotches in agreement.
I texted Catalina.
‘You are in big trouble when I get home.’
Her reply was instant.
‘Looking forward to it.’
I typed again.
‘What are the words and the symbol on the last bodies?’
Her answer came.
‘Don't mess with Italy and the Caruso family crest.’
Jesus. She had framed the Italian Mafia.
“The words say, ‘Don’t Mess with Italy,’” I told Butcher and the rest of the listening men. “The symbol is the Caruso family crest.”
Low whistles cut through the air.
“Yeah,” Doc said, shaking his head. “They have bigger balls than anyone.”
“Come on,” I growled out. “I need to get home to my girl.”
We were on our bikes and moving in less than ten minutes. I could not wait to see my Angel.
Atlas
Walking through the Jackals’ clubhouse filled me with a cold, hard rage. Three days ago, I got the word. The New York City chapter was gone. Wiped out. All forty-six men. I was told their throats or wrists were opened. There was a party for Joker, who had just gotten out of prison. No one knows exactly how it happened. The only people left were a few Old Ladies and some hanger-ons. One of the women called our head chapter in North Carolina, screaming that all the men were dead.
When I arrived, the place was swarming with cops. It pissed me off.
“Atlas?”
I turned to see a woman walking toward me. She looked familiar, but I could not remember her name.
“Who are you?”
“I am Sara. I was Razer’s Old Lady,” she sobbed.
“Sorry for your loss, darlin’,” I said, pulling her into a brief hug. I let her cry against me for a moment, then held her back to look at her. “What do you know?”
“Not much. There was a party. We all got way too drunk, a lot of us passed out. But I took pictures of everything before the cops showed up and started taking the bodies away.”
“Smart girl.”
She held out her phone and I took it. I scrolled through the pictures, my anger growing with each one. How the fuck did this happen? There is no way our boys just laid down and let someone cut them. It must have been a group. I stopped at one photo. The words Don’t mess with Italy were written in blood on a prospect’s body. Thank you, Nona, for teaching me Italian. The last picture was some kind of family crest. I sent that one to my own phone and handed hers back.
“Thank you. What will you do now?”
“I do not know. We have to arrange funerals. We could use some help.”
“Do not worry about that. The NC club will handle the arrangements. Why do you not get the other women together and plan some food? We will have one funeral for all of them in two days.”
“Okay. Thank you, Atlas. I will also call a couple of my new friends. They were here that night, but they left early. Some of the guys were getting too handsy. I do not think they have ever been to an MC party before.”
“New friends?” I asked, my instincts kicking in. “Their first time at a party, and this happens? You do not find that suspicious?”
“No. If you saw these girls, you would know they are the last people who could do something like this. They are a couple of rich, spoiled girls. One of them likes to spend her daddy’s money, so I became good friends with her.”
I studied her. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was just being paranoid. I gave her a nod and she walked away. Monster, my VP, came up to me.
“I talked to some of the local cops. I asked if they were looking at other MCs in the area. A couple of them are friendly with the local clubs. Apparently, the three closest MCs all have an alibi. Most of their members were in Daytona. They only left a few men behind. No way any of them were involved.”
“No. Look at this.” I showed him the picture of the crest on my phone. “What is that?”
“It is some kind of family crest. I will find out who it belongs to. Also, one of the bodies had ‘Don’t mess with Italy’ written on it in blood.”
“What? Mafia?”
“Maybe. It looks like it. I just did not think this chapter was smart enough to get involved with the Mafia.”
“Maybe they were dumb enough to fuck over the Mafia?” he asked.
“That sounds more like it. Cap was not a smart businessman. We had to bail this club out more than once. Jax and I were talking about shutting this chapter down. They were becoming a problem. Getting into shit the rest of us do not agree with.”
“Yeah. Trafficking is something we do not fuck with. So I guess whoever did this did us a favor?”
“Yeah. But we still need to send a message. We cannot have anyone thinking the Jackals are weak.”
Looking at the family crest again, I sent the picture to Digger, our webmaster. He would know what I wanted.
“Try to find out more,” I told Monster. “Talk to all the women here. Get with Sara. I want the names of the friends she invited. They left before the worst of it. Maybe they saw something.”
“On it,” he said.
I looked around the clubhouse. It was a disaster. Beer bottles, trash, and shot glasses were everywhere. Beneath the stink of stale booze, I could smell the blood in the air. This chapter might have been shit, but they were still our brothers. They deserved a proper send-off.
My phone pinged. I opened the new message. It was a cleaner picture of the family crest, and underneath it was a name: Caruso.
I typed a quick reply to Digger.
‘Get me all the information on the Caruso Family.’
His answer was immediate.
‘You got it, Prez.’
It looks like the Caruso family just became enemy number one. Those fuckers just made the biggest mistake of their lives.