Avenging Angel's MC - Book 12

January 14 th, 5:00 AM

After the rescue team had left, Apollo and Tori enjoyed a leisurely breakfast together, they spent over an hour just talking about everything under the sun and then because he hadn’t gotten enough sleep, Apollo let Tori tempt him to go back to bed. He knew he had to take this time to be alone with her even if they just slept and he was really tired. Besides it would be at least 4 or 5 hours before the guys reached Baker City.

Last night, Apollo had talked to Ashley again and she had admitted that she had snuck out and gone down to the barn one night and had seen the men bring in some women in Bert’s van. She had seen the women taken into Bert’s house and then they were taken into the barn. When Harry had turned and looked intensely in the direction of her hiding place for a long minute, Ashley thought he had spotted her at first and it had scared the hell out of her.

As soon as he had turned and gone inside the barn, Ashley had been so afraid that someone was going to catch her so, being careful not to step in the snow and leave new tracks, she hurried back to Herman’s house and pretended to be asleep when Herman had come home about an hour later.

When he had come to bed, she could smell sex on him and suspected what had been going on in the barn and she had felt like crying for the women she didn’t even know but was glad that he was leaving her alone for a change.

When the men had left the main house after breakfast the next morning, she had confronted Bess and asked her what was going on.

“Bess, I saw when Bert brought some more women in last night. I saw them take you down there and into the house behind that barn. I was too afraid to get close enough to see what was going on inside but I know you are involved but I also know you are not doing it willingly. What’s happening?” Ashley whispered to her as she helped her clean up after breakfast. She didn’t want the other women overhearing because she was afraid they might tell on her, especially Mabel.

Bess had looked at her for a long minute then told Ethan to go bring in some more firewood for the stove. Then Bess turned to Ashley and looked her straight in the eye. “If you tell anyone, they will kill all three of us, me, you and Ethan. The only reason Rolf lets Ethan live is because I told them that if he’s allowed to hurt my son anymore, I won’t check the women they bring in and that I won’t cook for them anymore.” Then she admitted to what Rolf and the others were making her do.

Apollo managed to sleep for about another three hours but he woke up needing to pee really badly and his stomach told him it was almost lunch time. He wondered what was going on with Atlas and the others as he eased out of bed, trying to not wake Tori up, then grabbed his cell phone and headed for the bathroom.

He used the facility and checked his messages after he washed his hands and looked at himself in the mirror. Even he could tell he looked tired. He jumped slightly when a text came through from Atlas.

January 14th, approximately 9:30 am, Baker City

The rescue team stopped for gas about 80 miles, he thought, outside of Baker City and Atlas looked at his watch as he debated about calling Apollo. He knew he would be upset if they deviated from the plan and didn’t let him know what was going on and right now, they are behind schedule and he felt he needed to let him know.

“We’re running behind schedule. Call me when you are ready.” Atlas had written. Atlas had noticed how pronounced the dark bags under his president and friend’s eyes were becoming and knew Apollo was going to need to sleep after they had left this morning and he hoped that he was doing some catching up on his sleeping this morning. Atlas and the whole club were getting worried about him, knowing how much he has been pushing lately.

On top of having a new woman, they’d had a boat load of rescue victims, more than they had ever had and this past year they had more than doubled in size, adding not only a lot of new club brothers, but they were also bringing in a lot of women and now children were being added to the mix.

It was a lot of pressure and Atlas felt bad that they all had been kind of dumping everything on Apollo to deal with when it should have been them all as a team, making decisions together. They all tried to tell themselves that it was because they were learning about their new life partners but then so had Apollo and Atlas, for one, felt very guilty about it.

Learning about how to deal with their women had been enough for them individually but when he stopped to think about it, Apollo now not only had Tori but he had unknowingly gotten her pregnant right away. She had not only suffered through pregnancy hormones that had nearly put Apollo on his knees but they had been blessed with twins and Apollo’s work load had just doubled.

So Apollo’s load was much heavier than the rest of them and he had never even slowed down on his responsibilities as president of their club, which meant his health was taking a beating. After a stern talking to from Doc, he and Sarge were made to realize that if they didn’t pick up their slack and take some of the pressure off of Apollo, they could end up losing him to a stroke.

He and Sarge had a private meeting and they had agreed that they were going to try to take as much of the load as they could off of him so that he and Tori could have the “family life” that they both not only craved but deserved. While it had surprised them all that Apollo was letting them take the reins on a lot of stuff, it had confirmed to them that he was worn out and needed their help!

But they all knew that Apollo wanted and needed to still be informed of what is happening because in the end, he is the one to answer to the powers that be. But Doc advised them that while Apollo needed to be informed, they needed to do more of the leg work.

Hoping that Apollo had a chance to get some rest, Atlas sent a text first, hoping that he didn’t wake him up but just letting him know what was going on. Atlas wasn’t really surprised when Apollo immediately called him back.

“Are you guys there yet?” Apollo answered his phone.

“Sorry if I woke you up, Prez. I just wanted you to know that we are running a little behind schedule because of this damn snow! I think we are the first ones breaking through this morning and it’s been slow going once we got about 50 miles outside of Portland. We could tell that a lot of people had tried but had turned around and gone back to town because the weather got too rough last night.” Atlas reported.

“Damn! I was afraid of that. Look if it gets too rough, turn around. I hate it that Tires and his crew may have to take over without you guys but I won’t put my club members in danger when there is even the smallest alternative.” Apollo said.

“Well, it’s a 300 mile trip and we’re only about 60 to 80 miles outside of Baker City so I think we’re just going to keep going. There’s been a lot of ice but the snow seems to be getting to be less than it was at first.” Atlas told him.

“Well if you think you can make it safely, keep going. The MRMC is our alternative right now but our not pushing through more than likely would mean the end of them and could possibly get some innocent women and children killed and I’m not okay with that so you guys be careful. Take your time and just get there safely. If we have to postpone the rescue then that’s what we’ll have to do.”

“Thank goodness Eric has a winch on the front of his truck because one of the van’s already ended up sliding off the road into a snowbank. (He was too embarrassed to admit that he was the driver of that van, knowing that his brothers would rat him out on it later.)

“Thankfully we were able to get it out pretty quickly because traffic is starting to pick up now. Some of the drivers passing us right now are total idiots and I suspect that we will be doing road rescues here soon. They seem to think this is “the Indy 500" and are flying by.” Atlas reported as another car flew by the gas station going way too fast for the road conditions that currently existed.

“At this point I would say we’re not going to get there until after lunch. If it snows anymore, we could end up stuck there at least overnight.” Atlas said. While he didn’t say it to Apollo, he was frustrated because he had already spent too much time out in the cold, which he hates with a passion, but he was very thankful that Autumn was with him so at least he would be sleeping with her tonight!

“Ok. Just drive carefully and hopefully the weather will hold off long enough for you guys to get back here safely. Does everyone have chains on their tires?” Apollo asked.

“Yeah but the vans don’t have four wheel drive and the backs of them are empty so it’s hard trying to drive one of these things. We’re slipping and sliding all over the road even with chains.” Atlas said.

He is driving the van that Autumn and Doc had fixed up as a backup ambulance when they went on large rescues or they would need to be able to transport more than one victim or if she would be by herself, like Atlas would ever allow that, especially in weather like this! Hers wasn’t as “fitted out” as Doc’s ambulance was so it wasn’t as heavy and it didn’t have four wheel drive, something they would have to rectify soon!

Atlas is one of the defensive driving teachers and it had made even his heart pound when he had hit a patch of black ice that sent him and Autumn into a sliding spin and they had ended up in a snowbank. He had just been thankful that they had avoided landing in a ditch but even he’d had to take a minute to catch his breath as he held a very shaken Autumn close when she had nearly jumped into his arms after they had come to a jolting stop in the snowbank.

Because the snow was packed tight against their doors, they had to sit and wait for Riggs and the others to dig Atlas’ door free, to check that they were okay before they hooked up Eric’s winch and pulled them free of the snowbank.

“An arrival time is not what is important here so just drive safe. I’ll call Tires and let him know you guys might be late. Call me if anything comes up and definitely when you get there.” Apollo said before he hung up with a worried expression on his face.

He immediately called Tires and let him know that Atlas and the others were hitting bad road conditions and were still about a hundred miles out.

They had already been gone for over 4 hours and even though they had stopped to fill up on gas and to have breakfast, that wouldn’t have taken more than an hour so they would more than likely be later than they had originally talked about. They had originally planned to be there by 10 am -ish and would have been if there had been good roads to travel. They were also burning through their gas because they had to go slower which meant the vehicles were running longer to cover the same distance.

“The roads should be clearing for them soon. We haven’t had hardly any snow here in the past day or two, in fact it’s already starting to melt some. We are farther from the coast than you guys and not as close to the mountains. The roads here have been salted too. Are we going for the women at the barn first or the colony?” Tires asked.

“Well, we were planning on going after the colony first. Why? Has something changed since I talked to you last night?” Apollo asked.

“Only that the men seem to be splitting themselves up a bit. Because it’s so cold outside, we’ve been having to shift every two hours but I’ve had at least one man watching the compound constantly and there seems to be at least one man at the compound the whole time. I thought your informant said that the men leave for work during the day?” Tires asked.

“Well, it may be because Eric is not there to watch over things so they have to leave a man there to make sure things are secure but from what Eric is telling us, the women could have walked away at anytime and if he had known what they were being made to endure, he would not have tried to stop them and would have helped them get away.” Apollo said.

“Well, there are at least two of those cabins that you said were for “new brides” that have lights on inside and a boy has been bringing food there but one guy has been messing with the water shut off valves. The third shed house is where they put that woman last night, the lights still haven’t come on so we are assuming that she’s still sleeping.” Tires reported.

“Damn! That means they’ve brought in at least one more, possibly two more potential brides since the one Ashley reported to us.” Apollo swore. “Look when my people get there, I want you guys to call me. I know you are the prez there, but you’ve never been through this type of rescue before so Atlas will be in charge of directing our people. This is going to be “on the job training” for your men so make sure they pay attention.

We need to be very sure of who is going in where to be able to get all of the women and children out safely. I just know I want that man Bert caught so if you’ve got someone following him, don’t lose him.” Apollo said.

It had not escaped his attention that Eric had not pointed out a house for Bert when he had been identifying which houses were for who, which means Bert doesn’t stay in the compound, or at least not close by the existing houses.

“Yeah, he’s apparently got a cabin set up near the barn. Sneak watched them carry 4 unconscious women they had brought in, into there last night. Then the woman we think is Bess was brought in.

Sneak couldn’t get close enough to tell what was going on inside but each woman that was brought in was then taken back to the barn except one. She was loaded into his van and carried up to the compound and put in one of the “new bride” houses.” Tires reported then added, “I think Bess really doesn’t want to do whatever they are having her do because they weren’t handling her with kid gloves, if you get my drift.”

“Hmmm. Ashley said that Bess is the one to check them to make sure they are virgins. If they aren’t, she doesn’t know what happened to them but if they were, they become potential brides. Let me think about this for a minute. Be with him when Atlas calls me when they get there. We may need to switch things up a bit.” Apollo said.

“Now Tires, I’m going to say something that is not prez to prez but man to man.” Apollo said with reservation in his voice.

“Okay.” Tires responded when Apollo seemed to hesitate.

“You had better talk to your men about how they treat women. We noticed when you guys were here last summer that some of the men that were here have a lot to learn about having good manners around women. Your men weren’t as bad as some of the others but a couple of them do need lessons in good manners and watching their language around women.

My men didn’t do anything about it when all of the clubs were here before because you were guests in our home and had come to help us but believe me, I heard about every incident where my men wanted to take some of the potty mouths out to the shed and teach them some manners.

Now I know they will be guests in your home but if they pull that caveman attitude in front of most of the men in my crew that will be there, when there are women present, they will get an attitude adjustment, especially if they pull that shit on Autumn or Marla. And believe me, Riggs doesn’t pull punches. If he hits you, you are going to feel it for a long time.” Tires was rather surprised by this but assured Apollo that he would talk to his men before they hung up.

Apollo reentered the bedroom and crawled back in with Tori. Satisfied that Atlas seemed to have things under control, he snuggled up with his wife and went back to sleep but it didn’t last long because the babies got up and he woke up to help Tori with them. By the time they had clean diapers, had been fed and burped, Apollo was wide awake so he got dressed and told Tori he was going to find out what was going on in the house. Tori was disappointed that he couldn’t stay with her and just waste the day away visiting with her but knew that wasn’t possible.