Pawn

by Kerri Ann

  Bennett winces when his punctured leg rests on the cushions, and as Jazzy takes the offered aids, she smiles, giving me a wicked wink. “Go check on him.”

  Filling my lungs with air, I turn and blow it out. Glad to see him alive and well, I smile with relief. As tears of joy threaten my eyes, I take in the sight of Lucius. His face is stern, his jaw rigid, and I’d bet money he’s grinding his poor teeth together. His eyes are focused, trained on the man that King called Hector, and there’s blood trickling down the arm that holds his gun. As I open my mouth to say something, he grins, telling me with his eyes to ignore it.

  Moving around the couch, walking toward him, Lucius holds out that arm—yet his eyes don’t leave the not-so-fancy guy. As I tuck into his chest and his arm comes around to hug me tight, I feel him breathe into my hair and whisper low, “I’d like you to go sit by Death and Jazzy. If I tell you to run, don’t hesitate, Obi.”

  Nodding into his chest, his lips leave mine and I move out of his embrace.

  Sitting down on the couch, I look around at our inhabitants. Sucking down on a beer, leaning on the damaged railing, Hector’s gaze is trained on Lucius. With awe and spite, they both take in the other. They’re not only dangerous and ominous looking, but in a way, relieved.

  “What the fuck! Tell me what the fuck’s goin’ on. Right now!” Joining our cadre, another man shouts as he rises up the stairs.

  “Cap,” Lucius calls out with a level voice.

  “Don’t fucking Cap me, Lucius. What the fuck is he doing here?”

  Storming across the space, he gets right in Hector’s face. Cap, Lucius, and Hector resemble each other so much.

  “Son,” Hector calmly greets, squaring off against him.

  Raising a gun, pointing it at his temple, Cap scowls. “I could pull this trigger and not be upset at all.”

  “I would expect nothing less.” Pushing his head into the muzzle, he makes it rest even tighter against his skin. “You’ve grown up, Codero.”

  His voice is menacing. “That happens when you’re thrown in foster. That happens when your family tosses you away. That happens when you grow up on the streets without a father or family to guide you.”

  Opening his mouth to yell further, Lucius interrupts him with a growl. “Cap. Stand down, man.”

  “Fuck off, brother. He deserves this and more.” Cap is livid. “I could click this and bathe myself in your blood, and I wouldn’t lose a moment’s sleep.”

  “Don’t hesitate on my account,” Hector taunts him. He doesn’t think that his son has the balls to do it. If he’s anything like Lucius, he’s thought wrong. They’re more than ready to kill.

  As I watch the interaction, waiting on someone to crack, I anticipate that either someone will wrestle the gun away, or assist, and click the trigger. But it doesn’t come.

  “Cap.” As another man steps up the stairs, I’m blown away at his beauty. He looks more like a rap god than a biker. With his side shaved head, afro tied tight in a thick braid, bright caramel eyes and a teardrop tattoo under his right eye, he’s scary in a gorgeous way.

  “He deserves this and more, Troy.” Man, I’m getting so confused by the players in this game. Multiple names depending on who’s talking. I need a playbook.

  The Troy guy pipes up, “It’s not about right or wrong. Grim did what he had to. Ask your brother. It’s all that fucker’s fault,” he growls as he points to King.

  Raising the bottle of tequila, the wound in his arm continuously leaks. King is smiling through the whole altercation, feeling in charge and without remorse for this end.

  Eyeing the roomful of testosterone, I know it won’t take long for this to come to blows once more. Lucius hasn’t pulled his sights from King. Cap holds the gun to Hector, his friend that’s just entered still holds a large gauge gun, and as Miss walks up behind him with a bow strung across his back, in his hand is a menacing looking weapon too.

  Nothing about this is going to go well for someone.

  Stepping across the space, ignoring the interactions, Miss appears beside me. “Doin’ good, little lady?”

  I shrug. “I need a drink.”

  Smiling, he unhooks his bow from his shoulder and sets it at our feet, then hands Bennett a gun from his waistband. “No new holes?”

  “I’m good, Miss. Thanks,” Bennett tells him. The tension-filled air makes my skin itch, but I stay alert. Lucius is on edge, and the last thing he needs to worry about is me.

  “If shit goes down, don’t worry.” Miss grins, tapping his bow. “I got ya, Oubliette.”

  If?

  No.

  When shit goes down.

  Looking back at the players, Cap and Hector are in a stalemate. “You’re gonna take that gun from my temple, kid.” Hector chides.

  “Tell me why I should, Dad.”

  “Because I hold your freedom,” King states, deadpan.

  “Bullshit. We kill you, then we can go right on going with the way life was. No King, no problem,” Lucius states, cool as a cucumber.

  Turning his head slightly, Hector levels a look at Lucius. “It’s not as simple as that, kid.”

  “Bullshit. You’re just saving your ass,” Troy snaps.

  While shock courses the faces of the brothers and the friend, the rest of us are at a loss. We don’t know the whole story.

  Resting his hand on the gun, Hector takes the pistol from Cap.

  The room stills as the air is sucked out.

  “I’m lost,” Jazzy says quietly. Damn right we are.

  Glimpsing out of the corner of my eye that Lucius has pulled out his gun, Miss picks up his bow quickly. With cool regard, he orders, “Obi. Duck, please.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Busta

  Vibrating.

  Seething with unfettered anger.

  A need to destroy.

  I eye King. He’s too smug.

  He’s known all along. I see it. He’s known all along how this was going to end, where we’d lose. He holds our fates in his hands and our clubs have been the tools.

  Yeah. I guess I’m as bad as King and our father. I knew where Code was. I’d left him to grow on his own, even as his club and mine started to cross paths. I’d had no interaction with the Restless Souls, so it was easy to avoid that altercation.

  When we were kids, before the takedown, I’d done everything I could to keep him from this bullshit. Even after, with me taking that plea deal and becoming King’s flunky, I’d done it all to keep Code from King’s manipulations. I figured that he was better off with street gangs and juvie than with me in his world. I was dragged into this shit of DEA stooge and liar and I didn’t want him growing up with that.

  Every time I think of all that King’s taken from me—from us, my blood boils.

  I know the truth. I know he and his club had been dirty, and that there’s been some issues with the local clubs and these ‘upstart’ punk riders, but I thought he was out of King’s grasp and not in his sights. It appears I was wrong.

  “You’ve lied before, King. What makes it that we should believe your lies now?” Cap asks.

  Raising my gun, I point it at King, watching for Cap’s reaction.

  “I have cells already picked out for all of you at a maximum security facility that would make Guantanamo seem like Club Med. That’s right isn’t it, Hector?”

  I look for the truth of it in his eyes. His stance tells me that King is telling the truth.

  Not thinking if it’s the right or wrong thing to do, I take a shot, hitting King in the other shoulder.

  “Jesus Christ!” King curses.

  “Be glad I aimed for your shoulder.” Holstering my gun, I feel a sense of relief for causing him damage personally. If I could, I’d shoot him a hundred times for every time he caused me pain. For every time he destroyed a piece of my life. When he turned me into his weapon, when he thought it was his right as a man of the law.

  “Nice shot,” Rap chuckles, raising his gun. Popping off a shot, h
e too leaves a bullet in King.

  Hitting his right leg, he falls to his knees, breathing heavily through the pain. “I left files with the appropriate authorities. My bosses know what’s been going on with these clubs. Without my help, none of you will survive. One press of a button and you’re all gone. Every fucking last one of you.” Raising himself back up, the smug look has been replaced with one of fear. Fear that his ruse has ended and he has no leverage.

  Sneering and leveling a look of disdain, Hector answers King. “Their families are better out of your grasp, puta. If you die, no leverage.”

  He’s right.

  “So why come to California then, Hector? You knew I was planning an ambush. You knew I was looking to leverage all the clubs further and it was for your gain! Help me. Help me to keep you in your position, Jefe.”

  King’s power is failing. He knows he’s outgunned, outmanned and outmaneuvered. The clubs have taken back the power. That’s why he didn’t want us going legit. That’s why he put pressure on True and the other club members, he wanted to leverage us into his debt for years to come. A war would do that. A war makes him money.

  Looking to Miss, I give him a wink. I wish I’d brought my bow up with me, but this will be poetic.

  Raising it, knocked fast and released, the bolt zips through King’s shoulder. Lodging in the wood of the bar behind him, pinning King in place, his smug, powerful attitude is replaced with one of fear.

  “You have a right to be fearful, Magnus,” our father states with a smugness of his own. “I know what you were planning.” Stepping closer, he approaches King. “I’ve known all along. But my sons, you had them hidden quite well. Until two years ago, I had no idea how to connect with them.” Looking over his shoulder at us, Cap and I, Hector continues. “You thought that deporting me to Mexico was the best thing for you. Having me in a place of power in the cartel would be an asset to you. That me running the Alta Noche would be in the DEAs favor. So, for that I have to thank you, Magnus. It gave me a chance to see how they’d grown, how powerful they’d become. To see that without me, they became the strong men I expected they would be.”

  “You’re a part of Alta Noche?” Cap questions.

  “I’m not a part of Alta, I am Alta Noche. I am the Jefe, the king, I am the power. Nothing happens in SoCal and North Mexico without my knowledge.” He turns to me. “I know everything, Busta.”

  Well fuck.

  Leader of the flesh trade in New York becomes the cartel boss of the flesh trade in Mexico because of DEA intervention. That would be a bestselling story if I’d ever heard one.

  Hector steps closer to King with a look of satisfaction. “Magnus, any last requests?”

  Wincing through the pain, King tries to pull the fletched arrow. “I should’ve listened to Hart. He thought I’d picked the wrong club to pull apart.”

  “Yes, you should’ve listened.” Placing his hand on King’s chin, he raises his face up to meet his. Pulling free something from his pocket, Hector swipes it across King’s neck, quickly, before thrusting it in his chest.

  Stepping back as King gurgles, Hector walks directly to the fridge. Looking over his shoulder as if nothing is amiss, he raises a beer to me. “Want one?”

  Peering at King, I see him gasping for air, trying to cover the wound in his neck. Even as the long shard of glass is lodged in his chest, I’m stunned into silence as I watch the instrument of my twisted life dies before my eyes. It’s poetic justice that Grim has reaped from the man that sowed his own demise.

  As the light leaves King’s eyes, and his last breath rattles out, my father places a beer in my view. “Here.”

  Holding it up, I grasp the neck and swill it back in refreshing gulps. The cool liquid drains the fire in my soul. The shroud of every dirty deed, every step that King orchestrated, it all falls away.

  “So...” Pausing for dramatics, Cap chirps, “What do we do now, dear ol’ Dad?” Hearing the distinct sound of a gun slipping into a holster, I turn and smile that Cap has picked up the bottle of tequila that King had been slugging back. Pouring a glassful, he takes a seat over the arm of the vacant couch beside the one Death currently occupies.

  Now that the dust has settled and there’s no exchange of gunfire, a strange calm comes over us as a group. Holding the beer that my father offered, I feel a sense of relief.

  That is, until he talks.

  “We need to find middle ground between Alta Noche and the clubs. My business is your business, boys.” He states it as if it’s fact. Law. If Hector thinks we’re all just going to fall in-line with him now that King isn’t twisting us up, he has another thing coming.

  Cap pops his lips. “Not to be disrespectful, but I’m going to be. You’re an asshole if you think that I’ll do that, or that my club wants anything to do with Alta. You haven’t been a father, and you sure as shit aren’t my god damn leader, Jefe.”

  I agree with my brother. “Gotta side with Cap. Not happenin’.”

  “Yeah, not us either,” Bennett states as he rises up on his elbows before standing up weakly. Jazzy moves to help right him, but he shrugs off her assistance.

  Surrounded by enemies, leaning on the bar, right by King’s dead form, the leader of the Alta Noche, our father, looks the part of an all-powerful cartel boss, dead body and all. “You know, I’d hoped this would be easy, that we’d find middle ground. It seems I was wrong, pobericto.”

  Laughing, not in a funny way, but in a sinister ‘I’ll cut your heart out’ kind of way, Cap rises from the couch quickly. “Yeah, we haven’t been your poor little sons for years.”

  Taking my eyes from Hector and looking to my brother, I see that he’s on the cusp of killing. He looks as I feel. I don’t really know everything he’s been through, so being called son by a man that abandoned and deserted him in juvie to deal with whatever he came across in the past ten years, it could be a trigger.

  I’m not the only one who sees the change in Cap. As his face reddens, his stance tightens and his hand grips the glass to the breaking point. He’s holding his murderous tendency by a thin thread. One small move and he’ll easily kill our father. The king of hell will find out how wrong his intentions are.

  Walking over, tapping Code on the shoulder, Raptor tries to gain his attention. “Code, not the time to worry about it, man.”

  With a blink, like flicking a switch, Cap becomes his freewheeling guy once more. Shrugging off the touch, cracking a wide smile—a devious one—Cap snaps out of his darkness. “Not to burst your bubble, but we won’t comic book team up with Alta Noche, Jefe.”

  Looking to me, knowing he’s lost with Cap, my father is expecting a better answer. I state it straight. “You already have our answer. I’m not changing.”

  He won’t rule us.

  Pushing off the bar, he sets his bottle on the counter. “Well, it seems the sons feel they’re above my control, that I can’t pressure you into anything. You sure about that?”

  Why am I suddenly at a point that I feel we’re still missing a piece of this puzzle?

  With a serious tone, a dark look and a tight jaw, he growls, “You will do as I need. I have more connections than you can imagine. More hands in more pies. More politicians that don’t want their mysterious business trips halted, that don’t want their fat cat pockets to run dry. That without my cartel, they wouldn’t have money to fuel their drug wars, gun wars, and money to assist with the homeless situation. Oh, you’re all so naive if you feel I didn’t orchestrate it all.”

  Coming to terms with his ideals, wondering if he really would have us under his thumb for good, I decide quickly what I need to do to fix it.

  I never thought this would happen. But it has. Here I am, using what tools I have in my arsenal to fight a war I don’t wish to be a part of. The last piece I ever thought I’d use.

  Reaching in my wallet, pulling it out, I flash it at my father. “Hector Alonzo Guierra, as a sworn officer of the DEA, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of DEA agent
Magnus King, for the trafficking of drugs, human trafficking, and the charge of gun running across state and federal lines.” I know he won’t go for it, nor will he take it standing by idly.

  Gunfire is inevitable.

  Knowing Grim, knowing he can kill with pretty much any object, I pull out my gun. “I won’t read you your rights, as I doubt you’ll make it that far.”

  No reply.

  No answer.

  I feel the tension in the room shift another degree. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Oubliette. Sitting by Jazzy, the two of them move toward the bedroom for protection. She’s slowly taking her time, not wanting to be seen as a moving target. Taking her friend with her, I see Bennett readying his gun. Knowing this will not be easy, I look at the ammo surrounding our father. A bottle, a plastic cup, a gun—which is out of character for him. King is still being held up by the arrow that Miss lodged in his shoulder, so that weapon is available too.

  “I won’t make it easy,” Hector finally says.

  “Yeah. Didn’t think you would.”

  As he moves, we’re all on guard, preparing for the attack. I see the door to the room close, placing the girls out of sight, and Bennett steps up beside me. Miss is to the left, a bolt at the ready, while Raptor pulls free a few knives from his pockets.

  It still won’t be enough. Not if we don’t strike first.

  I look down at one of the dead DEA agents sprawled out in front of me. Bending low, grasping the cuffs looped at his backside, I pull them free.

  “Last chance,” I say, flicking the cuffs.

  Crossing his arms and facing off with the men surrounding him, Grim grins and waves us on. “I’m ready to dance.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Oubliette

  “What the hell am I missing in this picture?” Jazzy angrily whispers as we shut and lock the door.

  “Which part?” I’m sure it’s the whole thing, because in all honesty, I need a playbook too.

  Moving to the unmade bed, screwing up her face in disgust, she tosses the blanket across. Hopping up, sitting cross-legged and as far from the door as we possibly can, I think about it all.