"Only councilors’ women?" I asked, curious for obvious reasons.
Rex shrugged. "Haven't thought past that, especially because all the new Old Ladies belong to councilors. But I guess we could see on a case by case basis. Not every woman would want a club patch." He pulled out his phone when it buzzed, his brow puckering as he read whatever was on the screen.
One second, the party was going down, the council was shooting the shit and Rex was handling business on his cell, the next, a blast tore through the clubhouse, bursting the windows, prompting thousands of shards of glass to soar through the bar.
I ducked, it was only instinct, but when the boom sounded next, ricocheting in my head, pushing us all backward, I hit my head on one of the kegs, and that was the last I fucking knew about anything.
Lodestar
I'd never liked working as a sniper, but just because I didn't like it, didn't mean I wasn't fucking good at it.
I'd always been a good shot, and that was something my daddy had cultivated in me after momma had died.
We'd gone hunting together since the time I reached his knee, and I'd grown up hunting and butchering our own venison.
Death was a constant companion of mine, and that was why, after he died of a heart attack when I was sixteen years old, I found myself enlisting.
I'd lost my family. I needed a new one.
Death wasn't something I was scared of. And I loved my country.
What better career path than that of a soldier?
They never told you you'd do shit that even someone who wasn't squeamish would find hard to handle.
They didn't tell you it would fuck with your head, being turned into a killer.
Hunting and killing were two very different things.
But when you became a hunter of humans? That changed you. Twisted you. Fucked with your head and made you a ghoul.
I'd been a ghoul for a long time, and that was why I could see the scene playing down around me with a cool head.
Anyone else, except maybe Mav, who was resting on the clubhouse roof, watching shit unroll, would feel the need to warn the men and women under me.
But I didn't.
Death was the casualty of life.
I respected that, just as much as I knew that if any of my new family died, I'd kill the bastards behind this attack, and I'd do so with a smile on my face.
That was why I hovered the laser sight on the biker who'd just rolled up.
My finger caressed the trigger as I held my breath, calmed my heart. I took note of wind speed, calculated the variables even though it was a close shot, and used the discomfort of my position to ground me as I made a decision whether to end the man's life or not.
Then, I heard Stone gasp, "It's Bear!"
Bear.
Rex's father.
Not a threat.
I struck him off my list even as another gun went off, only it wasn't aimed at Bear, but at his bike.
And I wasn't the one behind the hit.
Quickly, scanning the environment, I happened to see the piercing red light of another’s laser sights, and just as I took the shot, all of this taking place within a second, the blast struck.
As glass shattered, and screams soared, I was pushed back off my precarious perch on the roof and hurtled into the darkness of the back yard.
The screams, the fear, the pain, all of it took me back to another time, another place, where the heat of the desert was unending, the scent of terror polluted every breath of air I took, and the promise of freedom could only be found in death.
As I collided with the ground, I wasn't sure what I hoped for when I closed my eyes.
For this to be the end?
Or the only thing that had kept me going for the past five years—vengeance. Because my enemies had made a fatal mistake tonight.
The Sinners wouldn’t take this lying down.
And neither would I.
Sixteen
Rachel
It was quite by chance that I saw it.
I wasn't the kind of woman who took a seat on the deck, resting her feet on the railing as she took in the view, the otherwise silent night, and an aria from Madame Butterfly that surged through the house's smart speakers.
But tonight, I was that woman.
I'd had a bitch of a week, a bitch of a six months if I was being honest. Just sitting down, taking a moment to smell the damn roses was something I deserved. Something I'd earned.
I was, I'd admit, a complete workaholic. I loved my job, and even though my employers were a bunch of criminals, it enabled me to donate a large chunk of my time to the charities that mattered to me.
And, though I'd never admit it to Rex, the overbearing prick, I liked my work with the Sinners.
They presented me with a daily challenge, much like a newspaper provided a daily Sudoku puzzle.
They also paid all my bills.
Generously.
In fact, generously was an understatement. That wasn't to say I didn't earn every goddamn cent, because they kept me more than busy, but it enabled me to do what really mattered—my NGO work.
With the state of the world as it was, that had kept me up at night too, so just sitting here was a blessing. Something I didn't take advantage of often.
"Do you have to have this trash on so loud?"
I squinted at my brother, whose head had just peeped through the screen.
"You're going to let bugs in."
He snorted. "That all you have to say?"
"Sorry to disappoint," was my dry retort, but I kept my face averted from him lest he see my smile. "But you and I both know I'd flick your nose if I was closer. As it stands, I'm too damn tired to get up."
He huffed. "You need to take a break. When was the last time you went on a vacation..." Before I had a chance to answer, he answered himself, "Wasn't it when you went to Vancouver? With Jesse?"
I cut him a look. "Niagara Falls, and yes, for his wedding."
Rain rolled his eyes. "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride."
That had me laughing. "You trying to make me feel good about myself tonight, kid?"
"Not a kid anymore. I'm officially an adult," he retorted.
"When you call Madame Butterfly trash, that's when I know you're a kid."
"So I'll be a kid until I'm ninety? Because I'll never like that—"
Before the two of us could carry on bickering, the explosion seemed to tear through the airwaves. We were two miles down the road from the Sinners' compound but, unerringly, I knew that was where the blast's epicenter would be found.
Not only because the Sinners were the only people in the local area who would ever get their asses blown up, but because they were my only neighbors for miles around.
I jerked onto my feet, the bench skidding backward in my haste and Rain rushed forward, his hands and mine coming to the railing as we stared at the clouds in the sky, rosy red, a luminescent orange.
My mouth trembled as I whispered, "Rex."
Rain, sounding like the kid he'd just vowed he wasn't, whispered, "He'll be okay, won't he, Rach?"
I bit my lip. "There's only one way to find out." Turning to him, I grabbed his arm and said, "Call the cops, but stay here, Rain. I need you to stay here because I won't be able to help if I'm worrying about you."
"I can help too!"
I shook my head. "You know I don't want you involved with the Sinners, dammit."
Rain pulled a face, but we both knew why I didn't.
It still surprised me when he didn't argue anymore though, and he kept his teenaged butt silent as I rushed inside, grabbed my keys, hauled ass out into the yard and jumped into my SUV.
Within five minutes, I was barreling down my driveway, out of the gates, and was resenting every minute's distance between me and the Sinners.
It wasn't like there was anything I could do when I got there, but I just needed to know.
I just... shit. I just needed to know.
What with Giulia and Luk
e Lancaster, then the Farquars, and Stone's legal situation recently... I did my job for more reasons than the salary Rex put into my bank account every month.
As much as I denied them, as much as I'd cut ties with them on a social level a long time ago, they were my family.
And my family was under attack.
I drove too fast, which meant the bushes either side of the SUV on the thin track that was the road to my property probably scraped the shit out of the sides, but I didn't care. Didn't give a damn.
I raced harder, faster, and when I reached the gates, I happened to see a set of taillights barreling down the road toward the town.
Squinting, I failed to register the license plate, so I took a mental note of the make and model. I was mad at myself for not grabbing the plates in time, but I forgot about everything, even Madame goddamn Butterfly, when I saw the gates were blown off at the hinges, and the level of force of the blast had me wondering if anyone could have survived that kind of bomb.
"Jesus, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?" I whispered under my breath, annoyed and agitated and anxious all at the same time.
In fact, that no way summed up just how panicked I felt.
It was real. This was real.
All the years I'd shoved him away, rightfully so, but shoved him I had, and it all boiled down to this.
To a blast that could have stolen him from me before we even had a chance to be more than just—
"He's not dead," I reassured myself, refusing to believe that the massive force that was Rex, the Sinners' Prez, could be vanquished by anything so paltry as a bomb.
It just wouldn't happen.
Rex would be the first to say that only the good died young, and even if, he'd done as I'd told him to a long time ago, and he'd gone into politics, I was no fool. He wouldn't have been a good politician. He'd have been dirty as hell, but he'd stand by his promises, and that was why I'd always wanted that for him.
So much so that when he'd become Prez, I'd refused to talk to him for a month.
Biting my lip at the time, the wasted time, the foolish moments I'd spent on trying to change a man who'd been destined to be exactly what he was—the leader of a bunch of Sinners—I pulled up on the driveway.
What I saw was enough to terrify a civilian, but I wasn't exactly that. I'd been raised on this damn compound, so it wasn't the first attack I'd had to live through, but this was just so much more terrifying than I'd expected.
The screams—Jesus, I'd never get them out of my head. I could hear the cries as women and men escaped the burning building, but they weren’t as petrifying as the flames. The roar of them. The sheer power. It was almost magnetic, in fact, no. They were magnetizing. I felt like an electromagnet being dragged toward them, their massive fury, their beauty.
If I hadn't been shitting myself, I'd have been mesmerized.
In the near distance, I heard sirens, which told me that the explosion had been heard over in the town because no way would the emergency services have responded to Rain's call as fast as this.
The sirens shook me out of my stupor with the flames, though, and I surged forward, rushing toward the clubhouse, my phone raised as a flashlight so I didn't fall over the stupid pebbles they had lining the drive.
Only, as I ran, moving toward the chaos of sobs and screams, of heat and fury, I found him.
The man who'd been like an uncle to me.
"Oh, Bear," I whimpered, dropping to my knees at the sight of him.
Tears welled in my eyes, and it had nothing to do with the smoke choking the air, that was hitting me straight in the face like a sledgehammer into a wall.
This man was family.
And he was gone. Dead—
"Rach..."
My name was slurred. Barely audible. Not just because of the noise ricocheting around the compound, but because his voice was so faint as to be nearly imperceptible.
Only practice at listening to my brother attempt to sneak out of the house put my ears in good stead, and I whispered, "Bear! You hang on in there—"
"No. Time." A rasping breath heaved from his lungs. "Tell. Rex. New World. Sparrows. Must remember, Rachel. Must. Remember." The last word came out as a barely understandable slur, but if those were Bear's dying words, there was no way in hell I was going to forget them.
Now, I just had to make sure that they weren't the last words the man who I loved like he was blood uttered.
Unfortunately, that was easier said than done when he wasn't in one piece.
"Oh, Rex," I moaned to myself as I encountered space where there should be limbs. "What did you get involved in?"
Indy
I sighed when Laura reached up and rubbed at her eyes, brushing away the tears that constantly flowed out of her like she was a leaky faucet.
I got the determination, I truly did—it was half of the reason she was still roaming around the world, after all. That fight, those inner flames that kept a person going, even through the pain, even through the discomfort and agony that was part and parcel of cancer treatment, made a person infinitely stronger.
Laura was exactly that.
But the scar tissue corded around her chest was so beyond sensitive that covering one inch of it on her body felt like I was covering feet of it on another person's.
"S-Sorry, Indy, I don't mean to be a cry baby."
"Shut up, girl. You're no cry baby," I soothed, championing her when she wasn't going to champion herself. "It's a little soon after the last session. Maybe we should reschedule?"
Laura sighed, but it came out around a hiccup. "I want it done."
"There's no point in rushing these things," I chided. "Look what's happened as a result."
Laura bit her bottom lip. "I didn't mean to waste your time."
"You haven't," I denied, because I'd totally have had to go to the patch-in party at the compound if Laura hadn't called in an appointment.
She wrinkled her nose. "You're a good liar, but not that good. I'm sorry." She glowered down at her chest. "I don't understand why this is so hard."
I had a hypothesis that her pain wasn't just physical but emotional, but I wasn't about to burden her with that. Not when I wasn't a shrink.
I'd often found that people responded to the needle in different ways, ways that depended on their reason for actually getting the tattoo.
Someone who came in for a vanity tat would probably moan about the pain. Someone who came in to commemorate a family member who'd passed over, would often just hiss through it and then find a kind of calm that I believed was their way of further commemorating their lost loved one.
When it was for scar tissue, there was often a lot of repressed emotions going on inside someone. Sometimes it was survivor's guilt or fear or just plain worry.
With Laura, I knew she was scared about the cancer coming back, and with good reason. This was her second time in remission. The mastectomy was the end result.
She was only twenty-fucking-eight. No age at all. No goddamn age at all.
Why was it this mother of four, who'd lived a simple life, who'd probably never hurt anyone, was dealing with this shit when my uncle had done what he had, tortured children the way he had, and had made it to middle age?
Even then, he hadn't died because it was his time to go. No, my brother had decided that our good uncle needed putting down. Maybe Kevin would still be alive, still be polluting the earth, if Nyx hadn’t put a stop to him…
Life, I registered, and not for the first time, wasn’t fair.
"You ready to start up again?" I asked softly, pressing my hand to hers.
The last touch of the tattoo gun to her skin had seen her jerking up like Dracula out of his coffin come dusk. She was still sitting up, her shoulders shaking, skin flushed with gooseflesh.
She shook her head. "I don't think I can, Indy. I'm sorry."
"Please, don't apologize. But next time, come when I ask you to, okay? Trust in my experience?"
She winced. "I will."
I eyed her, looking at the tat then at her, and murmuring, "I get it though. We're so damn close." My smile was kind as I continued, "But hey, when it's done, it's done. No more pain."
"No more pain," she repeated, like it was a vow. Like she really needed to believe I was speaking the truth.
I prayed, for her sake, I was.
Twenty or so minutes later, we hugged after she carefully wrapped herself into a thin jacket and darted outside like a frightened rabbit.
I watched her go before I went to the desk and picked up my phone.
My brows rose when I saw the number of missed calls and messages I had on there, and I wasn't sure whether to be concerned or not when not a single one of them was from Cruz.
I had at least a dozen from Stone, then three messages, each of them a demand for me to call her back. Giulia and Nyx had messaged and called too, as had Sin and Lily.
Unsure what the hell was happening, unease began to spread through me as I decided to call Nyx first.
As I hit the connect button, however, my phone buzzed with an incoming call.
"Indy? You need to get your ass to West Orange Hospital."
"What the hell's going on, Giulia? I have a shit ton of messages and calls from you guys at the compound."
A hiccup sounded down the line, prompting me to pull back from my phone and check the Caller ID, because this was Giulia, right? My tough-as-nails sister-in-law? Only, she didn’t sound so hardcore right this minute…
"You're scaring me," I said softly, meaning it. Inside my head, my skull felt like it was starting to throb, just waiting for the explosion to come as she blew my frickin' mind.
"There's been a bombing."
A bombing?
I'd expected a shooting. Some kind of drive by or... Fuck, I didn't know for sure. We'd had that in the past, some dumb fuck gangs had tried to overtake the compound when I was seven or so, but they'd broached the gates like they were a useless battalion of soldiers. Some of the older Sinners still hooted about how dumb those gangbangers had been during their breach.
Cruz : A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 5) Page 23
