Cash came over and put a hand on my shoulder, making me jump. I spun around to him and shook my head.
“She trusted me by coming here to help me, and I sent her packing without looking out for her!”
“We’re going to go and rescue her, man. She’s going to be safe.”
Cash’s voice was calmer than mine. I had no choice but to nod. It was the only thing I could do right now—believe that we were going to find a way to get to Samantha before the Sons of Satan decided she was useless to them.
When Cash and I returned to the bar, it seemed like the others were tensely waiting to see if we’d killed each other yet or not. To them now, it seemed like we had made our peace, and maybe we had. For the moment, I couldn’t really focus on forgiving Cash or pondering our friendship, as much as I just wanted to rescue Samantha.
“The Sons of Satan called,” Bones said. “Lynch wants another official meeting.”
“Fuck him and his fuckin’ meetings!” I growled. “We need to storm that place and get the girl out of there first.”
“But this might be our only chance to get close to them,” someone else spoke up.
“And it’s not like we have much of a choice. If we don’t listen to their demands, they keep attacking us and weakening us,” Bones added.
I could hear Grimm sigh. This was exactly the kind of thing he wanted to avoid. Another big battle for power.
“What do they want from us this time?” he asked.
“Full control of all our assets. It seems like they have some new recruits. They’ve been using this quiet period of pretend-peace to build up their resources and their strength again.”
“Fuck!” I growled and cursed some more.
We should have struck them; we should have kept striking them when we had the fucking chance! When they were down and small in number. Now they were making themselves stronger again and we weren’t going to stand a chance against their numbers.
“We have no choice, we have to meet them,” Bones said again.
“And offer up all our assets and our business? No chance in hell!” Cash barked.
“Maybe we can negotiate some kind of deal,” Grimm said, and I shook my head.
“Lynch isn’t looking for a compromise. Gunther is definitely not looking for one either. If there is anything we can go by right now, it’s the hope that their internal power struggle is what brings them down,” I said.
“What do you want to do about Samantha?” Bones asked. They all knew I wasn’t about to let that go. I was going to rescue her; I was going to find a way to get to her.
Right now, I didn’t even want to consider the possibility that they might have done away with her already. I needed to get her out of there before it was too late.
“The only thing we can do right now is to pretend like we have no clue where she is or that we’re even interested in her. The last thing we want to do is give them the idea that they can use her to push us into a corner,” I replied. A buzz rang out in the bar as the others talked amongst themselves, discussing the situation.
It wasn’t an ideal situation, but maybe meeting with the Sons of Satan again was exactly what we needed right now. For me to get closer to Samantha.
My eyes met Cash’s as I looked around the bar and he nodded his head at me once. No matter what had happened between us before this, I knew he was fighting on my side now. He was going to do everything he could to get Samantha out of there alive.
18
Samantha
It seemed like Gunther and his sidekicks had decided that having secret conversations in the same room as my cage was their best chance of staying out of Lynch’s ears.
Gunther assumed that I was not going to rat on him, even if I happened to overhear what they were discussing. He knew I was fully aware of the kind of things he was capable of doing if I displeased him. I was out of Lynch’s favor already. He rarely even came to check up on me anymore. He was clearly just biding time till he decided what he was going to do with me. Till then, all I could do was wait and hope that whatever Lynch decided to do was going to be painless.
Gunther and his men had gathered in the room again. They were in the other corner, sitting around in a circle of chairs closely pushed together and drinking from their cans—clearly discussing plans on overthrowing Lynch.
They’d been discussing it for some time now. I might not have been an expert in the goings-on of the Sons of Satan club, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Lynch and Gunther hated each other. Gunther thought Lynch was nothing more than a middle-aged good for nothing who should never have been voted in as the President of the Club.
Gunther had got it into his head that he was more capable, and he should be the rightful leader of the club. I could see the confidence glinting in his eyes. Who was going to break it to him that he was a maniac? That he wasn’t mentally stable enough to be in-charge of anything?
“How many guys can we get to join us?” Gunther asked his group. He was standing above his chair, with one foot on the seat. The others looked at each other and shrugged. There were five others with him at the moment, which was obviously not a big enough number to try and overthrow a guy like Lynch.
“We’ve put the feelers out, everyone’s hesitating to go against the boss,” one of the guys spoke up.
“The boss!” Gunther barked, clearly enraged at being undermined by one of his own supporters. “He doesn’t deserve that fuckin’ title. I’m your fuckin’ boss!” He growled at the guy, bringing his face dangerously close to his. The guy nodded his head.
“I’m just tellin’ you what I’ve been hearing…boss,” he continued, and Gunther wiped the back of his hand over his mouth like he’d eaten something juicy.
“How are we supposed to pull this fuckin’ coup off with just the five of you fuckin’ idiots?” Gunther continued to curse.
I was sitting in my cage with my head down, not looking up at any of them and pretending to mind my own business. Not that I had much of a business to mind here. I had nothing else to do but keep my ears peeled. But where was I going? Who was I going to tell?
“The Smoking Beards,” Gunther said, louder than everything else he’d been declaring.
“The Smoking Beards?” someone else repeated and Gunther nodded.
“Yeah, exactly, The Smoking Beards. That’s what we’re going to call our new club.”
“Our new club?” His men looked confused. I could see them exchanging looks from the corner of my eyes. Maybe they hadn’t exactly discussed this amongst themselves yet. They were taken by surprise.
“You want to start a new club, boss?” One of them had the courage to speak up.
“Well, that’s what we’ll have to do if we can’t fuckin’ get enough men to stand up against the old bozo up there.” Gunther said that with a smirk. “We start our own club, take away all of Lynch’s business, grow our own shit.”
Gunther wasn’t standing still anymore. He was pacing around the room now, hands behind his back like he was deep in thought. He’d convinced himself already that this was a great idea. He was clearly not going to take no for an answer any longer.
His men however were still exchanging nervous looks amongst themselves and weren’t quite sure if their new ‘boss’ knew what he was talking about.
“But we don’t have the manpower or the capital or the contacts to start something off on our own right now,” another one said, and Gunther charged at him for daring to speak up.
“Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up! We can get this fuckin’ thing done. We build our club. We recruit. From the Sons of Satan if we have to. We raid the warehouses; we steal the fuckin’ money. We do everything it takes to crush Lynch to the ground. Without me he is nothing!” Gunther’s face shook and turned red as he spat the words out of his mouth.
He was probably picturing crushing Lynch’s skull right there in his own hands right now. Whatever he was doing, he obviously had his mind made up already and nothing was going to
stand in his way. He was going to break away from the Sons of Satan. He was going to go to war with Lynch and his men.
And finally, after all this time, I had a flutter of hope in my soul somewhere. Maybe this was good news for me. If Gunther and Lynch went to war with each other—nobody would give a shit about me. They wouldn’t even give a shit about the Black Cobras, at least not for a while until things calmed back down again.
Maybe I had a chance of making it out of this thing alive after all. But for that, things would need to move fast.
19
Patch
Bones set up the meeting between Lynch and Grimm for the next night. Only this time, our club wasn’t going in with just two men. Neither were we meeting like pretend-gentlemen over drinks at a private table somewhere. We were going in there with our weapons drawn and ready to pounce on each other if the need arose.
It seemed like by now Grimm was letting his good manners go too. Lynch would be treated the way he planned on treating us. But that wasn’t the only plan we had for the night. While Grimm and the other guys from our club were going to go to the meeting, Cash, Bones and I were going to sneak into their Clubhouse and try and get Samantha out of there.
Our hope was that all or most of the Sons of Satan were going to be at the meeting between our two clubs and not much security would be with Samantha tonight.
This was going to be our only chance of getting her out of there. We couldn’t let them figure out how much I wanted her to escape. To them, she was nothing more than just another chick I banged.
We prepared ourselves at the Clubhouse, arming ourselves with weapons and ammunition enough to last us the whole night.
At first, I’d suggested going in there on my own—it would be easier to sneak into the place if I was operating alone. But Bones and Cash refused to let me do it on my own. They wanted to give me backup and they weren’t taking no for an answer.
I could sense that they both felt guilty about the fact that maybe they could have done something sooner for Samantha but hadn’t and now she was in deeper shit. Whatever it was, I appreciated their help. Doing it alone wouldn’t have been easy.
Cash slapped my back as we prepared to leave on our bikes and make our way alone to the Sons of Satan Clubhouse. The plan was to watch the building till Lynch and most of the guys had left for the meeting with Grimm.
“We’re going to get her out of there tonight,” Cash reassured me, and I nodded. I wasn’t so confident, but it was the only thing to be right now. After all, I couldn’t just give up now. No matter what condition Samantha was in right now.
I’d spent the whole of last night picturing her. Imagining her as a teenager when I had a crush on her from across the street. And then picturing her grown-up beautiful face, the one that blew me away when I saw her that night at the meeting. Was it possible I still had feelings for her? After all these years?
I tried not to think about it. I needed to get her out of that place first, make sure she was physically and psychologically okay. Who knew what they’d subjected her to in the few days that they’d kept her captive in there.
Cash, Bones and I left, and the night began.
We were staking out the Clubhouse, having parked our bikes at some distance from it so we could watch it in the dark. From here, we could see when they would leave for their meeting with Grimm and the rest of our men.
We saw Lynch leave, along with a gang of his men. Bones tried to do a headcount as he saw them get on their bikes and fill up a couple of muscle cars. None of us openly mentioned the fact that the Sons of Satan were already stronger in number than us. They’d managed to build themselves up in the past few days, while we were lazing around thinking everything was peaceful and non-threatening.
“Looks like most of them have left, but some are definitely still in the Clubhouse,” he said.
“Did you see Gunther leaving?” Cash asked, peering into the dark to better look at the disappearing tails of the bikes and cars.
Bones was doubtful. I said I wasn’t sure if he’d left either.
“Well if he’s still in there, we’ll just have to get past him. We can’t wait around here very long for him to leave. Lynch and company could get back here on the double and we’ll miss our window of opportunity to get Samantha out of there,” I said.
Cash and Bones agreed.
Stubbing out our cigarettes, we headed as stealthily as we could, in the direction of the Clubhouse now. There were still some lights on inside and heavy metal was playing in the bar area even though it looked completely empty now.
Cash and I exchanged looks because we weren’t quite sure what was going on. It was just the three of us now and we were hoping there weren’t more than three of them still inside.
The door to the building was left wide open and we stepped inside the bar. Our entry and the crunch of our shoes were all muffled by the sound of the music playing overhead. At least Gunther wouldn’t hear us coming.
We had our weapons drawn and we tried to cover every aspect of the bar as we proceeded further and further inside the building. There were chairs and tables overturned, like the place had just witnessed a rowdy bar fight. Peanut shells covered the floor, a few broken glasses too…which nobody had bothered to clean up. Then again, if they were keeping Samantha imprisoned somewhere, maybe they had nobody else to clean up after them. The dirty fuckers.
There was no sign of anybody else for the moment and we continued to walk ahead, looking out for any movement or any sound. As we headed out into the dark narrow corridors, the sound of the music playing in the bar began to fade and now I could hear my own heart racing in my chest. I realized I was worried for her. I just wanted her to be okay.
She was nowhere in sight, and neither was Gunther or whoever else had stayed back at the Clubhouse. I was holding on too tightly to my weapon, I could feel the muscles in my arms twitching. Where the fuck was she? What had they done to her?
“Down here!” Cash hissed in the dark from up ahead. Bones and I marched on and saw what he was indicating. He was at the top of some stairs that led down to a room. Under the door of the room was a slit of dim light. There was clearly someone inside.
“She could be in there,” Cash said in a low whisper.
“She’s definitely in there! We’ve looked everywhere else,” Bones declared.
“And that fucker is also in there with her,” I added.
It was obvious. Gunther was nowhere else in the building. What was he doing to her? My blood ran cold as I tried to focus on the task at hand. Worrying about her safety wasn’t going to make her any safer.
Cash, Bones and I exchanged preparatory looks. We were going to have to storm the room as a team. Without hesitation. Who knew what else was inside? Gunther could be in there with an entire gang of his cronies.
Cash started descending down the steps then, and Bones and I followed him down to the door. He gave us one look before kicking it in. Bones and I followed in, holding our guns out, pointing in every direction of the dingy room.
The door slamming open had been more like an explosion and it caught Gunther and another man by surprise. They clearly weren’t expecting to be interrupted.
Even in the dim light of the large underground damp room, we could see Gunther there with another man, standing close to a cage. An actual cage that was located in the corner of the room. I just needed one look in its direction to now see that Samantha was in there.
“What the fuck!” Gunther growled. He and his friend had pulled their guns out and were pointing it at us. But we were three against the two of them.
“Drop your guns now and step away from the fuckin’ cage!” Cash shouted. I stared at Samantha.
She had been sitting huddled up in the corner, with her knees up to her chin, but now she was beginning to stand up. I could see the relief washing over her pale face. What were they about to do to her? What had we interrupted?
Our eyes met and I could see she was trying to find a way to thank
me. Now was not the time. I didn’t need her gratitude right now. I just wanted to get her out of there in one piece.
I turned to Gunther then and, without thinking, pulled the trigger and heard the shot ring out.
“Fuck!” Gunther cried out loud and doubled over, clutching his calf. I’d got him on his leg. As a reaction to that shot, the man that was with him fired a shot in our direction too, but it didn’t get any of us.
Cash lunged at him, literally wrestled his gun out of his hand and Bones made a jump in Gunther’s direction. Even though he was crouched on the ground and bleeding, he was turning his gun in Cash’s direction now.
“No! You fuckin’ don’t!” Bones shouted.
I went up to the cage. Samantha was standing right up against the bars now, her knuckles white as she held on to those bars like she wanted to rip them apart.
“Are you okay? How are you? Did they hurt you?”
I pointed my gun at the lock hanging from the front of the cage. She nodded, gulping. I wasn’t sure why she wasn’t speaking—maybe she was still in shock.
“Stand back, Samantha,” I warned her before I bust out a shot at the lock and ripped it apart. Grabbing the gate now, I pulled it open and she tumbled out into my arms. She was clinging to me and I wrapped an arm around her too. For a few moments, it didn’t matter to me that the other guys could see me like this. See me fussing over a woman in this way.
I touched her face, peered at her hair and her torn clothes. I couldn’t see any bruises on her body, but it didn’t seem like they’d been providing her with enough luxuries either.
“I’m fine,” she said in a choking voice that was suddenly very deep and different. “Just please get me out of here.”
I turned to the others and saw Bones holding Gunther back, with his arms tightly held behind his back. Gunther was struggling and cursing. He probably would have put up more of a fight if it hadn’t been for his leg that was now bleeding out.
Patch (The Black Cobras MC Book 3) Page 12
