“Lynch, please, I need to see you.”
“You got the fuck out. Saved me the fuckin’ effort of disposing of you. Your life is your fuckin’ problem now!” he growled.
“Lynch, I’m pregnant. The baby is yours. I need to take care of it.”
This wasn’t a line of reasoning I’d prepared for and I could sense the others glaring at me now. They were all clearly surprised.
“You’re fuckin’ what?”
“Pregnant.”
Lynch was laughing again. This was a joke to him. My plan wasn’t going to work. He didn’t care about things like that.
“And what do you want me to do about it?”
“Meet me, give me some cash so I can take care of it. Do you want me to have this kid? Your kid?” I asked, forcing myself to come close to tearing up, hoping he would buy it.
For a few moments, Lynch was quiet on the other end. At least I’d got him thinking and then I heard him mutter something under his breath.
“Fuckin’ bitch,” he said. “Fine, what the fuck. Meet me tonight at Lot 8 and I’ll give you some fuckin’ cash.”
That was it. The phone call had ended, and I turned to the Black Cobras who were all staring at me in amazement. I’d managed to pull this off.
“I meet him tonight at this abandoned storage lot we used to meet up at years ago. He’s going to be alone. This is going to be easy,” I said, and I looked at Patch who turned away from me.
Patch had barely spoken to me all the way to the lot that night. Of course, I wasn’t going to this meeting alone, but we were hoping that Lynch would come alone. If he’d bought the idea that I was actually pregnant, and he needed to pay me off to take care of it—he wouldn’t want any of his guys involved. Especially not Gunther.
Patch drove the car that was going to drop me off at some distance from the abandoned lot. I would have to walk the rest of the way while the others were going to watch me and Lynch.
The plan was to take Lynch out. Plain and simple. Patch and Bones and the rest were determined about this. If they could cut off the head of this monster now, the rest would be easy. Once Lynch was dead, they could focus on Gunther and any remaining top men. That would make sure that the Sons of Satan had no leadership and no way to plan attacks or make decisions.
We arrived at the spot of drop off and I got out of the car. Bones and Cash had been riding with us, but they held back now as Patch got out of the car behind me. They clearly assumed that we would want to talk, but it was hard for me to tell what Patch wanted. Since I’d suggested this plan to him, he had been distant from me.
“Samantha,” he called out as I started walking ahead of him. I wanted Lynch dead as much as the rest of them. I stopped in my tracks and turned to him and he must have seen the determination in my eyes.
“I know I can’t do or say anything now to change your mind,” he said, coming up closer to me. He was searching my eyes.
“It’ll be fine. I’m just going to talk to him, distract him and you guys are going to take care of the rest of it. I completely trust you,” I said, and he nodded.
“I know, I just want you to know that you are doing a very brave thing and you have all our admiration.”
My cheeks flushed at that because I didn’t think anyone in the world could admire me. I didn’t think I deserved that kind of admiration.
He reached for me and brushed the back of his fingers against my cheek unexpectedly. My heart fluttered and I gulped.
“Go on, you’ll be late for the meeting. I’ll see you on the other side,” he said, and I clenched my fists to stop myself from flinging my body to his and kissing him. I needed to do this first.
I walked up to the lot, which I knew well. This was the spot Lynch and I used to meet at when I was still in college and needed to keep our relationship hidden from my friends and family. I wasn’t surprised that he’d picked this place.
It was the dead of the night though and there was a chill in the air. We were at the back end of nowhere with not another human soul in sight. So that was different from how it used to be before.
I smelt the smoke of his cigar before I actually saw him. Lynch emerged from the shadows with the cigar between his fingers and his other hand in the pocket of his leather jacket.
“Well well well,” he said, and I stopped a few feet away from him. Had he been watching me walking over? The Black Cobras and I had been careful to make sure they were not seen or heard. I knew they were close by, but I didn’t know how close or if they could hear this conversation now.
I had my hands clasped together as I stood in front of him. Lynch puffed away at his cigar.
“So, you’re knocked up?” he asked, and his eyes scanned my body, focusing only briefly on my stomach. I’d purposely worn a pair of loose jeans and an oversized shirt to give the appearance of having something to hide.
“Yes.”
“After all these years.”
“Yes,” I said and shrugged my shoulders. Lynch took a step towards me and I backed away from him. It was an instinctual reaction. “Please, I just want the money and then I’m going to leave.”
“Or you could just come back with me and I’ll take care of you. You know I’ve taken care of you all these years. What an ungrateful bitch you are!” He snarled and threw his cigar to the ground. It continued burning for some moments while he came towards me again.
I was surprised by the degree of fear that was rising in me now, just by looking at him. I hadn’t realized how scared I actually was until now. Till I was finally face to face with him.
“I don’t want to go back with you.”
“Why fuckin’ not?” he growled, and his eyes were bloodshot. “You couldn’t take a few days’ punishment? You went and ratted on us to another club. What did you expect me to do? You thought you were going to come back and I would fuckin’ worship you?” His spittle flew in my face and I tried to step away from him, but he lunged forward and grabbed me by my wrist.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Please! Just give me the money and I’m going to go!” I cried, shouted. What was taking Patch and his club so long? Why hadn’t they taken the sniper-shot to Lynch’s head by now? Or stormed the place?
“You want fuckin’ money from me?” Lynch shook me wildly as he clung on to me. I tried to shake him off but of course that wasn’t going to work. His grip was like steel.
“Neither of us want to keep this baby…” I tried and he pulled me to himself, pinned me to his chest so I could smell his odor and his breath again. It made me gag.
“No. You’re right, I don’t want a mewling kid with a whore like you who sells herself to the first fuckin’ buyer,” he snarled, spitting right at my face. I tried to hold back the tears. His grip on my hand was hurting me.
“But we don’t have to worry about that, do we? It’s not like you’re really pregnant, are you?” Lynch released me and I staggered away from him, breathing sharply while he stared at me, grinning.
“I am…”
Lynch bent down to pick up his discarded cigar from the ground. He puffed at it wildly to light up the smoke again and then waved it in the air.
“Ah, spare me the idiotic psychobabble. I didn’t knock you up. Nobody knocked you up. It was all a ploy for me to come and meet you here alone so that your boyfriend and his little band of musicians could take pot shots at me.”
Lynch was grinning now like he’d just won a million dollars. I was afraid again. If he had known the truth all along, then he would have come prepared. Patch and the others were nowhere in sight. Were they okay?
I gulped dryly and he continued to smoke his cigar with a smile on his face.
“Did you really think I’d fall for it sweetie pie?” he asked, stepping towards me again. It felt like my feet were frozen to the ground now. I couldn’t even move away from him, even though I wanted to.
Before I could do anything else, he grabbed me again, twisting me around and gripping me by my w
rists behind my back. From the shadows behind me; Patch, Cash, Bones, Rogue, Grimm and the others emerged. They had their hands up in the air because behind them were Gunther and the other men from the Sons of Satan. Their guns were pointed at the backs of their heads.
My first thought was that it was all over. I struggled in Lynch’s grip, but he drew his face close to my ear instead.
“You’re going nowhere, honey bunch. None of you are going anywhere. This is the end of the road for you all. Say your goodbyes now, is my advice,” he snarled in my ear.
My horrified eyes met Patch’s. He had his arms up in the air in surrender too and I realized it was all one big mistake. I shouldn’t have suggested this plan. I didn’t know what I was doing. I should have just stayed back in the apartment and let the others handle it.
I was now the one responsible for the lives of all these men. I was so sorry…
25
Patch
I should have followed my gut instincts. I shouldn’t have let Samantha go in there by herself. There was something fishy about this plan from the very beginning—I should have known they were playing us. The fucking Sons of Satan had been playing us from the very beginning and we kept falling for it.
Now they had us surrounded with all their guns pointed at us. Samantha was in Lynch’s hold and he’d turned her to face us. I could see the fear and horror in her eyes as she stared at me. I could see she was blaming herself for what was happening. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine; it was ours. We should have noticed the holes in her plan and acted accordingly.
And now we were all screwed.
The Sons of Satan had us all in one place with their guns pointed at us. One wrong move in any direction and they were going to get us good. Everything we did now was going to have to be well-thought out, but it was difficult to think rationally. Now especially since I could see Samantha struggling, in danger, her life threatened.
Lynch clapped Samantha’s back hard and leaned in towards her from behind. She was trying to flinch away from him, but there was nowhere for her to go. He had her in his grip.
“The time has finally come for all of us to just acknowledge the truth, don’t you think?” Lynch was speaking and he looked directly at Grimm now. He was standing close to me, with his arms up in the air too. He had his jaw clenched in anger and decided not to respond to Lynch.
“We have won this war, there is no escape for you, dear friend,” Lynch continued, and Grimm lightly shook his head. He despised being referred to as a friend by Lynch. But Lynch was on a roll, and his smile only grew wider with every passing second.
“If you want to go back home with at least half of your people still breathing, you will do exactly as we say. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“What do you want?” Grimm snarled and Lynch shrugged.
“It’s pretty simple, friend, it’s exactly what I wanted from the very beginning. You know that. No need to act surprised now.”
“Our Mexican contacts.”
“Yeah, those and all your other contacts and contracts and the whole of your weapons trade. Basically, to put it simply, we would much appreciate it if you just crawled into a little dark hole somewhere and never saw daylight again. It would make me very happy,” Lynch laughed as he spoke and some of his guys behind him laughed too.
It was only his man Gunther, who seemed to stand on his side but didn’t have a reaction to anything his Boss said.
When Lynch didn’t draw out a response from Grimm still, it seemed like he was starting to get a little bit annoyed.
“So, do you fuckers surrender to us now or not?” he growled. Grimm looked in my direction and then at Cash and then shrugged.
“Looks like we don’t really have a choice, do we?” Grimm remarked, but in his usual style, he didn’t sound like he had a problem with anything. Which in turn was pissing off Lynch even more. He wanted anger. He wanted us to make more mistakes in our rage.
So, he gripped Samantha even tighter, his one hand was on her neck and he was tilting her head backwards. It made me twitch and Grimm threw me a look of warning. He knew I was now being tempted to act on my impulses to save her.
“What does it feel like to lose? To finally fuckin’ lose?” Lynch growled. He dragged a finger across Samantha’s neck now, imagining it to be a blade that was slitting her throat open. I moved again, clenching my jaw, beads of sweat formed on my forehead.
“How about you let her go and we can all discuss the terms and conditions of this handover?” Grimm called out, which made Lynch laugh.
“But she is the best part of the bargain. The truth is, dear friend, that none of us want her around. She’s nothing but a chewed up, good for nothing rat, and she would have been out on her ass soon enough anyway. One of your boys seems to have taken a shining to her so we decided, hey, why not use her as a bargaining chip! She has turned out to be the perfect prized possession, drawing you motherfuckers in.”
The other men around Lynch were laughing now too. They had walked around us. They weren’t behind us anymore but were flanking Lynch. Gunther seemed to have a personal problem against Bones and had his gun trained on him, while the others were pointing in the direction of the rest of us.
“Let her go!” I growled.
I couldn’t just stand there and take it anymore. I needed to do something about it. I needed Samantha to be safe and out of the fuckin’ way. But calling out to Lynch like that had been a mistake. His attention was now drawn to me and he was chuckling.
“Ah! The boyfriend has finally spoken, has he?” he hissed. Samantha was shaking her head in warning at me. She didn’t want me doing anything stupid. My arms were only half-raised in the air now. I couldn’t stand the sight of Lynch’s hands all over her body. My blood was boiling under my skin.
“What are you going to do about it, lover boy?” Lynch egged me on. I could feel one bead of sweat on my eyelid. I knew what I was going to do. I just needed to time it just right.
Lynch was mid-sentence. He was about to say something more, but I’d reached for the gun in my belt before anyone else could make a move. I clocked it right at his forehead before the others could train their guns at me. It was done. I was now in a position to pump a few shots directly into Lynch’s brain.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Lynch called out when he saw the way my gun was trained at him. “You have way more weapons pointed at you than you can point at me.”
I was barely even listening to what he was saying. The only thing I was focused on was Samantha. Lynch now had a hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming or saying anything. But from the way she was glaring at me now, I could sense she wanted me to turn the gun away. If I took a shot at Lynch now, it meant sure death for me. Pretty much the whole of the rest of the Sons of Satan wouldn’t lose a moment to shoot me.
But then something else happened. Now that all the other guns were pointed at me, it gave the others from my club a chance to lower their arms and point their guns at them.
Now we were talkin’!
A smile spread on my face.
We were pretty much on even grounds now. Lynch could sense that. Gunther could sense it too. They didn’t have the upper hand anymore. We were each in a position to kill each other. And Lynch had started to sweat.
“Just surrender to us and this will all be over,” he called out again.
“Let Samantha go, now, and this will all be over for you!” I shouted. I knew Lynch was not about to do that. He was not going to lose the one and only bargaining chip he had right now. Instead, he held on to Samantha even tighter while she struggled in his arms.
I took a step in their direction and everyone’s guns clicked in preparation.
“Stay the fuck back!” Lynch growled and I shook my head.
“Didn’t you say it was over? You were right. This is it. We decide tonight which of us walks out of this place alive and I’m going to make sure she is one of them.”
“You are all making a big fuckin’
mistake. Haven’t you learnt your lesson by now? You are not winning this fuckin’ game, friends!” Lynch growled in rage while his men looked nervously about them. We might have been outnumbered, but if a few of us were dying, many of them were dying tonight too. It was going to turn out to be that kind of fight.
“It’s over Lynch. We’ve fuckin’ had enough,” I hissed. I didn’t look at Grimm or Cash for their approval this time.
Tonight, for Samantha’s sake, I was going to make an executive decision that was going to affect all of us.
I squeezed the trigger and the bullet ripped through Lynch’s brains and he tumbled to the ground in an instance. Samantha screamed so loud that the next shot was muffled. All I felt was a searing burning pain and I couldn’t tell which part of my body it was coming from.
“Patch!” Samantha’s voice was ringing in my ear and I realized my left knee was clamping up and I tilted towards the ground. Someone had shot me in my left thigh, and it was bleeding out now.
I blinked as I looked up at her. Lynch was dead. He was on the ground beside her and it seemed like she was frozen to the spot and couldn’t move. A full-fledged shootout was taking place around us now. Killing Lynch was all it took for the Sons of Satan to panic and scatter like roaches.
My club had their guns drawn and were ready to shoot the rest of them, but the Sons of Satan were shooting at us too, of course. I tried to drag my leg and my body towards Samantha who was still standing over Lynch now, shivering and shaking and wailing.
In a few moments I had managed to pull myself up off the ground and, still hunched, I leaned towards her.
“We need to get you out of here,” I said and cocked my gun around. Gunther and Bones were now in a fistfight. I’d no idea how that happened. They were both without weapons. I pointed my gun at Gunther and shot at his foot, just to spice things up.
He groaned and fell back. This had not been a good week for him. The others were still fighting.
Patch (The Black Cobras MC Book 3) Page 16
