by Evelyn Glass
"So, you did a bit of that crystal I take it," Cole decided.
Nicole bit her lip, "I'll get dinner."
"Good idea."
She tossed her hair into a shower of gold as she spun and skipped back toward the front door. Cole watched her with warm amusement and then he pulled the bike inside, hitting the switch to close the door behind him. He checked the bike over -- oil, air, belt, and tires. Then he leaned back against his tool bench and let exhaustion fall down on him. It was a good and profitable trip, but perhaps not the thing for him. Still, he made more money this week than he ever made in the same amount of time while doing something he loved to do.
His eyes suddenly focused and he realized that he had been dozing. "Might as well do some crystal. Not going to be much use to her anyway," he muttered, and went out the side door, and into the back door of the house, walking a tired but content stride through the kitchen looking for his lover.
She was at the front door and from her posture he could tell she was seriously scared.
"I called him, Antonio. I made it very clear." She was saying.
Cole then heard a professionally calm voice say, "Yes, I was there. It was quite amusing, Nicole, but unfortunately there is no out. You have a client tonight, in three hours. We need to get you there. Brian is your new driver; he’s in the car and this is Davis, who will be your bodyguard. We are very concerned about you right now. You are not making healthy decisions. So we are taking on a bodyguard's expense to ensure that you are safe, even from yourself. Now, do you have things you would like us to gather up for you?"
Cole knew Antonio and Davis. Brian, he dearly hoped wasn't a Chrome Horsemen, or this was going to get ugly and very difficult to explain. Antonio was the most dangerous. He was brutal and as skilled in close quarter combat as they come. His history boasted over thirty years of serious experience and when a man is an enforcer for the mob for thirty years, you don't take him lightly. He is a man who made it a habit to stay alive while making other men dead.
Davis was a monster. He was nearly as tall as Cole's six-four, but outweighed Cole by at least sixty pounds. Cole didn't know him well, but he had the reputation of being a knife man. So far, no one noticed him in the house and he made sure they wouldn't by changing his course as he came up behind Nicole, drawing his weapon.
They weren't going to take no for an answer, so he wasn't going to bother asking the question. Against a superior enemy, which he was, ambush is an acceptable and effective tactic. He just reached the position he wanted to be in when Nicole shouted "No! Don't touch me!"
"This is will hurt if you do not come," Antonio told her in his eerie calm voice.
Cole located the position of Antonio’s voice on the other side of the door and fired at mid-height three times, then adjusted his aim to near the door jam area, across the portal, where he figured the bodyguard would be and sent four rapid shots into the wall, blowing apart the jam and splintering just about everything in the area.
Then he grabbed Nicole by her shoulder and spun her hard, sending her back into the house and flying for the couch while keeping his aim on the door area as he did. He heard her thump into the couch cushions just as the door was slammed, sending it flying on its hinges to crash into the entry wall, but by that time Cole was pulling the trigger. He fired, adjusting his aim as information presented itself.
The first face he saw was Davis, who had his gun out, but was looking the other direction -- a fatal mistake. Cole calmly fired two slugs into Davis’ head, then swiftly adjusted his aim again as he spun on his knees, going as low as he was able to without losing balance while pulling the trigger on Antonio four times, going for center mass.
Cole's gun clicked empty, but instead of going for the extra clip in his jacket, he hurtled it at the surprised Antonio's face while sprinting forward as fast as he could. Cole caught the corpse of Davis as it slid down the doorjamb and removed Davis' gun from his dead hand in time to see another man running up the walk outside from the waiting limo. The new man had a gun in each hand. Keeping the stunned and dying Antonio between himself and the other man, Cole called out, "Horseman!"
The man stopped. "Chrome Horsemen?"
"Yes!" Cole replied making sure the man heard him. But staying out of direct line of fire.
"Cole? Shit! Is that you, Cole?"
"Yes! I don't want to kill you man, but I will. I'm in no gaming mood."
The man put his guns away and lifted his hands, "No, not between brothers man. What do you need?"
"I need to get to the clubhouse, fast. Myself and one other. And I need you not to know where we went. You're going to catch flack for this, Brian."
"Not from anyone important," Brian told him. "I'll make some calls, get riders to meet us on the way. I would advise moving now and not taking anything with you except what you need for survival. We'll buy everything else. Get on your bike and ride. I'll follow in the limo."
"Got it," Cole agreed, very relieved.
He didn't know Brian by name, but he recognized him now. He was one of the new guys, just came in to patch-holder status less than three months ago. That Brian was on the security teams list already strongly suggested he had hardcore experience and top of the line training. Cole was happy not to have gone up against a man with credentials obviously much better than his own, especially in a fair fight.
Antonio collapsed.
Cole looked down at him and saw no life in the enforcer's eyes. "Fucking tough son-of-a-bitch," Cole hissed and put Davis' .45 under his belt in the front of his pants, then retrieved his own weapon and reloaded.
Nicole was watching with wide eyes as Cole went through the house, pulling out three more guns from various hiding places and eight more clips. He tossed Nicole's jacket to her, "Still have your stash here?"
She nodded, but didn't speak.
"Get it, now. Move!"
His voice drove her out of the couch and sent her flying down the hall. She came back with a black backpack, shrugging it on over her leather jacket. "I don't know… I don't know what to do," she gasped.
"I do," he told her. "Do what I say. Don't hesitate."
She nodded.
"They don't want you dead. They want you back. So we are fairly safe right now. They still don't know about me and that gives me two edges."
Nicole blinked, "What was the first edge?"
"I want them dead."
"Oh, okay," she muttered with a nod of her head, her eyes still showing how much shock she was in. There was no time for comforting, though. Other men could be showing up or waiting in ambush and cops were on the way.
"We're leaving. Cops will be on the way. Anything you need? Anything you can't live without?"
"Laptop," she sputtered.
"Grab it and put it in the saddlebags. Move!" he ordered.
Nicole ran for his office, returning with a laptop bag while stuffing in power cords. "I'm ready."
"Head for the back door. Don't stop or slow down. Go straight into the garage and get your laptop into the saddlebags. Let's move."
She didn't run this time, but she moved fast and sure. Cole felt a sweet pride in his girl right now. She wasn't bundled up into a ball of hysteria on the couch and she wasn't freaking out on him, or asking a lot of questions that start with why and are meaningless most of the time.
Cole played back what he heard and what he did, searching for anything that seemed out of place. He recalled Nicole saying that she had called Gabriel. Well, that was how they found her. Simple thing -- caller ID. Obviously Nicole needed some education. Serious education on basic survival skills and it wouldn’t hurt to show her how to fire a weapon.
Cole nodded to this deficiency and mentally noted the tasks as urgent. Following close behind her, ready to knock her to the ground at the first whisper of trouble, they left the back door and moved fast into the garage.
As soon as she had her laptop in his bag, Cole fired up the Lowrider and clicked the garage door opener. Then he went into a c
rouch, taking Nicole's hand and pulled her to the side of the garage while he drew one of his pistols.
Nicole squatted down low behind him. They searched the street together. Seeing nothing and trusting that Brian was on the ball out there, he pulled Nicole back to the bike and they got on while pulling on helmets. Cole clicked the garage door as he cleared the threshold and revved his engine to warn Brian they were coming out. Then he released the clutch and thundered out of the garage.
Brian was in the road and held up his hand. Cole pulled over to him. He was probably thirty with deep red hair and looked about as Irish as anyone could. "You're fairly safe,” Brian told Cole. “We were the only crew sent after your girl here with orders that she was not to be harmed in any way that would show a bruise or keep her from working tonight. They really thought this was going to be a simple snatch and grab. They even had me waiting in the car like an asshole while they were gunned down."
"Better them…" Cole muttered.
"Agreed. Nice work, by the way. I have their wallets and phones, and two guns off the corpses. Davis was carrying an ankle. Now, head straight for the boulevard. Take it to the club. Riders are on their way to follow you in, but there's honestly no one coming."
"Thanks. I owe you," Cole told him.
"No, I owe you for shouting out, rather than just cutting me down," Brian laughed. "Ride safe. I'm behind you."
Cole nodded and then eased the Lowrider down his street, heading straight for the boulevard as instructed. Riders were on their way. The Horsemen looked after their own.
Unfortunately, Nicole wasn't one of their own and the Horsemen had a good, profitable alliance with Gabriel's stable. That connection was through Antonio, who Cole just gunned down as fast and hard as he could, along with Davis -- and who knew what connections Davis had or who was going to be pissed off about his death come morning.
"Not good," he muttered and put his hand down on Nicole's thigh. "But worth it."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When Nicole Bower saw the first pack of five Chrome Horsemen pass by them on the boulevard, speeding in the other direction, it sent a thrill through her. She looked over her shoulder and saw them making an illegal U-turn, then roaring even faster to catch up to her and Cole. It was like real Wild West stuff with the Calvary and everything.
She didn’t even know these men, but that didn’t seem to matter to them. They were here to back-up Cole, simply because he said he was in trouble and they came hunting for that trouble with guns and grim faces.
After three more blocks, however, she said to herself, "This is getting ridiculous," because there were over forty riders around them now, all armed, and none of them joking. Riders shot their bikes forward, up the side of the pack, to come to rest in the middle of intersections, to block traffic for the rest of the pack.
When she looked down crossing roads, she often saw three of four bikers running down the side streets while keeping up with them. These men were called "outriders." Cole had explained them to her during pillow talk the day she officially moved in with him and asked him about is work with the club.
"Outriders," Cole had told her, "and that was my first real job with the club’s security service, follow or pace the main pack or convoy."
They were kept back for two reasons. The first was to give an attacker a false idea of how many men are guarding the convoy. The second was that in case of an attack, they would be the ones who are going to engage the attackers and hunt them down.
The men riding in the main pack only have one goal: to see that the package makes it safely to where it is going. If an attack came, the pack sped up to escape the area, only returning fire if it will help them get the package get out of the danger zone.
That was their job and their only job. While the pack is doing this, the outriders come in from behind and from the sides, assessing the situation as they do and focus on the attackers themselves with the intent of killing them."
He explained this in as few words as possible, but that didn't stop Nicole from thinking just how dangerous everything was. When she told him that, he just laughed.
"Riding as fast as you can into the middle of a gun fight to go after the people firing the guns at you is dangerous, yes. But you eventually get good at it." he assured her.
She had grinned at him, "Don't make fun. This is all new to me."
"That's not going to be true for long," he told her and then brought her to him and kissed her until her toes curled up with rioting pleasures.
By the time they made it to the clubhouse, Nicole had lost track, but was sure there were at least fifty riders in the main pack and one limo. Brian, the man who would have been her new driver if Antonio and Davis were successful in kidnapping her earlier, remained right behind them in the limo that used to be her car.
The bar they pulled into the parking lot of was the clubhouse for the Horsemen, called Abbey's. They pulled in surrounded by armed men and thundering engines. As soon as they were parked, Brian beeped the horn of the limo and continued down the boulevard with a parting wave out the window as he guided the long car into light evening traffic.
The sound of all the engines and watching the large group of men fanning out, guarding them as Cole took her by the hand toward the club was calming, almost soothing. Gabriel wasn't going to be able to get her here. Not a chance. But, of course, she couldn't just stay here.
"What's the plan now?" she asked as Cole took her hand and gently pulled her through the front doors of the club.
"World domination. But then, that's always the plan…there is no other plan. However, what we are going to do right now is to talk to Big Jim, the president of the Horsemen. We'll have a clearer idea of what we can do and what we should do after that. My first instinct is to ride over there right now while your pimp Gabriel still believes you’ll back in his stable within an hour or so. Just ride right now and kill him. Get this over with. And I would, too, in a heartbeat if…"
"If what, Cole?"
"Well, we have agreements with Gabriel and a profitable partnership. Big Jim would not enjoy the news that I just went over there and killed one of our regular customers – well, without his permission anyway."
"How would he feel about Gabriel killing you?"
"He would seek retribution, but that may not come in the eye for an eye way."
Odds are, they'd probably work out some concessions on Gabriel's businesses or cite a cash value to cover the cost to the club for no longer having me as a resource.
Most of the time, things like this were handled with cash and plenty of it. No one wanted to go to war and everyone likes cash, so it was normally the preferred method to put the guns away and get back to business.
She listened, then nodded her understanding, and asked, "So, how much are we talking here?"
"For my death? Probably one to three hundred grand would be asked and then negotiated down to nearly half that much. I'm a patch-holder of the club -- they couldn't let my murder slide, but they wouldn't want a war over it either.
"For you? To put an end to any claim he believes he has on you? Over a half million, I'm sure. You are obviously a profit center on Gabriel's accounting ledger; you are all black ink. He will be claiming damages, not merely the loss of a resource."
Once they were inside of the doors, she noticed only eight men in the whole building. All of them had a gun in hand as they watched the streets outside of the window. Two of them waved to Cole, who waved back as he guided her toward the bar.
"What will Big Jim say?" she asked as more men began filing into the bar. Most of them were silent, even brooding, but a handful were on adrenaline rushes, talking and joking loudly against the quiet place. Music wasn't even playing right now. Maybe they turned it off when they announced that Cole needed help and forgot to turn it back on.
"That's going to be hard to guess, baby. Yep, kind of hard," he told her and squeezed her ass in his large hand as she got up on the barstool, "Been wanting to do that for almos
t a week now."
She wiggled a little, "We could jump into the ladies’ room for a quickie. Doesn't look like many ladies are here right now."
"Oh, wow," he sighed with restrained desire, "don't tempt me with that right now. We really have to see Jim right away." Cole asked the man behind the bar to give him a notepad and pen.
He wrote a brief request to see Jim, adding that he and Nicole would remain in the bar for at least three hours before using the hotel directly across the street. "That's our hotel," Cole explained to her. The Horsemen used it as a makeshift safe house. Cole wouldn't need to register or show ID there, or anything else. As far as the manager and employees over there would be concerned, the couple didn't exist and the room they were staying in would be logged as empty."
