Mouse Trapped

by Manda Mellett

  My blood suddenly runs cold. I see Drew, but there’s another man with him. A man Drew doesn’t know, but who I recognise. It’s my father.

  I open the door, my heart beating frantically, and step out. The man’s leading Drew toward the only other car in the lot. Drew wouldn’t go with him, would he?

  Drew’s not looking at all comfortable, the man is too close. I can’t immediately see what’s happening, but need to get my brother to come toward me.

  “Drew,” I call out. “Over here. Now.”

  The urgency in my voice gets Drew’s attention on me. His eyes widen, at the same time as my father turns the gun which had clearly been the persuasion he’d used on Drew, toward me. Our father chuckles, a sound which grates on my nerves. Then fires without any warning.

  Christ! Drew screams as I feel like a horse has kicked me in the stomach. I go down hard on my knees, my hands immediately going to my belly to staunch the flow of blood, unable to comprehend my father’s shot me again. And this time there’s no one to save me.

  It’s only a split second later my fingers land on the vest I’m wearing beneath my jacket. I’m not bleeding to death. It might be hard to breathe, but I’m not fatally wounded.

  Drew’s trying to get to me. My father turns the gun back on him and is pushing him into the car.

  I’ve got no time. I stretch out my hand, pull the knife from its ankle sheath, aim just how Tse had shown me and throw it. The blade catches my father in the back. The shock causes him to drop the gun. Thinking quickly, Drew grabs it, and now he’s turned the tables on the man who was going to kidnap him.

  Getting to my feet, ignoring the pain, I stumble over, taking the gun from Drew. My father’s gasping, trying to turn around and pull out the knife that’s protruding from under his left shoulder blade.

  “This is him, isn’t it?” Drew’s caught on fast. “This is the sperm donor.”

  “I’m your father.” El Procurador’s voice isn’t as strong as I’ve heard it before.

  “Shoot him, Ma.”

  My mind races through the facts. Sure, El Procurador’s a known and wanted criminal. But I’m on very dodgy ground here. What would the authorities say if I killed him? And if he was dead, my asylum case might be closed. Better keep him alive for now. “We’ll take him back to the compound. You drive, Drew.” To my father, I say, “Move.”

  “I shot you.” He makes another effort, this time managing to pull the knife out, and tosses it.

  “Pick it up, Drew,” I don’t want to leave any evidence. That bloody knife’s got my fingerprints all over it.

  He does, then backs away to the car.

  I motion with the gun. “Move,” I repeat.

  “What does it take to fuckin’ kill you, bitch?” My father’s enraged.

  The blood starts to flow faster now that he’s pulled the blade out. He’s going pale. Drew’s gone to his car and has popped the trunk. It’s a good idea, but I don’t think my father would fit, even if we could manage to force him in there. I open my mouth to tell him, but my brother’s got other ideas. My mouth drops open when I see what he’s brought back.

  “What?” he asks innocently, then grins. “Blade said I should be ready for all eventualities.”

  I’m really not at all sure why Blade had advised my brother to carry zip ties in his car, but I’m so pleased he did. If we survive this, a lot of thanks are due to the enforcer. My bullet-proof vest and the blade he gave me have come in handy today.

  Drew’s strong. He yanks our weakening father’s arms behind him, and has his hands tied together in seconds. Then he pushes him, hard, towards the car.

  “I won’t hesitate to shoot you,” I tell him, my tone leaving no doubt.

  “Where are you taking me? What are you going to do with me? You’ll kill me anyway, why not do it here?”

  “I won’t kill you.” I might not know much about them, but I think the Satan’s Devils will make him hurt more than a single bullet would. “So get in the car if you want to live.”

  “Patricide doesn’t suit you.” He gives me an assessing look. “You’re not a killer.”

  “Proves I don’t take after you. And neither does Drew. Now get in.” I’m getting nervous someone might see me. The coach must be finishing up soon.

  After a calculating look, which I interpret as he’s weighing up his chances of somehow being able to take his son, at last he slides awkwardly into the back seat. Drew gets in the driver’s side, I get in the passenger seat, turning so my gun is trained on my father.

  “Drive carefully, Drew.” I don’t want to get pulled over on the way.

  Holding the gun one handed, I reach into my purse for my phone. I place my call. “Tse, I’ve got El Procurador. We’re bringing him back to the compound.”

  Tse’s exclamation all but deafens me.

  “We’re both okay,” I reassure him. “I’ll see you soon. Love you, Tse. But I have to go. I need to keep this gun trained on him.”

  I end the call, not wanting to have any distraction.

  I can feel how tense Drew is as he follows my instructions and makes sure he stops well in time at every red light, proceeding through junctions carefully. When we’re out of town and on the I10, I breathe a sigh of relief. Then we’re turning up the track which leads to the compound.

  The gates are already open. Blade and Tse are standing waiting. I get out of the car, hand the gun to Blade and collapse into my man’s arms. I don’t know why, but tears are falling and I can’t stop shaking. The pain in my stomach, ignored up to now, returns with a vengeance. I feel weak as a kitten.

  Tse hugs me so tightly. When I wince, he sweeps me into his arms and carries me up to the clubroom. He sets me down carefully, then stands back, his dark eyes examining me. Worried Blade’s been left with my father, I shoo him away. “El Procurador. You need to see to him.”

  “Yeah. You okay for a minute while I help Blade get him settled? Drew, can you watch her?”

  “I’m fine,” I reply fast, as Drew nods.

  I expect Tse to be gone for ages, and lie back on the couch, my hands protectively over my stomach, as I try to calm my nerves. In fact, he’s back surprisingly quickly.

  “Where’s my father?”

  He grins. “Tied up.”

  “He shot Ma,” Drew tells him.

  Tse’s face turns grim and he pales as he drops to his knees in front of me. “Why the fuck didn’t you say? What happened?” His hands reach out, then hover. “Where? Where are you fuckin’ hurt?”

  I point to the vest I’ve just removed. “Blade’s good idea saved me.” Gingerly I pull up my tee shirt, and Tse’s eyes widen, then he grimaces as he stares at the developing bruise.

  “Fuck, woman. That must have hurt.”

  “Understatement,” I tell him. Now the tension has gone, it’s pain that’s making me feel faint.

  “She threw a knife. Got him in the back. He dropped the gun…”

  Tse stands and ruffles Drew’s hair. “Slow down. You can give me the details later. Run to my room, I’ve got some Tramadol in the drawer. Think your sister could do with a painkiller.”

  When Drew leaves, Tse again kneels in front of me and takes hold of my shaking hands. “It’s over now, or will be. He’s not leaving here alive.”

  “Make him disappear, Tse. If anyone knew he was dead, they might still deport me. If he drops out of sight, they’ll still think he’s out there.”

  “That’s why you brought him back?” His eyes go wide, as if realising. “Fuck, Mariana, that was good thinking.”

  “I trust you and your brothers, Tse.”

  “You’re one brave and clever fuckin’ woman, Mariana. We know exactly what to do with scum like him.”

  “Make him hurt.”

  “What the fuck’s going on, Mouse?” Wraith runs through the door of the clubroom. “You said it was an emergency? Thank fuck we were already well on our way back. Twisted throttles all the way from Casa Grande.”

  “Mouse?
” Peg’s appeared behind Wraith.

  Tse stands. “We’ve got El Procurador hanging in the storage room. Blade’s keeping him occupied. He tried to take Drew, Mariana here showed off her knife throwing skills and disarmed him. Oh, after she was shot.”

  “Shot?” Slick’s now in the entrance too. “Doc on his way?”

  Tse brushes his hands and grins at me, as if he’s only now realising it’s a long story. “Blade made her wear a bullet-proof vest.”

  Then the rest of them are there, and I tune out the remainder of his explanation. I don’t need to hear it. I lived it.

  Chapter 43

  Mouse

  “Comfy there, VP?” I joke, spying Wraith sitting in Drummer’s space at the head of the table. I’ve left Drew with Mariana as Wraith decided to call everyone in here rather than continue the discussions in the clubroom.

  Wraith grins, leans his chair back, and presses the sole of his shoe to the table. He tries to mimic Drummer’s death stare, but fails. To give him his due, he doesn’t fall that short.

  Blade’s the last to arrive, Matt having gone up to relieve him of his head-of-cartel-sitting duties. Taking his seat, he points his inevitable knife toward me. “If you hadn’t married that girl, Mouse, I’d have taken her.”

  “She did fuckin’ good,” Peg observes.

  “Thought fast, too. Only option she had was to bring him back here.”

  Brave, intelligent, quick thinking as well as sexy. My lips curve as I run through her qualities in my head.

  “Any news, Wraith?”

  “Spoke to Prez, updated him. Sam’s got a ways to go yet. He said do what we have to do and bury the body.”

  Succinct and precise. That sounds like Prez.

  “You want to scalp him?” Blade’s looking hopeful. “Or want me to?”

  “I just want him gone.” That’s the truth. Out of our lives for good. So I can get on with mine. Mine, Mariana’s and Drew’s.

  “Peg him out and let the ants eat him?” Shooter enquires eagerly.

  Wraith’s watching me.

  “Dead’s dead, isn’t it?” I jerk my chin toward the VP. “Don’t think he deserves us wasting time on him. Got better things to do. Some of us should be at the hospital to support Prez, and I want to look after my ol’ lady.”

  Beef’s tilting his head. “It was a long ride today. Could do with a bit of torture myself.” Rock reaches across the table and they bump their fists together.

  “Ah, come on, Mouse. I haven’t had a chance to play for ages,” Blade whines like a two-year-old.

  “Okay.” Wraith bangs the gavel. “Mariana wants him to disappear. I’ve got a suggestion how we can do that. We won’t even have to get our hands dirty.”

  Minutes later we’re ready to put the VP’s excellent idea into action. I wink at Mariana as we pile out of our meeting room, and head out the back of the clubhouse. She’s resting on the couch, Drew’s got his arm around her. She’s in good hands.

  In the storeroom Matt’s looking bored, flicking through a bike magazine while the formerly fearsome Colombian cartel head is trying to bribe him to let him loose. When we walk in, Mariana’s father turns his attention to us.

  “Who’s in charge?” he snaps. His face contorts with pain, but his voice has regained some strength.

  “That would be me.” Wraith steps up in front of him and folds his arms.

  “I can make you a good deal.” His eyes zoom in on our cuts. “You’re a biker club. Probably in the same trade as me. I can send good drugs your way, make it worth your while. Good women too.”

  “In the same trade? We’re not even in the same ballpark,” Wraith sneers. “We earn our money legit. Don’t need to get our kids hooked on heavy stuff, or trade in women. Nor guns before you offer them. You’re not a man, you’re a snake that needs to be put down.”

  El Procurador isn’t used to being spoken to like that. His eyes flare. “Let me go. I’ll pay you cash.”

  “Thing is,” Wraith hooks his leg around a chair and pulls it to him. “We’re rather fond of your daughter.”

  “That puta,” he snarls.

  “I object to her being called a whore,” Blade tells Wraith casually.

  The VP nods. “You can show him how much in a minute. Yeah, we like her. And her brother too. They’re both under our protection. Way I see it, the best way of protecting them is to remove a vengeful bastard like you from their lives.”

  El Procurador tries to stare the VP down, it doesn’t work. In the end, he sighs. “Alright. I’ll leave her and the boy alone. I’ll go back to Colombia.”

  “Yes,” Wraith says, enigmatically. “You will leave her alone. She has no wish to see your fuckin’ face again.” He nods at Blade. “Get him down.”

  Blade does, and not too gently. El Procurador lands heavily on his knees, overbalancing as his hands are still tied together behind him. The man’s slowly bleeding out, though he doesn’t seem to know it. The back of his shirt is soaked, his pants too.

  He pulls himself to his feet, grimacing as he straightens. “Glad you’ve seen sense.”

  While Blade removes the zip tie Drew had used, I think to myself, Gonna have to have a word with him about why he thought a fifteen-year-old would need them. I watch as he ties a blindfold around the man’s head. Then, quick as a flash, has his hands held together again, this time to his front. He slips a rope between El Procurador’s wrists and knots it.

  Experimentally, he tugs the rope. “Come.”

  “I can’t see where I’m going,” Mariana’s father complains.

  “Don’t want you to see all our secrets now, do we?” the VP explains reasonably.

  Blade tugs the rope again which gets him moving. He fails to warn him about the step out the door. “Oh, my bad,” he says, as El Procurador goes down. He doesn’t lend a hand, just waits for him to get back on his feet.

  Yeah, the blood loss is getting to him as I thought, his movements are slowing. “Better hurry this up,” I say quietly to Wraith.

  “He’s not going to last long, more’s the pity,” Slick agrees.

  Hopefully long enough. Followed by all the club, with the exception of Drummer, and obviously, Paladin, Blade takes him up to the back of the compound, out through the gate, across the now well-maintained firebreak, and into the forest.

  “Where are we going? Can you set me free now?” He trips over a log, stumbles, but doesn’t go down.

  “Not far now,” Blade replies, reassuringly, sending an evil grin at us over his shoulder.

  Not far. And not long. Then he’ll be out of our lives forever.

  In a few minutes, we come across Matt and Truck leaning on shovels looking pleased with themselves. It was perhaps a shit job to give Truck as soon as he came off shift, but the big man was up for it.

  “Done?” Wraith asks.

  “Done,” the prospects confirm.

  “Truck, better get yourself gone.” The firefighter-come-prospect’s neither blind nor stupid, he’ll know what we’re doing. But for some fucked up reason we keep him out of the worst of the shit that we do. Plausible deniability. What he can’t see or hear, he can turn a blind eye to.

  “Better not damage my track,” Road grumbles.

  “Look at it this way, whether there’s a hump or a dip after, it will make it more fun.”

  The trail bike rider’s eyes light up. “True, that.”

  Wraith nods at Blade who whips off the blindfold. El Procurador shows his intelligence. He puts two and two together fast and tries to back away, but Peg’s right there behind him, giving him a hefty shove sending him into the deep grave that’s been dug in the loose peaty earth.

  Beef picks up the can and starts pouring gas over him. I’m content to stand and watch this bit, seeing the fear on his face as he realises what’s going to happen. Relishing the begging that comes out of his mouth. I bet Mariana’s mother begged while he raped her. Mariana would have begged to prevent them from forcing drugs into her mouth. He didn’t li
sten to them. Same way we’re not listening now.

  He’s fucking crying. Rock’s got a flashlight on him, lighting Beef’s task. I can see tears on his face, mingling with the gas that Beef’s now pouring over his hair. Beef shakes the can when it’s empty, cautious not to waste a drop.

  “Mouse?” Wraith waves me forward, then his arm snakes out to halt me. “Sorry,” he mouths, while taking out his phone and reading a text. He swears loudly. “Fuck me. Prez and Sam have got another son. Fuckin’ asshole won’t let me forget it either.”

  Hey, that’s good news. We all start cheering, pumping fists in the air, slapping each other’s backs.

  “This calls for cigars,” shouts Blade. “But I’ll have to make do.” He takes out his cigarettes.

  “Be careful where you drop that match, Blade.”

  I happen to have a joint on me. “Spare a light?” I nod toward the enforcer. Blade grins as he passes the box over.

  The man in the hole starts screaming. I put the flame to the end of my joint, light it, inhale deeply.

  “So,” I say conversationally to Wraith. “Another boy on the compound.”

  “You going to have another try, Wraith?” Shooter suggests.

  “Well, I won’t complain at getting more practice in,” the VP replies. He’s then supplied with some suggestions, including, apparently, doing it upside down. Blade helpfully suggesting he must have been doing it wrong all this time.

  “Take some lessons from Drummer,” Marvel supplies.

  “I could give you some pointers,” Peg’s grinning widely. Yup, he’s got a boy.

  “What about you, Slick?” Dollar asks. “You know what you’re havin’?”

  “Not a fuckin’ clue, Brother, and don’t give a fuck.”

  “Let me out! You’re a bunch of madmen.” The screams I’d tuned out start up once again.

  I raise my eyebrow at Blade. He glances at Wraith and gets a chin lift in return. When he nods at me, I take a match from the box I’m still holding, strike it, then let it drop, making sure to swiftly jump back.

  Now the screams increase in volume. There’s a thrashing sound as El Procurador tries to avoid his inevitable fate.

  “Well,” I say conversationally. “Mariana wanted him to disappear.”