by Rachel Cade
“Being in his life is more than picking him up once.” She reached her hands to get her son out of his grip, but Will turned to hold the baby away. “I know that.”
“Don’t play games, Will, not with Max. Put him down.”
“I’m not playing games, Lyndie. Is my name on his birth certificate?”
“What?”
“Is he Max Durand?”
Will simply eyed her as she felt rocked. But somehow managed not to show it.
Will was planning to make Max a possession. Not because he loved him and wanted to care for him, but to use him. He was going to take it further than just a mention at a town hall. He wanted to use her son like he used his badge to manipulate the town.
She reached for her baby again and took him from Will.
“I was at the hospital by myself,” she answered. “He’s Max Hargood.”
Words couldn’t describe how scared she was at the thought of Will raising him.
Will took a deep breath. “Okay… okay.” He moved to grab his coffee. “I have enough on my plate today. We’ll talk about all this another time.”
After she was alone again in the diner with Max, she completely understood she wasn’t going to be able to stand on the sidelines about any of this anymore.
*
“Chaos should be here,” Bleed said as they drove down the Las Vegas strip in a dark van. The sun was going down and the streets and sidewalks were filling. Noa was thinking of the last time he was here. It almost brought a smile to his face until Bleed’s words clicked.
“Whisper’s numbers could be off.”
“Are we supposed to start a war with them here tonight?”
Bleed was usually hard to read, but tonight, his annoyance was visible. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But you know it’s a possibility.”
Noa rested his arm against the van window. “We’ll make it work.”
“Tin planned it that way for a reason.”
“I’m sure he did.” Noa felt mildly irritated, but it didn’t show on his face.
“When a plan gets made and folks start going their own way, that’s when shit gets fucked.” Bleed kept his voice low and his eyes on the road.
Bleed was a veteran, an ex-marine, so he was used to getting and executing orders, the same way Noa was used to giving them.
“You’re right. I got a question for you, though.”
Bleed’s eyes narrowed.
“Do you trust me?”
The big guy’s head cocked to the side a little.
“Do you?” Noa repeated after the quiet went on. Bleed’s tendency for strong silence wasn’t needed in this instance.
“Yeah,” he answered, glancing at him.
Noa’s mouth ticked up. “That’s all I need to know.”
Chapter Four:
Skorpio Unleashed
Part Two
“There he is.” Noa pointed at Whisper on his bike as he weaved through some cars a few feet in front of them on the opposite side of the road.
Along with everything else, he still had Lyndie on his mind.
In truth, he always had her on his mind, and Max usually wasn’t too far behind.
He really needed to talk to her once he got back.
He thought he could wait until everything was over, but he should have known by now that shit never wrapped up in a neat bow and in a timely manner.
They met Whisper in an underground garage.
“We’ll go up the back to keep it discreet,” Whisper said, glancing at them.
“Over us?” Noa asked quickly, tugging on the braid at the back of his head. “Like you easily pass for a civilian?”
“Easy, girls,” Bleed cut in before Whisper could reply. “We have a job to do.”
They followed Whisper’s lead into a brightly lit staircase, a chain hotel’s emergency exit.
On the sixth floor, Whisper peeped out into the hall after opening the heavy door and signaled to them it was clear.
Room 611.
That was the door where they stopped.
A TV could be heard in the background.
Noa relaxed his shoulders before Whisper glanced at him; he was ready for this.
It had been a while.
Bleed held a hand on the gun at the back of his waist as Whisper knocked twice. Then he covered the peephole with a gloved finger.
“Who the fuck is it?” a deep voice asked.
“Room service.” Whisper’s American accent was pretty good.
A moment later, the door was snatched open.
Whisper offered a wave.
“Fucking Death Skulls?” Noa immediately recognized Eduardo Carillo. And when he saw him, he knew this was no minor deal.
“And we fucking knocked,” Whisper answered. “May we come in or would you like to cause a scene?”
Noa and Bleed were aware of the second man at the cracked bathroom door with a gun aimed in their direction.
Eduardo’s teeth flashed before he held a hand up to the man, who lowered his gun.
Then the three of them came inside the room, closing the door behind themselves.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Eduardo demanded.
“Who else is here besides bathroom boy?” Noa asked.
Eduardo graced him with some hard eye contact. He was a stocky man with thick hands and a thick neck. He kept his hair cut low. His eyes were sharp, dark and cold. Noa heard he had about nine kids.
Eduardo snapped a finger and the man came from the bathroom. Man was a loose term; he could have been a fucking bear. The dude gave Bleed’s 6’5” a run for his money.
“Just two of you?” Whisper asked.
“I asked what the fuck you’re doing here.”
“Funny,” Noa answered before Whisper. “We were gonna ask you the same fuckin’ thing.”
Eduardo blinked. “Skorpio, right?” His smile wasn’t friendly. “I remember those eyes. Shame if they got plucked out.”
Noa made sure to roll them.
“This isn’t Florida or Tijuana, which you barely have a foothold in. What the fuck are you guys doing in Nevada?”
“New claims get staked every day.”
Eduardo laughed. “So now you guys run Vegas? How many members are you holding again?”
The big guy behind him snickered.
“New claims.” Eduardo stared at all of them. “You guys are full of shit.”
“You’ve got some Los Bandidos heading to a spot called Amber Falls to pick up a buy from a low rank mob reject from back east. We don’t give a fuck about what you do, but find somewhere else.” Noa kept his gaze steady on Eduardo.
The man immediately glanced back at the other guy.
“Some decent intel there.” Eduardo tipped his invisible hat to Whisper. “You’re a bunch of car thieves and hijackers. And you’re pressing your luck with that shit. Don’t think we forgot. But you coming here jumping in our business – big mistake.”
“What do you want to do, start a war about it?” Noa asked. “All you have to do is find somewhere else to do your shit. Amber Falls is our town.”
“Why are we supposed to give shit? Hm?” Eduardo asked. “Aztecs ain’t never gave a fuck about the Death Skulls.”
“That’s the problem with you guys. You don’t pay attention and you rest on your numbers. Don’t ever count us out. We’re hard to kill and we move like smoke, so keep not giving a fuck if you want.”
“You really think this is a game you can win?” Eduardo raised an eyebrow. “A bunch of Nomads in the desert? And you, Whisper? You could have been an Aztec.”
“Instead of worrying about who isn’t in your crew, you should worry about who is,” Noa cut in. “Loose lips gave us that intel. Quality over quantity might be a new motto to take up.”
“I’m getting real sick of your raggedy Samoan mouth.”
“You’re not the first.”
“Seems like we’re at a standstill then,” Bleed said.
Noa s
miled a little bit. “No standstill. That’s not beneficial.”
“No. It’s not. But you guys want to come in here and make demands over a territory that barely exists. So what’s so special about Amber Falls?”
Noa folded his arms. “The only thing you need to know is that it’s ours.”
Eduardo folded his thick arms. “Proud warriors. You know timing is everything, right?”
*
Dusk had hit. Of course an old couple had come in and kept Lyndie from closing at sundown as she was told to do. Damn, she was glad she had two days off after today. Her body was screaming for a warm bath. Max had seemed pretty entertained with his music while she rushed to clean up.
“We’ll be home in a minute, okay, munch?” She quickly wiped off the counter. “You were a good worker today, so we’ll split the tips.”
He made a noise and she had to chuckle. Grabbing her purse, she shut off the neon OPEN sign and juggled Max’s car seat and her keys to get out of the diner.
The last of the light was gone and night air chilled her sweaty skin.
She took in a deep breath in front of the diner, welcoming a smell that wasn’t grease or coffee.
The sound of car wheels moving over asphalt lifted her head up from Max.
“Cariño.” A man she’d never seen in her life smiled at her from a lowered car window.
He had a bald head and a tattoo on his chin.
As her heartbeat quickened, his smile grew wider.
By the time she took her next breath, she knew it was the rival MC Noa had told her about.
“Is this place open?” he asked with a heavy accent.
Lyndie’s hand tightened around Max’s carrier.
“No. No it’s closed.” Her mouth was completely dry as she kept eye contact with him.
While speaking to him as subtly as she could, she felt for her car key on the ring. Her heart was beating a mile a minute.
The driver of the car leaned forward and smiled, if possible he looked even more dangerous than the passenger.
Lyndie knew the only thing she could do was run with her baby.
“You guys are from out of town. Police patrol a lot, so you should be careful.” Her heels dug in the ground.
He chuckled. “We love cops.”
“You should show us around.” As the other guy opened his door, Lyndie took off.
She barely heard the second car approach she trucked it towards her car.
Over her shoulder, she saw a dark blue van.
It blocked her view of the car as it came to a screeching halt.
“Mrs. C!” She recognized the voice. “Come on, get in!”
It was Chaos from Jonas’s.
Lyndie moved so fast she barely remembered her feet hitting the ground as she saw the van door open her.
She hopped into the passenger seat with Max in her lap as Chaos took off.
“You okay?” She could see him glance into the rearview mirror. “I was late… I’m sorry.”
She had no idea what he was talking about.
“No,” she answered breathlessly, holding her arm tightly over the car seat. “You were right on time.”
*
Noa didn’t like the feeling he got at Eduardo’s smug words.
“You move like smoke, huh?” He added. “Just like how your chapter went up.” He grinned. “We talk about that shit from time to time. Get a little laugh.”
The tiniest sound came next, short and quick.
Then Noa was holding a gun a few inches from the bridge of Eduardo’s nose.
The next sound was his henchmen pulling out his weapon.
Whisper and Bleed had their weapons out and now they were at a standstill.
“Hey, friends. You missed one.”
A third man was on the open terrace. The wind of the night air moved the open curtain, revealing a figure; Juarez, and he was holding a nice military grade AK-47 in their direction.
“Fucking broke ass Death Skulls trying to fuck with us?” he asked. His appearance mimicked his voice, hushed and slithery.
Noa knew he had no business pulling out his weapon, but he felt himself fall over the edge at the mention of his brothers. Pain and anger welled up in him all at once and now it all rested in his trigger finger.
“The southwest is Aztec territory. Our guys are already in Amber Falls because we do what the fuck we want. You should have stayed in your little swamp, hijackers.”
Fuck.
Noa heard the word tear through his brain.
“You can head back now.” Eduardo winked. “I won’t hold this one against you. At least you better hope I don’t.”
They wouldn’t want a disturbance in the room. If the cops showed up, likely more than half of them would be dead and anyone who couldn’t get away would have to explain. They weren’t past the point of no return, but Noa wanted it.
I would tell you to stay out of trouble, but…
Lyndie’s voice rang out in his ear, soft and melodic. He remembered her smile, the shy way her eyes dipped when he would stare at her. If this went left, as much as Eduardo deserved a bullet between the eyes, he would never be able to see her again.
“You sent Los Bandidos to Amber Falls to wreak havoc,” Noa spoke through gritted teeth. “You’re gonna regret it.”
“You got five seconds to back out of here.” Eduardo wasn’t phased. “Whisper, gather your people.”
*
“I’m going to ride ahead.”
That was all Whisper said in the garage, distancing himself as they emerged from the stairwell.
Noa’s trigger finger still itched as he rushed in front of Bleed to get back to the van.
As Bleed squealed the vehicle out of its parking space, Noa called Tin.
A situation they tried to diffuse had just blown up in their faces.
“Yeah.” Tin’s voice was hard on the other end of the line.
“We were too late.” Noa’s teeth grit between the words. “Los Bandidos are already in Amber Falls.”
“You’re fuckin’ shittin’ me.”
Noa barely saw the traffic as Bleed skillfully weaved through it.
“We’re on our way back.” He could hear Tin giving orders over the phone. “Whisper should get there first.”
“None of you got shot, I hope.”
“No,” Noa answered quickly. “They did what Aztecs do: stayed cocky, disrespectful-” He briefly shut his mouth over the rest of the words. “I wouldn’t send any guys out on the street. If Los Bandidos see any Death Skulls, it’s going to be open season to them.”
Instead of answering, Tin hung up.
Noa felt his tension grow and he immediately dialed Chaos. The phone rang over and over. Then he tried to call Lyndie, just to hear her voice for a moment to know she was okay, but her phone went to voicemail. She might have still been at work.
“Fuck!” he said.
In that moment, it seemed like everything was unraveling.
“Looks like you were right,” Noa said as he gripped his phone. “It looks like we’re going to have to let the deal go down and hope it stays quiet.”
“Yeah. We could hope for that. But is that what Tin’s gonna do?”
*
The black car was following them. Lyndie knew she shouldn’t look in the rearview mirror, but her eyes kept finding it.
“Who are these guys?” Her head snapped to Chaos.
“Los Bandidos.” He glanced at her. “You ever seen Mad Max?”
“No,” she answered, perplexed.
“You should. It’s a good movie.”
Max’s car seat was in her lap as she held tightly on to it. He blew a spit bubble and smiled, completely oblivious to what was going on.
“They’re an MC, mostly out of L.A. Pieces of Grade-A shit.”
“They didn’t look too friendly.”
Chaos sucked his teeth, speeding them through a red light as he headed toward the other side of town. The car also came through the light
and followed them until they were close to the gas station. Something happened, though, and the car stopped on the side of the road.
Chaos kept his speed, getting them up to the motorized gate which opened so they could drive onto the warehouse property.
Men were moving in all directions. Some of them were carrying guns.
“What are you doing here?” The older man she remembered named Tin was at Chaos’s door. The first thing he did was spot her and Max in the passenger seat. “Oh, hell.”
“Hi.” Max was reaching up in the air toward her and Lyndie rubbed his stomach.
“Los Bandidos are here. Two guys in a Corvette. They stopped up the road though and turned back into town.”
Tin’s rough expression matched his tone. “Get them in the trailer and get to the clubhouse.”
He quickly backed away from the car.
Chaos didn’t look directly at Lyndie, but she knew she wasn’t supposed to be here.
Max held tightly to her finger.
*
After a while, the beep usually faded into the background.
The heart monitor continued its steady noise, sharing that Langley was still alive.
Ashley sat by his bed looking uncharacteristically disheveled while Will sat beside her.
Hospitals had a terrible smell. The cold septic nature of them always gave him an unease when he had to be in them too long.
“You should let me take you home so you can shower and get some rest. They gave him sedatives. He’s going to be out well after his surgery.”
Ashley wiped her eyes. “How did this happen. A fire?” The disbelief was sharp in her voice.
“It’s all still under investigation.”
“I just – I need him to pull through and I need to know what happened.”
Will folded his arms. “I’ll get down to the bottom of it.”
“You better.” She turned to him in the chair. “You make sure the tests get rushed so I know exactly how this fire got started.”
The accusation was clear in her voice.
Will sat there for a moment. “You better?” he responded. “Is that what you just said to me?”
“Yeah,” she answered quickly. “It is.”
