by Wild, Nikki
She leaned in, her lips moving against his.
“I’ll have her on a spit, baby,” she cooed. “She’ll learn what it means to betray Dutch Turner.”
Dutch growled, clasping Sylvia’s hips tighter and spinning her around until she was pinned between him and the table.
“I want pictures,” he muttered, busying himself with removing her dress. “I want to see what you do to her.”
“Of course,” Sylvia cooed, looking over his shoulder, smiling. “Anything you want, baby. Anything you want.”
Bex
The men were so distraught and looked so damn low on the day before they were to meet the Blackhawks; I thought there had to be something I could do for them all. Even Cross was looking especially sallow, and spent a lot of his time muttering instead of speaking aloud. He wasn’t even interested in playing hide the pickle when we woke up that morning; a sure sign that something was wrong.
Well, I only knew one sure-fire way to lift men’s spirits (besides the obvious). Pulling Boon and Eagle to the side, I gave them a list of things to get from the store; they had to go forty minutes out of the way to avoid being seen in Cutter, but they were more than willing to do it when they heard what those ingredients would be used for.
People can talk all they want about Texas and Tennessee; it ought to be a known fact that nowhere does barbeque better than Missouri. We’ve got the sauce running through our veins. When Boon returned, I cleared out the kitchen and started cooking, no recipe needed. The men who’d grumbled about being shooed away from their poker table soon came to linger in the doorway as the smell of melted butter and Worcestershire, red peppers and vinegar, roasted chicken and rubbed-up ribs filled the cabin.
I could hear the spirits lightening in the other rooms, laughter mingling with low masculine voices. It did my soul wonders, too. When Cross came down from upstairs, red-eyed and looking tired, he had a goofy smile on his face. The smell must have wafted up through the floorboards. I only allowed him a few minutes to nuzzle up behind me and watch me work, then swatted him out of the kitchen to join the rest of his brothers as they drank themselves into forgetfulness.
There was more than enough liquor stashed away to go around, but they were sure trying to prove that statement false. It was a wonder they were drinking at all, considering the sort of morning they were facing. But then, that was just the way it was with the Crusaders: you live every night like the morning would never come, and get through every morning dreaming of the night to follow. For the first time in what felt like forever, no one uttered Dutch’s name.
I had my own things to forget. Like the fact that my man was riding into hell the next day. Like the fact that he might not ride out. He’d kept his promise so far, but we both knew there was no guarantee he’d be able to keep it again. We couldn’t talk about it, because it was too big. The fear was too big to comprehend. So I cooked, and the cooking helped. So did the cocktail Cross fixed me up with some of Mack’s liquor stash.
With the meat cooking, I whipped up a potato salad and a big mess of macaroni and cheese with bacon. If some good ol’ Missouri barbeque didn’t do the trick, nothing would. And when I finally lay the spread out on the kitchen table and hollered for the men to come eat their fill, I knew my instinct had proved true.
“Cross, if you don’t make this woman your old lady, you’re twice the fool your old man is,” Fleet crowed, digging into his second helping of ribs.
“Shit, if you don’t make her your old lady, I will,” Grinder threw in after jabbing Fleet in the ribs. Cross threw his arm around my shoulder; he hadn’t eaten too much, but he looked happy.
“Fill your stomachs, not your eyes, boys,” he said, pulling me in to plant a kiss on my forehead. “I’ll lock her up soon enough.”
“Oh, so macho,” I teased, scratching my fingernails over his stubble, which was getting a bit long now that he’d gone some days without shaving. “I’m a free woman. I’ll be your old lady, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna be your princess in the tower. You just try to lock me up, Cross, and see what happens to your family jewels.”
The men hooted at that, stomping their feet.
“That’s why this sauce is so damn spicy, I reckon,” Mack said, rubbing his stomach. “She musta spit in it.”
“Aw, did you burn your tongue, old man?” Boon slurred, sitting on a milk crate with a half-full bottle of whiskey between his legs. And then he was sitting on his ass, as Mack kicked the milk crate out from under him and grabbed the whiskey bottle in one smooth motion. The room erupted in laughter again as Mack took a hearty glug of the golden liquor.
“Fightin’ fire with fire,” he croaked, passing the bottle on to Blade, who kept it going around the circle. The cabin felt warm, even as the sun began to sink and the night’s chill set in. Summer was almost over. No one knew what the next season would bring, but at least for one night, it didn’t matter.
The men had to be up well before dawn to reach the rendezvous point with the Blackhawks, so sleep came early to most. Blade and Cross stayed up, presumably fixed on seeing the night clear through to morning. As much as I wanted to stay at Cross’ side until the last minute, I found myself nodding off in his arms.
I was drunk enough not to dream. And I was drunk enough to sleep through Cross carrying me upstairs and laying me in bed. I was drunk enough to sleep through him leaving.
I remember stirring when the roar of bikes filled the cold, black, starless sky outside, only coming half out of sleep. I was almost back on the deeper side of dozing when I heard something loud enough – and strange enough – to actually wake me up. Even then, my mind could barely process the sound of glass shattering. It was the sound of a lock turning and a door creaking open that got me on my feet and scrambling for my gun.
But it wasn’t in the bedside table, where I’d fully intended on stashing it the night before. It was still in my bag. And my bag was…
A stair creaked.
My bag was downstairs. My bag was on the kitchen table. Another stair creaked.
I was fucked.
Cross
“That building has been in our club for decades,” Porky said, looking down at his boots.
“And?” One of the Blackhawks sneered; not all their men were happy about granting us pardon in return for our assistance.
“I’m just sayin’…”
“You came to us, asking for immunity,” Beacon said. “If you decide your club’s property is more important than your lives, we can end this right here and now.”
“No,” Blade said, giving Porky a squeeze on his shoulder. “We’re in this.”
“So, what’s the best approach?” Lip asked. It was the coldest part of the night, a half hour before sunrise, and we were gathered together just off an old service road that wound through Cutter’s forested outskirts.
“The kitchen,” I said, looking to Blade and getting a nod in return. “It’s got the only window on that side of the house. And the gas stove will go up quick. But we’ll have to get around the long sides…”
“We’ll take care of that,” Grinder said, speaking for the old guard. I turned to him, squinting in the darkness.
“How’s that?” I asked. “You got an invisibility cloak I don’t know about?”
“No,” he spat back. “But we got a good thirty years on you boys, and good lives behind us. If someone’s gonna have to be bait, it might as well be the ones who are close enough to the grave already.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“We already talked about it,” Fleet chimed in. “We’re alright with…”
“Well, maybe we’re not alright with it,” I argued, wondering if Blade would back me up on that. It was too dark to read his expression, and I knew I was more than a little biased. After all, my father was the one offering to martyr himself for the rest of us.
“This argument is between y’all,” Beacon interrupted. “Whatever you decide, it’s gonna be your job to get that house burning. We’ll take c
are of it after that, though your help will be sore appreciated, of course.”
The plan, in a nutshell, was to smoke Dutch and his boys out. They wanted to use the clubhouse as their own personal foxhole. Pick us off from the windows. We had to get them out in the open, where numbers would matter more. Besides that, the fire would make the whole thing a lot easier to cover. We didn’t need cops adding to our woes.
“Grinder,” I turned to him. We’d always had a casual relationship. Not overly familial. He was used to hearing me call him by his handle.
“Call me what I am, son,” he said. “You’re tryin’ to hold onta me, and I do think it sweet. But you listen to your old man. For once. You listen to me. And you mind me.”
“Blade,” I turned to the man who would become our leader, the highest ranking Crusader present. “Tell them that’s a damn foolish offer.”
Blade was silent for a long time, and each second had my heart dropping further and further into my chest.
“It’s a noble one,” he finally said. ‘And we’re gonna take it, Cross.”
I could hear Boon and Eagle release audible sighs of relief. I could have clocked ‘em. I could have clocked my father, for that matter. I didn’t want to see him fall. After so many years of servin’ Dutch, to think that he might die at his hands…
“We ain’t debatin’ anymore,” Lip said, calling an end to the whole thing. Before I could speak another word. “We’re ridin’.”
The sound of the Blackhawks revvin’ up broke through the pre-dawn silence. Birds that had just started tweeting fell silent, or were overpowered by the rage of thirty bikes all starting up at once. Our little band of Crusaders – the last true Crusaders – joined in.
Grinder gave me one last look, his eyes stern but his mouth soft, before he started down the road, the old guard coming up behind him. Blade motioned for me to follow him just behind, and I had no choice then but to do just that. The Blackhawks brought up the rear. We rode tight and hard into the morning, breaking into Cutter city limits just as the sun started rising.
Bex
The closest thing in grabbing distance was the bedside lamp, so that’s what I grabbed. For one awful, long moment, the cord snagged, and I was sure that it would stick and I’d be empty handed. But then it popped free with a spark, and I was on my feet. If whoever was on the stairs made it to the top before me, it’d be game over, and from the creak of the stairs it seemed like they were halfway up.
I ran like the devil through the door, into the hallway, to the top of the stairs, and didn’t look twice before hurling the glass lamp at the figure on the stairs. A bullet just barely missed my arm as it lodged itself in the wall behind me, but the lamp did its job: shattering on the intruders head, it forced her down the stairs with a high-pitched and angry screech. She landed on her ass at the base of the stairs, the gun clattering away from her hand, blood running in a thick rivulet down her face.
I knew that face.
Sylvia.
I didn’t have two seconds to think about how she’d found me or what she was doing there – the second answer was obvious enough, at least. I took the stairs two at a time, sliding down the last two and scratching the shit out of my calf. Sylvia screeched again, clawed at my ankle, but her fingers couldn’t latch and I was sprinting into the kitchen. I glanced over my shoulder once before grabbing my bag; she was going for the gun again.
This stupid fucking bag.
She had the gun in her hand before I could get my own from the black hole at the bottom of the purse, and I half-slid into the only shelter I could see, crouching behind the wooden divider that separated the kitchen from the living room. The cold steel of my Beretta touched my fingers and I pulled it free, unlatching the safety at the same time.
Did she know? She didn’t know. She didn’t know I had the gun, and that would be the only thing that saved me. I could hear her, cursing and stumbling; but she seemed to regain her composure soon enough. I waited, heart threatening to break through my ribs, for her to shoot, for her to walk into the kitchen and shoot me down like a pig raised for bacon…
Things went silent. I couldn’t hear her walking anywhere. I wished I could see her, poke my head around the divider and figure out what she was doing. But that’d be inviting death, and I wasn’t in the mood for taking a bullet between the eyes.
Sylvia had never been a very talkative woman; not, at least, to me. She was always whispering in Dutch’s ear, but I hardly ever heard her say more than two sentences to anyone else, myself included. That day, she talked more than she had in the past two months combined. Apparently, Sylvia had quite a mouth on her; she just saved it for special occasions.
I nearly jumped clear to the ceiling when something big and heavy flew past the divider, landing on the kitchen floor in front of me. The leathers landed patch-up. I could read the rocker saying Prospect. It didn’t mean a god damn thing to me, until she said his name.
“I want you to know exactly what your traitorous ass did,” she hissed. “Probably got half the club killed, for one. And it definitely killed Hunter. If you hadn’t opened your cock-hole to Cross, he wouldn’t have been pressing the kid for answers, and we wouldn’t have had to put a hole in his head and dump his body in the river. Someday, you’re gonna meet his mother in hell, and have to explain why her baby boy is rotting in the water, while she pisses fire into your eyes.”
“You’re a psychotic bitch,” I hissed, daring her to come closer now. Let her find me. I had a bullet with her name on it. And now I had the anger to erase my fear. “I didn’t do shit. You and Dutch have doomed this club…”
“You and that man of yours,” Sylvia clucked. “Small time. You’re small time. You’re a small time cunt, and he’s a small time coward.”
I heard a footstep, then another. My fingers curled around the trigger, the safety already off. My fingers were slick with sweat, and I bit my lip, the pain designed to keep me from shaking and firing too soon. I needed her not to know about my gun. That was the only way I could win this game.
“Me and Dutch? We’re big time. We’re gonna change this city. We’re gonna run it. And the first thing we’re gonna do? We’re gonna get rid of every lying, two-faced, worthless stripper dumb enough to cross us. And their stupid, small time boyfriends.”
The footsteps advanced, and I moved slightly, coming as close to the edge of the divider as I dared.
“You know why I hate you, Bex? You know what it is about you that makes me sick? You know why I told Dutch that I’d come here and blow your brains out myself?”
I didn’t want to know. I didn’t give a shit.
“It’s because you’re weak,” she said, and now her voice was close enough for the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. This was it. Either she’d shoot first, or I would. Either she’d be dead, or I would.
And I wasn’t planning on dying.
“You’re weak. Your man controls you. You should control your man. You give women a bad fuckin’ name. You make me ashamed to have a pussy. Women like you. Strippers, whores, weak little mice…”
“I’m not a fucking stripper,” I cried, all my anger boiling to a point as her words infected my mind. Nothing but rage was going through my mind as I shot to my feet, aiming right at her chest and firing twice. Sylvia’s eyes went wide, but she kept her gun steady enough to shoot; unfortunately for her, she stumbled backward at the same time, and her shot hit the toaster behind me.
“And even if I was,” I said, advancing on her as her knees gave out and blood bloomed across her chest. “At least I wouldn’t be a conniving, gold-digging bitch.”
She gurgled something that could have been a response. Something flashed in her eyes, a last spark of defiance. I watched her hand rise, slowly, the gun shaking. She was on her knees, until falling back onto her heels. I stepped to the side as she shot, the bullet hitting nothing but the ceiling.
It took her a long time to die.
Cross
Blade, Eagle, Boon and I
parked our bikes around the corner; we needed to be able to sneak behind the firefight, around the clubhouse to the kitchen window. Armed with Molotov cocktails, two apiece, we waited behind the small copse of trees that made a ring around the clubhouse parking lot. I could see activity behind the windows on both floors. Dutch and his boys were ready for us. I hadn’t expected any less.
A slow-burning roar of engines rolled down the street towards us; I turned to watch the procession. Eleven old men, on eleven old bikes, riding into a warzone. Brave as any young blood. Braver, because they surely knew the chances of coming out alive. Arthritic or not, they were saving all our asses.
My father was in the lead. As the noise reached the men in the clubhouse, I watched windows creak open, shapes behind the curtains, gun barrels raised and readied. My stomach was a cold pit. As Grinder rode into view, I swear he looked right at me, and gave me a two-finger salute. My father, who’d once been Sergeant, performing his duty one more time.
And man oh man, did he perform that duty well.
The gunfire started as soon as he and the rest of the old guard peeled into the parking lot, both sides firing, bullets slamming into the clubhouse’s dirty shingles, piercing tires, slamming through leathers. But my father? He didn’t pull his gun. He didn’t even stop his hog. He angled his Harley straight for the clubhouse’s front door, revved the engine, and barreled forward.
The front door gave in a terrible crash of splinters, the gunfire slowing for a split second, my father disappeared into the heart of the battle. I watched at least one of the men at the windows crumple to the side, violently, his gun blasting once before flying out of sight.
“Now,” Blade grunted, our path carved by my father’s distraction and the men who still fired on the clubhouse, now shielding themselves behind their bikes or pressing themselves against the house where they were hidden from view. We ran; first staying behind the trees, then cutting through the open lot. The morning was cold and bright and felt wrong, filled as it was with the sound of screaming and gunfire. And it smelled like gun smoke; choking, acrid gun smoke.
