Reverence: MC Romance (The Davis Chapter Book 3)

by Lynn, Davida

  I turned back toward the sound. He was coming, a shit-eating grin on his face. My father kept his gaze on Harris, not daring to look at me. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

  There was panic in Harris’s eyes. The gun was still trained on me, but when my father spoke, he swung it over and pointed it at Captain. My father didn’t even react. He kept walking toward the man with the gun. “Oh, come on, now. Things don’t need to get violent, do they?” My father let out a laugh. I had to admire his dedication.

  “I’m so fucking lost right now. What the hell are you doing here, Captain?”

  I kept my hands up even though Harris had the gun on my father. Be cool, I thought. Just be cool, Harris. If he was trigger-happy, my father could get a bullet on accident, and I would get one on purpose.

  The smile in my father’s face somehow got wider. “Came to see you, buddy. I was actually supposed to come with my beautiful daughter here, but she was in a bit of a hurry, I guess.”

  Harris’s eyes jumped back and forth between me and my father. Could see his brain trying to put all the pieces together; trying to figure out who was who. I kept my hands held high, not wanting to pose a threat to him. My father, on the other hand, lowered his and try to take another step toward Harris.

  The confused kid aimed the gun higher, and my father stopped in his tracks. “Easy, easy now. Let’s just put the gun down and talk through this. Just a miscommunication, nothing more.”

  “You said we would be meeting alone. You said it would just be Julie and me. I… I don’t know what to think.”

  “I think you should put the gun down, that would be a great start.” My father kept his voice calm, but I can see that quiet anger in his eyes. I can also see that his right hand was dipping a little too low. My father was armed, and he was reaching for his piece.

  Harris lowered the gun, and some of the tension in the air disappeared. “Sorry, Captain. I just got startled. That’s all.”

  My father’s right hand came back up as he crossed his arms over his chest. Harris didn’t know how close he came.

  The kid slid his gun into his jeans. “Your daughter and I were just finalizing things.”

  My father turned to me, a comically happy look on his face. “Oh yeah?” Harris probably couldn’t hear it, but the sarcasm was thick. “While that is just good news, I tell ya. Good news all around.”

  Harris looked to me, but I had no idea what to say. For a few seconds, there was a desperately awkward silence. I finally dragged some words to the surface. “So you and I are good, right, Harris?”

  All three of us knew we couldn’t trust any of the other people standing around us, but Harris and I didn’t have a choice. The kid nodded at me, and I had to take that as his word.

  With tensions sinking, I looked back and forth between the two men. “Well, Captain, are we good here?”

  My father’s eyes were still locked on Harris. I knew my old man. He was still hoping for Harris to draw his gun. In this case, my father’s one track mindedness helped me. If he was too busy thinking about swinging his big dick around, Captain might not realize he had been double-crossed.

  My father’s voice was gruff. He didn’t sound happy at all as he said, “Yeah. I guess were good.”

  He didn’t move as Harris backed around the front of his pickup truck. Nobody took their eyes off each other as Harris pulled the driver side door open. After that, everything happen in such a blur that I barely had time to react.

  Harris— the stupid kid— reached for his gun. Something triggered inside him, and he thought to get away with a little bit of firepower. My eyes widened as I saw him reach for it, because I knew my father was fast. Before Harris even have the gun raised, my father was squeezing off rounds.

  As the sound of gunfire filled the night, my body and instincts took over. I ran for it. The run for Faith’s BMW felt like a marathon. Bullets penetrated metal and shattered glass behind me, but I didn’t dare turn around.

  There was no hiding the sweat by the time got to the car. Fumbling with the key, I tried not to think about was happening behind me. Once inside, I let the BMW do its thing. I had to get to the Rising Sons’ club, and fast. There was no stopping the war that was coming.

  At some point, the BMW got back on the main road. I headed east and back into town. My phone vibrated, and I was certain it would be my father. I just knew that Harris was bleeding somewhere, trying to remember the Lord’s Prayer. I dug out my phone and was surprised to see that he wasn’t dead.

  Your promises better be a hell of a lot better than his. Let your boys know I’m in.

  He may have been a creep and a horn-dog, but that kid could handle himself in a fight if he was still standing against my dad. I wondered if my father had been as lucky. Knowing Harris was alive, I guess that they both ran out of ammunition and went their separate ways. I replied to Harris, letting him know where the club was. He may have survived the battle, but he had just joined the list of people my father wouldn’t let live.

  The adrenaline kept my foot on the accelerator. Trask didn’t answer his phone. What was the point of giving me an emergency contact if the contact didn’t pick up?

  I resisted calling Romero until I couldn’t put it off anymore. Pride had no place when lives were on the line. The Sons needed to know that things had gone badly, and Romero was my only shot.

  “Dammit!” When I heard Romero’s happy-go-lucky voicemail message, I almost lost my phone out the window. I was still ten minutes from the bar, so I pushed the BMW even harder.

  With nothing left to do but drive and think, I cranked up the radio. Even after the deep sleep, exhaustion was creeping in from all corners. When I got tired, I tended to second-guess myself and overanalyze every single word. The only thing I had to overanalyze was the fight with Romero. Every time I started to think of it, a lump grew at my throat. It wasn’t the time or place for emotions; not when lives were on the line.

  I locked up the brakes in the gravel lot. Part of me hoped it didn’t damage the car, but the other part of me didn’t care. Faith would understand. The club was more important than anything.

  It must’ve been on account of the weekend, because the place was absolutely packed, and I had to shove my way through people just to get inside. No one stopped to ask for my I.D. I figured that no one would. A club that was in with illegal dealings wasn’t too worried about someone showing up with a fake. There wasn’t even anyone watching the door.

  The place pounded with music. Twangy country guitars and a singer lamenting something or other. I tried to push it out of my head and find Trask or Romero, but I would have much preferred to deal with Trask. My feelings toward Romero were confusing at best, but I knew there were bigger problems.

  I heard a deep laugh, and turning toward the bar, I spotted the man I was looking for. Trask had his head thrown back and his arm around a hulking man. Both had the Rising Sons cut that I was getting so used to seeing.

  Shoving through a few more bikers, one with more than his share of beer dripping down his beard, I reached the man I needed to see. “What, do we not answer the fucking phone around here anymore?” I had to shout it over the blasting music. Grabbing Trask’s arm, I pulled him through the crowd. “We need to talk now.”

  He looked pissed, but let me tug him through the people. Once we were outside, I started to speak, but a few blondes, dressed in almost nothing, leaned over, so I pulled Trask near his mom’s car. His eyebrows furrowed when he saw it.

  “Is that Faith’s—“

  I didn’t have time for that shit, “Yeah, it is. I borrowed it to get back up here. That’s not important. The deal went south in a bad way. There was gunfire. Harris got out, and he’s coming here.”

  “Why in the fuck would he do that?”

  My pulse was still rocket-fast. “Because I told him to. My father shot at him, probably tagged him, I don’t know. Either way, he has arranged to get the Rising Sons the weapons that he had promised my father.”

&
nbsp; Trask’s angry look turned into something I’d never thought I’d see: fear. His eyes went wide and he leaned against a wall. “Shit. The battle royale is back on. They are going to bring the hammer down hard.” He looked back toward the front. “Gimme a sec.”

  Before I could say a word, Trask left me standing there. I looked down the road, not sure if I should be expecting Harris to ride up or if it was a lost cause. My father was one hell of a shot, but Harris could’ve gotten away.

  When Trask returned, he had someone in tow. He stood to one side, and an older man in a Rising Sons cut stopped cold and looked me up and down. I eyed their cuts, realizing that they both had PRESIDENT beneath their name. The older man was Bear; Trask’s father.

  A smile grew on my face when he spoke. His voice was like gravel as he said, “You got my wife’s car. Best fill it up before you bring it back, else you’ll hear about it, darlin’.”

  I extended a hand. “I’m Julie. Glad to meet you, Bear. I’ve heard all kinds of stories.”

  “Half of them lies, the other half not enough truth. Anyway, get to the nitty-gritty. Captain digging himself a grave?”

  “Pop, she’s Julie Capriani. Cap’s her dad.”

  Additional wrinkles appeared on Bear’s forehead as his eyes went wide. “’Scuse me, darlin’. Shouldn’t be talkin’ bad about him. He’s not a bad man.”

  “Yes, he is.” It came out of nowhere, but it was definitely the truth. Bear’s eyes somehow went wider.

  I caught them up on the meeting with Harris. Both men listened and didn’t interrupt. It was Harris that ended up interrupting.

  His truck came to a lazy stop not too far from where I had parked Faith’s car. The windshield was spidered out from a few bullet holes. He leaned forward on the steering wheel, looking whiter than a Q-tip in a snowstorm.

  Trask and I ran toward the truck before it even crawled to a stop. He threw the door open, and I caught Harris. The boy was alive, but it wasn’t by much. He winced as I lowered him to the gravel.

  Trask pulled out his phone. After a few seconds at his ear, he spoke, “Hope, we need you. GSW. Looks like it’s in the shoulder, but I can’t quite tell, yet.”

  As Trask spoke, I tore Harris’s Spoon shirt open and saw the entry wound. Leaning him forward and ignoring his cries of pain, I checked the back. “No exit wound. I think his lung is punctured.”

  He repeated my assessment. I was about to lay Harris down, but Bear appeared with a few other bikers in tow. They gathered around the kid.

  “Careful of the shoulder,” I said as they lifted Harris.

  Running in front of them, I saw that people were pouring out of the bar. “Clear a path! Get the fuck out of the way!”

  Most people didn’t react, but when they saw the bikers carrying a wounded man, they scattered. I held the door to the bar open as they brought him in. The Rising Sons laid Harris down on the closest table. A few beer bottles were knocked away, shattering across the floor.

  I scanned the bar, recognizing the woman that had given me a hard pep-talk a day earlier. “Towels, rags, whatever’s clean.”

  She nodded and ducked behind the bar. The small amount of First Aid I had done took over. After checking Harris for any more injuries, I looked around at the men. The place had changed in an instant. The music had been cut off, and the bar was nearly deserted.

  My eyes met Trask’s. “Who’d you call?”

  “My girl. She’s a doc in training.”

  I nodded. “She bringing something better than a sweaty bar rag?”

  He beamed. “She knows what’s up.”

  “This ain’t my first rodeo, either. He’s lost alot of blood.” As I spoke, Donna appeared with a few clean towels in her hand. I snatched them up and pressed them hard against the wound. Harris let out a groan and tried to struggle. Three bikers were instantly holding him down.

  Grabbing Bear’s hands, I pressed them against the towels, a red spot already growing on them. “Press hard. Don’t let up until the doc gets here.” He only nodded. I could tell it wasn’t his first time dealing with wounded, either.

  Trask had his back turned and I only caught the end of the conversation. “…you gotta take her. It’s not safe in Davis.” He turned around after ending the call. “Whatever went down between you and Romero, he’s talking crazy.”

  I’m sure he is, I thought. “What do you mean?”

  “Says he’s resigning. Apparently you two are taking a trip. As if I don’t have enough shit to deal with.” Trask shook his head and headed out the door of the Watering Hole.

  I was left to stand there wondering what was going on. Things had taken one hell of a turn in the past twenty-four hours. First Romero had made it sound like he wouldn’t leave Davis. That had been a crack in my armor. He had stood beside me even as we lived our relationship in secret. Perhaps I hadn’t given him enough time to explain himself.

  “Listen up!” Bear’s voice boomed and grabbed the room, and it was like the gravel-voiced older man had gone. In his place was a young, strong, commanding figure. He could control in a split second when he needed to.

  Trask came back through the door, followed by a woman with a medical bag over her shoulder. Her eyes were on me instantly. “How long has he been unconscious?”

  I hadn’t paid much attention to Harris, but he was out. “Not long. Two minutes at the most.”

  She kissed Bear on the cheek and pulled his hands away. Nodding to him, she said, “Ok, keep the pressure on the wound while I get my stuff ready.”

  “Glad to see you again, too, Hope.” Bear pressed down on Harris again.

  Hope pulled tools from her bag. She looked to me, “Sounds like you can handle yourself. If he pulls through, he’ll owe you his life. Alright,” Hope pulled out an IV and a flat plastic bag. “Which one of you hogheads is O negative?”

  The giant man that Trask had been laughing with earlier that night stepped forward, “Me.”

  Hope hooked a chair with her foot and dragged it over. “Deacon, how would you like to earn a cookie?”

  I watched the big man step through the crowd, and I couldn’t help but notice his cheeks had gone a little red. “I might…um…pass out, but drain me dry if you have to.”

  She nodded and got to work.

  Even with his hands still on Harris’s wound, Bear looked around. “It won’t be long before they hit us here. We’re twenty-some strong. My Bakersfield boys didn’t ride up here for nothing, so if they want a fight, let’s give ‘em one they’ll remember. Load up, and let’s see what we can do about fortifying this place a little, huh?”

  Men scattered in all directions, and weapons were laid on tables. From the back of the bar, Trask’s voice, so much like his fathers, rang out, “If you aren’t a Son, you’ve got no business here. Donna, get the girls out of here fast.” He locked onto me. “That means you, too.”

  What the fuck? “I have spent the last few days doing everything I could for the Sons, and you’re throwing me out?”

  Trask nodded. “That’s the long and short of it. If you think a slug in the shoulder is bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s going to get bad.” He stepped toward me, his voice lower, “And I hate to say it, but many of these guys don’t trust you. I’m not one of them, mind you, but you ain’t exactly Helen of Troy. We had a tense but peaceful relationship with the Devil’s Branch before you and Romero. Now I get the idea that soon enough, there’ll only be one group of biker enthusiasts in town.”