Blaze: Devil's Nightmare MC: Book 11

by Lena Bourne

  “My son says you want to talk,” he grumbles. “I’ll hear you out, but I’m making no promises.”

  Most of the people living here are once again gathered around us. Most of them are just noises in the darkness to me, but the nervous, angry tension they emanate is unmistakable. It’s been that way all evening. I’m not actually related to all of them, except through them stupidly marrying in, but they’re all part of my family. I hope my father agrees to Cross’s plan. I hope that’ll free them all.

  “How about we talk inside somewhere?” Cross says, eyeing the crowd.

  My father nods curtly, turns, and walks into our house. My uncle Bill and both Brady and John follow him, along with ten more men. I take up the rear behind Ice, who is getting almost as many looks as Cross. Even out here, everyone’s heard his story by now and I know a lot of the guys would like nothing more than to fight him. To beat the reigning champion. I hope it doesn’t come to that, mostly because they’d lose.

  My father leads us into the kitchen and sits down at the table which is now cleared of all the food, though the room still vaguely smells of potatoes and meat.

  He motions for Cross to join him at the table and he does, sitting in my old chair by his left, while Hawk sits across from him.

  Tank and Ice take their positions behind them and even though they don’t look it, I know they’ve got the whole room in their sights. Members of my family who joined us stand around the room too, near the walls and I stand behind my mother’s old chair, across from my father.

  “As I’m sure your son has already told you, we’re moving against Snakeskins MC,” Cross says. “We know they’re your enemies too, so I’d like us to work together. We want to make this as quick as possible.”

  “And I’m sure my son told you that we do not need or want any help fighting our fight,” my father says, eyeing me pointedly before his eyes pass along the rest of our family gathered in the room. “But not everyone around here thinks that’s so anymore.”

  The look in his eyes is mocking, yet full of hate and rage at the same time.

  “What’s your plan?” he asks, looking at Cross again.

  “It’s not complicated,” Cross says. “We’ll set up behind your walls then draw them to attack. You can even take the lion’s share of the credit for beating them. We don’t care. We just want them cleared out.”

  That got my father’s attention. His eyes aren’t so full of hate and frustrated rage anymore. Now he’s thinking about it and I think that’s how Cross planned it. Clearly, he listened to all I told him about my father and his ways.

  “And how do we draw them in?” my father asks.

  “Easy,” Cross says. “We just let them know I’m here to drag your son away to kill him for deserting. And that you’re not having none of that. They won’t be able to resist attacking if they know I’m here.”

  My father flashes a look my way, then fixes his eyes on Cross again. “They all know my son ran out on us and they also know I’m not a forgiving man. In other words, mister president, they won’t buy that story.”

  “They also know that Blaze is your last living son,” Cross counters. “They’ll believe it. Especially after we sell it.”

  “You’re a big shot club of killers, with a reputation for being cold-blooded and ruthless that even children have heard of,” my father says mockingly. “Why not just attack the Snakes in their lair?”

  I know where Pa is going with this and I hope Cross says the right thing. I did mention to him how much my father detests weakness, but I don’t know if Cross understood that even a hint of it sends him into a rage that takes days to come down.

  “We could,” Cross says. “But this way is cleaner. And faster.”

  My father takes a deep breath and I know Cross did not say the right thing as far as he’s concerned.

  But before Pa can say anything, Uncle Bill steps forward and says. “What’s your plan?”

  He’s standing by the side of the table behind Hawk and not looking at my father at all.

  “We have five of theirs,” Cross says. “We’ll send one in with the tale we want them to know. Half my men will be behind the wall here, waiting for them. The rest will be waiting for them to show up and squeeze them from the rear. It’ll be over in a couple of hours. Probably less.”

  “Make no mistake, my entire MC is riding on this job,” Cross adds. “We could butcher them all where they sleep. But we’ve already lost a lot of men and I don’t want to lose more if I can help it. That’s why I’m here talking to you.”

  “The last time they attacked us like that, I was a teenager,” my father says. “They lost bad. They won’t be making the same mistake anytime soon.”

  Cross shrugs. “They got others whispering in their ears, egging them on. And they know you’re weak.”

  That was absolutely the wrong thing to say to my father. None worse.

  My father shoots out of his chair, which falls back with a crack as the backrest breaks away from the seat. “I’ve heard all I’m gonna hear. Get the fuck out of my sight. As for getting my son back…”

  He pulls his 9 mil from behind his belt and points it at me.

  It’s amazing what staring down the barrel of a gun does to a man. All I see is the barrel and his fiery hateful eyes in the blurry distance behind it.

  “No!” screams the sweetest little voice I’ve ever heard. It chimes, it’s the voice of the glowing stars above us and she’s in exactly the wrong place. Standing between me and the gun, glowing like moonlight made flesh.

  The sound of a gun firing annihilates the echoes of her voice. She’s in my arms safe and sound. As frail and delicate as that poor swallow I once saved, her heart fluttering, her breaths shallow and fast. But the aura of life and love around her is so bright and so warm, I want to just float in it forever.

  “What have I done? What have I done?” my father’s voice breaks through the vision. He sounds scared, nothing like himself. “My son? Blaze?”

  I let go of Misti just a little bit, so I can turn back to look at him. His eyes are softer than I’ve ever seen them and he’s breathing hard through an open mouth, his lips shaking.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him.

  I remember the flight of the bullet now, heat and wind against my arm as I moved aside to shelter Misti.

  She’s staring at me too, her blue eyes glowing with starlight and love.

  “You saved me,” I tell her and she nods.

  “But what are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I think you just answered your question,” she says in a wispy, quiet voice. “I came here to save you. I’m your good omen.”

  I smile down at her. “No. I think you’re more my good luck charm.”

  “That too,” she replies. “So you better not leave me behind ever again.”

  She’s absolutely right about that too, and I want nothing more than to pick her up and carry her to my old bedroom in the back, despite all the dirt and dust and shabbiness in there. She doesn’t care about any of that. I should’ve known that from the start.

  But I can’t. Not yet. This meeting isn’t over yet.

  I turn to my father with Misti still in my arms. “So, what’s your answer, old man?”

  He can’t meet my sharp look and turns to Cross instead. “We’ll do it. We’ll help.”

  Cross nods, and his eyes aren’t quite as piercing as they usually are as he looks at me. I think this scene shocked him more than he’s showing.

  It shocked me too. I hoped my father wouldn’t actually try to kill me. But if I’m perfectly honest, deep down, I always knew he was capable of it. Hate and rage had eaten away his heart long before I left. But maybe there’s a tiny bit left. And a part of this is on me. I shouldn’t have left the way I did. And I shouldn’t have come back the way I did either.

  But done is done. At least he got wanting to kill me out of his system. Maybe now we can work together to fix our family’s problem once and for all.

  M
isti

  I walked past being tired, past needing to stop. I just walked. Even when my heart started protesting, my feet just kept going. The stars in the sky lit my way down the long and bumpy gravel road towards Blaze. I have no idea where I got the strength to reach the dark structure at the end of the road, which only coalesced into a wall with several bright lights on behind it once I was halfway there. I didn’t think, didn’t worry, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. My heart guided me.

  I knocked on the gate when I reached it, but no one came. I could hear loud voices arguing on the other side, so I just pushed the gate and it opened, even though it’s eight feet high and not made of light metal. The strength to do that came from my heart as well.

  Many people stood gathered on the other side, awash in the bright lights I could see rising above the wall from a distance. Many more stood in the shadows, noticeable only when they moved.

  I just walked past them all. None tried to stop me, they even cleared a path for me, and the silence as they watched me pass was deafening. Having that many eyes fixed so squarely on me felt like being pierced by thin hot knives, but I just walked on, didn’t meet their eyes.

  My destination was a squat house with a wraparound porch and a wide-open front door.

  I knew I was needed in there. I knew Blaze waited for me there.

  An angry man’s voice echoed in the silence as I reached the front door and I started walking faster. No idea how I managed it.

  But I did.

  The gun is all I saw as I entered the crowded kitchen. The gun pointed at Blaze. I think I called out. He wrapped his arms around me in almost the exact same moment the shot rang out.

  I just stood there, my head pressed against his chest, his strong arms holding me tight, and listened for his heartbeat, forgetting to breathe.

  Only when he spoke to me, only when he called me his lucky charm did the world come back into focus. And even then, all I really knew was that I arrived just in time. A second later and I’d have found him dead. And I don’t want to even think about that.

  The room is buzzing with angry voices arguing, as he leads me out of the bright kitchen.

  “Don’t take too long, Blaze,” a man’s voice follows us. I think it’s the same man who took him from me in that motel room. “We got plans to make.”

  “I’ll see her safe first,” Blaze replies and he sounds so solid, so in control, so alive and in charge I know I don’t have to worry about anything else.

  He leads me down a dark hallway, to a room at the end of it with a horribly creaking door. A cloud of dust envelops me as we enter, and I sneeze three times in quick succession and then can’t breathe right.

  “Sorry about that,” he says and lets me go to stride over to the window and open it wide. He turns on the lamp on the table, before turning back to me.

  The world is awash in amber light now, and dust is sparkling as it falls and settles again.

  “Sorry about bringing you in here too,” he adds sheepishly. He’s breathless, his eyes nervous and kind of sad as he looks over the room.

  It’s not large, with two narrow beds, one against each wall, a long wooden table, and two chests of drawers with clothes poking out of them. Everything is covered in dust and smells old and unused.

  “All I see is a bed,” I say and smile, mostly to make him feel better.

  He’s next to me in a flash, holding me in his arms so strongly he’s practically lifting me off the ground.

  “What were you thinking just coming here?” he asks in a breathless voice. “Do you know how dangerous it is?”

  “Yes, for you,” I counter. “I saw that with my own eyes tonight.”

  He holds me even tighter, his eyes very soft and watery, catching the yellow light and glowing a light shade of amber. “You saved my life, Misti. Thank you.”

  “It was meant to be,” I say.

  He leans down and kisses me, the sweet, soft taste of his lips washing away my tiredness, quenching my thirst, and stilling my fluttering heart. He saved my life with his love too. He’s the source of the strength that allowed me to come here. That made it possible for me to truly live. I have to tell him that.

  But a loud knock on the door shatters the calm loving peace our kiss created.

  “Blaze, come,” a man says in a slightly mocking tone. “You’ll have time for her later. We’ve got shit to do now.”

  Blaze looks at me apologetically. I nod and smile.

  “Go, I guess, if you have to. I’ll be fine here.”

  He promises he’ll be back soon and tells me to get some rest. And that’s exactly what I plan on doing. The tiredness has caught up with me and my whole body feels like it’s filled with cement. My vision is growing black at the edges and my heart can’t seem to settle on a rhythm. But I’ll be fine. I have to be. Because I’m his lucky charm and he’s mine. And we finally have a future to look forward to.

  25

  Blaze

  After a couple of hours of me wanting to desperately get back to Misti, the plans are laid and the talking done. My father kept hovering around me the whole time, saying nothing but looking like he desperately wanted to. He took a shot at me. A killing shot. I only have Misti to thank that he missed. There’s not much to say. I may understand it, but I don’t trust him anymore. Not the way I always did. Though if I’m being completely honest, that ship sailed a long time ago too.

  The night is deep and so quiet I can hear the winds rustling the grass in the vast field surrounding this place from here to eternity. That’s how it always seemed like to me, and that sound, a gentle hiss almost like water running softly, is another beautiful thing about this place.

  My brothers are moving into position behind the wall, crossing the field on foot, and entering via a backdoor that we haven’t opened in my lifetime. The crack between it and the wall was wide enough for me to squeeze through when I was young though, and it was my favorite escape route for a long time. The brothers’ movement through the grass barely disturbs the beautiful hissing melody of the grass. It just adds a layer to it—a layer of death—creating a symphony.

  “Blaze, over here,” Hawk calls me from the shadows behind my house where he’s watching Cross and Tank orchestrate the inflow of men.

  “So the plan is to send one of the five we caught back to the Snakeskins with a story that he escaped and that Cross is here with only a few guys getting you,” Hawk says. “Which one do you think we should send?”

  “Not the sons,” I say. “They’re just as gung-ho about dying for the feud as everyone here is.”

  “That feud of yours is some crazy shit,” Hawk interjects. “I didn’t really believe it was possible in this day and age until now.”

  I shrug. “For the first eight or ten years of my life, I didn’t know anything else was possible. Then I spent the next ten finding a way out of it. And now I’m back, square in the middle of it.”

  He looks at me and I don’t even have to look at him to feel the pity oozing from his eyes. “You’re here to finish it. And it’ll be quick.”

  I chuckle coldly. “To be honest, I don’t know how my father will cope if the feud really does end tomorrow.”

  “It will,” Hawk says. “Though there’ll probably be enough of them left to start it up again eventually.”

  I shake my head, not because I disagree, but because I want this conversation and the weird duality it’s causing in my brain to go. The feud can’t be over. What does that make us? That question, or rather the answer to it, is warring with my long-time wish to end it once and for all, and it’s a grating combination.

  “Slate, the guy I spoke to back in Vegas,” I say. “He’s our best bet. He’s married to the Snakeskins president’s daughter, they have a child together and he was never a hard-headed guy like the rest of them are. He also wasn’t part of the feud from birth. He’ll want to make peace. Him or Buddy. Though with Buddy, I don’t know where his head is at.”

  Cross has joined us
while I was talking and is waiting for me to finish, so I do.

  “Won’t Slate’s marriage make him too loyal to the Snakeskins?” he asks.

  “When I talked to him, I didn’t get the sense that he was particularly loyal to them. He said they despised him, and assumed they wanted him dead,” I say. “He was never one to tell tall tales.”

  “We’ll go with both of them,” Cross says. “And you’re going in with them to help them sell the story.”

  I inhale sharply, can’t help it. Both me and Hawk are staring at him now in disbelief.

  “Seeing how your father reacted today, and listening to the murmurs of all these family members of yours here, I’m thinking the Snakes all know old Slash would kill you on sight after you betrayed him by leaving. Am I wrong?” Cross asks.

  “He didn’t exactly kill me on sight,” I say. “But it came damn close. If it weren’t for my Gran stepping in, he’d have done it, I think. I don’t know if the Snakes know she’s the only person who can talk sense into my father.”

  “The fewer ifs we have to worry about, the better,” Cross says and I nod.

  “First, you’ll release your two old friends and then you’ll ride with them to seek shelter from your father,” Cross continues. “He’ll refuse you, which will drive you to the Snakes seeking their protection and revenge,” Cross continues. “You’ll make sure they know I’ll be here with a few men looking for you. I’ll speak to your father about the change in the plan.”

  I don’t want to appear like a coward in front of Cross so I just nod along. But it’s damn hard to swallow all of a sudden.

  “Colt will be riding with you,” Cross says.

  “No, absolutely not, out of the question,” I say. The last thing I’m gonna do is lead my best and oldest friend into that snake pit. He’s usually the one getting us in trouble, and I’m the one bailing him out, but I think this mess I cooked up now makes up for all those times and more.

  “You’ll need back up and it’s not up for discussion,” Cross says. “I’ll send in more men with you to watch your back.”