‘I have no idea. That’s what we need to find out. And that’s where you come into it.’
Ben sat back, eyeing Coby warily. ‘There’s been no bad blood between this club and the Dark Angels for a long time. Why would my dad suddenly want to bring the Lone Riders down?’
Coby’s expression bordered on cold. ‘Because you became one of us.’
‘Jesus!’ Ben sighed, throwing his head right back.
‘Your father, he’s been recruiting new members from all over the country. Did you know that?’
‘Yeah… the thing is, I haven’t really been paying all that much attention to what my father’s up to these days.’
Coby was choosing to ignore the sarcasm now. ‘From what we can gather he’s brought a fair few of those new recruits right here, to his chapter. More members. More power. And he wants us out of our territory; out of this town. He wants the Dark Angels to take over. He wants a war, Ben. He wants a fucking war. Maybe it wasn’t a planned act, I have no idea. I can only assume it’s something kick-started by you becoming a Lone Rider, and whatever unfinished business it is you and your family have yet to resolve.’
Ben leaned forward, his voice low, his tone measured. ‘I can’t help what my father wants.’
‘But you can help us. You could get closer. You could help us get some kind of an idea as to what Hector’s planning, because, if this is happening, we are in trouble. We could be way out of our depth here.’
‘And you want me to do this, how?’
‘By telling your father becoming one of us was a mistake.’
Once more Ben couldn’t stop a short, almost derisive laugh from escaping. ‘Sorry? Are you fucking serious?’
Coby stayed silent for what felt like two very long, loaded beats.
‘Shit!’
‘I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but the only way we can do this is for you to go back, Ben. Go back, and become one of them.’
‘This is fucking dangerous, Coby. You’re asking me to put my fucking life on the line here…’
‘I know. I know… Look, you do this, you don’t do this, either way it’s a dangerous game. But, somehow, with or without your help, we need to know what’s going on, where Shane is; what his connection to the Dark Angels is. What he did – what he tried to do, it isn’t gonna go unpunished, Ben. I want him taken out. And I want to keep this club alive.’
Ben swallowed another mouthful of beer. What could he say to that? His head was fucking spinning here.
‘You gonna help us, brother?’
Ben’s eyes locked with Coby’s. ‘Do I have a choice?’
‘You always have a choice.’
Ben wasn’t sure that was true. Not in this case. ‘I’ll do it.’ The words were out before he’d had time to think about his response; about what the consequences of him agreeing to this could turn out to be.
‘OK.’ Coby’s sigh was one of deep relief. ‘OK. That’s good, but… there’s something else I need you to do for me.’ His eyes dipped, focusing on his beer as he twisted the bottle round and round on the table top. ‘Something I need to know. Before you do anything.’ He raised his gaze, his eyes once more meeting Ben’s. ‘I need to know your history with the Dark Angels. I need to know what happened between you and your father.’
‘No, you don’t.’ Ben broke the stare, looking down at his clenched fist.
‘Aye.’ Coby leaned forward, waiting until Ben looked up. ‘I do. And I need to know the truth. Nothing can get in the way of what I need you to do, Ben, do you understand that? So I need to know what happened between you and Hector…’
‘Why? Huh? Do you think you can help sort out our little domestic, is that it?’ Ben’s voice was still low, still quiet, but he couldn’t hide his growing agitation. ‘You couldn’t help shit, Coby. What my father made me do…’
‘What happened, Ben?’
Ben’s eyes turned cold as stone as they bored deep into Coby’s, his mouth tight, his heart beating like a million drums, his fists clenched so hard his knuckles were turning white. ‘You want to know what really happened? What drove me from the Dark Angels?’
Coby stayed silent.
Ben wavered for a second, turning away, closing his eyes as he tried to gather his thoughts. He’d never told anyone the truth. There was only one other person, apart from his father, who knew what had really gone on that night. Michael Bailey. And he’d held up his end of the bargain by keeping his mouth shut for all these years. So telling Coby everything, it was only going to throw more fuel on the fire.
‘Ben?’
He turned back to face Coby, taking a deep breath before he spoke. ‘My father… he’d been having an affair.’
‘An affair?’ Coby frowned.
Ben held his gaze, taking one more deep breath before he carried on. ‘With Marianna. Sol’s wife…’
Five years earlier…
Hector kicked the door of the chapel shut, his eyes blazing. ‘What you just saw, Benjamin, you wipe that from your mind, do you hear me?’
Ben stared at his father – a man people feared, looked up to; tolerated. And despite being his son, it was that last category that Ben fell into. ‘He’ll kill you. He’ll shoot you dead, just like that. Snuff you out like the piece of shit you are.’ He turned to look at Marianna, his brother’s wife. His brother’s pregnant wife. ‘When were you gonna tell him, huh? That the baby he thinks is his is really his fucking father’s!’
‘We’re getting rid of it.’ Hector’s tone was ice-cold, devoid of any emotion. ‘We’ll make it look like a miscarriage…’
Ben swung back around to face his father. ‘Wow. You’ve got this all planned, huh?’
‘It was a mistake.’
Ben looked at Marianna again. ‘You agree with this, do you? You all for aborting your unborn child, getting rid of an innocent victim who never asked for any of this crap, because my father thinks it’s an inconvenient bastard?’
‘I’m so sorry, Ben… none of this was supposed to happen…’
‘You’re sorry?’ Ben’s almost manic laugh filled the room, which only served to fuel Hector’s agitation. He lunged at his son, but age was on Ben’s side. He was too quick for the older man, grabbing him by his cut and throwing him back against the wall. ‘You tell him, you got that? You tell my brother – your son – you tell him you’ve been fucking his wife, you tell him she’s carrying your child, not his, and let’s see how he ends this. Because I for one won’t shed a fucking tear when he rips you apart.’
‘Ben, please…’
He swung around, glaring at Marianna. ‘Why, huh? I mean, what the fuck has he got? Or are you so turned on by his warped fucking power that your legs just fell open…’
‘That’s enough!’ Hector instructed, but Ben was on a mission now. For too long he’d been finding a way to rid this club of his father. One of the most notorious MCs in the country, the Dark Angels bore that black diamond all one-percenters were proud to display, and Ben had no real intention of ever changing that, but his father was becoming more of a loose cannon as each year passed. He was killing the club, hammering it into the ground, and all Ben wanted to do was save it. He just couldn’t do that with Hector in charge. And it was terrifying to think fate may now have played a part in handing Ben the perfect way to rid them of the poison at the helm.
‘No. No, you don’t get to tell me what’s enough. Not anymore. You’re done here, old man. It’s over.’
‘I don’t want this, Ben.’ Marianna’s voice was shaking, but Ben was out of sympathy. Any real emotion had been stripped from him as soon as he’d stepped inside this clubhouse as a child all those years ago. It was the only way to survive the life.
‘You should have thought about that before you spread your legs and whored yourself out to him.’ Ben almost spat the words out. He was finished here.
‘I said, enough!’
Ben was only slightly aware of Marianna’s screams rising above the sound of Hector’s roar, and as he slo
wly turned around to face his father a faint, somewhat twisted smile crossed his face, despite the sight of the gun aimed at his forehead. The gun Hector Almeda held steady, his cold, emotionless eyes boring deep into his son’s.
Ben felt nothing. He’d shut down, he’d had to. If he didn’t do that, if he didn’t shut down his father would win. ‘Because this is how we deal with everything. Isn’t it?’
‘You have no right to talk to her that way. You show your sister-in-law some fucking respect.’
Ben let out another hollow, humorless laugh. ‘Jesus Christ, are you kidding me?’ And in a movement so swift the older man never saw it coming, Ben pulled his own gun on his father. It was a terrifying stand-off; a situation with no predictable ending, both men going for the finale they wanted as fingers slowly pulled back triggers. And it was then that Ben became vaguely aware of another scream coming from somewhere, he didn’t know where, but it was only when the sickening sound of a bullet hitting flesh echoed around the room that he realized it had, once again, come from Marianna. It was only when the scream ended suddenly, to be replaced by a horrifying silence, that he realized his bullet hadn’t been fired.
Slowly raising his head he saw his father staring down at the smoking gun in his hand, his face an emotionless mask. And then Ben’s eyes dipped, and he didn’t want to look down because he knew what he was going to see, he just didn’t want it to be real. But there she lay; face down on the cold stone floor, blood slowly pooling around her lifeless body.
‘It’s for the best,’ Hector muttered, his voice barely audible.
Ben couldn’t say anything, no words were coming, nothing to describe the horror that was happening right now.
‘You killed her, Benjamin.’
His eyes locked with his father’s, disbelief clouding his features. ‘It was you. Your gun…’
‘You killed her.’ Hector stepped over Marianna’s body like she wasn’t even there, his expression verging on manic as he approached Ben. ‘I can’t take the fall for this one, Benjamin. Fucking her was one thing, but killing her… You’ll take the blame…’
Ben backed away, shaking his head, tucking his own gun down the back of his jeans. ‘You’re crazy. I’m not gonna take shit for this! Sol – he’ll kill me! He’ll hunt me down, it’s an eye for an eye in this world, remember? And I’m not taking a bullet for you. Not for you.’
‘You have no choice, son. I call the shots around here, that’s the way it fucking works. So listen to me – get out of here, now. Go to the old boneyard, and hide in the bunker. Are you listening to me, Benjamin?’
Ben’s head was spinning. He could feel his whole world starting to spiral out of control and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Nothing. His father was right – in this world he called the shots. That’s the way it had always been. He had no choice. He had to either do as his father said, or wait until Sol hunted him down and sought his revenge. Either way he was trapped.
He nodded slowly, his breathing finally starting to return to normal.
‘Good… We’re gonna need the sheriff’s help on this one. I’ll talk to him…’ Hector reached out and gently touched his son’s cheek, a warped act of emotion that did nothing but turn Ben’s stomach. ‘You can’t stay here now, you know that, don’t you? You need to go.’
‘Why don’t you just kill me too, huh? Right here, right now. Wouldn’t that be easier? You could tell everyone you shot me in self-defense, save yourself all this trouble. Why wait to do it?’
‘You’re still my son, Benjamin. No matter what you think of me.’ Hector pulled his hand away, his expression still impassive. Blank. There was nothing there. His father really was dead behind the eyes. ‘You’ll be contacted, when I’m ready. I really am sorry, son. But this is the way it has to be. You understand, don’t you? You understand why I can’t take the fall for this?’
‘What’s gonna happen to me?’ It was an obviously rhetorical question. Ben already knew the answer.
‘You’ll know.’ Hector’s eyes bored deep into his son’s. ‘When the time comes.’
‘You don’t deserve to be called a father.’ Ben raised his voice just a touch, but his tone remained flat. ‘You betray one son, you want the other one dead. And as for your daughter… If there is such a thing as karma, then I hope to God Hector Almeda gets one hell of a fucking dose.’
Hector stared at him, still no flicker of emotion registering anywhere on his face. ‘You need to go. We can’t risk anyone finding you here.’
Ben started to walk towards the door, stopping just once, but even then he didn’t look back.
‘And don’t even think about retaliating.’ Hector’s words were sinister in their delivery. ‘It will do you no good. Your future is decided now, Benjamin. And there isn’t anything you can do to change it.’
‘Jesus…’ Coby sat back in his seat, signalling once more to Red, but this time for whisky. He needed something stronger than beer after listening to that. He’d always had his suspicions that Hector Almeda was a cold, evil bastard – but to be so calculated towards your own son? To plan his demise in order to save your own ass? That was fucking brutal.
‘The “accident”, it didn’t go to plan, obviously.’ Ben threw a shot of whisky down his neck, immediately refilling his glass. ‘I didn’t die, and I was supposed to, I’m certain of that. I was supposed to die under the wheels of that truck, and Christ knows how it didn’t cause more damage than it did...’ He downed his second shot, but the alcohol was having no effect. It wasn’t helping ease the pain dredging up those memories had caused. ‘It was Michael who helped me…’ His eyes met Coby’s, holding the stare. ‘Did you know Sheriff Bailey’s been in the pocket of my father for all this time?’
Coby’s expression remained stoic.
‘I was well aware he was working under the instruction of my father,’ Ben continued, dropping his gaze. ‘You know, to this day I still have no idea why he didn’t just try and kill me once and for all back then…’ He swallowed a third whisky shot, dropping his head into his hands. ‘Michael he…’ Ben looked up, raking both hands back through his hair, his eyes meeting Coby’s. ‘He sorted me a place at law school. He organized my new name, new background, new papers…’ His laugh was dry; humorless. ‘I guess after all those years of breaking the law, I thought trying to fix it would be the least I could do.’
Coby said nothing for a few beats. He’d had his suspicions that Michael Bailey’s loyalty may not be all it seemed, but now he had proof. And he had yet to work out how he felt about that. ‘You’re good at your job, Ben.’
Ben’s eyes remained locked with Coby’s. ‘Which one?’ That was a question that needed no answer. ‘Anyway,’ Ben broke the stare, looking down into his empty glass, ‘… now my father wants to finish the job. Get rid of me for good this time. Before any of his lies are exposed.’
‘And what about you?’
Ben frowned. ‘What about me?’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want my brother to know the truth. And I want to finish my own job.’
Coby watched as Ben downed another shot of whisky. He was fast seeing off the bottle. ‘Then we’re gonna have to play this carefully.’
Ben’s frown deepened. ‘I don’t understand…’
‘Look, I wouldn’t flinch if Hector Almeda was wiped off the face of this earth. But let’s work together here, Ben. Get him on side, get your brother on side, and I know that isn’t gonna be easy, but I need you to appease any fucker you can because if we can just try and lull them into a false sense of security…’
‘I don’t want anything to happen to my brother, Coby. He’s as much a victim of my father’s lies and betrayal as I am. As Marianna was. Let me tell him the truth…’
Coby shook his head, clasping his hands together. ‘And what if he doesn’t believe you?’
‘You want me to throw myself at his mercy, too? Ask his forgiveness for something I didn’t fucking do?’
‘Fo
r now. Until we know what the hell’s going on.’
Ben’s sigh was heavy with a weary resignation. And the whisky was starting to have an effect now.
‘I’m asking a lot of you here, Ben, I understand that. But we need you, brother. We fucking need you.’
Ben leaned forward, his head dropping back into his hands. He had no choice. Once again, he had no choice…
Seven
‘I’m begging you to stop this, Hector. Please. Before something kicks off that this town can’t deal with.’
‘Scared you’ll be exposed, Sheriff?’
‘Of course I’m scared I’ll be fucking exposed. Jesus! If Sol finds out I covered up every piece of shit you created I’m a fucking dead man! Not to mention the risk of Coby and the Lone Riders finding out just how close to your club I really am so, yeah, I’m scared. I’m fucking terrified.’
‘You think Coby Walker would have something to say about the fact you’ve kept your involvement with us hidden?’
‘Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, he’d have something to say. And he’s not a man known for taking the diplomatic route. I could lose more than my fucking job here, Hector.’
‘You disappearing is the least of my worries, Sheriff.’ Hector looked up, a slow, sinister smile creeping across his face. ‘In fact, should that be the case, then it could be that Coby Walker would have actually done us a favor. I mean, it would be one less person for me to worry about, wouldn’t it? One less person who knows the truth.’ He lowered his gaze, his concentration back on some papers laid out on the table. ‘Is Ben coming to me?’ Hector slowly raised his head, staring right into Michael’s eyes. ‘Or do we have to go get him ourselves? Because, to be honest, I hadn’t planned on striking out quite so soon.’
‘Oh no. No. You do not bring the Lone Riders into this, you hear me? This is between you and Ben; this is family shit, not some unnecessary turf war...’ Michael slowly shook his head, a horrifying realization beginning to take over. ‘Oh, Jesus. No. This isn’t happening. Hector, please, don’t even go there… Why? For Christ’s sake…’
Resurrection (The Lone Riders MC Series Book 3) Page 4
