RYDER: Southside Skulls Motorcycle Club (Southside Skulls MC Romance Book 12)

by Jessie Cooke

  “And what if she doesn’t?”

  “We don’t have time for this,” he said. Storm wondered if she should be grateful that he didn’t just tell her what she wanted to hear. She also wondered once again if his lifestyle was one she’d be able to blend into. Did she really want to be with a man that could hurt a woman if he “had to”? She didn’t want to think like that, but could she handle being an “old lady” who was always kept in the dark, or on the sidelines? Could she be in a relationship where her opinion didn’t matter? Her thoughts were all over the place. One minute she was angry with Ryder for chasing Carolyn down and the next she remembered that Carolyn started all of this by setting her up. It was giving her a headache. “Baby?”

  “Okay,” she said. At that point she just wanted him to go...so she could call a cab and follow him.

  Storm watched from behind a large RV about five spaces away from the small, dirty travel trailer that Ryder and Hunter were approaching. She’d had the cab drop her off out near the main road and walked back the half a mile to where the RV park sat, surrounded by desert. David hadn’t been kidding when he said the park was small and secluded. There might have been twenty-five spots, but there were only a handful of trailers. The sun beat down on her and she was drenched in sweat by the time she got to where she was now. She had never been in the desert and she worried slightly about what might be slithering around, but as she walked she realized that nothing seemed to be moving except the hot wind that stirred up the dust around her. When she entered the park, the only sounds she heard at first were the whirs and groans of compressors and air conditioners. It was the sound of Ryder’s voice that led her to the spot she was in now, and she hadn’t seen another human. She could see Hunter and Ryder both, standing on either side of a rickety set of homemade wooden steps that led up to the door of a 5th-wheel trailer now, and she watched as Hunter reached up and knocked on the door with the back of his hand. She held her breath as the men waited and she watched them. She loved watching things like this on television, but watching it unfold in real life was surreal. After waiting a full minute, Hunter knocked again, louder this time. She wondered if they weren’t there, or if they were hiding...and if that was the case, would Ryder and Hunter go in after them?

  “What are you doing?” The whisper would have been creepy by itself, but the fact that she could also feel the heat of the speaker’s breath in her ear sent chills running down Storm’s spine. She had her eyes on Ryder. He was thirty feet away. All she had to do was yell... “Don’t think about it. I have a gun and I’ll use it on you, and your boyfriends.” Storm started to turn toward the man and again he said, “Don’t.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the guy who lives in that trailer over there. What do they want?”

  “If you’re not Carolyn or Tyler, they don’t want you,” she said, hoping that would be all it took for him to go away.

  “What do they want with Carolyn and my...Tyler?”

  My? My what? “They just want to talk to them,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “You’d have to ask them.”

  “So, you know they want to talk to them, you’re here stalking them, but you have no idea what they want to talk about? I call bullshit.” She felt an arm snake around her waist and the cold steel of the gun he’d promised her he had against her ribs. She was beginning to forgive Ryder for ordering her to stay at the hotel.

  With a shaky voice she said, “Fine, they just want to talk to Carolyn about the robbery at the bar where she used to work.”

  “They don’t look like cops to me.”

  “They’re not cops. Their boss owns the bar.” She didn’t know if she was giving this guy too much information or not, but in her defense, she’d never had a gun stuck in her ribs before.

  “Okay,” the guy said, with his mouth even closer to her ear. “This is what we’re going to do. I want you to step out in the open, very slowly. Then I want you to call out to them and tell them to drop their weapons.”

  “They’re not armed.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Shit. If she lived through this, she’d probably just lost whatever chances she had with Ryder. “Are you going to hurt them?” she asked, foolishly.

  “Stop asking stupid questions and do what I told you to do.”

  Shaking all over Storm took two steps forward. The man behind her stayed stuck to her back and the gun remained against her ribs. She didn’t have to call out to Ryder. Either he sensed her presence, or he was just that observant, because as soon as they moved, he was looking right at them. She didn’t have time to worry whether the look on his face was anger or terror. Ryder took a step toward them and the guy behind her said, “Tell him to stop.”

  “Ryder, he says to stop.” He didn’t look like he was going to but by that time Hunter had realized what was going on and he had a hand on Ryder’s shoulder.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Ryder said.

  “Put your guns on the ground,” the guy told them.

  “Fuck you,” Ryder said, taking another step toward them. Storm felt the gun leave her side long enough for her captor to show it to Ryder and then it was pressed up against her again, this time into her temple. “Fuck,” she heard Ryder say as her mouth went dry. “Don’t you fucking hurt her.”

  “Then do what I said,” the guy told him. Ryder reached back and pulled out a gun. Hunter was doing the same. They both laid them down in the dirt. “That all you got?”

  “Yes, now let go of her,” Ryder said.

  “Not yet. What do you want with Carolyn and my dad?”

  Ryder and Hunter exchanged a glance. “Your dad?” Hunter said.

  “Yeah, Tyler...what do you want with them?”

  “Just want to talk,” Hunter said. “What’s your name?”

  “Huh-uh, we’re not getting friendly here. Turn around, both of you.”

  “Fuck that,” Ryder said. Storm didn’t mean to cry out, but pain shot through her head as he jammed the gun harder into her temple. Ryder winced and for a second, she thought he was going to charge at them. Once again, Hunter put his hand on Ryder’s shoulder like he was trying to calm him down.

  “Turn around,” the guy said again. This time Ryder and Hunter both turned their backs to them. “I’m gonna toss the keys. Pick them up and go into the trailer. Sit down on the couch.” Hunter and Ryder glanced at each other again and when Storm felt the man’s arm slip from around her waist, she thought about making a run for it. The hand holding the gun was steady, though, and she knew how stupid that would be. Almost as stupid as coming here in the first place. She watched as a set of keys sailed over her head and toward Ryder and Hunter. When they hit the ground in front of them, Ryder bent down and scooped them up. He went up to the door first and unlocked it. He pulled it open and Storm held her breath, hoping someone wasn’t waiting inside, lying in ambush. When Ryder stepped inside and then Hunter followed, and there were no sounds of a commotion, she finally took a breath.

  “You next,” the guy with the gun told her. “Move.” Storm moved toward the trailer and she was thrust through the door in front of her captor, so that just in case Ryder and Hunter had another gun, the bullet would have to go through her first, she supposed. As soon as they were inside the small, hot, dingy little trailer, she was shoved forward, and she fell onto the shabby little couch and into Ryder’s arms. She looked up and finally saw the face of the man that had held a gun to her head, and she was shocked. He looked like he couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Sweat rolled down the sides of his tanned face and his brown hair fell long and shaggy to the collar of his t-shirt. He used his free hand to push it back out of his blue eyes as he stared at them. Storm thought she could see the same anxiety on his face that she was feeling. She didn’t know if that was good or bad, since he was now the only one who had a gun.

  28

  “When’s Mommy coming home?” After an uncomfortable silence, Hunter was the first
to talk...and it was pure sarcasm. The boy with the gun didn’t look amused.

  “My ‘mommy’ doesn’t live here. If you’re talking about Carolyn, she’s at work. She won’t be home for hours.”

  “Okay then, when will Daddy be here?”

  “You might want to stop talking shit to the man with the gun.”

  Hunter chuckled, and Storm scooted even closer to Ryder. The damned fool was going to get his head blown off and she didn’t want to be in the line of fire. “How old are you, son?” Ryder said.

  “Old enough to kill you,” the kid said.

  “Shouldn’t you be in school? Why are you out running around with a gun?” Hunter was still taunting. Storm wanted to smack him in the head the way that Ryder had done earlier.

  “What do you want with my dad?” the kid asked again, looking at Ryder and ignoring Hunter completely.

  “We just want to talk to him,” Ryder said. “We’re not here to hurt anyone. We just need to find out why he and Carolyn left Boston so quickly and if they have any idea what happened to our boss’s money.” There was a subtle change in the boy’s posture, but he kept his face neutral as he said:

  “How did you know where to find them?”

  “It wasn’t hard,” Hunter said, “They’re not very good criminals.”

  “They’re not criminals. They didn’t hurt nobody! Just took...” He seemed to realize that he was talking too much and he stopped there and said, “I would think a couple of bikers with guns would be the pot calling the kettle black anyway.”

  Hunter laughed out loud at that. The boy scowled at him. “You’ve got a point, kid,” Hunter said. “Look, we really only came here to talk to them. We gotta figure out what happened and since you already figured out that we’re bikers then you know if anything happens to us, there will be plenty more showing up to look for us. You don’t want to get yourself involved in a mess like that, do you, kid?”

  “So I should just back off and let you ambush Carolyn when she gets home from work? That’s not happening.”

  “Carolyn’s not your mother, I take it...but you didn’t live with her and your dad in Boston. So, where is your mama?”

  “None of your fucking business.” The door to the trailer made a noise and the kid jumped. It looked like Hunter was going to stand up and the kid yelled, “Stay the fuck where you are or I’ll blow your head off, I swear I will!” The door didn’t open so whoever was pulling at it started pounding on it.

  “Hey, Chase, let me in!” The voice belonged to a kid, another boy. Storm saw Hunter and Ryder look at each other and Hunter raised an eyebrow.

  “What are you doing here, Ricky? I told you to wait out there for me.”

  “You were taking too long. Did you find Dad’s rifle? It was right there under the bed...”

  “Shut up, Ricky! Go back out to the range. I’ll be there in a bit.”

  “Hey, Ricky!” Hunter called out.

  “Shut up!” the kid with the gun screamed at Hunter and the one outside the door said:

  “Chase? Who is that? What’s going on in there?”

  “Don’t worry about it, just do what I told you.”

  “I’m gonna go call Dad...”

  “No! Jesus!” The kid named Chase kept the gun on them and reached back with his free hand and turned the lock on the door. As soon as it clicked, it was pulled open and Ricky rushed inside. This kid couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen and as soon as he saw them, and the gun in Chase’s hands, he froze.

  “What the hell? Who are they?” The boy looked almost identical to the bigger one except his hair was shorter and he had freckles across his nose. “Why are you pointing that gun at them?”

  “Shut up, Ricky!” The older boy seemed to be getting more agitated. Storm wasn’t sure if that made him more or less dangerous.

  “Maybe we should all just calm down and talk this out,” Ryder said. She felt him go tense as she pushed up and away from him just slightly.

  “My name is Storm. I used to work with Carolyn. She was my friend and I promise you that we’re not here to hurt her or anyone else. I’m guessing you don’t want to hurt anyone either,” she said, looking the boy in his wide, blue eyes. “We just wanted to talk to them, and you’re right, we went about it the wrong way. Maybe we could start over.”

  “Carolyn’s at work,” the smaller boy said.

  “Shut up, Ricky.”

  “Stop telling me to shut up!”

  “Ricky, where’s your dad?” Storm asked him in a soft and, she hoped, non-threatening voice.

  “Don’t answer her, Ricky.”

  “Is Dad in trouble?”

  “Shut up, Ricky!”

  “No,” Storm said. She sat up straighter and she could feel the resistance in Ryder’s arm as she pulled loose from his grip. “Your dad is not in trouble. See, this is what happened...there was a robbery at the bar where Carolyn and I both worked. We know it wasn’t Carolyn because she was there that night. Her son Robby was there too...working. We know it wasn’t your dad because the guy didn’t walk with a limp. All these guys want to know is who it was. That person took a lot of money that wasn’t his. These men just want their money back. Nobody wants anyone to get hurt over it.”

  Ricky looked up at his brother, nervously. The older boy kept his eyes on Ryder, Hunter, and Storm, but shook his head at his brother. “Chase?”

  “Shh, just hush.”

  “Maybe I should go get...”

  “No!”

  “Who, Ricky? Who should you go get? Is it an adult?” Storm asked. The boy looked at his brother again and nodded. He looked like he was shaking and the older one was sweating profusely. It was hot, but the way the sweat poured off him, she could tell that he was nervous as well. These boys might know how to use a gun, but she got the feeling neither of them had ever used one on a human being. “You probably should go get him, Ricky. You and your brother don’t want to get involved in this, you’re too young to understand...”

  “Shut up! You don’t know what we can or can’t understand. You don’t know a fucking thing about us!” The vein in the older boy’s neck throbbed as he yelled at her. She was afraid that she may have pushed him too far...but in her defense, she was new at hostage negotiations, especially when she was one of the hostages. She did her best to not show any fear as she looked Chase in his blue eyes and said:

  “Okay, Chase, you’re right. We don’t know anything about you. But what I do know is that these two guys on either side of me are older, bigger, and a lot more experienced at things like this than you. I don’t want this to end badly for anyone, but I especially don’t want to see someone as young as you get hurt. There are three of us. You can get off one shot...kill or maim one of us…but by the time you do that, Chase, the other two will be moving and it’s very unlikely that you’d be able to win this thing in a hand to hand fight.”

  “I’ll kill the first one, I guarantee you. I’m a dead shot.”

  Storm’s heart nearly stopped as Ryder started to stand up. “Okay then, pick one of us, Chase, because it’s hotter than fuck in here and I’m tired of this game.”

  “Don’t move!” the kid yelled. Hunter stood up then too. “Sit down!” Storm was shaking all over, inside and out, as she took their lead and stood too. “Ricky, go get Jack!” The little one turned toward the door and then everything happened in a flash. Hunter was closest to the small one and Ryder to the one with the gun. As if they’d had time to talk about it, both men moved at the same time, in different directions. Hunter grabbed Ricky and lifted him off the floor while Ryder knocked his big brother back into the wall of the trailer. The whole thing shook and rocked as they struggled, but the struggle only lasted seconds before Ryder was the one with the gun in his hand. He stood up and pointed it down at the kid on the floor. As he wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand Chase said, “Now what?” He was trying to sound brave, but his voice was shaking as he said, “You gonna kill a couple of kids?”
>
  Ryder chuckled. “Funny how you’re kids all of a sudden now.” He looked down at the gun in his hand and made a face. It looked to Storm like something a cowboy in the old west might have carried. “Where’d you get this funky old gun, anyway?”

  “It’s mine,” Chase said. “My grandpa left it to me. We were target practicing when you showed up.”

  “I guess that explains a fourteen-year-old running around with Wyatt Earp’s gun,” Hunter said.

  “Screw you. I’m sixteen,” Chase spat at him.

  Ryder was fighting a smile; it was obvious that he was biting the inside of his cheek before he said, “Hunter, you wanna grab the nines? Chase, you can get up and go sit down on the couch there where my buddy just deposited your little brother.”

  Hunter pushed open the door and stepped out. The blast of hot air that rushed in was almost a relief, Storm thought—at least something was moving. The boys were both on the couch now and with an overwhelming desire to deescalate this she said, “Chase, if he wanted to kill you, he honestly could have done it already. I promise you that we’re not here to hurt anyone. Please just tell him what he wants to know, and we’ll leave you both alone, okay?” Storm felt a genuine compassion for these kids. They were protecting their father and Carolyn for some reason, and even if holding a gun on someone was the wrong way to go about it, she respected their efforts.

  “Like I told you,” Chase said, “Carolyn is at work.”

  “Where’s your dad?” Ryder asked again as Hunter came back in with two guns in his hands and handed Ryder one of them.

  “At the...”

  “Shut up, Ricky! Damn, why can’t you keep your mouth shut?”

  “If we don’t tell them, you think they’re just gonna go away, Chase? You talk to me like I’m stupid, but you’re the stupid one. Let them go find Dad at the hospital, they’re not gonna kill him there.”