by Leah Wilde
I smiled the whole way down to the basement. I paused at the steel door. I wanted to go right in and grab her. I wanted to take her away from our prisoner and tell him to kiss my ass while I took her upstairs for drinks with the guys. At the same time, I wanted to wait, to give her time to get what information she could out of him. Maybe he would tell her another name we could expect to find on Ivan’s yacht.
I leaned against the wall and waited. I couldn’t stop thinking about the opportunity ahead of us. More so than the opportunity facing the MC, I was excited about the prospect of being able to pursue Julia romantically.
“Man, what is it about that woman?” I asked myself out loud. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”
I looked at the door. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but it felt like a lot. I wanted to know what was going on in there. My thoughts of her kept running through my head, but they were beginning to turn sour. I had suspected her of working with Dimitri at one point. I had honestly thought that she was hiding information he’d given her from me. Maybe she had been. Maybe he’d been slowly giving her information about the deal going down on Ivan’s yacht, and she had been waiting to tell me. That certainly would have been understandable.
“Fuck it,” I said as I pushed myself off the wall. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to go in and find out what was taking so damn long in that room.
I opened the door and started to walk in, giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light. I didn’t hear anyone talking, and as my eyes adjusted, I didn’t see anyone sitting in the room.
“What the fuck?” I ran over to his chair and saw that the ropes had been cut. She had been working with him.
Suddenly, the growing sense of intoxication that had been clouding my mind faded back. I saw everything in high definition. She had helped him escape. She’d told me he asked her to help him get out of here. I should have known that he would keep trying.
I hurried upstairs to greet the disappointed faces of the other guys sitting at the bar.
“Couldn’t convince her to come down, huh?” Juarez joked.
I didn’t say anything but kept walking until I reached the bar.
“What’s wrong?” Angelo asked when he saw my face.
“She’s gone.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Ricky said.
“And so is Dimitri.”
“You never should have let her go down there alone,” Angelo said. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. When will you learn, kid?” He put a heavy hand on the back of my neck. “You gotta stop thinking with your dick, man.”
Chase and Juarez laughed uncomfortably.
“You guys are just playing with us, right?” Chase asked.
“Yeah, I’d be surprised if that tired old punching bag could walk, man. We worked him over pretty well,” Juarez added.
“It’s possible they helped each other escape. His ropes were cut. Dammit! She told me he kept asking her to help him escape.” I was so angry with myself for leaving her alone with him. All I could think was that this was going to turn into Lisa all over again. Julia was going to end up in the middle of everything, and I was going to lose her.
Angelo’s hand moved to my shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t beat yourself up again. This isn’t over. She’s not gone yet. We still have a chance to get her back.”
“Yeah, bro, we’ll help you find her.” Chase slugged my other shoulder and chugged the rest of his beer.
“The question is, where the hell would Dimitri take her?” Rick said from behind me.
“The yacht,” I said.
“Unless she was just using him for collateral to help get herself out of here,” Angelo argued. “Don’t count her out of this like that. Don’t underestimate her.”
I thought about it a moment. He was right. She was strong-willed enough to pull this off for herself instead of getting herself caught up with Dimitri because he promised to help her.
“Okay,” I finally said. “I’ve got a plan. You guys get ready to go out to Lake Michigan tonight in search of Ivan’s yacht. I’m going to search for her at her apartment and the university. If I don’t find her, we’ll head out to the lake when I get back.”
“Are you okay to drive?” Angelo asked.
I looked him dead in the eye. “Do I look drunk?” I asked him. “I can drive. I’m not losing this one, brother. Julia is not slipping through the cracks the way I let Lisa go.”
“Take it easy, bro. We’re here to help. Why don’t you get one of the princes to help?” Juarez asked. All the humor and playfulness was gone from his voice. I couldn’t remember another time when he sounded serious like that.
“Look, no matter what, I’ve got to get out of here and go look for her,” I insisted. “So, if you think someone else needs to drive, go ahead and get somebody, but none of you are sober enough to drive if I’m not.” I started toward the stairs.
“Gage Noll,” Angelo called in his authoritative tone. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I stopped and shook my head, laughing to myself. It always struck me as funny that we were so hardcore when it came to beating asses, selling guns and drugs, and picking up women, but, when it came to shit like DUI, the MC had always been pretty strict. We used to always tell members that we were violent criminals, but we weren’t idiots.
Well, I was a fucking idiot. I’d already proven that. I started walking again, taking the stairs down to the garage.
“Seriously, bro, wait up,” Chase called after me.
I stopped a few steps down. I could hear Juarez talking to one of the younger members. He was telling him I needed a ride to find the lady who’d been working with me. The kid sounded like he was agreeing. I walked back up to see who it was.
Juarez had his large inked arm around the prospect’s shoulders. This kid wasn’t even a prince, a junior member, yet. He was just a prospect. He wore a Metallica t-shirt and blue jeans. He didn’t even have a cut yet. We didn’t give out blank ones like some clubs did. Either you had your colors or you didn’t.
It was so easy to tell how long guys had been with us, too. The new kids were all skin and bones. Occasionally someone would come to us already ripped, or at least big and thick to begin with, but most of the kids were messes. They came from broken homes, dysfunctional families, or even families that were just too perfect for them. They came looking for something that made sense in their world. They thought we were it! That was some funny shit. They got in, started working, working out, and they realized that even we were fucked up.
I watched the hopeful kid with the long, shaggy hair come bouncing over to me.
“They said you need a ride, man. I don’t mind helping out,” he said.
I threw my arm around his bony, narrow shoulders. “Thanks, kid. Cliff, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” He perked up, proud that his president knew his name already.
“Yeah, you’re one of Juarez’s prospects. That makes you pretty good in my book already,” I told him as we started down the stairs together. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was a little relieved to have someone with me.
I fished the keys to the Suburban out of my pocket and handed them to Cliff as we reached the bottom of the stairs at the garage.
The sound of shattering glass suddenly filled the room around us. I looked up in time to see the last of the back window fall out of the Suburban.
“What the hell?” I asked, putting my arm up in front of Cliff and pushing him back against the wall. “That’s not right,” I told him.
Then, the unmistakable sound of gunshots rang out, and bullets flew past us.
“Get down!” I shoved Cliff to the floor just as a bullet whizzed past my head. We were under attack and needed to get out of the line of fire while securing the garage.
That bitch, I thought as I ducked down to avoid the hail of gunfire. I couldn’t believe she’d gone and turned us over to Ivan like this. I couldn’t believe it was going to end this way.
Chapt
er 25
“Cliff, get down!!”
The kid stood up against my orders and whipped a gun out from the waistband of his jeans. He started firing on the group of men approaching HQ. I watched in amazement as a couple of them fell to the ground. It wasn’t clear how many of them Cliff actually hit because the boys upstairs were returning fire as well.
I had definitely gone soft, I realized. It had possibly happened before Julia even showed up. At some point, I had stopped carrying a gun on me at all times. I reached for it now, crouched on the floor near the staircase, but it wasn’t there. I didn’t have my holster under my vest like I always used to. Things had been too quiet and too easy for far, far too long.
I looked around the room to see if there was a gun sitting out where I could get to it, but no such luck. My gun was upstairs in my personal room.
Cliff’s gun stopped firing, and I heard him fall before I saw him tumble to the ground. There was blood everywhere, but the lefty’s gun fell out of his hand and slid in my direction. I quietly thanked him as I reached for it. He had been a promising prospect, but at that moment, I needed the protection, and he was lying on the floor of the garage, either dead or dying.
I eyed the garage doors. I needed to lower them so we could go on the defensive from upstairs, but the hail of gunfire made it incredibly dangerous to try to get to the front of the building. I fired off a couple of rounds to try to take a few of them down and clear the air enough to make my way over to the doors to let them down. On my feet, gun in hand, I took a step and fired. I watched one of Ivan’s men crumble to the ground outside. Feeling pretty good, I took another step.
Suddenly, shots rang out behind me. Some Kings of Hell members hurried downstairs with guns in hand. Automatic assault rifles surrounded me. They were actually weapons from a shipment we had intercepted on its way to Ivan a while back. The irony was as delicious as it was deadly.
“Get the doors,” Angelo said as he walked past me.
The guys ducked down behind anything they could to shelter themselves from the bullets raining into the garage. Chase and Juarez climbed into the Suburban and shot through the back window—we had each door, including the rear, insulated with Kevlar just for situations similar to this one.
Angelo caught me watching the guys and jerked his head towards the doors, reminding me to get them down. I jumped into action, ducking as I hurried to the chain holding the doors in place. I grabbed the first one and started to let it down when a black leather gloved grabbed my wrist and a thick Russian accent interrupted me.
“No, that’s not a good idea for you,” the bear said, pulling my arm back and head-butting me onto my back on the floor. He laughed a thick, heavy laugh as he pulled up his gun and aimed it at me.
Just then, he took a hit to the head and toppled down in front of me.
“If you don’t get those doors down, Gage, you’re next,” Angelo called, but I didn’t hear his gun go off again.
“You gotta be shitting me,” I said aloud, looking around for him. I couldn’t see him anywhere. “Angelo!” He didn’t pop up anywhere.
I grabbed the bear’s assault rifle and started popping off guys standing behind the black SUV’s lining the street. They were using the cars for cover. Glass shattered, and a few of the men fell. We were doing something right, because the gunfire was quieting down. I took advantage of the lull in action and grabbed the chain again, unlatching it to let the door close rapidly. A few bullets tinged against the thick sheet metal as it lowered, but one made it in underneath the door before it closed all the way.
My leg was on fire. The pain lit me up. I grabbed my thigh and lost my balance, toppling to the floor. I couldn’t hear anything for a moment other than the rapid pumping of my pulse in my ears.
“I’ve been hit,” I mouthed, unsure if the intended shout ever left my lips.
As the rattling of the garage door and the pop-pop-popping of gunfire returned, I heard glass in the office break. Shit! Someone was coming in that way. The door opened, and another large Russian stood above me with a cruel, sadistic smile on his face. Where the fuck was Ivan getting these guys? Were they cloning these guys over there?
I reached for Cliff’s gun again.
“Don’t worry, little man, we aren’t going to kill you. We’re here to take you to your little whore girlfriend,” he said in his thick accent.
He reached down and grabbed me by my vest, pulling me up off the floor.
“She’s going to be happy to see you. Until she sees what we’re going to do to you,” he said with a satisfied smile on his face.
I put the gun under his chin. “Fuck you,” I said as I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. We both fell to the floor.
I looked around the room. There was still no sign of Angelo. Gunshots still rang out from the Suburban, so I knew Chase and Juarez were alright. I was honestly surprised they weren’t standing in the middle of the street shooting at these guys.
I dropped through the opening in the bay, leading to the pit, where we would normally stand to reach the bottom of someone’s car. The interrogation room wasn’t the only one we had downstairs. We also had an arsenal downstairs, locked behind a cage. No one ever paid it much attention because it was behind a couple of tall tool boxes on rollers.
I shoved the tool boxes out of the way and fished out my key to the arsenal. I grabbed the tear gas and a couple of masks for anyone still downstairs. I took to the stairs again, running up with my equipment. I tossed the gas masks in the Suburban.
“Guys, put these on!” I lowered mine and lobbed a few gas canisters at the guys standing on the street. A few moments later, as I pulled down the other bay door, the gray cloud of gas filled the street, and the gunshots ceased.
Chase and Juarez cheered as they lifted the back gate of the SUV and climbed out. They put arms around each other’s shoulders and laughed.
“Yeah, we did it, man! Good thinking, Gage!”
Their celebration was cut short when they saw the two men laid out on the garage floor—Cliff, Juarez’s prospect, and Angelo, a long-time member of the Kings of Hell MC.
Juarez lifted his gas mask. “No way! No fucking way! Gage, man, we can’t let them get away with this shit.”
I stood over Angelo’s body, staring down at the man who had been like a mentor to me since the day I’d started moving up the ranks. My leg didn’t hurt anymore, the gunshot wound numbed by my anger.
“We won’t,” I assured the knuckleheads. “They won’t get away with this.”
“Guys, how’s it going down here? Holy shit!” It was Ricky, catching sight of Angelo and Cliff as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Yeah, that’s how it’s going down here. How about upstairs?” I started walking towards the stairs.
“We got three bodies in the clubhouse, and luckily there wasn’t anyone on the third floor,” Ricky reported absently, unable to take his eyes off his fallen brother.
I was impressed we didn’t lose more. We were taken completely by surprise. I clapped a hand on Ricky shoulder, snapping him out of his trance. He looked at me, and his eyes widened when he saw my leg.
“Shit, Gage, let’s get you upstairs so we can take care of that,” he said, pulling my arm over his shoulders to help me walk.
“Sounds good. Chase, Juarez, get someone down here to help clean this up, and get someone to clean up the clubhouse,” I barked. “We also need someone to check upstairs and see if the rooms need any cleaning.”
“Already got someone on that one, Gage,” Ricky assured me. “You let the boys handle the rest. We need to get you cleaned up.”
“They have Julia,” I told him while we trudged upstairs.
“We figured that much,” he told me.
“No, I mean they have her. She didn’t escape with Dimitri. Dimitri took her. He probably tricked her into feeling sorry for him or something, and when she went to let him go, he grabbed her and took her with him to Ivan. They probably know everything by now,”
I explained.
“Don’t write her off too fast, Gage. If he double-crossed her, that probably just made her more loyal to you as an alternative to being screwed over. Just keep that in mind moving forward.” He sat me down on one of the couches.
Upstairs wasn’t too bad. There were a few of the guys’ old ladies still a little jumpy from the ambush. One of the couches had been pushed up to the windows, where someone had tried to hide behind it. I saw the blood, where I assumed he’d taken a fatal hit and collapsed. There were chips in the brick walls where bullets had rained in like hail. One of the dart boards was toast. The TV was toast. Those were just things, though. Things could be replaced. They were going to pay dearly for the five guys they took from us, and for trying to use Julia as leverage.
