Kill certainly was. He grinned, the sick kind that made a guy’s nuts curl up into his stomach. “If he is, we’ll fish him out. Gut him right there like the coward he is.”
“He could have skipped town,” Drake said thoughtfully. He had his Glock trained on the closed door, like he believed the exact opposite. “He could have had some warning or maybe just used a shred of common sense.”
“Nah,” Kill argued. “The guy’s old-school. He knows that the minute he leaves, he surrenders all of this. He would have taken his men with him if he was truly gone. The bastard’s old. Too old to run. No, he’d fight to the death for what’s his, even if he’s fighting a battle he isn’t going to win.”
“Unless he thought he wasn’t going to lose,” Drake pointed out. “The bastard always has been too high and mighty to think. He wanted to marry my sister.”
A dark laugh ripped through the house with a suddenness of a ghostly scream. The men on the stairs paused and Shawn shrank back against the railing. It was eerie, that sound, dark and… off. Not right. The house was old and creaky and the acoustics played tricks on them, but when Kill pointed to the closed door a few yards ahead, Shawn knew the guy was right. Marcello was indeed holed up in that room.
Kill paused at the top of the stairs, Drake beside him. No one could accuse them of cowardice, or of shrinking away from a fight. They were born leaders, one battle worn and scarred by life, the other young and as suave and handsome as they came, but deep down, they were the same. The same dark souls, born in the wrong century, who lived for the thrill of battle; knights from a time that no longer existed.
“What did he promise you, John Kill?” The voice came again, louder.
It was like there were speakers lining the hall, it was so loud. That shiver prickling Shawn’s spine turned into a full on tremble. A few of the other men glanced around and shuffled nervously. They clutched their weapons tightly, waiting, waiting for some ghostly specter to appear.
“He promise you the world? An end to the wars with the other clubs? Ultimate power? An alliance after I’m gone? It’s a farce. The Cannelli’s are not to be trusted. Give him this, get rid of me and you’re only doing yourself in. You think Cannelli is going to keep you around after he’s sitting on that throne up there at the top? He killed his own brother. Murdered him in cold blood. That’s the kind of man you’re ready to have an alliance with? To put all your trust in?” That eerie laugh came again, filling up the hall. For one thing, Marcello didn’t have the voice of an old geezer. His voice was strong, certain, the voice of a man used to having power and taking what he wanted.
“That’s what he promised,” Kill called back. “You’re dead either way, Marcello. I never liked you, you know that? You always were too high and mighty to do business with any of the clubs. That’s one thing we had in common at least. All of us. No matter what patch we wore, we all hated you.”
“That may have been true in the past,” Marcello said through the door. “But are you so sure that I haven’t changed? It turns out that someone came to me with an offer I couldn’t refuse. I have the girl, Kill. Turns out while you were on your little manhunt, you left your clubhouse guarded by men who don’t know their ass from their face. It was easy for my men to walk in there. You take one more step towards this door and she dies. I don’t think Alexander Mariani would take kindly to having his daughter’s brains splattered all over the wall.”
Everything happened so fast that it was a blur. Shawn’s stomach dropped out. Bile flooded his throat and he actually thought he was going to be sick. A terrible shock washed over him, rendering him useless. He actually thought Marcello was bluffing, trying to save his own damn hide, until time froze. It seemed like everything and everyone moved in slow-motion.
Brick, as the club’s unofficial second in command, followed right behind their prez. He whirled, firing first at Kill, then squeezing off a couple rounds below, into his own brothers. He dodged to the side, gripping a shocked Drake Cannelli from behind. In a blur, he had his gun to Drake’s temple. Drake’s Berettas hit the floor a second later, luckily not spraying off any more bullets.
“Move and he’s dead,” Brick hissed. He licked his lips and the gleam in his dark eyes told them all that he was having the time of his life. “You can choose to follow me or you can die. It’s your choice.” Brick slowly started backing towards the closed door at the end of the hall. He used Drake for cover, but he didn’t honestly have to. He was going to make that room before any of them could react.
Men groaned and writhed on the stairs, clutching their wounds. Skinny wasn’t moving. A puddle of blood leaked out from his temple, onto the dark red runner that covered the impressive staircase.
Shawn slowly picked himself off the floor. He hadn’t been hit. He didn’t even remember diving for cover. Even slower, he tucked his gun into the waistband of his jeans and lifted his hands, palms up. A few of the others around him did the same.
Kill lay motionless, face down, on the steps. It was impossible to tell where he’d been hit, since the blood couldn’t be seen under all that black leather in the low light.
“Did you really think that this bastard was going to be our savior? That he was going to let us walk away from this and keep his word?” Brick shook Drake hard. Drake watched them all warily. He was calm, far too calm, for a guy who was likely to have his brains splattered all over the wall. “Did you?” Brick shouted. “You’re fucking idiots. All of you. You followed that son of a bitch all these years and he’s done nothing for this club. Nothing. He won’t even appoint a second in command. I’m sick of the fucking dictatorship. It’s not what I signed up for. I’m no one’s goddamn slave. Not anymore.”
Shawn glanced around at the men standing. Big John and Draydon stood to Shawn’s left. He hugged the railing with his right. A few of the other guys stood shakily. Dive clutched at his shoulder, which was leaking red, and a trickle of bloody spittle edged out between his tightly gritted lips. The guy was old, pushing fifty. His skin was a strange gray. Blade groaned on the steps behind Shawn, clutching at his middle. If he was shot in the gut, he didn’t have a chance in hell. Wrench, Bore, and Shady eyed Brick edgily. Their eyes roved between each other, silently sizing the others up, waiting to see what their brothers’ next move was going to be.
“Listen up, you fuckers.” Brick shook Drake again, harder. Before the guy could even blink, Brick wound up and clocked him across the face with the butt end of his 9mm. Blood dribbled from Drake’s nose and from his split lip.
“Harder, daddy,” he grinned as he spat blood. “I barely felt that one.”
“Shut up,” Brick ground out. “Unless you want a bullet in your mouth next time.”
Drake wisely shut his mouth. He stared back at the men assembled on the stairs. Shawn stared back. The crazy thing was, Drake might have been young. He might have been clean cut and worn a suit most of the time, but he was the real deal. He had a gun to his head and a madman wielding it and he was smiling where most men would have pissed themselves.
“Here’s the deal,” Brick started again. “You can join me. Take me as your prez and do what I fucking say, or you’re all dead. Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. This club wasn’t going anywhere with Kill at the helm. I’m done with that shit. We join forces with Marcello. Take down this piece of shit,” he gave Drake another jab to the temple with his gun, “and rule the world. No other club in the city will be able to stand against us. Marcello hands back the girl in exchange for her father’s compliance. We’ll own every major shipping port, every trade route here in Philly. We’ll have deals with the other-”
Brick’s fancy speech, well thought out as it was, was cut abruptly short as a shot rang out from the stairwell.
Shawn started, along with the rest of the men standing around him, while Drake ducked and rolled. He wrapped his arms over his head as he moved out of harm’s way. It was a redundant measure, since Brick was already spread out on the floor, his brains sprayed across
the wall behind him. Yet another puddle of blood seeped onto the floor.
“Would you- shut the fuck up- already…” Kill’s words were garbled. He coughed, choking on his own blood, before spitting a bright pink wad out in front of him. He was still on his stomach, blood spewing from the twin bullet holes in his chest. He’d shot Brick clean from his spot on the stairs, where he’d fallen face-down.
It was the most impressive shot Shawn had ever seen in his life.
“About fucking time,” Drake said as he got to his feet. He bent over Brick’s lifeless corpse and pulled his gun out of his hand. “You better get your prez out of here,” he said to no one in particular. “The guy’s shot up bad. If he has a chance, get him gone, now. I’m going in to finish this.”
After a moment of looking at each other like the dumb assholes they were, a few of them finally moved into action. They lifted Kill up by his arms, as carefully as they could. Kill let out a groan then mercifully passed out.
“Get him to the car and put something on that bleeding for Christ’s sake,” Drake instructed. He walked over to the steps, calm as could be, and grabbed up first one Beretta followed by the other. He tucked one into the waistband of his jeans and palmed the other two. He shot Shawn and Draydon a direct look.
“You going in there with me?”
The room had gone eerily silent. Marcello wasn’t yelling out his demands now. Shawn’s blood turned to ice when he realized what that could mean. Kayla might already be dead.
Kayla with her hopes and dreams. With the softest silky hair he’d ever touched. With the huge brown eyes that were far too innocent for the amount of pain and grief they’d seen in life already. Kayla with the sweet smile, with the hope she hid behind the walls she’d had to construct around herself to survive.
She deserved better than this. She hadn’t asked for any of this at all. Her mother dying. Her father checking out on her. Being dragged into this shit. She was a good person. A person who’d done her best to put something good back into the world. He didn’t know her at all, really, but Shawn was sure that was true.
He’d spent one night with her, one night out of his whole shitty life, but that was all it took for him to realize that there could be more. That there was more than just being a shithead doing shithead stuff for the rest of his life. She made him realize that he had a sliver of a heart left and that he didn’t want this. He wanted to be better. He wanted to find his mom and tell her he was sorry. He wanted to see Kayla open up that restaurant. God, he wanted to spend more time with her. He wanted to make her laugh, to see her cheek’s light up with that shy blush. He wanted to… god, he just wanted to.
The stupid thing was that he never really cared if he lived or died. At least, he hadn’t really cared. Until her. Until it came right down to it. Until she showed him that there might be something worth living for.
He didn’t have a chance in hell with her, but he was going to give her the chance she deserved.
Even if it fucking killed him, and there was a good chance that he wasn’t walking out of this alive.
Chapter 18
KAYLA
Even the most powerful men, men who had it all, turned into angry toddlers when things didn’t go their way.
“Marcello? We’re on the other side of the door. Your little mole trick didn’t work.” The voice was deep and angry sounding, a voice that Kayla didn’t recognize.
She stared hard at the door, then at the guns in Marcello’s hands. There were two, big things that she couldn’t name. She’d never seen anything like them in her life. They were the type of weapon that came straight out of a war movie, or something worse.
Thankfully, Marcello didn’t have them trained on her. He sat between her and the door, at the foot of the bed, waiting. Clearly, he was confident in his firepower. Whoever came through that door would be mowed down. Unthankfully, one of Marcello’s goons had tied her hands behind her back and shoved a gag in her mouth hours earlier. The bastard had shoved her against the metal headboard and secured her there. She was literally trussed up, silenced, helpless. All she could do was watch and try not to let the icy ball of fear curdling her stomach get the best of her.
All she could do was hope that the men on the other side of that door came out victorious.
Kayla could tell from the curl of Marcello’s shoulders and the red creeping up the back of his neck, that he was growing more and more agitated with every passing minute.
A mole trick. That’s how they got to me at the clubhouse. One of the men had betrayed their own club.
“Drake Cannelli,” Marcello ground out after a period of silence. “How good of you to come yourself. It says a lot about a man that he doesn’t just send his lackeys to do his bidding.”
“Yeah, well, it says a lot about a man that he’d take cover in a room like a coward, letting all his men get mowed down in the process. You were happy to let your mole do the work for you. He killed a few of ours. So did your men outside, but I’m happy to report there are still nine of us left out here. Waiting for you.”
Marcello’s shoulders hunched forward. He kept the guns trained on the door. “You expect me to believe a word out of your mouth? It’s probably just you out there, ready to make a deal.”
“Nope. No deals.” Drake’s voice came again. “You’re going to die, Marcello. There’s no way out of it. No deals. I don’t want to work with a shithead like you. You’ve had your day. You had every opportunity in the world to make deals with me and be a good associate this past year. You chose to do it alone and now we’re here.”
“I die, the girl dies too,” Marcello said thickly.
Kayla was already rigid, but she went completely still. Even her heart stopped. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. She didn’t make a sound or strain uselessly at the ropes that held her captive. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on breathing. It was harder, with the gag in her mouth, but she forced out slow, even breaths. In through her nose. Out through her nose. Repeat.
I am not going to die. I am not going to die. They’re going to get through that door. They’re going to kill him.
Marcello didn’t turn around and look at her, which was a good sign. He kept his guns and all his focus on the door.
“Alright, Marcello, have it your way. I’m going to blow the lock on this door and then I’ll come in and we’ll talk it out. Maybe we can reach a deal. Just don’t hurt Kayla. She hasn’t done anything wrong. If you harm her, I promise you that we will find any remaining family members you have left. I’ll hunt them down and put a bullet through their skull myself. If you let me through that door and we talk, peacefully, things don’t have to end up in bloodshed. Maybe you’d like working with me. You never know. We could make a formidable team.”
“Until you put a bullet in my brain, just like you did your cunt brother.”
“That’s the thing. He was a cunt. No one liked him. He definitely had it coming.”
“You gave your sister to some biker scum. She was mine. Mine,” Marcello spat. Kayla couldn’t actually see his face, but his words sounded wet, like he’d actually sprayed saliva out when he spoke. His features were probably contorted with rage.
Her heart pounded harder. Things were getting out of control. All she could do was glance from Marcello’s back to the door. Back. Door. Back. Door.
Nothing happened.
The room was silent for a few long heartbeats.
Then finally, Marcello spoke. He must have figured there really was no way out. His plans had turned to shit. His men were either dead or had deserted him.
“Open the door,” Marcello finally called. “It’s not locked.”
What the hell? Kayla tensed, sure that it was a trap. She wished she could call out a warning to let Drake and the men with him, know that it was a trap. Marcello kept that door unlocked for a reason. He wanted them to walk through that slim portal so that he could gun them down. He had the advantage. The way the bed was angled, anyone entering t
he door would have to whirl to see it. Marcello would shoot them down the instant they entered and keep on shooting until there wasn’t a single man left.
Please. Please don’t let Shawn be out there.
Kayla made a muffled sound against the gag, a horrible shriek of warning. Tears formed in her eyes and her heart clenched tightly in her chest. It didn’t even occur to her that if someone were to come through that door, guns blazing, she was right behind Marcello.
She waited, body so tense that every single part of her ached.
Marcello waited.
The silence was deafening.
And then everything happened at once.
The door burst open in a flurry of splinters and shattered wood.
Marcello fired, both guns going off at once, his body shaking with the recoil of the weapons. Bullets ripped through the room and Kayla shut her eyes at the horrible sound. It was loud, so very loud. So loud that she felt like her ears were going to bleed. A band of terror wrapped around her heart. She screamed against the rag jammed into her mouth, screamed and screamed and screamed until her throat ached.
She expected it to be over. All of it. Expected the ripping, burning pain of a bullet tearing through her flesh and then the blackness, ending it all. Would it hurt? Would death be painful? Would it matter where she was hit? How many times?
Suddenly, it was quiet. The ringing in her ears faded away and she realized she was still screaming, choking, gagging against the rag in her mouth. It was over.
Strong arms encircled her. She breathed in, chest heaving and rising, the oxygen burning her nostrils, which worked double time trying to draw in oxygen. Something was wrong. Kayla tried to open her eyes, but they remained glued shut, like they wouldn’t obey the commands from her brain. The scent was familiar. It was safe. Leather. Spicy soap. It was different too. There was the acrid tang of smoke and gun oil, the metallic scent of blood and death, but underneath it all, she knew it was him.
Lonely Rider - The Box Set: A Motorcycle Club Romance - The Complete Series Page 87
