Born Wild

by Julie Ann Walker

  His certainly had…

  It’s time. Time to finally end it.

  Taking a deep breath, he punched in a number that made his upper lip curl with distaste.

  “Yo,” a man whose accent was pure Southside Chicago gangster answered. “You got a location for us or what?”

  “I do,” he said. “She’s at Red Delilah’s biker bar for the next hour or so. Hurry.”

  “Don’t you worry. We’ll finish the job you were too chicken-shit to do on your own.”

  Wishing he could reach through the phone and shove his thumb in the fucker’s eye, he satisfied himself instead by jamming a finger down on the phone’s keypad, instantly ending the call.

  “Goddamn sonsofbitches,” he growled into the empty room, reaching for the decanter of scotch, disgusted to find his hands were shaking.

  I’m sorry, my dear, sweet Eve, he thought as he raked in a steadying breath. I wish there could’ve been another way…

  Chapter Eleven

  Red Delilah’s Biker Bar

  6:01 p.m.

  Fighting with the colorfully lit jukebox, trying to get the darned thing to accept her five-dollar bill, Eve felt woozy. And sad.

  The wooziness was a direct result of having gulped down two of Delilah’s world-class strawberry daiquiris in record time. The sadness was a direct result of the way her life was going.

  Oh, let me count the ways…

  For starters, her PhD—the goal she’d been striving toward for three, long years—was on indefinite hold because not only had her laptop burned up in her condo fire, but now all her dissertation materials were sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Also, someone, possibly someone she knew, was out there right now with a mind to kill her. And as if those two things weren’t bad enough, it now appeared that her love life—never a thing of beauty except for a brief, three-month period twelve years ago—was floating in the toilet while the Fates fiddled with the lever.

  Yep. It’s official. You’re a real piece of work, Eve Edens.

  She was just about to give up on the jukebox when the fickle machine suddenly decided that, yes, in fact it was hungry. It sucked in her money in one greedy gulp.

  Victory!

  It was a small win, sure, but at this point she was taking what she could get.

  Scrolling through the options, she choked on a strangled sob when one particular number met her bleary gaze. Punching in the request for the tune, she used the rest of her money to jump the other songs currently waiting in the musical queue and turned just as the first driving drumbeat sounded.

  This song reminded her of that magical summer with Billy and—

  “Boo!” one of the patrons shouted. “No contemporary country music allowed on Sundays!”

  “Can it, Buzzard!” Delilah yelled from behind the bar, throwing an olive at a bearded man Eve recognized from the two previous times she’d been in Red Delilah’s. Idly, she wondered if the old, potbellied biker actually lived there. Maybe he had a sleeping bag somewhere in the back? But then Eric Church started singing about young love and loss, and she closed her eyes, letting the familiar lyrics of “Springsteen” wash over her, wallowing—yes, wallowing; a girl was allowed to do that on occasion—in her own regret.

  A memory of Billy lying with his head in her lap on a patchwork quilt under a tree in Grant Park, listening as she read from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, stumbled through her slightly sluggish, strawberry daiquiri-addled brain. He’d been idly twirling a yellow flower—A dandelion? She couldn’t recall precisely—between his thumb and forefinger. And when she glanced down at him, down into his handsome face dappled with the sunlight spilling in through the leaves, she expected to find his warm, laughing eyes closed. But his gaze hadn’t been shuttered by his lids and long, dark lashes. Just the opposite, in fact. He’d been looking right at her, and the expression on his face? Oh, sweet Lord, it’d made her heart jump in her chest. Okay, not jump. Leap! Because it was the first time she’d ever seen love in a man’s eyes. And not those pale-by-comparison kinds of loves like puppy or platonic. Heck no. It was romantic love. And oh, it’d frightened her almost as much as it’d delighted her…

  Wistfully swaying beside the jukebox, lost in the bittersweet memory, she was completely caught off-guard and more than a little stunned—her eyes snapping wide—when the front door flew open with a bang. Of course, even more shocking than the unexpected interruption was the man in baggy jeans, gold chains, and a ski mask who immediately charged inside.

  “Hands in the air!” he yelled, holding a nickel-plated pistol out in front of him gangster-style, on its side, just as a second, similarly attired gunman stepped over the threshold.

  Of course, there’s another gunman, she thought with distaste, her mind working a little slowly due to either the shock or the second daiquiri or, more likely, both. Like nuns, guys like these always travel in pairs.

  Only this duo was far from anything holy…

  The second thought to stumble through her sluggish brain was, geez, I just can’t catch a break, can I? The third thought was he’s holding that gun all wrong. And the fourth thought, the most appropriate thought—Hello! Finally, the right synapses were firing—was oh, crap! But before she could form a fifth thought, the unmistakable chick-schnick of a shotgun being wracked assaulted her ears.

  “You picked the wrong place to rob, my friends,” Delilah growled, and Eve’s eyes flashed toward the bar. The redheaded proprietress was standing there looking, for all intents and purposes, like a playboy model—except for the teensy, tiny fact that she had a sawed-off shotgun pressed tightly against her shoulder, and a deadly challenge gleaming in her green eyes. “And in case you’re too stupid to understand ballistics, let me give you a lesson.” Her voice was tough and strident, not belying an ounce of the fear Eve knew she had to be feeling. “The chances of me tearing you to shreds with this here scatter-gun are much higher than you hitting me with one of those nine millimeter slugs.”

  The masked men seemed to hesitate, then the one closest to the open door turned to look directly at Eve.

  “There she is,” he said. And before she could begin to contemplate what on God’s green Earth he could possibly mean by that, he raised a gun toward her head.

  Yep. Gun. Raised. Toward. Her. Head…

  Everything that happened next was a blur, because her self-defense training kicked in and she instinctively dove for the man’s ankles. Knocking him off balance, he crashed onto her back, crushing her and forcing all the air from her lungs like she’d been punched in the sternum.

  “Uhhhhh,” she gasped, raking in much-needed air and the not-so-much-needed aromas of heavy cologne and weed. Fear sizzled along each of her nerve-endings until she was the human version of a live wire, and it combined with the hot burst of adrenaline to give her more strength than she would have under normal circumstances. When she pushed up from the floor, she was able to partially dislodge her assailant. And then the fight was on!

  “Bitch!” he yelled as they became a tangled mess of grappling arms and kicking legs, each wrestling for control of the weapon with a killing intensity. It seemed like hours passed as they strained and struggled, heaved and bucked. But in reality, it was probably only seconds. Then, Eve misjudged which way the gunman was moving, and he was able to use her lapse along with his superior strength to pin her to the floor. His black eyes bored into her from the holes in his ski mask, promising death.

  If you think I’m done, her burning eyes screamed up at him, then you’re dead wrong! I’m not going down without a fight, by God!

  She wrapped both fists around the wrist of his gun hand, grunting and snarling while simultaneously kicking and flailing to try to heave him off her. But to her utter horror, with both of her hands occupied with the task of preventing the masked man from pointing that Smith and Wesson at her head, there was nothing to stop him from reaching over with
his free hand to enclose her throat in a meaty grip. Which was exactly what he did.

  Instantly her brain buzzed from lack of oxygen, and darkness edged into her vision.

  Oh, no! Help me, Lord, I’m losing it!

  Her vision tunneled, and she couldn’t seem to form a whole thought. As her world dimmed, she vaguely registered the boom of a shotgun and the wall next to the front door exploding in a shower of splinters.

  Bam! The first gunman returned fire, and in a tiny corner of Eve’s mind she recognized the sound of bottles breaking.

  Miraculously, the gunplay was enough to distract her attacker, and with only the most instinctual portion of her brain working, she saw an opportunity. Now! Twisting the gun from her opponent’s hand, she wanted to yell in triumph when the warm metal settled into her fist. But the sweat on her palms, and the fact that there was a two-hundred-pound man strangling her, precluded any whoop of victory and had the weapon slipping from her grip.

  It fell to the wooden slats of the floor with a loud thump. The masked man released her throat to make a grab for it, and she barely had enough time to drag in a wheezing breath that instantly snapped the world into focus before she was wholly occupied in the mad scuffle and scramble to retrieve the dropped pistol. She twisted out from under her attacker, latching onto his wrists. But in the process she inadvertently kicked the gun beneath the happily playing jukebox.

  Damnit!

  Boom! Another blast of the shotgun, this time aimed directly above her assailant’s head. The top of the jukebox shattered, the music coming to a record-scratching halt, and a shower of colorful glass rained down on them like sharp, stinging confetti. In the ear-ringing silence that followed, her attacker, now relieved of his weapon, must’ve figured Delilah was right about that lesson in ballistics. Because he scrambled to his feet and dove for the open door.

  Eve flipped onto her stomach in time to see his Nikes disappear over the threshold.

  Delilah had just saved her life…

  But for how long?

  Her head weighed a hundred pounds, but she still managed to lift it, fully expecting that when she did she’d be staring down the barrel of the first gunman’s weapon, but—

  Boom! A third blast from the shotgun.

  This time, Delilah caught a piece of the first masked man’s leg, shredding his jeans and the flesh beneath. He howled in agony, grabbing at the wound with one hand and squeezing the trigger of his pistol with the other. Bullets exploded from the gun in quick, ear-shattering succession as the gangster wildly laid down covering fire, his limping retreat toward the door leaving a shower of blood droplets in his wake. A light fixture burst with a crash. The red vinyl cushion on an empty booth belched up a cloud of cotton stuffing after absorbing a round.

  Eve once more covered her head, her blood rushing through her veins so hard and fast it sounded like a waterfall roaring between her ears. When she breathed, the acrid smell of cordite and the iron-like aroma of hemoglobin filled her nose, making her fight the urge to gag. A vehicle roared to life followed by the sound of tires squealing. Through the swinging front door, she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a white van hauling butt away from the place.

  Then, silence reigned…

  For one heartbeat, maybe two, the world stopped spinning, and Eve glanced up to find the bar set in a motionless tableau. Patrons littered the floor, hands over their heads, completely and totally frozen in fear. Then, an ear-piercing scream splintered the silence, and Eve turned to see Delilah scrambling over the bar, the bartender’s pretty face twisted with horror.

  What…?

  But then she saw it. The potbellied biker—Buzzard?—was slumped on his stool, a ghastly river of red dripping down his stomach and pants, pooling beneath his dangling black biker boots in a slick, gruesome puddle.

  “No!” Delilah screamed, pressing a hand to the gushing wound in the center of Buzzard’s chest. “No, Buzzard! No!”

  Eve was the first to jump to her feet, hurdling prone patrons as she raced toward her purse still sitting on the bar, digging frantically for her cell phone.

  Where are you? Where the heck are—

  When she finally found it, she punched in 9-1-1 with shaky fingers and looked over at Buzzard—Delilah was sobbing hysterically and continuing to try to apply pressure to that gruesome wound. To her utter horror, she discovered the man’s eyes were open and vacant, staring at nothing but death.

  Oh, sweet Lord, no…

  “Nine, one, one. What’s your emergency?” a nasally voice sounded over the phone.

  “I-I need an ambulance at…” she had to swallow the bile and tears burning up the back of her throat. “At Red Delilah’s biker bar.” She gave the address. “A man has been sh-shot.”

  The emergency operator asked her a question, but she didn’t hear it as the phone slipped from her nerveless fingers.

  There she is. That’s what the second gunman said before raising his weapon. Which meant they’d come here for her. To kill her. But instead…Buzzard was dead.

  And that meant this was all her fault…

  No God, no! She choked on a sob, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her, but she refused to give in to the grief and hysteria bubbling just beneath her surface. It might be too late to help Buzzard, but perhaps she could still help poor Delilah…

  ***

  The Corner of Western and North Avenues

  6:32 p.m.

  “What in the world?” Bill heard Mac yell over the grumbling sound of dual V-twin engines. He gripped Phoenix’s handlebars tighter as he squinted up the block to where the red-blue-red flash of emergency vehicle lights bounced menacingly against the surrounding buildings.

  They’d kinda, sorta, pseudo-fixed the Bat Cave door. But the thing was still acting sketchy as fuck, sometimes opening and closing of its own volition, so they’d decided to ditch the Hummer in exchange for the bikes. Especially considering that the tunnel was such a tight fit for the giant SUV that opening the doors of the vehicle once inside the sucker was nearly impossible.

  Yeah, to say neither one of them had fancied the idea of getting stuck inside the Hummer down in the tunnel and having to pull the Holy Grail of all reverse maneuvers back out to the exit in the parking garage was putting it mildly. Bill just hoped Eve was okay with riding—

  “I think that’s Delilah’s!” Mac’s voice sliced into his thoughts.

  He realized in that moment, as he twisted his wrist and blazed through the red light and cross traffic—heedless of the sound of squealing tires on either side of him and the fact that the silver bumper on a Chevy half-ton pickup truck came within an inch of his biker boot—what it meant when people said their hearts froze. Because his stopped beating, turned to a hard fist of dry ice in his chest, and proceeded to burn a hole straight through his soul.

  Eve…

  He wasn’t thinking when he blasted into the little parking lot in front of Red Delilah’s, Phoenix’s fat rear tire bouncing over the curb until his teeth clacked together with brain-jostling force. He wasn’t thinking when he toed out the kickstand and jumped from the bike, switching off the growling engine. He wasn’t thinking when he ran toward the waiting ambulance and the body-bag-laden stretcher being loaded inside.

  “Eve!” He frantically tossed off the restraining hands of the police officers who leapt toward him, instinctively shoving an elbow into someone’s nose. “Eve! Eve!” His wailing, breathless cries howled from him like the wind blowing over the dunes in the desert. His lungs worked like bellows, but no oxygen got to his brain.

  “Stand down, asshole!” one of the officers shouted in his ear, snaking an arm around his throat as two, then three more uniformed CPD boys tried to wrestle him to the ground. He fought them like he was fighting for his life, hissing and biting, punching and kicking. He was a mindless beast, bent on only one thing: getting inside that ambulance
and—

  “Billy!”

  When he heard his name, when he heard her sweet voice, all the fight seeped out of him like air from a torn balloon. He choked on a hard, wet sob that lodged in the center of his chest. Then, the next thing he knew, he was kissing concrete, there were an unknown number of very pointy knees digging into his back, and his wrists were being secured by a cold, hard set of handcuffs.

  He didn’t care. Because she was alive! The CPD could take out their billy clubs and pound the living shit out of him for the rest of the evening if they wanted to, and he’d still be smiling.

  “Get off him! Get off him!” From the corner of his eye—the one not being ground into the parking lot’s hot pavement—he could see Eve pushing officers aside. “He’s with me!”

  Slowly, the restraining hands disappeared, as did the pointy knees. And after a ringing command from Eve that someone should help him up, two policemen grabbed his elbows and hauled him to his feet. The very next instant, Eve was pressed against him. Her arms were around his neck, her head was on his shoulder—the smell of her fruity shampoo obscured the more pungent aroma of car exhaust—and she was sobbing and squeezing him so tightly he could barely breathe.

  Who cares? Oxygen is overrated anyway.

  “Jesus, Eve…” Her name was a benediction and a prayer all rolled into one. He wasn’t a religious man, but he whispered a quick thanks skyward to anyone who might be listening and went to wrap his arms around her, to hold her close to his pounding heart. But the handcuffs stopped him with the bite of unyielding steel.

  “Get these fucking things off me,” he growled at the officer closest to him.

  The man wiped a hand under his bleeding nose—apparently this was the one Bill’d clocked with his elbow—and glowered. Then the policeman took a deep breath, obviously deciding he might’ve done the same thing had he thought the body of someone he cared about was being loaded into a waiting ambulance, and moved to oblige Bill’s request.