by Bethany-Kris
“Antony, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. We do have rules on these sort of things, though.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“If they hurt one of ours, we’ll send theirs to the grave. They hurt you, so now it’s time to pay the boss his due. We’ve waited long enough.”
• • •
“Where did you pick this up?” Lucian asked from the passenger seat.
Dante shrugged as he pulled the black SUV into a relatively quiet parking lot. “Mentioned to a friend I needed a vehicle he wouldn’t want back. Another friend of a friend is looking for the insurance payout. It worked.”
It wouldn’t be wise to risk the vehicle they used to commit a crime being videotaped and later it turn out to be a personal car of a Marcello. At least this way, the friend of a friend would have a valid excuse to say his vehicle was stolen and used in the commission of a crime. It only made his story look better.
“Dio! I love this gun,” Gio said in the backseat.
“So do I. Scratch it, and I will cut you, Gio.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“So, Antony was clear,” Dante said, changing the topic just as fast. Opening the compartment between the driver and passenger seat, he pulled out a Glock .22, undid the clip, checked the ammo cartridge, and slipped it back in with an audible click. “In, work it fast, and get the hell out.”
“Just like fucking,” Gio joked.
Lucian groaned. “Not right now, Gio.”
“Sorry.”
Dante leaned back in the seat, eyeing his brother. “You going to be okay to do this?”
Sure. It’d be good to get some aggression out. Lucian had waited a long time to get some kind of retribution for what happened to Jordyn. It wasn’t the job itself that bothered him at all. It was the building ball of rage in his gut the closer they became to their destination that was eating away at him. Lucian needed to get that shit under control.
“I’m good,” Lucian finally answered. “You?”
“I haven’t done a scene in a while, but I don’t think it’s any different than it was.”
“That’s because Dad keeps you close,” Gio said. “You’ve missed a lot these last couple of years. We had some fun.”
Yeah, fun. That was one way to put it.
“No one’s getting damaged today, except for a couple of MC members,” Dante replied, sounding tired. “Are we ready?”
“I am,” Lucian said.
Gio leaned between the seats. “Me, too.”
“Plan is simple,” Lucian explained. “We’re a half a block away. Gio, take the back alley between the buildings. Keep out of sight until you’re at the back of the club. The lock on the back door shouldn’t be hard to blow it open. Come in through the hallway, clear the rooms, and meet us in the middle. With that rifle, thirty rounds per second, just a pull of the trigger and any random people will drop to the floor and keep their eyes down. That’s what we want.”
“You’re just going to go in through the front entrance?”
Dante smirked. “Why not?”
“I don’t know … seems obvious that’d be a bad choice.”
Lucian rolled his eyes. “And they’re so cocky, they probably don’t have anyone at the front at this time of day. It’s eleven in the morning. What do you want to bet half of them are just starting to wake up from their stupor because of last night?”
It wasn’t hard to get information when a price was on the streets. Money talked. Seems after the club went stupid on one of Antony’s apartment buildings the night before, they decided to celebrate back at their favorite haunt Legs and Leather. According to one source, they were partying before they burned down the building and it continued long after, too. Given the couches and shoddy loungers in the backrooms of the strip club, Lucian seriously doubted many club members left.
Not if there was free alcohol, drugs, and an abundance of holes willing to be filled.
Disgusting men were disgustingly predictable.
Apparently private parties like that were common for them.
“Let’s just hope he’s there,” Dante said quietly, drawing Lucian from his thoughts.
“And if he’s not?”
“Then this will really piss him off.”
“Worth it,” Gio added, looking like he was starting to get antsy to move. “Can we go?”
“Yeah,” Lucian said with a sharp nod. “Let’s go.”
All three brothers pulled up the hoods of their sweaters to keep their faces shielded from any possible security cameras on the outside of buildings. Dante didn’t even bother to take the keys out of the car or turn off the engine. From the moment one gunshot was heard, they had limited time to get out of the area, even if the people around here were more likely to wait until it was over before they called the cops.
Frankly, they weren’t worried about police coming back on them, because The Sons of Hell weren’t as entirely stupid as they seemed. No one wanted the cops in their business. When the officials did show up, it was likely anyone left alive would say they couldn’t identify the attackers and say it was a robbery.
Easy in, and easy out.
This kind of business was better conducted on the streets than in a courtroom.
Legs and Leather was only a half a block away from where they’d parked. As Gio slipped into an alley, Lucian and Dante took the front street with guns hidden in the backs of their pants and heads down.
The front of the strip club confirmed what Lucian’s earlier thoughts. A couple of rows of motorcycles filled the parking lot. Most of the outside lights showcasing the business hadn’t even been turned off to signal the place was closed.
The steel door wasn’t even locked.
How easy and stupid was that?
Lucian shook his head as he pushed it open. “Cafones.”
The overwhelming smell of sex, stale alcohol, and smoke smashed Lucian straight in the face. His stomach rolled. The one thing on his mind was Jordyn. She would have seen things like this before, though she had her protection from it for a long time. Knowing Will’s plans for her before Lucian took her from him, he also knew this was one party she wouldn’t have escaped.
It was revolting.
Lucian hated these people.
The short hallway led straight into the lion’s den. Men were passed out on the floor, tables, and sprawled over chairs. Empty bottles and glasses littered every surface. The females wearing little, if anything at all, were in much the same predicament as the men. A few were just beginning to stir, while others seemed totally out of it, and a couple at back tables were talking quietly, though they hadn’t noticed the brother’s entrance.
Lucian did a quick count of what he could see. Maybe thirty men, and possibly seven girls.
It was dirty.
Lucian felt filthy just from being inside.
He needed to get everyone’s attention and quick.
A row of gambling slot machines were to his left. He pulled out one of his Eagles from the back of his pants and put a round in each one, creating a volcano of noise from every machine as it sputtered for life, not to mention the sound of gunfire that echoed in the space.
“Wake it up!” Dante shouted. “Up, fuckers! Rise and shine, we’ve got business to do!”
That did the trick. People jumped, jerking awake and scattering like cockroaches to wherever they assumed safety was. Safety was nowhere. Some grabbed for weapons that probably should have been where they reached, but weren’t because they were too screwed up to remember where they’d placed them.
A bull of a man came running at Lucian as if to tackle him. Ironically enough, it was the same bouncer Lucian had caught attacking Jordyn in the back alley.
Revenge was sweet.
At two feet away, Lucian’s Eagle met the man’s forehead, stopping him. “I told you it’d blow off your face.”
It did.
Lucian didn’t flinch at the after spray of fluid, blood, and matter.
“What the fuck are you doing?” someone yelled from their right. “This isn’t your—”
Dante cocked his hammer back and put a bullet directly above the man’s head, shutting him up instantly. “Quiet. It’s disrespectful to interrupt someone. And for the record, I did not miss you, asshole.”
“You son of a whore.”
With a sigh, Dante pulled back the trigger again. This time, the bullet hit the target. Straight in the chest, knocking the man backwards from the force. Blood splattered to the wall as wide eyes stared back, already dying. Feminine screams answered the shot.
“Let’s not do that again,” Dante said, turning back to the room unaffected and emotionless. “And by that, I mean making remarks about my mother. I don’t like it.”
“Pull out a gun and I will shoot you,” Lucian said loudly. “Move and I will shoot you. Look me in the eyes and I will shoot you. It’s pretty fucking simple. The quicker we say what we want to say, and get what we came to get, the faster we’ll be gone.”
“Someone burned down my father’s building last night,” Dante continued for his brother. “That doesn’t make a Don very happy. Imagine his shock to find out The Sons of Hell were involved in that kind of nonsense. We thought we’d made ourselves clear the last time we were here. Hadn’t we?”
Not all of the men seemed afraid, but the girls did. Lucian didn’t pay them any mind.
“Hey, hey—”
The leather vested dumbass getting up from a table, still clearly drunk given his swaying, was interrupted by the rapid assault fire coming from the back. Again, everyone in the building that Lucian could see seemed to have the same one of two reactions. They either froze, or tried to scurry for safe shelter.
“That’d just be my brother,” Dante said with a cruel smile. “He’s really trigger happy.”
“So those in the backrooms aren’t going to save you for those that had any heroic ideas,” Lucian finished.
They waited out the thirty seconds it took Gio to come down the back hallway until he was leaning in the doorway that separated the backrooms from the main space. Gio nodded to say he had his section handled.
“Where’s Will?” Lucian asked the room.
Silence answered him back.
Frustration growing, he aimed his Eagle at the closest MC member in his vicinity, hoping it would get the point across. Killing these men didn’t bother him, not after what they allowed to happen to Jordyn.
“I’m only going to ask one more time, and then I’m going to start shooting. I sincerely hope you fucking idiots can get this mess cleaned up before the police start breaking down doors. Where is Will Vetta?”
Again, no one answered.
Lucian pulled back the trigger and didn’t even blink. No emotion weighed the bullet down. He didn’t bother to watch the man as he cried out in pain and fell from his chair. More blood soaked into the cheaply carpeted floor. The two people at the table didn’t make a move to help him, either. Everyone had to make sacrifices.
“That’s three,” Dante informed. “Care to go for four?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Lucian watched someone rise from behind the bar counter, a gun aimed straight for Dante. Neither of his brother’s seemed to notice the threat, and Lucian’s Eagle was still aimed at the room.
Quickly, he grabbed the other weapon stashed in the back of his pants, slipped off the safety, cocked back the hammer, and aimed. Lucian didn’t miss, and the force of the bullet entering the man’s jaw pushed him back into the wall with a bang.
“Jesus,” Dante mumbled. “Thanks.”
“Eyes open, man,” Lucian responded. He turned back to the room, seriously hoping everyone realized no one was playing around now. “Second best question. Where’s Ron?”
“Right here,” came the gruff, quiet response from the darker back end of the room.
Ron Daney raised his hand from the table of men who had been talking when Lucian and Dante entered the club. Turning slowly in his chair, Ron met Lucian’s gaze from across the floor, seemingly unafraid. He looked tired, though, and maybe even over what was happening around him.
“Where’s Will?” Lucian asked Ron.
“Not here.”
“Where?”
“Like I fucking know,” Ron muttered. “He didn’t come back after the fire. What do you expect me to say? I’m not his keeper.”
“Second best,” Lucian retorted hotly, his anger rising again. “Can’t you keep control of his whereabouts?”
“I don’t run this show, Mafioso.”
“I doubt that,” Dante said at his brother’s side, still sweeping the floor with his sharp gaze to be sure no one was trying to make a move. “Your President is so messed up on his violence and his drugs that he can’t make a proper decision about anything. If you relied on him, he’d run your Chapter into the ground.”
That seemed to hit a nerve for some of the men in the room. A few openly glared, clearly fighting back the urge to shout their denials and obscenities. Given the fact they were facing three sober, fearless men with guns ready to turn on them, they wisely chose to stay quiet.
“Do you know what he did to her?” Lucian asked Ron, ignoring everyone else. “How he beat her?”
“I’d heard,” Ron replied drily. “Jordyn knew the rules and she broke them. I couldn’t help her after that.”
Fury flooded Lucian’s veins. “What fucking rules? She wasn’t his to do with what he wanted to begin with!”
“Your life isn’t like ours,” Ron said indifferently.
“Obviously not,” Gio spat. “Our women would never be treated like cattle to be used and abused as we see fit.”
“Unlike you, we take care and protect what is ours,” Dante added.
Lucian ground his teeth, trying to calm the rush of adrenaline. “And she’s mine.”
The stare down between Lucian and Ron lasted seconds. As it was, they’d already been in the place for too long. It needed to be done with, and fast.
“Your son, he loved her, cared for her … and you did nothing to help her,” Lucian growled. “If I can’t have Will today, I’ll take second best as a prize, Ron. I think we’ve both earned it.”
“I don’t want Jordyn,” Ron tried to say.
Lucian shrugged. “But Will does. I won’t let him have her and you’re a damn good example to make.”
That effectively ended the conversation for Lucian.
And Ron’s life.
Chapter Seventeen
Jordyn’s nerves grew to epic proportions as she waited for Lucian’s arrival at Cazza. The original plan was for him to pick her up at the condo and bring her to dinner, but that had changed sometime over the day. Antony informed her of the new plan to meet all of the boys at the restaurant so they could eat together.
When she asked why the change, Antony just smiled grimly and said nothing.
Now, his back was turned to her as he watched a news broadcast on the large flat screen television located on the far wall in the private VIP dining area of the restaurant. It was turned on low, but Jordyn wasn’t stupid. She was more than capable of looking at the words flashing at the bottom of the screen.
Legs and Leather. Known to be a popular scene for the infamous MC gang The Sons of Hell. Five dead. Dozens of witnesses who couldn’t give an accurate description of the assailants. Early reports suggested a robbery. Officials weren’t ruling out the incident being related to the motorcycle gang.
On top of the shooting, the investigators had removed several weapons and illegal substances from the strip club that were not believed to have been involved with the incident, but the guests of the business itself. ATF had also been called in. Legs and Leather was closed until further notice. Several MC members, their pictures and names flashing across the screen, had been arrested for weapons and drugs. The victims’ names were not being released at that time.
Jordyn felt sick.
It wasn’t the scene playing out on the news that really bothe
red her, but the fact that she hadn’t heard a thing about Lucian all day.
“Does it make me an awful person that I don’t care about those five body bags because I’m too concerned about seeing Lucian?” Jordyn asked.
Antony shrugged, his back still turned. “I’m morally bankrupt and have been for a long time, so I don’t think I’m the best person to ask that, Jordyn.”
His honesty was startling. “I’ve never really asked Lucian his thoughts, but how do you deal with feeling that way, or rather, being … this way,” she finished with a wave between Antony and the television.
“I pray.”
Jordyn’s brow rose. “Pray?”
Antony nodded. “And I ask for forgiveness. Though it may not seem like enough to apologize for the choices I make daily, and all the wrongs I’ve done before, it’s enough for me. Confession and penance are my greatest friends. Well, that and my angel of a wife. Her understanding, love, and acceptance of me in this life is a constant, unwavering cornerstone I need to survive. She is the one soul on earth I couldn’t stand to see hurt because of me, so I make sure she doesn’t ever have to.”
Jordyn didn’t get the chance to ask anything else. The arrival of three, loud Marcello brothers ended the conversation. Both Antony and Jordyn stood from the table to greet them.
Antony smiled, any worry in his features gone instantly. “Good day?”
“Perfect,” Dante responded. “Tell me you ordered already. I’m starving.”
“I did. The usual.”
“Awesome,” Gio muttered, pulling out a chair.
Jordyn couldn’t help but notice how they were all dressed in their usual suits, clean and unbothered. The television continued to play the news broadcast, but none seemed to care.
The one she wanted to talk to the most was the quietest. There was tension in the frown Lucian sported, an anger in his gaze. Lucian offered his hand to Jordyn and tilted his head to the side as if to ask her to come with him. She did, following him to the other side of the room where they were afforded some privacy.
“I’m sorry,” Lucian said quietly.
“What for?”
“It’s not over, sweetheart. I was hoping it would be, and I could tell you that, but it’s not. And I’m sorry.”
