by K. J. Dahlen
“Agreed. We’re all better off without Viper and her Cartel,” Marco added. He swung his leg over his bike, shaking my hand with a victorious smile on his face. Four more Devils came in to the park to ride beside him as guards, right on cue. He then tore off, headed towards the Devil’s clubhouse.
I texted Bruno to make sure he was on his way to the clubhouse too.
Dino strode toward his ride. “I’ll see you in half an hour or so,” he called.
“Dino…hold on,” I called back.
Something about this final delivery in Tijuana set me on edge. I mean the Cartel was mostly wiped out but what if word got to this last one? Deciding that I was now out of harm’s way, I slipped off my jacket and tugged off the bullet proof vest. “Take this. And you call me at the first sign of trouble, ok?”
Dino nodded, tugging on the vest. “Of course,” he hesitated for a moment and then checked his watch. “I should make a move; my team will be waiting.” He shook my hand then took off on his bike.
I’d been surprised that we hadn’t seen the Bloods out on the road. Neither me, my team in Coronado, nor Dino, nor my team in Tijuana had seen them. Nobody. It all felt too good to be true. I still had the feeling there was a strong possibility I would run into them before the night was through. In my mind’s eye, I pictured the Bloods ambushing me and robbing me for everything I had. I turned on the ignition of my bike, my engine throbbing and sending a beam of intensely bright white light ahead.
From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw movement. Visible in the distance, was a figure. I carefully shut off the engine, dismounted my bike, and ran my flashlight across the scene. I couldn’t ride off when someone was stalking me. It was a good way to get shot in the back.
The concrete ground was littered with abandoned coffee cups, fizzy drinks cans, and empty cartons of food. I didn’t see any danger.
An instant later, I stood stalk still. An almost electric current hummed through my blood. A dark, solitary figure was stalking me. I could barely see the person and I couldn’t hear him.
In a single, slick motion, the stranger with a balaclava covered face removed a gun from underneath his jacket and fired. I ducked. One hand raised to my ear as a bullet ricocheted an inch away from my skin. My body tensed. My ears rang. I froze for a split second awaiting his next move.
“Run for your life, Jax!” the gunman bellowed an order.
The familiar voice hit me like a hammer and gripped my neck in a chokehold. I knew exactly who I was dealing with. His black hearted chortle told me Jumper would enjoy every moment of killing me…Like hell was I about to let him.
“Show yourself, you fucking pussy!” I ordered back then crouched lower to the ground and scrambled to my ride. My eardrums vibrated painfully with the deafening ring from the first bullet that nearly sliced off my ear, permeated by Jumper’s demented laughter.
Keeping my upper torso low, at a ninety degree angle to my legs, I swung my left leg over my bike, turned my key in the ignition, and advanced forward as fast as my bike could possibly accelerate. My tail lights beamed over the coward’s body.
The broad, toothy grin and wide, demented eyes of a maniac reflected into my right stem mirror.
With his chest heaving, his cold smile was plastered and set across his mouth. The maniac was in utter ecstasy; reveling in his own peculiar version of victory.
He was grinding through a sharp turn while I slid my right hand to my gun holster. Damnittohell! My gun was gone.
The bodyguard had taken my gun from me when I got into the SUV to collect the Devils’ payment for this job. I’d left it in the fucking car. No gun. No bulletproof vest. No fucking hope against this maniac unless backup arrived real soon.
PING!
A bullet ricocheted off of my bike’s cannon exhaust. Moving like lightening and throwing my bike into gear my bike screamed away.
Fuckfuckfuck I can’t die like this. Not now!
Through my mirrors, I could see Jumper – gun in hand – his face flooded in the red beam of my tail lights. His mouth carried the grim smile of a killer.
POP!
A second wild shot narrowly missed my ear. The only thing keeping me alive was the darkness and the fact I was a moving target.
I was almost out of the parking lot and I’d be away, when suddenly a delivery truck appeared at the park, blocking my exit.
“Shit!” I was forced to brake to avoid hitting the enormous vehicle. I threw the bike in gear, power slid into a grinding U-turn, whipping my bike around, and raced toward my attacker. One of us was about to die.
POW! POW! POW!
Jumper still had a huge, demonic grin on his face.
I weaved my bike – somehow dodging the bullets. Heaving the empty briefcase toward him with all my might, it soared forward toward Jumper but the first he knew about it was when it hit him.
With him stunned for a moment, I managed to collide my arm against his torso as I raced past him. His body went flying backward but he quickly regained control ‒ spinning across the ground in a military roll. His gun however, had fallen from his hands.
Flipping another U-turn at the far end of the parking lot, I could see the delivery truck start to pull away slowly ahead of me. In a few seconds, there would be enough room for my bike to escape through.
Jumper was still on the ground, pushing himself to his hands and knees while feeling the concrete for his gun, but it was lost in the darkness.
I revved my engine, now was the time to make my escape. I stepped on the gas and surged forward. I was confident as I took off toward the open gap.
Seconds later, I’d passed Jumper on the ground and was just a few yards from freedom.
BOOM!
An immense pain punctured through my back and seared through my tissues like a punch of fire. My joints buckled. My bike skidded out of control. Unable to maintain my grip on the handlebars, I gritted my teeth as I was thrown from my bike.
When I landed on my stomach onto the concrete, every bone in my body felt broken. I twisted my head and glanced at Jumper’s bike, screeching out of the other entrance to the parking lot and racing from the scene. The low rumble of the engine of his ride disappearing into the darkness.
Despite the pounding pain, I tried to focus, death threatening to pull me under. I felt for my phone but it’d been thrown from my pocket as I’d been thrown from my bike. I felt blood, thick and warm on my back. The cold wind whirled over my exposed wound, my skin burning. Struggling to breathe while laying on my front, my chest was in excruciating pain as if I’d fractured ribs, but I refused to give up. I moved just a tad and the pain stopped me cold. Pain so intense it was keeping me conscious. Agony throbbed through every tissue in my body, not for myself but for every person I would let down by dying this way.
I just need to stay alive long enough for one of the guys to find me.
With this thought, hoping beyond hope somebody would find me in the next few minutes but nobody knew where I was. I glanced up again, searching for somebody. All I saw was darkness. Chloe… my eyelids threatened to close, my eyes soon to be glassy and sightless.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bruno
When Jax didn’t meet me back at the clubhouse I rode to where he had been. I made a hasty trip down the long stretch of highway between the clubhouse and Balboa Park to find him. I glanced at the time display on my bike. It was 5am.
I left my headlights on high beam. When I arrived at the parking lot, where Marco had met Jax at, there was not a soul in sight. I paced across the lot and glanced around. Soft groans played the wind and I paced ahead of me, flashing the light on my phone from left to right.
I could see Jax’s bike straight ahead of me. I looked down at the man, sideways up – It was Jax—Jax was lying in a pool of dark crimson on on the ground, blood running from his back.
I gazed at the unconscious corpse beneath me and dropped to the ground beside him. Obviously, Jax had been thrown from his bike after being shot.
His clothes were torn, his sunglasses, watch and lighter were smashed up on the ground.
Jax was bloody and broken, fighting for survival. He struggled on the ground – unable to speak ‒ my body started to shake slightly. A police car’s siren blared in the distance but I didn’t react. I didn’t care. Everything went silent and grey to my senses. I couldn’t tell whether the darkness that fell over me was for Jax, for me, or for the Devils.
I’d seen enough killings to know when a man was less than ten minutes from death. In that moment, I made an important decision. Forced to abandon my sense of caution about getting the authorities involved in anything related to my club, I pulled out my smart phone and furiously dialed three digits into the keypad.
My body tensed as I waited.
The phone rang for several seconds before somebody picked up… “911. Please speak your name and the nature of your emergency,” a woman said, robotically.
“Ambulance. Now!” I ordered, and followed with all the information they would require.
“Thank you. We have your address, please stay on the line.”
“I know how to fucking handle a gunshot wound. Just get your asses over here,” I responded.
My next thought was that I needed to get Dino to wait for Jax at the hospital. There was a high probability that the cops would show up with the ambulance and take me to the joint for questioning over this. I speed dialed Dino. The display flashed, ‘calling…Thunder’ and the line on the other end rang once. I put the phone onto loud speaker so I could use my hands to try to reduce Jaxson’s bleeding.
“Bruno. What’s up?”
“Jax has been shot. Jumper shot him.”
“I’ll meet you there in in ten.”
“No! Stay out of the way. I could lose my president tonight. I’m not about to lose my VP too. I’m sorting it. This problem needs to be fixed. And fast. I’ve already called nine-one-one and an ambulance is on the way.”
“Ambulance? You called the damn authorities. Bruno? You’d never—you have never involved the regular police.”
“I’m not about to let Jax, the man I trained up for the past decade to take my place, die in front of me when there was something more I could have done about it. I’m not gambling Jax’s life on a mob doctor who could fuck things up!” As embarrassing as the situation was for me, I wasn’t about to stop Jax from getting the help he needed when his life was hanging on a knife’s edge. “Just meet up at the hospital near Balboa Park.” I hung up.
A cell phone rang. Not my own. It was coming from a few yards to my left on the ground. It was Jax’s. The contact calling said, Jumper. Jax hadn’t told me he’d received calls from Jumper in the past. I put the phone to my ear.
“Mr. De Luca, I just wanted to touch base with you. It looks like you’ll be needing a new president for your little motorcycle club.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I scowled fiercely.
“I’m your worst nightmare,” he said, laughing in a cocky sort of a way.
“This is bullshit,” I yelled.
Jumper didn’t respond.
“You’ve got no justification.”
He laughed again. “And why would I need to justify myself to the likes of you. Besides, pleasure is justification enough to kill Jaxson Coltrane.”
“Cocksucker! I’ll kill you myself. You and every damn member of your club.” I got the impression part of the thrill of this for him was in making me sore about it. Otherwise, he would have tried to kill me as well. Something in him wanted to see me really suffer.
“So you share my passion for a good hunt then, Mr. De Luca? What a pity we could have never become better acquainted. I’m sure we would have been great friends.”
“You listen here. I’ll rip your spine out of your ass and feed it to my dog. Then, I’ll wipe every chapter of the Bloods’ MC from the face of the earth. That’s a promise, Jumper.”
“You act hard, De Luca, but you’re not as tough as you think you are. Perhaps deep down in your heart, you wish you could be more like me.” He paused. “I’ll let you get back to your boy, but before I go, I want you to always know one thing about my favorite kill…You were the cause of Jaxson Coltrane’s death.” The call went dead.
Suddenly, rage surged through my body. There he was…Jax totally alone on the ground in the parking lot; clinging hopelessly to life. “For the love of god,” I muttered, shaking my head. Pain tore through me. I didn’t understand why he wasn’t wearing the bulletproof vest I’d given him.
My blood burned through my veins. I cursed myself for screwing up. I should have killed Jumper before I let this job go ahead.
Making a strategic decision, I decided to hide mine and Jax’s gun from the cops in plain sight, in the exhaust of my bike. When I felt for Jax’s gun, it was gone. I searched the ground around us desperately for it but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I could only hide my own.
The ambulance was on its way; and judging by experience, so were the cops. Cases of homicide were always surrounded by blues, and a heard of reporters.
Now, the sound of sirens and the blue and white flashing lights from a small army of police and paramedics drew closer. With the authorities advancing, I took one last private moment with the only real son I’d ever had. Everything I’d worked so hard to accomplish could be destroyed because of this. I couldn’t let that happen.
I gazed up at the deathly sky. Forgive me. Forgive me, Charlie, my brother. I broke the laws of the MC I built for you by working with the cartel for my own selfish gain. But don’t punish Jax. Don’t punish him from beyond the grave for my mistake.
Rain started to pour in a sudden free fall; a turmoil of grey clouds swarming overhead. Jumper’s words washed through my mind – he was out for his own selfish vengeance. That cocksucker and his MC had a kind of every-man-for-himself selfishness that disgusted me to my bones. This attack had nothing to do with business. It was personal.
Now, it was more than personal for me. Jumper would be dead within a day. I had it all set already. Unfortunately, it would be a day too late.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chloe
“What is it?” I asked.
I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes to make it look as though I’d been sleeping. The truth was I’d been too edgy to sleep a wink.
“Bruno’s just found Jax shot in the park,” Dino said, breathing heavily, “We need to leave now. He’s still alive and I don’t want to worry you, but his prognosis looks poor.”
My heart nearly stopped. I tried to catch my breath. He said he was still alive. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. I got up, put my shoes on, grabbed Jax’s go bag, and flew down the stairs following Dino. He looked pale and freaked out. I wasn’t used to seeing him looking scared. This was bad…very bad. My heart pounded and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
We tore down the highway toward the Balboa Naval Medical Center at high speed. I watched as the speedometer dial edged past eighty five at peak acceleration. It was a little after 6 am on a bright but still wintry morning in April and the roads were bare.
It had been a week since Jax had been promoted to president of the Devil’s; it was a cursed position for him to think that that was all the time it took for tragedy to strike. My body trembled as I held onto Dino tightly on the journey. We went on like that for fifteen minutes that felt like hours.
As Dino pulled in to a parking bay at the hospital, I looked around.
Dino made his way toward the pay for parking machine. He paid and headed the bike in. He killed the engine and pocketed the keys. It looked like the most impassable and perilous looking place. The walls of the high rise Medical Center were glinting in the morning sun. The wind picked up, tugging at my hair and clothes as I climbed off of Dino’s bike.
We made our way up to the third floor in the east wing where the man at the reception desk told us where we could find Jax. Inside, Dino and I waited for the doctor as he was in the OR. We sat with our backs against the wall on our
chairs. Jax’s fresh clothes in a bag between my legs. Our anxious silence came to a head when I said, “Bruno played right into Jumper’s hands,” I said shaking my head.
Keeping his voice calm, Dino responded, “It didn’t happen that way, Chloe.”
I felt a vein throb in my temple. “Didn’t happen that way? Oh, please…Bruno knew Jumper had an axe to grind with Jax and he went along with the job for the drug cartel anyway. He sacrificed Jax for 200K.” I held Bruno and the Devils responsible for this – and Dino knew it.
Deeply offended, Dino retaliated, “Don’t you ever talk that way! Bruno’s an honorable man, and as smart as they come. He owed the Cartel a service and he’s giving it to them with one hand, and taking the money he lost when the whiskey shipment was ambushed with the other. They don’t call him the best for nothing, you know.”
At the defense in his tone, my anger rose.
“Jax is the closest thing Bruno ever had to a real son. Bruno is the closest thing Jax ever had to a father. I would have thought even somebody like you could understand that.” He huffed.
My eyebrows furrowed in strong disapproval. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Somebody like me…”
Dino shrugged dismissively. “Just forget it,” he said, tersely. “At the end of the day, nobody put a gun to Jax’s head and told him he had to do this. He chose to do this for Bruno. The man who already took a bullet for him once. Or did you forget about that? I suggest, if you’re wanting to stick around, that you start treating the man with a little more respect than you’ve got for him right now.”
“I don’t give a shit about Bruno,” I ranted, “The people I’m worried about are Jax and my mom. Now, we’ve got ourselves a maniac on the loose and he’s not about to stop killing until we finish him off. So we’d better put aside our personal grudges and get on with it.”
