“Jesus fuck!” someone shouts behind me.
I turned around as Cole rushes over to me. The big, sentimental son of a bitch doesn’t give me time to brace for impact when he pulls me in for a tight hug. He turns, looking up at the building with one arm still on my shoulder. “Shit, I didn’t realize the blast hit us so hard. Motherfuckers will pay for this.”
“They fucking will, brother. They’ll get what’s due, and we’ll rebuild. Did anyone take a head count of injuries?”
“A few minor scrapes, some burns, and one guy in the wrong place at the wrong time with a broken leg. No one was hurt bad enough to meet the reaper, so we’re good. A couple of the sack demons are nurses or close to it. They’re checking everyone out to see who needs medical attention.”
“Good.”
“You have any idea where the fuck this thing came from, kid?” he asks me.
I shake my head. Usually, his stupid reference to me as a child yanks my chain in all the wrong ways. He’s only a year older than me. Tonight I ignore it, blinking and clearing my throat from that last of the smoke in my lungs. Scrubbing my hands across my face, I see from my hands that soot streaks are all over it.
I look up at Cole again. “Did you see Cindy?”
“Yeah. She’s good. Not a scratch.”
“And Jenny?” I feel like a selfish douche for not asking Cole about his old lady sooner. Where the fuck’s my head at?
“All good. Just a small cut on her knee and a minor burn on her arm from trying to save the wedding dress. She’ll heal up no problem.” Cole shakes his head. “Women…”
“Sounds like her,” I reply. “Glad she’s fine.
My gaze scans the edge of the parking lot filled with my people and new outsiders. This is exactly what I was hoping to avoid. Firefighters climb out of their trucks and start planning their emergency response. Some inspect the wrecked wall of the clubhouse, and others drag hoses out toward the small remnant of fire. Someone must have gotten the sprinklers going. Smoke and steam are rising up from where flames once were. Local police officers show up too, but I’m not too worried about them. Half of these guys have relatives who are members, and another batch of them are paid to shut the fuck up. Our club has strategic alliances, as Cindy calls it, key people with the power or influence to help the club maintain our business, livelihood or lifestyle in this town.
Two ambulance trucks show up next and park on the fringes to start triaging the injured. Those with more serious damage have already been pre-triaged by our in-house people, so they’re led to the EMTs first. Aside from the initial shock and confusion, it’s clear to me that this attack was minor, all things considered. Still, I’m staggered by whoever was so fucking bold to make a move like this. We deal with violence all the time. Bloodshed is sometimes our bread and butter, but this is different. The rival gangs never attacked the clubhouse before. This is fucking personal, putting members’ lives in harm’s way like this.
“Collect whatever information you can. I want the voting members in a room as soon as possible, and after that, a smaller meeting with just the executive officers. Tell everyone nonessential to go home. We’ll start in an hour. You know where.”
“Yeah,” he nods. “The Bunker. Consider it done, boss.”
I bob my head in a short nod. “Tell Axe to have Jenny take Sabrina home with her for now. And send some muscle to watch them.”
“Will do. Don’t be late, kid.”
Chapter 11
Silas
I have no fucking idea what time it is. Time feels like it’s standing still as I sit silently in front of the campfire fire just outside the entrance of the old bunker a couple of miles from the clubhouse. My phone died hours ago, halfway through taking notes here and there while I talked to my key people and sent them all off to finish their intel gathering. No matter how the night shakes out, the club took a serious hit tonight. Someone has to pay, and whoever was responsible will get their own taste of judgment day.
No one fucks with my home and lives to tell about it.
Moonlight sends rays through the trees, making the place feel surreal. It’s a contrast to the shit storm we just went through. I’m so fucking frustrated as I straighten up that I punch my fist through the air as if delivering a bone-shattering blow to the cocksucker that fucked with Satan’s Saints. He’d be lucky if it’s just a beatdown. More likely than not, he’ll taste the oily metal of the barrel of my gun before we’re done with him. I don’t fucking care how bad that sounds. Violence for violence. That’s justice. And now that I’m thinking about it, I crave it.
“Feeling better now?” Axe calls out, crunching through the wooded area’s undergrowth with his heavy boots and wiping his face with a bandana. “From where I was standing, the score looks like, Silas: one…imaginary enemy: zero. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“No, you’re good…and he fucking had it coming. Where’s everyone else?”
“On their way.” My closest friend sits on the log and stares into the fire, waiting for Cole and Tate. Dean isn’t expected back until morning.
“This was a long-ass twenty-four hours,” I tell him as I crack my neck. Some nature-crunching footsteps and raspy voices in the distance catch my attention. “Sounds like the guys are here.”
Axe adjusts himself and pulls out his phone.
“What time you got, bro?”
“After two in the morning.”
“That puts their attack at around eleven-thirty.”
Axe grunts out his agreement. “Because they can’t bomb us at a reasonable hour. That would be too fucking considerate of them. Whoever they are. Coward cocksucker fucks.”
Tate and Cole eventually appear through the thick brush. We exchange greetings and sit on the logs placed around the campfire, making a four-man circle to speak freely. I’ve been coming to this spot since I was a kid. I learned just enough wilderness skills from my army vet uncle Marty. The old guy was the club’s informal cub scout leader after he came home early from Vietnam with a blown-out knee. He hooked up with some hippy chick who claimed she was clairvoyant to everyone she met, and they became tree-huggers out in So-Cal after my old man died. I don’t know why this shit is surfacing in my head right now, but I can almost hear his gravelly old voice warning us back when we did our nature walks. Maybe because he believed in blood for blood, and settling a score with fists if possible, weapons if necessary.
This attack calls for exactly his brand of justice.
“Did you find any more leads?” I ask Tate as I taste the charred smell of burnt wood on the back of my tongue as I swallow.
“Yeah, those fuckers weren’t the brightest bulbs, Pres. I was out front when it happened, showing a hot piece that Harley restoration I’ve been working on. I saw them. It was two guys with ski masks, except they’d already pulled the masks up to their foreheads. They jumped into a fucking lime green piece of shit Escalade, and took off when they saw me running toward them. The Easter egg vehicle driving, tail between their fucking legs, can’t show their faces motherfuckers—”
I make a circular motion with my finger for Tate to wrap it up. If I don’t, he’ll go off on one of his rants.
“Anyway, someone else that was outside shouted out that they saw the cowards drop something around the outside of the clubhouse. But by then, the fuckers already got back to their fucking bunny mobile and made tracks. Just so you know, I ditched the sack demon and went looking around with some of the men to check the perimeter for whatever it was. Turns out it was two duffel bags, probably with a couple of low-grade explosives inside each one. I didn’t see it in time, boss. I barely had a second to shout out a warning before it went off. I had to duck and cover for a while before I took a chance and hopped on my bike to chase down the sons of bitches. They got away, but one of the members saw part of their plate number. That info with the make and model plus the pastel puke shade of that vehicle will make it a breeze to find.”
“Good job, Tate,” I say, considering ev
erything he’s shared as it sinks in.
Cole motions toward Axe and pulls out a pad of paper from the inside pocket of his leather cut. He follows it up with a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses I’ve never seen him wear before.
Axe didn’t either. He looks over at Cole, settling into a loud, full-bodied peal of laughter. Once he gets the cackling under control, he scratches his head. “Whose nursing home did you break into for those goggles, Gramps?”
Cole isn’t entertained. “Stop sounding so fucking amused,” he barks with a no-nonsense glare. “This is serious shit, and you’re sitting over there like we’re chatting about when you screwed that broad on your bike outside the clubhouse with a scotch in one hand and her twin sister at your back. You’re Sergeant at Arms, for fuck’s sake. Start fucking acting like it.”
Everything sobers up real fast as Cole reads from his notes. All the members’ accounts have one thing in common. They saw Los Diablos decals on the Escalade, Los Diablos patches on masked men’s cuts, and one of them yelled something in Spanish on the way out of the clubhouse driveway.
I can’t believe this shit. “That makes no sense,” I say, shaking my head. “They wouldn’t dare try something this serious with us. Not here at the clubhouse, and never this obvious. Their president wouldn’t let a war start without provocation. No fucking way.”
“It all points to the Los Diablos, boss. We have to face reality.” Cole slides his glasses off his nose, pocketing them in his cut. “In some ways, getting confirmation this fast makes things easy, but retaliation at a time like this, well, I don’t know. They’ve had a beef with us for a while, and I ain’t suggesting that we should let this attack go unanswered, Si. Because we can’t fucking do that. But they just strengthened their alliance with the Mongols. We need to be smart.”
“If they did it, I don’t care about who they partnered with. Vasquez is their President. That makes him accountable for all the sorry-ass loose cannons running around with his patches. They’ll have to pay. But I just want to know it’s them for sure.”
“Si is right,” Axe agrees. “We gotta deliver a strong message. You got me? They’ve been waving their dicks in our faces long enough. Now it’s time to show them we may like keeping the peace, but we ain’t afraid to wage war. And when we do, we need to bury them.”
There’s agreement around the small circle.
“I say we—” Tate starts.
Thank fuck Axe cuts him off quickly. “No one wants to hear your fucked-up necrophilia bullshit or whatever you want to call it. Leave the decision-making to the non-sociopaths.”
Tate spits at the ground. “You bitches have no idea how to have a good time.”
“Alright guys, listen up. We’re taking a vote. Once we’re a hundred percent sure it’s Los Diablos MC, if you’re in favor of taking an immediate stand, say aye. If against, then it’s nay.” I glanced toward Axe. “You’re up.”
“Aye.”
Simple. Straight to the point. I make eye contact with Tate.
“Aye,” he agrees. “Even if I don’t have a say in what we do with the bodies.”
Cringing a bit, I look over at Cole.
“Aye. There’s not even a question.”
“Dean’s not here, but we’ve already got a majority.” I take a breath. We’re sealing Los Diablos’ fate, which has its own set of repercussions. “We do this, we do it right. Once we confirm it’s them, we grab the AK’s, and Tate can bring the launcher. We’ll pay them a visit at dusk, and after the dust settles, I’ll have a sit-down with Vasquez. If he gives us any trouble or tries to deny what his people did, Tate gets to level their shit-hole of a campground. Whatever we’ve got to do to make things square.”
There’s a circle of nods in my direction, and Tate adds, “Sounds like a plan. Time to fuck up some Los Diablos scum.”
Chapter 12
Sabrina
I figure out I’m in Silas’s bedroom after the first five minutes of the explosion. My resorting to rifling through the room is the only way to avoid the approaching panic attack. I don’t know what’s going on outside, but judging by the screams, sirens, and overall panic, the odds aren’t high that it’s anything good. Instead of curling up into the fetal position and cursing Silas all to hell, I take a seat as far away from the door as possible, and give it ten minutes. If some fine-ass looking firefighters don’t come to my rescue by then, I plan to use that fucking bedside lamp as a projectile through Silas’s goddamned window.
Axe is the one to show up. He takes me to Jenny’s side, and for a while, I’m holed up at their house a few miles down the highway, with big, gruff bikers guarding every single entrance. Jenny doesn’t take her eye off me for a second, and that makes me realize the woman’s sweet, friendly welcome a few hours ago was probably all for show.
After the firefighters cleared the clubhouse for re-entry, Axe brings me back to Silas’s bedroom. I manage to sleep a bit, but then a terror-filled dream wakes me up. It’s one with Silas’s eyes squarely focused on his gun pointing out the window before it goes bang! I jump right back to full alertness. It’s almost four in the morning now. Sleep won’t come, so I sit up again. I start to pace back and forth, thinking how ridiculous this situation is, until the door lock clicks and Silas walks in. He’s the last person I want to see, but he barges through the door wearing a cold, calculating expression, hair mussed, and his square, masculine jaw still streaked with black and gray soot. I can’t help but feel a bit sad for him.
Just a bit.
“Nice of you to come back for me after locking me in a room during a life and death emergency,” I say, stabbing him in the chest with my index finger for emphasis. “Are you out of your mind, or are you really that eager to get rid of me? Because we could end this right now if you just took me to the nearest bus station away from this godforsaken place. You don’t have to leave me for dead!”
“I didn’t. Axe and Jenny took care of you. Plus, I think you already know that if I wanted you dead, you’d be in a shallow grave by now.”
His curt answer doesn’t scare me one bit as I circle him, my lips tight and my heart racing with pent up frustration. “My life is not a goddamned game, Silas! You can’t do this to me!”
Silas plants himself at the center of the room. He’s as inflexible as he is immobile. He doesn’t respond. It’s as if he flicked on a mute button and can’t hear me. Won’t hear me.
A flare of anger makes me see red. I’ve been locked up for far too long. “Let me make this simple. Take me home. It doesn’t matter what is or isn’t waiting for me there. Please, just drop me off or take me someplace where I can hitch a ride.”
“Not gonna happen.”
I glare at him, my limbs like lead as a headache forms and begins to pound against my temples from excess stress. With a sigh, I back up and sink onto the edge of his bed. “None of this matters to me. Can’t you see that? We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when you found me, period. You have no right to keep me prisoner like this. Please…I won’t say a word. I’ll forget everything that’s happened since you bumped into me on the elevator, okay?”
Sick of pleading with him while my stomach knotted, I lower my head to my hands. “Please, Silas,” I repeat.
“No.”
That’s it. I’m done. There’s nothing else I can say to reason with him, and I don’t have the energy to look up at him and possibly see his complete disregard for all this begging. Why the hell did I expect an outlaw biker to have a heart in the first place? A flashback of him diving to cover me with his body make my throat tight, and I forcibly swallow, ignoring my poor intuition. It’s not my fault he has a white knight complex. He’s also stubborn, archaic, overprotective, and out of line. I’m not his to keep safe.
“Maybe you want me to take you back home so bad because you know what’s there waiting for me.” The eerie calm in his voice and his accusation make all the blood drain from my face.
“What?” I ask, the hairs on my arms pric
kling with fear and the urge to run and hide.
Danger oozes from his pores, yet he’s so collected. “Isn’t that why you’ve been playing this charade with me, Sabrina?”
I draw in half a breath and stop as I meet his cold, calculating stare. It’s unlike any other side I’ve seen of him. I instinctively know this is the face he uses when he goes in for the kill. It’s blank, unapologetic for what he just suggested, and utterly devoid of feeling. My fingers dig into the end of the mattress, pinned by the depth of his fierce, emotional black hole. Despite my hold on the bed, every instinct is telling me to scramble backward and put as much distance as possible between me and him, preferably with a wall against my back for support.
“Please, Silas,” I whisper.
“The elevator was a setup, wasn’t it? My mother wasn’t wrong. Nothing else makes sense and you know it. A gorgeous wealthy-looking woman mixed up in a lot of dangerous shit doesn’t just fall into my lap. She hops into it intentionally, to be a mole for a rival gang, or as a distraction…or as bait.” He still hasn’t moved an inch. Is he breathing? I blink a few times, afraid to draw any added attention as his eyes do their bit and penetrate down into my soul, looking for answers. “This only goes down one of two ways. You tell me what you know, or I make you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Silas.” I ignore the quiver to my voice and hold my head up, straightening my shoulders. “All I know is exactly what you know. I was leaving my condo apartment. I saw you at the elevator. Someone must have darted me on the way there. I passed out and woke up in your lap on that bike outside. That’s it. You’re the one who told me I was attacked and confirmed that someone tried to drug me. You brought me here, under the guise of keeping me safe when all along I’ve been asking you to let me go. Do you see the irony of that? Keeping me safe at a place that Just. Got. Bombed?”
Outlaw (Satan's Saints MC) Page 6
