Sabotage: A Vigilante Justice Novel

by Kristin Harte

  Shye nodded, glancing over her shoulder to where Alder stood with Beckett. “That is just too darn cute.”

  The eldest Kennard was working with my son on his bike riding, having set up a small ramp to teach him how to handle bumps on the trails. You couldn’t grow up in Justice without mountain biking, even if you were barely finished with training wheels.

  “Cute but dangerous.” I clipped the photo back into my planning binder and flipped to the food and beverage section. “Katie’s confirmed the menu and has everything on hand to complete the dishes. We received most of the wine yesterday, and I’m expecting another shipment today. I’ll send you a text once it arrives so you don’t have to worry.”

  Shye giggled. “Mercy, I’m not worried at all. You’ve run this party planning like a military operation. Even Alder—Mr. Plan All the Things—is seriously impressed.”

  Her words eased a little of the tension that had been sitting between my shoulders all week. “You asked me to handle the planning, and I wanted to make sure I gave you what you’d expected.”

  “You’ve given me a lot more than what I expected. Honestly, you’ve made everything so much easier on me.”

  “Good. That’s what I’d hoped for.” I looked up again as Beckett laughed, the sound warming my heart. “Alder is so good with kids.”

  “He is.”

  I knew that breathy tone, that look of love and desire on her face. The woman’s ovaries were howling at her to get busy with the baby-making. Not that I could blame them. “So, should we expect a little Alder sometime in the not-too-far-off future?”

  Shye smiled wider, laughing softly again. “Maybe. We don’t have any specific plans yet, but…”

  Yeah. But. That sort of but had made many a woman a mother. “Just let me know when it’s baby shower planning time. I love all those stupid games people play.”

  She shot me a sarcastic glance. “Like taste the baby food?”

  “Yeah, but I’d only pick sweet ones like blueberry buckle or that orange-banana stuff. Nobody wants to eat pureed meat.”

  Shye made a noise as if she were gagging. “Nothing about pureed meat sounds appealing.”

  “It isn’t, which is why Beckett never had any of it.”

  Shye hummed, watching Alder and Beckett some more. Smiling broadly when her man shot her an amused look. Those two were such a matched set—completely in love and happy together, even with all the drama going on around town. Not that there’d been much—everything had been quiet for the last few days. Not a biker in sight. Not even Parris.

  Something that secretly bothered me.

  “Hey, Beckett,” Finn said, appearing through the back entrance with his girlfriend Jinx in tow. “You don’t need lessons from Alder. He’s an old man. Let me teach you a thing or two.”

  Jinx headed our way, leaving the men to trash-talk each other good-naturedly while my son stood watching on with a grin on his face. He’d handled everything so well these last few days—a nightmare now and again, but otherwise, it seemed as if his evening trapped in a cabin in the mountains had been just another adventure. I, on the other hand, was still a wreck. I’d sat outside his school that first day, too afraid to leave him. Too worried he’d need me and I’d be in Justice. Terrified that men on bikes would storm the school and take him from me. I’d done better the second day, though. I was sure I’d eventually stop panicking whenever he was out of my sight.

  Maybe.

  Hopefully.

  “That’s an explosion of cuteness,” Jinx said, pointing toward where the males were all huddled together. “Pretty sure there’s some hormone overload going on right now.”

  I pointed my pen at Shye. “Yeah, with this one.”

  “Not surprising.” Jinx flopped into a chair, keeping her eyes on the boys. “Alder looks pleased as punch.”

  “He is.” Shye leaned back, turning her body to address us both. “He got word last night that the Black Angels are definitely gone.”

  All the air in the room seemed to disappear, and a hollow sort of ache appeared in my chest. “They’re…gone?”

  She nodded. “Apparently. Sherriff Grogan called to talk to him about the investigation into Sherriff Baker’s death, and then told him the Black Angels had disappeared as well. Guess they’d been gone from Rock Falls for a few days already.”

  A few days. Parris hadn’t been by in a few days either. Four, to be exact. I’d kicked him out, but I hadn’t expected him to leave town. Not really. Not completely. Not without at least saying goodbye.

  My heart…it actually hurt.

  Meanwhile, Jinx sat there staring at me, an inscrutable expression on her face. One I wasn’t comfortable with.

  “What?” I asked her, unable to sit there and take her stare a moment longer.

  She shrugged. “Finn saw Parris this morning.”

  Oh. That… I should not have felt as relieved as I did. “Here?”

  “No, out at the motel. Finn ran out there to help Deacon with something and said he saw Parris out back.” She didn’t relax that hard stare for a single second. “I don’t know what you did to that man, but I’m glad you did.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  She raised an eyebrow—just one. “He was burning his colors.”

  That didn’t make any sense, though. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Shye jumped in on that answer. “His club jacket—the symbol of him being a Black Angel. They’re called colors.”

  “Right,” Jinx said. “And he’s destroyed his.”

  I was still not putting the pieces of the puzzle they were obviously building together. “So?”

  “So, in two years, I’ve never seen him without that vest or coat on. He always wore his Black Angels gear. All bikers do. It’s a sign of their connection to the club.”

  And he’d burned his—removed the biker part of himself from the equation. Maybe. Bikers didn’t just walk away from their clubs, though. At least, not that I knew of. “I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”

  The other eyebrow joined the first in its raised status. “He wouldn’t have destroyed his colors without a good reason. Seems to me a woman and child he’s chasing after might be considered a good reason.”

  Doubt was a brat who refused to let go once she got her claws in you, and I doubted. I doubted hard. Parris hadn’t even mentioned sticking around Justice, hadn’t ever talked about the possibility of leaving the club for good. He’d never talked about any of that. I knew almost nothing of him except his real name. Chase Fowler.

  A name I’d refused to use.

  No, Jinx had to be wrong. Parris hadn’t set that fire. There’d be no reason to because I’d given him no hope. I’d kicked him out like trash. A man like Parris likely wouldn’t come back for more of that.

  “I haven’t even seen him in days.” Which was true but didn’t really stand as an argument to Jinx’s statement. And she knew it.

  “Look, you can keep fooling yourself all you want, but this is a big deal. Huge. Monstrous.” She rose from her seat, focusing her attention on Finn once more. “Men don’t make big changes like this often. And if you think that’s not important, maybe you’re not the woman I thought you were.”

  Shye glanced at me, looking almost embarrassed on my behalf. Not that I could blame her—I’d just been scolded by a young woman who didn’t really know me. She knew my attraction to Parris, though.

  Chase. His name is Chase.

  Not that it mattered. I still had a son to take care of, to protect. And whether he was Parris or Chase, he didn’t add into that future. Not when he kept walking away so easily. Not when he could bring danger back to our doorstep. Not when his life was so entangled in a group like the Black Angels.

  I’m going to hear you say it in some vows

  Vows, he’d said. Promises. Things I couldn’t depend on when he was involved. There would be no happily ever after with Parris. No wedding and talk of babies like with Shye and Alder.
There couldn’t be, and that had to be okay. I had other commitments to fulfill, other priorities besides my own heart. I had a son I loved more than life, and I’d been raising him alone just fine. I could keep doing that. Dating could be put on hold, not becoming a possibility for me until Beckett went to college or something.

  I was good at being alone. Just because I’d gotten a taste of a possibility didn’t mean anything. I could ignore the craving for more.

  I had to.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  PARRIS

  SATURDAY MORNING ROLLED in like a beast, bringing a sense of apprehension with it. It was party day, but there was more to it as well. Stuff to do before that evening event. The mission I wanted Deacon with me for? Today was the day.

  Time to kill off Parris for good.

  “You ready?”

  Deacon had asked me that question six times already, and every time I’d given him a halfhearted sort of affirmative answer. Was I ready to completely walk away from my old life and start a new one? Yes. Definitely. I’d destroyed both my vest and my jacket with the Black Angels colors days ago, saving one patch for today, for this last mission. I also hadn’t bothered answering Cartel’s messages or any from the Vegas crew. That wouldn’t be enough, though. Not by a long shot. If I disappeared, they’d come looking for me, which wasn’t an option. Not if I wanted a life with Mercy. Leaving the club would require more than ghosting. I needed freedom, and there was only one way to escape—I was going to have to fight my way out. And Deacon was going to help me.

  “Hell yeah, I’m ready.” I grabbed the last of the guns Deacon had brought—the man was quite literally an armory of all things dangerous—and tucked it into my shoulder harness. Ready and armed.

  “That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear.” The sniper smacked me on the shoulder before he walked out of the motel where we’d spent the previous evening strategizing. “Let’s go fuck up a warlord and get you evicted from the Black Angels.”

  If only it were going to be that easy.

  Deacon took the job of driving us to Sterling, where I’d learned Cartel was still hanging out. Not the diner this time, though. Apparently, he’d moved on from there to some bar that had been closed for a couple of years. Hiding like a rat in an abandoned hole. Typical. That info had cost me three favors, ones I was happy to trade in. I likely wouldn’t need any more after today. At least, I hoped. Once I’d known where the man had taken up residence, I’d sent him a text. A quick We need to meet. No sense trying to take him down blind—let him know we were coming. Let him think he had a shot at regaining control over me. Besides, subterfuge required time, and that was a luxury I definitely did not have. I wanted this done. Today.

  We spent the ride in silence, both of us quiet. Contemplative. Preparing in our own ways. I knew what was coming at the end of this ride—blood. Mine or Cartel’s, death or not quite. You had to shed blood to leave a club, and though I’d already been stabbed this week, that wouldn’t be enough. Cartel might kill me. He might kill Deacon, too. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  Pulling up outside a bar on the edge of town, I could see why Cartel had chosen it. No way would anyone come bother him there—it was too much of a dump. An abandoned shack with holes in the roof and boarded-up windows. This would be the place where Parris died.

  “One last chance, man. You sure you’re ready?” Deacon asked, staring straight ahead at the door. The hardest, meanest look I’d ever seen the man wear on his face. “We can’t go in there half-cocked.”

  “I’m ready.” I checked out the building again, the sag to the doors, the general feeling of abandonment and disrepair. This was as good a place to die as any. “Mercy and Beckett deserve better than all this.”

  Deacon cut the engine. “So do you, Parris. You deserve better, too.”

  But that wasn’t true. I’d chosen this life. I’d lived it, loved it, and relished the brutality of it. I wasn’t an innocent man by any stretch. Mercy and Beckett? Totally innocent, and no way was I fouling up their goodness with this shit. I had a lot of repenting to do once I left Parris behind.

  We hopped out of the truck and sauntered for the door. Both of us wary and watchful. I noticed Deacon’s hand resting awfully close to the pistol on his hip. I also couldn’t help but keep my own tucked under my jacket—my non-Black Angels leather coat—for easy access to what was in my shoulder harness. My left hand hovered over the pocket where I kept my blade. I totally believed in taking a knife to a gunfight so long as that wasn’t the only weapon you brought. I liked to use my blade as a scare tactic, a little reminder of how bad things could get. How slow death could come. Bullets were hella faster and often less painful if the shooter hit the right spot. Sometimes, you needed to make a point.

  “Roof’s clear,” Deacon said, just before we walked under the awning over the door. “Doesn’t look like a man on the door either.”

  I noticed the same thing. “Low security.”

  “Or not and we’re about to find out.”

  As he reached for the door, I slipped my fingers over the handle of my pistol and nodded once, prepared to pull and fire if necessary. We were ready for an ambush. We didn’t get one.

  Instead, we walked into the bar as if nothing bad were about to happen, made it all the way inside without issue. Either Cartel was too confident in his ability to control me or he was stupid. I’d never called the warlord anything other than cunning, so this whole bar scene with no real security? An act. A play he was putting on. Nothing but a show.

  Two Black Angels sat at the bar, both angled just right so they could keep an eye on the door and still have the man of the hour in their periphery. Ever the showman, Cartel sat at the back in what looked like a dark, pleather-upholstered booth. Like some sort of movie mob boss, alone under a pendant lamp, the golden glow almost making him appear softer than I knew him to be. I wouldn’t fall for that, though. There were shadows surrounding him, seeping inside at every moment. The man was a demon wearing a halo, and that was something I couldn’t forget.

  “Is he putting on a show?” Deacon asked in a whisper as we moved toward the ridiculous booth.

  “Seems like it.”

  He grunted. “At least he’s got style.”

  And a bad attitude. Cartel did not look happy.

  “Where are Edge and Ravel?” the warlord asked right away, not even giving us time to sit down.

  That was fine. I had his answer ready.

  “Dead. But you know that.” I slid into the booth, Deacon doing the same but across from me. Cartel’s frown deepened as he watched us, and he suddenly seemed to realize his needing to be the center of attention—therefore sitting in the literal center of the booth—had ended with him being surrounded. I was on one side of the booth and Deacon on the other. The man had no way out except over or under the table.

  He kept the act up, though. Kept that superior tone in his voice as he chastised me. Or tried to. “I want to know what happened in Rock Falls. No one gave the Vegas crew the okay to retreat. Their leaving caused every chapter we’d brought to follow suit. All my Angels are gone.”

  “I gave the order to leave.” I sat back, throwing my arm over the back of the booth. Intentionally casual. “What else do you want to know?”

  “On whose authority?”

  “Mine. The prez and his VP were dead in an obvious ambush, and their warlord was missing. I sent the crew back to their Vegas house to save some lives.”

  Cartel’s sneer peeked out, his anger still a palpable thing. “And the warlord—Tiny, I believe?”

  As if he didn’t know everything about the man, likely including shoe size and favorite brand of underwear. “He’s dead too.”

  “How?”

  I couldn’t answer the man because Deacon made a sound like a laugh and grinned. The motherfucker grinned—all toothy and white and…what the fuck?

  Cartel even seemed to notice that look. “You got something to say, Sniper?”

  “Not really, n
o. Well, maybe that your friend Tiny’s dead. That’s all.” Deacon smiled wider, showing more teeth. Looking almost…dangerously happy. “He made the mistake of taking some locals hostage, so we killed him.”

  True, though obviously not what Cartel wanted to hear. He turned that viper gaze on me. “You murdered your brother?”

  Yeah. That whole family line worked unless the man using it had assigned you to spy on your so-called siblings for the past few years. “He wasn’t my brother. Besides, he took hostages specifically to hurt me, people from Justice he targeted because of me, so we took him out. It was that simple.”

  Cartel sat back, looking way too cocky for the situation. “He went for the hardware girl, so you threw a tantrum.”

  Motherfucker. “That woman and her son are protected by the people in Justice. Tiny knew the danger he was getting into messing with them, and not just from me. You go for Justice, and you’ll have a full war on your hands.”

  Again. Just like when my sister had been murdered because of the club war he’d started. This carousel never seemed to stop.

  Deacon didn’t seem to be grinning anymore. He’d even stopped paying attention to what was going on in the booth, instead watching the guys at the bar with particular interest and his back almost fully to Cartel. Something even Cartel noticed.

  “What say you, Sniper?” the national warlord asked, demanding Deacon’s attention to come back to him. He even waited until Deacon turned to look at him before giving the sniper his snake-oil smile. “You think it’s okay for Parris here to turn his back on his family and kill his own for something as simple as pussy?”

  I wanted to tear the man apart for the implication and that pussy comment, but I didn’t. I stayed in my seat with one hand on the table and the other resting against the top of the booth. Kept myself as relaxed as possible. I’d rip Cartel’s throat out later—right now, we still had business to do. And part of that business was letting Deacon say whatever the fuck he wanted to say.