by Hart, Lane
“Go in five,” Torin passes the message along. “Everyone, get to your positions and wait for Miles and Reece to take their first targets. Then, you know what to do.”
Without another word, we advance down the road, dispersing into the tall grasses and vanishing into the fields as the farmhouse comes into our line of sight. The only lights on this late are coming from both levels of the main house, where every window is gleaming, and music pours out into the night from the open front door. Several men are sitting on the front porch, smoking and drinking, laughing as one of them gesticulates his way through a story.
As Verek and I creep through the weeds to approach the outbuilding closest to the farmhouse, we pause for a moment as Verek draws my gaze to the yard just in front of the porch. There are half a dozen cars and trucks parked out front. He nods toward them and whispers, “Gotta be at least six people here, probably more. We’ll have to ask, to make sure we get everyone.”
With only a minute to spare before the shooting is scheduled to begin, we creep across the yard behind the outbuilding, making sure to keep the farmhouse out of sight. There is a flimsy wooden door at the back of the building, where Verek and I take up positions on either side of while we wait. I take several deep breaths to calm myself, trying to prevent my mind from wandering back to Zoe. She’s got to be worried sick back at the safehouse right now. What would she do if I didn’t make it back tonight? Would she grieve for me, dive back into the life she had been leading? Would it be better for her if I—
Two gunshots break me free from my dark thoughts, and I immediately throw open the door to the outbuilding and motion Verek through. I can hear screams and yelling from the main house interspersed with gunfire as I rush in behind Verek, nearly bumping into him as he stands frozen, just inside the entryway.
“Move, goddammit, move!” I hiss. “Secure the room!” I feel around for a light switch. It’s pitch black in the back of the building, although I can see a dim light coming from the far side, closest to the house.
“There’s too much shit back here,” Verek whispers back. “I can’t feel a way through! Get the lights on!”
As soon as my hand lands on a switch, I flip it, and Verek leaps backwards into me with a curse before raising his shotgun at a figure standing almost directly in front of him. I stagger backwards, damn near out the door as the blast from his shotgun almost deafens me. I can only faintly hear the pinging of the buckshot on the metal walls of the outbuilding while Verek racks another shell into the chamber, then continues cursing as he moves to the side so I can see his victim.
It’s a damn mannequin. While the head is gone, judging from the leather gimp suit covering the rest of the body, it’s a prop shoved back here to be out of the way. The back of this building is crowded with all manner of props and set construction materials, with no clear pathway to get through to the front.
“Of course they’d be this fucking messy,” Verek growls as he kicks over a stack of metal rods. I have no idea what they’re used for, but the clanging they make as they roll away has me grinding my teeth in frustration.
“Can you at least try to keep a low profile?” I whisper as I advance beside him, shoving a bedframe to the side.
“What the fuck for? I just blew the head off a doll with a shotgun. If anyone’s in here, they fucking know we’re back here. Come on.” He ducks behind a huge roll of fabric. “Once we move around this, we’ll be able to see where that light up there is coming from!”
“I’ll go first…” I begin to say, just as Verek ducks around the side of the roll and runs toward the front. “Goddammit!” I hiss as I leap out behind him, shouldering my rifle and trying to sweep the entire area for any sign of movement.
The light we saw is spilling through the doorway of a small room just at the front of the outbuilding, the only separate room in the entire structure. There is no one else in here, just an array of cameras, lighting equipment, and all the props we’ve already moved through. Verek makes a beeline for the room as I run to catch up with him, and leaps inside with his shotgun raised. Before I can follow him, the flimsy wooden door slams shut behind him, and I hear a voice yell, “Drop it!”
“Fuck!” I roar as I bring up my boot and kick the thin wooden door right by the handle. The latch splinters the frame and it explodes inward, where Verek is holding his shotgun out wide to the side as a tall, burly man in a collared white shirt and suit pants has an arm over his neck and a pistol pressed to his head.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man growls, pushing the gun harder against Verek’s temple.
“We’re the Savage fucking Kings, and we’re here to burn this place to the ground,” Verek spits before I can answer.
“I told you to drop that fucking gun!” the man screams as he cocks the hammer on his pistol. Verek drops the shotgun and raises his hands, but I can see from the expression on his face he is just waiting for an opportunity to rip this man to pieces. “And you, point that rifle somewhere else, you hear me? What the fuck is a Savage King?”
I keep the rifle shouldered and aimed directly at his face. I’m no sharpshooter, and the big man is moving his head back and forth behind Verek. I could kill him, but there’s almost no chance I could do it without losing my brother.
“We’re a motorcycle club,” I say, just to keep the man talking while I try to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do now. “We’ve come to shut this fucking place down. You know what kind of fucked up shit goes on here, you had to expect something like this!”
“Step back from the door,” The man advances with Verek. “Step back, or I’ll end him right now and take my chances with you! What the fuck is it with these east coast motorcycle clubs?” he moans as he forces Verek forward. “A few weeks back, I was working security for Harry Cox, and one of your fucking gangs called the ‘Dirty Aces’ or some shit barged in shooting!”
“Sounds like you’ve had plenty of chances to find a new line of work,” Verek quips as the man drags him out of the office. Then, keeping Verek between the two of us, he starts backing up toward the door leading out to the vehicles in the yard.
“I made it out of there, and I’m going to make it out of this fucking mess too,” the man insists. “Look, I get to my car, I let him go, understand? We can all get out of this.” Jamming the pistol against Verek’s head again, the man removes his arm from his neck and reaches behind him to open the door. As soon as it cracks open, he grabs Verek by the neck of his Kevlar vest and starts to drag him outside. I move forward immediately with my rifle still trained on him.
“Easy, big boy,” the man says as he steps backwards into the yard. “We can all get out of this just fine…” he adds as he stops and casts a glance back over his shoulder, looking for his car. When he turns his head, he lets the pistol pointed at Verek’s skull drift forward slightly, and I see a red dot dance across the man’s face.
Verek grabs the arm holding the pistol on him and jerks it forward, just as the top of the man’s skull disappears, and the crack of a rifle shot reverberates across the yard. With his last spasm, the man drags Verek down to the ground as he collapses, and the pistol in his other hand spits a bout of fire and thunder at me as they fall together in a heap.
The whole thing happens in the blink of an eye, and it takes me a long second to force myself to move toward my fallen brother. The gunshot going off right in front of me has me seeing spots, and my legs feel numb as I stagger forward.
“Holy fuck,” I gasp as I reach down and grab my brother’s hand, pulling him back to his feet and dragging him back inside the outbuilding.
“That was fucking intense,” Verek agrees as he wipes a smear of blood from the back of his neck.
“You okay?” I put a hand on his shoulder to turn him so I can see the back of his head.
“Yeah, man, I’m fine. Blood isn’t mine. I’m going to find out which badass is manning that sniper rifle and buy him every fucking beer in Myrtle Beach.”
I grin at him. “I�
��ll chip in on that tab.”
“Let me get my shotgun and we’ll see if they’ve secured the house.” Verek says. He walks back into the small room I can now see has a desk and computer set up inside and takes a look at the other equipment as he grabs his gun. “Looks like this is where they do video editing. Don’t see anything that looks like a server though.”
“They probably have a cold room in the farmhouse for something like that,” I reply. “Come on, let’s go make sure everyone else is okay.”
“Whoa, whoa!” Verek says as I turn to walk away, grabbing me and dragging me into the light. “Jesus fucking Christ, Winston, look at your fucking leg.”
I glance down and see the right leg of my jeans has a blooming red stain spreading out just a few inches below my crotch, on the inside of my thigh. “Oh shit,” I mutter, when a wave of vertigo sweeps over me. My legs had felt kind of numb, but as soon as I see and acknowledge the injury, sensation suddenly returns to the limb in a wave of fiery agony. “Oh, fuck me, that hurts!” I grit out through clenched teeth.
“Sit down and let me see it,” Verek orders, kicking out the rolling chair from the desk.
I collapse into it, lay down my rifle, and grab the wound with both hands to feel around my leg. “There’s a hole in the front,” I grunt, “and a hole in the back of my jeans.”
“Good,” Verek nods. “Hopefully, it passed clean through. You can stand on it, right? I mean, you were a moment ago. It probably didn’t hit the bone or anything.”
“Yeah, I can stand.” I get back to my feet as my head begins to clear, then unfasten my belt buckle and pop the button on my jeans.
“Whoa now,” Verek says with a raised hand.
“I gotta see how bad it is and wrap it with something,” I explain.
“Yeah, of course…” Verek says. “Here.” He whips a bandana from his back pocket and starts folding it neatly as I push my jeans down past the blazing line of hellfire in my thigh.
Verek gets down on one knee and looks at the wound from the front and the back, then passes me the bandana. “Looks like a clean graze, thank God. If it had hit an artery or something, you’d be spraying the entire room, I reckon.”
“We’ll find out if you’re right if I die in the next few hours.” I snort, internally praying he’s right and this is no big deal. I wrap the bandana around my leg and begin tying it off, both of us so focused on bandaging my leg we don’t notice another figure appear inside the doorway.
“What’s taking you two so long?” a familiar voice booms as Cannon bursts into the small office. “What in the hell?”
He starts to laugh as Verek gets to his feet. The room is so small with all three of our big bodies packed inside, I can only imagine what the scene looked like from his point-of-view.
“Winston, I never would have thought you’d give in to such desires while we’re so busy,” Cannon jokes. “But, Verek, I always knew you loved the…”
“Shut the fuck up, Cannon,” Verek snarls. “The VP got shot!”
“Well, that makes all of this moderately less amusing,” Cannon admits as his grin falters. “How bad you hit, Winston?”
“Not bad,” I confirm. “What’s the damage? Everyone else okay? The farmhouse secure?”
“We just got done sweeping it, and Roman sent me to find you two. You were the only ones unaccounted for. We got a couple of minor injuries, no casualties. We’re fine, and we’re ready to burn this fucking place to the ground.”
“Did you catch that Joey Simpson fucker?” Verek demands.
“Oh yeah. He went out the back of the farmhouse, but that big son of a bitch named Abe from the Emerald Isle Kings was back there with their VP, Chase. They hit him with some tasers and zip-tied him neat as you please. We sent some boys to go get the vans, so we’ve got this shit handled!”
I manage to get my pants back up over the bandana while Cannon is giving us the update, and nod toward the door when I see his brother, Conrad, rush through.
“Everything all right?” Conrad asks, pulling up short to look around at all the equipment in the outbuilding.
“Yeah,” Cannon replies. “Winston got hit, he’s just wrapping his leg up. Looks like he’ll be fine.”
“Roman!” Conrad yells back out into the yard. “Winston got shot! He’s all right!”
“He fucking what?” Roman roars from outside.
“Oh lord, here we go,” I mutter as Roman and some of the other Kings rush into the building, then raise my voice so everyone can hear the good news at once. “Look, I’m fine, it just grazed me! Let’s burn this fucking place down and go home!”
“Seems like burning all this stuff would be a bit of a waste,” Conrad observes. “There are thousands of dollars’ worth of decent film equipment in here.”
“What do you have in mind?” Roman asks.
“Why not salvage what we can and do what the Emerald Isle Kings are doing with the cam girls at the strip club? I’m sure we could find plenty of willing ladies who want to earn a few bucks.”
“No reason not to take what we can,” Roman agrees. “Drag this shit out into the yard and load up one of the vans. If we have to, we’ll just cram all the men in the other for the short ride home. Winston, you going to be able to ride your bike back?”
“Hell yeah, I’m going to ride,” I snort. “Now show Verek and I which of these boys fired the shot that killed that fucker out front there. We owe him one hell of a thank you.”
* * *
It’s almost two hours later when I ride down a steep hill, following one of the vans. The other one, along with the Emerald Isle Savage Kings, is on its way back to our clubhouse to unload before the boys get some rest. For us though, the night’s work is just beginning.
When we come to an old, cracked blacktop parking lot, overgrown with weeds and covered in blown sand, the van pulls to a stop, the headlights shining on an ancient weather-beaten boat house. The road to get down here was so overgrown, the van was pulling vines and undergrowth up from the ground as it passed, so this place has definitely been abandoned for a while.
“Get everything out of the van,” Roman orders as we kill our engines, “and set up inside the boathouse.”
We get to work quickly, and in only a few minutes, we’ve got the supplies we brought for the next phase of our plan spread out and ready.
“Put him in the stocks,” Roman orders as soon as we get Joey inside the boathouse. It takes five of us to get his head and wrists in place once we cut the zip ties holding his arms. To his credit, he struggles like a fish out of water. Eventually, we’re finally able to lower the top and lock it into place.
“This look fucking familiar?” Verek shouts when he leans down to get right in the man’s face. “How does it feel now that your ass is in one of these fucking things? Get comfortable because this is your new home, fucker. We’re going to make what’s left of your short life a living hell!”
Verek’s fist hauls back and then rams into Joey’s nose so hard I hear it crack. But he doesn’t stop there, he hits him in his face over and over again until his entire body sags in the stocks.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Roman growls at Verek, physically pulling him away from the limp man. “He can’t talk if he’s unconscious!”
“He doesn’t deserve to live another fucking second!” Verek yells back.
“You know the only reason he’s still breathing is so that we can find out who else hurt Tessa,” Roman reminds him. “And since you’ve made it pretty goddamn clear that you can’t keep your emotions in check, get the fuck out of here!”
“No,” Verek says, refusing a direct order from our president. “I’m staying. Wake his ass up and make him talk!”
“Watch it, Ver,” Roman warns, his jaw clenched tight. “Go. The fuck. Home!”
“I need to be here!” Verek argues. “For her!”
And man, I fucking get where he’s coming from. If this motherfucker had laid even a finger on Zoe, I’m not sure if I coul
d find the restraint to not kill him outright. But Verek’s rage, it won’t do shit but keep lashing out until he gets so carried away, he kills the son of a bitch before we get the other names. No telling how long it will take until Joey breaks and tells us what we want to know. It’s a very thin line between hurting him to make him talk and going too far with the pain and ending him.
“You think you’ve got what it takes to kill him?” Roman asks. “To look into his eyes until he takes his last pleading breath?”
“Fuck yes!” Verek responds.
“Then fine, you can kill him when the time comes,” Roman explains. “But not until he gives up the names and I give the order. Do it before then and you’re not only letting Tessa down, but you’ll be handing in your cut. Have I made myself clear?”
Verek stares Roman down before he finally caves. He stomps over to the door and slams it on the way out, rattling the rickety walls so hard dust clouds rain down on our heads.
“If anyone sees him come back here while you’re on watch, notify me and I’ll handle him. But do not let him near this fucker again. Understood?”
“Yeah, prez,” I agree along with everyone else.
It’s been a helluva night and I’m swaying on my feet, exhausted and anxious to get back to see Zoe. I can’t help but worry that by leaving her earlier today, I busted that happy little bubble we had been in before our parents came home. What if there’s no way to get it back?
I don’t have a fucking clue what to expect the next time I see her. Have our parents given her a guilt trip for the past few hours and convinced her what we’ve been doing is wrong? Is she ashamed and ready to head back to New York to try and forget about the past few days? Who the fuck knows what’s going to happen now? I sure as hell don’t and I want answers.
“Mind if I head on back to the safe house?” I ask Roman.
