“And he’s cold-blooded?” she piped in excitedly.
“Yeah,” I said briefly and moved on. “We have Skippy—”
“Wait,” she interrupted. “He … uh ... He skips a lot? Tight ropes? I don’t get it!”
I chuckled. “He puts peanut butter on everything.”
Her mouth dropped and remained open.
Picking up a piece of shrimp from my plate, I put it into her mouth.
She shut it closed and chewed thoughtfully. “Wow,” she mumbled. “Is that all that you remember?”
“For now,” I said, and continued with my meal. She would never realize that I had already said too much.
We ate quietly for a few more minutes as she processed her thoughts and then she returned with questions. “About Rose,” she began.
I narrowed my gaze at her just as my phone began to ring. I turned to retrieve it from beneath my pillow. It was Rooster. With a finger to my lips, I requested her silence, and listened to what Rooster had called to say.
“There’s trouble,” he said. “Tank and Shotgun attended a party last night and met some Death’s Hand members. They got into a fight.”
I let out a deep sigh and placed my meal on the nightstand. “And?”
“Shotgun got his skull smashed with a bottle and Tank got thrown off the second-floor balcony to a concrete floor. They’re both in the hospital right now. Tank’s got a broken arm and fractured leg, but the doctor says there’s hope, although he might not heal the same.”
“And Shotgun?”
“He’s in a coma.”
I cursed under my breath. “Where’s the meeting?”
“It’s at the house in ten minutes. We’re going to attack tonight.”
I killed the call.
“Everything all right?” she asked quietly.
I gave a little nod. Then I stood and headed over to the small closet by the bedroom window to retrieve a pair of dark jeans and a dark t-shirt, which I put on without a word. The fantasy was over. Real life had called and I had to go running like its little bitch. It was only when I turned around that I realized that she too, had politely gotten up and was taking the things off the bed.
“There’s a little problem in the club,” I explained, and we both stared at each other. I couldn’t say anymore.
I moved to pull out my bedside drawer and retrieved my handgun, confirmed its safety and tucked it behind me. After grabbing the other equipment that I needed from an inner compartment in the drawer, I turned and snatched up my jacket from the armchair by the corner. “The key is behind the door. Just lock it when you leave and keep it with you. I’ll come pick it up.”
Della nodded.
I could see her eyes had begun to fill with tears. I wanted to go to her. Hold her and tell her everything would be fine. There was nothing to worry about. We would be together forever. But I couldn’t.
What came out of my mouth sounded harsh, but it was for the best, “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.” Then I strolled out of the room. I had just pulled the front door open when I heard her quiet call from the bedroom door.
“Please be careful, Bone.”
Bone
I nodded in acknowledgement and went out of the apartment. Putting all thoughts of her behind me to focus on the urgency of the present, I immediately placed a call to Tyler. He didn’t pick up, and I couldn’t wait any longer so I got on the bike and was on my way. When I arrived in the basement of the clubhouse, the executive members of the club were already in deep discussion.
I listened without saying anything. By the time they were done, my soul sunk in horror. “We’re going to burn them alive?” I asked, keeping all expression out of my voice.
“Well, we’re not exactly doing that, are we?” Skippy replied. “We’re just burning their house down.”
“And barricading the exit, so no one will be able to run out,” I stated. “Doesn’t that sound like murder to you?”
“And is that a problem?” Snake asked, his pale eyes glittering like shards of ice.
I stared at him.
“Shotgun is in a bloody coma,” Snake stated in a cold voice. “Right from the onset, they have been the one to come directly at us even when we hadn’t retaliated from the way they treated RJ. You want our club to become a joke? We need to react. Show them we’re not pussies.”
“Why the objection?” Tyler asked. “This is not the first time we’ve taken care of someone before.”
“He’s began to wear skirts since he started dating sugar tits.”
I spun around to RJ. I would never understand how I stopped myself from charging at him and killing him myself.
“Bone,” Snake called, his voice stern. “A favor for a favor, a life for a life. Shotgun is going to be deformed for life. The bottle caved in his entire skull before shattering and you know how thick his skull is. They let him bleed out without doing anything to save his life. It’s over for them,” he said through gritted teeth.
“And how are we going to escape after a carnage like that?” I asked. “It’s going to be big and the heat is going to be all over it.”
“No doubt we’ll be arrested for questioning, but where’s the proof? They’ll let us go and keep their eyes on us in relation to this feud. Which will then allow us to facilitate the meth transaction coming up right under their noses.”
Everything fell into place then. I stared at Snake. “This feud will be a distraction?”
“Exactly,” he said, with a cold smile.
“Cameras?” I asked.
“The street ones will pick us up as we head over. Theo?” he called out.
Out of nowhere, one of our prospects stood.
I frowned at his presence.
“He knows his way around the wires,” Snake explained.
“Not very well,” the boy who was even younger than Junho said shyly. The kid couldn’t have been more than sixteen years. “But I have checked and confirmed that there are only two cameras in our way if we take a different route, if we take highway 52, and then go through Blacktown. That way, it will be extremely difficult for us to get noticed. I would have shut it all down, but I’m not that skilled and I’m scared that if I poke around too long, we’ll be noticed.”
Snake nodded, then went into the plan. “We’re going to park in the alley on Jemdo Street. The moment we do, everyone grab your bars then drill and barricade the doors and windows. We only have a minute. Then those with the torches and gasoline you know what to do. Bone, you’re on the backdoor.” He pointed to a house plan that someone had pasted on the wall.
I went closer to study it.
“We leave in ten minutes,” Snake announced.
“The trunks have been loaded already and remember your fucking gloves,” Tyler added. “Anyone who gets into trouble will be cut down immediately, so you better watch out. After the whole place is set on fire, disperse from the house as discussed and meet at the corner of Berwyck Court. Any questions?”
There were none so all fifteen men filed out and so did I. I found Dog heading up the stairs and quickly went after him. He knew I was behind him so he went into his room.
I shut the door to face him. “We’re just going to go through with this?”
“What other choice do we have?”
“Countless people might end up dead.”
“Stop fucking whining and just fucking go through with this. It’s not rocket science,” Dog growled.
There was no getting through to him, so I turned around and stormed out of the room.
“Bone!” he called out. “Bone!”
I didn’t respond. I hurried down the stairs to join the men as they went through the walls of the back fence. Our bikes would remain parked out in front of the house, soundless and calm like the night, and for all who would ask we were home watching Sons of Anarchy.
The attack began the moment the clock struck 2am.
With everyone stationed like they should be and the needed equipment in hand, we bega
n.
The door I was in charge of only needed a bar across it, and I had five seconds to drill it in. Others handling the bigger windows had a 3-man team. They were supposed to drill two huge bars into the wall. There was no way to do it silently and in no time, we heard sounds from the house as they began to stir. It was accompanied by hurried footsteps and panicked voices, but it was too late.
The gasoline was already poured around the house.
The men lit it up and it all went up in flames. Lit torches were busted through the windows on the top and second floors and it began to spread like a wild forest fire. I heard the roars, screams and curses of the men inside the house just before the whistle was blown for us to escape. We scattered like vermin, each man to his own escape route.
It all happened so fast, and before I knew it, I was vaulting over the back wall and running with the others to the house. It was the end and some of the men were high on an adrenalin rush. I bypassed the gathering of excited men in the basement and went straight to bed. I kept my eyes shut, but I did not dare fall into sleep.
Trouble came, at the crack of dawn.
Tyler busted into my room and I instantly sat up. With one glare from him, I knew I was in trouble.
“Basement,” he barked and stood there while I got to my feet.
It worried me that I couldn’t take my gun with me as I’d lost it during the mission, but I had gone to bed with a knife. If my life were put on the line, it would buy me a hostage.
I walked in to see sour and angry faces. This came sooner than I’d expected, but it didn’t surprise or faze me. I stopped by the door and crossed my arms over my chest.
“You messed up, Bone,” Rose began. “I can’t believe you fucked up.”
“To the fucking middle!” Tyler roared at me.
I lifted a deadly gaze to him. I wasn’t to be pushed around like the rest. “Say what you fucking need to me and then we’ll go from there. Don’t push it.”
Snake held his hand up to halt the altercation, his gaze on me. “We got only three of them,” he began, and pointed to the gigantic muted television on the north wall.
I turned my head slightly to look at the screen that showed an image of the house we had set alight. The building was covered in such heavy flames that it had colored the early morning sky with a fiery red glow. There was thick black smoke pouring out of it. It looked like a monstrous explosion, and everywhere there were firemen, reporters, medical personnel, and the police.
“Eight others escaped and it was all through the east back door.” He turned to me, his face expressionless. “The door you were fucking in charge of. How were they able to burst through it, Bone?”
My response was simple. “I have no idea.”
“The problem,” Snake began in an almost friendly tone, “is that you’re the one that fucked up. If this was anyone else, we’d see it as some kind of mistake, but you’re fucking thorough in everything you do, so we can’t help but think that there’s something more to this story. You gonna tell us what it is?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. Apparently, I fucked up. So be it.”
I could feel the aggravation of the others in the room. “We fucking risked our lives for this, man, and you just gonna mess it up like this?” Tattoo Man said. His face still black with smoke.
“You guys can pussyfoot around this bastard all you want. I’m calling a spade a spade. You’re a fucking liar, Bone,” Tyler snarled. “You deliberately didn’t screw the bar down properly. What we need to figure out now, is why you did it?”
“We’ll have to investigate this, and until we do, you’ll have to be in the pen,” Snake decided.
There was silence in the room as they waited for me to reject this, but I didn't bother. It would be a horrible experience as I had seen so many other members have in the past, but it was either this, or put an end to everything that I had worked for, for the last two years.
Della Ray
“Do you know where he is?” the strawberry blonde asked me.
The last time we met, she had left a very rotten taste in my mouth, but now I felt as if she was delivering the news that I’d been dreading these last few days.
We were both standing in the parking lot of my diner.
“He’s missing?” I asked, staring at her in shock.
She narrowed her gaze at me suspiciously. She thought I wasn’t telling the truth, until the genuine concern in my gaze must have made her realize I knew less than her. She sighed and slumped her shoulders in defeat.
She was about to return to her car, but I stopped her with a hard grip on her arm. “What do you know?” I asked.
She jerked her arm out of my grasp. “Since you don’t know where he is, it’s not your concern.”
“Have you tried to call him?” I asked as she walked away.
She stopped. “You have his phone number?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
She didn’t believe me. “That’s not possible, I only know three other people who do. Even Tyler wouldn’t give it to me and he’s my brother.”
“Well, he called me, so I have it.”
“Give it to me,” she said.
My eyebrows shot up at the order. “Tell me what happened to him first, then I will.’
She sighed elaborately and lifted her eyes to the sky in exasperation. “Don’t you watch the damn news?” she spat.
“The fire incident? He was a part of it?”
“More like sabotaged it. I don't know the details, but I do know that he’s under investigation by the club. He’s been missing for a few days now and no one will say where he is.”
I felt all the blood drain from my face. “Will they hurt him?”
“What do you think?” she asked sourly, and then pulled her phone from her pocket. “His number!” she demanded, as she got ready to tap it in.
I didn’t give it to her. I turned around and rushed back into the diner.
“Hey!” she called out. “Hey!”
I barely even heard her.
She was long erased from my mind as my concern about Bone’s safety crippled me. I hurried into the bathroom in the diner, and pulling out my phone, I dialed his number. I’d been a bit worried about him over the last three days, especially after I’d seen the news report about his club’s involvement with the disastrous fire and I’d heard nothing from him, but I had been unable to allow myself to call him. I was scared that I would be pushing my bounds, especially since he’d warned me not to call him.
Now, I could no longer hold myself back. When the unavailable message came up on my phone, my heart sunk. I spent the rest of my shift in a terrible state. The moment I was done, I rushed over to his apartment.
I still had the key with me so I opened the door and found my way in. I walked around the bedroom, living room, and the kitchen. I opened the trashcan and saw all the takeaway boxes inside it. Everything was exactly the same way I’d left it three nights ago. It looked as if he had not come back here at all.
I dialed his phone number again and when it still didn't go through, I realized then that there was nothing I could do but wait until his return.
But what if he never did?
Perhaps seeking the help of the authorities would stir the pot, but whether it would bring him to the surface or cause even more trouble for him, I had no clue. And neither did Nichole. Her advice was to wait. Bone was a smart operator and there was a reason he told me not to call him until he called me. Maybe he even knew he would have to disappear for a few days and that was why he didn’t want me calling and worrying.
Before I left for the Sinkhole, I thought to leave the key somewhere he would be able to find it, but there was nothing in front of his door to hide it in, not even a plant. I was reluctant to send him any text messages in case he was in serious trouble, and he didn’t want much known about him by the members of the club.
Bone had been so tightlipped, I wasn’t even certain his club members knew about this apart
ment so I kept the key on me and went to work full of fear and worry.
The next day, I stopped by the apartment after my shift to check again. This time, I brought with me a small potted palm plant. I placed it in front of his door, dug his key into the soil, and left. The following day I returned again, and all was still as I had left it. I watered the plant and placed some noodles that he could quickly make on the kitchen counter. If he was in a hurry. I don’t know what I was thinking, but it was the only thing I could think of doing for him.
Just before I left, I stood just inside the door and mourned for him. Tears ran down my face. All day I had to pretend I was fine, but here I could let the tears come. It had been a week now and there had been absolutely no word on him. What haunted me was the look of urgency in his eyes as he had exited the room in a rush. Perhaps he had been killed by his members and his corpse disposed of.
The pain at this thought was horrendous. I dropped to the ground with it. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. I knew he wasn’t dead. I would feel it if he was. There was more between Bone and me than just physical. We were connected at some other level. It took me all this time to realize it, but to me, it was true.
That night at the bar, I found myself unable to go on without some sort of consolation. So I called Henry aside and asked, “These clubs. I know they usually have bloody fights with other clubs, but what about between themselves? Can they just hurt their members at their own discretion?”
“You’re joking, right?” he asked. “Of course, they hurt and even kill each other. When it comes to their affairs, they’re their own law. I mean I’ve heard of them throwing members off balconies and causing paralysis, busting their skulls open, even death.” At my horrified expression, he stopped. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“No, no. It’s fine,” I said, but in fact, I was sick to my stomach with fear.
I had Jess to think of and I needed the money so I went on with my work, a ghost of myself. When I went to bed later that night I was haunted by nightmares. I shot up from bed and pounded my own chest for air, barely able to breathe. The sound of blood dripping into a pail from the slit throat of a body hanging in a dank basement still resounded in my ears.
Saving Della-Ray Page 16