“We need to take out the Sons of Satan tonight. I don’t care how we do it, but we formulate a plan right now and get to work. I don’t want us sitting around and waiting for an attack. It’s tonight or never. I want to make sure our women and kids and businesses are safe. No more fucking threats!”
For a few moments there was silence around the bar and then a buzz broke out. They were agreeing with me. Even Grimm, who preferred to avoid violence when he could, was smiling now.
I knew they were all going to agree to do this. They were all waiting for someone to take charge of this situation. Something needed to be done tonight before they struck us. And something needed to be done before they attacked Vivian again.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
34
Vivian
All Cash told me was that he was taking care of it and then he was off. From all the tension in the clubhouse and the speed with which weapons were being picked up and the men were rushing out to get on their bikes and go—I could sense some kind of a plan had been made to take out the Sons of Satan tonight.
Before Cash left with the others, he came to see me in my room for a minute. He had Patch with him.
“He’s going to be here with you the whole time. You’ll be safe here,” Cash said, and he didn’t even come anywhere close to me. I wished we’d hugged, I wished I had the opportunity to show him in some way that he was special to me. More than just someone who kept me safe.
Cash stormed out again, leaving Patch in the room with me. Outside, I could hear the roar of the bikes leaving, their voices loud and shouting and then there was complete silence in the clubhouse.
I was sitting on the edge of the bed and Patch was still standing at the door.
“I should give you some privacy,” he said and made to move but I stopped him.
“What is going to happen tonight?” I blurted.
Patch stopped in his tracks and turned to me, running a hand through his hair.
“You don’t need to worry about it. The guys are going to take care of it. Cash has a plan and his plans are usually pretty solid.” I could sense that Patch was trying to make this conversation as lighthearted as he could for my sake.
“Is there a chance they might not return? That they could get seriously hurt?” I asked, and of course he knew I meant one of them in particular. Patch seemed to be the guy who Cash trusted the most, they seemed to be close friends. I assumed he knew we had a bit of a history together.
“There is always a chance of that happening. It’s just the world we live in,” Patch remarked and stuffed his hands into his jackets as he stared at me. I gulped and pursed my lips together before I nodded.
“Yeah, of course, I know that…I shouldn’t have bothered asking that question. It’s what you all thrive on. It’s what he enjoys most in his life, doesn’t he? The thrill of not knowing what’s going to happen next.”
I hadn’t expected this bitterness to emerge in my voice, but I couldn’t stop it now. Maybe it was because Cash hadn’t said a proper goodbye before he left tonight; when there was every chance that he might not return.
Patch heard it too and he took a few hesitant steps towards me.
“Cash is a complicated guy, I’ll grant you that, in most ways. But there is one thing very simple about him. There is nothing that has ever mattered to him more than this club. So yeah, I guess in a way he doesn’t care what happens to him as long as his club survives.”
Patch was staring hard at me while he spoke, like he was trying to figure me out as well. I licked my lips and looked away. What he said only confirmed what I always knew about Cash. That nothing would ever matter more to him than his work.
It made me even sadder to hear it now. There was no chance for us.
“But something has definitely changed in him recently,” Patch continued. I looked up at him abruptly. I thought he was done talking but it seemed like there was more he wanted to say.
“What do you mean?” I asked him and he sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ve known him for several years now and I can see there’s something different about him. He seems more grounded, like maybe his priorities are changing,” he added. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. I had no clue…but I could sense there was something Patch was trying to tell me; I just couldn’t be sure of what it was. I didn’t want to make any unnecessary presumptions just yet.
“His priorities are changing in what way?” I urged him on, and Patch glared at me from under his heavy eyelids, like he was hoping I wouldn’t force him to actually say the words.
“Like the fact that he has been keeping an eye on you all these weeks,” he said. That confused me.
“All these weeks? What do you mean?”
Patch looked guilty all of a sudden. He knew he’d overstepped his boundaries. He shouldn’t have said anything and maybe he was betraying his best friend’s trust.
“He knew you were under threat, so he’d been keeping an eye on you. It’s how we knew you were kidnapped by them and we started preparing. Cash was there when they abducted you. He got shot in the leg.”
That’s why he was limping!
I jumped off the bed and clasped my hands to my mouth.
All these weeks…had he seriously been watching me? Those times when I imagined I saw him…they were real? He was actually there?
Patch tried to calm me.
“Okay, Vivian, please sit down and just stay calm. You can’t freak out over this. You can’t tell him I told you. He’ll have my head. I just wanted you to know because I know Cash is too much of an idiot to ever tell you how much he cares.”
I did what he told me to…I sat back down on the bed again, but how could I be calm now? Knowing that maybe he did care for me after all. That it wasn’t just me pining for him. Maybe we had a chance?
And now that he was gone. Now that he was out there fighting for me, fighting for his club…I might never see him again! I might never be able to tell him about the baby!
I looked at Patch and I knew my lips were quivering. He looked worried too, like he wished he hadn’t told me what he did.
“I just want him to come back here in one piece tonight,” I said. Patch nodded but he didn’t say anything more.
“I’ll be outside. I need to keep a lookout. You’ll be safe in here,” he said and then left the room.
35
Cash
It was a simple plan. Hit them where it hurts a second time around.
We’d already struck their main warehouse a couple of weeks ago which we knew had a debilitating effect on their holdings, and now based on the intel we received from the streets—we had the address to the second warehouse. The one they were now building up as their first and main one.
The only thing we could do to keep the Sons of Satan down was to keep hitting them till they realized they couldn’t strike back at us.
Sure, they had more manpower than us, and they covered more ground than us too—but just because we were the underdogs did not mean we were going to sit back and allow them to bulldoze all over us. It was not going to happen.
Neither was I letting them kidnap one of our women again.
So, based on the information we had, our whole crew minus Patch rode out to the address and found it heavily guarded this time. Clearly, the Sons of Satan had upped their game and were preparing themselves for all scenarios.
But still, they weren’t expecting an attack tonight which meant that we were going to surprise them.
Grimm had given me the green signal to attack and give out orders as I deemed fit. I ordered an attack on the warehouse as soon as we got there, giving them close to no time to prepare.
They were obviously alerted of our arrival because they would have heard our bikes approaching, and we had no time to lose.
So, we charged in with our guns blazing.
Most of us were not in the peak of our health or capabilities. We all suffered a major blow just a few days ago
and launching another attack on this scale was a risk we were taking.
This thing could go either way. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself here. In the beginning when we first charged, I couldn’t help but doubt the capabilities of our club to win this one.
Grimm looked at me encouragingly, and so did my brothers, but we all knew there was a good chance we were going down in flames tonight.
But we had to try.
We couldn’t keep living in fear.
Neither could we allow them to threaten us again.
We stormed the warehouse just as planned and a shootout began on the same scale as the other night. Only this time, we all knew there weren’t going to be any cops to intervene.
This area was Sons of Satan territory where the cops didn’t step in. Whatever happened tonight was going to be decided between us.
We were armed and loaded, firing in every direction, nearly blinded by the flames that were going up before our eyes. The Sons of Satan were going to call in reinforcements any time now, which meant we needed to take possession of the warehouse before that happened.
And we did.
None of our men were about to back down. I led the crew, making sure that we didn’t even give them a hint of surrender, no matter how much they shot at us. This time, we didn’t have many cars or trucks or other vehicles to take cover behind, which meant that a lot of us were simply in the line of fire, exposed.
But so were the men from the Sons of Satan, who had no choice but to try and stand guard in front of the warehouse to defend the main entrance. That was what we were trying to crack and take possession of.
The more they shot at us, the more we shot back, and we were gaining ground on them. They had nowhere to go. If they ran or tried to hide, we would have open access to the door of the warehouse.
I knew we were running short of time and if more of them arrived here with reinforcements before we had access to their stock, we might actually end up losing this thing.
But that was not going to happen.
The Sons of Satan, who were trying to guard the warehouse, eventually had no choice but to step away. Most of them were wounded anyway. There were some bleeding on the ground who needed urgent medical attention, or they were going to lose their lives. They had to leave the warehouse and surrender it to us.
A cheer rang out amongst our men when we ran up to the main door and broke open the lock.
Some of the others stood guard outside; while Grimm, Rogue and I ran in to look at the stock inside. Their warehouse was way bigger than ours. They had way more stock and weapons than us too. Now that we had control over this, it would help our business.
We walked back out when we heard the sound of bikes and cars approaching. The rest of their club was showing up now. Maybe they were planning on putting up another fight, maybe they would try and take back control of the warehouse, but we had a plan for that.
Rogue and Grimm stepped out first and I screwed open the cap of the can containing gasoline that we’d brought with us.
I was holding it up as I stood guard in front of the door of the warehouse.
Lynch was getting out of the muscle car he had arrived in and he looked mad.
“You boys really think you’re going to win this war?” he growled, snarling as he took up his position at the front of his group of men. Just like Grimm, I was smiling too. In a few seconds, we were going to prove just how over this was for them.
“We weren’t the ones who started this,” Grimm spoke up, joining his hands together in front of him. “We had every intention of leaving you guys alone and minding our own business. But you keep fucking taking things from us.”
Lynch was seething with anger as he eyed all of us one by one.
“I’m going to skin you alive. I’m going to rain so many bullets on each one of you, nobody would even recognize your filthy bodies!” He was shouting now, and I held up the can of gasoline so he could see it clearly.
“This is nearly empty because we splashed the rest of it all over your warehouse back there. All one of us has to do is light a match while you rain those bullets on the rest of us and it’s over. All your stock is in there. We noticed. If its destroyed in the fire, it’s over for you fuckers.”
I was smiling as I spoke, especially wider now that I saw how angry this was making Lynch and the guys around him. The remaining Sons of Satan were boiling with anger now. I knew they wanted to take us down, right here right now if they could—but I also knew they would have no choice but to give in to us.
“What do you want?” Lynch growled.
“Just give it a fucking rest. You can survive without using our Mexican contacts and let us do our business in peace,” Rogue replied. It was just the sort of thing he wanted to say. He was a man of peace.
Lynch did not seem too pleased with the idea but what choice did he really have?
Rogue held out his hand. I didn’t think Lynch would actually shake it, but he came forward and the two men shook on it. It wasn’t a friendly one, just one of compromise.
This was something we had already discussed before the mission. This was what Grimm wanted. He wanted to do everything he could to stop the violence and the bloodshed—while I knew the reality. It was never actually going to stop.
The Sons of Satan were going to retaliate at some point. This handshake meant nothing to them. They were not exactly ‘honorable men’. All this did was buy us some time to recuperate and lick our wounds, so we could prepare ourselves for the next attack.
But most importantly, what this did was give Vivian a clean break. Hopefully now, the Sons of Satan would forget about her and leave her the fuck alone.
36
Vivian
It seemed like it was several hours later that I finally heard the sound of bikes approaching the clubhouse again. I’d been waiting intently, sitting on the edge of that bed, clasping my hands together on my lap—just waiting to hear the sound. And now, the sound of the bikes and the cheers were loud in my ears and they thundered everywhere.
Something told me we had won…the Black Cobras had won! I jumped off the bed and when I opened the door, I saw Patch running towards the room.
“They’re back, you can come out now,” he said and flipped around and started to run in the direction of the bar again.
“Is Cash okay?” I called after him, but he was already out of earshot and so I followed him.
I could hear the sound of my own heart thumping in my ears. I tried not to collapse as I felt my knees weaken. This was too overwhelming, too emotional. I could already hear the cheers and the celebration that had broken out in the bar by now and finally, I approached the doors and pushed them open.
The men were celebrating. Bender was pouring the drinks and guns were being waved in the air jovially. I scanned the room quickly, but I couldn’t see Cash anywhere which worried me, but then the doors to the bar slammed open and I looked in that direction to see Cash walking in. His friends Bones and Patch had their arms around him, and they were walking in together.
Was this the first time I saw a smile that wide on Cash’s face?
The men in the bar started to cheer even louder when they saw him. I could see they considered him to be some kind of a hero. Did he do something even more heroic than usual tonight?
I realized I was beaming with pride.
Men walked over to shake his hand and thump his back and he seemed caught up in all of that, till eventually his gaze fell on me and I felt shy and looked away from him.
There was so much going on inside me. I wasn’t sure I could meet his eyes confidently. Cash stood there, talking to his friends for a few more minutes before finally he broke away from them and headed in my direction.
All I could do was clasp my hands together and keep twiddling my fingers, waiting for him to come closer so I could actually fully believe the fact that he was really here.
“Are you doing okay?” Cash asked. His beard and hair all looked like they needed a trim, h
is clothes seemed to be in disarray under that leather jacket too. But none of that mattered. He was still the hottest guy in the room. Towering over me protectively. I could feel his body heat close to me, I was melting right as I stood there. All I could do in response to his question was nod.
“Good, I’m glad Patch looked after you,” he continued, and I gulped.
I could see there were some bruises on him again. There was a gash right there on his cheek where he’d struck his face against something sharp. But other than the faint limp, nothing else seemed to be serious in any way.
“Yes, Patch was great. He made me feel safe. I’m glad you’re okay. Did things go well?” I asked and he nodded.
“Everything is fine now. You’re going to be fine. You have nothing more to worry about. The Sons of Satan are going to leave you alone and you can go back to your normal life.”
I gulped. My throat had gone dry. He had no idea. My life was never going to be the same again.
“Okay, thank you, I guess I should leave then,” I said, stammering with my words. It didn’t seem like he had any other use for me. It didn’t seem like he was even interested in me sticking around.
I was about to step past him, but Cash moved forward, coming up to me abruptly and blocking my way.
“You’re going nowhere tonight, woman,” he grunted in a low animalistic growl. He was so close to me; he was searching my eyes frantically. Something had changed in him. Maybe it was because they’d won, because he’d just been in a vicious violent war. Whatever it was, there was a fire burning in Cash’s eyes that made my loins fire up too. I could see it in his eyes, he wanted what I wanted.
He reached out and grabbed me by my waist and yanked me to himself. My hands rose up to his chest. I could feel the rock-hardness of his chiseled torso under that thin shirt. I could feel the wetness between my legs. The celebrations continued behind us, but none of that seemed to matter to either of us.
Cash: The Black Cobras MC #2 Page 14