“What do you want from me?” When whoever’s trying to call me gives up, I try to keep him talking. It was probably Wraith, and hopefully, he’ll realise something’s wrong. Or he’ll think I’m in the shower. A text pings which I have to ignore as he answers my question.
“For you to stop breathing,” He tells me, nonchalantly.
Spider moves in front of me, “You’ll have to take me out with your gun first. Soph, I’ve got your back covered.” There isn’t much inflection on the particular words, but staring death in the face seems to sharpen my mind, and in a flash, I recall Wraith storing his extra gun in the back of his waistband. Could Spider have one there too?
He’s hiding me from Hargreaves. Knowing if we live he’ll forgive me if I start to grope him only to find I’ve interpreted him wrong, I move my fingers slowly, making sure I’m making no movement that Hargreaves can see. He doesn’t know I’m not wheelchair bound anymore.
I was right; my fingers touch the cold hard metal of a gun. I’ve watched the men cleaning them often enough, and after my request to have one for myself, Wraith got as far as showing me how to check if one’s loaded and how to take off the safety. I can only assume Spider put bullets in his today, but as I slide it free, I make sure it’s ready to fire. Deciding there won’t be another dead prospect today I stand, pushing Spider to one side. With faster reactions, he grabs at me pulling me with him behind the couch. The back of my wheelchair explodes as bullets hit it almost as quickly as the gun is taken from my hand and standing, Spider fires three shots of his own.
He might be a lanky son of a bitch, but what he lacks in muscle, he makes up for with his accuracy as there’s no more returning fire. But as soon as the men are down, he leaps up over the couch and fires six more shots to make sure.
Hearing no sound except the ringing in my ears, I pull myself up. There’s no doubt about it; all three are dead. Each has a bullet in the middle of their forehead and two more either side of their chests.
We exchange glances, my heart is beating like it’s about to jump out of my chest, and my lungs are heaving as though I’ve run a marathon.
“They’re dead, Sophie.” His hand might have been steady when he was shooting, but he’s shaking now. I suddenly doubt he’s shot at a live target before. Taking ammunition out of his cut, he reloads his gun.
I can’t speak, the close brush with death, the tangy smell of blood and death turns my stomach, and I rush to the nearest sink to be sick. It’s in the kitchen. I hear Spider calling out for me to wait and be careful but I’m too intent on getting to my destination.
But reaching it I scream, “Spider!” Carmen and Sandy along with the new girl, Ella are tied up and gagged on the floor, they’re not moving, they look dead.
The prospect rushes in and starts to feel for their pulses, grimacing when he sees the marks indicating they must have all put up a struggle. “They’re breathin’, they might have been knocked out or drugged; I don’t know which. We’ll untie them, but be careful not to move them. We need Doc here.”
Taking his phone out, he places a call to the medic. I do likewise, but my call is to Wraith. It goes unanswered.
He looks up, shaking his head, his eyes going so wide they’re almost entirely white, and I grasp this is too much for one prospect to cope with, as he says in a grim and unsteady voice, “Where are Mouse and Adam? The shots should have brought them running!”
At that moment the kitchen door opens, and Crystal rushes in, Amy in her arms. “I heard shots. What’s…” Her voice breaks off when she sees the other women on the floor. She hides Amy’s face against her.
“Crystal, can you untie them, but don’t disturb them. We don’t know how badly they’ve been hurt. Doc should be on his way,” I flick my eyes towards Spider, and get his nod of confirmation. “But don’t let Amy go into the clubroom.” I continue, my eyes trying to relay she really wouldn’t want to see the sights in there. As Crystal’s eyes widen, showing she understand, I add, “Where are the sweet butts?
Crystal answers for him, “I heard the shots as I was on my way down, the whores sleep during the day, and their rooms are up at the back of the compound. They probably haven’t heard.”
At least that’s something. Although I haven’t taken to the other women, I didn’t want to see anyone else hurt.
I nod to Spider, “We’re going to try to find Mouse and Adam.”
“Not you. You’re stayin’ here.” Spider sounds firm.
“No, I’m coming with you. The threat’s gone now, Spider.” Without waiting for him to answer, I turn and moving as quickly as I can, making my way across the clubroom and past the meeting room, to Mouse’s office, the most likely place where he’ll be.
I open the door gingerly, dreading what I might find, fully expecting to find him dead. What I find is a tightly bound and gagged man rolling on the floor, struggling to get free despite the injuries that have been inflicted on him. His eyes flicker madly as the prospect, and I rush in. Spider gets out his knife that he’d retrieved with his gun and undoes the ropes, as soon as his hands are free Mouse spits out the rag from his mouth.
“What’s happened?”
“Three men were here for Wheels. I took them out.” Mouse stares at him, then nods once, lifting his chin, his gesture showing his admiration.
“Mouse, are you alright?” I gasp out, eyeing the blood pouring from his scalp, “Doc’s been called, Carmen, Sandy and Ella; they’re unconscious in the kitchen.”
Mouse drags himself to his feet, staggering as he does so. “Bastards jumped me, overpowered me. Tried to get me to tell them where you were, Wheels. Thought they were gonna kill me, but they clobbered me instead.” He lifts his hand to his head, grimacing when it comes away covered in blood. “Where the fuck is Adam?”
“We haven’t seen him.” Spider spits out.
Mouse goes to his laptop and calls up a program, squinting as he tries to get his eyes to focus, “His phone is by the gates.”
Spider turns and runs, I follow more slowly, Mouse can only just keep up with me. He has to balance himself against the wall. When we get outside Spider forgets his promise to Wraith and turns, pulling me into his arms and shielding me from the sight.
“Fuck!” Mouse shouts and stumbles over to his brother.
“Is, is he?”
“They fuckin’ killed him!” Mouse confirms the bad news in a howl full of agony.
Seeing tears in Spider’s eyes I push him away, looking past him to see Mouse cradling his dead brother in his arms. That he’s gone there can be no doubt, half his head is missing.
I’m shaking so much it’s hard to keep my balance. Adam was such a fixture in the clubhouse; there hadn’t been a time I could remember when he hadn’t been glued to the games machines. Now he’ll never play them again. I swallow back a sob realising there’s nothing I or anyone can do for Adam, and feeling a bit like an intruder, wanting to give the bikers some privacy to grieve I start to turn to go back to the women.
Suddenly Mouse rasps out, “Gates are wide open, Prospect.”
Swinging back, I see Spider run to close them. As he’s pulling them shut I hear the distinctive roar of a Harley coming up the roadway. Spider runs back, pushing past me, his gun already in his hand. “Wheels, get out of sight.”
“It has to be Doc, hasn’t it?” I’m hopeful; I can’t take much more today.
“Fuckin’ hope so, but I gotta make sure.”
I get myself out of the way, hiding behind the wall of the garage, but as I hear a voice I recognise, I come out again to see the ex-army medic is getting off his bike.
He’s staring at me, assessing me. I know I must look a mess, pale and shaking, but I’m not the one who needs help. So forcing my voice to be calm, I bring him up to speed, “Adam’s dead, Mouse has a head injury. Carmen, Sandy and Ella are unconscious in the kitchen.”
Doc’s face is grim; he turns to Mouse.
The computer geek waves him off, “Take care of the first.�
��
“Wheels, come with me. I might need your help.” Not knowing how useful I can be, I follow him to the clubhouse and into the kitchen where he kneels next to each of the women, in turn, lifting their eyelids to look at their pupils, and taking their pulses. “I think they’ve just been drugged,” he pronounces at last. “Crystal, can you go get some blankets so we can make them more comfortable. I don’t want to move them until they come around in case they’ve got any head injuries.”
By the time we’ve seen to the comfort of the unconscious women as best we can, Mouse has joined us. Doc makes him take a seat and starts to examine him.
“Why didn’t they shoot you?” I ask, grateful that they hadn’t, but also surprised.
“My lucky day?” Mouse suggests dourly, “Or they wanted to keep someone alive to interrogate in case they couldn’t find you.”
Doc nods, “Whatever the reason, I’m glad of it. Any news of the others, Mouse?”
That gets my attention, “Not when I last checked. But that would be,” he consults the clock on the wall, “Over an hour ago. Fuck. I’ll go check.”
“Not until I’ve finished examinin’ you.” Doc sounds stern; it’s enough to make Mouse sit still.
“I tried to ring Wraith; there wasn’t an answer.”
Mouse glares at me, “Don’t do that again, Wheels. Let them concentrate on what they’re doing.”
“But shouldn’t they know?”
He heaves a sigh, “Sweetheart, I can’t tell you what their plan is, but they need to follow it through. You call your man, and he’ll get distracted. Fuck, all of them will when they hear what’s happened here and about Adam. And Viper, Slick, and Bullet will have a fit about the girls.”
Reluctantly, I concede he must know what he’s talking about.
I feel faint, and put my hand out to the table. Doc moves fast for such a big man and soon has me sitting with my head between my knees, “You’re in shock, darlin’” he tells me softly.
“Doc, you finished with me yet?”
“Yeah, son. You’re good to go. Concussion watch, though, you shouldn’t be alone. Keep the prospect with you.”
“I’ll go with him,” I offer, looking up. It would give me something useful to do rather than just hanging around worrying. And I’ll be at the hub of information and hopefully learn Wraith’s safe as soon as possible.
And he’s got to come back to me.
Chapter 30
Wraith
Watching the Rock Demons clubhouse blow sky high is both exhilarating and horrifying at the same time. Seeing the flames shooting high into the air, knowing we’d be having no more trouble from that direction causes smiles and cheers from all around me, albeit tempered with a few ‘fuck’s and ‘shit that’s as we all realise that could be our clubhouse burning and our members dying.
From the info, Mouse had been feeding us we know their prez and VP had been inside, together with their other officers, so we’ve definitely cut the head off the snake. When a couple of the non-ranking members flee the inferno, we decide enough is enough and let them go. We don’t like killing men unnecessarily, and taking out the ones in command had achieved our primary objective. If we hadn’t hit first, they’d have done the same to us. Now, hopefully, we won’t have to watch our backs. Well, not unless they regroup and come for us again, but at the moment that seems unlikely, we haven’t left enough of them alive for that.
The plan had worked smoothly, Viper, Dart and I had managed to get up close, planting the explosives at their points of weakness. Utilising the skills that got me my name I’d gotten the most difficult target, their main entrance, but chose the moment they’d left it unguarded. Viper reported back one of their sheds was being used as a meth lab, backing right onto their clubhouse. What idiots would do that? Of course, he took the time to rig that too. Sloppy motherfuckers hadn’t seen us coming.
Even knowing about the lab, the size of the explosion took us by surprise and the resulting pops and bangs from their obviously sizeable armoury, together with a few louder booms that made us query each other as to what the fuck they had stored in there. But hopefully, whatever it was would be sufficient that any investigation by the authorities, would put the blame there, and not look for outsider involvement. Any such scrutiny which would probably be half-hearted in any event, no one would shed many tears about the loss of a group of outlaw bikers.
We’ve retreated to a safe distance now, watching from afar as the increasingly growing sounds of sirens reach us. The smoke rising in the air would easily be visible from Phoenix.
I glance at my phone; Mouse has been out of contact for half-an-hour. Luckily he was online and keeping us all connected until we were ready to press the button, but after that, he’d gone quiet. At first, I put it down to a faulty signal, but now a sense of unease comes over me.
“Can’t get hold of Mouse,” I nudge Drummer. “The line’s gone dead. I’ve tried ringin’ him several times, but no answer.”
Drum pulls his eyes away from the conflagration and gives his attention to me, “What the fuck? Are you tryin’ his burner?”
“And his personal phone.”
“Damn, he’s the one brother who never goes incommunicado.”
Taking out my phone, I try another number. It rings out.
Drummer’s watching me carefully, “Tryin’ Adam?”
I shake my head, “Yeah, but no joy there either.” Next, I try Sophie, but it just rings out. I send her a quick text As Drum tilts his head towards me, I give a shake of mine, “Tried Spider too. No one’s answerin’.”
He runs his hand down his beard, as I try to stifle the fear rapidly rising inside me, “Fuck. Trouble at home, VP. Think we need to get ourselves on the road.” As he stands and waves the brothers with us together, I send a quick text to the other groups to let them know we’re heading back. And to be prepared for anything when we get there.
Walking beside him to the bikes, he gets a text. He reads it, then tells me, “Red took out the drug runners. From what Mouse had got from the cameras earlier, there weren’t many of the Demons that weren’t inside their clubhouse. Don’t see how it could be them making an attack on our compound.”
“Who the fuck else could it be, Prez?”
He places his hand on my arm, “We don’t know anythin’s wrong yet.”
I don’t contradict him out loud, but I fucking know there is. Someone should have answered. What the hell is going on?
I pull on my brain bucket and put on my sunglasses. Drum wastes no time getting out on the road. I ride behind him, and shortly after Peg pulls up alongside having joined us. We hadn’t planned to meet up and ride back together; we were going back in small groups not flying our colours as we didn’t want to advertise that Satan’s Devils were in Phoenix today. But Peg’s throwing me a grim look, and I know he’s worried too. I’m glad he’ll be with us when we arrive.
Drummer signals to indicate we should pull over to the side. As he does so, I see he’s talking on the phone.
“What…?” I can’t hide my impatience, but he gesticulates showing he wants me to hold off for a moment.
Impatiently I rise up and down on my heels; my hands tighten into fists as I grow more and more anxious about Wheels. Especially when I hear his side of the conversation.
“You okay man?”
“Fuck.”
“FUCK!”
“Good lad!”
“The fuckin’ women!!?”
I can barely hold myself back from snatching the phone from his hand. Looking a Peg I see he’s as impatient as I am to find out what’s going on. My breathing becomes laboured as I remember Sophie this morning and her concerns about me leaving her alone. She’d been worried about me; I never thought I’d be the one ending up scared out of my mind for her.
At last, Drum ends the call, and turns to us with as grave a look on his face as I’ve ever seen.
“Sophie?” I ask, unable to be patient.
The shake of his head
causes my heart to stop, but his dismissal wasn’t for her. “She’s fine,” he reassures me, “But Adam’s dead, Mouse has a concussion, and three of the women are unconscious, but Doc thinks they’ve been drugged and are probably going to be alright.”
Heart, Viper and Bullet are with another group so won’t be finding out about their old ladies until they get back. For their sakes, I hope their women will have woken up by then.
“What the fuck did we miss?” Peg growls, “Was it the Demons?”
Drum looks at us steadily, “No, it was somethin’ to do with that bastard after Wheels.”
“But he’s dead!” I’m incredulous; we thought the risk was gone.
“Seems like his sidekick wasn’t. He had two men with him.” Again Drum gives a shake of his head, but this time in disbelief, “Young Spider took out all three. He’s an incredible shot it seems.”
Peg gapes, then huffs a laugh, “Kid always aced it at the range practicin’. Fuck, but I’m proud of him.” Then his face falls, “But Adam, fuck.” He kicks at a rock on the ground, “FUCK!”
I’m itching to get back on the bike and home to Soph, raising my eyebrow at Drum, he nods, understands my impatience and wasting no time getting us back on our way.
We’re the first group to return to the compound. Sophie’s waiting for me and starts towards me as fast as she can. I’m off, and my arms are around her, holding her so tight. She’s sobbing, and tears come to my own eyes understanding now the fear she had for me earlier today. I feel like holding her forever and never letting her go, but I’m the VP, others are waiting on me. Reluctantly, at last, I let her go, but keep a tight hold on her hand.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m alright. Spider was brilliant, Wraith, he shot them all.” Her words are brave, but her hand is shaking in mine, letting me know three men gunned down in front of her probably took its toll.
“They would have taken you, darlin’”
She knows that, “They would have killed me.”
Turning Wheels (Satan's Devils MC #1): A Blood Brothers Spin off Page 32