by Paula Cox
Suddenly, the gun did not feel so alien to her anymore. Suddenly, it felt more like a lifesaver than anything else at that moment. She could feel the fear gum up the back of her throat, and she swallowed loudly against it, trying so hard not to be afraid. Would her father want her to be afraid, her mother? Would Griffin? No. They would all expect her to stand up and take this bastard down, and that’s exactly what she was planning to do.
With hands that were only shaking a little bit, she cocked the gun. In reality, it was a small, almost timid sound, but it exploded in her eardrums to the point where she was convinced that he could hear it through the thin walls. He was almost done picking the lock, and she was surprised that he just did not kick the door in, but as she stood there and waited for this man to break into her motel room, her greater instincts finally kicked in. This was ridiculous. What was she going to do to this Los Diablos biker? She knew how to shoot a target, not a man.
Thinking as quickly as she could, she ran into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. It was a silly thing to do; it was a girly thing to do, and yet, all she knew was that she wanted as many doors between her and the intruder as possible.
Pulling her hair into a ponytail and tying it with an elastic that she found on the sink, she paced back and forth trying to figure out exactly what to do next. Her heart was beating frantically in her chest, but she knew that she had the gun, and as long as she had the gun she could keep herself safe. She did not want to kill, but she could always figure out how, and it was justified knowing that it was self-defense.
She would rather not do so, of course. She held her breath, as she heard the door to her motel room swing open.
Chapter 21
“So I met Desiree at the Tumbleweed the other night,” Julian said to Griffin in the lull, as they waited for the signal. This was the worst part of any kind of raid, the waiting. Usually, the guys would sit around, maybe even play cards if the time allowed, but now they just hung out, talking about anything except for the job at hand. It took Griffin a moment, but this was probably the secret that Julian had been sitting on the entire time.
“Huh?” Griffin said, looking up at Julian with a confused look on his face. “Who’s Desiree?”
Julian may have been built like a brick house, but his face was incredibly expressive, and it was currently rifling through a few warring emotions. With that, Griffin realized that he probably knew Desiree a little better than he originally thought. Immediately, embarrassment began to dawn on him.
“You…met her acquaintance earlier this week?”
Oh, shit. Yeah. Now Griffin remembered. He at least had the grace to be a little embarrassed. Desiree had been the girl he had spent some time with before Emanuel’s funeral, before he met Natasha, and before everything else went to hell. He had not been particularly nice to her, but he very rarely was nice to any of them. Now none of it mattered a tiny bit. He had already moved on to another girl, but he could already tell by Julian’s sheepishness that Desiree might have already found another guy.
“Right,” Griffin said. “Of course. I remember her.”
She had been that stereotypical kind of biker chick, with long dark hair, tattoos, and bored looking eyes. She had been hot, of course, but she was not Natasha. He couldn’t place her right away since all the biker chicks he had spent time with in the past had also been hot. They all knew how to ride a bike, and not a single one of them had ever blinked twice about the violence and craziness that permeated the life of the Disciples, and yet Natasha was more than that.
Sure, she rode a bike like an angel and seemed to be totally fine with the fact that he was out on a revenge mission right now. There was something more, though, something Natasha was striving for. Her entire life did not revolve around the Disciples like some of these other girls. It made him feel as though she was not with him just because he was an attractive and high-ranking member of the Disciples.
Maybe it was because Natasha was not a part of the Disciples normally, and because of that, it made her choice to be with him less about status and more about who Griffin really was. The thought of that terrified him for some reason.
“I was just wondering if you were still…” Julian searched his brain for the best term he could come up with. “If you were still making her acquaintance. I mean, she didn’t say anything one way or another, but she did say that she knew you….”
It did not take long for Griffin to know what Julian was getting at. For a tough man with a poker face to rival most professionals, Griffin could see right through his intentions. The worst part of Griffin’s psyche was relieved; Desiree had the potential to be clingy. For a normal guy looking for his Old Lady, it would have been perfect, sometimes girls were a bit hard to pin down. He had never heard of Julian being interested in another girl before, but hell, it made a certain kind of sense.
“I am not man, why, you interested in her?”
Julian did not say anything, but by the twist of his mouth Griffin knew that he had touched on something. Good, he thought. He was happy for his friend.
“I’ll figure it out,” Julian replied. Griffin laughed and punched him in the shoulder.
“I heard through the grapevine that you were hooking up with some new girl anyway,” Julian continued. “She someone you met at the Bootheel?”
The idea of putting Natasha in the middle of the Bootheel was both completely laughable and also incredibly enticing. He pictured her sitting there, surrounded by bikers, drinking all of them under the table and laughing about it. He had absolutely no idea if she was the kind of girl who could do that, but he would love to see if that was the case. Maybe one day he would take her; it would be interesting to see the prim and proper college girl in the middle of a biker bar.
There was a flash in the distance…the signal. Griffin immediately snapped to attention and motioned to his club.
The twenty of them were armed to the teeth and completely ready for their part of the plan. Somewhere out there were another group of ten. Griffin was the leader of the group he was with, his job was specifically to lead the original attack on the Los Diablos’ clubhouse. Their job was to attack first to draw the attention of the Los Diablos, and then the other group would attack from behind. Griffin still was not fully into the idea of it, but he admitted it carried a certain reckless excitement. He reached down into his pocket and touched the gun at his hip, cradling the shotgun in his other arm. Already excitement began to make his heart beat faster, and he was fully ready to give himself over to the excitement of the craziness to come.
He still remembered his first raid. It had been three years ago, when a smaller club started getting a little too big for the territory. They called themselves the Desperados, and the only thing they really had going for them was the fact that they had a seemingly endless supply of heroin and several pretty strong contacts with the cartels over the border. They were steadily growing, but not as fast as they thought they were. Soon, they were beginning to style themselves as actual rivals to the Disciples. At first, it was completely laughable, the Disciples had several chapters spanned across Texas, and it was not like a little club was going to upset them really. However, once the Desperados started to attempt to jump a few of the lower members of the Disciples, it was decided that something had to be done.
It had been a lot smaller than his current one, of course, only a handful of guys. They waited outside of a local bar, not one that had much of a biker presence, but was desperately trying to cultivate one. At the end of the night when the leader and several key members of the Desperados had left to go home, the smaller raiding party had jumped them and beat them within an inch of their lives. The Desperados did not last much longer after that.
Now with enough luck, the Los Diablos weren’t going to last that much longer either.
“Alright, guys! It is time to go out there and get those assholes!” Griffin cried. There was a murmur of excitement as card games were finished up and men mounted their bikes. High f
ives were exchanged, and Griffin had to stop a guy from firing into the air, lest they give the nature of what they were doing away. It was not time for that yet.
The Los Diablos’ clubhouse was about forty minutes away from the one belonging to the Disciples, but looked pretty much the same regardless. Dozens of bikes were parked outside, probably with more in the garage, but Griffin was not worried.
Julian mounted his motorcycle, grinning as he felt the excitement over battle. Griffin thought about Natasha and hoped that she was still safe.
“Man, nothing like a battle, eh?” Julian said as he straddled his bike and readied his guns. “It gets the blood flowing.”
“The only thing better than a good fight is letting out all the pent up aggression afterwards,” Griffin told him with a smile. “You better have Desiree’s number ready.”
Julian laughed, but Griffin could tell that there was truth inside of it. Griffin could not help but dream a little bit of what he was going to do to Natasha once he came back from the raid. He imagined lifting her up like some conquering hero and carrying her into the bedroom, letting out all the feelings he had pent up and feeling her move underneath him. It was going to be incredible.
Maybe then she’ll finally make up her mind and stay. He did not want to actually think about what would happen if the threat was eliminated. Would she just go back to school? Would she forget all about him?
It was not worth thinking about right now, especially not at the beginning of the raid. Instead, he stopped thinking about the future and decided to focus on the present. Holding his guns and mounting his bike, he turned to his fellow men. On every man’s face was trust and determination, and he momentarily let his thoughts about Natasha go in order to throw himself into the battle.
With another whoop and a chorus of “Disciples!” from the group of men, they drove off, finally working on their mission of revenge.
Once they were all outside of the clubhouse, Griffin could hear some noises coming from within. They were the normal sounds of a bunch of guys shooting the shit, talking and laughing. Griffin figured that if someone sat outside of the Disciples’ clubhouse, they probably would hear the same thing. For a moment, Griffin hesitated, remembering that probably not all the people inside of that clubhouse were people who had killed Emanuel.
Then again, he also remembered that Emanuel had never killed a single member of the Los Diablos, and it made him feel a lot better.
The sun began to beat down on the assembled Disciples, and Griffin could feel sweat breaking out on the back of his neck, right underneath the bandanna he had tied around his mouth. He dug around in the pocket of his sleeveless vest and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Damon, you there?” he spoke into the device.
There was a crackle of static on the other end before he heard Damon’ voice come over the walkie-talkie. “Loud and clear, Griffin. Is team one in position?”
Griffin’s eyes swept over the assembled group. “Damn right, and team two?”
“We’re in position. Let’s give those guys hell!”
Hanging up the phone, Griffin turned to the guys who were waiting.
“Let’s do it!”
Unshouldering his shotgun, Griffin aimed and fired directly at the front door.
All hell broke loose.
Chapter 22
Natasha held her breath as she heard the intruder’s footsteps walk through her motel. Desperately, she wanted to get to her cell phone and call someone, anyone, to let them know that she was in danger. Would Griffin even pick up? Was he too busy somewhere? Was she in too deep right now to even call the police? It did not matter, of course, because there she was, locked in the bathroom, and her cell phone was still on her bed.
Her heart was pounding hard against her ribcage, and the only thing going through her head was “Run! Run! Run!”
She could escape through the window again like she had done when Griffin originally was set to guard her, but she was not sure how many men were actually out there. What if she fell wrong, broke an ankle, and then she was found? What horrible things would they do to her after that?
If only she had not called out for Griffin when she first heard the noise; she could have potentially hidden and then waited for the intruder to give up and leave. Of course, that was ridiculous. It was not going to happen that easily, but she could at least dream.
The footsteps slowed at the bathroom door, and Natasha realized that this was it. It was now or never. She could hear the intruder’s breathing through the door, and she could feel the wild beating of her own heart. Natasha held the gun in her hands, completely prepared for the moment when it would finally happen, when he would burst through that door. With shaking arms, she lifted the gun.
The door burst inward, and she let off a few shots before he tackled her. She had missed at first; she could see two shots smoking in her doorframe. The back of Natasha’s head hit the tiles of the floor as he pushed her down, and dimly, she saw his hand move to his jean vest to pull out a gun. With a cry Natasha kicked him in the shins, and the man cursed and stumbled away.
Momentarily free, Natasha looked wildly around for her gun, finding it a few feet from her own head. Rolling onto her stomach, she reached and grabbed for it, immediately feeling better as her fingers closed around the heavy, comforting metal. Her head was pounding terribly, but she knew one moment of hesitation would absolutely bring death.
She had never been in this situation before; she had never had to face down a man who clearly wanted her dead or worse. She gripped the gun in her hands and rolled to her back. At this point the man had righted himself and pulled out his own gun. She studied his face, just in case he got away, just in case she got away and he was still out there somewhere.
He looked like a typical biker, scruffy beard and tattoos. His hair was long and black that was streaked with gray. In the dim light of the bathroom and through her intense fear, she could not see any patches on his sleeveless jean vest, but he clearly was part of one of the MCs around Texas. Logic dictated that he was definitely one of the Los Diablos.
She wondered if this was how her father had died, ambushed and terrified in a bathroom somewhere. She was both annoyed and relieved that she had never really gathered the details of her father’s murder, but she decided that she would do anything in that moment to make sure that the same thing did not happen to her.
“Come on,” the man grumbled, fumbling with his gun. Clearly Natasha’s feistiness had caught him off guard. She was glad for that. With shaking hands, she raised her own gun.
“Take a step back,” she growled at him. “Don’t you dare touch me!”
“Oh, we have a bit of a little ass kicker here, huh?” the man shot back. “Well, I am not scared of little girls like you. Do you know what I do to little girls like you?”
He took a step back, and in one terrible, crystallizing moment, Natasha knew what she had to do. She pulled the trigger. The gun jumped in her hands, the recoil pushing her back into the tiles hard enough to bruise her shoulder. The shot hit the man squarely in the shoulder and he screamed, backing up but not dropping to the ground. Cursing loudly, he raised his gun to her again, and she fired off another shot, and then another. These two hit him in the chest and he dropped to the ground, twitching and convulsing as blood coursed out from the wounds.
Natasha stayed in her position on the floor until she felt safe enough to stand. The man was motionless, his eyes were closed, and she was not sure if he was dead or merely on his way there. She stood in the bathroom of her cheap motel, fully aware that she had probably just killed a man.
And yet, she realized that she was not upset at all. The bastard had it coming, and if she had not shot him, he would have killed her. She could not stop herself from shaking though, and she quickly ran into the bedroom in order to grab her cell phone.
She had no missed calls and fear ripped through her again as she thought about Griffin. Distantly, she knew that he would probably be impressed by the way she had
handled things, and as she stood in the dim light of her motel room, it finally began to sink in that her life would never be the same. What was she going to do, finish college? Move on? How could she do any of that when she was knee deep in this kind of insanity? Maybe the man had friends or a family. Maybe those friends or family members would end up wanting revenge someday. Looking down at the man, she realized that if that was the case, she would absolutely be ready. She would be waiting.
The realization made her laugh painfully at the ridiculousness of her thoughts. She was not some outlaw; she could not be some outlaw, and yet the outlaw-type thought processes came to her as naturally as breathing did. Part of it was terrifying, but another part of it was liberating. She truly was her father’s daughter.
That did not mean she had to be them though, and she knew that, but it certainly was a lot to think about.
She walked over to the still body of the man she had shot, trying to get any information on who he could be. His tattoos were the usual sort of thing, skulls with daggers through them, naked women, the occasional cross. She assumed he was one of the Los Diablos… until her eyes rested on his leather vest.