As I pushed the gate open, I waited for almost a minute. If Jake was still awake, he would certainly catch wind of me and come charging my way. He never came, so I walked quickly across the backyard toward the door. Jake hadn’t come because he was sacked out in his doghouse beside the back door. Crouching, I pulled out a lock-picking set. “Locks,” my old man used to say, “only keep out an honest man.” “…but not a SEAL,” I liked to add. I was opening the back door within a few seconds.
Once inside, I moved as I did in all of my ops. I studied my path, moved forward, studied it again and moved forward. The paths in Gonzo’s house were a little bit more challenging to follow because of the clutter, but I navigated my way through the kitchen, living room, down the hall and into the bedroom, where I could hear the sound of his heavy breathing.
I struck the same way that I always had, leaving Julio “Gonzo” Gonzalez lying in a growing pool of his own blood and with an ace of spades on his chest. I walked out the front door, down the street and continued walking, not bothering to return to the pickup in the grocery store parking lot. Instead, I continued walking until I was on the other side of the interstate and came to the garage of a SB brother, who we called Screwdriver. Screwdriver did a lot of the customizing work for the Silent Brotherhood and had agreed to install a new taillight bar on my bike in exchange for a jewelry box for his wife’s birthday.
At 6:30 a.m., I was drinking coffee in a small bakery across the street from Screwdriver’s shop, and waiting for him to come open the shop. I really wanted to be in the shower, but Screwdriver had the keys to my bike and had it locked up inside his garage. He showed up at 7:00 a.m. and I was finally on my way home.
After my cleansing ritual, I sat down in the den, turned on the TV and tried to get interested in Good Morning America. I’d never really been able to become a regular viewer of the show, but it was an attempt to try to put my mind on something other than what had been bothering me for several weeks.
When I’d been brought in as an assassin for the Godfather’s enforcer, I’d been given a code word for throwing in the towel. Those who did the sort of work that I did could only do it for a certain period of time. It was just human nature. There were only two ways out of it. If you screwed up on an op, someone would be along to take you out, so there wasn’t really any sense in worrying over that. If you chose to get out, you did so with the understanding that if you ever talked, you would be the next op for some other guy. To get out, all you had to do was say the word “uncle” at your regular check in call.
As the time for the call rolled around, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I dialed the number, pressed send and waited.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I responded and disconnected the call.
Chapter 19: Sabre
Gonzo typically showed up sometime after noon. He wasn’t always right on time, but he was usually within the hour following. When he didn’t show up by 1:00 p.m., I gave him a call. His phone rang several times and then went over to voicemail. “Leave a message,” it said bluntly in his bored tone.
I never left a message. What was the point? He’d know I called and he’d know that I was wondering where he was at. What message would I leave for him? “Call me” was pretty obvious and I wasn’t going to chatter on like some old woman. I pressed the disconnect button and called Dentine.
“Wassup, Boss,” Art “Dentine” Denton responded when the call connected.
“You seen Gonzo today?” I asked.
“No. I haven’t seen him. You want me to run by his place?”
“Would you?” I replied sarcastically and disconnected the call. Why else would I be asking if he’d seen Gonzo? I was already frustrated from having to spend way too much time sorting through the aftermath of the KOTR mess on my own. They’d called me early that morning wanting to talk to me again. I’d tried to call Gentry to see if he could back them off again, but his phone went to voicemail too. I was sick of listening to people’s voicemail.
I tried Gentry again. “Yeah, what’s up?” he responded.
“Jesus, Genty,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all morning.”
“Yeah, well, I was tied up,” he responded.
“Well, could you untie long enough to get the damned cops off my back?”
“Who called?”
“Some bitch,” I replied. “I didn’t get her name.”
“A name would be helpful.”
“Diane, Annie, Stephanie, Juliet…who the fuck knows?”
“Stephanie?”
“Let’s go with that one.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to her.”
“I thought you were going to try to keep a lid on this.”
“That many DBs makes it pretty hard to keep a lid on it. Lots of people stirring the pot on this one. I’m doing the best I can, I promise.”
I had to accept what he was telling me, though I was ready for it all to go away. With so many cops poking around in my business, I had to lie low, and my profit margin, even without the KOTR to compete with, was going to be in the toilet soon. I tried to lighten up my tone. Al wasn’t someone who I needed to have pissed off at me. “Alright, I appreciate it.”
After disconnecting the call, I still wasn’t completely at ease. With Gonzo being late and knowing that I would have to go tell some bullshit story that matched up with whatever bullshit story I’d told the police before, I was on edge. Besides that, there was something eating at me, something that I couldn’t put a finger on—a premonition of sorts. I wandered into the kitchen, pulled a beer out of the refrigerator, popped the top and sat down. I’ve got to calm down or this whole damned thing is gonna blow up in my face.
My thoughts were interrupted by my cell phone. “Finally,” I said aloud, assuming that the call would be from Gonzo. It wasn’t, it was Dentine. I connected the call. “What?”
“You better get over here,” Dentine said. The tone of his voice didn’t sound good.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s Gonzo,” he said. “He’s dead.”
I didn’t ask any more questions. I disconnected the call, grabbed my keys and headed out to my bike. It wasn’t a long ride over to Gonzo’s place, but it was long enough to allow my imagination to run through what had happened. The image that had entered my mind was that of Clap, lying in a pool of his own blood. Had Gonzo been hit the same way? Was I being paid back for what I’d done to KOTR? The possibility had always been there, and I’d considered that risk when I’d made my move. I thought about calling Gentry back, but decided to wait until I had a chance to see what happened.
Dentine met me at the front door of the house, let me in and closed the door behind us. “Just like Clap,” he said.
I didn’t respond. Dentine hadn’t seen Clap, so he didn’t really know. The guys had spread it around, but who knew what Dentine had really heard. I moved down the hall, dreading what I was going to see when I came to Gonzo’s bedroom. The door was open when I got there and I could see his lifeless body on the bed, but it wasn’t until I moved closer that I saw the same precision cut and the ace of spades on his chest. Just like Clap.
I dialed Gentry again.
“Yeah?” he answered.
“I’ve got another problem,” I said.
“Look, Sabre,” he said. “I told you that I’d take care of it, but it takes some ti—”
“It’s not that,” I interrupted. “It’s Gonzo. He got cut and there’s an ace on his chest.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” he breathed. “I’ll be right there.”
There wasn’t much to do but go back out into the kitchen and wait. I certainly couldn’t stay in the bedroom and look at the body of my best guy. I discovered pretty quickly that the stink from rotting shit in the kitchen wasn’t a good place to be either. I went out in the back yard and took a seat in one of the chairs by the barbecue grill. Gonzo had always enjoyed having several of the guys over to grill, drink beer and shoot the breeze. We didn�
�t usually have wild parties there, not like we did at my place. What we did at Gonzo’s was lower key and it had shaped the friendship between me and him. Sitting there, in the place that I had sat so many times and scratching Pablo, Gonzo’s Rottweiler, those memories all came flooding back to me. Along with them came a mountain of guilt.
It had been my call to go after the KOTR and Gonzo had carried it out. I’d risked his life playing a hunch. I’d known better, but I’d decided to flex a little muscle and see what happened. Gonzo had paid the price for my gamble. I was pissed off clear through, mostly at myself, but I was also pissed off at whoever it was who had hit Clap and Gonzo. By the time Gentry arrived, I was ready to lay into him.
“What the fuck, Gentry?” I said, before he even made it through the door. “I’m losing my guys and you’re still fucking around trying to figure out who is doing this.”
“Hey, Sabre, calm down,” he countered in a low tone.
“My lieutenant is lying back there in a pool of blood and you want me to calm down? Fuck you!”
Al Gentry ignored me and went straight down the hall to the bedroom. I followed him to the door, but didn’t go inside. I didn’t need to see it again. Still seething, shouting at Gentry in front of Gonzo’s dead body didn’t seem right, so I lowered my tone. “Who’s doing this shit?”
“It’s gotta be an enforcer, Sabre,” Gentry responded.
“What if it’s one of those special ops pukes from the Silent Brotherhood?” Even as I suggested it, it didn’t sound right. Why would they be upset with the LD for taking out the KOTR? It just left a hole for them to fill as well.
“Maybe you need to tell me more about what went down between your guys and the KOTR,” he suggested.
Chapter 20: Kelly
Things with Anthony had leveled off a little bit. We still went at it pretty hot and heavy several times a week, but some of the tension that had been between us had started to melt away. There was something different about him, though. He seemed to spend more of his time deep in thought, like he was trying to figure something out.
I’d heard rumors going through the SB that the Lost Disciples and Knights of the Road had been at war and that, essentially, Viktor had eliminated the KOTR. It was just like him to make such a bold move whenever he felt like he was getting shoved out. I had also heard that a second one of his guys, Gonzo, had been taken out. What little bit I gathered, it had been a professional hit and probably ordered by the Godfather. From experience, I knew what that meant and I was counting my blessings that I had gotten away from Viktor before all of that started to happen.
I assumed that the events taking place among the Lost Disciples were what had Anthony so preoccupied. It didn’t seem like it all fit together, since I knew that the LDs and the SBs were rivals, and the elimination of the KOTR didn’t really affect the SBs or Anthony directly. However, I also knew that Anthony was always thinking ahead and trying to figure the angles. Did he fear that the move on the KOTR was a stepping stone to a move on the Silent Brotherhood? Wouldn’t that be a sort of suicide for the LDs? No, there had to be something else going through his mind that was taking up so much of his time.
What I had noticed, which went along with his long, pensive periods, was that he seemed to be more attentive to me and what I was going through at work and school. Before, he had acted interested, but hadn’t really invested himself in conversations about me and what was going on in my life. The change was good in a way, but it also scared me, because it was making me fall in love with him. Was that really what I wanted for my life?
I had discovered that I was not only one of the top students in my class, but that I was also drawing in more tips than any of the other girls at Le Paris. I didn’t think that it was just my legs and my chest, but actually had something to do with the fact that I had a cheerful attitude and was very good at putting my customers at ease, tending to what they needed before they had to ask and generally helping to make their evening special. In short, I was a people person, a quality that was also going to serve me well once I had my license and was cutting hair. All in all, things were looking very bright for me.
Whenever I considered Anthony in that equation, I tried to dismiss it. It was silly of me to think that he would ever consider settling down and starting a life with me. He was a lone wolf. He was a bad boy. He was…perfect, actually, and the way that he was treating me lately and the fact that he seemed to have softened a little had me thinking.
“You look like you’re studying hard,” Destiny laughed as she came into the small dining room of our apartment and caught me staring out the window instead of studying.
“I am,” I grinned.
“No you’re not,” she said, laughing at me. “You’re daydream… OMG, no. You’re not. You’re thinking about a guy. I’ve seen that look before. Talk to me.” She pulled up a chair, sat down and looked directly into my eyes.
“I’m not thinking about a guy.” My mouth and eyes were wide open as I made the denial, but I could feel my eyes sparkling and knew that she wouldn’t miss that.
“You lying little bitch,” she giggled. “You’ve been keeping something from me, haven’t you?”
“I’m not lying.” It was a weak attempt, and I knew that I was caught.
She didn’t respond. She just stared directly into my eyes.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “I met somebody, but it’s not serious.”
“Jesus, Kel, there you go again. Tell me the truth.”
When it came right down to it, I really needed someone to talk to about the situation that I was in. I wasn’t sure that Destiny would understand, given the fact that the guy I was falling for was another outlaw biker. I was pretty sure, actually, that she’d throw a fit. Still, I had to talk to someone about all of the thoughts that were going through my crazy head, so I decided to open up a little bit, but not tell her that he was a biker.
“Okay, fine. Yes, it is getting kind of serious,” I started in to test the waters.
“How can it be serious and I’ve never met him?” she asked.
Okay, so that was a problem. I couldn’t really come out and say that I had been hiding him from her because he was an outlaw biker and she wouldn’t approve. I had to come up with something. Our schedules had worked out so that I’d been able to sneak in and out to go see Anthony without her knowing about it, even on those nights that I didn’t come home until very early the next morning.
“Well, his schedule is sort of crazy like ours are, so I just haven’t had a chance to bring him here. I mean, how often are you and I both actually here at the same time?”
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “I can think of several times.”
There had been some times when the two of us had been able to hang out together. I scrambled to come up with a reason I hadn’t included Anthony. “Yeah, well, on all of those occasions, he was working and, my dear, sweet roommate, I was hoping to spend that time with you anyway, so I didn’t invite him.”
“I still think you’re lying to me, but go ahead. Tell me more.”
I decided to plunge ahead, get her distracted by a deep conversation and keep her from asking any more questions. I had to control the conversation if I was going to be able to keep my secret.
“You know, I’ve been happy with the way things are going for me. I feel free and I feel like I’m in control of where I’m heading, but Anthony—”
“So, his name is Anthony. Go on.”
“Yes, his name is Anthony.” There wasn’t any sense in lying about that. “Anyway, I really think that he’s someone I want to think about settling down with. He’s kind, considerate, he listens to what’s going on with me at work and at school. He’s…OMG…so hot and, well, he is very good at taking care of certain needs of mine.”
“Oh my god, you have been sleeping with some guy and I didn’t know it?”
“It’s not like I was going to take out a billboard ad and announce it!”
“But still!”
“Okay, fine. Sorry. But still,” she grumbled.
“He makes good money, supports me in what I’m doing and where I’m heading. He knows about my past, but he’s not concerned about it. He used to be in the Navy and, holy shit, Destiny, you should see what he does with his hands. It’s the most beautiful thing—”
“Kelly, you’re not going to tell me what he does with his hands.”
“He has a woodshop,” I snapped. “Jesus, get your mind out of the gutter.”
Chapter 21: Razor
I always enjoyed going to the rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. Not only was it a great chance to enjoy a nice, cross-country ride with my SB brothers, but it gave me a chance to get away and clear my mind, which was something that I needed to do on an increasingly regular basis. Though bringing Kelly along might have seemed to be counter-productive, I couldn’t very well leave her at home, and she wouldn’t have heard of it anyway. She’d marked it on the calendar and made sure that she was off from work and some school so that she could go. When it came down to it, I was looking forward to enjoying it with her.
The route that we decided to take took us on one hell of a scenic tour. Though I’d seen a lot of the country before, I still drank it in as though it was the first time. It was even better when I saw Kelly responding in the very same way.
We started out heading north, crossing into Nevada near Reno and following I-80 to Salt Lake City. We left the interstate in Salt Lake and headed across northern Utah, which wasn’t much, though once we entered northern Colorado it provided for much more pleasant scenery. I’d always loved the mountains and Steamboat Springs, Colorado, was one of my favorite places on the planet. I’d wished that I’d talked the guys into staying there for a few days, but I didn’t bother. They were all eager to get to Sturgis and see the action.
AFRICAN AMERICAN URBAN FICTION: BWWM ROMANCE: Billionaire Baby Daddy (Billionaire Secret Baby Pregnancy Romance) (Multicultural & Interracial Romance Short Stories) Page 145