HUNTER

by Jessie Cooke

  Hunter’s brother Brett was almost ten years older than him. Brett had always been into bikes, but Hunter was too young to ride yet when Brett went into the army. When he came home after being discharged at twenty-six, Hunter was sixteen. Brett had an old Softail and he asked Hunter to help him fix it up. Once they had it running smoothly, they gave it a new paint job and Brett bought new tires for it and had a friend do some work on the chrome. Hunter thought it was beautiful, even before Brett gave it to him for Christmas that year. His brother taught him how to ride, alongside him on the new bike he’d bought for himself. His was a custom Street Glide and the gas tank was painted to look like light blue smoke. Blue Smoke was a nickname that he’d picked up in the army. Brett had been a highly decorated sniper at the time of his honorable discharge. He had been awarded a medal of valor, and Hunter found out through one of Brett’s buddies that he had over two hundred kills under his belt. Hunter had been impressed by that, but Brett had brushed it off and he had never wanted to talk about it. Something about that made him that much more of a hero to his little brother.

  His thoughts of Brett invariably turned to the night he watched him die. The serial killer, who should never have been granted bail in the first place, had slaughtered his brother right in front of him. It was the stuff that nightmares were made of and for months afterwards, Hunter’s only sober moments had been wracked with horror as the memories continuously assaulted him. He credited Dax with helping him get back on track, and as much as he hated to give Chase any credit, he had to give him his due. Chase could have fired him or forced him into some kind of rehab, but he realized that Hunter’s drinking problem was self-medication and he’d suggested outpatient counseling instead. Hunter might have refused to go had Dax not also told him it was a great idea. Then there was his mother and his aunt, who both begged him to get help. They’d already lost Brett. They didn’t want to lose him too. Hunter went to see the counselor. It was a woman, and he’d been surprised at how much she helped him. He still drank now, but only socially. The nightmares weren’t completely gone, but they no longer came every night. He stopped thinking about suicide, which had been the worst, and he realized that his brother would want him to live his life now. Hunter looked down at the blue smoke on his gas tank. He believed that Brett was still with him. His big brother was still watching out for him and that was what got him through hard times now. He’d been busy with cases for Chase and Dax both, but he hadn’t given up on finding the man that killed his brother and when he did, he planned on introducing the son of a bitch to the fires of hell, even if he had to take him there himself.

  16

  Dax took the exit toward Dorchester, but once they were off the highway and on a busy city street, he made a right-hand turn into a neighborhood that Hunter knew well. It was still the Southside, but it was the part that Dax and the Skulls had never been able to control…the only part. This neighborhood was the kind that most people, including Hunter until he saw it with his own two eyes, believed only existed on a Hollywood set somewhere. It was now where Hunter found fifty percent of the runners he was chasing. He usually found them hiding in a house with their girlfriend, mother, or wife and those women usually turned out to be just as dangerous, if not more so, than their men. The bail-jumpers or the people he had to talk to during the course of looking for them usually had three or four babies in the house, or middle-schoolers or teen-agers. The kids weren’t asked to leave the room when the guns came out either; these were kids that were just as dangerous as Mom and Dad. They had been taught how to handle a gun as soon as their hands were strong enough to hold one. They knew who should be in their hood and who shouldn’t be. They hated cops or they were terrified of them, or both. They usually lived in a place that most people would consider uninhabitable, crawling with roaches and empty takeout food containers that should have been tossed out weeks ago. Drug paraphernalia could be found on the coffee tables, dining room tables, and kitchen counters, and illegal guns could be found everywhere. Most of the people who lived here, over the age of fourteen, were on some kind of probation or parole. The officers showed up before the sun went down and in full body armor in most cases. Dogs roamed freely in the streets and some of the houses housed more cats than people. It was a place that Hunter would be happy to never see again, but unfortunately, the type of work he did bound him to this place on a regular basis, like it or not.

  The street they were on was mostly vacant, not one of the worst ones. Dax pulled over to the side of the road and Hunter followed him. They both killed their engines and Dax said, “Trayvon doesn’t know we’re coming.”

  Hunter bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. He wasn’t surprised. He doubted the other man would extend an invitation to his territory to the likes of Dax Marshall. Dax was the man who had kept Trayvon and his minions confined to this small, roach-infested space for a lot of years now and Hunter doubted that there was anyone Trayvon despised more. “Okay,” was all he said.

  “They have a meeting house, an old crack house that’s not operational any longer. It’s two blocks over. We obviously can’t drive up in the driveway. I’m going to walk over…”

  “We.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous. I don’t believe they’ll have the balls to shoot me. They’re smart enough to know what kind of hell the rest of the club would rain down on them…at least, Trayvon is. I’m not sure they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot you on sight, though.”

  “This isn’t my first rodeo, Dax. I’m not hiding in the shadows while you go in alone like a fucking rhinestone cowboy. I’m going with you.”

  Dax sighed. “I didn’t expect you to hide out in the shadows. I’m going in first and you can cover me. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Hunter didn’t like the idea of Dax going in alone, but he knew Dax was right. Shooting him would be akin to killing Queen Elizabeth and not expecting to unleash the worst that the UK could bring down on you. “Okay,” Hunter said, reluctantly. “What’s the plan?”

  “There’s an abandoned garage at the end of the street. We’ve used it before to park the bikes and sneak in on them.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Yeah, well…so far we’ve only snuck around here to gain intel and cut them off at the pass when they try to infringe on our territory. I’ve never walked right in before.”

  Hunter shrugged. “I’ve kicked down a few doors in this neighborhood. So far I still have my head and my balls.”

  Dax laughed. “That’s promising. Okay, follow me up to the garage and we’ll go from there.”

  Ten minutes later, the two men were on foot. When they got near the front of the old crack house, Dax used hand signals to direct Hunter where to go, and wait. Hunter did as he was told, for the time being. But if he heard anything that suggested Dax was in trouble, he was going in. Once Hunter was in place with the automatic rifle Dax had given him, Dax walked up to the house, up onto the porch, and knocked on the door. Hunter watched as the door was pulled open. Dax put his hands up in the air and the guy in the doorway, heavily armed and dressed in the crimson colors of Street Chaos, pushed him into the wall of the house and searched him. Dax was unarmed, and once the kid determined that, the president of the most powerful MC in the state was pushed roughly through the door and it was slammed shut behind them. Hunter was just wondering how he would ever be able to stay put and wait, when he heard the scream. At first, he wasn’t sure where it was coming from, and then he heard it again.

  Using the light on his phone, he looked in the direction that the sound was coming from. The light landed on a narrow window, just above the ground on the house behind him. It was a basement window, and there was a crack in it. The sound of the woman in distress was coming from there. “Shit,” Hunter muttered under his breath. He looked back up toward the house. “Fuck,” he said, as the sound of the woman crying reached his ears once more. He rarely wished that his mother had raised him to disrespect women, but this was one of those times. The sounds
were faint, but they were steady and the woman was in obvious agony. “Fuck!” he said, once more, before making his way over to the broken window. Before he got there, he extinguished the light on his phone and lay down full length. With the gun out in front of him, he slithered the rest of the way on his belly. Once he was close enough, he tried to see through the window. It was filthy and spotted with mud, but he could make out at least two shadows. He lay quietly, controlling his breathing, and listened.

  “You think you’re special?” a man’s voice said.

  “No, Wallace, I don’t…” The woman hadn’t finished her reply when there was a loud whack and another sound like that of a pitifully wounded animal. The sound was unmistakably the contact of something against flesh. A sympathetic pain shot through Hunter’s body as he listened.

  “Shut the fuck up. We all know you think you’re better than us. You always have. You thought you’d come downtown and play with the ghetto boy and walk away when you were done. You went crawling back to Daddy and two days later you let people see you driving a new car and dressing in fancy-ass designer clothes. You look like an expensive whore, which is fitting, since that’s what you are. I’ll bet you even suck your daddy’s dick for all that money he gives you, don’t you?” The woman was crying softly and suddenly there was another whack, and her cries turned into another howl of pain. “Don’t you?”

  “No. He’s my father, he…”

  “He fucks that nasty pussy, doesn’t he?”

  “No!” Whack!

  “Liar. Whore. You cut your wrist and let your blood mingle with mine. You remember that, Charlotte?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. It almost sounded like she was about to lose consciousness. Hunter knew he had to do something soon or this maniac was going to kill her.

  “What? I can’t fucking hear you.”

  “Yes!”

  “Blood in, blood out. You heard that before you cut your wrist, didn’t you? You heard Trayvon say that, when he let you become a part of us, a part of me. You know how bad I looked when you just up and walked away? I was gonna just drive by your house and shoot the place up…kill you all, even that sniveling little brat of a sister of yours.” The woman whimpered. “Oh, you don’t like that idea, huh? I tell you what, after I kill you, I’ll go get that little bitch and make a real woman out of her. I’ll bet she’ll be a good little whore, just like you were.”

  “Wallace, please,” she whispered. “Please just kill me and leave them alone. Patty is only seventeen…” Whack! A scream that time, in a raspy voice that was getting weaker. In any other neighborhood, her cries would have netted a dozen calls to 911, but not in this one. Hunter knew it was up to him. He had to do something…now. He got up on his feet and pressed his back into the wall. With thoughts of Dax in the back of his mind and what this might do to whatever “negotiations” he was in the middle of, he moved around to the side of the house. He could see the entrance to the basement; it was a hatch and it was closed…but it didn’t look like it was locked, from where he was standing. He knew that pulling it open would almost certainly draw fire. He wasn’t sure if this piece of shit was down there alone with the woman, but he hadn’t seen anyone else through the little window. He got closer and nudged the hatch-like door with his boot. It raised up about an inch while he tried to decide what to do. Another harsh sound of the whip and a piercing scream made his decision for him. With a deep breath and a little prayer, he used the toe of his boot to push the hatch up even further. He could make out two forms. One was a big man, heavily muscled and equally as heavily tattooed. He had a whip in one hand and a gun in the other. He wasn’t looking at Hunter. He was looking at the woman tied over the chair in front of him.

  Hunter couldn’t see her face. From where he stood in the dark, she looked nude. Her head hung down and her black hair, heavily matted with blood, covered her face. Blood pooled on the floor underneath her as well. The man said something else and once again raised the whip. That was when he lifted his head and saw Hunter. Hunter acted quickly, holding the gun in one hand and using the other to push open the hatch. The gunfight lasted about three seconds and when Hunter hit the ground, all he knew was that a chunk of his shoulder was missing and the sounds of gunfire had finally drawn attention from the house next door. He looked around at all the men with guns surrounding him before he passed out and two things crossed his mind. First, his mother was going to be completely broken, losing another son. And second, it was just his luck that he had to die so soon after he’d finally met the woman of his dreams.

  17

  “Here, you look like you can use this.” A pretty woman with soft red hair, dressed way too nice for a motorcycle club, sat a drink down in front of Claire. “I’m Harley.”

  Claire smiled. “Harley?”

  The woman shrugged. “It’s a nickname. My real name is Hannah, but no one here ever uses it…except him,” she said, tossing her head in the direction of a nice-looking man at the bar who was engrossed in whatever the heavily made up and scantily clad woman sitting next to him was saying. He was dressed nice too, business casual, and Claire thought that he didn’t look like he belonged there either. “Mind if I sit with you?” Harley asked.

  “No, not at all. Thank you for the drink. I’m Claire.” She’d been feeling like she was on display since Larry left with the other men. She was happy to have some female company.

  “Nice to meet you. Are you Hunter’s old lady?”

  Claire laughed. She couldn’t imagine ever referring to herself as anyone’s “old lady.” She realized that Harley was looking at her strangely and she said, “I’m sorry. It’s been a really long, really weird day.”

  Harley smiled. “I’ve had those.”

  “Hunter and I are…I’m not sure what we are. New acquaintances, I guess. He’s looking to take my father to jail…but he’s also helping us, maybe.”

  “Hunter’s a good guy. I heard about your dad being here. I know you’re probably worried about him, but he’s with my old man and I can promise you that if Dax told Cody to keep him safe, your father’s probably safer right now than any one of us.”

  Larry had just left with Cody, Jimmie, a guy named Levi with the biggest eyes Claire had ever seen, the old man whom she’d seen way too much of earlier, and several other bikers that Claire hadn’t been introduced to. Cody scared her, and it was hard for her to imagine him with this well-put-together woman sitting across from her. He was huge, and hot, in a scary sort of way. What bothered her most about him was that he’d been openly hostile toward her father, especially after Dax and Hunter left. Cody hadn’t let them out of his sight, even though Claire assured him that Larry wasn’t going anywhere. “Good to know,” she said. “Dax said they were walking into a set-up. He and Hunter were supposed to be taking care of that. Do you know if they heard from Dax before they left?”

  Harley shook her head. “No, I don’t know. Honestly, I try not to know what they’re doing when they leave. I’m just always so happy when they come back.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “You seem so calm. If I did have an ‘old man’ and he was riding out into something that could be dangerous, I’d be a wreck. I’m a wreck over my dad being there right now. How do you do it?”

  Harley smiled again. “I’m just a great actress,” she said. “I’m a lawyer, for one. I’m good at not showing my emotions. You have to know how to look like you’re winning a case when you’re still losing one. And then there’s Cody himself. He loves his family and when he promises me that he’s coming home to us, I believe him.”

  “You have kids?”

  “One,” Harley said. She reached in her purse and pulled out her phone. Holding it out toward Claire she said, “His name is Ian and there’s no one on this earth his daddy loves more. Not even me, I think.”

  Claire smiled at the picture. The little boy had dark green eyes and reddish-blond hair. His cheeks were chubby and he was smiling up at som
eone off-camera, making his eyes shine. “He’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah, he is. Thanks,” Harley said, putting the phone away. Claire finally picked up the drink Harley had put in front of her and took a sip. It was whiskey and Coke, but light on the whiskey. Claire found herself surprised at how good the warm liquid felt going down her throat. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but maybe tonight, it was what her nerves needed. “I’m going into the kitchen to see what they’ve got fixed up for dinner. Are you hungry?”

  Claire’s stomach rumbled in answer to the other woman’s question. She hadn’t eaten all day. “Yeah, I am.”

  “Good, come on with me and we’ll see what we can scare up.” Claire followed Harley through the great room. The men, who had been leering at Claire since she got there, looked at Harley with something more like respect, and almost every one of them greeted her—all but the dark-haired man at the counter. He made a point to turn his head more toward the scantily dressed woman he was talking to as they walked by.

  Once they got into the kitchen, Claire’s stomach got even more excited. Something smelled wonderful and her mouth even began to water. “Hey, girls,” Harley said to the two women in the kitchen. One was sitting at the table texting on her phone and the other was standing near the stove. They both wore jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts. Their make-up was modest and neither of them looked like their bodies had been altered like the other women she’d seen since she’d been there. The one at the table looked up and said,