“Bob,” Kade answered as he let the engine idle.
“Sorry about this – they’re making us stop everybody for DUI checks. Do you mind getting off the bike?”
“I kind of have somewhere to be,” Kade said.
“It’ll just take a second.”
“Orders from the top,” Kade said.
“I’m sorry, man,” Bob the cop said. “Just humor me, will ya?”
Kade sighed, killed the engine, put on the kickstand, and got off the bike.
“You got your license and registration?” Bob asked.
Kade looked like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry, man…”
“Hold on,” Kade said, and reached for his wallet.
Bob was fast.
I never even saw the taser. Just heard the POP! and the tchzt-tch-tch-tch-tch of the electricity.
Kade collapsed on the ground. His whole frame was in spasms, and his face looked like he was in agony.
“KADE!” I screamed.
“Sorry, man,” Bob said apologetically to the writhing body on the ground.
I tried to get off the bike, but before I could get very far, two other cops were running from the patrol cars. One grabbed my jacket, pulled me off the Harley, and slung me to the ground. With my face in the asphalt, he pressed a knee in my back and clacked handcuffs on me.
I screamed in pain and fear.
A few feet away, Kade watched me, helpless, his body still jittering on the ground.
51
Jack
“So what’s the occasion?” I asked.
“The occasion?” Lou repeated. He was distracted by his cell phone as he read something on it. Then he smiled, put it in his pocket, and turned back to me. “The occasion is we need to discuss the events of the other night. Specifically those out on Highway 27.”
“Where you shot a Santa Muerte?”
“More specifically where you failed to shoot a Santa Muerte.”
I looked around the club. There were a lot of faces I could ordinarily count on as friendly, but even they were unhappy. If they looked me in the eyes at all, they glanced away just as quickly.
There were a lot more guys who were just downright pissed.
“We’re legit now,” I snarled. “We’re out of the murder and retaliation game.”
“Yeah… about that. It’s all well and good in theory, but when somebody guns down a brother, we don’t need to be hangin’ up on the cross. We need to be the ones pounding in the nails.” Lou stood up off the pool table. “In fact, we need to be gettin’ Old Testament on his ass. Eye for an eye, tooth for a fuckin’ tooth. He goddamn near killed one of ours, he should pay with his life.”
Murmurs of agreement around the room. I scanned for any signs of trouble, but there was nothing beyond the noises of agreement.
“He didn’t kill Benjy,” I pointed out.
Lou smirked. “That’s your fuckin’ argument?”
“You killed him. It wasn’t ‘eye for an eye’ – it was murder. And we’re not murderers anymore.”
“It’s not murder. It’s fuckin’ justice. Plain and simple.”
“We follow the law now. Plain and simple.”
“We don’t follow the law,” Lou scoffed. “We pick and choose. You know that.”
“We’re getting closer and closer to 100% legitimate. You know that.”
“Yeah… but I don’t want to be 100% legitimate. And I think I speak for a lot of brothers here who miss the good ol’ days.”
More murmurs of agreement.
“So what is this – a coup?” I asked angrily.
“More like a no-confidence vote.”
“About my refusal to murder a Santa Muerte.”
“No… there’s the whole issue of your protecting a mole, too.”
Suddenly the front door banged open, and I heard a scream.
Fiona.
The world spun crazily beneath my feet.
Then a gun jutted into the back of my head.
“Easy, easy,” a voice said soothingly. I couldn’t tell who it was, but he’d gotten me when I was distracted by Fiona.
I could tell it was a surprise to just about everybody else in the club, too. A lot of commotion, a lot of wildly looking around, a lot of swearing. A couple of guys seemed like they wanted to rush whoever was behind me, but I caught their eyes and shook my head ‘no.’
Over at the door, two police officers dragged Kade in, his hands cuffed behind his back and shackles around his feet. Another cop dragged in Fiona, kicking and screaming, her hands cuffed behind her, too.
This had been planned.
It had all been planned.
Lou had pulled his ‘Gandhi.’ I’d just expected the punch to be leveled at me – not at my best friend and the woman I was falling for.
The cops forced their prisoners into kneeling position – execution style – and two gang members took over with guns pointed at Kade and Fiona’s backs.
Kade was stoic as always. He glanced over at me, and though there wasn’t much emotion on his face, I could tell he was saying, I’m sorry.
Fiona stared at me in desperation, tears streaking her cheeks.
The look on her face broke my heart.
52
Fiona
Jack looked absolutely stricken – but there was nothing he could do. A Midnight Rider I’d never seen before had a gun at the back of his head.
Oh God, I really was going to die like Ali, with a bullet to the back of my head.
We were all going to die. Me, Jack, and Kade.
“Good work, guys,” Lou said, handing a fat envelope to one of the cops in exchange for a pair of handcuff keys. “Tell Dan I appreciate it.”
The officers nodded and walked out the door. Only one cast a worried look back at me and Kade.
Lou walked slowly, circling around behind me. One heavy footstep every couple of seconds… clack… clack… clack… until he was right behind me, and I couldn’t see him anymore. But I could sense him.
He just stood there, silent.
The suspense was maddening.
Finally he spoke. “I got it on good authority that the DEA, or the FBI, or somebody was doing shit in Richards last night. Same timeframe as the shooting at the Seven Veils. It seems odd to me that all these problems started in the last couple of days… just when this little lady got to town.”
He tapped me on the top of my head, which startled me because I couldn’t see it coming. Tap… tap… tap.
I writhed away from his touch, repulsed and afraid.
“Now, for those of you brothers not in the know, little miss Fiona here is the designated fuck for Jack Pollari. President Pollari to you and me,” Lou said mockingly. “He ordered me to give her a job, which set her right up in Midnight Riders central. Now, it’s pretty common knowledge that me and Jack don’t exactly see eye to eye. He knows my opinions on the direction he’s leading the club, and I’m betting he thought I might do something about it. So he started spying on me, and he was using his piece of snatch to do it.”
My stomach turned to hear Lou say that. It was the first I’d ever considered that possibility – that Jack was using me as a pawn.
Just like I’d been using him.
Before I started falling in love with him.
“You fucking piece of shit!” Jack yelled at Lou, almost frothing at the mouth with rage, but the guy behind him pressed the gun against Jack’s head.
“Ah, ah, ahhhh,” the gunman said.
Jack gritted his teeth and didn’t say anything else.
Lou continued. “But Jack’s judgment was spectacularly poor, because he put a DEA agent up my ass. How do I know, you ask? I sent Roach over to find out the truth last night. To ‘question’ her. He tells me he thinks there’s a guy in her room, then he hung up the phone and never called back. Now he’s AWOL. Can’t get ahold of him at all. I don’t care how tough she is – I don’t see a cute li’l
thang like Jack’s wannabe baby mamma here takin’ out Roach. Do you guys?”
A lot of the Midnight Riders were really worked up. Most shouted ‘Hell no!’; others just looked around like they were terrified to see where all of this was heading.
“I saw Roach leave the room!” Jack yelled. “He shot at me before he drove off on his Bonneville!”
The entire crowd was buzzing now.
“You saw him?” Lou asked.
“Yes!”
“You saw his face? Beyond a shadow of a doubt, you know it was Roach?”
Jack hesitated, and that hesitation was deadly.
“Little dark, was it?” Lou asked in a fake kindly voice.
“It was Roach,” Jack insisted.
“Whatever. So, anyway, I voiced my concerns to Jack here, but he just went soft. Tried to call Roach off before he disappeared. And then said he’d ‘ask’ Fiona if she was a government agent.” Lou looked around the room. “I don’t know about any of you fellas, but I never heard of a government agent just givin’ up the goods because you asked them nicely if they were undercover. So I thought I would do a little asking myself.”
Oh God, I thought, my stomach turning.
I looked up into the crowd, searching for faces.
Eddie, where are you?
There he was, in the back corner of the room, in the shadows. I could see his hand under his jacket, like he was ready to pull a gun.
He looked at me. I couldn’t see his eyes in the shadows, but I saw him shake his head very slightly.
No.
I wanted to scream at him, to curse him, but that would be futile. If Lou found out he was DEA and that I knew, we were both dead.
Suddenly I felt the muzzle of a gun press briefly against the back of my head before pulling away.
“STOP IT,” Jack yelled.
“You said I could question her if you were present, Jack. And I won’t lay a finger on her… just a bullet, maybe. So let me ask you, Fiona – are you a federal agent?”
“No,” I said, trying to be as steady and angry-sounding as I could.
“No?”
“No.”
“Not DEA? Not FBI?”
“No.”
Just inches away from my ear, Lou cocked the revolver.
Cl-CLICK.
“You sure?”
“LOU – ” Jack shouted.
“I’m not talking to you, Jack,” Lou interrupted, his voice as cold and sharp as a frozen razor. “I’m talking to Fiona.” He directed his voice back to me. “So – are you sure?”
I started to tremble. “I’m not a federal agent, I swear.”
BLAM!
I screamed and flinched, waiting for the blinding light of a bullet through my brain –
But it didn’t come.
Apparently, Lou had fired into the ceiling, because a small shower of sheetrock dust filtered down through the air.
The gunshot was far enough away that it didn’t deafen me.
It just scared the ever-living shit out of me. I began to cry and shake.
Apparently it startled the club members, too, because there was a lot of cussing and shouting, then muttering.
The gun barrel pressed against the back of my head again. I could feel the heat through my hair, could smell the odor of burnt gunpowder.
“The next one goes in your skull,” Lou said behind me. “One more time: are you in any way connected to the DEA or anybody else?”
I didn’t dare look up, for fear of giving away Eddie.
If I told them about Eddie, Lou would kill both me and him.
If I told them I was innocent… I didn’t believe Lou would buy that.
The only way out that I could see was to give him the truth.
Or most of it, anyway.
“Don’t shoot me,” I sobbed. “I’m a private investigator from Los Angeles. My cousin, Alison Levitt, worked for you as a dancer. She got shot here in Richards a year ago. I went undercover to find out who killed her. I’m not DEA, I’m not FBI, I swear to God I just wanted to find out who killed my cousin, that’s all.”
I glanced up through my tears at Jack.
The look on his face was horrible.
There was shock.
Hurt.
Anger.
“Well, well, well,” Lou drawled. “Whaddaya know. Seems she wasn’t telling you the truth after all, Jack.”
I had to look away from Jack because it was too painful.
Clack… clack… clack.
Lou walked around in front of me and put the revolver under my chin. Raised it up so I was forced to stare into his eyes.
“Ten years ago we’d’ve killed you for that. But these days we’re… kinder,” he said, his voice full of mocking contempt. “Gentler. Weaker.”
Lou suddenly wheeled away from me and addressed the crowd. “That’s right – Jack Pollari has made us weaker. Weaker as a club… weaker as men. Hell, the Midnight Riders aren’t men anymore; we’re castrated little bitches, at least under Jack Pollari. We used to be men. We used to take what we wanted, when we wanted it. We used to fuckin’ run this town.”
The bikers were warming to what he was saying. Now that the shock was over, they were getting more and more into it. Plenty of Yeah’s and Fuckin-A’s filled the air.
“But now we don’t even fuckin’ retaliate when a Santa Muerte nearly kills one of our brothers. Excuse me; Jack Pollari doesn’t fuckin’ retaliate when a Santa Muerte nearly kills one of our own. I sure as hell did.”
The crowd roared. They were getting furious now.
Jack looked at Lou with hatred. But I noticed he avoided looking at me at all.
“This club doesn’t have one tenth the fuckin’ power it used to – not under Jack Pollari,” Lou shouted. “There’s nowhere near the money there used to be – not under Jack Pollari. Fuckin’ moles tunnel their way in under our defenses, thanks to Jack Pollari. So, knowing all that – and knowing that I, for one, want the club to get its balls back – I’m callin’ a vote. Who’s with me in removing Jack Pollari as president of the Midnight Riders?”
There was a huge chorus of Yes’s and Fuck Yeahs.
I noticed a few of the guys kept their mouths shut, but they were in the distinct minority.
“All opposed?” Lou asked.
“I say go fuck yourself,” Jack said coldly.
“I’ll second that,” Kade added, deadpan.
Lou looked around at Kade, a grim smile on his lips. “And who votes to have Jack’s buttboy here removed as Sergeant-at-Arms?”
Another chorus of Yeahs.
“I nominate Lou as President,” a guy with a black tattooed eyeball shouted.
“I second that,” another biker said.
“Who says yes?” shouted another.
Well over half the club shouted in approval.
“Who says no?”
No one spoke out in opposition. The few who would have voted ‘no’ looked at each other fearfully, unsure of what to do.
The vast majority of the club hooted and clapped and stomped their feet in approval.
Lou stood there, arms outstretched, drinking in the adulation with a falsely modest smile. When the shouts died down, he turned back to us, his captives.
“Sorry, Jack,” Lou said, his voice fake-sympathetic. “You’re out.”
The look of wounded betrayal on Jack’s face nearly killed me.
Because it wasn’t directed at Lou.
It was directed at me.
If you liked this book, would you please leave a review for it? Thank you!
Part 4 of A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance will be available in August, 2015.
For an email when Part 4 and any of my future books are published, sign up for my email list at OliviaThorneBooks.com.
And many thanks to Patricia Schoon for her valuable help in whipping this book into shape!
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Books By Olivia Thorne
MIDNIGHT DESIRE
(Part 1 of A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance)
Fiona was a private investigator in Los Angeles when her cousin was murdered. Now she's going undercover in the California town where a dangerous motorcycle gang holds sway. She was determined to find her cousin's killer. What she didn't count on was Jack Pollari - the insanely hot, bad-boy president of the MC who takes an immediate interest in her. As their mutual desire spirals deeper and hotter, the question remains: will Jack help her solve her cousin's murder... or doom Fiona to the same fate?
MIDNIGHT LUST
(Part 2 of A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance)
Fiona came to Richards, California to solve her cousin Alison's murder. Now, however, Fiona's the one in danger. On one side is Jack, the hot, bad-boy president of the Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club. On the other is Louis Shaw, the devilish but charming VP who has his own treacherous plans. As the web of violence and intrigue tangles around Fiona, one thing becomes startlingly clear: she may be falling in love with the man who killed her cousin.
MIDNIGHT DECEIT
(Part 3 of A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance)
Fiona plunges further into danger - and falls deeper in love/lust with bad boy biker Jack Pollari, president of the Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club. Villainous VP Louis Shaw is playing his own deadly game, and is on the verge of discovering our heroine's secret. Fiona came to town to solve a murder. Will someone now have to solve hers?
ALL THAT HE WANTS Volume 1
The Billionaire’s Seduction Parts 1-4
Over one passionate weekend, mysterious Connor leads Lily through a world of sensual delights - but every forbidden fruit comes with a price. Connor is not the man he claims to be, and dangerous figures from his past are lurking in the shadows, waiting to destroy him – and Lily, too, if she gets in their way.
Midnight Deceit: A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance Part 3 Page 10