by Jessie Cooke
“The little redhead?”
“Yes!” Cody was on the verge of turning the rifle in his hands on Handsome, respect or not. Thankfully, Handsome pushed him out the door and they both ran for their bikes. Nolan and Pablo didn’t know what was going on, but they were right behind them. Rocky knew to notify everyone else on the ranch; as they drove toward Dax’s house, which was the furthest from the clubhouse on the ranch, they passed other brothers on their way to the clubhouse. As they did, they turned their bikes around and followed Handsome and Cody.
Cody took the turn on the dirt road too fast and nearly dumped his bike. Thankfully he was able to get control back of it before that happened, but that was when he saw the black SUVs parked in front of the little white house. He opened his throttle as wide as it would go. All it would take was to hit a rock and he’d break his fucking neck, but he didn’t care. If these bastards touched one hair on Harley’s head, he was going to kill every last one of them with his bare hands. He started to downshift and slow down too late, and his bike struck one of the SUVs before he came to a stop. He just let the bike fall and ran toward the house. He could hear Handsome calling out to him and he was torn. He’d promised Dax he wouldn’t go off on his own any longer…but Harley was inside with these guys, alone…
“Cody!” He stopped and waited for Handsome to catch up. Handsome grabbed his arm and pulled him behind one of the SUVs just as the men who were now inside the house opened fire. “You’re going to get your fucking head blown off and then you won’t be able to help her, do you hear me?” Cody nodded. Handsome took a couple of shots at the house, but there were four windows on the top floor and four on the bottom so it was hard to tell where the return shots were coming from. When the gunfire settled down, the others moved into position around them behind the two SUVs.
“Who are they?” Beezy asked. “What do the fuckers want?”
“No idea, but they knew exactly where they were going when they got here. According to Cody, they have a hostage in there. One of Angel’s friends was staying at the house.”
“Fuck,” Nolan said. “So what’s the plan?”
“Nolan and Pablo, I want you to go around back…”
“I can get in the basement,” Cody said.
“What?”
“I know how to get into Dax’s house through the basement. I did it for years when I was a kid so he didn’t know I was sneaking in.”
Handsome shook his head at him. “You’re a mess, kid. Okay, Nolan and Pablo go cover the back door. Twister!” The youngest prospect of the club stepped up at the sound of his name. He was six foot five but he still had a baby face. Cody thought he looked like a cartoon character, but Dax had told him the kid was a crack shot and had no fear. Those were two great qualities at a time like this. “Go with Cody. Both of you wait until I start drawing fire again and then stay low behind the second SUV and go when there’s enough confusion that they hopefully won’t notice you. If you have to, shoot these sonsabitches. Stay alive. We’ll sort out their bodies later.”
Twister said:
“Yes, sir.”
“Cody! Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t be a hero, because you’ll probably get yourself killed and her too.”
“Okay.” Cody glanced at Twister and then looked back at Handsome and said, “Sir.” Handsome’s lips twitched at that. He’d been around for Cody’s entire life and although Cody showed him the respect he deserved as VP, he never called him, or anyone, “sir.” He had his personal reasons for it. Those that didn’t know his reasons found it disrespectful. But the guys like Handsome and Dax knew that it was how the old man made him and Keller address him, usually right before he kicked the shit out of one or both.
“Okay, get ready!” Handsome stepped out from behind the SUV and the bullets immediately began to fly. Cody and Twister got low to the ground and as soon as all the guys were returning fire and chaos ruled the moment, the two young men ran toward the side of the house. When they got to where the ivy was growing wild up the side of the house, Cody looked at Twister and said:
“Start pulling this ivy out of the way. Dax keeps it grown up like this so no one can find the entrance.” Twister and Cody pulled at the ivy, ripping pieces of it out of the ground, while the sounds of gunfire continued to deafen them. Twister was the first one to find part of the wooden door.
“Cody, I got it.”
“Good, now stand back.” Twister looked confused, but he stood up and stepped back as Cody aimed the handgun at the ground.
“What are you doing?” Cody took two shots at it and said:
“It’s locked. When I was a kid I stole the key out of the house.” Thanks to the gunfire still ringing out in the front of the house, the two shots Cody took barely sounded like anything. He reached down and pulled off the broken pieces of wood until he was able to pull up on the door. The ivy held it more firmly in place than a lock. “Help me,” he told Twister. Cody got the door up about three inches and Twister leaned down and put his hands underneath the wood, and they pulled at the same time. The ivy ripped out of the ground and the door gave way. “There aren’t any stairs,” Cody told Twister. “It’s about a seven-foot drop.”
Twister smiled and made a face that said, “Really?” It would be like a seven-inch drop for him. Cody grabbed the sides of the opening and without taking the time to lower himself slowly, he dropped to the cement floor below. He felt his knees pop, but he bounced up and looked around the darkened room. It didn’t look like whoever was in the house had found it yet. While Twister was dropping in, Cody was already on his way up the stairs. The opening in the house was in the closet floor of the extra bedroom where Cody used to sleep. There was carpeting over it, but it wasn’t tacked down, or at least it never used to be.
At the top of the stairs Cody handed Twister his guns and used both hands to push up on the door. The closet was dark, in disarray, and the door was cracked open, but not wide. He lifted the door further and pulled himself up through the hole. He reached down before he stood up and got the guns from Twister. He’d just gotten to his feet when Twister appeared. The closet was tight for them both. Cody checked the room through the slot in the door and when he didn’t see anyone, he stepped out of the closet. The room was an office now, probably Angel’s, and it was torn up. A laptop lay smoking in the middle of the floor, the monitor shattered and the keyboard in pieces. It looked like whoever was here was angry about not finding what they were looking for.
Cody gave Twister his guns back and then he held his handgun in one hand and the automatic rifle in the other as he headed for the door. He listened against it for several seconds before pulling it open, slowly, with the pistol ready. It was a hallway and he knew it well…and it was empty. He gestured at Twister to follow him and they both walked as softly as 400 pounds of men, total, possibly could. They made it as far as the front bathroom before he heard voices. There were at least two men talking and they sounded angry.
“Where is it?”
“I’m telling you, asshole, I don’t live here. I don’t fucking know where it is.”
“Call him!”
“Who, Dax?”
“No, bitch! Fucking Santa Claus. Of course, Dax.”
“I don’t have his number.” Cody heard a slap, flesh on flesh, that made him both cringe and have to hold himself back at the same time, especially because Harley let out a little cry of pain. Fuckers were going to die. He looked at Twister and gestured for him to push back against the wall opposite him. They kept moving until they were right outside of the room where the voices were coming from.
“Call his bitch then.” If Cody didn’t get a chance to kill these bastards, he was going to take pleasure in telling Dax they called Angel a bitch. Dax would destroy them. He looked at Twister and gave him a “hold up” sign with his palm and then he listened again and heard Harley’s voice as she talked on the phone.
“Angel, it’s Hannah. I need you to call me as soon as you get this, please…There are som
e…” Cody heard her make a surprised noise. They must have pulled the phone out of her hand. “It was voicemail,” she said.
“I got that. Do I look like a fucking idiot to you?”
Cody wondered how badly Hannah wanted to say yes. She didn’t, however. She didn’t say anything, and for several long minutes no one spoke and there was no gunfire and the silence felt more deafening than all the noise had been earlier.
31
Cody wanted to get close enough to see how many men were in the living room with Harley, but as soon as he took one more step, he’d be visible to whoever was in there. Twister stood next to him with his back against the wall and both hands on his gun. If Cody moved, the kid was going to move, and Cody didn’t want to be responsible for a nineteen-year-old who still had acne getting shot. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent Handsome a text.
“If I cover Hannah can you hailstorm the front window?”
“Yep. Give me a go sign when you’re ready.”
“Twister will text you.”
Cody handed the phone to Twister, put his finger back up to his lips, and then signaled him to stay put. Twister didn’t look happy about it but Cody didn’t have time to debate it. Without any more hesitation than that he braced himself for whatever he was going to run into and then he just ran. As soon as his feet hit the living room floor the bullet tore through his left shoulder. His eyes were on Harley, tied to a chair in the middle of the room. He threw his two-hundred-and-thirty-pound body on top of her and right at that second, all hell broke loose. It was like World War III in the middle of Dax’s living room with glass breaking, guns firing, and people screaming and yelling. Cody lay still on top of Harley, hoping that he wasn’t killing her while he was trying to save her. The whole thing lasted about three, maybe four minutes. It went from total chaos to…nothing. Another two or three seconds passed and Cody still didn’t move. He didn’t know who was still standing until he heard Handsome’s voice.
“Kid? Are you shot?”
He lifted off Harley. She wasn’t moving and the side of her face was covered in blood. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He’d killed her. “Fuck! I suffocated her. Fuck!” Handsome reached down and felt her pulse.
“She’s alive, kid, breathe.”
“She’s all covered in blood.”
Handsome looked like he was trying to keep from laughing. Cody felt like he was going to be sick. He wondered how many years you had to do shit like this before you could find any of it funny. “It’s your blood, kid. You’ve been shot.”
Cody looked down at his shoulder. He had felt the bullet rip through it and then he’d honestly forgotten about it. Now that Handsome pointed it out, he realized that it hurt like a motherfucker. He looked back down at Harley, who was beginning to stir, and forgot about it again. “Harley? Hey…Hannah? Are you awake? Are you okay?”
“Why are you calling me Hannah?”
Cody laughed then, mostly just because he wanted to cry and there was no crying in the motorcycle club. He lifted her up and held her to his chest. They sat there like that while Handsome and the guys moved around them and Handsome talked on his phone. Cody heard him talking to Dax at one point, but he didn’t know who else he called, not until he heard the sirens. That’s when he looked up from Harley and said, “Cops? You called the cops?”
“Dax told me to.” He pointed at Harley. “She’s that Detective Brady’s girl…right?” He raised a questioning eyebrow, probably because Harley was still clutching onto Cody’s shirt.
“Yeah,” Cody said.
“Too many questions if we just take the two of you over to the doc. The cops need to see this wasn’t us. We were attacked, and if it wasn’t for you, that little girl would probably be dead. You saved her life, kid.”
“You saved my life,” Harley said, cuddling closer into his chest. She was only about half conscious, or maybe in shock. Cody knew that he needed to detach himself from her before those sirens stopped out front. Even if Kyle Brady wasn’t with them, he’d get a full report.
Whispering in Harley’s ear he said, “The ambulance is here, baby. I’m going to lay you down here on the floor so they can check you out, okay?”
“Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere. But the cops are here, Harley. I need to let you go and lay you down, okay? I’ll be right here.”
“The cops?”
“Yeah, baby. The cops are here too.”
“Kyle?”
“Maybe.”
“Cody?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.” He brushed his lips along the side of her face and then he laid her back on the carpet. Then clutching at his shoulder, which was throbbing now and pouring blood, he lay back himself in the other direction. Twister was there with a towel that he tied around the wound, trying to stop the blood, but by that time the cops were rushing in yelling at everyone to get down. They had to go through the whole routine, as if maybe they were the attackers instead of the victims. It was only when the detective in charge saw Harley that he yelled at someone to get the EMTs inside. Cody was on the verge of passing out by that time. Everything was foggy and gray. He could hear Handsome yelling at them to tend to him, and then his world went from gray to black and he let the darkness take him.
Cody knew he was in a hospital when he woke up. The smells and sounds were unmistakable. He’d been in plenty of hospitals in his life. When he was a kid and the old man would get carried away, Keller would somehow get him into town, once in a red wagon he’d found at the dump and fixed up. He’d tell them that Cody wrecked his bike or fell down the mountain. Social services would show up, but by that time the old man would sober up enough to get down there and back up whatever story Keller had told them. Cody knew better than to tell them otherwise.
Then in prison he’d been stabbed twice—once in the stomach with a homemade shank and the other time in the back with a screw someone had taken out of the fence and fashioned into something that looked like an icepick. Both times it hadn’t amounted to much more than a few stitches, but he always did his best to drag out his stays if he could. The hospital was preferable to either the dirty trailer or the six-by-twelve-foot cell.
What he didn’t know this time when he woke up was what had happened. The old man was his first thought, but then he remembered that he was grown and the old man was gone. So, then he thought maybe he’d been hurt in prison. His head felt fuzzy and he was confused and weak. When he finally pulled his eyes open, the first thing he saw was Dax.
“Jesus, kid, you’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”
“What did I do this time?” Cody asked. He was completely serious. Dax threw his head back and laughed. While Dax was laughing at him, Cody’s memory began to return and his thoughts started to clear. “Shit—Harley!” He tried to push himself up, and pain tore through his shoulder and raced up into his neck and down into his arm. “Fuck!”
“Just lie down and be still,” Dax told him. “That little red-headed demon is fine.”
Cody lay back and fought through the pain. When he could breathe again he looked at Dax. “Really? She’s okay?”
“She’s just fine. Your big ass just knocked the wind out of her. She’s bruised but alive and well.”
“Good.”
“You saved her life, kid. I’m proud of you.”
Cody thought back to what had happened. He wondered if he had saved her life, or just caused a bunch of unnecessary chaos. Maybe they hadn’t planned on killing her. “Who were they?”
Dax shook his head, slowly. “I’m not sure who they were…exactly. I’m pretty sure that I know who sent them.”
“What did they want?”
“Now’s not the time for that. You just got out of surgery a few hours ago. You need to rest.”
“Surgery? What did they do?”
“They gave you a brain, I hope.” Cody lifted the middle finger of his good hand and Dax laughed again. “They fixed your shoulder
. The bullet hit the bone and shattered it. They put some hardware in there.”
“So I’m like the Man of Steel now?”
“Go to sleep, kid, the morphine is kicking in. Harley’s downstairs, she wants to see you…and Macy’s here too.”
“Macy’s here?”
“Yeah, and Jimmy, and Kyle. It’s a regular party of girls you like to fuck and their boyfriends and exes down there. So, just keep hiding up here, and ask for more morphine. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”
Cody was the one that laughed then. It hurt like hell.
When he opened his eyes again, Harley was at his bedside. Her hair was straightened down across her shoulders and she had on a frilly white blouse, a jean skirt, and a pair of cowboy boots. Cody’s first thought was that she looked hotter than hell. “Hey, he said.
“Hey, you. God, I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“It was just a little bullet. I’m the Man of Steel, they can’t stop me with a bullet.”
“Shut the hell up,” she said with a smile. Her eyes were filled with tears, though, and she reached over and put her hand on his good arm. Her body radiated warmth and Cody closed his eyes for a second to revel in it. “I finally did it. I finally landed you in the hospital.”
“Nah, it wasn’t your fault. Those assholes had you tied up…”
“They were going to kill me, Cody. I heard them talking to someone on the phone and they told them to kill me. You saved my life.”
“Good. I was afraid I had killed you at first.”
She smiled and reached up to wipe a tear off her face. “I can’t believe you did that. You took a bullet for me. That’s like the ultimate way to prove you care. You know how people always say, ‘I’d take a bullet for her,’ but most of them don’t mean it. You actually did it.”
Cody smiled. “I’d do it again too, in a heartbeat.”
“I honestly thought we were just fooling around. I didn’t know you cared that much.”