Integrity Has No Bounds

by Ryder Dane

  Stevie watched Leon joyfully set his lighter to a dry bar rag, and threw it onto a table in the middle of the floor. He did the same with another rag, and soon there was nothing to see but smoke and flame. The only way they knew the bastards had left was the sound of the squealing tires from the back wall.

  Lonnie looked at Stevie, and although he knew she was afraid, she looked, well, she actually looked insane at the moment, and he shook his head. She had cause enough to be a bit unbalanced.

  He pulled her to stand in front of him and shook her shoulders, he could feel the tremble in her body, but they didn’t have time for him to coddle her if they wanted to get out of there alive.

  “Stevie, listen to me, we have to make a run for it, do you get that?” She nodded and appeared to be more focused—for now anyway—and that was all that he needed. He put his gun back in his waistband while she pulled a small white box from the computer, went to the bed, and pulled an old leather bag out from under the frame, stuffed the box inside of the thing, looked around and shook her head.

  She let him take her wrist after he removed the broomstick from the doorway. “Let’s do this.”

  How he navigated them out of the flames with little more than smoke and singed damage to their clothing was a miracle. Lonnie sat her in her Jeep and locked the doors while he ran back inside to see if he could check the electrical box near the backdoor, the panel had been open when they ran through, so he figured correctly as it turned out, that the breakers for the water pump that fed the sprinklers had been shut off. Once the double breaker was flipped back on, it took several seconds for the water to begin raining down on his head, but the bar should be salvageable.

  Leech, Skids, Angus, and Preacher showed up mere seconds after he exited the building, and minutes later the fire department sirens could be heard heading their way.

  The bikers left, and she still sat staring at the building. Lonnie stood outside of the truck waiting for the big red rigs to show up.

  The more she thought about it, the madder she became, but the anger was a cold thing in her gut. In all probability, one of those men could have killed Harry, and revenge scenarios played through her mind. The practical side of her reasoning dismissed all but one of the plots, and she continued to make plans.

  The chief of the volunteer firemen went through the building and asked her questions about the vandals, but she told them she was in the storage room with Lonnie, doing inventory when they broke in and didn’t see the people who did this. She knew that if he asked, she would have to give up the security feed from the office monitor, but that only showed the parking lots and backdoor.

  Luckily the chief believed the sprinkler system had drenched the computer, rendering any data useless. He was old school good ol’ boy and directed most of his questions toward Lonnie, and for once in her life she was happy not to be considered a capable woman.

  She walked inside the building with the chief and Lonnie, and couldn’t believe the level of destruction done in such a short span of time. What the fire hadn’t ruined, the water did. She walked into the office and picked up the bags with her new purchases inside, and took them to her Jeep.

  Lonnie was busy with the chief and another man when she walked up and told the men that she was not feeling well. “I think I just need to go home and lie down for a little while, if you don’t need me for anything else?”

  The old man nodded and patted her on the shoulder in understanding. “Naw, that’s fine, darlin’, you ladies aren’t used to stuff like this happenin’ I guess it’s the kind of thing that happens mostly when a man least expects it, but it shouldn’t happen to a woman business owner. Might want to think about some other business to go into. Mary Jane Old’s is thinking of retiring, and her boutique does a good business. You can tell her I told you to give her a call.”

  Lonnie was watching her with narrowed eyes and started toward her, but the chief had already dismissed her from his mind and took his arm to have him show the old man where they’d been when the fire started.

  Stevie felt bad about trapping her bodyguard like this, but she needed some alone time, and she didn’t need a babysitter where she was going. She nodded at him in understanding, and walked out of the building.

  Thankfully the Jeep started, and the fire truck wasn’t blocking her from leaving the property. She headed to the only secluded spot that she could think of to clean up and get ready. John wasn’t home when she got there and she didn’t have a key, but she did have a credit card and slid it between the door and the jam to release the locks. It worked, and she was shocked that it worked, but walked inside with her purchases anyway.

  She looked longingly at that tub again, but couldn’t take the time. Hopefully he wouldn’t hold a grudge for her defection, but this one was hers. She had a heritage that she’d left behind the day her parents walked through the prison doors. It was time to reintroduce herself to the world as who she really was.

  By the time she walked out of the sanctuary deep in the woods, no one would recognize the biker chick from her former hippie chick look. Her hair was pulled back in a leather wrap, her jacket was hanging by two fingers over her shoulder, the skintight jeans and buckle boots made her appear taller, and the tank under the partially snapped vest completed her outfit. She carried the leather bag in her empty hand, and got in the Jeep.

  It was more than time to confront Stevie Ray James, daughter of Rolf and June Bug James. Two of the most infamous outlaw bikers in the state of Alabama. The Feds had only been able to pin one count each of Drug trafficking and the RICO charges had been dropped on appeal due to lack of evidence. Unless some ultra smart Fed had dug up more charges, her parents should have walked into the sun over a year ago.

  When Harry slipped her out of that foster home, it had been a blessing. The people weren’t bad, but they did tend to lecture her on being churchy and they tried to get her to talk about her parents. Harry told her afterwards the family was kin to the federal prosecutor who was shoveling every charge he could think of to keep Rolf and June Bug incarcerated for as many years as possible.

  She owed Harry her life, and her parents were about to see what had become of their little Stevie.

  Chapter Ten

  John was searching the area around Egypt, Arkansas, when he checked his phone to see if he had enough tower service to make a call to Stevie and Lonnie. He was planning to find a place to bed down for the night, and resume his search for Candle. That fuck was earning himself some extra pain before he met his mentor, the devil.

  There were eighteen messages waiting for him to hear, and from Stevie’s first call to the last call from a very pissed off Lonnie, he grew more concerned. She’d given Lonnie the slip, and done it deliberately.

  There were two text messages from Stevie, and he breathed a sigh of relief that she was safe. The last text just pissed him off.

  Sorry, I need to do this, tired of being a victim. That’s not who I am. I’ll be in touch to explain next week.

  That was it, her phone went directly to voice, and she didn’t return his texts either.

  His brain was not going to allow him to sleep, and he had a few hours before he would need to find a place to camp, so he turned the bike toward the Swamp Rats nesting ground. Pappy D swore he couldn’t find Candle to talk to him, and John knew the old man was lying through the few teeth that were left in his mouth.

  The way John figured it was that if he busted up enough of the fucks, they would turn on their comrade. He was done being nice about this shitass. It was time to do some serious damage, there was too much to deal with at home right now, and his woman was out joyriding and being too damn reckless with her life.

  When he got a hold on her ass, she was gonna feel it.

  Once he got near Murky Carl’s Bayou Gator farm, he almost busted a nut trying to find a dry enough spot to set the kickstand securely to keep the scoot from falling over. He finally saw a tree root that was mostly buried in the muddy dirt, and set the kickstan
d. Damn, he was going to have to get back into working out, pushing his favorite heavy assed bitch around in the mud was work.

  He slid twice in the mud going through the trees running down the path instead of walking on the path itself, he wasn’t familiar with the property, and didn’t want to be target practice for some Rat.

  When he saw the shack on the water’s edge, he wondered what was going on inside. He could hear screams coming from inside the building, and circled the perimeter in an effort to make sure there were no guards lying in wait.

  There was shouting and the sidewall of the shanty shook as if it was considering giving way beneath the pressure of a body being thrown against the rotting wood. The smell of Meth cooking was intense, but it was mingled with the scent of rotting vegetation and swamp, so he could understand why they chose this place to cook the shit.

  *****

  Tonda was worried sick about Donnie Lee. He was an asshole with a taste for sadism, but she liked most of what he liked, so she couldn’t bitch too much about his methods. She still wondered how they’d captured him. Donnie was a fighter, a dirty fighter at that. Being the son of ol’ Pappy D didn’t give him special treatment, if anything he was picked on more often and always having to prove he was worthy of the name Dean.

  She was the product of Lila Bennett who was a waitress at the diner in town and some passing soldier boy named Curtis that came out of the hills to join in Uncle Sam’s Army. Tonda was the result of his going away party. Lila was wandering around town nowadays talking to trees and picking up beer cans to recycle for a few extra dollars each month.

  Tonda had given up going into town and bringing her to live in the small travel trailer that sat on blocks behind the clubhouse. The woman would stay for a day or two and disappear. She wasn’t aware that Tonda was her daughter, she wasn’t aware of much of anything but the voices in her head. The cops picked her up and let her sleep in the jail on cold nights, and Tonda made sure the woman had a decent pair of shoes on her feet and sweaters and coats to keep her warm. The soup kitchen knew Lila by name and always had a meal for her when she came in.

  Donnie had befriended Tonda when he stopped some older boys from their intent to rape her in the alley behind the Laundromat in town one day when she was walking home from school. She’d worshipped him from that day on. If Donnie asked her to sell herself on a corner in the worst part of Little Rock, she wouldn’t like it, but she would do it, because he asked her to. She gave him her virginity, in every hole, and he didn’t stay faithful, but he did give her a place to live and a job of sorts. Her hopes of setting up house with him had long ago been shattered, especially when he encouraged other men to fuck her like the whore she was. He was a cold hearted fucker, but she loved him, and she was disgusted that old fucker Pappy D refused to turn Candle over to the bastard who had Donnie.

  Candle was a troublemaker who liked to hurt anyone smaller than he was, and given the fact he was almost six foot tall meant that there were several people around that qualified as smaller, most of them were women. He thieved and liked to play with his hunting knife while taunting his sex partners.

  When she came up with her plan, it sounded better than it actually played out. She had her belongings in the backseat of the car before she left to get close to Candle and zap his ass with the Taser she stole from one of the bikers she fucked the day before.

  She’d wished she’d told Allan if he didn’t hear from her to come and rescue her. Her plan was going well until Candle decided he needed a little fear from her to give him a hard-on. He backhanded her and it was on. He got the fear he wanted, and the screams, and the drops of blood from the prick of his knife poking at her skin. Her hands were roped together behind her and she was out of options but the need to live long enough to get loose and find her purse where she hid the Taser.

  She didn’t see what happened next. Candle was lifted from her body, and she heard the crash of his body as it was slammed into the table and chairs. She crawled to the wall and felt the knife drop on the floor as she inched away from the fight behind her. It took every bit of strength she could muster to push herself up enough for the wall to hold her as she leaned on it. She was praying for the Lord to help her survive long enough to help set Donnie free.

  The sounds of grunting and fists hitting flesh made her look at the two combatants, and she gasped. This had to be the man who was hunting for Candle. They said he was a big man, with dark hair, and had tats. They hadn’t said that the man was so well built or that he carried himself like a warrior.

  The raw scream coming from Candle’s bloody lips took her attention from the stranger’s thick tattooed arms in time to see him proceed to beat the sadistic bastard’s face into a red mush. She looked away when the big hands grabbed Candle’s head and gave it a solid twist. It was the first time Tonda had seen anyone killed, but after seeing the disgust on the victor’s face, she got the impression he was disappointed Candle hadn’t put up a better fight.

  She tried to stay silent, hoping he wouldn’t notice her sitting there, but he looked at her before Candle’s body collapsed onto the floor. She cringed, but there was nowhere for her to hide, and she resigned herself to dying because she was witness to the death of a man who wasted space and the air he breathed.

  “Mr., I,” she had to swallow back her fear before trying to speak to him again, “I was gonna bring him to you but he surprised me before I could catch him off guard. You saved my life, and I thank you, but I just wanted to get you to let Donnie Lee go. This didn’t go like I planned.” She broke down and cried as the big man came toward her.

  John knew the woman was afraid, she should be. From what he’d seen when he walked into the room, she was lucky the fucker hadn’t killed her. He looked around the room and spied a case of bottled water on an old dry sink. He went to the spot and took two bottles from the dirty plastic wrapping. He kept his movements slow as he crouched down near where she was sitting. He looked at her bloody wrists that were still wrapped with yellow nylon rope, and pulled his knife from his boot to cut the rope while she tried to pull away from him.

  The blade slid through the nylon with ease, and her hands dropped down hard. As he reached for one of the water bottles and unscrewed the cap, he began talking in a low tone to her.

  “Here you go, I think you could probably use something to wet your whistle.” He held the bottle to her lips and tilted it slightly so she could drink without drenching herself. After a few swallows, he sat the bottle next to her hip and moved back a bit to give her some space. At least she wasn’t hysterical. If he heard her right, she almost lost her own life in an attempt to ruin her own and save her worthless man. Did she even know that by being here and attempting what she’d planned, would get her shunned by the Swamp Rats?

  “Did I hear you right? You were the only one of your pack that had the guts to do the right thing? Tell me, would you have killed him if necessary to get Donnie back?”

  She didn’t know how to answer him, “Mr., we all seen what shape you’ve been sending the brothers back in. Willy boy wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed to begin with, now his momma says he started lickin’ his lips all the time, an’ she says between the way he already had a stutter, the lip lickin’ is even more brain damage. The clubhouse is beginning to look like the medical clinic.”

  She looked over to Candle’s body still lying where it’d dropped. “I had to do somethin’, nobody else would lift a finger to help him, Donnie Lee I mean. They’d let you kill him before they would turn this piece of shit over, it ain’t right. That’s all, it just ain’t right.”

  She looked up when the big man pulled his t-shit off and handed it to her. The material was still warm as she fumbled her arms inside and pulled her head through the neck. The feeling was returning to her hands and Lord they stung. “Thank you.”

  “Mr.? What happens now?” He had a bottle of water to his lips and she could see him swallow as he drained the plastic container within a minute or so. “I, are
you satisfied now, I mean enough to let Donnie come home?”

  John looked at the woman, still sitting where she’d crawled to against the wall. She was a mess, there was no two ways about it, and he couldn’t let her stay alone to face the shit when the Rats figured out she had been here tonight. He wondered what Baron would have to say about taking on a woman with the reputation for breaking the code, but at least he could give her a place to stay until she decided what to do or where she would go if she didn’t stay with the Breed.

  He nodded his head and walked over to help her up off the planked floor. “Are you in any shape to drive?” She licked her lips and nodded, so he didn’t bother to try to coddle her. She needed to get some miles put between her and the Swamp Kings.

  “Is that your car out there with the backseat filled with boxes and trash bags?”

  Tonda shook her head no. “The car belongs to the club, I was just gonna use it to transport Candle and exchange him for Donnie, that way he’d have a way to make it home.”

  He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a small wad of money. She shook her head when he tried to hand her a hundred dollar bill, so he peeled off a couple of twenties and she hesitated a few seconds before taking it. “I’m only taking this ‘cause I think the car’s gonna need gas.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, “Up to you what you spend it on, you look like you could use a meal, but wearing my shirt isn’t gonna get you into any fast food place that I know of. When you get to the club, look me up or talk to Baron, he’ll know what you’re there for, I have something I need to take care of so I might not be there.”

  He handed her the dead man’s wallet and she hesitated before taking it from his hands. She opened the wide leather and took the few bills that had been left. She glanced at her rescuer, and looked to every corner of the run down shack. She smiled, knowing what she was going to do. The Swamp Kings would never know what happened, she would be long gone, and so would the Breed.