Break Free

by Jackson Kane

  “No, you arrogant piece of shit. I’m pissed at you for making me think my best friend was dead! We buried you, you fucking asshole!”

  “Was it nice?” I asked.

  “It was,” Tee said after taking another moment. “Deadeye wanted to shut the whole thing down, but Top fought for the full ceremony. I think it was the biggest funeral the Veins ever had. A lot of the guys respected you even if they did think you were a pretentious dick at times. The guys wanted to throw down after the Lobos fucking took credit for the hit, but Deadeye squashed it. What happened? We all thought they killed you.”

  “They sure as hell tried.”

  “Yeah, well I’ll tell the church to stop your canonization process,” Tee smugly replied, “on account of you not being dead. And also because you’re such an asshole.”

  “They’ll probably want to revoke my beatification, too.” I snorted out a burst of air. It was the nature of our friendship.

  “Goddammit, man. What the fuck were you thinking, Rem! Going to the Lobos like that? And yeah, as a matter of fact, I am still pissed that you fucking shot me!”

  “You shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. Going behind Deadeye’s back like that! Shooting you was the only way I could get Star out of there without you taking heat from Deadeye for letting us go.”

  There was an uneasy silence between us. It did bother me that of all people Top sent to kill Star, it was Tee. I shook the thoughts from my head. That wasn’t why I was calling him.

  “Bones said you were trying to turn on the Veins and join up with the Lobos for protection. Pretty much everyone called bullshit on that.” Despite his bluster, Tee obviously felt weird about the situation. “The fuck was that all about?”

  Being a traitor was a huge deal for all MCs, and one that usually met a real bad end.

  “Bones was right, but not why you think. I made a play to put things right with me and the club by weakening the Lobos from the inside…” I took a beat and hesitated before continuing, “I’ll be straight with you, man. I got cocky and overreached. Took five rounds to the chest, and one off the dome for my trouble.”

  “Jesus... I didn’t know it was that bad. Any more brain damage than usual?”

  That snarky dick.

  “Yeah, enough for me to call you, apparently.” I cracked a slight smile before my tone darkened again. “If Star hadn’t pulled my ass from that fire, you wouldn’t be hearing my lovely voice right now.” I had to cover the phone to blot out the overhead page for more cashiers to come to the front. Turned out Walmart was one of the last places on the planet that had pay phones. “Listen,” I said once the noise calmed down. “Lobos are up to something big. They’re putting a Nachomama’s in Leslie.”

  “The taco place?” Tee was struggling to put the pieces together.

  “The restaurant doubles as a money launderer for their club. They’re looking to take our hometown from us, man. Drive us out.”

  “Those mother fuckers!” I heard him slam a fist onto a table wherever he was. “I’ll look into it, Rem, but you know how it goes. It’ll take a few weeks to get through all the dummy corps bullshit and verify the connect before I can bring it to the club.”

  “That’s time we don’t have. Lobos are making their move next week.”

  “Next week?” Tee’s voice trailed off. Something was on the tip of his brain. “Shit. Oh shit!”

  “What?”

  “The Veins’ Annual. It’s gotta be that. We’re hosting the meet this time. How the fuck did they know about that?”

  “That would make sense. Lobos rolling out in force to cut off all the Veins leadership at once, then watch the rest of the chapters implode. Dunno, man. With the guys Deadeye’s patching these days, any one of them could be a mole for Lobos. You see that, right? One of the big reasons I had to get out.”

  “That and magical pussy.” Tee was always good for levity in rough situations, but he wouldn’t let it get in the way of the bigger issues. He put the jokes aside and continued somberly, “It’s gotten worse, too. Some of the old men have already turned in their colors because of it. There’s a lot of unrest in the MC right now. Still, I can’t go to Deadeye or even Top with just a warning. There’s no way they’ll put it club-wide and stop the event without anything concrete. Worse case, they do some digging and find out you’re still alive... Deadeye catches wind of that, and you’re looking at another round of kill teams up your ass. Do you know what the Lobos plan is? How it’s all gonna go down?”

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! Other people need to use the phone too!”

  The shrill voice caught me off guard. Some bitch with a shock of matted, dyed black hair who was wearing what looked like a designer yellow trash bag for a top stepped up behind me. I took one look at her and her ridiculous plastic, red tinted, star-shaped sunglasses and ignored her.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I didn’t call to just warn you. I aim to find out. I’m going back in to meet with Bones, and I need some info before I do,” I continued with Tee barely skipping a beat in the conversation.

  “You’re seriously going back there after he put half a dozen holes in you? Y’know, for the smartest guy I know, that’s a pretty fucking stupid idea.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “All right, what’s the plan?” Tee sighed, realizing I wouldn’t be swayed. He knew it was the only way to find out.

  “Hey! I’m talking to you! Don’t disrespect me when I’m talking to you!” the bitch postured dramatically at me in the only volume setting she appeared to have.

  “Gimme a sec, Tee. I need to stab someone.” The patience in my voice had fled completely, but before I could have words with the living incarnation of loud-and-obnoxious, Star appeared, plastic shopping bag in hand.

  “Finish your call.” She kissed me on the cheek, whispering, “I’ll take care of it.”

  I nodded, knowing she had it under control, and resumed with Tee. I told him everything I had in mind at length. He thought I was out of my mind, but he promised he’d pull through for me. I’d known Tee since we were kids. We’d both joined the Veins around the same time and had been close ever since. If anyone had my back in the club, it was him.

  “First thing I need is a show of good faith to get me in with Bones. You got a lead on anything in the Santa Fe area?” I asked him. I hadn’t been gone all that long, but things moved fast in the club. And honestly, these past six months, I hadn’t kept up with anything. I was so apathetic that I was just along for the ride mostly.

  “Actually yeah. Veins funded a Doxa lab in Channingstone, the ghost town just outside the city limits.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me! Veins are running doxa now?” Of all the drug trades, doxa or doxanamine, was my least favorite. xoxa was the go-to since most of the methamphetamine ingredients became harder to get over the counter. It was a similar high to meth but it was cheaper and far less volatile to cook. The MC shouldn’t have been running any of them, but doxa was by far the one I hated the most.

  “Not directly. Deadeye reinstated the Knights.”

  I could hear it in his voice that Tee wasn’t pleased about it. Couldn’t blame him. The Knights had a bad rep even within the club.

  “It was a part of a deal to open up the heroin trade. We set up a guy in that area. Goes by the name of Edward. He gives us his contacts.”

  Officially, the Knights were one of our support clubs, but that was mostly club politics. ‘Uneasy alliance’ would’ve been a better term for it. The Veins revoked their tenuous membership a while back because they were just fucking animals. It was telling for the state of our MC that they’d been reactivated.

  “Prisons?” I asked. Heroin was a real crowd pleaser in prison. What better way to escape when escape wasn’t an option anymore?

  “No college campuses and—” his voice choked off. “And high schools. Our chapter unanimously voted against it, but... Fucking Deadeye, man.”

  The plastic of the phone cracked in my tighte
ning grip. Schools now? I closed my eyes to keep my vision from turning red with rage. What the fuck have we become? It made me sick. We were supposed to be helping and protecting our community, not poisoning their fucking kids! I swallowed hard and calmed my breathing before I was able to continue, “The fuck is Deadeye thinking?” The words came out like a rockslide.

  “It’s not just him. Most of the mother chapter has been replaced with real low guys. Deadeye’s too stubborn to see it, but they’re bad news, man. Everyone else knows it, too.”

  “Chig? Loose?” I asked. They were two of the decent guys in that chapter. “Are they still there?

  “Barely, but they don’t come around no more.” Tee sighed. “All the guys worth their salt in that chapter are gone, bro. Either nomad, transferred, or just quit. Nothing left now but Rio’s old crew.”

  I put the phone down and tried to push away the anger. The main chapter set the tone for the whole club. It was heartbreaking to see it fall so low. I didn’t realize it was this bad. It was only a matter of time until that eroded all the other chapters and destroyed the club as a whole.

  It was all falling apart.

  My contained rage finally bled through like a pot boiling over. I wailed on the sheet metal wall that housed the phone. The loud rap drew a few dozen sets of eyes, but no one dared to come over. I could feel them watching and knew that if I turned, they’d snap their eyes down or away. Fucking spineless, paper people.

  I picked the phone back up.

  “I’ll handle the doxa lab. Just be ready for the next step. I’ll call you when it’s a go.” Every syllable was a struggle to get out. I no longer felt like talking at all. It was time action. “Let’s take back the Steel Veins.”

  “Hey, for the record,” Tee said right before we hung up. “I didn’t want any part of what Top was planning. I was only out that night to make sure Rio played by the rules and didn’t kill you. It was damn good to see that old fire back in you, man. Well, up until you fucking shot me. I thought it was because of what happened to Bren, but now, I get that it was because of that chick. I don’t know what you saw in her that made you do what you did, but thank her for me. Finally sounds like I’m talking to my old friend again.”

  “Yeah.” Had to hand it to Tee. He always knew how to deflate my anger.

  “Oh, hey! One last thing,” Tee interjected. “Your chick – she gotta sister?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Tee.” I would have chuckled if I wasn’t still so damned pissed off.

  I hung up. It took me a minute to let go of the phone. It had been good to talk to a friend – a brother – again. Everything else raced through my mind. I hadn’t realized just how much mess there was to clean up in the club.

  One thing was for certain, a big part of my plan had to change.

  First thing’s first. Prove to Bones that I still wanted in by leaking the info about the doxa lab. I’d never be a Lobos member, but they might take me in as an advisor.

  Cut off their feet. Bren’s words rang in my ears like a mantra.

  When I went over my plan in my head, it sounded... Fuck, it sounded awful. But talking to Star earlier when I was planning it all out, we both agreed this was going to be the only real way to pull everything off.

  I would have to kill the Veins to save them.

  “Everything okay?” Star was wearing the sunglasses of the annoying woman that had been yelling at me.

  I could only imagine how that interaction went. Just being around Star lifted my spirits. It was more than her magical pussy as Tee put it. It was every damn part of her. “No, but I’m going to fix that.” I took the gaudy glasses off Star and tossed them over my shoulder before I kissed her soft, smiling lips. She tasted of bubblegum and smelled of sugar. I suppressed an urge to slam her against the wall and sample the rest of her.

  Just a little taste, I compromised, kissing a sweet patch on her neck. Looking past Star, I could see the shrill bitch cowering against the wall. It didn’t look like Star had hit her which had me curious at what she must’ve said to scare her enough not to leave.

  “Don’t ask,” Star saw where my eyes had wandered and smiled. That fire in her shined brighter than ever before. “Just reminded her to have some manners. So what now? We go back to the Lobos clubhouse to meet with Bones?”

  “No, change of plans. We’re going to let him come to us this time.” The gravity of what was to come seeped back in and with it, the realization as to just how fucked up both clubs were that I had to take such extreme measures. I didn’t want to be the gardener, ripping out the weeds and throwing dead limbs into the chipper.

  But I would if that was necessary.

  I looked back at the bitch from earlier. What were her problems compared to ours? Were there lives hanging in the balance in the call she had to make? I ripped the phone off the wall and dropped it at her feet on our way out of the store.

  She gasped and wilted.

  Guess we’ll never know.

  Chapter Seven

  …

  Remy

  I killed the headlights as we drove into the ghost town.

  The Channingstone Company was an old brick manufacturing plant that died in the early twentieth century. It was around long enough for a small town to spring up around it. Looked like the Knights had set up in the old post office, one of the few brick buildings left with a roof that hadn’t collapsed. A few bikes were parked out front.

  We pulled through to scout the area then double backed to a nearby gas station. Star dialed Nachomama’s for me, and I told Santiago to let Bones know there was a present waiting for him in Channingstone. My rough estimate was that we had about an hour before the Lobos showed up.

  When we got back, I parked us about a mile away, so we could walk in silently. We’d set up in the saloon across the street and waited for the Lobos to show up, then we’d take the doxa lab down with them. That was if they didn’t shoot us on sight. It was risky, but that was the only real play we had.

  “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I wasn’t too fond of the idea of storming the place with just the two of us, but I’d at least have to check it out to make sure there wouldn’t be any surprises in store.

  “You’re not going in there alone, are you? I thought we were waiting for the Lobos first.” Star’s eyes went wide with concern.

  “I’ll need to tell Bones what they’re up against when they get here, or they might think we set them up.”

  Star frowned, begrudgingly nodding as I started turning away.

  Then I stopped. Something was eating at me. “If something happens, I’ll need you to take down anyone who goes for his bike. Are you up for that?” I couldn’t leave without knowing for sure.

  “What do you mean, if something happens? What could happen? You’re just going to look, right?” Star worried.

  “Answer the question.” I let my tone diffuse. “Please.”

  “I think so,” her words were drenched with doubt.

  “Not good enough. This is it, Star. You’re fully in it now. There’s no going back. Sometimes that means you’ll be the one to pull the trigger. I need to know that you have my back, no hesitation, no doubt. Can you do that?” I repeated the question.

  Star breathed out, letting the heaviness of the decision rest fully on her shoulders. She nodded, confirming her determination by the glint in her eyes. “Yes. I can.”

  I kissed her on the forehead and jogged across the street. I was asking a lot of her, but that was the only way I was walking out of there alive if I was spotted. It was hard to trust someone you cared about when that trust revolved around the person you needed most in this world putting him - or herself in a dangerous situation. One misstep and that person was gone. That kind of trust was extremely difficult.

  I was a hypocrite through and through. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her ability or her constitution. I couldn’t bear putting her in that much danger. I didn’t trust myself enough to let her go. It was what I struggled with the most throug
hout all this. I didn’t want her here at all. I’d keep her locked away in a safety deposit box until everything with the Lobos and Veins were over... if I could. I put Star behind cover across the street because, for now, it was safer.

  Had she been an MC brother, I would’ve had her come with me to watch my back without a second thought because as hard as it would be to bury them, I knew I could do it. I didn’t have it in me to ever put Star in the ground.

  I just didn’t.

  I peered in through a window when I got alongside the building. Two Mexican girls were doing the cooking. I frowned at the collateral. When the Lobos got here, they'd kill everyone to send a message, including the women. No one cooks on their turf without them sanctioning it. Period.

  Through the next window, I saw two guys playing cards on a small table in another room. Their AK forty-sevens leaned against the wall next to them. They were from a Veins support club. I didn’t know them personally, but if they volunteered for this gig, then they deserved whatever they got.

  I hated the doxa business, the fallout was always messy. People always got hurt. In the end it wasn’t ever worth it, that’s why the Veins always stayed away from it. Until now…apparently. I shook my head at how far we’d fallen.

  There were four bikes out front, so where the hell were the other two guys?

  The sound of giggling hit me like a fucking freight train.

  Dread washed over me, and my heart sank. I didn’t need to look in the window to confirm my fears, but I did anyway. Kids. Four of them.

  Shit! That complicated things immensely. I slumped back against the wall and glanced over at Star, but it was too dark in the saloon to see her. This was a good thing because she’d be safer that way. I selfishly still wished I could see her face as I figured out how I was going to handle this.

  Was she my moral compass now? I hadn’t realized how much I had begun relying on her for emotional support. I wasn’t used to needing help, but knowing she was there warmed me regardless. I felt even more confident in walking the razor’s edge, knowing she was beside me.

  Maybe I could talk Bones into leaving at least the kids alive. Yeah, and maybe their fairy godmother would send a pumpkin carriage to pick them up. It was a nonstarter. I knew how that would shake out. They’d be witnesses to murder.