by Naomi West
He tried to think whether there was anything else he needed to do to prepare, and realized this was it. His moment. His destiny. The only thing left to do was to get to Smith’s house and get this show started.
He raced back up the steps and into the demolished kitchen. Paused suddenly.
Had he just heard a laugh coming from the back of the house? He listened again, but didn’t hear it.
But for a second, that laugh had been so clear, so familiar. Had brought up memories of late nights, passing a whiskey bottle back and forth. Of early morning rides up to Vulture’s Hill to watch the sunrise. Or long, hot afternoons at the auto shop, shooting the shit or blasting music to make the time go by faster.
I can’t believe I ever thought about leaving my brothers behind. There won’t be justice in this world until Smith is dead.
He hurried to the back door and burst out of the clubhouse.
Hang on, Deion. I’m gonna do you proud.
He ran the two blocks back to his bike, guns ready.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Katrin paced the small motel room, unable to relax. She’d called the front desk and was relieved to discover that it must have been shift change — a woman answered, not the sullen man who’d checked them in. She tried to ignore the irrational fear that the man had known who she was and had taken off to go tell her father she was here.
She explained she’d had a minor injury that had resulted in some blood on her clothing but didn’t have a chance of clothes. The desk worker had invited her to come up and look through the lost and found items that had been there two weeks or more. With her jacket tied around her waist to hide the worst of the blood, she went up and searched. There, she found a light blue sundress that looked like it would more or less fit. She thanked the woman, who was appraising her curiously, and went back to the room to change.
Then she paced some more.
Maybe it was strange that she wanted to be out there where the action was instead of cooped up in here. Maybe she should have been more concerned about her life and the life of her unborn child. But she truly hated the thought of letting Pistol face this danger alone.
She was a different woman than she’d been when this whole crazy mess had started. She didn’t wait in the shadows to be told what to do. She wasn’t interested in living in Daddy’s pocket, as Pistol had put it. She’d experienced tragedy and grief, and she’d survived it. Now she wanted to help Pistol overcome his past, wanted to fight the obstacles that faced both of them. Together. Just as they’d faced that frightening wedding day — neither sure how the other felt; neither able to trust the other. She recalled the first time he’d offered to help her cook — how much better things had felt when she’d started workingwith him, rather than avoiding him. The night they’d first made love, their bodies learning one another, Katrin’s fear dissolving as she’d realized this man wanted to make her happy.
They had so much left to face as a family. As the parents of this life that was taking form inside her. Why not start now?
There’d been a day long ago when Katrin had gone to one of her mother’s baseball games. The Crushers had lost after a tense, tied ninth inning, due to a bad play by one of Jess’s teammates.
“Aren’t you mad at Lauren?” Katrin had asked afterward. “She lost you the game.”
“No,” her mother had replied with a small, private smile. “A loss belongs to all of us. Just like a win belongs to all of us. No individual player wins or loses the game.”
Katrin hadn’t been sure at the time that she bought that, but as she’d grown older, she’d begun to see.
And now, she understood so clearly.
She stopped pacing, suddenly calm, collected. Certain that she knew what had to happen next.
Our lives are intertwined now. A victory belongs to both of us. So does a loss.
She slipped her room key in her pocket and headed for the door.
So let’s make sure it’s a victory.
###
Pistol dismounted in a cul-de-sac. He vaguely recognized the street from his smoking hot afternoon with Peggy-Patty a couple of years back. He walked quickly past her house, then slowed as he approached the next home, several yards away.
Leonard Smith’s house didn’t particularly look like the home of a criminal mastermind. Or the house of a man who’s gotten rich off the drug trade. It was one story, stucco, almost quaint. He tried to imagine the nights Katrin had spent here, waiting anxiously for her wedding day. Had she tried to get out of it? Begged her father? Packed a bag and fantasized about running away?
He remembered the tenderness in her eyes as she’d told him she loved him. How crazy was it that she could have gone from a virtual stranger to someone he couldn’t live without?
He made his way around the side of the house, holding the semi-automatic close to his body. The front windows all had their blinds down. A movement in that backyard caught his eye. Pressing against the house, he crept around until he could peer around the stucco wall and into the backyard.
The yard was privacy hedged with an array of desert-faring shrubs. There were hardly any neighbors anyway — the nearest was an adjacent lot a few hundred yards away. Occupants would have had a hard time seeing anything going on here.
This house had been selected for privacy. To keep its occupants in, and others out.
And yet … Katrin had made friends with Peggy-Patty after only a day in town. She hadn’t let privacy landscaping stop her, hadn’t let her father’s words of warning that the world was a cold, dark place, keep her from making friends. Her bright spirit shone through any attempt to keep her imprisoned. He felt a pang of tenderness as he pictured her.
Hold on, Katrin. This is almost over.
He crept around the corner, searching for the source of the motion he’d seen moments ago. He finally spotted the action, around the other side of the deck, by the attached garage.
Ford, Kong, Viking, Jackson, and Rhino were all tied to the deck chairs and gagged with strips of cloth. They looked like they’d been beaten to within an inch of their lives. Pistol’s gut clenched, and rage blazed through him at the sight of Ford’s bloody clothes, Kong’s swollen, purple eye socket.
This wasdefinitely bait. How purely stupid was it to leave the hostages outside, apparently unsupervised? The only reason Smith would have done that was because he was putting them on display for Pistol. But the fact that these five were alive filled Pistol with a massive gratitude.
He wanted to go right to them. Free them and gun down anyone who tried to get in his way. But that was probably the kind of recklessness Kong had always cautioned against. He needed to find out who was in the house.
He crept around to the front. A couple of goons were sitting out on the porch, in the fucking rocking chairs, with assault rifles.
Only in Texas could you sit on your front porch with AK-47s and attract zero attention. All right, these two were gonna have to go. But taking them out meant announcing his presence, and he wasn’t sure whether that was wise.
Here’s the thing about recklessness. Sometimes it’s the only option. Make a big enough racket, and maybe they won’t know it’s just li’l ol’ you. Maybe they’ll think Judgement Day is actually here.
He grabbed a grenade from his pocket.
Here goes nothing.
He pulled the pin, threw it onto the porch, and scrambled backward. It took a few seconds, but then the guards started shouting and clamoring, yelling at each other tokick it away, kick it away…
Pistol decided to put them out of their misery and shot them both just before the grenade went off.
Mm. Felt good to have a gun again.
The explosion wasn’t enough to bring the house down, or anything, but it blew out the front windows and made some impressive noise. And judging by the shouts from inside, had created a considerable amount of chaos. Footsteps thundered, crunching over glass. Someone threw open the front door. Pistol took them out. “Sorry about that,” he said
mock-politely to the dead goon, stepping onto the porch.
Then he stepped over the pile of corpses, and walked inside.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Katrin would really have preferred to hitchhike with a woman driver. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Out of the corner of her eye, she surreptitiously studied the bearded, Ducky Dynasty castoff who’d pulled his pickup over in response to her outstretched thumb. So far, he hadn’t tried to hit on her, which was good. But he was a talker. He’d already told her all about his job installing car radios, his sick cat, and his dream of becoming a crime writer.
“—gonna clean up that carnage!” the man, Darren, was saying now. He coughed a little, rubbing the potbelly half covered by a stained Texas A&M shirt.
“What’s that?” Katrin asked, immediately alert.
“Girl, don’t tell me you ain’t heard!” He slapped the wheel. “You ain’t got a TV? Ain’t watched the news? What?”
“Uh, yeah, actually, I don’t have a TV.” she said, heart beating fast. “What happened?”
“I was saying, they found a body out in the desert last night. It had been dragged off by coyotes, but what was left of it was filled with bullet holes. And they think there’s more where that came from. Some kinda gang shootout, they think.”
“Oh my,” Katrin said, not quite able to feign surprise. “Do they know who’s involved?”
“Oh, they got their suspicions.” He wiped his brow. “You heard about these motorcycle gangs around here? Rialto’s full of ‘em. Bunch of ’em across the border too. Big gangs of tattooed guys on bikes.”
“Mm. I’ve heard about it.”
He busted up laughing. “Don’t seem like the crowd you run with, huh?”
You have no idea.
“You just gotta stay out of their way,” Darren said. “They’re pretty live and let live, from what I understand, but you don’t wanna cross them.”
No shit.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Katrin said drily.
They were approaching Pete’s Goods. Katrin glanced at it as they passed, wondering if Rex was in there. If Rex was still helping her dad with the drug business, or if her dad had decided Rex was expendable, just like all of Pistol’s brothers. How many people had her father killed, or ordered killed? Katrin couldn’t bear to think about it.
Am I ready? To see him again? To help get rid of him once and for all.
Her gut roiled slightly, but for the most part, she was calm.
They crossed the town, Darren still going on about gangs. When they reached the sparsely populated area on the outskirts near her dad’s house, she said to Darren, “You can let me out here.”
“Out here? Ain’t nothin’ out here!” He chuckled, scratching his belly again. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“You live somewhere around here?”
“Not exactly.” The truck had slowed to a stop. She opened the door and hopped out. “Thank you, Darren. You’ve been a huge help.”
Darren gazed at her like he couldn’t quite figure her out. “All right, young lady. You stay out of trouble.”
“Will do.” She shoved the truck door shut. Daryl waved in the rearview as he pulled away.
Katrin straightened her jacket.
All right. Time to fight.
She started walking.
###
Pistol charged through the mess and the rubble, gun raised. He took out a couple more goons, who were flapping around like headless chickens, trying to figure out who’d just tried to blow up the fucking house. One of them was Diaz — ah, poor Diaz. Pistol hurried on through the house, searching for Smith.
He was almost too startled to react when he rounded the corner into the kitchen and saw Leonard limping across the decimated tile. Leonard turned and tried to fire at Pistol, but Pistol was faster, firing round after round at Smith. Smith ducked behind the counter, popping up every few seconds like a damn whack-a-mole to take a shot. Pistol charged at the counter, in no mood to play games.
But as he reached Smith’s hiding place, something crashed hard into his shin, nearly bringing him down on one knee. Smith had thrown a fucking glass mixing bowl at him. The Pyrex was heavy as shit, and his shin blazed with pain. Smith used that moment to race out from behind the counter — faster than Pistol would have thought possible for an old guy, and bolt out the back door.
Shit. The hostages.
Pistol stumbled forward, bursting out the back door after Smith. He had his gun level, ready to blow a hundred holes right through that fucker’s head … when he saw Smith standing with his pistol pressed to Kong’s temple.
“Drop the gun, Jax,” Smith said smoothly.
Pistol hesitated.
“Let’s not go through all this again.” Smith smiled almost sadly. “Surely you remember what happened last time you found yourself in a similar predicament? With … who was it, your friend Deion?”
Rage flared in Pistol at the mention of Deion.
Smith pinched the end of his tongue between his teeth. “You ended up doing exactly as I said, like a good boy, because you knew how dire the consequences would be if you didn’t.”
Pistol didn’t lower his gun. “I’m through playing your game. This ends now, you asshole.”
“Yes, I suppose it does. You see, I’m about to put an end to the Blackened Souls once and for all.” He jabbed the muzzle of his pistol hard against Kong’s temple.
Kong grunted, but made no move to look at either Pistol or Leonard.
“That’s your super villain plan? First it was to marry your daughter off to a stranger, then it was to kill everyone in my club… Make up your mind.”
Leonard’s grin grew broader. ‘Plan is such a strange word. Did you know it comes from the Frenchplant, meaning, plane surface? Referring to blueprints. A surface to build upon.”
“I didn’t. Thank you, Professor Nutjob.”
“Ah, now. No need for name-calling.” He glanced at Pistol’s weapon. “It really is time to put the gun down, Jax.” He cocked the pistol. “Unless you’d like your president to go the way of your friend. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame you if you let it happen. After all, wasn’t it this gentleman who sent your brothers to their deaths two nights ago? Some president, hmm?”
The words hit a nerve.
Kong looked directly at Pistol and shook his head, his meaning clear:Don’t give in. Let him kill me.
Smith slammed the butt of the pistol into the back of Kong’s head. “No phone a friend here,” Smith said to him. “Pistol makes his own choices. Your fate rests in his hands.”
Pistol clenched his jaw.
No pressure, huh?
The other Souls were shifting nervously. But no more goons were in sight, so either Pistol had killed them all, or they were showing some surprising strategic abilities and waiting for the right moment to spring.
He met Kong’s gaze again. Jesus. Shit. No matter what the guy had done, Pistol couldn’t let him be killed. He was still Pistol’s mentor. Still the guy who’d picked Pistol up in San Antonio and given him a second chance.
Pistol slowly lowered his semi-auto into the dirt. Still had the pistol tucked in the back of his pants. Leonard didn’t seem to have figured that out yet. He’d wait for his moment.
“You know, I actually trynotto plan,” Leonard went on. “I much prefer to seize opportunities as they come. Like you, Pistol. Such a fortunate opportunity, when you caught my daughter’s eye. Just when I was looking for someone to take her off my hands.”
“Yeah, that worked out well, huh?”
“Oh, amazingly well. You see, I never cared about a grandchild, or getting to dab my eyes with a hankie at my daughter’s wedding. What I needed was her out of the way.”
Well, that was kind of a surprise. Katrin had made it sound like her dad was baby-crazy. Literally. Pistol consoled himself with the thought that he’d make sure this man didn’t live to see his grandchild. “Jeez, why not just let her go to school. Wouldn’t
that have been easier? Or, let me guess, not as much opportunity to pull your patriarchal, borderline-incest bullshit with her?”
Leonard’s eyes blazed for a second. Fuck. Pistol’s mouth always got him in trouble. Ah well. It felt good to speak truth to Smith.
Leonard began to speak more quickly, biting off his words. “I never intended to let your little brotherhood live for long. But I needed to secure my place in the business here, and you all were useful for a little while. Now you’ve become disposable.”