“What the fuck?” Connor asked.
“Hey—we’re beefing with the Rats. I thought they could come in handy. And I was right.”
“Okay. Let’s get this shit done. Lock and load, brothers.”
Demon grabbed gear, wondering if tonight was the night he lost everything he’d only just gotten his fingers around. As he fitted a Kevlar vest over his shoulders, he was struck by a memory of a night not all that different from this one—an ambush, a retaliation—a night that even included Muse lying at his feet.
If the result of this night was the same, then he was about to lose it all.
memory
Demon and Muse sat astride their bikes outside a derelict warehouse, waiting and on alert. They’d been sent out early to make sure the place was secure. And it was—they were out in the middle of fucking nowhere, outside Demopolis, Alabama. Nobody around for miles. As much a danger as an advantage, depending on how the meet went.
Demon hated being so far east. It was dumb; there wasn’t much about California he could really call home, but he felt like his cord was played out too far once he crossed the Mississippi. And the South was just…different from anywhere else. It was closed off somehow, and made him feel wary.
He knew Muse felt it, too, though they hadn’t talked about it. He was normally just steady, all the time, but on this job he was twitchy, checking over his shoulder far more often than was warranted.
Near dusk, the rumble of Harleys came up behind them, and the contingent from the Alabama charter—Jester, the President; Howie, VP; Tug, SAA, and a couple of soldiers—rolled up behind them. Muse and Demon dismounted and walked toward the men parking their bikes.
Jester set his helmet on his bike. “They ain’t here yet?”
“No, Prez,” Muse answered. “No sign. Place is clear for miles—no good ambush positions unless they got a sharpshooter. That rise to the north”—he pointed—“would be the only place we don’t see ‘em coming.”
Jester looked to the north, squinting. “Alright. If these shitheads show, I’ll leave Rigger and Marcus out here with Demon. Muse, I want you inside with us. Hang back, peel your eyes. Fuckin’ hate cleaning up after el Jefe.”
Jester’s sneer surprised Demon, and he cast a quick, sidelong look at Muse, and saw surprise there, too—only a tension to his eyes that most would miss. But Demon and Muse had spent practically every second of their lives together, with a couple of protracted exceptions, for years now, and Demon knew him about as well as he could be known.
Jester and Sam, the mother charter President, went way back, and Jester could always have been counted on to back Sam’s play. Hearing him grouse and call Sam el Jefe, the nickname of the Perro head, gave Demon an ill feeling about the whole job.
Muse and he had talked over a few meals about the way the club’s dealings with the Perro Blanco cartel were starting to break down. The risk was growing; cartel men were showing up to supposedly friendly meets armed to their ears, and the work was coming almost too quickly to move under the radar. But money was moving more slowly, at least outward from the mother charter in Jacksonville, Florida. Greater risk and slower reward was not a sustainable model, especially not in a club of this size. Too many Presidents who held the loyalty of their own tables. If Sam was working an angle of his own with the cartel, things would go to shit sooner or later. Maybe sooner.
Demon wasn’t much of a thinker when it came to club business—he wasn’t a moron, but he wasn’t interested in details. He knew his job in the club was to be a blunt instrument, meant to make an impact, so he waited until someone wielded him. As a Nomad, he didn’t have a home table, and was only accorded a vote at the tables he sat at maybe half the time. He tended to turn inward during table discussions and just wait to be told what to do.
Thus it had been a while before he’d noticed things getting out of true in the club. When he brought it up with Muse, they’d talked it out, but in the way of men who knew their loyalty and weren’t comfortable looking for its limits. They’d decided to be wary and let things play out.
They didn’t know much about this job except their part in it. Jester and his crew were meeting with some other Perro associates and handing off a reparation payment from Sam. Why Alabama had the reins on this, and why Demon and Muse had been called in—those were things Demon didn’t need to know. He needed to know where to point his gun or swing his fist. And now he did.
He didn’t like that Muse was going in and two Alabama patches were on watch with him. Besides the irregularity, Demon didn’t like these guys. Alabama was one of those charters Demon preferred to avoid, where the women all looked frail and frightened, a few of them looked too fucking young, and just about anything was fair game. Last night they’d had a girl face-first over the back of a couch, taking turns. She’d been passed out.
Demon had had to leave. He had no standing to protest what Jester condoned—as Muse, with his hand clamped hard on his shoulder, had reminded him—but it made him sick, so he’d spent most of the night riding around rural Alabama. Muse had looked disgusted, too, but he’d grabbed one of the healthier girls and made himself scarce upstairs in the private rooms.
When the Perro associates showed—Demon was shocked to see that they were skinheads, showing the colors of the White Guardians—rolling up in two big, blacked-out pickups with camper tops over their beds, Demon stepped back, his hands loose and ready to draw, and kept his eyes wide to take in the whole scene.
The men going inside gave up their weapons. The guards outside were allowed to stay armed. They all went in, and Demon waited, giving his Alabama brothers, and the three skinheads the WG had left outside, as much space as he could.
It all went to hell within minutes. A commotion erupted inside the warehouse, and before Demon could react, the back of the nearest pickup flew open, and two men with AKs jumped to the ground, firing. Paying no mind at all to Rigger or Marcus, Demon leapt around the corner of the rickety building and fired his Glock, taking one of the AK wielders down with a bullet to the head. He peered around the corner again, and saw Rigger fall. He shot the skinhead who got him, and then the warehouse doors flew open and the rest of the WG tore out toward the pickups. The two WG gunman still standing threw down cover fire and jumped into the back of the moving pickup, leaving the bodies of their dead behind.
Demon was inside the warehouse ahead of Marcus. Muse was down, face-first on the ground, blood forming a wide pool on the floor around him, the back of his kutte slashed open. But he was awake and trying to move. Howie was down, too, slashed in the throat. He was gone. Tug was on the floor at his side, pressing down on the wound, but it was too late. Demon could see it from where he stood.
Jester stood in the middle of it all, looking shocked and furious.
Demon went to his knees at Muse’s side, but Muse pushed him off. “He opened me up, but I think everything works.” He cast his eyes up to Demon’s face. “Fuck, Deme. Don’t lose your shit here. Count beats, kid. Hold it together.”
At that moment, Jester said, “Demon. I want those bastards.”
Thus wielded, Demon stood and went out to his bike, picking up the dropped AK on the way. He rode out, on the only road around, in the direction the pickups had gone. Straight toward town.
The rifle on his back, he rode fast, and he caught up, firing his Glock true and sending the rear truck into the forward one, disabling them both. Swinging the rifle forward, he ended them all on the side of the road, in sight of the Demopolis town line.
He never would remember it all. He’d never had a chance to count beats. He was back at the clubhouse before he realized that he was covered in blood. Muse’s, he supposed. He went to check on him, stitched up and passed out face down on a club bed, before he bothered to wash.
But he had been seen. By the end of the next day, sitting in county lockup, he knew that much.
~oOo~
Demon picked up the phone on his side of the glass. “Hey, brother. You look good.”
/>
Muse smiled. “Not riding yet, but I’m mending up. How’re you hanging in?”
He shrugged. “Did it before, and I always knew I’d do it again. Just a place to be.” He actually hated being locked up, but he hadn’t exactly lied. He understood the institutional life. The worst threat to him inside was his own head.
He was facing multiple life sentences. A witness had identified his bike, and then him, at the scene of the murder of six members of the White Guardians. They had little evidence other than that witness, but they were protecting the shit out of him.
Deemed a dangerous inmate, he was being held without bail and housed in prison instead of jail while he awaited trial. He had no intention of going to trial. He’d cop to the charges before lawyers starting digging into the club to prepare for a trial, but the club wanted time to get him out free and clear. To find that witness.
“You make any friends?”
Demon knew Muse was asking if he had done what was required to garner protection by the Perros, because the White Guardians wanted his head. He had. What was another murder rap on top of what he was already facing? But he hadn’t been caught on that one. “I did. Not sitting alone in the mess anymore.”
“Good, good. We’re looking for new friends, too. Maybe somebody you’ve met.”
Demon nodded. He hated this obscure talk, always being hyper aware of every damn syllable because people were recording and listening. He just wanted news. He’d already been in two months, and he was fucking lonely. He just wanted to sit in a diner with Muse and shoot the shit.
He needed something to occupy his mind, something that didn’t have to do with whether he would spend the rest of his life in a cage. Because when he turned his mind from that, all that was left was Faith.
He hadn’t seen or heard from her in years, but a whole chunk of his mind was devoted to his memories and feelings of her. He jacked off, feeling abysmally guilty, to his few memories of being inside her. The longer he was away from anything remotely like a life, the bigger the ‘Faith’ part of his head became. It wouldn’t be long before he was consumed by her. Then, he knew he’d go mad, locked away and eaten alive by memory.
~oOo~
Muse and Tug were waiting outside the out-processing center. Tug had a van, with an empty trailer hooked up. Muse was sitting astride his Knuckle. Next to him was Demon’s chopper, his kutte lying across the saddle.
They’d cut it fucking close. Almost seven months inside. Demon had given his lawyer the go-ahead to prepare a guilty plea and stave off a trial, when the witness had disappeared and the case had fallen apart.
Grinning, Muse dismounted and grabbed Demon’s kutte, then came forward, with a slight hitch yet in his gait. They embraced, and Muse held out the kutte for Demon to slide on.
“You want to go back with Tug, grab some pussy?”
Demon didn’t answer. Alabama club pussy wasn’t his thing, no matter how long he’d gone without. He wasn’t dragged through life by his dick like some of his brothers were.
“Or there’s a job in South Dakota.”
That was more like it. He grinned. “Good one?”
“Good bank. A little exercise.”
‘Exercise’ was what they called it when there was somebody to hurt. He nodded. “Let’s ride.”
He was free. And as long as the kutte was on his back, and Muse was at his side, he was home.
Close enough, anyway.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Faith. It’s Hoosier, darlin’.”
Faith unlocked the door. She was already dressed; she’d gotten up the second Michael had left the room, and she’d been pacing, straining her ears to try to make sense of the sounds she was hearing. It had been gunfire that had woken them up. Even if she hadn’t known it right away, Michael’s quick response would have made her sure of it.
Hoosier opened the door before she could, and he caught her up in a tight hug. She grabbed fistfuls of his t-shirt and held on. “Where’s Michael?”
“Shhh. No questions. We got company. You were sleepin’ alone back here, right? Don’t know anything. You remember the play?”
She had a million questions, but she also knew what he was saying. Law was here. Michael was not. Which most likely meant he was off responding to whatever had been done here. The thought made her sick with worry, but she nodded. “Right.”
“Okay. C’mon. Hold tight, darlin’. It’s gonna be okay.”
It was lucky that shock and horror were the appropriate responses to the scene in the Hall, because Faith was racked with both before her eyes and brain had even made complete sense of it all. The smell hit her first—the acrid, lingering tang of gunfire and the copper of blood, and the heavy, woodsy-sweet aroma of liquor. That smell, she made visual sense of first—the shelves behind the bar had been destroyed, and mingled liquor was still pooled on the floor, oozing from behind the bar.
The gunfire and blood made sense next. Black-bagged bodies were being carried out on stretchers. Faith counted four bags, but there could have been more. Four dead, and more injured. The Hall was full of EMTs, and Faith saw Michael’s friend, Muse, being rolled out, his old lady following with him, trying to keep hold of his hand. Faith couldn’t remember her name.
She was struck, in the midst of this chaos, by the renewed realization that this was not her club. Most of the people she’d known were gone. Looking around the room, she couldn’t even be sure who was a member and who was a civilian.
A female deputy came up and began asking questions. Faith answered—her name, her address. She started to give her Venice Beach address, then caught herself and gave her mother’s instead, feeling a sharp pang of loss and nostalgia for her old life. The questions were brief; she said that she had been sleeping, saw nothing, knew nothing, knew of no enemies. All of that was actually true. The only lie she told was that she had been sleeping alone.
Handed a card and freed from the deputy, Faith went looking for Bibi. If Hoosier was still here, then Bibi probably was, too. Tucker was at Bart and Riley’s.
And that was another weird thing about this club. Their VP lived in a mansion and was married to Riley Chase. Another was married to a model—she’d been at the party earlier, and Faith had recognized her. That was crazy. The club she’d grown up in had had several celebrity clients at the bike shop, but they had not been hobnobbing with the rich and famous themselves.
Bibi was in the kitchen—not doing anything, just leaning against the counter, staring at the floor. When she saw Faith, she came forward, her arms out, and Faith tucked herself in for a hug.
“You okay, baby?”
“Yeah. Worried.”
“I know. We just have to wait. They won’t let me even make a fuckin’ pot of coffee. The whole clubhouse is a crime scene.”
“Did anyplace else get hit?”
“Hush, Faith. Not the time or place for questions.”
“But Tucker?”
Bibi leaned back and brushed Faith’s hair from her face. “He’s okay. We’re heading to Bart and Riley’s as soon as they let us out of here. Until then, we stay out of the way and wait.”
~oOo~
Bart and Riley lived in a big house deep in the foothills on the mountain edge of Madrone. Its architecture was traditional California Spanish—earthy stucco, red tile, arched doors and windows, heavy, rustic woodwork. The interior was wide and airy, with lots of two-story rooms and windows everywhere.
The décor was casual and accessible, not the chichi Architectural Digest ensembles Faith had been expecting. Most of the flooring was tile, but there were funky area rugs scattered throughout, and all the furniture and decorative objects were normal and kid friendly. And there were toys everywhere. Bart and Riley’s daughter, Lexi, was five, and their son, Ian, was three. With two-year-old Tucker, they were the only small children in the club. But their presence was huge in this house on this night, even while they slept. Just being surrounded by the evidence of their play lightened the somber mood as the
survivors of the attack on the clubhouse settled in to wait for the rest of the club.
J.R. and his wife, Veda, were there, too. The whole club was being pulled in for something like a lockdown here in this mansion.
Bart led the patches who were present into his study. Finally free to use a kitchen, Bibi gathered up the old ladies and moved in on Riley’s expansive space. Riley herself sat down at her breakfast table, resting her hands on her huge belly. She really did look like she should have popped already.
Feeling the awkward unreality of walking up to a celebrity to have a little chat, Faith went over to Riley. “Can I get you anything?” That was weird, too—asking the woman of the house if she could get her anything from her own kitchen.
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