And speaking of shitheads … one of the guys across the street must feel my eyes on him because he meets my gaze, makes a show of checking out Ana and then salutes me with his beer. He’s big, about my height actually, and equally as ripped, but I reckon I could take him because he has about fifteen years on me. I can’t take him with his biker boyfriends standing around, though. Audience or not, they’d have me on my knees and crying for my mummy in seconds.
“You need to be wearing more clothes,” I gripe as I tug her zip up to the hollow between her collarbones.
“Alright, who are you and what’ve you done with my boyfriend? Because he seemed to lurrrrve my outfit earlier.”
“Baby girl, every man with eyes loves you in that outfit. That’s the problem. I’m gonna wind up behind bars defending your honour.”
Ana has some witty reply, but it’s lost on me on account of the group across the road. It’s grown in the time I’ve been distracted with her, and now there are six sets of eyes on us, and only four sets of those are unfamiliar.
Fuck!
My heart thunders inside my chest. For a moment, I’m frozen where I stand while I watch recognition set in. The two new additions know my face just as well as I know theirs, and several heartbeats pass in the time that I glance between their eyes and their Hell’s Angels patches. Patches I should have been wearing, and the lack of those patches will more than likely mean the end of me. My mind is running through an endless and really unhelpful cycle of ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck.
Ana lets out a delighted little squeal as a pair of drummers begin beating out a rhythm, and a troupe of belly dancers twirl and twist in front of us. I glance from the dancers to the bikers, and it’s as if our standoff suddenly shatters.
“Time to go,” I whisper and yank on her arm.
“But the parade hasn’t finished yet,” she protests, but hurries along behind me anyway.
My bike’s parked down the road and around the corner, but we’ll never make it there without being seen by the group that’s pursuing us, and I know without having to look behind me that they’re pursuing us. I know because I can hear the protests from the crowd and the parade affiliates as the guys cross the road to come after us.
“Oh my god, are you seeing this? Those guys just—”
“Ana.” I grab hold of her shoulders and give a gentle shake her to get her attention. “Is there a back alley we can use to get back to the bike?”
“What? It’s just around—”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes. Elijah, what’s going on?”
“I’m gonna need you to run.”
“What?”
I don’t take the time to explain, because if I did we’d both be dead. Instead, I yank her along with me and we take off running, pushing past the throng of people. I gotta hand it to her; she may be the only woman I’ve met who can run in heels and still look fucking sexy doing it.
“This way,” she yells and we slip into an arcade that I wasn’t even aware had been there until we were running through it. We come out the other side into a dark alleyway; no street lights, no people. I don’t think they’ve followed us, but that doesn’t mean they won’t find the bike before we do. And, though the license plate was changed the minute I got out of prison, it’s still the same bike my grandfather handed down to me, and there really aren’t a lot of 1979 Moto Guzzi California’s in Australia.
I should have traded the thing in, or at least let her gather dust in storage for a few years. Instead, my simple decision to cling onto the one thing I truly loved from my past could cost us both our lives. And maybe I even deserve to go out like a rat, to be strung up by the balls and beaten bloody, but Ana sure as shit doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near that.
We come tearing out of the alleyway into the empty street. We’re alone. For now.
“What the hell was that all about?” Ana’s standing beside me with her helmet in her hands, but she’s not moving.
“Put on your helmet,” I command and find my patience stretched to its breaking point when she stands there demanding an answer. “Ana, put on your god damn helmet and get on the fucking bike!”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Elijah?”
“Ana, baby girl, if you don’t get on this bike right now, you’re going to get us both killed,” I plead, and my fear must finally resonate with her because she hurriedly straps on her helmet and jumps on behind me. The engine roars to life and I twist the throttle and gun it down the road. We’re almost to the town limits when two single headlights appear in my side mirrors.
My head is pounding, my heart racing, veins running cold with fear. Not for what they’ll do to me. Sure, it’s gonna fucking hurt like a bitch, because that’s what we do to traitors. We take them apart, slowly. We poke and we prod and we strip them of their cuts and burn off their marks and we hurt the ones they love—not because we’re sadists, but because once you patch in, the club doesn’t just become your family, it becomes your whole fucking world. And once you fuck with a good thing that good thing fucks with you.
When it comes to taking someone’s old lady it’s never personal, it’s just the quickest way to rip out a man’s heart and force him to watch it beating in his hands. Even though I was merely just a prospect when my arse was carted off to prison, I grew up in the club. My dad is sergeant-at-arms, I’ve been privy to what goes on in those darkened rooms beneath the clubhouse countless times and I’ll be dead before I let Ana see the inside of them.
I shout to Ana to hold on and thrust the throttle all the way. The bike shudders and lurches forward. I check the speedo and feel a weird swell of pride that my little baby’s still got some kick in her. I can feel the tension in Ana’s grip around my waist and for once I’m thankful for the fact that we can’t communicate freely on the bike, because I know she’s dying for answers that I’m still not ready to give her.
The headlights in my side mirrors are rapidly gaining on us and fear has my balls disappearing inside me. I should have left Ana behind, somewhere she’d be safe until Bob or Holly could come get her. Instead, she’s holding tight to my waist and my stupid decisions will more than likely get her killed.
Ana points to a turn-off up ahead and I slow the bike just enough to take the corner without gutting the underbelly. Once we’re flying down the straight I breathe a bit easier because my vision isn’t hindered like it was in the winding hills outside of Lismore. I can see exactly what lies ahead of us, and at the moment it’s nothing but cattle fields and straight bitumen. The relief is short lived, though, because I’m already pushing the bike as far as she’ll go and the two Harleys are no longer in my rear view. Instead, they slide up beside us playing some kind of fucked up game of pong where we’re the ball, caught dead in the middle, drifting back and forth across the road between them.
“Pull over!” one of them yells above the roar of our engines.
I shake my head at the Angels’ VP, Rocker—nicknamed that because he’s completely off his—a man who scared the shit outta me as a kid and still does. “Fuck you!”
“Come on, Moose,” Kickstand says—yeah, you guessed it, his road name came from the fact that he forgot to put his kickstand up while taking off in front of a bunch of über hot girls one day. And mine? Well, it’s kinda self-explanatory.
Kick and I were close, both made prospect at the same time. We’re both the same age, and both came when the club called because we’d never known any other family than the one our dad’s had indoctrinated us into. I glance at his cut and realise he’s now a fully patched in member, which is exactly what I would have been if I hadn’t taken the fall for him and been ordered to run. “We just wanna talk, man.”
“Got nothin’ to say!” I shout back and give the throttle one more sharp twist, praying like hell she’ll pick up speed and not die under us. Ana has a death grip on my waist, and I wish I could say something to comfort her but my energies are better focused on getting us the fuck out of here. Up ahead there’s
a crossroads, and though I know it’s ridiculous to think we might get away from our tail all I can focus on is it. If we can somehow get ahead of them, it might not be hard to lose them along the road between here and Sugartown.
If I thought heading in the direction of the nearest police station would help, I would, just to keep Ana safe, but I’m not fool enough to believe the badges would make even the slightest bit of difference. After all, you can’t hide out at a station forever.
As we approach the crossroads I don’t slow like I should. Instead I quickly pat Ana’s arm so that she knows to hold on tighter and attempt to take the corner at holy-fuck-high-speed when, from out of nowhere, some arsehole with no headlight decides on a game of motorcycle chicken. I almost didn’t see him, but as I swing hard to the left and the bike slides along the gravel shoulder I realise that that was the point.
Ana and I are airborne in seconds, and I reach out a hand to grab her but she’s so much smaller than me so she flips in the air through two full revolutions before landing hard on her side in the gravel. Fuck. I hit the ground before her, but there’s much more to me than skin and bone, so I’m probably hurting a lot less than she is right now. My leg’s torn up pretty badly and there’s blood pouring from my head. A single tooth rattles around in my mouth and I spit it onto the ground with a wad of blood and dust. I unstrap my helmet to make sure there are no more teeth dancing around inside my mouth that might choke me.
“Ana?” I yell, as I attempt to climb to my feet but settle instead for crawling my way toward her because my leg won’t take the weight. Dazed, she rolls toward me. There’s a small cut on her forehead that’s bleeding like a bitch. She’s clutching her arm to her chest and there’s a patch on her upper arm where the gravel ate through her jacket and sliced up her bicep like a cheese grater.
“I’m okay,” she mumbles and then lets out a scream. That’s when I feel the foot in my back pressing me down against the asphalt. Someone cocks a gun and shoves it into the back of my neck.
“Don’t move, motherfucker.”
“Hey, Rocker, ease up, okay? It’s Ethan.”
“Ease up? Prez wants this fucker’s head on a platter and you want me, his VP, to ease up?” he punctuates each word with jab of his gun into the back of my head. “He fucking sold us out, Kick. He’s a rat!”
He spits beside me. I glance over at Ana, who’s being forced onto her stomach as I lie here, helpless to do anything but watch. I don’t know the man holding her down but I could tear him apart with my bare fucking hands for the way he’s touching her arse as he pats her down for a weapon. He’s wearing a cut with a Wolf on it. Not an Angel, then, I think, relieved, but I know with certainty he’s the guy who was standing outside the bar, watching, just a half hour ago. Which means whoever these Wolves are, they’re running either drugs or guns with the Angels.
Fuck! We are so fucking screwed.
“Get up.” Rocker hauls me to my feet, his gun now thrust up under my chin. “We been lookin’ for you a long time, boy.”
“Been runnin’ a long time.”
“You been shackin’ up with this pretty bit of pussy, here? You always could pick ’em, Son.” He whistles low as the guy holding her to the ground slides his hand over her arse and then dips it down between her jean-clad legs. Ana lets out a startled cry and tries to go completely still, but she’s shaking so hard I know she’s in shock.
“Touch her again and I’ll rip your fucking face off!” I sneer at him.
He just laughs and yanks her to her feet by her pony tail. He unbuckles her helmet and throws it to the ground and the pinches her cheeks together, titling her head this way and that to get a better look at her face. Then he looks at me with a shit-eating grin. “You mean like this?”
He tugs her zip down so her jacket falls open, exposing her big beautiful tits and turns to face her. He reaches out a hand that she flinches away from, but he grabs her arm and yanks her hard towards him before burying his face in her chest. “Don’t worry, baby, Maggot’s gonna take real good care of ya.”
Ana struggles in his grasp. She’s crying, hard, great wracking sobs that rattle her little frame. Her eyes meet mine and the pleading in them twists my gut until it feels like I’m coming apart. I try and lunge toward the bastard whose hands are mauling my woman from tits to arse but Rocker yanks me back into reality by cocking the gun under my jaw.
“Uh-uh-uh.”
“Leave her alone. Your beef is with me, not her. Let her walk and you can deliver my head to the prez yourself. I won’t fight, just let her go.”
Maggot pops open the button on Ana’s jeans. She struggles and lashes out with her injured arm, and she manages to get in a few solid hits to his chest and face before he pulls the gun from his waistband and pushes it to her temple. “Hold still, bitch. I can just as easily get in your pants with a bullet in your brain.”
“Rock, are we sure about this? This is Ethan, man, the only person other than Tiny you trusted enough to fuckin’ glance in the direction of your bike, much less fix it.” Kick, who’s been awfully fucking quiet this whole time, steps into my peripheral.
“He ain’t Ethan, he’s a motherfucking rat!”
“We don’t know that for sure. Till now, no one’s seen the bastard since he was released.”
“Been runnin’ like a rat, hasn’t he? What does that tell ’ya?”
“I didn’t sell out the club. I got out on good behaviour. Saved a cop from being shanked in the middle of riot. Part of my conditions of release was to put the club behind me. That’s why I’ve been running, I can’t go back in or I’m toast.”
“Bull-fucking-shit!” He nods in Maggot’s direction.
Maggot pulls Ana into him so that his chest is against her back. One hand cradles the gun against her head and the other slips inside her jeans. “Bitch is fucking wet,” he slides his hand further into her pants and, from the way she cries out in pain, I know his fingers are inside her. “You got some kinda rape fantasy, bitch? ‘Cause I am totally fucking down with that.”
I see fucking red. No word of a lie, everything is tainted with the swell of rage inside me. I jam my foot down on Rocker’s instep. He cusses and loosens his grip on me. I drive my elbow back into his face with a solid hit to the nose and I feel him drop like a tonne of bricks. I don’t have time to see how Kick’s going to deal with this situation—I must trust the bastard enough not to shoot me in the back, because he’s all but forgotten as I scoop up Rocker’s gun and aim it at Maggot as I run toward them.
He has a kicking, screaming Ana bent over at the waist and he’s attempting to shove his dick inside her. I shoot him once in the hip and he drops to the ground with a scream. Then I fire off an entire round into his head and chest, screaming out the remainder of my rage when my bullets run out. Then I reach down into the mess of blood and bone and take his gun before firing more bullets into his dick.
Ana’s been stunned into silence. Her jeans are down around her ankles and she’s shaking so bad her tremors look like convulsions. I take a step towards her and she flinches.
“Baby girl—” I begin, but the sound of shots ringing out behind me forces me to remember we’re not alone. I spin around with the gun aimed and ready, but it’s just Kick staring back at me with a wide-eyed expression, his gun held aloft, his other hand held up in surrender. Rocker is still on the ground, only now he’s sporting two clean bullet wounds to the head.
I keep the gun aimed at his head and jerk my head toward his weapon. “Put it down!”
“Easy brother,” he says eyeing me nervously.
“I’m not your brother. Now, put the fucking gun down, Kick.”
“Yeah, okay.” He slowly eases the gun down to the ground and steps away.
“Back it up.” I keep my weapon firmly trained on his head and he slowly walks backward. I lean down, scoop up the gun, click on the safety and shove it in the back of my pants. “Down on your knees and place your hands behind your head.”
“Com
e on, Moose. I just killed a brother for you.” His voice catches on that last word and I can see him trembling as the truth in his words sink in. “I just killed my VP for you.”
“And I spent three years in prison for you, now we’re even.”
“What are you gonna do, Moose? Shoot me?”
“I’d rather not, but I don’t see another way around it.”
“I won’t breathe a word, brother, I swear it.”
“Don’t know if I’m willing to take that risk, Kick.”
“Come on, man, I just killed our fucking VP—”
“Your VP. I never made patch on account of me being behind bars.”
“You really think I’m gonna rat you out? If it gets out that I killed a brother me and everyone I’ve ever met is as good as fucking dead.”
“You gonna run instead?”
“You gonna let me?”
I shake my head. “You run and they’re gonna know you had something to do with it. The way I see it, you got only one option. Bandidos have a chapter in Byron Bay. Fake an ambush.”
“There’ll be retaliation.”
“Not my problem.”
“You’ll have to knock me around a little, otherwise they’d never believe it.”
“Oh, I’ll knock you around, alright. It’d be my pleasure.”
After checking on Ana—who is still shaken enough to let me help her get dressed and hold her in my arms for a moment before shrugging out of my grip and falling to her hands and knees to throw up—Kick and I work quickly to make the scene look like a set-up.
When it comes time to rough him up, I can feel Ana watching me like a hawk. I hate the fact that she’s seen what she has tonight. I hate that I completely lost control around her and gunned down a man not three feet from her side. But, most of all, I hate that she’s seen this side of me—the side that proves my degeneracy. I also hate that another man has had his fingers inside my woman, and that if I hadn’t acted quickly it could have been so, so much worse.
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