by Claire Adams
I was coming up on the clubhouse when I heard a commotion that set me on edge. There were voices raised in anger, and I could see smoke erupting from behind the walls of the house. I sped up and whizzed in through the open gates. All the boys were out, and everyone looked a little worse for the wear.
I jumped off my motorbike and ran up to Lonny, who was bleeding from the face. “What the fuck happened? Where the hell is the smoke coming from?”
“Those motherfuckers hijacked us,” Lonny said, turning around to face us. “They set fire to the garage, and when we came out to investigate, they attacked.”
“What… who?” I demanded furiously.
“The guys you always said was behind it,” Lonny said, clearly regretting ever having doubted me. “The Knights. We managed to knock one of them off his motorbike as they made their getaway.”
The boys came up around me, and I realized that everyone was a little scuffed up. I took a quick survey, and I felt my body grow cold.
“Someone’s missing—”
“Devon got shot in the arm,” Bones replied. “Red and Andy took him to the hospital. They had guns, and they caught us by surprise. We weren’t prepared for that.”
No one was addressing the one thing that was screaming over and over again in my head. “Where is Mila?” I nearly yelled.
All of the men refused to make eye contact with me. “They got her,” Lonny said when no one else spoke up. “They came for her… she came out with the rest of us when the fire started and…”
“Fuck!” I screamed.
“Devon got shot trying to save her…”
“Fuck!” I screamed again.
I turned around, found the closest thing I could punch, and sent my fist reeling into a thin tree that we were standing next to. I was breathing heavily, but I knew I couldn’t afford to lose it now. I turned back to the boys.
“You said you got one of them,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“He’s in the house,” Lonny told me. “Four of the boys are keeping a close watch on him. He got shot in the crossfire.”
“Take me to him,” I said, as I started walking towards the house.
They had him on the floor of the living room. Blood stained the floor around him, and I could see boot marks where the boys had stepped in it. The man was wearing a motorcycle jacket with the Knights’ colors emblazoned on the back. He was a heavyset man with a huge beard that covered half his face. He had an old scar across his face and several new ones on his arms.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the stomach. It had apparently missed all his major organs, however, because he was alert and looking around with uncertainty.
“Fuck you,” he answered back.
I kicked him in the leg, and he jerked and grunted in pain. I could tell that he was trying not to cry out in pain. He didn’t want to show weakness to any of us, and on another day, I might have had a grudging respect for that. But today, I just wanted to get the answers I needed and then kill him with my bare hands.
“You better loosen that jaw,” I said. “Or else you’re going to die a painful death.”
“I’m going to die anyway,” he spat at me.
“True,” I nodded, bending down to the ground so that I was at eye level with him. “But don’t underestimate the peace of a clean death. Too many people do.”
“Fuck you,” he said again.
I pushed my hand right into his gunshot wound and unable to hold it in, he screamed in agony. I pulled my hand away and punched him lightly in the face.
“Let’s try that again, shall we?” I said, with menace in my tone. “Tell me why you were sent here for Mila?”
“Why do you think?” he grunted at me. “She is his property, and you are a thief.”
“We don’t live in the age of slavery anymore motherfucker,” I shot back. “In any case… whom are you talking about?”
“Ghost.”
“Ghost?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Walter Black.”
“That’s not his name.”
“Then what is?”
“Ghost,” he repeated.
I punched him in the face again, and this time he didn’t even bother to right himself. He lay there on the floor spread eagled and panting with pain.
“Godwin sent you?” I demanded.
“No.”
“No?” I said. “You take your orders from Godwin?”
“I take my orders from Ghost.”
I frowned. “You’re wearing the Knights’ colors.”
“There’s a new second-in-command,” he replied.
“The second,” I said, under my breath. “That’s why no one had heard of him before now.What is he really after?” I asked.
“Fuck you,” he said again.
This time, I punched him so hard, his head fell back unconscious, and I knew he would bleed out and die within the hour.
“What should we do?” Lonny asked as they surrounded his body.
“Let him die,” I said, before walking out the door.
Chapter 28
Mila
My heart was racing. I could feel the panicked beat echoing in my eardrums, and there were moments that I actually thought I might go deaf from the sound. Calm down, I told myself. Fear is what’s getting the best of you, nothing else.
My hands were tied behind my back, and I was lying sideways in a fetal position on the ground of a moving vehicle. They had shoved me into the back of the van, and when I had tried to fight back, someone had grabbed me from behind, and another man had punched me in the face. I had lost my bearings for a second, and I felt as though consciousness was slipping away from me, but I willed myself to stay up.
The punch had taken the fight out of me, however, and that had given them time to tie up my hands and blindfold me. I could smell blood and felt a cool moisture near my forehead, and I knew I was bleeding. I didn’t feel pain though… not yet. There was just discomfort and fear for the moment.
I knew that there were at least three guys in the back of the vehicle with me. I could feel one by my legs and the other by my head. They smelt of blood too.
“Someone should call Ghost.”
“Fuck….”
“What?” someone else asked.
“We left Don behind.”
“We didn’t leave him behind. The Angels got him… there’s nothing we could do.”
“We could have gone back for him.”
“That would have put the rest of us at risk… not to mention we could have lost the girl.”
“They wouldn’t have been able to overpower us; they weren’t ready for us.”
“Then, how come they got one of our fucking men? And how come three of you are bleeding from various body parts?”
“Fuck…”
“At least we got his bitch.”
“But the leader… Zack wasn’t there.”
“Doesn’t matter… he’ll get the message.”
“Who was the one that jumped me? He seemed real eager to get the girl back.”
I felt my chest grow cold again… Devon. I remembered the moment he had lunged at the man who first grabbed me. He had almost managed to overpower him too, but that was when I heard the gunshot, and it felt like my insides had fallen right out of me.
Devon had dropped to the ground, and I hadn’t even been able to muster up a scream. My tongue went dry and even when I opened my mouth no sound had come out. When another man grabbed me and hurled me into the back of the van, I had barely put up a fight until after the doors had closed in on me, and I realized that I had to force myself to do something.
“Fuck knows… maybe he’s fucking her too.”
“Nah, he was the brother.”
“Makes sense… he nearly got her too.”
“I had it under control.”
“Bullshit, you were keeled over.”
“Setting fire to the garage was a genius idea.”
I wanted to sc
ream. That was how they had managed to draw everyone outside. They had snuck onto the grounds and set the garage on fire. It had smoked us all out of our separate corners. I had seen the plumes of smoke waft upwards to the sky from my window, and I had jumped to my feet and looked out my window. I hadn’t seen anything but the fire. The Knights had taken cover to make sure their attack had the element of surprise. I had run downstairs screaming “fire” and all the men had rushed outside with the intention of putting out what they thought was an accidental fire.
Lonny, Red, and Devon managed to put out the small fire easily enough with three extinguishers. The boys were just about to go inside and survey the damage to the bikes when Devon had frozen in place and cocked his head to the side.
“What was that?” he asked.
His body language told everyone something was not right. Before he could say another word, the Knights had attacked, and the world had turned on its head. Everything after had been chaos. There was confusion for a split second before the reality sank in. It took me only seconds before I realized who they were and what they had come for.
My initial instinct was to search for Walter, but he was nowhere in sight. He had sent henchmen for me. I wondered if that was a good thing or a bad one. My second instinct was to look for Zack, and I searched even though I knew he hadn’t come back from his ride yet. The fight broke out almost immediately, and I remembered shouting something… it was a warning, but I couldn’t remember what. Was it possible to suffer a concussion from a punch to the face? I wasn’t sure if I was concussed or just disoriented.
Stay calm, I kept repeating to myself. I had to maintain some level of control over myself. That was the only way I was going to be able to survive. A part of me registered that as frightened as I was, I still wasn’t as scared as I would have been months ago before my training with Zack.
A part of me felt as though I still had a shot at getting myself out of this situation. I had to rely on circumstance though, too. It wasn’t enough to just be skilled. I knew I would need a little luck as well. I stayed still and listened closely as the men continued to talk around me. It was obvious that the Angels had put up a better fight than they had been prepared for. None of them were happy about having left a man behind. I wondered if it was genuine brotherly concern, or if they were just worried about the secrets their man would share under duress.
“She’s got that whole sexy good girl thing going for her,” one of the men said, and I froze in response. “Maybe we could have our way with her before handing her over to Ghost.”
“Are you fucking nuts? He’ll kill you with his bare hands.”
“It’s not like he wants her back for keeps… He’s trying to prove a point, right?”
“That doesn’t fucking matter; you touch his woman before he does, and there’ll be hell to pay. Keep your hands to yourself.”
“Geez… it was a simple fucking question.”
“And you got your fucking answer. Now tell your cock to back down or risk losing it for good.”
“Fine… I’m going to have to visit Crystal again tonight.”
“That woman’s going to bleed you dry… try Bethany. She’s good too.”
“She’s too heavy for me… I like a skinny blond.”
“It’s like fucking a twig.”
“I like twigs.”
“Figures.”
“Both of you… shut the fuck up,” an authoritative voice from the front of the vehicle said commandingly.
I felt the van speed up a little and then make a sharp left turn. I had lost all sense of time. There were moments when it felt like we had been driving for hours. I knew that in reality, it was probably like fifteen, twenty minutes or so. I kept going over all the things I had learned in training over the past couple of months. I repeated them in my head until I felt some small measure of hope.
I knew that Zack would do everything in his power to make sure he found me. I knew he would have the Angels scouring the town to get me back in one piece. But that was not the point. He had taught me how to defend myself because he wanted to change my narrative. He had turned me from the victim to a fighter, and I’d be damned if I let Walter Black or Ghost or whatever his name was change me back into the victim.
I owed it to Zack to fight back, and I owed it to myself, too. I needed to prove to myself that I was capable of holding my own and protecting myself. Relying on other people to take care of you was never a long-term solution. You had to be able to handle your own shit.
“The Angels are going to hit back with all they’ve got.”
“That’s what Ghost is counting on.”
“We’ll be ready. We can take them on… no fucking problem.”
I would have loved to see who was talking just so that I could memorize their faces for later. I wanted to know who to track down. I wanted to know who to punish. My mind reeled back to that moment when the gunshot had splintered through the air like a screech that pierced the soul. I kept going back to the moment when Devon hit the ground, and my heart burned with pain.
He had to be all right, I told myself. He just had to. Life wouldn’t be that cruel to allow me to reconnect with my brother only to lose him for good. That couldn’t be how our stories ended. Devon was young; he had his whole life ahead of him, and I would never forgive myself if…
No, I wouldn’t let myself go there. There was no point concentrating on Devon’s fate now. I couldn’t change it and thinking about it would only impede my ability to get out of this mess. I needed to stay focused and alert. I needed to use my head and my instincts, and most of all I needed to remember all that training that had been drilled into me for months now.
I was going to do myself proud. I was going to do Zack and Devon proud. I was not going to be the victim anymore. I wasn’t going to wait around for anyone else to save me. I was going to fight like hell to get myself free… or die trying.
Chapter 29
Zack
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked, turning to Devon.
“Fuck yes,” Devon nodded. “They took my sister. This is not going to stand.”
“Your arm hasn’t fully recovered.”
“The bullet got the side of my arm,” he said. “I was just bleeding so much that everyone thought I’d actually been shot.”
“You did get shot,” I pointed out.
“It wasn’t that serious,” Devon replied. “My arms bandaged up, and it’s fully functioning.”
“Doesn’t mean you can fight.”
“That’s why I have my fucking gun,” he said impatiently. “Mila’s my sister, ok? And I’m the one who swore to protect her. I have to be there.”
“We’re not going to a fucking water park, Devon,” I said. “This is Godwin we’re dealing with. It could all go very wrong in a matter of seconds.”
“I’m fine,” Devon said stubbornly.
Sighing, I nodded. I was not here to mollycoddle anyone. Devon was a grown man, and if he wanted to risk it, then that was his choice. I just wanted to get there as soon as possible. We had got a tip-off that Godwin and some of his gang would be at a local watering hole that night, and we were planning on crashing the party.
I had brought Lonny, Bones, Red, Justin, Chris, and Devon with me. I didn’t want to appear as though I was threatening Godwin by bringing any more men, but it had to be at least seven guys in case things turned into a fight. We were all packing tonight, and I knew that Godwin would be caught unawares.
It was close to midnight when we showed up. We parked our bikes some distance away, and then we walked into the pub. There were about fifteen people there in total, including the bartender. There were three or four women in the corner with a couple of guys, and the rest were all Lucifer’s Knights. I counted eight. They had one up on us if it turned to a fight, but I was confident with those odds.
As I walked in, the sound died down a little as the place became aware of my presence and the implications it held. Two guys moved aside to r
eveal Godwin sitting at a table with a massive mug of beer in hand. He looked like some sort of don from a movie, but it didn’t intimidate me. He just looked like an old man trying to cling to what little power he had.
It crossed my mind that there was still a slight possibility he could be my father, but looking at him now, I realized Mom had been right the whole time. Biology didn’t matter. It was about the people who were there for you from the beginning, for better or worse.
“Zack,” Godwin said, eyeing me with a smile on his face. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“I came to talk to you,” I said as I walked up to him.
His boys flanked him on either side, and I saw them tense as I approached. Apparently, they were scared I was going to kill their leader right in front of them.
“Calm down,” I said. “I’m just here to talk.”
“Well then… Please, sit down.”
“I’ll stand,” I said.
I felt my boys just behind me. Devon stood by my right shoulder, and I could see that he was casing the joint… just in case. We had been in worse scrapes than this, but the stakes had never been higher. Godwin currently held Mila, and I wasn’t willing to do anything to risk her life. Making an attempt on him now would be plain stupid. If he held Mila and I managed to hurt him in any way, her life was forfeit.
“Ok, Zack,” Godwin said, keeping the fake smile on his face. “What do you want to talk to me about?”
“A group of your men came after one of my own.”
I saw surprise flit across his face, and I wondered if he was simply a really good actor. “Did they now?”
“One of your men died on my territory.”
“Did he have a name?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Then how can I be sure he was one of my men?” Godwin asked with a shrug.
Right on cue, Red threw the bloody jacket we had in our possession on the floor between the two groups of men.
“Those are your colors, am I right?” I asked.
Godwin eyed the jacket with distaste. “They are my colors.”
“Then I would say that’s proof enough,” I said. “A bunch of your men attacked my home.”