Cole

by Trent Jordan

  It worked. And next thing I knew, the door was sliding open.

  I felt... touched was not the right word, but I felt something knowing that my father had chosen my birth year as the code. I knew he’d never bluffed his way into caring about me, but there was something about knowing even in privacy…

  I stepped out and continued to hear gunfire.

  “Hey!” I shouted, but it was drowned out by gunfire. I had to get... I had to get closer to the action to drag the Saints in to safety. I went to the main atrium just as... as Lane appeared in the doorway, rifle cocked.

  “Cole! We’re coming in!”

  I raised my hand.

  “Stop!”

  Lane hesitated for a second. I could hear men moving behind me. I turned around.

  “Don’t, don’t—”

  And then the gunfire erupted all around me. Something struck my shoulder. It burned.

  I collapsed to the ground.

  I began to feel lightheaded.

  I began... I began to feel…

  “Lilly!” a familiar voice shouted from far away. “I’m coming!”

  Nothing…

  Cole

  Fifteen Minutes Earlier

  Lane and I sat on our bike, sitting behind a cadre of bikers led by Butch, Patriot, Phoenix, and Axle. About two dozen in total, they would roll out first, heading to the Fallen Saints’ clubhouse, tasked with making sure no one lived and no weapons, ammo, or ingredients for a DIY weapon remained. It was to be a savage, brutal, complete annihilation of the enemy that had haunted us for so long.

  If someone surrendered, we would accept it, but if history was any indication, there would be no surrender. The clubhouse would all but have a new paint job of the color blood red. It would be vicious, savage, and thorough.

  It would be what was needed to avenge our father, Shannon, Red Raven, Father Marcellus, and all of the other fallen members and friends of the Reapers.

  “Gentlemen!” Lane said. “Go at it. Do your job.”

  Axle nodded. He waved everyone forward, and like a military unit comprised of dozens of soldiers, marching and advancing as one, all of the bikes revved to life, moving as a hive, led by the Black Reapers’ VP and one of the most grizzled combat veterans. It was a sight to behold, Gray and Black Reapers coming together as one.

  As soon as they had left the compound, I turned to Lane.

  “Ready?” I said.

  “Let’s do this,” he said. “Strategy one more time?”

  I nodded.

  “You are going to take about two-thirds of the crew and attack his house head-on, creating a sort of blunt-force distraction,” I said. “I’ll take a few of these guys and come in from the side, trying to storm the place like special forces.”

  “Works for me,” Lane said. “Besides, I need to add another head-on attack to my resume. It’s something I’m getting used to.”

  “Just make sure it’s not the last line on your resume,” I said.

  “Please,” he said. “You think I’d buy a ring for Angela and die now?”

  Wait, what?

  “You’re seri—”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” he said, but he had a guilty smile on his face. “We all got something to live for!”

  He revved his bike to life. I would be damned; the asshole always seemed to be one step ahead. But instead of envy, I felt pride.

  Yep. Lane had gone from the guy I was jealous of to the guy I was proud of.

  I revved mine. We exchanged a look and a nod. Together.

  And we were off.

  The ride to Lucius’ home took but just a few minutes, and when we got there, I went to a side street, pulling with me the Gray Reapers officer Owen, a Black Reapers club member named Tomahawk, and a couple of other club members. We were a small force, but that was by design; we wanted to be less of an obvious target and more like the shadow of death, visible only when it was too late.

  Lane took the rest. I saluted him, he saluted back, and about a dozen bikers in total roared up to Lucius’ house. After about a minute of silence had passed on our end, I brought my engine back to life and followed their trail.

  Unfortunately for us, the setup of Lucius’ house was such that only one street led to its gate and its entrance, which made it impossible for us to take a back road. But so long as Lane had drawn enough attention with a front attack, we could drive up, circle around the perimeter of the house on foot, and sneak in the back or one of the balconies.

  As gunfire erupted, I knew I had my answer on the distraction part. Now we just had to figure out the rest from there.

  On the one hand, I wished Lilly had provided me just some information on the house, but on the other, who fucking cared at this point? Once we got inside the house, the mission was simple—kill anyone who wore a Fallen Saints cut, force the surrender of anyone innocent, and save Lucius for Lane and me.

  We circled around to the left side of the house, about a hundred feet away. There were three guards standing just outside a porch, two up top, one by the stairs leading up to it. We circled around to the back, but there were even more men in the rear than at the side. It was quite a sight to behold, honestly. It was never a question of manpower for the Saints, but most of these men would have fled if they knew Lucius wouldn’t kill them on the spot.

  “Taking the side,” I said.

  The good news was that the space between the perimeter of the property and the side of the house was not completely flat; there were some hills, bushes, and even very small trees that we could hide behind. One-by-one, we moved as close as we could get without getting noticed, getting about twenty feet away.

  I motioned to Owen and the others that we needed to take our shot. We had one chance at this; the more gunfire that erupted, the sooner other men could come in, and the more easily we’d get overwhelmed. In truth, I really wanted us to just kill them with our hands, the better for silence, but that was something we just weren’t going to have the chance to do.

  I signaled I would take the Saint by the stairs, while Owen and Tomahawk aimed for the two on top of the patio. The others formed a sort of front line facing the back of the house, ready to provide cover fire if reinforcements came in. I counted down from five, stopping at three to aim.

  We fired.

  And all three men dropped.

  It was of great fortune that the firefight was still going on at the front of the house; though the men in the back would surely hear us, they would also have to decide where to divert resources or if they needed to stay in the back for a possible rear attack. The fog of war very much played to our advantage here.

  “Let’s go!” I hissed.

  We all made it to the porch with minimal resistance. A couple of Saints saw us and opened fire, but we suffered no casualties, eliminated the threat quickly, and got into the room and were well-positioned.

  “Let me…”

  I froze.

  This was Lilly’s room.

  And there was someone who had been in here just moments before.

  Fuck…

  I could... as ridiculous as it sounded, I could smell her presence. Her perfume lingered. She had…

  Maybe I was too quick to give her a pass as I had in the planning phase of everything; maybe, actually, she had betrayed me, given her father the location of my apartment, and nearly gotten me killed.

  But I just knew that wasn’t the case. Lilly and I had been too close for her to sell me out. At most, she may have hated the Reapers, but she didn’t hate me.

  And now she was gone.

  And my anger began to boil over. Because there was only one person who could have pulled her away, taken her away from this room and put her somewhere else.

  “Lucius!” I roared.

  The monster that had haunted my family for years, though, was nowhere to be found. It was time to search the rest of this house.

  “Lucius! Show yourself and fight me!”

  All of the images of hell as a place of fire
and brimstone, of demons and devils, of nightmare and hellfire had it wrong. Hell was not those things. Hell, as it meant to me, was this very house, with its bare white walls, blank canvases on which I could project the worst of the Fallen Saints.

  And somewhere, deep within the heart of this house, laid the devil himself. Lucius Sartor was here.

  And so, too, if I could find her and protect her, was Lilly.

  “Lucius!” I screamed, stretching out the word and straining my voice in the process.

  I went door by door, looking inside every room in this monstrously sized mansion. I saw rooms dedicated to family and Fallen Saints, rooms full of bikes, rooms full of exercise equipment, rooms full of memorabilia, but no rooms with anyone inside. Lucius, true to his cowardly form, had avoided the battle, probably in the confines of a panic room. Probably with Lilly.

  If this was the true form of the leader of the Fallen Saints, hiding while gunfire erupted outside his home and at his clubhouse, then I could only hope the rank-and-file members would realize the devil was not a leader on the front lines, but a being that fed them to the jaws of machine gun fire. Perhaps this cowardice, not us, would be the end of the Fallen Saints.

  “Cole!” I heard Lane scream from the front. “We’re coming in!”

  “Stop!”

  Lilly.

  “Don’t, don’t—”

  A maelstrom of gunfire erupted, so loud that it was like the rifles were being fired inches from my ear.

  “Lilly! I’m coming!”

  The whirlwind of bullets cascading through the mansion lasted only perhaps a dozen seconds, which even then was probably a high estimate. By the time I got to the railing, the gunfire had stopped.

  And what I saw…

  Lilly was on the floor.

  Lane, gun in hand, stood at the door.

  And a pool of blood was spilling out from underneath her.

  “No!” I screamed, running downstairs.

  This couldn’t be happening. No, no, no, this wasn’t worth the sacrifice. Loss of innocent, truly innocent lives, that wasn’t worth killing Lucius. What was the point if we couldn’t fucking account for who was dying and who was alive?

  Around me, Fallen Saints were dead or on their last breath. The Reapers had eradicated the last of Lucius’ guard. Wherever that asshole was, whether here or halfway to San Francisco, he was alive but without his daughter.

  Who herself may not have been alive.

  “Please, please, please, Lilly, no, no, no…”

  I scrambled over to her, crawling on my hands and knees, my legs far too wobbly, as I reached her.

  “Lilly, God, why…”

  It’s just like Shannon.

  Innocence gets caught in the crossfire. The madness continues. Vengeance takes hold.

  “You,” I said, turning to Lane. “I told you she was innocent!”

  “I did not shoot her!” Lane said. “Think, Cole. Think back to what happened this evening. For all that we shared. Do you think I made that up to gain your—”

  I raised my gun in anger. I heard multiple guns being drawn on me. I didn’t give a shit.

  “You fucking wanted this, didn’t you?” I said, blinded by rage. “You wanted me to fucking taste what losing Shannon felt like?”

  “Cole.”

  Lane’s voice was calm. He took a step forward. We might have won the battle with the Saints, but this was, at this point, the only battle that I cared about.

  “Cole, listen to me,” he said, taking another step forward. “I miss Shannon every day. I tell Angela this. I miss the spirit and innocence and forgiveness that Shannon had. But I have moved forward. I recognize the truth now. The man who killed her was not you. And even if it was, I would not want you to suffer as I did. No one should.”

  He gulped. He was now close enough that I could pistol-whip him if I wanted. God, the temptation...

  But slowly, very, very slowly, I was coming back from my rage. I looked down at Lilly. She hadn’t moved.

  “Cole, please,” Lane said. “I am sorry I never appreciated how you felt about her. I am sorry that I treated you so badly. I am sorry that I did not see her as you did. But please. For the sake of stopping this madness, for the sake of stopping this feud between us, for the sake of peace... believe me. I did not kill Lilly.”

  He didn’t.

  The voice in my head, though, did not sound like my own. It was almost... it was almost like my father’s.

  The voice did not come back. But even then, I knew the truth. I was hurt. I was in significant pain. I just wanted vengeance for Lilly’s death, and I was blind as to whom I struck out at.

  But blind anarchist rage was almost certainly what had created Lucius. If I struck my brother down in cold blood, no matter how perceivably justified…

  I lowered my gun.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes watering. “I’m fucking sorry, man. I just…”

  I sobbed and collapsed into Lane’s shoulders.

  “This doesn’t have to end here,” Lane said. “We can still tear through this house. We can find Lucius, or at least find out where he might have gone. And then we can end it.”

  I nodded against my brother’s shoulder.

  “And everyone else?”

  “They’re gone,” he said. “If any of the Fallen Saints are left, they are with Lucius right now. We suffered a lot of casualties, but so far, only a few deaths. I think this is going to work, Cole. But we have to end it.”

  I nodded.

  “Just, give me a moment,” I said. “Let me say one last thing to Lilly.”

  My brother nodded, patted my back, and pulled back.

  “Search the house, search every closet, every panel, everything,” he announced to the room. “Burn through everything in sight. There should not be a crevice of air here that goes unexamined. If Lucius escapes, he’ll need to do so against bullets. Let’s go!”

  The Reapers went in all sorts of directions, more or less looting and pillaging the house. But that all became background noise as I bent down to the ground and examined Lilly. She had a gunshot wound in her shoulder. She wasn’t moving, best that I could see.

  “Lilly,” I said. “In the time we knew each other, you showed me to keep an open mind. You taught me that someone’s lineage is not their destiny. You taught me…”

  I stopped to collect myself.

  “You taught me that I could find love because you gave it to me,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t say this earlier. I should have. But I love you. I’m sorry... I’m sorry... I’m…”

  I collapsed, holding her and lowering my head against hers. It wasn’t fucking fair. Life always had a fucking way of ruining everything for me right when things seemed to be going well. In the end, everyone I loved…

  I stopped.

  I felt something tickle my ear.

  Breath?

  Staying low to her, I put my fingers against the side of her throat. She still had a pulse. She was unconscious, obviously, probably having gone into shock, but she was alive. Barely, but still alive.

  “Lane!” I shouted.

  Seconds later, Lane came back.

  “She’s alive,” I said. “She’s alive.”

  “Seriously?” he said, a smile beaming on his face.

  “I can’t fucking believe it,” I said. “We gotta get her to a hospital, she’s been shot, but—”

  A very loud shotgun blast echoed down a nearby hallway. Everyone froze. It was like time itself had frozen in place.

  “Did someone get him?” Lane asked.

  Seconds later, I heard someone moving down a hall very slowly, their boots clacking against the marble ground. I looked over my shoulder.

  Covered in blood, wearing his red cut without a shirt underneath and carrying a shotgun in his hand, stood Lucius Sartor.

  “So,” he said. “You did not kill my daughter after all.”

  Reapers were streaming in by the second, guns pointed, but Lane had them hold their fire. We al
l knew we could kill Lucius in the snap of a finger. But we had him. We’d let him say his bit.

  And then, Lane and I both knew without saying a word to each other, we would have the satisfaction of killing him ourselves.

  “But you’ve killed all of my men,” he growled. “At least I got one of yours.”

  He turned around, spat on the ground, and then dropped the shotgun to the floor. He was, as far as we could see, unarmed. And I didn’t just mean in his hands—I could see his pants did not have any weaponry on them. He was coming to us with only his cut, his jeans, and his fists. He was a dead man, but he wasn’t a silent man.

  “You could cut me down right now, kill me on the spot, and be on your merry little way,” he said. “But then, you wouldn’t have closure, would you?”

  He snickered, staring at Lane.

  “You wouldn’t have closure in knowing what it was like for me to kill your woman, knowing how that would tear you two apart,” he said.

  We finally know the truth. As if we didn’t know it already.

  “You wouldn’t have the closure of hurting me, torturing me, killing me as you would want me killed, would you, Lane Carter?”

  “You’re a dead man either way, Lucius,” he said. “You’re not getting out of this night alive.”

  “No, no, I suppose not,” Lucius said with a laugh as he turned to me. “But how are you, Cole, going to explain to my daughter that I came in here unarmed and your men killed me? Hmm? Tell me, Cole. My daughter has taken a liking to you. The very thought sickens me. But it is something I have no choice but to accept. She thinks you’re, gasp, a good person.”

  At that, Lucius laughed. But there was something almost delirious about the laugh, like the laughter of a man who knew he was down to his last few words and truly afraid of the end.

  “But here’s what you fail to appreciate,” he said. “My daughter loves me. She may like you, but she loves me. And it’s not going to be a great look for you when you have to explain my dead body to her. Hmm?”

  He chuckled.

  “Of course, that doesn’t even begin to account for what happens after my death in the MC world.”

  “The fuck does that mean?” Lane said.