I just continued to smile as I walked toward the door.
“Not good enough for you, huh?” His tone had changed drastically, and made me uncomfortable. He almost sounded hostile. I decided to ignore him and picked up my step to get inside the clubhouse. Bee was coming out with baby Max in her arms just as I was reaching for the door knob.
“Hi there,” she smiled, pausing to chat.
“Taking Max to the playground?”
She nodded. “Yep. The little monster gets too rowdy when he can’t run it off. Letting him outside for an hour before his nap works perfectly.”
“I’ll remember that for when I have children,” I laughed
“You might not want to go inside for a while, give the men a chance to cool off.”
I frowned with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Come on,” she said, reminding me that we were standing in the doorway. I stepped back so that she could come outside, and then we walked toward the playground. “They’re always wound up after they come out of church or back from war."
War? That sounded a lot more serious than a fight, but then, I had a feeling that what warring MCs did to each other included much worse than just fighting. The men had returned bloody and beaten, leaving me to wonder how the other MC had fared. The fact that they all carried guns didn’t go unnoticed, and you didn’t carry a gun if you didn’t intend to use it. I nervously recalled the shooting incident that had taken place at their clubhouse, and the police that had shown up afterwards. I hadn’t heard if anyone had been killed, but now I was starting to wonder.
“I thought Dober, Tiger, and Roy were killed when their truck went over a cliff.”
Bee snorted, setting a wiggling Max down so he could go play. “Honey, that’s the version for the police and the civilians who inquire.” She kept a watchful eye on her son.
“That’s not what really happened?” I should have already guessed that it hadn’t been that simple.
She shook her head, briefly meeting my eyes before focusing back on Max. He was running around like a little tornado, laughing happily. “Wolfman is careful about how much he tells me. They’re not supposed to talk club business, but he’s the VP, and sometimes he needs to unload. He didn’t go into detail, but the Destroyers were involved.”
Oh, God. I glanced over at the picnic table where Jim and Casey were still sitting and talking. The Destroyers were vicious, cruel animals. “They need to go away.”
“Oh, trust me, they will.” The confidence in Bee’s tone drew my gaze back to her. “The Wreckers won’t allow them to get away with what they’ve done, and when the fight is over, they won’t leave one Destroyer standing.” She grinned. “I’m just speculating, mind you. We’re not supposed to talk club business, either.” I laughed softly. “But we’re entitled to voice our opinions.”
I was secretly glad that the Wreckers were going after the other club.
“Oh, oh!” Bee took off suddenly, and I looked over to see that Max had fallen down and was crying.
Bee reached him within seconds, taking him from the arms of another mother who’d reached him first. I watched as she cuddled him and spoke lovingly to calm him, smiling to myself. Would I have children some day? I’d wanted them with Seth, but now I was glad that we hadn’t had any. It would have made leaving him complicated, and I truly believed that Seth wouldn’t have been a very devoted father. He’d been more interested in possessions than emotions.
Jace’s handsome, smiling face came to my mind. He would have beautiful children.
We would have beautiful children.
The thought of his baby growing inside me left me feeling warm.
Happy.
Complete.
Chapter 25
Jace
I set my drink down, staring off into space and thinking about the three brothers that had been lost to the Wreckers. Losing three life-long members fucking hurt, especially the way they’d gone out. Their van had gone off a cliff--that part had been true--but once we'd climbed down the ravine and reached their bodies it had been to discovered that all three brothers had been shot, and more than once. The fact that their own guns weren't on their bodies suggested that they'd most likely had time to shoot back at whoever had ambushed them. We found their weapons later, scattered about the wrecked van and empty of bullets.
It hadn't taken a genius to figure out that the Destroyers had struck again, and they'd confirmed it later when they'd called Reaper to let him know about the so called accident. Of course they'd been long gone by the time we’d arrived at the site. We weren't the only ones who'd shown up, either. Several emergency vehicles and police cars had also come to the scene, apparently called by a concerned civilian who'd witnessed the incident but hadn't hung around to give a statement.
Nothing surprising there. Civilians didn't like getting involved with MC drama, they were too afraid of retribution. Once the cops had shown up, we'd been forced to distance ourselves from the site so that the bodies could be removed by the medical examiner. Because our brothers had been shot, the incident was going to be processed as a crime scene. There'd be no way of keeping shit simple as we had at the shooting that had taken place at the lakeside clubhouse. It was already too public, and there were too many fucking witnesses now that emergency personal were around to see what had occurred.
Reaper and the rest of us stood by and watched, growing more furious by the second as one by one our brothers’ limp bodies had been brought up the deep ravine. It wasn't clear if they'd died from the accident or from the gunshot wounds, and it really hadn't mattered, because the end result had been the same. Every one of us standing there watching silently wanted retribution for what the Destroyers had done, and we were eager to go after them.
"When their bodies are released for burial, I want their fucking cuts," Reaper gritted out as Officer Smith walked over. He'd want to bury their brothers wearing them.
The older man nodded, looking down at his feet. His expression was grim, but not any bleaker than any of the Wreckers who were there. "Any idea‒"
"No," Reaper snapped in a barely controlled tone, not letting him finish. It was clear that he was overwhelmed with emotion, and knowing him, he wouldn’t give in to what he considered to be a weakness, especially in front of his brothers. "We got a fucking call just like you."
Officer Smith nodded. "With half the town here, you understand there will need to be a full investigation." The fucking reporters were everywhere, snapping pictures at the speed of vultures zeroing in on road kill. News had traveled fast. Officer Smith seemed to be waiting for Reaper to respond to his comment, but Reaper remained tight-lipped. "The medical examiner will determine the cause of death."
Reaper put glaring eyes on him. "Let us know if you find anything out." He was clearly dismissing the cop, who, with a heavy sigh of resignation, turned and walked away.
Reaper's brothers moved in close to their president, keeping watchful eyes on the civilians that were wandering around. "Do you think he suspects anything?" Puck asked in a low voice.
"If he does, he'd be a fool to acknowledge it, brother," Wolfman grumbled. "He knows the score. Knows we'd want to handle retribution our own way."
"This is what we pay him for," Raze added, a muscle twitching in his hard jaw as he watched one of his brothers being loaded into the coroner's van. "When it matters, he knows which questions not to ask."
Reaper nodded, agreeing with his VP and Raze. "Can't say I'm happy to see the press here, and the assholes who aren’t on our payroll, but I'm not disappointed that our brothers will get a decent funeral."
His brothers, some of which were staring down at the ground, nodded and mumbled in unison. It was a sad fact that when a brother was killed by a rival MC, they didn't always receive a public burial. It was hard to seek retribution if the law knew what was happening between warring MCs. The cops may not like the clubs, and probably didn't care if they killed each other off, but if a situation became public knowledge, then
they were obligated to follow the law and get involved.
If there was even a hint that the Destroyers were involved in the shit that had gone down today that would pretty much put a halt to the option of any payback not coming back on the Wreckers. Making shit public limited the opportunities for revenge, and with the press present, this would most likely be on the six o'clock news.
The way Reaper was looking, though, nothing was going to stop him from going after the other club and annihilating them. When I saw a reporter break away and head toward us, I knew things were about to go from bad to worse. She was picking her way to us gingerly in ridiculously high heels, her camera man right behind her. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. If she was too stupid to read the grief and anger that was rolling off of us and keep her distance, it was her own stupid fault.
She was still a few feet away when she held out her microphone toward Reaper, her red-lipped mouth opening to ask him a question.
"I'm not answering your fucking questions, so get the fuck away from me," Reaper snarled before she even got a word out. He turned and stomped away, his brothers following.
She froze, her eyes bulging with disbelief. "But‒" Her camera man came to a jerky halt behind her. It was clear from his expression that he would have liked nothing better than to turn around and go back the way they'd come. I watched as the reporter turned her eyes on me.
"Save your breath, lady." I turned to catch up with the Wreckers. I heard her huff as I walked away.
"I want those sons of bitches," Reaper snarled beneath his breath. "Every fucking one of them." He pinned stormy eyes on Moses. "How soon can we get those fucking drones?"
"I'll call as soon as we get back to the clubhouse and put a fucking rush on the order."
Reaper nodded, satisfied. "Good." His gaze moved around the circle of brothers surrounding him. Everyone seemed to be wearing the same grim, hardened expression, eyes filled with grief. "No more of this back and forth shit. When we make our move we go in hot, and we go all in. That includes their fucking clubhouse. If one Destroyer is left standing when we get done, then heads are going to roll."
I couldn't blame Reaper for the passion behind his words, and the fact that he was telling his brothers that he wanted every fucking Destroyer ended wasn't lost on me. When his gaze came to me, a question there in his hard eyes, I gave him a chin lift to let him know that I was in. They were my brothers, too.
The distant buzz of a familiar sound drew my gaze downward to where the twisting road wound its way down the mountainside. I couldn't believe my fucking eyes. Six Destroyers were sitting there on their bikes, looking up at us with fucking grins on their ugly faces. I instantly glanced over to where the emergency people and cops were working, not surprised to see that they were focused on the accident scene and nothing else. From their vantage point they couldn't see the Destroyers anyway, even if they may have heard the low rumble of their bikes.
"Hey!" Once several pairs of eyes had turned my way, I motioned to the fuckers below us, who seemed to be taunting us with their presence.
Reaper did the same thing that I had, taking a quick glance over at the cops before satisfying himself that, so far, the Destroyers had gone unnoticed by them. When he looked back down the mountain, several Destroyers were flipping him the bird. I clenched my fist, wishing that I was close enough to destroy a few faces.
"Fucking assholes," Raze murmured with barely contained rage, the hands at his sides clenched into fists.
"We gonna just let them sit there and goad us like that?" Puck growled eager for a fight.
"Fuck, no," Reaper snarled. "Tucker, you keep the fucking cops busy over there. Tell them we're heading back to the clubhouse and you're hanging around in case they have other questions." He glanced back down at the Destroyers, a grin that resembled more of a sneer spreading across his face. "We have business to take care of." The hand signal he gave got an instant reaction from his brothers.
As we headed toward our bikes, the Destroyers, realizing what was coming, revved their engines and took off down the mountain. Fucking cowards! With Reaper in the lead we filed in behind him to give chase. It didn't matter if they were leading us directly into an ambush, there were more than enough of us to take on anything that they had planned. Right now we needed to catch up to them, and the speed at which we were taking the twists and turns of the winding road let them know that we weren't giving up until we did.
The road was dangerous, with a mountain on one side and a steep drop off on the other. There were guard rails around the corners, but at the speed that we were traveling, it would have been easy to flip over the side if we were to hit one. Bringing up the rear, I watched a couple of my brothers lose control before expertly bringing their bikes back under control. Fury's bike fishtailed after he veered off onto the shoulder of the road, hitting the gravel. Nothing slowed us down, and then we spotted our enemies directly in front of us.
I knew that when we caught up to them it was going to be a fight to the death. We could lose more brothers, but since the Destroyers continued to cross boundaries with attacks and violence and taking lives, they had to be dealt with. Retribution between MCs was nothing new. Setting up borders between MCs, living within those restrictions, and following the rules was all part of MC culture. When ignored, there were consequences.
Reaper made a hand gesture and, recognizing it, I revved my engine, flying past the rest of my brothers toward the retreating Destroyers in a burst of speed that allowed Reaper, me, and Wolfman to overtake them. We rode between the fuckers until we were positioned in front of them. The three of us veered our bikes close to the lead Destroyers, causing them to react in a jerking motion. Overcorrecting, they lost control, and one by one they laid their bikes down, skidding all over the fucking road, along with their riders.
Both clubs went down and came up fighting. No one reached for their weapons, not with the cops two miles up the fucking mountain. I reached for the man nearest me and began to pummel him without mercy, my balled fists sinking into his flabby belly, ribs, and face. He hadn't stood a chance to defend himself, my attack so rapid and violent that all he could do was stumble back and grunt at each impact. Blood spewed from his broken face, coating the greasy hair that hung down into his eyes. I barely acknowledged his teeth cutting into my knuckles, hitting the fucker until he staggered to the ground.
I kicked and rolled him over the side of the road, pushing him over the ledge, before looking up at the chaos surrounding me. I got to my feet, taking a minute to catch my breath before assessing the situation and deciding on my next move. Reaper was just getting to his feet, too, the man at his feet bloodied and unmoving. He dragged the downed Destroyer over to the side and kicked him over the ledge as well.
Suddenly Moses and Rollin were rolling bikes toward the edge and shoving them into the ravine that was overgrown with trees and shrubs, and beyond that was the lake. Eventually the bikes would be discovered, but hopefully not for a long time. It was a quick way to do away with any evidence. As I was looking away a hand on my shoulder spun me around, and then a fist was clipping me beneath the chin. My head snapped back with the force, but I came back swinging.
We went at each other as if we were opponents in a wrestling match, putting everything we had into powerful, merciless hits because so much was at stake. His rapid-fire punches to my torso sucked all the breath from my lungs, but I knew I had to stay on my feet or I was going to be the next one to go over the side. I returned hits, pounding his torso and face until his nose was broken and his teeth were flying. He was fighting to survive, but I was fighting to take him out.
The smell of blood and something else--piss and body odor--soon permeated the air, the sounds of grunts and groans evidence of the battle that was going down. The pavement was turning red. The fucker that I was fighting was pulled away from me by Fury and Raze. That's when I noticed that only two Destroyers were left standing, and the Wreckers were pounding them into the ground. I stood, panting, and wat
ched. By the time they were thrown over the ravine, none of their bikes were left, either.
Payback for Roy, Tiger, and Dober had been short and sweet. We stood around for a minute, battered and bloody warriors high on the rush of adrenaline and fucking victory. The only sign that something had gone down at all was the blood staining the road. The first good rain would take care of that, and the sign warning drivers to watch for deer could explain away the blood--blood on the road could be always contributed to an animal being hit before going off somewhere else to die.
"Let's get the fuck out of here."
Good idea. Any one of the cops or reporters further up the mountain could come down at any moment, and the way we looked right then, it was easy to see that we'd been involved in a confrontation. Having cops on the payroll would only go so far, and so far, we'd lucked out. No need to tempt fate.
We raced down the mountain road toward the clubhouse.
I was racing toward something else.
A pretty little blonde that just might save my soul.
I had every intention of going straight for Luna when I got back, but Reaper called church after we'd shut our bikes down and were dismounting. My eyes lit on her as I walked through the club on my way to the meeting room. The concern in hers fucking sucked the breath from me. She cared, and I wasn't used to that. It kind of fucking scared me. When it looked as if she was going to come at me I gave her a look that warned her to stay back. I'd have liked nothing better than to lose myself in her arms, to feel something sweet and good replace the adrenaline and tension that still surged in my blood, but there was a time and place for everything.
I was a nomad, and a brother to the club members. I'd sworn my allegiance to them and their cause. And right then, the trouble plaguing the Wreckers had to come first. No one would be safe until the Destroyers were out of the picture.
Dangerous (Nomad Outlaws Trilogy Book 2) Page 19