Out of the Shadows (Renegades)

by Ana Stone

  “My pleasure.”

  “So, I guess I’ll see you.”

  “Yep.”

  He climbed out of the car and she climbed over the gearshift into the driver’s seat. Zeke walked away, but looked back after a few steps. She was looking at him. That was a good sign. He smiled and waved.

  She threw up one hand then pulled away.

  “Come on, bro,” Rice walked up to him. “Reese is mad as a rattlesnake. Raptors hit one of our safe houses in Beaufort and took a shipment of guns.”

  Zeke just nodded and continued on to the warehouse. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Eight

  Zeke cursed under his breath as he crouched behind the dumpster in an old, run-down section of Selma. Everyone in the club except Eli and the two prospects had the warehouse staked out where the Raptors housed their drugs.

  Reese was determined to send a strong message to any and all rivals. Fuck with the Renegades and you’ll pay. Zeke knew that was part of the code, part of the life Reese had chosen. Every man in the club was part of that life by his own choice.

  Maybe even him. He could have bucked Reese and refused to participate. He had not because he knew they were at a disadvantage without him. That wasn’t ego talking. Most of the men could shoot and some of them purely loved to kill, but they were not trained or disciplined and chances were on their own they’d get most of the club killed.

  At least if he was there, the chances of them returning home with more of their membership intact was better. And there were some among them who were worthy of saving. Like Rice, Eli’s son. He didn’t want to be there and Zeke would bet that when the dust settled Rice’s gun might have been fired, but he would not once have pointed it at a human. Rice didn’t have it in him to kill another person in cold blood.

  Rice was a decent man, a good husband and father and he didn’t deserve to die. Zeke would make sure Rice went home to his family.

  The club had spent the better part of the afternoon going over the plan Zeke had devised. They knew the Raptors had drugs in the warehouse. They had a big shipment come in the night before so tonight they’d be breaking it up for their distributors. And according to the snitch the Renegades had inside the Raptor’s clubhouse, the gun the Raptors had stolen from the storage in Selma were also in the warehouse. Those guns were the property of the Renegades and their buyers were waiting for them.

  So, the plan was for Zeke, Rice and Six-Pack to draw the fire of the Raptors after Chopper blew up a car parked in front of the club. Reese and Razr, along with Tibbs and Stick, two of the club’s prospects, would storm the back and take out any resistance posted there. That left Dice and Chopper to take the side entrance, and secure the weapons.

  Zeke checked his watch. Any moment now. A few heartbeats later the night erupted with the sounds of an explosion. Zeke ducked securely behind the dumpster, glad for cover as fiery debris rained down on the street. He waited for a few seconds then eased into position so he had clear vantage of the front entrance of the club. Chopper must have packed the hell out of the charge on the car. The blast had propelled it several feet off the ground and the explosion had blown off the front door, the hood and even the two tires on the side facing him.

  A split second later Raptors poured from the front entrance, guns drawn. Zeke laid down fire in front of them, the bullets from his rifle kicking up puffs of concrete on the sidewalk in front of them. That’s about all it took for them to start scrambling for cover, looking for the source of the gunfire.

  He could hear gunfire coming from the rear of the building. Obviously the others were taking the back. “Keep them from going back in,” he snapped to Rice who crouched beside him and then fired a couple of rounds in front of a Raptor who was trying to make a retreat for the door to the clubhouse.

  “Six-pack, we need to drive them into the street. Keep your fire centered on the door.”

  As Six-Pack unloaded on the door of the warehouse, Zeke focused his fire just behind the Raptors who were taking cover behind the burning car. If he could hold them there until he got the signal from Chopper and Dice that they had the guns, maybe no one would get killed.

  That was supposing, of course, that Reese and Razr were not mowing down Raptors like firewood in the rear of the warehouse. He cursed and hoped the part of the plan he had not told the Club about would see an end to all this shit. He’d placed an anonymous call from the pay phone at the local drug store to the Selma police department about possible trouble over drugs.

  If they’d given the tip any weight, they might show while the MC was trying to move the guns. That would result in Reese and several of the others getting slapped with a RICO violation. They’d done eighteen months once before on weapons charged.

  It definitely had a chance. If it didn’t get him killed

  *****

  Roxy breathed a sigh of relief as she left the hospital. It had been a busy few days, getting settled in the new house, filling out all of the paperwork with the police department and getting fitted with uniforms.

  She’d been required to have a follow up medical exam and have a doctor certify her fit for duty before she could actually take a deputy’s position. Since she didn’t know any doctors aside from the one who had treated her for the gunshot, Doctor Turner, in Selma, she had called him.

  The only appointment time he had available was late in the day so she had driven over to Selma. As luck would have it a multi-car accident on the highway had numerous casualties and Turner was stuck in the backup, waiting for traffic to clear.

  It was after eight in the evening before he arrived. Roxy hadn’t been keen on the wait, but now it was done. She had her certification and was cleared for duty. She checked the time on her phone as she got into her car. Half past nine. The Wagon Wheel would be closed by the time she got back to Harmony. It shut down at ten on weeknights.

  She’d have to find a place in Selma to grab something to eat. Stocking the kitchen at the new house was one of those tasks she hadn’t quite gotten around to yet. She ran a search on her cell phone for nearby restaurants and found three. She scanned the directions.

  As always, the directions given were easy to follow but didn’t seem to be the quickest route. She spotted what looked to be a quicker way and set off.

  Unfortunately she got turned around because of Belleview Road, Belleview Street and Belleview Blvd, east and west. Too freaking many Belleview’s. Before long she realized she was getting into an old and seedy section of town. It looked like an old industrial area with a lot of buildings that appeared to be abandoned.

  She stopped at a four way intersection and after checking to make sure there was no one coming up behind her, pulled out her phone to check the map. A split second later, an explosion had her jerking and looking out of the window.

  To her left she could see a fireball. It was only a block away. What the hell? It appeared to be a car. No sooner had the thought registered; the sound of gunfire split the quiet.

  Shit. That was the direction she needed to go to get back on track but she wasn’t about to drive into the middle of some turf war. She checked the map again. If she went straight for another block she could cut around the area.

  A block later she made the left turn. The sound of gunfire had not abated. If anything there was more. She drove slowly to the next intersection and looked to her left. She could see fire and the bright bursts of light that clearly defined weapon’s fire.

  She could also see three men on foot with weapons, rounding the corner of the next block, heading toward the fire.

  The sensible thing to do was keep going straight, not get involved. But something wouldn’t let her do that. Instead, she killed her headlights and made the turn, moving slowly. The closer she got to the road that turned to the right where the armed men had gone, the clearer she could see what was happening.

  Her heart leapt in her chest as she recognized a familiar shape. Zeke and another man were silhouetted by the fire where they stood pa
rtially blocked from the inferno by a dumpster. With gunfire coming from across the street, they were not paying attention to anything behind them.

  This made them sitting ducks for the men approaching from behind.

  Roxy had no time to think or consider her actions. She increased her speed, pulling up behind the armed men on foot. Between her and them were four metal trash containers, one lying on its side on the sidewalk.

  She jammed the accelerator to the floor, wound it out and jammed the gear into second. The front end of her car hit the cans and sent them flying into the armed men who had turned in surprise at the sound of her car.

  One of the men went down and his gun went flying. Another nearly fell but righted himself then stumbled over the fallen man. The third dodged the cans and was raising his weapon at Roxy’s car. She shifted again and drove straight toward him, the right side of her car bouncing as she drove up onto the sidewalk.

  A bullet hit the building behind him. Just as he turned to look behind him, his shoulder exploded in a geyser of blood. Roxy swerved back into the street and saw Zeke and two other men heading toward her. One was facing her and the other was moving with his body turned sideways to fire behind them.

  The two remaining assailants on the sidewalk fired at Zeke and his companions. She saw two mussel blasts from Zeke’s gun. One assailant went down like his right leg had given way, clearly a thigh shot. The other spun to his left like something had punched him in the shoulder.

  A moment later she skidded to a stop and reached across the seat to open the passenger door. Zeke reached the car first, but took a position in front of the door, covering his two partners who climbed into the back seat of the car. Then he jumped in.

  Roxy didn’t have to be told to get the hell out of dodge. She’d jammed it into reverse and was backing down the street before Zeke could get the door closed. At the end of the block she cut the wheel hard, rammed the gear into first and popped the clutch.

  “Next block go right,” Zeke said from beside her.

  She didn’t reply, she just followed his directions. They were less than a mile away when they saw the flashing lights. A line of five police cars passed them, heading in the direction they were fleeing. No one spoke a word. Roxy couldn’t believe what she had done. Here she was getting ready to take a job with the police department and she had just aided and abetted three possible criminals. What was wrong with her?

  She cut a look at Zeke. His face was set in a stoic expression, his eyes looking straight ahead. How the hell did a Delta operative let himself get mixed up in a street shooting, or riding with a Club?

  Maybe the answer was easier to surmise than she wanted to admit. Delta Operators were, in a way, no different than any other adrenaline junkie. Their missions were lethal, dangerous by even the strictest definition and they always knew when they left that they might not be coming back. They were killers for hire – kill or be killed. There was no middle ground and they thrived off the high the danger provided.

  Much the same as Clubs like the Renegades. No club sporting the one percent patch was a bunch of weekend warriors out for a cruise. No. To sport that patch meant you were into shit that would get you killed.

  Maybe it made perfect sense that Zeke would fall into the life of the Club without question. He no longer had the high derived from Delta missions to feel his addiction. Perhaps the Club provided what was missing from his life.

  But that didn’t make it right, or even acceptable. Roxy believed in the law and in the rules of society. For her there was no gray zone between right and wrong.

  And because of that, she could now beat herself up for having helped Zeke. She was ashamed and disappointed in herself. It was wrong. She could admit that.

  What was not easy to admit was that she knew beyond all doubt that if she had to go back and do it again, she would act in exactly the same manner. When she’d seen those men coming up behind Zeke, her only thought was to protect him. In that moment nothing else mattered. Not right or wrong, not the consequences of her actions or even having to deal with her conscience.

  She cut another look at him. There was some kind of connection between them. That much was obvious. And not just a sexual attraction, even though she would gladly jump him. No, it was more than that. What had happened at the house the day she moved in had been uppermost in her mind. She knew he had seen the same thing. But what was it. A shared hallucination?

  She had no answers. Yet. She intended to find out what it was because until she knew what she was fighting she couldn’t defeat it. And sure as shit, she needed to overcome this obsession with Zeke Justice. He was bad news and she had to be able to walk away from him with a clear head.

  “Where to?” She asked when they reached the town limits of Harmony.

  “Renegades.” Zeke answered.

  He didn’t say anything else until she turned into the drive of Renegades. The gate was open and lights were on. She could see Stella and Eli. They were standing beside a dark Mercedes sports car with a woman Roxy had never seen before. Statuesque with hair that spilled over her shoulders in waves, the blonde highlighted with streaks of brilliant crimson, she was a beautiful middle-aged woman.

  “Shit on a stick.”

  It wasn’t so much Zeke’s words, as the venom with which he spit them that had Roxy looking over at him.

  “You want me to back out?”

  “No. It’s fine.”

  She pulled up behind the Mercedes but didn’t turn off the engine. Zeke looked over at her. “You mind waiting while I take care of this? We need to talk.”

  “Okay.”

  He nodded and got out of the car. The moment he did, the woman with Stella and Eli started toward him, cursing a blue streak. “What the fuck? You fucking left him?”

  The two men in the backseat of the car got out and closed the door, then eased around Zeke who stood facing the irate woman. Roxy saw the woman cut them a hateful look then turn her attention back to Zeke.

  “I just got a call from one of the prospects.” Eli said. “Reese, Razr, Chopper and Harley got taken in with five of the Raptors.”

  “And?” Zeke asked.

  “And?” Zeke’s mother, Carrie, screeched. “You know what’ll happen if the cops find any of those fucking guns. They’ll end up in fucking prison.”

  “Yeah, probably so.”

  Her mouth opened then closed then opened again. “You’re supposed to have his back. He’s your fucking father.”

  “He will never be my father,” Zeke said and maneuvered around her to face his Uncle Eli.

  That’s when she noticed Roxy sitting in the car. “Who the fuck is this cunt?”

  Zeke pivoted as if to turn back toward the woman, but Eli grabbed his arm. Stella hurried over to Roxy’s car. She leaned down to speak to Roxy. “It might be a good idea for you to skedaddle, hon.”

  “Zeke asked me to wait.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth she wondered why she hadn’t just taken Stella’s advice and left. Clearly what was going on here was something she didn’t want to be involved in. Problem was, she already was.

  “Then come on in the office with me,” Stella suggested.

  “Sure,” Roxy turned off the car and climbed out.

  Zeke watched Roxy follow Stella into the office. His mother, Carrie was raising holy hell with Eli.

  “I want him out. Now!”

  “Carrie, I told you, after the mess with Razr and Chopper we don’t have the money. No way in hell, they’re going to make bail. And Reese, well the truth is I don’t know that we could even come up with the ten percent a bondsman would ask.”

  “Then fucking find it!” She screamed.

  “You can’t get blood out of a turnip, girl.”

  “Don’t give me that shit! Renegades has to have some cash. Take it from the business if you have to.”

  “No.” Zeke spoke up.

  She whirled on him. “Oh, I did not just hear you say that.”

  �
�Yes, you did. We’re not taking it out of the business. If the club doesn’t have the money there’s nothing Eli can do.”

  “Don’t you tell me there’s nothing he can do. Reese fucking made this club and Eli can goddamn well take the money out of the business or mortgage his fucking house if he has to. I want him out!”

  Zeke stared at her for a long moment before nodding. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll put up the bail money, but only if you and Reese sign over your shares of Renegades Motors to Eli.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I’ll loan Eli the money to buy you out.”

  “No fucking way.”

  “Then he stays in jail.”

  He turned as if to walk away and she grabbed his arm. “Wait.”

  Zeke turned back to her and she gave him a cold smile. “You bail him out now and tomorrow we’ll all go see the attorney about transferring over our shares.”

  “No deal.” He looked at his Uncle Eli. “Call the attorney.”

  Eli shook his head. “I can’t let you do that, son.”

  “Yes, you can. It should rightfully be yours anyway.”

  “Even if that’s true, it will take time to have the paperwork drawn up.”

  “For enough cash, he’ll get the paperwork done tonight and to us in the morning.”

  “You’re not leaving Reese in jail all night!” Carrie protested.

  “Yes, we are.” Zeke announced. “Eli will get the papers drawn up and we’ll meet you at the jail in the morning. Once you and Reese sign, I’ll post bail. End of story – mother.”

  Just then, Chief Art Phillips pulled up. He got out of his car and walked over to them. “I’m guessing you’re all trying to figure out how to get them out of jail.”

  “What do they have them on?” Eli asked.

  “A lot,” the Chief replied. “Chopper and Razr don’t stand a chance in hell. Both were caught carrying. Twice in a month. They’ll go back in. Reese? Don’t know. Got three Raptors swearing they saw him shoot two of their club in cold blood. Sheriff department have his gun, and they’ll match it to the bullets once the ME is done with the bodies. He could be looking at hard time for this one.”