by Leah Wilde
“We got three bodies in the clubhouse, and luckily there wasn’t anyone on the third floor,” Ricky reported absently, unable to take his eyes off his fallen brother.
I was impressed we didn’t lose more. We were taken completely by surprise. I clapped a hand on Ricky shoulder, snapping him out of his trance. He looked at me, and his eyes widened when he saw my leg.
“Shit, Gage, let’s get you upstairs so we can take care of that,” he said, pulling my arm over his shoulders to help me walk.
“Sounds good. Chase, Juarez, get someone down here to help clean this up, and get someone to clean up the clubhouse,” I barked. “We also need someone to check upstairs and see if the rooms need any cleaning.”
“Already got someone on that one, Gage,” Ricky assured me. “You let the boys handle the rest. We need to get you cleaned up.”
“They have Julia,” I told him while we trudged upstairs.
“We figured that much,” he told me.
“No, I mean they have her. She didn’t escape with Dimitri. Dimitri took her. He probably tricked her into feeling sorry for him or something, and when she went to let him go, he grabbed her and took her with him to Ivan. They probably know everything by now,” I explained.
“Don’t write her off too fast, Gage. If he double-crossed her, that probably just made her more loyal to you as an alternative to being screwed over. Just keep that in mind moving forward.” He sat me down on one of the couches.
Upstairs wasn’t too bad. There were a few of the guys’ old ladies still a little jumpy from the ambush. One of the couches had been pushed up to the windows, where someone had tried to hide behind it. I saw the blood, where I assumed he’d taken a fatal hit and collapsed. There were chips in the brick walls where bullets had rained in like hail. One of the dart boards was toast. The TV was toast. Those were just things, though. Things could be replaced. They were going to pay dearly for the five guys they took from us, and for trying to use Julia as leverage.
“It’s okay, ladies,” I called out to the women cowering at the tables in the back of the bar. “They’re gone!”
Meanwhile, members of the MC swept and cleaned up. One guy pulled the couch down from the window. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t tell who it was. I saw the couch clearly, though. It was riddled with holes from where it had taken quite a few shots before letting a couple get through to the guy who’d been hiding behind it.
Ricky came back with a knife, some bandages and gauze, and alcohol. He cut my jeans open around the wound in my leg and took a look at it. I winced as he wiped the blood away to get a better look at my leg.
“It looks like it went straight through, brother.” He reached a gloved hand around the back of my leg, and I winced again as he found the exit wound.
“That’s not too bad,” he continued. “At least I don’t have to dig that shit out, right?” He chuckled.
“Yeah, just get me cleaned up and bandaged, Ricky. Damn,” I snapped.
“On it.”
A few minutes later, with my leg wrapped up and taped together, I sat up and looked at him. He was getting his things back together to take behind the bar.
“How the hell did this happen?” I asked him.
“You already know the answer to that,” he said, giving me a straight-forward, no-nonsense look. “It’s pretty obvious that Dimitri told Ivan where we were.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” I shook my head. “Besides, Ivan already knows where HQ is. I’m surprised he took this long to ambush us. No, how did we get to a point where our rivals are strong enough to come at us like this? How did we get to the point where we aren’t really on top anymore? Do you think I let this happen? Is it because of bad leadership?”
Ricky cocked an eyebrow. “I know better than to answer a question like that, Gage, but if you think that’s the case, brother, do something about it. This is your MC as much as it is anybody’s. If you feel like we need to make changes, now’s the time.”
I thought about his words for a minute. “Yeah, I think you’re right. We need to hold an emergency meeting with everyone who’s here. We don’t need to bring anyone else to HQ today, and we need to make sure our women get out of here safely.”
“Hey, Gage, Ricky, you guys need to come see this.” It was Jorell, standing at the window, looking down.
“More bad news,” I groaned as I got up from the couch and walked over to see what he was looking at.
I hobbled over to stand next to him. Our bikes had been trashed by Ivan’s men before they left.
“Yeah, emergency meeting. Now. Here in the clubhouse, so everyone can be part of it.”
Chapter 26
We met around the bar on the second floor. I stood against the bar and looked around at the men staring back at me, waiting to hear something positive from their president.
“It’s good to see those of us who made it. We lost a few guys today,” I started. “We lost Angelo Wilkes, a long-time member of the organization. He’d been a King of Hell for decades, before some of us were even born. One hell of a man. He was a mentor to me, and I know he reached out to a few of you standing here before me. I’m sad to see him go.”
A few faces turned to the floor. A few faces, like Chase’s and Jaurez’s, stared at me with hard eyes ready to retaliate for what happened to us.
“We lost Cliff Ross today, a prospect. He was a promising young man who had proven his loyalty to the MC a few times already before throwing himself in the line of fire today in an effort to defend us. We lost Clyde Edgars, another long-time member who’d turned down several offers of promotion within the ranks so he could help you guys work on your bikes and just ride.”
Clyde’s name got a few smiles and laughs out of the guys.
“Yeah,” I joined in with a little laugh of my own, “I think we all have funny memories of Clyde telling us ridiculous stories while working on our motorcycles or on someone’s car. We lost Terrell McCoy and Johnny Britton as well, both of whom were getting their colors soon.” I glanced over at Ricky. “Ricky, we need to deliver their colors to their families.”
Ricky nodded. He stood next to Jorell Winston, the member who had drawn the ruined bikes to our attention. Jorell stood to move up to fill the hole left by Angelo’s death. I wasn’t sure if he was fully aware of that yet, but we’d already talked about promoting him several times. If not with us, then we were preparing to offer him a position in another chapter.
Jorell was ripped. Beneath his broad shoulders, his arms bulged with thick, powerful muscles. His chest pushed against his shirts as if it wanted to break out. He always wore sleeveless t-shirts to show off the ink covering both arms. He sported a shaved head and full beard. He was an impressive specimen of biker, and he took club business very seriously whenever he was involved. He stood with his arms crossed and watched me to see what my next order would be.
“The point is we lost some great people today, but I also think it’s a testament to the caliber of everyone standing here now that we didn’t lose more. I want to commend everyone for their response today. We returned fire pretty quickly despite being ambushed. That being said, I think we’ve grown too lax, too soft, too damn comfortable here,” I continued.
Voices murmured as the group certainly felt like I was calling them out.
“Now, I can’t remember anything like this ever happening to us before, so I don’t really have any fair points of comparison, but what I will tell you is that I’ve failed you. I’ve gone soft, and because of that, I feel like the MC as a whole has started to go soft. Well, not again. We’re in too deep, and the stakes are too high for us to go soft now. If anything, we need to harden up. We’re the damn Kings of Hell, for crying out loud. If someone attacks us, they need to be put on the defensive quick. We need security.”
I looked at Chase, Juarez, and Ricky. I could see that we were all on the same page. They nodded, each of them already seeing where I was going.
“Jorell,
come here.” I held up my arm for Jorell to come up in front of everyone else. “You all know Jorell, right? He’s going to be our new head of security.”
Jorell gave a hearty laugh.
“You think you’re up to it?” I joked with him in front of the rest of the group.
“You know I am.” He took my hand and shook it. “Thank you for the opportunity, Gage.”
“Alright, guys, that’s the good news,” I said, killing the applause.
I felt the mood drop around me instantly.
“What’s the bad news?” Juarez asked cautiously.
“The bad news is that we still have a lot of work to do to clean up and contact the families of the men we lost today. The bad news is that gunfire like that doesn’t occur without some sort of law enforcement response, so they’ll probably be here soon. Ricky, I need you to handle them when they get here.” I was honestly pretty surprised they hadn’t already shown up, but they were probably on Ivan’s payroll, which meant there was a good chance they would never show up.
“So, all this talk,” Chase piped up suddenly, “but what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to make sure that after we ambush the deal they’ve got coming up, they aren’t able to do anything else. We’re going to eliminate Ivan and his men so that they no longer pose any kind of threat,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster. I still wasn’t sure of what we were going to do, myself.
“We need to have a private meeting with just the kings,” Jorell said in my ear. “We need to leave the princes out of this one until we’re ready to make a move.”
It struck me as odd that Jorell was so eager to assume his position that he’d try to tell me what we needed to do. I agreed with him completely, but it seemed a little early for him to be asserting himself.
“Look, right now, we need everyone to focus on cleaning up the mess from today. We need to replace the back window on the Suburban and fix the bikes. I also want everyone armed, just in case. In the meantime, I need to see Chase, Juarez, Ricky, and Jorell in the boardroom. The rest of you are dismissed.” I waved the group away and hobbled immediately into the boardroom with the other Kings.
Once the heavy double doors were closed, we took our seats around the table.
“So, how’s it going down?” Chase asked almost immediately.
I looked between his face and Juarez’s. Neither of them held any humor. There were no more jokes to be shared. Their faces had hardened in the course of the evening.
“Might I make a suggestion?” Jorell spoke up before I could answer, raising his hand like he was still in school.
“Sure.” I sat back in my chair and gave him the floor, eyeing Ricky the whole time. Something suddenly didn’t feel right about Jorell. He was too eager to take charge, it seemed, but I figured I’d hear him out. He’d been a great asset to the MC so far. Maybe his eagerness was just a reflection of how long he’d waited to get to where he was now.
“Whatever we decide to do, let’s hold off on it and take time to plan. Let’s not jump into anything. We need to prepare,” Jorell suggested to everyone. Before sitting back down, he added, “I’m only saying that because emotions are running high right now, and I don’t want to see us lose more men by acting on those emotions and doing something stupid.”
“Thanks, Jorell. I think that makes a lot of sense,” I told him as he seated himself again. “Now, let me catch you up to speed with where we are right now. Julia Danvers, the woman who was translating for us with Dimitri, Ivan’s right hand man, is gone. They’ve got her. One of the guys told me so when he grabbed me and told me he was going to take me to Ivan.”
“What did you do to him?” Chase asked.
“Shot him right under the chin, blew his head off,” I answered. “Anyway, we know they’re going to be on Lake Michigan in a couple of days. Ivan has a pretty big deal going down on his yacht with our mayor and a handful of other corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials. And, Jorell, I’m glad you said something, because I really was thinking about running in there with guns blazing tonight just to take them out.”
“Well, what are you thinking?” Ricky asked me.
“I’m thinking we ambush the meeting and just kill everybody,” I told him, “but that’s a knee-jerk reaction to what happened tonight. I feel like there’s a better option. I just haven’t figured it out. But, no matter what we do, I want to rescue Julia.”
“Well, let’s spend tomorrow getting all of our resources together,” Jorell said. “Tonight after this meeting, though, I’m going to start positioning guys so that HQ is guarded properly. We should have seen tonight’s ambush coming a mile away. They don’t need to get the drop on us like that again.”
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s much else to say tonight. Let’s try to get some sleep tonight and make sure everyone who’s with us is safe. Let’s help the families of the guys we lost start making their final preparations. Most of all, tomorrow, we’ll need to start our plan to take Ivan’s punk ass down.” I stood up slowly. “I think we’re done here tonight, guys.”
“Alright, I’ll go ahead and secure the building,” Jorell said, already heading out the door.
“We’ll start contacting families,” Juarez said, and I could see it in his face that he dreaded having to call Cliff’s family. They followed Jorell out of the boardroom.
“Ricky, hang back a sec,” I told him while the others left.
“What’s up, Gage?” He leaned over to me.
“I need you to keep an eye on Jorell, or get an eye on him for me,” I said quietly.
“I’m on it. I don’t trust him either.” He eyed the door while he talked to me.
“Is it just me or does he seem too eager?”
Ricky nodded. He patted my shoulder as he got up, telling me, “Don’t worry about it, brother. I’ve got it all under control.” He walked out, leaving me to sit back down in the president’s chair behind the boardroom table. I sighed and shook my head.
Everything hit me. I’d almost lost my MC tonight, and if I didn’t respond to the attack the right way, I could easily lose my position within it. I had actually lost my girl to Ivan, and the longer it took to get her back, the more danger she was in.
“How the hell did you let this happen?” I asked myself.
To top it all off, I knew that the only way to save Julia and salvage whatever was left of our budding relationship, I had to refrain from killing anyone on the yacht. Julia wouldn’t want me to murder Ivan and his men, despite the fact that they’d endangered her life. She didn’t even want me fighting. She would have been horrified if she’d seen what happened at HQ tonight.
I closed my eyes. The next few days were going to be long and unpredictable. I needed rest to be able to manage. I’d lost a lot of blood, it felt like. I struggled to stand. The pain in my leg pumped and throbbed with my heart, but I knew that if I failed to make it upstairs, I’d either get no sleep or fall asleep right here in the boardroom. I trudged up to the third floor where I wandered to my room at the end of the hallway. I opened the door and climbed into the bed.
I inhaled deeply. The sheets still smelled like Julia.
“I’ll have you again soon. I’m going to bring you home,” I said to my memory of her as I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 27
Julia
The rocking motion woke me. I started to open my blurry eyes, but the pain in my head made me wince and close them again immediately. I tried to pull my hand up to my head to shield my eyes from the light, but both of my hands were tied down to the chair I was in.
“What the hell?” I started to panic, but everything came back to me pretty quickly.
I sighed as I realized where I must have been and who must have been with me.
“Dimitri?” I asked.
“I’m here,” he said in Russian. “Glad to see you waking up. Sorry about that bump on your head.”
The sarcasm in his apology was duly no
ted.
“I had to make sure you wouldn’t try to get away before we could get here,” he added.
“Oh yeah, I completely understand. It’s fine,” I snapped, returning his sarcasm. I opened my eyes and stared at the carpeted floor beneath me. I slowly raised my eyes to see him leaning against the wood paneling along the wall, next to a thin wooden door. He was hunched over, standing nearly seven feet tall, too tall for the room we were in. I looked around at the boxes and cabinets. We seemed to be in some sort of storage room. From the rocking, I figured we were on a boat somewhere.
“Have you ever been on a yacht before, Dr. Danvers?” he asked with a smile on his face. His blue eyes smiled, too. He took too much pleasure in his work, it occurred to me.