Midnight Obsession: A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance Part 4

by Olivia Thorne

  “What’s in the other bag?”

  “I figured you might need a refill after last night, so…” She unzipped the other bag. Inside were several pistols, a couple of assault rifles, a dozen clips, and boxes upon boxes of ammunition. “Had my guy turn ‘em into full-automatic for you, so don’t go blowin’ your load right outta the gate.”

  “Thanks, Sloane,” Jack said appreciatively. “I’ll have to get the money to you later, though.”

  “Don’t worry, sugar. You deliver on our deal, this one’s on the house.”

  Kade lugged the bags out of the Challenger’s trunk and stashed them in the pickup cab behind the seats.

  Sloane hooked her hands in the back of her jean pockets and gazed at Jack. “Well.”

  “Well.”

  They looked for all the world like a couple with a lot to say, but a lot of reluctance to say it.

  I can’t say I wasn’t jealous, but I bit my tongue.

  “Don’t get yourself killed, Jack,” she said softly.

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “Let me know how it goes.”

  “We will.”

  “Good luck, guys,” she said to all of us as she got back in the Challenger. “Momma needs a new pair of shoes and a shit-ton of new territory.”

  With that, the muscle car tore out of the parking lot and back out onto the street.

  “Lord God a’mighty,” Sid said.

  “Be careful, old timer,” Jack said as we got into the cab. “She’d eat you alive.”

  “It’d be a damn good way to go out. You’re takin’ Fiona over THAT? No offense, kid.”

  “Sid,” I said, “if we make it out of this alive, I’m going to kick your ass.”

  “If you make it out alive, kid, you’re welcome to try.”

  85

  We drove the truck up the long, dusty road to the falling-down ranch house and the barn. The place was just the way Sid had described it.

  Kade pulled the pickup around back of the house, turned the nose towards the barn, and left the engine running as he put it in park. Then he and Jack opened the truck doors and stood behind them for cover.

  Kade aimed one of Sloane’s assault rifles at the house, while Jack pointed the other one at the barn.

  I held my pistol in my sweaty, trembling hand and got out next to Jack.

  “HELLO,” Jack shouted.

  No answer.

  “If you’re in the barn, you need to come out right now,” Jack yelled. “We’re not going to hurt you – not if you come out.”

  Nothing.

  “Check out the house,” Jack said to Kade.

  Kade ran over to the back patio, paused by the doorway, and kicked it in SWAT-style, with his assault rifle aimed at the room. He disappeared inside, then re-emerged after sixty long, agonizing seconds.

  “Nobody inside, but there are dishes in the sink and the bed’s been slept in,” Kade informed us.

  “That was very Chuck Norris of you, kicking the door in like that,” Jack grinned.

  “Shock and awe,” Kade said emotionlessly as he rejoined us by the truck.

  Jack turned back to the barn. “Look – we know you’re in there,” he yelled.

  No answer.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jack muttered, then looked at me. “Might want to stand back, or at least cover your ears.”

  As soon as I put my hands over my ears, he aimed the rifle at the barn and pulled the trigger.

  BRATTA-TATTA-TATTA-TATTA-TAT!

  The outside wall of the barn splintered with a dozen holes.

  Suddenly there was static-y feedback, and a young guy’s voice erupted over a speaker.

  “You need to leave. Lou’s on his way.”

  “You called Lou?” Jack shouted.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s going to take him at least 10 minutes to get here, so I figure we’ve got time to come in and get you.”

  “I called him five minutes ago when I saw you come up the driveway.”

  Jack frowned. “How’d you see us come up the driveway? You weren’t outside, and I don’t see any windows in that barn.”

  “I have security cameras, asshole.”

  “Ohhhh… okay,” Jack yelled. “Well, I guess we better make this quick, then.”

  He put the assault rifle down, then grabbed the rocket launcher out of the truck cab and put it on his shoulder.

  “Can you see this?” Jack shouted.

  There was a brief silence.

  “Hold on, I’m coming out,” the guy said in a panic.

  “Make it snappy!” Jack yelled.

  Nothing happened for at least another twenty seconds.

  “You think he’s calling Lou to tell them we’ve got a rocket launcher?” Jack asked.

  “Probably,” Kade answered.

  “Good. HEY, SHITHEAD!” Jack yelled at the barn. “You better get your ass out here by the time I count to one! Ten… nine… eight… seven…”

  The barn door flew open, and a figure in a gas mask and yellow Hazmat suit came running out. “DON’T SHOOT, DON’T SHOOT!”

  “Take off the mask, then hands in the air!” Jack yelled as Kade covered the guy with his rifle.

  The guy ripped off his gasmask, revealing the glasses-wearing nerd from Sid’s photos, and threw his arms up above his head.

  “Turn around and back towards the truck, SLOWLY. Don’t try anything smart, or – ”

  Far away, the distant sound of motorcycles growled through the desert air.

  My guts twisted with fear.

  “Well, well, well,” Jack said. “Looks like the party’s about to get started.”

  86

  Six Harleys roared up the dirt driveway, trailing clouds of dust behind them. In the center rode Lou, dressed in his customary black suit.

  The bikes came to a stop about a hundred feet away from us, but each rider turned his motorcycle sideways as he parked. Now there were barricades of steel between us and them, as though they wanted cover.

  Which was precisely the idea, since almost every man pulled a pistol as soon as he got off his bike. I recognized them as Lou’s inner circle – all except one, a guy in a denim jacket. He also wore a full motorcycle helmet that obscured his face.

  He looked around at the other bikers like he was confused. Maybe that was because he was the only one without a gun.

  “Fiona, cover Egghead here, why don’t you,” Jack said as he shifted the rocket launcher away from the barn and towards Lou and his thugs.

  I pressed my gun into the meth cook’s back and prayed he wouldn’t do anything, since there was no way in hell I was going to pull the trigger.

  Hopefully he didn’t know that.

  “Jack… Jack,” Lou said in a tsk tsk tone of voice as he walked out in front of the bikes. “Is this any way to treat an old friend?”

  “When the old friend sends three guys to kill me and burn down my house, yeah, I’d say it’s a great way to treat him.”

  “That was all a big misunderstanding.”

  “Really? Molotov cocktails and shotguns are just a ‘misunderstanding’?”

  Lou saw this wasn’t going anywhere, so he asked instead, “Where’d you get the popgun?”

  “Around.”

  “The gangs in LA havin’ a sale?”

  “The more important question is, what are you going to do about it now that it’s pointed at you?” Jack asked.

  “Negotiate, of course,” Lou said.

  “Better start, then.”

  “Just don’t hurt Einstein there while we’re talking.”

  “Make sure you don’t do anything stupid while we’re talking, then.”

  Lou turned slightly to face me, even though he was still ninety feet away. “Fiona,” he said in a friendly voice.

  “Asshole,” I said back, as though I was calling him by name.

  Lou grinned. “It seems to me that all of this started with you. You showing up in town… you poking around… you stirring the pot.”
/>
  “You know why I did it.”

  “I do – and it’s led us all here, to this spot, right now. You were the start of a chain reaction with unforeseeable consequences. Property destroyed… bad blood between club members…”

  Lou gestured at Jack’s rocket launcher.

  “…and some potentially very, very bad choices that shouldn’t be made. For the good of everyone involved.”

  Jack shifted the rocket launcher ever so slightly. “You better start convincing me not to make them.”

  “Alright. You have somebody I want… and I have somebody you want.”

  “All I see is a bunch of thugs,” Jack yelled.

  “Then you’re not seeing clearly,” Lou answered. “Actually, it’s not somebody you want so much as it is somebody your girlfriend there wants.”

  My chest tightened, and it got hard to breathe.

  What the fuck was going on?

  “Wild Bill!” Lou shouted. “Bring him on up here.”

  One of the guys in the pack – a big dude with a bushy beard and Willie Nelson braids – suddenly put his pistol in the masked rider’s back and pushed him forward.

  The masked rider turned around in shock, then held up his hands as Wild Bill poked the gun right in the helmet’s faceplate. The masked rider turned around and stumbled over next to Lou as Wild Bill prodded him along.

  “Jack, as far as you and me go – we can’t exactly undo what’s been done,” Lou said. “But I’ll make it good between us. Peters will make sure you see the insurance money on your house and the body shop, and I’ll personally cut you a check for a hundred grand if you agree to leave town. Kade, you’re welcome to stay, or you can go with Jack, whatever you want. All you have to do is just hand Einstein there over to me, leave my property alone, and go on your merry way.

  “As for you, Fiona – you wanted your cousin’s killer? Here he is.” Lou pushed the rider out in front of him a couple of feet. “You can do whatever the fuck you want with him. Kill him, torture him, I don’t care. Make him pay however you want. But after that, you leave town too, and you never come back.”

  I stared at the masked rider. He was trembling in fear as he looked back at Lou in bewilderment.

  My head was spinning.

  Was this true?

  Was this the killer?

  And how the fuck did Lou know who he was?

  Lou raised his pistol and pointed it at the rider. “Take off the fuckin’ helmet.”

  The man raised his shaking hands to his head and pulled off the helmet. A shock of blond hair and a childlike face appeared.

  Benjy.

  Ali’s killer was Benjy.

  87

  Lou

  Back when I was planning it all out just a few weeks ago, I originally thought about having Weasel (or Emilio, or whatever the fuck his name was) kill Jack. That would have solved a lot of immediate problems. I could’ve even spun it so that I was going to carry on bravely in Jack’s wake. Passing the torch and all that shit.

  But the problem was, if those two idiots I met in the dive bar knew who Jack Pollari was, they weren’t going to touch the job with a twenty-foot pole.

  They basically confirmed that when the first thing that came out of their mouths was they were fans of the club – so they definitely would have known who the fuckin’ president was.

  Nobody knows the VP, but every lowlife piece of shit knows the guy at the top.

  Not to mention that Kade would have never let it go if Jack got killed. He’d have suspected me immediately, and I doubt he’d need concrete proof to ease his conscience. Hell, he probably would have shot me on general principle alone.

  And having them gun down Fiona brought up all the same problems as if I pulled the trigger myself. It was too much of a coincidence to have her buy the farm while she was investigating her cousin’s death. Peters might have been able to shield me from a certain amount of hell, but a chick getting shot while she was trying to solve her cousin’s murder? And she was good-looking and a PI to boot? All the family would have to do was put it on Facebook, and I’d have fuckin’ CNN knockin’ on my door the next day. And after that maybe the FBI, or the DEA…

  No. Better just to make Jack look weak… sow the seeds of discord… and tie up some loose ends.

  And of course I couldn’t let the two gunmen live. Not when they could have ratted me out. Plus I would’ve had to pay the fuckers ten grand, and no way in hell that was gonna happen.

  I intended to kill both of them in the Seven Veils. I ended up getting Weasel, but Baldy was faster – and evidently a little smarter – than I took him for. Guess Jesus could do more than just walk on water.

  Didn’t matter. Offing him in the desert worked out even better. It made Jack look weak and me look strong, which started the chain reaction. When I exposed Fiona 24 hours later, that was the cue for the fat lady to sing. By the time I was through, the club was out for blood. Jack was not only a pussy, he was a pussy who got played by a bitch. Stupid, weak, and one-upped by a chick – a deadly combination if you want to be president of a biker gang.

  As a bonus, Fiona not only got outed, she betrayed Jack right to his fuckin’ face. She went back to LA broken and humiliated. Wouldn’t be seeing her again.

  And once I killed off the two shitheads I hired, my entire involvement was wiped clean.

  Brilliant, if I do say so myself.

  The shitheads fucked up one important detail, though.

  They didn’t kill Benjy.

  88

  Oh – I didn’t exactly spell that one out, did I?

  Yeah. Benjy was the one who killed Venus. Good ol’ simpleminded Benjy.

  He don’t look like a retard, but he’s definitely a few fries short of a happy meal. Mother probably dropped him on his head when he was a baby. Maybe a couple of times.

  Anyway, Benjy’s also the one who told me – inadvertently – that Venus was ratting us out to the DEA.

  Actually, to be accurate, he revealed the possibility that Venus was going to rat us out to the DEA. I never had any real proof. Just a conversation that Benjy overheard.

  That was enough for me. I don’t take chances with shit like that.

  Benjy was what you might call a provisional member at that point. Had been for two years, though we hadn’t patched him in yet.

  Half the club hated we were even considering letting in a retard, which is why the decision took so long. But Benjy had a lot of supporters, too. Jack was one of them.

  I didn’t really give a shit either way. Under Jack’s leadership, the MC was already in the shitter as far as I was concerned. And dumb fucks can be useful from time to time, so why not let him in?

  But there was a contingent that was fucking livid. Eyeball put it best: “I joined a motorcycle gang, not the Special fuckin’ Olympics.”

  That comment was just one of the many reasons Jack hated Eyeball.

  Me, I thought it was pretty fuckin’ hilarious.

  Anyway, Benjy hung around the Seven Veils a lot. He was too slow on the draw to get any pussy, so he enjoyed staring at it instead. Hadn’t figured out how to download porn on the internet, I guess.

  Anyway, he became the club mascot. The strippers were nice to him – at least to his face. They never took him seriously, though. He thought he had a shot with them, which was pretty fuckin’ hilarious. Apparently nobody ever told him cheerleaders don’t date kids who ride the short bus.

  One stripper in particular was especially decent to him. Never took advantage of him, never pumped him for dollars when she was onstage, never made jokes at his expense, never talked shit behind his back. Venus – Fiona’s cousin. I gotta admit, she was good to him. Looked out for him.

  She shouldn’t have done that. He started following her around everywhere like a puppy dog.

  Christ, it got to be embarrassing. I pulled her aside one night and was like, Look, just put him out of his fuckin’ misery. Stop leadin’ him on.

  I’m not leading him on, Lou. I
’m treating him like a human being.

  Yeah, well, HE wants to treat you like a Tijuana whore.

  She gave me a cold stare. Not every guy in the world wants to fuck every woman they meet.

  Yeah, they got a name for guys like that: fags.

  She got pissed. Don’t use that word around me.

  I ignored her. He wants to fuck you, and you’re not going to fuck him, so what the hell are you doing?

  I’ll always remember what she said next:

  I’d fuck HIM before I’d fuck YOU, Lou. Any day.

  Goddamn bitch.

  Although I have to give it to her, she wasn’t a skank. She was a cokehead, yeah, but I never once saw her give up tail for cash. In fact, she was the only stripper at the Veils I never banged or got a blowjob from. When I told her she had to put out if she wanted to get hired, she shot back, I thought you were a businessman, Lou. What do you want more, head or money?

  I said, Both, bitch.

  And she said, Well, you’re only getting one from me, BITCH, ‘cause the other one’s not on the menu.

  I laughed. Gave her a pass. She was smart – and a smartass. It was refreshing at the time.

  The smartass routine got old real fast, though.

  But hell, she was hot, she had a great rack, and she brought in more money than any other three girls combined. I could deal with a little sass as long as she delivered the cash.

  Anyway, Benjy kept following her around like a puppy dog. She didn’t do anything to dissuade him. Always called him ‘sweetie’ and patted his cheek.

  The guys in the MC heckled him and told him he was an idiot. When that didn’t get through, they started asking him when he was going to bang her. He’d get real mad and put up his dukes and try to fight Eyeball. Imagine that, sticking up for the honor of a stripper.

  Jack saw what was going on and put an end to it. No more fucking with Benjy, you got it? Leave him alone, or I’ll kick your ass. That’s an order.

  Eyeball tested those orders one night when Jack wasn’t around. He poured a drink on Benjy’s crotch, then told all the strippers that he’d pissed himself. Benjy about cried, he was so embarrassed and angry. Then Eyeball made it worse by pulling the kid’s pants down around his ankles and making fun of his pinky-sized dick.