by Amity Cross
“You’ll talk,” Gasket said. “Eventually.” He turned his back on his onetime friend and made for the door. When I didn’t follow, he paused. “Chaser.”
I didn’t move, my eyes glued to Marini’s smug face.
“What did she ever do to you?” I asked, my only thoughts for Sloane.
Marini smirked and spat onto the floor. “She looks exactly like her bitch of a mother. I didn’t need the reminder.”
I raised my fist and hit him, the force of the blow jarring up my arm. Marini’s head snapped to the side, and he laughed, his teeth red with blood.
“Betty’s only good for one thing,” he went on, his words hitting me right where it hurt. “A whore like her mother. A sack of blood and guts like your bitch wife.”
I raised my fist again, expecting Gasket to stop me, but he just stood back and let me smash Marini’s face. My knuckles collided with Marini’s face, the collision doing nothing to sate my anger. After a few good hits, Gasket finally stepped in and dragged me away.
“You don’t stand a chance,” Marini said as we walked away. “You’ll never be able to take King. She’s as good as dead.”
We thundered up the stairs, and Gasket slammed the door closed, locking it behind him. It took all my strength not to turn around and shoot Marini’s head clean off, but the thought of Sloane… I couldn’t do it.
Outside, the sun had risen.
Shaking my hand, I stood on the porch, my anger still as hot as ever. Gasket followed me out, his expression just as tense.
“What are you going to do with him?” I asked, looking out over the desert.
“We could set him up and hand him over to the cops,” he replied. “But that would take time and resources we don’t have.”
If things had gone better at the compound, we’d have both those things. Now there was no practicality in holding him for an extended period of time.
I didn’t have to look across the yard to know Sloane was staring at us. The deeper I fell into this thing with her, the more connected I felt to her whereabouts. Sloane was magnetic north. My inner compass would always point toward her.
“You better talk to Sloane about it first,” I said. “He is her father despite the things he did to her. She deserves closure, no matter how fucked up it’s going to be.”
“Yeah,” the old biker muttered. “I will.”
* * *
I walked through the mass of tents, watching the comings and goings of the other bikers with interest. They’d really put together a full-on campground in a matter of a couple of hours.
Ahead, there was a group of men busying themselves behind the house. I recognized Ratchet, Hopper, and Watts going back and forth to a car, taking out boxes and other supplies, and ferrying them over to the clearing.
They were setting up around a circle, taking their places on long logs and various camp chairs. In the center was a pile of ash from a long cold campfire that would probably be lit by the time the sun went down. They had two cases of beer, various guns and weapons lying at their feet, packets of chips and pretzels, and a large bough of a tree shadowing the whole scene.
There was nowhere else to go out here, so I stepped over the log and sat down. It was bordering on blistering, but there wasn’t much that could be done about that right now. Hopefully, this place was only going to be forced on us for a few days. Then we could reclaim the compound, and Sloane would petition Gasket to get the air conditioning fixed. It seemed like something she would do.
“You and Sloane, huh?” Ratchet asked, handing me a beer.
“Where’d you get this from?” I asked, looking at the label.
“Bones brought it,” he replied. “But you didn’t answer my question, asshole. When did that happen?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? One second you’re whatever, the next…”
Hopper laughed and popped the top off his beer. “Was the same with Shondra. Bitch just walked up and grabbed my balls.”
“Good for you,” Ratchet said, punching me in the arm. “Never thought you had a heart.”
“Only a tough bitch could take him,” Watts said, taking a bottle from the case and sitting on the end of the log.
I grunted and opened my beer, immediately necking it.
“It was you, wasn’t it? Who got Sam out of the compound. You and Sloane.”
I scowled, not liking how big Watts’s mouth was getting. He talked too much about the wrong things.
“Rocket would’ve—”
“Shut your mouth,” Ratchet said with a growl. “We know what Rocket would’ve done. She’s gone. Good for her. She didn’t deserve that.”
“And Harley did?” Watts asked.
“Marini shot him for his own gain. It had nothing to do with Sloane. He was just looking for an excuse to have us all running scared,” Hopper declared. “We all saw what Harley was doing to Sam, and none of us did anything.”
“What’s going on with Marini?” Rhodes asked, changing the subject before fists came out. “Any news?”
“Don’t know,” I replied. “Gasket’s still working him.”
“But you went in there with him,” Watts argued. “Are you lieutenant now or something?”
“No,” I snapped. “I’m there on Sloane’s behalf. Besides, someone else deserves to be Gasket’s second.”
“Like who?” Hopper asked, scratching his beard.
“We’ve got bigger fish to fuck up the ass,” Ratchet replied. “That shit will come later. Anyone who wants that will have to prove themselves in all this.”
“Ol’ Rat Shit here is right,” Spike said, joining us. “A lot of stuff has to go down before we can get Fortitude back up. I’m just glad we got Marini out. I didn’t like where he was taking the club. A little blood now versus an ocean of it later. I know which was my pick.”
“Me, too,” Watts said, taking another sip of his beer.
“On that, we agree,” Ratchet replied.
“What do you think, Chaser?”
What I thought didn’t matter. When this was over, I was entirely sure I was going leave the club and never look back if that was what Sloane and I agreed on. Ultimately, it depended on what happened next.
If her father lived or died. If Gasket, her ‘adopted’ father figure, wanted her to stay. If we couldn’t get a handle on the Hollow Men.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” I said, voicing my thoughts. “I trust Gasket. I’ll follow his lead.” For now.
“Shit, if Chaser, of all people, trusts Gasket, we should all be in one hundred percent,” Spike declared.
“That’s why we’re here,” Ratchet said, smacking him on the back of the head. “No one plays his part in a hostile takeover without all that.”
Lifting my beer to my lips, I thought about Sloane. All in, one hundred percent. I couldn’t leave her now.
Chapter 23
Sloane
The sun out in the desert was even more blistering than it was in the city.
I sat on a rock, partly covered by the shade of a very tall and spiky cactus. Dirt and dust clung to the toes of my boots, and I lazily drew a pair of smiley faces on each toe. My arms were pinking up, which didn’t bode well. I fucking hated sunburn.
I pushed up my sunglasses—the pair of five-dollar aviators I made Chaser buy for me out on the road. That day had been barely two months ago. What a ride.
The cabin Deluca had brought us to was nothing like what I’d imagined on the way over here. Instead of a tiny, single-room shack with a rocking chair on the porch, it was almost a whole sprawling ranch setup. There was a yard where all the bikes and cars fit, a shed with a workshop inside, the cabin had two bedrooms, open kitchen, living and dining, plumbed bathroom, and the whole bit. It was all hooked up to rainwater tanks and a generator, but it worked. Problem was, water was in short supply out here, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
There was even a rudimentary basement carved out of the bedrock underneath the main house. From my perch, I could see
the access hole in the side of the foundations. It was a small rectangle set with glass, covered with a layer of grit.
Down there, I knew my father sat, tied up and being questioned by Gasket. Chaser was there, too. I wanted to be, but my plans for leading Fortitude had been taken out of my hands a long time ago.
What was it about this life? Every day felt like a year. Dragging its heels to claw out maximum pain.
It was deathly quiet for a place that held half the population of Fortitude MC. All forty-eight. Twenty had descended last night, and ever since, other allies had been steadily arriving—those who’d been out on jobs, others who didn’t live at the compound, those who had families to protect. Not all could be there for the initial strike. Gasket trusted them, and by extension, so did I.
They’d brought supplies, tents, and camping gear with them, and a miniature city had formed in the yard behind the cabin. No one wanted to stay in a house where Marini was being held. Couldn’t blame them. I sat apart from it all, not knowing how to be around people. I was the cause of this, after all.
The front door of the cabin opened, and my heart leaped into my throat. Gasket appeared, his boots thumping on the deck, and Chaser stepped out behind him. The old biker leaned against the rail, looking as tired as I felt. Chaser stood tall, but he always did. Nothing cracked the surface with him.
They exchanged a few tense words, then went their separate ways. Chaser walked toward the tent city, but Gasket…Gasket came toward me.
His boots crunched on the rocky ground, his eyes squinting in the bright sunshine. Marini must’ve told them something.
“Any room on that rock, girl?” Gasket asked, towering over me.
I slid over, and he sat beside me. We hardly fit on the rock at all. My right ass cheek was hanging off the edge, and the revolver I’d refused to relinquish pressed into the small of my back.
“You smell like shit,” I said, delaying the inevitable.
“There was no remorse in him, kid,” he said, ignoring my insult. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault I share DNA with a psychopath.”
He grunted and rubbed his eyes with his big fist.
“Have you slept?”
He shook his head. “Have you?”
“Can’t,” I replied.
“That ain’t good for your health.”
“What’s going to happen now?”
Gasket lowered his head, his gaze studying the dusty smiley faces I’d drawn on my boots.
“We have no choice,” he said. “If you want to talk to him before… Chaser or I will go with you.”
I rose to my feet and went a few steps toward the nothingness of Joshua Tree National Park. Before they killed him? My stomach rolled even though I knew this was the inevitable outcome. He was still my father. He’d loved my mom once, didn’t he?
“Sloane?”
I raised my gaze toward the sky, the blue endless. Out there, where the sky became dark, was a universe larger than any of us. We were insignificant and pointless. What was the point?
“Not today,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
* * *
The moon was full, casting a silver glow clear across the desert.
“Gasket said you’d walked off.”
Turning, I saw Chaser looming out of the landscape, weaving between the scrappy undergrowth.
“I wanted to be alone,” I replied, not adding the part where it had taken him hours to follow his girl into the desert.
“I know. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t lost.”
He sat beside me, pressing into my side. He just melted into me like it was the most natural thing in the world. We were two pieces of a puzzle slotting together.
“Never,” I drawled, turning my face toward him. “I’ve got an amazing sense of direction.”
“You’re not worried about coyotes?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
I snorted, thinking back to the night we’d been run off the road by two Hollow Men. I hadn’t liked the way the wild landscape had made me feel, but now I craved it. The isolation was soothing, and now Chaser was here, it was perfect.
“I can see why you like looking at the sky,” I said. “I can barely count a handful, let alone them all.”
“No one can count them all,” Chaser said, glancing up. “There are stars out there whose light has never reached us at all. Maybe it never will.”
“Do you regret it?” I asked.
“What?”
“Coming back here with me?”
“Why are you asking?” He was avoiding the question, and it made me bristle.
“I think about it sometimes,” I murmured. “What it would’ve been like if we’d just turned around and driven away from Fortitude.”
“I don’t believe in what-ifs,” he stated. “After… At first, I dwelled on them to the point it drove me to despair. You can’t build a life on what might’ve happened.”
“I imagine that’s why you’re so…” I trailed off, not wanting to be that person. The bitch who stuck the emotional knife in and twisted.
“Clinical?” Chaser asked. “Was that the word you were going for?”
I grunted, turning my face away so he couldn’t see the regret pooling in my eyes. I shouldn’t have said that.
“We all deal with our shit in different ways,” he went on. “This is mine.”
“I didn’t mean…”
His arm snaked around my back. “We are who we are, Sloane. People never change, not really. Their views and motivations might, but their core always remains the same.”
I took his words as a hopeful sign that underneath all that clinicalness, as he’d put it, was the man he was before his life had changed for the worse.
“You don’t want to speak to your dad?” he asked when I finally turned my gaze on him.
“Not today.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know what to say to him. I can already anticipate his answers, so it’s like…why bother?”
Chaser tightened his embrace.
“Besides, we still have to worry about the other half of Fortitude. The renegades. Then there’s still the Hollow Men,” I added. “Hopefully, they haven’t gotten wind of this major fuck up.”
“They already know. Guaranteed.”
I glared at Chaser, wishing he would keep his mouth shut for once. The only thing that had gone right so far was that we had Marini tied up in the basement.
“What do you want, Sloane?”
“Huh?” I thought we’d already worked that out. Revenge for all. The end.
“What happens after this?” Chaser asked. “If we get what we want, then what?”
Ah, the bit after the end. I shrugged. “I always thought Fortitude would be disbanded after we’d gotten revenge. Continuing to run a criminal organization that’s ruined so many lives doesn’t seem right. Though, nothing has exactly turned out like I’d hoped.” I turned my gaze on him. “What about you?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve been so fixated on revenge, I got lost in my rage. I saw nothing past that. Not until I told you I’d leave it all behind.”
My heart swelled, and I leaned my forehead against his. “You did, didn’t you?”
“It’s…hard for me,” he murmured. “Saying these things.”
“I know.”
“I’ve held onto her for so long…”
I didn’t want to feel jealous of a dead woman, but I couldn’t help it. He’d loved her so much they’d married, and in the aftermath of her passing, he’d given up everything to go after the bad guys. I wanted to inspire that much love and devotion in someone, but it wasn’t something you could make happen. Not really. Love was fickle and only reared its head when it was good and ready.
Still, I wanted Chaser to love me like he’d loved Madison.
“We’re fighting for something better,” I said. “Revenge isn’t the right word anymore. I doubt it ever was.”
“Then what is?”
I thought ab
out it for a moment. We wanted to take over Fortitude—granted, that didn’t work out—and unite against the threat of the Hollow Men. We both had our reasons, but maybe it was more about justice for the wrongs that had been committed against us. For Chaser, it was what had happened to Madison. For me, it was what my father had planned to do to me, now and then. We’d both picked up a few more bullet points along the way to solidify our cause, but it all boiled down to the one thing.
“Justice,” I whispered.
“Justice…” He tested out the word, his eyes narrowing.
“It’s what you signed up for when you were a cop, right? And when you went into the FBI? You wanted to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves?”
Chaser grunted, his past still very much a sore point. The system had failed him, which was what had gotten him drafted into Fortitude in the first place. Well, we just had to make our own set of rules.
“See that star with the red tinge?” he asked after a moment. “That’s Mars.”
“Really?”
“And that’s Venus on the horizon…” He trailed off, his body tensing as we saw the same anomaly.
“What’s that light?” I asked, rising to my feet.
Chaser stood and grasped my arm, tugging me behind him. Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones.
“Fire,” he said. “The cabin is on fire.”
Chapter 24
Sloane
“Who do you think it is?” I asked, reaching for my gun.
“The other half of the sword,” Chaser replied.
He was right. It couldn’t be anyone else.
“Do you think we have a mole?” I asked, feeling the weight of the revolver pressing into my back.
“Doesn’t matter now.”
Gunfire popped in the distance, and I broke out into a run with Chaser hot on my heels.
“Sloane,” he exclaimed behind me. “Stop.”
All those times on the road I’d cowered behind Chaser. I’d run from danger and did nothing to save myself. I was beginning to doubt I’d fought at all, but now I had the power and the guts to point and shoot. I would not let some hick asshole tricycle tyrants take away my justice.