“Prez, listen to me. I know this hitting you hard. It’s fucking killing me right now, too.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Shoving aside all safety and the possibility of more motherfuckers on the property waiting to take him out, Christopher rounded on his friend. Unless he imagined shit, he’d clearly heard Digger call out to him. “All the fuck I know is them motherfuckers were inside my property, beyond club gates. Some fucker let ‘em in. Every-fuckin-time you had the fuckin’ chance to fuck that motherfucker up, you let him walk the fuck away.”
Anger blanketed Mort’s features and he balled his fists. “You think I permitted that motherfucker in so he could cut my fucking wife down? My mother-in-law? You fucking out your goddamn mind, Prez.”
If he’d had bullets left, he would’ve shot Mortician then and there. Instead, he turned again and walked into his club house. Decorations for the baby shower hung everywhere. A large sign with Congratulations, Bailey hung in the center of the room. Presents that Megan had everybody stack in the corner in preparation for the day. The enormity of the shootings smacked him in the face.
Their women had been shot. He’d been right the fuck out in the open, but unless motherfuckers were terrible fucking shots, they’d purposely missed him while aiming for the girls. Megan, Bailey, Kendall, Zoann. Even Roxy.
He glanced at the monitors, surprised to see the words ‘No signal’ on each of the screens.
Suddenly, a chair went flying and Christopher spun to see Mortician staring at the banner through teary eyes.
“Prez, yeah, I protected Digger cuz I didn’t think he was so low, but I’d fucking lay down my life before I betrayed you. I know how you felt that day when you had to pretend you didn’t know what happened to Big Joe and step up as president. I know that fucking hurt you. But our women strong, brother. They’re gonna fight like motherfuckers to pull through. We gotta fight too.”
“Fight for what, Mortician? Club gone to shit. Brothers droppin’ the fuck out left and fuckin’ right cuz we just about shut the fuck down. We ain’t hardly got a fuckin’ club no more. I shoulda walked the fuck away when I decided I wanted Megan. Fallin’ the fuck apart ain’t a sign of a strong fuckin’ leader. But, Mort, I could take any-fuckin-thing…” His voice trailed off and he rubbed the back of his neck, recalling the first time he’d ever seen Megan in this very room as a scared eighteen-year-old in need of her ‘Daddy’ as she called Big Joe. “I could take any-fuckin-thing but losin’ Megan. Life don’t fuckin’ matter without her. It ain’t worth livin’. She my everything.”
“And she adore your children, Prez. When she open her eyes and find out the first child she ever gave you missing, it’s gonna fucking kill her.”
Mortician spoke the truth. Christopher needed to get his boy back.
What the fuck wrong with you, motherfucker? He needed his boy back. Nobody called him ‘Law’ like CJ did.
The door opened and a grim-faced Cash walked in, assisting Johnnie through the door.
“Who we lost?” Christopher demanded.
Eyes red-rimmed as if he’d been crying, Johnnie sat at one of the tables, pale and in obvious pain.
“Three,” Cash answered grimly, sidling Christopher a glance then transferring it to Mortician. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I found Meggie’s phone and called Ophelia to come and look after the kids. Right now, they’re at your house, Outlaw, with Mutt’s partner.”
“Who the fuck dead?”
Johnnie rested the elbow on his uninjured side on the table and cradled his head in his hand.
Knowing it was bad, Christopher waited to be told who’d been killed.
Pale from the blood loss and fucking furious, Johnnie plowed his fingers through his hair and grunted.
“We lost Arrow,” he said finally.
“Arrow?” Christopher echoed in disbelief. “K-P kid brother?”
“Yeah,” Johnnie confirmed, the news numbing Christopher. “You know another Arrow?”
Not responding to Johnnie’s sarcasm, Christopher sagged in his seat, devastation cutting into him as sharp as a knife. Arrow had been one confrontational motherfucker, but he’d been loyal to the club. He looked after Dinah…Fuck!
“Where Dinah?” Jumping to his feet, he hurried in the direction of the hallway, pausing when Johnnie swayed. “Fuck, get to the fuckin’ hospital, Johnnie.”
“Before you search for Dinah, I need to tell you about casualty number two,” Johnnie called weakly, palms flat on the table top.
“I thought Cash said three,” Mortician put in.
Cash avoided Mortician’s eyes. “Number three was a probate.”
A sick feeling sank in Christopher’s stomach and he turned his full attention to Johnnie at the sympathy in his eyes as he focused on Mortician.
“Tyler’s number two, Mortician.”
Mortician blinked and then stared, as if he couldn’t understand Johnnie’s words. “Tyler?” he said finally. “What do you mean? Tyler? I know you not fucking talking about my Tyler, so who the fuck you mean, John Boy?”
Christopher glanced at Johnnie, who gave him the smallest of nods.
“He only a boy, Johnnie,” Mortician continued. “Barely in his teens. No fucking way he’d be out there.”
“He was, Mort,” Cash said, quiet but firm. “With a gun in his hand.”
“No!” Mortician roared, the sound filled with pain and rage. “My kid wouldn’t fucking be out there doing what the fuck Sharper did. He was my boy! My son. He was my son, and he never knew it.” Leaning on the bar, he drew in great gulps of air. “One of us shot him.” He covered his face. “Man, fuck, maybe I shot my own son.”
“Mort—” Christopher usually had something to say in every situation. A piece of advice. Some shit he’d learned over the years and could impart. A smart fucking comment. But, right now, words fucking failed him. He couldn’t offer anything to his friend because he had nothing in him to give. It all went with Megan. Unfamiliar with such uncertainty, he stepped up to Mort and put a hand on his shoulder. “Mort, we all fuckin’ fired our pieces. Any of us coulda…” His voice trailed off. The thought that he’d killed any child almost broke Christopher. That shit said a lot in a fucking day of nightmares. “It coulda been me.”
“None of us killed your kid,” Cash said sharply.
Mort rounded on Cash, grabbing a bottle on the bar and hurling it. Glass and liquid shattered everywhere. “If we didn’t fucking kill my kid, who did, goddammit? He fired on us, so we fired back.”
Cash walked up to Mort and grabbed his shoulders, not letting go when the man tried to knock him away. “Sharper stood over your kid and pumped him with bullets.”
“My father?” Mort’s shocked outrage matched Christopher’s.
Why they were shocked or outraged over any of Sharper’s actions, Christopher didn’t know. That meant they were the stupid motherfuckers. After years of dealing with the assfuck, no evil fucking deed he committed should’ve surprised them.
“I saw him with my own eyes, Mortician. Tyler was already down. He was breathing before Sharper got to him because I saw him moving.”
Mortician shoved him. “If you fucking saw my old man, motherfucker, why the fuck you didn’t take him out?” He turned away. “Never fucking mind. I need to bury my son. Where is he? Still outside?”
“Yes, but Mutt and Jeff have their boys checking the grounds,” Cash explained.
Johnnie swayed again.
“Cash, get this motherfucker to a hospital,” Christopher ordered, going behind the bar to find a bottle of vodka. “Mort, hold tight, brother. We don’t know who the fuck out there.” Something he hadn’t considered when he’d come barging in. “Fuck.”
Cash withdrew his weapon. “On it,” he said, as if he’d read Christopher’s mind, already heading to the hallway.
Johnnie staggered behind him, but Christopher said, “No, you too weak, John Boy. Just sit and be ready to fire.”
Following his own advice, he removed the small handgun he’d
started strapping to his ankle for emergencies after Megan’s near-kidnapping in Bailey’s apartment.
“Prez, I got to get my kid. If I would’ve taken him in the first place, he’d still be alive.”
“Mort, you did what the fuck you thought best. We all know you woulda took him, but he’d just lost his Ma. You didn’t wanna up-fuckin-set his entire fuckin world and tell him you was his old man.”
“I didn’t have to tell him, Prez. I could’ve just insisted he come with me instead of allowing him to go with Digger.”
Mort wasn’t thinking clearly right now, but Christopher still attempted to reason with him. “How the fuck you coulda done that? As his fuckin’ brothers, you and Digger had the same fuckin’ authority. The only way you coulda made him come with you is by revealin’ your identity to him.”
Mortician snatched the bottle and drank half the fucking contents before handing it back to Christopher.
“Your office has been hit pretty bad, Outlaw,” Cash announced before either Mort or Christopher said anything else. “It’s a fucking mess.”
“They took anything?”
“Not that I can see at a glance.”
Any important shit was kept under lock and fucking key and the letters wasn’t an issue since they were not around. Whatever they’d been searching for either wasn’t there or was inaccessible.
“Anywhere else? My old room?”
Cash nodded, his eyes flaring in surprise.
Christopher shrugged. “If motherfuckers searched my fuckin’ office, it seem logical to think they searchin’ my fuckin’ room, too.”
“K-P’s, as well.”
“Unless they had a layout, how did they know which room belonged to who?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know, Cash.” At the moment, Christopher really didn’t give a fuck.
Johnnie slumped onto the table.
Cash headed to him and hefted him to his feet. Placing his arm around his neck, he dragged Johnnie toward the door and exited without another word. Christopher wanted to go to the hospital for Megan, but he still had details at the club that he needed to see to first, mainly Mortician and Dinah, one as important as the other. He didn’t want to leave Mort right now to search for Megan’s ma while Mort was in such a fucked up way. Besides, if Dinah was somewhere dead, it was already too late for her.
“We’ll give your boy the send-off he deserve, Mort.”
Mort only nodded, not raising his head from his hands.
“You get to Bailey. Ima stay behind. See to Arrow and Tyler. Get them to the funeral home. ID the probate and call his fuckin’ family.”
“Fuck, man, Arrow,” Mort responded, as if he’d just remembered Arrow, Bailey’s uncle, had also been killed.
“We gonna give that motherfucker the best fuckin’ send-off,” Christopher swore. “Just like we doin’ for your boy. No expense gonna be spared. You got my fuckin’ word.”
Mort nodded.
“Go to Bailey.”
Instead of moving, he shifted his weight. “Suppose her and our new baby dead?”
Suppose they were? What could Christopher say? He had the same fear about Megan. “I don’t know, Mort. I just don’t fuckin’ know.”
“Prez?”
“Yeah?”
“Sharper mine,” Mort gritted, low and vicious. “That murdering motherfucker. I’m going to make him personally fucking pay for all the heartache he fucking caused me.”
Christopher nodded. “Okay, Mort. He fuckin’ yours to fuck-up however you fuckin’ see fit.”
A cough snapped Christopher’s attention in the direction of the grim reaper mural.
Dinah stood in the entryway, wearing jeans along with a pajama top and sneakers. Her hair hung in snarls and tangles, but otherwise, she appeared unharmed.
“Fuck, Dinah,” he said, jumping to his feet and rushing to her. In the entire time he’d known her, he’d never been so fucking happy to see her as he was just then. Just because he knew how much Megan loved her. He hugged Dinah, so fucking relieved he didn’t care how stiffly she held herself. He guided her to a nearby table and urged her into a chair, crouching to better assess any injuries she might have. “You okay, babe?” he asked, contemplating her from head to toe and finding her unharmed.
Her body motionless and her nostrils flaring, she stared at him, unblinking. What the fuck went through her head, he didn’t fucking know.
“Meggie,” she murmured, her wide stare fucking with him. If he was a bitch, he might freak the fuck out. Even owls blinked at some fucking point. Didn’t they?
Christopher took Dinah’s cold hand into his own. “Megan got hurt real bad, Dinah,” he told her, gritting his teeth when her eyes filled with water. It made him want to sob like a bitch, too. This time, he might not ever get Megan back. “She at the hospital. I’m gonna go as soon as I can. As soon as I…” See to Tyler and Arrow.
Although he doubted Dinah’s fragile state could handle Arrow’s death, Christopher had to break the news to her. Otherwise, what would happen if she didn’t see the man? He heaved in a breath.
“Ain’t no easy way to say this, so Ima just give it to you fuckin’ straight. Arrow didn’t make it.”
Instead of falling apart, Dinah stilled, a bunch of emotions playing on her haggard face. She stood, forcing Christopher to do the same. After another long look at him, she turned and ran in the direction of her room, leaving Christopher to wonder what the future held for her.
Especially if they lost Megan.
“’Law! Want ‘Law and MegAnn,” Little Man said around tears and sniffles. “MegAnn got all red and falled.” He leaned against Bunny and wailed. “I want my mommie!”
Out of everything else that happened in the past twenty-four hours, hearing Little Man sob for his mother threatened to unravel Bunny. He wore a pair of jeans, a plaid flannel shirt, and a little cut that he was adorably attached to. He went nowhere without it. Because he was his father’s son, but his mother’s baby. Meggie adored him just as much as he doted on her. Outlaw, he idolized.
But Meggie was hurt, gravely so. She might already be dead, a tragedy that Little Man had witnessed. The clothes he had on might be the last ones his mom ever chose for him.
Bunny drew in a deep breath, stubbornly holding her tears at bay as the car sped past emergency vehicles and motorcycles, all hurrying toward the club. At the intersection of the main street and the dead end leading to the MC, traffic mounted.
Traffic. When this small town never suffered traffic. It underscored the magnitude of the morning’s calamitous events.
The chaotic confusion aided Digger’s escape. He swerved left. To frustrated drivers and rushing law enforcement, his maneuver would appear as a way to beat the ever-increasing vehicles. No one seemed to care that the car sped away from the scene and not toward it. The only one to do so.
Little Man tugged her hair. She’d had it in a careless knot at her nape, but lost her pins somewhere along the way. “Bun-Bun, want MegAnn.”
Bunny hugged him tightly, afraid if she spoke, emotion would overtake her voice and he’d pick up on her grief and fear when he was scared enough.
“MegAnn,” he repeated in a trembling tone.
“Shut him the fuck up, Bunny,” Digger yelled, his voice vibrating in the small confines of the car.
Veering off the road onto a private access road, he waved around the gun he held. In case he pulled the trigger, she wrapped her arms around Little Man’s head. Digger’s anger made the child cry harder, so before Digger, or Little Man, or both of them completely lost it, she responded.
“Lower your voice and your gun. He’s just a child and he’s scared.” Just as she was. Worse, now that her adrenaline nose-dived, her stomach pain returned. The reoccurrence of her agony brought back the memories of Trader’s beating and she shivered, cold inside.
Trader, who Outlaw had shot dead. For her. Because Meggie liked her.
Bunny held Little Man tighter. She wanted to cry over Trader’s d
eath, but couldn’t.
They’d been together for several years. At one time, she would’ve reacted upon hearing gunfire the same as Meggie had and run to check on Trader. But the pain he’d caused her numbed any grief she might’ve felt for him.
“Potty, Bun-Bun.”
“Potty?” Digger echoed, eyeing her nastily. “Since your ass followed behind the little dude, you got diapers?”
“He’s potty-trained,” she answered, flinching when his unnerving gaze caught hers. The carefree, friendly Digger she’d met so many months ago was gone. This Digger was a cold and conscienceless man, on the run because of his betrayals. He’d chosen to take Outlaw’s son instead of facing the man himself. “CJ needs to use it,” she added quietly, hoping he had a measure of sympathy for a child.
Instead of softening him, Digger glared at the back of Little Man’s head.
“In a minute, buddy,” she promised, ignoring the look. She strove for normalcy, knowing it was best to answer him. She only wished she had access to a bathroom. If Little Man was comfortable, he wouldn’t cause too many problems outside of the worry for his mother.
“Hold your piss, lil’ dude,” Digger finally ordered, pressing on the gas pedal.
At their high rate of speed, the car barrelled through the branches that touched each other from one side of the road to the next. Through the overgrowth, dirt, grass, and gravel kicked up, leaving a cloud of dust and debris in their wake. Wherever they headed looked deserted and spooky.
Her suspicions rose and a shiver traveled through her. Digger must’ve chosen the isolated spot to execute them.
Clenching her teeth to keep from crying, Bunny sidled a glance at him. His shoulder length dreads hid most of his profile from her, but his big hands gripped the steering wheel. He could easily snap her neck.
No, thoughts like this would send her into hysterics. She had to hold it together, she reminded herself, for a chance to save Little Man and get him back to his parents.
A house with thick weeds and tall grass loomed into view. Digger swerved to a stop, as close as possible to the rotten wooden steps that led to an equally rotten porch, where grass grew through the cracked boards. Bigger, sturdier boards covered the windows. The farmhouse hadn’t been tended to in a very long time, as if it hadn’t been lived in, in years.
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 237