Blood in the Water (Kairos)

by Catherine Johnson

  Chapter Twelve

  She was going to be the death of him, of that he was absolutely certain. One way or the other she was going to kill him or get him killed, but Jesus Christ he hoped she fucked him to death because that would be a sweet way to go. His mind was blown and he had to drag the fragments back into some semblance of order, because there were ten hardasses waiting on him.

  “Glad you could join us.” Sarcasm was thick in Samuel’s tone, but as he walked over with the saddlebags for Paul to put in place on his bike, Paul saw the corners of Samuel’s mouth twitching.

  “Sorry I’m late. Boss.” It was good to know he wasn’t in dire trouble, but since he had been fucking his President’s daughter vigorously for the best part of the night, he wasn’t going to push his luck. “Won’t happen again.”

  “Yeah, yeah. That girl’s fifty per cent Lebeau. You got no chance boy.” Samuel shook his head with pity.

  Paul dismounted to take the saddlebags that Samuel hefted at him. Geoff trotted over with a zip tie and a screwdriver. Rabbit strolled over while they were working.

  “You’re lookin’ a bit tired round the eyes there, Shark. You get much sleep?”

  “Fuck off.” Paul muttered as he threaded the zip tie through the nut before unscrewing it.

  “Mind you, old fella like yourself. I bet you were tucked up in bed with your hot chocolate not five minutes after you got home.”

  Paul looked up at Rabbit and gave him a brief wide and friendly grin. “Fuck off.”

  That set Rabbit laughing so hard he doubled over. It took a couple of minutes, but pretty soon they had his saddlebags removed and the modified saddlebags fixed to his bike. Geoff took Paul’s bags back into the clubhouse for safekeeping. Paul gave the re-fixed seat a shove to check it was secure.

  “Is she worth it?”

  Paul’s head snapped up. When it came to women, Rabbit never had anything so solemn to say.

  Paul knew what he was asking. Was she worth giving up his bachelor ways for? Was she worth the extra shit he’d get because she was his president’s daughter and the extra care he’d have to take? Was she worth the effort of making it work because it was obviously the sort of situation that didn’t happen every weekend. What Rabbit couldn’t know was just how much more loaded his question was than he intended it to be.

  “Yeah, she is.”

  Having gotten the response he wanted, Rabbit wandered back to his own bike, not wanting to be the next person to take the fire for them setting off late.

  “You set, brother?” Samuel called.

  “Yeah. I’m good to go.” Paul called back, swinging back into his seat.

  He didn’t have the luxury of time for extended goodbyes, and apart from maybe Sloth, there were none he cared to make. He watched as Samuel and Jimmy spoke, shook hands and clapped each other on the shoulder, before they mounted their own rides.

  They started their engines, the roar of the nine bikes splitting the still of the early morning like a freight train. Samuel led the way, closely followed by Jimmy, who shot Paul a pointed look as he passed. Anyone else might hade interpreted it as annoyance at Paul’s tardiness, but Paul knew it was about something far more serious.

  Paul let Garfield pull out in front of him, preferring to see the president and SAA of his former club clearly before him rather than worry about them behind him. He joined the formation and found Travis alongside him. He checked his mirrors and saw Dean and Rabbit riding abreast, followed by Sloth and then Sinatra and Morse bringing up the rear. Either Dean had decided to let things take their course, or he was one hell of a poker player, because even before he’d put his helmet on Paul hadn’t been able to decipher quite what the man’s opinion about events were from his face.

  They mostly keep the loose formation, allowing for town traffic. It might have been early, but the god-fearing folk were already on their way to their churches. When they got to the interchange for I-10, they twisted their throttles by way of saying farewell, and the Rabids headed west back to Texas while the Priests took the ramp for the eastbound stretch of the highway.

  They maneuvered into a tighter formation once they gained the space of the highway. Samuel maintained the lead, with Paul and Dean behind him and Sinatra and Morse behind them. The day was warming up slowly as the strengthening sun burnt off the remnants of the morning’s chill. As was always the case on a Sunday, there seemed to be an extra number of fucktards on the roads. It was as if an alien ray shone down once a week and removed the turn signal from every single car and maybe strengthened the invisibility ray that seemed to permanently shine on bikers.

  Paul’s mind kept drifting to Ashleigh. The specific flashes of the previous night were problematic. Not only were they causing his cock to fill out, which was uncomfortable, but they were fuelling a desire to hit a one-eighty and head back to town so that he could shove her up against the nearest wall. Without any option but to continue, Paul shifted in his seat in an attempt to relieve the pressure on his cock and balls and tried to think of something, anything, that wasn’t that blonde hair over his pillow or that luscious wet heat or that silky golden skin. Fuck it all, at this rate he’d need to jack off at the first stop they made or he wouldn’t be able to ride for the rest of the day.

  They had left Louisiana in the rearview and were well into Mississippi and coming up on the state line into Alabama when a black Chrysler SUV that had been behaving perfectly normally as it came up in the lane alongside them suddenly cut in front of Samuel, missing him by inches. His evasive action to avoid the behemoth barreling towards him sent him skidding across the median, ploughing deep, black furrows in the grass. Paul watched, stunned, as Samuel himself narrowly missed a Prius traveling west with a panicked family packed inside. He was braking, trying not to end up with either of the Prospects hooked onto his fender, so he heard the agonized squeal of Samuel’s tires as he braked after he’d lost sight of the man and his bike.

  Not knowing what they’d find when they looked back and trying to keep the surging adrenaline from pushing his heart directly out through his throat, Paul cut across the median and crossed the now empty highway until he could pull up on the grassy verge. He heard rather than saw Dean, Sinatra and Morse following his lead, because all his brain could make sense of at the moment was that he couldn’t see Samuel or his bike and that the grass shoulder was lined with trees and bushes, most of which were substantial enough to cause damage if they stopped a body traveling at speed.

  Paul was off his bike almost before he was certain the kickstand was in place, barely bothered whether it ended up on its side or not. He jogged back down the shoulder, scanning the ground in front of him and the vegetation to the side, looking for any sign of Samuel. Paul almost went to his knees when he saw him, rider and bike both partially camouflaged by the trees that they’d almost barreled into. Samuel was virtually at the spot where he’d left the road. The gouges in the median and the scribed rubber arcs on the tarmac were a vivid indication of the seriousness of his evasive action.

  Samuel was standing with his knees bent and his hands braced on them, his head down. His bike was on its side at the end of a muddy swathe. Marveling that the man was still standing and instantly concerned that pain and adrenaline was masking a severe trauma, Paul increased his pace until he was by Samuel’s side. That Samuel wasn’t wearing his helmet was suddenly a major concern.

  “Boss! You okay? Your helmet?”

  “S’okay.” Samuel panted, shaking his head. “Took it off. Couldn’t breathe.”

  “Dad!” Dean skidded to a halt in front of them.

  “M’okay. Really.” Samuel straightened up and stretched out his back.

  “Let me check you over.” Dean was already stepping forward as Sinatra and Morse jogged up.

  “No need. It didn’t go down with me on it. Kinda just went from under me on the grass and I dropped it. It’s greasy as fuck on here.”

  Paul couldn’t say he’d noticed. He’d been too busy worrying if Sa
muel was still alive and trying to make sense of what the fuck on earth had just happened.

  “What did that cunt think he was doin?” Sinatra asked.

  “No idea. Tinted windows. Fucking retard was probably on their fucking phone.” Dean was radiating rage. Paul had his own share of fury for whoever had taken them out, but it wasn’t going to help them none at the moment.

  “Boss, go sit down a minute, catch some air. Dean, you go with him.” He waved the Prospects over. “You two with me. Let’s check the state of his lady.”

  Paul wasn’t surprised that Samuel was staggering a little, and truly hoped it was the effects of the shock rather than an actual injury. They should get him somewhere where they could get a hot drink into him and some sugary food, but they couldn’t leave his bike on the verge of the highway with a federal crime’s worth of drugs in the saddlebags.

  Between the three of them, they got the six hundred plus pound bike upright. Paul turned the ignition and gunned the throttle without sitting astride it. He was relieved and impressed that nothing sounded off in the mechanics. Samuel must have laid it down as gentle as a baby despite the massive skid marks.

  Samuel pushed himself up from the tree he’d been resting against when he saw Paul and the Prospects walking towards him.

  “Ride’s fine. If you can ride we should get to the next services, get you somethin’ to eat and drink before we carry on.”

  “I can ride. Takin’ five don’t sound like a bad idea, but I wanna push on. I want this load dumped on time and off our hands.”

  “I don’t disagree.” Paul nodded. “I don’t think that’s behind this or they’d have stopped, but we don’t need to be takin’ the risk all the same.”

  “Fuck. I hadn’t even thought about the drugs.” Dean sounded astonished at himself.

  “Like I said. I don’t think it’s that, but let’s get ‘em off the side of the road all the same.” Paul advised.

  Samuel swung back onto his bike, a little more stiffly than he had back at the clubhouse, and started it up. He rolled it gently along the verge until he got to the spot where Paul, Dean and the Prospects had abandoned their rides. There was a blessed absence of traffic as they gunned their bikes across the highway into the westbound lane and continued on their original route. It was some five or ten minutes later, having not seen another vehicle on the road, that Paul started to ponder the timing of such a dangerous driver happening across their convoy.

  ~o0o~

  It took longer than Paul was comfortable with until they found a diner they could stop at. By the time they pulled in and dismounted, Samuel seemed a little less stiff and a lot more composed. Paul knew he wouldn’t tolerate fussing, but his role on this run was to look out for his president, and that’s what he intended to do. When the got inside and got seated, Paul made sure they ordered an ample amount of food to go with their coffee. It didn’t hurt considering the insubstantial breakfast he’d had. That thought more than witnessing the near miss brought him out in a cold sweat. If Samuel had been injured or worse they would have had to carry that news back to Moira and Ashleigh. Paul found himself sending up a prayer of thanks into the ether.

  Their food arrived and they all dug in, Paul trying not to monitor Samuel in a way that he noticed. Dean was obviously still seething about the carelessness of the SUV driver and was cursing between mouthfuls. Samuel didn’t look to be in the mood for his son’s invective-filled rant and Paul knew he damn sure wasn’t. Plus, he had a solution for Dean’s snippy conjecturing.

  “I got the plates.”

  Four heads snapped round to face him.

  “Say what now?” Dean asked incredulously.

  “I got the plates. Caught ‘em as the bastard fucked off. Still remember ‘em.”

  “Call Crash.” Samuel instructed.

  Paul knew why he was being tasked with passing the request on. If Samuel phoned it would be taken as indicative of something more serious than if Paul passed on the task. He fished his phone out of his zippered kutte pocket and made the call. He could tell Crash was curious, but he played the situation down, saying that it was just someone who’d followed them for a spell rather than explaining the full extent of what had actually happened. Crash promised to get back to him with whatever information he could hack. Paul was thinking as an enforcer, not as a planted assassin. He should have been disappointed, instead he was angry and... curious. He hoped that Jimmy hadn’t decided to take matters into his own hands, although that might possibly make his life easier; there was something to ponder on there when he had time and space to do so. However, there were also other factors to take into account.

  He finished the call and rested his elbows on the table, his hands folded around his phone. “We gotta consider that it might have been these Mexicans that are out for the Rojas business.”

  “That it might.” Samuel agreed.

  “They fucked up, then.” Dean said. The two Prospects remained silent. This was information that they hadn’t previously been privy to.

  “Maybe. Maybe this is just a shot across the bows, a warning. Or maybe we were lucky.” Paul didn’t want to point out just how close Samuel had come to being a smear on the blacktop, if not under the wheels of the Chrysler, then under the Prius that he’d nearly hit.

  “Nothin’ we can do about it until Crash gets back to us boys.” Samuel leaned back in his seat. “No point turnin’ our cogs on that when we need our full attention on the road now. Maybe it was the Mexicans, and maybe it was just some fuck-up who can’t drive for shit. Either way, we need to pay attention.”

  Paul nodded. “And either way we need to get this load off our hands. Doesn’t matter what takes us out; if law finds us with what we’re carryin’ we might as well be dead.”

  “Indeed.” Samuel agreed. “We’ve rested our lazy asses enough here. We need to get back on the road.”

  No one disagreed, and they were soon underway again.

  ~o0o~

  The rest of the journey was as uneventful as could be hoped for. It was midafternoon by the time they’d completed the handover, which had taken place at the end of an anonymous service road. They handed off their illegal cargo without a hitch and rejoined the highway eastbound. They got some miles under their belts before Samuel signaled them to pull over onto the shoulder.

  They took a few steps away from their bikes and the noise of the passing traffic before Samuel spoke.

  “I’ll make this quick. We got another day’s worth of ridin’ ‘fore we’re back home; but we got two options. We call it quits for today, find ourselves somewhere with loud music and cold beer and some sort of bed; or we push on through and sleep in our own beds, hopefully ‘fore midnight. My vote is to push through. I’ve an itch to get home to my wife, but if you boys are done in we’ll find somewhere to rest.”

  This was one of the things that Paul admired about Samuel. He sounded all friendly and shit, like he was giving them the option; but really he was telling them what he wanted to do and calling them pussies if they couldn’t keep up. No one was going to disagree with him. Paul wouldn’t have voted against him anyway, it’d hurt, but sleeping in his own bed would be worth it, doubly so if he could persuade Ashleigh to join him.

  He couldn’t answer, though, without acknowledging some concern about the distance they had yet to travel. “Boss, I ain’t callin’ shit here. All I’m sayin’ is that you took a hell of a spin earlier. You wanna push through? I got your back. But I’m askin’ you to consider whether or not you wanna rest.”

  He’d expected Samuel to maybe take even some small offense, but he didn’t appear to take any. “I won’t lie, that shook me up some. But all the more reason to get back. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “That I do. I’d far rather be nearer friends than stuck out here in the middle of no place.”

  “Hell yeah.” Dean agreed. “I ain’t gonna feel right ‘til we’re back on home turf.”

  “You boys?” Samuel asked the Prospects.

&nb
sp; “Your call, Boss.” Sinatra replied.

  “Yeah.” Morse agreed. “You tell us you wanna go home, then that’s where we’ll go.”

  “Then we’re homeward bound. Strap on your big girl panties, boys, this is gonna sting a little.”

  ~o0o~

  And sting it did. By the time they pulled up in front of the Priests clubhouse, only just on the right side of midnight, Paul didn’t think he ever wanted to see his bike again, let alone ride it. He backed it into his spot in the line of bikes that were standing guard outside. He wasn’t surprised to see Moira’s Chevy parked up opposite, but he hadn’t been expecting Ashleigh’s Buick which was next to it.