by Dahlia West
It was Hap who was going to pay for the fuck up.
* * *
“This is it, son. This is our moment.”
Jack fought mightily not to squirm in his chair, not to give his father any indication that he wasn’t comfortable with this plan. In the beginning it had sounded less like a plan and more like a betrayal. A betrayal of the MC and of the Priors’ friendship with the Sullivans. It had sounded insane.
Kill Hap, Kill Chris, take over the club.
Scratch had been saying it for the last several visits. Jack had hoped it was just prison life getting to the old man. But Scratch sat across from him now, jaw set, eyes hard.
There was no stopping it, no talking him down.
Jack looked around the visitation area, certain someone could hear them. But no one was close enough. Prisoners got few visits here in the winter. The drive was too difficult and the visitation area was outside.
Jack pulled his leather jacket around him tighter as he listened. He had his patch. Had earned it himself, rather than just let his old man vouch for him. Not that Scratch would have done that. Son or no, Jack had had to prove himself and his usefulness to the club.
Across the chain-linked yard, Chris sat visiting his own father, patch on his back, too, though when they were alone, Scratch would constantly tell Jack how Chris hadn’t really earned it, had done nothing for the club to get it.
Jack had blown up the trailer of a dealer who was cutting into the club’s action around town. Jack had skills. Chris was just walking sperm, according to Scratch.
“Reggie and Slater will fall in line,” Scratch told him. “They’ll back you when you say I should be made Prez. And you’ll be my proxy, while I’m in here. You’ll get to use my vote until I get out. And when I get released, I’ll make you VP. Slater’s getting old,” his father said. “He’ll step aside.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Scratch shrugged, but there was no mistaking that hard gleam that appeared in his eyes. “Then he’ll go the way Hap goes. This is our time, Jack. This is our club. And we’re taking it.” His eyes narrowed at Jack and Jack felt the familiar flood of tension at being scrutinized by his old man. The day Scratch Prior looked at him and Jack came up wanting in the old man’s eyes, was the day Jack would eat a bullet, son or no. “You hold up your end,” the man hissed. “You do what needs to be done.”
Jack took one long last look at Chris and Hap on the other side of the visiting area. They were sitting close, heads dipped low, speaking in hushed tones.
Scratch grunted. “You think he’s not doing the same?”
Startled, Jack glanced back at his father. “What?”
“He’s threatened by us,” Scratch said with a snort. “He knows we’ll run the club better, do a better job than he ever could. He’ll do me in here, Jack. That much is for sure. He’ll knife me and rid himself of the competition. And he’s telling his kid to do the same to you.”
* * *
Standing now in the middle of Scratch Prior’s Plan B, Jack shook off the old memories and reached for a large, black duffel bag sitting in the corner. He set it to the side of a large, wooden worktable and opened it.
To his right, a large file cabinet sat in the corner. He opened the top drawer, reached past the stacks of bundled cash, and pulled out a large manila envelope with one leather-gloved hand. It was already addressed, stamped, and ready to be mailed. He stuffed it into the zippered side pocket of the bag and then began filling the main compartment with cash.
Several minutes later, he gathered up a few assorted tools and slipped them into his jacket pockets. He zipped up the overstuffed bag, slung its heavy weight onto his shoulder, and pulled down the shutter to the storage unit. He locked it up tight, tossed the bag onto the passenger side floorboard of the truck and headed back across town.
The building he was looking for was on a well-maintained, brightly lit downtown street. Jack pulled around the corner, parked the truck, and swung out of the cab, leaving the bag on the floor but taking the package.
As his boots thudded on the sidewalk, the wind kicked up, rustling the trees that had been planted to line the street. The breeze was cold, especially for June.
Jack dropped the package in the mailbox on the street corner and then slunk into a darkened alley just a few feet away. Turning the corner at the end of the building, he came upon the first door, a rear entry service door. He slid a lock pick set out of his pocket and set a small LED flashlight between his teeth.
The door was a nice one, very high quality. It would keep every junkie and half-assed burglar in South Dakota out. Which meant it took three and a half minutes longer for Jack to unlock than any other door.
He thought that wasn’t half bad considering it’d been a long time since he’d used this particular skillset.
He popped the deadbolt, eased open the door, and stepped inside the air-conditioned office suite. Shutting the door behind him firmly, he swung the little flashlight around. In a smaller room, off to one side, he found a desk with a chair. A very nice chair. A leather swivel chair.
Jack lowered himself into it slowly. “Aww, yeah,” he told himself. “If I had a desk, I would have this chair. No question.” This was the Maserati of office chairs. He could tell.
He pulled open the doors on the right hand side until he heard sloshing. He reached down and pulled out a bottle of amber gold liquid. Plucking out an accompanying glass, he poured himself a finger of single malt.
The dark liquid burned his throat in that lovely way that he remembered. He put the stopper back on, though, because in the year he’d spent at Thunder Ridge, he’d learned to experience, to savor, to enjoy things.
On the other side of the desk, he found a box and pulled it out. He flipped the lid and grinned to himself. “Cuba’s finest,” he declared and clipped the end off a cigar that smelled like heaven itself. He took out his Zippo and lit it, taking in long, lazy draws.
Suddenly, the office door burst open while Jack was in mid-puff. He found himself looking at the business end of a Glock. The woman holding it was pretty. He’d thought that before when he’d first seen her. But she didn’t hold a candle to Erin, and Jack’s cock had nothing to say about her anymore.
“Took you long enough,” said Jack, ashing the cigar in the small tray on the desk.
The woman stared at him but only for a second. Then she snorted and lowered her pistol by a few inches. “By all means,” she replied. “Make yourself at home.”
Jack grinned at her.
Behind her, a larger, darker figure emerged from the shadows.
Jack waved the cigar at him. “What’s up, Doc?”
Caleb Barnes was six feet, two hundred twenty-five pounds (Jack guessed) of lethal muscle. Once upon a time he’d worn his own shiny, pretty policeman’s badge. But Jack had heard through the grapevine that Barnes had killed or maimed one too many men on the job.
Jack was certain this man still killed, or at least maimed. He just didn’t do it for law and order these days.
Caleb ground his jaw as he looked down at Jack. Finally, he said, “You look good for a dead man.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
‡
Jack reached into his jacket pocket.
The second he did so, the brunette pulled her gun back up and trained it on him.
Jack paused and glanced at Barnes. “Does your woman have an itchy trigger finger?”
Barnes grinned. “No. She’s solid.”
Normally Jack didn’t appreciate guns being pointed at him. And he’d never had a woman draw down on him, but as he sat in Caleb Barnes’ supple leather chair, Jack realized he really didn’t like it when females put him in their sights.
But Erin would’ve done it. And she was solid, so Jack figured he could trust Barnes and his woman.
“I’m about to give you fat stacks of cash,” he told her. “Don’t put a bullet in one.”
She smirked at him. “I could put a bullet in you.”
/> Jack shrugged and pulled out the first stack of bills. “You could. Blood’ll wash out, I suppose.” He carefully laid three neatly wrapped stacks of hundred-dollar bills onto the desktop.
Barnes looked at it, then at Jack. “Forget it,” he declared. “I’m not getting you weapons.”
Jack tilted his head back and let out a full-throated laugh. “I don’t need weapons. I want to purchase your services.”
Barnes moved farther into the room, putting himself between Jack and the woman, and glared down at him. “What services?” he demanded.
“I want to know what’s going on in my club.”
There was silence in the room for a long moment. Jack pulled his feet off Barnes’ desk and sat fully upright in the chair, signaling that fun time was over. He leveled his gaze not at Barnes but at the woman instead. “I want one of your surveillance cameras.”
“There’s no one there, Prior. DEA dismantled the whole operation.”
Long ago, another lifetime ago it seemed to him sometimes, Izzy Boucher had blown into Rapid City and posed as a club whore just long enough to riddle Jack’s clubhouse with microphones. She was a bounty hunter after a payday.
She hadn’t been after Jack, though, or anyone he gave a shit about, so given her association with Barnes, who was one of Chris Sullivan’s men, Jack let the trespass go—with the understanding that she’d take down the fucking cameras once she’d caught her prey.
She’d done him a solid, too, and warned him that someone in the club was going to turn on him. Jack had thought he’d rooted out all the rats. But he’d overlooked one. And ended up in a shallow arroyo in the Badlands for that mistake.
It was time for payback.
“The clubhouse is empty, Jack,” she insisted.
“I’m sure it is. Saw it on the news. Saw most of my guys rounded up and put into paddy wagons. But the DEA didn’t get them all, so I’ve got vermin to catch. And you’re going to help me by giving me a camera and a laptop to monitor it. You live here now, don’t you?” he asked her, then grinned widely. “Don’t you want a cleaner, safer Rapid City?”
She stared at him in disbelief, then finally flicked her eyes to Barnes. “Caleb?”
Jack watched Barnes watching him.
The woman shrugged. “DEA’s still crawling all over the city. A couple of FBI agents, too, I heard. How much damage can he possibly do with a camera?”
Barnes crossed his arms in front of his large chest and bored holes into Jack with his eyes. “No civilians, Prior.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jack replied.
“I mean it, Prior. No. Civilians.”
Jack’s boots thudded onto the floor and he raised himself up out of the chair. “Only the rats, Barnes. Only the rats.”
Chapter Sixty
‡
Jack watched from the shadows of the tree line as Chris actually came out of the house, carrying a trash bag. It beat having to knock on the front door, Jack supposed. Which would lead to all kinds of complications, mostly involving the woman that he could see through the large picture window in the living room. She was holding a little girl, rocking her to sleep in her arms.
Jack wasn’t in the right frame of mind to deal with women or kids. Or the shit-ton of other people who were gathered in the Sullivan’s dining room, jaw-jacking over cards and beers.
He cursed to himself silently. He couldn’t have picked a shittier night to show up here, unannounced, certainly unwelcome. He recognized most of the men at the table as ex-Army, part of Chris’ old unit. Jack knew the other half of that particular club were scattered in pieces somewhere in the Middle East.
The men who were left, though, could tear Jack apart, and they might, since he’d come alone.
He hoped Chris didn’t call in the Cavalry the moment he spotted Jack.
As Jack’s former best friend stuffed the bag into the can at the back of the house, his cell phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket. He listened for a moment, lowering the lid of the trashcan with one hand. Then his eyebrows rose. “Wait, what?” Chris demanded into the phone. “Caleb, what the hell are you talking about?”
Seeing Chris was jarring for Jack, especially since this had, more or less, been the picture the last time they’d been together. Chris on the phone, Jack armed to the teeth while sneaking up on him. The present day fell away, and suddenly they were kids again, the question of their lives, their futures, stretching out before them. All of it, unbeknownst to Chris at the time, held in the palm of Jack’s hand.
* * *
Jack entered the door of the Sullivan’s trailer as quietly as he could, even though there was no way to stop the door from squeaking just a little.
Chris was probably passed out, though, in the back bedroom.
Jack had left him the night before with two club whores, drunk as shit. Chris deserved one last ride, at least. Jack hoped he’d gotten two.
It was almost noon, now, and the whores were gone. Jack looked at his watch, tried to still his shaking hands. It was time, so said the dial, so said Scratch, and disappointing Jack’s old man seemed unfathomable.
Almost as unfathomable, to Jack, as killing his best friend.
In the hazy, sticky summer air, the smell of beer and weed wafted to Jack’s nose from the back bedroom. As he inched closer, the telephone rang. Jack had known the call would be coming, sometime today, sometime soon, but it startled him just the same.
He almost dropped the gun.
He heard Chris’ voice, sleep-fogged and dazed as he answered.
Jack inched open the bedroom door and found Chris sitting on the edge of the rumpled bed, face turned away, reaching for a pack of Camels on the nightstand. His hair was almost to his shoulders. Jack couldn’t see the appeal, but they were best friends, so he never ragged on the guy about it.
Jack’s fingers flexed on the grip of the .45. He tried to lift it but couldn’t. He should wait until Chris was off the phone anyway. But somewhere inside him, past Scratch’s bullshit about restoring order to the Buzzards, and past—admittedly—Jack’s own greedy desire to be more than just a patch, he knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pull the trigger. He couldn’t even raise the gun.
As Chris stood with the phone in his hand, abandoning the cigs, he turned and spotted Jack looming in the doorway.
The look on his face was unmistakable.
Jack flexed his hands, steeling himself against his friend’s anguished expression. He knew this call was coming. He’d tried to prepare for it as best he could. Everything would work out. He just had to keep telling himself that.
Scratch was right, Hap had to go. And though it was difficult now, watching his best friend get the call that his father had been killed in prison, Jack knew it was for the best.
The Buzzards needed new leadership, real leadership, and in time Chris would see that.
And Scratch would eventually understand why Jack hadn’t held up his end of the devil’s bargain.
Chris didn’t need to die. Scratch was wrong about that. There was no way, after all they’d been through together, that Chris had been plotting against Jack alongside his now-dead old man. There was just no way.
They’d done everything together, been inseparable until now.
They’d gotten high for the first time together, drunk, buzzed, stoned, and every state of fucked up in between. They’d shared chicks, shared digs when anyone’s old man got to be too much to take.
Scratch would serve the rest of his bid and maybe it would make him see things differently when he got out. He’d lay off Chris after Chris proved his loyalty to the club.
Jack could make him do it. He could talk his friend into it.
No one else had to die.
“Jack,” said Chris, voice straining. “They’re…gone.”
Jack had started to nod but froze. They? They? “What?” he demanded. “What do you mean?!”
Chris was staring at the phone, like he couldn’t quite recall how it had appeared in
his hand. He wiped his mouth with his free hand. “They’re gone. There…there was a riot. Last night. Your dad. My dad.”
He couldn’t finish. He just crumpled back onto the bed and put his face in his hands.
Jack’s fingers twitched over the grip of the gun.
How could they both be dead? That wasn’t the plan! Scratch only had five more years. Maybe less if he kept his head down. But Jack was certain he knew what had happened.
Fucking Hap.
Fucking Hap Sullivan had seen Scratch coming at him with murder in his eyes and the bastard had refused to go down without a fight.
Hap had killed Scratch. Hell, the son of a bitch might have been planning to take out Jack’s old man. And maybe he’d thought that the riot was the perfect cover to get rid of his scheming vice president. Maybe Hap never even realized that that had been the plan all along.
Except Scratch wasn’t supposed to die.
As much as Jack sometimes hated his father, he couldn’t imagine a world without Scratch in it. And looking right now, at the son of the man who’d killed him, anger surged in him. He took a deep breath and held the gun up, right at the back of his best friend’s head as he cried for his own damn father. His father who hadn’t been shit and had nearly led the club to ruination.
Jack’s index finger danced over the trigger.
“Do you…” Chris started but stopped himself for a moment.
Jack’s hand wavered just like Chris’ voice.
“Do you ever think about leaving?” he asked.
Jack pursed his lips and blinked. “What?”
Chris looked, not at Jack, but out the grime-filmed window, at the hills that lay beyond the Canyon Court Trailer Park. “Do you ever think about just getting on your bike?” he asked Jack. “Just driving away? Never looking back?”
Jack had nothing to say to that. He’d never heard Chris talk like this before.