by Dahlia West
Buck brushed off his jeans and headed for the barn door. “I’ll put on some coffee,” he told her and took one of the spare raincoats off the wall for good measure.
Erin abandoned the foal to his first meal and moved closer to Bee, who was nuzzling her colt insistently. Erin rubbed Bee’s shoulder reassuringly. The mare looked at her, then took in a large breath and let it out as well, her own body finally letting go of the tension.
“It’s okay, Bee,” Erin whispered. “He’s okay.”
She’d said it. And she’d meant it. She was not going to let Bee lose her baby. And Erin wasn’t giving up hers.
Their babies were all they had left.
Chapter Seventy-Two
‡
Jack might have made a slight miscalculation during the construction of the last few pipe bombs. While the storage unit explosion had been controlled and small, the two that had gone off seconds ago shook all the buildings in the neighborhood, finally shattering the window Jack was standing next to and sending a spray of glass tinkling to the pavement.
The ringing in his ears was deafening.
He had no doubt, though, that the original clubhouse, empty for weeks after the DEA raid, was burning down to its foundations just a few blocks away. And out front of this ramshackle warehouse, he didn’t need to see the King’s bikes to know they were kindling as well.
“What the fuck?” Slider bellowed and ran outside. Little Paulie, Baldy, and the rest followed him out the door.
Jack crept in through the open back entrance, shouldering the duffel bag he was carrying. He crossed the cracked concrete floor and set it down near the front entrance, then pressed his back against the metal, corrugated wall.
“WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK?!” Slider shouted from outside.
“Look!” Paulie shouted and Jack risked peeking his head around the doorframe to see for himself.
All their backs were turned, gazing at an orange blaze that lit up the night sky just a few blocks south.
“The fucking clubhouse!” Paulie cried, like it mattered now. Like anyone really cared.
No one gave a shit about it since the raid, no one but Jack, and to him it looked and felt like a funeral pyre. He was glad to see it go, unwilling to let it fall into anyone else’s hands.
Jack stepped out into the doorway, raised a 9 millimeter and got off three rounds while their backs were turned to him. He’d aimed for Slider first, hitting him in the lower back. The second shot caught Baldy in the shoulder, but the third shot missed Paulie entirely, because the kid had reacted so quickly to the sudden gunfire.
Jack ducked back to the safety of the walls as one or more of them returned fired. Bullets whizzed past him through the open door and hit the walls on the far side of the warehouse.
Jack stayed low, moving away from the front door and exiting the back, just like he’d come in, leaving the duffel bag behind. He rounded the corner of the building to the far right, circling them in order to come up behind them once more from the side street.
When he made it to the end of the alley, Baldy ordered Paulie to go inside and ‘rout that motherfucker.’
Jack couldn’t tell if the kid was more afraid of Baldy, of the twisted, burning metal of the scattered bikes in the lot, or of whomever was waiting for him inside the building.
Baldy gripped his bad shoulder and sagged against a telephone pole, which didn’t provide much cover for his fat-ass frame, but it was clear the man had no intention of giving the kid any backup. He waved his gun menacingly, and Paulie finally reacted to the order.
The kid ran away from the flames of the destroyed bikes and into the warehouse, gun raised, arms shaking. He stumbled over the pipe bomb Jack had left inside the door and came back out in pieces during the subsequent explosion.
Jack stepped out from the alley and let off two more rounds, finally hitting Baldy in the chest with one of them. He didn’t even wait for the man’s body to hit the ground as he crossed the street, toward Slider who was trying to crawl away.
The man rolled to his back and spat into the rain. Gun empty, he flung it aside and the Canuck bastard cursed as he glared up at Jack. He’d apparently given up entertaining thoughts of getting away. He collapsed back onto the pavement. “Fuck you,” he bit out.
Jack shook his head slowly. “No. Fuck you. You’ll never take what I built, Slider. I said I’d burn it all to the ground before I ever let anyone else have it. Didn’t I always tell you that? Well, I just fucking lit the match.”
Jack pulled the trigger, but a second shot rang out at nearly the same moment. Pain ripped through his torso and he spun off his feet and onto the slick pavement. He landed next to Slider, who was already dead. Jack ditched his gun so he could use both hands, and scrambled at the blacktop, trying to find cover so he wouldn’t be next.
From the mouth of the alley, Jack spotted Baldy, who apparently hadn’t been quite dead moments ago. The large man appeared to have used his last few seconds on Earth to try and take Jack out, though. He was sprawled on the ground now, gun hand limp at his side.
Jack grunted and struggled mightily to press his palm to his side. He felt warm, wet rivulets coating his fingers. He couldn’t tell if it was the rain or his own blood. Judging by the pain wracking his torso, he guessed it was both.
Taken down by a fucking lucky shot from a man who should’ve been dead any damn way. Jack was getting slow, or he’d been away from the game too long. Maybe he was just too old for this shit. He crawled into the alley, away from the scene of carnage, and wondered if this was as old as he was ever going to get.
He lay on the concrete, looking up at the tumultuous sky. There was light all around him. Orange from the bonfire of bikes across the street, white from the occasional flashes of lightning streaking the sky. Somewhere, far off in the distance, Jack heard the wail of a siren.
It might be for him, or rather, for this burning wreck around him. Or they might be responding to one of his earlier shindigs all over town. Hard to say. But someone would come, eventually. And if Jack survived long enough, he’d be loaded into an ambulance and taken to Rapid City General where a ham-handed surgeon would try to patch him up.
Maybe he could make it, maybe he couldn’t. The pain was getting worse, after all.
But if Jack survived that, then he’d be taken to the county jail for arraignment. The place would be teeming with all manner of bad men, some of whom undoubtedly held a grudge against the man who, up until a year ago, had held the reins to this shithole town in his iron fist. Someone would start something. Maybe right away, as soon as he stepped into the holding cell. Or maybe when he slept.
But they would come and Jack would fight. And if he survived all that, he’d eventually be transported to the State Pen in Sioux Falls—the place where Scratch Prior had shivved Hap Sullivan under the cover of a staged prison riot. The place where Jack would finally come face to face with Hook Andrews…and do the same to him.
Jack wasn’t a fool. He’d go out the way Scratch did, too, most likely. Unless he was lucky enough to die in the riot, rather than live out the rest of his life permanently disabled. He shivered at the thought as rain splashed down on him. He’d eat his gun first, before he’d be left pissing into a bag in a dirty trailer on the edge of Rapid City.
But if he was dying now, if he’d finally run out of his borrowed time, he knew what he wanted. Even though it was selfish. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cellphone.
He dialed the number slowly, with shaking fingers, and waited as he listened to it ring.
“Hello? Hello?” There was a pause on the line. “Jack?” Erin whispered. He almost couldn’t make it out, but it was like hearing an angel anyway.
It was tempting to say something, to tell her how much he loved her, but it would be cruel to do that to her. And he wanted to sever all ties. Especially considering where he might be headed.
She’d come, Jack decided. He could hear it in her voice as she said his name. Erin would come to the priso
n and try to see him, try to ask him too many questions about where’d he come from and why he’d gone back. His chest ached and it had nothing to do with the hole in his side. His thumb glided over the disconnect button and he ended the call.
The sirens were closer now. RCPD was on their way.
Hook was never getting out. The DEA’s case was rock solid. Even if he tried to cut a deal, there was no one left for Hook to turn on. And that meant there was no one left to come for Erin.
Jack blinked up at the sky and knew what Scratch would do. He’d see it through to the end. Scratch Prior would shank Hook in the kidney, ride the electric chair as punishment (if the guards didn’t kill him first), and march toward the gates of Hell alongside the man who’d betrayed him and left him for dead.
Jack frowned at the thought of Erin being told he was dead. And how. And why. In his mind’s eye, he saw the tears on her cheeks and the pain in her beautiful green eyes, and he hated himself for it even though, technically, it hadn’t even happened yet.
He shook his head, willing those images away, and replaced them with memories of Erin laughing, Erin lying next to him in bed—her soft skin pressed up against him, her breath on his back, lulling him to sleep.
You make me want a life I can’t have. A life I don’t deserve.
Jack didn’t deserve it. He was right about that. He had played the game better than Old Scratch ever could have dreamed, better than anyone had—until the end. And he was dirty now. The truth was that he might never be clean.
But goddamn, it was tempting, wasn’t it? Just to try. Just to see if he could have some of what Chris had managed to get for himself.
In the end, as it always seemed to with Jack “Preacher” Prior, temptation got the better of him. With his free hand, he brought up the phone again. And this time, he dialed an altogether different number.
Chapter Seventy-Three
‡
Erin moved back toward the wall and out of the way as Bee got her hooves underneath her and stood up. There was still blood on the palomino’s rear legs, but that was a small matter. Erin could bathe her another day.
Having watched his mother, the little colt bent one knobby knee and tried to do the same. He lurched and fell back into the straw padding, though.
Erin smiled at him despite her own current circumstances. He’d make it. She was certain of it now. But she knew from experience that it took a while to stand on your own legs.
Bee moved closer, encouraging him by nuzzling his nose with her own. Erin had done a fair job cleaning him when she’d been trying to stimulate his breathing and there wasn’t much left to do now. But Bee did what every new equine mother did and bathed him with her tongue. Once in a while, she’d give him another nudge.
It took nearly twenty minutes for him to haul himself up, balancing precariously on too-long legs. He’d be a tall one, sixteen or seventeen hands if he was an inch.
Erin knew King would be proud.
The colt made it across the stall and found his mother’s teat again, hungry for more milk. Erin watched him suckle, standing just a bit more firmly now on his spindly legs. “He’s a good boy, Bee. He’s strong. Just…” A lump rose in her throat and she swallowed it down. “Just like his daddy. Just like you. You’ll be okay, Bee. You’ll both be okay.” She smiled through her tears and patted her beloved mare on the neck. “You’ve got me.”
Erin didn’t want to think about the fact that while Bee and the foal had her, she and her baby had no one.
Exhaustion finally set in and Erin locked the stall, turning away from mother and child. She half-stumbled to the bunkroom on the other side of the barn and lay down on the cot that hadn’t been used in almost a year. In the dark, she tried to picture Jack here, looking up at the shadows on the ceiling.
If he’d stayed here in this room…
If he’d never come to her bed…
If he’d never come to Thunder Ridge at all…
But none of that was helpful.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She’d spend the night here, with Bee and the colt. Just in case they needed her. They were all that was left of her family now, at least for a little while, she thought, as she absentmindedly rubbed her belly.
Just as she was about to drift off to sleep, her phone rang. Startled, she fumbled for it in the pocket of her jeans. She yanked it out and squinted at the screen, at the number she didn’t recognize. Quickly, she punched the answer button. “Hello?”
She waited, hearing only silence on the line.
“Hello?”
She strained in the dark, listening raptly for any answer coming across the line. But she heard nothing.
“Jack?”
There was nothing but silence. Nothing but dead air.
Chapter Seventy-Four
‡
Jack had made it to a nearby alley before collapsing under his own weight. As he lay on his back, rain pelted him and slicked his clothes and skin so that he could no longer tell if he was bleeding.
He suspected he was, though.
His phone rang in his hand, but he couldn’t lift it. Between the sirens and the thunder and the pounding drops hitting the pavement, he felt sure that no one could hear it.
He was safe.
For now.
He had no idea just how much time had passed. He’d almost slipped away, into unconsciousness, when he heard heavy boots on the asphalt behind his head.
Salvation or damnation. Given the proximity of so many police cars, it was anyone’s guess.
He waited, unmoving, to see which it was.
“Jesus Christ,” came a voice so low that it rivaled the thunder.
As the boots came into view, Jack saw they belonged to a huge Sioux in a black leather jacket. His long dark hair was plastered to the sides of his face. Strands of it had come out of his braid.
“You sure throw one fuck of a party, Prior,” the man grumbled.
Hawk. In the less-fuzzy recesses of Jack’s brain, he recalled that this man was Hawk Red Cloud. One of Chris’ boys. He produced a phone, punched in some numbers, and spoke in hushed tones. When he was finished, he slid it into his pocket and gave someone a sharp nod.
“Get his arms, Cowboy,” the large man ordered.
“Why do I have to get his arms?”
Jack craned his neck to see a blond man, not quite as formidable as his companion, but still no one you’d want to fuck with in a dark alley. Especially if you were bleeding in a dark alley.
Jack felt reasonably sure, though, that he was okay.
“I don’t want blood on me,” Hawk replied. He bent and cocked Jack’s legs at the knee.
Jack sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.
The Sioux looked down at him. “Yeah, you’d better stay real fucking quiet. RCPD is all over this area. You’re lucky we found you when we did.”
The two men lifted Jack and carried him slowly, farther into the alley, away from the sirens and red lights that illuminated the otherwise empty street that lay beyond.
A large, looming black shadow rolled into view. When Jack’s eyes finally adjusted, he saw it was a Hummer. Chris’ familiar face appeared and opened the rear door.
The three men slid Jack into the cargo area and slammed the door behind him.
Jack felt the huge vehicle rock under the weight of three supersized ex-Army Rangers clambering into the front and back seats.
“Drive,” the blond growled. “And don’t fuck up my ride.”
Jack couldn’t see the man driving, but he took it for Barnes, or maybe the youngest one. The sarcastic “Yes, sir” that wafted back to him told Jack it was the kid. Jack couldn’t recall his name at the moment. “The Gimp” didn’t seem appropriate for the situation, so he just shut his eyes and his mouth.
They reverse it back the way they’d arrived, to avoid being seen by the emergency crews. After a few twists and turns, bumps and jostles that had Jack gritting his teeth, they were on a rea
l road, paved and smooth.
Chris was in the cargo hold with him, opening a black bag. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Jesus Christ on a motherfucking stick.”
Jack smiled at the old phrase they used to share. Back in the day.
“What the hell, Jack?” Chris hissed as he tore open a thick pad of gauze. He lifted Jack’s shirt, saw the source of the blood, and cursed again. “Goddammit!”
“Am I going to need detailing?” asked the blond, glancing over his shoulder.
Chris didn’t answer. He tore open another pad, then a third, and pressed them firmly into Jack’s side.
“What. The. Hell?” he repeated.
Jack grinned, but he had the sense it was off, like his face wasn’t quite put together right. “A cleaner, safer Rapid City,” he replied.
Chris frowned at him.
Jack tried to crane his neck, to see into the front of the Hummer. “Where’s Barnes?” He hated to ask, but Jack was pretty sure that he needed the ex-Army medic’s help just about now.
“He’s ahead of us,” Chris snapped. “He’s on his way to the garage.”
Jack hesitated for a second. “Where are we going?”
Chris gave him another sharp look, but Jack didn’t think it was out of order to ask. These men weren’t exactly his brothers, after all. Jack didn’t have any brothers. Not anymore. And a man without brothers in this town was a man who needed to bleed with one eye open.
The Hummer finally came to a stop and the rear door opened again. Jack hoped none of the men noticed the tension seep from his body when he caught sight of the Burnout sign over the bay doors.
“At least one gunshot wound,” Jack heard Chris tell Barnes, who held the door for them. “I didn’t check for anything else yet.”
Barnes nodded and they shuffled him inside, easily carrying his weight between them. An interior door burst open and a dimly lit room lay beyond. As Jack looked at the ceiling, he saw that only half the lights were on. It felt like a vigil already.
Something moved, farther into the room, and Jack turned his head to look.