by Sybil Bartel
Tucking my gun up under my arm, I picked the four glass jars up, and making a wide arc of the bikers, I hightailed it to the front yard. Crouched low, keeping to the palmettos and buggy-as-hell scrub brush, I set the first two of the glass jars a few yards back from the bikers, and I was about to set up the second two a few feet away when four shots rang out.
“You’re dead, motherfucker!” Oslo yelled as my mama started wailing like a stuck pig.
“DO NOT FIRE.” My daddy’s voice carried over Mama’s screaming.
Lifting my head over a group of palmettos, I risked a peek.
Well, shit.
Three rows of four bikers each, all lined up pretty as you please, thinking it made them look intimidating. But every one of them was stupid as all get out. They were too stubborn to realize they’d lined themselves up like sitting ducks for anyone who had a semiautomatic. Not to mention, their line of defense hadn’t helped the first row one lick.
Three bikers in the front were dead as doornails.
Viper, Dell and Patch were all on the ground with bullet holes between their eyes. And dead center in the thick of it, holding both the proverbial smoking gun and Mama in front of him like a shield, stood Tarquin.
My man.
Taking a step back, Tarquin spoke up. “Hawkins, tell your men to stand down, and your wife will survive.”
I glanced at the three down again.
Holy Ghost Almighty, that boy was a good shot.
Real good.
A lick of fear surged right along with the pride I felt for my new man, but I didn’t give one single thought to the jerks lying on the ground. And I knew no Lone Coaster would shoot Mama if they wanted to live to tell about it. I hated all of Daddy’s MC club brothers. Every last one of ’em. Not a single honorable one in the lot, which was just how my daddy liked it, but they were loyal to him, and Daddy was protective of Mama, and they knew that.
“Oslo,” my daddy’s voice boomed. “Who’s down?”
Sweating like a sinner in church, Oslo aimed at Tarquin with a shaking hand as he held his phone out with the other. “Viper, Dell and Patch. All dead.”
Daddy had told me once that Oslo wasn’t worth nothing but a live body on days you needed someone holding a gun more than you needed smarts.
“Scott,” Daddy’s voice boomed through Oslo’s phone. “Where did you learn to shoot?”
Oh, no.
No, no, no, I silently chanted. Do not tell Daddy where you’re from, Tarquin. Don’t do it. Daddy would use Tarquin as a pawn in a hot second. I didn’t know how, but I knew enough to know my daddy would think someone as rare as Tarquin, who’d escaped from River Ranch, was as good as gold. At a bare minimum, he’d use him as bait to get River Stephens’s attention, and nothing good would come from that.
“I have seventeen more rounds, you have nine more men,” Tarquin calmly replied.
My admiration of Tarquin grew, but I needed to get him out of the line of fire. It was smart of him to have grabbed Mama. Daddy would never admit he had a soft spot for her, and he protected her, but if it came down to it, I was pretty sure Daddy would sacrifice Mama if it meant getting his hands on someone like Tarquin.
Daddy’s voice carried through the cell phone’s speaker as he chuckled. It was the kind of chuckle he gave to let you know he had the upper hand. “That’s quite an ego, son.”
“I am not your son.” Tarquin immediately retorted as Mama shook like a leaf in his grasp. “If you wish to lose more of your men and your wife, continue this conversation.”
“Maybe I’m not looking to lose more club members, but gain one,” Daddy replied in his fake-understanding tone. “Sounds to me like you need a club at your back… brother.”
Tarquin took another step back.
Oslo glanced behind him at Rip who was standing in the back row with a rifle aimed at Tarquin. “Boss, Rip has a clean shot.”
I’d been around death my whole life. I’d seen the worst kinda things grown men could do to each other. For the most part, I’d become immune to it. Sad to say, but truth was never pretty. Except today, standing in thick palmettos with no-see-ums biting my legs like sport, I had to admit, fear licked at my spine.
I didn’t want Mama or Tarquin to die.
As much as I hated Mama for going along with Daddy’s plan to give me to Rush, I didn’t want to see her get shot in the head. And I definitely didn’t want to see that same bullet rip through her skull and hit Tarquin.
Thankfully, Daddy spoke up with some common sense. “If Rip had a clean shot, Rip would’ve taken the clean shot.”
Rip threw down ego. “I got the shot.”
Tarquin glanced left.
Oh, no, not left, baby. That’s too far to get to safety.
“I’ll tell you what, Scott,” Daddy boomed. “I’m on my way there right now. I think you and I need to have a conversation in person.”
Every muscle in my body froze with newfound fear.
“Oh no,” I whispered. Daddy coming here would make everything ten times worse.
Saying nothing, Tarquin scanned the bikers.
“In fact,” Daddy continued, “I think we should discuss how you managed to walk away from River Ranch.”
Mama gasped, and her legs gave out.
Shit. I was out of time.
Lighting the Molotov cocktail in my hand, I threw it as hard and as far as I could. Then I whipped my shotgun around and took aim.
The cocktail exploded on impact, and nine bikers stupidly looked in that direction.
Taking aim, I whispered, “Come on, Tarquin, run.”
I pulled the trigger.
A small explosion behind the man with the rifle made every biker turn to look.
I let the female drop to the ground, and a shotgun blast sounded.
Enraged, I ran.
As I cleared the side of the garage, another shotgun blast sounded, along with a second explosion.
I knew who it was.
She did not listen.
She had not run.
Gunfire erupted.
Taking cover behind the garage, I dropped and aimed as Oslo ran toward my position. My shot hit him in the forehead. His body fell to the ground as I set my sights on the second row of bikers. I shot one in the back of the head as another dropped from a shotgun blast to the chest. Engines roared, men yelled, a third explosion erupted.
I aimed at the man with the rifle as he aimed at me.
Wood splintered overhead.
Ducking, I cursed myself for flinching as the man with the rifle gave his bike gas.
Amid bullets pinging off the garage and wild shots being fired in the direction of the shotgun blasts where my woman lay, I used the sights on the 9mm and fired at the back of the man with the rifle as he drove down the driveway.
I missed.
Standing, I stepped out from cover as four bikers spit dirt behind their motorcycles in their retreat.
Taking aim, my jaw clenched, I fired again.
I hit the man with the rifle in the shoulder.
His body jerked, his motorbike dropped, and his brothers swerved around him, never looking back as he went down.
The female still alive and screaming, the scent of gunfire and copper everywhere, the man with the rifle lay on the ground, half trapped under his motorbike. Reaching with his good arm, he palmed a holstered gun.
I shot his hand.
He howled like a wolf.
I shot his exposed leg.
He roared.
I shot his good shoulder.
His scream of pain terminated into silent anguish as his mouth remained open. With crazed eyes, his life blood pumping out, he looked up at me.
“Die.” I put a bullet between his eyes.
A shotgun cocked with a reload behind me. “We good?” my woman asked in a pant.
I spun.
The taste of rage in my mouth, fury running through my veins, I grabbed her shotgun from her small hands and threw it on the ground.
Stepping into her, I grabbed her throat. “Do. Not. Ever. Defy me again,” I warned in a lethal tone.
Shock, then anger twisted her expression. “What did you just say to me?”
I tightened my grip as her eyes widened. “You heard me.”
Her foot came up, then slammed back down on top of mine, heel first. “Take that.”
Never having been defied by a female before, I was not expecting it.
Pain lanced across my foot, and I let go of her throat.
She kicked me in the shin. “And that.” She reared back with her fist. “And this.”
Her last verbal warning was her mistake.
I grabbed her wrist and jerked. Her body off-balance, she fell into me. “Do you want to hit me?” I seethed.
“Yes, you big dumb idiot. You should be thanking me!” She hit her own chest with her free fist. “I saved your stupid butt!”
Nostrils flaring, my cock hardened. “You ignored me,” I corrected.
“And what the hell were you gonna do?” She yelled the question in my face, as if I were not standing directly in front of her. “Die trying to shoot twelve men all by yourself?” She yanked out of my grasp and threw her hands up as she screamed at me. “How stupid are you?” Spinning, she kicked the dead rifleman. “You’re a stupid jerk too! I’m done with all of you!” She bent to reach for her shotgun.
I grabbed her from behind and gripped a handful of her hair.
Letting out an inhuman roar of rage, she kicked out.
The female on the ground in a heap sobbed louder.
I yanked my woman’s hair until her head hit my shoulder, then I glared down at her. “Finished?”
Her chest heaving as dead bodies lay all around us, she spat vile words at me. “Screw you.”
My nostrils flared. “Speak to me like that again, and I will bend you over and fuck you right here in front of your mother.”
“You sick son of a bitch,” she growled like a man. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Arousal warring with anger in my blood, what the hell was right with me? “When I tell you to do something, you do it.”
Her mother wailed like a wounded animal. “Shaila.”
“Oh, yeah?” she challenged, ignoring the female. “To what end, big man? You wanted me to run off like a scared cat, leaving you to die? Get shot all to hell by twelve bikers with even less sense than you? Is that it?”
“Yes,” I ground out, gripping her hair tighter. “If that was what was meant to be, then so be it.” I would have died protecting her. “But I will not die in vain.” Not for a woman who did not respect me. “Do not disobey me again.”
“Let go of me.” Her elbow reared back, and she hit me in my still bruised ribs.
Taking it like a man, I did not flinch. “You are going to have to work harder than that to injure me.” The brothers at River Ranch had given me a far worse beating, and I was still standing.
With her hair locked in my grip and fire in her eyes, anguish contorted her features. “That’s the point, you stupid man! Can’t you see that?” Her voice broke, and she stomped her foot. “I didn’t want you injured!”
For one heartbeat, the world stilled.
Our gazes locked, our breath in sync, there was no distance between us.
Then my pulse pounded, my life’s blood roared in my veins and I did not hold back. I slammed my mouth over hers.
She gasped, and I drove my tongue in.
Growling into my mouth, she both fought against my dominance and fell into me.
I kissed her harder.
Her growl turned into a moan, and the fight left her body.
I stroked my tongue around hers one more time, then reluctantly retreated. “It is time to go. They will be back.”
Anguish etched across her face, she looked up at me. “I didn’t want you to die.”
“Do not put yourself in harm’s way for me.” I did not understand it, it contradicted everything I had been taught growing up, but I would die for her. Having her put herself in the line of fire, for any reason, only enraged me.
Her voice went quieter. “I was trying to help.”
“Shaila,” the female whimpered.
“I can take care of myself.” I released her. “We need to go.”
“Shaila,” the female called again.
Turning toward the woman who birthed her but making no move to go to her, my woman took a deep breath. “I should help her.”
The female was strung out like the women on compound who were addicted to the forbidden herb that River Stephens grew deep in the Glades.
I picked up my woman’s shotgun. “She was no such help to you.”
My woman shook her head as her hands went to her hips. “Yeah, I know.”
“We are out of time.” I could hear motorbikes in the distance. “How much ammunition do you have for this?” I handed her the twelve gauge.
She took the shotgun like a man who knew how to use it would. Grabbing the stock single-handed, she confidently swung the barrel over her shoulder in one smooth motion as if she had done it every day of her life. “Two, three boxes inside.”
“Go get them. I will retrieve the backpacks.” I moved toward the female who was still carrying on.
My woman glanced at the bodies in the dirt. “We just gonna… what?” Her arm swept out in an arc. “Leave all this here?”
“Yes.” I took the weeping female by the arm and pulled her to her feet before letting go to glance at her frail body. I saw no injuries. “Stop crying.”
She wept louder.
“Mama,” my woman scolded, as if speaking to a child. “For Christ’s sake, cut it out.” Taking her arm, she steered the female toward the house. “You’ve seen way worse than this, so quit your snivelin’. Go inside and smoke some of your weed. Calm down. Do what you gotta do. Daddy’ll be here soon. You can save the tears for him.” She pushed her up the porch steps and started to turn away.
The female reached for her. “Wa-wa-wait. Where are you going?”
“Away, Mama.”
“No! You ca-can’t. I need you,” the female cried, grasping my woman’s free arm with both hands.
Shaila looked at me with exasperation. “She’s gonna keep this up.”
I listened to the sound of motorbikes in the distance for a moment. They did not seem to be getting closer yet. I looked back at my woman. “Take her inside and get the ammo. Make haste.”
I retrieved the backpacks and was collecting guns from the dead bikers when my woman came out of the house wearing a black jacket and dark glasses pushed to the top of her head.
Carrying three boxes of ammo, her shotgun was over her shoulder. “I told Mama we were heading northeast to Kentucky and to not tell Daddy, no matter what. Which guarantees it’ll be the first thing she tells him. So we better get.”
Kentucky.
I vaguely remembered the word. Another state.
“All right.” I checked the magazine on the last handgun I retrieved. Half loaded. I made a quick visual survey of the bodies to make sure I did not leave any firearms.
“Well, don’t just stand there. Help me get this beast up.”
I glanced at her as she gripped the handlebars of the motorbike that had belonged to the man Rush. Having been knocked over in the other bikers’ hurried retreat, it was now lying on its side.
“What are you intending to do with it?” We did not have time for this.
Standing upright, her shotgun and the extra shells at her feet, she looked up at me as if I had lost my mind. “We ain’t just leaving all of ’em. Do you know what one of these is worth?”
She was the one who had lost her mind. I said nothing.
Her eyebrows drew together. “This is a Harley.”
I did not know the significance of what she was implying. “We are out of time.”
Her eyes widened. “What’s gonna buy us ti
me better than a Hog?”
Swine would not help us now. “I do not know.”
Her hands went to her hips. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, are you for real right now?” She did not wait for me to answer her question. “This is our ticket out of here. Don’t just stand there. Help me get the bike upright.”
Understanding took. “You are intending for us to ride that.”
“Well, Rush sure as heck don’t need it no more, and I ain’t stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. And I’m definitely not stupid enough to take one of the Lone Coasters’ bikes, even if they ain’t gonna need them ever again. As far as Daddy’d be concerned, stealin’ from a club member would be like stealin’ from him, and we’re not goin’ there. We’re already in enough trouble, so no sense addin’ to it.”
A gift horse? “You cannot drive that to the cabin.” There were no roads beyond her property, and the only paths I had ever seen were deer trails. Even a three-wheeled vehicle would have trouble navigating over and through the thick palmettos, slash pines and mangroves.
“Maybe not,” she agreed. “But we’re not leavin’ somethin’ this valuable here. So unless you wanna be standing here arguin’ about it when Daddy shows up to skin your hide before sellin’ you to the highest bidder, then you better unstick your stuck butt and get into gear to help me.”
I did not know what I was more appalled by, her manner of speech or her sentiment. Not that it mattered, because there was one critical problem. “I do not know how to drive the motorbike. I have never driven any vehicle.”
Her hands dropped to her sides, and she went perfectly still.
She stared at me.
Then her chest moved with a sharp inhale and she blinked. “Okay. Well, first off, it’s a motorcycle, not a motorbike. Second, you don’t need to know how to drive a Harley. Not just yet anyway. I’ll get us outta here, but I can’t do that with this beast lying useless on its side. So, chop-chop, lend a hand. Let’s get her up and see if she starts.” She clapped her hands twice.
“You know how to drive this?” No female on compound knew how to drive a vehicle, let alone a two-wheeled one. It had been strictly forbidden. In fact, only certain brothers with special privileges were allowed to operate the few vehicles we did have at River Ranch.