For me, this was a matter of vengeance. I was avenging Fred’s death, and I was doing what Jordan wanted me to do. I hadn’t told her exactly how dangerous the shootout was going to be, because I didn’t want her to feel guilty—and I definitely didn’t want her to stop me from going either.
“You guys don’t have to come with me,” I grunted and they both swung their heads to look at me. Abe had a hint of nervousness on his face, which he quickly wiped off.
“You need backup, brother,” Abe said with a grin.
“This is my job,” Girth added, in his calm growling way. I clenched my jaws and looked back towards the door and waited.
I couldn’t see the killer’s bike parked outside, which meant that he wasn’t inside the bar.
“I’m going in first,” I declared, without meeting their eyes.
What I said, basically translated to—I’m taking the first bullet. Neither of them said anything. We just continued to look ahead.
The roar of his bike was loud in our ears. The three of us saw him riding towards the bar at the same moment. My hand went to my waist and I pulled my gun out. This was it. It had to be now or never.
* * *
We had a small window of opportunity to get the job done. I needed to get to the man before he went inside the bar.
Without alerting Girth or Abe, I started striding towards the parking lot, with my arm on the side and the gun in my hand.
The man was jumping off his bike, and beginning to take his helmet off now.
He looked up when he noticed me charging towards him, and he took his gun out too. I pointed mine at him.
“Motherfucker!” I growled, as we pointed our guns at each other.
“Get the fuck off our property!” he roared back but I didn’t stop striding towards him. I was quickly closing the distance between the two of us, and he remained stationary behind his bike, following my every step towards him with his gun pointed at me.
“What the fuck do you want?” he growled. He had clearly not recognized me or seen the patch on my back.
“You killed Fred,” I hissed, and now I was close enough to him to shoot.
But he shot me first. I swerved back, and the bullet grazed my left shoulder and I felt my skin tear open. There was an instant spilling of blood and I could feel the wet coolness spreading on my shirt and down my arm.
I pulled the trigger at the same time, and I saw him topple backwards. I’d caught him on his upper thigh. Clenching my jaws, I continued to walk towards him.
He shot me again, and I stepped to the side but the second bullet grazed the side of my waist. I felt the sting of skin splitting open again, and the stickiness of blood.
I was close enough to him to shoot him point blank now. I glared at his shiny bald head, the rings on his ears, at the gun pointed to me. I could see in his eyes that the bullet in his thigh was painful for him. I was glad.
He had made the mistake of waiting a second, of not pulling the trigger before me because he could have. I would be dead right now.
But instead, I squeezed the trigger first. I felt the reverberation of the bullet leaving my gun and speeding towards him. There was a slicing sound in the air, just a split-second before there was a thud. The bullet had pierced through his ribcage. He looked up at me, staring, like he was surprised by what had just happened. The bullet was in his heart now and his blood pooled on the spot around his heart.
He staggered, and then fell straight down to the ground like a bag of potatoes.
His eyes remained open, he was staring up at the sky but he was dead. He didn’t have a breath left in him. I had done it. Fred’s death hadn’t gone unpunished. The killer was fucking dead.
* * *
“Rodeo! Run!” I heard Abe’s voice behind me. That’s when I looked up at the bar doors to see a group of guys charging out. They’d heard the exchange of shots and had come out to look. I had been standing over the dead body of the killer, watching the color drain from his face.
This was what Jordan wanted, what I wanted and I had done it. Whatever happened right now, all I wanted was for Jordan to know that I had killed her father’s shooter. That she could move on with her life now.
Abe and Girth had run over to my side when the first bullet struck the ground beside my feet, and they started shooting. The Hell’s Drifters were shooting back at us and I shot at them too, jumping into action. We were retreating, stepping backwards, shooting and ducking. We had no chance in Hell against the bunch of them who were crawling closer to us.
I didn’t have to look over at my brothers to know that they had been shot too. All three of us were wounded.
There was the sound of a muscle car engine behind us.
“Fuckin A! Lewis sent Marcus!” Abe roared, grabbing my jacket and dragging me backwards.
The shower of gunshots didn’t stop, and we were shooting back too.
Marcus stopped the car right behind us, and pushed open the back doors. The three of us jumped into the back, while Marcus started shooting at the men who were now scrambling to get on their bikes and chase after us.
When I slammed the door shut behind us, just seconds before Marcus started speeding away; was when we heard the police sirens.
“What the fuck?” Abe growled, as Marcus stepped on the accelerator.
“Hugh alerted the cops. They were waiting for my signal,” Marcus said as he started driving. Some of the Hell’s Drifters who were about to ride after us, now swerved and headed in the opposite direction when they heard the cops approaching.
The man I had killed was still lying on the parking lot ground. None of those fuckers had bothered with his body. We might have been the underdogs but we wouldn’t have left one of our own behind, no matter if he was already dead.
“Woohoo!” Abe cheered, waving his gun around in the backseat. Girth ducked then pulled the gun out of his hand while Marcus laughed. We saw three cop cars speed past us as we drove. I was staring out of the window, my heart was racing. I couldn’t believe that I’d actually done it, that all of us had come out of there alive.
I looked over at Abe and Girth, both of whom had been shot too. We were all sporting gunshot wounds now but none of us cared.
“For Fred!” Abe cheered.
“For Fred!” Marcus joined in. Girth looked at me and he was grinning now.
“For Fred!” I said and he nodded his head.
“For Fred,” he muttered.
22
Jordan
We’d been waiting for several hours for the boys to return, and in the meantime; Lila and I had done nothing other than just drink loads of coffee and talk.
“Is this a good sign?” I asked her, looking at my watch. Lila had started pacing around the room now. Her toughened exterior was beginning to crumble. I could see that she was as worried about Girth now as I was about Rodeo.
“I don’t know anymore. It could mean anything, but the one thing I know is that it wasn’t going to be a quick job in the first place,” she said and licked her lips nervously.
“Can we call Lewis or any of the others?” I asked and Lila sighed loudly.
“If I call my dad, he’ll not be honest with me. Whatever’s happening, he’ll tell me that it’s fine and to not worry. He’s fiercely protective of me,” she replied and I clasped my hands together, twiddling my thumbs.
I could feel the nervousness in my gut, like a bellyache. Every cell in my body felt pinched. I wished I could just call Rodeo and tell him to come back. My courage was crumbling too. I didn’t care what happened to my father’s killer, I just wanted Rodeo to be safe and come back to me.
“How many of them have gone to the bar?” I asked Lila. I’d overheard some discussion between Rodeo and Girth earlier about how they were planning on staking out some bar where the Hell’s Drifters hung out.
Lila looked at me with wide nervous eyes.
“Three of them,” she replied and my heart sank right to my stomach.
“Three of them?
The whole Hell’s Drifters Club could be in there at this time. How are they going to get away with getting the killer without them being caught?” I stood up from my couch with a jerk.
Lila came towards me, she could sense how deeply flustered I was by the news.
“Jordan, calm down, they didn’t have any other choice. We are a small MC. It had to be done this way,” she said softly and I shook my head. I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. I hadn’t realized that the chances of the boys coming out alive from this was this low.
“This is all my fault! I shouldn’t have said anything to Rodeo. I’ve sent them to their deaths!” I cried, while hot tears pricked the backs of my eyelids.
“Jordan, come on, it’ll be fine. You have to trust them. You couldn’t have stopped them from going. This is what they do. This is their lives!” Lila was rubbing my arms but I couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that I might never see Rodeo again.
The fevered rap on my front door snapped Lila and me away from each other.
“Stay where you are,” she commanded me and strode towards the front door to look through the peephole.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked, as she started getting the locks open on the door. I’d heard the horror in her voice. I didn’t want to know what was on the other side.
* * *
Rodeo, Abe, Girth and Marcus stormed into my apartment and Lila locked the door behind them. All of them, except Marcus was bleeding from gunshot wounds. Lila squealed and wrapped herself around Girth.
I rushed towards Rodeo, who had stretched an arm out towards me and I fell into him. I was just glad to see him alive, nothing else mattered.
“Rodeo, you’re bleeding! You’re bleeding everywhere!” I cried, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“I’m fine,” he said and I felt his body jerk. I’d hugged him too tightly. When I tried to pull myself away from him, he pressed my cheeks together with his hands and looked deep into my eyes.
“I got him. I killed him for you, Jordan,” he grunted and I covered his hands with mine. I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, they were gushing down my cheeks. I was sobbing like a baby.
Was I happy that Rodeo had killed him? I might have been but all I could feel right then was relief. I was just relieved that Rodeo was fine, that he was alive.
“Rodeo, you’ve been shot! I can’t believe you’ve been shot!” I cried as he held me like that. His eyes flitted over my face, there was a weak grin tugging his lips now.
“It’s just a few scratches. Don’t you worry about me,” he said and stroked my hair. I shook my head. This was too much for me. I’d just seen my father being shot to death, and now Rodeo!
“Come here!” he grunted and wrapping one arm around my waist, he pulled me close to himself. I fell on his chest and he pressed his lips to mine. He was leaning me backwards as he kissed me and I sunk into him, holding him by his face. The scratch of his rough beard on my mouth was comforting. I was dying to feel his arms around me and now he was finally here.
“Jordan, where’s your first-aid kit?” Lila’s high-pitched nervous voice snapped us out of the moment. She was standing beside us, and when I looked at her, I saw her dress covered in Girth’s blood.
I pulled away from Rodeo and looked down to see my white t-shirt stained with Rodeo’s blood too.
“Sit down!” I roared at Rodeo, and pushed him down on the floor by the shoulders.
“Come with me. I don’t know what we’ll need,” I said to Lila and she followed me as I ran towards my bathroom. We exchanged looks as I pushed open the door and we couldn’t help but smile at each other. It was a smile of relief.
“I told you!” she said and bit down on her lip as I started rummaging through the medicine cabinet.
* * *
Marcus had gone out and brought us back more first-aid supplies for the wounds. Girth, Abe and Rodeo were all shirtless and sitting in a row on the couch in my living room, having their wounds tended to.
Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just following Lila’s instructions. According to her, none of their wounds were serious and they had all been very lucky. Abe was the one with the most serious wound, and Lila was in the process of bandaging his shoulder and left arm and putting it in a cast.
Girth had a wound in his leg and on his back, both of which would just need a few days to heal. Rodeo’s wounds on his arm and his abdomen would need the same. They were all bandaged up and looking like they had just returned from battle. Which they had.
I stood back from the couch to look at our handiwork. For the first time, these men were the ones who looked weaker than us. They were in our hands, under our care, and I tried to stifle a smile.
Rodeo caught me grinning and he arched his eyebrows at me. I could feel my cheeks flushing as he looked at me. Despite the fact that he was bandaged up, and probably in pain from the bullets that had grazed his body, he was eyeing me up and down like he was undressing me with his eyes.
I stuck my chin up and parted my lips slightly. I liked being watched by him. I wanted him just as much as he wanted me.
“All done!” Lila said and stood up from the floor. The three of them exchanged looks and then looked at us. Marcus was leaning against a wall, grinning at his friends.
“I suppose there’s no point in asking if you guys are going to take painkillers or medication?” Lila asked, placing her hands on her hips.
“Medication dulls the senses. Pain will make us feel alive,” Abe replied and she rolled her eyes and looked at me with her eyebrows raised. I laughed and stepped over to Rodeo. I reached for his face and sunk my fingers into his rough beard.
“Thank you,” I said to him and looked at the others and thanked them too.
Rodeo wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me down to his lap. He kissed me lightly on my cheek and it was now that the thought struck me—he had kissed me in front of his friends, I was sitting on his lap now; in front of his friends! Did this mean something?
“We should probably give you two some alone time, besides, I seriously need to get changed out of these clothes!” Lila exclaimed and she and Girth were holding hands as they started walking towards the door. Abe and Marcus followed them and we exchanged quick goodbyes.
Finally, Rodeo and I were alone again. A rush of emotions washed over me, and I didn’t even know where to begin—how to explain to him how I was feeling.
* * *
I was still sitting on Rodeo’s lap when the door shut behind the rest of the gang. I was sitting sideways, with my arms wrapped around his neck and we were looking into each other’s eyes. His were blue and deep, but today they weren’t stormy. He looked relaxed. He had finally achieved what he’d set out to do.
“I’m glad you’re safe, Rodeo,” I whispered, feeling shy to admit how I was feeling. He was breathing deep, blowing hot air from his nostrils on my face that shook the locks of hair falling on my cheeks. His eyes searched mine, and he smiled.
“I don’t think I’ve had anyone say that to me before,” he replied, and his grip around my waist became tighter. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. Was he weirded out by that statement?
When Rodeo leaned in to kiss me again, my hopes were up. The kiss was soft but lasted long, our lips moved slowly to a rhythm and he didn’t push his tongue into my mouth this time. The kiss was less sexual and more romantic. I didn’t think he was capable of romance.
When we parted I was breathing hard.
“Jordan, I want you to know that this isn’t about Fred,” Rodeo said, in a deep guttural voice. I could feel his cock hardening and throbbing in his pants. My pussy was already wet and rubbing against his tenting jeans. I had to push down my ebbing desire for him so we could have this conversation.
I stared at him wide-eyed.
“What do you mean?” I asked and he let out a sigh.
“I mean…us, about why I’m here right now with you. It doesn’t have anything to do wit
h the fact that you are Fred’s daughter,” he explained and I gulped.
“Are you saying that you’re with me because you want to be with me?” I asked and Rodeo clenched his jaws and then nodded his head.
“I would have been here even if I hadn’t found out who you were. I wanted you from the first moment I burst in through that door,” he said, and swung his head to look in that direction. I suppressed a smile and nodded.
“I understand,” I replied and drew closer to him. I breathed in his rugged masculine scent—which was capable of getting my body going. Just one whiff and it was like I’d taken a dose of a lethal drug. My mind was in a tizzy.
“I mean, the fact that I know who you are makes it—makes me want to protect you more. Makes me want to do right by Fred, but I want you because I want you. Because you are fucking irresistible,” Rodeo growled and I blushed to a deep red. I had only been fantasizing that he would tell me these things, that he would speak this way about me. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.
“I want you too. I more than just want you…your body I mean,” I admitted and I felt like my gut was being torn apart. I had been so afraid of being rejected by him, that now I felt like I was on an adrenaline rush.
Rodeo nodded his head and sighed.
“I guess we have no choice here,” he said and we both smiled at each other warmly. Rodeo tightened his grip around my waist and kissed me lightly on my lips again.
“I’m always going to look out for you, Jordan, no matter what happens,” he said, and before I knew what he was going to do next, he was lifting me up in his arms.
“Rodeo, no! Your arm!” I squealed, as he started carrying me across the room and towards my bedroom. How was he even doing this? He had to be in so much pain!
Marked Skulls MC Series: Books 1-5 Page 28