by KJ Dahlen
Thor’s lips crashed down on hers and when their wild kiss broke, Maggie was out of breath.
“Damn woman, that’s so hot.”
Everyone in the room heard his statement.
Maggie blushed bright red and hit his shoulder. “You hush, old man.”
Thor threw his head back and laughed out loud.
Jackal chuckled at their antics. Then he looked down at the woman beside him.
Noelle looked back and smiled slightly. “I can shoot a gun, you know,” she told him softly. “My dad taught me how. He used to take me trap shooting when I was a kid. I got good at it until he died. I can shoot.”
Jackal searched her eyes and nodded. Looking at his men he announced, “Whatever woman wants to help will be armed. They can help us defend our home. Those who can’t shoot, don’t worry about it.”
“I think you underestimate all of us Jackal,” one the women proclaimed. “We’ve lived and loved with this group every day since we came here. We have a vested interest here too. You all may be bikers but we are your old ladies and if you’re gonna fight for us and this way of life then so by God, are we.”
One of the other ladies spoke up, “You have our backs, we have yours!”
Pappy looked over at Jackal and grinned. “They do you and yours proud today man.”
Jackal nodded back. “They always have.” Looking around, he motioned at his men. “I still want to leave enough of you here to fight along with the women. The rest of us will be backup for the Kings.”
“We’d better get there then,” Pappy reminded him. “I’m not trusting one word that this Venom says as gospel. He said noon but I don’t trust him to keep his word about that.”
Jackal looked over at his Lieutenant of Arms. “Wolf, break out the guns and arm those staying behind.”
While Wolf did that, Jackal went over to Pappy. “I know you’re ready and willing to help us fight but this really isn’t your battle. I really don’t want these pricks to come after you if they survive.”
Pappy narrowed his eyes at the other man’s statements. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting we all turn our cuts inside out. That way, they don’t know who’s who. Not only you but we’ll do it as well. I don’t want anyone to be targeted. They may know us by face but unless they see the brand on our backs, they won’t know we were there.”
Pappy thought about his request and agreed with him, “I can see your point. I’d rather not have the fuckers follow us to Texas.”
Jackal grinned. “I’m hoping we still have the element of surprise going for us here. They may think they know us, but they really don’t.”
“I like the way you think my friend.” Pappy slapped him on the back. “Let’s go hunting.”
An hour later, they were dug in with the Kings at their warehouse compound.
Luca welcomed them all with open arms. His numbers were increased as well and tension was high as they all waited for Venom and the Devils to show themselves. “My men found Dane before he skipped town and believe me, he was almost in the car ready to go when they got to him. His car was all packed and shit.”
Jackal smirked wickedly. “Good, I have some questions to ask that little bastard.”
Luca snorted. “The little mother fucker has balls I’ll give him that much. Thinks he’s entitled too. Says he has enough money to buy us off, all we have to do is let him go.”
“Did you find any cash on him?” Jackal asked.
“Sure did, the little rat had about five million on him,” Luca admitted shrugging his shoulders. “Poor bastard it kind of got lost on the way back here.”
“Easy come, easy go, huh?” Jackal had to grin.
“Something like that.” Luca nodded.
Just then, Silas and George joined them.
“They’re getting ready,” Silas told them. “We just got word from one of our lookouts on the street. He’s got maybe twenty men coming this way but he’s also got around half that number headed out of town. Think they might be going to the compound to test how good your security is.”
Jackal smiled. “Don’t you worry old man, we got a surprise for them if they do.” Then he paused and looked at the older men. “When this is over, I need to hear what you guys might know about the compound. We got reason to think that big brother George left something Harvey and Venom wants back really bad. Question is why do Harvey and Venom want back into the compound so bad? Who owned it before George took it over? I know the pair of you know something. If we’re going to stop them from taking it back, we need to know what they think is still there.”
George frowned at Silas then looked over at Jackal. “Now why would you link this guy Venom with the likes of Harvey Norris?”
“We believe Venom is Harvey and George Norris’s brother.” Jackal studied their expressions.
Both men were startled to say the least.
Then something seemed to click with Silas and his expression changed, as if he remembered something. “You might be right in thinking that...I’d forgotten about it.” He snorted. “Ole Denver Norris never could keep it in his pants. Looking back, that was probably the only time he wished he would have though. His old lady damn near cut it off when she found out he knocked up her sister.” He glanced over at George and nodded. “We’ll tell you what we know when and if we survive this battle. It may or may not be true anymore, but we’ll tell you.”
“Good.” Jackal was about to say something else but a shout went out somewhere in the warehouse that housed the Kings, “Incoming!”
Men scrambled into their positions and checked their weapons.
Everyone knew the men coming didn’t care if they lived or died so this would be a fight to the death. They all waited with bated breath as the sounds of motorcycles filled the air, getting louder and louder the closer they got.
Devil’s Own formed a single line, as they all found a place to make their stand.
Looking out the window, Jackal could see what they were doing. The number of bikes looked impressive but then Jackal sneered at the show. He could see the look on the men’s faces. They thought numbers alone would take the day. He could see a few of them were ready to fight but not all of them.
Jackal searched the warehouse for his men and found they all had good positions. He took note of where Pappy’s men were as well. Everyone in his group and Pappy’s group had turned their colors around. It wasn’t they were ashamed of their MC’s, they just didn’t want to let their enemies know who they were fighting against. Even if the Devil’s knew about Pappy, Jackal didn’t want them hunting the other MC down.
“Lock and load boys, hell is right outside those doors and it’s coming our way,” he shouted out.
The men around him picked up the challenge and made their own noise. Part of the strategy was to psych the enemy into thinking there was more of them than they thought.
Jackal smiled over at Pappy when the noise level reached maximum. Glancing out the window, he could see the confused look on the biker’s faces. The walls of the warehouse were shaking with the screaming of the men inside waiting for the fight to begin.
Then Harvey Norris made his move. He stood up on his bike and drawing his gun, he shouted out, “Inside the clubhouse, your time is up. Do you fold to Venom’s demands and join forces or do we fight?”
Luca moved closer to the window, raised his weapon and aimed it very carefully. He should probably aim it right between the other man’s eyes but this would be his one free shot. Squeezing off a round, the bullet nicked the logo on Harvey’s vest, right above his heart.
Harvey felt the tiny piece of steel rip into his shoulder as he screamed in surprise and pain.
Luca leaned closer to the window for a moment and shouted out, “This is Kings Territory, and we’ll die to defend it. If you’re willing to die trying to take it from us, bring it on you bastards. It will be your blood staining the ground today not ours. This is our home, not yours!”
Then the a
ir was filled with sounds of gunfire and the smell of gunpowder as the battle began. The men outside took cover where they could. They could hear windows shattering as the bullets flew from both sides.
One of the bikers came straight at the double doors of the warehouse using speed and his bike to ram the doors. When the doors busted open the men inside scrambled to get out of the way of the bike and rider. The rider came in with his guns blazing. More shots were fired and the man died in a hail of bullets.
One of the men outside got to his feet and lit a cloth stuffed down inside a bottle of gas. Just as he was about to throw the homemade bomb, a shot rang out from somewhere inside the club. The man screamed as the bottle exploded in his hand and fire immediately engulfed him.
Complete chaos ruled for a moment until another shot rang out and the man went down. His body still burned but the screams of pain stopped as he died from the bullet to his head.
Suddenly, the men outside began shooting wildly as they all rushed forward.
The men waiting inside were ready for them.
Harvey waited in the shadows outside. He’d been surprised by the sheer amount of power behind the Kings. This wasn’t what he’d expected at all.
He had been watching from the shadows when that court trial took out half the city government and half the number of the Kings. He didn’t know the story behind the Kings but he figured with their numbers down, this would be an easy takeover.
He’d been wrong and his men were paying for his mistake. He glanced down at his shoulder. That little bastard Luca had shot him. He snapped his eyes into the clubhouse. He could see and hear the battle taking place inside. He sneered as he turned and made his way in the opposite direction.
This was not how he wanted to die. Not today anyway.
Jackal and his crew, along with Pappy and his men fought side by side with Luca and the Kings. When the biker broke the doors down and his friends came rushing into the warehouse, the real battle began.
They all took aim and shot without thinking. The men inside the warehouse were talking trash and the shooting sounded like it would never end.
Two of the Devil’s Own were backing Razor into a corner and Jackal ducked low and was on his way over to help his man. They couldn’t see Razor yet, but they knew he was there somewhere.
Razor flinched as a bullet broke the skin on his upper arm. The bullet was just a graze but he turned as he saw two of the enemy trying to get to him. He ducked behind a partial wall and waited until they got closer to him. Then he would face them head on.
Both of them were trash talking trying to get him angry enough to blow his cover.
“Hey Butch, we gotta hurry up and get this job done, man. I wanna go to the compound and see if that little girl found her way home. I can’t wait to get her back,” one of them shouted out as they searched the area for Razor.
“Yeah Archer, she was a sweet piece of ass wasn’t she?” Butch replied. “Have to wonder if her man Razor is one of the dead men here today? Remember how she cried his name every time we took her. “Help me Razor, please help me.” He chuckled. “When we find her again, we should give her his colors as a consolation prize. That way, she’ll know he died protecting someone else.”
The first man, Archer continued the taunting, “Stupid bitch that she is. Her man Razor couldn’t help her then and he won’t be able to help her at all once he’s dead.” He laughed.
Razor felt his finger tighten on his weapon. These two men were part of the one’s who had raped his woman. He wanted to stand and face them and then watch as his bullets took their miserable lives.
Then he saw Jackal sneaking in behind them. Jackal motioned him to wait and as much as Razor wanted to end them, he waited until his prez got into place. He peeked out and found the men’s positions as he looked into their faces. Butch and Archer they had called each other. He wanted to know the men who hurt his woman. Their deaths would be a reminder of what they had done.
He glanced over at Jackal and saw the signal, then he stood up and faced the two rapists. He shot one of them in the leg and quickly placed his next bullet in the other man’s shoulder. When both men were on the ground screaming in pain, he slowly walked over to where they were.
They had dropped their weapons on the way to the ground and when they saw him standing over them, they both reached for their weapons. Before they could get to them, Razor kicked their guns away and then he looked them both in the eyes. “So you are two of the bastards that hurt my woman huh?” He looked them over carefully. “ Butch and Archer, that your names you filth?”
Jackal came up behind him but didn’t try to stop his man.
Both men on the ground were just beginning to realize they were not going to survive this confrontation when they saw Razor bring his gun up.
“Did she scream and beg you not to hurt her? Did she call out my name in order to get through what you were doing to her? Did she beg you to stop?” Razor ranted as pain tore him up inside.
Their eyes got huge when they saw his gun slowly drop to the area between their legs. Neither one of them could believe what they thought was going to happen, would actually happen.
Razor’s fingers tightened on the trigger as he shot first one then the other man in the crotch.
Both men screamed loudly as their hands went to cup what was left of their manhood. The pain was incredible as their hands were covered in bits of skin and blood.
“You shot us low, you motherfucker!” Butch screamed as his hands pressed down on his genitals.
Archer whimpered and rolled around, “That ain’t honorable, man! Why would you do that?”
“Honorable? You two fuckers don’t deserve any honor! There’s a price to pay when you rape a woman.” Razor snarled. “Now you can die knowing you touched someone you shouldn’t have, you may have hurt other women, but you messed up with one woman. My woman, but you’ll never hurt another one.”
Both men screamed in pain as the blood pooling around them got bigger.
Neither Razor or Jackal noticed the sounds of battle around them dying down ‒ instead they were watching as two of the men who attacked Shelly ‒ died a slow, painful death.
They didn’t see their comrades join them to watch as the men took their own sweet time in dying. The men begged for mercy but got none as the crowds around them grew. Finally, their voices were silenced forever.
Razor dragged his eyes away from the scene in front of him. It was a nasty way to die but these men had earned that much at least. He looked up and finally noted the other men standing around them.
Jackal laid his hand on Razor’s shoulder then turned to Luca and Pappy. “Did we stop them?”
Luca nodded. “We counted eighteen bodies. Two of the twenty got away but I think Venom will get the message.”
“Did we lose any?” Jackal had to ask.
“We have a few wounded but no fatalities,” Luca informed him. “We can mop up the mess if you guys want to take off for your own compound. I overheard enough to know they were going there at the same time.”
Jackal looked over at Pappy and nodded. “We’ll ride out then.”
Luca offered his hand. “Thanks for the assist man. If you need us, you know where we are.”
“Same to you brother,” Jackal told him as he took his hand. “Can you bring Dane out to the compound later today?”
“You bet we will. It will be our pleasure.” Luca smiled.
Jackal nodded and then raised his hand in the air. “Let’s ride men, we got a compound to defend.”
The roars of his men bounced off the walls of the warehouse.
Jackal and Pappy’s men all got on their bikes and roared toward home.
Chapter Eleven
Devil’s Advocates Compound
Tension in the clubhouse grew as the sun rose high in the sky. Everyone wondered what was happening on the other side of town and what would happen here when the enemy rode up to the gates. Wolf had stayed behind to defend the compound w
ith a number of men from the Advocates and Pappy had left half of his men there as well.
There were seven women armed with weapons stationed at various points in the clubhouse as well. Another four were armed in the basement, watching over the children that belonged to the members of the club.
There were four men outside watching the perimeter by doing a roving patrol and three more men on the roof watching for the invasion to begin. The front gates had been fixed and fitted with a few new additives and were now locked and electrified. They were ready for the Devil’s Own to come for them. And the Advocates were as ready as they could be to defend their home.
Wolf walked from one window to the next, making a complete circle of the clubhouse. Over the years, they had enforced the place, shored up their defenses and hopefully made it as strong as they could.
No one broke the silence as the tension grew.
Shelly and Noelle were in the back hall. Sweat beaded upon Shelly’s face as she flashed back to the four days where she was snatched off the streets. All she could remember of her time with the Devil’s was the pain she had endured. The pain and the torture while believing that she would never see her Razor again ‒ and the thought that because of events out of her control ‒ he wouldn’t want to stay with her. Those men did more than just hurt her—they broke down her self confidence. They made her doubt her own worth as a person and a woman.
The more she thought about it the more she began to shake. She wanted to crawl over to the corner and just hide under a blanket of self doubt. Maybe those men had been right? Maybe she did deserve what they had done to her?
Noelle watched her carefully. She knew the fear and doubt the other woman was going through. She’d gone through it so many times herself. She knew her circumstances were different than Shelly’s had been. Dane hadn’t hurt her that way, thank god. He had however, hurt her soul and that was ten times worse than anything else he could have put her through.