The task often took the better part of the morning and into the afternoon, so I didn’t have a lot of time that I could call free.
I was okay with that. Between working two jobs and keeping most people at arm’s length because of what my brother did for a living, I didn’t have much in the way of friends. I didn’t want them to know what was going on with me, and I couldn’t risk them getting hurt by him, or him going to jail because of them.
It was a moral dilemma I faced. I knew what he was doing, but I couldn’t bring myself to call the cops on him. I had a feeling it wouldn’t have gotten me far anyway, but I didn’t want to put it to the test. I wasn’t sure what would be worse – calling the cops and having them arrest him. Or, calling the cops and them finding nothing. Of course, he’d turn his fury on me if he found out I was the one who’d tried to turn him in, so I never bothered.
There was one exception to my ‘no friend’ rule, however, and her name was Katherine Marshall. Without anything else to do with my time, and finally finding a second to sit down, I decided to call and tell her about the brawl the night before.
“Hey,” she said after the phone had rang three times.
“I was afraid you weren’t going to answer,” I replied. “I hate it when that happens.”
“Sorry babe, I was switching up the laundry. I didn’t even hear my phone at first. What’s up?”
“Did you hear what happened at St. Peter’s Pub last night?” I asked. “It was a madhouse when I got to work!”
“I know! It was on the news this morning,” she said with a laugh. “Leave it to Barstow.”
“I think my brother was involved,” I said. “Seems like the sort of thing that he’d do.”
“I wondered when I saw the story, but they never said who started it,” Kate replied. “What’re you up to?”
“Sitting down for the first time in ages,” I said with a laugh. “God, working two jobs sucks.”
“I hear you. I mean, technically I only work the one, but still, it feels like two,” she said. Kate was a nurse at the hospital, and she often pulled twelve-hour shifts. I felt sorry for her working so much. But then, she could say the same about me.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Same. I just got off from a fucking long shift, and I’m more than ready for a beer and a cigarette,” she said with a sigh.
“Sounds funny coming from a nurse,” I said with a laugh. “Especially one who works with lung cancer patients.”
“Something is going to kill all of us eventually,” she said. I could hear her pouring herself a drink on the other end of the line. “It all depends on what you want to put your money on.”
“That’s a funny way of looking at things,” I said with a laugh. “But you do have a point.”
“Well, take your brother for example. He’s more likely to get shot or taken out by a semi than he is to die of breast cancer, don’t you think?” she asked. She sounded as though she had a cigarette in her mouth, and I thought for a moment. It made a lot of sense when she said things that way, but I couldn’t agree with her. Not out loud, anyway.
“I’m not going to condone you drinking or smoking,” I said with a laugh. “No matter how strong of an argument you have for it.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said. “But you’re not going to live forever, either.”
“Ugh, don’t be so morbid!” I chided.
She laughed. “So I went out with this guy the other night--”
“Hold on,” I said. I thought I’d heard something outside, and I wanted to listen for it again. I knew I could be just be paranoid, but with the life my brother lived, I never could be too careful. There had been plenty of times in my life when I had been exposed to things no one should ever have to be because of him.
“Kate, I’m going to call you back,” I said. “I want to hear your story, but there’s a noise outside my house, and I’m going to see if I can figure out what it is.”
“Okay, let me know, but be careful,” she said. “Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy this beer.”
I hung up the phone and headed to the window. I couldn’t see anything outside. The night was peaceful, except for the sound of a distant popping. I couldn’t make out whether it was someone’s car failing to start, or what it was. But there was a knot forming in the pit of my stomach.
Then, I screamed as Cutter appeared in the window. He basically threw himself against it, shouting for me. “Megan! You’ve got to open the door! Open it right now!”
He left a handprint on the glass of the window, and I didn’t want to look close enough to see whether it was blood or some other grime. I ran to the door, sliding the dead bolt out of the way and unlocking the knob. I’d barely started to open it when my brother came barging inside, pushing it closed behind him.
He fought with the lock, but his hands were shaking too badly for him to close it.
“What the hell happened Cutter?” I asked. There was blood on the front of his shirt, and a dark crimson stain right over his heart. “Oh my God, are you hurt?”
“It’s not bad,” he said. “Come on, let’s get inside, away from the windows. Move now.”
He hurried from window to window, closing the blinds and checking to make sure all entrances to the house were locked. Then, he turned the lights low and headed to the living room. All the while I was following him, demanding to know what was going on, and asking far too many questions.
He hated it when I asked him questions, but he also knew that I hated it when he arrived at the house in such bad shape. I had no idea what was going on out there, and it made me sick to think that he might have murdered someone.
It was a question I wanted to ask, but one that I hardly wanted to know the answer to.
Finally, he sat down heavily in a chair in the living room and laid his head back, taking a deep breath.
I shakily returned to my own seat, staring at him with wide eyes. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“We were ambushed,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Me and some of the boys,” he replied. “I’m not quite sure what happened, but we were ambushed. We were out at the pub drinking and having a good time, and through the door comes these three large Mexican dudes.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, not sure I wanted to hear the rest of the story.
He shook his head. “They were dressed very nice, big jewelry, the speaker had a nice suit, the others were wearing nice jeans with button down shirts. They wore cowboy hats and walked right up to us, stopping and staring at us as though we should know who they were.”
“And?” I asked. “Do you?”
“I can take a guess and I’m sure I’m not that far off the mark,” Cutter replied. “He started going off about how we would shoot members of the Cartel and steal drugs, leaving them in the street to either be arrested or die before they could be.”
“Oh, Cutter,” I breathed, shaking my head. “What have you gotten yourself in to now?”
“That’s the thing!” he said as he defensively raised his head from the cushion and looked at me. “We had nothing to do with it!”
“Then what the hell is going on?” I snapped. “These guys – mostly likely from the cartel from the sounds of things – just show up and tell you that you murdered their friends?”
“That’s what I’m telling you! We told them that we’d been at the pub most of the night, and the bartender could vouch for that, but they didn’t listen. Guns came out, fists flew. I don’t even know who’s still alive,” he shook his head.
I grimaced. I might not have liked the other members of the Souls, but I still knew them, and to know that they might have been killed in cold blood made my own blood run cold. I hated that Cutter chose to be part of this life, and I wished there was a way I could shake it out of him.
But I knew he wasn’t going to listen. He came to me because he knew my place was safe. They didn’t know about me, because he made sure they didn
’t. I wasn’t part of the MC; I had nothing to do with any of it.
“So what do you think really happened?” I asked quietly. He was silent for a moment, staring down at the floor in front of him. I could see in his eyes that he was thinking, but he clearly didn’t have any idea. Though I thought of my brother as one of the biggest liars there was, I also believed him on this one.
I could usually tell when he was lying, and he certainly seemed at a loss over what had happened. Finally, he took another deep breath. “This place is crawling with gang activity. I’m sure another gang got involved and caught the men by surprise, or we were set up.”
“Sounds reasonable,” I said.
“Yeah, but I’m not sure Pedro will think so,” he shook his head. “I’ve got to talk to him as soon as possible.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t know who Pedro was, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to.
“You’re hurt,” I said.
“It missed my heart. I’ll be fine,” he replied. He rose from the chair and shook his head. “Fuck!”
I jumped at the sudden shouted curse word, but he continued. “Do you know how much this is going to fuck everything up? The last thing I wanted was a fucking war with the Mexican Cartel!”
I didn’t say anything for a moment, letting him get the cussing out of his system. He was livid, and I understood why. But I wished he’d recognize he could walk away from everything if he really wanted to.
“Be careful, Cutter,” I said. “Is this really worth your life?”
“My MC is worth everything,” he replied instantly, looking down at the floor. I wished he’d look at me, but he didn’t. He turned and walked through the hall and back out the door, leaving me reeling from what had just happened.
7
Trip
“Easy does it, easy! Come on, you want to put a scratch on this thing? I don’t think so!” Axle and I struggled to get the engine back under the hood of the thunderbird. I’d never really cared for the cars myself, but damn, the owner of this one sure treated it like it was made of gold.
Being a nineteen-sixty and still in pristine shape, I could see why they wanted to keep it nice, but I would much rather put my money into my bike than into an old car. Either way, we had a reputation of returning vehicles to their owners better than when they dropped them off, and that meant no scratches.
“I’m doing my best, but this thing is fucking heavy,” Axle grunted. I trusted him with getting the part back into the vehicle, and it wasn’t easy on either of us. But we still struggled.
Finally, we eased it back into place.
“That was shitty,” Axle said as he wiped his hand across his forehead. He left a streak of grime, but I didn’t give a damn, and neither would he.
“That’s all this thing needed isn’t it?” I asked. “We need to get these things going before we get too backed up.”
He nodded. There was a car show coming up in town, and many of the owners wanted us to give their vehicles a tune-up before the event. There were a lot of owners that knew how to do the auto maintenance themselves, but then there were those who preferred to just pay us to do it instead.
It was good for business, but we didn’t always have the time to keep up with all the work that came through our doors, especially with the bike repair and modification services we also offered.
“What’s next?” he asked.
“Gunner’s going to bring the Mustang in next, and we’re going to look under the hood. If I remember right, we’re just looking it over to make sure everything is as it should be. I don’t think we actually need to fix anything,” I replied.
“Thank God,” he wiped his hand across his forehead again. It had to be pressing ninety-five degrees out, and our AC hadn’t been working for over a week. We were getting tired of the heat and pissy with each other, but still managing to get the cars through the shop and out the doors on time.
“I’m going to head back to the office and see if we can switch around some of the appointments. I want to get these fast projects out the door as quick as we can since I’ve got both of you here today. We can worry about the bigger projects when Brutus’s back tomorrow,” I said.
Brutus didn’t live in Ridgecrest like most of the men who worked at the shop did. He was further south, so he would spend days he wasn’t working with his dad doing patrols and keeping up with what was going on in Barstow.
Other days, when he wanted to make the drive, he’d come up to give us a hand with the shop, which happened about once or twice a week.
With all the hands I had working for me at the shop, we were open seven days, so he had the flexibility to come in when he wanted, as long as he gave me notice to plan around his schedule.
“Isn’t the new kid supposed to be here today?” Axle asked.
“Odie? No, he’s down with Brutus doing some of the patrols. I want him to know how to do it in case we need it when shit hits the fan,” I replied.
“You really think it’s going to, don’t you?” Axle asked.
“I don’t see how it can’t. if Cutter is stupid enough to be messing with the Cartel, it’s just a matter of time before one or the other feels that they’ve been cheated, or the drugs start pouring in so fast we’re going to have to take the fight to them and not just worry about what’s going on up here,” I replied.
“Ironically, it’s not the drugs that I’m worried about,” Axle replied. I looked at him, and he turned to me. “It’s the guns.”
I nodded again. With all the fights about gun control raging across the country, there were a lot of people who were willing to pay a lot of money to get their hands on one. And those were just private sales. They had nothing to do with other mercenaries who were making bigger orders for their stock.
“We’re just going to have to take it as it comes,” I said. “I don’t want to worry about something that’s not even here yet. We’ll be ready for them, but we aren’t going to stress about it.”
“Maybe you aren’t, but I happen to know a lot of Yahoos who would love to get their hands on a gun and can’t for reasons that are valid,” Axle said. I laughed.
“I can agree with you there,” I shook my head. “Fucking idiots don’t need to be running around with shit they don’t know how to handle.”
“Fucking right,” Alex laughed.
Our conversation was interrupted with the sound of engines filling the air. We didn’t have to see them to know there was more than one, and we exchanged a look. They were coming in fast and furious, something had to be amiss.
“Fuck me,” I said when Brutus and Odie came screeching into the parking lot. Odie looked panicked, and Brutus hopped off his bike, putting his hand to his arm before checking to see how bad the damage truly was.
“What the fuck happened?” I demanded as I walked up to both. Odie threw his helmet on the ground and was walking back and forth, his elbows in the air with his hands on top of his head. He kept shaking his head, and Brutus pulled off his cut.
There was a deep gash on the side of his left bicep. It was bleeding, but not too badly. He swore again when he saw it, then he pointed over his shoulder at Odie.
“I’m guessing that was the first time this kid’s ever seen a man shot,” he said. “He must have been a paper pusher in the service.”
“Hey fuck you old man, I’ve seen combat too. I’ve just never been shot at while driving eighty on only two wheels. Excuse me if it got me a little rattled.”
“What happened?” I asked again, waving them off one another. “Where were you when this all went down? Was this retaliation from the bar fight?”
“I don’t think it was the Souls,” Brutus shook his head. “But I think whoever it was thought we were.”
“We were riding around the south side of Barstow. Brutus didn’t want to go in because he thought it would be best to avoid the place after what went down the other night, and with it just being the two of us, we didn’t want to get in trouble with the Souls,” Odie explained.<
br />
“So we were taking the freeway around the place. But we didn’t get far around before someone opened fire on us from the rocks on the outskirts,” Brutus said.
“Like not even in town?” I asked.
“I’m guessing whoever it was camped out, waiting for bikers to come around that way. They were good shots, but we were at a bad angle for them to get any aim. I’m surprised they were able to get me where they did,” Brutus answered.
“Who the fuck?” Axle turned to me and I shook my head.
“That’s not like the Souls at all. They’d want to take you in town if they were going to at all,” I said. “There’s no way they’re going to be hiding out in the rocks and picking off stragglers.”
“So who was it? I’m not seeing really any other MC feeling the need to do that to us. I mean, if they were allies with the Souls wouldn’t they want to be in town?” Brutus asked.
I was going to reply, but at that moment Javi rode up. He was also coming in fast, but not with the same frantic panic as Brutus and Odie had had. He skidded to a stop, sending bits of gravel into the air. Taking off his helmet, he walked over to us, nodding to me then looking at Brutus’s arm.
“I see you found the cartel,” he said.
“No, I fucking didn’t,” Brutus shot back. “I’m not sure who this is, but I didn’t see any cartel members.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. They aren’t supposed to be here, so they aren’t going to be showing themselves much. At least, not the kind you ran in to. These are the guys who are hired to thin the herd, so to speak,” Javi replied.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Brutus asked.
“You’re always down there closer to the border than the rest of us. Well, it turns out Cutter fucked up with the cartel the other night, and since then, there’s been nothing but fighting between the two. I’d say since you were there, they must have thought you were either part of the Souls, or you were affiliated with them in some way,” Javi replied.
Protecting Her: An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 4