by Bourne, Lena
I hope Ink’s with the Knights who give an even more determined chase, as they see the brothers fleeing. I hope he heard my voice, and I hope they won’t start shooting after them. All those hopes die almost as soon as I think of them. The first shots ring out.
“Drop the bomb!” I shout at Piston. Him and Horse are now sprinting towards me. “Drop it! Now!”
He looks at me dumbly then tosses it back over his shoulder. I wince, fully expecting it to blow up on impact with the hard, rocky ground. I’m far enough away so the blast won’t harm me, the Knights probably are too, but Horse and Piston would be blown to bits if it did. Lucky for them, it doesn’t.
They’re about 50 yards away from me, and the Knights are gaining on them, while still shooting. This stupid job went south faster than any other I’ve ever been on. Spectacularly so. But I’ve been on hundreds of jobs, and some of those went south too. I don’t have to think hard. Thinking too hard in situations like this just slows you down and gets you killed. Think later, act now.
I pull out my Glock and take careful aim, focusing on the silver glint of the bomb’s casing in the moonlight. Bombs are vicious and unpredictable. I have no idea if this one will explode when hit by a bullet, but I’m practically praying it does as I take a deep breath and hold it.
I let the bullet fly.
Apart from a bang, nothing happens.
No time to fret, no time to regret, no time to think.
I shake my head and take aim again, this time seeing nothing but the silvery glint of the bomb’s casing. I think of nothing but hitting it as I pull the trigger.
A split second later, the monstrous bang of the explosion deafens me, at the same time as its bright yellow with white edges light blinds me. The edges of the blast of wind created by the explosion rustle my hair. I hope the Knights were far enough away so no one got hurt. I think they were, but I can’t see them and I can’t hear them. All I hear is the echoes of the explosion, and ringing like a bell tolling.
Piston and Horse stopped when the explosion when off, and they’re gawking back at the site of it now like they have no idea what just happened. I rush over and grab Piston’s arm.
“We gotta get the fuck out of here!” I shout. “Now!
I don’t let go of his arm until both of them are sprinting by my side back to the hill. No gunshots follow us, nor is there any sound of pursuit. Hopefully the Knights have decided to cut their losses and flee before the cops get here. Hopefully none of them are hurt.
I think I already hear a police chopper coming nearer and nearer, but that might just be some more of the blast’s effect on my hearing. The ringing in my ears is still plenty loud, but it’s subsiding.
Fucking shit, that was close!
And not at all what Ink and me spoke about when I told him how the Knights should handle the situation. Namely, quietly. They were to get Ink’s mother to safety and then let this play out. But I can’t really blame them for laying in wait to catch the sons red-handed either. Griff’s MC has caused the Knights so much grief over the years, they need and want revenge. I would’ve done the same thing.
But if any of the Knights got killed in that explosion, even if some of them only got hurt, it’ll start a war now. And that’s the last fucking thing Cross wants.
I’m panting and sweating bad by the time we reach our bikes. I don’t stop to catch my breath or let them do it.
“Follow me,” I say and mount my bike then lead them down a rocky and sandy path in the opposite direction of the one we rode up on. It’ll take us almost all the way around this hill, but the priority now is to get as far away from the scene as possible.
I should’ve handled this differently, I know that now. I should have prevented them from attempting this job in the first place. Fuck! There goes riding home with Stormi at my back as early as the end of this week.
16
Ace
The clubhouse courtyard is empty when we get back, the only light coming from the flickering, yellow streetlight by the dumpsters. The smell of rotting food and beer left in the sun too long is sickeningly thick in the air. It’s quiet too, no music, noise or shouts coming from the bar. But a light is on in Griff’s office, visible despite the black foil covering his window. Did he know about what we went to do tonight? Is he waiting for us to get back?
“Alright, I’m gonna get some shut-eye,” I announce as I get off my bike.
Horse turns to me sharply and even in the near darkness I can tell his face is dark red with anger. “Like fuck you will! What the hell happened back there? I want some answers!”
“Answers? From me? I told you to wait and you went down there anyway,” I respond, letting my own anger color my voice. These two incompetent ingrates are more trouble than they’re worth!
Then it dawns on me, the thing I should’ve been worried about all along, but somehow missed it in the action and excitement of that scene. They suspect I warned the Knights. How could they not?
“How did they know to wait for us, huh?” Horse asks just as I realize all that.
“What the fuck are you accusing me of?” I retort angrily. “That I ratted out your plan to those guys? I don’t know any of them. I don’t even know where the fuck to look for them.”
Absolute, unwavering denial is the only way to go here. I can only hope and pray it’ll be enough. Fuck!
“No one except the three of us knew about this job,” Horse says. His voice is uncertain, he sounds almost scared to be saying this, but not nearly scared enough. My heart is thundering in my chest, and my hands are balled into such tight fists my arms are shaking. I’ll take it straight to blows if he doesn’t stop accusing me. That’s one way to show him how offended I am. A good, direct way. Something he’ll understand. Plus, I’ve wanted to punch him in his long, annoying face for awhile now.
“I won’t stand here and be accused like this. I didn’t tell a soul about this job. Why the fuck would I do that?” I bark.
He shrugs, breaking eye-contact with me for a moment, but then locking eyes with me provokingly. I can’t let this stand.
“You ungrateful asshole! I went along and helped you with this dumb fucking plan of yours, and this is my fucking thanks? To be accused of snitching! Who the fuck do you think you are?” I don’t know why I’m not just letting my fists do the talking yet. If this was a real situation of someone accusing me of double-crossing them when I did no such thing, they’d feel my fist in their mouth by now. But this is the boss’ son. I beat him up and I’m outta here, I know that much. Or am I not hitting him because I am in fact double-crossing him? Man, this job is starting to mess with my head.
I must’ve looked threatening enough, because Piston suddenly says, “Pop’s gotta hear about this, Horse. He’s gotta hear about it right away.”
Now, he could be talking about his father as the MC President, and in that role he absolutely should hear about this. But somehow, it sounds more like a boy wanting to tell his Daddy so he’ll be protected.
“What the fuck, Piston?” Horse snaps at him, but Piston returns his gaze levelly.
“It’s gone too far,” he says. “He’s gotta know now.”
The backdoor of the bar opens with the sound of thin metal hitting wood hard. Griff’s gray-whiskered face outlined in silvery moonlight appears there. “What do I gotta know?”
We were shouting, so maybe that’s what brought him outside. But something in his calm demeanor tells me he’s been eavesdropping, since we rode in.
“I’ll tell you inside,” Horse says and trudges towards the door. There’s no force in his voice. If anything, his tone suggests he’s admitting defeat.
I have no idea what to expect when we get to Griff’s office. More accusations? Will I get blamed for this whole thing going wrong?
I have no choice but go an find out.
I’m last through the door when we get to Griff’s office, and I close it behind me then lean against the wall next to it. When unsure about a situation you must a
lways have a clear line of exit. I don’t remember who told me that, maybe it was Cross himself, but it’s good advice and I’m keeping it in mind.
No one speaks. Griff is looking at each one of us in turn. Not questioningly, but menacingly. There’s a half-finished bottle of Jack, and a single, half-full glass on his desk. The amber liquid in the glass is catching the soft light of his desk lamp, making it glow. The tense silence is starting to drag, but I’m sure as hell not gonna be the one to break it. Both Piston and Horse are avoiding their father’s gaze, and I’m not looking directly at him either.
“What’s this all about?” Griff finally asks, and he doesn’t sound angry, just resigned to hearing some more bad news.
“Alright, so you’re gonna be pissed, but it is what it is,” Horse says. There’s an edge to his voice, but it’s more defensiveness than anger.
“Am I?” Griff asks and tops off his glass with more whiskey, without offering us any.
“We couldn’t let it slide that the Knights attacked us,” Horse says. “So we were gonna put a bomb under Josephine’s car. To show them we’re not to be messed with.”
Griff had his drink halfway to his mouth as Horse said it. His eyes are glowing every bit as much as the liquid in his glass, as he slams it back down against the table. “You did what? The Knights didn’t even attack you! It was the Devils!”
“Ink attacked us,” Piston says petulantly. “He’s a Knight. Or as good as.”
Griff has a disgusted, but angry look on his face and it’s a sickening combination. He looks like a madman with his contorted mouth and bulging eyes, more white than anything else. “The last thing we need, the very last goddamn thing, is to open another front with the Knights right now! You know this! Is the bomb there now? You gotta go take it back!”
He pushes off the desk to stand like he plans to go with them.
“There’s no bomb,” Piston says. “The bomb exploded.”
“Josephine’s dead?” Griff asks in a strangled voice.
“No,” Horse says. “The Knights were waiting for us when we went to set the bomb tonight. They just started shooting at us. We ran but the bomb exploded while we fled. I don’t think anyone’s dead.”
Griff is leaning on his desk, his forearms shaking, and he’s looking at each one of us in turn, shocked questions in his eyes.
He suddenly sits back down with a groan and a thud. “Tell me what happened.”
Horse and Piston exchange a look, but neither of them starts talking.
“Speak!” Griff hollers.
They do after that, with Horse carrying the main narrative and Piston chiming in from time to time to correct him. Horse is embellishing the story, trying to make himself sound badass and justified in going after Ink’s mother, but I don’t think he’s fooling anyone.
Griff says nothing once he’s finished with the tale, just glares at his sons, while shooting me angry looks too. I meet his gaze levelly. At least Horse didn’t mention that he suspects me of telling the Knights about this plan. Maybe my display of rage at the suggestion changed his mind about that. Hopefully it did.
“Go! Get outta here!” Griff suddenly hollers. “I gotta think.”
“What are you gonna do?” Piston asks him then flinches at the piercing, livid look Griff gives him.
“First I’m gonna find out if any of them died, then I’m gonna clean up your mess. Like I always have to, even though you’ve been grown men for awhile now,” Griff says in a deceptively calm voice. Even I can sense the cold, vicious anger in it.
“Don’t leave the clubhouse for any reason until I say you can,” he orders, and looks at me. “That includes you.”
I nod and open the door so we can leave. Horse stalks off, Piston is right behind him, but I take my time following them. Inside the bar, they go find a drink, while I go outside, where I lean against the wall and light a cigarette.
This is a mess. I’d planned on slipping out and telling Cross all about it right away, but I dare not now that Griff forbade us from leaving the clubhouse. I understand why the Knights felt the need to come against Horse and Piston hard tonight, I don’t even blame them for it, but they really fucked me over.
A part of me wants to pack up Stormi and leave right now. Piston and Horse probably started a war with the Knights tonight, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna fight it alongside them. But I can’t make that call. Cross will decide when I can leave my post here. I’d call him right now, from Stormi’s room, but I think I stretched even my twisted luck far enough tonight.
* * *
Stormi
I waited for Ace in the bar all evening. I waited for an hour after the last of the bikers finally stumbled to their beds. He didn’t show. A part of my mind was trying to convince me it’s for the best that way. That I should start letting him go. He’s such a huge risk to me, and on top of the crap I’m already living, it could very well be the death of me, if I get too close to him.
Too late! Another part of my mind was saying. You’re already too close.
That’s the voice that kept me sitting in the creaking, rickety barstool by the counter, smelling the cigarette smoke, spilt booze and dirty men slowly flee the room through the cracked window.
But the silence and emptiness got to me, until it was too hard to try and stay awake in this nightmarish crap that is my life.
I have no idea when he finally got in, because he didn’t wake me as he came into my room and lay down beside me. I woke up from a bad dream into a pleasant morning, with his arm around my waist and his warm strength against my back. It was the first time since I got here that I was happy, truly pleased to be awake.
He could’ve found somewhere else to sleep, I bet they’ve already given him his own room in the clubhouse, but he came to my bed. He came to me. And he did that just to sleep beside me, not to fuck me or get a blowjob before bed, or anything like that.
I just lie there for awhile, letting the pleasant soft warmth this knowledge woke flow all through me, as I think of nothing but what a dream come true this is. He is.
I wish I could just kiss him softly until he wakes, that we could make sweet love after that, then plan our perfect forever once we’re both sated and lying in each other’s arms. I could do that, and I’d get at least the first two things, I’m sure of that. But the third…the forever…not so much. Instead of talking of our future, we’d talk about the threat he’s facing, about the killers after him, about the revenge he lives for, about how long he has left to live.
I know all about loving people who don’t have a lot of years left. I know it hurts worse than anything else in this world. Hurts worse than being a slave, much worse than fearing your own death. My sister is my sister. I will always love her and I’ll never regret loving her. But Ace? He’s a guy I just met. He’s a guy I wish I’d met sooner, the kind of guy I want with me until the end. But all that is just wishing. Just dreaming.
So I just lay there enjoying the moment, enjoying the now in which no future looms or threatens. Or beckons.
He’s finally awake now, looking at me through narrowed eyes, but with a huge smile on his face. I’m not worried about the future at all. I let him kiss me. I kiss him back. Passionately, hungrily, lost in the moment, lost in the bright sparks that are fast igniting the warmth of his sleeping closeness, turning it into a deep river of fire. His callused, yet gentle and warm hands on my naked skin as he explores my softness are feeding the flames his kiss woke, stoking the fire higher. This now is all I want for the rest of my life.
A beginning, that’s what his kisses and touch feel like. A new, glorious beginning of a life I want to live until my death. Whenever that comes. Whenever.
I sigh and moan as his hand finds my clit. He’s massaging it in a slow circle with his thumb, waking a pleasant, fuzzy warmth, softer yet more searing than the one woken by his kisses. It spears me, upwards and downwards, filling my body, then my mind with its warm softness, its pleasant need, its insistent promise that all will
be well, all will be good, forever.
I’m so close to coming I can already feel the echoes of that pleasure. I groan in disappointment as he removes his hand from my clit and spreads my legs wide.
He chuckles and kneels between my legs, his eyes open and locked on mine now, filled with the same liquid light and life as the sea. I gasp then sigh out my breath long and steady as he pushes his cock into me, slowly, inch by throbbing, pulsing inch. The spearing pleasure filling me isn’t soft anymore. It’s searing, insistent, needy. Now is all that matters. Now is all there is. And it’s glorious.
I let all of me ride his deep and steady thrusts, think of nothing but how good this joining of ours feels, how pleasant it is to bathe in the warm sea of his eyes as his thrusting cock brings me ever closer to the depths of pleasure. He bends down, kisses me passionately, silencing my moans and giving me air. Closing the circle that is us. My orgasm is less than a breath and a thrust away, but I hold it back, because I don’t want this now to end. I’m writhing beneath him, trying to forestall the orgasm that would end this sweetness, this blissful pleasure where nothing but it matters.
Yet it’s all already in the past tense in my mind. Was, not will be. Not is.
I escape knowing that by letting the searing fires of the pleasure we’ve been building consume me. For a few moments I know only absolute bliss, only pure pleasure. Nothing else but how good now feels matters, as the searing tendrils of the pleasure we give each other fill every nook, every hidden spot inside my body and my mind.
But like a crashing wave, the pleasure recedes too. Too soon it starts to fade and the room and his smiling face come back into clear focus.
His wide, warm smile is a danger. His warm, summer sea eyes are a trap. I know that even though him looking at me like this makes me feel like I’m lying on soft, summer sun-warmed sand, the breeze off the ocean caressing my skin, not a care in the world in my mind.