Ace: Devil’s Nightmare MC

by Bourne, Lena

  “No harm done,” I assure them.

  They shrug and return to the bar. By then Blaze has blended into the crowd.

  Get out? Is this a new order from Cross? Or an old one, from before we spoke on the phone? Stormi’s not back yet though. There’s no way I’m getting out of here without her. I used to mock my brothers something awful when they got all protective of their women. And here I am thinking of nothing but making sure Stormi is safe. Not even my duty to my club and orders is higher on my list of priorities.

  “We gotta talk,” Horse barks at me as I reach him and Piston. “Come with us.”

  “Yeah, we do gotta talk,” I assert as he turns and walks back into the hallway that leads to Griff’s office.

  I’d be given no choice in the matter of following them to the back, that much is clear from the way the other Sinners, the same ones manning the counter before, are flanking me now and closing off all possible routes of escape.

  “Lead the way,” I say in a voice that suggests I’m still in charge of the situation. But I don’t think I am.

  “Wait outside and do your thing,” Horse tells the four guys who followed us to the door of Griff’s office.

  They acknowledge his order with grunts, and he opens the door then waits for me to enter. I do.

  “There you are,” Griff says by way of greeting me. “We were afraid you weren’t coming back.”

  The VP, Spy, and the Sargent at Arms are in the room too, but I fix my eyes on Griff as I shrug. “Why wouldn’t I come back? You promised me revenge then you left me in a cell to rot today. What was that all about? You clearly got ties with the local law. How else did your sons get out so fast? I also don’t get is why you left me in there. I thought we were good.”

  I stare at him pointedly as I ask my belligerent questions. They’re the same ones Horse and Piston were refusing to answer earlier.

  “We were the way to being good as you put it,” Griff says musingly, a mocking grin curling his lips. “But then it came to my attention that you’re not who you say you are.”

  It’s a bold statement, and he says it like he’s sure of his words. I gotta gamble that he’s not though, it’s my only chance.

  “What the fuck are you saying?” I bark at him. “What are you accusing me of?”

  “Here’s what I know,” Griff says calmly, as he starts cleaning his nails with his pocket knife. I hate how I’m already imagining that knife sticking out of my chest as he does it. Maybe I should’ve fought my way clear when they led me back here and made a run for it, like Blaze told me to. But it’s too late now. No use wasting thoughts on it.

  “I know the Devils leave no one alive,” Griff continues. “They even killed that one poor Satan’s Spawn member who was paralyzed from the neck down.”

  If we did, I had no idea. It doesn’t sound like Cross to do a thing like that. Women and children are not to be harmed. Nor are the sick and impaired. Accidents will happen, but we go out of our way to prevent them.

  “Are you calling me a liar?” I interject.

  He glares at me pointedly for a few heartbeats, the answer plain in his dead black eyes.

  “Yes,” he tells me anyway. “And the paralyzed guy did too. He says there was no Ace among the Spawns, and that no Spawn survived.”

  “What the hell? Didn’t you just say the Devils killed him? You’re full of shit,” I snap wishing I knew the guy’s name. But I never heard anything about a paralyzed Spawn. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, but take me to see him, and I guarantee you he’ll recognize me.”

  Griff shakes his head. “Too late for that. The Devils killed him after our Spy spoke to him.”

  I’m starting to see the full depth of the shit I’m in. It appears to be bottomless.

  “I don’t believe you,” I say anyway. “I am who I say I am. Haven’t I proven myself to you?”

  Griff shakes his head. “Fact is, the Knights knew to expect Horse and Piston setting the bomb that second time. Apart from them, you were the only one who knew of that plan.”

  “And the guy who gave them the bomb, and the one who gave them the detonator,” I interject. “And I bet they told others too. They can’t help bragging. And if I wasn’t there to cover their asses, they’d be dead now. Don’t forget that.”

  “Be that as it may, I won’t risk having a liar in my ranks,” Griff says menacingly.

  I no longer think that anything I say will change what’s to come tonight. I also have no idea why Griff is even putting on this show. Is it for the VP? It’s certainly not to give me a chance to explain myself.

  “You turned the Knights knowing Horse and Piston were threatening them to your advantage right quick though,” I say despite realizing all that. “No way the cops just happened to raid that out of the way place you were to meet the Knights at. The feds were there too. What kinda deal you got going on with the feds, Griff?”

  I ask it sharply. Having local cops on the payroll is one thing, but making deals with the feds always involves snitching, as I’m sure everyone in this room knows. The VP stiffens, leaning forward involuntarily to better hear Griff answer my question. He looks like he’s thinking real hard as he glares at Griff and the Sargent looks tense. Only the Spy leaning on the wall by the window seems to be at ease. I’m guessing he’s in on whatever business Griff has with the feds, but the other two aren’t.

  “Take him away,” Griff orders his sons.

  “I’m right, ain’t I? You’re working with the feds,” I say as Horse and Piston grab one of my arms each. “You’re just a dirty rotten snitch.”

  Griff just glares at me, darkly, menacingly, but doesn’t say anything. Horse and Piston start dragging me to the door and I let them. Pick your battles. That’s the number one rule of surviving. I’m too outnumbered to fight my way out of this building.

  One of the guys waiting in the hall is holding the door open as Horse and Piston drag me through it.

  “I thought you were a standup guy!” I shout at Griff. “Now I know you’re just a weasel. How many clubs did you sell out before the Knights? What happened to honest fighting? You’re a fucking rat, Griff, that’s what you are. And your sons, they’re even less than that. A fucking disgrace, all of you. You should be too embarrassed to show your face to your men.”

  I know my words found some fertile ground, because the Sargent and VP are now exchanging glances. Even one of the guys in the hall doesn’t look very sure he should be doing what Griff wants him to.

  “Bring him back in,” Griff orders and I feel myself pushed forward. Griff rushes toward me and presses his knife against the side of my throat. The spot he chose is about two finger widths away from the jugular vein, though I don’t think he knows that. If he plunges the knife into my neck, I might survive. Might.

  “Everything I do, I do for my sons. They may be fuckups, but they’re mine, and I won’t watch them rot in jail when I can prevent it, and do some good for us all in the process,” he’s dark red in the face, spittle is flying everywhere, and he’s so far up in my face I can smell the garlic and old man on his breath.

  What the fuck did I trigger here?

  “What? You turned snitch to save their sorry asses?” I ask. Might as well get all the facts out of the old man. “Some jail time would serve them better. They’d get the discipline you never gave them in there, at the very least. Their failure is your failure, Griff.”

  He presses his knife harder against my throat, drawing a drop of blood that trickles like a tear down my neck. “I don’t need parenting advice from a nobody like you. The only reason I’m not killing you right here is because I don’t want a mess in my office.”

  He turns to the guys holding me. “Take him out back. What you heard here doesn’t leave this room.”

  “And Horse, Piston,” he says, once we’re already at the door. “Wait for a quieter time before you finish it. Am I understood?”

  They grumble agreement and I hope they really did understand him. I consider
raising hell over how he’s treating the guy who saved his sons’ lives as they drag me along the corridor, but there’s no point now. The Devils are in place. If I get the chance, I’ll tell them that the VP and Sargent are probably not in on whatever snitching is going on. Clearly, all that is mostly Griff’s show. But I might not get the chance to tell my brothers that.

  Griff and his sons, and probably half the club members might be dead by tomorrow. Maybe even by morning. I very well might be too. The only real regret I have is not saying a better goodbye to Stormi.

  It’s as strong as the regret I still carry over not getting to say a proper goodbye to my aunt and uncle before they died. The only regret that’s stronger is letting my pride get the better of me. I should’ve just packed up Stormi and left with her earlier.

  Why the fuck did I need to go proving I can still get the job I was sent here to do done?

  20

  Stormi

  Cars and truckers kept honking at me along the no-sidewalk stretch of road that was my fastest route into town. To avoid all that, I ended up taking the long way to the bus station. But I still arrived early for the overnight bus to Las Vegas. This is the first stop the bus makes after leaving the main station, and three people are already waiting to board it. A student with a bulging black backpack and a huge suitcase, a middle aged woman with a knock-off designer tote, and a guy in a ratty-looking black and white flannel shirt and jeans so faded they’re white in places. When I first noticed him, my heart literally stopped beating for a couple of seconds. I was sure he was a Sinner come to wait for me and take me back to the clubhouse. My fear fled when I realized I’ve never seen him before.

  I’ve been hiding in the shadows behind some bushes in the field by the bus stop, shivering in the rising nighttime cold. I was gonna take a jacket and my bag when I left, it’s all packed and waiting under my bed back at the clubhouse. But then Ace took me to dinner and I couldn’t go back to the clubhouse afterwards. If I saw him one more time, I would’ve stayed.

  I have to go home. I have to keep my sister safe. I can’t stay with him.

  The bus is almost here. I’ve been following its progression out of town for awhile now. At first I wasn’t sure if that’s what I was looking at, thinking it might just be a truck, but now I can just make out LAS VEGAS written across the top of the windshield. HOME is what it reads to me.

  The three people waiting for it have already lined up by the curb in order of their arrival. I was actually here before any of them, but I’m gonna wait in the shadows and only come out once they start boarding. Just in case. I want to stay out of sight for as long as I can.

  I nearly had a heart attack when three Sinners rode past this stop back when I first spotted the bus in the distance. They were going slow, but didn’t stop, and then I remembered that their strip joint is further down this road and calmed down again. My heart is still summersaulting in my chest, and my palms are so sweaty that my tank top is wet along my belly from drying them so often.

  The bus is stopped at the curb, and the driver, or maybe the conductor, came out and is helping the student load her suitcase into the trunk. The unkempt guy and the lady with the tote have already boarded.

  It’s now. I gotta go now.

  I wipe my sweaty palms on my tank top one last time and leave my hiding spot. The streetlight doesn’t hit this stretch of dried grass, but mostly gravel, I have to traverse to get to the sidewalk. But if anyone’s watching for me, I’ll be visible in another three paces, maybe four. I wish my heart would stop thundering. It’s doing it so hard my vision is blurry.

  It’s useless to worry. Useless to be afraid. Useless to be sad. The bus that will take me home is right there. I’ll board it, it’ll take off, and I’ll never see Ace again. But I will be free. I will be with my sister.

  I meant what I told him. I will never forget him. And maybe, just maybe, fate will thrust us back together again one day. That’s what happens when it’s meant to be, doesn’t it? At least it does in movies and those princess stories. Not that I ever believed in any of that.

  The driver is done loading the trunk and now him and the student are walking back to the front of the bus. I should hurry.

  All the window seats on the side of the bus that I can see are taken, mostly hogged by solo travelers. Hopefully I’ll get two seats to myself too, way in the back. Not that I think I’ll be able to sleep. In fact I know I won’t sleep. Too much to think about, too many regrets, too much excitement at being free again.

  “Stormi! There you are,” a man says from the darkness to my left. The lights of the bus, of my ride to freedom are right there, but I’m still all in darkness. “Were you thinking of leaving us?”

  My heart goes from summersaulting to racing again. I brace myself to make a dash for the bus, but that’s as far as I get. One man blocks my path, while another grabs my arm, his calloused hand digging painfully into my bicep.

  “You scream or fight, and you die right here,” he hisses in my ear, looking down pointedly. I follow his gaze and see the huge blade of a serrated hunting knife pressed into my side. It looks long enough to go straight through me if he plunges it in. No way I’d survive that. But I’m debating forcing him to do it anyway.

  Ace’s smiling face floats across my vision, followed by my sister’s. I let go of that suicidal thought and become slack in his arms.

  By the sidewalk the doors of the buss hiss shut on my dream of freedom and a better life.

  “You were supposed to behave, Stormi,” the guy blocking my path says pleasantly. “This is not behaving.”

  “What are talking about? I’m not allowed to hide in the bushes on the side of the road?” I snap at them. “I was walking back to the clubhouse and had to take a piss.”

  The two exchange a glance and snicker.

  “Sure, Stormi,” the one holding me says. “Tell it to Griff, maybe he’ll give you a second chance.”

  He sounds like he’s sure that nothing of the sort will happen, and so am I.

  But a small chance is better than no chance, which is what I’ll have if I make him stab me right here. There might still be a chance for me to play this down. They can’t be sure I was gonna board the bus.

  “Let’s get you home,” the guy holding me says as he starts dragging me back the way I came, back into the darkness.

  * * *

  Ace

  They took my phone and the knife I keep on my belt. My guns are in my saddlebags on my bike, which I parked way at the edge of the lot, so I’d have no bikes blocking me if I needed to make a quick escape. So much for that. They didn’t find the knife in my boot, so I’m not completely unarmed, but I’m gonna bide my time and only use that when I have a chance of actually getting away.

  They wouldn’t answer any of my questions, which I shouted at them all the way to this cell. It’s in a rectangular, but otherwise shed-like structure way at the end of the courtyard. I didn’t even notice this place before they brought me here, and that’s an oversight and a slip up I don’t even want to ponder.

  The cell they put me in smells of old fear sweat, piss and blood. The light bulb over the door is so grimy that barely any of the yellow light it offers gets through, and besides, it keeps flickering on and off. Maybe that’s my chance. Break the light bulb and hide in the dark, then attack when they come to get me. It’s not much of a plan, mainly because the hallway that leads to this cell is lit by bright fluorescent lights, but also because I’d then have to make it all the way to the main gate to escape, and the whole bar and clubhouse are blocking my way there. I probably wouldn’t make it. Better to make my move when they move me. If they move me. They could very well just kill me right here and bury my body somewhere on the lot. Somehow the little light the bulb gives off is still attracting mosquitos and their buzzing just keeps growing louder and louder.

  This is a fine mess I’ve landed myself in. I should’ve just bolted when Blaze warned me to. I should’ve just put Stormi on the back of my bike an
d rode way out of town with her. Then I could’ve told her everything and I’d be a happy man right now.

  At least she’s not in here with me. At least there’s that.

  Not long after I thank luck for that, the door bangs open, the bright lights of the hallway blinding me worse than the headlights of an on-coming truck ever did. If I wasn’t wallowing in self-pity, I might have had the time to charge whoever opened it. As it is, I still do lunge forward, but all that does is allow me to catch Stormi as they shove her in.

  It’s unreal, feels like a dream even though she hit me with a solid thump and she’s now shaking hard in my arms. Her hair smells like spring, but there’s sour fear underneath that bouquet.

  “Just so neither of you think we’re heartless, you two get to enjoy your last few hours together,” Horse says mockingly.

  He’s got at least three guys with him that I can see, though there could be more out of sight beyond the door.

  “If I’d known what a fucked up low-life you were, I’d have let the Devils finish you off,” I snap at him.

  “Shut up, you fucking traitor. I’ve had enough of your lies!” he barks then pulls the door closed.

  Stormi is shaking worse now that we’re alone in the near darkness.

  “It’s gonna be alright,” I tell her, because the first thing that popped into my mind as I caught her was my need to protect her. Funny how that works.

  She stiffens in my arms, then pushes herself away from me with her fists on my chest. She bangs them against me when I don’t release her right away.

  “Let me go!” she shouts and I do it.

  She walks over the corner and slides down the wall, sitting with her knees by her face and her arms wrapped tightly around her legs.

  For all the attention she’s paying me, I might as well be a ghost.

  I suppose it could be shock. Or it could be that she hates me.