Page 4
Bullet
I can’t say this is even fucking original, but it is goddamn heartbreaking. This might not be the first building we’ve lost to someone’s petty vengeance, but this one happens to belong to me personally.
“Those motherfuckers. We’ll find them and make them pay for this.” Smoke slams one hand, heavy with chunky metal rings, into his open palm.
If I was twelve, I’d call Smoke my best friend. When he came over from the Berserkers, it wasn’t easy making his way in a new club, but we bonded easily enough over this very building.
My range.
A shared love of guns was the easy part. Not breaking every bone in his body over his sarcastic yap is the tough bit, but for the most part, his annoying personality makes us all smile and laugh.
It’s hard to believe that this razed pile of smoldering ash was once a proud structure.
Tyrant and Raiden are talking to the fire crew. They know a bunch of those guys personally, and most of the cops in Hart as well. The men are soot stained and weary. The range is on the edge of Hart, past the golf course, and while there weren’t any buildings for the fire to spread to and burn down, they tried their best to contain it when it was clear that the building couldn’t be saved.
It was Tyrant who got the call. We were still in Seattle at that same motel, due to ride out in the morning. We moved out even though it was just after two on a Sunday morning and pitch black. Most of us weren’t asleep or planning on it anyway.
In the course of one single weekend, my entire life has crumbled.
I’m going to trial for something I didn’t do. This building, which I bought with my own savings and spent so many hours renovating with the club, pouring my heart and fucking soul into, is destroyed.
So yes. My impeccable control is slipping. I’m angry. I’m exhausted. I want to find Harold Jacobs and make him pay every bit as much as Smoke does. Because even though there’s no proof, I know he’s behind this.
“We’ll rebuild,” I state flatly, like I’m not burning to commit outright murder.
Smoke’s face transforms into incredulity. “We’ll rebuild? Just like that? So the fuckers can burn it down again? Everyone knows this was Harold’s work. He might have had someone else do this, but he gave the order, no doubt. All for what? Because his prick son bashed his own face in on your thick skull? Since when does a club allow someone to hit them like this with utter impunity?”
I steer Smoke away from the smoldering rubble behind us, guiding him deeper into the parking lot, towards the bikes we parked all along the edge. I don’t want anyone else to overhear this conversation, certainly not the firefighters who are still buzzing all over the place.
The heat from the blaze, though it’s no longer blazing at all, hits us even at the edge of the parking lot. Sweat prickles under my leather jacket. I know I reek. I’m dirty, unwashed, and weary of all of this, and all of this hasn’t even been defined yet. It’s probably just fucking starting.
I run my hand through my hair, cursing when ashes rain down in front of my face.
“What we do to Harold or his son isn’t our call,” I caution Smoke. “In your own club, you certainly couldn’t go off making decisions like that. I know Zale.” I don’t have to say that when he was our prez here, he was fucking crazy at the end. He caused Raiden to go to prison, set the whole thing up himself, and tried to have his own son killed as retribution for taking over as Prez when his dirty hands became clear to the club, and he was kicked out. “He wouldn’t have stood for that at all.”
“Tyrant’s nothing like Zale.”
“Don’t mistake his kindness and goodness for softness. He’s worked hard to make Hart the kind of town we can be proud to live in, but also a place where the civilians aren’t scared of us, where the cops aren’t hunting us, where no one hates us. We can’t just go off half-cocked, pulling a bunch of vigilante shit.”
“He burned down your fucking range, man. We loved this place. You didn’t do anything, but you were hauled off into the copshop in Seattle. You have to go to court. And now you’ve lost the one place you cherished.”
“It’s not the one place.” I kick at the asphalt with the toe of my boot, the loss weighing heavy on me, even though on the exterior, I’m perfectly calm. “This is going to be far reaching. We might be facing another lockdown. We don’t know what kind of threat Harold is going to pose if he can do something like this. It’s complicated, though. He’s had access to the innerworkings of this club since Zale was running it.”
Smoke’s hands curl into fists. “All the more reason to silence the fucker.”
“Tyrant doesn’t condone murder.” I make sure those words are low and that I lean in close to deliver them. “He’ll want to do this legally, if he can.”
His father had him tortured, Raiden and other guys imprisoned. Zale forced his daughter to marry Raiden in some sick revenge scheme and then he kidnapped her. Ella could have killed him, but instead, she gave him the option of turning himself in and taking responsibility for his crimes. Tyrant approved of Zale doing time instead of going to ground.
“Put a bullet in a man’s head and he can’t talk,” Smoke insists. He’s got his own flames burning in his dark eyes. I’m not sure what he’s done in the past, but I wouldn’t doubt he’s left a trail of bodies.
I’ve never asked. I try not to think about it.
My own hands are far, far from clean, even if what I did was sanctioned under my job title. I’ve saved lives too, but in order to save them, there were times when life had to be taken. Bad men, yes, but still men. Still human.
“We need to be careful with Harold,” I caution. I wouldn’t put it past Smoke to go off on a witch hunt. Vigilante justice is indeed his own personal language. He’s snarky, sarcastic, and loves to joke around, fuck around, and ride his bike. He’s a good man at heart, but he also doesn’t have the right dose of fear that plagues most people, and violence seems to run in his blood. “If he has the balls to do this, he’s had the balls to shore shit up as protection. If we come at him, there’s a good chance he’ll just release it all. What happened in Seattle just proves how easily he can. We’re protected in Hart, but the shit that we do, the guns and the farms, they aren’t in Hart.” I don’t need to say that there have been bodies. Maybe not put to ground by myself, but by other men in this club.
Lynette wasn’t exactly wrong about the criminal element. We might be better than most clubs, but that doesn’t make us fucking saints.
“Where the fuck are we supposed to blow off frustration now? We have no range, and we can’t use Harold as target practice.”
I clap Smoke on the shoulder, thankful he’s setting at least a small portion of his rage aside. It’s still burning as hot as that smoking mess in the background in my own chest, but I have to follow my own advice and let it be for now. It’s not like I’m going to fucking forget about it. It can keep right on burning, but I can’t let it consume me.
“What about your fancy new lawyer? You gonna call her and let her know about this? It seems like something she should know about.” He has that spark in his wild blue eyes that gives me immediate caution.
“Lynette George took me on as a client because she felt she owed it to her sister. She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to be involved with me or the club in any other way.”
Smoke whistles. He has that full to bursting look about him. I swear he’s worse than a high school girl who loves gossip. The guys sometimes call him Motormouth, always affectionately, but he does love to talk. I can’t let him latch onto this.
“I appreciate that she’s taken me on as a client. She put herself at risk, going to those cops and telling them they had no right to arrest me. It implies corruption, and I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for it. Her firm won’t take on anyone as a client who is involved with organized crime. It’s going to be a hard sell for her as it is.”
“This directly impacts your day in court. The guy who is pressing charges razed your fucking property.”
“I know, but good luck proving it. That’s what courts are for. Proof.”
“Really? Because I thought they were there to let rich, guilty fuckers go free and condemn the—”
I shake my head, not wanting to get into that. “I extended the offer to come to Hart. Lynette George declined. I want to leave it at that.”
Smoke surges forward. He’s tall and lanky, in his late twenties. His age probably has something to do with how obnoxious he can at times. He has that single-minded determination of a junkyard dog with a steak. Something in my voice or my face, no matter how careful I’ve been to mask it, tipped him off, and now he’s like a bloodhound.
“The range is gone and you were holding yourself back, I could tell. You’re always so fucking calm, so what the fuck am I’m hearing in your voice when you say her name?”
I don’t visibly retract because that would just be confirmation. I maintain that famous composure that Smoke just mentioned. I can speak when I want to speak, but I can equally be as quiet. I don’t know that I’ll ever give even half of my full self or my innermost thoughts to anyone, even the guys at the club. I’m just not made that way.
“Annoyance, probably. Or could be grudging respect.” I can’t help but tense, hoping that Smoke sees my body’s stress as a response to all that’s happened this weekend.
“What the fuck?” Smoke pokes me in the shoulder. It’s only because we’re as close as I’ll ever allow anyone to get that I don’t shove him back a few steps and break his tall, lanky body in half.
It’s not just guns that I’m good with. I can disarm a threat in a few seconds.
“What the fuck what ?” I growl ominously. I thrust my hands into my pockets and keep them there so that they’re not tempted to act of their own accord and wrap around his damn throat.
“I looked her up and she’s pretty enough and all, but seriously? You’re actually interested in her?”
“I think you’re misreading the situation.”
His eyes lock with mine and the truth must be written all over me because his face splits with a shit eating grin. “Holy fuck! I never thought I’d see the day that you took a liking to anything you couldn’t load. Not that you can’t load her. I’d wager that she’d—”
My hands lash out faster than I can stop them. I have Smoke by the throat, one hand wrapped around his neck, squeezing, before he has time to take a step back or try to stop me.
He tries to stop me plenty now, clawing at my hand with both of his.
I let him go as soon as his eyes start racing back and forth, bugging out of the sockets. He folds over at the waist, gasping for air, but as soon as he gets it, it transforms into a laugh.
“Tell me you’re in love with her without telling me you’re in love,” he wheezes between strangled bursts of laughter. He gets himself upright, another grin smeared across his face. “That’s good. That’s seriously good. I know you’re all Mr. Deep Waters and everything, but, god, it’s good to know you’re as human as the rest of us.”
“Next time I throttle you, I’ll be sure to cut off your ability to talk.”
“That’s wonderful, darling. Getting choked in my favorite kink.” He shoots me two thumbs-up, an asshole to the last, but I have to admit, Smoke’s ribbing doesn’t catch me in my murderous spots. It’s hard not to give in and allow a small amount of amusement, which I sorely fucking need right now.
“I’m always telling you that you should get laid. I’d say go for it.” He puts out both hands, warding me off as I take a menacing step towards him again. “I’ll be respectful about it, I promise.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but remember. She’s done me a solid at risk to her career and maybe even her own safety. If Harold burned down this place…”
Smoke finally drops his grin and takes this seriously. “Then what else is he going to do?”
“Right.”
“I’d be surprised if they don’t call church,” Smoke muses, glancing over to Crow’s shadowy figure at the far end of the lot, standing just behind Raiden and Tyrant, who are still talking to the firefighters. He’s watching their backs. “I just hope we’re not going into another lockdown.”
“They likely will. I’m going to ask them for protection, or at the very least, extra security for Lynette and her sister. They’ve become involved in this without truly knowing the depth of it.”
It’s a minute before Smoke speaks, but when he does, his words are uncharacteristically serious and deep. “Do we?”
The chill of them reverberates through me long after we leave the edge of the parking lot and go back to standing beside the charred, smoldering ruins of the business that was like a second home to me. Not even the lingering heat banishes the ice that seeps into my muscles, deadening my libs, biting into my bones.