Chapter 15

Ven

U sually I’m always on the fringes of a battle, sighting the enemy and monitoring their movements with my drone. However drones are no good here when it’s a straight up ambush. I’m handy with a sniper rifle, so Siege puts me in a tree facing the clubhouse. Rage is also good with a rifle but he’s on the roof along with a couple more brothers with prior military experience.

I can tell Siege isn’t playing around because he’s got Edmund out in the open where a stray bullet can end his life. Me? I’m still not convinced that Rufus Grayson even cares enough about his meth cooking son to trade for him. Rufus is disordered in his thinking and extremely unpredictable. There’s a high risk that he might put a bullet in Edmund’s brain, load up, and leave. I don’t trust this old man, not at all.

And that brings my thinking around to Amy. Siege and Rigs are holding out hope that the old man is bringing Carol to trade for Edmund. I tend to agree that this is a possibility, one we can’t afford to pass up. Amy on the other hand, clearly thinks her grandfather is going to leave her mother behind and come here with the intention of having some kind of shootout. If that’s true, the old man is in for a rude awakening. Members of the Legion don’t die easy. We’re more than a match even for organized gangs. I can’t imagine a lone rancher and whatever men he can rustle up are going to be much of a challenge.

That’s why I called my mother when I saw where Amy was headed. She’s the only competent fighter I know who isn’t already involved in this standoff with Amy’s grandfather. If the woman I’ve sworn to protect is hellbent on searching that farm, I want her to have back up. My maman is all about family, so of course she jumped at the chance to cover Amy’s back.

We wait for what seems like forever for those trucks to come barreling up the road and into our parking lot. My earpiece crackles and I hear Siege yell. “They’re on foot and they’re surrounding us. Look to the woods.”

I swing my sniper rifle towards the outer perimeter of our property and sure enough, these bastards are silently sneaking up on us from every direction.

I can hear Rigs’ voice through my earpiece, “Wait until they cross over onto our property, then drop them.”

Siege reminds us, “Kneecap them if you can. We can’t interrogate them if they’re dead.”

To be honest, this is my least favorite part of this plan. I don’t love killing, but kneecapping these bastards will not keep them from shooting us. So, when the first one crosses over into our property, I call it. “First one’s mine,” I say over the encrypted coms.

I aim for his right hand first because he’s carrying a weapon. Then immediately aim for his legs. He’s down in seconds, rolling around, trying to stop the blood from leaking out of his body. Of course that’s more difficult when you’ve only got one good hand left.

Several more step onto our property and we drop them one at a time. Finally, a pickup truck pulls up with a driver and a single passenger. I look through my scope to see who it is. I see Big Joe step out from the driver’s seat and Rufus get out of the passenger seat. I move around the tree and keep inspecting the vehicle. Something has me worried and I don’t exactly know what it is.

Luckily, I can hear the exchange through my earpiece. Rufus shouts at Siege, “Why the fuck are you shooting at my men?”

“Why are they crawling up on our clubhouse like fucking spiders?” Siege throws back.

“I have a right to bring protection to a meetup,” Rufus snarls.

“You clearly came to make a trade, but you don’t seem to have the requested trade item. Technically, you shouldn’t even be on our property if you aren’t here to make good on the offer.”

“I wanted to make sure my son was alive and in good health.”

Siege is standing behind Edmund who has his hands tied behind his back. Our club president kicks the back of his legs, bringing him to his knees. “You can see for yourself that he’s just fine and dandy. Now, where’s Carol Grayson?”

“Why the hell would I care where that ungrateful bitch of a daughter is?” Rufus says.

Oh yeah, the old man is batshit crazy. Hopefully one of the three stooges has enough sense to follow our orders, though I can only see Big Joe.

Suddenly there’s a cloud of dust on the periphery and the noise of another vehicle approaching. Within seconds a black panel van pulls up. Dan gets out of the driver’s seat, “She’s inside,” he says as he comes over to stand beside Siege.

What the everlovin’ fuck is going on here?

Siege is all kinds of suspicious. “What are you trying to pull off? Let her out and we’ll exchange at the same time.”

“Sure,” Dan murmurs.

He walks over to the side of the van and knocks, the door slides partially open and Hal jumps out. He holds out his hand. “It’s okay, girl. You’re gonna be back with your daughter in no time.”

Siege pulls Edmund to his feet and allows him to start walking towards the van, ‘cause we all expected Carol to slide her hand into Hal’s and step out. That’s not what happens though. Edmund suddenly starts running towards the pickup truck, diving headfirst into the trailer. Hal jumps in behind him, as Big Joe gets into the driver’s seat and Rufus slips into the other side of the vehicle. Big Joe hesitates for a second and looks at Dan, who’s standing there with his mouth hanging open. Then suddenly there’s a squeal as the wheels spin and Big Joe speeds away towards the exit to our parking lot. None of us shoot because we don’t know what to make of the situation.

Siege steps towards the van but from my vantage point in the tree I zero in on the tinted windows. Unable to see if Carol is inside, I focus my binoculars on the open door. That’s when I see the van is filled with metal drums.

“Run,” I shout, holding down the button for my mic. “Get the hell out of here, I think it’s rigged to blow.”

Siege, Rigs, and Dan all start running in different directions. We all wait for so long that I start to think maybe I was wrong. Minutes tick by and Rigs takes a couple of steps closer to the van. I’m praying he stays back because what other reason would they have for leaving a van unless it was rigged to explode? I close my eyes, wishing I was wrong.

But I’m not. The van explodes, sending shards of metal and glass in every direction.

“Holy shit!” Rigs exclaims. It’s not like our club preacher to use profanities but seeing him covered in gray dust having narrowly missed being blown to pieces, I guess he’s allowed a curse or two.

When the smoke clears, I can see the explosion took off part of the front of our clubhouse, not only the porch but I can see directly into the empty bar area. Something dark twists in my stomach. How could we have been so far off base about this exchange? Dan sure called this one when he said his old man would bring a bunch of guys and try to take our clubhouse by force.

I jump out of the tree and begin pacing. If we were caught unawares by this slick motherfucker, Amy and my mom might be as well. I turn around to see if my bike is salvageable, because it was sitting all the way on the end of the front row of the parking lot.

Before I make it even halfway, Rage is at my side. “That was some seriously fucked up shit.”

“Yeah, it was. Not entirely unexpected but it wasn’t at the top of our list either.”

I march right up to Dan and punch him in the face so hard he falls to the ground. “What the fuck? Why didn’t you warn us about your old man trying to blow up our clubhouse?”

Siege is standing nearby and spits on the ground before adding, “Do you have any idea how much damage your old man just did to our building? Who do you think is gonna pay for that?”

Dan scrambles to his feet, looking a little shell-shocked. “I didn’t know anything about this. My father’s been acting strange ever since I passed along your message about the trade. He got really suspicious about the part about a rival club spying on your clubhouse.”

Rigs speaks up, “That was our fault, we underestimated how paranoid your old man is.”

“When I got back, my brothers all started freezing me out, giving me menial tasks to keep me busy. Big Joe said Ed was earning too much money to be cut loose, that if we rescued him then he’d owe us big time. He reckoned that Ed’s drug business would make us even richer than any inheritance we got, so it was worth giving Carol back and doing the trade. I thought she was in the van, those bastards double-crossed me.”

Siege rakes one hand through his hair, clearly exasperated with the situation. “Someone is going to pay to repair this mess.”

I try to get everyone back onto the right page. “Our original goal was twofold, to figure out what those vans were doing in our territory and to find Carol Grayson. We achieved the first goal, figure out Edmund had a meth lab, destroyed it, and sent messages to his contacts letting them know never to step foot back in our territory. We just failed the second goal of getting Amy’s mother back unharmed.”

I glance over at Rage, thinking he’s going to back me up in trying to get everyone to storm the Grayson farm and help Amy, but he’s tapping away on his cell phone. The next thing I know, he’s running full speed into the damaged building and climbing through the rubble.

Siege and Rigs step closer. “We need to come up with a new game plan to rescue Carol, and we have to do it quick,” Siege says plainly.

Rigs adds, “That last thing we want to do is run off halfcocked, all hot headed because of what went down today. We already know that she’s not being actively harmed.”

Before Rigs can continue, Dan speaks up, “You mean up until now she wasn’t being harmed, if they don’t think there’s a use for her then I’m scared she’ll be seen as expendable.”

Anger churns in my gut. “We should have just killed the fucker instead of trying to play nicely. People like that only understand one language.”

Rider throws in his two cents worth, “I gotta agree with Ven on this one. We could have given the lot of them dirt naps.” Gesturing around to the handful of Rufus’s men who got their legs shot out of from under them, he adds, “As it stands, all we’ve got is a bunch of floundering fish out of water. I’ll bet none of them know anything of worth.”

“We need to get out to that farm. Rufus and his men already have a head start on us and Amy decided to go there looking for her mom since they were all here.”

Siege goes ramrod straight. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“Amy went there to search for her mom.”

Dan gasps, “You don’t have very good control of your woman.”

Siege grumbles, “Who the fuck does. They’ve got a head start on us and know the area better. We need to get moving if we’re going to save both of them.”

I don’t even come clean about my mom heading out there to help her, ‘cause my club brothers will lose their fucking minds. I walk over to my bike, luckily it escaped the flying debris. But suddenly there’s the distinctive sound of a chopper closing in on our location. I can see it in the distance. “Fuck, the cops must have heard the explosion! How are we gonna get to Amy now? If they’ve got the helo, then we can’t give them the slip.”

I’m only confused for a second though because Rage comes running out of the gaping hole in our clubhouse and throws my body armor at me, I see he’s also carrying my gun lockbox.

“Gear up. I got us a ride to that fucking ranch. With any luck we can get there first because my friend’s chopper will travel as the crow flies, but they have to travel on the road.

Siege asks, “How many will the chopper hold?”

Rage fastens his bulletproof vest, “Three, not including the pilot. It’s an medivac chopper. They have room for one patient and two medics.”

Rigs pulls out his weapon and puts in a fresh clip. “I’m taking that third seat.”

Dan objects, “No. You should take me. I know the property like the back of my hand. I won’t stop until we find Carol. She’s a nice lady and worth risking my life to save.”

I jerk my chin at him. “You’ve got two minutes to gear up.”

Siege removes his bulletproof vest and hands it over to Dan, who has no clue in the world how to put it on. Siege and Rigs help him and then Rigs gives up his holster and handgun, handing it to me. “Sorry, I’m out of extra clips.”

I don’t take my eyes off that chopper as it lands. “It’s fine, I’ve got extra in my kit bag.”

Watching us gear up, Dan says, “Do I not get a gun?”

I stare at him for a long minute, dude seriously thinks we’d trust him with a weapon. He might profess innocence, but I’m not trusting him with a loaded gun. I glance at my club brothers over my shoulder, “It would be mighty nice if we could get a ride out after we fight off the assholes and save the womenfolk.”

Siege says “We’ll be right behind you. Zen sent everyone the coordinates.”

When we climb into the chopper, Rage high fives the pilot and we settle down and strap in. That’s when I tell Rage the bad news. I have to shout to be heard over the whirl of the blades. “My mom went out to the ranch to help Amy find her mother. Just thought you should know.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he screams back.

We get a warning from the pilot through our headsets, “Calm the fuck down or I’m dumping the lot of you.”

We shut the fuck up after that, but I can see that my Rage is spitting mad about my maman being involved. He’s white knuckling the armrests so bad I think he might pop a vein. I look out the window at the white, fluffy clouds hanging in the blue sky and think about the reality of possibly losing my mom and the woman I’ve fallen hard and fast for, in one fell swoop. I pull myself together though, my mom is tough. From what I know of Amy, she is too, but my maman can kick serious butt.